The Oppenheimer Report - 3/26/12

The ice is off our little lake and last week the mercury soared to 80 degrees F … and that was up here  in the Great White North! Records were set across the Northeast for high temperatures and I’m a little concerned. Harvey, the guy who plows our road in the winter says his maple syrup production is way down this year, and we’re getting mosquitoes in March. What’s up? When does it start to rain frogs?

Further to the discussion last week about the estate sale at my parents’ house, it made me feel good when so many people came up to me during the sale to speak fondly of my parents and of their selfless contributions to the local community. One comment about the liquidation phase of an estate: be wary of the armchair quarterbacks. Everyone is an expert, and a lot of people may think they know better than you what something is worth. Before we sold anything, I did my due diligence, hiring several independent appraisers, seeking the advice of friends who know a thing or two about art values, and generally apprising myself of the markets for various big ticket items. That which sold for x amount twenty years ago may be worth less today. Mom had beautiful furniture, but some of it was not particularly valuable locally. The one sucker punch I did not see coming was an encounter with a woman who had made a lowball offer on our house, angered because we hadn’t countered. She came to the estate sale specifically to let me know she would have offered more. What she did not know was that we had several other concurrent offers much closer to market value, with earnest money deposits (hers was insulting), and I and our agent made the executive decision about which offer to counter. I did not take her bait, and merely gave this inconsiderate woman a simpleton’s smile and a “you-snooze-you-lose” shrug. The house was sold to the highest, most creditworthy bidder, end of story. That she chose to hit me with her nonsense as my home of fifty-three years was being cleaned out displayed a complete lack of class. While I am comfortable with almost every decision I made with regards to my parents’ estate, there is always somebody out there ready to tell me I did it wrong. In the end, I did everything I did with as much information as I could gather, and always with my parents’ wishes in the back of my mind. While it was not important to our acceptance of their offer, I like the new buyers and am comforted with the notion that decent people with two young kids will be the new owners of my parents’ house. I wish them all the happiness I experienced there.

Last Sunday was absolutely beautiful in Buffalo and I’m sure there was a huge turnout for Buffalo’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade. By the end of the day, after I was through packing up the car, I cycled around town for an hour. All the drunken attendees were walking home from the parade and I was sorry I didn’t have my camera on hand. From my experience the Buffalo parade goers are generally well behaved, probably because Buffalonians are ninja drinkers. Still, there were several amusing displays of public intoxication. By contrast, in London, Ontario there was a huge alcohol-fueled riot on St. Patrick’s Day, prompting numerous arrests and causing substantial property damage. In a neighborhood with a large student population from local Fanshawe College, about 1000 rioters, many of them drunk, threw fireballs, bricks, and beer bottles at riot police, destroying property and looting the homes of local residents. The good news is that some of these so-called students incriminated themselves on Twitter and Facebook, posting videos of their “merry making” for all to see. This of course made it easy for police to tag them, and it makes me wonder what the boys and girls are learning in school these days. Certainly it’s not common sense. “Hey, let’s record ourselves attacking the police, looting houses, and blowing up vans … it’ll be cool!” The same thing happened at the G-20 summit in Toronto last summer; many of the worst offenders were recorded committing crimes and were eventually caught and charged. These days, when every cell phone is a camera, and when there are traffic cameras mounted at major intersections, isn’t it foolish to assume one can commit a violent act in a public place with impunity?

Finally, former V.P Dick Vader-Cheney just got a new heart and some would say it’s his first. Canadians chose their new NDP (New Democratic Party, or commie pinko) leader to fill deceased icon Jack Layton’s shoes. Racial tensions heated up in Orlando Florida in reaction to the death of 17 year old Trayvon Martin, a black teen, shot to death by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, allegedly in self defense. Was it really the hoodie? The way everyone is jumping on the bandwagon, I am reminded of Bonfire of the Vanities. Keep your eyes peeled for those raining frogs!

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 3/19/12

As I begin this report, I am staring at the bare walls of the house I once called a home. After the past five years, after all the last stages of my parents’ lives, all the nurses and doctors, the health care issues, the crash course in gerontology, the insurance paperwork, the bills and house maintenance issues, the bank accounts, the estate matters, the lawyers and accountants, after finding the right guy to do the estate sale and arranging to have furniture shipped to four remote locations …. after all this, I’m now staring at an empty house. Last Friday and Saturday I attended the estate sale at my parents’ house. I think the estate guy was a little nervous that I’d be one of those family members who could not bear to part with any of the memories, and I suppose a lot of people are like that. But by the time the estate sale took place I had done my grieving, and I was prepared to let go of what was left. I had already picked out some my favorite furniture and mementoes, and so had my sister and her family. As well we gave some stuff to people who had been good to our parents, so much of what was left was not particularly meaningful to either of us.

That said, it is weird to watch people, dealers or bargain hunters, rummaging through anything and everything that is not nailed down in what was once your family home. I wandered around, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, watching and listening to what people had to say. At one point I put my digital camera down on a table for an instant and some woman grabbed it like it the last new IPhone on the shelf at the Apple store. I politely asked her to give it back, perhaps followed by an expletive deleted. I have never before attended an estate sale, but I can safely say that I have not seen that many people in this big old house since my mom used to host the annual International Horse Show party thirty or forty years ago. Hundreds walked through the house, and some just wanted to see what the house looked like, but others were clearly looking for buried treasure. One guy was walking around with a little flash light peering into every nook and cranny. By day two, the big stuff was gone and it was time for the real bargain hunters to start rummaging. The strangest people came through. One guy, dressed a little like what Elvis would look like if he were an appliance repairman, headed straight for the basement and snagged the 50 year old Frigidaire. Somebody else bought the 32 year-old 2-head VCR. I failed to mention to the new owner that it could only recognize recording dates up to and including 1999. Ten bucks. Caveat emptor. By the end of the second day, I found myself searching for a lamp by which to read in the den, because every light in the room had been sold and there was no overhead light. In short, the whole two day adventure was “enlightening,” and I enjoyed seeing who bought what. As I finish this report, I’ve returned home to Jasper Bark Lodge in the Great White North, and I‘m pretty beat. I’ll say this, I think the people who ran the sale did a good job.

Final note, a propos to nothing … forget about paper money, there’s a new currency in town. Watching the news the other night, I learned that criminals are stealing Liquid Tide detergent from supermarkets to sell on the black market, sometimes for drugs. Now I’ve heard everything. Regrettably, I’ve got a full bottle of Era which nobody chose to buy at the estate sale. Era’s good too you know.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 3/12/12

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

We got back up to the Great White North last Monday, and what a lovely trip it was! I knew we were in trouble when we had difficulty even getting to the border. We sat on the service road leading up to The Peace Bridge entrance to Canada for over an hour while the cops swept the plaza for a bomb after a threat was called in. That wait was made a little more tedious by the fact that we were hauling my landscape trailer packed with stuff from Mom and Dad’s house, maneuvering onto a service road when every other ticked off stress puppy was vying for the same lane. I now have a little more respect for truck drivers and the difficulties they face competing with inconsiderate drivers in heavy traffic. At least it was a sunny day.

With all the crazy storms that occurred last week, including the ones that spawned those destructive F4 tornadoes in Southern Illinois, our little community in Northern Ontario had its own crazy winter weather with which to contend. Rain, then freezing rain, and finally copious amounts of snow wreaked havoc on the Muskokas and points north, and our propane supplier was unable to get down our drive to fill up our tank. To boot, we had a substantial local power outage, probably due to all the ice, which further taxed our diminishing propane supply (we have a propane-fired generator that kicks on whenever the power goes out). The day after our return, there was a thaw and then another freeze, making road conditions even more treacherous. A week later we’re back to rain and much warmer weather, and now the issue is flooding. I don’t trust those lying groundhogs anymore, but I know Jack Frost is on the ropes when the guy across the lake takes in his ice fishing hut. He did that a few days ago. I think I speak for all of us when I say, Yo, Mother Nature, will you make up your mind? I actually started wearing those attachable spikes on the bottom of my boots, because I got tired of having Jasper drag me slipping and sliding up and down our icy driveway. She thinks she’s a sled dog, and she’s strong.

Once again it sucks to be a Maple Leafs fan, as my hockey team negotiates the second half of their season like an Italian cruise ship captain. Once again, and true to form, they’re choking long before the playoffs. To rub salt into the wound, they’ll probably get hot at the very end, when they haven’t a prayer of making the playoffs . When I started paying attention to the standings, as I do after mid-season, the Buffalo Sabres were fumbling around just behind the Leafs in the standings and looking pretty pitiful. Now the Sabres are on a roll, and in contention for playoff position, just as it looks as if the Leafs will for the seventh time fail to make the playoffs. I really thought this was going to be the turnaround year. A seven season draught! Arguably the Toronto Maple Leafs have the best and most loyal fans in the NHL, and I take my hat off to the Maple Leafs organization; they have set a new world’s record for disappointing their shell-shocked fans. Go Ottawa.

I watched celebrity crash n’ burn Lindsay Lohan make her comeback appearance return to SNL. We were down in Buffalo when it aired, but I’d PVR’d it (because I’m Joe Tech) and we watched it last Saturday. I applaud Lohan’s public relations team for getting her the gig. The show lampooned her troubles with the law and that’s the recipe for a comeback: embrace your dysfunction. Let the star who has not shoplifted, had a chronic drug problem, or temporarily lost his or her mind cast the first aspersion. I love skit comedy and in my opinion the SNL writing has improved appreciably over the past few years. The Lohan show was pretty funny overall, but I thought our little shoplifting coke addict stumbled over her lines and looked a little nervous and shaky. I give her six months and she’ll be back in the driver’s seat and ready for her next dip into the cesspool of success.

What else is in the news … while Southern Illinois cleans up in the aftermath of all those destructive tornadoes, I saw on the news that parts of England are experiencing the worst drought in decades.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s controversial pardon of 200 criminals was upheld in a court of law, fanning the indignation of Mississippians and making me wonder whether perhaps it might be prudent to take that power away from governors. Syria is a mess, and once again Israel and Palestine are making headlines. Last week marked the one year anniversary of the big earthquake in Japan, and as I watched the videos of towns and cities being washed away by the big tsunami, I wondered what something like that would do to the East Coast of the U.S. Perhaps it will be a tsunami, or a hurricane, but sooner or later our over-developed coast line is going to take another major hit. One thing I'll guarantee: when it happens, we’ll receive more coverage than Japan or Haiti ever did.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 

The Oppenheimer Report - 3/5/12

A few years ago, shortly before the Oppenheimer family Corgi “Tuppence” expired, she was out in the back yard and killed a possum. How that arthritic old dog killed a rather large wild animal is beyond me, but one of the nurses witnessed it. Then she called 911. Not once, not twice, but three times. The first time she called to tell them about the dead possum, second time to tell them that the dead possum had apparently been “playing possum” and had mysteriously moved, and the third time she called to confirm that the afore-mentioned possum was in fact dead, again. I’m so glad that my parents’ telephone number is now in the 911 database for registered kooks. You hear a lot of stories about people ass dialing 911 - it’s a big problem these days - but there are just as many clueless people who call in emergencies that are anything but. I don’t think a dead possum rates as an emergency, tragic though it may seem. To make this event even more ludicrous, our over-zealous 911 caller put the expired possum in one of our blue recycling boxes. Thankfully, one of the other nurses had the presence of mind to have the animal disposed of properly before garbage day, because I don’t think the garbage collectors would have appreciated having to remove a 15 pound dead possum, legs sticking stiffly out of the blue box. Last I checked, dead possums did not fall into the “recyclables“ category. Although, come to think of it, they are bio-degradable. I wish I’d snapped a picture of that possum in the blue box. And while on the ongoing subject of wild life, or death as the case may be, you will recall my crow crap fest from last week. I finally gave in and, after manually cleaning off most of the big chunks, paid a visit to Delta Sonic car wash. Shortly after returning home with my uncharacteristically clean car, it happened, again; I was “crowed” a second time! Fun fact: I’ve heard of a gaggle of geese, but did you know that an assembly of these nefarious black crappers is referred to as a murder of crows. I think I called their assault on my car a mob hit, so I wasn't far off. One of my twelve, well-informed, loyal readers pointed it out to me. Once again I am a learning machine.

Monkees lead singer Davy Jones is dead at 66. I watched close friend and fellow Monkee Mickey Dolenz speak fondly of Jones on Pierce Morgan the other night. I never knew Jones had once been an aspiring jockey. I used to watch The Monkees television sitcom religiously. And speaking of religion, Mitt Romney almost lost in  his home state of Michigan. I suppose it doesn’t matter much because the Republicans have pretty much shot themselves in the balls. The mere fact that bible-thumping bozo Rick Santorum is a front runner, and gave Romney a run for his money (and we all know Mitt has money) is strong evidence to me that the elephants are on the ropes. There are even rumblings that the GOP is scrambling to convince Geb Bush to enter the race. That would make it official, wouldn't it? Three Bushes constitutes a Bush league. Sorry, I had to try that one out. Anyhow, clearly desperation is in the air! To hammer a nail into their coffin, enter that ever-entertaining bloated bastion of ultra-conservatism, Rush Limbaugh, who last week declared on air, in front of millions of listeners, that women’s rights spokeswoman Sandra Fluke was a “slut” and a “prostitute.” Fluke had recently gone before Congress to speak in favor of birth control insurance coverage, and apparently Mr. Limbaugh did not approve. He claimed he was joking, but I think he crossed the line. There are kooks and zealots on both sides of the aisle, but I think the Republican party has steered way too far to the right and gone completely off the rails. It’s official, I’m switching my political status to “Independent” because in my humble opinion, the elephants have lost their minds. All that remains is to watch them eat their young and perhaps burn a homosexual at the stake on live television. Stay tuned to Fox, I’m sure they‘ll cover it. Please tell me this, when did clowns like Santorum become the moral compass for America? Nincompoops.

A murder of crows, a parliament of owls, A Flock of Seagulls (with bad hair) … what does one call a gathering of dodos? Extinct.



Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED