Today on the way to work I walked one of my usual routes and was about to arrive at the corner of Third Avenue and 64th Street - when I noticed next to the coffee truck on the sidewalk there was table set up with some sort of display and two YOUNG people saying things and handing out literature of some nature.

Upon closer inspection I saw there was a photo poster of Obama with a Hitler mustache - and without breaking stride I saw that the effort here was about impeaching Obama.

I am old enough to have an opinion about this. I was offended at the glib "marketing" of this idea. I could feel the blood boiling up from my feet. I want to ask these people if they had voted in the last election..were they even registered? I wanted to find out if they really knew what they were talking about. I walked in a few Vietnam protests marches. That, in my opinion was VERY clear. This did not seem clear in any way.

I could not hear specifics because I did not want to hear - perhaps unjust of me - this is a free country. But as I walked by and made the turn uptown on Third, I was close enough to voice my opinion to them and the few others within earshot:

You should be ashamed of yourselves

Don't get me started about Occupy Wall Street....

Gracie

Well...it seems I have taken off a few years from writing in this place...I guess a few things have happened. I had to put my dog to sleep last August...VERY sad and I think about her everyday. I made a book on my Mac and it took me about 3 months to stop crying from just looking at the cover - but now I can smile when I look at the pictures because I remember the moment I took every single one of them.

AND NOW --- in a few days it will be the 10th anniversary of 9/11. I always thought anniversaries were things you WANTED to remember - and this is not one of them. So may I confess to the fact that I don't want to see another photo on the cover of a magazine showing some aspect of that horrible day. And I don't want to see the 500 TV listings of special programs to memorialize the Twin Towers' destruction. And please don't email me anymore EVENT ME selections for opportunities to have celebrities (or any one else for that matter) talk about or read their assessments of that day. Let's instead have a national moment of silence. Ring the bells. Go forward. Because we all have to move on somehow....

I did not know anyone who died - I am probably the only person in NYC who did not - but I smelled the stench and I watched the people walk like automatons up Fifth Avenue - sleeves missing from their $900 suits, no shoes, covered in grey soot as if they were statues coming alive. Silence - not a sound. No one spoke. No one knew where they were or where they were going but they were all going together.

Texans were back to bar-b-queing in two weeks - everything was back to normal. It has never been back to normal here. And you can tell who was here as the September days approach - bluer than blue cloudless skies cause us to look up as a plane flies between the buildings, maybe a bit too low, and we exchange a knowing glance across the street - yes I know...I was here too.

I am sad for those who lost loved ones that day. If I can't get past this what can they ever hope for? No answers from anywhere...it took 10 years to find and kill Bin Laden. So? The government still has not solved the problem of police & fire being able to communicate. Nobody is checking the shipping containers at Newark. Who is guarding the water supply?

And if you think that the person in charge of NYC at that time was a hero watch the Laurence O'Donnell REWRITE video on YouTube from Aug 30 regarding Giuliani.

It will never be over for anyone who was on the island of Manhattan that day or the families of those who were left to grieve. What can we do except..

Say Good Night Gracie....

I have to say that there is way too much to talk about but one thing that I REALLY want to talk about is the reporting on CNN of the devastation of IKE in Texas. I love the ocean more than anyone....BUT PLEASE!  are people crazy AND stupid??? WHY do people insist on building on barrier islands and thinking that they will never be accosted by nature? We have destroyed natural marshes, which contributed greatly to the New Orleans/Katrina destruction....but all along the barrier east coast the same situation is being repeated. We are creating the destruction. 

You think global warming is a problem? Go to the Outer Banks in North Carolina and see the building that has mushroomed. It is completely irresponsible by the investors, builders, contractors.  When will we stop caring about making money that is so self-destructive?

I grew up on the south shore of Long Island - a block from a canal and a hurricane away from having ocean front property. I know what the deal is. And it frightens me.  It's bad enough that Long Island is sinking at a rate of like 1/2" a year because of the over-population there. I got off because there is no way out if there is a disaster. So I hope you all have helicopters in your back yard. You think the LIE is impossible to drive on now?  Just wait.

If you really want an eye opener, get a book by Gunnar Hansen - a friend of my brother's - who did a little personal surveying of this situation a number of years ago. ISLANDS AT THE EDGE OF TIME is the title, and I cancelled my subscription to Coastal Living magazine after I finished it.

So don't whine about the loss of homes, etc.  Whine about what is being done to the coastline which is in many cases irreversible at this point. 

But I suppose people would rather look at somebody else's disaster than focus on the collapse of Lehman Brothers. 

Does anyone care???

SO WHAT IS THE PROBLEM!!!

Geez...am I just not writing well enough for anyone to read?
Is it because I have no pictures or video clips?
Well, maybe this is just not interesting to anyone but me.

Give me some topics and I'll write on those.

Or tell me how to include photo or clips!

GRACIE

WHEN YOU REALIZE YOU'RE NOT 20 ANYMORE

Well boys and girls, this has been a fun couple of months. The weather sucked and getting to the beach those last few times was tough. But I managed to eek out one last perfect day out on Fire Island at Point O'Woods. The new erosion was horrifying. The whole shape of the beach had changed. I remember a couple of years ago after a bad nor'easter there was a scramble to move houses back from the water about 100 feet. They must be joking. I never understood anyone owning a house on the ocean. Renting maybe. But owning? I don't think so. But I diverge.

So my daughter found out her boyfriend was an idiot, started a new job, and I found out I have rheumatoid arthritis. Yes, dearies, me. The good news is that it wasn't anything I did OR didn't do. It just happens. And it happened overnight. When I made a fist my knuckles felt like rubber. In the morning my feet didn't feel flat on the floor. My neck was creaking, my should was popping. Wow...what a mess.

So through the courtesy of my boss who I think was truly afraid I wouldn't be able to type anymore sent me to a top rheumatologist at Hospital for Special Surgery. This brings me to another of my favorite topics - healthcare in this country. But you should know the initial visit was almot $500 and he doesn't take insurance. So if it had been left up to me I would have bought a case of Advil and forgotten about it. I will save the insurance discussion for another time. But I had about 4 gallons of blood taken and will get results when I go back to see this doctor on Tuesday. Am I scared? at moments. But somewhere I have to believe it will be alright. I have to be able to type. And other things. Which I will also table for the moment.

Next week is the gala cocktail party my daughter organized. So we are all about that right now - gathering the last minute items for the gift bags, realizing we have nothing to wear. Oh well, at least it is a night out and it will be FUN!

So now I have to admit my hands are tired. The dog is already asleep on the bed so that's where I am headed. But I wanted to write and so now I have.

Say goodnight, Gracie.

STANLEY TUCCI SHOULD ONLY WEAR GUCCI

Well boys and girls...I went to see that Prada movie. And I forgot the most important thing - people who live on the West Side DO NOT leave town on holidays. Consequently, our arrival at the formerly known as SONY theatre at Broadway and 68th Street was met with 300 people in the lobby trying to do the same thing we were - get out of the heat for 2 hours.

As I turned around there was my friend Dell with her 90 year old mother also suffering the same misfortune. Clutching her ripped out movie schedule she quickly got on her phone to her friend to try and get tickets on-line for another theatre. Meanwhile time was a-wasting as they kept announcing more sold out shows. Superman, forget it. Even he couldn't get a ticket to the IMAX version until next week!

So we bought tickets for the 7:15 show and walked up to City Grill for their Hawaiian chicken salad. And in spite of the fact that their air conditioning was having a hard time, it was as good as we remembered it - and the beer helped.

The trick was that we had to be back at the theatre to get on line at 6 - according to the guy who sold us out tickets. We were not going to get out-hustled, so we chugged down our drinks and were the second 2 on our self- created line upstairs on the second level. Needless to say we got seats together and actually sat behind the 2 girls ahead of us on line. We secretly chuckled as we watched people reduced to sitting in the front row or not seeing the movie.

After about 2 hours of previews and commercials we finally got to see how truly great Meryl Streep looked. Stanley Tucci, one of the manliest men in theatre, totally hit his character on target in this one. And Anne Hathaway perfectly re-created her role in Princess Diaries - only at age 24 with better clothes.

So the movie isn't going to win an Oscar, and the clothes were the star, but it was a fun time and worth the hassle. Oh, did I mention I had free movie tickets?

Next stop - Jack Sparrow!

Say goodnight, Gracie.

Lost In The Ozone

This is where I have been for the last week or so. My dog, my daughter's really, has been recovering from surgery and it's been hard. Hard to watch, hard to deal with, hard to pay for. All that and more. She had a toe removed. There was a cancerous growth that literally appeared over night. She was supposed to go for dental surgery, but instead this happened.

The doctor, Dr. Sivi (that's shortened) was really terrific. It didn't unnerve him that I was crying when he told me it had to come off, or when he told me it was bad, or that it could re-grow. That she had a good five years left. She would look at me with those eyes and say "what happened? What did I do?" And I would get so sad.

She's a little Maltese named Mitzi and is very smart. She has me completely trained and the funny thing is that I would do anything for her. But I think that is the way with people who love their pets. This is one of the fastest growing sectors in the economy. I read that even when things are bad, people still spend money on their pets. I was out of work once for about a year. I had to quick get a job (thank you art department person who lied to Simon & Schuster that I could proofread) and did proofreading 12 hours a day. My first two paychecks went to my cat who had cancer. I ate potatoes.

Anyone who has had a cat or dog recovering from surgery will be familiar with THE CONE. It hits walls, the floor, sidewalk, you, the water dish. Before they took her bandage off I would take it off while I was home. But at night I couldn't trust her so it went back on. I had no idea how noisy a plastic cone could be during the night. One could say it makes you SLEEPLESS. For five days I probably slept a total of 5 hours. She couldn't get comfortable. Who could with a plastic cone on their head. Truth is, she was a good sport. The stitches came out, the cone came off, and now I have to monitor her closely for a while. And she still has to have her dental surgery.

Wow that was all really depressing! My friend from high school, Carol, came into town from Petaluma, CA with her daughter who is interning at Shakespeare in the Park. I'm hoping for tickets. Spur of the moment last Friday she called me tot say did I want to go see Awake and Sing! - the Clifford Odets play. I was really excited. I haven't seen a play in a long time and this is a classic. Ben Gazzara was the lead, and while I never understood his vocal choice for the old Jewish grandfather, the play bowled me over. The sets were fabulous and the lighting perfect...and there was even a little black dog named Tootsie who was taken to the roof to do her thing. She did not get a curtain call.

This last week has been tough at work too - very demanding and requiring complete focus. I need a vacation, which I am taking soon. NANTUCKET. Been going for a long time. And I have pretty much gone with just my daughter - except for a honeymoon, and a few family trips with #2. But I have a feeling this may be the last summer. As much as she loves it there, it's getting a little old to go with your mother. It would probably help if I went with about $4000 to blow. Counting pennies on vacation isn't much fun. So keep your fingers crossed for Mega Millions. I do.

No one is reading my blog. I've been bloggered. My daughter has lots of hits on hers and seems to have national readership. But she is very funny and really should be a writer or a stand-up comedian. She could do either. She could do anything she wanted. And she makes me very proud.

This was such a tough couple of weeks my IPOD drained. So I'm charging it while I write. There's a song I'm looking for but I can't play it yet to see if it's on there.

I'm tired and I have to be at work early tomorrow. Workmen are coming and they don't work my hours. So I must work theirs.
So I will say what I always say when it gets to this point....

Good night, Gracie.