The recap: Part 2.

The second part of the weekend recap was, of course, how my beloved Mets blew the World Series with a sudden lack of clutch hitting, foolish errors, and poor management, and basically turned back into the June version of the team that was flirting with a .500 season. Great time to run out of gas, boys.

As a friend of mine asks, is it better to have never followed a team, given that only one gets the championship each year---and that for the rest, as Vin Scully said, losing feels worse than winning feels good?

Can't say. Too much pain. Philosophy is never negated but may be paused when pain is acute.

I congratulate the Royals, who came back for another shot after losing the Series last year. Congratulations! Now, go tear some tendons or something.

The problem that many of my friends don't acknowledge is that, when you're the Mets, you don't put together a powerhouse team and stay in contention for seven or eight years. When you're the Mets, you get one shot every ten years, if that. If you don't win it all, your stars flee or develop injuries, your phenoms crap out as soon as they arrive,  your ownership runs into money crises (even linked to major criminals), you pick up sluggers for big money who turn into stooges overnight, and the guys you have to cut go across town to the Yankees and become world-beaters. The Mets are the small-market team in a big market. All the media hellfire, none of the rewards.

I guess people who say "Wait till next year!" are thinking of those great followups to the World Series-losing 1973 and 2000 seasons, right? Finished in fifth place in 1974; 1974-1985 showed eight losing seasons in 11 years. They finished third in 2001, and 2001-2014 saw nine losing seasons in 14 years (and two of the winning seasons, 2007 and 2008, each featured end-of-year slumps of epic proportions that left them out of the playoffs). There is no next year for the New York Mets.

And down we go!

I heard a woman call in to a radio show on Friday morning, who had just won tickets to Game Five. She mentioned how in 2000 her then-young son told her, after the Mets lost the Series to the Yankees, "I don't want to be a Mets fan anymore. It's too painful." She told him that she was sorry, but he had no choice.

I hope she enjoyed her tickets to the game Sunday night, but I doubt it. I wonder if she's wondering if there really is no choice.

One more crappy recap tomorrow.

The recap: Part I.

Was a little too tied up yesterday to give my Halloween recap, but here it is today:

1) Overbought Again: When we bought our house and left the city more than a decade ago, we got a rude surprise---trick or treaters. Back in the confines of NYC we would get hardly any kids, nothing that a couple of bags of fun size stuff couldn't handle. Up here in the Hudson Valley it was a different story. I left work early and got home to find the neighborhood crawling with costumed schnorrers. I was cleaned out in seconds. My wife got home and I yelled, "Go to the store! Buy more candy!"

I have never forgotten the terror of running out of the varmint-appeasing chocolates, and since then I have always stocked enough candy to have gotten all of Napoleon's army home safe from Russia. The problem is, it seems that all the kids in the area grew up. Like everyone moved into the area and had babies at the same time, and now those babies aged out of the trick-or-treat demo, dwindling every year.

I think the doorbell rang seven times yesterday, and maybe we got 21 children. They all made out well, especially the latecomers. But any year could be the big one. Halloween is not like other holidays, where you pretty much know how many people are coming over. I have been overbuying for some time, and will probably do it again next year.

2) Best Costume: It was a tough call between the little girl in the pink unicorn suit and the baby in the pumpkin outfit in the stroller. I'm giving it to the unicorn. She was shy but she still came up to the door. The baby just sat there. Lazy babies.

3) Biggest Shock: Did not get any surly teenagers with Mom's pillowcases and no costume. We had some teenage girls, but they bothered to dress up, and were polite.

4) Oddest Candy: Had to be the Milky Way Caramel Apple Minis. They really taste like apple, which is all wrong. And yet they taste oh so right. Too good to waste on children, although many were.

5) Dog Disturbance: My dog, who sleeps through thunderstorms and fireworks and fireworks shot off during thunderstorms, cannot rest while strangers are thumping around the front door, ringing and knocking, and him not permitted to go slobber on them. Poor guy got no rest at all.

6) Biggest Scare: Had nothing to do with Halloween. Some schmuck tried to steal my identity and use my credit card number. Thank God, the company caught it and stopped the theft, and will issue a new card. The representative that called asked if I had any questions, and I wanted to ask, "If the cops find the guy, do I get to break his jaw?" I mean, really, this gets me bewitched, bothered, and bewildered. Who would want to steal my identity? Has he actually seen me? He'd think twice.

Anyway, that was Halloween, and aside from a random attack by an evildoer I don't have much eeeevil to report. But there will a second recap tomorrow, on another painful subject.

Personal space.

In space, no one can hear you fart.

Spoooooky reading.

Every year I try to get some spooky reading in before Halloween. This year I chose The Haunted Hotel, a brief 1878 novel by Wilkie Collins.

Wilkie Collins virtually invented the detective novel in 1868 with The Moonstone, an excellent and complex story told from multiple point of view that revolves around a stolen Hindu gem. The Haunted Hotel is also a mystery story, but one with fantastical elements that make it a ghost story as well.

One of Collins's strengths as a writer is his distinct characterizations. The Haunted Hotel opens with two of them, briefly but strikingly described---a highly respected London doctor and the mysterious, dark woman who comes to see him, claiming she is doomed, although she appears to be healthy. This woman seems to draw everyone around her into this cloud of doom, especially her fiance. I hate to say more, except that all roads lead to a hotel in Venice---a haunted hotel.

Was it spooky? Hey, a Venetian Renaissance palace with dungeons in the basement? Of course! I would say it is mild by modern standards, but a modern reader who is not spooked by it shows a dearth of imagination. There is one scene of an apparition in the dead of night that, if it were to actually happen to me, particularly if in a room with no electric lights, I would probably freak out like every freakout I've ever had in my whole life all at once.

This was one of Collins's latter works, and at this stage in his life he was struggling with ill health and addiction. It shows in his story structure, I think. Potent plot elements are introduced and fade away; key characters just go off somewhere; some things about it that are not supernatural still don't make sense. The Moonstone was much longer and yet was tightly plotted and riveting---this book is rather sloppy. But for mood and character, it gets an A for AAAH!

I would recommend The Haunted Hotel for Halloween, but if you want to start at the top with Collins, start with The Moonstone. It's not spooky per se, but it has a smart detective, a cursed diamond, sleepwalking, thievery, mysterious foreigners, a butler, drugs, and disguises, and it is an excellent book.

So clean you could eat out of it!

Had nothing to do and no motivation to do things I should do (write, work, build the business); was feeling mopey and blah. So I cleaned the fridge.

It's a big job if you do it right, you know. I've timed it before, and it takes two hours to get it done, and that's when I'm not interrupted by calls or dog whines or things. But at the end---Oh! So clean!

I wish I could sleep in it! 

I do put the required box of Arm & Hammer in the fridge to soak up odors. Anyone who has ever moved a refrigerator knows that over time they develop a smell like nothing else in the world, no matter how clean they are kept. The baking soda seems to help. Although it does lead to one of the great product jokes in marketing.

Change every 30 days. Right. No one changes the box every 30 days. Felix Unger wouldn't change the box every 30 days. I don't think Bob Arm and Joe Hammer change the freaking box in their fridges every 30 days. I always change it when I clean the fridge, but you damn well better believe I don't do that every 30 days.

I do try to keep it clean, though. Hey, that's where the food goes, and the most vulnerable stuff, too. Stuff that has to stay cold or it goes all bacterial.

As regular visitors to this blog know, bad things happen when you don't clean the refrigerator. I don't want to scare anyone this close to Halloween, but...

He's baaaaack....

Road hog.

Mercedes-Benz unveiled a concept vehicle in Japan called the Luxury Autonopod; it's a luxury automobile that can drive itself when you desire it to. Not that I'm in the market, personally; I'm capable of self-driving at all times, and I'm not really quite in that luxury car demo at this stage of my life. Put it this way: To me, a full-size spare is decadence.

Car and Driver cheered over this thing; while conceding it was rather breadboxy, they said, "Passengers enter through the left side of the vehicle, which swings open in a move that makes the Tesla Model X's 'falcon doors' look downright conventional. Giant, 26-inch wheels and whimsical light effects on the grille, wheels, and rear window complete the futuristic appearance."

Futuristic? I guess.

Made me think of something else, actually:

Although it made my wife think of this:

Dr. Strangepork, call your office.

I want to live in Stars Hollow.

Really, who wouldn't?

Stars Hollow, Connecticut, the town that is the setting for The Gilmore Girls, has everything anyone could want, really. The kids are pretty bright and fairly well behaved, the citizens are only annoying in comical ways, everyone has a job, every storefront is occupied, it has a nifty park with a big gazebo, it has quaint celebrations, it gets all four seasons in the most picturesque ways, the schools seem to be pretty good (if not exceptional), there's a great diner and a lovely B&B, it has a pizzeria and a Chinese restaurant (and yet not one strip mall), everything is in walking distance, you can get groceries and stationery and antiques and books and anything else without going to some big box store five towns over, and a big city is within striking distance if you get bored. 

I'm a casual watcher, my wife being the one who puts it on while I'm working* on the laptop. I enjoy the zippy dialogue and rapid-fire quips; it's one of those shows that give you fifty jokes a minute and if you like thirty, everyone's happy. 

Few people seem really happy in Stars Hollow, but that's all right. I would be if I were there, enjoying life in my century-old two-story home with a nice yard, just steps from downtown.

There's just one thing wrong with the town, actually, and that is: It isn't real.

Stars Hollow (of course it has its own Wikipedia page) was part of the Warner Brothers backlot in Burbank, California, which is why the snow never looked dirty and slushy and the trees were green when people were dressed for fall. Everything has been shot here, including The Waltons, The Muppets, Pretty Little Liars, The Music Man, and The Ghost Whisperer (for part of its run). Probably every Hallmark movie that isn't shot in Canada is shot there. So for a small town that doesn't actually exist, Stars Hollow has a lot of miles on it.

Shows like to feature this kind of town despite the fact that we don't really want to live that way. Most of us would rather drive five towns over and get a good deal for our money than pay higher prices and walk to local shops. Driving is easy; overpaying is hard.**

Stars Hollow is said to be based on some real-life Connecticut towns, including Essex, which is a lovely place on the Connecticut River. I haven't been there in years, but I can attest that it is exactly what you'd want if you like Stars Hollow. Essex, though, has a median household income of $84,937; a median house or condo value of $402,361; and a cost of living index of 144.3, which is considered very high. It's full of little pricey shops and people who can afford them. It's not the kind of town where residents run off to Costco. In other words, it's really better suited for Lorelai Gilmore's wealthy parents, not Lorelai and her daughter.***

And so, as always, it's money money money that makes things nice. Quaint is expensive****. For the rest of us, we've opted to vote with our wallets, and go places where parking is easier, even if that leaves once-busy downtowns empty. I do that too; I do not want to sacrifice financial security to subsidize someone else's bad business decisions*****, and neither do you. That's why we have movements like Shop Locally---to guilt us into patronizing stores with less selection and higher prices.

I wish I had answers for everybody about how to build your own thriving town, but I do know light rail and other boondoggles aren't it.

However, another feature of Stars Hollow that I alluded to earlier is much more important than money. The denizens of the town, bizarre and eccentric though they may be, generally show one another respect, and mostly show deep affection for the place. Such assets are costlier than gold; they are what we can do for our neighbors even when we are flat broke.

------

* Yes, working. Really. Okay, sometimes. 

** A major theme of my novel Faster & Closer is the impact of retail economy on the people in a small town. "Every blank storefront is the death of someone’s fortune." I know, a regular Fifty Shades of Grey, isn't it? There's a little more to the book than that.

*** It was also inspired by Washington Depot, which has very similar stats, especially the money stats.

**** So buy all my books and give me lots of dough. Thanks.

***** "My quirky artisan underpants and waffle shop is going to take this town by storm! It'll drive all kinds of traffic here, and soon all these empty storefronts will be filled!"