Baloonacy

The Macy*s Day Parade is insane enough, but the festivities of the balloon-inflating day have gotten out of control.

Near the end of the previous millennium, things were different. A person could walk from my mom's apartment building, cross the street, pick up some food at the local Somewhat Original Ray's Pizza, and head back home. Elapsed time: 10 minutes on a slow day. And you didn't even need proof of your address or a party invitation! Shirra remembers an evening back in 1994 when we visited her friend Eileen a few blocks away for her big annual Turkey Eve party. We hustled over, hung about for a couple hours, and made our way back, noting how some of the balloons were a bit more inflated when we returned than when we'd left.

Just a few years later, however, the thing had gone viral. Blame word of mouth, blame the more-bored-than-usual media, blame the police, but when thousands of people started to make the balloon inflation into some kind of party event, the infotainment reporters arrived along with the police barricades, and that was the end of that. It took us more than ten minutes just to walk one block downtown on Columbus with Fiona in the stroller -- a mistake we never made again -- and pretty much took Eileen's party off our to-do list forevermore. At that was only 1998.

Here is a photo someone took of my mom's block last year. I imagine someone -- someone staying in a hotel -- saying, "Ooh! Isn't that Shrek? What's he doing here, that big green silly! I can't believe I'm standing so close to greatness!"

And now things are totally out of control. Shirra was blocked from passing thru one of the barricades because some rookie cop thought that she and the kids were just sightseers pretending to live on 81st Street. Direction-barkers are still making announcements to balloon workers at 11pm, and as I was putting the kids to bed in my old room (the one that faces the street), we could hear bands playing jaunty music to late-night revelers who came to watch -- oh, joy! -- the commingling of helium, painted rubber, and thousands of sandbags.

Breaking and Entering a Car (in order to rescue the inhabitants during an emergency)

This past Monday, we had a great fire fighter practice ("evolution" for those of you new to FF jargon). It involved using several tools including the Jaws of Life to open a car.


You first have to hook up the JoL to a portable generator about the size (and strength) of my car's engine; actually, this thing is a bit bigger, about the size of a fat briefcase. Clever, interchangeable cords allow quick swapping-out of various tools depending on whether you need to pry things open, smoosh them together, or cut them apart.

This is basically what the car will look like when the FFs are done with the extrication evolution. That's not our guys or the car we used -- I didn't get around to taking a photo of it -- but this picture gives you the basic idea.

One good point to make: Even tho the JoL is pretty easy to set up and is extremely effective, it's still better to try the car's doors first, just in case!

OK, that's a lame joke. Obviously that method doesn't work when people are trapped. In fact, as the photo shows, sometimes you actually have to cut away the roof and pry away the dashboard in order to extricate passengers. Cars these days are made to protect passengers by crumpling (relatively) safely around them. That's why modern cars involved in anything above a fender-bender are usually considered 'totaled'. This is still a lot better than the old days: The cars could withstand a solid impact, but the passengers didn't always look too good afterwards.

Spicy Prices

Short version: Don't buy spices at the supermarket if you have an alternative like a health food store.
Moral: Sometimes a cell phone pays for itself.

Shirra sent me on an errand just before Turkey Day. She wants to make a few pies before Thursday's festivities. On the list were four spices:

Nutmeg
Cloves
Ginger
Cinnamon

Stop 'N' Shop price for these four items: $35

This seemed a tad high -- nutmeg ain't cheap, but hey! -- so I gave Shirra a call. She suggested I try the health food store next door, the one with the odd sign. Is it "Healthy Nutrition"? "Health / Nutrition"? Maybe the carrot stands for an ampersand? Or perhaps it's just a carrot: "Health Carrot Nutrition".

Whatever the name, I like their prices. I bought what seemed like a fair amount of all four of the spices. Grand total: $1.47.