Only 4 more days until Election Day!Thank goodness.  I don't know about you, but I just can't wait for it to be over and done with.  In all deference to our hallowed democratic election process, it has been a most harrowing and dreadful experience for me.  What about you?

There's an old Yiddish adage - "Man plans and God laughs" (it sounds better in Yiddish). How often we are reminded of it. So it was last weekend. We were all set for a long-planned trip to Boston to visit family and attend a charity event. The phone rang on Sunday morning at 4.

I'm certainly no expert, as anyone who has spent more than 20 minutes with me can attest, but I do know that it is the single most important thing in our world today. Especially in the week ahead, with the Presidential election happening, I am encouraging kindness to all. Don't tell me why someone is awful, tell me why you love someone.  

  It’s that time again for me. As the weather starts to turn a little colder, the season makes me start thinking about vacation.  The concept of vacation is such a personal thing.  For me, I look forward to a good book, a glass of cold, very sweet, white wine, sunshine and a pool.  I also enjoy some historical vacations.   One of my favorite weekends was visiting Hyde Park not that long ago.  

Happy Halloween Gotham.  When my children were younger Halloween was a big event in my house. We would spend weeks together planning and buying costumes, then the Halloween decorations would come out and finally the big day arrived. Trick or treating was always fun but, I think my favorite part was when trick or treating was done. That was the time when the kids, over pizza, would spill out their bags and  trade their candy.

Certain things I hold sacred and transend my politics. One involves that right to vote. It matters. Nothing partisan here.

A 63 year oid man, Alan Sorrentino, sent a letter to a small (5,000 circ.) Rhode Island newspaper criticizing women who wear yoga pants in public. He described yoga pants as "stinky, tacky, ridiculous looking."   "They do nothing to compliment a woman over 20 years old,” he wrote in the letter, which was published on Wednesday. “In fact, the look is bad. Do yourself a favor, grow up and stop wearing them in public."  

My wife Joanne was fortunate to have been in the Howdy Doody show's Peanut Gallery in the halcyon 1950s.  She also won the first Met Banner Day in the turbulent 1960s.  Some say she should also receive an award for navigating our family over our 50 years of marriage. What Awards have you won?