Thursday, June 21, 2012. First full day of Summer (yesterday was the first) and Mother Nature gave us a hot one – around 97 degrees (depending on where you were outside) with a Real Feel of 105.
Last night coming home at ten-thirty, the Real Feel was down to 97. More is predicted for today and then Thunder Storms.
Me, I was home most of the day, happy with my Vornado fans. Yes, I know that sounds like modern martyrdom, but the truth is, these little fans directed on an angle to the ceiling keep the air pleasantly cool (as opposed to chilly cool). Many of us think we cannot live without a room temperature in the low 60s. Not so, in reality. I was never uncomfortable, however, and slept under a single blanket last night.
I did venture out midday yesterday to run some errands and to pick up some lunch. Interestingly the sidewalks along Lexington and Thirds Avenues in the 70s were busy. I stopped by Swifty’s which was very busy (and nice and cool).
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| This is a NO-NO for any sensible dog owner. |
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I had stopped in because just outside the restaurant, one of the customers had left her sweet little white Westie, tied to a pipe on the sidewalk while she had a leisurely lunch in that blistering heat. I went in to find out who the owner was. As it happened she was just leaving, fortunately, so I didn’t say anything to her.
However, my friend Nancy Baker, who lives right around the corner, had been in earlier and had a different experience which she emailed me about later in the afternoon:
The time, 12:20, the temp 95 or so. I was so upset as someone had emptied the water dish the restaurant had put out by the sweet, very clean and docile dog sitting patiently in the heat. I went in and asked who owned the dog. A young woman said she did. I proceeded to read her the riot act. A waiter went out and kindly refilled the water dish. The woman announced that I had RUINED HER LUNCH!!! I could see I was getting nowhere with her so I left and went outside and talked to the dog. Well, out comes said owner as mad as a hornet and tells me that if I don't leave her alone she's going to call the police! So I left and I went and shopped, and on my return 30 minutes later the dog was still there. So awful. I saw that a friend was on his way to the restaurant with his son. He was shocked about the dog and vowed to talk to the woman. I thanked him and let's hope that her lunch was truly ruined!!!
I vote with Nancy. Would that dog owner have enjoyed herself sitting in the midday sun wrapped in fur and chained to a water pipe? Furthermore it is always dangerous for the dog to be left outside a restaurant or store, hitched to a tree or a pipe or a fence while they’re inside running their errands. (It is also very dangerous to the dogs’ health to be “running” alongside while their masters casually – and idiotically – bicycle around the sidewalks and roadway.) Our animals are dependent creatures, just like our children. People who cannot be depended on to insure their animals’ safety actually can’t be depended on by the rest of us in many ways.
Some people are stupid and thoughtless when it comes to caring for their pets (and no doubt with a lot of other humans as well). I don’t know why they have them. Probably for the free unconditional love which the animals provide and which the owners need when no one else is around to amuse them. I have a few thoughts about “why” but I’ll leave it for another day. Meanwhile those pets are intelligent enough to know that – far more intelligent than the owners – and helpless to do anything about it.
Last night at the Paris Theater, Andrew Saffir’s Cinema Society, along with The Hollywood Reporter, Piaget Watches and Sony Pictures Classics hosted the New York premiere of Woody Allen’s new film To Rome With Love, starring with Roberto Benigni (who is hysterical) Judy Davis, Penelope Cruz, Ellen Page, Alec Baldwin, Jesse Eisenberg, as well as the writer/director himself.
At (my) last count, Woody Allen has written and directed (and often starred in 43 films). And that’s not counting the additional ones he’s appeared and starred in. Sitting there in the Paris Theater last night watching the crowd fill the seats (it was packed), I was busy anticipating what the writer-director was going to entertain me with, because I know whatever the story, the mood, the setting, and the cast, I’m going to get splashes (and sometimes showers) of wit and along with uncontrollable guffaws. Sometimes, as it was last night, I get carried away and have to silence myself.
I’ve been in Allen’s company several times at Alice Mason’s dinner parties, although I’ve never had a conversation with him. He doesn’t seem all that different from the character you see up on the screen: quiet, understated, almost shy – but not quite. I once interviewed him back in the day (mid-'60s) when his star was just on the rise and he was still doing stand-up at the Village Vanguard.
You know what he looks like, and in real life he’s as unobtrusively present as he is on stage or on film – except when he’s saying something. But even when he might seem predictable with his storyline, he still surprises with his lines, his bons mots or his kinda crazy way of looking at human haplessness. Of course when it comes to the comic Battle of the Sexes, he’s right up there with the French and British immortals. |
