Trick or Treat

Monday, November 1, 2021

At around 7:45 A.M. Sunday, our landline and my mobile phone started ringing at the same time.  Madam answered the landline while I freed myself from the arms of Morpheus to reach for my mobile phone.  In both cases, it was Barclays Bank calling about suspicious credit card activity on our individual accounts.  We each hold a Barclaycard completely independent from the other, yet, in a lovely example of kismet, both cards were hacked at about the same time.  After we respectively recited dates of birth, last four digits of Social Security numbers, zip codes and names of our favorite stuffed animal, our individual cards were cancelled and the fraudulent transactions expunged.  In a day or two, we expect to be able to rejoin the American economy at full blast. 

. . . 

 

The real estate section offers a list of the movement of home prices in local neighborhoods over the past year, including the most expensive neighborhoods currently in the Holy Land.   https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/28/realestate/new-york-citys-most-expensive-neighborhoods.html  

 

I found some big surprises there.  Not only are three of the ten most expensive neighborhoods located in Brooklyn, only one in Manhattan is above 14th Street and that is next to the Lincoln Tunnel.  Fifth Avenue, Central Park West, Central Park South, Park Avenue, Sutton Place?  Siberia.  Want to be recognized as having arrived in the Big Apple?  Move to a neighborhood that not too long ago was occupied by tenements, gas stations, warehouses, parking lots and machine shops.  Oh, poor people, too.  

. . . 

 

Costumed as middle-class Senior Citizens, we joined Jon and Leo for Halloween brunch at La Grande Boucherie, 145 West 53rd Street, that beautiful space running from 53rd to 54th Street, at what is whimsically labelled 6½ Avenue.  The Big Butchershop offers a classic French bistro menu plus some top end beef items.  Everything is expensive.  I had Soupe À L'oignon at $18 and the LGB Burger (not to be confused with a LGBTQ burger) at $28, but don't tell Bernie Sanders that I said that the cost was almost irrelevant.  It's just a lovely place to eat and drink in good company.

. . .  

 

Today, I had lunch at Ben's Kosher Delicatessen, 209 West 38th Street, with Toby McMullen.  Toby was born and raised in North Carolina, spent the last decade in Chicago and now is doing his comedy performances and production work here.  The happy coincidence is that his studio is just down the block from Ben's, one of the few remaining Kosher delicatessens in the Holy Land.  Ben's has no outdoor seating.  On this weekday at lunch, about 2/3 of the seats were occupied by people who showed proof of vaccination to be seated.  We ate heartily, each having a corned beef/pastrami combo, piled high on rye bread ($21.99), and sharing French fries ($5.29.).  Plus the very good coleslaw and pickles supplied gratis, left us pleased and full.   

 

While Toby is the professional comedian, I was most amused by a notice on the table.  Ben's Kosher Delicatessen now offers a plant-based menu.  Just when you find a reliable source of salt and fat, you are presented with a "Plant-based 'Corned beef' Reuben."   

. . . 

 

The front page of today's New York Times gives me reason to swallow hard and contemplate moving to New Zealand.  Two stories illustrate a (maybe the) major dilemma in progressive politics or, more properly, the politics of progress.  Some on the left are attempting to purify the English language in order not to exclude or offend anyone, anywhere, at any time.  In some instances, it reads to me as answers to unasked questions.   https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/01/us/terminology-language-politics.html

 

Meanwhile, real battles for power and the consequential control of people's lives are underway in venues such as New Jersey and Virginia.  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/30/us/politics/virginia-governors-election.html 

 

Language is important, but time and energy are finite resources and the forces of darkness are intent on grabbing the levers of power.  It is divide and conquer, but we seem to be doing the dividing. 

 

Tuesday, November 2, 2021

I understand why virtual reality appeals to some people.  It is probably more manageable than reality itself.

. . . 

 

It's midnight and election results are still inconclusive, but it doesn't bode well that the Atlanta Braves won the World Series.  Mets fans dislike the Braves so much that we root for the Yankees to beat them. 

 

Wednesday, November 3, 2021

All the results are not in, but it looks like our woke progressives are close to capturing the dictionary while the Republicans are winning elections. 

 

Thursday, November 4, 2021

Another visit to Dr. Donnelly dedicated dermatologist downtown gave me the opportunity to have lunch in Chinatown and not just Chinatown, but Wo Hop, 17 Mott Street, the quintessential Chinatown Chinese restaurant.   While there is outdoor seating, I went indoors, downstairs where almost every seat was filled, akin to the before times.  I pretended to minimize the risk of infection by a tiny percentage by sitting alone at a large table.  I further deluded myself by drinking lots of hot tea and generously coating my food with Wo Hop's famously incendiary mustard.

   

The food was a Grandpa Alan Special, not found on the menu.  Shrimp in lobster sauce over shrimp fried rice ($15.95), usually enough for three people.  I applied soy sauce along with the mustard, but strictly for the taste, not ascribing any medicinal value to it. 

 

Note that Wo Hop is unnecessarily competing with WK Restaurant, 69 Bayard Street, f/k/a 69 Bayard Restaurant, in interior decoration.  WK has covered almost every inch of flat surface with pictures of George Washington and other once esteemed personages on legal tender.  On June 28, 2011, on a visit to 69 Bayard Restaurant, I observed "in one small corner, currency from Bermuda, Brazil, Iceland, Cuba, Fiji, Korea, Trinidad & Tobago, and Colombia pasted on the wall."  For better or worse, there was no Bitcoin.