CALL ME SNAKE

Family gatherings are funny and many of us have a love-hate relationshipship with them. This Thanksgiving is a case in point. Upon hearing that I was arriving in New Hampshire on Thursday for the Thanksgiving get-together, rather than on Wednesday when everyone else in the family was arriving, my mother-in-law said to me: “I envy you.”

Earlier this week, my six-year-old was asked to write an essay about what she was thankful for. She wrote that she was thankful for Martin Luther King and all that he had done. And I thought that was pretty cool.

For some reason, people like to strike up conversations outside of TAGS in Porter Square. Someone usually says something to me when I’m unlocking my bike  at the conclusion of my shopping experience. “You get a pretty good workout on that bike?” a guy asked me the other day. “I like to jog, do a little weights. But how’s biking, I mean as a workout.”
“I don’t think of it that way,” I replied. “I just use the bike to get around.”
“Sure, but if you want to get a workout, how far do you have to go? Like 10 or 15 miles?”
“Something like that. Or less. Every little bit helps.”
“But when you do that, work out really hard, where do you feel it? Do you get that burn in the legs?”
“No, I don’t really feel that because I’ve been biking a long time.”
“Yeah, but when you started out, where did you feel it? Did you get that burn in your legs?”

I said goodbye, as we seemed to be stuck in an endless loop, and if we talked much longer, I probably was going to start feeling that burn in the legs.

“Are those toe socks?” an 8-year-old friend of my daughter’s asked me, during a “play date” at our house on Sunday. I was wearing flip-flops with socks because it was so cold outside (around freezing). I guess that’s why she thought I might be wearing “toe socks,” which was a new one to me. Not only had I never heard the question before, I didn’t know there was such a thing as toe socks (if indeed there is).

Last night I got an email from a Cambridge City official whom I’d written to about an issue that is near and dear to my heart: bike racks. He wrote back to check out the situation and see whether things had worked out satisfactorily. There was one thing odd about the note. It was written as if I had contacted him just the other day when I had, in fact, written to him 13 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days ago. The wheels of bureaucracy grind slowly, they say, but they do grind nevertheless. And you never know when your time is going to come.

I just heard about a new word, “frenemy,” that seems to be going around these days. And I definitely have one, a frenemy that is–someone who I get along with great on the surface. But we’re secretly trying to do each other in. It’s not necessarily great to have a frenemy. But it is great to have a word for it.

A Boston Globe article yesterday about Hillary Clinton’s possible appointment as Secretary of State got a quote from an unlikely source: a yogurt maker who said that Hillary was cool with him, and he thought that might prove to be a “brilliant” choice. I don’t want to knock the guy. In fact, I went to college with him and he’s a really nice fellow. I’d even call him a friend if I knew him better. But I’m still not sure why a reporter from the Boston Globe went all the way to New Hampshire for a quote when he could have just as easily gotten one from a handball player in Cambridge.

One of the mothers at our Cambridge school was just named to Obama’s transition team to advise the president-elect on national security matters. I congratulated her on the appointment but asked whether she could take on these additional responsibilities while also meeting her obligations at home as a “room parent” in her daughter’s 2d-grade classroom. Hard times lead to tough choices, I always say.

A BBC radio report on the Blackberry, the super-cell phone/internet-capable PDA, etc., said that the palmtop device is so addictive it is often called “Crackberry.” I gotta get me one of them.

Yesterday, in a moment of whimsy, I wrote: “Just wondering: What if 9-11 occurred on 7-11 instead? What would have happened to all those stores?”

A commenter, Gordon Marshall, had this response, which I feel is too good to keep buried in the Comment section: “ Giuliani would have bought them all, used them as campaign headquarters, and become president. ‘Only in America.’”

People sometimes ask me why I do this blog. I usually can’t answer. But there are the occasional moments like these–where you write something that sparks someone else to do something nice–that makes it seem especially fun and maybe even worthwhile.

Just wondering: What if 9-11 occurred on 7-11 instead? What would have happened to all those stores?

I hate to see the Patriots lose, especially a close one, but it was still a great game to watch, despite the loss. Coming back from a 24-6 deficit to tie the game at 24 and again at 31 with one second left was thrilling. I would have rather seen a different outcome, but it was still an amazing game. Which is why I’m calling it the best loss ever.

I was walking on Mass. Ave., near the Cambridge Y, when a man asked me: “Hey man, do you like paintball?” I said no although, truth be known, I don’t really know enough about the game (sport?) to have an informed opinion. But one thing I do know is that no one has ever asked me that question before. And it is nice to be asked.

This just in from CINNAMON KISS by Walter Mosley: “I made up my mind then and there that I would get on naked terms with her if at all possible.”

At the breakfast table the other day, while we were frantically racing to get ready for school, my six-year-old asked me, apropos of nothing, “Dad, do you think you have a good life.” Although I was thrown by the question, I answered it the way my hero Larry David might have: “PRETTY GOOD. P-R-E-T-T-Y G-O-O-D.”

There’s a new trend in email I didn’t know about before. Last night I got an email from a friend that said “Zohan?” in the subject line, with nothing in the main body of the text. I told him it sounded like a good idea (us seeing the movie) and that I’d get back to him. I also mentioned that that was the shortest email I’d ever received. He did one better, replying with the word “OK” in the subject line and not a word in the main text.

I’ve been collaborating with the same guy–a well-known scientist–for more than a year, and since he’s often on his cell we’ve talked in many places and indeed many countries. But last night was a new low, as he went to the bathroom and relieved himself and then washed up in the course of our conversation, which related to physics and higher math. Until now, we’ve kept our relationship on pretty much of an equal footing, but last night I got no respect.

For years, Sy Hersch has warned us that the U.S. was going to attack Iran, and I worried about it, all the time telling myself it couldn’t possibly happen (could it?). The U.S. military was badly overextended; things were not going well in Iraq, despite the public pronouncements, and the situation in Afghanistan was deteriorating as well. But still I worried. As time went on, and the end of the Bush regime drew near, I kept telling myself they can’t do it now. Yet there is the term October Surprise, and leave it to Cheney and Karl Rove to try that. But nothing happened in October and Bush is now a lame duck and the Republicans don’t have much to gain by attacking Iran now, do they? So despite all the terrible things that happened in the Bush years, this is one terrible thing that didn’t happen. Yet. And I don’t think it will.

Today is truly a day to rejoice. A mother at my daughters’ school said it well: “I finally feel proud.” I hadn’t thought of it that way but I do think she’s right. Yet for some reason I wasn’t as elated last night as I should have been, whereas I know how terribly I would have felt had the election gone the other way.

And now for the bad news. I will miss the impersonations of John McCain and Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live. I don’t expect we’ll be seeing much of those anymore, and the performances were truly inspired. Unfortunately, the guy who does Obama is not nearly as good, and we may be stuck with him for the next 4 years and hopefully 8.

“Don’t worry, Mom,” a six-year-old girl (and family friend) said earlier today. “My bones and my feelings are telling me that Barack Obama is going to win tomorrow.”

My youngest daughter asked the other day: “If you were running for president and I thought someone else was better, would it be OK if I voted for him instead?”

They always talk about Daylight Savings as some great thing: “You gain an hour of sleep.” But it never works out that way for me. Last night, for instance, I stayed up until 1a.m., which is pretty typical for me, taking advantage of the extra hour. But my kids woke up at 6:30 a.m., rather than at 7:30 a.m., so I had an hour less sleep. Not an hour more. And with sunset at 4:30 today, there’s no bargain at the other end either.