No Heat

On Saturday afternoon we returned from a walk to the library to discover that our furnace wasn't working. As I write a new furnace is being installed.

We were pretty fortunate. The weather has been mild and we have a wood burning stove. The stove, a cute little guy that sits in the corner of our living room, can generate enough heat to warm our living room and dining area. As a matter of fact, it got up to 74 degrees on Saturday night which is about 6 degrees warmer than we usually keep it during the winter months.

We did make allowances, though. On Sunday I went to the "Y" to take a shower and we spent most of the latter part of the day at my Mom's house. We were going anyway since my sister is visiting but it made the visit even more appealing.

This little inconvenience, though, has given me pause to consider how truly lucky we are. A new furnace is not a trifling matter but it is an expense that we can manage. We had relatives that we could turn to for a warm place to hang out and community services that we take advantage of.

For those of you for whom changing the year in the secular calendar is important, I wish you a very healthy, happy, and prosperous new year!

Best Books of 2007

One of the advantages to my 2 hour plus daily commute is the opportunity to do a lot of reading. In 2007, so far, I've completed 46 books. That's equal to my reading total for 2006 but does not equal my yearly average since I began keeping track in the mid 80's of 52 a year. I attribute the drop off to subscribing to the weekend newspaper which occupies whatever reading time I have on the weekends.

As the end of the calendar year approaches I thought that I would share my top books of 2007. Not all of these books were published in 2007 but they are close enough to qualify. When I complete a book I record the author, title, date completed, and a rating of 1 to 10. I started doing this because I wanted to be able to recommend books in case anyone asked me and to be sure that I was not reading something that I had already read and, perhaps, didn't like.

2007 was a pretty good reading year for me. Eleven books earned a score of 8 or better. For this posting I'll list 5. These are books that earned the highest rating and that I can still remember what they were about as the year ends;

1. The Road - Cormac McCarthy - A father and son struggle for survival in a post-apocalyptic America. A dark novel but strangely uplifting as well.
2. God is Not Great - Christopher Hitchens - Hitchens spares none of the world's major and minor religions from scathing criticism of dubious stories and impossible to obey rules.
3. A Woman in Jerusalem - A.B. Yehoshua - The tale of an unknown and invisible migrant worker in Israel who is killed in a terrorist attack and the bureaucrat who attempts to do right by her and her family.
4. Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen - A glimpse into circus life during the Great Depression.
5. The Brief History of the Dead - Keith Brockmeier - A story about the place that souls go after they die and while the living still remember them.

Looking back over this list it appears that what I enjoyed this year revolved around the dark and thoughtful. There doesn't seem to be a lot of escapism here. I'll stick with these choices, though. I had a hard time putting any of these down.

Thursday at Home

In keeping with the spirit of not working too hard this week, I took today off. I did it at my bosses encouragement who said that I should take a "comp" day for all of the extra time that I'd been working. I wasn't going to argue.

Any day that I don't have to travel far is a pleasant day in my current way of thinking. I slept reasonably late and got a newspaper first thing. I worked on various things around the house and then went to the "Y". Although, we joined over a month ago this was the first time that I went. It was nice being able to exercise and not have to brave the elements. The four of us then walked downtown and ran a few errands. The high point was stopping at Paneira for a coffee and an orange scone. I highly recommend them.

The good feelings of today are tempered, though, by the horrendous news from Pakistan. Oddly the assassination of Benazir Bhutto upset my elderly mother terribly. I think that she ignores much of the news but this event troubles her. It is upsetting to me as well. It makes me wonder what drives people to be so intolerant of opposing viewpoints. I don't believe that this is a problem particular to Pakistan or that it is a growing phenomenon. It's been here forever and will probably always be with us. There are small people who believe that killing someone can kill their ideals as well. The good news is that there are great people who are still willing to stand up for what they believe in despite the risks.

and then the day after

This week might have revealed the perfect work schedule. I worked on Monday was off yesterday, I'll be off tomorrow, and back Friday. There isn't enough time to get frustrated with anything.

Yesterday I got up early and took an hour long bike ride through the towns of Scotch Plains, Clark, and Cranford. It being Christmas morning the roads were empty. Temperatures in the high 30s and light breezes made for good riding. I was so lulled by the empty roads that I almost got into a collision with another biker. I was going to take the left fork and I glanced back just to be sure as another rider whizzed by me. I was going to be angry that he didn't have the courtesy to announce himself but thought better of it.

In the afternoon we all ventured down to Huber Woods near Navasink, New Jersey. We'd never been there before but I found the listing in one of our guidebooks about good hikes for children. The park is small but secluded and we were practically alone on the trails. It's a mix of hardwood, swamp, and sandy stretches. The woods are beautiful in winter. The leafless tress are stark but not lifeless. We enjoyed the quiet. We also sang a few rounds while we were walking to break the silence.

I concluded the evening at the movies. We saw The Golden Compass which just didn't succeed as a movie. It was confusing, dark, and didn't hold true to the novel. There were only five of us in the theatre.

Twas the Night Before...

the 25th of December and it was hard to figure out where everyone was today.

The buses were on a holiday schedule meaning that they ran infrequently and local. It didn't matter much, though, since there was no traffic on the roads and I made it into New York in near record time. This was a record on the fast side not the slow as has been the norm lately. At work there was hardly anyone there. None of the management was there and the regular folk took their cues from them and stayed at home.

I truly love days like today. I had a single phone call and it wasn't even someone wanting something from me. It was actually someone looking to help me with a problem that I was trying to solve. I had a short list of things to get done and I was able to do them all, thoroughly and carefully. Even nicer was the fact that I had time at lunch to get my hair cut and eat away from my desk. A colleague invited me to join them in the cafeteria and we talked about stuff other than work.

Tomorrow, unlike December 25ths past, I won't go into work. I am on call but things have been pretty stable over the last few weeks so in all likelihood I won't have any calls to answer.

Days like these make me wonder if I wouldn't prefer to work more from home. I do like the quiet time to concentrate on what I am supposed to be doing. When I work from home, though, I find myself restless and craving the human contact.

Saturday Night

It's the Saturday before Christmas and this will have to be one of the most benign holiday seasons that I've ever experienced in the US. There have been almost no festivities that I was aware of at work and there were no gifts to make me feel uncomfortable from vendors. I couldn't be more delighted.

Five years ago we were still having holiday parties at work. These were loud boozy affairs that always made me feel as if I needed to keep my guard up. It wasn't cool not to go but it certainly wasn't fun going. I wasn't sorry when they said that our budget cuts wouldn't allow for them any longer. My boss did take us out to lunch yesterday. It was a last minute thing and relatively unthreatening.

The coming week seems to be an unofficial company holiday. I think only one other member of our team besides me will be in. Some of these people have just started working for the company so it's a little hard to understand where they have the time coming from. I recently read in the newspaper that IBM has stopped recording vacation time for their non-hourly employees. It's sort of an honor system. I think that de facto is where The Times is now.

Camp Kindervelt

From the time I was 11 years old until I was 16 I went to a summer camp in Orange County New York about 50 miles north of New York City. They were very happy summers and while, in reflection, it wasn't a great camp, it was a place that I felt very comfortable and I felt I belonged.

The camp was called Kindervelt and it tread a middle course in the Jewish world. It wasn't particularly religious although it had services on Friday night and Saturday. It wasn't particularly Zionist but Israeli dancing and songs were part of the programs. It couldn't decide to be Hebrew speakers or Yiddish speakers or what. There was a time when the color war cheers needed to be in English, Hebrew, and Yiddish. Vus es der fahr der Kindervelt?

About 3 years ago I discovered that, although the camp had closed in 1971, there were a dedicated bunch of folks collecting memorabilia and stories from the camp years which spanned from the 20's. Golda Meir had visited in the 1940's and many alumni had gone on to great careers.

Recently, I discovered that many of my old friends had gotten their names on the mailing list and they had never lost touch with each other. Today I got a call at work from someone who I had met at camp who I had not thought of, seen, or heard any news of in 36 years. When we spoke it was like we had just seen each other last week. The problem was that we just had too much to talk about.

Just when you think life holds no more surprises there is something new to marvel at.