Health News   At the beginning of August, Bev had her usual visit with her neurologist, Dr Bell at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center on 168th Street. Dr Bell did reconfirm that Pick's Disease is a progressive disease. But this time she also confirmed what she only hinted at last summer. She said the progression of the disease in the last couple of years has been very slow. She interprets the fact that we go out a lot, to plays, movies, lots of restaurants, and that we travel extensively, just the way we did years ago, is very beneficial for Bev because of all the stimulation.

Nine Eleven Plus One   We stayed in most of the day on Nine Eleven. We watched the reading of the names on TV, but so many streets in the neighborhood were closed to traffic, and notices here in the lobby of The Regatta pointed out that there may be checkpoints in the street with photo ID required, that we didn't go out until evening. It was very windy. Our windows face about a mile of water westward across the lower Hudson, and when the reported 60-mile-an-hour winds started, if you opened the window, you could hear the pressure escaping across the apartment under the doors. It had been noticeable how people's hair was blowing as they were reading the names. We went out in the evening. Understand that Battery Park City is on a landfill about two blocks wide, with our South End Avenue (and further up, North End Avenue), as the main street. We are separated from the older part of the city by the wide West Street, which used to be on the waterfront. When we went out, I asked pedestrians if they were able to cross West Street, and they said yes. But it was filled with police, because the President was at the evening ceremonies a couple of blocks away. We went up to Ground Zero, and looked over the edge. That ramp runs northward from Liberty Street, on the south edge. We were at the edge of Greenwich Street, and backtracked a short block and a half and went for dinner at Roy's. People in Tampa have heard me talk about the Roy's in Tampa, where we once met Roy Yamaguchi visiting from Hawaii. We had a nice dinner as usual, but the waitress confirmed that business is still way down. I've been reading about how many businesses have relocated to other areas, principally Midtown Manhattan, and there are just fewer people here.

I've been following the reconstruction plans. The most interesting and popular idea for a memorial is to cover West Street over from its bottom end, at the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, either up to the site, or beyond, even as far as connecting with the Holland Tunnel to New Jersey. That would free the neighborhood from so much through traffic. The covered West Street could then become a Grand Promenade, with a memorial tree planted in the name of each victim. The tower footprints could remain as parks. I just don't want to see too much tall construction brought back. There is talk about bringing the NYC Opera down here from Lincoln Center, and maybe some theaters, as part of a living memorial. Today, Thursday, is the first anniversary of the day we sat home alone all day, with no utilities. Tomorrow, Friday, is the anniversary of our evacuation to Midtown. They were closing West Street again this afternoon when I went out on an errand. President's in town again.

Human Nature   Human nature is a wonderous thing. We tend to be impressed by people by their status in life. It is interesting to find when people are only human.

I've said how much fun it is to sit at a hosted table on the QE2. A ship's officer in full uniform hosts the table for eight, and we've always had a delightful time. Everybody is always in awe of a person of status. A ship's officer! On the QE2!

It was so nice, and so endearing, to hear a story, told privately by one engineer about another. It seems that when the engineer in question had to host a table for the first time, he was so nervous, and so upset, that he had to down two scotches just to show up every night. In other words, he was that impressed with the passengers! This had happened a number of years earlier, and things went much more smoothly now, but just think of it. The guy, in uniform or not, works at a technical job. His social skills may be average. Yet he's looked up to, has to order wine for the table from the wine list (wise ones tell the wine steward to decide), might have to lead the conversation, feel obligated to bring a silent person into the conversation, and so on. That can be some load to bear. Actually, we've been lucky to be at very friendly tables, where everybody had fun, and none of those problems arose. But just imagine a poor young officer, that everyone at the table is expecting to look up to, having the feeling of being thrown to the lions. As I said, human nature is a wonderous thing.

Glitz   The QE2 is a famous ship. It is not a glitzy ship. It's comfortable. That's it. It's an ocean liner, so it has to look good from the outside, pointed front and back to move quickly, whereas cruise ships can have a dumpier external look. But inside, there are no huge fancy atriums or staircases, or anything spectacular that you see on the newer cruise ships. Hallways, dining rooms, and other public rooms are functional. The Queen's Room, although only on one level, is nicely decorated. The fabrics on the chairs are gold with blue piping, with some in the reverse color pattern, which makes a nice impression. The theater, although technically adequate, doesn't have the style of even a simple high school auditorium. The Grand Lounge has an open ceiling to the deck above, but that's where all the shops are, and the two functions don't blend well. Cabins vary greatly according to deck and price and usually have twin beds. It's all very pleasant, and most people are attached to the ship, but the style does not bowl you over.

When we got home, we got the brochure for the new Queen Mary II. This is where the glitz will come in. She will have every superlative. She'll be the longest, tallest, widest, fastest, probably glitziest ship ever. She'll have a planetarium, domed public rooms, a grand ballroom, a 360-degree promenade deck. She'll have one staff member per couple. She will not need tugboats. She'll have enough electrical power to light Southampton. The really expensive suites will have private elevator service. They are taking the ship's whistle from the original Queen Mary in Long Beach harbor and reusing it on the QM2. It will blow at two octaves below middle C and will be audible for ten miles. Waste heat from the diesel engines will distill fresh water from seawater, producing enough potable water to suply the 1100 tons needed daily. The captain will use a joystick to control forward, backward, and sideward motion. It will be taller than the Statue of Liberty and 3 ½ football fields long. The main restaurant, the Brittania, will be two decks high, and will have a grand staircase to make an entrance on.

But the most interesting aspect for me will be the staterooms. The vast majority will be uniform in size, and large, almost 200 square feet, with king beds. 80% of the cabins will have ocean views, and not tiny portholes, or even windows. One wall will be almost all glass, with sliding doors, because 94% of all oceanview cabins will have their own private balconies with reclining chairs. It's just breathtaking.

The old terminology of Quarter Deck and Boat Deck will be thrown out. All decks will be numbered, and unusually, from bottom to top. The lowest passenger deck will be 2, going up to 13. Another reversal: the public rooms will be on the lower decks, leaving the higher decks for cabins, with the mentioned views.

Goats Redux   I enjoyed the idea of coming up with the possibility of a taxi being a Chevrolet cab(riolet), so we had goats referred to twice. Then my friend Jürgen in Germany, who had read the piece, spotted a Chevrolet Caprice, and we have one more level of goat. So if the taxi were a Chevrolet Caprice cab(riolet), we'd have a "triple goat". Not only that, but each of the three possible stems is used once: chev-, cap-, cab-. Anyone want to try for four?

Ruby Anniversary   Bev and I were married in 1962, so this August 25th, a Sunday, we celebrated our 40th Anniversary. We are members at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue, with summer weekend dining rights at the Trustees’ Dining Room, so we arranged for a Sunday Brunch there with family. We all met in the Great Hall of the Met, then went up to the roof garden on the fifth floor for a drink with views of and across Central Park. Then back down one floor for Brunch.

While we were still in the Great Hall, I had everyone step right outside to the top of the outdoor grand staircase leading down to Fifth Avenue to tell them a story. Looking across the street at a left angle from the staircase you can see the green-roofed former mansion that for years has housed the Goethe House, the German Cultural Institute. I explained how for years we've been going there, for meetings, for research, and for many, many Christmas parties for people in the field of German, after which we'd often run across the street to the Met to see their annual Neapolitan crèche Christmas display.

I told about the first meeting we ever went to at the Goethe House. It was on a spring afternoon sometime in the mid-sixties, and they had the balcony windows open. During a break Bev and I stepped outside of the beautifully wood-paneled rooms onto the shallow balcony and looked across Fifth Avenue to the Met. We had only been married 2-3 years at the time, were still renting in our Bronx apartment, and were duly impressed with our surroundings. Over the years Bev and I have always an an "in" thing. I would jokingly elbow her and say something starting with "Stick with me, kid, and someday we'll......"

So on that balcony on Fifth Avenue that day just short of forty years ago I clearly remember saying: "Stick with me, kid, and someday we'll end up on Fifth Avenue."

Well, we never did end up on Fifth Avenue. But curiously, we did end up celebrating our Fortieth Anniversary on Fifth Avenue, and right across the street from where I had said that.

Life in New York   There is more of a friendliness, of solidarity nowadays in the streets of the City. But one of the joys of a big city can be its quirkiness. I remember there used to be a guy that would stand outside near the Four Seasons restaurant dressed as a viking, horned hat and all. He wasn't selling anything, he was making some sort of statement. And New Yorkers, love 'em, would walk right by and hardly notice. Stop and look? Never. You do your thing and I'll do mine.

The New York Times has a weekly feature called Metropolitan Diary, where people write letters in with NYC anecdotes. One item this past Monday was particularly fun in regard to New York quirkiness.

It was a rainy Saturday afternoon and I was cleaning the moisture off my glasses as the doors of the uptown No. 1 train opened at 23rd Street. A white-haired man barreled in, talking fairly loudly into a cellphone. I thought nothing of it for about two seconds until I realized we were underground, and he was talking into a cellphone. I took another look and saw that what he held to his ear wasn't a cellphone, but a banana.

He was telling the person on the other end of the banana that he was going to marry that person's daughter, bring her flowers and sing her love songs.

He hummed a note or two, hung up, dialed the banana and reached someone in Italy. I know this because he said: "Hello? Oh, Italy? Come stai?" I don't know what the two parties discussed after that because he continued speaking in what seemed to me to be Italian. When they were done, he redialed, reaching Germany ("Guten Tag!"), followed by Spain.

By the time he contacted Florida, every eye in the car was fixed on him and his banana, and most were filled with tears from laughing so hard.

As the man left the train at 66th Street, the young man standing to my left wiped his eyes.

"He had the stem of the banana in his ear," he said. "I always thought that was the part you talked into!"

Fado   We had a pleasant experience last night. We had gone to Alfama, a Portuguese restaurant in Greenwich Village, a few weeks ago, and enjoyed it, but when I heard that on Wednesday nights they do fado, I wanted to go again. Fado is a kind of Portuguese folk singing, but is usually about love, and mournful and nostalgic (fado means "fate"). We had never gone to any of the restaurants or bars in Lisbon where it is done when we were there, so this was a first last night. There were three soloists last night, two women and a man, and they sang all evening. Fado singers tend to be mature. One woman paused during a song and said with a smile "If you knew vot it meant vot I vas singing, you'd know it's soooooooo byoo-tee-full!", and that brought down the house.

During the last song they joined hands and started dancing in a circle around a group of tables, so I got up and joined in. I was between the two women singers, and maybe 15-20 people were dancing. It was great fun. Then as I was sitting down at our table, the male singer came up, and, not having spoken to us before, and without saying a word this time either, he took Bev's hand and kissed it, and then handed her a signed compact disk of his fado songs he'd brought from Portugal. That was very nice. And that's the essence of the fado spirit.