My plans for the evening changed abruptly. A guy from Plenty of Fish cancelled our date because, he says, he had a last minute meeting at work. He begged me not to hate him.
I won't hate him. If he calls to reschedule, we'll take it from there. He won't be at a loss if he does. Not only am I a self-supporting attorney who won't dig his pockets for gold like other women but I'm also a pretty good cook.
I took advantage of this sudden change of plans to finally stop procrastinating and write a new blog entry and to begin making the marinade for a salmon recipe I found in Women's Health Magazine that I have been dying to make. I'm having it Friday because as a practicing Catholic I can't eat meat then as it's now Lent.
Last Friday we got a snow day at work. I was planning to make the recipe then, but my apartment is out of the way from where I wanted to buy the fish. I'd planned to go right after work, but it just wasn't meant to be. I ended up eating Chilean sea bass at a local restaurant in Garden City.
And today there were a few flurries. It's already March. There shouldn't be snow. I was so frustrated. The past few days I was dreaming about my next Caribbean vacation. This year I spent Valentine's Day weekend in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic at an all-inclusive resort by a beach with clear water. I had such a great time even though I went by myself that I want to go to the Caribbean again next winter.
This recent trip was so last minute. I just said to myself, "Let me just go. I need to get away." I had wanted to book a Caribbean vacation for months. Initially, I'd planned to go to the Bahamas with my singles group, but I missed the time to submit a deposit back in November. So, that was out. I'm glad I didn't end up going there. Someone I know who just got back said there were chilly days. I think it's because it's just off the coast of Florida where they got some unusually cold weather.
I foresaw Valentine's Day as a single woman in the dead of winter on the horizon. And at the same time, several of my girl friends were newly engaged. I dreaded the thought of being at home alone in the cold. I could have gone out for a fancy dinner. If a guy wasn't going to do the honors, I was going to treat myself like a special lady. The down side of that is that I could easily run into an ex-boyfriend proposing to his girlfriend on bended knee. And then I would look at the empty seat across from me at my table and lose my appetite.
No, my mind switched gears. I'd be positive like Woodstock in a Peanuts cartoon I watched as a child. He didn't have a dance partner, so he just danced alone and was happy. I decided that it would be okay to be alone on Valentine's Day. But if I was going to spend that romantic holiday all by myself it was going to be in beautiful weather with me going swimming every day, sipping the Pina Coladas I would thoroughly enjoy and walking on clean white sand across from clear turquoise water that is characteristic of the ocean in that region.
I booked the trip a mere two weeks in advance. The airfare killed me because it's a penalty for procrastination. Still, I didn't care. It was worth it to get away. I asked the travel agent what would be the best place in the Caribbean for a single woman traveling alone that would be both fun and safe. She suggested Aruba or Punta Cana.
I don't know about Aruba being a great place for a woman to travel alone after all that coverage on the disappearance of Natalee Holloway who was with friends when she met up with locals. But on that note, I thought that if I kept to myself and only spoke to other tourists I would be fine on any Caribbean island.
The resort in Punta Cana where I stayed was very family friendly - a lot of married couples and their young kids, but I didn't mind. I certainly wasn't there to pick up a guy. Some of the people insisted on speaking Spanish to me, so I used whatever I remembered from taking the language in school. I'm not as good at it as I once was, but I got by.
One day by the pool I saw this Spanish speaking man in his 50s or 60s laying out with his wife. He had on a hot pink women's T-shirt that read, "This shirt would look good on your bedroom floor." I wondered at that moment if he just didn't know what it meant and someone ripped him off and sold it to him as an unsuspecting consumer. He acted too stern to realize how he ridiculous it looked. He appeared to take himself so seriously. I was trying not to laugh.
There were some people who wanted to have fun with the fact that English was my first language. A couple of busboys at a resort restaurant who looked no older than eighteen or nineteen or so stood by my table speaking Spanish. I was able to pick up a few words from their conversation and translate them in my mind. They said something about me being an American woman by herself, and then they looked at each other with devious sneers and said in Spanish, "Let's go talk to her."
These wise guys quickly switched to the English they must have been learning in school. Still sneering, they asked me where I was from. They wanted to know if I liked the beautiful weather and the clear blue water. They moved closer as their smiles grew. Finished with my meal, I walked off without looking back. I'm no cougar.
Those precocious kids must have noticed I was the only one without a husband - or children. I met one single mother at the resort with her little boys. She said it was brave and admirable of me to travel alone to the Caribbean for a weekend as a single woman.
As I reported on Facebook before the excursion, I spent Valentine's Day swimming with the dolphins at the animal park. My friend commented that I was safe with them. At least they weren't going to break my heart, she said. I laughed.
When I took another look at my Caribbean brochure, I suddenly wished I was in a relationship again. They have these cool couples only resorts I'm dying to try. Coupled or not, I want to hit the Caribbean again next year. Maybe Barbados or Jamaica.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Cooking for One Single Attorney
It's freezing in New York tonight. They say it's in the 20s, but I swear it has to be below zero. At least that's how I feel when I take in some fresh air these days. I really don't like to go out be it to a bar on the island or in Manhattan when there's precipitation or even when it's too damn cold.
So I opted for doing one of my favorite indoor activities tonight: cooking. My college roommate once told me I would make a great wife because I love all things culinary.
Law books and cookbooks encompass a large portion of my literary collection at home. For months I was using the deep fryer I bought to make fish and chips and fried chicken as a makeshift skillet for homemade marinara sauce from "The Sopranos" cookbook. I didn't want to eventually wear it out. The skillet my mother passed on to me deteriorated, so the other day after work I went to the mall to look for a new one.
In some ways, I'm so proud of myself for staying true to my diet. I didn't stop by Godiva for my weakness - dark chocolate almond bark. Maybe I just couldn't make it over there because the Cuisinart skillet I bought was so heavy I had to take it straight to the car. I added two Asian cookbooks to my shopping bag as well. Thank God I parked close to the entrance by the Disney Store, near Williams-Sonoma. So my arm muscles got a brief toning.
Afterward, I had to pick up some groceries. I parked my car outside my apartment building, but I couldn't leave it there overnight. My town forbids parking on the street between the morning hours of two and six lest the cops slap the owner with a $25 fine. In this economy, it adds up. I had given up my space in the parking garage because not only was it too narrow for me to park, but I wanted to save another $65 a month for groceries.
The tradeoff is a long distance to walk from the public parking lot. I brought my car to the door because I would either way have to make more than one trip. One for the skillet, the other for the groceries. Besides the companionship and the intimacy, this is another moment when a serious boyfriend or better yet a husband would be very nice. He could have driven my car to the lot while I prepared dinner.
I wasn't done with shopping. As I scanned through the recipes the past few nights, I decided that Saturday night I would stay in and make tangerine beef. I made another trip to the store for new ingredients. It was delicious. I made enough beef and rice for two. How's that for dinner on a cozy winter night?
I love a glass of fine wine, but I don't enjoy drinking alone. I ordered three bottles of Opici Barberone after my girl friends and I had some at an Italian restaurant. I loved it so much I had the waiter tell me what it was. I am inept at using my bottle opener, but if I had company to share my tangerine beef tonight I'd open up a bottle of red.
So I opted for doing one of my favorite indoor activities tonight: cooking. My college roommate once told me I would make a great wife because I love all things culinary.
Law books and cookbooks encompass a large portion of my literary collection at home. For months I was using the deep fryer I bought to make fish and chips and fried chicken as a makeshift skillet for homemade marinara sauce from "The Sopranos" cookbook. I didn't want to eventually wear it out. The skillet my mother passed on to me deteriorated, so the other day after work I went to the mall to look for a new one.
In some ways, I'm so proud of myself for staying true to my diet. I didn't stop by Godiva for my weakness - dark chocolate almond bark. Maybe I just couldn't make it over there because the Cuisinart skillet I bought was so heavy I had to take it straight to the car. I added two Asian cookbooks to my shopping bag as well. Thank God I parked close to the entrance by the Disney Store, near Williams-Sonoma. So my arm muscles got a brief toning.
Afterward, I had to pick up some groceries. I parked my car outside my apartment building, but I couldn't leave it there overnight. My town forbids parking on the street between the morning hours of two and six lest the cops slap the owner with a $25 fine. In this economy, it adds up. I had given up my space in the parking garage because not only was it too narrow for me to park, but I wanted to save another $65 a month for groceries.
The tradeoff is a long distance to walk from the public parking lot. I brought my car to the door because I would either way have to make more than one trip. One for the skillet, the other for the groceries. Besides the companionship and the intimacy, this is another moment when a serious boyfriend or better yet a husband would be very nice. He could have driven my car to the lot while I prepared dinner.
I wasn't done with shopping. As I scanned through the recipes the past few nights, I decided that Saturday night I would stay in and make tangerine beef. I made another trip to the store for new ingredients. It was delicious. I made enough beef and rice for two. How's that for dinner on a cozy winter night?
I love a glass of fine wine, but I don't enjoy drinking alone. I ordered three bottles of Opici Barberone after my girl friends and I had some at an Italian restaurant. I loved it so much I had the waiter tell me what it was. I am inept at using my bottle opener, but if I had company to share my tangerine beef tonight I'd open up a bottle of red.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
If He's Not Asking You Out
In the beginning of the movie He's Just Not That Into You, the girls keep obsessing over why a guy is not asking a girl out. And it's in a few different languages with a lame excuse for each dialect. He's not asking you out because he's scared of your emotional maturity. He's not asking you out because he's intimidated by your professional success.
When I was a preteen, a classmate repeated to me these lines that she probably heard from a female adult mentor, maybe her mother or aunt or an older cousin. Men are intimidated by attractive, intelligent women. That's why they don't want to ask us out. So that was why the boys at our school were idiots who didn't show interest in her and me. Of course, this was before the days of books like "He's Just Not That Into You" and "Act Like a Lady, Think Like A Man" that made women wiser. I had plenty of years to date. I didn't sweat it at that young age.
As a thirtysomething woman, I don't understand why women would sweat it if a guy has never even asked them out. I've been out with girl friends and they will say to me, "That guy just smiled at you. He likes you. Why don't you go talk to him?" I leave that to the guy. I don't read too deeply into a smile. People smile all the time to be friendly. If a guy smiles at me, I don't automatically view him as a prospect just because a well-meaning girl friend tells me he likes me. It saves me a whole lot of disappointment.
Years ago when I was very naive about men and dating, I would construe little conversations as a sign that a guy was into me. I've graduated from that years ago. But when I was eighteen and immature, I had my whole life ahead of me and all the time in the world to dream about the impossible.
I met this attractive Yale University senior at a party when I was in my first year at a prestigious Massachusetts liberal arts college. I don't remember what brought him there, but I think he was visiting friends at my school. He approached me and we had a long talk about things 18 to 22 year olds find interesting. I've been removed from that age group so I don't exactly remember what about. He majored in some social science and I was debating between Economics and Latin American Studies, eventually settling on the former.
He walked me to my dorm and we talked the whole time. I enjoyed myself. I assumed he did, too. He then asked some students for directions to get back and bade me farewell.
I was on Cloud 9. There's something to say for women in their late teens through their twenties. They get so damn infatuated. So much that they think he's feeling it, too, even when there was nothing there to begin with.
My friend at school told me she had a friend at Yale who could help me track him down. It was like we were conspiring in a stalking mission. Before we embarked on what would have been an exercise in romantic futility, I told her I would pass.
But I continued to obsess over the Yale senior who I will call Yalie. He held my hand and walked me to my dorm. How sweet was it! I kept replaying it in my head. My brother told me to stop myself. If Yalie were really interested in me, Bro explained, he at least would have asked me for my phone number. Even if we were about two hours apart, Yalie would have taken it down so he could make plans with me on weekends if he were truly into me like I had hoped. That's elementary in dating basics.
My obsession with Yalie was so bad that it lingered on two months later after I had moved to a second dorm before the end of first semester. My new roommate, who I lived with for the remainder of the academic year and who I am still good friends with today, was the next victim on the receiving end of my unrealistic romantic ravings.
I had met this guy at a party in early September and had moved in with my second and last college roommate in early November. I tortured her with my desperation. During that time, Yalie could have begun dating someone in New Haven and been in a steady relationship. Two months is enough time for that to happen. And there I was still thinking about him, counting our grandkids that would never come into being. I never took it upon myself to stalk him to New Haven, but I sure fantasized about him. He was as unattainable as Brad Pitt, my Hollywood crush at the time.
My roommate repeated what my brother had been trying to get through my thick skull. "He goes to Yale. There are plenty of girls there for him to choose from. Forget about him," she told me. I eventually did.
I've come a long way since I was a stupid kid. As a rule of thumb, even if a guy asks me for my number I don't count on him calling me. I don't sweat whether or not he likes me unless and until I get that first phone call. I don't read into any conversations we have leading to the exchange of numbers. I will know offhand if he really likes me if he follows up and actually tries to make plans with me.
A few weeks ago, on the night before Hanukkah, I went to Four in Melville, NY to have dinner alone by choice. I'm independent. As an interesting side note, I heard on the radio years ago that if you go out alone you are highly likely to meet someone.
Speaking of which, I did meet someone at the restaurant that night. Landlord approached me sitting alone at my table and said that it was a shame I was dining by myself. I wanted to curse him out. I thought he was being condescending at first, but I'm a lady so I kept quiet. Besides, he would later on tell me he found me attractive.
When I was finished with my meal, I hailed the valet to bring my car over and went back inside the establishment to wait so I could avoid the cold. Landlord approached me again and we started chatting. He told me he owned a restaurant and some rental properties. I've been bullshitted so many times in my dating life I won't buy a guy's lines. He may or may not have been telling me the truth. I told him I had done foreclosures for the longest time but was now shifting my practice to Landlord Tenant matters.
He expressed to me his frustration at trying unsuccessfully to collect rent from his deadbeat tenants. And we engaged in some more small talk. We seemed to have a connection. With that, Landlord told me he would like to take me to dinner some time. I gave him my card and wrote my cell phone number on the back.
Sounded promising, right? Not so fast. I wasn't going to get myself all excited for nothing. I'd met countless men on the Long Island Railroad who asked for my number and never called. When was Hanukkah this past holiday season? Sundown on December 11? That's about right. This is early January, and I haven't heard from him. He probably got too busy with the holidays. Right? No. There is no such thing as "too busy" for a man who truly is interested in a woman. None whatsoever.
I'm not upset about it. Landlord just wasn't that into me. I can deal with that. At least he didn't take me out once or twice, tell me how much fun he had and how attracted he was to me and that he wanted to see me again and then blow me off. That would upset me. I didn't expect anything from him because he didn't even ask me out. It didn't go any further beyond that short encounter. No harm, no foul.
Women should not stress out over a guy not even asking them out to begin with. I wait to panic after he actually has asked me out. That's when the trouble starts for me. I get so excited because he's all over me and coddling me, telling me how into me he is. And then, without warning he makes excuses to avoid another date with me. In some cases he tells me he will see me again but never does. He doesn't have the balls to say outright that he's had a change of heart. And then my false hopes are dashed.
When a guy does that to you, that's when you stress. No, that's when you get seriously pissed off like I do and say, "What the fuck! Why couldn't he have told me he changed his mind back then so I wasn't following up with him for the next date he said we would have?"
It's a guy's perogative if he decides later that he doesn't want to be with me. But after he gets me all excited, he should tell me up front if he has had a change of heart. It's not rude for him to say that on second thought he doesn't think we'd work out.
But if he never asks me out, I assume he never liked me to begin with. Nothing was lost. I didn't expect anything. The ball hadn't begun to roll; it never was going to. I never had the opportunity to feel bitter.
When I was a preteen, a classmate repeated to me these lines that she probably heard from a female adult mentor, maybe her mother or aunt or an older cousin. Men are intimidated by attractive, intelligent women. That's why they don't want to ask us out. So that was why the boys at our school were idiots who didn't show interest in her and me. Of course, this was before the days of books like "He's Just Not That Into You" and "Act Like a Lady, Think Like A Man" that made women wiser. I had plenty of years to date. I didn't sweat it at that young age.
As a thirtysomething woman, I don't understand why women would sweat it if a guy has never even asked them out. I've been out with girl friends and they will say to me, "That guy just smiled at you. He likes you. Why don't you go talk to him?" I leave that to the guy. I don't read too deeply into a smile. People smile all the time to be friendly. If a guy smiles at me, I don't automatically view him as a prospect just because a well-meaning girl friend tells me he likes me. It saves me a whole lot of disappointment.
Years ago when I was very naive about men and dating, I would construe little conversations as a sign that a guy was into me. I've graduated from that years ago. But when I was eighteen and immature, I had my whole life ahead of me and all the time in the world to dream about the impossible.
I met this attractive Yale University senior at a party when I was in my first year at a prestigious Massachusetts liberal arts college. I don't remember what brought him there, but I think he was visiting friends at my school. He approached me and we had a long talk about things 18 to 22 year olds find interesting. I've been removed from that age group so I don't exactly remember what about. He majored in some social science and I was debating between Economics and Latin American Studies, eventually settling on the former.
He walked me to my dorm and we talked the whole time. I enjoyed myself. I assumed he did, too. He then asked some students for directions to get back and bade me farewell.
I was on Cloud 9. There's something to say for women in their late teens through their twenties. They get so damn infatuated. So much that they think he's feeling it, too, even when there was nothing there to begin with.
My friend at school told me she had a friend at Yale who could help me track him down. It was like we were conspiring in a stalking mission. Before we embarked on what would have been an exercise in romantic futility, I told her I would pass.
But I continued to obsess over the Yale senior who I will call Yalie. He held my hand and walked me to my dorm. How sweet was it! I kept replaying it in my head. My brother told me to stop myself. If Yalie were really interested in me, Bro explained, he at least would have asked me for my phone number. Even if we were about two hours apart, Yalie would have taken it down so he could make plans with me on weekends if he were truly into me like I had hoped. That's elementary in dating basics.
My obsession with Yalie was so bad that it lingered on two months later after I had moved to a second dorm before the end of first semester. My new roommate, who I lived with for the remainder of the academic year and who I am still good friends with today, was the next victim on the receiving end of my unrealistic romantic ravings.
I had met this guy at a party in early September and had moved in with my second and last college roommate in early November. I tortured her with my desperation. During that time, Yalie could have begun dating someone in New Haven and been in a steady relationship. Two months is enough time for that to happen. And there I was still thinking about him, counting our grandkids that would never come into being. I never took it upon myself to stalk him to New Haven, but I sure fantasized about him. He was as unattainable as Brad Pitt, my Hollywood crush at the time.
My roommate repeated what my brother had been trying to get through my thick skull. "He goes to Yale. There are plenty of girls there for him to choose from. Forget about him," she told me. I eventually did.
I've come a long way since I was a stupid kid. As a rule of thumb, even if a guy asks me for my number I don't count on him calling me. I don't sweat whether or not he likes me unless and until I get that first phone call. I don't read into any conversations we have leading to the exchange of numbers. I will know offhand if he really likes me if he follows up and actually tries to make plans with me.
A few weeks ago, on the night before Hanukkah, I went to Four in Melville, NY to have dinner alone by choice. I'm independent. As an interesting side note, I heard on the radio years ago that if you go out alone you are highly likely to meet someone.
Speaking of which, I did meet someone at the restaurant that night. Landlord approached me sitting alone at my table and said that it was a shame I was dining by myself. I wanted to curse him out. I thought he was being condescending at first, but I'm a lady so I kept quiet. Besides, he would later on tell me he found me attractive.
When I was finished with my meal, I hailed the valet to bring my car over and went back inside the establishment to wait so I could avoid the cold. Landlord approached me again and we started chatting. He told me he owned a restaurant and some rental properties. I've been bullshitted so many times in my dating life I won't buy a guy's lines. He may or may not have been telling me the truth. I told him I had done foreclosures for the longest time but was now shifting my practice to Landlord Tenant matters.
He expressed to me his frustration at trying unsuccessfully to collect rent from his deadbeat tenants. And we engaged in some more small talk. We seemed to have a connection. With that, Landlord told me he would like to take me to dinner some time. I gave him my card and wrote my cell phone number on the back.
Sounded promising, right? Not so fast. I wasn't going to get myself all excited for nothing. I'd met countless men on the Long Island Railroad who asked for my number and never called. When was Hanukkah this past holiday season? Sundown on December 11? That's about right. This is early January, and I haven't heard from him. He probably got too busy with the holidays. Right? No. There is no such thing as "too busy" for a man who truly is interested in a woman. None whatsoever.
I'm not upset about it. Landlord just wasn't that into me. I can deal with that. At least he didn't take me out once or twice, tell me how much fun he had and how attracted he was to me and that he wanted to see me again and then blow me off. That would upset me. I didn't expect anything from him because he didn't even ask me out. It didn't go any further beyond that short encounter. No harm, no foul.
Women should not stress out over a guy not even asking them out to begin with. I wait to panic after he actually has asked me out. That's when the trouble starts for me. I get so excited because he's all over me and coddling me, telling me how into me he is. And then, without warning he makes excuses to avoid another date with me. In some cases he tells me he will see me again but never does. He doesn't have the balls to say outright that he's had a change of heart. And then my false hopes are dashed.
When a guy does that to you, that's when you stress. No, that's when you get seriously pissed off like I do and say, "What the fuck! Why couldn't he have told me he changed his mind back then so I wasn't following up with him for the next date he said we would have?"
It's a guy's perogative if he decides later that he doesn't want to be with me. But after he gets me all excited, he should tell me up front if he has had a change of heart. It's not rude for him to say that on second thought he doesn't think we'd work out.
But if he never asks me out, I assume he never liked me to begin with. Nothing was lost. I didn't expect anything. The ball hadn't begun to roll; it never was going to. I never had the opportunity to feel bitter.
Friday, December 25, 2009
The Gift of Safety - Merry Christmas, Femme Attorney
So we had a white Christmas this year. And it went out sloshy. I am pleased with how I made out giftwise. I really am. My family and I exchanged gifts when I went over to my brother's house for Christmas dinner. I got a warm fleece sweater that I loved. And I gave my brother a white long sleeved Polo shirt. There's just something I love about Polo. I got money and a couple of gift cards. My mother's thinking for the longest time is that it's better than an ugly gray sweater I would never wear.
The chocolate chip cookies did not fare well. I usually make my signature cookies that everyone loves, but for some reason they didn't come out like they usually do on Thanksgiving or even on Christmas. I guess it was because I was pressed for time and just got off from work. On Thanksgiving, I ran out of baking soda and the cookies crumbled. This Christmas, I accidentally overdid it just a quarter of a cup with the brown sugar and there was too much molasses as a result. The flavor was too overwhelming. I ended up having to dump the whole batch.
I think it might be an omen for the future that it didn't work out two holidays in a row because I usually get compliments on my chocolate chip cookies. Ask my coworkers. I will perfect them once again. I swear. I just hope that the omen means there are good things to come.
No need to despair. We didn't need my chocolate chip cookies this year. There was plenty in the baked goods department. Mom had a lot of Christmas cookies and brownies at her home left over from Christmas Eve that my aunt had baked. So I just brought over the open blueberry pie that I made. And I got raves for it. It was overflowing with blueberries. I've saved some for a guy I've been talking to who I'm about to go on a date with. Keep your fingers crossed for me. We'll see how it goes.
This year I got a priceless Christmas gift - safety. On Christmas Eve, my brother called me to drop him off at the auto body shop in town. His truck was under repair and he had no other way of picking it up. I was nervous about driving because the brakes on my 2007 Lexus IS250 were not functioning up to par.
So I had the guy who used to give my late father a good deal on repairs take a look at it. When he filled up my engine with brake fluid, it leaked profusely out the bottom. He insisted that I leave my car there and with good reason. He told me bluntly that it was dangerous for me to drive.
I'd been driving it at 40 miles an hour on the Northern State these past few days because the car took longer to stop. And given the fact that this is New York, I got my share of loud horns, bird flips and foul mouthed name calling. Don't you just love people's holiday spirit? They didn't fathom the car trouble I was having, not that they'd really care. People don't give a shit what your story is and why you're in a predicament. They just want to judge.
I started to have this problem as soon as I'd had the tires replaced. When I get one thing taken care of, something else goes wrong. My car troubles are like my love life - always a catch when I think everything is okay.
I feel so blessed that I took my brother there and the guy saw my car. I would have been in a serious accident. The car at some point would just not stop, the auto body shop owner told me. I am so fortunate to be in one piece.
The chocolate chip cookies did not fare well. I usually make my signature cookies that everyone loves, but for some reason they didn't come out like they usually do on Thanksgiving or even on Christmas. I guess it was because I was pressed for time and just got off from work. On Thanksgiving, I ran out of baking soda and the cookies crumbled. This Christmas, I accidentally overdid it just a quarter of a cup with the brown sugar and there was too much molasses as a result. The flavor was too overwhelming. I ended up having to dump the whole batch.
I think it might be an omen for the future that it didn't work out two holidays in a row because I usually get compliments on my chocolate chip cookies. Ask my coworkers. I will perfect them once again. I swear. I just hope that the omen means there are good things to come.
No need to despair. We didn't need my chocolate chip cookies this year. There was plenty in the baked goods department. Mom had a lot of Christmas cookies and brownies at her home left over from Christmas Eve that my aunt had baked. So I just brought over the open blueberry pie that I made. And I got raves for it. It was overflowing with blueberries. I've saved some for a guy I've been talking to who I'm about to go on a date with. Keep your fingers crossed for me. We'll see how it goes.
This year I got a priceless Christmas gift - safety. On Christmas Eve, my brother called me to drop him off at the auto body shop in town. His truck was under repair and he had no other way of picking it up. I was nervous about driving because the brakes on my 2007 Lexus IS250 were not functioning up to par.
So I had the guy who used to give my late father a good deal on repairs take a look at it. When he filled up my engine with brake fluid, it leaked profusely out the bottom. He insisted that I leave my car there and with good reason. He told me bluntly that it was dangerous for me to drive.
I'd been driving it at 40 miles an hour on the Northern State these past few days because the car took longer to stop. And given the fact that this is New York, I got my share of loud horns, bird flips and foul mouthed name calling. Don't you just love people's holiday spirit? They didn't fathom the car trouble I was having, not that they'd really care. People don't give a shit what your story is and why you're in a predicament. They just want to judge.
I started to have this problem as soon as I'd had the tires replaced. When I get one thing taken care of, something else goes wrong. My car troubles are like my love life - always a catch when I think everything is okay.
I feel so blessed that I took my brother there and the guy saw my car. I would have been in a serious accident. The car at some point would just not stop, the auto body shop owner told me. I am so fortunate to be in one piece.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
How Tunnel Vision in an Investigation Can Preclude Justice: The Yale Murder Investigation vs. Past Cases
Fall 2009 was not a safe semester to be a Yale University student with Long Island, NY connections. In September, Annie Le, a 24-year old pharmacology graduate student from California, went missing and was later found dead in the basement of 10 Amistad Street which housed the laboratory where she conducted her research.
The day New Haven police made the grisly discovery, the young victim was supposed to marry Jonathan Widawsky, a Columbia graduate student from Huntington, NY. The couple met as undergraduates at the University of Rochester.
The cause of Le's death was asphyxiation from strangulation. Raymond Clark, a reportedly hot-headed 24 year old lab technician who served as the custodian of the mice cages, is charged with her murder. Her body was found stuffed behind a wall in the lab where animal cages are kept. Clark was notoriously meticulous about the cleanliness of the cages, reportedly becoming temperamental over them.
Almost two months later, I experienced deja vu when I glanced at Newsday to find another headline about a Yale student found dead on campus. This time dorm suitemates found Andre Narcisse, a 19 year old sophomore from Roosevelt, Long Island, NY unresponsive in his room the day after Halloween. The campus was naturally shook up; they were and still are coping with the gruesome reality of Annie Le's murder.
Authorities in New Haven, CT have said to date that there is no sign of foul play in the Narcisse's death. Let's see if they have more to say later. They aren't jumping to conclusions.
Early in the Annie Le investigation, authorities revealed that Le had written an article about campus safety. I assumed with a chill that someone retaliated for her comments by killing her. Crime bosses don't like when you put a damper on their illegal activities and will go to lethal lengths to protect their operations.
And then there was the coincidence that she disappeared shortly before her nuptials. Although anything is possible, I found it implausible that this brilliant young woman who described her fiance on her Facebook profile as her "best friend" would be a runaway bride as they initially thought. When I posted status about her on Facebook, my friend speculated that an ex must have not been able to take the fact that she was marrying someone else and killed her in a jealous rage. I was wondering that myself.
New Haven police released more details. Surveillance video showed Annie Le entering the building at 10 Amistad but not exiting. The news soonafter reported that a then unidentified lab technician had failed a lie detector test and had scratches on his body that appeared to have come from a struggle. About two days after New Haven police said they found Le's body, they announced that they had one Raymond Clark in custody but had not charged him.
All the public knew at this point was that two search warrants were executed for Clark's home and samples of his blood, hair and skin. To the average person without legal training, you could safely jump to the conclusion that they found a suspect. Right away I heard people calling on Connecticut authorities to "juice this animal." Not so fast! There were no results in yet! Authorities weren't going to call him a "suspect." He was merely a "person of interest."
Nonetheless, Raymond Clark was already in handcuffs, so lay people would assume he was already a suspect. But New Haven authorities were not going to use that term "suspect," primarily, to save themselves from a lawsuit. New Haven police chief James Lewis said that they were being careful not to use "tunnel vision" when determining who to deem a suspect in the Annie Le slay. It doesn't say much about law enforcement when innocent people are subject to scrutiny over the difference of word use: person of interest or suspect. The public uses the terms interchangeably, so I don't think it makes a difference.
Experts cited the case of Richard Jewell, a security guard who authorities in Atlanta named a person of interest in the Atlanta Olympic bombing case in 1996. Jewell was later exonerated but there were some people who still had doubts about him.
Personally, I think they should have refrained from even releasing Clark's name to the press until they were ready to consider him a suspect in the Annie Le murder in the event that they had another Jewell case on their hands. But given the evidence they gleaned from observing Clark's activities immediately after the murder, collecting proper DNA matches as a result of the search warrants and taking note of the fact that card swipes showed he was the last person in the building with Le and his apparent attempts to hide bloody matter from authorities, it's safe to say they got their guy. And they took their time.
As soon as I read Chief Lewis' statement on "tunnel vision," I found myself fixated on the phrase. It brought to mind two very high profile murder cases in New York State where the error of tunnel vision investigation precluded justice. The aftermath that followed was that two innocent men spent close to twenty years in prison for crimes they did not commit from the time they were baby-faced teenagers.
In the investigation of the 1989 rape and murder of Angela Correa, a 15 year old high school student in Peekskill, NY, police focused on the victim's classmate Jeffrey Mark Deskovic. A loner at school, Deskovic was often the target of bullies, and Angela was one of the only students who was nice to him, helping him with algebra. Distraught over the loss of who appeared to be the sensitive young man's only friend, Jeffrey cried hysterically at Angela's funeral.
Instead of sympathizing, Peekskill authorities interpreted the sensitive Jeffrey's loud display of grief and sorrow at the death of his friend as guilt and took him to the station for questioning. DNA evidence from hair and semen did not match Deskovic. Authorities had told the naive Jeffrey that if his DNA did not match he would not be charged. That sounds fair enough. Nevertheless, they charged him anyway, building their case largely on Jeffrey's untaped false confession where he provided his own theory about the murder, believing to be helping the police find the culprit who did this to his friend. No good deed went unpunished here. The police were convinced this odd character was their man.
Eager to prosecute and put Deskovic away, perhaps to later on be able to boast a high conviction rate as is the goal of many district attorney's offices, the Westchester County District Attorney's office argued that the fact that semen inside the victim's body did not match the defendant's could be explained by her having had consensual sex with another man prior to her rape and murder. The DA's office jumped through hoops to stand uncorrected, even when science disputed their contention that Deskovic committed this heinous crime.
And what possessed them to allow tunnel vision to impair their judgment in something so serious as the rape and murder of a teenage girl who ventured out into the woods to pursue photography, a favorite pastime of hers? Deskovic's quirky demeanor as the gawky teen he was, regrettably, did him in. People always want to point the finger at the oddball out, the recluse. And when they're trying to spot a killer among high school students they always look to the kid who everyone rags on.
Jeffrey Deskovic was a sensitive young man with a good heart. These truly genuine virtues he had don't make your high school classmates like you. In fact, this kind of temperament is what makes you a target of bullies. And they blame you for all your troubles. You just can't get along with people, they reason. And if you're the person who they'd accuse of not being able to get along with people (even if that's not the case), you most certainly can be capable of murder. Right?
Consider the 1984 murder of popular 15 year old cheerleader Kirsten Costas, a student at Miramonte High School in Orinda, California by Bernadette Protti, a classmate who was not as popular as Kirsten and was denied a spot on the squad but who nonetheless was otherwise well-liked by her peers. For six months, residents of the upscale Northern California community swore up and down that their beloved Kirsten's killer was the highly unpopular daughter of a local physician who Kirsten sometimes picked on. Who else would have an ax to grind with Kirsten who was adored by one and all? It had to be that thing who everyone despised - the freak in black. Their chosen target was so weird she just had to be capable of anything reprehensible, even murder.
The students abused the class pariah to a point where she had to seek protection and enroll in a private school. There were even rumors in town among teens and parents alike that this reject's family was fleeing to England so the girl could avoid prosecution. It's the responsibility of law enforcement and prosecuting bodies to rise above the level of thinking by lay people such as many in the town of Orinda at the time and to avoid the kind of tunnel vision that led to a town witch hunt of an innocent teenage girl.
And here is why the Orindans got it wrong. The murder took place after Kirsten accepted a ride to a purported party from a girl in a yellow car. Let's put ourselves in Kirsten's shoes. As the most popular girl at school, are you going to take a ride from someone you consider a geek? Anything is possible, but it's highly unlikely that she would have gone to a party with the class loser. Kirsten could just call up the hottest guy in class or one of her cool friends. So the killer had to be someone Kirsten trusted to some degree - a fellow popular student. And a popular girl the killer was!
Well, the people of Orinda immediately apologized to the town reject when Bernadette Protti, one of their own, came forward and confessed to murdering Kirsten Costas because she was afraid the teen goddess would tell people she was "weird" after an altercation. Protti was a phenomenal student and an active member of several groups at school. She had many friends at Miramonte and was even a member of the Bob-O-Links, an exclusive sorority of the prettiest and most popular girls at school of which Kirsten Costas was also a member.
Get it through your thick skulls, people! The fact that you didn't get along with a murder victim or you are generally someone who everybody else thinks is too weird to socially accept does not make you a killer! And being generally liked does not make you an angel. Case in point Bernadette Protti! God forbid what would have happened if the police took the same tone as the town before Protti fessed up. The girl in black would have become a female Jeffrey Deskovic.
But unlike the Orinda Reject, who was subjected to six months of social hell, being unfairly scrutinized by her peers and the residents of her hometown before the real killer came forward, Jeffrey Deskovic spent 16 years of unsuccessful appeals in prison. He watched his irreplaceable youth pass him by before the DA's office finally agreed to run the DNA through a database of convicted felons and immediately linked the rape and murder of Angela Correa to Steven Cunningham, an inmate serving a prison sentence for the murder of yet another woman. The second murder could have been prevented had the authorities not employed tunnel vision in their original investigation of Jeffrey Deskovic for Correa's murder.
Let's assess the damage sustained by Deskovic. He served 16 years for a rape and murder he didn't commit. He's in his mid to late thirties and just trying to complete his education. He missed out on his youth, parties, lessons to learn from many years of dating, a chance to go to college and dorm with his peers who are his own age and who are now in an adult world beyond him, a chance to enter the workforce for the first time at the same time as the kids he grew up with. Deskovic says that mentally he is in his twenties. And he himself had lost a friend to Cunningham's barbaric crime.
Ultimately, justice prevailed in the Deskovic case with Jeffrey's full exoneration and the conviction of Steven Cunningham, Angela Correa's real killer. Cunningham is answering for his crime, the impact of which was compounded by the conviction of an innocent man. And Jeffrey has an airtight lawsuit against Westchester County, the City of Peekskill and arguably some of his counsel. But in the end, Deskovic still lost a lot of time and was exposed to many unpleasant elements in prison he never should have known.
Jeffrey Deskovic's courtroom drama may be over, but the case continued to haunt him even when he turned on the news and witnessed what most of us watching would consider an historical milestone.
In May 2009, President Barack Obama announced his nomination of the Honorable Sonia Sotomayor for Supreme Court Justice to fill Judge Souter's old position. Sotomayor's nomination was a memorable one for me personally, not only because like me she is a minority woman from New York but also because this news came just as I was being admitted to practice law before the United States Supreme Court. I was in Washington, D.C. being sworn in and taking pictures in front of the courthouse and the Capitol to plaster on my Facebook profile. The Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg, another native New Yorker, paid us a visit, and I got in group photos with her. It was a joyous time for me.
But it wasn't happy tidings for Jeffrey Deskovic. Judge Sotomayor served on the panel that denied his appeal on procedural grounds because his Legal Aid counsel filed papers a day late. He said he could not yet forgive her for putting procedure first and allowing him to spend six more years behind bars where he did not belong in the first place. For Jeffrey, Sotomayor's nomination was salt in an old wound. And you can trace this procedure over public policy ruling back to tunnel vision investigation.
In some cases, tunnel vision has gotten so out of hand that it forever left doubt in some people's minds about an innocent person and permanently eliminated any possibility of bringing the real killer or killers to justice. This is what happened in a case that was close to home for me because I was growing up on Long Island at the time: The People of the State of New York vs. Martin Tankleff.
When I was a young girl, Martin Tankleff's (hereinafter referred to as "Marty") case was all over News12 Long Island with Carolyn Gusoff reporting. It was also the first murder trial in New York to be televised in its entirety, another tidbit of legal history. I remember watching clips from the trial with my parents. The image of Marty wincing after hearing the guilty verdicts continued to replay itself in my mind through adulthood, as did the sound of the agonized cries of disbelief in the background from the defendant's and victims' family. My older brother is Marty's age, so it hit home for my parents.
I will never forget the day my father turned to me and said, "That boy murdered his parents because they wouldn't buy him a car. Please don't be like that when you get to high school." My late father later renounced his belief in Marty's guilt.
Parents all over the New York metropolitan area were horrified when news of the Tankleff murders broke in late 1988. A spoiled, rich kid from a privileged upbringing who was used to getting everything he wanted supposedly had killed his parents because they wouldn't buy him the car he desired and ruined his summer by enforcing disciplinary rules in the house. John Collins, the Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney who prosecuted Martin Tankleff for the double murder of his parents Seymour and Arlene Tankleff, called the slain couple's son a "boy who had everything and felt he deserved more" and blamed a "deadly temper tantrum" for the brutal beatings and stabbings of the wealthy couple. (As a side note, Collins now heads up Homicide at the Office of the Suffolk County District Attorney.)
It sounded very logical at the time that Marty could have killed his parents. Children have offed their parents in the past. Remember Lizzie Borden and her infamous ax? And right on Long Island fourteen years earlier, Ronald DeFeo had shot and killed his parents and all of his siblings in a notorious crime that inspired Jay Anson to write a book which would be made into a movie - The Amityville Horror. Ron was another young man with affluent parents who lived in an upscale home by the water. Murderer or not, everyone is always trying to find some way to demonize the privileged spoiled brat whose lavish upbringing you can't help but bitterly envy.
Perhaps Detective K. James McCready, who led the investigation in the Tankleff case, couldn't get Ron out of his head when he negligently ignored a very credible lead from Marty himself - the existence of a strained relationship between Seymour Tankleff's business partner Jerry Steuerman and the slain couple. McCready wrapped the investigation up in less than a day, relying mainly on Marty's confession that he and his partner Norman Rein had coerced from the victims' teenaged son. The two cops questioned and later arrested the boy on McCready's hunch that Marty looked too calm to be innocent. He should have been "crying," McCready told CBS Correspondent Erin Moriarty in an interview. "I wouldn't want to find my parents the way he found his," he added.
McCready couldn't look past Marty's cool, collected facade. His investigative team would collect whatever physical evidence they had at the house and stop right there, not searching elsewhere. He'd take the boy into custody. The detective claimed he was "better than a polygraph." He was sure to get a confession because the kid looked too guilty not to admit it.
Have you noticed the similarity between the assessment by McCready of Marty's "calm" demeanor upon his arrival at the crime scene in Belle Terre and that by the Peekskill police of DNA exoneree Jeffrey Deskovic's profuse crying at victim Angela Correa's funeral? In both instances, the police drew conclusions based on how they thought the suspects should have reacted in a given situation. Since one person shows varying levels of emotion and expresses themselves differently from the next person, demeanor is subjective and should only be considered a preliminary factor in determining a suspect's guilt.
Certainly, guilty people may behave suspiciously, but it's just a start. When the police view initial assessment of demeanor as a defining factor, they engage in the kind of tunnel vision that causes them to focus on that one person and detract from leads to more likely suspects. If there was any suspicious behavior from anyone close to the Tankleffs, it was from Jerry Steuerman. The man disappeared days after the murders, changed his appearance, left his car running, faked his death, made an alias for himself and fled to California.
The papers dubbed Steuerman's self-Houdini act a "twist" in the Tankleff case, but the police didn't. And it baffles me as to why. Would a reasonable person seriously believe Steuerman just ran away to escape financial woes as he claimed later was one of his reasons? The creditors would still try to seize his assets. I've foreclosed on dead people on behalf of the bank. I've even gone after those who have somehow disappeared thanks to service by publication. I wouldn't have spared Jerry Steuerman if my client told me not to. He would ultimately settle the debt with Seymour Tankleff's estate.
Let's fast forward about fourteen years later. The setting is in the San Francisco Bay Area. Remember when Laci Peterson was murdered on Christmas Eve? Her husband Scott had an affair with Amber Frey during the holiday season and told his mistress it would be his first Christmas without his wife. Months into the search for the eight months pregnant Laci, a flighty Scott Peterson pulled a Jerry Steuerman, skipping town. He suddenly dyed his hair blond, grew a beard and tried to escape to Mexico.
We know what happened next to this disappearing man from California. Scott Peterson was later apprehended, tried and convicted of his wife's murder.
New York's own disappearing man Jerry Steuerman, on the other hand, was physically brought back to New York from California by Detective McCready himself to testify against Martin Tankleff at trial. McCready wanted to be sure that Jerry was safe and assured him that he was not a suspect, and with that the self-proclaimed Bagel King returned to New York relieved that he would not face prosecution. Steuerman even said that in addition to his money woes and the loss of his wife a year earlier he had fled because he was afraid the police would investigate him for the murders after Marty had mentioned his name to them! And McCready and company did not even consider that a tad fishy. One of the most damning acts by a guilty person is to skip town as we saw later on with Scott Peterson.
McCready should have questioned those associated with both Jerry Steuerman and Seymour Tankleff. Relatives of Arlene Tankleff witnessed Seymour fighting on the phone with Jerry Steuerman days before his and his wife's murders. Arlene's own sister Marcella Alt Falbee told interviewers that days before the murders her younger sister expressed fear that Jerry Steuerman was going to do physical harm to her. Other sources close to the parties knew that in addition to a tense business relationship between Seymour and Jerry, there was strife between Arlene and Jerry. The family knew a lot more than anyone about Seymour's business dealings, but nevertheless McCready asked Erin Moriarty, "What could they give me?" I think I've just answered the detective's question in this paragraph.
McCready also should have delved into the shady backgrounds of Jerry Steuerman's children. Jerry's son Todd was a drug dealer. And lo and behold, years later there would be people from different walks of life coming forward to say that Joseph Creedon, an associate of Todd, and his accomplice Peter Kent had bragged about bludgeoning and stabbing the wealthy couple. The self-proclaimed getaway driver Glenn Harris said that the killers wore gloves and burned their clothing elsewhere upon leaving Belle Terre.
Kent had allegedly mentioned walking a few steps up after murdering Arlene to find the couple's son sleeping in his room when he turned on a light. I think that's what explains the blood found in a honeycomb glove pattern on the light switch by the door of Marty's bedroom. It's odd that Peter Kent knew the interior of the Tankleff house a little too well for an uninvited guest.
Nobody knew of this until 1994 when a witness came forward and even mentioned the last name "Steuerman" without any other way of knowing except from allegedly Joseph Creedon himself. If McCready had questioned more people back in 1988 instead of narrowing his focus on the first impression he got of Marty, he could have gathered the leads that would form the probable cause necessary to obtain search warrants for Jerry Steuerman, Todd Steuerman and their associates. His crew could have found some fresh untainted physical evidence to forensically link Arlene and Seymour Tankleff's real killers to the crime had he done the searches in 1988. And at the same time, McCready could have observed Marty at his sister Shari's home, where he was living for a short time after the murders, to see if he exhibited any "flighty" behavior associated with a guilty person. And then he could fairly determine who to deem a suspect.
In the Annie Le case which is yet to go to trial, New Haven authorities released their eventual suspect Raymond Clark after he failed the polygraph. They had gathered some physical evidence - skin and hair samples - after obtaining warrants. And then they observed him allegedly returning to the scene of the crime and attempting to clean up bloody evidence of the violent act. They had additional warrants executed to search both his apartment and his car.
It was after all this observation and positive DNA matches that the police arrested Clark. News reports revealed that the New Haven authorities knew Clark's whereabouts at all times before his arrest, most notably as he re-entered the building. And what is the result? The investigators in the Yale murder case are not concerned about determining the motive Raymond Clark may have had for killing Annie Le. The physical evidence linking him to the crime is too damning to refute. And that's because the investigators did their part in following all leads and observing a possible suspect's moves before even considering him a suspect.
Forget a motive. It's not important. They gathered enough to roast Raymond Clark. I would hate to be Clark's attorney with so little to work with for a defense. He may as well claim insanity, not that it would work. That's the result of good police work.
The investigators in the Tankleff case on the other hand, it seemed, were only interested in creating a motive. They concentrated too heavily on that such that they let crucial physical evidence go undetected. The prosecution compensated for these evidentiary shortcomings by creating the image of a spoiled young man who broke into a rage when his parents didn't give him what he wanted. It successfully swayed the jury into convicting when paired up with a coerced confession that didn't match the crime scene.
Years later, new evidence from witnesses who came forward further refuted Marty's questionable confession - it described the crime the way it would have happened.
It wouldn't surprise me that Marty falsely confessed. I think he was intimidated by authority. Take any 17 year old kid who just found his parents dead. Have a mean, angry Irish cop yell at him, and he will say anything to make him go away. I grew up with an Irish father; he was a loving man and a wonderful parent, but if he got angry and squeezed us for an answer he had a way of making us admit to something we didn't do.
If you think outside the box, a poker game at the Tankleff home continued into the wee hours of the morning. In addition to Marty, there were about six other men there to consider as persons of interest. One of them could have opened a door or left it unlocked for the thugs to come in once the others left. Three hours had elapsed between the time when the last player left Jerry and Seymour to their private conversation and when Marty dialed 911 to report his father bleeding profusely. It wasn't enough time for Marty to have cleaned up as well as he would have to for the barbells and the knives to be immaculate and for no blood to appear in the drainage system.
Unfortunately, the Tankleff murders may go forever unsolved. The coincidentally similar stories of droves of people who said they heard Joseph Creedon and Peter Kent tell their tale are enough to exonerate Martin Tankleff in a court of law but will not suffice to indict the true perpetrators of this double murder.
Authorities will never retrieve the forensic evidence that was fresh in 1988 - the smoky residue from when the killers burned their clothes, possible blood in the drainage system of Jerry Steuerman's or Joseph Creedon's home which was visibly absent in that of the Tankleff home, not to mention the box that would have contained the gloves that left prints at the Tankleff home but were nowhere to be found at the crime scene. Without the forever destroyed forensic evidence, nobody will be brought to justice.
Those who doubt Marty's innocence have touted the fact that DNA evidence under Arlene's fingernails was inconclusive. But they must understand that there have been non-DNA exonerations, such as the real culprit coming forward or in Marty's case - others being implicated through tips. The matter under Arlene's nails merely proves that there was a struggle. But Marty had no scratches on his body, as determined by his own aunt Marcella Alt Falbee, sister of one of the victims.
And furthermore, many of the DNA exonerations I've come across in reading about wrongful convictions have been in cases where the victims had been sexually assaulted such as in the rape and robbery case of Alan Newton and in Jeffrey Deskovic's case. They found DNA evidence in semen. This was not the case in the Tankleff murders. As such, it is less likely that Marty would be exonerated in the same fashion. In fact, New York State Senator Eric Schneiderman and a colleague introduced the Actual Innocence Act of 2009 to amend the state criminal procedure law to recognize non-DNA evidence in exonerating the innocent.
Physical evidence is more conclusive than motive; it's more damning than a would-be suspect's demeanor. But it can be lost forever like it was in the Tankleff case. Unless we find that the police conducted an illegal search or the prosecution does something procedurally wrong, the Annie Le case should succeed against Raymond Clark. That's why search warrants early in the investigation are so crucial. They are paramount. Don't jump the gun by making an arrest on a hunch because someone looks guilty (i.e. he was crying too hard or he looked too calm). Otherwise, your entire investigation was based on tunnel vision.
The day New Haven police made the grisly discovery, the young victim was supposed to marry Jonathan Widawsky, a Columbia graduate student from Huntington, NY. The couple met as undergraduates at the University of Rochester.
The cause of Le's death was asphyxiation from strangulation. Raymond Clark, a reportedly hot-headed 24 year old lab technician who served as the custodian of the mice cages, is charged with her murder. Her body was found stuffed behind a wall in the lab where animal cages are kept. Clark was notoriously meticulous about the cleanliness of the cages, reportedly becoming temperamental over them.
Almost two months later, I experienced deja vu when I glanced at Newsday to find another headline about a Yale student found dead on campus. This time dorm suitemates found Andre Narcisse, a 19 year old sophomore from Roosevelt, Long Island, NY unresponsive in his room the day after Halloween. The campus was naturally shook up; they were and still are coping with the gruesome reality of Annie Le's murder.
Authorities in New Haven, CT have said to date that there is no sign of foul play in the Narcisse's death. Let's see if they have more to say later. They aren't jumping to conclusions.
Early in the Annie Le investigation, authorities revealed that Le had written an article about campus safety. I assumed with a chill that someone retaliated for her comments by killing her. Crime bosses don't like when you put a damper on their illegal activities and will go to lethal lengths to protect their operations.
And then there was the coincidence that she disappeared shortly before her nuptials. Although anything is possible, I found it implausible that this brilliant young woman who described her fiance on her Facebook profile as her "best friend" would be a runaway bride as they initially thought. When I posted status about her on Facebook, my friend speculated that an ex must have not been able to take the fact that she was marrying someone else and killed her in a jealous rage. I was wondering that myself.
New Haven police released more details. Surveillance video showed Annie Le entering the building at 10 Amistad but not exiting. The news soonafter reported that a then unidentified lab technician had failed a lie detector test and had scratches on his body that appeared to have come from a struggle. About two days after New Haven police said they found Le's body, they announced that they had one Raymond Clark in custody but had not charged him.
All the public knew at this point was that two search warrants were executed for Clark's home and samples of his blood, hair and skin. To the average person without legal training, you could safely jump to the conclusion that they found a suspect. Right away I heard people calling on Connecticut authorities to "juice this animal." Not so fast! There were no results in yet! Authorities weren't going to call him a "suspect." He was merely a "person of interest."
Nonetheless, Raymond Clark was already in handcuffs, so lay people would assume he was already a suspect. But New Haven authorities were not going to use that term "suspect," primarily, to save themselves from a lawsuit. New Haven police chief James Lewis said that they were being careful not to use "tunnel vision" when determining who to deem a suspect in the Annie Le slay. It doesn't say much about law enforcement when innocent people are subject to scrutiny over the difference of word use: person of interest or suspect. The public uses the terms interchangeably, so I don't think it makes a difference.
Experts cited the case of Richard Jewell, a security guard who authorities in Atlanta named a person of interest in the Atlanta Olympic bombing case in 1996. Jewell was later exonerated but there were some people who still had doubts about him.
Personally, I think they should have refrained from even releasing Clark's name to the press until they were ready to consider him a suspect in the Annie Le murder in the event that they had another Jewell case on their hands. But given the evidence they gleaned from observing Clark's activities immediately after the murder, collecting proper DNA matches as a result of the search warrants and taking note of the fact that card swipes showed he was the last person in the building with Le and his apparent attempts to hide bloody matter from authorities, it's safe to say they got their guy. And they took their time.
As soon as I read Chief Lewis' statement on "tunnel vision," I found myself fixated on the phrase. It brought to mind two very high profile murder cases in New York State where the error of tunnel vision investigation precluded justice. The aftermath that followed was that two innocent men spent close to twenty years in prison for crimes they did not commit from the time they were baby-faced teenagers.
In the investigation of the 1989 rape and murder of Angela Correa, a 15 year old high school student in Peekskill, NY, police focused on the victim's classmate Jeffrey Mark Deskovic. A loner at school, Deskovic was often the target of bullies, and Angela was one of the only students who was nice to him, helping him with algebra. Distraught over the loss of who appeared to be the sensitive young man's only friend, Jeffrey cried hysterically at Angela's funeral.
Instead of sympathizing, Peekskill authorities interpreted the sensitive Jeffrey's loud display of grief and sorrow at the death of his friend as guilt and took him to the station for questioning. DNA evidence from hair and semen did not match Deskovic. Authorities had told the naive Jeffrey that if his DNA did not match he would not be charged. That sounds fair enough. Nevertheless, they charged him anyway, building their case largely on Jeffrey's untaped false confession where he provided his own theory about the murder, believing to be helping the police find the culprit who did this to his friend. No good deed went unpunished here. The police were convinced this odd character was their man.
Eager to prosecute and put Deskovic away, perhaps to later on be able to boast a high conviction rate as is the goal of many district attorney's offices, the Westchester County District Attorney's office argued that the fact that semen inside the victim's body did not match the defendant's could be explained by her having had consensual sex with another man prior to her rape and murder. The DA's office jumped through hoops to stand uncorrected, even when science disputed their contention that Deskovic committed this heinous crime.
And what possessed them to allow tunnel vision to impair their judgment in something so serious as the rape and murder of a teenage girl who ventured out into the woods to pursue photography, a favorite pastime of hers? Deskovic's quirky demeanor as the gawky teen he was, regrettably, did him in. People always want to point the finger at the oddball out, the recluse. And when they're trying to spot a killer among high school students they always look to the kid who everyone rags on.
Jeffrey Deskovic was a sensitive young man with a good heart. These truly genuine virtues he had don't make your high school classmates like you. In fact, this kind of temperament is what makes you a target of bullies. And they blame you for all your troubles. You just can't get along with people, they reason. And if you're the person who they'd accuse of not being able to get along with people (even if that's not the case), you most certainly can be capable of murder. Right?
Consider the 1984 murder of popular 15 year old cheerleader Kirsten Costas, a student at Miramonte High School in Orinda, California by Bernadette Protti, a classmate who was not as popular as Kirsten and was denied a spot on the squad but who nonetheless was otherwise well-liked by her peers. For six months, residents of the upscale Northern California community swore up and down that their beloved Kirsten's killer was the highly unpopular daughter of a local physician who Kirsten sometimes picked on. Who else would have an ax to grind with Kirsten who was adored by one and all? It had to be that thing who everyone despised - the freak in black. Their chosen target was so weird she just had to be capable of anything reprehensible, even murder.
The students abused the class pariah to a point where she had to seek protection and enroll in a private school. There were even rumors in town among teens and parents alike that this reject's family was fleeing to England so the girl could avoid prosecution. It's the responsibility of law enforcement and prosecuting bodies to rise above the level of thinking by lay people such as many in the town of Orinda at the time and to avoid the kind of tunnel vision that led to a town witch hunt of an innocent teenage girl.
And here is why the Orindans got it wrong. The murder took place after Kirsten accepted a ride to a purported party from a girl in a yellow car. Let's put ourselves in Kirsten's shoes. As the most popular girl at school, are you going to take a ride from someone you consider a geek? Anything is possible, but it's highly unlikely that she would have gone to a party with the class loser. Kirsten could just call up the hottest guy in class or one of her cool friends. So the killer had to be someone Kirsten trusted to some degree - a fellow popular student. And a popular girl the killer was!
Well, the people of Orinda immediately apologized to the town reject when Bernadette Protti, one of their own, came forward and confessed to murdering Kirsten Costas because she was afraid the teen goddess would tell people she was "weird" after an altercation. Protti was a phenomenal student and an active member of several groups at school. She had many friends at Miramonte and was even a member of the Bob-O-Links, an exclusive sorority of the prettiest and most popular girls at school of which Kirsten Costas was also a member.
Get it through your thick skulls, people! The fact that you didn't get along with a murder victim or you are generally someone who everybody else thinks is too weird to socially accept does not make you a killer! And being generally liked does not make you an angel. Case in point Bernadette Protti! God forbid what would have happened if the police took the same tone as the town before Protti fessed up. The girl in black would have become a female Jeffrey Deskovic.
But unlike the Orinda Reject, who was subjected to six months of social hell, being unfairly scrutinized by her peers and the residents of her hometown before the real killer came forward, Jeffrey Deskovic spent 16 years of unsuccessful appeals in prison. He watched his irreplaceable youth pass him by before the DA's office finally agreed to run the DNA through a database of convicted felons and immediately linked the rape and murder of Angela Correa to Steven Cunningham, an inmate serving a prison sentence for the murder of yet another woman. The second murder could have been prevented had the authorities not employed tunnel vision in their original investigation of Jeffrey Deskovic for Correa's murder.
Let's assess the damage sustained by Deskovic. He served 16 years for a rape and murder he didn't commit. He's in his mid to late thirties and just trying to complete his education. He missed out on his youth, parties, lessons to learn from many years of dating, a chance to go to college and dorm with his peers who are his own age and who are now in an adult world beyond him, a chance to enter the workforce for the first time at the same time as the kids he grew up with. Deskovic says that mentally he is in his twenties. And he himself had lost a friend to Cunningham's barbaric crime.
Ultimately, justice prevailed in the Deskovic case with Jeffrey's full exoneration and the conviction of Steven Cunningham, Angela Correa's real killer. Cunningham is answering for his crime, the impact of which was compounded by the conviction of an innocent man. And Jeffrey has an airtight lawsuit against Westchester County, the City of Peekskill and arguably some of his counsel. But in the end, Deskovic still lost a lot of time and was exposed to many unpleasant elements in prison he never should have known.
Jeffrey Deskovic's courtroom drama may be over, but the case continued to haunt him even when he turned on the news and witnessed what most of us watching would consider an historical milestone.
In May 2009, President Barack Obama announced his nomination of the Honorable Sonia Sotomayor for Supreme Court Justice to fill Judge Souter's old position. Sotomayor's nomination was a memorable one for me personally, not only because like me she is a minority woman from New York but also because this news came just as I was being admitted to practice law before the United States Supreme Court. I was in Washington, D.C. being sworn in and taking pictures in front of the courthouse and the Capitol to plaster on my Facebook profile. The Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg, another native New Yorker, paid us a visit, and I got in group photos with her. It was a joyous time for me.
But it wasn't happy tidings for Jeffrey Deskovic. Judge Sotomayor served on the panel that denied his appeal on procedural grounds because his Legal Aid counsel filed papers a day late. He said he could not yet forgive her for putting procedure first and allowing him to spend six more years behind bars where he did not belong in the first place. For Jeffrey, Sotomayor's nomination was salt in an old wound. And you can trace this procedure over public policy ruling back to tunnel vision investigation.
In some cases, tunnel vision has gotten so out of hand that it forever left doubt in some people's minds about an innocent person and permanently eliminated any possibility of bringing the real killer or killers to justice. This is what happened in a case that was close to home for me because I was growing up on Long Island at the time: The People of the State of New York vs. Martin Tankleff.
When I was a young girl, Martin Tankleff's (hereinafter referred to as "Marty") case was all over News12 Long Island with Carolyn Gusoff reporting. It was also the first murder trial in New York to be televised in its entirety, another tidbit of legal history. I remember watching clips from the trial with my parents. The image of Marty wincing after hearing the guilty verdicts continued to replay itself in my mind through adulthood, as did the sound of the agonized cries of disbelief in the background from the defendant's and victims' family. My older brother is Marty's age, so it hit home for my parents.
I will never forget the day my father turned to me and said, "That boy murdered his parents because they wouldn't buy him a car. Please don't be like that when you get to high school." My late father later renounced his belief in Marty's guilt.
Parents all over the New York metropolitan area were horrified when news of the Tankleff murders broke in late 1988. A spoiled, rich kid from a privileged upbringing who was used to getting everything he wanted supposedly had killed his parents because they wouldn't buy him the car he desired and ruined his summer by enforcing disciplinary rules in the house. John Collins, the Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney who prosecuted Martin Tankleff for the double murder of his parents Seymour and Arlene Tankleff, called the slain couple's son a "boy who had everything and felt he deserved more" and blamed a "deadly temper tantrum" for the brutal beatings and stabbings of the wealthy couple. (As a side note, Collins now heads up Homicide at the Office of the Suffolk County District Attorney.)
It sounded very logical at the time that Marty could have killed his parents. Children have offed their parents in the past. Remember Lizzie Borden and her infamous ax? And right on Long Island fourteen years earlier, Ronald DeFeo had shot and killed his parents and all of his siblings in a notorious crime that inspired Jay Anson to write a book which would be made into a movie - The Amityville Horror. Ron was another young man with affluent parents who lived in an upscale home by the water. Murderer or not, everyone is always trying to find some way to demonize the privileged spoiled brat whose lavish upbringing you can't help but bitterly envy.
Perhaps Detective K. James McCready, who led the investigation in the Tankleff case, couldn't get Ron out of his head when he negligently ignored a very credible lead from Marty himself - the existence of a strained relationship between Seymour Tankleff's business partner Jerry Steuerman and the slain couple. McCready wrapped the investigation up in less than a day, relying mainly on Marty's confession that he and his partner Norman Rein had coerced from the victims' teenaged son. The two cops questioned and later arrested the boy on McCready's hunch that Marty looked too calm to be innocent. He should have been "crying," McCready told CBS Correspondent Erin Moriarty in an interview. "I wouldn't want to find my parents the way he found his," he added.
McCready couldn't look past Marty's cool, collected facade. His investigative team would collect whatever physical evidence they had at the house and stop right there, not searching elsewhere. He'd take the boy into custody. The detective claimed he was "better than a polygraph." He was sure to get a confession because the kid looked too guilty not to admit it.
Have you noticed the similarity between the assessment by McCready of Marty's "calm" demeanor upon his arrival at the crime scene in Belle Terre and that by the Peekskill police of DNA exoneree Jeffrey Deskovic's profuse crying at victim Angela Correa's funeral? In both instances, the police drew conclusions based on how they thought the suspects should have reacted in a given situation. Since one person shows varying levels of emotion and expresses themselves differently from the next person, demeanor is subjective and should only be considered a preliminary factor in determining a suspect's guilt.
Certainly, guilty people may behave suspiciously, but it's just a start. When the police view initial assessment of demeanor as a defining factor, they engage in the kind of tunnel vision that causes them to focus on that one person and detract from leads to more likely suspects. If there was any suspicious behavior from anyone close to the Tankleffs, it was from Jerry Steuerman. The man disappeared days after the murders, changed his appearance, left his car running, faked his death, made an alias for himself and fled to California.
The papers dubbed Steuerman's self-Houdini act a "twist" in the Tankleff case, but the police didn't. And it baffles me as to why. Would a reasonable person seriously believe Steuerman just ran away to escape financial woes as he claimed later was one of his reasons? The creditors would still try to seize his assets. I've foreclosed on dead people on behalf of the bank. I've even gone after those who have somehow disappeared thanks to service by publication. I wouldn't have spared Jerry Steuerman if my client told me not to. He would ultimately settle the debt with Seymour Tankleff's estate.
Let's fast forward about fourteen years later. The setting is in the San Francisco Bay Area. Remember when Laci Peterson was murdered on Christmas Eve? Her husband Scott had an affair with Amber Frey during the holiday season and told his mistress it would be his first Christmas without his wife. Months into the search for the eight months pregnant Laci, a flighty Scott Peterson pulled a Jerry Steuerman, skipping town. He suddenly dyed his hair blond, grew a beard and tried to escape to Mexico.
We know what happened next to this disappearing man from California. Scott Peterson was later apprehended, tried and convicted of his wife's murder.
New York's own disappearing man Jerry Steuerman, on the other hand, was physically brought back to New York from California by Detective McCready himself to testify against Martin Tankleff at trial. McCready wanted to be sure that Jerry was safe and assured him that he was not a suspect, and with that the self-proclaimed Bagel King returned to New York relieved that he would not face prosecution. Steuerman even said that in addition to his money woes and the loss of his wife a year earlier he had fled because he was afraid the police would investigate him for the murders after Marty had mentioned his name to them! And McCready and company did not even consider that a tad fishy. One of the most damning acts by a guilty person is to skip town as we saw later on with Scott Peterson.
McCready should have questioned those associated with both Jerry Steuerman and Seymour Tankleff. Relatives of Arlene Tankleff witnessed Seymour fighting on the phone with Jerry Steuerman days before his and his wife's murders. Arlene's own sister Marcella Alt Falbee told interviewers that days before the murders her younger sister expressed fear that Jerry Steuerman was going to do physical harm to her. Other sources close to the parties knew that in addition to a tense business relationship between Seymour and Jerry, there was strife between Arlene and Jerry. The family knew a lot more than anyone about Seymour's business dealings, but nevertheless McCready asked Erin Moriarty, "What could they give me?" I think I've just answered the detective's question in this paragraph.
McCready also should have delved into the shady backgrounds of Jerry Steuerman's children. Jerry's son Todd was a drug dealer. And lo and behold, years later there would be people from different walks of life coming forward to say that Joseph Creedon, an associate of Todd, and his accomplice Peter Kent had bragged about bludgeoning and stabbing the wealthy couple. The self-proclaimed getaway driver Glenn Harris said that the killers wore gloves and burned their clothing elsewhere upon leaving Belle Terre.
Kent had allegedly mentioned walking a few steps up after murdering Arlene to find the couple's son sleeping in his room when he turned on a light. I think that's what explains the blood found in a honeycomb glove pattern on the light switch by the door of Marty's bedroom. It's odd that Peter Kent knew the interior of the Tankleff house a little too well for an uninvited guest.
Nobody knew of this until 1994 when a witness came forward and even mentioned the last name "Steuerman" without any other way of knowing except from allegedly Joseph Creedon himself. If McCready had questioned more people back in 1988 instead of narrowing his focus on the first impression he got of Marty, he could have gathered the leads that would form the probable cause necessary to obtain search warrants for Jerry Steuerman, Todd Steuerman and their associates. His crew could have found some fresh untainted physical evidence to forensically link Arlene and Seymour Tankleff's real killers to the crime had he done the searches in 1988. And at the same time, McCready could have observed Marty at his sister Shari's home, where he was living for a short time after the murders, to see if he exhibited any "flighty" behavior associated with a guilty person. And then he could fairly determine who to deem a suspect.
In the Annie Le case which is yet to go to trial, New Haven authorities released their eventual suspect Raymond Clark after he failed the polygraph. They had gathered some physical evidence - skin and hair samples - after obtaining warrants. And then they observed him allegedly returning to the scene of the crime and attempting to clean up bloody evidence of the violent act. They had additional warrants executed to search both his apartment and his car.
It was after all this observation and positive DNA matches that the police arrested Clark. News reports revealed that the New Haven authorities knew Clark's whereabouts at all times before his arrest, most notably as he re-entered the building. And what is the result? The investigators in the Yale murder case are not concerned about determining the motive Raymond Clark may have had for killing Annie Le. The physical evidence linking him to the crime is too damning to refute. And that's because the investigators did their part in following all leads and observing a possible suspect's moves before even considering him a suspect.
Forget a motive. It's not important. They gathered enough to roast Raymond Clark. I would hate to be Clark's attorney with so little to work with for a defense. He may as well claim insanity, not that it would work. That's the result of good police work.
The investigators in the Tankleff case on the other hand, it seemed, were only interested in creating a motive. They concentrated too heavily on that such that they let crucial physical evidence go undetected. The prosecution compensated for these evidentiary shortcomings by creating the image of a spoiled young man who broke into a rage when his parents didn't give him what he wanted. It successfully swayed the jury into convicting when paired up with a coerced confession that didn't match the crime scene.
Years later, new evidence from witnesses who came forward further refuted Marty's questionable confession - it described the crime the way it would have happened.
It wouldn't surprise me that Marty falsely confessed. I think he was intimidated by authority. Take any 17 year old kid who just found his parents dead. Have a mean, angry Irish cop yell at him, and he will say anything to make him go away. I grew up with an Irish father; he was a loving man and a wonderful parent, but if he got angry and squeezed us for an answer he had a way of making us admit to something we didn't do.
If you think outside the box, a poker game at the Tankleff home continued into the wee hours of the morning. In addition to Marty, there were about six other men there to consider as persons of interest. One of them could have opened a door or left it unlocked for the thugs to come in once the others left. Three hours had elapsed between the time when the last player left Jerry and Seymour to their private conversation and when Marty dialed 911 to report his father bleeding profusely. It wasn't enough time for Marty to have cleaned up as well as he would have to for the barbells and the knives to be immaculate and for no blood to appear in the drainage system.
Unfortunately, the Tankleff murders may go forever unsolved. The coincidentally similar stories of droves of people who said they heard Joseph Creedon and Peter Kent tell their tale are enough to exonerate Martin Tankleff in a court of law but will not suffice to indict the true perpetrators of this double murder.
Authorities will never retrieve the forensic evidence that was fresh in 1988 - the smoky residue from when the killers burned their clothes, possible blood in the drainage system of Jerry Steuerman's or Joseph Creedon's home which was visibly absent in that of the Tankleff home, not to mention the box that would have contained the gloves that left prints at the Tankleff home but were nowhere to be found at the crime scene. Without the forever destroyed forensic evidence, nobody will be brought to justice.
Those who doubt Marty's innocence have touted the fact that DNA evidence under Arlene's fingernails was inconclusive. But they must understand that there have been non-DNA exonerations, such as the real culprit coming forward or in Marty's case - others being implicated through tips. The matter under Arlene's nails merely proves that there was a struggle. But Marty had no scratches on his body, as determined by his own aunt Marcella Alt Falbee, sister of one of the victims.
And furthermore, many of the DNA exonerations I've come across in reading about wrongful convictions have been in cases where the victims had been sexually assaulted such as in the rape and robbery case of Alan Newton and in Jeffrey Deskovic's case. They found DNA evidence in semen. This was not the case in the Tankleff murders. As such, it is less likely that Marty would be exonerated in the same fashion. In fact, New York State Senator Eric Schneiderman and a colleague introduced the Actual Innocence Act of 2009 to amend the state criminal procedure law to recognize non-DNA evidence in exonerating the innocent.
Physical evidence is more conclusive than motive; it's more damning than a would-be suspect's demeanor. But it can be lost forever like it was in the Tankleff case. Unless we find that the police conducted an illegal search or the prosecution does something procedurally wrong, the Annie Le case should succeed against Raymond Clark. That's why search warrants early in the investigation are so crucial. They are paramount. Don't jump the gun by making an arrest on a hunch because someone looks guilty (i.e. he was crying too hard or he looked too calm). Otherwise, your entire investigation was based on tunnel vision.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
You're a Mean One, Tiger Woods
Somewhere in a wealthy part of Florida a beautiful blonde Swedish model with two children and an idyllic life - the envy of a lot of women worldwide - has had her holiday season ruined. Currently, all the buzz in America is about a sex scandal brought to you by the professional golf community.
Tiger Woods, the wholesome young athlete with an all-American facade of the happy, successful family man, has had "multiple transgressions" to quote the golfer himself. This all-American man has been cheating on his beautiful wife Elin Nordegren with "multiple" mistresses - nine and counting as of when I'm writing this entry.
It all began when there was speculation in the press that Woods carried on a three-year affair with Rachel Uchitel. Uchitel vehemently denied having an adulterous relationship with the golfer and immediately star feminist attorney Gloria Allred took her case. Shortly thereafter, we heard from Jamiee Grubbs, a cocktail waitress who produced flirtatious voicemails left for her by the golf great.
To date there are nine ladies believed to have had illicit sexual relations with Tiger Woods during his five-year marriage to Nordegren all ranging in time from six months to three years. Many of the sexual encounters occurred during Mrs. Woods' pregnancy. His wife's being with child made it difficult for Tiger to maintain his hole in one. The pervert!
After the mysterious car accident at his home, Tiger Woods reportedly claimed that his wife had scratched his face and chased him with a golf club. And there are many more reasons to come for her outrage. Nine and counting, as we've noted? I just don't understand why he went astray. He has a beautiful wife most men can only dream of talking to.
Here's a shout out to Long Island's own adulterous asshole. Peter Cook calls Christie Brinkley a vindictive woman during custody disputes in court, but he's the asshole who cheated on a legendary beautiful supermodel. He ruined their idyllic marriage. And for what?
Early in the Tiger Woods mass adultery scandal, I saw someone write online that it's impossible for Tiger Woods to have cheated on his wife. She's so beautiful. What else does he want? That person is so naive.
When the story broke about Tiger's first two mistresses, a psychologist analyzed his promiscuous behavior. Powerful men like Tiger Woods don't view their philandering as a regular part of their lives. They dissociate themselves from their ordinary celebrity and engage in these illicit affairs because women are intrigued by the idea of having sex with a famous man. These women don't mean jack to them, so when it's done Tiger and his crew can return home to their wives and children like nothing happened.
I'm sure there are many famous men who are womanizing behind their wives' and girlfriends' backs that we just don't know about because the media hasn't exposed them for one reason or another. They must be the worst for disappearing. I'm sure. (That's what Bill did to Monica at the end of the courtship.) Their ego permits them to forget about the woman they left behind and move on to the next one who they will either discard just as readily without warning or choose for an actual committed relationship.
They are fulfilling their quest to accumulate notches as the powerful dicks they are (and have). They disregard the women's feelings because they've separated their womanizing from their usual personal lives. It's all about ego, having power and just simply being a man, to paraphrase that psychologist.
Let's flash back to the 80s and 90s when Bill Clinton was first the Governor of Arkansas and later President of the United States of America. He was inarguably the most powerful man in the world in the later part of his political career. Before being elected Governor, Clinton was an attorney, having been educated at Georgetown, Oxford and later Yale Law School where he met his wife Hillary. Personally, I think Hillary just stayed with him because it would look better if a U.S. Senator from New York and later the nation's Secretary of State were married as opposed to divorced.
And the fact that your husband is the most powerful man in the world doesn't hurt. When you have the power, you get and keep the woman, your wife included. With power comes ego. Bill Clinton's ego grew to gargantuan proportions such that he accumulated a whole long list of mistresses and women he tried unsuccessfully to have sex with like former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones and White House volunteer Kathleen Willey.
Women love to sleep with famous men. So, the famous guy figures why not try his luck by pursuing them? They might say yes because of who he is. He can please himself and forget about his meaningless trysts with these sluts. Then, he goes home to his wife and life goes on.
There are no strings attached. It's every man's fantasy.
Where does that leave the women? They should never have fooled around with a married man if they did give in to Famous Man's advances. Still, I don't appreciate the public classifying these ladies as cheap sluts.
A powerful man can have an overwhelmingly strong effect on a woman. I don't think it's always just the fascination of fooling around with a powerful man who's in the spotlight. Some women are in a way intimidated by the man's celebrity and feel they should give in to his advances. Yes, I'm sure these women are also attracted to them. Why wouldn't they be? Women do love power.
The ladies aren't thinking about the consequences that will cause them to have regrets. I spoke to a woman who had a tryst with a famous Hollywood celebrity. She didn't have intercourse with him but did other things. I personally find this guy she spoke of disgusting. Most women would if they saw him on the street.
I asked her what she saw in him. She told me first off that he promised to use his powerful connections to help her career. And, she said, "This is a man who is so powerful you become mesmerized by all his accomplishments and you can't say no to him."
I can see her point. For her sake, I pray she never comes forward or that nobody ever rats on her. I certainly wouldn't if I even remembered her name. We met on the train.
It annoys me that as soon as the names of these women are released, the public is so quick to berate these ladies. It's the men who pursue these ladies, even if they reject and dispose of them later. They are the ones who should be ashamed. This mess would never have occurred if they didn't initiate these doggish pursuits.
Like Tiger, Bill Clinton is another one who ought to be ashamed of himself. He was using these women to gratify his ego. I heard Bill Clinton speak back in April of this past year. It was a pricey function I attended to support a dear friend. My mother warned me not to give Bill my business card. That would have been one of the biggest mistakes of my life, an embarrassing one to boot, so I decided I'd be proactive. Fortunately for me, we were all the way in the back, so Bill couldn't notice me even if he normally would have.
For ambitious young women easily intimidated by that power, they might have been taken in by Bill's charm, especially if he promised networking opportunities. And before they'd know it, they'd be in too deep. That's what I think happens to a lot of these women who emerge from sex scandals. So I refuse to judge them.
I think these ladies from Rachel Uchitel to porn star Holly Simpson are commendable, not for their affairs with Woods but for exposing this maggot for the pervert he is. He had everyone fooled as this wholesome family man, good athlete and all-around good guy. These ladies are helping the truth come out from beyond the cloudy smoke screen that the deification of celebrities has created when it made Tiger Woods seem like a great guy.
These women are brave. It takes courage to be thrust into the spotlight in these circumstances when people are calling you a whore and judging you. If I were ever in that position, I would take all the steps I could to ensure my name never came out. They are keeping their composure. Knowing me, I would flip.
I am half Asian. My mother hails from the South Pacific. The attitudes are different in Asia with regards to what we consider a sex scandal in the United States.
When former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was caught as a client of The Emperor's Club, a high-priced brothel in Manhattan, having had a four hour sex romp with Ashley Dupre, a call girl and aspiring singer, at a Washington, DC hotel, my uncle said it would not have been a big deal in an Asian country. Whenever they hear Americans fussing about Bill Clinton in the Oral Office, the Asian nationals laugh. It's almost expected of politicians there.
He explained that in Asian countries the political leaders have multiple mistresses and even house them in their palaces where they live with their wives and children. It's expected. I still think it's disgusting. And in my mother's country, I'd like to think that the citizens who are true to their Christian faith are aware of the immorality of this despicable sexual deviance.
These men are adulterous whores. They are potentially spreading disease to their wives and are being unfaithful. They have dishonored the vows they took. They might as well disregard the oaths of office they took.
I'd like to note that Tiger Woods is part Asian, like me. He's really showing that dark side of Pacific culture. I don't care. He puts us to shame.
I would argue necessity in a defense of James Gandolfini beating up the paparazzi because one of them accidentally killed Princess Diana and her boyfriend in a car accident. Well, I would argue necessity if the authorities would dare to press charges against Nordegren if indeed she did attack her husband.
It's unspeakable what Tiger did to that poor woman who bore his children. He's a dog. He needs a serious beating with a golf club. Such a defense may not normally fly in a court of law, but I'm sure I could get a few feminist groups to support my cause.
There are talks that Tiger Woods wants to pay Elin Nordegren multi-millions to stay married to him. Elin, if these reports are true, tell him to take his millions and stick them. You are a beautiful, intelligent young woman. You can get endorsements and job opportunities and make those millions on your own. You don't need a man. Plenty of women have done it alone. It's Tiger's loss.
Suffice it to say that Tiger Woods is the Grinch.
Tiger Woods, the wholesome young athlete with an all-American facade of the happy, successful family man, has had "multiple transgressions" to quote the golfer himself. This all-American man has been cheating on his beautiful wife Elin Nordegren with "multiple" mistresses - nine and counting as of when I'm writing this entry.
It all began when there was speculation in the press that Woods carried on a three-year affair with Rachel Uchitel. Uchitel vehemently denied having an adulterous relationship with the golfer and immediately star feminist attorney Gloria Allred took her case. Shortly thereafter, we heard from Jamiee Grubbs, a cocktail waitress who produced flirtatious voicemails left for her by the golf great.
To date there are nine ladies believed to have had illicit sexual relations with Tiger Woods during his five-year marriage to Nordegren all ranging in time from six months to three years. Many of the sexual encounters occurred during Mrs. Woods' pregnancy. His wife's being with child made it difficult for Tiger to maintain his hole in one. The pervert!
After the mysterious car accident at his home, Tiger Woods reportedly claimed that his wife had scratched his face and chased him with a golf club. And there are many more reasons to come for her outrage. Nine and counting, as we've noted? I just don't understand why he went astray. He has a beautiful wife most men can only dream of talking to.
Here's a shout out to Long Island's own adulterous asshole. Peter Cook calls Christie Brinkley a vindictive woman during custody disputes in court, but he's the asshole who cheated on a legendary beautiful supermodel. He ruined their idyllic marriage. And for what?
Early in the Tiger Woods mass adultery scandal, I saw someone write online that it's impossible for Tiger Woods to have cheated on his wife. She's so beautiful. What else does he want? That person is so naive.
When the story broke about Tiger's first two mistresses, a psychologist analyzed his promiscuous behavior. Powerful men like Tiger Woods don't view their philandering as a regular part of their lives. They dissociate themselves from their ordinary celebrity and engage in these illicit affairs because women are intrigued by the idea of having sex with a famous man. These women don't mean jack to them, so when it's done Tiger and his crew can return home to their wives and children like nothing happened.
I'm sure there are many famous men who are womanizing behind their wives' and girlfriends' backs that we just don't know about because the media hasn't exposed them for one reason or another. They must be the worst for disappearing. I'm sure. (That's what Bill did to Monica at the end of the courtship.) Their ego permits them to forget about the woman they left behind and move on to the next one who they will either discard just as readily without warning or choose for an actual committed relationship.
They are fulfilling their quest to accumulate notches as the powerful dicks they are (and have). They disregard the women's feelings because they've separated their womanizing from their usual personal lives. It's all about ego, having power and just simply being a man, to paraphrase that psychologist.
Let's flash back to the 80s and 90s when Bill Clinton was first the Governor of Arkansas and later President of the United States of America. He was inarguably the most powerful man in the world in the later part of his political career. Before being elected Governor, Clinton was an attorney, having been educated at Georgetown, Oxford and later Yale Law School where he met his wife Hillary. Personally, I think Hillary just stayed with him because it would look better if a U.S. Senator from New York and later the nation's Secretary of State were married as opposed to divorced.
And the fact that your husband is the most powerful man in the world doesn't hurt. When you have the power, you get and keep the woman, your wife included. With power comes ego. Bill Clinton's ego grew to gargantuan proportions such that he accumulated a whole long list of mistresses and women he tried unsuccessfully to have sex with like former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones and White House volunteer Kathleen Willey.
Women love to sleep with famous men. So, the famous guy figures why not try his luck by pursuing them? They might say yes because of who he is. He can please himself and forget about his meaningless trysts with these sluts. Then, he goes home to his wife and life goes on.
There are no strings attached. It's every man's fantasy.
Where does that leave the women? They should never have fooled around with a married man if they did give in to Famous Man's advances. Still, I don't appreciate the public classifying these ladies as cheap sluts.
A powerful man can have an overwhelmingly strong effect on a woman. I don't think it's always just the fascination of fooling around with a powerful man who's in the spotlight. Some women are in a way intimidated by the man's celebrity and feel they should give in to his advances. Yes, I'm sure these women are also attracted to them. Why wouldn't they be? Women do love power.
The ladies aren't thinking about the consequences that will cause them to have regrets. I spoke to a woman who had a tryst with a famous Hollywood celebrity. She didn't have intercourse with him but did other things. I personally find this guy she spoke of disgusting. Most women would if they saw him on the street.
I asked her what she saw in him. She told me first off that he promised to use his powerful connections to help her career. And, she said, "This is a man who is so powerful you become mesmerized by all his accomplishments and you can't say no to him."
I can see her point. For her sake, I pray she never comes forward or that nobody ever rats on her. I certainly wouldn't if I even remembered her name. We met on the train.
It annoys me that as soon as the names of these women are released, the public is so quick to berate these ladies. It's the men who pursue these ladies, even if they reject and dispose of them later. They are the ones who should be ashamed. This mess would never have occurred if they didn't initiate these doggish pursuits.
Like Tiger, Bill Clinton is another one who ought to be ashamed of himself. He was using these women to gratify his ego. I heard Bill Clinton speak back in April of this past year. It was a pricey function I attended to support a dear friend. My mother warned me not to give Bill my business card. That would have been one of the biggest mistakes of my life, an embarrassing one to boot, so I decided I'd be proactive. Fortunately for me, we were all the way in the back, so Bill couldn't notice me even if he normally would have.
For ambitious young women easily intimidated by that power, they might have been taken in by Bill's charm, especially if he promised networking opportunities. And before they'd know it, they'd be in too deep. That's what I think happens to a lot of these women who emerge from sex scandals. So I refuse to judge them.
I think these ladies from Rachel Uchitel to porn star Holly Simpson are commendable, not for their affairs with Woods but for exposing this maggot for the pervert he is. He had everyone fooled as this wholesome family man, good athlete and all-around good guy. These ladies are helping the truth come out from beyond the cloudy smoke screen that the deification of celebrities has created when it made Tiger Woods seem like a great guy.
These women are brave. It takes courage to be thrust into the spotlight in these circumstances when people are calling you a whore and judging you. If I were ever in that position, I would take all the steps I could to ensure my name never came out. They are keeping their composure. Knowing me, I would flip.
I am half Asian. My mother hails from the South Pacific. The attitudes are different in Asia with regards to what we consider a sex scandal in the United States.
When former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was caught as a client of The Emperor's Club, a high-priced brothel in Manhattan, having had a four hour sex romp with Ashley Dupre, a call girl and aspiring singer, at a Washington, DC hotel, my uncle said it would not have been a big deal in an Asian country. Whenever they hear Americans fussing about Bill Clinton in the Oral Office, the Asian nationals laugh. It's almost expected of politicians there.
He explained that in Asian countries the political leaders have multiple mistresses and even house them in their palaces where they live with their wives and children. It's expected. I still think it's disgusting. And in my mother's country, I'd like to think that the citizens who are true to their Christian faith are aware of the immorality of this despicable sexual deviance.
These men are adulterous whores. They are potentially spreading disease to their wives and are being unfaithful. They have dishonored the vows they took. They might as well disregard the oaths of office they took.
I'd like to note that Tiger Woods is part Asian, like me. He's really showing that dark side of Pacific culture. I don't care. He puts us to shame.
I would argue necessity in a defense of James Gandolfini beating up the paparazzi because one of them accidentally killed Princess Diana and her boyfriend in a car accident. Well, I would argue necessity if the authorities would dare to press charges against Nordegren if indeed she did attack her husband.
It's unspeakable what Tiger did to that poor woman who bore his children. He's a dog. He needs a serious beating with a golf club. Such a defense may not normally fly in a court of law, but I'm sure I could get a few feminist groups to support my cause.
There are talks that Tiger Woods wants to pay Elin Nordegren multi-millions to stay married to him. Elin, if these reports are true, tell him to take his millions and stick them. You are a beautiful, intelligent young woman. You can get endorsements and job opportunities and make those millions on your own. You don't need a man. Plenty of women have done it alone. It's Tiger's loss.
Suffice it to say that Tiger Woods is the Grinch.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
The Witch at the Bagel Place
Every Saturday morning Mom and her friend either go to the hotel or to a local deli for breakfast. This time they opted for the hotel, so afterward Mom saw the movie Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire with me. It was a tearjerker. Mariah Carey plays a social worker who helps out an overweight teenage girl named Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) at an alternative school in 1980s Harlem.
The film's heroine suffers physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her welfare abusing mother who resents her and accuses her of "taking (her) man" because the girl's father raped their daughter instead of having sex with her. The sexual abuse results in the teen giving birth to two children with her own father. Precious's mother is completely oblivious to the fact that she herself allowed her daughter to be molested. When the movie hits cable, it will be perfect game for a Mothers From Hell marathon on any given movie channel along with a showing of Carrie.
I ordered a small popcorn and an iced tea to sustain me through the two hour film. And what do you know? The former medium size is now a small. Apparently, people must have complained that they were getting ripped off because the former small was more like kiddie size. It wasn't any cheaper though. I paid nine and a quarter for a small popcorn and a drink. As a kid, I remember when Mom paid three bucks each for mine and my brother's movie tickets for The Karate Kid, which they are remaking with Will Smith's son as the star.
After the movie, Mom and I had a late lunch at Bagel Boss. They have the freshest nova lox of any bagel place on Long Island. Mom didn't mind going there because she was at the hotel for breakfast. People were zigzagged on line which didn't help the workers who tried to figure out who was next. The guy came over to serve me, and I had no clue who was next.
And then a lady blasted, "We were next. You cut us off." I didn't see her! She could have said, "Excuse me, we were next," to the clerk. No need to yell at me.
"I didn't see you. No need to be bitchy!" I snapped back. She ignored me. I looked over at Mom and we both rolled our eyes.
This bitch was the typical pushy shrew I've encountered on line at Bloomingdales. One confrontation with someone like her and I'll be shopping online for five months. And wouldn't you know she waved her big ass wedding ring as she yapped away with her friend. The woman's complexion was super pale. She must have had pounds of foundation. Her jet black hair was cut into a bob that didn't match her bone structure. She wore tinted shades and a short brown fur coat.
Actress Pamela Anderson is a radical anti-fur activist known for having refused to board an elevator with a woman who wore a mink. I kept wishing at that moment that the former "Baywatch" beauty and Playboy Playmate were in line with us. She would slap this cow's uppity ass with silicone. May this rude bitch walk the streets of Manhattan wearing that fur and feel a pound of red paint slap her back. Seriously, she can suck it.
The film's heroine suffers physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her welfare abusing mother who resents her and accuses her of "taking (her) man" because the girl's father raped their daughter instead of having sex with her. The sexual abuse results in the teen giving birth to two children with her own father. Precious's mother is completely oblivious to the fact that she herself allowed her daughter to be molested. When the movie hits cable, it will be perfect game for a Mothers From Hell marathon on any given movie channel along with a showing of Carrie.
I ordered a small popcorn and an iced tea to sustain me through the two hour film. And what do you know? The former medium size is now a small. Apparently, people must have complained that they were getting ripped off because the former small was more like kiddie size. It wasn't any cheaper though. I paid nine and a quarter for a small popcorn and a drink. As a kid, I remember when Mom paid three bucks each for mine and my brother's movie tickets for The Karate Kid, which they are remaking with Will Smith's son as the star.
After the movie, Mom and I had a late lunch at Bagel Boss. They have the freshest nova lox of any bagel place on Long Island. Mom didn't mind going there because she was at the hotel for breakfast. People were zigzagged on line which didn't help the workers who tried to figure out who was next. The guy came over to serve me, and I had no clue who was next.
And then a lady blasted, "We were next. You cut us off." I didn't see her! She could have said, "Excuse me, we were next," to the clerk. No need to yell at me.
"I didn't see you. No need to be bitchy!" I snapped back. She ignored me. I looked over at Mom and we both rolled our eyes.
This bitch was the typical pushy shrew I've encountered on line at Bloomingdales. One confrontation with someone like her and I'll be shopping online for five months. And wouldn't you know she waved her big ass wedding ring as she yapped away with her friend. The woman's complexion was super pale. She must have had pounds of foundation. Her jet black hair was cut into a bob that didn't match her bone structure. She wore tinted shades and a short brown fur coat.
Actress Pamela Anderson is a radical anti-fur activist known for having refused to board an elevator with a woman who wore a mink. I kept wishing at that moment that the former "Baywatch" beauty and Playboy Playmate were in line with us. She would slap this cow's uppity ass with silicone. May this rude bitch walk the streets of Manhattan wearing that fur and feel a pound of red paint slap her back. Seriously, she can suck it.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Black Friday Shopping Spree Nets New Wardrobe
I know I swore I'd stay in, but I managed to make it to the Roosevelt Field Mall on the most notoriously crowded shopping day of the year. I think it was because my brother called and told me he went shopping at 6 in the morning. He's my inspiration. He was looking for a toy, but by the time he got to the Carle Place Toys R Us they had run out. Rats!
When he got there, the crowds had dispersed. Bro attributes this to everyone shopping in the middle of the night to beat the crowds only to leave the place empty. Toys R Us opened at midnight on Thanksgiving.
It wasn't as bad as I would have thought because I went in the evening. So there I was on Black Friday braving the crowds that remained because I needed a dress for my office's annual Christmas Hanukkah party. Last year I wore a red dress with an A-line skirt. My co-workers raved about how fabulous they thought I looked. They told me I should wear more red because it creates a beautiful contrast against my dark brown hair.
So this time I bought a strapless red Jessica McClintock that comes halfway down my thighs and has a poofy skirt. I love it. It's the kind of dress I would have made fun of as a mid-90s high school student. But now with leggings and large tops coming back, it's adorable. When I looked at photos of my older brother's junior prom in 1988, I noticed that the girls wore dresses just like mine along with big hair and tons of mousse. As a little girl, I used to crimp my hair to get that same look. While I will wear the clothes from that era, I can pass on the hair.
I went to the Awesome 80s Prom in the fall but didn't dress for the occasion. If I go again, I already have a dress to recycle. I was too young to wear one like it back in that era. Incidentally, my friend saw LisaLisa on NBC this morning. He said that she was "no longer the hotness" she once was. We're talking over twenty years, and aging is a bigger bitch to women than it is to men. She's touring again.
Eighties style aside, red is seasonably appropriate for me. I once knew a redhead who complained that her hair color forbade her to wear red. She hated it, although I thought she had beautiful hair. My quest for a dress led to me dropping a few hundred dollars at Macy's for a new wardrobe, two pairs of black pants and a few tops, including a styled green sweater. I've noticed that green looks great on redheads.
The line wasn't long at all by the time I got to the store. A customer ahead of me was bickering with the sales clerk. She tried to gain my sympathy. The clerk had been rude to her the whole time. She expressed to me what she'd been dying to tell the clerk but couldn't bring herself to,"If you've been stressed all day and you're tired, go home." Black Friday understandably drove the clerk off the deep end.
But, I'm so happy I went shopping last night instead of going out. That's for tonight. My friend told me her sister went to a nightmarish speed dating event this Black Friday. I went to one of those once and vowed never to subject myself to that torture and humiliation again. You're practically forced to date someone you'd normally turn down. And there are regulars because the events are doomed to fail.
I've been wary about doing a speed dating event in Huntington. I'm afraid I will run into Lightweight. You might remember that freak from one of my earlier entries. He's the jerk who swore I was once a man.
When he got there, the crowds had dispersed. Bro attributes this to everyone shopping in the middle of the night to beat the crowds only to leave the place empty. Toys R Us opened at midnight on Thanksgiving.
It wasn't as bad as I would have thought because I went in the evening. So there I was on Black Friday braving the crowds that remained because I needed a dress for my office's annual Christmas Hanukkah party. Last year I wore a red dress with an A-line skirt. My co-workers raved about how fabulous they thought I looked. They told me I should wear more red because it creates a beautiful contrast against my dark brown hair.
So this time I bought a strapless red Jessica McClintock that comes halfway down my thighs and has a poofy skirt. I love it. It's the kind of dress I would have made fun of as a mid-90s high school student. But now with leggings and large tops coming back, it's adorable. When I looked at photos of my older brother's junior prom in 1988, I noticed that the girls wore dresses just like mine along with big hair and tons of mousse. As a little girl, I used to crimp my hair to get that same look. While I will wear the clothes from that era, I can pass on the hair.
I went to the Awesome 80s Prom in the fall but didn't dress for the occasion. If I go again, I already have a dress to recycle. I was too young to wear one like it back in that era. Incidentally, my friend saw LisaLisa on NBC this morning. He said that she was "no longer the hotness" she once was. We're talking over twenty years, and aging is a bigger bitch to women than it is to men. She's touring again.
Eighties style aside, red is seasonably appropriate for me. I once knew a redhead who complained that her hair color forbade her to wear red. She hated it, although I thought she had beautiful hair. My quest for a dress led to me dropping a few hundred dollars at Macy's for a new wardrobe, two pairs of black pants and a few tops, including a styled green sweater. I've noticed that green looks great on redheads.
The line wasn't long at all by the time I got to the store. A customer ahead of me was bickering with the sales clerk. She tried to gain my sympathy. The clerk had been rude to her the whole time. She expressed to me what she'd been dying to tell the clerk but couldn't bring herself to,"If you've been stressed all day and you're tired, go home." Black Friday understandably drove the clerk off the deep end.
But, I'm so happy I went shopping last night instead of going out. That's for tonight. My friend told me her sister went to a nightmarish speed dating event this Black Friday. I went to one of those once and vowed never to subject myself to that torture and humiliation again. You're practically forced to date someone you'd normally turn down. And there are regulars because the events are doomed to fail.
I've been wary about doing a speed dating event in Huntington. I'm afraid I will run into Lightweight. You might remember that freak from one of my earlier entries. He's the jerk who swore I was once a man.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Death By Turkey Before Black Friday and a Call for the DA to Crack Down
This year I over did it with the turkey. The night before Thanksgiving my mother made a turkey dinner. We were going somewhere the next day so why not? My family was spending Thanksgiving at the Suffolk County home of this couple we are close to. We were there for Easter, too.
I love eating the neck of the turkey, so Mom saved it for me when I got home from work on Wednesday. And then the next day, it was part of the gravy recipe. At the Suffolk dinner, there was so much food. First we had trays of hor d'ouerves and a clam dip I always look forward to when we go over there. Turkey, of course, and stuffing, the usual. And then she made this acorn squash with butter and brown sugar that I could eat all day and these mashed potatoes from scratch. They prepared virtually all of this food under the direction of the Williams-Sonoma Thanksgiving cookbook that I want to pick up.
I've always wanted to entertain my family for the holidays at my place. I love to cook. I've made delicious meals from my cooking for one collection. I don't think the tiny oven I have at my bachelorette pad provides for a big turkey dinner with trimmings though. I'd need the stove for about five different dishes. And forget about making the many courses I got for Thanksgiving this year. I would have to take the whole week off to cook.
Usually when I cook on a regular weekday I have leftovers for the next two days, lunch to bring to work and then dinner. I should be cooking for a family, but what can you do. My assignment this year was just to bake chocolate chip cookies for dessert. That was easy enough. My family thinks mine are the best.
On an unrelated note, the bridge of my nose is still sore because in her playful state, my dog jumped up on the couch while I was trying to relax and pounced happily on my face before licking me as I cried in agony. She has been contained outside of my living room at last. The electric fence is operating again.
As I came in from walking the canine princess of the pad, I saw a notice posted on the entrance of the apartment building from the co-op board. Earlier in the week someone called the police to report a suspicious person wandering around the complex. The board warned us that with the holiday season among us it's time to watch out for our deliveries. Last year several packages were reported stolen from the lobbies of the buildings.
Those thefts included gifts I purchased for the children in my life. Not only did it make me cry on Christmas morning last year, but it meant a $500 loss in a failing economy where the lucky few of us who kept our jobs did not receive holiday bonuses and the masses became unemployed. I spent a few months saving money to replace the gifts that I didn't have to give to the children right away.
I hope that the crook at least sold the American dolls cheap to a needy child who wouldn't otherwise get one. That being said though I would rather they come from charities as opposed to illegal activity.
This brings me to Kathleen Rice, the Nassau County District Attorney. Petty crime has been an ongoing problem in my neighborhood. I live in Garden City. It's a nice area, but my complex is located not far from the worst part of Hempstead for violent crime, drugs and prostitution - Terrace Avenue.
Rice won re-election this year in a close race against Joy Watson, Clerk for the Honorable Karen Murphy. The District Attorney is a native of Garden City as am I. So, I would hope that these criminal activities that concern myself and my neighbors will catch her eye. A few years ago, just before I purchased my co-op, a woman returning home from grocery shopping was assaulted in the parking lot by three assailants. A law enforcement agent, she carried a gun. As a result of the requisite training she had, the victim provided authorities proper identifications which resulted in the arrest and prosecution of all three.
Nevertheless, crime continues to plague the vicinity. One night when I was walking from the parking lot, I spotted the occasional used condom we residents haven't quite gotten used to finding. The johns drive the prostitutes over to the parking lot there for sex. I've spotted them in broad daylight on a Sunday morning and after work on a Thursday night. The johns almost always drive cars with out of state plates. I guess they rent them thinking they won't be caught that way if someone took down the number.
One Sunday I spotted a frizzy-haired hooker with too much hairspray embracing her clean-cut looking john in his car. I hoped he wasn't a Hofstra student. He wore a baseball cap and didn't look a day over 21. Although recommended to reduce the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, condoms are not 100% effective, son. They were completely oblivious to the possibility of being caught.
But most are aware that they are being watched. When I was driving home one night, a couple I spotted kissing in the parking lot became alarmed upon my arrival. They stopped their sexual rendezvous and watched me get out of my car and walk toward the complex until I disappeared from sight. When they couldn't see me anymore, I called the police.
They are endangering the residents of the complex and the surrounding houses as well as the children who play on the swings by depositing their medical waste where we head out to our cars. It's especially egregious when it's not so difficult for them to drop their rubbers in the trash receptacles. They're already doing something illegal by shooting up and having sex for pay; they can at least not add reckless endangerment to the list that includes theft.
I grew up several blocks northwest of where I live now. Sometimes I would spot suspicious people rounding tons of bikes across the railroad tracks. Nowadays, I find the thieves closer to the final destination of their delivery routes.
My neighborhood itself is generally safe. It would be perfect if the riff-raff that trolls for prostitutes on Terrace Avenue were to stay away from our parking lot.
DA Rice, you've made history by refusing to plea bargain with drunk drivers. Make it one more time by cleaning up this part of your hometown.
This Black Friday I will remain safely at my keyboard. I refuse to brave the crowds like the one that killed that poor man at the Valley Stream WalMart last year. But like my dating life where there is a always a catch when I meet a new guy who seems so perfect until he disappears on me without a trace, I have to brave the package thieves. Mom agreed to serve as custodian of my gift packages this year.
One of Mom's co-workers says she's heading to the mall at 3 in the morning. She will sleep against the wall of the Macy's building as if it were 8 in the morning at Times Square on New Year's Eve.
I love eating the neck of the turkey, so Mom saved it for me when I got home from work on Wednesday. And then the next day, it was part of the gravy recipe. At the Suffolk dinner, there was so much food. First we had trays of hor d'ouerves and a clam dip I always look forward to when we go over there. Turkey, of course, and stuffing, the usual. And then she made this acorn squash with butter and brown sugar that I could eat all day and these mashed potatoes from scratch. They prepared virtually all of this food under the direction of the Williams-Sonoma Thanksgiving cookbook that I want to pick up.
I've always wanted to entertain my family for the holidays at my place. I love to cook. I've made delicious meals from my cooking for one collection. I don't think the tiny oven I have at my bachelorette pad provides for a big turkey dinner with trimmings though. I'd need the stove for about five different dishes. And forget about making the many courses I got for Thanksgiving this year. I would have to take the whole week off to cook.
Usually when I cook on a regular weekday I have leftovers for the next two days, lunch to bring to work and then dinner. I should be cooking for a family, but what can you do. My assignment this year was just to bake chocolate chip cookies for dessert. That was easy enough. My family thinks mine are the best.
On an unrelated note, the bridge of my nose is still sore because in her playful state, my dog jumped up on the couch while I was trying to relax and pounced happily on my face before licking me as I cried in agony. She has been contained outside of my living room at last. The electric fence is operating again.
As I came in from walking the canine princess of the pad, I saw a notice posted on the entrance of the apartment building from the co-op board. Earlier in the week someone called the police to report a suspicious person wandering around the complex. The board warned us that with the holiday season among us it's time to watch out for our deliveries. Last year several packages were reported stolen from the lobbies of the buildings.
Those thefts included gifts I purchased for the children in my life. Not only did it make me cry on Christmas morning last year, but it meant a $500 loss in a failing economy where the lucky few of us who kept our jobs did not receive holiday bonuses and the masses became unemployed. I spent a few months saving money to replace the gifts that I didn't have to give to the children right away.
I hope that the crook at least sold the American dolls cheap to a needy child who wouldn't otherwise get one. That being said though I would rather they come from charities as opposed to illegal activity.
This brings me to Kathleen Rice, the Nassau County District Attorney. Petty crime has been an ongoing problem in my neighborhood. I live in Garden City. It's a nice area, but my complex is located not far from the worst part of Hempstead for violent crime, drugs and prostitution - Terrace Avenue.
Rice won re-election this year in a close race against Joy Watson, Clerk for the Honorable Karen Murphy. The District Attorney is a native of Garden City as am I. So, I would hope that these criminal activities that concern myself and my neighbors will catch her eye. A few years ago, just before I purchased my co-op, a woman returning home from grocery shopping was assaulted in the parking lot by three assailants. A law enforcement agent, she carried a gun. As a result of the requisite training she had, the victim provided authorities proper identifications which resulted in the arrest and prosecution of all three.
Nevertheless, crime continues to plague the vicinity. One night when I was walking from the parking lot, I spotted the occasional used condom we residents haven't quite gotten used to finding. The johns drive the prostitutes over to the parking lot there for sex. I've spotted them in broad daylight on a Sunday morning and after work on a Thursday night. The johns almost always drive cars with out of state plates. I guess they rent them thinking they won't be caught that way if someone took down the number.
One Sunday I spotted a frizzy-haired hooker with too much hairspray embracing her clean-cut looking john in his car. I hoped he wasn't a Hofstra student. He wore a baseball cap and didn't look a day over 21. Although recommended to reduce the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, condoms are not 100% effective, son. They were completely oblivious to the possibility of being caught.
But most are aware that they are being watched. When I was driving home one night, a couple I spotted kissing in the parking lot became alarmed upon my arrival. They stopped their sexual rendezvous and watched me get out of my car and walk toward the complex until I disappeared from sight. When they couldn't see me anymore, I called the police.
They are endangering the residents of the complex and the surrounding houses as well as the children who play on the swings by depositing their medical waste where we head out to our cars. It's especially egregious when it's not so difficult for them to drop their rubbers in the trash receptacles. They're already doing something illegal by shooting up and having sex for pay; they can at least not add reckless endangerment to the list that includes theft.
I grew up several blocks northwest of where I live now. Sometimes I would spot suspicious people rounding tons of bikes across the railroad tracks. Nowadays, I find the thieves closer to the final destination of their delivery routes.
My neighborhood itself is generally safe. It would be perfect if the riff-raff that trolls for prostitutes on Terrace Avenue were to stay away from our parking lot.
DA Rice, you've made history by refusing to plea bargain with drunk drivers. Make it one more time by cleaning up this part of your hometown.
This Black Friday I will remain safely at my keyboard. I refuse to brave the crowds like the one that killed that poor man at the Valley Stream WalMart last year. But like my dating life where there is a always a catch when I meet a new guy who seems so perfect until he disappears on me without a trace, I have to brave the package thieves. Mom agreed to serve as custodian of my gift packages this year.
One of Mom's co-workers says she's heading to the mall at 3 in the morning. She will sleep against the wall of the Macy's building as if it were 8 in the morning at Times Square on New Year's Eve.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Times Square, Small Talk and the Titanic
This past Saturday afternoon I took the train in to Manhattan. I met my singles group near Times Square and visited the Titanic Exhibition. You can meet interesting people on the Long Island Railroad. My friend told me on her LIRR line she met this Asian woman in her 60's. It sounds like my Mom's profile for starters.
According to my friend, she had a hippie look to her. This amazing woman was never married. She's a nurse for the American Red Cross who has lived all over the world as a consequence of her job. On her own, she raised six children, four of whom she adopted in third world countries and two from her deceased brother. All this on her own! Imagine that.
She was taking a train into the city all the way from Suffolk County just to buy special ingredients to make Asian dishes. That's dedication. I don't understand why in light of there being wonderful women like her in this world men are marrying and reproducing with these shrews who make their lives difficult and only want their husbands' paychecks. And then generous women like Nurse Red Cross who are good cooks and manage to raise six kids solo remain spinsters.
Before I embark on another "Why her and not me" war dance, I want to take a moment to express how much this woman's story has inspired me. Someday I do plan to start a family of my own with or without a man. I'm a phenomenal cook, too. My kids will love me. I'd love to be the kind of mother that this nurse is.
As I got off the train at Penn Station, I was tempted to walk up ten blocks but felt pressed for time and decided to hop on the 2. I'm not a human compass or GPS system. I have a complete lack of direction by foot and car. So when I got off the train and exited from the turnstile I saw a sign for NW exit.
I was trying to navigate uptown two blocks. Wouldn't North be a higher number? SOHO is in the southern part of Manhattan whereas Harlem is in the north. Logically if I were going north regardless of whether I'm heading east or west, I would assume the street numbers would go up. Right? Wrong. I end up on West 41st. Rats!
Before I realized I was heading in the wrong direction, a street corner solicitor tried to stop me, waving pamphlets with pizza coupons in my face. I walked past him quickly. I hate soliciting. I did a 180 and turned to find him coughing up a wad of phlegm and spitting it out near the entrance of a restaurant. I thought to myself, I'll pass on that pizza. It made the Fish and Chips I ate later on taste that much better. That's what I love about Irish pubs in Manhattan; I've never tried fish and chips I didn't like.
So, I'm looking at the Titanic artifacts as soon as they give me my mock boarding pass. You're supposed to check at the end of the exhibit to see if your passenger survived. My person did. But one of her children died as did two men who accompanied her. I felt a bit guilty for somebody. Our admission fee is paying someone's salary. It's almost blood money when you consider the thousands who perished.
I remember watching Titanic starring Leonardo DiCaprio with my mother when it came out in 1997. (They had a viewing in the gift shop.) It wasn't the three-hour duration that irked me as much as the fact that Jack didn't survive and that Rose's arrogant ex-fiance did only to blow his brains out when the market crashed in '29. But I promised myself not to sit through it again because it was a reenactment of how people actually died in a real-life tragedy.
As I came to the first artifacts on display at the exhibit - clippings from periodicals, I snapped a photo only to be stopped by a guard. She politely reminded me that the works were copyrighted and that the items were delicate because they were at one time soaked in water and are very old. I immediately placed my camera back in the bag for the remainder of the tour.
This little encounter was reminiscent of my trip to the Vatican. The guards at the Sistine Chapel are notoriously rude. They yell at tourists not to take photographs, but they continue to do so even after being instructed not to. This girl was polite when she told me not to photograph Titanic artifacts. I listened. Compare and contrast with the dudes in Vatican City. People listen when you are nice; they don't if you yell.
The Titanic displays included actual replicas of the furniture in first class cabins and a menu from Cafe Parisien where these upper crust passengers dined. They even saved cooking oil from Parisien. Cooking oil from almost a century ago! Gross! That's one valuable artifact they don't have to worry about being stolen unless someone has a strong stomach.
According to my friend, she had a hippie look to her. This amazing woman was never married. She's a nurse for the American Red Cross who has lived all over the world as a consequence of her job. On her own, she raised six children, four of whom she adopted in third world countries and two from her deceased brother. All this on her own! Imagine that.
She was taking a train into the city all the way from Suffolk County just to buy special ingredients to make Asian dishes. That's dedication. I don't understand why in light of there being wonderful women like her in this world men are marrying and reproducing with these shrews who make their lives difficult and only want their husbands' paychecks. And then generous women like Nurse Red Cross who are good cooks and manage to raise six kids solo remain spinsters.
Before I embark on another "Why her and not me" war dance, I want to take a moment to express how much this woman's story has inspired me. Someday I do plan to start a family of my own with or without a man. I'm a phenomenal cook, too. My kids will love me. I'd love to be the kind of mother that this nurse is.
As I got off the train at Penn Station, I was tempted to walk up ten blocks but felt pressed for time and decided to hop on the 2. I'm not a human compass or GPS system. I have a complete lack of direction by foot and car. So when I got off the train and exited from the turnstile I saw a sign for NW exit.
I was trying to navigate uptown two blocks. Wouldn't North be a higher number? SOHO is in the southern part of Manhattan whereas Harlem is in the north. Logically if I were going north regardless of whether I'm heading east or west, I would assume the street numbers would go up. Right? Wrong. I end up on West 41st. Rats!
Before I realized I was heading in the wrong direction, a street corner solicitor tried to stop me, waving pamphlets with pizza coupons in my face. I walked past him quickly. I hate soliciting. I did a 180 and turned to find him coughing up a wad of phlegm and spitting it out near the entrance of a restaurant. I thought to myself, I'll pass on that pizza. It made the Fish and Chips I ate later on taste that much better. That's what I love about Irish pubs in Manhattan; I've never tried fish and chips I didn't like.
So, I'm looking at the Titanic artifacts as soon as they give me my mock boarding pass. You're supposed to check at the end of the exhibit to see if your passenger survived. My person did. But one of her children died as did two men who accompanied her. I felt a bit guilty for somebody. Our admission fee is paying someone's salary. It's almost blood money when you consider the thousands who perished.
I remember watching Titanic starring Leonardo DiCaprio with my mother when it came out in 1997. (They had a viewing in the gift shop.) It wasn't the three-hour duration that irked me as much as the fact that Jack didn't survive and that Rose's arrogant ex-fiance did only to blow his brains out when the market crashed in '29. But I promised myself not to sit through it again because it was a reenactment of how people actually died in a real-life tragedy.
As I came to the first artifacts on display at the exhibit - clippings from periodicals, I snapped a photo only to be stopped by a guard. She politely reminded me that the works were copyrighted and that the items were delicate because they were at one time soaked in water and are very old. I immediately placed my camera back in the bag for the remainder of the tour.
This little encounter was reminiscent of my trip to the Vatican. The guards at the Sistine Chapel are notoriously rude. They yell at tourists not to take photographs, but they continue to do so even after being instructed not to. This girl was polite when she told me not to photograph Titanic artifacts. I listened. Compare and contrast with the dudes in Vatican City. People listen when you are nice; they don't if you yell.
The Titanic displays included actual replicas of the furniture in first class cabins and a menu from Cafe Parisien where these upper crust passengers dined. They even saved cooking oil from Parisien. Cooking oil from almost a century ago! Gross! That's one valuable artifact they don't have to worry about being stolen unless someone has a strong stomach.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Rainy November Day Observations From a Flu Symptom Sufferer
For a few weeks, I was looking forward to the possibility of attending either of two events in Manhattan tonight. The first was this huge happy hour at Fashion 40 courtesy of a Facebook friend and the other was a screening of the film Indelible with a reception to follow to benefit the Innocence Project. I could use a cocktail and the latter event would have been a great way to network and support a worthy cause.
Unfortunately, it was raining on this Thursday in November. I received a general message on Facebook urging prospective attendees of the happy hour not to let the rain scare us. (The rain stopped later on, but it was still windy.) But I've been couped up in my apartment since Tuesday because I was suffering from flu symptoms. Doc said it wouldn't be a great idea for me to brave the subway crowds with my resistance as low as it is.
This really ticks me off considering my mother, a physician, gave me the standard flu shot back in September. Rats! So much for immunity! My health has placed a damper on my social life.
I was also looking forward to going to Macy's for the Veterans' Day Sale, but I was too sick to step out of my house yesterday. Another unused coupon clipping from Newsday to throw away. So today I checked out the emailed ads for Midnight Madness sales from Smartbargains.com and am in the process of buying Christmas decorations for my dining and living rooms - a Santa centerpiece and a tree skirt - from the safety of my home PC.
Speaking of shopping I turned on News 12 Long Island during my sick time and saw a commercial for WalMart. It featured Christmas music as the camera scanned the aisles at an unidentified WalMart store. The background female voice then said that the retail giant was adding checkouts and extending their hours for the holidays - and I paraphrase - to serve customers better. Don't you love the way people and businesses for that matter sugar coat the underlying reason for their proactive measures?
Newsday's headline more accurately outlines the retailer's motives. "LI Black Friday Death Spurs 24-hour Walmarts." No shit! Last year on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, an overeager crowd at the WalMart at Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, NY pushed through the doors and stampeded over people to get into the store for the proverbial holiday bargains. As a result of the chaos, a woman who was eight months pregnant was injured, and 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour, a temporary bodyguard hired by Walmart for the holidays was killed.
Damour stood 6 foot 5 inches tall and weighed 270 pounds. This explains why they planted him at the entrance. They didn't account for the force with which a large, fast crowd could take down a quarterback. Somebody died. They are taking preventive measures after last year's tragedy, which is great, but what I don't like is that in light of a death last year at one of their stores they are marketing it as though it's to make shopping at WalMart more convenient for me so it will be my first and more frequent stop this holiday season.
Unwilling to listen to the repeat round of local news, I switched the TV off and glanced at a basket of books in my living room. I had several cookbooks in the woven container - one for simple, fast dishes (a must for the single cook who lives alone) and my hardcover copy of "The Sopranos" cookbook with a photo of James Gandolfini from my last entry.
I also had my father's copy of Jane Eyre. My dog Fiona, a German shorthair pointer mix I adopted from North Shore Animal League, chewed it up so it's now unreadable. I keep it for sentimental reasons as my father, a wonderful man who gave my cousins gifts on his birthday to show it was "better to give than to receive," is now unfortunately deceased.
I've been forced to take the basket of books to my bedroom so Fiona won't chew them. The invisible fence that once kept her contained outside the living room is broken, so she's pretty much gotten the run of the house. After three days of having Mommy at home to pamper her, Fiona will be furious when I go back to work. I expect her to wreak havoc. I don't want her on the sofa, but she helps herself until I return and order her off.
I'm feeling better now. It's back to the grind as early as tomorrow morning. Here's me being proactive. The doc put me on TamiFlu, a swine flu prevention pill.
I can't wait to go back to work. I've been going stir crazy here. It's depressing because it's also been rainy and I can hear the droplets trickle on the window sill. News12 also reported that dark chocolate relieves stress. Consequently, it would ameliorate symptoms of depression. My personal favorite is dark chocolate almond bark.
In the movie The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Rebecca DeMornay's character Peyton makes a comment that they say "chocolate is a substitute for sex." I wish they didn't give that line to a homicidal maniac of a player in the film. It's so true. Like dark chocolate, sex is also a stress reliever. The two go hand in hand. And they can compete for my affection. Who needs a guy who will create drama for you when you can savor the flavor of cocoa?
Goodbye, Sertraline! Hello, Godiva! They should offer Black Friday deals. Sell more dark chocolate. It's good for you. I'm going to website right now to order some. No, I think I'm going to head over to the mall and pick some up this weekend. Shipping costs are a bitch for just a little chocolate.
Unfortunately, it was raining on this Thursday in November. I received a general message on Facebook urging prospective attendees of the happy hour not to let the rain scare us. (The rain stopped later on, but it was still windy.) But I've been couped up in my apartment since Tuesday because I was suffering from flu symptoms. Doc said it wouldn't be a great idea for me to brave the subway crowds with my resistance as low as it is.
This really ticks me off considering my mother, a physician, gave me the standard flu shot back in September. Rats! So much for immunity! My health has placed a damper on my social life.
I was also looking forward to going to Macy's for the Veterans' Day Sale, but I was too sick to step out of my house yesterday. Another unused coupon clipping from Newsday to throw away. So today I checked out the emailed ads for Midnight Madness sales from Smartbargains.com and am in the process of buying Christmas decorations for my dining and living rooms - a Santa centerpiece and a tree skirt - from the safety of my home PC.
Speaking of shopping I turned on News 12 Long Island during my sick time and saw a commercial for WalMart. It featured Christmas music as the camera scanned the aisles at an unidentified WalMart store. The background female voice then said that the retail giant was adding checkouts and extending their hours for the holidays - and I paraphrase - to serve customers better. Don't you love the way people and businesses for that matter sugar coat the underlying reason for their proactive measures?
Newsday's headline more accurately outlines the retailer's motives. "LI Black Friday Death Spurs 24-hour Walmarts." No shit! Last year on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, an overeager crowd at the WalMart at Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, NY pushed through the doors and stampeded over people to get into the store for the proverbial holiday bargains. As a result of the chaos, a woman who was eight months pregnant was injured, and 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour, a temporary bodyguard hired by Walmart for the holidays was killed.
Damour stood 6 foot 5 inches tall and weighed 270 pounds. This explains why they planted him at the entrance. They didn't account for the force with which a large, fast crowd could take down a quarterback. Somebody died. They are taking preventive measures after last year's tragedy, which is great, but what I don't like is that in light of a death last year at one of their stores they are marketing it as though it's to make shopping at WalMart more convenient for me so it will be my first and more frequent stop this holiday season.
Unwilling to listen to the repeat round of local news, I switched the TV off and glanced at a basket of books in my living room. I had several cookbooks in the woven container - one for simple, fast dishes (a must for the single cook who lives alone) and my hardcover copy of "The Sopranos" cookbook with a photo of James Gandolfini from my last entry.
I also had my father's copy of Jane Eyre. My dog Fiona, a German shorthair pointer mix I adopted from North Shore Animal League, chewed it up so it's now unreadable. I keep it for sentimental reasons as my father, a wonderful man who gave my cousins gifts on his birthday to show it was "better to give than to receive," is now unfortunately deceased.
I've been forced to take the basket of books to my bedroom so Fiona won't chew them. The invisible fence that once kept her contained outside the living room is broken, so she's pretty much gotten the run of the house. After three days of having Mommy at home to pamper her, Fiona will be furious when I go back to work. I expect her to wreak havoc. I don't want her on the sofa, but she helps herself until I return and order her off.
I'm feeling better now. It's back to the grind as early as tomorrow morning. Here's me being proactive. The doc put me on TamiFlu, a swine flu prevention pill.
I can't wait to go back to work. I've been going stir crazy here. It's depressing because it's also been rainy and I can hear the droplets trickle on the window sill. News12 also reported that dark chocolate relieves stress. Consequently, it would ameliorate symptoms of depression. My personal favorite is dark chocolate almond bark.
In the movie The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Rebecca DeMornay's character Peyton makes a comment that they say "chocolate is a substitute for sex." I wish they didn't give that line to a homicidal maniac of a player in the film. It's so true. Like dark chocolate, sex is also a stress reliever. The two go hand in hand. And they can compete for my affection. Who needs a guy who will create drama for you when you can savor the flavor of cocoa?
Goodbye, Sertraline! Hello, Godiva! They should offer Black Friday deals. Sell more dark chocolate. It's good for you. I'm going to website right now to order some. No, I think I'm going to head over to the mall and pick some up this weekend. Shipping costs are a bitch for just a little chocolate.
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