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O Christmas tree

I’ll be putting up the Christmas tree over the weekend.

I know, I know. Too early.

The thing is I am going to NY for a couple of weeks and when I get home, it will be the first week of December, so I like to just have it up so I don’t feel rushed and have to deal with it then.

I don’t light it up until December. Right now I’ll just have it up and decorated. Ready to go.

One year, I had the tree up in October! It wasn’t decorated.

What happened was, my friend Michael was visiting from NY and the spare room he was sleeping in, is used as storage for the tree, which of course, is artificial, so to make room, I dragged the tree out and stood it up in the living room. That’s it. It was not decorated or lit or anything like that. It just stood there. Naked.

I always had a real tree. I would throw it in the back of my convertible and lug it home.

One year I saw a nice tree in a big box store and thought I would get it and use it for a year or two and then go back to real trees, but it’s been so many years now and I still use the artificial tree. It’s so easy – just pull it out and it’s up. No lugging real trees in and out. To dump the real trees, I would throw them off the balcony, making sure no one was below. Then I would just drag it to the street.

When we were cleaning my parents’ house out this year, I was hoping to find the old Christmas ornaments from years past – from when we were kids and before; vintage stuff. But there was nothing old – just new ornaments. I’m guessing the old ones were ruined years ago in a hurricane, and I never paid attention to what was on the tree all these years, which obviously was new things which took their place.

When we were kids, I mean very little, we would put the tree up (real tree) a couple of weeks before Christmas. Now it seems people have trees up right after Halloween. I see some of the lots in the neighborhood at churches and clubs, already have their tents up with trees – probably to be sold out before Thanksgiving.

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Phone games

Whenever I want to talk to one of my friends on the phone, I text him. Because he doesn’t usually text back, he calls.

I don’t call him because he is on the phone a lot due to his job, so he can’t always talk when I call. So simply by texting, I get him to call back, when he can, which oddly enough, is right away.

As for me, I don’t pick up the phone most of the time – especially with business.

Years ago, my accountant, well, my father, asked me why business was down so much in the last quarter, and I told him probably because I took the business phone number off the website. And he said, in a half joking way, “Well, you better put it back on.” And I did, but for the past few years I haven’t.

When people call, which is few and far between since today most people email or text, the messages asks the to email us, and they do.

I know it’s maybe a Millennial thing, where they cringe at the sound of a phone ringing. But I do the same. There’s something new with cell phones now where even if you don’t have the person’s or company’s phone number in your phone, it will tell you who it is, many time by the person’s name, not just the company. So that’s a big help.

I can remember when Caller ID came out. That was a big thing. It was a small electronic thing you attached to the phone (which was still on a wire back then). And then you could avoid most calls. Although we didn’t text or email back then, so we picked up anyway, no matter who called. We had to.

At one point I had a hot dog cooker type phone, I don’t know how else to describe it. It took me forever to find this image online – I didn’t know how to describe it. But here it is – it’s called the Western Electric Telstar Phone. You had to roll back the cover every time you wanted to use it, but that was part of the charm/coolness. I had it for years.

Now we have smart~~ass~~ phones. Wonder what’s next. Probably telepathy.

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I prefer Standard Time rather than Daylight Saving Time

Did you turn the clock back to standard time? I know many of you don’t like that, it seems as if the majority of the country prefers Daylight Saving Time (DST). I don’t. I like standard time. DST sounds like a disease.

I get up early, so I don’t like the pitch black mornings, I like it light out. I don’t mind it getting dark at 5:30 or 6:00 pm. When I’m in New York it gets dark earlier, sometimes it seems like 4:30 or 5:00 pm.

DST started in the U.S. with the Standard Time Act of 1918, a wartime measure for seven months during World War I in the interest of adding more daylight hours to conserve energy resources. It was implemented again during World War II all year round. In 1966 it was set as it is now, basically half the year.

There is always an outcry about stopping the time change and keeping it at DST. There is legislation in Congress to keep DST But scientists say that Standard Time is healthier for the body.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine advises permanent Standard Time. They say it is more in line with a person’s natural bio-rhymes and produces less negative health outcomes. They say Standard Time is important because it aligns the earth with the sun.

These days I’m in for the night at dinner time, not too long ago I was out all night, but even going out all night entailed going out after dark, so I never really cared about this stuff about having those extra hours of daylight for whatever people need it for.

Here are 10 reasons it is better to have Standard Time rather than DST. I posted it in today’s 10 With Tom column.

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How old is too old for Halloween?

Tootie (Margaret O’Brien) in Meet Me in St. Louis

Hold old is too old to trick-or-treat?

I say you’re never too old. There’s a thing where certain cities have age limits, I don’t know how they enforce that. Do they ask 12-year-olds to show I.D. to be sure they are not 14 and over the limit? And what sort of I.D. do 12-year-olds have?

If a 16-year-old wants to go through the trouble of dressing up and walking around trick-or-treating, so what? What if a 50-year-old wants to do that? So what?

If you’re gonna be cheap about handing out candy, then turn the lights out at your house and don’t participate.

I don’t think as many people as in the past trick-or-treat. I know when I was a kid the whole neighborhood was out and it went till late. Now I don’t see as many people, but maybe it’s just around where I live.

One of my favorite parts of one of my favorite movies, “Meet Me in St. Louis,” is when the kids are doing Halloween in 1903. So Halloween has been a long-standing thing in the U.S., and many other countries.

Adults have parties, they dress up at banks, schools, even the car dealership, so if these people want to trick-or-treat after work – so what?

I dressed up for years, my whole town did. I didn’t trick-or-treat, but I did go to parties and things. I think I only ended it because I didn’t want to be bothered making a costume every year. But I enjoy seeing everyone else dressed up and enjoying the day.

Give everyone candy if they are dressed up and come to your door. Full bars if possible!

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Outside the box

If you swipe back and forth on this recent cartoon, you can see the difference. No, it’s not the cat or the box, it’s the text at the top.

I wanted to publish it with the script type which says, “Thinking outside the box,” but at the last minute I changed it to the usual block letters because I wasn’t sure if everyone would be able to read it.

As you know, script/cursive was not taught in schools for about 14 years. I’m not sure why. I know things are mostly typed, spoken and digital these days, but don’t people need to sign their names? And no one writes a note to the milkman anymore. Oh, wait, I guess no one knows what a milkman is either.

The good news is that cursive is making a comeback in public schools.

I really like the look of the script text in the cartoon, but in the interest of all my readers – young and foreign, who maybe read English as a second language, I went with the block letters.

Oh, and a funny fact – this cartoon ran on National Cats Day. A reader mentioned it. I didn’t know – it just happened. Right place at the right time.

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Tutti a Tavola a Mangiare!

Last week I was in Eataly at Madison Square and who do I almost bump into – Lidia Bastianich, the restaurant owner and tv chef. She was walking toward me and I was walking toward her and the place is always so crowded, we sort of touched.

I looked her right in the face and almost said, “Tutti a Tavola a Mangiare!” but she looked down and obviously didn’t want to be recognized, so I just walked by. She was with a couple of friends and they were taking and shopping.

I did want to ask her about my 10 With Tom column. I tried reaching out to her and I know a couple of her PR people opened the email asking her to participate, but I didn’t receive a response.

I watched her make zeppole on tv the other day – with some sort of cream filling, which I’ve never seen with a zeppole before. They looked like this image, with the cream and cherries on top.

I’m use to this type, which usually comes three or more served warm or hot in a paper bag.

I was at an Italian street fair, a Feist, in Brooklyn last week, I had some there (without the whipped cream).

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The dreaded beep

American Airlines is trying out this new boarding system, to avoid the “gate lice” problem. You’ve seen it. I just saw it yesterday when I was flying – that’s people who rush to the gate to be the first on the plane, whether their group is called or not.

I fly first class a lot only because I use frequent flyer miles by paying for things for my business with credit cards that give me miles. So I am usually in Group 1.

But even if I think I am one of the first on the plane, there is always someone sitting in the aisle seat where I have to ask them to move so I can get to my window seat. Always.

I give them a dirty look, which they probably don’t notice, but I boycott them during the flight by not speaking to them. I find them to be real “gate lice” and “hogs.”

They say people do this to get the best overhead bin space, maybe that’s it, I usually travel with a small bag that fits under the seat, so I don’t feel the need to rush onto the plane for any reason.

Right now, the new American Airlines boarding system is in Albuquerque, NM and Tucson, Arizona. The system works like this – if your group is not called for boarding, a beep will go off – a loud beep, which will alert the gate agent and the rest of the travelers, I would guess, that alerts everyone that you are not supposed to be boarding the plane yet.

So if you are group 7 and trying to get in with group 1, that ain’t gonna work.

I love that. I find these gate lice people obnoxious as hell. They all rush to the gate to stand and block everyone else. I guess they don’t realize the plane isn’t gonna leave without them. But maybe it all comes down to the overhead bin space again. So maybe they have a point. Who knows.

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Pumpkin picking in the Hudson Valley

A couple of my cousins and I did our usual October outing. We drove up to the Hudson Valley from NYC to pumpkin and apple pick.

This year we ended up at this huge farm in Hopewell Junction, which is near Wappingers Falls.

The weather in NY state has been incredible lately. 80 degrees today, 70s over the weekend. Bright, and clear.

The farm was sort of in a valley, we were surrounded by mountains an all four sides. We had a hayride and had hot apple cider and apple cider doughnuts.

We got a lot of stuff to bring home – pies, doughnuts, flowers, pumpkins. It was a perfect day.

We went to Beacon, NY, a very popular small town, on the way home. I’ll publish photos in my next post.

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New York Comic Con

Went to NY Comic Con yesterday, opening day.

The usual cosplayers were there, but this year I didn’t see Spider-man, Superman or Batman, at least not many. In years past, there were so many of them.

But still it was fun. It seems to be more about video games and movies and tv, not so much about comics, as was the original premise.

I ran into my cousin, who is there all the time, at the booth for the company where he works, it’s an auction house for original cartoon art. I’ve purchased some things from their auctions.

We kibitzed for a bit and then I walked around to check out some other comic booths.

It’s sold out for the year, but if you ever get a chance to go to a comic con in any city, I highly recommend it.

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Visited MOMA, again

Visited one of my favorite places again yesterday – MOMA – Museum of Modern Art in NYC.

My favorite painting, Starry Night, was crammed with people again, trying to get selfies of themselves in front of the painting, and I tried to get pictures of people taking images of themselves in front of the painting.

NYC has been very busy with tourists this week. Today is the opening of New York Comic Con, maybe that’s why. I’ll be at Comic Con, I’ll post about it Friday, subscribe to this blog so you don’t miss it. I’ll also have a story and images on our trip upstate to pumpkin and apple pick, as we usually do each October.

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