Posts Tagged ‘Marcel’
January 3, 2017
Not yet quite six o’clock in the evening, the sun is gone and floodlights are on the creek. Soft jazz is on the Echo and I am winding down from some writing I did today along with emails and a couple of loads of laundry. An ordinary day at the cottage, most of it cozied up with my laptop while watching Marcel, Lionel and Pierre’s sixteen-year old poodle sleep on the couch. I’m dog sitting again while they are off in Boston.
New Year’s was surprisingly good. My expectations were low and the reality great. There was a feast at my friend Matthew Morse’s house with thirteen people, followed by going down the road to friends of his who have restored as their home a 19th Century roadhouse. There is a balcony looking down into the tavern area and I was standing there looking down at a crowd that seemed like a hundred, sipping Moet Chandon as the New Year came in…
New Year’s Day was spent in recovery with a game of Clue over cocktails, followed by roast chicken. Not bad.
Every time I peek into the state of the world, I want to slam the door and run into my bedroom with a cold bottle of vodka and a straw.
It sometimes feels like I have stepped into a Jean Cocteau film.
Hours after I exchanged e-mails with a friend who lives in Istanbul, working for Sony Pictures, there was a nightclub slaughter. Responsibility for it has been claimed by IS.
In Baghdad, a suicide bomber killer a couple of dozen people. This Sunday, I will light a candle for them at church, the people of Baghdad and Istanbul. Turkey has been assaulted this month by a whole series of attacks. Baghdad has never not been assaulted since we invaded.
Trump tweeted something New Year’s Eve that has lots of people outraged. It seems impossible for me to follow his tweets though I have been told the cable news channels have been spending hours attempting to decipher them.
His press secretary has pleaded with people to stop mocking him. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Alec Baldwin has stepped into a brand-new career on SNL and we are going to be living with it for Trump’s entire term in office. He is just too juicy a target for satirists. I wish I were a comedy writer.
Trump’s team is saying we should be focusing more on punishing Hillary Clinton than being concerned about Russian hacking. Did I say something about being in a Cocteau film? [And if you don’t know who Jean Cocteau is, Google him…]
US officials are saying Russia’s “fingerprints” are all over the hacking and Trump is saying he has inside information on the hacking which he will reveal tomorrow or Wednesday. Personally, I can’t wait. But then I am still waiting for him to tell us how he will separate himself from his businesses. That may be more difficult than handling the Russian hacking.
Then, of course, since I last wrote Carrie Fisher, “Princess Leia” from “Star Wars” died after a heart attack on a flight back from London, only to be followed across the River Styx by her mother, the legendary Debbie Reynolds, the following day.
Eras seem ending all around me and I am not happy…
Tags:Alec Baldwin, Baghdad, Carrie Fisher, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Debbie Reynolds, Google, Istanbul, Jean Cocteau, Lionel White, Marcel, New Year's, Pierre Font, Princess Leia, Russia, Russian hacking, SNL, Sony Pictures, Star Wars, technology, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
October 2, 2016
It is twilight outside the windows; classical music plays, a gentle piano sonata. In the trail of grey days that we have left in our time wake, the leaves have begun to change outside. Most are still green but yellow branches now sway with the green in the twilight wind.
It is a quiet, magical moment here in the cottage. Marcel lays sleeping on the couch, tired after taking me on a tour of his domain across the street. I am a bit tired too, for no great reason. Waking at a reasonable hour, I did some early morning work, showered and went off to church.
Going home, I briefly walked Marcel and went off to the gym and from there to the Red Dot for my normal Sunday brunch, visiting with all the folks I know who also frequent there.
While sitting at the Dot, I read the NY Times on the phone and perused my emails.
The world was rocked today that Trump in 1995 claimed a loss of nearly a billion dollars. It shielded him from many taxes for the next eighteen years. It was legal and staggering at the same time. A billion dollars in losses in one year? In 1995?
Badly managed businesses provided that loss, especially the catastrophe of his Atlantic City Casinos. And it seems to me that those catastrophes kept happening over the decades.
The returns were mailed to the NY Times anonymously with a return address of Trump Tower. His campaign called the NY Times an arm of the Clinton campaign.
In another report today, a commentator reminded us that several weeks after the death of Princess Diana, Trump was on Howard Stern’s program declaring he thought he could have “nailed” the Princess. He was apparently between wives and sent Princess Diana mountains of flowers. A few years ago, a woman who had been close to Diana said that she felt creeped out by them and a bit like she was being stalked by the American billionaire.
Barely cold in her grave, he was boasting he could have “nailed” her. How gallant!
How disgusting.
A person very close to me sent me an email, asking me to disseminate it widely. It was in support of Trump. Having known this woman for eons, I wondered how she possible could be thinking I would do anything to support Trump? Perhaps she was just tweaking me, even though she knows I know she will vote for Trump.
Columbia has been at war for over fifty years with the rebellious FARC. A peace deal was negotiated and put to a national referendum. It appears to have been voted down, leaving all of us to wonder if Columbia is to face another fifty years of internal war?
My sister lives in central Florida and has been wondering if Matthew [spelled with two t’s} was going to land upon them but it appears it will weaken once it has scoured Haiti, a country that can’t seem to get a break.
Another young black man was shot in Los Angeles and activists are calling for transparency.
There is no transparency or mercy, it seems, in Aleppo. The Syrian government of Assad, supported by Russia, are pummeling Aleppo into submission, apparently deliberately targeting the resources they have to handle the bombings: hospitals. The healing capacity of the city has been halved.
And where is the boy? Where is the boy?
We, the US, have been warned by Russia to not target the Damascus government.
We are living on this island Earth, not really paying attention to the tectonic shifts in the eco-system while we kill each other all over the place.
It is now totally dark outside but it is not totally dark in my soul. When I witness what is happening in the world, I also remember that for every dire act there is an act of kindness, of balance, of work to make this place, this planet, a better place.
It is why I still go to church.
Tags:Aleppo, Assad, church, Columbia, FARC, Hillary Clinton, Howard Stern, Islam, Lionel White, Los Angeles shooting, Marcel, Media, New York Times, Politics, Princess Diana, Red Dot, technology, this island earth, Trump, Trump tax claim
Posted in 2016 Election, 9/11, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Homelessness, Hudson New York, Income Inequality, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
October 1, 2016
Something like sixteen or seventeen years ago, my friends, Medora Heilbron and Meryl Marshall-Daniels, began having weekly phone calls to shore each other up as we were all in transition points in our careers.
That wonderful custom has continued to this day. Almost every week, except when one of us is traveling, we have had calls, sharing the highs and lows, the concerns, the fears, the triumphs of our personal and professional lives.
Today, we had one of those calls. When it was my turn to comment on my state of affairs, I burst out with, “I am verklempt!”
Yesterday evening, an email that should have come in on a project I am up for did not come as promised and, for reasons that are hard to explain, released what Winston Churchill called, “the black dog.” Discouragement and depression. I woke at three in the morning and read for three hours before falling back into a fitful sleep.
It has been amazing to me the number of times in the last couple of years that I have awakened with a sense of happiness. Today, it was all I could do to speak my usual morning affirmations.
After our phone call, always good for the spirits, I made a decision to do NOTHING today but work on my physic wounds and get back my equilibrium. Three loads of laundry and tearing recipes out of the newest issue of “Food & Wine” was as ambitious as I got.
The day matched my mood; grey, hostile, chill and rainy. Marcel, the dog I am caring for, and I curled up on the couch. He napped, I read.
Now that the day has slipped into evening, I have to say “the black dog” and I seem to be getting distance from each other. Largely because of the wonderful support group that is our weekly call. Together we have laughed and cried.
It wasn’t until late in the afternoon when my spirits were beginning to lift that I even looked at the news of the day. The sound of uplifting jazz plays in the background. Happier than I have been all day, I am sipping a martini and typing. Getting back to the happy Mat.
What did make me happy today was that Alabama’s Chief Justice, Roy Moore, was suspended for the rest of his term over his urging state officials to refuse to grant marriage licenses to same sex couples. Interestingly, this is not the first time he has been kicked out of being Chief Justice. Last time was his refusal to take down a statue of the Ten Commandments.
And I was both sad and happy that Rosetta, the first spacecraft to orbit a comet, did a belly flop onto the comet’s surface and went silent, leaving behind reams of data for scientists to parse. He/it/she was a plucky fellow. What do you call a spacecraft anyway?
Elon Musk wants to send people to Mars. He is thinking of a million or so colonists over the next fifty to a hundred years. He has envisioned a rocket to take them there. And they should be prepared to die, he said. It made me think of the first colonists who came from Europe to the Americas. They had a hard time too.
The thought excites me. More than likely, I will be gone by the time there is a first rocket to go but if I were here, I would volunteer. Wow, what an adventure…
The New World captured the imagination of the Old World and millions upon millions poured into North and South America, looking for better lives, something different.
My father’s family came from Germany. My mother’s from Sweden. We are a nation of immigrants and we always seem to forget that. I am not sure how we manage to forget that but we do.
Growing up Catholic in Minnesota was nothing like growing up Catholic somewhere else as I have learned in conversations with friends over the years. My good friend Bill told me once that he wouldn’t have been allowed to know me where he grew up in rural Missouri.
So I look forward to a time when we go out and populate the planets and then the stars. I think it’s in our blood to do that.
Tags:Alabama, Elon Musk, General, Jazz, Marcel, Mars, Mars colonization, Media, Medora Heilbron, Meryl Marshall-Daniels, Rosetta, Roy Moore, technology, The Black Dog, Verklempt, Winston Churchill
Posted in 2016 Election, 9/11, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
September 30, 2016
As I have been sitting here, listening to “Smooth Jazz” twilight has become almost night. The last glimmerings of the silvery light are slipping away.
This week I have been dog sitting Marcel, Lionel and Pierre’s poodle, who will soon turn sixteen. Every night, he takes me for a walk. We leave my cottage and he marches me over to his house, across the street from mine and takes me for a tour of his yard. He goes to the front door and looks at me uncomprehendingly when I do not let him in.
He is reluctant to leave once he is on his home territory; actually, he fights me. He doesn’t want to come back to my house but eventually he realizes that he is not going home tonight and walks with me back to my place.
He is very smart, is little Mr. Marcel. And sweet. And I am enjoying his company right now though I realize my own time for pets is past. I still come and go too much to give any pet like Marcel a real home. And I am single. Were there a partner, it would be easier.
There are soft sounds from woodland creatures that filter into my time here at the laptop, soft sounds from the night outside.
It is, this moment, a soft and gentle world that seems unconnected with all that is happening beyond me. I feel, here, encapsulated, as if the outside world did not exist.
But it does.
The Syrians under Assad and their Russian allies have been brutally pulverizing Aleppo. It has only become worse since the last time I wrote. It is the kind of brutality we have not seen for a long time. And, as I said before, I wonder about the poor boy in the ambulance. Has he survived this assault? I wonder about that day and night. I am haunted by wanting to know.
Here, at home, there was a horrific crash of a New Jersey Transit Train at Hoboken. One person is dead. 100 are injured, some seriously. I texted my friend Mary Dickey to check on her. She had changed her plans today and did not take the train into New York City. Just as something had diverted her the morning of 9/11 or she would have been under the Towers when one of the planes hit.
Congress overturned Obama’s veto of a law that would allow 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia. Personally, I think it was a political move that will have unintended consequence. The Saudis are rethinking their alliance with us and it opens the door for a lot of problems we don’t want to have. Like everyone in Iraq suing us for our “meddling.”
Not quite knowing how to parse this but right now there are reports that Trump may have violated the embargo that was in place during the 1990’s with Cuba. If true, it will wound him with Cuban Americans in Florida, which is essential in his path to the Presidency.
Trump has had both a good year and a bad year. He is the Republican nominee for President, a reality no one thought possible six months ago. His net worth, according to Forbes, has dropped by $800 million this last year but it still leaves him with 3.7 billion dollars, according to the magazine. Forbes is generally thought of as a conservative publication.
Samsung, the company of exploding Galaxy Note 7s, has a new problem. Its washing machines are also exploding. So glad I did not choose to get a Samsung gas stove when I bought new appliances for my kitchen.
It’s a brand in trouble. Big trouble.
We were facing a government shutdown tomorrow but it has been avoided. The government is funded until December 9th, after the elections. Zika funding was approved to the tune of $1.1 billion.
It is a quiet evening here. I have looked into the world and now I am going to take myself to bed, watch a little video and go to sleep, happy. The way I woke this morning.
Tags:Assad, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Cuba, Forbes, General, Google, Hoboken Crash, Lionel White, Marcel, New Jersey Transit Train, Obama, Pierre Font, Putin, Russia, Samsung explosions, Samsung washing machines, Saudi Arabia, Syria, technology, Trump, Zika
Posted in 2016 Election, 9/11, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
September 24, 2016
It has been days since I have written a letter. Partially it is because I have been socially busy when I am usually not. Lionel and Pierre are here. Yesterday his sister and brother-in-law and their son Harry arrived from Australia. Tomorrow they are leaving for a cruise in the Caribbean. While they’re gone, I will be caretaker for Marcel for most of the time, a task I will both enjoy and of which I am afraid. In less than a month, Marcel will be 16 years old. He is a little old man who soldiers on with bravado.
Fall has officially arrived and leaves are beginning to flutter down upon the cottage. Every few minutes an acorn falls on the roof. While still warmish in the days, it cools significantly at night. A cold front is arriving, the weatherman says.
It has been a hectic day, starting early with documents to review, followed by a string of conference calls and then more documents to review. When I went online to post something for my class, I discovered that Blackboard is offline, as it is every Friday at this time, for maintenance. It will have to wait until morning.
Social busyness was the cover for my not wanting to write, to not think about the world. I read the New York Times Briefing every day and have found discouragement in its contents.
More people have been shot. A white female officer in Tulsa has been charged with manslaughter in the case there. In Charlotte, North Carolina, the town that prided itself as being the epitome of the “New South,” is still parsing the death of a black man there while protests have grown violent, leaving one more dead.
At times, frankly, it makes me want to crawl into bed with a chill bottle of vodka and a straw. More and more people are telling me they are tuning out the acrid political scene of this year. They have determined which way they are going to vote and have no need to be brutalized anymore.
The first of the debates are upon us and I may steel myself to watch it. I just don’t know how long I will last.
Two of the most deeply disliked individuals in America are running for President. There is no joy in Mudville.
Palmer Luckey is one of the founders of Oculus, the VR hardware company scooped up by Facebook a bit ago. He is funding an anti-Clinton, pro-Trump group and a small group of developers are now dropping their support for Oculus because of his politics. It’s far from a boycott but is unusual and probably unprecedented in the gaming world.
Once nominated for President, candidates get Secret Service protection. The Secret Service reimburses campaigns for the agents’ travel. In Trump’s case, it goes to TAG Air, a company he owns. It has received $1.6 million so far. I get it… Sort of… Kind of…
Looking for things to distract me from drownings of refugees, our sordid political landscape, I turned tonight to Entertainment News, which is what feeds the American mind most of the time.
“Magnificent Seven” reigns at the box office, headlined by Denzel Washington.
The more than decade long spectacle that has been “Brangelina” is coming to an end as Angelina Jolie has filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. It was a good show, classier than most, most of the time.
The Emmys have come and gone. All reports [I didn’t watch] was that it was a good show. Jimmy Kimmel was highly praised for his hosting but the back slapping industry love fest plummeted 22% from last year in ratings.
And Jim Parsons, of “Big Bang Theory” is now TV’s highest paid actor, with $25,000,000 coming in for the next, and possibly last, season of the show.
Oh, and Bruce Springsteen called Trump a “moron.”
Tags:Angelina Jolie, Big Bang Theory, Blackboard, Brad Pitt, Brangelina, Bruce Springsteen, Charlotte shooting, Claverack, Debates, Denzel Washington, Donald Trump, Emmys, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Jim Parsons, Jimmy Kimmel, Magnifcent Seven, Marcel, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Obama, Ocuus, Palmer Luckey, Secret Service, The Donald, Tulsa shooting
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, European Refugee Crisis, Gun Violence, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commnentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
February 22, 2015
Unusually, I am starting work on my blog early in the afternoon; usually I wait until the sun has begun set but about that time today I will need to be down at the Hudson Train station to pick up friends who are returning from Baltimore, where they spent the weekend.
The Hudson Train Station is charming in its way. It is the oldest operating train station in the Amtrak system. It looks much the way I imagined it looked in the 1940’s.
Almost a hundred and fifty years ago, the train carrying the body of Lincoln and his son, Willie, back to Illinois, stopped for a few minutes in Hudson, greeted by a tableaux that was described by Edward David Townsend, Commander of the train, as “one of the most weird ever witnessed.” There was a coffin, with a lady in white draped over it, mourning; the station was draped in black and white bunting, with evergreens. At either end of the coffin were a soldier and a sailor. A number of women, also dressed in white, sang dirges. All of this was lit by torchlight. No wonder Townsend thought it weird. [Thank you to The Gossips of Rivertown for the details.]
The town is planning to recreate that weird scene this April 25th, the Sesquicentennial of the event. I can’t wait.
Hopefully, by April, the weather will have warmed. We are still living in the land of snow, ice and cold. Today it is warming up to thirty degrees, only to plunge again in the days ahead with more snow predicted.
What I would not have predicted was turning to the news today to find that Al-Shabaab, the Somali terrorist group, had released a video suggesting there should be attacks against American and Canadian shopping malls, including Mall of America, which is in Bloomington, a suburb of Minneapolis, my home town. Particularly of concern is that the Minneapolis area is home to many refugees from Somalia. Al-Shabaab has been actively recruiting young men from there and some have gone back to Somalia to fight for them.
Perhaps more predictable is that there is still heat in Giuliani’s comment about Obama not loving America. Republican Representative Darrell Issa of California suggests we should thank Giuliani for questioning the President’s love of country. Not unexpectedly, the NY Times has countered with a chronicle of the number of times President Obama has declared his love of country. Giuliani reports he is receiving death threats.
Brian Williams continues to take it on the chin. Today he is being criticized for not giving money to his “cash strapped” high school. I haven’t given money to my high school either. I didn’t like the place very much.
Tonight, of course, are the Oscars. But have you paid attention to last night’s Razzie Awards? They’re given out to Hollywood’s worst. SAVING CHRISTMAS, starring Kirk Cameron won Worst Picture. He won Worst Actor, too. Cameron Diaz won Worst Actress for SEX TAPE and THE OTHER WOMAN. Worst Screen Combo was won by Kirk Cameron and “His Ego.”
I attended the Razzies the year Halle Berry won for Worst Actress for CATWOMAN. She arrived clutching her Oscar and was quite funny. They have grown from a personal party to Hollywood’s anti-Oscars.
Tonight’s Oscars will be interesting. It appears that BIRDMAN and BOYHOOD will be duking it out for Best Picture. Having seen both of them last night, I would be hard pressed to make a choice. Both were excellent, neither of them blockbusters, just very, very good films.
The sun is brilliant today, casting clear dark shadows on the freshly fallen snow. Marcel, the dog I am babysitting, sits asleep at my feet as I write this. Having not eaten yet today, I am going to head down to the Red Dot for a bite before picking up my friends.
Happy Oscar viewing!
Tags:Al-Shabaab, Birdman, Boyhood, Brian Williams, Cameron Diaz, Darrel Issa, Giuliani, Gossips of Rivertown, Hudson Train Station, Kirk Cameron, Lincoln Funeral Train, Mall of America, Marcel, Mat Tombers, Obama, Oscars, Razzies, Red Dot, Somalia
Posted in Mat Tombers, Social Commentary | Leave a Comment »
February 22, 2015
Outside my window, a soft swirl of fresh snow is falling. Soft jazz plays in the living room, with the sound drifting to my desk where I am writing. The day has turned grey and everything outside looks muted. The big orange plow trucks are patrolling the streets but I am now in for the duration, a fire burning in the Franklin stove. My neighbors’ dog, Marcel, is asleep in the living room. I am babysitting him for the night; I have done so before. He is quiet, good company.
Around noon, I went down to Hudson to meet a friend at Stair Gallery, where he was bidding on some objects at their auction. Just before I arrived an enameled music box went for $120,000. He won the bid on a piece of silver, an articulated fish, and then we went off to lunch.
Post lunch, I dropped him back at the Gallery and came on home to tend to Marcel and to be off the roads, already treacherous when I was heading home at 2:30.
I have come to love these muted grey days, sitting at my laptop, working on this blog, music in the background, finding touch points with events of the day.
Like most days, this one started with coffee, very strong, and a dollop of the NY Times.
Yemen’s former leader left the capital last night, either released or escaped. No one seems to know. But when he reached his hometown of Aden in the south, he took up residence in the Presidential Palace.
In a startling kind of strategy, the Pentagon seems to be broadcasting its intentions to retake Mosul in the spring. Why, many are asking, would you want to broadcast that? Surely not! The response was that it was hoped that all the manpower being readied would discourage IS and encourage the residents of Mosul to rise up against IS.
Senator McCain is not amused. I am not surprised!
The truce in Ukraine remains fragile. The British Foreign Minister and Secretary of State John Kerry have been talking and they are talking about stronger sanctions against Russia.
Former New York Mayor Giuliani’s comment about Obama not loving America continues to get play. Not surprisingly, Rev. Al Sharpton is enraged while Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin commented that he really didn’t know whether Obama loved America or not. Walker is running for the Republican nomination for President.
Giuliani is no longer politically relevant and seems to be enjoying his moment, again, in the spotlight. He has no reason not to keep it up; he likes his name in lights. I agree with the White House on this one. It is sad.
The financial conundrum that is Greece continues to keep us on edge. A deal has been, apparently, reached. In getting to this place, the Greek Prime Minister, Tsipras, has said: we won a battle, not the war.
Truer words were never said.
Tsipras has a lot to sell to the Greek public as the new deal, if it happens, has Greece still bowing to the Eurozone. It is a lifeline, not a solution.
Seeking a solution to a problem I didn’t know existed, Proctor and Gamble is selling off nearly a hundred brands in their portfolio, including Duracell Batteries, which will go to Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway next year.
This year is the 50th Anniversary of Malcolm X’s assassination and hundreds gathered in New York to mark the moment.
There continues to be an exegesis of Brian Williams’ fall from grace. There will be an almost uncountable number of them written between now and the end of his suspension and, depending on what happens after that, countless more. The world is not being kind to Brian Williams and the comparisons to Edward R. Murrow have been unkind.
Outside it has grown dark. The jazz continues to play and I am near the end of this blog, for today.
It is predicted that the brutal cold will not be so brutal but that the snow will continue. Boston is a slow moving tragedy. Different from a hurricane, the snow has been probably as destructive to Boston as a hurricane would be to some cities but because it is slow moving, no one is noticing.
Tomorrow is another day. It’s the day of the Academy Awards. I am going to watch BIRDMAN and BOYHOOD this evening, the top contenders for the Best Picture Award.
Tags:Aden, Al Sharpton, Birdman, Boyhood, Brian Williams, Duracell, Edward R. Murrow, Giuliani, Kerry, Malcom X, Marcel, McCain, Mosul, Obama, P&G, Stair Gallery, Tsipras, Ukraine, Yemen
Posted in Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Social Commentary | Leave a Comment »
August 16, 2014
Sitting snuggled in the cottage, the weather reports inform us that we are about fifteen degrees cooler than normal this year, a situation not many are regretting. It feels a bit like early fall, a feeling coming a bit too early for me. I stopped today to buy some wine for the cottage and all of us at the wine store agreed it was too early to be thinking of fall. I will be thinking summer until it is officially fall – only then will I surrender this glorious summer to the past.
This weekend I am babysitting Marcel, a fourteen year old miniature poodle, who has claimed the settee in the entry way as “Marcel Land” and from their reigns over my household while his real humans, Lionel and Pierre, are away in Atlantic City for a work related weekend of frivolity. In their absence, I am watching over this very fussy animal, who refuses dog food and waits to be delighted by a variety of human foods. Last night I won him over with honey ham, sprinkled with cheese. I tried that again this morning; he was having none of it. So I went to the local deli and got him chicken, which has pleased him today.
At fourteen, he feels he has earned the right to be picky and all of us around him attempt to indulge that pickiness. He is, after all, fourteen which translates to something like 98 in dog years. He’s pretty spry for 98. We went for a half hour walk this morning, exploring my yard then walking across the street to his yard, where we spent some time. Today he did not go to the front door and look at it longingly, as if to say: why am I not going in to my own house? He came quietly back with me today, tacitly acknowledging that my home was his home for right now.
Not really a dog person, I did understand this morning walking Marcel why a morning dog walk can be good for a human too. It gave me some minutes to clear my head and to focus on something other than my own concerns. I was attentive to Marcel, to another living being, while I gathered my morning wits about me, sipping my first cup of coffee as we walked our immediate neighborhood.
Work life is quieting down, time is being given me for reflection, a slowing down of everything, so that I can gather myself together to face the next flurry of activity which will eventually come. This time is, I suspect, a bit like taking a long dog walk.
Tags:Atlantic City, Claverack, Marcel, Mathew Tombers
Posted in Social Commentary | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From Claverack 01 02 2017 Welcome to a new year and a new era…
January 3, 2017Not yet quite six o’clock in the evening, the sun is gone and floodlights are on the creek. Soft jazz is on the Echo and I am winding down from some writing I did today along with emails and a couple of loads of laundry. An ordinary day at the cottage, most of it cozied up with my laptop while watching Marcel, Lionel and Pierre’s sixteen-year old poodle sleep on the couch. I’m dog sitting again while they are off in Boston.
New Year’s was surprisingly good. My expectations were low and the reality great. There was a feast at my friend Matthew Morse’s house with thirteen people, followed by going down the road to friends of his who have restored as their home a 19th Century roadhouse. There is a balcony looking down into the tavern area and I was standing there looking down at a crowd that seemed like a hundred, sipping Moet Chandon as the New Year came in…
New Year’s Day was spent in recovery with a game of Clue over cocktails, followed by roast chicken. Not bad.
Every time I peek into the state of the world, I want to slam the door and run into my bedroom with a cold bottle of vodka and a straw.
It sometimes feels like I have stepped into a Jean Cocteau film.
Hours after I exchanged e-mails with a friend who lives in Istanbul, working for Sony Pictures, there was a nightclub slaughter. Responsibility for it has been claimed by IS.
In Baghdad, a suicide bomber killer a couple of dozen people. This Sunday, I will light a candle for them at church, the people of Baghdad and Istanbul. Turkey has been assaulted this month by a whole series of attacks. Baghdad has never not been assaulted since we invaded.
Trump tweeted something New Year’s Eve that has lots of people outraged. It seems impossible for me to follow his tweets though I have been told the cable news channels have been spending hours attempting to decipher them.
His press secretary has pleaded with people to stop mocking him. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Alec Baldwin has stepped into a brand-new career on SNL and we are going to be living with it for Trump’s entire term in office. He is just too juicy a target for satirists. I wish I were a comedy writer.
Trump’s team is saying we should be focusing more on punishing Hillary Clinton than being concerned about Russian hacking. Did I say something about being in a Cocteau film? [And if you don’t know who Jean Cocteau is, Google him…]
US officials are saying Russia’s “fingerprints” are all over the hacking and Trump is saying he has inside information on the hacking which he will reveal tomorrow or Wednesday. Personally, I can’t wait. But then I am still waiting for him to tell us how he will separate himself from his businesses. That may be more difficult than handling the Russian hacking.
Then, of course, since I last wrote Carrie Fisher, “Princess Leia” from “Star Wars” died after a heart attack on a flight back from London, only to be followed across the River Styx by her mother, the legendary Debbie Reynolds, the following day.
Eras seem ending all around me and I am not happy…
Tags:Alec Baldwin, Baghdad, Carrie Fisher, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Debbie Reynolds, Google, Istanbul, Jean Cocteau, Lionel White, Marcel, New Year's, Pierre Font, Princess Leia, Russia, Russian hacking, SNL, Sony Pictures, Star Wars, technology, Trump
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