Home and Away

Saturday, January 24, 2026

“Airlines, transit systems and schools have announced extensive cancellations as a mix of snow, ice and bitter cold heads for more than 180 million people across a vast stretch of the country.” I’m reading while sitting in Palm Desert, California in a gorgeous house on the edge of golf course, with the temperature

at 69° at 11 AM. Shver tzu sein a Yid.

.  .  .

Headline: "Videos Appear to Contradict Federal Account of Killing"

Unfortunately, every official statement from Washington these days carries the presumption of untruth.

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Barbara, Bernie, Honey Bun and I went to dinner at Ristorante Mamma Gina, 73-305 El Paseo, Palm Desert. It claims a capacity of 178, but the full house sounded like twice as many. The decor was modern, non-specific. A change in ethnicity could be handled quickly.

I made it a special occasion by ordering a cocktail instead of a Diet Coke, a coconut margarita on the rocks, frozen not available ($17). I poached some of the Insalata Mamma Gina, chopped salad with lettuce, tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, capers and anchovies in a vinaigrette dressing ($17). Lasagna was my main course; it was an Italian restaurant after all ($33.50). The quality justified the price, the quantity did not. Our Affogato Al Caffe dessert came with cappuccino ice cream, a good treat ($11.90).

Sunday, January 25, 2026

We had dinner tonight in an unusual venue for us, the Tamarisk Country Club, 

70-240 Frank Sinatra Drive, Rancho Mirage,

 where Barbara and Bernie seemed to know or be known to all the other patrons. In the Make America Great Again days, Tamarisk was a place for Jews who were barred from the established country clubs. Then, Frank Sinatra decided that he would rather hang out with Jews than ordinary goyim and Tamarisk took off.

It was informal barbecue night, buffet service. I found enough to eat. The first long table held myriad salad fixings, prepared salads and random starters, such as chopped liver, deviled eggs and pickled herring. One could feed off that table all night. The next table was the barbecue, hot dogs and hamburgers (and turkey burgers and veggie burgers) cooked to order, ribs and fried chicken. Finally, ice cream, cookies, cakes and macarons. If you paced yourself, you completed the circuit. Meanwhile, at the table the Coke Zero flowed like water.

.  .  .

Back home, we sat in front of a television set several yards long and watched the first part of Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man, an excellent documentary about one of the pillars of Western Civilization. It included some brilliant editing, presenting several accounts of the same anecdote as a seamless whole.

Monday, January 26, 2026

Barbara and Bernie’s lovely home is not listed on Trip Advisor. If it were, it would get * * * * * easy. We left late morning for our flight back home, from the balmy desert weather to the post-blizzard conditions in the East. The completely full airplane had about three dozen super Orthodox Jews on board. I thought for a moment that they were coming from a Hasidic golf tournament, but realized how improbable that was.

Our entire 17-day vacation was error-free, frictionless until the very end. We landed at JFK a few minutes early and then sat on the runway for more than 45 minutes, waiting for a gate to clear. It was well after 11 o’clock when we got to the luggage carousel; 17 days were too much to capture in one carry on. After an initial cluster of bags came down, it was 20 minutes until we saw any more. One blue bag from the first batch circled the carousel five times before there was any other activity.

I was sufficiently calm when I realized that the taxi driver was heading to the Triborough Bridge instead of the QueensBoro Bridge, my objections aside. Our confidence was further diminished when he stopped in the middle of the bridge, jumped out and threw a jar of water over his filthy windshield. So, maybe I wasn’t surprised that our left turn onto Broadway from West 71st Street immediately evoked a police siren. 

One cop asked the driver for license and registration and the other said that he made an illegal U-turn. “He didn’t make a U-turn,” I started to say as that cop gave me the stink eye. Minneapolis came to mind and I shut up. It was close to 1:30 AM when we got upstairs.

Tuesday, January 27, 2016

Angela McArdle, a former chair of the Libertarian Party, argued this weekend that the nation was in crisis mode and that now was not a time for libertarians to stick so strictly to their ideology.

“The threat of mass migration is civilizational,” Ms. McArdle wrote on X on Sunday, adding: “It sucks that ICE shoots people sometimes. If we don’t deport illegal aliens and stop Democrat fraud, we will be Canada in less than 10 years.”

And what’s wrong with that?

Thursday, January 29, 2026

Given the rupture in our relations with our allies, I felt the need to strengthen Anglo-American ties by going to Madison Square Garden with John Mervin for supper at the complimentary Chase Lounge and the Ranger-Islander hockey game. Actually, this could only be a halfway effort, because John himself is Anglo-American, his lovely mother one of ours.

We ate well: “Jarcuterie” - skewers of cheese, salami, grapes; fried zucchini sticks; coconut shrimp; “Original & Chicken Pigs in a Blanket”. Washed down with Diet Pepsi. On the other hand, the game was hard to digest. The Rangers have dumped some of their most talented players and replaced them with Pigs in a Blanket.

.  .  .

Meanwhile, Melania Trump denied that her new documentary was a documentary, describing it instead as “a creative experience that offers perspectives, insights and moments.” Actually, I thought that was a great description of my blog.

Friday, January 30, 2026

We just unpacked and we were on the road again, this time to visit our East Coast contingent.