Ira Spanierman talks about the life of American Impressionist artist William Merritt Chase and the painting Sunset at Shinnecock Hills (Long Island), ca. 1895. The painting features the artist’s daughter, Dorothy, in the late autumn landscape of Shinnecock Hills, Long Island.

The recent influx of seniors and retirees into the population has nursing homes severely overcrowded and Americans asking themselves in record numbers: “Just what is adult day care and how can it help me?” To answer this we will look at the problem as logically as we can, in a manner that can be easily understood by anyone, regardless of experience in the field or practical life experience.

Considering that the the Baby Boomer population, (the largest single demographic in the nation for many years now) will hit retirement age in force within the next 3 to 5 years, The United States Department of The Census has determined that by the year 2020, the number of US citizens over the age of 65 will surpass the number of US citizens under the age of 5 for the first time in our country’s history.

These seniors can best be described in 3 basic need categories:

1. Predominantly Healthy – very active and needing no assistance with life skills such as cooking, grooming, bathing and toileting. These seniors suffer no sign of dementia or cognitive dysfunction.

2. Moderately Healthy – Still very active but requiring some life skill assistance. These seniors are largely alert and lucid and can still actively participate in most normal social activities, and most personal care practices. but may require limited assistance with cooking, grooming, bathing, or toileting.

3. Significantly Impaired – These seniors suffer from severe medical conditions or are in the advanced stages of progressively worsening illnesses such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s Diseases, or any other chronic, incurable, or ultimately terminal illness which requires constant or almost constant supervision by medical staff and medically trained personnel. These seniors are not capable of providing for most of their significant daily needs and cannot function in most social settings, even with minimal or periodic assistance.

Traditionally in America, when our grandparents, parents, spouses or siblings begin to become a burden on our personal lives, or develop a dependency on us for any or all of life’s basic necessities, we have developed a propensity to deposit them into nursing homes, intermediate care centers, or assisted living repositories.

Leaving moral and ethical issues aside, this fact gets even more significant when we take into account that the resources and facilities which currently exist to serve seniors in America are already inadequate for the existing senior population. Facilities and programs simply do not exist to handle the eminently impending influx of Baby Boomers who are about to retire, most of whom have nothing specifically constructive to do with their time. Those are the exact types of situations and scenarios which adult day care facilities were created to address.

Far less costly than nursing home care, intermediate care, or assisted living participation, adult day care programs are almost always at least partially covered by private insurance and medicare/medicaid, and in many cases, can be provided to qualified registrants absolutely free of out of pocket expenses.

When registered in an adult day care facility, you or your loved ones are picked up directly at your door at a pre-determined time, and transported to an established adult day care facility. Once there, various structured and supervised activities are provided to the registrants to fill their days with purpose and to allow them to mingle amongst their peers. At least one, and often two meals are provided at no additional cost during a typical program day. Since all activities are facilitated by trained staff and take place in a controlled environment, adults fitting either of the first two categories can benefit largely from participation in an adult day care program.

These adult day programs not only provide much needed function and interaction between the registrants, they also provide much needed respite for caregivers and family members who can easily grow exhausted by the increasingly demanding needs of a declining loved one.

Once the daily program is over, the registrants are redelivered directly to their homes, often with a take-home meal or snack for later in the evening sothat they can maintain a sense of self-sufficiency, and not be dependent on someone else at home to prepare an additional meal for them, particularly after returning home fro ma busy day at work or school.

As you can see, there are tremendous benefits to participating in adult day care programs. These programs help keep families together until there is absolutely no other choice, and help to preserve space in Nursing homes and medical care facilities for those people who desperately need that type of elevated care. Many programs have excellent curriculums which allow their participants to remain invigorated and vital in their daily lives and activities, but there is much more work to be done in this field to guarantee our aging loved ones are receiving the very best care and programs they can get. New facilities need to be constructed using state-of-the-art equipment and technology, and curriculums need to be established which can be customized to maximize the experience on an individual basis so that each participant maintains the potential to reap the maximum benefit from their individual adult day care experiences.

Please stay tuned for more on my series of articles pertaining to issues on aging.

For Long Island info (ie: taking a train or bus, meeting others) see: here.

Bernard Lafayette to lead the World March for Peace and Nonviolence across Brooklyn Bridge

What: The World March for Peace and Nonviolence starts a three-day tour of the USA with a March over the Brooklyn Bridge led by Dr. Bernard Lafayette, Civil Rights activist and adviser to Martin Luther King.

When: Mon. Nov 30, starts 1 pm, finish 3pm

Where: Starting at Brooklyn Boro Hall to City Hall, via the Brooklyn Bridge.

Who: The international base team of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence with their international Spokesperson, Rafael de la Rubia, Dr. Bernard Lafayette, hundreds of nonviolence activists from around the State, all the students and teachers at Brooklyn International High School and others, religious leaders, Consuls and New York City Council Members.

Why: The World March for Peace and Nonviolence is travelling through 100 countries on 6 continents calling for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons and the withdrawal of troops from foreign territories among others.  Starting on 2^nd October in Wellington, New Zealand, the March is due to arrive in Punta de Vacas, Argentina on the 2^nd of January at the end of a 93 day tour.

Endorsements: Presidents of 11 countries; Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter, Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Cate Blanchett, Martin Sheen, Yoko Ono, Art Garfunkel, Philip Glass, Ed Asner and hundreds more.  For a complete list, go to www.theworldmarch.org

Part I- Part II – Part III – Part IV

The Osprey on the Pole (Part V)
17 August 2009
Mill Creek, Sag Harbor, NY

“Are any of you single?”

Click.

That moment – that click – was the kick-start to my evolution, much happiness, self-acceptance, yet just as much confusion and even a little pain through many years.

Snapshot: Windham Mountain, NY, in January 1984. The picture: A tall, handsome boy with dark hair, a beautiful smile and even more beautiful eyes – eyes that spoke to me so differently than I had ever experienced before. But really, what had I experienced, at that point? I was just short of 15 (he was already 15, but only 6 months older than me).

I was there with my school’s Ski Club – something fun that my best friend, Natalie, and I thought we’d try out; we’d also recruited another close friend, Claudia, to join, too – though we had just started skiing, Claudia’s parents would often go to visit Germany, their home country, and Claudia had experience skiing the crazy mountains in Europe from the time she’d been a tot. Anyway, that quote from Brad was after a morning of lessons and the Bunny Hill for Natalie and me, when the three of us were on line for the ski lift to a regular slope. Three of us, one of him – he was looking to pair up with someone on the 2-chair lift. So I readily volunteered, and we talked the whole way up.

And talked, and talked.

We pretty much spent the rest of the day hanging out with him; I never knew where his friends were (though I vaguely remember asking him and him actually telling me), and I think he was with his school, too. Details, details… Anyway, it was funny enough – there we were, several hours upstate, and we met him there, when we actually lived a little more than an hour apart down on Long Island. When we left, the three of us exchanged addresses and phone numbers with him.

Typically, at that age, easy come, easy go. We had plenty of cute boys in our high school, and plenty of the typical teenage noise that goes on in a well-populated area. However, we kept in touch with Brad. It started out that Natalie, Claudia, and I all wrote letters back and forth with him (back then, there was no such thing as email, Internet, texting, or even flat-rate phone plans!), and I remember his mom bringing him out to spend the day with the three of us once.

Eventually, Natalie and Claudia’s letters dropped off, but I continued with the correspondence, behind all of the other day-to-day noise of high school. At some point, we switched over to phone conversations; I can’t remember exactly when that happened, but I believe it started about a year after we met, when he was in the hospital for an extended period due to a sickness. I think it was pneumonia, and I remember that he told me something about having a heart murmur – but what is clear was that once we started talking, there was nowhere for us to stop!

Years later, he told me that during that period, I became his connection to reality, because even though he’d had a lot of visitors early on during that stay, the longer he was in the hospital, the less he heard from people, until eventually I was the only one he could count on to call. Every day.

It was somewhere in there that we became best friends.

Funny, I still had Natalie, which ran its course around that time – largely due to my rebellion and going down some shady paths (Natalie, on the other hand, stayed fairly straight – she did have a “normal” family life, after all, and at some point, our viewpoints and attitudes skewed differently), and then I had other “best friends” and a number of good ones who I saw day to day. I was interested in this boy or that, and dated this boy or that. I even fell in love. But regardless of what was going on, at the end of the day, I would be home and on the phone with Brad, for endless hours of narration and discussion about our lives, our thoughts, and our feelings.

Thinking back, it’s funny that our friendship seemed to be in the background, because though I would definitely not have known how to say this back then, it was like we knew each other’s souls. For the first time, I felt understood; I had a consistent, supportive, positive voice in my head – and even if it was through the phone line, it started to help overwrite the years of negativity that had been programmed into me at that point, because finally, somebody really knew me.

And vice versa. Brad had issues of his own; though he had married parents and a “normal” household, he was the 3rd of 4 children, so he had similar feelings of disinterest by those around him as I did. He lived in Southampton (for those of you who don’t know, the Long Island haven for Bluebloods), and with the exception of a handful of close friends, he felt very detached and different from most of those who he went to school with, because though they had a solid household income level, he definitely wasn’t a Blueblood! As a 3rd child, he often felt ignored; like me, he was extremely intelligent, and like me, his parents didn’t pay much mind to him because “If school was going OK, then he must be OK,” right? Plus, that feeling of isolation had been heightened from that hospital stay in mid-high school.

So we worked through it all together, debated each other, egged each other on, teased each other, explored ideas together, and pushed each other forward. It’s sort of like my life had two different levels: There was my topical life – what everyone saw every day, such as school stuff, happenings, the friends I kept, the boys I dated, the family drama; and then there was us. Like it was two different dimensions of reality, and the connection between Brad and me was the red pill. It wasn’t just deep, it was my core – it was real. I could take the truth from Brad when I couldn’t from anyone else, and he accepted exactly who I was, the good and the bad, with no pretense. We listened to each other about romantic interests and woes. We were confused, got lost, and made sense of it all together. We both did stupid things, but (sometimes miraculously) made it out OK on the other end – and could talk about it with each other. Then we’d shake our heads, marvel at it, and move on.

Hours and hours on the phone. I can’t tell you how many times I got punished for the phone bill, and for keeping the phone tied up so no one could get through (there was no call waiting yet). But we always found a way to connect! When Brad and his friends got their licenses, we were able to see each other every once in awhile because they’d come for a visit; I’d also taken the train out… standard, easily accessible transportation which added the ability for us to get together and talk some more.

Through this period, I got hooked in with a lost crowd – I won’t say bad, because I really believe there are few truly bad teenagers, just lost ones. I became free with sex, starting when I was 15 (I guess a psychologist would say that it was a way for me to get the attention of which I felt deprived), and soon after that, I began experimenting pretty heavily with “recreational” drugs (yet still somehow stayed in Honors classes and on the surface, “functioned” pretty well). My family? Mostly, they didn’t even notice. But Brad knew all about it, usually down to every nauseating detail. One time, I even called him and got him worried sick because I’d gotten “slipped a mickey” and passed out while I was laying in bed, on the phone with him. He’d told me it had killed him to wait to hear back from me the next morning – because again, no cell phones, no call waiting (so therefore, I’d just passed out with the phone off the hook in my bedroom, so my mother had no way of knowing), and no other way to get in touch with my mom to have her check on me and see if I was alive and OK in my room. Sad that someone who lived an hour away knew more about my physical state than a parent who lived in the same house as me, isn’t it?

At the same time, Brad experimented a bit where he could, though Southampton was a little more sheltered than the typical middle and upper-middle class town where I lived. He dated and fooled around, but never fully did the deed, because he wasn’t overly thrilled with the choice of most of the girls where he lived. He had pretty available access to the basic “recreational” drugs – I remember there was a period when his older sister – who’d already moved out on her own – was apparently being investigated by the FBI because of her marijuana activity. For awhile, we had to have code words on the phone to discuss anything that might be construed as illegal drug use, mostly because of that! And I knew about all of it.

Off and on for almost 3 years, I dated (and fell in love with) a loser who would be considered a low-level drug dealer, providing easy access for me, while also putting me in situations I was lucky to have gotten through (fairly) unscathed. Threaded throughout was a stream of other varied liaisons and at the same time, personal discovery.

Most of the rest of the world had no clue about all of these details. Yet always, even though we were working out these things with the world, at the same time, we were working out the things – the really important ones, that were about 5 or 6 levels down – on the phone, with each other. And though some of it could be pretty ugly, there was never anything we couldn’t talk about; though we challenged each other and even would get angry and upset about some things with each other, there was no real criticism or judgment to make the other one feel bad about him- or herself. It was just natural concern that resulted from our bond.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering, “Why didn’t the two of you become a couple?”

Well, that’s the thing I really can’t explain. I thought him to be the most beautiful person I knew, inside and out, and our bond was undeniable. However, looking back on it now, I realize that my love for him was so much deeper than that – in fact, I think too deep and intense for someone at that age to be able to fathom. Heck, I think most adults couldn’t deal with that, either. But who knows? Maybe if we’d had the opportunity to be in each other’s physical presence more often, it might have been more of a conscious possibility.

But then, maybe not. Because it was when we tried exploring that dimension of our relationship that things started to get mucky – which always brings me back to the understanding that it was probably better, purer, and more solid the way that it was provided to us early on. Or, depending on how you look at it, how we chose for it to be.

20+ years – and a completely different life – later, there are still a few events with him that stand out in my mind, and make me wonder, what if, and why didn’t we? One is the day that provided us with our first crossroads of opportunity for a different exploration of our relationship. Read on:

It was early in the summer between my Junior and Senior year of high school. I was 17; Brad had just graduated from high school (he was a year ahead of me), and was planning on going away at the end of the summer, to the University of Detroit. I’d wanted to go out to his house and stay a night – not because of anything except that it would give us a few days together, which was always a hassle to plan out, because of the travel time between our houses. His parents loved me, so that wasn’t a problem, but my mother really didn’t know anything much about him except that Brad was this boy that I’d gotten in so much trouble talking to on the phone to over several years – and even though she’d allowed me to go out there on multiple occasions for the day, she wouldn’t even consider an overnight, even though we were “just friends,” and his parents would keep a close eye out. (As a parent myself now, I guess I can understand that. But that was then…)

I already felt the pangs of our separation, even though his departure for college was more than a month away. In addition, my loser boyfriend had broken up with me (it was somewhere along our 5th or 6th breakup over that 3-year period), and I really needed some downtime and some fresh scenery. So, strong-willed as I was (and by this time very used to being put upon to make my own choices), I took matters into my own hands. My then-partner-in-crime Karen (the “best friend” I always say was the one who I always got into trouble with – not that either of us was worse than the other, but it was like we spurred it on with each other! Again, stories for another day…) concocted a plan: There was a day when I had a Guidance Counselor’s appointment that my father was supposed to attend with me (to talk about my Senior year coursework); however, the appointment wasn’t until mid-afternoon. So we told Karen’s parents that we were going to stay at my dad’s the day/night before, and we told my mother that we were going to stay at Karen’s cousin’s house, and that we’d be back about lunchtime the following day. As unsupervised as I was those days, and as wily as Karen could be with her family, it was actually a pretty airtight plan – my mother didn’t check with Karen’s parents, and vice versa. Brad decided he couldn’t tell his mom – I think mostly because she would have wanted to speak with my mom, though she was well-versed in my troubled (or rather, non-existent) family life. Therefore, we simply planned to stay at his sister’s house.

And so we hopped the train out to Southampton on our overnight adventure! It’s funny, in the midst of the muck of those years, how clearly that day still comes to my mind. Brad and one of his best friends, Tom, met us at the train station, and we ensued on a day out on his family’s boat, out on Shinnecock Bay. Cruising, waterskiing, beach, and plain old fun and escape, with a couple of wine coolers (and maybe some beer?) thrown in. (Note: At that time, the drinking age had just shifted from 18 to 19 to 21, so it was still pretty easy to get the simple stuff like that when you were 18ish.) Karen and Tom had some interest in each other, so for a time later in the afternoon, while I was laying out in the sun on the front of the boat, Brad and I were alone to talk; we had a few things to sort through, and we were never so comfortable as when we were alone for our connection.

Let me back up for a minute, before I proceed. I realize I left something really important out of this. I guess it’s really important – it might seem to be a little tidbit in this story, but over the years, it’s one of the things that has repeatedly plagued me with the nagging questions that I can’t get rid of. So I’m going to rewind a little.

For the first time that day, I’d noticed something I had never experienced before: When Brad and I touched each other skin to skin – even just casually in passing, like if we just bumped into each other – it felt like a current of electricity passed between us – not like static electricity, but internally, like the sparks between 2 live wires when they touch. At that point, I was pretty experienced with guys (and much more physically experienced than I should have been at that age), and had even been through dating and “oh-my-God-I-love-him” relationships. But I’d never had anything close to that happen before. I never said anything about it, but I do know that it freaked me out and made me…well, uncomfortable, because I didn’t understand it. It was strange.

OK, so fast forward a little bit, back to the boat that afternoon: One moment we were talking, and the next moment… well, we were kissing.

And I think that’s the moment when I really came alive.

He’d never even been that kind of consideration – in fact, since by that age I had already so effectively trivialized physical contact via my escapades – because he was much, much more important than that! He was my confidante, the quiet voice behind the noise of the troublesome daily life of my teen years. It was as if he were a part of me, because he knew everything about me; I felt as if I were completely naked and vulnerable with him, but completely safe. And I knew he felt the same way about me.

At 17/18? Are you kidding me? How many people don’t get there with someone by the time they’re 25? 30? 40? Ever?

Yet it was that kiss that moved me along…. to what? I still can’t explain it, even in writing. I just know that in the first moments of that kiss, I jumped forward in self-awareness, beginning with the discovery that I wanted him, more than anything else in the world. And I wanted to be his first.

The rest of the afternoon was a slow crescendo of mutual desire and discovery. Knowing I was already planning to stay the night, we took our time, exploring this possibility that had never before come to light. Everything else was a blur, but somehow, I know we had dinner with Karen, Tom, and (I think) his sister and her boyfriend; I know we distracted ourselves a bit by smoking some pot. But that had nothing to do with the way my heart felt (in fact, I think I wanted to smoke a joint to try to ease the excitement a little); it which raced with anticipation for that evening, when we’d be able to be alone – and finally, completely together.

But, as it happens, that’s not the way it went. I’ve always felt like there was something beyond our control that was on a mission to prevent us from physically consummating our relationship that night, for some reason.

Here’s what happened: That evening, my father called my mother to confirm our Guidance Counselor appointment the next day (even though I had confirmed with him the week before); as usual, my mother was clueless about it (and probably hadn’t listened to me if/when I’d mentioned it). Not knowing what else to do, she called Karen’s house, even though we were supposed to be at her cousin’s with her family, and got her mother. When my mother brought it up and asked for the number to her cousin’s, the conversation got all confused, because Karen’s mother said that we were at my father’s. So, after a brief panic attack because she at that point had no idea where I was, my mother called a few of my other friends (who knew nothing), and then called Brad’s parent’s house. Now, his parents knew nothing either, but after the conversation, his mother called his sister’s house (knowing that Brad was staying over there that night), to ask if I was there.

His mom wasn’t mad that I was there; I think (if I recall correctly) that she was mostly mad because Brad hadn’t brought me by. But in the meantime, I knew I was in DEEP TROUBLE. So, later in the evening as it was, Tom and Brad drove us home; I walked in somewhere around 2am to find my mother and father sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for me (and I knew I was SO busted!). I made up a story that I had in fact been w/Brad, but his mom hadn’t known (truth), and that I’d planned on coming home the whole time (lie) – I just knew it would probably be really late, and figured it was safer to plan that way. I know. Lame. I think I was punished for a month or so… though since my mother wasn’t home all that much, it was hard for her to keep me off the phone and really carry out that part of the punishment, anyway.

In the meantime, the more time I had to think about what had happened – and what had almost happened – the more it scared me, because I valued our togetherness and our bond  so much that I think I was afraid that it would ruin everything. And who knows? Sometimes now, I think maybe I was even more afraid that it wouldn’t ruin everything – and that it would take us to some depth that would be too far out of my realm of comfort, which I couldn’t comprehend. I don’t know. In the meantime, I know I made up some dumb thing to Brad about how he deserved better than me for his first, and that I was ultimately careless with guys I slept with and figured I’d eventually hurt him with my carelessness. I know, how stereotypical, right? Well, we were both all too willing to mask ourselves by covering up that passion by accepting such a thin excuse.

And by the time he left for college a month later, he’d found someone who was convenient – and probably far less dangerous – to “break him in.” By then, I’d tucked all those feelings away, and it was back to being OK. I got all the juicy details, and it never bothered me a bit, probably because it seemed different… I don’t think it meant as much to him, and I knew it would’ve held much more significance had it been with me, that night.

Anyway, as things went back to “normal,” I went out with others shortly after that, and went back to the loser boyfriend for a few more months before I was finally completely done with that – it may have had to do with my newfound strength after dealing with Brad going away to college. And Brad and I still talked for hours, back in “our place,” without any disruptions.

However, there is one other thing shortly afterwards that conveyed more depth than I was ever willing to admit: The day Brad left for college. I remember that it felt like I might as well be having an internal organ ripped out of me. I was physically in pain, and felt ill. I spoke with him several times, and for quite awhile…. and when I hung up, I cried in my room for hours, which was (and still is) purely foreign and uncharacteristic of how I ever dealt with difficulties.

Thoughts about that part of my life…which I call “Section 1″
In my mind, that’s where I end the first “section” of  my life’s development, on many levels. I look back and realize how much I had to learn – and how much I made myself learn – by the time I was a Senior in high school. When I look at it from an abstract or metaphysical point of view, it’s as if I pushed myself through on a “fast track,” to get through so much in so little time, so I could get to the “next step.” And I know that I wouldn’t have been able to get to it had it not been for Brad entering my life.

In fact, as I get through the other “sections” of my life to date, you’ll start to see the same pattern – that in one way or the other, no matter how close or far we are from each other, or how long it is between our conversations – that Brad is here. He’s a part of me, in one way or the other, and it doesn’t matter how far we are from each other physically, or how long we go between direct communication. But I hope to provide a better explanation (and develop an even better understanding) as I go on.

However, one piece of the puzzle I’m really studying – because my gut, third eye, or whatever tells me that it’s important – is that day, as described here. What were the odds that day, in such a perfect situation, when I’d just found out that I could have something I hadn’t even known I’d wanted more than anything else in the world, that it would have fallen apart by such strange events that seemed almost serendipitous? It still blows my mind, how it all happened – and how it didn’t happen. And it makes me think there were greater forces at work to prevent it from happening just then. But why? is the question that gnaws at me.

And overall, I’ve lived my life in similar sections – very fast-paced, very eventful, and very challenging – like I’m rushing to “get to the point.” As I get older – right now, at the ripe ol’ age of 40 – it seems to be getting more urgent that I “get through,” because I have to get… I don’t know where. But that somewhere is coming; my heart beats faster just thinking all of this out and writing it down, because it just knows. Which is what has made me start to look back – not just at the smaller sections, but across the full span of my life – to try to make sense out of this big jigsaw puzzle that’s beginning to take shape. And my first epiphany has come, which is why I’m here, so I can feel it out here, draw it out in words, and see if it all makes sense. I’m starting to feel that once I do that, the pieces will come together so my next level of understanding will come, and so forth. Because it seems like it’s very, very important suddenly that I do this – not something I’ve decided to do, but that my inner voice is telling me I have to do.

Enough said for today. I’m spent – this is the first time I’ve even put that period of my life into words, and that I was even able to punctuate it the way I did is amazing to me. I’ve lost half the day in doing this, but at the same time, am also amazed at how freely the words actually came. Because this stuff — well, it’s really buried deep. I know that there’s no one besides Brad and me who know all of this, and I’m just sure that he’s kept this as contained inside of him as I do inside of me.

However, the importance of that piece of the puzzle is what I’m still trying to understand.

The Yellow Spots on the Blue Fish
29 September 2009
Atlantis Marine World, Riverhead, NY

it’s been real, brentwood =]

WHEN I SAY I LIVE IN EAST HAMPTON, I wonder if people envision a fake chateau behind an impenetrable hedge, or a modernist cube in the dunes with an infinity pool and a five-car garage.

I’m pretty sure “the Hamptons” doesn’t conjure up the cottage at right (‘cottage’ is pushing it — it’s more like a shack). It’s not totally atypical of the Maidstone Park neighborhood of the unincorporated village of Springs, 5 miles north of the picture-postcard Village of EH, but very much in the Town of East Hampton, with an East Hampton ZIP.

I enjoy fantasizing the possibilities for fixing up these humble 1940s summer houses (some now occupied year-round), should they ever come on the market. They rarely do — they’ve been in families forever — and when they do, it’s with unrealistic price tags.

Some of them probably wouldn’t even need fixing.

There are a few that feel to me like Northern California.

Part I – Part II

The Fiddler in His Hole (Part III)
17 August 2009
Mill Creek, Sag Harbor, NY

The Black-Bellied Plover on the Beach
02 September 2009
Triton Beach, East Quogue, NY

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Wrapping up my time here in Roslyn, New York out on the Long Island and have enjoyed it. We have eaten quite well, which is always nice, but it is time to head back to Princeton and home.

I attended a virtual graduation in Second Life for the University of Edinburgh and I believe it was an absolute success. They had streamed the audio and the video from the non-virtual life graduation at McEwan Hall on the Edinburgh campus. Graduates who were unable to attend the ceremonies there came to Second Life and they handed out virtual diplomas. We were all virtually clapping and whistling and it created a surprising sense of presence and togetherness. In the non-virtual world ceremonies (the physical ones on campus), they even paused for a moment and clapped for everyone graduating in Second Life. The non-virtual feeding the virtual and vice versa.

I decided to don a kilt for the festivities and felt virtually dashing. I have included some pictures below.

I will head home today via the treacherous Belt Pakrway through Brooklyn then to Staten Island then to the New Jersey Turnpike, which is shockingly a welcome sight at that point in the journey. I will do laundry, study a bit, pack and tomorrow will head to Newark Airport to fly to Ann Arbor (via Detroit). I will be spending the better part of the week with the good folk at the JSTOR office there.

At some point this holiday season, I am determined to buy a Christmas tree. Jen and I have never had one in our nine Christmases together and I would like to end that streak this year. I feel like I could use a little ceremony this year to build some momentum for next year, which if kharma has taught me anything will be one of the greatest years of my life. I will keep everyone updated on this Christmas tree development, even if I just rationalize myself out of one again this year.

All my best to everyone out there as the chill weather sets in on the East Coast of the US.

Corey and Lou battle the Black Friday crowds and take BUCKET on the road…all the way to the parking lot of Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum. With Slurpees in hand, they talk about Thanksgiving football, New Moon madness, the worst ever movie flops and more. (Direct MP3 link … Recorded Nov. 27, 2009)

206-337-9910 is the new BUCKET line number … call the show today, let us know your thoughts!

POPCORN BUCKET:

PODSAFE SONGS FEATURED:

“Sale of the Century” by The Soupbone Throne (Music Alley profile)

REGULARLY FEATURED MUSIC and MEDIA:

“Textual Healing with Big Louie Smooth” theme: “Instrumental R&B” by Christopher Wright (Music Alley profile)

“SkyMall item of the week” theme: “Planning for the Routine” by Leaving Richmond (Music Alley profile)

Sports Corner Theme: “Dodging Buses” by Derek K. Miller (Music Alley profile)

Primate Update Theme: “Meltdown Man” by Derek K. Miller (Music Alley profile)

The new BUCKET Remix theme composed and performed by The Geoff Smith. Old theme too!

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KEYWORDS: BUCKET, Lou, Corey, Stamford, Connecticut, Primate Update, monkeys, news, politics, sports, entertainment, movies, TV, podcast, podsafe, Skymall, Dancing with the Stars, DWTS, Thanksgiving, Long Island, Nassau Coliseum, Pittsburgh Penguins, New York Islanders, Cash4Gold, Alan Ralsky, Twilight, New Moon, Jay Leno, Bombs, Texts From Last Night.

Two suspected drunken drivers have been arrested after a hit-and-run crash in Brentwood on Thanksgivingnight that killed one of their passengers, Suffolk County police said.

One of the drunken drivers was caught later when he and his passenger, who survived, showed up for help at Southside Hospital in Bay Shore, police said.

A 2001 BMW 325i collided with a 1994 Isuzu Amigo in the 9:14 p.m. crash at Second Avenue and American Boulevard, flipping the Isuzu on its side, police said.

“Both drivers were drunk at the time,” said Det. Sgt. Tony Lavista of the Third Detective Squad, which is investigating the crash.

The passenger in the Isuzu, José Alvarado, 35, of Brentwood, was declared dead at the scene.

Lavista said chemical tests were pending to measure the drivers’ blood-alcohol level.

Both drivers, the Isuzu’s Calixto Hernandez,36, of 125 Timberline Dr., Brentwood, and the BMW’s Selvin Lazo-Giron, 25, of 451 Smith St., Central Islip, were charged with driving while intoxicated, police said.

damn shame. people just don’t know how true that drinking and driving cliche is.

story via Newsday

went shopping

total success

recap later

happy holidays bechhes

The Little Bird on the Rocky Shore (Part II)
21 September 2009
Tiana Beach (bay side), East Quogue, NY

Autumn in the Leaves
19 October 2009
Quogue Wildlife Refuge, Quogue, NY

The Gull’s Dinner
16 August 2009
Montauk, NY