The Value Proposition (part 3): The Land of Enchantment

Some of the fun of all this nonsense in Albany is trying to make sense of what everyone’s saying. After all, there’s nothing like a paper trail, or audio trail, to keep things on the up and up.

One of the comments I thought was interesting in the press release from Dean Skelos, the new Vice President Pro Tem and Majority Leader of the Senate and its new Bipartisan Caucus For Our Future (BiCauFoF) was the note that they’re not in this thing alone. Other states, including New Mexico, Alaska, Texas and Tennessee, are going the bipartisan route. So, just for fun, I decided to see what I could find out about these other legislatures.

First up was Alaska. They’ve had a coalition-governed Senate since 2006, when some Republicans joined with the Democrats. The President (Republican) and Senate Majority Leader (Democrat) are both members of the coalition, and the Minority Leader (Republican) is not. Interestingly, instead of only two rogues, Alaska looks to be much more of a coalition than what we’re passing off in Albany.

I couldn’t find a lot of details on how Texas is like NY’s new BiCauFoF but I did find information pointing to the recent successful session, including a balanced budget, increased funding for education, and tax cuts for small businesses. Admittedly this is likely a somewhat biased take on things, since it came out of the body that’s getting its collective back patted. Here’s another take on it, including reader comments expressing fears of Texas being “the laughing stock of the nation.” Rest assured, Lone Star Staters, that honor will be ours, I can promise you.

New Mexico proved to be much more interesting and very different from what we're used to here. My Sweet Baboo and I have actually been to the Round House (pictured above), the home of the New Mexico State Legislature, in Sante Fe. Not only is the building different, everything is different. Here's a little comparison between the Land of Enchantment and The Empire State. Much of this information comes from The National Conference of State Legislatures.

Legislator Salary:
New Mexico: $0
New York: $79,500 base, plus committee lulu

Per diem for showing up to work:
New Mexico: $144
New York: yep, they get one of those, too, in addition to the salary & lulu

Length of legislative session:
New Mexico: 60 days in odd-numbered years; 30 days in even-numbered years
New York: started this year on January 7th; scheduled to end soon (we can only hope)

Number of members in the Legislature:
New Mexico: 112
New York: 212

Here’s what they accomplished in New Mexico: cut spending in all state agencies, transferred money from other funds into the general fund, and closed a $454 million budget deficit for this year. Then, they balanced the new fiscal year budget through federal stimulus money and legislative restraint – something pretty much unheard of around here. And they passed a little bit of ethics reform, including limiting campaign contributions and opening critical committees to the public.

So what can we learn from all of this? Clearly New Mexico and New York are vastly different in terms of size, population, and issues. What the Legistatures should have in common, thought, is putting the best interests of the State first, then their own constituent interests somewhere further down the line, and at the very end of the line, their own self-serving interests.

This doesn't seem like too much to ask. And it doesn't seem to be the kind of thing that requires some manufactured 'majority rule' to make it happen.

A Perfect Weekend

I'm not at all sure what they were doing in Albany yesterday and today - probably working on the Bipartisan Caucus For Our Future (BiCauFoF), or at least working on Hiram what's his name (the one with the slashing charge hanging over his head) to make sure he stays in the fold. Last seen, he was walking out of the Senate leaving the BiCauFoF behind and the new reform majority in doubt.

My Sweet Baboo and I, on the other hand, spent two days in the garden and while we are exhausted, the fruits of our labor are clearly visible. Pruning, transplanting, weeding, mulching, watering, fencing (more him than me) putting a few last perennials, and getting the lawn mowed were our priorities.

We have roses, poppies, grasses, dianthus, coleus, geum, guara, coral bells, coreopsis, geraniums, sedums, spirea, peonies, brooms, flax, butterfly weeds, lilies, alliums, lavender, coneflowers, lupines, irises, spiderwort, red hot pokers, yarrow, bee balm, potentilla, veronica, salvia, poppy mallow, evening primrose, ferns, hostas, clematis, artemesia, yarrow, hollyhock, daisies, and I don't know what all else either here, on the way, or just winding down.

Here are the latest photos -- enjoy!

The Value Proposition (part 2): Sanctimony

Most voting-age New Yorkers, regardless of their politics, can identify with Sanctimony and his cousins Self-righteousness, Pomposity, and Hypocrisy. Sadly, we can do this because we’re so darn familiar with all of them coming to visit us from Albany, our capital and the home of America’s most dysfunctional state legislature. The Brennan Center report has been updated since it was originally issued in 2004, but sadly the performance of our Legislature has not. To wit, we have this week’s antics.

On Monday, two ethically challenged Democrats joined with the Republican minority to seize the State Senate and craft what’s being referred to as a bipartisan coalition. One of them is under investigation for campaign finance issues, possible misuse of taxpayer money, and he may not even live in the district he represents. There are additional issues with his proposed ‘member items’ and the fact that they were not approved by the party leadership, making him ripe for jumping to the other side. The other allegedly slashed his girlfriend’s face in an argument (although she says it was an accident). The fact that the two Dems were previously objects of derision by their new-found Republican friends (some even called for their resignation) apparently doesn’t matter when the value proposition is based on ‘what’s good for me must be good for New York’.

Another key player in the coup was the billionaire Thomas Golisano. Noted for his many significant charitable contributions as well as his unsuccessful political career, Golisano recently announced he was moving to Florida to save almost $14,000 a day in taxes. As a former New Yorker (and long-time backer of reform) he was frustrated with the lack of action on the part of the Dems he supported, as well as apparently miffed by a Crackberry in the hands of the Majority leader.

A non-player in all of this is our Accidental Governor, who has no choice but to sit back and hope that all of the dust settles, and quickly, so that the ctirical business of New York State can continue. He’ll be staying put in Albany until this all gets straightened out, since one result of the coup is a new lack of clarity around succession. Normally it would be the lieutenant governor, but he's currently the Governor because of the whole Client #9 mess. Next in line would be the president of the Senate, but now we don't know for sure who that is. Hope the Gov didn't have plans for the weekend.

So, with all of this nonsense, why do I think this value proposition is sanctimony? Let me count the ways.

1. The Republicans had control of the Senate for decades and failed to introduce any meaningful reform; the chances that they will do so now, and the emphasis is on meaningful reform, is slim given that it’s basically the same cast of incumbents, including our local Senator for Life who had the honor of swearing in part of the new leadership.


2. The new rules they released are hardly as bipartisan as they pretend, and hardly as fair as they pretend. For example, just about everything in the rules that refers to the minority party indicates that it will be ‘no less than 33%’. I think I saw only one mention stating anything about proportional distribution based on representation. Wouldn’t it have been nice to see something like 50-50? 51-49? Even 60-40? We’ve clearly seen that ‘majority rules’, regardless of party, doesn’t work for us; it controls (and by nature limits) debate, it discourages consensus, and it promotes retaliation against the dissenters. Just ask Mike Bragman.


3. They are professing that this coup is also about Latino empowerment, because of the ethnic background of the rogues. Sadly, I believe that’s merely a convenient accident, rather than a goal, of this new coalition. Two possibly indictable goofballs do not an empowered movement make. Latinos must demand better. We all should demand better.


4. While they do look to install term limits on the leadership and committee positions, there’s no mention of term limits as a whole. So, it looks like a coalition member can chair one committee for eight years – then chair another committee for eight years, and so on. Not seeing this as real reform; seems more like shuffling (and stacking) the deck – in other words, more of the same.


5. There’s been a complete lack of sincerity coming out of any of the players in the time since the coup; rather, it’s been a gloating, gleeful, chest-thumping noise that detracts from the professed goals.

Do I hope that eventually, somehow, we manage to get off the top of the Brennan Center list? Sure – all New Yorkers do. Would I express the same opinions if the shoe was on the other foot, and the Dems had coerced a couple of rogue Republicans to play Red Rover? Sure – because I doubt the sincerity of any of them.

I have a friend who uses the phrase ‘noodling around’ to describe the process of digging around, determining magnitude or root cause, or just doing some thinking on something. I don’t pretend for a minute that I have the intellectual wherewithal to figure this mess out – but I do have time, while we wait for the coalition to coalesce, to do some noodling around on some of the comments that have been coming out of Albany in the past couple of days. Next up: New Mexico…

The Value Proposition, Part 1

We had a seminar at work this past week, one in a continuing series of ‘Reality Training’ sessions led by some consultants we’ve been working with for the past few years. Like many companies, we rely on consultants to help us do things we know we should do, or may already have tried to do (but without success). Sometimes the added oomph of an outside expert is enough to tip the scales in success’s favor, I guess- I’m not sure. Either way, we individually engage fully with the consultants that the company has engaged en masse. I try to have fun and learn something from these engagements.

The ones who did our session on Wednesday are helping us transition from being ‘managers’ to being ‘leaders’, helping to change the company from the inside at the same time we manage to change the company on the outside for our customers. This is a lofty goal, of course – and one which they think we’re doing well at, which is good for the long term survival of our company and (hopefully) my continued employment.

One of the things we got to talking about in our session is customer service. It’s a cornerstone of our industry – we have call centers across upstate New York. At our place, another of our lofty goals is to offer ‘best in class’ Customer Service. That’s not the official name of it, but you get the picture. Customer Service (with capital letters) is all about the value proposition for each customer.

Pretend that I'm typical. As a consumer, I expect a great, if not invisible, experience in all of my interactions with my ‘partners’. My partners are my banks, my grocery stores, my hair and nail salons, my online shopping emporiums, and so on. For me, a great experience includes a few key components:

• I don’t want to have a problem doing whatever it is I’m trying to accomplish.
• I want to be able to self-serve as much as possible.
• I should be able to engage with my partners when it’s convenient for me (not just for them). Clearly there are exceptions, such as a wine tasting, for example, but generally I want to do things on my terms at my convenience.
• I really don’t want to have to ask anyone to fix something, because that means the first two bullets haven’t been met and those are the most critical for me.
• When I do need assistance I want the call, email exchange, or personal encounter to be friendly, helpful, efficient and complete.

Each customer has a different value proposition. Some people want to call every time they have a question; some want to call simply to rant and rave if something goes wrong; some (like me) never want to call at all. Clearly, the ‘value proposition’ for me is having everything either be perfect, be as close to perfect as possible, or at least close enough so I can live with it, otherwise I’m off finding a new place to do business. Happily, the vast majority of my customer experiences have been very positive; in fact, the majority of them are, otherwise I’d vote with my feet (or fingers) and find some new partners.

For a company like mine, learning all of the ins and outs of the value proposition, and managing those expectations, is a complex challenge, but one that’s critical if we’re to succeed. The same holds true for any business, and it also holds true in politics, whether on the local, state, national, or world stage. Not surprisingly, I have some thoughts on that…

Garden Therapy

My apologies - I've been neglecting you... and myself. My writing has taken a back seat for the past couple of weeks to my 'other therapy' - garden therapy.

As I mentioned back in February, both MSB and I spend the winter devouring catalogs from our favorite plant places, and then we separately place our orders for new perennials to fill in the gaps in our existing gardens, or to populate the new beds we simply must have. Then, spring comes, the boxes start arriving (much to the chagrin of the UPS and FedEx drivers). Typically we get the plants either while we're on vacation, or just when we return, and we have a flurry of activity trying to get everything sorted, watered and reconditioned after shipping, and then in the ground as quickly as reasonably possible.

Both of us had new beds to put in this year. I started mine on our last day of vacation, when it ended up being 92 degrees. That is not the best weather to dig a new garden, trust me - especially a bed for sun-loving perennials, and one that required removing roots the size of my arm and as long as my leg. By the time it was all dug, turned, and ready for planting, I was still waiting for plants. For almost two weeks, the garden sat there in anticipation, waiting for something to happen other than a constant bombardment with maple tree 'helicopters'. Eventually, everything arrived; we made a few side trips to local plant shops, and I had enough little ones in the garden to feel comfortable. Down went the mulch. And out came the sun. And more sun, and more sun.

Evenings when I would have been writing, or at least thinking about writing, were spent watering - carefully and conservatively, of course - so that all my hard work wouldn't go to waste. Fortunately, my new mini roses, scabiosa, dwarf delphiniums, geraniums, verbascum, and all the rest, are doing well - and of course we've just had several days of rain, so they're actually coming along nicely.

So are the other gardens. The new daffs were great this year, all 300+ of them; the tulips were pretty good considering they're a few years old and not as prolific as when they're new; and now the roses and lavender have buds, the salvia is blooming, and of course, it's iris season too. Seemed like as soon as I changed from the tulip porch flag to the iris one, I triggered the blooms.

Even with all the rain we've had, they're holding up pretty well. Hopefully you'll understand where I've been, and I'll be able to get back on track with the pastiche.

Sue

Charitable Giving

I got mail today from our local United Way, letting me know I was now a ‘Diamond Donor’. Apparently, I’ve been donating to the United Way for over 25 years. I had no idea.

I’ll never forget my first United Way campaign. I was a kid, home from college with my tail between my legs, living at home and grossing $140 a week working as a microfilmer at the headquarters of a local industrial laundry. The owner of the company, a self-made man, had a heart of gold from a charitable perspective, but lacked virtually all humanity as an employer. My favorite example was when he issued a memo to staff advising us that there were 168 hours in week (who knew?!) and frankly, if it took all of them for us to do our job, so be it – but we shouldn’t expect anything more in our paychecks. He once asked one of the VPs to fire an accountant because the accountant failed to deliver a necktie to the boss at his summer home in Massachusetts, causing the boss to have to wear for the second time a tie he’d already worn once to a charity event.

At the time, UW used to provide companies with a short movie that showed how our donations were used in the local community. As this was my first job, I didn’t know what to expect, but one of the accountants caught me beforehand and let me know that there was no talking during the movie, or there would be hell to pay. Well, sure enough – there was talking, and there was hell to pay. We had made it about half-way through, and someone in the back started talking, or snickering at something on the screen. A glare came from the front of the room, but the talking did not stop.

What did stop was the movie. So there we were -- us from the ‘upstairs office’, people from the plant office, and factory workers and truck drivers – standing in the dark, no one saying a word, afraid to move. We looked like a bunch of kids, waiting to get yelled at, staring at our toes. When it was completely quiet, somehow the old man gave the signal without saying a word, and the projector sprang to life. We were back at the beginning of the movie, and watched the entire thing through to the end without a peep.

The lights were turned on, the pledge cards distributed, and once we had marked our cards with our donation, we were allowed to go back to work. When it came to the United Way at that company, there was really no option other than giving. I know we had a choice – everyone has a choice – but at the time the choice wasn’t give or not, it was how much to give. I remember one woman did not want to donate (for valid personal reasons) and she had to meet with her boss, then his boss, then his boss and finally the executive vice president to explain herself. She didn’t stick with the company very long.

Donating has been significantly less memorable since way back in 1978 when I gave the first time. I’ve missed a few years in between – job changes and whatnot – but I’m still surprised that when it’s all added up, it’s over 25 years. Like gray hairs, I guess -- after the first memorable few, you just don’t pay as much attention to them anymore.

Speaking of which, it’s time for me to make a hair appointment!

Sue

Blue Ridge Memories, Part 3

Our house in the Valley was built in about 1905. Biltmore opened in 1895. We have multiple gardens. Biltmore has multiple gardens. And that’s about where the similarities end.

Biltmore, one of the homes of George Washington Vanderbilt, is a 250+ room mansion set on 8000 acres just outside the city of Asheville. According to the guide we had on our carriage ride, there were some 600 individual land purchases just in the Asheville area, and who knows how many others were required to amass the original 125,000 acres that made up the estate back in the day.

It’s hard to put the house into perspective; it’s so vast, and so imposing from the outside, and yet inside some of the rooms actually seem to normal scale, if that’s possible. Some are ornate, some are simple; some clearly feel as if they were well-lived in, and others look like they’re only for show. There’s a huge triple fireplace in the dining room, with a small table (for ten or so) set up in front of the fireplace for intimate family dinners, and a huge dining room table that seats 66 people in the main part of the room, along with a multi-story pipe organ at the other end. By comparison, when we have both families over for Thanksgiving, we have to use two rooms and borrow chairs from Mare and John. And we listen to the stereo in the living room.

We have the plantatarium, a room with generally southern exposure that’s filled with rattan furniture, lots of plants, and a cool ceiling fan with wooden blades shaped like leaves. Biltmore has the Winter Garden, my favorite room in the house, a glorious sunken room with a glass-and-wood ceiling to die for, sculpture, and huge plants. The room overflows with warmth and happiness; I don’t know any other way to describe it.

The basement is another great part of the house – swimming pool, bowling alley, the kitchens and laundry rooms – pretty cool to see all of that. But for us, the piece de resistance was the roof tour. Four stories up, high above all of the visitors; patting gargoyles on the fanny for luck; looking down on the Winter Garden room; checking out the servant’s quarters and some of the unrefurbished rooms, and getting to check out all of the craftsmanship in the house was amazing. The view is indescribable.

More pictures. Sadly, we were not allowed to take any inside – and the bulk of my house and surrounds shots were on the 35 not the digital, so these are mostly from the roof tour. Enjoy!

Sue

Blue Ridge Memories, Part 2

I’ve never been one of those people who had to retire near the ocean. Don’t get me wrong, I love an ocean beach as much as anyone, primarily when it’s early in the morning, the sun just coming up and the sand littered with shells that washed in with the tide. My second most favorite time on the beach is at sunset, watching the day slide away beneath the water in the same way that I snuggle into the covers at night.

My Sweet Baboo feels the same as I do about that. Can’t decide if our similar thinking is simply good fortune, or by design, but if we were going to retire somewhere other than here in the Valley, it would more likely be near some mountains not a beach. And the Blue Ridge Mountains are simply breathtaking.

We spent a little time wandering around the mountains one day, including a stop to Chimney Rock Park (CRP), above Lake Lure. People have been able to get to the top of Chimney Rock since 1885, although things are much more modern now than they were then. For starters, there’s a 30-second elevator ride that takes you 28 stories up so you can get to the actual Chimney Rock, or you can hike and climb stairs to get there. There’s also a beautiful trail that leads to the 400+ foot Hickory Nut Falls. Interestingly, part of The Last of the Mohicans was filmed here, even though the action actually took place in New York. For some reason the movie folks thought the Blue Ridge Mountains most closely resembled the Adirondacks. Hmm…

After spending quite a bit of time at CRP, we headed north and ended up on Route 80. Let me tell you, when I said that I thought Alternate Route 74 into Lake Lure was like our Thirteen Curves on steroids, I hadn’t yet seen Route 80. To continue with the steroid analogy, think the difference between A-Rod (Alt 74) and Barry Bonds or Mark McGuire (Rte 80). My vertigo was working in overdrive on this trip. The photo at the beginning of this post shows just one of the switchbacks (look for the road signs on the left and right about a third of the way from the top of the picture) and it seemed like we were on over 100 of these things during the day, between Route 80 and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

So where did we end up on this day? Well, we drove just about to the summit of Mount Mitchell, the tallest mountain in NC and the highest peak in eastern North America, other than some islands. At 6643 feet it’s taller by quite a bit than NY’s Mt Marcy (5343 feet) but getting to the top is an easy drive. We would have gone all the way up, if we had wanted to, but I found a bathroom before we got to the summit. Besides, the clouds were so thick at the top that we could barely see more than a couple feet in front of us. Maybe next time we’ll get to the new observation deck.

Here are some shots from the mountains. Enjoy!

Sue

Blue Ridge Memories, Part 1

My Sweet Baboo and I just returned from a week in the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, spending our nights at two very different (and wonderful) bed & breakfasts, and our days exploring the Asheville area.

We've been to the ocean part of North Carolina - that was our first vacation, the 'test', if you will, where he and I spent the week with most of his family in a rented house on Sunset Beach. Figured if we could make it through that without committing murder or mayhem, we'd probably be OK.

This trip marked our ninth out of state vacation, and we love getting away from work and stress and exploring places we've not been to before, or at least places we've not been to together. For me, this was my first visit to the Blue Ridge Mountains; MSB had been in the general neighborhood before. We had a full visit, and between us we took about 30 rolls of film and too many digital pictures to count. I'll be putting out some of the digital shots over the next couple of days.

Here's the first collection, taken in the Lake Lure NC area. You may have heard of Lake Lure -- it's the home of the 2006 HGTV Dream House (currently empty, we were told) and the site where the beach shots in the movie Dirty Dancing were filmed. The lake is beautiful, with around 2000 mostly seasonal homes surrounding it, including one where the owners allegedly bring in white sand from Florida for the beach in front of their estate. Two of the original camps are still on the lake, each of which is something in the neighborhood of about 600 square feet. The largest house (so far) on the lake is 12,000 square feet. Clearly, the definition of 'camp' has changed over the years!

One of the best parts of the side trip to Lake Lure is how we got there -- on Alternate Route 74, which is like our local Thirteen Curves on steroids -- there aren't thirteen curves, there are about one hundred thirty curves on the way into town. Rocking, rolling, greater than 90 degree curves, with drop offs or mountains about an inch off the road, or so it seemed to me. For My Sweet Baboo, this was a good thing - he was having a blast trying to keep it under 60 MPH (kidding) with a marked speed of 15 MPH (not kidding). For me, less of a good thing, as I have developed a bit of vertigo since I had LASIK surgery a couple years back. I think it's the enhanced peripheral vision or something, but I don't enjoy that kind of drive quite as much as I used to. Fortunately, we stopped in town so I could catch my breath, and that's how we discovered the tour boat, which led to a great interlude and a wonderful start to the vacation.

Enjoy the pictures!

Sue

Would You Like Some Food With That Wine?

The new budget passed by New York State's  elected representatives (and I use that term loosely) during one of their per diem trips to Albany did not include allowing grocery stores to sell wine. 

I think this is nuts, frankly, particularly in light of the fact that there are literally hundreds of wineries in New York, some big and many not so big, who could have benefited from the opportunity of having their products sold in thousands of outlets – again, some big and many not so big – who also could have had the opportunity to improve their bottom line as a result. 

There are competing opinions on this, of course. Wegmans, an award-winning regional grocery chain, came out strongly in favor and encouraged their patrons to do the same. Mom and Pop liquor stores came out against, and encouraged their customers to do the same. Politicians took the road most travelled and tabled the whole idea, instead of working to craft legislation that could have benefited both our growing wine industry and the liquor stores, and raised tens of millions for our cash-strapped state. 

I’m not sure we need to be Iowa, where you can buy wines in flower shops, but I think we can do more. I don’t believe we should have given carte blanche and just opened the floodgates and let the wine pour into the grocery stores. And I don't think we need every corner market selling wine -- there has to be a threshold, I think, of what’s considered a grocery store. If three quarters of sales are beer, cigarettes, lottery tickets, and snack foods, I don’t think that should count. Maybe the threshold could be the number of grocery carts – more than 10 you’re a grocery store, less than that you’re not? I don’t know; I think it’s kind of like the Supreme Court and obscenity – you know it when you see it. This holds true for grocery stores, too.

There should have been something in the law that guaranteed a high percentage of the shelf space in the grocery stores - say, 75% - would be devoted to wines produced in New York. This would have given a boost to the NY wine industry, much of which is at the ‘mom and pop’ level, just like the liquor stores. Ideally there would be an educated person who could help a consumer choose wines, and information available throughout the store (in appropriate areas, of course) suggesting food and wine combinations – again with a focus on pairing local foods with local wines. 

 And in fairness, it’s really pretty stupid that a liquor store in New York is not allowed to sell cork screws, glasses, wine glass charms, or a whole host of other accessories that grocery stores now can sell. This too could have been (and still should be) corrected if legislators had done the right thing, rather than running and hiding from an issue that could really be beneficial to wineries, grocery stores, liquor stores, and our state’s financial situation. 

 I’m not impressed with a local group of liquor stores, who protested loud and long that selling more wine would lead to increased alcoholism, DWI problems, mental health issues, and the need for more police to handle all of the above, at great cost to our budget. I complained about these guys in a letter to the editor of our local paper a while back, and I complain to My Sweet Baboo every time I see their full-page ad in the local paper pushing low-priced wine on the unsuspecting public. I don’t begrudge their right to make a living, but I have to laugh at how they contradict their own grave concerns about increased consumption through their attempts to cause exactly that. 

More importantly, in a recent ad, they dangerously advertised “more choices, lower prices” on twenty four wines: eight from California, five each from Italy and Australia/New Zealand, one each from Argentina, Chile, Germany, and Spain. And the other two? Oh, those were the New York wines. I’m pretty sure they can do better than that to support business in New York, particularly when the anti-'wine in grocery stores' trade group is in the middle of a ‘support NY wines’ campaign. 

Somehow, we’ve got to find a way to work together, to do better, to craft legislation so everyone can benefit.

What Were They Thinking?

I haven’t brought myself to read New York’s new budget, but I have read some of the overviews in various media outlets. That probably puts me on a par with most of our elected officials, who likely didn’t have time or courage to read it before they voted on it, and may not have had any reason to read it since it was passed, since there’s little they can do to change it, even if they were so inclined.

Some of the things I’ve read are encouraging. For example, expansion of our bottle bill legislation to include water bottles is a good thing. Walk through any office, down any street, or in any park and you’re sure to see plenty of empty or partially empty discarded bottles lying around; I usually get a couple each week in our front yard. Now, with a nickel deposit on these bottles as well as soda bottles, we’ll not only be helping the environment and the beautification of my yard, but we’ll be providing additional economic stimulus to the folks who collect the empties for cash.

I also support reforming the Rockefeller Drug Laws . When the mandatory minimum sentence for selling drugs is on a par with that of some murder charges, something’s wrong. I have a hard time believing that long-term incarceration, the cost of which we non-drug selling taxpayers have to bear, is more effective than treatment or shorter jail sentences. Some day we can have a conversation about legalization...

School aid is something in the budget (state and federal) that defies comprehension. It seems clear that reform is needed when one district receives an 11.51% increase when another just a few miles down the road gets only 4.58% . This is particularly true when the district receiving the greatest percentage of aid is a suburban one where the average home is worth about $145,000 and the average household income is around $65,000 and the district receiving less aid is the urban one, with an average home value and income of just about 50% of the other district, something like 1500 vacant homes, a deteriorating business district and a very high number of tax-exempt or -reduced properties. Something is wrong with this picture.

It’s particularly more galling when the same State Assembly that passed the budget with school aid disparities such as the one above, also passed a bill barely a week after the budget was approved called the Dignity for All Students Act , designed to provide students "a learning environment free of discrimination". The discrimination referenced in the Act includes the usual suspects – race, religion, color, national origin, and disability – as well as weight, both sex and gender, and sexual orientation. Apparently economic discrimination is not only OK, but government sanctioned.

What were they thinking?

Sue

A More Perfect Union? (part 2)

I didn’t know, when I wrote Part 1 of this series, that I’d be sitting here today wondering if My Sweet Baboo will be going to work Monday, or if he’ll be strolling on a picket line outside his office building instead. His company, a telecommunications giant, apparently is not seeing eye to eye with the union, and things are not looking good for the home team. It’s kind of funny, we met at the car on Friday after work, me with my laptop and work that I brought home to do this weekend, and he with a sparkling white shopping bag with red hand-written lettering on the sides proclaiming in big letters “Strike Prep Bag” and in much smaller letters his union’s initials.

I’ve never been a huge fan of unions in the modern era; I think they had purpose at one time, mostly to help ensure safe working conditions and a decent wage. What I don’t like about them conceptually is that there is no individuality in a union, no way for a good employee to be considered anything other than average and very limited ways for bad employees to be dealt with – they’re just as average as everyone else in terms of their wages, benefits, and prospects for continued employment.

My parents were both union, although neither of them really wanted to be. They were school teachers, and frankly I don’t think either of them ever really felt that unions were good for them, the schools or the kids. I remember them being on union committees not because they were really strong union believers, but because they wanted to lend a sane voice of reason to things like contract negotiations and curriculum planning.

They were both very good teachers, not just in my biased opinion but in the opinions of their peers and their students, and inspirational in many ways to a couple of generations of kids in my hometown. Other people became teachers because of my mom and dad, or volunteers because of them – but I’m pretty sure no one became a union member because of them.

I think I’ve been fortunate that no job I’ve ever had has been a union job. I’ve been evaluated my own merits, and have been rewarded on the basis of my own performance, not based on some contract negotiated by someone who’s never met me, doesn’t know anything about me, and only thinks of me as another contribution to the union coffers and a vote for the incumbent Democrat at every election. Had I been a union member, I would never have had the opportunities I’ve had to do new things, or work with some of the great bosses I’ve worked with over the years.

My non-union company is tightening its belt, just like most other companies are, and this year for the first time I’m going to get exactly the same salary increase as everyone else. I won’t be getting a bonus, because the company’s performance did not meet benchmarks, and frankly we didn’t earn it. We are all paying more for benefits now, and our pension formula has changed for time served after 1/1/2009. In these respects we sound sort of like a union shop, don’t we?

But here’s the kicker. My division, one of the largest in the company, is on record with all employees that we each control our own destiny. No one is guaranteed a job, but everyone knows where they stand, and if someone’s job is in jeopardy, the person knows it, they know why, and they have a specific plan to improve. If the time comes where layoffs are necessary, who stays and who goes isn’t going to be based on length of service, the way it would be in a union, it’s going to be based on a person’s ability and willingness to contribute. We want to keep the best employees, not just any employees.

To me, this is the more perfect union. I don’t have a driver’s license, but this is one driver’s seat I’m glad I’m in.

Sue

Pet Peeve of the Day - April 1, 2009

Happy April Fool’s Day, New York – to celebrate, let’s pass a budget, shall we?

New York has the country’s most dysfunctional legislative body, according to the Brennan Center, and no matter how hard we try, we can’t seem to shake that label.

Reform is promised election cycle after election cycle, and never delivered. In the recent past the reason why we haven’t had reform, according to those who have not been reformers, is because the wrong party had too much control and nothing would get better until that changed. So, old world, there were three men in a room – the Governor and the leaders of the State Senate and Assembly – who came up with a budget, shoved it under everyone’s nose (almost always after the constitutionally-mandated April 1st effective date), and the two houses would vote. Conference committees would ensue and eventually we’d have something that at least remotely resembled a budget.

Fast forward to this year, when the three men are all of the same party, and presumably of the right party (since they’re not the same three men as before) and what happens? Last fall, our Accidental Governor told everyone we were in a crisis and hard decisions had to be made. In December, a harsh budget was put forward for consideration, but apparently not a lot, because in March, the three men go into a room and come up with a different budget, somewhere north of 2500 pages, and present it as a fait accompli, to be thumbs-up’d by the majority in both houses. Sadly, at about $132 million, it's even higher than the one proposed just a few months ago, it relies on short-term stimulus money to delay long-term solutions, and generally doesn’t do much at all to improve our desperate fiscal condition. Lots of fees, lots of taxes, and lots of nonsense.

There was no lack of chest-thumping by the Assembly leadership on their contributions, with sixteen or seventeen press releases in the past two days related to the budget – more than they issued in the entire moth of February. As expected, there’s no lack of squawking by the minority party including one of the locals. His tune on the process is very different now that he's on the short end of the stick.

What this all boils down to is just another version of Albany’s April Fool’s Day joke. It’s certainly not as funny as some of these, but it’s the one we have to live with. And it’s my PPOD for April 1, 2009.

Sue

A More Perfect Union? (part 1)

Folks in my hometown have been battling for the past several weeks as one of our largest employers, and one of the few remaining in the traditional manufacturing sector, prepares to close its local shop.

The employer, Canada’s Magna International, purchased New Process Gear (NPG) a few years ago from the ill-fated DaimlerChrysler, and since that time, they’ve never made a profit at this plant. NPG makes parts that are used on SUVs and trucks, a hard-hit segment of the American auto market. In the old days, NPG, or simply ‘Chrysler’ in the local vernacular, was a huge deal – well over 3000 employees who were significant contributors to the local economy on the basis of their high hourly wages and annual profit-sharing checks.

Since Magna came in, the local UAW union has been challenged with trying to balance the desire to keep their members working, and the need of management to cut costs and try to earn a profit in a downturned (or at best stagnant) market. There have been losses for the membership – wage cuts, layoffs, buyouts, payments to employees willing to transfer to other locations – and apparent frustration with union leadership if recent actions are any indication. In two recent votes, the local employees have refused to renegotiate their contract with Magna – the first time by an overwhelming majority, the second by only 50 votes - and as a result the plant will close. Politicians have made overtures including allowing a foreign company to take advantage of a federal line of credit, but Magna has indicated they need more than just cash to keep the plant open. We’ll likely hear more from our elected officials as they try to delay what appears to be inevitable.

What this all means to our local economy, and more importantly our psyche, has not yet been fully defined. What has been defined is the line between those who thinks the votes against the contract were stupid and those who think the union did the only thing it could do.

On the ‘the no votes were stupid’ side, the most frequently heard comment is that making $16 an hour is significantly better than making $0 an hour, which is what will happen when the plant closes. On the ‘we had no choice’ side of the argument is the belief that even if the employees took a cut to $16 an hour, there was no guarantee the plant would stay open. I can’t speak for the folks who had to make this choice, but I do question what happens next.

Are the soon to be unemployed workers really entitled to extended benefits and additional federal help, if they sealed their own fate by a voting down a contract? How long will we continue to say that any job lost in the auto industry is due to foreign competition, when the foreign competitors are making their cars right here in America, using American workers, albeit non-union ones? Are auto workers really more special than workers in other industries who are losing their jobs in this very difficult economy? Is it time to rethink the whole union thing?

Sue

Future Shock

S Drummond photo

Updated, March 15, 2014

I wrote this post, about the future of personal computers, five years ago this month.  I thought of it earlier this week when I was shoveling snow for almost two hours straight. Even for me, that was a little too much. 

So, in addition to what's below, I'd ask my modern computer to put some kind of force field up around my house as soon as we had six or eight inches of snow on the ground, to keep us from getting any more.  And to open up the force field and let a light dusting fall, when the snow on the ground gets too dirty to enjoy.

And, of course, to have the snow melt at just the right time, before I can't stand it any longer. 

The Bonus Round

Each day brings more news about the tens of millions of dollars in bonuses paid to current or former employees of AIG, the insurance giant that has so far received about $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money.

The news today is that there are likely some $60 million more in bonuses than originally publicized – the total is now upwards of $215 million, not just the $165 million we thought, according to the Not Bad, Considering…Nightly News.

Given what we know, how are we responding? Well…

The current head of AIG, Ed Liddy (he of the $1 annual salary) has asked some employees to return at least 50% of their bonuses. Folks took a bus tour of AIG executive mansions and AIG employees are receiving emailed death threats. People are protesting in the streets, in the blogosphere, and in every newspaper and magazine in the country. The Attorneys General of New York and Connecticut are issuing subpoenas seeking more information from AIG, including the names of bonus recipients. Congress is doing some collective chest-thumping, bizarre legislating and of course looking wherever they can to place the blame, with Democrats and Republicans alike pointing mostly at the current administration.

And yet, while our elected leaders are screaming about the behavior of AIG and other bailout recipients, they know (and we are now finding out) how much money they've received from the same troubled companies over the years. Connecticut’s Christopher Dodd, finger-pointer of the week, has received over $280,000 from AIG in contributions; NY’s Charles Schumer over $110,000. We can be sure they’re not alone.

This should not be surprising; we all know that most elected officials will take money from pretty much anyone. It’s always interesting when they later stand up anywhere within sight of a camera and scream at the top of their lungs about the horrible behavior of their contributors. Shareholders – that’s Joe Sixpack and all the rest of us on Main Street – loved Wall Street up until recently, and didn’t care about obscene executive pay, bonuses, golden parachutes or any of the whole ‘lifestyles of the rich and famous’ aspect of our irrationally exuberant financial wizards. Heck, they were making money for us, and we simply didn’t care. Neither did Congress. Neither did any regulatory agency, or any pension fund, or any Attorney General (other than Eliot Spitzer).

I think the bonuses stink – I can’t imagine how much these folks would have gotten in a good year, if they get as much as $4 million after a horrible one – but I’m not sure spending time trying to get the money back, or taxing them at 90%, or peeking in the windows of their homes, or threatening them, is going to make a bit of difference. Our problems are bigger than that, and the issues run deeper. For starters, why are we paying AIG partners 100 cents on the dollar for their contracts? I’m looking for the leader who can get us focused on that, instead of this nonsense.

Are you out there?

Sue

St Patrick's Day

Revisiting another post from 2009. No corned beef this year, and a little too early (and cold) for the garden to wake up, but I just know it's not far off...

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I was hard-pressed today to determine which I liked better, the house filled with the aroma of corned beef roasting slowly in the oven, or the smell of spring that greeted me as soon as My Sweet Baboo opened the bedroom window, put up the storm and pulled down the screen. Each could have stood independently as the sign of a great day, but taken together they were almost intoxicating.

It’s been a beautiful three or four days here in The Valley – I don’t remember for sure how many nice ones we’ve strung in a row, because I get a little lost in each of them, especially at this time of the year.

Our winters start early and end late, it seems – and we can generally count on about 120 inches of snow on average. This year we’re up around the 140-inch mark, I think. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like all of the snow is on the ground at the same time – it’s just a big number when the TV meteorologists start doing the math.

When we have days like this in March – and there were a couple even warmer earlier in the month - there’s a temptation to do too much. Too much raking, too much pruning, too much cleaning up around the perennials. We tend to focus on the fact that we can be outside in the garden, we can shake off some of our winter doldrums, we can try and take advantage of every minute of the day.

What we forget is that Mother Nature has to catch up to our exuberance. We forget that she’s got a plan (and I think at least part of the plan includes torture, by the way), and we have to remember the patience that we hung up with the hand tools last fall.

Today, I enjoyed a walk in the yard, and took a picture or two, mostly to send to my brother who still has several inches of snow on the ground in southwestern New Hampshire. I admired the progress that our daffodils, tulips, irises and lilacs have made in the past few days; I watched as sap dripped out of the sugar maple, and fell into the garden below. But then, I got closer to the house, and caught a whiff of the corned beef, and reminded myself that it’s still only the middle of March.

I’ll have hours and hours to enjoy being outside in the coming weeks and months, but the corned beef is a treat that we only have this week.

Today, the kitchen trumped the garden.

Got Stimulus?

There’s so much stimulating talk these days, ideas to stimulate the economy, stimulate job growth, stimulate spending, stimulate savings – it’s enough to make you think we’re a nation of Viagrans or Cialins or Levitrans. We’re not quite at the point where we are completely defined by a couple of bathtubs on a hill overlooking an ocean with a glorious sunset off on the horizon, but it seems like we can’t get out of our own way with all of the different ideas that have been floated around about how to get out of this recession, or depression, or whatever it is.

While I don’t yet know if any of these plans will give us either lasting economic strength or only the short term day-to-day benefits we see advertised, I have to wonder if any of them will do us any good if we can’t stop arguing about them, whether they’re too much, or too little, or too soon, or too late. Here are some random thoughts on all this mess from a ‘Jane-the-person-who-just-cut-back-her-401(k)-contributions-because-she-can't-stand-watching-her-money-disappear’, in case anyone’s listening to my specific demographic:

(1) When all is said and done, is there really that much difference between an ‘earmark’ and a ‘stimulus’? Back in the day when everyone was flush with cash, and could have afforded to fund their own studies, it would have made sense to complain about things like the stinky pig manure study, one of the member items in Obama’s stimulus plan that’s discussed with wrinkled nose by John McCain as wasteful spending. Actually, in a weird way it’s kind of interesting; here's what Scientific American has to say about it. But, if the purpose of the stimulus plan is to get money into the economy and keep people employed, shouldn’t scientists be able to benefit? To say nothing of Iowans and anyone else who lives near a factory pig farm?

(2) Does it make sense that we use new stimulus money to plug holes in our state budget, rather than using it to put new money into the economy and put people to work? New York is facing a huge budget gap and our Accidental Governor is proposing that $1.3 billion of the Empire State's portion of the Obama plan be used to replace some of the new taxes he had proposed to close the gap. New taxes aren’t one of my favorite things, but neither is delaying the inevitable by not making the real hard decisions we should be making. If we use stimulus money this way, when it’s gone, we’re still going to be on the high wire, but without a net.

(3) If a government entity, university, or business has already planned on doing work and has a way to pay for it they should not be eligible for stimulus plan funding for that work. Use new money for new things, use existing money for existing plans. Period.

(4) Shouldn’t modernizing the power grid be more important than broadband computer access and digital TV? The stimulus plan includes $4.4 billion for the grid, but $4.7 billion for broadband and an additional $650 million for digital TV. Call me silly, but if a tree falling in Ohio can shut down power to 50 million people and cost upwards of $4 billion as it did in 2004, whether I’m unable to watch the Not Bad, Considering... Nightly News in analog or digital won’t matter all that much to me.

(5) Anyone who received any return on their investment with Bernie Madoff should not be eligible for any future settlement, and if they're lucky they won't have to pay anything back. Anyone involved in refusing or failing to investigate Madoff should be prosecuted just as fully as Madoff. We have regulators for a reason, and if they ignore multiple reports of actual or potential wrongdoing over several years, they should go to jail.

(6) Here in Syracuse, there’s been nothing as stimulating as this week’s Big East basketball tournament since, well, 2003 when the Orange won the whole shebang. Thursday night, SU played the UConn Huskies and ending up winning in the sixth overtime. Friday night’s game against West Virginia was another nail-biter, with SU winning again, needing only an extra five minutes. Sadly, after a great start against Louisville, they came up short, but down the road what people are going to remember the heart of this team, and that game on Thursday. This shirt sums it up perfectly.

Here’s hoping your stimulus plan is half as exciting as this week was for us.

Catch-22

The last time My Sweet Baboo and I flew anywhere, I had an expired New York State non-driver ID card and a paper ‘promissory note’ from the DMV attesting to my request for a new ID. Again, my ID is expired, and as we’re flying out of town next month, I thought I’d get a jump on the renewal this time, if only because there was a risk the same TSA agent would get me and not believe that I actually had an out of date ID twice in five years.

To renew the ID card in this post- 9/11 world, New York requires a social security card. Which of course I don’t have. Most likely I threw it out thinking that no one could possibly be interested in it, my signature carefully affixed when I was about thirteen years old, and bearing not a whit of likeness to my current gorgeously illegible scrawl. But – and here comes the catch-22 – to get a replacement social security card, you need a state-issued driver’s license or non-driver ID. I went online, checked the Social Security Administration’s web site, downloaded an application and headed off to the Federal Building to see if I could get a new card.

What was interesting about the trip was the 40 minutes I spent in the waiting area. Some folks were there for simple things like me (including a man in my same catch-22) but others were there for more stressful reasons.

One of the more captivating stories I had the opportunity to overhear was that of a widow in her late 70s, who lost her husband last month. She spoke with an accent but was “a citizen for 44 years and proud to be one,” she announced. She needed to speak with someone because ‘Alice’ from the Social Security office had called her on Saturday (on Saturday!) and among other things had asked the widow to confirm her social security number. She did, but with some hesitation, because even though Alice seemed trustworthy the widow knew there were bad people out there looking to take advantage of her. Her friends were upset that she gave her information over the phone, so she had come to the office to make sure everything was OK. She had “not slept, too scared, I haven't eaten I’m so scared about giving the number out”, she told the gentleman at the window.

Her story had a good ending. Alice is an SSA employee, she was working overtime on Saturday, and there was a record of her phone call in the computer. The gentleman confirmed all of the information, answered a few other questions, and the best part? He was happy to call the woman’s god-daughter to come downtown and get the widow safely home.

And my ending? Well, when I pointed out the catch-22 with the expired ID I can’t renew without a social security card I can’t get without a current ID, I was told that “this is America, you need ID to get ID these days” – pretty ironic, I thought. Fortunately, I had my completed application, my original birth certificate (never looked at), my employee ID card (carefully examined), my credit cards (no use), my health insurance ID card (useful but surprising since my ID number is no longer my social), checks with my name and address on them (cute design but of no value), my card from Sally Beauty Supply (always a great conversation piece), my expired non-driver ID, and an honest face.

I’ll have my replacement card in about 10 days, which means I’m one giant step closer to the DMV and the dreaded photo op. I can’t wait!

Sue

RIP, Larry and Fred

Our home in The Valley is in a generally safe neighborhood, although I did ask My Sweet Baboo to get an alarm system when I moved in. We’ve only had one incident, where our forgetting to lock the car doors cost us $16 and a pair of sunglasses.

The same can’t really be said for much of our street. It's one of the main routes heading south out of downtown, and we go through a pretty dicey neighborhood on the way to and from work, the grocery store, our favorite home and garden centers, and visiting family and friends. Most of the gangs that used to be in the area have moved on or withered away as their members were jailed, but there are many abandoned or dilapidated houses, under-appreciated and under-cared for. It’s not a street without hope – just one that faces a significant uphill battle, like many others here in Syracuse.

There used to be an abandoned one-story building at one of the intersections, smashed glass and exposed wire mesh in the windows, the door boarded up, the small parking area and sidewalk littered with debris. At some point in an effort to clean it up a little, it had gotten a fresh coat of paint, but after two young men were murdered, someone spray-painted ‘RIP Larry and Fred’ on the side of the building. The words remained, the only graffiti on the building, until it was finally torn down months later.

In our area, if an empty lot is at an intersection with a traffic light, the grass gets mowed regularly and sometimes you’ll see an evergreen or two. On this corner, two flowering trees and a cute little shrub were planted; MSB and I for the longest time have referred to the trees as Larry and Fred.

Last summer, the lot was being mowed but no one was taking care of the trees; suckers had shot up around their trunks, and the grass surrounding them was not being trimmed. I kept saying that we should stop and take care of them, and finally one day we did. MSB pulled off to the side of the road and I went and cut back the suckers and pulled the weeds. They looked much better after that, as if they appreciated the attention. We have agreed we'll do the same this year, and I’m trying to convince My Sweet Baboo that we can spare a tree spike or two and give them a little nourishment as well as an occasional pruning.

Today, on our way home from running errands, we caught a red light at that corner, and as always looked over at the boys. Two fat robins were bouncing from one tree to the other – the first we’ve seen this year. Yes, rest in peace, Larry and Fred; we’ll stop by in a couple of weeks to see how you’re doing.

Sue

A Refreshing Snowfall

A short time ago, I posted some pictures I had taken of my garden in the snow. The photos were taken earlier in the winter, as at the time we had just experienced a February thaw and had a couple of days in the high forties or low fifties, which melted much of the snow. What was left was pretty dingy and very unattractive, and the garden was not looking her best.

I'm happy to say that's not an issue now, as we had a good seven or eight inches of nice fluffy snow and the garden again looks fresh and clean, and reminds me of why we don't cut everything down at the end of the gardening season. We were fortunate here in The Valley as far as snowfall goes - north of the city, some areas had two feet or more fall in 24 hours.

Last night, close to 11PM, My Sweet Baboo and I were taking night shots of his garden, which encompasses about two-thirds of our yard. This morning, I was out wandering around, the snow cresting the tops of my Dad's old boots, getting some shots in the daylight, and enjoying the beauty of the freshly fallen snow.

Here's some of the keepers - enjoy!

Sue

MSB's Garden at Night

MSB's Garden 2/21/09

Happy Birthday, Dad

Today's your 80th birthday, Pops - imagine that.

It's two years now that you've been gone. Sometimes it seems like just yesterday, and sometimes it seems like a forever ago that we lost you. My problem is I never know which it is until I start thinking about you, or something reminds me of you, and then I'm in the quandary of trying to figure it out.

I'll be honest -- I don't think of you every single day. I hope that doesn't offend you. We used to talk just about every day when you were alive, and if more than a couple of days went by one of us would reach out to see 'what was wrong', in that way that fathers and daughters have. Usually it was nothing, simply a matter of time slipping away, or starting to call and getting distracted by something else. And in the beginning, right after you passed away, I used to talk to you every day, made it a point to do that. I never let myself be distracted from that. I think I thought if I acted like you were still here, you would still be here.

Now, it's not an every day thing, it's usually triggered by something. Like Christmas at the house, when we were trying to figure out what dishes to use. I'm sure you remember Mom and I doing that every year; who was there determined what place-settings we'd use. Well, this year it was Mom and Peter and me, and for some reason we couldn't count. I resorted to what I always did, which is "there are five of us" and then added in the rest... Jen, Patrick, Bert,Christopher, Ericka and Sam. And I had too many. So I tried again, more insistently, "guys, there are five of us, and then there's Jen...Patrick..." and so on. Peter looked at me and said "Susan, five of who?" and I said "Drummonds". He said quietly, "Four - there are four Drummonds". I felt pretty ridiculous at that exact moment. It wasn't that I wished you were still here -- that goes without saying. I felt ridiculous because I hadn't figured out how to count the family anymore now that you were gone. How's that for "Her Royal Dizziness?"

Obama's inauguration, on the second anniversary of your death, was another trigger, as if it being January 20th weren't enough of one. That you missed this was almost unimaginable. The teacher in you, the democrat in you, the grumpy in you and the comedian in you would have had a blast with this whole campaign. It's kind of like people who died and never saw the Red Sox win the World Series, or SU win the NCAA basketball tourney. And yes, I'm chuckling because neither of these were milestone events in your life, I know.

There are other triggers as well. A sunset, headline in the paper or something dopey on the news. And of course the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. MSB and I heard the SSO perform Mahler's 7th the night you died - I cried quietly through much of it, knowing I'd likely never share that with you again. We were at the symphony again the other day and yep -- you guessed it -- the triangle! I smile each time I see the percussionist raise it high, and wait for the faint note or two and remember when you were concerned that the puffing noise of your oxygen thing would bother other patrons. Our deal was that you'd hold your breath during the triangle solos, so no one would miss a note. I don't think I'll ever forget that.

And of course there's so much more that I'll never forget, memories both old and new, from childhood and those more recent from my adult life. Like jicama -- I've not had jicama since the last time I put it in a salad or something I made for you when you were here for your monthly dinner. Or the brownies I made when I was a kid and put in an extra cup of liquid, and they were turned into milkshakes. And of course I still can't drink Canadian or any of the other 'browns', just like you never really wanted to drink my wine. But you did taste the $45 red at McGregors, remember? Didn't like it much or see much difference between that and the cheaper stuff, but at least you could say you tasted it!

I do miss you -- all the time, some of the time, and every now and then. I explained once that you were like a favorite piece of jewelry, one that I don't wear every day, but when I take it out of the box, it's precious and wonderful and I love wearing it. And then, it goes back into the box after a while, not forgotten, just saved for another occasion. That's you now -- sometimes you pick the occasion, sometimes I do - but you're always here, my favorite, and it comforts me knowing that.

Tonight, I just might make a box of the most chocolaty brownies I can find, play some Beethoven way too loud, and raise a glass to you, Pops - Happy Birthday!

Pet Peeve of the Day 2/15/09

Time to start a new feature for the blog - my Pet Peeve of the Day, or PPOD. Sometimes, things just strike me, and if My Sweet Baboo is to have any peace and quiet, I have to get them off my chest. Here's the first installment.

MSB and I were watching the Not Bad, Considering... Nightly News with Brian Williams on Friday. Generally, of the Big Three I find him the easiest to watch - I haven't quite figured out Katie Couric yet and Charlie Gibson...well, c'mon, his name is Charlie for heaven's sake. Doesn't sound very 'anchorish', does it? Walter. Peter. Chet. Harry. David. Tom. Charlie? But I digress.

Anyway -- the opening story on the news was of the terrible commuter plane crash that occurred in the Buffalo area. During a sidebar story on the victims of the crash, Brian talks about "the calm of a winter night in upstate New York" (hear the reference around 14 seconds in on this clip) - and that's my PPOD.

No matter what the story, or who's doing the talking, there's this upstate/downstate dividing line, that somehow if you're at all north of say White Plains, or you're not within a stone's throw of New York City, you're in this whole other place called upstate. I'm not even sure where our 'Mason-Dixon line' -- but we have one, that much I know.

Sadly we have to deal with this all the time on the political front, as we watch our elected officials aligning themselves with the upstate group or the downstate gang, trying to legislate around those fake divisions, or generally just complaining about the fact that they exist. Recently, our Accidental Governor David Paterson had an 'upstate trade mission' and pretty much failed to invite anyone outside of Albany - so apparently he doesn't know where the line is, either. (Sean Kirst of the Syracuse Post-Standard has a great article on this). I think it's more painful to have to deal with it on the national news, as that perpetuates the divide outside New York state, where people truly may not know better.

Seriously, do we really think that Buffalo, Ithaca, Tupper Lake, Binghamton and Amsterdam are all in that same nebulous place called Upstate New York? Intuitively, at least if you're not from downstate or New York City - you know that New York state has many natural regional separations and affiliations, that describe us a whole lot better than up and down do.

Whining is not the answer, I realize that. What we need is chest-thumping of a different kind. And guess what? We already have different regional designations that describe us. I'm not saying they're perfect, but what the heck - someone's already figured out, and is using, regional names to describe and market the Empire State.

Our challenge ? To see if we can get them adopted by folks outside the I Love NY agency. I'm sending a note to Brian Williams. It may not work, but who knows, maybe next time he'll think twice before he throws us all into one bucket. And maybe we can get a few more people to Love NY in the process. Are you with me?

Sue

Garden Sunday in The Valley

Today was 'Garden Sunday' for me, my annual exercise in front of the computer with my stack of garden catalogs, websites to visit and the new year's spreadsheet for tracking vendor, plant name, color, shipped size, mature size, sun requirements, bloom time, special features, and the all important price column.

This is actually the second phase of my gardening 'process'. The first step for me is spending weeknights in January wrapped up with comforters and cats, a mug of decaf close by, thumbing through the catalogs that seem to arrive almost daily. I bend page corners, or slap post-it notes on things that catch my eye, not really paying any attention to whether the plants will grow in our area or not - it's just a free-for-all, a smorgasbord, and I pretend that anything and everything is possible.

From that point, I end up where I was today, building my spreadsheet of zone-appropriate plants. The last step comes later this week. Sometime before the weekend, I'll have compared this year's spreadsheet to those of the past few years, comparing notes and trying not to purchase things I've already got growing, or ones that failed me in the past. My final list will be done and I'll get my orders placed.

In a few short weeks, I'll see the fruits of last fall's labor, where for the second year in a row I planted about 500 bulbs (don't ask). With any luck at all, most of them will come up and we'll have an explosion of daffodils, tulips, and who knows what else greeting us. The tender new perennials will begin arriving about then, and I'll be able to work them in among the bulbs and the existing perennials and then reap the rewards until late fall and on into winter. At least, that's the plan. I'll keep you posted on how it all works out.

Today, my garden didn't look that great. The snow's no longer fresh; actually it's pretty dirty and has started to melt. Overall it's pretty grey outside. Fortunately, I did get some pictures earlier in the winter, and they're here for your viewing pleasure.

Sue

Cats of Character

When My Sweet Baboo and I first got together, we joined not only our stuff and our lives, but also our cats and their lives. At that time I had two, Jeckyll and Hyde, and he had five: Belleek, Molly, Bradley, Mom Kitty, and Michael T. Don't get nervous - it's a big house, and we had four litter boxes. Of the original family, the only one we still have is Michael T.

Michael (aka MT or Mikey) is a very big boy, a gray and white longhair, and the only one we have who's an indoor/outdoor cat. MSB insists that Mikey is "not full grow'd yet", even though he'll be thirteen this year and pretty much beyond any major growth spurt. He patrols the yard (and frankly the neighbors’ yards too) regularly, and we've been told by our mailman that MT is in fact an attack cat - apparently he can be a little vigorous in defense of his territory and has chased the mailman across the yard. As a kitten, he was called Zoey by his original owners, our former next-door neighbors. His first trip to the vet was an enlightening one, to say the least!


He’s not quite as fond of winter as he used to be, but loves to make us get up and let him out several times a night, even if he's only outside long enough to feel the wind in his whiskers and come right back in. He’s not very interested in birds, fortunately, as we have several feeders and birdhouses in the garden. A couple of nights ago, he brought a bat into the house – which MSB was able to get away from everyone and put back outside while it was still in one piece.

Next in line we have Galway Bay and Fenway Park- a brother and sister pair that our vet says bear a striking family resemblance. I'm not sure if she thinks that because they always go to the vet together, in the same carrier, or if they really do look alike to the trained eye. In reality, they look nothing alike. Galway's our 'black Irish' boy, a tuxedo cat, and Fenway -- well, put it this way. When she was little, the girl we adopted her from called her 'Messy Face', which I never thought was nice, but was true. She's a gray, white, and tan calico, but that's doesn't really do her justice. Galway's favorite place to be is on the back porch, sitting on the open step ladder looking at the birds. Fen - her favorite place is my right shoulder, with her head and front legs hanging down my back, purring up a storm. We had the names picked out before we found the cats, and I think we found the perfect pair. They'll turn four in May.

The last of the brood is StellaBella Valentine, an admittedly huge name for a tiny kitten we adopted when she was six weeks old to the day - and yes, her middle name is in honor of her birthday, February 14th. Stella's goal in life seems to be making as much noise as possible, announcing her presence every time she enters a room with a loud and long meow as if to say "here I am, did you miss me?" She'll continue meowing until she's acknowledged, which sometimes we'll put off until we can't stand it anymore, laughing all the while at her persistence. Her other noteworthy talent, if that’s what it’s called, is staring – intently staring – at things only she can see. We call this ‘lookiting’, after the Peanuts cartoon where Charlie Brown’s little sister was jumping rope or something and trying to get his attention by saying “Lookit, Charlie Brown, lookit, Charlie Brown” over and over until he finally yelled, “I’m lookiting!” That’s our StellaBella – she’s always lookiting at something.

Different in every way, they're each great kids and life would be very boring without them. Enjoy their photos!


Sue

Cats of Character

She's Drooling Normally

Sadly, I didn't make up the title to today's post. It's actually lifted from a high-profile murder trial going on here in Syracuse, generally referred to as "The Anti-Freeze Murder Case." No, Auntie Freeze has not been murdered, she's probably at the bingo hall. The defendant is actually a woman named Stacey Castor, but c'mon, it's much more fun for the local media to tag cases like this with a sensational name, maybe throw in some theme music, and add in dramatic standups outside the courthouse and a few somber updates at the newsdesk throughout the day.

What makes this one a little more interesting is the outrageous performance of our District Attorney, William Fitzpatrick, someone I think has got more than a bit of a superiority complex, is pretty overbearing and thinks he can mete out justice as he sees fit. There's a long history of his pronouncements about who gets tried and 'who's suffered enough already' and doesn't have to face charges.

As MSB and I were heading to the car after the symphony last night, I stopped on the sidewalk and said "listen, you can still hear the sounds of Fitzpatrick making an ass of himself in front of the cameras!" Here's a snippet of the DA's cross-examination. The thought of his screaming echoing in the building for days on end made us snicker, and I think a few people behind us joined in.

I think what Fitz was trying to do was a hard-hitting cross-examination of a person that just about everyone thinks is guilty of two murders (she's only on trial for one of them), forging a will, and the attempted murder and framing of her own daughter. No one's laughing at that, or making light of that. What does strike us as sadly comical is a DA shouting questions at the defendant "until he's hoarse," according to one news account.

People have the right to see the inner workings of the justice system - I don't dispute that. After all, most of us will never see the inside of a courtroom unless we're called to jury duty. For the majority, what we think we know about our criminal justice system we learned from Law and Order, The Practice, LA Law, Matlock (remember that seersucker suit Andy Griffith always wore in court?) or the old Perry Mason shows. But when there are cameras in the courtroom, are we really getting a true picture of the justice system, or are we also getting some really bad acting?

Who can ever forget the OJ Simpson trial, and the lead-ups to it: Who sits where, and what camera angles will be used, and what will everyone wear? Oh dear lord, Marcia Clark changed her hair! And speaking of hair, no one will ever forget Kato Kaelin's blond mop. Had there not been TVs in the courtroom, we might have been spared all of that nonsense. And 'Keeping up with the Kardashians' as well, but that's another story.

Here's another good illustration of Fitz -- listen for the Lou Gehrig reference. I guess this must be his equivalent of Johnnie Cochran's 'if it doesn't fit, you must acquit'.

The case, and cameras in the courtroom, should be about getting justice for the families who have been irreparably harmed. It shouldn't be about grandstanding, screaming and mocking questions from the DA. I'd like to think that even Fitzpatrick would remember that.