Good Tuesday morning.
Yesterday was one of the biggest bummer days I can recall in a long time. Nothing of any major significance went wrong (thank G-d), but a whole confluence of small things all added up to be a serious pain in the butt.
I got the Covid and flu shots together on Sunday, just like they recommend (whoever “they” are). It was suggested that I also get the shingles vaccine, given my advanced age, but I said I would hold on that one. Two at once seemed like a lot already. And boy, are they. I feel like I got hit by a truck.
I guess I should be happy that I have such a strong reaction to the Covid inoculation, because research shows that a significant response improves your immunity over the long term.
Also, I got vaxxed none too soon because both my husband and I have been exposed to the virus multiple times now – I only hope I got protected in time to dodge the bullet, because the latest variant sounds like a doozy. Fast moving and highly infectious.
I just wanted to crawl back into bed the second I got up yesterday. It’s weird to be sick but not sick, you know? Thankfully, this isn’t supposed to last long. But I wasn’t able to just throw the covers over my head, because doggie daycare called and it turns out they have some coughing canines, which means my fur babies came right home.
After I took the big boy for a walk that felt more like a swim in the pouring rain, returned home, tried to get the other two to go out to no avail, dried them off, dried me off, and cleaned up the house, I was downright exhausted.
This would be a perfect time for someone to send me a fruit basket. Lots of citrus and Vitamin C would fix me right up. I am a big fan of fruit, but I don’t actually eat a lot of oranges; I prefer pink grapefruit. Year-round, I do mostly berries and apples, and sometimes bananas, if I’m doing a lot of distance training. In the summer I love a good in-season peach or nectarine.
One thing I could never get all that into, though? Pears. And they seem to be everywhere this time of year. Pear compote, and pear tart, and poached pears in spiced wine. Pears eaten just out of hand. I guess just because I’m not a fan doesn’t mean no one else is.
Quite the contrary, actually.
It turns out that pears are one of the world’s oldest cultivated fruits, and they are pretty popular – New York, in fact, is one of the six main states that produce pears, growing and selling many millions of them a year. (More than 90 million of the pears available in the U.S. are grown domestically).
Nevertheless, pears are far from the best selling/most produced fruit across the globe. That award goes to bananas. Pears don’t even break into the top 10.
There are more than 3,000 varieties of pears, which is really crazy because I can only think of two: Bosc and Bartlett. That actually stands to reason, because despite the fact that there are so many options to choose from, less than a dozen varieties are grown commercially in the Pacific Northwest and they account for 80 percent of the fresh pear production in this country.
When I do opt for pears, (fresh ones that is, not dried, which are consistently very good), I always seem to choose wrong, ending up with mushy, mealy, and disappointing fruit. The rule of thumb for picking a good pear is to select one that has a slight give to it on its neck (near the stem). If your fingernail goes through the skin it’s definitely past the point of optimal ripeness.
December is National Pear Month, according to the USDA. In case you need an incentive – like me – to get into pears, consider the fact that they have 6 grams of fiber, which is 24 percent of your daily recommended intake. Cut up a pear on your morning oatmeal or dry cereal, and you’re 1/4 of the way toward your fiber goal!
A river flood warning remains in effect through tomorrow night for parts of the Hudson River. Just in my tiny sliver of the world, the creek that runs under our street is completely flooded over, turning the road into a veritable lake.
That was some crazy weather we had yesterday. I’m only thankful that it wasn’t snow. But the impact was devastating in some parts of the Northeast nevertheless.
Today will be calmer, with mostly cloudy skies and the chance of a snow flurry or shower. Temperatures will be in the mid-to-high 30s.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden paid tribute to his first wife and baby daughter on the anniversary of their deaths, yesterday, which marked 51 years since they were killed in a car accident that also injured the president’s two sons.
A man who crashed into a parked SUV that was guarding Biden’s motorcade in Wilmington, Del., over the weekend was driving while drunk, police said. A police department’s spokesperson said investigators determined the crash was an “accidental collision.”
The Biden administration fired its latest rhetorical salvo against market concentration yesterday with the release of new merger guidelines, as American households are still feeling the squeeze of elevated inflation.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott escalated his challenge of Biden’s border policies by signing a measure allowing law enforcement to arrest migrants who enter his state from Mexico without legal authorization, setting the stage for a showdown with the White House.
The prospects for passing legislation to speed military aid to Ukraine this year are fading, as Republicans balk at striking a quick deal on immigration policy changes they have demanded in exchange for allowing the bill to move forward.
Biden is reportedly increasingly frustrated by his poor poll numbers. But three times now in a little over a month, he has dismissed polls that show him trailing Donald Trump or other potential GOP rivals and insisted that reporters aren’t getting the full picture.
The president’s struggles with younger voters have drawn enormous attention. But there’s been much less focus on the 81-year-old’s relative strength among his contemporaries, which is holding steady and even expanding.
Polling a year out from an election is a snapshot in time, and Biden and his party have time to bring young voters back into the fold, but it will be difficult.
President Biden’s son Hunter Biden will be arraigned on nine federal tax charges on Jan. 11, according to the Central District of California court website. He will appear before Magistrate Judge Alka Sagar at the Edward R. Roybal courthouse in Los Angeles.
Israeli leaders are considering the next phase of the war in Gaza, the country’s defense minister said, amid mounting pressure from the US to shift to away from the high-intensity, large-scale warfare that Israeli forces have waged for most of the last two months.
The Vatican said Pope Francis had allowed priests to bless same-sex couples, his most definitive step yet to make the Roman Catholic Church more welcoming to L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics and more reflective of his vision of a more pastoral, and less rigid, church.
The move stops short of sanctioning same-sex marriages, but is still being heralded by some LGBTQ+ advocates as historic.
A federal appeals court panel rejected an effort by Mark Meadows, a White House chief of staff under former President Donald Trump, to move a Georgia election interference case against him to federal court.
Attorneys for former Trump yesterday formally asked a judge to toss the former president’s Georgia 2020 election criminal racketeering case on First Amendment grounds.
A Georgia judge heard arguments but didn’t rule yesterday on a long-shot attempt to disqualify Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones from holding office because of Jones’ participation as an elector for Trump in 2020.
Lawyers for Trump asked the full federal appeals court in Washington to consider whether a gag order in the criminal case in which he stands accused of plotting to overturn the 2020 election should be further narrowed or thrown out.
Trump still leads in New Hampshire, but Nikki Haley has consolidated much of the non-Trump vote and has emerged as the top alternative to him there.
The super PAC aligned with Trump is putting money for the first time behind television ads attacking Haley, his former U.N. ambassador, who has gained momentum in the Republican primary.
A harried last-minute lobbying push is accelerating in Albany, where less than two weeks remain for Gov. Kathy Hochul to sign dozens of bills by year’s end. Any legislation not acted upon before then will be automatically vetoed.
Hochul is expected to sign legislation creating a commission for the study of reparations in New York, according to the bill’s sponsors.
The ability of New York’s ethics panel to investigate complaints and impose civil penalties remains in limbo after a judge issued a stay on its request to keep performing duties while an appellate court reviews whether its structure violates the state constitution.
A slew of government reform groups are siding with New York’s ethics commission as it fights off a legal attack from former Gov. Andrew Cuomo seeking to scrap the panel.
The head of the MTA’s subway and city bus divisions ripped the former governor for flip-flopping on congestion pricing, saying, “I would love to introduce the Andrew Cuomo of 2019 to the Andrew Cuomo of today.”
More than 2,000 state government employees will soon receive belated payments for overtime hours they worked during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic.
Nearly every public school classroom in New York now has Wi-Fi, or wireless internet access, according to new federal data and Times Union research. Educators say the technology means new ways of teaching and learning are now widely accessible.
The state’s abandonment of publicly owned facilities in the Adirondack Park is an ever-growing burden to local government leaders, who are hoping constitutional amendments could be the solution.
An illegal pot shop in Brooklyn will be the first establishment to be permanently padlocked for selling marijuana products without a license after New York State authorities obtained a court order to shutter an outlaw weed store.
New York’s Working Families Party is pressing state candidates seeking its endorsement to support $40 billion in tax hikes, allowing asylum-seekers to vote and more legalized drug-injection centers.
The looming New York congressional redistricting effort could shift the odds of Rep. Jamaal Bowman fending off a Democratic primary challenge from Westchester County Executive George Latimer as Democrats seek to flip several GOP-held seats in 2024.
Mayor Eric Adams raised eyebrows with an off-the-cuff comment about 9/11 in an interview with PIX11.
“(E)very day you wake up, you can experience everything from a plane crashing into our Trade Center to a person who’s celebrating a new business that’s open,” Adams said. “This is a very, very complicated city and that’s why it’s the greatest city on the globe.”
Adams was not pressed on his bizarre remark to WPIX, though he was later asked what he needed to improve in 2024. “Probably communications,” he said.
The Manhattan borough president announced a plan that he said will help expand access to psychiatric care and housing for severely mentally ill homeless people in New York City.
The city has failed to process thousands of expedited food stamp applications within a legally required timeframe this year, leaving some of the city’s most vulnerable residents without consistent access to meals.
A detainee at Brooklyn’s notorious federal jail was sent among the general population despite open wounds and a nasty, contagious infection — and made to wear a yellow jumpsuit to single him out, enraging a judge.
Developers of the city’s first professional soccer stadium are set to break ground tomorrow in Queens on the first part of the sprawling, mixed-use development: the first of 1,100 units of affordable housing nearby.
Migrants at the Big Apple’s tent shelter at Floyd Bennett Field said yesterday’s monster storm caused metal bolts and hinges to drop from the ceiling — leaving them terrified the structure would collapse.
Thousands of migrant families are bracing to be evicted from their New York City shelter next month under a 60-day-limit rule — while the Big Apple has already flown nearly 20,000 other asylum-seekers elsewhere.
The Big Apple’s most famous feathered fugitive – Flaco the owl – has taken to spying on fellow Manhattanites through their apartment windows less than a year after flying the coop from the Central Park Zoo.
Alec Baldwin was berated by anti-Israel protesters yesterday evening after hundreds of agitators flooded into Penn Station and Grand Central Station during a fiery demonstration where they told Israel to “go to hell.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer yesterday celebrated his visits to all of New York’s counties for the 25th straight year — a tour he described as the most “meaningful” one.
A lawsuit reveals the names of three Albany police officers who are facing termination in a pay scandal.
A state audit says lack of oversight and formal policies in the town’s water department has resulted in Ballston losing track of $300,000 worth of water used, spending $90,000 on water it did not receive and inconsistent billing of its water users.
A Manhattan jury found Jonathan Majors guilty of two misdemeanor counts of harassment and assault, but acquitted him on two other counts.
In the domestic assault trial, the Marvel actor was found not guilty on one count of of intentional assault in the third degree and aggravated harassment in the second degree against his ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari. Sentencing is set for Feb. 6.
Shortly after a six-person jury in Manhattan announced the verdict, Marvel Studios parted ways with the actor, a spokeswoman for the company said.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
