Lifting My Heart on a Broken Wing

People close to me know that I have a great fondness for Martha's Vineyard. My first trip there was by boat when I was 15 years old followed by decades of family vacations there. It's a great place to enjoy the simpler things in life. The commentary below form the Marths's Vineyard Gazette by Barry Stringfellow gives some insight into "island living".--TG

It was the day after the first of four northeasters pummeled Martha’s Vineyard last March. I was on my daily commute that took me on Lagoon Pond Road and past the shuck shack where bay scallopers deposit heaps of empty shells.

Atop the pile a seagull with a broken left wing was scavenging for scraps. When the shells are fresh, the mound is covered in gulls. He was alone. The pickings were slim.

With a second, more severe storm already barreling up the coast, I knew this bird had some rough days ahead.

After an initial rush of pity, I told myself to stay out of it and let nature take its course. But the thought of this wounded animal enduring a slow, painful death, from starvation or hypothermia or both, flashed through my head all day. When I left work, I collected scraps of sliced turkey and pieces of pizza crust, hoping I’d see him on my way home.

It was getting dark and a bitterly cold wind was whipping off the Lagoon when I arrived with my care package. The gull was still working the shell pile.

I don’t know why I assumed he was a male. It was a gut feeling. Maybe it was because he ate everything no matter how disgusting. Maybe because he was filling the void left by the recent death of my dog Angus.

When I approached with food, he skittered away. I tried reassuring him and then tossed him scraps of turkey. After a tentative approach, he gobbled them down.

I got close enough to get a good picture, figuring I’d post the picture on the Islander Bird Alert Facebook page for advice or assistance.

A few people replied they would swing by with food.

An experienced birder whose frequent posts I’d long enjoyed, wrote “let nature take its course.”

It gave me pause. I knew he had a valid point. Nature can be cruel and we shouldn’t mess with the natural order.

But I also knew I couldn’t drive by this wounded animal every morning and ignore its plight.

More to the point — why does letting nature take its course exclude us from the equation?

Empathy abounds in the animal kingdom. Primates, dogs, elephants and even killer whales show it. There are many stories of cross-species compassion — a favorite of mine is about a rescued goat who adopted a rescued blind horse and led it to pasture every day.

I decided to help him through the winter, and if he made it, to back away when warm weather arrived.

During the next northeaster I found him taking shelter from the blowing snow, hunkered down behind a boathouse, alone. He was always alone. He gobbled up the haddock I’d found in the dark recesses of my refrigerator. Click here to continue reading.

Movie Review—A Simple Favor

by Peter J. O'Connell   

A Simple Favor. Released: Sept. 2018. Runtime: 117 mins. MPAA Rating: R for sexual content and language throughout, some graphic nude images, drug use, and violence.

A Simple Favor is a dark and delicious confection, combining comedy and mystery in the sunny suburbs of Connecticut. You might say that it's the cinematic equivalent of some of the combos that Stephanie Smothers prepares for her internet followers—chocolate-chip cookies with gazpacho, baked goods with origami. Speaking of origami, the plot of the movie, directed by Paul Feig, from the screenplay of Jessica Sharzer, based on the novel by Darcey Bell, has folds and twists like that of the Asian art form.

Who's Stephanie Smothers? Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) is a widow with a young son. She lives on the insurance of her late husband and a little money from an online “vlog” on which she shares recipes, arts and crafts info, and housekeeping and childrearing advice with her minuscule group of followers. Chirpy and perky, Stephanie wears Gap cardigans and animal-print socks bought at Target sales and is a compulsive volunteer at her son's school. 

At school Stephanie's son is friends with the son of Emily Nelson (Blake Lively). Emily seems the opposite of Stephanie. She drives a Porsche, has a power p.r. job at a Manhattan couture house, and sashays around in a sultry manner wearing pinstripe suits and stilettos like a femme fatale out of the Golden Age of Hollywood.  

When Stephanie suggests that she and Emily arrange play dates for their sons, Emily replies: “I already have a play date with a symphony of antidepressants.” But she does agree and, surprisingly, starts inviting Stephanie to her ultra-modernistic house. There the fashionista schools the perpetually mousy nerd in the art of never having to say you're sorry: “Baby, if you apologize again, I'm going to have to slap the sorry out of you.” 

Emily proceeds to introduce Stephanie to the delights of ice-cold martinis (made from the gin of a company actually owned by Blake Lively's husband) and Sapphic kisses. Said kisses, however, do not deflect Emily from hot make-out sessions with her handsome hunk husband, Sean (Henry Golding, the handsome hunk boyfriend from Crazy Rich Asians), that take place in front of Stephanie.

The two women, seemingly so unlike, bond by sharing secrets. Emily's deal with such things as threesomes. Stephanie's secret, however, is actually more shocking. It's never fully elucidated in the course of the movie, but with its suggestion of a dark dimension to Stephanie, it adds intriguing flavoring to the story. 

What the film focuses on are the secrets that have to be unraveled after Emily asks Stephanie to do “just a simple favor.” The favor is to pick up her son after school and look after him—Sean is out of town—until Emily comes back late from dealing with an emergency. The problem is, Emily doesn't come back, and no one knows where she has gone.

At this point, the movie begins to shift from sly satire of suburban life to neo-noir territory. Amusing apercus continue to ripple through the film and amusing situations to pop up, but familiar tropes from classic thrillers of the 1940s and 1980s make their appearance, as does material reminiscent of several recent films. 

Anyway, Stephanie sets out to find out what has happened to Emily—and to “comfort” Sean, in bed. The helicopter parent becomes a sleuth, sort of an older Nancy Drew or a younger Jessica Fletcher. Of his missing spouse, Sean says: “She's an enigma, my wife. You can get close to her, but you never quite reach her. She's like a beautiful ghost.” 

This “ghostliness” doesn't deter Stephanie. She begins her search by posting pictures of Emily, which lead some catty neighbors to sneer: “Any excuse to use a stapler.” Soon Stephanie is sneaking through apartments and offices, breaking into filing cabinets, doing things that she never thought she would—or could—do. One hilarious sequence involves Stephanie's penetration of Emily's office, where she encounters the boss, haughty fashion designer Dennis Nylon (Rupert Friend), who tells her: “Never wear a vintage Hermes scarf with a Gap T-shirt. If you were truly Emily's friend, you'd know that.” 

As Stephanie shares her sleuthing online, the number of her followers skyrockets. Eventually, the police make a grim discovery that they think resolves the issue of Emily's disappearance. Stephanie is not satisfied, however, and continues her by now compulsive probing—to a startling conclusion. It's a conclusion that seems to confirm her saying: “Secrets are like margarine—easy to spread, bad for the heart.” 

A Simple Favor is quite witty, and not a little weird. But it is a dark delight with terrific performances, of different types, by its talented trinity of leads, particularly Kendrick. The plot has some issues, but director Feig brings out the chemistry among his cast. Do yourself a favor and see this movie!

“Footnote” to the film: A Simple Favor somewhat echoes the title of 1998's rural noir A Simple Plan, but otherwise has little in common with that well-regarded film.  

   

8 Best Low-Impact Workouts for Older Adults

Stay fit, strong, and injury-free with these exercise options.

High-impact, gut-busting workouts may have been effective in your twenties, but exercising for long-term health and wellness means being kinder to your body. That’s not only true for the roughly 50 million Americans afflicted with some form of arthritis; it applies to everyone.

As the years pass, your bone density and joint support naturally start to wane. That doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy a calorie-burning, muscle-building workout. Here are eight great options for staying fit, strong, and healthy without hammering your joints.

1. TRX Suspension Training

Also known as “total-body resistance exercise,” TRX is a strap suspension system that uses gravity and your own body weight to develop strength, balance, and flexibility.

“Suspension training is a safe way to get your strength training in, and a great benefit is that it strengthens your core,” says Dan Go, C.P.T., a Toronto-based personal trainer and founder of Go Girl Body Transformation. “Another big benefit of this type of training is that it provides more proprioception, or body awareness, allowing you to exert more control over your body.”

The rope-like device can be intimidating at first, so it’s a good idea to take a class or work with a trainer when you’re just getting started. Once you’re comfortable, you can simply hang a suspension trainer over any solid doorframe and use the attached handles to perform hundreds of exercises.

2. Swimming

Swimming has long been known as an excellent low-impact workout—and for good reason. Moving in water both supports your joints and provides resistance to strengthen your muscles and bones. Both swimming and water aerobics are great workouts for your heart and for increasing range of motion.

Another perk: You rarely (if ever) feel overheated in water. The downside is that this can make it harder to notice when you need more fluid, so play it safe by drinking plenty of water before you dive in.

3. Yoga

“Yoga is a great low-impact exercise that helps build a strong core, along with improving balance and muscular endurance,” says Jake Boly, C.S.C.S., a personal trainer in New Jersey. “These are all essential as we age, so we can reduce the likelihood of serious injury from falls or other possible missteps.”

A regular yoga practice can also improve bone density, according to a 10-year study published in Topics in Geriatric Rehabilitation. Just 12 minutes of yoga every other day is enough to do the trick. Get started with a SilverSneakers yoga class.

4. Walking

Walking is hard to beat when it comes to staying active every day. It gives continuous work to the muscles and connective tissues responsible for stabilizing your feet, ankles, knees, and hips while also burning calories. The faster you go and the more hills and steps you climb, the more you burn. Click here to continue reading.

Hospital workers reunite 20 years after MidState opening

MERIDEN — It was like a family reunion for staff at Meriden’s hospitals on Sunday.

“It’s more than a building ... it’s about the people in the building,” said Linda Berger Spivack, MidState Medical Center’s former vice president of patient care services.

What sets health care at MidState apart, she said, is that so many of the MidState staff previously worked at Veterans Memorial Medical Center, Meriden-Wallingford Hospital and World War II Veterans Memorial Hospital before MidState opened in 1998.

“We were just a wonderful little hospital. The affection of all the staff is unbelievable,” said Millie Rossi, 96, who was at Veterans Memorial Medical Center and Meriden-Wallingford Hospital for 34 years, retiring as an executive secretary just before it closed. “I loved my job, I loved the people and I loved the history.”

Rossi and her sister Julia D’Agostino, a 41-year veteran of the hospital who worked as a nursing supervisor, were the guests of honor at the reunion. Click here to continue reading.

Do Seniors Still Get an Extra Tax Deduction?

Seniors are used to getting special treatment at tax time. Are those days gone? 

Welcome to your “2-Minute Money Manager,” a short video feature answering money questions submitted by readers and viewers.

Today’s question is about how last year’s tax reform will affect an old tax deduction: the extra personal exemption we all get when we turn 65. If you’re a senior, here’s some good news, along with some additional tax advice.

If you can’t deal with video, no problem: Just scroll down this page for the full transcript of the video, as well as some reader resources.

You can also learn how to ask a question of your own below.Click here to see the video

Movie Review—Peppermint

by Peter J. O'Connell

Peppermint. Released: Sept. 2018. Runtime: 102 mins. MPAA Rating: R for strong violence and language throughout. 

Forty-three killed, thirty-eight on-screen, five off. So take that you characters played by Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood, Liam Neeson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, et al.! Riley North can top you all.

Who's Riley North? Riley North is a soccer mom-type housewife played by Jennifer Garner in Peppermint, directed by Pierre Morel. Riley North is also a revenge-seeking vigilante played by Jennifer Garner in Peppermint, directed by Pierre Morel. 

Riley is transformed from housewife to vigilante after her loving husband and adorable young daughter, peppermint ice cream cones in hand for the daughter's birthday, are gunned down before Riley's eyes at a fair. The drive-by shooting is done by members of a powerful drug cartel, whose boss is Diego Garcia (Juan Pablo Raba). When corrupt officials on the cartel's payroll then get the murderers off despite Riley's identification of them, the gentle woman, now enraged, disappears for five years, during which she undergoes training in weapons handling and martial arts. When she returns, it's definitely no more nice gal!

Operating out of a skid row home base, Riley dispatches baddie after baddie in quite gruesome, though not particularly unique (for this kind of film), ways. Cops (played by, among others, John Gallagher, Jr., Method Man, and Annie Ilonzeh), some dedicated, some corrupt, pursue Riley as she blazes her bloody trail to the inevitable confrontation with Diego Garcia. 

The generally bland or stereotypical—Garner's excepted--performances and the one-track, unoriginal plot leave little to recommend about Peppermint. Even in the age of female empowerment, the movie is no model of equality. It's a brief, violent, late-summer diversion that just happens to have a female lead doling out the violence. Garner does, however, manage to do that doling out with a certain degree of conviction and class. She gives the film whatever flavor it has.   

  

New Haven pizza rises from humble beginnings to superstardom

NEW HAVEN — Locals know what the world is catching on to: New Haven does great pizza.

“New Haven is the up and coming underdog of big pizza cities,” said New Haven historian Colin Caplan, who has written the first pizza history book on the subject. “Everyone knows New York, Chicago, Naples, Rome. They look at these cites and say these are probably big pizza cities. They look at New Haven and say, ‘Really? It’s known for pizza?’ These are not people we’re worried about. People who know pizza know New Haven.

New Haven’s reputation for pizza is comparable to Philadelphia’s for the cheesesteak, Miami’s for the Cubano sandwich and Texas for barbecue in general, he said. All these cites that are known for these different foods came with immigrants. Here, they were Italians.

“I think New Haven was known before pizza was ever popular that this was a place you could get good pizza,” he said. “As the world increased in its pizza consumption, and people were doing all kinds of crazy things with pizza and people could find any kind of pizza anywhere, people were able to say, ‘New Haven has better pizza than where I come from.’”

Those who visit the city often come for the pizza, hailing from Pennsylvania, Ohio, London and elsewhere, he said. News articles from the 1950s have even touted New Haven as a pizza destination. The signature Neapolitan pie known as “apizza” (pronounced ah-BEETS) has put the city on the food map of the world by adhering to tradition and simplicity.

“There’s this awe and wonder of how this pizza is so good,” Caplan said. “How did New Haven do this in such a great way?” Apizza’s origins can be traced to nearly 100 years ago on Wooster Street.

The original masters

Two restaurants are credited with establishing New Haven as a pizza city: Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana and Sally’s Apizza, each started by an Italian immigrant. Their stories are know in some form by the thousands of people who have eaten a slice of New Haven history.

Frank Pepe, born in Maiori on Italy’s Amalfi Coast, immigrated at 16 to the U.S. in 1909, getting his first job in a New Haven factory. He returned to Italy to fight in WWI, but came back to New Haven in 1920, newly wed to Filomena Volpi. Pepe worked at a macaroni factory on Wooster Street before opening his own bakery on the same street in New Haven’s “Little Italy” neighborhood. He baked his bread and delivered it to the community with a cart, but since Pepe was illiterate, he couldn’t keep track of the orders, so he opened a store where customers would come to him.

He and his wife began making a simple recipe from their country — pizza, known to them as “apizza” in their Neapolitan dialect. They started baking their signature pizza in 1925 with tomatoes, grated cheese, garlic, oregano and olive oil, offering a second type with anchovy. Click here to continue reading.

Hats off to Meslin Pediatric & Family Dentistry

I just saw this comment on Facebook and want to congratulate everyone at Meslin Dentistry

for not only the great work that they do, but also on how they make everyone feel like family!

     "As a person about to enter the eighth decade of life and who has been a patient of several other practices over that time, I feel quite confident that Meslin Pediatric & Family Dentistry is providing me with the best dental care ever. Always I feel comfortable and confident in the chair especially because I hear the voices of happy children. Yes, there is lots of laughter in the office. Coming here is a social as well as a healthcare experience. Because the services provided at Meslin are quite comprehensive, I feel my dental health is the best it can be."

Movie Review—Operation Finale

by Peter J. O'Connell

Operation Finale. Released: Aug. 2018. Runtime: 123 mins. MPAA Rating: PG-13 for disturbing thematic content and related violent images, and for some language.

In 1960, the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, discovers that Adolf Eichmann, an SS colonel who was a major figure in organizing the Holocaust of European Jewry, is alive and well in Argentina. The war criminal is living there under an assumed name, Ricardo Klement, with his wife and son and working as a foreman in a Mercedes factory. Operation Finale, written by Matthew Orton and directed by Chris Weitz, deals with what happens between the discovery and the appearance of Eichmann in Jerusalem for an eight-month-long public trial that stuns the world.

Israel's prime minister, David Ben-Gurion (Simon Rissell Beale), assigns a Mossad team the difficult task of abducting Eichmann and getting him to Israel rather than simply killing him. Ben-Gurion says: “If you succeed, for the first time in our history we will judge our executioner. And we will warn off any who wishes to follow his example. If you fail, he escapes justice, perhaps forever. I beg you. Do not fail.”

The Mossad team arrives in Buenos Aires and sets up a “safe house.” At least they hope that it will be safe. At the time anti-Semitism is rife in Argentina. For example, Carlos Fuldner, a repulsive Argentine official brilliantly played by Pepe Rapazote, delivers a pro-Nazi harangue to a cheering crowd in a beer hall. 

But the team confirms Klement as Eichmann, and Peter Malkin (Oscar Isaac), a tough but soulful agent plagued by flashbacks—powerfully rendered—of the death of his sister and her small children at the hands of the Nazis, is chosen to waylay Eichmann and bring him to the safe house. The task proves surprisingly difficult. Though middle-aged, Eichmann's physical resistance to seizure is stronger than expected.

Malkin does bring the Nazi in, but more unexpected difficulties arise. Eichmann will have to sign a document personally in his real name in order to be transported, drugged and disguised, by commercial airline. Eichmann refuses to sign, and a cat-and-mouse game ensues for days between the German and Malkin, while Eichmann supporters and Argentine officials, such as Fulder, scour the city for him.

Malkin knows that torture will not work with Eichmann. The Israeli must find the right psychological button to push. The German proves as psychologically resistant as he was physically resistant. He says: “My job was simple: Save the country I loved from being destroyed. Is your job any different?” But eventually Malkin does find that button. You, of course, and the world, know the “rest of the story.”

Operation Finale, with its fine cast, always is of interest but does not always achieve the level of intensity that its subject matter calls for. There is a certain “check off the boxes” quality to it: grab Eichmann—check; cat-and-mouse game—check; fly out just before pursuers arrive—check . . . . But as a depiction of a key attempt to do justice for the victims of the “Final Solution,” Operation Finale is definitely a worthy work that deserves to be seen.

“Footnote” to the film: Oscar Isaac starred in 2017's The Promise, about the Armenian Genocide in World War I. Ben Kingsley played Holocaust survivors in three films of the 1980s and 1990s: Anne Frank's father, Oskar Schindler's assistant, and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal.    

Mad Men Modern is the Eighth Annual Living History Tour conducted by the Norwalk Preservation Trust. It will take place on Sunday, September 16, 2018. 

Join us in exploring some of the most radical changes in architectural history as we take a close look at modernism in Norwalk.

This year's tour will explore the work of architects of the Modern — the visionaries who simplified and reshaped the traditional to launch a new aesthetic. The tour will reveal the history and local significance of architectural gems influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright and the German Bauhaus style.

Tour attendees will travel in comfortable buses and enjoy a reception at the conclusion of the tour.

Tour attendees will travel in comfortable buses and enjoy a reception at the conclusion of the tour. 

Telephone: (203) 853-7495

E-mai: info@norwalkpreservation.org

Flu season just around the corner

With back-to-school season now in full swing, another, much less fun, season is right around the corner — flu season.

Though most health experts don’t feel the season truly hits high gear until October, many chain drug stores have begun offering flu vaccine through their pharmacies, and there’s already some speculation as whether this season will be as nasty as the last one.

“There’s no way to predict how it will be,” said Dr. Zane Saul, chief of infectious disease at Bridgeport Hospital. “It could be a crazy season or a mild season.”

Last flu season was a tough one, both in Connecticut and nationwide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that hospitalization rates for the flu in the United States were the highest ever recorded through the Influenza Hospitalization Surveillance Network.

Though the CDC doesn’t track adult deaths related to the flu, it does track deaths of children. Last season, there were 179 pediatric deaths related to the flu, including at least three in Connecticut. According to unofficial totals from the Connecticut Department of Public Health, there were 154 flu-associated deaths in the state last year — the highest number in at least five seasons.

One of the issues last year was concern about whether the flu shot was effective enough at preventing the contagious respiratory illness. Click here to continue reading.