Play Ball

Monday, November 25, 2019

How long does it take to send a text message?  A minute?  Maybe only 30 seconds if you reduce words to a couple of letters?  I ask because of a pending case of involuntary manslaughter against a 21-year woman who allegedly barraged her boyfriend with text messages urging him to kill himself before he committed suicide, the second case of its kind in Massachusetts where another young woman was convicted for urging a close friend to commit suicide.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/us/Inyoung-You-texting-suicide-court.html

According to the current story, "At the center of the prosecution’s case are 75,337 text messages that the couple exchanged in the two months before [the man's] death.  More than 47,000 were from [the woman], prosecutors say." 

So, 47,000 messages at a rate of 2 a minute would take 23,500 minutes to send, that is 392 hours, or over 16 uninterrupted days in a 60-day period.  Amazing.
. . .

This time of year combines good news/bad news for me.  With the end of the year approaching, myriad "Best of" lists appear and I love lists.  Good examples are the New York Times "10 Best Books of 2019" (https://nyti.ms/2D6wfaC) or the New York Public Library's Best Books (https://www.nypl.org/bestbooksadults2019?utm_source=eNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Engagement20191126_BestBooks&utm_campaign=bestbooks2019).  Note how much they differ.

The bad news is my failure to have read any of the books, fiction or non-fiction on either list.  The same is likely to be the case with movies, concerts, recordings, museum exhibits and over-priced restaurants.  I'll probably do better with dumplings.
. . .

Speaking of dumplings, I was thrilled and delighted by an article on eating habits this weekend reporting that "recent research has indicated that dieters . . . are more likely to suffer from depression, low self-esteem, disordered eating and overall psychological distress than intuitive eaters, who don’t intentionally try to control their eating or weight."
. . .

In what is becoming a weekly ritual, I went to Miznon North, 161 West 72nd Street, for lunch, this time in the company of charming Art Spar.  Part of the attraction is keeping up with Miznon's daily changing menu.  Today, I had one hit and one miss.  I started with "Hassa with parmesan to eat with your hands."  The waiter informed me that Hassa is lettuce and I inquired no further.  In fact, he delivered four small heads of fresh baby lettuce dressed with a bit of olive oil and covered with grated parmesan cheese.  Having left my rabbit at home, I munched away dutifully, but joylessly.  To balance that, Art was qvelling over the Beetroot Carpaccio that I recommended, a dish of rare imagination.

Since he was anticipating a big dinner, Art ordered "Old City Mezze" as his main course, a plate of vegetables, falafel, babaganoush, hard-boiled egg and cheese, somewhere between feta and butter ($21).  I had the Minute Steak plate ($21), thin slices of grilled steak on a silky pool of hummus, just delicious.  I used a thick slice of crusty bread to mop up the plate.  Miznon's bread is superb; ask for it if it does not come with your meal. 

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Speaking of good news/bad news, the good news came tonight with the arrival of America's Loveliest Nephrologist for a holiday visit.  The bad news is the inability of the Oakland Heartthrob to join her on this trip.  Of course, this results in America's Favorite Epidemiologist concentrating almost entirely on her little girl, leaving her current husband free to go about his intuitive eating without scrutiny.  Good news in the end.

. . .

Mother Ruth Gotthelf was born 110 years ago today.

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Stony Brook Steve was my companion at lunch at Chong Qing Noodle,796 Ninth Avenue, a hole in the wall with 8 small two-tops and an equally limited menu.  It offers essentially two dishes, noodles in soup and mao cai, which, according to Wikipedia, is "a stew-like dish . . . composed of a variety of vegetables as well as meat and/or fish in a stock made of mala sauce."  Next question: "Mala sauce is a popular oily, spicy, and numbing Chinese sauce which consists of Sichuan peppercorn, chili pepper and various spices simmered with oil."  Each dish has a variety of ingredients, some frequently omitted from polite conversation, such as Aromatic intestines and Bovine stomach.

Sticking to the more conventional, I had chicken mao cai, reputedly containing chicken, mini sausage, quail egg, broccoli, bok choy, sliced potato, kelp, dry soy bean sheet ($15.50).  However, about half those things seemed to have been replaced by other things, harder to identify.  The overriding characteristic was the mala sauce, which got hotter with each mouthful.

Skip it.

Thursday, November 28, 2019

We had a gathering of Pilgrims here today, Pilgrim relatives, Pilgrim friends, Pilgrim neighbors.  It was quite successful, because America's Favorite Epidemiologist assumed the role as America's Favorite Epidemiologist-Chef, providing us with turkey and stuffing and sweet potatoes and cranberry-cherry relish and string beans and spinach-mushroom strudel and sweet & sour meatballs and peanut butter squares and chocolate mousse pie.  I poured the drinks.

Friday, November 29, 2019

The Loudest Voice in the Room, the excellent biography of Roger Ailes (creator of Fox News), has one interesting tidbit about Richard Nixon.  When Nixon came to New York after losing the California governor's race in 1962, he "toyed with the notion of becoming commissioner of baseball."  In 1992 George W. Bush, an owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team, who had only run for office once, losing a race for a seat in the House of Representatives in 1978, also expressed interest in becoming commissioner of baseball.

http://www.espn.com/mlb/news/2002/0918/1433403.html

I have no doubt that America would have been a better place if either of these men succeeded to that role.  I can't say the same for baseball.