Pbenjay's Blog

Well according the article linked below the answer is NO.  It seems we have selective memories and when weird things happen to us, we may note there is a full moon and decide surely the full moon is responsible for this lunacy.

Lunacy and the Full Moon: Scientific American.

Alright so the moon was NOT responsible for the past few days of madness – even so…coincidentally then this is what came down since that big fat Harvest moon began to rise on Thursday night:

THURSDAY: I had planned to leave for the shore  in the early afternoon; it had been two weeks since we had been there and I missed my little cottage and was sure our feathered and bushy-tailed friends thought we had abandoned them :(.   Trying to leave early was difficult since I was trying to set up appointments for Chiara and Tom to see apartments this weekend  without me: She (Chiara) sprung this surprise house-hunting trip on me.

I checked my voice mail and had a message from  broker stating she wanted to show my listing on Friday at 3pm.  Of course, why not-FRIDAY at 3pm!!!! Why wouldn’t I want to leave the City on a FRIDAY during RUSH HOUR so I could show an apartment which might take all of 15 minutes.  I questioned the broker; did she see the web photos and floor plan? Could they make it any earlier? She said she would see if they could make it at 2pm and I said “FINE” I’ll be there. Thursday night the phone rang at midnight!!! It was the co-broker calling, thinking she was calling my office to tell me her customers could make it at 2pm instead of 3pm.  Good news even it was late.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON: Before I left for the weekend, I needed to iron some things. The phone rings and it is the co-broker and now her buyers can’t come till 2:15pm – Whatever!! Peter and I drove to the showing stopping in Midtown to pick up some paperwork which was supposed to be left for me – NOT THERE!! !  So onto the apartment to show and lo and behold we see that East 50th Street is in the frozen zone. No stopping allowed; police barricades on both sides of the street.  I HAD to stop to get out of the car – don’t you know a cop threw his cruiser in reverse and came barreling back to reprimand us!  Since I jumped out so quickly and Peter took off, he just gave us a dirty look.! if you don’t live in New York City then you probably don’t know what kind of self-imposed gridlock and lock-down the City goes into when the UN is having some sort of special session.  Streets are blocked off, traffic is clogged up and the diplomats from around the world are eating out in the best restaurants and the President is throwing a special event of his own at the Museum of Natural History – SO effectively both the West and the East sides were a mess! Got to the apartment and NO MORE show sheets! Of course not.  True to form the buyers were in and out in 15 minutes or less.

SATURDAY MORNING:  Susan called from the car and said she was  following the ambulance which was taking Joe, our host for that evening to Emergency Room.  UH OH!  Should I or should I not go to the vegetable stand and get the last of the ingredients and pick up Susan’s vegetables??

SATURDAY EVENING: Joe was finally released from the hospital and still wanted us all to come for the cook-out!  So at 7pm with Joe sleeping soundly with the afterglow of his morphine drip, Michael stepped up and played the most gracious host and cooked a delicious meal.  It had been a long day for everybody with a lot of stress, strain and phone calls, so about 10:30pm we headed home.

SATURDAY NIGHT LATER: I just got into my pajamas, took out my lens and the phone rang! Susan had gotten a phone call from Heide who apparently was in a lot of pain and had been throwing up for several hours – OMG!  Jim called 911 for an ambulance (can you believe this was his second 911 call today!) and I said we would get dressed and meet them over at Heide’s. The ambulance was already there;  Poor Heide, she looked very pale and was a little delirious from being de-hydrated.  We grabbed her meds, her keys, her cell phone and insurance cards and took off behind the ambulance for the ER.  I tried several times to reach her daughter in California and thankfully, at about 1:30am she called back.  Heide was about to go for a stomach X-ray.

SUNDAY AM: We stayed with her till about 2am and by that time we knew she;d be there for the rest of the night/morning.  I told her to call me in a few hours to pick her up if they let her go.  We went home, crashed and the next thing I knew it was 9am.  The phone hadn’t rung so I assumed Heide was still in JSUMC.  Before I went to sleep I sent Trish an email telling her what had happened.  Trish is the early bird in our group and she was at the hospital before 9am and passed on the latest news to all of us via email.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON: Susan and I went to Heide’s and got her important meds , took the trash out, turned off her computer and gathered some tees shirts and socks.  We visited with her for a short time and promised to check in the next day.

OY what a weekend – so what part did that big old moon play?

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