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Esther Blumenfeld  

The purpose of this web site is to entertain.  My humor columns died along with the magazines where they were printed, although I cannot claim responsibility for their demise.  I still have something to say, and if I can bring a laugh or two to your day, my mission will be fulfilled.

Everyone I know thinks he has a sense of humor.  Here is my unsolicited advice. If you try to be funny and no one laughs, don’t worry about it.  However, if you try to be funny and no one EVER laughs, you might have a little problem.

 

Entries from December 1, 2013 - December 31, 2013

Friday
Dec272013

Spotting A Doppelgager

Yogi Berra said, “You can observe a lot by just watching.” I guess that’s how a fake Santa Claus recently got caught groping one of his elves. Someone was watching.

As a passionate spectator, I enjoy people watching. It isn’t really voyeurism, because for writers and actors it’s in the realm of mining for creative material.

New York City is my favorite city for people watching. As a visitor, I am never in much of a hurry, and enjoy sitting outside, at a small café table, with a cup of tea, watching and wondering about all those people rushing by---and rush they do---all day and all night. Life in New York is hectic. I noticed that even the children are in a hurry. New York is known as; “The city that never sleeps.” My son, Josh said, “That’s why everyone here is so cranky.”

Contemplation has always been a part of my life, but watching the hurrying crowds makes me wonder if anyone ever stops to pay attention. Gerard Way said, “Someday your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.”

Nowadays, because of cell phones, observing people inevitably leads to unintended eavesdropping. Most of the time, through no fault of my own, I catch a snatch of conversation coming my way. It’s hard not to pay attention, when, sitting in a restroom stall, a woman in the stall next to me, shouts on her cell phone, “What do you mean your brother is moving in with us?” She took the news sitting down. I got out of there before hearing the rest of the story.

Airports are ripe for people watching. Imagining can be fun. “Is he a bagman for the mob, or is that a salami sandwich in his briefcase?” “Is she crying because watching her friend leave is so hard, or is she crying because she had to drive him to the airport at 3 a.m.” Or, “Is that a nail piercing his earlobe or an antenna?”

When my father was at the airport, he saw someone who looked very familiar. Was it someone he should know or a doppelganger? (A double of someone he knew.) My father made eye contact with the man, and not wanting to be rude, approached him and said, “Excuse me, but I do know you from somewhere, and I just wanted to say, ‘Hello.”’ People watching did pay off. He had seen the man before, but they had never met. Walter Cronkite didn’t know my father, but graciously acknowledged the greeting.

One thing to remember about people watching is to be alert, because they are probably watching you too. When I was at a museum in Washington, DC, a man approached me and said, “Excuse me, but my wife and I were arguing about what you are. I say you are French and my wife thinks you are Spanish?” I looked at him and said, “Sir, I am an Epicurean.” Let them go watch someone else.

Esther Blumenfeld (“Here’s looking at you, kid”) Humphrey Bogart

Friday
Dec202013

The Foofnagle Newsletter

After reading in great detail about too many things, we decided that the trend in holiday newsletters has gone too far. This year, therefore, we are sending our own version of the mimeographed message to all our “friends.” If you too are fed up with hearing more than you ever wanted to know about your friends and relatives, please feel free to use this one. We guarantee it will remove your name from their mailing list next year.

DEAR-----,Happy holidays to all our friends! Time once more for the Foofnagle Newsletter. And a busy year it’s been, yes indeed! Much to our surprise, Fermin was offered a promotion, and is now the Second Associate Agricultural Coordinator for Fastfood Worm Farms, Inc. He has more responsibilities and just loves everything about the new job. His boss says he is progressing so rapidly we may soon be able to move from our ultra-contemporary, split-level home in suburbia to the inner city, where we can joyfully and enthusiastically renovate an old, dilapidated house into a showplace in just six short years. In his spare time, Fermin has taken up karate, off-loom weaving and songwriting. The music industry here is booming, and we just know Tanya Tucker is going to buy Fermins fantastic country western rock song called, You Don’t Need No Ears to Hear My Beat. Keep your ears to the charts! All the Foofnagle relatives love it. In fact, Cousin Lulu is getting married again for the third time and wants it played when she walks down the aisle.

Our lovely daughter, Flossie is really growing up. This year she’s been on the Honor Roll twice and won first prize in the school Talent Show for playing Jingle Bells on her nose. This resulted in her election as vice-president of the Future Organists of America. Isn’t she wonderful? As for daughter Bootsie, she’s sprung up four inches this year, is out of her training bra, and has six new rubber bands on her braces. She, too, just loves school and twangs a mean harmonica in the high school marching band and yet still finds time for her volunteer work at the Ruby Keeler School for the Unbalanced.

And wait until you hear about little Fermin Junior. He took his first steps on Sept. 14 right after lunch. Yes, and he was only 11 months old. Such a precocious child. Pretty soon he’ll be playing soccer just like his father used to…anyone can see he has the arches of a pro. He really keeps me running, and hates to nap, the cute little tyke. It’s a joy to share their news with you, our dear, dear friends.

We did take one teeny little vacation without them this summer, driving cross-country in our camper Zelda on a lecture tour promoting my new sensitivity training program called PIT-PAT: Pull In Touch, Push Aside Tension. I am so encouraged by the response it drew and I soon hope to be accredited by the National Psychological Facsimile Association. The two-month trip through our vast country was breathtaking. Such vistas! Isn’t America darling?  It was very exhausting, but since we wound up in Toocomecarry, Maine, we spent a glorious week there at the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Sex Clinic. What an uplifting experience!

Well, there’s much more, but my homemade bread is rising (made from wheat grown in our very own naturally fertilized window box), and I’ll have to say, goodbye until next year. May your news be as thrilling as ours.

Hugs and Kisses, Fanny, Fermin, and the three precious Foofnagles.

P.S. By the way, my PIT-PAT seminar is available by correspondence in a 10-part series. Simply mail $79.95 along with a self-addressed envelope to: Fanny Foofnagle, PIT-PAT, at my address. Financing Available. Happy Holidays and a resolute New Year to all!

(Reprinted from Atlanta Magazine and the St. Petersburg Times. By Lynne Alpern and Esther Blumenfeld c 1981 Alpern and Blumenfeld.)

Friday
Dec132013

Dollars For Digits

It takes our brains 80 milliseconds to process information. That means we are all living a little bit in the past---probably some of us more than others. So, before my brain turns to mush, I decided to learn something about “Bitcoin,” the digital currency introduced in 2009 by a developer whom nobody knows, because he goes under the pseudonym, ”Satoshi Nakamoto.”

Bitcoin is a peer to peer, math-based digital currency, or for those of you purists, “cryptocurrency.” Peer-to-peer means nerd-to-nerd. These digital coins go person to person via the Internet---an electronic made-up cash system on a computer server.  It allows people to buy all kinds of bad stuff, because it promises anonymity. In 2013 the FBI closed down a server called, ”Silk Road” which specialized in illegal drugs. Stay with me, it gets better. Even my spell-check never heard of bitcoins.

However, since transaction fees are lower than the 2 or 3% imposed by credit card processors, bitcoins are increasingly used as payment for legitimate services or products. Sometimes called, “Blockchain,” a public transaction ledger keeps track of who owns bitcoins, how many transactions are out there, and prevents double spending. People who use their computers to maintain the blockchain are called, “Miners,” but we don’t know who they are. My spell check never heard of blockchain either.

If by now, you want to trade in bitcoin, you will need a virtual wallet---where else would you store invisible tender? Wallets come in apps for mobile devices and computers, hardware devices and paper coins. Paper! Now, that I get! To trade bitcoins you do it on a public key, but a private key address will keep your bitcoins safe---unless your secret code gets out. Then your bitcoins can be cyber-stolen.

Here are some reasons I won’t buy bitcoins:

I’m not a nerd.

I like my greenbacks and transactions to be backed by the U.S. Government, because we have a very big military, with very big guns, that will back up my very hard earned dollars.

I don’t hoard canned goods, or speculate on how many times my neighbor’s dogs will poop on my sidewalk. Why would I hoard bitcoins on the speculation that they will go up in value? Yes, they have, and they have also tanked. There have been large swings in value. One such value collapse happened when people panicked, sold their invisible bitcoins, and froze a trade engine.

Countries with troubled national currencies such as Argentina and Iran have used bitcoins. The People’s Bank of China has recently ordered their banks not to use them as “legal tender.” They can’t breathe without coughing in China, but they know about coughing up money.

There are only 12 million bitcoins, and I think there is a programmed limit to how many will be created. Don’t know who programmed that, because everyone seems to be called by the name, “Anonymous.”

So now you know as much as I do about bitcoin. To sum it up:

Unknown, unaccountable, anonymous people wrote a computer code for imaginary, untraceable currency that exists in cyberspace and Dodos are investing real money in it.

Esther Blumenfeld (“It’s gold for nerds.”) Stephen Colbert

 

Friday
Dec062013

Rank Then File

Late last night, after I pulled my car into the garage, I grabbed an armload of newspapers and dumped them into the recyclable can---along with my car keys. Not planning to drive anywhere until the next morning, I decided to leave the keys filed where I had tossed them. Just like “Extreme Sports,” this is an example of “Extreme Filing!”

Everyone has his own filing system. Margo Kaufman reminds us that, “one person’s mess is another person’s filing system.” A sure way to find what you are looking for is to make 26 copies of everything you type, and then file one copy under each letter of the alphabet.

My husband, who never trusted anyone who had a clean desk, always made 10 copies of everything, and then filed them on the floor---but only after his desks, chairs, and exercise machine could hold no more paper. He claimed he knew where everything was---as long as I didn’t move a thing. I didn’t care as long as I knew he was somewhere behind that mountain of paper.

Filing takes organization. That’s the hard part. A friend and I were recently asked to pull some information out of some files that had been re-organized by a departed member of an association. She had efficiently labeled the files and then disposed of much of the needed information. I finally understood Hercule Poirot when he said, “Touch Nothing!”  That is especially easy to do when pertinent information has been filed under---“ wastebasket.”

I try to keep my papers in reasonable order, but sometimes it is impossible. That is when I use file folders labeled, “Other,” “Miscellaneous,” and “Stuff.” Works for me!

I once had a summer factory job substituting for office workers when they went on vacation. One assignment was to stand for 8 hours at a table filing orders into the “In” or “Out” baskets. The room was dingy, dusty and dark (alliteration being the best part of the job). After the 6th hour, I didn’t care whether orders were “In” or “Out” as long as they were filed. The factory workers went on strike the next day, and I was hesitant to cross the picket line, until one worker called out, ”It’s okay, Girlie. No one wants your job.” Neither did I, but I needed the money. Happily, the boss put me behind a typewriter where I could mess up sitting down.

Some people file everything on their computers. That is okay, unless they die taking their passwords with them to the “Great Beyond.”

Everyone is required to file tax returns. When frustrated, I always recall that Albert Einstein said, “This is too difficult for a mathematician. It takes a philosopher.”

My friend, Sally just tosses her papers into a big box, hands the mess to her accountant and says something such as, ”This is really going to make your day. File away, Old Chum!” Her accountant must be a philosopher.

Esther Blumenfeld (File and print!)