I'M DREAMING OF A WHITE XMAS

     If only Irving Berlin had written a song about Hanukah instead of about Xmas we’d (meaning Berlin, Bronsteen and all other Jews) have a holiday that could compete with the magical season of Christmas. After all during Hanukah children receive seven days of presents to only one for their Christian friends.

     The only reason I mention this is that I’ve always loved Christmas - - - the lights, the trees, the music, and the spirit - - - but I have had to celebrate sub rosa, because to most Jewish people it is considered heretical to have a Christmas tree. Christmas doesn’t have one bit of religious significance to me; after all I’m an atheist. I’m proud to be a Jew and of my heritage, but as a non-believer in any God, Christmas is not of religious significance to me.

     As a child our family celebrated Christmas (meaning the children received presents) but without a tree (my grandparents were orthodox). My parents were not religious, and the only reason I was bar mitzvahed was to please the grandparents. I haven’t been in a synagogue since except to attend weddings and bar mitzvahs. Almost all of my friends are observant (either part time or full time). We did have a tree in our apartment in NYC, where living is anonymous.

     Which brings me, after a lengthy introduction, to the reason I’m writing this Blog. Judy just brought home a foot-high Xmas tree for me (our first tree in the twenty years we’ve lived in Florida). She bedecked it with lights and ornaments because she knows how much I enjoy the smell and sight of this wondrous, but non-religious icon (to me and us). I often turn up the speaker as Nat King Cole’s melodious voice echoes through my halls. BUT WE “CAN’T” HAVE A FULL-SIZED XMAS TREE, because we live in a community of almost all Jewish people and many, most, or all of them would think it sacrilegious and would be repulsed by the sight of this “Christian icon.”

     If you drove through most of the communities in Boca Raton at night you might spy one or two bedecked with lighted figures and trees in each one. Surprisingly enough (and happily for me) the Clubhouses of most communities are embellished with Xmas trees, extensive lighting of the entranceways (strings of white lights) and a gingerbread house along with Hanukah candles.

     Do you know what a dradle is? It’s a four-sided spinning top that is generally used by Jewish children at Hanukah in a sort of gambling game played for candy, nuts etc. Its origin stems from the time when the Greeks forbade reading the Torah. To circumvent (not circumcise) this prohibition Jews would gather in caves to study and when soldiers were spotted the Torah was hidden and out came the dradle so the Greeks thought the Jews were gambling not studying. (Perhaps if the Greeks had let the Jews study the Torah and get involved in the finances of their country they wouldn’t be in the trouble they are today.)

     But back to the dradle. We’re having a group of friends over for lunch this Sunday. I wonder if we’ll keep it out or hide it. I don’t have a dradle. Stay tuned.

   Speaking of “staying tuned”, Black Friday is the day I switch from the Country Western Music station I listen to as I am writing to a Christmas Holiday Music station which plays popular old favorites.

     

Here's a snapshot of my beautiful tree perched precariously
 on my printer in the corner of a room I use as my office.

                       Merry Christmas to all and a Happy Hanukah to all.

HERE'S A BLACK FRIDAY SPECIAL YOU MAY HAVE MISSED

     What kind of house can you get for $11 million in Boca Raton these days? 

AND THIS HOME IS MARKED DOWN FROM A COOL $15 million
BEFORE THE MARKET CRASHED.

    How about a house that has 16,000 square feet of living space, majestically perched on 1.2 acres with 7 bedrooms and 9, yes 9, bathrooms. (I guess this house was built before Flomax was discovered.)         

     Since a picture is worth a thousand words just click on this link:

           http://www.estatesandfinehomesinc.com/address.php?property_ID=103m

which will take you to the website and then click on VIRTUAL TOUR. It's certainly worth a look.

      If you want to buy this classic French Regency estate contact the agent. If you're one of those 1 per centers Romney and Obama kept talking about, why not splurge and buy the property. If you mention my name I might be able to get a free lunch out of it.

 Pau I have a particular reason for having an interest in this property. About eight years ago we used to live in a relatively modest home right next to the lot on which this estate was built. Except at that time it was occupied by a rather rundown home, but it had a nice view. A Realtor approached us and asked if we would like to sell our home. We said,"No" because we were quite happy with our house and saw no reason to move. We were told that someone we knew slightly had purchased the home and was going to tear it down and put up an expansive and expensive home, AND they wanted to buy our home to tear it down to make room for an outdoor sculpture garden to house some of their art, AND that, within reason, money was no object. 

     To make a long story short we moved into our new home on my birthday - - - and it was quite a birthday present. When the estate was finished we were invited to a gala house warming. It was held outside under a tent in the new sculpture garden. It was surreal sitting at a table under the evening sky on some enchanted evening, eating dinner where our living room used to be.

     Unfortunately, the real estate recession hit Boca and our community pretty hard, but we still came out ahead of the game - - - and "what goes around comes around."

    The owner of the estate has had his place on the market for many years and he and his wife moved to a large condo at a New York City, hotel so not to worry for him.

P.S. The price does not include the sculpture garden. Maybe we should buy that lot and put back our old house.

LINGLE'S THE WURST

     THE MAN PICTURED ABOVE IS LARRY LINGLE OF HOUSTON, TEXAS AND I'D LIKE YOU TO READ WHAT HE HAD TO SAY ABOUT ME AND HIS TRANSACTION  WHEN HE BOUGHT SOMETHING FROM ME ON EBAY:

"Worse experience in 13 years on eBay, he fouled up Paypal, poor & delYE shipping"

     I DON'T MEAN TO BE PICKY, BUT I THINK LARRY MEANT TO SAY THAT IT WAS THE WORST EXPERIENCE, NOT THE WORSE EXPERIENCE.

      ALSO, AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE WORD "delYE" means. 

ASIDE FROM THESE TWO MINOR QUIBBLES I'VE GROWN TO LIKE LARRY. 

A PANOPLY OF PANORAMIC PHOTOGRAPHS

         In the late 1960's, after I had spent 16 years helping build a small public company into a multi-million dollar corporation, it was acquired by a major NYSE conglomerate for big bucks. I was a VP and had some stock and options which increased tremendously in value. But, I became excess baggage as the Corporate Development and Financial Planning I had been doing was taken care of by officers in the conglomerate. I was left with a big office and very little to do, so I decided to take my money and run (which meant opening a photo studio in NYC to re-ignite a love of photography). I told my boss, the CEO of the acquired company, of my plans to leave. He himself had almost nothing to do and spent most of his time gallivanting (living high on the hog on his expense account) between Beverly Hills and Palm Beach. 

        He didn't want me to leave - - - and for only one reason - - - when he was in town (our headquarters was in Metuchen, N. J.)  we went out to lunch together almost every day and played backgammon to see who picked up the lunch tab. The bill wasn't very high, as we often settled into our regular booth at a nearby diner. But the competitive nature of the game was fierce and unfortunately he won more often than I did. That wasn't because I let him win to secure my job or because he was a better player. No, he was just plain lucky.

Yes, I know this is not a picture of me and my boss playing backgammon at a diner, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Lindsay Lohan is more photogenic.
 I wonder what they were playing for.

        So, because my boss enjoyed the backgammon/lunches so much, he made me an offer I couldn't refuse. "Earl," he said, "just stay on and you only have to come to work on the days that I am in town and you'll still be paid your full salary. And, when you do leave I'll see that you get a proper retirement package." I spent the next many months driving to work in NJ every now and then and spent the rest of my time at a photo studio I set up in a small apartment in Manhattan. I took courses in photography to make up for the lost time between when I received an Argus 35mm camera as a bar mitzvah present.  Back then I took black and white photos, mostly candid portraits, and developed and enlarged them in my bathroom. (Brother Bob and I had to forego showers some days.)

       On one of those rare days that I was at work my boss came in and sat down, which was unusual in itself, and  told me that the president of the parent corporation wanted me fired and that he had fought it as long as he could, but I had to leave. I was surprised, but I certainly deserved it, but I cried when he left. I cried a lot more when I learned what my retirement pay package was going to be. I reminded him of his prior promise and was able to get it increased a bit.
       I bought myself a panoramic camera, I have no idea why, since it is a bulky, heavy  behemoth 

that used film that was 2.5"x 6.7" in size. It's size however made it excellent for blowing up into huge images for magazines, billboards etc. I lugged this camera on all our foreign travels (along with the Leica judy bought me as a present) and had an agent who sold my panoramic work. I happened to get a great shot of the Taj Mahal and this image has been in Time magazine and is sold throughout the world on the Internet as a poster, mostly by foreign companies who have appropriated it illegally. If you Google Earl Bronsteen you'll find about 50,000 sites all over the world selling a poster of my Taj Mahal shot - - - and I don't get a dime.

     Here's an example of some of my panoramic images. You can see all 70 at: www.panoramicimages.com and then type in my name.

Rialto Bridge, Grand Canal, Venice, Italy

Taj Mahal,  India

Amalfi Coast, Positano, Italy

A gustatory highlight of Positano was the zuppa de peche at Chez Black at the seaside.

Positano from the sea. I think I swam out, holding my camera above my head, to get this shot.

Iditarod Dog Camp is high on a glacier which we accessed via a thrilling helicopter ride. This was one of the few sights on our trip to Alaska (3 whales and some beautiful glaciers) that was the least bit interesting. Really just a lot of tourist shops along the way.

     For photo enthusiasts only: I cut my "teeth"on the Argus 35 mm.  At summer camp, as a 16 year-old, I took photos of the counselors and sold them to the campers at 25 cents an 8x10 shot, which gave me the money to buy a Speed Graphix. Judy bought me a beautiful Leica camera as a present for getting fired and I still have it.

WHACK IT TO WAL-MART ON BLACK FRIDAY EVE

           

     Bah! Humbug! And worse to those greedy bastards in the executive offices of Wal-Mart who will be spending their Thanksgiving evening with their adoring families while all those little old men and ladies in the local Boca Raton store will be forced to work. It’s the same class warfare we had to endure during the election. The 1% sip champagne 

after Thanksgiving dinner while the riff-raff workers try to protect themselves from the bargain hunters storming through the aisles.

     How about a buyer’s strike? 

    I for one will not venture out  on Thanksgiving night to Wal-Mart to buy that 65-inch 3D, High Definition TV for $12 that I’ve always wanted. No, I’m going to send my houseman. He has nothing better to do anyway. 

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR: HUMORIST GORDON BUSHELL

   

     Gordon Bushell started his career as a copywriter at Macy’s and quickly climbed the ladder of success becoming a real life ‘Mad Men’ as the top executive and chairman of a major New York Advertising Agency. Gordon lives in Boca Raton, Florida, (just down the street from me) and continues using his talents writing a humorous, weekly newspaper column.

      Check out his recent books including, “HUMOR IS A FUNNY THING”. It’s a great read. You can buy it on Amazon, right after you’ve bought my book, “The Adventures Of A Free Lunch Junkie”.

Here’s what Gordon wrote for my readers of Earl’s Pearls.

For all of you out there who must be “gluten free”, to help you through your adversity, I have penned this bit of “versity”.........                          

                    SALUTIN’ GLUTEN

ALAS, POOR ME

FOR UNLIKE THEE

I MUST FOREVER BE

DINING FROM A RECIPE

THAT’S TOTALLY AND BORINGLY  

GLUTEN FREE 

HOW DO I LIKE GLUTEN FREE?

I WILL TELL THEE...HONESTLY     

CHOCOLATE CAKE WITHOUT GLUTEN??????

LIKE GRAVITY WITHOUT NEWTON 

LIKE MOSCOW WITHOUT PUTIN

LIKE THE CZAR WITHOUT RASPUTIN

LIKE ARIZONA WITH NO BUTTE IN

LIKE THE O.K. CORRAL WITH NO SHOOTIN’

LIKE A WESTERN WITH NO GALOOT IN

OR HIS MOUTH WITH NO CHEROOT IN

LIKE OUR ECONOMY.... BARACK’S NOT ASTUTE IN 

MAMA MIA! PASTA MUST HAVE GLUTEN!!!!

LIKE OWLS MUST KEEP HOOTIN’

LIKE CHEERLEADERS MUST KEEP ROOTIN’

LIKE KICKERS MUST KEEP BOOTIN’

LIKE HORNS MUST KEEP TOOTIN’

LIKE DA’S MUST KEEP PROSECUTIN’

LIKE THE MARINES MUST KEEP RECRUITIN’

LIKE BILL GATES MUST KEEP COMPUTIN’

LIKE MY NIGHTLY VODKA....I MUST KEEP DILUTIN’

LIKE ASTRONAUTS MUST GO UP.... A SPACE SUIT IN!

OY VEY! A BAGEL WITHOUT GLUTEN?????

LIKE THE PHILHARMONIC WITH NO FLUTE IN

LIKE COTTAGE CHEESE WITH NO FRUIT IN

LIKE BANK OF AMERICA WITH NO LOOT IN

LIKE THE SUPER BOWL WITH NO BRUTE IN

LIKE A PARA WITH NO CHUTE IN

LIKE A REPUBLICAN DEBATE....WITH NO NEWT IN

PITY THE POOR PUMPERNICKEL WITHOUT GLUTEN.......

LIKE “ROOTIN’’ WITHOUT “TOOTIN’”. 

LIKE  “HIGH” WITHOUT “FALUTIN”

LIKE STUBBS WITHOUT WOOTON

LIKE A FIG WITH NO NEWTON 

LIKE THE HATFIELDS AND MC COYS WITH NO DISPUTIN’

LIKE THAT FABLED SUIT....WITH NO ZOOT IN

LIKE YOUR WIFE.... WITH NOTHING NEW TO LOOK CUTE IN 

I MUST LEAVE YOU NOW

YES, THE TIME HAS COME

CAUSE NO MORE RHYME HAS COME

YOU GUESSED IT.....

THE BATHROOM I MUST NOW SCOOT IN

 BUT REST ASSURED

 I WON’T BE POOPIN’ ANY GLUTEN

HOW'S BUSINESS?

      My attempts at developing a third career at age 86 by selling off items on EBay that are left over from my art studio have run into a stone wall. It all started off in a blaze of glory when I sold two Indian mannequins for over $500 in October. And right after that these two Matthew Brady cartes des visites (visiting/calling cards) from Civil War days were bought for $177.

      I figured I’d soon have a big enough business to take my business public with an IPO. Mark Zuckerberg watch my smoke! But I won't use Morgan Stanley.

      I had accumulated a collection of about 100 Victorian era photo albums that I had bought because I was intrigued by beauty of some of the celluloid or leather covers of these albums and because of the portrait photos from the mid to late 1880’s, some of which had names of the people attached. As I leafed through the dusty pages I wondered about the lives of the folks whose faces stared blankly out at me (the subjects had to hold steady for the camera) and I thought about my mortality - - - and what would happen to the albums of my family that lay on a shelf in a closet.

    Some of the larger photos, called ‘cabinet cards’ were used in one of my installations. There aren't any photos of this installation  but just as you entered my studio a hospital bed was displayed in a room and on the walls I attached a horizontal series of 53 cabinet cards on each of which was placed a single letter to form the sentence:

100 YEARS FROM NOW NO ONE LIVING WILL KNOW IF YOU OR I EVER EXISTED

                     

     Another installation in nearby room, the walls of which were covered with Playboy magazine covers  certainly received a lot more attention from my visitors than the one with the hospital bed.

     But back to my story: The albums n my collection each cost about $75 to $250 some 10-15 years ago. In the past month I have spent hours researching the ancestry of some of the names in these albums to make them more valuable to potential purchasers. But when I went to sell them at auction on EBay the best prices have been anyone would pay was between $20-$40. This market has taken a beating.

      To add insult to injury one cabinet card of a General Joubert, of South African fame, which I was selling as an individual piece and that I thought would fetch $50 brought in only $ .99. And to add further insult to this transaction, the buyer emailed me that the card had cracked in the mail and she wanted her $ .99 back.

     Anther auction of a lovely calendar from 1907, with a photo of a lady dressed in Victorian apparel, started at $ .99 and that’s where it wound up after being in the auction site for 7 days. Three weeks later the buyer emailed that he still hadn’t received it, so I’ll have to refund his $ .99

     And since I was getting such lousy prices by starting the auctions at the $ .99 price that EBay recommended I changed my strategy and put in a starting price of $ 50 - - - and not a single bidder appeared.

     Perhaps Wal-Mart will need an extra ‘Greeter’ on BLACK FRIDAY.

THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT A UNIFORM.

     

A BEACHED WAIL

     In 1998 I wrote a book, “HOW TO BECOME A FAMOUS CONTEMPORARY ARTIST”, which was a tongue-in-cheek primer enumerating 100 easy rules for an aspiring artist to follow to achieve success in the contemporary art world. The book poked fun at the artists, curators, museum directors and art critics who found beauty in what I considered a “sow’s ear” and scholarship in their description and critique of the sow’s ear.

     I explained that the art cognoscenti used a special language, “Artspeak ” that is used to explain (for example) why an empty plain old shoebox on the floor of The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a work of art. (Yes, the Met has purchased that work of art for its collection. I wonder how much they paid.)  It’s on the left below and on the right is another plain old shoebox, also by Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco, that was exhibited on the floor at the Tate Modern.

     

Here's a behind the scenes peek at Orozco's studio in Mexico.

    My book also provided examples of art critics who stumbled over one another to “pontificate” the true meaning of a piece they were reviewing, some of whom felt that their interpretation was more important than that of the artist who created the piece.

     I didn’t write this article on my Blog as a ploy to get you to buy my book (send check for $50 to me) because you can read it free of charge at my website: earlbronsteen.com/

     What brought this whole subject to mind was a review I just read in  The   New   York   Times   of   the   current   Gabriel   Orozco show at the Guggenheim titled, “ASTERISMS”. The title the curators at the Guggenheim chose is right on point, because I doubt there are many people in the world who know what that word means. I looked it up and came away with this definition: Asterisms are popular groupings of localized stars, similar to constellation stick figures. The Big and Little Dippers are asterisms within the constellations of Ursus Major and Ursus Minor.

      If you or I took a group of people to a local beach and spent several weeks collecting the flotsam and jetsam that washed up on the sand, AND then photographed each of these say 1,200 pieces, AND then framed these snapshot-sized photos in grids, AND then presented them in a rectangular configuration on the floor do you think any museum in the world would want to exhibit this assemblage? If you answered, “NO” you are correct EXCEPT if you are famed contemporary artist Gabriel Orozco and the Guggenheim Foundation and Deutsche Bank commissioned the work.

     A companion piece, “Astroturf Constellation” consists of nearly 1,200 objects also recovered by the then (I’m sure), flotsam-weary artist and his assistants (I bet mostly by his assistants) from a playing field on Pier 40 in Manhattan that had sunk into the artificial grass.

The curators at the Guggenheim described the installations in this manner:

      The exhibition Asterisms overall, in which the two bodies of work play off each other in a provocative oscillation between the macro and the micro, invokes several of the artist’s recurring motifs, including the traces of erosion, poetic encounters with mundane materials, and the ever-present tension between nature and culture. It also underscores and amplifies Orozco’s subtle practice of subjecting the world to personal, idiosyncratic systems.

     Bloomberg’s art critic chimed in with:

     Everything on view is grouped systematically by shape, color, material and texture, to suggest progression, migration, kinship and evolution. Orozco’s installation is understated and coldly scientific. Yet he has lovingly attended to his trove. The overall effect of its archaeological homogenization is melancholic -- akin to putting the ruins of our own civilization under the microscope.

     The review went on to comment favorably:

     Here the found object is closer to the visual poetry of Joseph Cornell than the predictable gamesmanship of Duchamp. In his recent, smug midcareer retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, Orozco displayed an empty shoebox and hung four plastic yogurt lids, one per gallery wall. (More about these four yogurt lids later on.)

     The New York Times critic opined:

     A popular way to make art in recent decades has been to collect many examples of some sort of object and exhibit them all in a more or less orderly fashion.

The idea is that something greater than the sum of its parts will emerge. That does happen, but not to any unusually revelatory degree, in "ASTERISMS"a show by the sculptor Gabriel Orozco. (Earl’s comment - - - for a critic who seemingly was not too impressed with the show and in particular with fact that the exhibition “offers raw information with limited transformational vision” this did not stop him from going on in two lengthy paragraphs (below) to explain their meaning. (Perhaps the Times pays by the word.)

     Together “Sandstars” and “Astroturf Constellation” operate symbolically on two levels, one literal and one metaphorical. On the literal plane they speak to relations between humans and nature. Nature is equipped with its own systems for maintaining balance between life and death. Stuff that dies gets flushed and recycled for the benefit of still-living things. This seems to have worked pretty well for some eons but has been upset in recent centuries by the evolution of human technological know-how and the exponential growth of the earth’s human population. Nature is evidently hard-pressed to digest the volume and kinds of waste that humans generate. So Mr. Orozco’s projects serve to promote more conscientious stewardship of our fragile natural home.

      As for metaphorical reading, nonliteral meanings are not asserted, but they do come to mind. The transformation of detritus into art and chaos into order resonates, for example, with ancient alchemical procedures in which the processing of low-value stuff into priceless material is supposed to have the magical effect of advancing undeveloped souls toward higher orders of consciousness. But any such flights of interpretive fancy are left for viewers to supply, since Mr. Orozco has not framed the project in ways that would connect it to psychological or spiritual spheres. Imaginative liftoff stalls at ground level.

I BET YOU DOLLARS TO DONUTS NO ONE READ THROUGH BOTH OF THE CRITIC’S PARAGRAPHS.

         And now back to the yogurt lids. The work of art in question was, “Yogurt Caps”, which Mr. Orozco had installed at the Marian Goodman Gallery in 1994 as part of his first solo show in the United States. The installation was a provocative one, (according to the New York Observer) consisting as it did of nothing more than four clear, blue-rimmed Dannon lids, each attached to one of four walls of an otherwise empty room in the gallery. (An unidentified foreign food manufacturer is rumored to have provided funding for this show.)

      You’d think the lids would have the good sense to gracefully slip away into oblivion: but no. In 2009 The Museum of Modern Art gave a retrospective of Orozco’s work and the curator really wanted the original Yogurt Caps in her show. Though the piece “obviously involved no craft on the part of the artist, no hours of apparent labor, and no decisions that would have seemingly been considered aesthetic choices,” the curator said, it was nevertheless an important work: one that got people to contemplate their relationship to the gallery walls and the nature of empty space. “It was an astoundingly audacious move, to just nail those yogurt lids onto the four walls of the main gallery and call it a show,” The curator continued, “In many cases people walked into the exhibition and didn’t even know that anything was there at all.” (Earl’s note: They were the lucky ones.)

     But the curator pulled a fast one. The four lids on exhibition were not the original ones (A collector had purchased these. I can only assume that it was serendipity; he just happened to have four opened yogurt cups in his refrigerator and the lids were missing.) But Orozco had provided the gallery with back ups which were still available. Nowhere did MOMA let on that these were surrogate lids (P.T. Barnum must be smiling up there.)

P.S. My title of this story, “A Beached Wail” is a very clever play on words since the site on which Orozco’s team collected their detritus (artspeak for garbage) was a Mexican beach where gray whales go to mate and return to die. I bet it was so clever no one noticed the allusion.

P.P.S. One of my art pieces is related to this subject and it stemmed from an experience Judy and I had on a guided tour of the Whitney Museum many years ago. Our group was standing in front of a contemporary painting that left most of us in the cold. One member asked, “Is this art” Before the guide could respond another member of our group answered, “If it’s hanging here it’s art!”

    This colloquy inspired me to create, “WHITE ON WHITE”, two white canvases each inscribed with the words shown below which were also in white and just about visible against the white background:

    

NDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2012

SENIOR MOMENT # 2

    Well that didn't take too long. Just a day or two after writing about my misadventures on Memorial Day I received a phone call this morning from a very good friend, Sylvia Robinson who is Don the photographer's wife, calling to ask how I was feeling. I considered that a very thoughtful act, since she knew I was home alone with Judy being away for a few days.
   Then the ax fell. Sylvia wondered why I hadn't shown up last night for their wedding anniversary party. I was dumbstruck. I hadn't written down the date and I was so embarrassed to have missed sharing this very important anniversary with them. I also felt badly because I had eaten a a frozen chicken pot pie for dinner - - - Mrs. Paul you should be ashamed of yourself, there is supposed to be chicken in the pot pie not just in the picture on the box.
     I asked Sylvia what they had had for dinner and listened as she rolled off a list of entrees of my favorite dishes - - - and the food at their club is the best in town.
     
      I wonder if  I should tell Judy.

     I wonder if Emily Post would say that I still have to reciprocate, even if I didn't attend.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2012

SENIOR MOMENT # 2

    Well that didn't take too long. Just a day or two after writing about my misadventures on Memorial Day I received a phone call this morning from a very good friend, Sylvia Robinson who is Don the photographer's wife, calling to ask how I was feeling. I considered that a very thoughtful act, since she knew I was home alone with Judy being away for a few days.
   Then the ax fell. Sylvia wondered why I hadn't shown up last night for their wedding anniversary party. I was dumbstruck. I hadn't written down the date and I was so embarrassed to have missed sharing this very important anniversary with them. I also felt badly because I had eaten a a frozen chicken pot pie for dinner - - - Mrs. Paul you should be ashamed of yourself, there is supposed to be chicken in the pot pie not just in the picture on the box.
     I asked Sylvia what they had had for dinner and listened as she rolled off a list of entrees of my favorite dishes - - - and the food at their club is the best in town.
     
      I wonder if  I should tell Judy.

     I wonder if Emily Post would say that I still have to reciprocate, even if I didn't attend.