SNOW!!

Finally! Been here almost a year and this winter has seen only a light dusting of snow. This morning, I woke up to look out the window and see THIS sight- I felt like "Santa came! Santa came!" It's so beautiful.

An added benefit- we are pretty far north so it doesn't get light until like 7:30 am. When all this white, reflective stuff falls, it really magnifies what little sun we have and makes getting up a lot easier. Gorgeous, I tell you!

The car said it was 13 degrees when I got in this morning. We are so spoiled that our 78 year old landlord had already shoveled? blown? our front walk, so I can even wear my normal high heels to work, apparently.

I know, I know, we'll see how I feel about the snow when John is in Dallas for a conference this weekend, and I am left to drive in it by myself and make sure the pipes in the house don't freeze and burst!

The "Magic 8 Ball" Tells No Lies!!

When I began my legal career at a fancy downtown Los Angeles law firm back in 1999, I had a hard time switching from the fun and frivolity of college and grad school, over to the seriousness of the highrise workplace.

Although I wore the fancy suits and pearls, and tried to fake it and act like grown-up, I did keep one holdover item from my youth: the Magic 8 Ball. I won it at an event right after law school, and I thought that was good luck in itself. So it went right on my desk.

Where it has sat for most of my professional years, answering the personal and professional questions for which there seemed to be no discoverable answer. "Should I object to this line of questioning?" . . . "My reply is no." "Is my wedding going to go off without a hitch?" . . . "Yes - definitely." It has usually become a resource for others in the office, as well, and there are several secretaries in my office who consult its wisdom regularly.

So today, against all my better judgment, I asked the ol' 8 Ball the burning question of my life right now: "Am I going to pass the New York Bar Exam this February?" (you have to be careful in posing your questions, you see, because, without asking in particular, it could effectively answer in such a way that could mean I'd pass the July bar, having failed on the first try.)

The first reply was terrifying- "Reply hazy - try again."

Nail biter!! But my fears were assuaged with, "It is decidedly so."

So, there you have it! The Magic 8 Ball never lies. I feel so much better now.

P.S. Annie Fun Fact: I was a Magic 8 Ball for Halloween one year: it was fun because it was interactive, but boy did I get shaken a lot!

Helpful Hints, from stressed-out budding-lawyers

As you know, I've been studying for the February New York bar like a maniac (in addition to working full time). One of the (many) bummers about studying for that beast is that I'm doing it in total isolation- not only am I not taking a bar review course, I don't know anyone else who is studying for it since it is the "off" time (i.e. not the July test date) and also since the closest law school is probably Cornell in Ithaca - 60 miles away.

Now put this into perspective- when I was studying for the California bar in June/July 1999, it seemed like I couldn't get away from other people studying for the bar. I lived in Beverly Hills, took the course in Manhattan Beach and also studied in Palos Verdes- these are prime locations to walk into any Starbucks or library and find a bunch of stressed-out-looking people with huge stacks of books in front of them, being really cranky at anyone who distracts them.

In Binghamton? Not so much. If I head to our local county library, I am far more likely to recognize some of the local sex offenders (who all seem to live within a block of it) than anyone actually studying. The only good thing about finding others who are studying for the bar is that you really need someone to - not so much to study with- but to commiserate with.

So I decided to find some human connection and support in the place where I've been forced to turn for the past year since I moved here. . . the Internet! So I thought I'd share some of the more hilarious pearls of wisdom that I found on people's blogs yesterday. I think they give the reader an accurate glimpse into the uniquely hellish cocoon that is Bar Exam Studying:

1. "Take advantage of time to shop during your last semester, and stock up on shorts/pants with stretchy waistbands. You will need them for your Bar Review fat. Trust me."

2. "Consider setting up a food delivery service and/or maid service if you can afford it."

3. "When you go to pick up your BarBri books, keep in mind that you will get a giant box with 9 ginormous books in them that is VERY HEAVY and awkward to carry. Plan accordingly."

4. "You might find it useful to learn and practice meditation breathing techniques in order to calm yourself down when you start to panic (for use during the actual exam)."

5. "Make sure your significant other understands that he/she is not permitted to break up with you during this time."

6. "Your family and friends won't really understand what you're going through, and this can be isolating. I found it helpful to ask them to imagine that I was pregnant and due at the end of July. It's analogous -- you will need their support during an intense and stressful time; you will have to do what's best for *you* and be more selfish than normal during this unique experience, and they will have to be understanding about that; your mood swings may make you unpredictable; and they will need to remember that it's only temporary, so you are not being unreasonable."

7. "Plan ahead and ask a close friend or relative if they can bring your dog or cat to the vet if it becomes necessary right before the Exam. Animals are very observant and will know that you are stressed, and this may in turn make them stressed, and they might start feeling ill or start doing weird things."

I did not make any of these up. I think the first and the last are my favorite. I don't know if this exercise made me feel any better or worse, but what I found sure did make me laugh!

Ironic Weather

I receive many emails from friends and family in L.A., asking "how cold is it?" in Binghamton. This winter has been disturbingly warm here. My joke around the office is that I don't even believe that it snows here, because I've lived here nearly a year and hardly seen any. So far this winter, I think it's snowed only a c0uple of times, and nothing appreciable. It has been in the 40s lately!

So how ironic is it that Los Angeles is facing record cold? If it snows in Los Angeles and NOT in Binghamton, that will certainly be one for the record books.

(The photo was taken from my office window, looking down on the old courthouse, in November, I believe. This was the most snow I've seen all winter!)

Obscene? This community thinks so.

In studying for the New York bar exam, I have been thrust back into a strange land full of archaic legal thoeries, strange words, and post traumatic stress disorder from the last time I did this, for the California bar exam. But it does make for the occasional blog entry, so I guess I got that going for me.

For instance, I need to memorize the "tests" for what kind of "speech" constitutes obscenity that can legally be restricted or prohibited. The Miller Test (flowing from a 1973 California obscenity case, in fact) holds as follows:

"The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be:
(a) whether 'the average person, applying contemporary community standards' would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
(b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and
(c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."

I was having trouble figuring out how this application of "contemporary community standards" would play itself out, in practice, until we stopped for gas yesterday and I came across this at the local gas station. In front of each of the magazines- and I mean each because nearly every magazine that is for sale these days, it seems, has some racey cover- was a little homemade cardboard cutout square, attempting to mask the (apparently obscene) image behind it.

Take a good look at what the cardboard is hiding, though. It's Maxim magazine, which is just a men's magazine like GQ. Sure, it has sexy covers, but it's not a Hustler or Penthouse with really graphic nudity inside (and out). Maxim is just appealing to its target demographic to move product, and, strangely, is not even as sexy as some of the Cosmopolitan covers I've seen, aimed at women buyers!

Binghamton is known for being pretty conservative- it was birthplace of IBM, which had a no-drinking policy for its employees, and also birthplace of a particularly virulent strain of Catholic-fueled, anti-abortion sentiment in the 1980s. I think these little cardboard cutouts are a good example of applying "community standards" to material that is deemed (locally) to be "obscene."

The only problem is, if they keep up that level of censorship, they aren't going to sell any magazines! Ah, the local marketing minds hard at work once again, to drive the economy further into the ground- we can't even freely peddle smut!

Only in Los Angeles

As I approach my 1-year anniversary of living in Binghamton (February 9th, but who's keeping track? ME!), I sometimes have flashes of the feeling that my "head," or my basic frame of reference, is gradually shifting away from Los Angeles, although I won't go so far as to say it is shifting to Binghamton.

Case in point: an NBC tv news article today, about the terrible fire in Malibu that raised several homes, which reads, in part:

"Actress Victoria Principal was among the residents who rushed out to hose down their houses. Her publicist says she offered food and water to her neighbors who couldn't get to their houses."

What? The "news" article is citing Victoria Principal's publicist, regurgitating the spin-doctor's story that her client, Ms. Principal, was basically a girl scout in the face of the fire? How can a news agency weave a publicist's comments into what is purporting to be a real news story?

Now, if this were a story about Victoria Principal's love child or something, go ahead and turn to her publicist for part of the foundation of your article, but come on, Los Angeles! Let's get more serious in our public discourse, because, with reporting like that, you are really earning the bad reputation you have for being frivolous.

Let there be no confusion in this market . . .

The first time I came to Binghamton, I noticed a cute downtown restaurant named Zazou. John confirmed that this was a reputable, cute, girly place with some of the best food around.

Part of the reason it caught my eye is that there is a similarly reputable, cute, girly restaurant in Redondo Beach by the same name (see photo). Both of these establishments are about 5 to 10 years old, and neither one is what you'd call "famous." Let me be clear: NOT ONCE DID IT EVER CROSS MY MIND THAT THESE TWO RESTAURANTS COULD BE AFFILIATED IN ANY WAY.

Now flash forward a couple of years to last month, when I'm listening to a boring conversation at lunchtime, and someone announces that our local Zazou will be changing its name because some restaurant in California threatened to sue for some sort of name infringement.

I snapped to attention: WHAT? Was I dreaming? I can pretty much guarantee that I am the only human being on this planet who has dined in or ever even laid eyes on BOTH of these restaurants.

What is the California restaurant afraid of? That the Binghamton Zazou is going to cut into their business? That all those Binghamton Zazou diners who have a bad experience here are going to avoid the Redondo Zazou on their next trip to Los Angeles? What could the fear possibly be? Not sure, but it really, really makes me laugh.

Quite possibly the best part of all, however, is the new name for the cute, girly, lavender-colored-rock-sugar-on-your-lemonade-glass-with-a-pink-flexi-straw: D.C. DUMSTER'S.

?Que? Am I again dreaming? It might as well be called D.C. DUMPTRUCK'S because that name sounds like it should be a beer-encrusted sports joint with regulars arriving when they open at 6:30 a.m.

Geez. No girly-girl wants to brag that her wedding is being catered by D.C. Dumster's, I'm sorry. I guess it's the guy's name, and he's apparently fearful of name infringement, but, come on, couldn't he think of anything more appropriate than that?

But officer, I reeeeeeeally had to pee . . .

One of the reasons I find blogging fun is that it forces me to research and find out things I would never in a million years have otherwise discovered. Here is a case in point:

On my trip to Los Angeles over the holidays, I (of course) spent a lot of time checking out the changes in my downtown, and I was surprised to see that the long-awaited $1/4 million (yes, that's $250,000 EACH) public bathrooms, which have been the subject of so much for controversy for at least the past 5 years, have finally been installed in 4 places.

By way of background, downtown suffers from a lack of public restroom facilities. This most often comes up when discussing the homeless, and whether or not it is legal to cite someone for public urination when they are homeless and have no other alternative but to pee (or much, much worse, believe me) right out in public. It's obviously a huge sticking point (no pun intended) with the local (non-homeless) residents and business people.

It's such a big problem that I had to research it, since business people were actually getting cited for washing down the poop on the sidewalk in front of their businesses because it goes down the gutter, into the ocean, and spreads e coli or something totally disgusting that I want to stop writing right now. Ew. Flashbacks. Anyway, suffice it to say that I have intimate knowledge of facts on subjects such as the volume of feces the average person produces each day (you'd be shocked).

So the city ponied up a $MILLION$ to buy four of these free-standing, European style potties that are self-cleaning, timed automatic doors, etc. They have running water, are automated and also physically hooked into the sewer through the sidewalk, and it costs a ton to install them (ripping up the sidewalk, etc.), not to mention the price of the actual structure.

By the way, I believe the Americans with Disabilities Act required that they be able to have the door closed for at least 20 minutes, after which time they would automatically open. This is terribly awkward for at least 2 reasons: 1) if you are truly disabled, or just sick, and aren't finished within that time, you could find yourself stuck on the toilet when the door automatically opens to the busy sidewalk, and also 2) if you are a hooker or druggie looking for 20 minutes of privacy, there is a LOT you can efficiently accomplish in that chunk of time.

So once the city bought them, it was a massive controversy over where to place them. None of the legitimate businesses or residents wanted them anywhere near them, since they were anticipated to be huge crime and filth magnets. One did get installed at 5th and San Julian (in the heart of Skid Row) before I left, and it was quite the happening spot, shall we say.

So I was rather surprised to see one located at 5th and Hill Street, right atop the Metro stop at Pershing Square, and close to the bustling Jewelry District, but not the classiest corner (but a great spot if you are looking for heroin- it's where actor Leif Garrett was arrested a year ago).

So when this fancy pisseria (I think that's actually what they call them in European slang) appeared in my path, I had to laugh at the sign that said it is STILL not in service!! Years of getting the political will and the money to buy them, another several heated years of figuring out where to physically place them, and it's still "Not In Service (yet)." The "yet" made me think that someone was reeeeeally being hopeful about having a clean, safe spot to "rest" when shopping downtown. Hopefully they aren't holding . . . their breath.

In looking into this matter, though, I found that there is something called the American Restroom Association, which advocates for free access to safe, clean, well-designed bathrooms across the country. Who knew?? And who knows? I'll need a job when I get back to Los Angeles- this might be right up my . . . alley.

p.s. John noted that the 2007 World Toilet Summit is going to be held in . . . wait for it . . . New Delhi, India! Having been there, I can think of no place more appropriate, since the place is basically one giant toilet (apologies to my gracious host, Sanjeev).

Yes, spending a month in India taught me the discipline of prolonged bladder control, since there really wasn't any place I'd consider visiting in my daily touristing. My (male) travel companions just used the sidewalk, like everyone else!

p.p.s. To this post, I have to add that the BEST thing about people peeing on the sidewalk in Downtown Los Angeles is that . . . it washes away the vomit!

Holiday Haiku

Christmas
is
gone
Except
for
the
chocolate
That
lives
forever
On
my
thighs

Douchebag Diplomacy (sorry for the vulgarity, just quoting an "honorable" Congressman!)

Traveling back to Binghamton after a long and luxurious visit with family in Los Angeles, I felt right at home at LAX when I ran into 2 well-known actors and my first lobbying client (sorry, mom, it was a slot machine manufacturer), all in the security line.

But the best run-in lay ahead of me, on the airplane, where I ran into someone else I knew. I would never have noticed him except for the following scene that played out in the two rows immediately behind us. Try to follow along:

In the row immediately behind us sit 3 people: a middle-aged man behind John (we'll call him "Seat Recliner"), an 8 year old girl, and then a 4 year old boy behind me (who kicked my seat the whole flight and who I had to have a chat with, despite the fact that his mother was sitting right there and seeing the whole thing). In the row behind those 3 was a middle aged couple (the man ("Angry Dad") and woman ("Enabler") sitting down, wearing glasses in the photo) and their 6'4" son ("Gigantor") sitting on the aisle, himself sitting behind the middle aged guy behind John.

So right before we are getting ready to land, we hear some loud, raised voices getting into an argument just behind us. Apparently, Seat Recliner had invaded Gigantor's meager leg room one too many times on the flight, and Angry Dad intervened on behalf of his son and laid into Seat Recliner. Despite the eyeglasses, Angry Dad was a bit of a football-jock-meathead-type, and he got pretty loud, although not overly rude. He said something to the effect of "My son is 14 years old and 6'4". You are an adult. Just because you have the ability to put your seat back, doesn't mean you should."

Then Seat Recliner started going off about being a bad role model for his kids and a bad dad or something, and Angry Dad started getting really mad, at which point his Enabler wife, who clearly has to endure this behavior frequently, started shushing him ("Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.") and trying to defuse the situation.

There was a lull in the arguing, and, just when you thought it was over, each participant had to get in his parting jab. Loudly, but under his breath, one said "Asshole," to which the other replied, "Douchebag." Priceless.

So when we landed a few minutes later, I was eager for the chance to get a good look at our brawling backseat neighbors. As though the blogger gods had sent me a belated Christmas gift, I realized that I knew the "douchebag"- he was none other than a California Assemblyman-turned-Congressman named Adam Schiff. I hadn't seen him since my lobbying days in Sacramento, but it was definitely him.

My guess was confirmed when I realized that it was an L.A.-to-D.C. flight, and that it would explain the super-snotty and inattentive mother sitting across the aisle and letting her 4-year-old kick the crap out of the back of my seat for 4 hours and 15 minutes. (As a bit of icing on the cake, Adam's wife is named Eve - she was every bit the stuffy Congressman's wife.)

As a side note, our dear Eve almost got into a fight, herself, when we landed and a guy opened the overhead bin and a small bag fell on her. She was not so much injured as offended that someone would allow an errant object to touch her. She got all pissy at the guy, who was a very nice, gigantic, muscly, black guy with big diamond earrings, by the way. When she said something about how he should be more careful, he was way too classy to say anything even in his own defense.

His don't-talk-shit-to-my-man-or-I'll-kick-your-ass fiancee (we'll call her "Feyonce' ") however, was quick to insert herself, and said to Eve "It's not like he did it on purpose!" It stopped there but I'm pretty sure that, had we not been on an airplane governed by serious federal transportation rules, Feyonce' would have taken Adam's Eve out to the Garden and given her a little streetwise lesson about sin . . .

OK, back to Congressman Seat Recliner. A couple of thoughts: First, Congressman Schiff is apparently big in foreign affairs, which made me wonder if he shares his special brand of Douchebag Diplomacy with foreign officials around the world. One can only imagine the "ugly American" that he might be when traveling abroad. Ugh.

Second, the thing that Angry Dad said really struck a chord with something I have recently been thinking about politicians and their ethical and moral compasses. In my observation, there are 2 kinds of politicians: the ones who do everything they can that is technically not illegal, and then the ones who are just plain corrupt.

The corrupt ones are the ones you read about (a small percentage of all politicians), and the envelope-pushers are all the rest. These (the envelope-pushers) are the guys who milk every perk, every benefit of holding public office, either because they think they deserve it or just because they can get it away with it . . . technically. Just because he was technically within the rules to keep pushing his seat back, Congressman Seat Recliner should really have been more thoughtful and realized that the kid behind him was unusually tall and also young and pretty helpless to defend his knees and, more importantly, his personal dignity. Best to have a simple chat with him before putting the seat back or, better yet, not recline at all (it was only a 4 hour flight, and not a late night one).

That was a long blog, but the moral of the story for this entry is that you can rest assured that our elected officials are spreading their own special brand of Douchebag Diplomacy all over the world, one nearly-physical altercation at a time.

What a Difference A Little Bit of Jesus Makes . . .

What, pray tell, could these two photos possibly have in common? Well, they are of the same thing: our landlord/next door neighbors' front door. Both are taken on the occasion of big festive holidays, and yet the older couple who lives there clearly feels very differently about the 2: one is obviously from Christmas, and the dark one? Halloween. All you can see is the glow of the doorbell piercing the darkness.

You see, the reason I took the photo of their front door on Halloween was because it was so hysterical to me: Halloween is a HUGE deal on our low-traffic, kid-friendly street- we had over 150 kids at our door and had to run out for candy replenishment. Yet theirs was the only house on the entire street that was pitch-dark. Not even a porch light on. I don't know what the Halloween-equivalent of "Bah Humbug" is called, but this is it, in visual form.

The week before Halloween, I had the occasion to speak with the lady of the house, our landlord, who warned me about the evils of Halloween around our neighborhood: "Nothin' but kids by the busload, I tell you. They drive in from all over just to come to our block. Begging candy like homeless people. And the parents! Shameless. The parents drive in from the wrong side of town and carry an extra sack for candy, 'For the baby in the car,' they say. Ha! A likely story. They just want more free candy. Constant door-bell-ringing all night. You can't even have dinner. I'm sick of it!"

It was such a nasty, vicious tirade she went on, that I literally started laughing at her right in her face. After a few seconds, I think she started to see what I was laughing at- her hatred of all things child-related and poor-people-related - and she and her husband both started to laugh, too. It was priceless. (Thank God they ended up laughing!)

Yes, you guessed right- they have no kids themselves. Never wanted 'em, don't have 'em. And cats and dogs? She hates them. She also likes to say mean things about the nice teenaged-boy down the street who has Down Syndrome, "Have you heard the sailor mouth on that boy? I tell you, I wouldn't trust him!" So needless to say, Halloween and all its damn kids? Not so much for her.

Christmas, however? Now THAT is a whole different ballgame. She is Slovak-Catholic and he is Armenian-Catholic and boy do they live at the local Slovakian Catholic church: he calls bingo every Thursday, she is always making holubky for the fundraisers. I guess that is why they go all-out for Christmas (as opposed to Halloween) with their decorations: Halloween is about candy-grubbing kids, but Christmas, now THAT is about JESUS!

Our Binghamton Christmas

In case anyone was wondering how we decorated our house for Christmas . . . we didn't. Unless I find some lights at a garage sale for $0.50 (like I did with the halloween jack-0-lantern string of lights) or something, it's sort of hard to justify investing in holiday decorations that aren't likely to get more than 2 or 3 uses before we leave. And since we're going home for the holidays, we didn't want to buy a tree that was going to become a fire hazzard while we are gone.

Not to be totally kitsch-free, however, I did break out the few ornaments we have collected together, and used them to adorn a sego palm that I bought because it reminds me of Los Angeles and the one my parents have at their house. The result is a pretty sad-looking "Christmas tree" but it does the trick, since it makes us laugh.

What's going on at THIS church?

Too good to be true. Sort of like Jesus giving me a lay-up; a little reward, if you will, for finally showing up to mass. A blog entry waiting for a scribe, right there in the church newsletter.

OK, I admit that these are two of the blurriest, least legible photos of text, but I've been studying for the Bar exam all day and I'm not in the mood to fuss with images. Just trust me when I say that the first one says, "Rev. George Dyer, S.T.D."

First, What, pray tell, is an "S.T.D." degree? And how does one achieve that dubious distinction? Get your mind out of the gutter! This is not an indicator that Rev. Dyer has engaged in activities unbecoming of a man of the cloth. Rather, the "S.T.D." in this case refers to a Doctor of Sacred Theology. Why they continue to call it an S.T.D., and not a D.S.T., is beyond me.

Really makes you think that the Catholic church may be a victim of its own failures of marketing: no wonder they have hardly any new priests entering the seminary! You are signing up for a life without sex, but if you study really hard, you might wind up with an S.T.D. at the end- hardly a wise trade-off!

The next photo is of text that announces a meeting of the "Nocturnal Adoration Society" at 10 pm. I have never heard of such a group, but they meet way too late at night to be up to anything pious. Sounds like happy hour with sacrificial wine and Jesus-wafer/Body-of-Christ snacks, to me. With Reverend S.T.D. and his late-night meetings, I am getting suspicious about what goes on at this church!

"Jesus Saves" . . . But not on heating bills

Bad Catholics that we are, I've lived here since February and, despite best intentions, had yet to make it to one of the many Catholic churches around here for Sunday mass. First, a little background on the Catholic scene in Binghamton: Los Angeles is certainly a "Catholic city" because it's majority Latino, and is actually part of the country's biggest archdiocese, with 5 million congregants. Binghamton is part of the Diocese of Syracuse and, as you might have guessed, not quite so many parishioners as L.A. - only 350,000.

These numbers are misleading to me as a resident of the area, though, since I didn't feel like I interacted with a lot of Catholics around me, personally, in my daily life in Los Angeles (aside from the millions of Latinos, of course). Sure, they were present, but so were Jews, Muslims, etc.

Here in Binghamton? The Catholic church pretty much seems to have a lock on the local religious market. When I moved here, it seemed to me that there was a Catholic church in just about every neighborhood; that, just like the local dive bars, there was one for each little enclave.

Apparently this perception was dead on: The little city of Binghamton (about the same population and geographic size of Rancho Palos Verdes) has no fewer than TEN Catholic churches, each with an enrollment averaging about 2,000 people. That means that 20,000 people, or nearly 1/2 of the population of the entire city, is a registered parishioner at one of these ten churches.

And it is true, in practice. It seems that EVERYONE around me is Catholic. In fact, a lady at the gym the other day was shocked that I didn't know what a "feast day" was (it's an east coast Italian Catholic thing, apparently, and sounds very idolatrous to me). She exclaimed, "What? aren't you CATHOLIC?" well, I happen to be, thanks for assuming, lady.

These many, small churches are based on an immigrant model, with each one typically catering to an immigrant population that lived in the enclave (recall that waves of immigrants came over in the first part of the 20th century to work in the shoe factories and as cigar rollers). That means we have St. Cyril's for the Slovaks, St. Patrick's for the Irish, St. Anthony's (pronounced "Saint Ant-nee's") for the Italians, St. John's for the Ukrainians, etc.

The reason I know all these Catholic church fun facts is that the Diocese of Syracuse right now is having to get serious about possibly closing and/or merging some of these churches. With the population at 1/2 of what it was 50 years ago, and also a dramatic decrease in the number of priests, the church simply cannot support these parishes.

Which brings me to my story for this morning: I chose to go to St. Patrick's (photos above) not just because it is a lovely 10 minute walk from my house (there are so many churches, I could easily walk to several of them!), but because it is the oldest one and has the most incredible architecture. Isaac Perry was the architect, and he also designed a lot of important structures like the N. Y. State Capitol in Albany and the Binghamton Psych Hospital back in the 1870s.

As I sat there in mass, awe-struck by the 100+ foot tall vaulted, fanned ceilings, I was impressed with the sheer volume of the airy space. I guess I'm starting to think like a local, though, because I was thinking that their heating bill must be thousands of dollars (our house, in the winter months, costs $400 to keep it barely non-icy!) and no wonder they cannot afford to maintain all these churches around here.

No sooner had I had the thought, than it was time for the collection. The lady announced that the first collection would be for the church, as normal, but the second collection would be for . . . the heating bill! No joking- I couldn't make that one up. Needless to say, I was happy to contribute to both, and happy for a warm place to enjoy the architecture and soak in a little Jesus at the same time.

Southern Tier "Graphic Design"

Sometimes, a simple sign can really convey so much more than its mere text indicates. For example, a well-designed logo with a cool image can tell you a lot about a company or a business- that it is creative, or traditional, serious, or fun-loving.

This general rule certainly holds true in Binghamton, but no one is going to be hiring any of the "graphic designers" who make the business signs around here. We are continually amazed by the actual functioning businesses that seem to get by with - not only a hand-made sign- but a poorly hand-made sign, at that. (John and I call these "Southern Tier Specials," in reference to the Southern Tier region in which we live.)

Today I had lunch at the sole ethnic food place downtown. I think people just call it "the Indian place" because that is sufficient to distinguish it from all the other dining establishments, but really, shouldn't a proper restaurant - where you are going to pay money and put the food in your body - shouldn't it have a proper sign? Understand, my dear readers, this "CURRYs of INDIA" homemade thing is the ONLY signage on the entire restaurant.

I don't know how long the restaurant has been there- maybe not that long since the sign isn't faded out like the other photo- but don't you think they could invest a little bit of money in something as important as a SIGN for their business?

Which brings me to the other sign pictured above. Now, if you wanted to sell a piece of real estate, do you think you might want to do a little more than take your sloppy hand-writing, slap together a few pieces of notebook paper, and tape them in the window for God knows how long, as they faded in the sun? I'm tempted to call the phone number, just to tell them how crappy their sign looks.

You should see the building it's taped onto - a real eyesore, right in the middle of downtown. Really sends a great message to future investors by screaming "Please buy this piece of shit dilapidated building that the owner cares so little about, he hasn't even made the effort to use his best hand-writing in the homemade sign from circa 1984." It's an old printing business that I can pretty well guess made a fine living up through the 1970s, spewing pollutants into the ground on which it stands. I guess if you buy the building, they throw in the toxic liability for free!

Al Qaeda infiltrating the Los Angeles County Assessor's Office?

I just went online to see if my property taxes were paid on the Hermosa Beach house- In case you didn't know, you can easily look up the size, year built, and last purchase price of virtually any house in Los Angeles County by going to the County Assessor's awesome website. This site is so great that I used to use it instead of Mapquest to find people's houses.

Every time I saw County Assessor Rick Auerbach at a political event, he remembered who I was because I always gushed about how great and powerful the website is! Want to see what houses in your neighborhood are going for? Type in your address and then click on "search for recent sales" after your own property info pops up.) Yes, it works for famous people's houses, too- public property records do not keep their owners' secrets!

Anyway, I started to see about paying my taxes online using their secured method, and was asked to type in the letters that I saw in the box- you know how they do that for encryption or online security purposes and the word is something like "magic" or "poodle"? Well, this time my secret word that popped up, for me to view and type in, was FATWA!

Last time I checked, a fatwa was a really bad thing for western civilization. It came up in the context of things like, "Visitors to the Middle East should be warned that the Ayatollah has issued a fatwa against all things western." Perhaps Los Angeles County could find better randomly generated passwords for us? Rather unsettling, to say the least.

Millennium Dress Code

I took this photo a while back when we were visting friends in Syracuse. Although it has fallen on hard times in general, Syracuse still has a pretty nice nightlife scene in a sort of revitalized historic district.

It seems that the local proprietors want to make sure that the "wrong" kind of people (like the Olsen twins, apparently- read on) don't start hanging out in their carefully-crafted renewed urban core, because I came across this gem of a dress-code sign.

It's hard to read, and I couldn't hope to capture the whole thing in my cheezy cell phone cam, but here's what you are looking at:

"NO ATHLETIC WEAR
NO EXCESSIVE BAGGY CLOTHING
NO DO-RAGS
NO OVERSIZED CHAINS OR MEDALLIONS
BASEBALL CAPS MUST BE WORN FORWARD OR BACKWARDS
NO TORN OR SOILED CLOTHING . . . "

As we saw with the link above, it is clear that the "no excessive baggy clothing" prohibition will do wonders to keep out the Hollywood-homeless-dressing-twins crowd, but I still want to know- Who is wearing "oversized chains or medallions" in 2006? Maybe I'm just getting old, but that sounds very Mr. T or Flavor Flav circa 1983 to me.

And "do-rags"? Is this a real phrase now? Apparently so, but I would still love to hear what my mom would say if you asked her what a "do rag" was. (By the way, that do-rag link is definitely worth poking around-the photos are awesome- someone please point out the difference between a "do rag" and a "sports do rag" because it is not apparent to my eyes.) After poking around the internet, I can see that apparently non-homies wear them now. I guess I am getting old.

Moving along now . . . has our society slid so far into the toilet that we now have to direct people to put their baseball caps on straight? Has that awful look so infiltrated the American mainstream that it has to be explicitly barred?

"No torn or soiled clothing" . . . where is the fun if you can't go out on the town to chat up members of the opposite sex if you can't don your grungiest, most soiled, stanky clothing? Again, see link to Olsen twins.

OK, enough blogging for one day- it's been about 3 hours and only 3 blogs to show for it- and you guys think this is easy! Soon enough, I'll be studying for the New York bar and then you'll really miss me, you'll see.

Every new wife gets ONE incident like this, right?

This Thanksgiving, John's mom came to visit us for a week. Although we spent Thanksgiving dinner at the Binghamton Club ($20.95 plus service charge- we couldn't cook at home for nearly that cheap!!), we did do a bit of cooking at home over the weekend.

Before I left L.A. and my parents' nest, I made sure that my mom gave me a lesson in how to make those tasty gravies she is always pulling out of . . . uh, nowhere. Scrape the drippings, add the Wondra flour and Kitchen Bouquet, some wine and some orange juice, a bit of boullion maybe . . . voila! I've made probably 20 gravies since living here and they have - without exception- rocked the palate.

In my best effort to impress my mother-in-law with my new-found kitchen skillz, I was all excited when we decided to roast a chicken on Saturday night. Pyrex baking dish full-o-bird, the leeks, onions and anise stuffed all around, I took the thing out of the oven, removed the bird and veggies and popped the dish onto 2 hot burners on the stove top. Now I was cookin' with gas! or, electricity, as it were . . .

However, there's something my mom didn't tell me, apparently because it is so obvious that she didn't think she needed to: that is, one does not put a glass baking dish on top of a hot stove to cook the gravy, or one will have gravy-magma all over one's kitchen!

Yup, my huge lot of tasty gravy- orange juice, wine, boullion all melded so nicely and almost finished- exploded and sent pints and pints of molten gravy all over my stove top. Oh, and this would be a good time to mention that our house here has - ready for it? CARPET in the kitchen. Who puts carpet in the kitchen? It's literally impossible to clean it. We call it the "chicken carpet" because you can slop all sorts of infectious kitchen detritus - like salmonella-filled chicken juice- all over it and it just magically disappears, absorbed and seemingly gobbled up by the creepy carpet. YUK.

I didn't take a picture because I was too freaked out- I'd just walked away when it exploded and barely escaped having boiling grease all over my body. It pretty much looked like this, but with gnarly looking gravy pouring all over the avocado green stove and running down the front of the stove, sprinkled with vicious bits of glass. I guess I'm not alone, at least. I found a really good article about the phenomenon of exploding pyrex, which appears to be happening more frequently. Anyway, I think I've used up my one "Back when we were newlyweds living in New York, I was cooking for your grandmother and did the dumbest thing . . . "

Chicago's Millennium Park

Due to Thanksgiving and other generalized laziness, I have not been so great about blogging. So forgive the lag in my entries. As I last wrote, we were in Chicago the weekend before Thanksgiving, and I still have some cool photos, so I'll pick up where I left off.

When I was working on the downtown L.A. revitalization, I was involved with the planning and development of a 3-decades-in-the-making, it's-gonna-be-L.A.'s-Champs-Elysee development called Grand Avenue. All the while, the developers kept referring to Chicago's Millennium Park as their model because it was just sooooooo great. With all that talk, and the fact that hardly anyone seemed to have actually experienced the mythical "Millennium Park," I figured it must actually be quite lame.

No so, my friend. If you ever get to Chicago, Millennium Park is not to be missed. The giant bean-looking thing above must be 30 feet tall (the impression on the underside alone is like 10 feet tall) and is hands-down the most impressive sculpture I've ever seen. It took over a year to polish the steel to that kind of fun-house mirror finish and the thing, formally called "Cloud Gate" but colloquially known as the Bean, is something that literally looks different every time you look at it, and from every different perspective. It's just ridiculous gravy on top that it reflects Chicago's incredible architectural skyline and blue skies.

The other photo is of one of these giant glass-block-covered video screens- 2 of these face each other- that are also like 40 feet tall. The best part- and you can't see it in the photo- is that the screens have a spout at the mouth level so it looks like the faces are spewing water out onto the concourse, where people can frolic. Un-freaking-believable park. And I haven't even mentioned the ice skating rink or the 6,000 person outdoor amphiteather.

OK, so where am I going here? You know that I couldn't step 10 paces into the park without being knocked over by the fact that there were NO homeless people anywhere to be found. I flagged down a roving park security guard who drives, get this a SEGWAY! (soooo "millennial") and asked him where all the homeless people were. How do you manage to have NONE?

The strapping, cute young white guy- who stood about 7 1/2 feet tall on top of the Segway- when pressed replied, "Well we don't beat them up or anything. I mean, it's a public park and all!" To which I had to explain that No, I was not looking for his military tactics at bruising the poor to keep them out. I just meant that, well, I was from L.A. and we have them in every public park you can find . . . was the secret in keeping the park well-programmed so there are always lots of "regular" folks in there . . . ah, forget it, I had already horrified the fresh faced young guy with what he thought I was suggesting . . .

Welcome to Midwestern America

I was talking with John about how I was glad that people in Binghamton aren't extraordinarily huge and fat, as they are in much of middle-America. I think that is because the really huge people are descended from farmer stock- the big Germanic people who came over to America to pull ploughs and such.

Our people in Binghamton (did I just say that?) are more descended from the manufacturers who came to America around the turn of the century to work in the shoe and cigar factories. John didn't quite understand what phenomenon I was talking about, and I said "Oh just wait until we get to Chicago. You'll see. There will be HUGE people."

As if on cue, this man was sitting near us at our first meal here. I'm not trying to be mean, just wanting to point out that different parts of our country have different body types. I don't think you'd see a man this big in L.A. Not only thick, he was also very tall- I wouldn't be surprised if he was pushing 500 pounds!