It Runs In The Family

Aside from being a pretty funny play written by the Brit Ray Cooney “It Runs In The Family” also refers to the trait that my brothers and I share. We like to work with our hands. Yes, I have two brothers, I also have two sisters, but they have not shown themselves symptomatic of the same affliction. My youngest brother sent me this recently. He and his lovely significant other own a house. They have been working on it since purchasing it, fixing and upgrading.

So [when we bought the place] the home inspector never got to the crawl space, because as soon as he identified that there was an active rat population down there, he would go no further. I can't imagine why, but... Since then we have taken care of the roommates in the crawl space, but have been procrastinating about getting down there to cleanup. Well, because it is a nasty job, and there were so many more enjoyable jobs to do above ground. So, last weekend I made the plunge. I had to dig out some trenches beneath the heat ducts so I could fit my body under them to get to the front of the house. On my way I found two old, no longer inhabited, rat nests. Oh joy. When I finally reached the kitchen though was when reality truly hit. We had a massive plumbing leak in our sink drain! Oh and the best part, an inch and a half deep pool of sludge contained above the visqueen. Mmmmm yummy. This is when crisis mode hit, and yours truly had to get to work. Well with a hard days work, and magnificent support from Laurel we got the offending pipe removed, assessed, and its replacement purchased and ready to go for the morning. This brings us to Sunday. I went back down and Laurel and I got the plumbing put back together. So what happens now, one might ask, is to test it. Guess what. It was clogged. So I set about snaking the drain, first in the kitchen under the sink and then by removing the new pipe in the crawl space and snaking out into the yard. This worked and the water began to flow. However, we then noticed a gurgling sound out by the front door. So, what happen next you ask? Well let me just say the shovels came out, and the excavating ensued. We dug between the house and the walkway to find an old pipe that looked like someone shoved a shovel through it a long time ago, wrapped it with a T-shirt and filled it back in. Luckily there was still enough sticking out of the foundation wall to cut the broken section off and still have enough to reattach to. We then dug up the other side of the walkway and exposed the rest of the pipe. We tunneled under the walkway. While I made a supply run Laurel finished the digging and cut the new offending section of pipe out, and we replaced it when I returned. And presto, we had a functioning drain that did not contribute to the compost pile in the crawl space, and did not feed the plants by out patio, and to think we never knew we had a problem. Sure you don't want to come over to our place for a work party? And I haven't even gotten to the petrified rat, but maybe I will keep that until next time.

Sound like fun?

My other brother can swing a hammer like us, but his real love is cars. My first car was a 1976 Triumph Spitfire. He’s got his hands on an MG Midget. I don’t know the year. Maybe he’ll chime in with more particulars. No doubt the thing will be a beauty when he’s done.



The Fox Brothers; Making the world a nicer looking place.

My Brethren

Here's a truly heartwarming story about the bond formed between a little 5-year-old girl and some construction workers that will make you believe that we all can make a difference when we give a child the gift of our time.

A young family moved into a house, next to a vacant lot. One day, a construction crew turned up to start building a house on the empty lot. The young family's 5-year-old daughter naturally took an interest in all the activity going on next door and spent much of each day observing the workers. Eventually the construction crew, all of them "gems-in-the-rough," more or less, adopted her as a kind of project mascot. They chatted with her, let her sit with them while they had coffee and lunch breaks, and gave her little jobs to do here and there to make her feel important. At the end of the first week, they even presented her with a pay envelope containing ten dollars. The little girl took this home to her mother who suggested that she take her ten dollars "pay" she'd received to the bank the next day to start a savings account. When the girl and her mom got to the bank, the teller was equally impressed and asked the little girl how she had come by her very own pay check at such a young age. The little girl proudly replied, "I worked last week with a real work crew building the new house next door to us." "Oh my goodness gracious," said the teller, "and will you be working on the house again this week, too?" The little girl replied, "I will, if those a#¢holes at Home Depot ever deliver the f¢%kin' sheet rock!"

This was forwarded to me by a fellow contrACTOR. That's an actor who is contracting when not acting, gutting when not strutting, framing when not declaiming, drilling when not thrilling...oh, I can go on and on. Got any good ones?

How Do You Spell Relief?

G,A,S M,E,T,E,R (pun not fully intended)



Need I say more?
The excitement is palpable over here in our Haven on Haven


Emerson is extremely excited.
And Hank got so excited, he had to take a timeout is his box.


Later we’re all gonna boil some pasta and steam some broccoli and sit around the range, (pun absolutely intended) warming our paws on the open flame. And I reminded the fella's that the best part is...Mom comes home tomorrow.

Irony.

It’s impossible to write this stuff.

Y’all remember my little tangle with Con Edison, my gas and electric provider? Last Friday I finally got a call from the plumber, saying that the meter move finally hit the computers and was signed off by the city. At long last! I called Con Edison immediately. “Please provide me with a new meter so I can have a gas stove again.” Miracle of miracle’s the guy at Con Edison called me back Monday morning! “Not a problem”, he say’s. “I’ll stop by today to check out the work.” CHECK OUT THE WORK!!? All the alarm bells went off and I thought, oh, no, here we go again. Long story short, he showed up and, aside from telling me to get the plumber back to hook up the (old) stove, he seemed to think everything was okay and someone would be in contact to bring over the new meter. Thank you Jesus! When he left I bought a flex line at the local hardware store and hooked up the stove. Call a plumber? Please.

And now for something completely different. I served my first day of Jury duty today. I was called into a Voir dire for a civil case. Apparently an elderly lady tripped and broke her foot and was suing…wait for it…Con Ed. They seated a jury of six but were looking for two alternates. When they finally got to me the lawyer for Con Ed, (named John Fox, I kid you not) asked if I had any feelings against Con Edison. When I was done with him he was shaking his head and scratching my name off the list of potential jurors as fast as he could. I told him that other than this little Con Ed kerfuffle I was a reasonable guy. We parted smiling, as only two New Yorkers can, feeling deep in our bones that wonderful sense of irony that courses through our beloved city like rich veins of gold.

Miss Me?

You may be wondering what on earth I am accomplishing with respect to my not-yet-finished apartment. I confess, not much. I’m puttering. Unable to get my mind around the notion of moving everything back into a pile and covering it all in plastic. Not yet willing to face the prospect of moving my table saw from the basement into the living room. Reticent about ordering materials that will have to be schlepped up the stairs in order to create the built in units.

To assuage my guilt I have been better at sending out my resume’s, with some results. I have an audition next Thursday for a theatre here in town that I have worked at once before. The Mint Theatre. The play is called THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL. I may be a little old…they’re looking for someone in their mid 30’s, but I contacted the artistic director anyway and told him to give me a shot. Any youthful tips? Skin creams? Tucks?

The other news is that the dam finally broke. I booked my first commercial. LawCash. It shot in Red Hook Brooklyn on an old city bus that was parked on a quiet block. There were a bunch of extra’s and two principals. The LawCash guy—salt and pepper hair, mid thirties, good-looking model-type guy, and me. I’m the sorry sac every-man riding the bus when LawCash guy pushes past and picks my pocket! Only instead of taking something out, he puts a big wad of cash in! After the bewilderment wears off, I’m quite pleased with the turn of events. No copy (read; text). Some voice-over guy gets that task. Just visuals. It was a nice way to enter into this whole world of commercials. People not breathing down your neck to put the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLAble. I’m such a greenhorn, newbie that I have no idea how much the spot pays. I was just pleased to book something so my commercial agent wouldn’t give up on me. Onward and upward.

A Side Of Bacon

This article appeared in the New York Times Opinion pages today, I reproduce this in it’s entirety because it is rare that an op-ed piece on this topic makes it into the NY Times, and also, I’m sorry to say dear readers, the kid gloves are coming off. First the article.

Nicolette Hahn Niman, a lawyer and cattle rancher, is writing a book about the meat industry.

WITH some fanfare, the world’s largest pork producer, Smithfield Foods, recently announced that it intended to phase out certain cages for its breeding females. Called gestation crates, the cages virtually immobilize pigs during their pregnancies in metal stalls so narrow they are unable to turn around.

Numerous studies have documented crated sows exhibiting behavior characteristic of humans with severe depression and mental illness. Getting rid of gestation crates (already on their way out in the European Union) is welcome and long overdue, but more action is needed to end inhumane conditions at America’s hog farms.

Of the 60 million pigs in the United States, over 95 percent are continuously confined in metal buildings, including the almost five million sows in crates. In such setups, feed is automatically delivered to animals who are forced to urinate and defecate where they eat and sleep. Their waste festers in large pits a few feet below their hooves. Intense ammonia and hydrogen sulfide fumes from these pits fill pigs’ lungs and sensitive nostrils. No straw is provided to the animals because that would gum up the works (as it would if you tossed straw into your toilet).

In my work as an environmental lawyer, I’ve toured a dozen hog confinement operations and seen hundreds from the outside. My task was to evaluate their polluting potential, which was considerable. But what haunted me was the miserable creatures inside.

They were crowded into pens and cages, never allowed outdoors, and never even provided a soft place to lie down. Their tails had been cut off without anesthetic. Regardless of how well the operations are managed, the pigs subsist in inherently hostile settings. (Disclosure: my husband founded a network of farms that raise pigs using traditional, non-confinement methods.)

The stress, crowding and contamination inside confinement buildings foster disease, especially respiratory illnesses. In addition to toxic fumes, bacteria, yeast and molds have been recorded in swine buildings at a level more than 1,000 times higher than in normal air. To prevent disease outbreaks (and to stimulate faster growth), the hog industry adds more than 10 million pounds of antibiotics to its feed, the Union of Concerned Scientists estimates. This mountain of drugs — a staggering three times more than all antibiotics used to treat human illnesses — is a grim yardstick of the wretchedness of these facilities.

There are other reasons that merely phasing out gestation crates does not go nearly far enough. Keeping animals in such barren environments is a serious deprivation. Pigs in nature are active, curious creatures that typically spend 10 hours a day foraging, rooting and roaming.

Veterinarians consider pigs as smart as dogs. Imagine keeping a dog in a tight cage or crowded pen day after day with absolutely nothing to chew on, play with or otherwise occupy its mind. Americans would universally denounce that as inhumane. Extreme boredom is considered the main reason pigs in confinement are prone to biting one another’s tails and engaging in other aggressive behavior.

Finally, even if the gestation crate is abandoned, pork producers will still keep a sow in a narrow metal cage once she gives birth to her piglets. This slightly larger cage, called a farrowing crate, severely restricts a sow’s movements and makes normal interactions between mother and piglets impossible.

Because confinement buildings are far from cities and lack windows, all of this is shielded from public view. But such treatment of pigs contrasts sharply with what people say they want for farm animals. Surveys consistently find that Americans believe all animals, including those raised for food, deserve humane treatment. A 2004 survey by Ohio State University found that 81 percent of respondents felt that the well-being of livestock is as important as that of pets.

Such sentiment was behind the widely supported Humane Slaughter Act of 1958, which sought to improve treatment of cattle and hogs at slaughterhouses. But it’s clear that Americans expect more — they want animals to be humanely treated throughout their lives, not just at slaughter. To ensure this, Congress should ban gestation crates altogether and mandate that animal anti-cruelty laws be applied to farm animals.

As a cattle rancher, I am comfortable raising animals for human consumption, but they should not be made to suffer. Because we ask the ultimate sacrifice of these creatures, it is incumbent on us to ensure that they have decent lives. Let us view the elimination of gestation crates as just a small first step in the right direction.

Thank God For The Irish

Here are a few jokes at the expense of the great and poetic Irish, to get us all in the mood for Saint Paddy's day. These were sent to me but I've added my favorite at the bottom


Paddy was driving down the street in a sweat because he had an important meeting and couldn't find a parking place. Looking up to heaven he said, "Lord take pity on me. If you find me a parking place I will go to Mass every Sunday for the rest of me life and give up me Irish Whiskey!" Miraculously, a parking place appeared. Paddy looked up again and said, "Never mind, I found one."

Paddy was in New York. He was patiently waiting and watching the traffic cop on a busy street crossing. The cop stopped the flow of traffic and shouted, "Okay, pedestrians." Then he'd allow the traffic to pass. He'd done this several times, and Paddy still stood on the sidewalk. After the cop had shouted, "Pedestrians!" for the tenth time, Paddy went over to him and said, "Is it not about time ye let the Catholics across?"

Gallagher opened the morning newspaper and was dumbfounded to read in the obituary column that he had died. He quickly phoned his best friend, Finney. "Did you see the paper?" asked Gallagher. "They say I died!!" "Yes, I saw it!" replied Finney. "Where are ye callin' from?"

An Irish priest is driving down to New York and gets stopped for speeding in Connecticut . The state trooper smells alcohol on the priest's breath and then sees an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car. He says, "Sir, have you been drinking?" "Just water," says the priest. The trooper says, "Then why do I smell wine?" The priest looks at the bottle and says, "Good Lord! He's done it again!"

But you forgot my favorite.

So, an American an Englishman and an Irishman was settin' at the bar. A fly buzzed passed and ended up in the American's whiskey. The American grabbed the fly out, flicked it across the room and continued drinking. Only seconds later a fly landed in the drink of the Englishman. Looking at the insect with disgust, the Englishman called the bar keep over and, indicating the floating fly, asked for another drink. Not a half a minute after that, a fly landed smack dab in the Irishman's whiskey. Quick as can be, the Irishman grabbed the fly by his wings, lifted him a half inch above the drink, and looking the terrified insect straight in the eye, say's, "Spit it out! Spit it out!"

Taking All Bets

Just before the toll-booth after crossing over the TriBorough Bridge we hit a pot hole, HARD! The left front tire immediately went flat because, as a later inspection discovered, the rim had been so severely bent that the seal was broken. We pulled over to the side of the highway after paying the toll.

So after getting forms and taking pictures I now can make a claim to the Port Authority for the damage. So place your bets, will they pay, or won’t they. The officer who helped me fill out the claim had that very New York, “Go ahead bub, knock yourself out” kind of attitude. But don’t let that dissuade those dyed in the wool optimists from betting from the heart.

While changing the tire a tow truck pulled up. He took a quick look and then went to radio something. When he came back I was tightening the lug nuts on the spare. He said, “hey, that was fast.” Whatever. Cold comfort.

What Fresh Hell Is This?

I woke up on the Tuesday morning following the closing of “Wife” to the sounds of my “wife” packing. She was headed to an early van call, bound for some not to distant State, on the tour from hell. And so, in solidarity, I stopped eating. It’s been five days now and I haven’t had a cracker, not a crumb.

Ok, I’ll admit, I planned it a little. It’s called the Master Cleanse, invented by Stanley Burroughs. I decided to clean out the old system. You know, detox, flush debris, rejuvenate, all that jazz. It’s really boring and I can’t wait to eat again. Five more days and counting!

One of my brothers, although I’m a little puzzled as to which one, replied to a recent post with some exasperation. Enough of the THEATAH darling, lets get back to BUILDING! Well, since I am running on lemon juice, grade B maple syrup and cayenne pepper, I have taken the slow entry approach and have only begun spackling, caulking and priming the various moldings (crown, picture rail, baseboards)—very boring and not at all photogenic. I will supply some visual soon for those who like to watch paint dry.

Things to look forward to: The entertainment center!! A built in hallway unit!! The laying of the cork floor in the kitchen!! Tiling and backsplashing!! Refinishing the hardwood floors!! Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!