By John Rolfe I’m proud to say I’ve now held my nose and done my civic duty by voting in 12 presidential elections. None have had the warm, fuzzy, apocalyptic feel of this one. Dire charges of widespread voter fraud, suppression and intimidation; reports of foreign meddling; President Trump’s refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power; threats of litigation, violence or even Civil War; and a raging pandemic have teamed up to create one doozy of an experience. With all the obstacles to voting that have been created in many states, I went to the town hall in Rhinebeck, NY, on October 24, angrily determined to cast my ballot in a reliable location even if it meant waiting on a long line in Hades while wearing petroleum knickers. Fortunately, the weather was pleasantly cool and the early voters only stretched down the block and around a corner, costing me an hour or so of time in this wonderful world of ours. During a normal election, I’d waltz in and out of my polling place in 15 minutes. Having had COVID-19, I find it especially galling that people are being forced to risk their health by voting in public places because safer alternatives have been denied, they can’t trust the Postal Service to deliver their ballots on time, or they fear they will be rejected on a technicality that isn’t usually regarded as possible evidence of fraud. Now, a reasonably right-minded individual might think a 244-year-old nation that proclaims voting to be a sacred right and obligation would have a secure, reliable, consistent, well-maintained system of registration and tabulation by now. “But nooooo!” as the late, great John Belushi used to say. Trump has already declared this election the most corrupt in history, so out into the dark clouds of anger and foreboding we went. The scene in Rhinebeck was peaceful, but black humor prevailed with the apprehension that our votes will ultimately be negated by a partisan judge or by subterfuge. After signing in and presenting my receipt to a poll worker, my paper ballot did not print out correctly, so I had to be issued another, which led me to wisecrack that I would probably be arrested for voting twice. My son added that when we fed our ballots into the counting machine, they would likely be shredded instantly. While walking back to our car, a noisy caravan of Trump supporters in pickup trucks rolled through town with banners waving and horns blaring. My otherwise demure daughter gave them a double-barreled middle finger salute. Now, ordinarily I would be horrified by her behavior. She was raised to be polite and respectful, and I’ve loudly advocated the high road in these ugly, juvenile times. Unfortunately, I’m ashamed to admit I felt a distinct sense of “Yeah, you tell ‘em, kid!” pride. Alas, the lure of the low road has become irresistible after years of Trump’s childish insults and millions of my fellow Americans deciding that if they can’t rise to someone else’s level they can always drag them down to theirs. “Trump 2020 No More Bullshit” is a lovely new slogan I frequently see. The President’s supporters clearly do not suffer from an irony deficiency. Unless it’s a promise that Trump will finally shake hands with truth, that’s a pretty funny thing to declare about the source of 20,000-and-counting verified false or misleading statements. It’s also aggravating. As a school bus driver tasked with getting kids to mind their language and manners, I glower at a big, inflatable snowman with the Trump BS slogan on its belly every time I roll by it with a busload of urchins. The person who erected it lives down the block from a primary school. Here’s to keeping America classy. Frankly, I’m plum exhausted by the manure and madness. I wish voting would make it all go away, but it probably won’t. John Rolfe is a former senior editor for Sports Illustrated for Kids, a longtime columnist for the Poughkeepsie Journal/USA Today Network, and author of The Goose in the Bathroom: Stirring Tales of Family Life. His school bus drivin’ blog “Hellions, Mayhem and Brake Failure” is parked on his website Celestialchuckle.com (https://celestialchuckle.com) with the meter running.

By Victoria Rolfe This unprecedented time has gotten many people to rethink how they have been living their lives and spending their money. Whether it be due to a loss of income with a lack of savings, or a forced spending “diet,” spending habits have changed and compelled people to wonder if they should be saving their money for the future or enjoying life now. It is a point worth contemplating and here are some of my thoughts on the subject. I’ve seen this question posed in many different ways throughout the years. I’ve heard the argument that you must live for today because you could be hit by a bus tomorrow. Young people have screamed YOYO!, as in, “You’re Only Young Once.” (Did I just coin that?) They maintain that they must spend and live for today while they are young enough to enjoy it. But I don’t see it as a black or white, an either/or situation: save OR have fun. I believe that if you are wise with your money, you can do both. Saving your money does not mean that you have to be a miserly scrooge sitting in your lonely attic, counting your money and never having any fun. In fact, with a little planning and wise money management, you can easily have a very pleasurable life and also save for your future at the same time. The one equation that people need to let go of is Spending Money = Fun. There may be some correlation sometimes, but it is certainly not a given. You can spend lots of money on something and have a terrible time, and even more importantly, it is very possible to have a great time spending no money at all. I’m sure you can think of examples of both these facts in your own life. Let’s start with the young (my newly coined YOYO philosophy). Yes, they can certainly save and also have fun. First of all, they have one huge advantage in their favor: the magic of compound interest. The fact is that if you start saving (investing) early, you will only need to save a fraction of your own money in order to build up a very tidy nest egg for retirement. Most of the money in your IRA at retirement will be growth on the returns you accrued through the years, not the money you actually put in. Pretty neat trick, huh? With a little prioritizing and forethought, young folks can also be saving for their other more near-term needs and wants--a car, a house, a wedding--by putting those savings on automatic pilot and just living on what’s left. The prioritizing comes in as you make the conscious decision to forego Instant Gratification X, which is not really adding a great deal of joy to your life, in order to save up for that something that will bring you great pleasure indeed. One joy that seems to be mentioned a lot is traveling. And here is where the young have another distinct advantage. They can travel for practically nothing, staying in youth hostels, or other low-cost accommodations. There are even many temporary internship/job opportunities overseas that would allow them to see the world while sometimes even making a little money. The possibilities of low-cost travel are only limited by the imagination for the young (or young at heart). Google “traveling on next to nothing,” and see what you come up with. I read a great memoir on the subject a while back called No Baggage – A Minimalist Tale of Love and Wandering by Clara Bensen. What if you are not young? I see people of all ages squandering their money on daily instant gratification pleasures without even realizing that they are doing it. Once, when I was telling some friends about a trip to Singapore that I had just returned from, somebody asked me “I don’t understand. You can’t afford cable TV, but you can afford a trip to Singapore?” My answer to that is you can afford anything (within reason, of course), but you can’t afford everything. I chose to forgo all those channels at $150 a month in order to save my money for something better. I’ve even found a way to get TV for free--an old-fashioned roof antenna. I also put my frugal skills to use to make the trip possible without breaking the piggy bank. https://brightfuture2budget4.weebly.com/blog/stre-e-e-e-tch-those-vacation-dollars If fun is your priority, then go ahead and have it! Have as much as you want. Live! Take advantage of all the free fun that is out there for the taking. If there is some kind of fun you must have money for, then just look at your spending habits and give something up that does not bring as much joy and save up for what you want. I see absolutely no reason why you can’t do both. Save and have fun! After all, you only live once! Wishing you a happy life today and a bright future tomorrow! Victoria Rolfe is a family budget coach who has had a lifetime of experience in the art and joy of frugal living and its resulting financial freedom. She spent many years as a stay-at-home mom and home economist and rose successfully to the challenge of raising a family of four kids on a modest income without incurring debt. She did crazy things like paying for all their cars with cash, paying off their mortgage in ten years, buying their next house for cash, and sending all her kids to college with no student loans, while building a comfortable retirement nest egg for their own bright future. She is now passionate about helping others to enter this beautiful world of peaceful and simple frugality and to achieve their own financial goals with the knowledge and personal finance skills that she has acquired. She writes a monthly blog, teaches via a series of light-hearted group presentations that she created, and sees clients in one-on-one personal meetings. Visit her website and blog at brightfuture2budget4.weebly.com, or email her at brightfuture2budget4@gmail.com.

One film journalist’s stream-of-consciousness cinematic journey through the pandemic, Part 21 By Laurence Lerman Six months ago (hell, it feels like six years), having offered up the pleasures of the all-star disaster epic The Towering Inferno on these pages, a friend suggested I take a look at 1952’s Ruby Gentry, starring Inferno featured player Jennifer Jones. The Southern-fried melodrama finds the five-time Oscar nominee Ms. Jones (who brought home the coveted Best Actress statue for 1944’s The Song of Bernadette) portraying a backwoods temptress who tries to sink her hooks into a former high school flame, played by Charlton Heston. Well, I’m passing on Ruby Gentry once again, but not on the exquisite Ms. Jones—who starred in Vittorio De Sica’s 1953 romantic melodrama Indiscretion of an American Wife. I hoped De Sica’s partial dip into Hollywood’s filmmaking waters would provide a brief respite from the all-too-addling realism of these past weeks. And what better way to get away from it all than to dive into a film by Italy’s great neorealist? (Then again, they say everything old is new again, so who knows…?) As is often the case with cinematic misfires, the story behind Indiscretion of an American Wife is more intriguing than the film itself. An Italian-American co-production between De Sica and producer David O. Selznick (who commissioned the film as a vehicle for his then-wife Jennifer Jones) was reportedly troubled from the very beginning.Its deceptively simple story presents an American housewife (Jones) vacationing in Italy who decides to end her affair with an Italian academic (Montgomery Clift) while in Rome’s Stazione Termini. A number of notable writers hired to write Indiscretion’s script were fired during the process, including Carson McCullers, Alberto Moravia, Paul Gallico and Truman Capote (who ultimately received the screen credit). Selznick would send lengthy letters to De Sica every day of the production, which took place on location at the large Rome train station. De Sica, who apparently didn’t read English, apparently agreed to everything Selznick wrote, but then did things his own way. The stars were said to be unhappy as well. The first release of the film, which retained its original title of Terminal Station, ran 89 minutes and was coolly received during previews, prompting Selznick to re-edit it down to a lean 64 minutes and change the title to Indiscretion of an American Wife without De Sica’s permission. Neither the critics nor the moviegoing public much enjoyed either version, which isn’t surprising—the performances are good but the film is dull and only notable for G.R. Aldo’s crisp cinematography and young Richard Beymer smiling up a storm as Jones’ young nephew. (Beymer had even more to smile about a decade later as Tony in 1961’s beloved West Side Story.) Another addled wife and mother—this one on New York’s Upper East Side—found herself dabbling in affairs extramarital in 1970’s Diary of a Mad Housewife, a hard-to-find title for years that was recently released to streaming platforms for the first time. Diary centers on lovely Bettina Balser (Carrie Snodgress), an anxious Manhattan homemaker (there’s 1967 for you!) who’s not-quite-on-the-verge of a nervous breakdown, though she isn’t doing all that well, either. Married to a needling, proto-Yuppie lawyer (Richard Benjamin) who will only drink his ginger ale with cracked ice (not cubed), and the mother to a pair of bratty little girls, Bettina isn’t interested in the class-conscious social climbing with which her husband is obsessed. A distraction comes in the fashionable form of a narcissistic and cynical writer (a darkly appealing Frank Langella), with whom she enjoys some “rolls in the hay”—the kind that her husband provides only when he’s in the mood and with little imagination. Based on Sue Kaufman’s almost-classic, consciousness-raising bestselling novel from 1967, directed by Frank Perry and adapted for the screen by his then-wife Eleanor Perry not long before they divorced, Diary plays as a comedy-drama while revealing Bettina’s inner feelings and desires. Today, a half-century later, the film’s scenarios and dialogue come off like a period-perfect lampooning of the Second Wave feminism-flavored fiction that flooded the market in those years. But Benjamin and Langella are still fine as caricatures of two very different kinds of men who only want a woman for two things (and one of them involves cleaning). Oscar-nominated Carrie Snodgress, whose performance inspired the song "A Man Needs a Maid" by her soon-to-be lover Neil Young, is the shining star here; she’s focused, occasionally furious, and fraying at the edges even as she discovers that she’s not the only one in New York City getting screwed—and screwing herself—out of happiness and respect. Oh, wait…it’s Halloween weekend, so let me suggest a late-night date with The City of the Living Dead, a creepy little fright flick from 1960 that you can find for free on YouTube. Set in the fictional New England village of Whitewood, where witches were burned at the stake three centuries earlier, it follows ill-fated university student Nan who visits the town and checks into the Raven’s Inn to study up on witchcraft and the area’s unholy history. Before too long, she encounters a coven of witches looking to provide the Devil with a human sacrifice or two at the upcoming weekend’s “Hour of Thirteen.” A couple of weeks later, after Nan’s disappearance, her fiancé and her brother head up to Whitewood themselves, only to encounter more of the same and another unholy witch’s holiday on the horizon. City of the Dead is a British production directed by John Llewellyn Moxey, best known as a prolific television director who helmed one of TV’s greatest horror-mysteries, 1972’s The Night Stalker with Darren McGavin. Shot entirely on the soundstages of England’s venerable Shepperton Studios, City drips with atmosphere—from ghostly village townsfolk to a cross-filled local cemetery to cobwebby basements that coeds shouldn’t be exploring—and the filmmakers get a lot of mileage out of their fog machine, creaky-looking exteriors and shadowy backdrops. The British cast, which includes supporting player Christopher Lee, all trot out their best Northeastern accents as the fog gets even more ominous, as do the eerie, Gregorian-styled choral arrangements by composer Doug Gamley. Keep your eyes open for a memorable edit between a sacrifice performed on a Satanic altar and the slicing of a creamy birthday cake, a sequence that’s stuck with me ever since I first saw the film on local WOR-TV in the early Seventies. I was eight years old, the film was billed under the U.S. release title of Horror Hotel, and it scared the hell out of me. And that’s what makes for a proper Halloween—now go get your fright on! Laurence Lerman is a film journalist, former editor of Video Business--Variety's DVD trade publication--and husband to The Insider's own Gwen Cooper. Over the course of his career he has conducted one-on-one interviews with just about every major director working today, including Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, Kathryn Bigelow, Ridley Scott, Walter Hill, Spike Lee, and Werner Herzog, among numerous others. Once James Cameron specifically requested an interview with Laurence by name, which his wife still likes to brag about. Most recently, he is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the online review site DiscDish.com.

By Robin Cohen When I saw the lines at my local place on the national news, I panicked. An hours long wait at the Fairfax Government Center, the news reported. That left the option of mail-in or drop-off voting, neither of which made me feel 100% comfortable. Not taking any chances on this election, I carved out a full day to vote. When I arrived at the Government Center on October 8, the line stretched out to the end of the large parking lot. Ugh! There were no sample paper ballots due to COVID-19. Instead, we were advised to take a picture of a billboard sample ballot with our phones. Lots of volunteer guided us while we were in line, enforcing social distancing and masks, giving us time estimates and offering us free bottled water. All that was missing was Mickey Mouse and the jingle of “It’s a Small World.” As luck would have it, my wait was a little over an hour. One of the volunteers said it was the shortest wait since the poll opened a few weeks ago. I voted, feeling like a great weight was lifted, and pranced out of the building giddy with civic pride. Check! Done with time to spare. Oh my gosh, I can sneak in a grocery run. Off to Wegmans. When I arrived at Wegmans, I saw a sign that said, “Get Your Flu Shot Here.” I seized the opportunity and offered up my right arm (I’m left-handed). This was an unexpected “should” taken off my long list. Check! More prancing. Fingers crossed and prayers answered that both my vote and flu shot yield the desired results! Robin Cohen has been married to Insider Neil Cohen for 42 years, with two grown sons, Daniel and Steven. Robin and her husband live in Herndon, Virginia where she works as a clinical social worker specializing in couples’ therapy. She has been selected twice by the Washingtonian Magazine as “Top Couples Therapist.” Cohen was a former adjunct faculty at Virginia Tech’s Marriage and Family Therapy Program where she worked as a clinical supervisor and was part of two research teams. Her favorite quote comes from the British psychiatrist, John Bowlby. “All behavior makes sense given its context.” When not working, Robin enjoys playing the piano, reading, traveling and ballroom dancing with Neil.

A Poem by Dr. Barry Lubetkin The despair and pain has sharpened now Fueled by a memory of a night turned raw and ugly Oh, how we laughed and danced as the sky darkened We knew so much...we were all so smart. The women especially, who had worked so hard Toasted Hillary with a pride of such depth, I had not seen before The polls were as clear as the champagne that flowed, The orange horror would never (could never) win. And then the numbers spewed from the screen, And we could barely look at the others, Hugs were meaningless, bewilderment and rage competed with shame How could we not have known? And now, the polls seduce us again, And we steel ourselves for the next party. Yes, we will wear masks, but less for protection, And more as amulets against an evil we now fully understand. We have prepared for this night with flashlights so bright As we would for a walk down a dark alley, alone. We have voted early, we have phoned old colleagues in embattled states, We have spurned friends who have shocked us with their ignorance, We arrive armed with resolve...of course Joe will win! “But it may take weeks to decide“ the talking heads warn, Impossible, we think; our guts and brains will implode, A dozen sets of eyes have never gazed so hard at blue and red numbers, We have prevailed, and we are happy and tearful and relieved. But something still feels terribly wrong...there is no concession speech, How did America let a four-year reality horror show go on? And will the host wait patiently for the next season? Barry Lubetkin, Ph.D. is the co-director and co-founder of the Institute for Behavior Therapy in New York City. He is the author of numerous academic and popular articles, as well as two popular self-help books, Bailing Out and Why Do I Need You to Love Me in Order to Like Myself. The Institute for Behavior Therapy is the oldest private cognitive behavior center in the United States.

By Jessie Seigel/Washington, D.C. My feelings about November 3rd? Anger and fear. Anger at all that Donald Trump and his minions are doing to steal the election or to take the presidency by force. And anger at the Democratic Party for letting things get to the point where this Republican-sponsored theft and force can be in the offing. As for fear, I fear Trump’s retention of power will be the end of democracy in this country. But I also have fear if Biden wins, as I believe he would in a fair election. Here in D.C., it has long been a given that our votes for president and for our one non-voting Congressional representative always go to the Democrats. So no one in the national campaigns pays us much mind. Even though I very early delivered my ballot to a D.C. drop box and have contributed in my way to help with races across the country, I still feel sidelined, a helpless, anxious onlooker watching Trump and his cronies openly abuse all the levers of governmental power to rig this election while falsely accusing their opponents of it. Trump and his henchmen have purged voter rolls, limited the number of polling places, and prevented timely delivery of absentee ballots by the Post Office. In California and God-knows-where-else, they’ve set up fake deposit boxes to steal absentee ballots that have been delivered in person. This rigging could not only hand the presidency to Trump, but prevent votes for Democratic candidates down-ballot from being counted, perhaps affecting the Democrats’ ability to gain a Senate majority and hold the House. Trump has encouraged organized right-wing armed groups and white supremacist vigilantes who have plotted to kidnap and kill various Democratic leaders. He has incited them to go armed to the polls, in order to create havoc and intimidate voters. In addition, only a few days ago, Trump’s five Supreme Court hacks decided that absentee ballots failing to arrive by 8 p.m on November 3 can be discounted, regardless of when they were mailed and regardless of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s deliberate mail slowdowns. As if that were not enough, Trump, Mitch McConnell and the Republican-controlled Senate installed a sixth hack on the Supreme Court this week, so that if their disruption and confusion successfully fudge the results, the Court can ensure Trump retains power regardless of whether he actually won. But what, you may wonder, do I fear if, despite all that is now arrayed against a fair election, Biden manages to win and—hosanna!—brings the Senate and House with him? There is so much damage to be undone—on COVID19, civil rights, labor rights, immigration, employment, environment and climate change, social services, the reversal of the tax giveaway to the one percent, health insurance and drug prices. That’s not to mention mending our relationships with our allies, and standing up to the dictators of the world. And most important of all to our democracy: reestablishing the rule of law by holding Trump officials accountable for their illegal actions. Will Biden have the strength to do that? Or will he and the Democrats do what they have done in the past—let the Republicans con them into moving on “for the good of the country,” as they did after Watergate? Compromise with the other side on policy. Let the Republicans persuade them to play the “let’s work together” game, while the Republicans continue the “take no prisoners” strategy they have employed from at least Bill Clinton’s presidency on. Will the Democrats fall for the Republicans’ “non-partisanship” ploy? Non-partisanship is a crock sold to liberals by conservatives who have, for decades, been as partisan as they come. In partisanship, you stand for something and you fight for it. You might, on some occasions, find common ground with the opposition. But that is not the same as compromise, which cedes ground. To undo all the damage the right wing has done to government programs and to the rule of law, we need a big dose of partisanship by liberals and progressives. Some have talked of the need for truth and reconciliation. I say: forget reconciliation. I want truth and justice. Every time there has been an assault on democracy with no real consequences, those who would destroy democracy have learned how to conduct the next assault more effectively. Trump and his Republican Party’s actions are not a sudden anomaly but the culmination of that learning process. Nixon was pardoned for his Watergate spying and coverup without ever having been charged. Those who went to jail for him served short sentences at country-club prisons. This showed what one could get away with. Many of the voter suppression tactics used this year were previously used at least as early as the 2000 election. And that year, the Supreme Court handed the election to George W. Bush by refusing to allow votes to be recounted in Florida. Three of the current Supreme Court Justices—John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—worked for the Bush team that won that case. Even Trump’s pretensions to dictatorship are not new. George W. Bush’s administration laid the foundation, advancing the notion of unbridled presidential power under their so-called “unitary executive” theory. If there are no consequences for the assaults on democracy Trump and his cabal have perpetrated, they will be committed again, more effectively yet. The price paid for these attacks on democracy must be a real price. Or we’ll be right back in this situation, and next time, democracy won’t survive. This is not a mere desire for revenge, although I’m sure conservatives will call it that. Rather, as Elizabeth Warren has said, to reestablish the rule of law, we will need an independent task force at the Justice Department to look back at possible criminal conduct in the Trump Administration and prosecute wrongdoers where such evidence is found. Whether that will be possible with Trump’s Supreme Court ready to knock down any such action is a big question. I just hope that if Biden and the Democrats manage to win the presidency and the Congress, they have the fortitude to pursue it. We must make sure that this election has consequences. Jessie Seigel is a fiction writer, an associate editor at the Potomac Review, a reviewer for The Washington Independent Review of Books, and a dabbler in political cartoons at Daily Kos. She has twice received an Artist’s Fellowship from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities for her work. But, Seigel also had a long career as a government attorney, in which she honed her analytic skills. Of this double career, Seigel would say, “I guess my right and left brains are well balanced.” More on and from Seigel can be found at The Adventurous Writer, https://www.jessieseigel.com.

By Anita Saesing Can you truly be happy without adapting? This question has been haunting me this month—which is absolutely perfect since it’s the season for all things that go bump in the night. Please cue the influx of philosophical phone calls, emotional FaceTime chats, and life-altering messages from friends and family. It all began when my Belgian friend, Gianni, messaged me through Snapchat. He asked me if I was happy living in self-isolation. I stared at my iPhone, thumbs hovering over the touchscreen keyboard. I replied with my standard, COVID-19 mantra: “I have my health, a roof over my head, and food in the fridge. I should be happy.” He pressed on, asking me if I’m going to settle with my isolated, COVID-19 lifestyle. I wanted to scream. Didn’t he understand I can’t have my pre-pandemic life right now? It seems dangerous to throw caution to the wind. For my own sanity, I reminded myself my main goal was to survive. I must adapt and avoid the coronavirus. Yet something about our conversation had me spooked. Uneasiness and anxiety crept into the corners of my mind. Was he right? Am I giving up and settling for this lifestyle? I have acknowledged COVID-19, but was self-isolation the only way of adapting to it? If life is a game and the rules have changed, am I still playing or have I sidelined myself? So, a week later, I walked into my boyfriend’s office and said, “I’m getting back in the game. I’m going on a day trip. You can either join me, or I’m going by myself.” My risk-adverse boyfriend groaned. He said, “It’s still not safe to travel.” “It’s been seven months. No one knows when this is going to end. First, it was going to disappear by Easter. Then, the media said the summer heat will eliminate COVID-19. News flash: It’s October. I agreed to live in self-isolation because I thought it was only going to be for a few weeks. I can’t live like this anymore. I need to re-enter the world. I can be outside—away from people. We live in Arizona—it’s mostly desert. How hard could it be?” He sighed, “Fine. This is a test run. If our first day trip goes well, we can continue to venture out.” Planning an Escape Route First, we had to decide where to go. Most Navajo sites are closed due to COVID-19, so that ruled out Monument Valley and the Four Corners. We didn’t want to test our luck yet with hiking in national parks, since our friends have told us people have been flocking to them. So I had to cross off the Grand Canyon, Saguaro National Park and the Petrified Forest from my list. “How about Horseshoe Bend?” I asked, “It’s in northern Arizona, close to the Utah border. The website says it’s open and the entrance fee is only $10.” My boyfriend Googled it. He said it was about five hours north of us, and the drive seemed doable. Always thinking ahead, he purchased sleeping bags just in case we needed to camp in our car. Along with trash bags, toilet paper, a bucket, snacks, hand sanitizers, masks and a cooking pot, he bought an inverter to power our hot plate from a battery. As he was packing and checking items off a list, I went onto Instagram. I searched the hashtag #HorseshoeBend and filtered it to recent photos. Then, I commented on a few people’s photos asking what time they went and if they were able to avoid crowds. They all replied back and said they went on a weekday morning, because that was the least trafficked time. So, it was settled. We were leaving Friday, October 9th at 2:30 in the morning! On the Road Again Before we get into the nitty-gritty details of the trip, I want to preface this with an explanation: I pride myself in my ability to organize and execute plans, whether that’s corporate meetings, household chores, college assignments, or so on. But when it comes to personal travels, my overactive brain slows down, allowing me to enjoy the journey. What I mean by this is I tend to plan about 60% of a trip, and then I let fate do the rest. So, for this trip, my boyfriend and I were supposed to only visit Horseshoe Bend in Page, Ariz. Halfway there, we decided we might as well drive to Kanab, Utah. It was only an hour and 45 minutes more. Feeling pleased with our spontaneity, we arrived at Horseshoe Bend in good spirits. We paid our $10 entrance fee, parked the car so we could mask up, and walked a little more than half a mile to the site. Fortunately for us, there were only a handful of people there.\ Once we returned to our car, we removed our masks and threw them into our “COVID-19” bin. We like to reuse our masks after letting them “quarantine” for three days. I read that infected droplets can survive on surfaces, so I just assume they can survive on masks as well. On our way to Utah, I Googled state parks in Kanab and convinced my boyfriend to visit Coral Pink Sand Dunes. The entrance fee was only $10 and the parking lot was 50 feet from the dunes. The most surprising thing about this location was how fine and cold the sand was! Besides a few people sandboarding, we were the only ones playing in the dunes. Running a little low on energy, my boyfriend and I decided to take a lunch break. I asked him if we could drive to the Belly of the Dragon to have our oatmeal and crackers. It was about 20 minutes from the Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park. He didn’t object, so we made our way to the parking lot of the Belly of the Dragon. After our quick break, my boyfriend asked me if I felt like going home. I hesitated. It was the first time in roughly six months I’d been out of the house for more than an hour. I knew what was waiting for me at home—the lifeless routine of chores and boredom. I shook my head. He laughed and said, “I have a friend who lives near Zion. We have to drive through it to get to his place. If we wear our masks and stand six feet away, maybe we can say hi.” Before he could change his mind, I typed Zion National Park into Apple Maps. We packed our things and drove off. When we entered the national park, we were so relieved we didn’t plan on hiking. There were so many cars and people everywhere. No one wore masks and people were fighting for parking spots along the road. After saying goodbye to my boyfriend’s friend, we decided to head back to Arizona. His friend said the best route was to go through Las Vegas. We laughed—three states in one day, why not? It took us nearly five and a half hours of driving, but we made it home safely. Somehow our day trip turned into a full 24 hours of exploring—we truly seized the day. Dead tired, I crawled into bed and fell fast asleep, leaving behind my anxieties. We finally shattered the monotonous curse of self-isolation. Anita Saesing has always been nomadic.  She was born in California,, but spent her teenage years in Maryland and Pennsylvania.  Before she graduated from high school, an elderly couple from her previous apartment complex invited her to live with them in Arizona.  Four days after her high school graduation, she packed her bags and joined them on their cross-country road trip.  She spent her college years working at various places including a childcare center and hospital HR office.  She was the first in her family to graduate debt-free from college. Anita graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Business Management from Grand Canyon University.  One day, she desires to live in Italy and “do as the Romans do.”

By John Rolfe My wife Victoria and I have taken on a boarder here in the New Olde Rolfe Ancestral Home, one that has brought our life together full circle. Our boarder is a chicken. Freda, a Rhode Island Red hen, is named after my late mother-in-law. The name was not inspired by any personal similarities. Freda (the hen) does not have a British accent nor does she drink tea or smoke Marlboro Light 100’s. Freda (the person) did not have red hair (or feathers for that matter), nor did she cluck or lay eggs, though her serving baked beans at Christmas dinner one year did not go over well with the family. The moniker (for the chicken) was merely a tribute. After Freda the person’s husband (his nickname, ironically, was “Mr. Egghead”) passed away, Victoria and I expected to take her with us when we moved from Long Island to our current home in the Hudson Valley. We reckoned we’d have living quarters for Freda so she could enjoy watching three of her grandchildren grow up. Sadly, she passed away before we could hatch our plan in 2000. Two years ago, with our nest all but empty, Victoria bought six chicks and named them after her mom, her grandmothers (Anna and Elsie), and her aunt (Peggy). The other two (Riley and Marsha Marshmallow) were christened based on their excitable temperament and color, respectively. This past September, as I took ill with COVID-19, Freda’s comb began to droop. The other hens were attacking her, a sure sign that she, too, was ill. So we quarantined her in our basement. Her gracious accommodations include a bathroom with shower and Jacuzzi, a pull-out sofa bed, and a TV. Though she is ensconced in a cage with ample straw upon which to rest, she does have a view of the TV and she is served treats and snacks. So there Freda has been for a month or so while we try to figure out what is ailing her and how to remedy it. Her appetite is spotty, she can be lethargic, and she has the runs. I know how she feels. Having battled COVID-19 and recovered, I identify with her plight. Chicken care websites say Freda probably has a parasitic or bacterial infection of some kind, so we are treating her with recommended doses of cider vinegar, yogurt, nutritional yeast, banana and mashed pumpkin — not exactly Freda the person’s favorite foodstuffs, but I think of my mum-in-law whenever my wife and I minister to our stricken chicken. “Good morning, Freda!” I say cheerfully as I uncover her cage. “And how are you today?” I happily chat with her while I serve her breakfast and freshen her water. She doesn’t say much, though, unlike the Freda who wasn’t shy about making her opinions clearly known. “I should warn you,” Victoria said before I met Freda (the person) for the first time. “My mother usually doesn’t like my boyfriends.” Fortunately, Freda and I got along fine and I’m happy to say that my relationship with her feathered counterpart is also amicable although Freda (the chicken) does look at me askance every so often. “It seems we are caring for your mother after all,” I said as my wife bathed Freda (the chicken) in lavender-scented Epsom salts and wrapped her in a warm towel before they sat together on the sofa while she (Freda) comfortably dozed. “She is stubborn like my mother was,” Victoria replied. My jury is still out on reincarnation, but it is funny how things work out in this life. John Rolfe is a former senior editor for Sports Illustrated for Kids, a longtime columnist for the Poughkeepsie Journal/USA Today Network, and author of The Goose in the Bathroom: Stirring Tales of Family Life. His school bus drivin’ blog “Hellions, Mayhem and Brake Failure” is parked on his website Celestialchuckle.com (https://celestialchuckle.com) with the meter running.

Advice from a Top Nutritionist By Lisa Goldberg MS, CNS, CDN Are you sitting there at home, frustrated that your clothes have gotten tighter in lockdown? More than any other influence, it’s your emotions that sabotage your eating behaviors ,regardless of the fact that your goal is to lose weight. Those are the behaviors that prevent you from losing weight and contribute to gaining the weight back that you’ve already lost. There are four main emotional eating influencers that seem to be the most prevalent. 1) FOOD AS A REWARD Often as children when we do something good or when we feel bad, parents use food, usually a sweet treat as a reward. This wires your brain to believe that the food will make you feel better. As adults, we subconsciously continue to use food to lift our spirits and continue the limiting belief that food will make me feel better. Consider how often you eat something and think “I deserve a reward or a treat” because you had a bad day or because life has thrown you a curve ball that stressed you out. Remind yourself that food is not a reward, it doesn’t make you feel better and it doesn’t change the circumstances. The only thing that changes when you “reward eat” is your weight. 2) FOOD FOR STRESS RELIEF Food is too often used to soothe stressful or unpleasant feelings. It is used to calm and relax. This is why the habit of over-eating, often after dinner, becomes a behavior that most people find difficult to change. But again, the truth is, the food doesn’t relax you outside of the moments it’s in your mouth. If you spend the rest of the evening and next day beating yourself up, where is the relaxation and the calm? Is it really worth it? 3) FOOD IS USED TO FILL TIME AND SPACE How often do you find yourself eating for ‘something to do”? You are bored or procrastinating on getting something done. Or perhaps you feel lonely and you use food as an activity or because you believe “it’s all that you have in your life to bring you joy”. What other self-care activities can you create for yourself that doesn’t involve food and eating? I suggest creating a list of at least 5 things that you can do to fill time and space that will bring you true joy and pleasure that has nothing to do with food. 4) FOOD USED BECAUSE OF LOW SELF-WORTH OR SELF-ESTEEM If we don’t feel good about ourselves, food is used as almost a subconscious punishment. Have you ever eaten some kind of crappy food and you then think “What’s the use, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter, I’m destined to be fat or I will fail at weight loss anyway”? If you ever hear yourself say ” it doesn’t matter” when you emotionally eat, what you are really saying is I DON’T MATTER. If this is you, ask yourself if that’s the truth…do you really believe that you don’t matter? All in all, our eating and over-eating behaviors involve many different factors grounded in our old patterns and conditioning. One thing is for sure, that if you continue to try to lose weight by following another quick fix or fad diet without addressing the reasons why you eat emotionally, you will eventually end up back where you started. If you tend to eat for any or all of these emotions, the truth is that food won’t change any of your circumstances, fix your feelings and it won’t soothe you. The only thing that food does when emotionally eaten is change your weight …and not in a good way. Don’t unnecessarily fall prey to the Quarantine 15! If you can’t put your finger on what makes you emotionally eat and how to stop it, schedule a Discovery call with me here so that I can help you get clear on why you eat emotionally and what you can do to change it. Lisa Goldberg is a nutritionist and weight-loss accountability coach with a master’s degree in Clinical Nutrition from New York University. She is an author, certified Nutrition Specialist, a certified Dietician/Nutritionist licensed by New York State, and certified in Adult Weight Management by the American Dietetic Association. Lisa, who has been coaching clients since 2001, focuses on mindset change, mindful eating and habit and behavior change. She teaches her clients how to break their old patterns around food and eating so that they can end their struggle with emotional eating that leads to yo-yo dieting. Her clients create sustainable lifestyle changes that empower them to change their relationship with food and lose unwanted weight for good. Lisa is the author of the book Food Fight!! Winning the Battle with Food and Eating to Achieve Sustainable Weight Loss, available on Amazon. She served as the nutritionist at the New York Stock Exchange where she created HealthCoach, a healthy lunch program that delivered healthy meals to Wall Street traders from 2003-2013. Lisa is based in New York City. In 2015, she expanded her practice to coach clients remotely and she now coaches clients around the world. For more information about how to work with Lisa Goldberg, click below: http://www.lisagoldbergnutrition.com

Jeffrey D. Sachs | October 18, 2020 |  CNN.com Editor's Note: Jeffrey Sachs is a professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author; view more opinion articles on CNN. (CNN) What the United States is really facing in the November election and in Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court nomination is whether the country will become a post-truth society. President Donald Trump, of course, is a post-truth president, lying relentlessly to evade taxes, coddle polluting industries, and protect racist groups from accountability. On the other hand, Amy Coney Barrett showed that she too is a post-truth nominee and, therefore, a danger to our future. Most of Barrett's confirmation hearings were window dressing with a foreordained outcome, wherein the Republican senators will vote nearly unanimously to put a right-wing ideologue on the Supreme Court. Barrett tactically avoided showing her real views on just about every subject. Yet, she revealed her utter disdain for the truth on one crucial issue that will be central to the future: climate change. This year is on course to be one of the five hottest on record. Climate disasters are devastating the nation and the world: record forest fires on the Pacific coast; forest fires engulfing the Amazon; repeated floods and storms hitting the Atlantic and Gulf states; the precipitous decline in Arctic sea ice; and the accelerating threats to Greenland's and Antarctica's ice sheets that could trigger a catastrophic rise in the sea level. The US Supreme Court will be intensively engaged in this issue in the coming years. To do its part to achieve global climate safety, the US needs a massive shift in industry from fossil fuels to renewable energy; from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles powered by the renewable energy; and from heating oil and natural gas to electric heat pumps in our buildings. In our litigious society, the rearguard vested interests of the fossil-fuel industry will fight these changes every step of the way. The Supreme Court will be the final arbiter of the legal framework for climate safety. Thus, it was with a well-placed sense of priority that California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris interrogated Barrett on her views on climate change. Barrett's response was stunning and utterly dismaying. The interchange went this way. HARRIS: Do you accept that Covid-19 is infectious? BARRETT: I think yes, I do accept that Covid-19 is infectious. That's something of which I feel like, you know, we could say you take judicial notice of it's an obvious fact. Yes. HARRIS: Do you accept that smoking causes cancer? BARRETT: I'm not sure exactly where you're going with this. But you know ... HARRIS: It's just a question, the question is what it is, you can answer it as you believe. BARRETT: Senator Harris. Yes, every package of cigarettes warns that smoking causes cancer. HARRIS: And do you believe that climate change is happening and is threatening the air we breathe and the water we drink? BARRETT: Senator. Again, I was wondering where you were going with that. You have asked me a series of questions like that are completely uncontroversial, like whether Covid-19 is infectious, whether smoking causes cancer, and then trying to analogize that to eliciting an opinion on me that is a very contentious matter of, opinion from me, that is on a very contentious matter of public debate. And I will not do that. I will not express a view on a matter of public policy, especially one that is politically controversial, because that's inconsistent with the judicial role, as I have explained. HARRIS: Thank you, Judge Barrett. And you've made your point clear that you believe that this is a debatable point. This interchange is alarming. Barrett's testimony is that the reality of climate change is "a very contentious matter." That is true only in a post-truth nation, in a country where the President actually said of global warming, "It will start getting cooler. Just you watch." In another moment of her testimony, Barrett said, "You know, I'm certainly not a scientist. I have read things about climate change -- I would not say I have firm views on it." It's hard to know exactly how to account for Barrett's testimony. One thing it's surely not: a reflection of Catholicism, Barrett's religion. It is Pope Francis, after all, who wrote powerfully and clearly in his great encyclical Laudato Si': "A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system," and that "a number of scientific studies indicate that most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides and others) released mainly as a result of human activity." There are three plausible alternative interpretations of Barrett's statement. The first is that she may have lied under oath, knowing the truth but avoiding it because she was pandering to Trump and the Republican senators, who feed at the trough of Big Oil, and who therefore are all too ready to lie as well in the interests of campaign contributions. The second is that she has long lived in a right-wing post-truth bubble and now parrots that post-truth ideology. The third is that she truly is so scientifically ignorant and incurious that she has not taken minimal steps to learn that climate change is real and an existential threat facing humanity. Given the utter centrality of this issue to the future of US federal court jurisprudence, such willful ignorance -- willful, because it is so easy to find authoritative guidance such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- would constitute an act of grave professional irresponsibility. When I tried to help post-Soviet Russia to put the brakes on a devastating economic collapse brought about by the failed Soviet communist system 30 years ago, I marveled at how lying had become a way of life under the oppressive Soviet rule. I fear that Trump's chronic lying could become a way of life in our nation. As a result of Trump's non-stop lying, he has left the nation tragically exposed to Covid-19, racist abuses, and climate disasters. Barrett demonstrated her readiness to be a part of Trump's post-truth strategy, and therefore demonstrated as well her unfitness to serve on the Supreme Court. https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/18/opinions/amy-coney-barrett-trump-post-truth-sachs/index.html

By Andy Borowitz October 22, 2020 MINNEAPOLIS (The Borowitz Report)—Americans favor continuing to mute Donald J. Trump after the final Presidential debate, a new study has found. In the study, which was conducted by the psychology department at the University of Minnesota, researchers measured the responses of subjects when they were told that it was possible to mute Trump. “Using advanced imaging, we were able to gauge how they reacted to this news,” Dr. Davis Logsdon, who supervised the study, said. “The pleasure centers in their brains lit up like solar flares.” When they were told that Trump would no longer be muted after the debate, however, the subjects reacted with “disappointment, anguish, and even rage,” Logsdon said. “One man was reduced to tears,” the researcher said. “He said, ‘I don’t understand why they can’t keep muting him—they clearly have the technology.’ ” Logsdon said that the study yielded many other findings, including a widespread psychological need to mute Donald Trump, Jr. Andy Borowitz is a Times best-selling author and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. He writes The Borowitz Report, a satirical column on the news.

FRED PLOTKIN is one of America’s foremost experts on opera and has distinguished himself in many fields as a writer, speaker, consultant and as a compelling teacher. He is an expert on everything Italian, the person other so-called Italy experts turn to for definitive information.  Fred discovered the concept of "The Renaissance Man" as a small child and has devoted himself to pursuing that ideal as the central role of his life. In a “Public Lives” profile inThe New York Timeson August 30, 2002, Plotkin was described as "one of those New York word-of-mouth legends, known by the cognoscenti for his renaissance mastery of two seemingly separate disciplines: music and the food of Italy." In the same publication, on May 11, 2006, it was written that "Fred is a New Yorker, but has the soul of an Italian."