Rant #3,570: Over and Over

So, did you do your civic duty and vote?

If you did, you did the right thing, no matter who you voted for and who ends up being the winners.

If you didn't, you did not perform your civic duty and you have absolutely no right to say anything about those who won and those who lost.

We won't fully know who won for another day or so, so I will hold off on saying anything about that.

I think I already said enough by not voting for either of the major candidates.

And you know what the best thing about all of this is?

NO MORE POLITICAL COMMERCIALS!!!!!

These commercials were ubiquitous for the past few weeks.

Some were vicious, and others were, to say the least, completely disgusting.

In New York, we had one commercial that came with a disclaimer, both at the beginning and end of this abomination, and let me tell you--

It takes a lot to repulse me, but this particular one did it, and did it good.

Otherwise, these political commercials ran seemingly non-stop, and I am not really talking about the Harris and Trump TV ads, I am more reflecting on the ads touting local races.

I don't know about where you are, but in New York, many of these commercials--which ran incessantly--were vicious.

So happily, we are now free of them--

And we can go back to complaining about the usual TV ads, which are annoying on their own.

I was alerted yesterday afternoon that on Thursday, I have to cover a webinar for work that will look at Election Day and its various implications.

It should be interesting, I guess.

Whatever happens, the country is divided, and this past Election Day will probably show that the divisions remain.

But Election Day is over, thank goodness, and my family and I were full participants in the voting process.

And the winner is--?

As I am writing this, it appears that Trump is on his way back to the White House.

I will have a bit more to say about this tomorrow, but suffice it to say, I am not that surprised at this outcome.

But as they say, "it ain't over 'til it's over," so I will hold off saying anything more until it is officially over.

And good luck to our new president ... he--or she--is going to need it.

Rant #3,569: Do It Again

Happy Election Day!

Don't forget to vote.

It is very important for every citizen to vote, and being that we are voting for our president for the next four years, it is imperative to get out to vote--

No matter who you cast your ballot for.

My family and I voted weeks ago by mail.

Since we moved around the time of the last election, it simply made it easier for us to do it by mail.

I have no idea who my wife and son voted for--but it really doesn't matter--

At least they cast their ballots.

Me, as you know, I wrote in my presidential candidate, because quite honestly, both major party candidates don't do anything at all for me.

But who did I vote for?

Well, I really don't have to tell you ... 

But I will.

I voted for this person because this person was kind of a middle-of-the road candidate when this person was in the race.

No, I did not agree with everything this person said, but this person aligned with a lot that I believe in, more so than Harris and Trump did.

And the interesting thing is that I will bet this person actually garners thousands of votes in this election, voted for by people like myself, true independent voters who can't vote for the two major candidates.

This person is our future, and I will bet this person runs again in 2028--

I voted for ...

NIKKI HALEY

And I hope others did too.

Any vote for her or any other write-in vote is not a wasted vote.

It sends a strong message to the two major candidates that people like me did not support you, and you are going to have to show us how good a commander in chief you are to get our vote the next time, in Harris' case, or, in Trump's case, support the next Republican presidential candidate--if it isn't Haley--the next time around.

And on another topic, yes, I did get a raise--thanks to the "top guy" at the company for green-lighting it!

So there you have it.

Back to the vote ...

And while you are waiting on long lines to vote, please give a look at Chapter 2 of my novel.

Let me know any feelings you have about it.

Vote "Yea" or "Nay," just like in the presidential election.

2

A day or two later, Mrs. Panim, still not fully awake and not quite making out where she was or what happened to her, finally came to, slowly opening up her eyes and trying to focus on what was before her.

She saw two nurses standing before her as her vision slowly came into focus.

“Where am I?” she shouted, nearly jumping out of the bed in doing so.

One of the nurses, a tall, thin woman with long hair neatly tucked under her nurses’ cap, came over to her to get her straightened in the bed while trying to calm her down.

“Everything is fine, everything is good,” said the other nurse, a short, kind of squat older woman with grayish white hair tied up in a bun on her head, as the taller nurse put her arms on Mrs. Panim’s shoulders. “Everything is going to be all right.”

Mrs. Panim finally realized that she was in a hospital.

“Why am I in a hospital?” she shouted to the nurses. “Why am I here? Where is my husband?”

The shorter nurse, who looked very familiar to Mrs. Panim, even in her current state of grogginess, said to her, “You took a great fall at school, and we had to bring you here to get better.”

When the words “get better” came out of the shorter nurse’s mouth, Mrs. Panim put her hands on her belly, and realized that it wasn’t as round or full as it had been.

She panicked. “Where is my baby? What happened to me? Where is my husband?”

The shorter nurse approached Mrs. Panim, and even in her current condition, she could see that the woman had thick legs and a slight limp. As the nurse got closer to the bed, Mrs. Panim tried to make out her nameplate, but only got to “M-E-Y-“ as she tried to gain her composure.

Mrs. Panim continued with that chorus of questions as a tall man in a white coat, Mrs. Panim’s gynecologist, came into the room and approached the bed where she was laying.

“Mrs. Panim, I want to talk to you about why you are here.”

Once she recognized  Dr. Newsom, Mr. Panim thought she might get some answers. “Why am I here? Where is my baby? Where is my husband?” Mrs. Panim continued to shout out, but the doctor put his finger over his mouth to try and get her to stop shouting and to listen to what he had to say.

When she finally quieted down, Dr. Newsom spoke.

“Mrs. Panim, you had quite a fall at school the other day. The EMTs came as fast as they could, and you were brought here to the hospital, and —“

“Where is my baby?” Mrs., Panim asked again, shrieking out her question.

“Your baby … well, when you fell, it was necessary to force childbirth a little bit … you were almost at term, anyway, and you fell in such a way that we thought that it would be the better situation for both you and your child to be separated.”

“Where is my baby?” Mrs. Panim shrieked again. “Where is my baby and where is my husband?”

“You are a bit … well, you are a bit weak to hold and … well … see the child just yet,” the doctor said, as he put his right hand through the hair on the top of his head like a comb. “You don’t realize that you have been in here a week already, and you are just now coming to.”

“A week? Did I fall on my head? Where is my baby?”

“You fell in kind of a weird way, falling on your face and when the EMTs came, they said your hand was holding its nose in such a way that it kind of … well … it kind of looked like you had smelled something quite unappealing to you and that you were trying to not smell whatever that was.”

Mrs. Panim thought about how she was thinking of cheese when she had fallen, so the whole thing made sense to her as she reached up to her face and for the first time, felt a large swath of bandage on her cheek and nose.

“Mrs. Panim, the nurses took all of your vital signs, and they appear to be OK, but I think I want you to give it another day of rest before you will be able to see your baby.”

“If my vital signs are OK, why can’t I see my baby? I want to see my baby, and I want to see my husband.”

The nurses and the doctor each made a nervous smile as they all looked at each other.

“Mrs. Panim, I would wait a day or two, or maybe even three, before I saw the child,” the doctor said, trying to hold back what appeared to be a nervous chuckle. “It will make the surprise even … I mean the surprise at whether the child is a boy or girl, even … well, even more … um … stupendous!”

“I want to see my child, and I want to see my husband!” Mrs. Panim shouted. “If my vital signs are OK, then why can’t I see the baby? Is the baby sickly or anything like that?”

“Well, no … but Mrs., Panim, please listen to reason … waiting an extra day or two after you haven’t seen the child for so long when you were out isn’t going to spoil the … the um … the pleasure of seeing your child for the first time a day or two from now.”

“If I don’t see my child right away, I am going to speak to my husband, and I will sue you. Do you want to be sued?”

“Well, no, but Mrs. Panim, listen to reason.”

“There is NO reason not to see my baby,” Mrs. Panim said, as she got off the bed, stood up still attached to the IV, and started to unsteadily leave her hospital room.

“Mrs. Panim, wait … Mrs. Panim … Mrs. Panim … !,” the doctor shouted as she pushed him and the nurses aside as she left the room.

“I dare say that that woman might have a heart attack once she sees that kid,” the doctor said, suppressing s short laugh as he looked at the nurses, who continued to have nervous smiles on their faces.

Rant #3,568: While You See a Chance

Thanks for reading the first chapter of my novel.

I will put up succeeding chapters once or twice a week in the coming weeks, and hopefully by then, I will have a better "read" on publishing the novel or not.

I see a chance for the publishing of the novel to finally reach fruition--

And I also took a chance on something else late last week that could affect a lot of things in my life.

After four years of working as a remote worker for an association based in Washington, D.C., I finally asked for a raise.

I have found that it is a bit different--and more unnerving--asking for a raise remotely than it is when you actually work in an office.

When you work in an office, you pretty much know the hierarchy, and the protocol, and who to ask for an increase in your paycheck, whether you work in a large firm or a small one.

When you work remotely, you can't possibly know that type of hierarchy, or who to go to to ask for an increase in your paycheck.

I certainly don't--and an extra level.of anxiety is that I had to email my request in to about five people who I thought could possibly help me.

One already emailed me back, stating that he was not the guy, adding that the president of the association might be the right person.

The president of the association was one of those I emailed, so if he reads his emails, he knows about my request--

And no, I haven't heard from him yet.

In all fairness, I have to give it time.

I remember that in my previous in-person position, I had to remind certain higher-ups several times about my requests, which was not only unnerving, but embarrassing, to say the least.

I also remember one time I was granted a raise right away, only to find in the next paycheck that they had actually lowered my pay.

I brought this mistake up to the powers that were running the company at the time, and they shrugged me off several times, one time telling me "it will have to wait until after Thanksgiving" for them even to take a look at it.

Well, it was finally "after Thanksgiving," and they continued not to acknowledge the mistake, until I gave them the cold shoulder in the office--

And then, they somehow blamed me for their mistake, and it took a few paychecks to not only pay me correctly, but make up for the money they owed me.

I repeat, they blamed me for this ... it is incredible that I lasted nearly a quarter of a century working for people like this, but I did.

So back to 2024 ....I think I deserve a little more in my monthly paycheck. 

I have done some really good work during the psst four years, and let's be honest about it: I need this job as much as some diabetics need insulin, so I am hoping they can bump up my salary a wee bit.

I don't make very much to begin with--maybe a third or perhaps a quarter of what I should be making if I did this full-time--so I don't think my request is out of line.

Let's see what happens.

But I don't think it hurt to ask--

Although in the new world we live in, the way I had to do it made me a bit uncomfortable.

I wonder how other remote workers handle this subject, and if any of you out there have had experience with this task, please let me know.

Rant #3,567: Help!

The stink still stinks, and for the Yankees to play their worst game of the season in a do-or-die World Series game remains unconscionable.

But I, and millions of others Yankees fans, will get over it.

This postseason should be interesting, to say the least, and the fans, and the players, will get over it.

As far as myself, I simply shut the TV off after the final out was recorded, and went right to sleep, so I didn't think about it until the next day, but honestly, I have more important things to think about--

Like what to do with my long-dormant novel.

As followers of this blog already know, I wrote this fiction work during about the first six months of my five-year ordeal when I lost my job, and I tried to get it published, which during the pandemic, was even more difficult than trying to find a job.

I pretty much put the novel in my rear-view mirror, and moved on.

It wasn't completely out of my mindset, but I just put it way back in my brain.

Then a few weeks ago, I discovered another publishing house, and they seemed to be interested.

I spoke with the company president yesterday, and everything she said made sense.

She wants me to canvass my blog readers and my followers on Facebook to try to see what interest there is in the book, and thus, if we should proceed on with getting the book published.

So after speaking with her, I put up the first chapter on Facebook, and let's see how it goes.

And I am putting that first chapter up for my blog readers here to look over.

The novel.is geared toward young adult readers, and it is pretty much G-rated.

Please, let me know what you think

Here it is.

Have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.

Rat Face

(The Strange Tale of Abraham Lincoln Panim)

1

Abraham Lincoln Panim came into this world like any other baby. He was created with love, and love is what he got as he matured in his mother’s stomach.

His mom, Diana Panim, a petite, 30-something English teacher at a local high school with perfectly styled brown hair and a bent for the latest clothing styles, wanted her child—whether it was a boy or a girl—to have a better childhood than she had.

She never knew her mother and father, and was given up for adoption at birth for reasons she never knew. She went from one foster home to another, but never had a permanent place to call home. She never believed in herself, but others did, and as she became older she had many mentors that helped guide her into adulthood.

She often said that if she ever had her own child, things would be different, much different, and now, being of child, she could prove that.

Mrs. Panim grew larger and larger as the days went into months, and her pregnancy was a normal one. Except that every once in a while, whenever she ate cheese, or anything with cheese on it or in it or related to it, she would get a swift kick from the inside of her ever-bulging tummy. Even if she viewed a piece of cheese or even thought about cheese, she would get swift kicks in her stomach that made her sick.

She loved to eat cheese, and before she was with child, she ate cheese each and every day, and remembered doing so from the earliest memories of her life to now.

“This kid is at it again,” she thought one day as she got a swift kick, “he is giving me agita even before he gets here.”

Her husband, Marcus Panim, a struggling writer who was short in stature as well as he was in prestige, and who worked at a local publishing house writing for trade books about subjects he wasn’t really interested in, shrugged off all of this.

Putting his hands on his hairless head, he would tell his wife in such instances, “He is even a strong boy even now,” presupposing the gender of their soon-to-come child. “I guarantee that he is going to be a football player, or something where he can use his strength. And I will bet that he will make plenty of money.

"And remember, we agreed that I would name him. Any boy with such strength needs a strong name.”

Mr. Panim repeatedly told his wife that he knew their child would be a boy because he had a lucky penny, flipped it in the air, and if the coin landed on heads, the child was going to be a boy, if it landed on tails, the child was going to be a girl.

It landed on heads.

Mrs. Panim continued to feel the intense kicking every time she ate cheese throughout the nine months of her pregnancy, and nothing that she did could stop it.

“Doctor, I always get this kicking in my stomach whenever I eat or smell or am near cheese,” she said to her gynecologist, Dr. Newsom, a tall, willowy sort with nicely parted hair. “It doesn’t matter if it is American cheese, Muenster cheese, Mozzarella cheese, even cream cheese ... I get kicked inside to the point where I think the baby is going to kick itself out of my stomach.”

“Then don’t eat cheese,” the doctor told her, with a broad smile on his face. “Stay away from the cheese.”

But I love cheese,” Mrs. Panim replied. “I think I have eaten some type of cheese each and every day of my life.”

“Well now, you can’t eat cheese,” the doctor responded. “NO MORE CHEESE UNTIL THAT BABY COMES OUT OF YOU.”

This made Mrs. Panim upset, but her husband tried to console her.

“So you don’t need to eat cheese anymore, at least until the boy is born,” he said, again assuming the gender of their soon-to-come child. “What is the big deal? Just don’t eat cheese for now, you can go back to it after the baby is born.”

“But I love cheese,” said told her husband. “Why does this kid kick me so hard when I eat cheese, even when I am near cheese, or even when I think of cheese?”

"He is showing you how strong he is,” her husband stated. “NO MORE CHEESE!”

Mrs. Panim accepted this declaration by her doctor and her husband, but she felt very bewildered at the notion that not only could she not eat cheese until after her baby was born, but that they baby she carried, that she helped create, would make her feel so uncomfortable when she ate a piece of cheese, any cheese.

She asked around among her friends who were either pregnant or had been pregnant about their pregnancies, and the odd occurrences they had when they were with child.

“No, not with cheese,” said a fellow female English teacher at the school where Mrs. Panim was a teacher, during lunch in the teacher’s room. “But every time I would have pickles and pasta, I would get really bad gas. I would eat them together, a nice bowl of pasta with pickle pieces all over it. I would wash it down with milk, and boy, did I get a lot of gas. But it is something I craved, so I ate it anyway.”

The other teachers around them laughed, but Mrs. Panim looked bemused as the woman went on.

“ ... heck, I could have filled up my tank with all the gas I had,” her teacher friend said, guffawing at her own joke as he sloshed a pickle into her mouth. “And every once in a while I still get a craving for milk and pasta and pickles.”

Mrs. Panim managed a weak smile, was cordial to her friend, but knew this problem was something much larger than what her fellow teacher had said to her about her own pregnancy problems. She even felt some stirrings in her stomach when she tried not to think about cheese, and true to form, as she walked back to her empty classroom in between periods, she got another swift kick, and another, and then one more, the strength of which sent her reeling to the ground in agony.

"Mrs. Panim, are you OK?” nervously asked a student who saw her fall and rushed to her side, along with dozens of other students.

With seemingly the entire student body circling Mrs. Panim, within minutes, medics soon arrived.

Mrs. Panim had completely blacked out when she fell, and was rushed to the hospital as students and teachers followed the medics and the gurney that they had placed her on right outside the front door of the school.

(More to follow. Comments and criticisms are welcome.)

Rant #3,566: Running Scared

Today, it is Halloween.

Boo!

It is really "boo hoo" because this day isn't what it used to be.

In our old house, no kids came to our door for a couple of years, the final years we lived there.

Now, in our apartment in a 55-and-over community, I seriously doubt anyone will come to our door, even though there are a few younger kids who live here.

No, it just isn't the same.

Halloween is just another day on the calendar.

But that does not mean that I don't have great memories about when Halloween was a REAL holiday, for kids like me, way back when.

To get into the Halloween spirit, I decided to watch one of my favorite Little Rascals/Our Gang shorts, one that doesn't really have anything to do with Halloween--but scared me pretty badly as a little kid.

"Little Sinner," a 20-minute short from 1935, is one of the series shorts that used to be shown on TV in the 1950s and 1960s, and then beginning in the late 1960s, it became one of the "banned" shorts, due to its content.

But when I saw it as a very little kid, I was scared out of my pants with everything going on ... but as I got older, I just laughed and laughed at all the goings on, and still do.

In this short, it is Sunday, and that means it is a day for the Gang to go to church (even Jerry Tucker, one of the few real-life Jewish Gang-sters, but that's another story for another time).

All the Gang--Alfalfa, Jerry, the kid who later became "Woim"--are at the church, but where's Spanky?

He is with the still-androgynous Buckwheat and Spanky's "new" little brother, Porky, and he is playing with a new fishing rod, telling the younger kids that even though it was Sunday, he was going fishing.

He shows up at the church to show his face to the pastor, hiding his fishing rod in his clothes and telling the pastor he has "rheumatism" to cover for his awkward walk.

As the pastor goes into the church, the Gang tells Spanky that if he doesn't go to church on Sunday, "Something is going to happen to you!"

Spanky runs away as the other kids enter the church, and goes with Buckwheat and Porky to some local pond, where the trio invariably gets kicked out by its caretaker.

The trio wander around in the forest, and with the skies dsrkening during an eclipse, meet up with a Baptist church congregation doing a baptism ceremony in another body of water.

The hooting, hollering and screaming scare Spanky and the others to the point that they run back to the church, pursued by a white sheet that came from the baptism that they think is a ghost.

They arrive when the church service is over, and Spanky learns a scary lesson about going to church every Sunday morning.

That is a brief synopsis of the plot, but the scariest part of the episode--and why it was not shown for many years--revolves around the baptism.

This is a baptism made by a black church congregation, and you see every stereotype possible in these scenes, from the Steppin' Fetchit nature of the black actors with speaking parts all the way through to the actual baptism, where the actor being dunked in the water hoots and hollers more like he is possessed and is part of an exorcism rather than a baptism.

And the big, saucer eyes of Buckwheat are in full display here, as are his dreadlocks, which rise in the air because he is so scared.

Sure, this thing is as full.of stereotypes as can be, but it is so funny to see the kids' reactions to something that they can't possibly understand.

I just laugh and laugh at this, because it is really funny.

But the baptism itself is pretty scary, and I can see why as a kid, I was scared when the guy getting dunked starts yelling and screaming.

And with all that is going on, you can see why the short wasn't shown for many years.

But watching it as an adult, and watching it nearly 90 years after it first came out, you can see how well done this short actually is, and you go with it from beginning to end.

So that is how I prepared for Halloween, a holiday thst today reflects our times just like Halloween reflected our times when I was a kid.

I loved Halloween when I was a kid, but I don't really love it much now.

But go watch "Little Sinner" ... not a Halloween short per se, but it just might give you the creeps--

While you laugh and laugh and laugh some more.

https://youtu.be/5wSQMNw3KZ8?si=h02czMK6GPDkHMS1

And as for the Yankees ... Halloween came a day early for them.

No treats, just tricks.

"Boo hoo" is right.

Rant #3,565: Desperate, But Not Serious

Oy!

The Yankees were on the verge of being swept by the Dodgers in the World Series, and I wasn't too happy about it.

No team in the history of Major Leagie Baseball has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win the World Series, but I had to think that there was a first time for everything--

And why not the Yankees? 

Heck, I even had my rally cap all prepared, even though i feared that if I turned the hat inside out, I wouldn't be able to get the hat back to its original perfection, but those fears were unfounded.

The hat still looks like it went through World War III, and as I have said, it has served me well during the past 50 years or so.

Heck, I'm 67 years old, and I may be battered and worn, but I am not ready to hang it up.

The hat is only 50 years old, so I have 17 years on it.

It will be fine.

Baseball is 162 games in 180 days, and then you extend it out to the playoffs and World Series, and you can understand why there are so many ups and downs during this period.

Yesterday was actually the first anniversary of my first injury, when I tore my left leg's quad muscle after falling down two stairs in our old house ...

So I know all too well about ups and downs and how things can change in a millisecond.

No matter what happens, I, personally, am physically better off than I was a year ago, when I didn't know what the future held for me--

And who knew that I would soon injure myself again in another freak accident.

If I can get through all that--and still be in one piece--I can get through anything.

And yes, four in a row is a possibility.

Why not?

The Yankees won last night, so again, why not?

And my rally cap, evidently, still has some magic in it.

One down, three to go.

Rant #3,564: Music, Music, Music

Monday was one of the least busy weekdays I have had in some time.

I had some work to do, did it, and as I said in yesterday's Rant, I didn't use my car at all, and it is still legally parked in a handicapped spot 

So I watched more TV than I usually do, did my exercises, including two walks back and forth to our mailbox--which is in a separate building in the complex where we live--and pretty much didn't do too much else.

I did digitize a few records in my collection, and that is always fun, and it eats up plenty of time, in yesterday's case, about two hours.

I record all of this music, put it on a thumb drive, and VOILA!, I have some great music to listen to while driving.

But it isn't just digitizing these records ...

I save the music to several different folders on my computer, so it takes some time with each song I do to complete a recording and move onto another one.

I have been digitizing my records for about 15 years or so, so I have thousands of songs in the MP3 format stored away ...

And the great thing is that I can probably go 15 more years and not be even nearly finished in digitizing everything that I have on vinyl records, LPs and 45s.

Yesterday, I was digitizing a couple of my singles, and it struck me, maybe for the first time, how much time has elapsed since these records came out and where we are in the current time.

I wasn't even digitizing my older records yesterday, doing some from the 1970s and 1980s, but it just struck me about the time ... heck, these records are over 40 years old!

I bought these particular records myself when they originally were out, and they say that your record collection defines who you are, and who you were when those records were originally released, and the singles I digitized yesterday certainly define me, back then, and now.

Meat Loaf's "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" is the perfect record to digitize right now, what with the World Series currenty in the spotlight.

However, while it was a huge radio song way back in 1977, it was not much of a hit on the Hot 100.

It is the only song that I like from the artist, and I guess, back in 1977, it was a must have for me, because Yankees broadcaster and Hall of Famer Phil Rizzuto is on the record, doing a play by play of ... well, if you know the song, you know it was about something other than our national pastime.

I guess the giggly factor was there for me at 20 years old when it came out, and I really cannot believe this song came out 47 years ago.

I did a few other records, including two from Men At Work, both from the early 80s.

"Who Can It Be Now" and "Overkill" were huge hits in 1982 and 1983, and I remember that I waited on line for a few hours at Jones Beach to try to buy tickets to see them in concert, but I ended up leaving because there was no way I was getting a ticket with the line as long as it was.

But those songs were all over the radio more than 40 years ago ... I was in my mid 20s, and I really liked the Australian band Men At Work.

More than 40 years have elapsed? I can't believe it!

Listening to the Meat Loaf and Men At Work in 2024, I have to say that the music is still good, still fun, and still very enjoyable to my ears.

I can't wait for the experience of listening to the music in my car, where I have always believed that you get the best listening experience.

But listening to songs from 1977 and the early 1980s in 2024 is a fun, an interesting thing to do, and gives me a window into where I was mentally and emotionally way back when.

Listening to music from 40, 50, 60 years ago is one of the few ways you can time travel, without leaving the present day.

Where have all the years gone?

And why was the music so much better back then than it is now?