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Authors Posts by Leah Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

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Aging isn’t for sissies. We’ve all heard that line before and it also applies to our pets, our cats and dogs, our horses and so forth. Teddy is our only pet, a golden retriever with a square head, a pug nose, expressive brown eyes and an affable disposition. He has lived with us since he was 8 weeks, and in June he will turn 12.

It’s hard for us to see him getting old. He is totally deaf now and only knows we are there when we touch him. Then he will be startled as he whips his head around to see us and slowly wags his tail as if to say, “Oh, I know you, I’m safe with you.” He has serious cataracts that interfere with his vision, and he is beginning to bump into the corners of furniture. He’s gone white around his muzzle, although the changeover from light blond isn’t so dramatic. And while he still can find his way back to the front door after he’s gone out, he occasionally wanders aimlessly inside the house. Sometimes he just sits and stares at a wall. Yet most of the time, he is his usual self, putting his head in each of our laps in turn as we sit in the living room and nuzzling us with love.

Worst of all, for no reason we can discern, he will begin a chorus of howling. It’s a curious chain of sounds, starting at a high pitch and dropping down until it is wolverine, coming from deep in his throat. He throws his head back when he howls, much like the wolves I saw in the Oregon Zoo in Portland. Maybe it’s the equivalent of a primordial scream, or maybe he is communing with his ancestors, telling them he is on his way. It brings us to tears.

My sons tell me we should have cataract surgery for him on one eye to enable him at least to see better.

“You’d be howling, too, if you couldn’t see or hear,” they argue. Of course they have a point. But I am afraid, afraid of what Teddy’s reaction to the anesthetic might be, afraid to send him to a place of unfamiliarity, afraid to subject him to invasive procedure.

To further complicate the picture, he has had a seizure. We saw the whole thing. It happened only 10 minutes after the last of our dinner company had left a few weeks ago. He was laying down on his side in his familiar station near the front door when suddenly his legs started flailing at the air, he began panting and saliva started to bubble from his mouth. All we could do was look on in horror for the short time that it lasted. When it was over he became uncharacteristically aggressive for a couple of minutes. Then his breathing slowly returned to normal, and he started walking from room to room. After perhaps 15 more minutes, while we watched with concern, he sauntered over to his food bowl as if nothing had happened and began eating all his dinner, finishing up with a noisy slug of water. Finally he spun around, plopped down and looked at us as if to say, “Why are you following me?”

We called the vet, who seemed much more sanguine than we were and assured us that this sometimes happens to pets, although it had not happened to any of our preceding three dogs. She put him on meds to prevent another seizure.

What followed was a trial-and-error course of medication that alternately left Teddy so wobbly that he could barely step off the porch and caused him to sleep constantly, or wound him up so that he howled intermittently through the night, needing reassurance each time that we were there. It was like having a newborn baby in the house demanding multiple feedings.

We’ve finally gotten the right medicines to the right level and life is almost back to normal, but the questions remain: What to do next, and when to do it?

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Thank you, Itzhak Perlman. It was a fabulous concert by the superstar violinist last Saturday night at Gala 2017 held at Stony Brook University’s Staller Center for the Arts. And besides the music, of Vivaldi, Beethoven, Schumann and Stravinsky, there was pleasure in just being in Perlman’s company. He produces extraordinary music in a most relaxed, unaffected and joyful fashion. His face, known for its elasticity, changes expression as he plays the notes, encouraging the listener not just to hear but also to feel the elegant sounds.

Perlman was 3 years old and living in the newly created state of Israel when he heard classical music on the radio. He asked for a violin but was turned away from the Shulamit Conservatory, which his father had brought him to, because he was pronounced too small to hold a violin. Instead he was given a toy fiddle and taught himself to play until he was finally accepted.

When he was 4, he contracted polio and in time was able to walk with crutches, but he plays seated on an electric scooter that he uses to get around the stage. He gave his first recital at 10 and not too long afterward came to the United States and to Juilliard. By 1958, when he was just 13, he appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and then went on tour with “The Ed Sullivan Caravan of Stars” across the country. In 1963 he debuted at Carnegie Hall and a year later won the prestigious Leventritt Competition before embarking on an extensive performing and recording career.

Perlman is known as a violinist, conductor, teacher and speaker, the last sometimes on behalf on those with disabilities. He usually performs as a soloist, accompanied by the gifted pianist, Rohan De Silva from Sri Lanka. But Perlman has shared the stage with many of the world’s greatest musicians, including Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman, Isaac Stern and his friend and fellow violinist, Pinchas Zukerman. He has collaborated often with screen composer John Williams and plays the score for “Schindler’s List” in the movie, as well as that of “Memoirs of a Geisha” and other films. He even did a stint with the Muppets on “Sesame Street.”

Perlman has played with or conducted some of the great orchestras performing classical music. He also loves klezmer, a Jewish folk music, and jazz. What is not so well known is that he can sing. He actually sang the role of the jailer in the opera “Tosca,” alongside Placido Domingo and conducted by James Levine. At another time, he sang the same part, joining Luciano Pavarotti with Zubin Mehta conducting. That’s keeping pretty good company.

Known for his charisma and humanity, Perlman and his wife Toby — also a violinist, who he met in high school — started the Perlman Music Program that is housed in Shelter Island. There gifted young string players attend summer camp and mentoring programs. The Perlmans have five children and live in New York City.

Over the years, Itzhak Perlman has won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest honor for a civilian, and the National Medal of Arts with numerous Grammy and Emmy awards. He has performed several times at the White House and all over the world, perhaps most notably in the Eastern European bloc countries with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in 1987 before the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union in 1990, also China and India in 1994. He won over those audiences with his elegant yet seemingly effortless technique, his affability and humor, as he so totally did with us in Stony Brook this past weekend.

Thank you Staller director, Alan Inkles, and the rest of your staff of hardworking magicians, for a memorable night.

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Then there is the matter of passwords. In a life that I am forever trying to simplify, passwords are the detritus on the highway. The need for them trips me up, interrupts my momentum, as I am tooling along.

Am I the only one with this frustration?

Let me illustrate by repeating some of the inane conversations on the subject. I call my credit card company to get some information. When I am lucky enough to get through to a live, warm-bodied person, he or she will ask the dreaded question: “What is your password?” “Could you give me a hint?” I ask, since upon the advice of experts, I try not to use the same password more than once. “It might be the name of your dog,” comes the sympathetic response — if I am lucky. “My first, second, third or fourth dog?” I ask nervously. We then go through the list if the customer service person on the other end has the patience and feels like prompting me. The response might be, “It starts with a ‘T.’” That only helps 50 percent of the way since two of those four dogs had names that began with T.

Sometimes, after I’ve run down the possibilities to no avail, the nameless, faceless voice at the other end, in a desperate attempt to move along the conversation, might volunteer, “Maybe it’s your mother’s maiden name?” “The last four digits of your Social Security number?” “Your first child’s birthday?” “The last four digits of your first phone number?”

And so it goes, with ultimate success possible but not assured. By this time, several minutes have elapsed, during which I could have transacted the business at hand several times over.

I have tried writing down all my passwords. But then where do I keep the list? And protected by what password? The logical place, to me since it is usually with me, is in my cellphone. “Nooo,” caution the experts. “That is the first place a thief would look.”

OK, then, how about in my glove compartment? Being a good suburbanite, I am usually only steps from my car. Again, that is such an obvious place that, like my vehicle registration, such a list should be kept anywhere but there — despite the logical need for one’s registration when in one’s car.

But I digress, probably due to the stress of the challenge at hand. Forget about car registrations. Back to the urgent subject of passwords.

We are advised never to use the same password twice or, heaven forbid, multiple times, because once our code has been broken, our whole lives and assets lie open to villains.

We are also advised to change our passwords often. Oh, please, have mercy! If I can’t remember the original passwords, how can I reasonably be expected to remember subsequent generations of passwords? They are not like children and grandchildren after all.

I am anxious about the future use of passwords. Will I be expected to know a password to shop in the supermarket? To shop online, it’s already come to that. I can’t get on my computer without my password, so no online shopping. How about filling up the tank with gas? We already must provide our ZIP codes, but that may turn out to be too broad a code. How about to visit an emergency room? Oh, but wait. We already have to produce the qualifying information on our identification cards. But if they need to follow up with the insurance company, we had better know our password before the ER can go any further. But not to worry. We can’t get to the ER anyway because we are unable to gas up the car.

This leaves me wondering: Do our passwords keep the rest of the world out or, once forgotten, do they lock us in?

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Fake news is in the spotlight. Websites, blogs and social media are populated with it and even print can be. The goal of its perpetrators is to misinform and to destroy readers’ trust in what they read. This calls into question the real work of traditional journalists doing their jobs.  Disinformation campaigns make all news suspect: What’s real and what’s fake? How can a free press properly be the watchdog of the people, the fourth estate of our democracy, if readers can’t believe what they read?

In an effort to sort out the real from the fake, especially in advance of key European elections in Germany, Holland and France, the European Union had created an 10-member team called East StratCom. These overworked diplomats, journalists and bureaucrats pore through hundreds of stories a day on Facebook and Twitter, according to The New York Times, attempting to sort out truth from fiction. Of course, they are only partially successful. The load is overwhelming. But perhaps they do serve to make readers pause for a moment to consider and check if they read something surprising.

The subject of fake news is deeply concerning to those of us in the news business. Please be assured, as I have noted in this column before, that our papers have no fake news. Mistakes? Of course. Corrections as soon as we know?  You bet. We at Times Beacon Record News Media have no hidden agenda and no dark side. Our only mission is to communicate with you the unbiased news in our communities.

Because a little humor leavens the task, I am including some sly old saws culled from the internet and sent me by a friend. I hope they give you a chuckle amid the serious business of reporting the news.

You Are What You Read (or, perhaps, it should be We Read What We Are).

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country, and who are very good at crossword puzzles.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don’t really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn’t mind running the country, if they could find the time — and if they didn’t have to leave Southern California to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents and grandparents used to run the country.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren’t too sure who’s running the country and don’t really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don’t care who is running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated and in the wrong bedroom.

9. The Miami Herald is read by people who used to run another country and need the U.S. baseball scores.

10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren’t sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped, minority, feminist or atheist dwarfs who have a sexual identity problem and perhaps also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided, of course, that they are not Republicans.

11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at Walmart and who think that envelopes are for sending voice mail.

12. The Key West Citizen is read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something to wrap it in.

13. The Appalachia Chronicle is read by people who later on make it a standard feature in their bathrooms.

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The headline spoke to me: “More Women in Their 60s and 70s Are Having ‘Way Too Much Fun’ to Retire.” After reading the article, which didn’t disappoint, by Claire Cain Miller in last Sunday’s New York Times, even though I’ve been at odds lately with The Times, I think there is more to the story than fun.

Two recent analyses indicate that “women have become significantly more likely to work into their 60s and even 70s, often full time” and “many of these women report that they do it because they enjoy it,” according to the article. For those 65-69 years of age,-the numbers have almost doubled since the late 1980s from 15 percent to nearly 30 percent.

Perhaps more surprising is the leap in percentage terms for those 70-74 years of age, more than doubling from 8 to 18 percent.

Who are these women?

Those working are more likely to be higher educated and to have savings, studies have shown, while those not working more commonly are in poor health and have low savings, depending on Social Security and perhaps disability. But for their health problems, they too might be among those working.

Why, if they don’t strictly need the money, are the women of “a certain age” still working?

I can offer some of the answers from my own life. Working, full or part time, is more than just “fun,” although there is nothing wrong with enjoying one’s work. A job can offer a purpose to those who are now empty nesters or perhaps without spouses. There is satisfaction in having one’s daily accomplishments measured in some way, whether with salary or by problems solved. Presumably holding a job offers something of value to community and society.

There is also the social aspect of interacting with others and working as a team. Social ties are linked to longer life spans. In addition, working, unless at a job that is exactly the same each day and could be done by a robot, requires thinking and planning, which in turn helps exercise the brain. And the structure that reporting for work imposes in the course of a week might be welcomed by many.

Sometimes working might be a way to preserve a marriage. In a household where the husband might have been the sole breadwinner but is now retired, the spouses might not be completely comfortable with that new arrangement. Work is a respected reason to be apart some of each day.

There might also be a sort of prestige in still working. When people are retired, they may be asked, “What did you do?” as if life has now passed them by. That’s opposed to “What kind of work do you do?” Having a job might convey greater importance.

If the work one does is inherently engaging and one learns from it and meets interesting people, there might be the motivation to keep one’s hand in and stay abreast of new developments and changes in the field.

And no matter how much savings one might reasonably have, drawing down dollars in retirement can be scary. The urge is to stay in place financially and not to drop down. Bringing a stream of income into one’s life can offset that fear.

Finally, for many there is the absolute necessity to earn money in order to survive. They may wish to retire but feel they are unable to afford that luxury.

Whatever the reasons, society benefits from the continuing efforts of experienced workers. It goes without saying that our newspapers treasure older workers alongside our young.

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It’s a great history lesson. It’s a gymnastic dance performance. It’s a riveting narrative. It’s a clever rap session. It’s an authentic hip-hop musical, almost like an opera. It’s a whirlwind of energy. And it’s a remarkably true story. What is it? It’s “Hamilton,” the hottest Broadway show in many years.

We know that just about everything that is endlessly hyped usually disappoints. Just two things immediately come to my mind where for me there was no let down: the Grand Canyon and “Hamilton.” Now the anticipation ratcheted up was enormous. I bought the tickets when my friend turned 90 years old. It seemed like an appropriate birthday present, this story from the deep past. After all, for many dinners and evenings she had kept me fascinated with her eyewitness retelling of history from the first half of the 20th century. Now we were both going to see early American history come alive on the stage of the Richard Rodgers Theatre.

Let it be told that my friend will shortly be 92. Yes, she and I waited almost two years to get in to see this show. I also invited my 15-year-old granddaughter and another friend a generation younger than I to join us. With that span in ages, we were going to get an accurate demographic spectrum of reactions.

We LOVED it, all of us, from the opening number to the last sad moments of Hamilton’s life. It was witty, it was impassioned, it was fun, it was sexy, it was literate, it was tragic and it was wonderfully written, sung, acted, costumed and staged.

In truth, Lin-Manuel Miranda, inspired by Ron Chernow’s biography, “Alexander Hamilton” (2004), had great material to work with. Hamilton’s life had everything a playwright could have asked for, with perfect timing now for such a story. Hamilton, born out of wedlock in the mid-1750s (exact year uncertain) and orphaned when his mother died in 1768, comes as penniless immigrant from the Caribbean to make his way. He had distinguished himself through his writing at an early age, and men of means sent him to New York. He arrived in the midst of the pre-Revolutionary tumult, was accepted at King’s College (now Columbia University), met some of the key figures of the day and became George Washington’s aide-de-camp, in good part because he spoke French and could translate between Washington and his French ally.

He fought against the British at Yorktown in 1781, married the second daughter of a rich New Yorker, authored the majority of The Federalist Papers, became a successful lawyer, went on to be the first secretary of the treasury, from which position he established the banking system of the nascent United States, was blackmailed in what was one of the nation’s first sex scandals, and ultimately died from a bullet fired by his longtime rival, Vice President Aaron Burr, during a duel on a strip of land above the Hudson in Weehawken. If it sounds like a peripatetic life, that certainly describes the fierce energy of the play about him.

I had the same feeling about this play as I did so many years ago when “My Fair Lady” with Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews ended, that I had just witnessed some sort of breakthrough Broadway event. And as the characters of “Hamilton,” the Founding Fathers, come alive the way they did in that other excellent historic play, “1776,” we recognized them for their magnificent talents and their all-too-human faults.

The erudite New York Times drama critic, Ben Brantley, had this to say about the play when it opened on Broadway in August 2015. “I am loath to tell people to mortgage their houses and lease their children to acquire tickets to a hit Broadway show. But ‘Hamilton’ … might just about be worth it.”

So it’s expensive (unless you win tickets through the lottery that has been set up), it requires patience to wait for the actual performance date on the ticket, and most of the original cast is long gone. But none of that matters. There was never a marquee name connected with the show, unless it was that of Miranda. But his acting wasn’t the reason to go, it was his writing: music, words and creativity. And all that is still there, a wonderful respite from the politics of today.

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These paraprosdokians were culled from the internet and intended to give you a chuckle.

A paraprosdokian is a form of wordplay where the latter part of a sentence is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part.

The effect is frequently humorous.

Some examples:

1.   Where there’s a will, I want to be in it.

2.   Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

3.   If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.

4.   War does not determine who is right — only who is left.

5.   Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

6.   They begin the evening news with “Good evening,” then proceed to tell you why it isn’t.

7.   To steal ideas from someone is plagiarism. To steal from many is called research.

8.   In filling in an application, where it says, “In case of emergency, notify,” I put “doctor.”

9.   I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

10.   Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they look sexy.

11.   Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.

12.   A clear conscience is the sign of a bad memory.

13.   I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not so sure.

14.   Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. Nor is there any future in it.

15.   Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

16.   Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in your garage makes you a car.

17.   Finally: I’m supposed to respect my elders, but it’s getting harder and harder for me to find one now.

18.   The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

19.   Two guys walked into a bar. The third one ducked.

20.   A bank is a place that will lend you money, if you can prove that you don’t need it.

21.   Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but has to check when you say the paint is wet.

22.   Why do Americans choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America?

And my personal favorite:

23.   I am not arguing with you, I am explaining why you are wrong.

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Do you ever wish you had asked for advice about life from older members of the family or friends who have now passed away? I certainly do. Like an inheritance, advice that has withstood the test of time can make the life of the beneficiary easier. Hence the clever idea, by an assisted living community on Long Island, of producing a distributable calendar filled with some of the wisdom of its residents was immediately interesting to me. The Gurwin Jewish-Fay J. Lindner Residences, located in Commack, collected the thoughts of one person or couple in the community for each month and named the project “From Generation to Generation 2017.”

As the calendar states in the introduction, “The advice contained in these pages … is priceless, and made all the more meaningful because of the life experiences that season [the residents’] words of wisdom.”

The January advice comes from Gerald Burberry, who was sent to England on the Kindertransport — also known as Children’s Transport — during World War II and was the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust. Gerald focuses on the beauty in life through the lens of his camera and is an enthusiastic nature photographer. He and his wife have visited as many U.S. National Parks as they could in pursuit of his goal to “appreciate nature.”

Janet Munday adorns February and urges everyone to “blaze new trails.” She was a computer engineering major at Hofstra, one of few women at the time, and also played the bass guitar in a cover band and traveled to Italy just to learn Italian.

Others, like Helen and Mel Morgenstein, who are wedded 73 years, offer this advice to married couples: “Respect each other.” Mel adds, “Respect your differences, and have your own interests. It makes for a much better life together.” Mary Falcone says, “Cherish family.” She has four daughters, 12 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren, “They’re wonderful,” she declares and she sees them regularly. “Their heart is my heart.” Florence Levenbaum, who is 91, loves to dance. She urges, “Keep moving and smile.” For her, movement and good humor are the keys to good health. She posed for her photo in the calendar carrying a Wilson wooden tennis racket over her shoulder.

Further advice includes “Pursue your passions” from Stewart Greene, a devoted lifetime sailor; “Keep learning” from Sandra Peltz, a former registrar at Hofstra who feels she learns from each new person she meets; and “Be independent” from Ruth Kaufman, who doesn’t worry about what others might think and say. “Use common sense!” urges Edwin Zola, who feels that people could find a way to end war and suffering if they would treat others as they would like to be treated, adding, “This just makes sense.” And Sidney Klein speaks proudly about serving one’s country, as he did during WWII.

What advice would you pass along to those younger than you? I asked that question of some of the newspaper staff, and here is what they offered.

“Live in the moment,” said one. “And enjoy the moment.” Another counseled, “Don’t put it off,” whether a task, a career move or a relationship. “Anticipate life’s many stages,” suggested another. “Be yourself, don’t be afraid to be who you really are rather than trying to please others,” is one piece of advice one mother had just shared with her daughter. Another mother offered, “Enjoy your childhood. You are only a child once.” And how about this one for your children? “We were young once too!”

Some others included, “Work hard, play hard and include balance in your life,” “Be kind,” “Stick together with family,” “Hang around with happy people,” and this timely bit for today’s world, “Be entrepreneurial.”

You might ask what words I would offer the next generations. My advice: “Have courage.” Have the courage to be the person you want to be, to do the things you most wish to do, to go to the places you yearn to see, and to defend those who cannot defend themselves.

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The mood, to say the least, is unsettled. On the eve of the inauguration of the newly elected president of the United States, his approval rating is at a historic low in modern times. That said, there are two facts we know indisputably about President-elect Donald Trump. One is that he is not a politician. He does not say or do any of the politically correct things an incoming president typically says or does. He has engaged in a war of words with respected civil rights leader, John Lewis, to no particular benefit for himself. He has also responded forcefully to Meryl Streep, denigrated the CIA and largely gained the worried attention of many foreign leaders. He has done all this during the “honeymoon period,” when the incoming president traditionally tries to bind the wounds caused by pre-election campaigning and to unite the country behind him. In short, he has not stopped being himself.

But that is, after all, how he got elected. He is not traditional, he does not follow the rules. And that brings me to the second fact about Trump. He is our next president, the 45th to be exact. An outlier is what his supporters wanted, and that is how he is sweeping into the White House.

So much for polling and personal approval. And so much for rhetoric. Trump, once in office, will be judged on what he does, and so far he has scored some successes even before he enters 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. As the Disrupter in Chief, he seems to have persuaded some automotive companies to reconsider their plans for building new plants outside the country. And while the exact number is in dispute, he has managed to save some manufacturing jobs already. He has also secured an examination of the costs for building a new Air Force One.

Trump bills himself as a great deal maker. Certainly he has made a number of deals. Maybe the strategy when entering such a negotiation is to disrupt what has preceded the start of such talks. If that is true, he has surely succeeded in the foreign policy arena. Members of NATO are puzzled by his characterization of the post-World War II alliance as “obsolete.” For many believers, it is the foundation for long-awaited peace in Europe, especially between France and Germany. It also is thought to be a buffer between the United States and Russia. Maybe he is just rattling that cage to get members to pay a greater share of the costs of maintaining the alliance. He also questioned the value of the European Union, reserving some uncomplimentary words for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s immigration policies. She and other European leaders are facing serious challenges from populist parties who are strongly anti-immigration. If Trump’s goal is to keep Europeans off balance, he seems to have won this round.

By indicating that the One China policy was open to negotiation, Trump has unnerved the Chinese leaders to the point of their declaring that “Beijing will have no choice but to take off the gloves.” By warning U.S. automakers of possible 35 percent tariffs on automobiles made in Mexico, he has elicited warnings from our neighboring country. The Russians, however, were not unhappy. “Let’s wait until he assumes office before we give assessment to any initiatives,” said a Russian spokesman.

Sounds like good advice to me. This is a most unusual incoming president with a mighty different style. Still, he is not to be underestimated, in the words of President Obama. He is an American and also, perhaps to our advantage, a New Yorker — the first to inhabit the White House since FDR.

Let’s give Trump a chance. We can always get excited if necessary and resist.

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Here we are, in a new year, and I am going to start off with a cautionary tale. I was just about to take a shower when I felt a small bump on my left thigh. I thought that was strange since I hadn’t before felt anything there but it was just beyond my view as I fingered the spot and craned my neck to try and see. Then, to my amazement, the bump came off in my hand, revealing itself to be a tick. Ugh!

The legs were moving so it was clearly alive and rather large, so I guessed it was a dog tick. With wonderful coincidence, I happened to have an appointment with the dermatologist that afternoon, so I put the tick into a little plastic baggie and brought him this present. Although I half expected him to just throw it away, he in fact filled out the paperwork and sent it to a lab.

Now I am sharing this with you because I suspect that, like me, you thought tick season had ended with the start of winter. I even stopped putting Frontline on my golden retriever, figuring any ticks would have gone into hibernation or been killed off by the colder weather. But I should have realized that the calendar and the weather aren’t always in sync. We have been enjoying fairly mild temperatures for this time of year and, as it turned out, so have the ticks.

Now I don’t know if the tick fancied me rather than my dog, or if he just found me as I was walking across the lawn or brushing against a bush while putting out the garbage. However it happened, I was, so to speak, stuck with him until that lucky moment when my fingers brushed against his body. Anyway, I got a call from the doctor four days later with the surprising news that despite its large size, the critter was an engorged deer tick.

Not good. We all know that deer ticks can carry Lyme disease and transmit it to humans when they suck up to you. We have had several deer sightings in the neighborhood, especially around a wooded piece of property nearby. To me they are beautiful, graceful animals, and I watch them with admiration as they run. But I certainly don’t appreciate the bugs they can bring and leave behind as a souvenir of their visits.

The doctor asked me if I preferred waiting for the blood test, six weeks away, to determine if in fact I had been infected or if I wanted to go on the antibiotic regime immediately. I chose the latter and began taking 100 mg of doxycycline, with lots of water but no food as seriously instructed, every 12 hours. But the story doesn’t end there.

After only two pills, I developed a headache that just wouldn’t quit. This is apparently a not uncommon side effect with this medicine. So I was then transferred to 500 mg of amoxicillin three times a day for at least 20 days and advised also to take a daily probiotic, though not within two to three hours of each other, and to eat lots of yogurt. As we know, that only partially works to offset the distress to the gastrointestinal tract that accompanies regular doses of antibiotics. Plus I have broken out in splotches of itchy rashes, another unhappy side effect.

Bottom line: A tick bite can be a nasty thing, bringing along all sorts of minor and even major miseries. So from my experience, I hope you will check your skin regularly, even hard to see places, and not assume that a tick is just another summer pest.

Oh, by the way, Happy New Year!

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