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Stock photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

I have been working out at a gym, where my routine consists mostly of pushing my body as long as I can on a treadmill, bike or elliptical machine until my sweat has soaked through my T-shirt. I play mind games while I’m running, telling myself that I can take a break once I get to 3 miles, or maybe 4 or closer to 5.

Each time I hit a milestone, I think about how much better I’ll feel if I can go just a bit farther, even as I’m taking an inventory of all the barking body parts, which typically includes my knees and back.

What helps get me over the hump lately, though, is the music I listen to as I work out.

I started with a collection of ’80s songs, hoping, perhaps, that the combination of familiar tunes from my youth would make my body remember the energy that defined this younger period.

As I was running, the songs reminded me of the times I danced with friends at Ward Melville High School, played Uno in a friend’s living room or decorated a Christmas tree with another friend who patiently showed a group of us how to thread popcorn and cranberries through a line.

As I was running, a montage of these images played through my head, making me feel as if my legs were turning back the clock. Fortunately, no one at my gym looks closely at me or my facial expressions, so I could indulge in musical — and life — nostalgia without interruption or without questions from people wondering what I was thinking as I reacted to people who have long since gone their separate ways.

For a few days, I switched to my favorite singer, Billy Joel. Hearing the words from “Only The Good Die Young,” “Piano Man,” and “Movin’ Out,” brought me back to the study breaks I took in high school when I stared out the window between my house and the neighbor’s colorful Santa sleigh down the street, hoping that the snow forecast for that evening was sufficient to close school the next day.

I’m planning to see Billy Joel in concert before too long, so I switched to another genre, playing the soundtrack from the original 1975 version of the musical, “A Chorus Line.” While others rarely cite it as one of their favorite musicals, I know it was the song “Nothing,” in which Diana Morales receives nonstop criticism from her teacher Mr. Karp, that brought to life the magic of Broadway for me. 

I always measured every other performance, including of musicals like “West Side Story” that I supported by playing clarinet in the pit orchestra, against the desperate hopes of each of the cast members in a chorus line to “make it” into the show.

Eventually, I needed a pulsating beat, so I shifted to exercise music, which, of course, included songs from “Rocky the Musical,” as well as other inspirational films. Each time the beat got faster, I found another pocket of energy that helped me conquer the next mile, using the beat as a metronome for my legs.

Music, in all its forms, serves many functions, allowing us to connect with the artist, to travel on an acoustic journey, to remember friends, and to exercise feelings and emotions even as we exercise the rest of our bodies.

I coached many sports when my children were younger. If I could do it over again, I would have added contemporary music to mundane practices to spice up the experience in real time and to inspire me on the nostalgia treadmill.

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Mount Vesuvius

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Three active volcanoes marked our trip across the Adriatic and then up the Italian coast: Vesuvius, Etna and Stromboli. Mount Vesuvius famously erupted in 79 A.D. and buried at least a thousand people under almost 20 feet of volcanic ash in the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Mount Vesuvius is regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes today because it has the potential to wipe out more than 3 million people in the nearby city of Naples and is under 24-hour surveillance. Two of the planet’s tectonic plates are crashing into each other beneath the Earth’s surface, which causes the eruptions. While there were lots of signs that the volcano was about to erupt at that ancient time, not everyone fled. Yet most of the cities’ inhabitants of some 20,000 did flee, to survive and resettle up and down the coast.

Mount Etna is on the east coast of Sicily, between the cities of Catania and Messina. Stromboli is on the small Sicilian island of the same name and is one of the most active on the planet, erupting almost continuously since 1932. We left our dinner halfway through and watched in fascination from the port side of the ship, on our way through the Strait of Messina, as its high intensity fiery plumes shot up into the night sky. Each glowing emission brought an awed chorus from the passengers. The strait’s reputed treacherous conditions may have been the inspiration for the Greek myth of the two sea monsters, Scylla and Charybdis, that gave so much trouble to Odysseus on his way home from the Trojan War. 

For us it was as calm as a lake.

We did spend an afternoon in Sicily and enjoyed the magnificent views from touristy Taormina and Castelmola, the village even higher up the mountain. Souvenir shops were crowded into the narrow, crooked streets, selling everything from ceramic artifacts and tiles to “The Godfather” T-shirts. Our fantastic luck with the weather continued. The days were sunny and in the 70s. 

The next stop, on the west side of the Italian peninsula was Sorrento, facing the Bay of Naples, with more glorious jewel-like views from the top of the cliffs. The Italian towns offered a faster pace and more tourists than those on the Dalmatian Coast. And the seafood was more expensive. We were decidedly now in Italy.

Taking a bus from the port, we rode over the mountains to the fabled Amalfi Coast, where we ate lunch. No matter how many times one might visit this 60-mile stretch of mountainous coastline, the clear blue water and pastel fishing boats, like toys in the sea way below, seductively draw one back for yet another visit. The crowds of whitewashed houses, terraced up the sides of the mountains, the hairpin turns of the coast road that I would never dream of driving on because I would fall off the mountain as I was drinking in the sights, the crooked streets and cantilevered stairways overhanging the gigantic rocks. The place is better than any postcard. We spent a couple of hours in the town of Amalfi, where we exclaimed over the size of the lemons and drank the freshly squeezed lemonade.

All too soon, we had to dash back to catch the tender that returned us to the ship, and we were off to Rome, our final destination. The city is not on the coast, and so we disembarked from the tidy cruise-and-sailing ship and rode the hour-and-a-half trip to the capital of Italy. Rome is one of the oldest cities on Earth that has been populated for about 30 centuries, and one could spend endless days viewing everything from ancient ruins to the Vatican, soaking up the history, art and architecture. But, alas, we had no more time left on our vacation, and managed to enjoy one more bowl of pasta followed by one last round of gelato before we took off from Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport for home.

Ciao Bella!

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Reducing inflammation can reduce disease risk. Stock photo
C-reactive protein can be measured to identify disease risk

By David Dunaief, M.D.

One of the most widely studied biomarkers for inflammation in our bodies is high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP), also referred to as CRP. High sensitivity means that we can measure levels as low as 0.3 mg/L more accurately.

What is the significance of the different levels? Individuals who have levels lower than 1.0 mg/L are in the optimal range for low risk for a host of diseases that are indicated by high inflammation. 

For example, with heart disease, levels of 1 to 3 mg/L represent the average risk range, and greater than 3.0 mg/L is a higher risk profile. Above 10.0 mg/L is more likely associated with other causes, such as infection and autoimmune diseases (1, 2). This biomarker is derived from the liver.

CRP is not specific to heart disease, nor is it definitive for risk of the disease. However, the upside is that it may be helpful with risk stratification, which helps us understand where we sit on a heart disease risk spectrum and with progression in other diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, depression and autoimmune diseases. Let’s look at the evidence.

Stock photo

Age-related macular degeneration

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in patients over the age of 65 (3). Therefore, it is very important to help define risk stratification for this disease. In a prospective study, results showed that hsCRP levels were inversely associated with the risk of developing AMD. The group with an hsCRP greater than 3.0 mg/L had a 50 percent increased risk of developing overall AMD compared to the optimal group with hsCRP lower than 1.0 mg/L. But even more interestingly, the risk of developing neovascular, or wet, AMD increased to 89 percent in this high-risk group.

The significance of wet AMD is that it is one type of advanced-stage AMD that results in blindness. This study involved five studies where the researchers thawed baseline blood samples from middle-aged participants who had hsCRP levels measured. There were more than 2,000 participants with a follow-up as long as 20 years. According to the study’s authors, annual eye exams and lifestyle modifications, including supplements, may be able to stem this risk by reducing hsCRP.

These results reinforce those of a previous prospective study that showed that elevated hsCRP increased the risk of AMD threefold (4). This study utilized data from the Women’s Health Study, which involved over 27,000 participants. Like the study mentioned above, this one also defrosted blood samples from baseline and looked at follow-up incidence of developing AMD in initially healthy women.

The highest group had hsCRP levels over 5.2 mg/L. Additionally, when analyzing similar cutoffs for high- and low-level hsCRP, as the above trial used, those with hsCRP over 3.0 had an 82 percent increased risk of AMD compared to those with an hsCRP of lower than 1.0 mg/L.

Diabetic retinopathy

We know that diabetes affects just under 10 percent of the U.S. population and is continuing to rise. One of the complications of diabetes is diabetic retinopathy, which affects the retina (back of the eye) and is a leading cause of vision loss (5). One of the reasons for the vision loss is macular edema, or swelling, usually due to rupture of tiny blood vessels below the macula, a portion of the back of the eye responsible for central vision.

The Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT), a prospective study involving over 1,400 Type 1 diabetes patients, showed an 83 percent increased risk of developing clinically significant macular edema in the group with the highest hsCRP levels compared to those with the lowest (6). Although these results were with Type 1 diabetes, patients with Type 2 diabetes are at equal risk of diabetic retinopathy if glucose levels, or sugars, are not well controlled.

Depression

Depression is a very difficult disease to control and is a tremendous cause of disability.

Well, it turns out that inflammation is associated with depression. Specifically, in a prospective observational trial, rising levels of CRP had a linear relationship with increased risk of hospitalization due to psychological distress and depression (7). In other words, compared to levels of less than 1 mg/L, those who were 1 to 3 mg/L, 3 to 10 mg/L and greater than 10 mg/L had increased risk from 30 to 84 to 127 percent, respectively. This study involved over 70,000 patients.

How can you reduce inflammation?

This is the key question, since we now know that hsCRP is associated with systemic inflammation. In the Nurses’ Health Study, a very large, prospective observational study, the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet decreased the risk of both heart disease and stroke, which is impressive. The DASH diet also decreases the levels of hsCRP significantly, which was associated with a decrease in clinically meaningful end points of stroke and heart disease (8). The DASH diet is nutrient dense with an emphasis on fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes and whole grains and a de-emphasis on processed foods, red meats, sodium and sweet beverages.

Conclusion

As the evidence shows with multiple diseases, hsCRP is a very valuable nonspecific biomarker for inflammation in the body. To stem the effects of inflammation, reducing hsCRP through lifestyle modifications and drug therapy may be a productive way of reducing risk, slowing progression and even potentially reversing some disease processes.

The DASH diet is a very powerful approach to achieving optimal levels of hsCRP without incurring potential side effects. This is a call to arms to have your levels measured, especially if you are at high risk or have chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, depression and autoimmune diseases. HsCRP is a simple blood test with easy-to-obtain results.

References:

(1) uptodate.com. (2) Diabetes Technol Ther. 2006;8(1):28-36. (3) Prog Retin Eye Res. 2007 Nov;26(6):649-673. (4) Arch Ophthalmol. 2007;125(3):300-305. (5) Am J Ophthalmol. 2003;136(1):122-135. (6) JAMA Ophthalmol. 2013 Feb 7;131:1-8. (7) JAMA Psychiatry. 2013;70(2):176-184. (8) Arch Intern Med. 2008;168(7):713-720.

Dr. Dunaief is a speaker, author and local lifestyle medicine physician focusing on the integration of medicine, nutrition, fitness and stress management. For further information, visit www.medicalcompassmd.com.      

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Split, Croatia

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Continuing our sailboat-and-diesel cruise down the Dalmatian Coast on the Adriatic, we next stopped in Split, the second largest city in Croatia. Again, located against the backdrop of steep limestone mountains, Split is particularly known for its beaches and Diocletian’s Palace.

Built for the Roman emperor, Diocletian, at the turn of the fourth century, and built like a Roman military fortress, the palace was at one time the home of thousands of inhabitants and its 200 buildings are surrounded by white stone walls. Today, the palace is a sprawling Romanesque destination spot for tourists, and it also offers bistros, hotels, shops and a cathedral, some of which are underground.

The city, like the rest of Croatia, was variously part of several empires throughout the centuries, including that of Austria-Hungary and Venice. Its importance, because of its coastal location and proximity to both Europe and the East, was as a trading center. Now it is a picturesque stop on the Dalmatian Coast.

With the mountains along the shore getter ever steeper, we cruised on to Dubrovnik on the southern coast of Croatia. The Old Town is surrounded by massive walls, extended until the 17th century, and features fabulous examples of Baroque, Renaissance and Gothic architecture. Paved with limestone and lined with shops and restaurants, the city is built along the shore and up the sides of the mountains, a natural magnet for photographers. There is even a cable car to ascend the undeveloped upper mountainsides. We rode back down in one such car at sunset, marveling at the beauty of the city as the lights came on below us in the houses and shops, and on the many boats in the distant harbor.

Dubrovnik is particularly known for its wealth and its diplomacy. The first was much the result of the second. During the many centuries of warfare and strife among the surrounding empires, the rulers of Dubrovnik, established along the doge and city council pattern of Venice, were able to avoid invasion. They paid tribute to the sultan of the Ottoman Empire and to others throughout the years by using the wealth they accumulated from their favorable trading position along the coast and from the sale of their precious natural resource: salt. 

Further evidence of their diplomatic skill extends even to the American Revolution. They were able to provide ships that carried pelts from Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York to Marseilles, France, because they had gained the status of safe passage from the colonists and were not fired upon during hostilities. 

Slave trading was abolished in Dubrovnik, then part of the Republic of Ragusa, as early as 1418. The city, along with its neighbor to the north, Split, is on the UNESCO World Heritage Site List. And although Dubrovnik was heavily shelled in the early 1990s from Bosnia-Herzegovina, the city has been carefully rebuilt to authentically reflect its medieval and renaissance history and architecture. Visitors can see where the lower old stones of buildings remain and where the newer, careful reconstruction has replaced the demolished tops and roofs. Dubrovnik is the pearl of the Adriatic and the city that attracts the most visitors to Croatia.

Last along the coast is Montenegro, named by the Italian sailors as “black mountain” for the steepness and hence frequent cloud cover that blocked out the sun above the mountainsides. Montenegro is a republic and offers tourists some of the most rugged terrain in Europe. There is much wild greenery and most of the areas have only one lane roads. We visited an olive oil farm while there, enjoying sight of the ancient methods of making olive oil compared now with computerized processes. 

On the way, we stopped to overlook the Bay of Kotor, a strategically important site of great natural beauty. Though not a member of the European Union yet, it is the government’s goal to join by 2025. Nonetheless the country uses euros and looks to develop into an elite tourist destination. At this time, its economy is dependent on direct foreign investment, and the Chinese and Arabs are competing there for developmental control. 

Next: Back to the Italian Coast.

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By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

You know the face dogs make when they’re taking care of their business? I’m not talking about number one. I’m talking about the big whopper: number two. For many dogs, I imagine that is the equivalent of the human concentration face, as we ponder everything from what we should have for dinner, to the best route home in a traffic jam, to the best use of our time on a Friday night when we’re exhausted but know we could contribute to our area through community service.

My dog must know that I’m watching him closely because every time he finds exactly the right spot to release the contents of his bowels, he turns his back to me. Before he enters his squatting position, he looks back over his shoulder to make sure no one or everyone is watching him. He’s easily distracted in the moment of separation from his solid waste.

I respect his wishes and give him his moment of privacy once he starts the process. Now, of course, much as we might watch them as they relieve themselves, I know that they watch us closely, wondering why we’re so meticulous, or not, as the case may be, about scooping up everything they’ve dropped.

My dog still seems to think that he’s doing sufficient cleanup duties by kicking a few blades of grass in the general direction of his creation. He starts tugging on the leash immediately after that, sending a nonverbal signal from his neck to my hand, as if to say, “I got this one, let’s move to that flower bed where Marshmallow left me a secret scented note.”

As I bent down recently to clean up his mess, he saw one of his favorite couples. That’s not exactly a fair characterization, as almost any combination of two people would immediately rank among his favorites if one or both of them came over to him and rubbed his stomach while he turned over on his back and dangled his paws in the air, as if he were at a canine nail salon. The challenge for me, as he was pulling, tugging and twisting on the leash, was to do the impossible: Chat with his human friends, keep him from knocking one or both of them over with his enthusiasm and politely scoop up his poop.

I waited for a moment to retrieve my retriever’s droppings, hoping that he’d calm down enough to allow me to bend my knees and lift the boulders from the ground. No such luck, as he seemed to be playing twist-the-leash-around-the-human-legs game.

One of the many sensory problems with my dog’s poop is that the longer it remains in place, the more it seems to spread out and sink into the ground. Knowing this, I was eager to bag it and to move on during our walk.

Just as the couple finally disengaged from my dog and his leash, another dog and his owner appeared, causing my dog’s tail to wag so violently that it looked like those whirling propellers on an old airplane. While my dog darted and retreated from his much bigger and more mellow friend, I got farther away from his droppings. In the back of my mind, I wondered whether I could, just this once, leave his biodegradable droppings where they landed.

When the other dog and his owner took off, my dog and I returned to the expanding pile. I’m convinced that my dog watched the entire pickup routine with rapt fascination, knowing he’d succeeded in extending the process into something considerably more challenging for the human scrunching his nose at the other end of the leash.

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Steve Bellone (D) and fellow Democrats celebrate keeping the county executive position. Photo by David Luces

As election season draws to a close, finally, we are among the many breathing a sigh of relief. 

We heard that a few people were unhappy with our endorsements. That, of course, should be expected. Some points, though, need to be made clear about our process for endorsing candidates.

Starting in late summer, we start gathering a list of candidates for the upcoming electoral season and arrange candidate debates in TBR News Media offices in Setauket. The process is long and grueling and, despite months of effort, sometimes candidates cannot find a time that works for everyone or, as we saw in several cases this year, some people simply never respond or don’t show up. So, we talk with the candidates that do come to the office and conduct candidate interviews over phone or email with the remainder. The better interview is always done in person as a debate in a roundtable discussion.

The last publication date before election day — which for us is a Thursday — becomes the election edition. In that issue, we exclude letters to the editors that focus on local politics, because there is no way for people to respond publicly before the election. Instead, we include our endorsements on the letters-to-editors pages. 

Our election issue contains multitudes of political advertising, but there’s a common misconception that advertising buys our endorsements. The advertising and editorial departments are two distinct entities, and work on two separate floors of our small office space. Advertising is indeed what keeps TBR afloat, but that department has no input on editorial decisions. Of course, there is communication between departments in the newsroom, but that comes down to the placement of ads, and our papers policy avoids placing political ads for candidates on the same page as the candidate profiles that we write.

The endorsements are a product of the interviews, not the other way around. In fact, we are prouder of the debate articles we conduct, which we try to make as balanced as possible between the candidates. We let all sides speak their piece before carefully writing the articles. The debate interviews are conducted throughout October, then written and placed into our annual election issue. These articles range from 500 to more than 1,000 words each for some of the wider-ranging offices. 

The endorsements, on the other hand, are barely more than 200 words each. They represent the collective opinion of editors, along with our publisher Leah Dunaief who moderates the debates. We consider long and hard all that we heard, along with our experience with the candidates on the campaign trail. Sometimes we cannot come to an agreement, or may be on the fence, and meet again the next day to review pros and cons of our choices. The endorsements represent those who we feel might make a better fit for office, but they are also our chance to compliment the person we didn’t endorse or criticize candidates for past performance. 

We at TBR News Media congratulate all who stepped up to campaign for public office but, if we were to be honest, endorsements sometimes have little bearing on future performance. In 2016, we endorsed the opponent of Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon Jr. (D) for the office. Toulon won that election, and in 2018 we named him one of our People of the Year. What matters is what an elected official does for the constituents when in office.

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By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

I wonder how the creators of the show “Seinfeld,” Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, would portray today’s world? The answer resides in their approaches to other ideas and conflicts that became the focal point for shows that continue in reruns almost every day.

In one show, Elaine, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, is dating furniture mover Carl (David James Elliott). When Elaine finds out that Carl is a pro- lifer, they decide to end their relationship.

In Washington, D.C., and indeed throughout the country, that seems tame compared with the passions people feel when they share their views about the president and about the upcoming election of 2020.

I could imagine an entire modern “Seinfeld” episode dedicated to the efforts people take to avoid discussing politics. Changing the subject, walking out of the room and pretending they can’t hear each other seems like a way these characters might keep the political genie locked in the bottle, allowing them to enjoy the company of anyone and everyone, even if those people disagree with their views on national politics.

We play out that scenario regularly wherever we go, whether we’re looking to date someone or just chat with someone in a line at the deli, on vacation or at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

We are so concerned that we might offend the other person or that he or she might offend us.

When did we become so incapable of speaking with each other? Are we determined to live in echo chambers, where we only listen and speak with the people whose ideas, thoughts and words match our own?

Come on, that’s not how democracy is supposed to work. We can and should be capable of hearing from other Americans whose ideas differ from our own. In addition to the land, the flag, the monuments, the Constitution, the history and so many other facets of American life that we share, we owe it to ourselves and to future generations to be able to listen to each other and to remain open to ideas and opportunities.

Are we afraid that someone who seems rational and reasonable might convince us to change our mind? Are our ideas so fragile and our confidence so weak that we can’t have an informed discussion about our views and our ideas?

Surely, we are better than some homogenized party line. We are a land of rugged individualists, who can and should find a way to advance our local, state and national best interests to give everyone an equal opportunity.

It’s not up to the leaders to tell us what to think, who to be and how to live. We have the chance to make those decisions for ourselves. At their best, those leaders are working to give us a shot at pursuing the American Dream which, last time I checked, doesn’t belong exclusively to one political party or another.

By not talking with each other, we increase the tension that separates the parties and the people who support them. Rather than waiting for a bipartisan detente in Washington, we can and should gather ideas about each other.

If they were still making the show today, the characters from “Seinfeld” might have helped us laugh about how entrenched we have become in dealing with our differences. We, however, aren’t living in a TV show and we owe it to ourselves to gather real information, to listen to other people and to bridge the divide that’s causing the fabric to fray of a country we all call home. 

We can learn and grow from making decisions for ourselves, instead of following the same script with every conversation.

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Rovinj

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

All vacations are wonderful in their own way. A chance to get a break from the daily routine, to rest, perhaps to view new scenery, meet new people, learn new things, even just to get a break from the news — these are hoped-for results. We’ve just returned from a trip abroad and, as I have done in past columns, I would like to share some of what we saw and did.

We boarded one of the largest sailing vessels in the world in Venice, Italy, after an eight-hour plane ride from JFK International Airport. I won’t go into raptures about Venice because it would take up the rest of my allotted space and, besides, I’ve done so before. I will just say that there were probably more visitors in Venice than there are on any given day in Walt Disney World. Large ships are not allowed inside the harbor, so our small group was ferried to the Wind Surf by small motorboats lined up waiting for passengers along the Grand Canal. 

Let the adventure begin.

We departed at 6 p.m. and set sail to cross the Adriatic Sea, an extension of the Mediterranean, to land on the Dalmatian Coast the next morning. The first city, in the north of Croatia, was Rovinj, pronounced roveen. Croatia is a country often described as being at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe and one that is exquisitely picturesque with seaside cities and steep limestone mountains. As you might guess, for being in the center of human history, the country has had many invasions, rulers and iterations of government. Now a republic, it has been a duchy, a kingdom, in a union with Hungary, part of the Habsburg Monarchy, part of Austria-Hungary, part of Italy, then remade after World War I into Yugoslavia until that country finally fell apart into six independent smaller countries after the 1980 death of the autocrat, Josip Tito. 

The countries surrounding Croatia geographically are Slovenia, Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. Croatia joined the European Union in 2013. All of that abbreviated history took place over only the past 14 centuries. The area actually has been inhabited since prehistoric times.

Rovinj is a fishing port on the Istrian peninsula. Surrounded by blue-green, startling clean Adriatic water, its pastel houses crowded down to the seafront, the small city offers a tangle of pale yellow cobblestone streets, lots of inviting bistros and a beautiful Baroque hilltop church, St. Euphemia, whose tower is the highest in Istria at about 61 meters and can be climbed — not by me — for a magnificent view.

The Adriatic is only 120 miles at its widest point, separating what was known as the Balkans from Italy. The coastal towns were often under attack and thus encouraged to build fortified walls along the beachfronts. 

We walked the pebbled beach of Rovinj, bargained in the marketplace for native olive oil and truffles, and bought a couple of scarves made in Italy at cheaper than Italian prices. In fact, Croatia is known as a less expensive tourist destination, where a room in a fine hotel for the night during high season may be had for 50 euros (about $55). So far mainly Germans seem to have discovered this bargain, and they visit Rovinj in large numbers.

The eastern shore of the Adriatic is often referred to as the Dalmatian Coast and the name stems from an Illyrian tribe called the Dalmatae, (from their word “delme,” meaning sheep) who lived there during classic antiquity. Dalmatia is even referenced in the New Testament. And, yes, the hardy Dalmatian dogs come from there, whose unique black and white markings make them easily spotted on fire trucks. Dalmatia is one of the four historical regions of Croatia and for a long time was ruled by the Republic of Venice from 1420 until Napoleon of France appeared on the scene in 1797.

One of the frustrations of traveling along the coast by ship is that time spent in any port city is of necessity limited by the schedule of the cruise. After a delicious fish lunch in a sidewalk café, we returned to the ship, with its white sails billowing dramatically in the breeze, then went on to the larger city of Split. More next time.

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Stock photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

We are back to shopping for college. There’s a familiar rhythm to this search that, the second time through, brings a more relaxed pace. Now that my wife and I have taken about a dozen college tours, we’ve noticed patterns. Please find below some observations:

• The library gets quieter the higher its location. Every school we’ve toured has suggested that people will throw visual daggers at you on the top floor if you drop your pencil. Move to a lower floor to cough. In the effort to differentiate one school from another, a clever college ought to invert the quiet pyramid. The logistics would be challenging, with people stepping onto a floor of silence, but it would make clear how serious students were in the library and would defy the usual expectations about noise on each floor.

• Showcase dorm rooms aren’t real. Yes, the rooms everyone sees are, of course, actual rooms, but they have considerably less stuff, no irrational roommates who scream in their sleep, and are better lit than the freshmen rooms most of our kids will occupy. Somehow, the temperature in these rooms is perfect for almost everyone. Many rooms, however, are way too hot or too cold for one, two or the three people jammed into a space that will feel like the garbage chute in the original “Star Wars” as the year progresses.

• Some tour guides will share their food choices, preferences and idiosyncrasies because it makes them charming. We may not have the same aversion to Vegan Tuesdays, but we will undoubtedly remember the school because some lacrosse player in desperate need of a haircut who sings hates vegan food.

• Tour guides are friendly. Yeah, I know, shocking, right? But, while they are talking to us, many wave to friends as they speak. Are they really waving at someone? Is one person walking back and forth? The whole “everyone loves me and I love everyone” shtick seems rehearsed. Then again, maybe tour guides really do have friends everywhere.

• Some information sessions and tours seem to have left something crucial out of the discussion: Who wouldn’t be a great fit for their extraordinary school? Schools might save themselves — and prospective students — trouble if they helped these eager high school seniors and juniors get a better idea of what might not work for them. None of the schools offer an amalgamated profile of the type of student who typically transfers anywhere else. They should, right? Wouldn’t it help to know that the snow which starts in September and ends in May drives some students away? Or that the competitive atmosphere on campus doesn’t work for some students? What have the schools learned from some of their admissions mistakes?

• People on tours generally look and sound tired. Most of the kids seem to be praying that their parents don’t embarrass them by asking too many questions. When asked what they plan to major in, they respond with something like “blobology” or “Idunnonotsure.” The introductory phase of the tour rarely creates cohesion among a group taking turns to hold doors open for each other.

• Tour guides attempt to share college humor by highlighting their personal deficiencies. In between waving to their extended group of friends, these guides point to a chemistry building or a music hall and suggest that they have absolutely no skills in those fields whatsoever and are in awe of their peers, who seem to be speaking a foreign language when they explain their passion for molecular biology.

• These guides pick majors and minors like they’re at an ice cream store: They have one scoop of biology, two small scoops of elementary education and sociology, and a sprinkling of criminal justice.

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

There are people who think sleeping is a waste of time. These people go to sleep each night with great reluctance and insist they only need three or four hours of sleep to function well. Maybe they do. There are
others who walk around chronically sleep deprived, nodding off immediately when the house lights dim at a lecture or performance, because in spite of their best intentions, they just don’t get enough sleep. 

I’m here to declare that sleeping is one of the more creative pursuits, that in addition it is enjoyable, and that the end result the next day is to enable one to leap tall buildings at a single bound.

I enjoy sleeping.

Now presumably everyone knows what sleep is. But studies have shown that sleeping is a different experience from one mortal to the next. For example, I readily acknowledge that I am one of the lucky ones (good genes) who lie down in bed and almost immediately drift off to sleep. Indeed, I run out of gas and have to go to sleep, like a child, willingly or not. I understand that some people have a terrible time falling asleep. My husband was one of these. Watching me sleep, he surely had acute sleep envy.

How does that happen? I can tell you how it is for me — a statistical sample of one. As soon as I lie back and close my eyes, something akin to a story or even a movie begins in my head and leads me into sleep. If I am interrupted before I fall entirely asleep, a different story starts up when I go back to bed, even if it’s just a couple of minutes later, and I’m off. 

I have read all sorts of suggestions for people who struggle to fall asleep, hoping to help my husband. Maybe what I’ve learned can be of help to you if that is also your problem.

I do not have distractions in my bedroom. It’s rather sparsely furnished, mostly with pictures of my family and some knickknacks I have carried home from my wanderings. It is one of the best-ventilated rooms in the house, and I like it quite cool and quiet when I sleep. I have an outrageously comfortable mattress that is turned every three months. I also enjoy colorful sheets and a comforter rather than a blanket. My pillows are neither very fluffy nor flat, and they are down-filled.  

I almost never read in bed, nor watch television. I don’t have a desk there, with lots of correspondence to answer, nor a computer. Sometimes I take a bath before bedtime, sometimes a shower, sometimes neither, and I never drink hot milk. In fact, if I have alcohol, I may fall asleep even more quickly, but I am surely going to wake up around 3 a.m., when the effect has worn off. Best of all, I find, is to drink nothing after dinner so one’s bladder is skinny.

I also sleep pretty soundly, getting up sometimes once in the night. I find it tempting, after I return to bed, to pick up a book or newspaper to see what’s happening in the world — I am a news junkie — but I resist that urge and as a result usually fall back to sleep. If I don’t, I urge myself to get up and wash the kitchen floor, and that will generally do it.

There are, of course, different internal clocks for different people. Some are perfectly happy going to bed at 11 p.m. and waking up at 7 a.m. in time to get ready for work or school. Others start whipping around at 11 p.m. and are most productive when the rest of the world quiets down. My mother and father were badly mismatched in that way. My dad was used to living on a farm, where he went to bed at 8:30 p.m. and got up in time for the 4:30 a.m. milking. My mother did her work between midnight and 4 a.m. Somehow they did get together, but it wasn’t easy.

My advice: Find a job that fits your biological clock and you’ll be a happy person.

You might wonder that I find sleep creative. If I have a problem, whether mathematical or any other kind, I will often go to sleep at night with it on my mind and wake up with the solution at hand. Sleep is such a mysterious process. The brain works during sleep, and the body feels so much the better for the respite in the morning. 

Rerun for emphasis from Oct. 19, 2006.

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