Azalea requested I explain what I meant by my statement that, with respect to the NY Times, I have "language issues". Fair enough, I can see how that may have been a little obtuse or obscure or some other word starting with "ob".

At home, I tend to talk to the newspaper. Out loud. Usually by myself, but generally I don't care if others are there. I regard the reading of the newspaper as a conversation between me and the writers and editors. I orally convey my agreement with an article, as in, "yes, exactly right". Or my disagreement, sometimes, by proclaiming loudly, "you complete asshole, that is such a biased presentation and just totally ignores the facts!" Sometimes I will review out loud what those missing facts are. Sometimes my language gets coarser. I don't know if I am alone in conducting this kind of conversation with the Times. I hope not. If I am, I will simply mark it down as one of my charming idiosyncracies. Feel free to chime in on this point.

In any event, I had been doing this for years. Long before the arrival of the children. And while I saw good reasons to stop doing this around the children, there were times I just could not help myself. For instance, I consider the NY Times' articles concerning the conflict in Israel to be so one-sided and so anti-Israel so as to be a national outrage. In fact, I really started reading the NY Post in earnest on September 12, 2001, since the coverage by the Post of 9/11 did not include any earnest questions about what we as a nation had done to deserve this attack. But I digress.

One day, my daughter was sitting and having breakfast with the nanny when out popped a whole series of curses. The nanny was astonished and asked her why she was using such language. The little girl pointed to the table and explained with one word: "Newspaper". The nanny then requested that I stop reading the newspaper around the children if I could not control myself.

I hope that clarifies what I meant when I said I have language issues with respect to the NY Times. Still, I suppose it might be more accurate to say instead that the NY Times has writing issues and I have control issues.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:23 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 398 words, total size 2 kb.

1 If it helps, I do the same thing with computers, kitchen appliances and animals.

Posted by: Hanah at July 14, 2004 09:55 AM (UdFzX)

2 I have that habit with tools.

Posted by: Jim at July 14, 2004 10:41 AM (IOwam)

3 We get the Sunday NYT delivered way out here in CaliFORniA. Dan mutters a lot while reading it, but he only actually yells at the computer news, which is our daily paper now. I try to stay out of it. I've learned that if I ask questions, I'll get an earful about the "way things should be". Complete with gesticulations. Then I'll calmly agree, "Okay King Dan" and he'll mock-pout. It's a time-honored ritual around here.. ;-)

Posted by: Amber at July 14, 2004 01:26 PM (zQE5D)

4 Many thanks for the clarification. I carry on the same type of conversations when i read my daily newspapers online- NYT,NY Post, Washington Post. Ever do any work with Alston & Bird out of Atlanta?

Posted by: Azalea at July 14, 2004 04:57 PM (hRxUm)

5 Nope but I know some of the NY A&B people. Why?

Posted by: RP at July 15, 2004 04:05 PM (LlPKh)

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I don't recall where I first heard the term "yellular". It is a reference to cell phone voice. As in, not cellular but a really loud yellular. Anyway, you can hear the darndest things as you walk the streets of New York. Here are the snippets I overheard from two conversations while going to work today:

1. In Grand Central Station: "So Lee (or Leigh?) was at camp for five days before Health and Human Services shut it down and sent everyone home. Turns out the guy running it was a registered sex offender."

2. On the corner of Park Avenue and 42nd Street: "I was like, 'you will NOT talk to me like that' and then I was like, 'fuck this shit" and then I was like . . ." Regrets but I had moved on before I found out what she was "like" next.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:01 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Not Seven-Up. No, I mean flat.

My wife has a second interview for a job she thinks she wants. As a result, she needed a good night last night. The girl child, if she woke in the darkness, would be my responsibility. And she woke. She woke crying with what I believe as a bad dream, but that is only my surmise as she declined to elaborate on the reasons when offered the opportunity. That was at 1:28. I managed to get back to sleep and my wife did not stir. A success, according to the way I am judging these things.

Then, she woke and called again. 3:00 in the morning. I was not happy, especially when she told me that it was for another hug and a kiss. I gave it to her and she promised she'd go right to sleep. She even did. I did not. No, I mostly lay in bed and thought about how I might consider listing her on Craig's List to trade for a stuffed fish I could hang on a wall. Disclaimer, I do not consider myself responsible for my thoughts at that time of the morning and, if she is extra cute this morning, I may reconsider.

But right now, I see a flat day with limited fizz ahead of me.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 06:56 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I defaced a poster last night on the way home from work. Well, not a poster exactly. More like a sign. The conductor posted a handwritten sign with the words "No Exit" over the door to the train carriage closest to where I and many others were sitting. Of course it was an exit. In point of fact, it was the chosen exit for those of us in that part of the carriage and we all did actually end up exiting through it. I think the sign may have been left over from a different route. No matter. I was the first to line up at the door to await my station stop. I stood in front of this sign and couldn't help myself. I took up my pen and glanced quickly over my shoulder (thus establishing to the complete satisfaction of even the most casual observer that I was about to do something either suspicious or improper or both). I then wrote huis clos on the sign. Often enough, when you commute sitting near some idiot who has his cell phone fixed to his ear and his voice set to stun, you agree with Sartre that hell really is other people.

Inject a little existentialism in everybody's day.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 06:49 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Today, July 13, is not only the day that my most recent parking ticket is due, it was also on this day, in:

*1568 that the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, of blessed memory, perfects a way to bottle beer (may we have a moment of silence, please?)

-and-

*1898 that Guglielmo Marconi patents the radio.

Taken together, they made it possible for you to stay home, drink a beer, and listen on the radio as, on this day in 1934, Babe Ruth hit his 700th home run (against Detroit).

Coincidence? No way. This right here is enough to make me believe in a higher power.

On a more serious note, today in 1793 Jean Paul Marat, French revolutionary, was murdered in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday. There is a cool link to a small bio for Corday here.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:31 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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If you recognize the title, you have young children or a great appreciation for the finer points of children's literature and film. It is, of course, from Alice in Wonderland and is the song they sing at the Mad Hatter's tea party. My daughter loves that song and the cartoon movie.

I came home from work a little late last night, but still early enough to see the kids, happily. It was my daughter's unbirthday yesterday and she turned exactly three and a half. I congratulated her and wished her a happy unbirthday. She got excited and asked me, "is it really my unbirthday today?" And I told her it was and she responded, "well, then why don't I have a hat?" A good question, I felt and I didn't have an answer but, fortunately, my wife was there and she did have an answer. Her answer consisted of constructing a birthday crown out of green construction paper. The girl child was most satisfied and set about decorating her crown with crayons. We drew the line, however, at the glitter glue since I did not want to see it all over her pj's. more...

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:19 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 My Mom would sporadically have unbirthday parties for us when we were young. Wonderful memories there, RP. Thanks.

Posted by: Jim at July 13, 2004 08:50 AM (IOwam)

2 My sister was born 2 days after my unbirthday, and so I always think of her when I hear this song. Thanks for reminding me of it, and for the rest of the words!

Posted by: Mandalei at July 13, 2004 09:03 AM (nemUU)

3 I'm so glad we're not the only ones! Jim, thanks again for all your help! Amanda, WELCOME HOME!

Posted by: RP at July 13, 2004 09:06 AM (LlPKh)

4 RP, My unbirthday falls on my father's birthday, so I've always celebrated it as a true half-birthday. Glad I'm not the only one! Thanks for sharing! How do you like your new digs, BTW?

Posted by: Grammar Queen at July 13, 2004 12:13 PM (gDEwS)

5 That song is completely stuck in my head now. Thanks.

Posted by: Helen at July 14, 2004 04:52 AM (LlkAL)

6 Sorry, Helen! Still, there are worse tunes, aren't there? GQ: Let me know when it is and I'll send you a card.

Posted by: RP at July 14, 2004 09:43 AM (LlPKh)

7 Random, that story reminds me of when Lucy was around the same age and had hurt her cat somehow. I asked her to tell her kitty she was sorry for hurting her. She stuck her lower lip out and said no, shaking her head. I insisted and she blew up. "She can't TALK, MOMMY! She can't UNDERSTAND ME! SHE'S A CAT!" I was taken aback, since this was the little girl who talked to her dolls. Dolls could understand her but the cat couldn't? After I thought about it, it made a type of sense. The dolls were completely pretend-creatures, but the cat was real. Therefore, the cat couldn't understand, but the imaginary dolls could. Ah well..she seems to have grown up to be okay, except today she talks to her cats instead of dolls. Huh? ;-)

Posted by: Amber at July 14, 2004 01:19 PM (zQE5D)

8 Could someone send me the lyrics to the song they sang at the Mad hatter's unbirthday party?

Posted by: Gretel at January 22, 2005 03:10 PM (CA/+P)

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There was no paper outside my door this morning. Usually, there is. So, I occupied myself this morning with reading all of various manual and "how-to" items I printed out concerning MT. The commute just flew by. At one point, however, I looked around the train and I noticed that the seven people sitting closest to me were all reading seven different newspapers:

* the Financial Times
* Investor's Daily
* Wall Street Journal
* NY Times
* USA Today (I guess it's a newspaper, too)
* NY Post, and,
* the local Gannet newspaper (I forget the name)

Now, you may say to yourself, "self, that seems like a lot of newspapers". And then you might agree with yourself. But that would be wrong, because thanks to Andrew Cusack, we know that NY has 18 daily papers. I think that's quite cool, but then, I am a newspaper and periodical junky. I probably look at three or more of those 18 on a daily basis and more on line.

The NY Times and I have a special relationship. I think of it as a love/hate/couldn't care less kind of a thing. Sometimes I love certain sections, sometimes a hate most of the politically correct and biased tone and reporting, and it couldn't care less about what I think about it. By the way, I am no longer allowed to read the Times around my children. I have language issues.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:02 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Today, in the NY Times, there was heartrending article about the nursing shortage in Africa. In a nutshell, it appears that all of the nurses are setting off to practice their art back in Great Britain. Result? The health and medical systems of Malawi are on the verge of collapse. It is becoming a total ruin and a crisis.

The blame and the remedy are where the NY Times and I part company. The position of the author is right out in front: "It is the poor subsidizing the rich, since African governments paid to educate many of the health care workers who are leaving." Well, the blame is clear. It's all the fault of the prosperous Western regimes. The remedy proposed? Set up some system which will make it more difficult for these women to emigrate, to get out of Africa, to get out of hospitals where it is assumed, for instance, that "any woman they examine may be H.I.V. positive", where "a quarter of public health workers, including nurses, will be dead, mostly of AIDS and tuberculosis, by 2009, according to a study of worker death rates in 40 hospitals here".

Instead of setting up some bureaucratic Berlin Wall to keep these women slaving away for overtime pay of 20 cents an hour, let's turn the focus on corrupt regimes which are killing their people. We cannot force these women to stay. That is immoral if they can get out and especially if they can support themselves elsewhere. No, this is the free market of people -- the movement of people from bad regimes to comparatively better ones. The trick is to make it possible for these women to want to stay in their home countries, not to coerce them into it. That is where the hard work comes in. How to improve African countries. No one wants to focus on that when the easier and more politically attractive explanation is that it is all the fault of the West. Cheap blame will solve nothing.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 03:14 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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My daughter told my wife that she didn't like the beach club we joined. My wife asked her why and she replied, "because not enough people know my name". I know how she feels as I join this new community. So, I will take my daughter's example to heart. She went over to a new group of children sitting on the main lawn, plopped herself down, and said, "hi, my name is X, can I play with you?"

Hi, y'all, my name is RP, short for Random Penseur, and this is my first post at my new location on Mu.Nu. Welcome to my new spot!

I am a lawyer, living in the suburbs of New York, and I tend to write about politics, culture, family, society and whatever either catches my interest or outrages me at that particular moment. I have two children. The girl child is 3.5 and the boy child is 17 months.

Thanks for having me! I'm looking forward to playing with you all.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 01:58 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Philip Levine

The ship that took my mother to Ellis Island
Eighty-three years ago was named "The Mercy."
She remembers trying to eat a banana
without first peeling it and seeing her first orange
in the hands of a young Scot, a seaman
who gave her a bite and wiped her mouth for her
with a red bandana and taught her the word,
"orange," saying it patiently over and over.
A long autumn voyage, the days darkening
with the black waters calming as night came on,
then nothing as far as her eyes could see and space
without limit rushing off to the corners
of creation. She prayed in Russian and Yiddish
to find her family in New York, prayers
unheard or misunderstood or perhaps ignored
by all the powers that swept the waves of darkness
before she woke, that kept "The Mercy" afloat
while smallpox raged among the passengers
and crew until the dead were buried at sea
with strange prayers in a tongue she could not fathom.
"The Mercy," I read on the yellowing pages of a book
I located in a windowless room of the library
on 42nd Street, sat thirty-one days
offshore in quarantine before the passengers
disembarked. There a story ends. Other ships
arrived, "Tancred" out of Glasgow, "The Neptune"
registered as Danish, "Umberto IV,"
the list goes on for pages, November gives
way to winter, the sea pounds this alien shore.
Italian miners from Piemonte dig
under towns in western Pennsylvania
only to rediscover the same nightmare
they left at home. A nine-year-old girl travels
all night by train with one suitcase and an orange.
She learns that mercy is something you can eat
again and again while the juice spills over
your chin, you can wipe it away with the back
of your hands and you can never get enough.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 11:13 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Hi, y'all! There will not be a lot of activity today as I am in the process of changing webhosting. I have been invited to join the Munuvians over at Mu.Nu and am starting to reestablish my blog over there where I will be found at RandomPensees.mu.nu. This is a very cool thing and I am very excited. I will most likely be neglecting my work today as I try to figure out how to get it all set up and how to move my archives over. I invite you to join me there and to update your links/favorites in the near future.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:25 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I went to an independent bookstore in our little village to track down a proper copy of AA Milne's Winnie the Pooh to begin reading to my daughter. Upon entering, I was immediately distracted by the bookshelves to the left of the entrance that were devoted to the recent publications. I can enter a bookstore with the best of intentions, with the steeliest of resolves, with the belief that I cannot be distracted from my mission to procure one, single title and no more and I can and will fail each and every time. This time, however (while I did briefly consider a new edition of the Journals of Lewis and Clark), I was too distracted by the overwhelming number of anti-Bush publications with not one pro-Bush book. Is it true, I wondered, that not one author has put pen to paper in defense of the President? I doubt that.

So, after locating my Pooh, I approached the counter and asked the woman why the display was so unbalanced. I was pleased when she responded that she had received a lot of complaints about it. I was pleased about that because maybe, even in this very Democratic party village, people were still concerned about the chattering class treating them like idiots (at least I hope that's why). And then she told me that this was what was being published and maybe they had a point. I responded that I didn't know if they had a point, and regardless of where I stood on the President (and actually I support the man even if I did not vote for him the first time around), I was tired of these authors treating me like I was not a fucking adult. Stop pandering and actually engage in reasoned political debate and conversation. To my surprise, this woman agreed with me and took out a clipping from the NY Press which excoriates the new Michael Moore movie. The NY Press is not known for its conservative point of view.

I walked out somewhat cheered. Maybe the rest of this little part of the country is tired of the polemics, too.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:33 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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While driving today from one errand to the next, during nap time for the children, I went past Heathcote Hill in Mamaroneck, overlooking the Mamaroneck Harbor. There is an historical marker there to commemorate a small battle during the Revolutionary War. I give it a mental nod of the head whenever I pass by in recognition of the sacrifices past. Today, getting out of a Japanese car, in front of the historical marker, were three Indian women dressed in their saris. It made for an interesting juxtaposition of America past and America present. As I've said in this blog before, if we are still attracting immigrants, like the ones who fought at Heathcote Hill, for instance, we are probably doing better than the pundits would like us to think.

By the way, here is a little information I found on the net regarding the battle:

Heathcote Hill, to the north of the Post Road, is now covered with dwellings, but is rich in both historic and literary associations. It was named from Colonel Heathcote, who built a large brick mansion burned before the Revolution. The post-Revolutionary Heathcote Hall is now a road house.

In 1776 it was the scene of a surprise attack by a Delaware regiment upon the Queenes Rangers, a battalion of Loyalist Americans, who were worsted. This is interesting as an occasion where Americans fought Americans. The dead were buried near the hill in a common grave, "Rider and horse,Ã?—friend and foe, in one red burial blent."

A great-grandson of Colonel Heathcote's, Judge DeLancey, who succeeded to the estate, had two daughters, one of whom married John MacAdam, the inventor of the road which bears his name, and the other, James Fenimore Cooper.

Cooper lived for some time on the slope of the hill and here were written his first two novels, "Precaution" (1820) and "The Spy." The scenes of the latter are almost wholly in this `Neutral Ground,' which lay between New Rochelle and Stamford, where were respectively the lines of the British and the Continental armies.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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While walking past a tavern, I noticed the following sign: "Gentleman: Please No
Tank Tops".

Has it really come to this? Gentlemen need to be told to leave the tank tops at home?

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:20 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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A friend sent me this. It's an extract from a Christopher Hitchens article from the Weekly Standard:

"I used to play two subliterary games with Salman Rushdie. The first, not that you asked, was to re-title Shakespeare plays as if they had been written by Robert Ludlum. (Rushdie, who invented the game, came up with The Elsinore Vacillation, The Dunsinane Reforestation, The Kerchief Implication, and The Rialto Sanction.) The second was to recite Bob Dylan songs in a deadpan voice as though they were blank verse."

I feel inspired. Anyone want to play?

Posted by: Random Penseur at 11:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Just a quick post to call your attention to the discussion Mark is continuing about political moderates. He makes a lot of good points and is clearly got way more to say about this than can fit in a comment on my blog. Thanks to Mark for continuing the discussion in such a thoughtful way!

And if you haven't checked out his blog generally, get thee hence!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:47 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I received such a lovely compliment from Jim at Snooze Button Dreams, who, in adding my blog to his blog roll writes: "Found from tracking back comments or maybe from the New Blog Showcase. Fantastic mad writing skillz. Talk about erudite - if I could write half as well..."

I wrote to thank him there and I write to thank him here. You all should go visit his site. He writes beautifully and fluently about a whole range of various topics. He also has a slightly different point of view on bogus tort claims from my post below and I think it will make you laugh while making you think.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:40 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Inspired by the anniversary of William Jennings Bryan's famous "cross of gold" speech, given today in 1896, I ventured forth to look for the text of the speech and found this cool site: Great American Speeches (80 Years of Political Oratory). You will lose much time in here and probably quite profitably. Also, you might want to check out: Famous Speeches from USA Info.

In the meantime, check out this selection from the Bryan speech:


Ah, my friends, we say not one word against those who live upon the Atlantic Coast, but the hardy pioneers who have braved all the dangers of the wilderness, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose --the pioneers away out there [Bryan points westward], who rear their children, ear to Nature's heart, where they can mingle their voices with the voices of the birds--out there where they have erected school houses for the education of their young, churches where they praise their Creator, and cemeteries where they rest the ashes of their dead--these people, we say, are as deserving of the consideration of our party as any people in this country. It is for these people that we speak. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of conquest; we are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and our posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned; we have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded; we have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more! We defy them!

and this, the conclusion:

No, my friends, that will never be the verdict of our people. Therefore, we care not upon what lines the battle is fought. If they say bi-metalism is good, but that we cannot have it until other nations help us, we reply that, instead of having a gold standard because England has, we will restore bi-metalism, and then let England have bi-metalism because the United States has it. If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we will fight them to the uttermost. Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns! You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!"

Good stuff.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:20 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I do not intend to weigh in at length on this emotional and complicated subject. I write now only to make a limited observation based on my own personal experience.

As some of you may know, I am a lawyer. I practice almost exclusively complex commercial and corporate litigation and do some ancillary corporate work for clients who trust me and think I can't possibly screw up their work as badly as the last lawyer who got them into all the trouble they needed me to solve through litigation. Is that a ringing endorsement, or what? I got a referral for a personal injury claim the other day. I don't do PI work. Not my specialty. But, as a courtesy, I listened to the fellow's problem and agreed, at the end of his presentation, that he had a claim. I was about to type the details of his claim, but thought better of it. Even if he did not retain me, I would feel wrong about going into detail. Suffice it to say his wife was injured at a hotel they were staying at. I asked this fellow, at the conclusion of our chat, did anyone at the hotel offer to waive the bill, reverse the charges for the service than injured her, or even apologize. And he said, no, not a thing. This brings me to tort reform. I am beginning to think that a lot of tort cases are brought because the defendant acted like an asshole. If the manager of the hotel had acted like a gentleman, I doubt this fellow would have been on the phone to me looking for compensation.

Maybe this post isn't about tort reform at all, now that I re-read my scribbles to this point, maybe it's really just a continuation of the discussion we've been having about moderates and courtesy. Maybe the real point is not that we need tort reform but that we need courtesy reform. Stop treating each other like idiots, apologize promptly when something's your fault, be sincere, and I am willing to bet the number of lawsuits would go down.

I know that someone might comment, if they feel moved to do so, that the manager of the hotel could not have apologized because it would be seen as an admission of responsibility and an invitation to a suit. I disagree and I'll explain why. If the manager were my client, I'd advise him that he was going to get sued anyway since it took place in his hotel and due to actions by his employees who were acting within the course and scope of their duties as employees. Of course the hotel is a target and saying you're sorry will not make it any less of a target. So, I would counsel the manager to apologize promptly, send flowers, comp them to the room, pick up the medical bills, and make whatever other nice gesture he could think of. At best, he might just avoid a suit and pick up some nice good will out of it. At worst, well, he's probably going to get sued anyway. But, by not apologizing, the idiot has absolutely bought himself an all expenses paid visit from the process server.

So, my personal experience leads me to think: more courtesy, fewer law suits!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Late night out last night with friends who we had not seen in a couple of years. Too much cheap Spanish red wine. Stayed up way too late on a school night. Ate too much excellent Turkish food. Came home to collapse in my bed only to be awakened three hours later, at about 3:30 a.m by a request from the girl child for a tissue. She needed her nose blown. I, of course, stumbled out of bed and immediately complied. I told her to go back to sleep and she sang, "ooookaaaay", at me. And wonders of wonders, she actually did go back to sleep. I settled happily back into my pillow and still warm duvet and began the process of going back to sleep. Then, from the other monitor, I hear, "da da da da da". A pause. Then more chatter. My wife, deciding that there must have been a Three Mile Island type incident in the vicinity of the boy's PJ's, valiantly dons the Hazmat suit and rides off to investigate. No hazmat incident. Just a little boy who's up and wants to play. He wants to play really badly. He delays for a long time accepting our kind invitation to return to his untroubled slumber. You may wonder, however, was your hero (read: me, the author) daunted by this yo-yo sleep/not sleep night? No, I shout triumphantly in return and thank you so much for asking. I am made of sterner stuff than this! When my alarm bleated its anemic electronic whine at 5:30, I promptly, without undue delay, jumped out of bed at 6:27. There's a lesson in this for all of us, somewhere. I think it might be that there's always going to be a later train you can take.

Speaking of going out late on a Thursday, by the way, when I was young and childless and living in New York City, Thursday night was considered connoisseur's night out. Then I think it became Monday night. Friday night was strictly for amateurs and the B 'n T crowd. Ever hear that somewhat offensive expression? It refers to those who need to avail themselves of either a Bridge or a Tunnel to get into Manhattan. There are a ton of social stereotypes bound up in that three letter expression. Some of them may even be true. But, I am so out of touch now that I don't know what night is hot anymore nor if anyone even use the B 'n T expression.

By the way, the couple with whom we dined last night? We met them shortly after the birth of the girl child in what feels like it has to be an only in NY story. My wife and I, faced with her impending return to work, placed an advertisement for a Norwegian speaking nanny in the Irish Echo, the newspaper of choice for those seeking domestic employment. We received something like 40 replies. I was thrilled, until I listened to all the voicemails stacked up on my cell phone. Then I realized that cultural diffusion had reached new heights. What else could explain why so many women were calling about the Norwegian speaking nanny position and leaving messages with the beautiful lilt of the West Indies and Jamaica in their voices? I am a big fan of that accent, I find it very musical. But it ain't Norwegian. There was one other message, however. It was from a guy who was also married to a Norwegian woman and they had also just recently had a baby. He said that they had not considered even advertising for a Norwegian speaking nanny and he wondered if I would be so kind as to send over his way the many women we considered and rejected for the position. I called him and explained that we received not one single qualified applicant and invited him and his wife over for a drink. They accepted and we have passed many happy hours with them since and our daughters like each other, too. I love this story. Anyway, they have now also sold their apartment in NYC and bought a house out in Westchester, one town over from ours.

So, here I am. Armed with Advil and coffee, I am off to convince two new potential clients that I am their man for the dispute they are having with their former hedge fund employer. I will not slobber on myself and I will confirm I have put each button of my shirt in the appropriate hole. Hopefully, they won't notice anything amiss. Wish me luck!

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