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| Display in front of DeCicco and Sons in Tarrytown NY |
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| Tarrytown lighthouse |
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| harbor in Kingston NY |
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| Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge |
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| Esopus Meadows lighthouse |
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| the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) |
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| Burrito |
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| Manhattan skyline at night |
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| Statue of Liberty |
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| statue near the Warwick Hotel |
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| another statue near the Warwick Hotel |
I normally rent a car via Hertz when I am in New York. For one thing, it's easy to pick up and drop off the rental car at the rental office in North White Plains. The office is located right across the street from the Harlem Line train station. I've been renting a car at this office for many years now, after I decided to stop picking up and dropping off the car at Newark airport. It became too stressful to drive from and to the airport and stressful to find the drop-off location at the airport.
My rental experience this time around was not completely problem-free as you'll soon see. A few days before I was to travel, I was informed in an email to pick up the car at the Westchester County Airport rather than the North White Plains office due to Labor Day (September 7), which meant that the North White Plains office would be closed for the holiday. This was fine except that I had to first take a train to White Plains and then take a cab to the Westchester County airport instead of just getting off a train at North White Plains and walking across the street to the rental office. This was an extra incurred cost of approximately $30. The service agent at the airport was friendly enough. I picked up the car in the parking lot and drove out, only to notice that the gas tank was 3/4 full, not full. I was already on the road by then, so I pulled over and took a photo of the gas tank indicator on the dashboard. I had already paid $67.46 for the Fuel Purchase option. When I returned the car on September 21 and talked to the agent at the North White Plains office about this, she told me to take it up with Billing. She was not very helpful. My definition of good service would have been that she could have deducted the price of ¼ of a tank of gas right then and there. But no.
The rental price for the car for two weeks, booked through Booking.com, was very reasonable. But lo and behold if I didn’t get a bill via an September 25th email for $475.86. This was the charge for using ‘Plate Pass’. This was the email message I received:
Hertz utilizes a service called PlatePass which allows its customers to use cashless lanes or all- electronic tollways without using a personal transponder or paying the toll authority directly. Our records indicate you declined the PlatePass All-Inclusive tolling option at the start of your rental, but during your rental you activated the transponder device affixed to the car windshield and incurred tolls. As a result, you owe the PlatePass All-Inclusive rate as applicable to your rental period. With PlatePass All-Inclusive, you will not be charged tolls and no additional charges will apply if new tolls are received from toll authorities relating to this rental agreement.
As far as I can remember, the Plate Pass was pulled out once during my two-week rental to pay for the toll going over the Tappan Zee Bridge, by a passenger in my car. Do you mean to tell me that I am to pay $475.86 for using the transponder once? Is this company insane? This is highway robbery and I am planning to report Hertz to the Better Business Bureau. Of course I will gladly pay all the tolls incurred during my two-week rental, but I am hoping that Booking.com will take this up with Hertz to get this charge dismissed. This is the craziest and greediest behavior I have ever experienced--pure unadulterated ripoff. The sad thing is that I have been renting via Hertz for many years. This is the first time that I have had problems with them or experienced poor customer service. It’s very unfortunate and does not bode well for future rentals with this company.
My annual trip to New York this year started in Manhattan, where I met Cindy, a college friend, on the first weekend of September (5-6). We stayed at the Warwick Hotel in midtown, one of our favorite hotels in NYC. As luck would have it, the weather cooperated with our plans, which included a jazz cruise on the Hudson River (leaving from Chelsea Piers) and attending the musical Schmigadoon. The jazz cruise was quite enjoyable, and moving--especially when we drove past the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. This at a time in the USA when it doesn't seem that immigrants are particularly welcome anymore. I thought about my paternal grandparents who came from Italy in the early 1900s and who made a life for themselves, first in Brooklyn and then in Tarrytown, New York. They never returned to visit Italy, which must have been quite sad for both of them. Cindy and I also got tickets to see the musical Schmigadoon which spoofs on other musicals like Brigadoon and Oklahoma, but that is also quite touching in its own way. I can recommend both the cruise and the musical.
The following week included visits with my sister Renata and her husband Tim and their new dog--Burrito, as well as visits with good friends Maryann and Gordon from my Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center days, and with Stef, a good friend from childhood. The weekend of September 12-13 was spent with Judy, my good friend from high school, and her two sisters Betty and Joan. We drove up to Hyde Park, NY on Saturday to visit the Culinary Institute of America, where we ate a very good lunch and enjoyed a food tasting event and a tour of the institute. On Sunday, we managed to visit Springwood, Franklin D Roosevelt's summer home on the Hudson River, and Val-Kill, Eleanor Roosevelt's place of business and eventual home located a short distance away from Springwood, across the main road. Both are national historic sites. I've written about FDR's home before in a 2016 post: A New Yorker in Oslo: Making memories--two weeks in the States Visiting Val-Kill 'completed' the story of the Roosevelts for me. FDR and Eleanor were a good political team; their marriage endured a number of infidelities, but they supported and defended each other and had each other's backs. On Monday, the four of us took a 1.5 hour boat trip on the Hudson River that departed from Kingston, NY. We had lovely weather and managed to see the Esopus lighthouse as well as some Gilded Age estates along the Hudson River.
I then visited with Jola, another good friend from my Memorial Sloan-Kettering days, and we spent our time together talking, catching up, eating some good lunches and dinners, driving around Tarrytown, and visiting Untermyer Park and Gardens in Yonkers, NY, which I have written about before (A New Yorker in Oslo: Two gardens worth visiting--Untermyer Gardens and the New York Botanical Garden). And then I made my way to Jean's house (I call it my second home), where I always end my NY vacations. Jean and I go way back to high school; we have a lot of shared history and are very close friends. Maria, another close friend from childhood, came down for the four days I was there, and we hung out together, eating, talking up a storm (Jean calls it incessant gabbing), and having fun. We've settled on a visit to St. Augustine in Florida for this coming winter's annual trip. St. Augustine has history, culture, and relaxing beaches. Our trips together have become something to which we really look forward. The major consideration is the weather, so we are keeping our fingers crossed that snow and/or bitter cold won't throw any major wrenches into our plans.
Of course, no trip of mine would be complete without a snafu here or there! This time it was a major circuit break/cut in the cables that control the air traffic control grid for the NYC airports. All flights were cancelled at Newark, La Guardia, JFK, Teterboro, and Philadelphia airports on the afternoon of Monday September 21. My flight back to Oslo on SAS was cancelled, but SAS did manage to rebook me on a later flight (United) to Brussels (they worked quickly and efficiently to rebook me). Their hope was probably that by the time the plane left for Brussels (8:30 pm), that the circuit would have been fixed (it was). But nothing was certain and I booked a hotel room at Newark Airport just in case. A shout out to the Howard Johnson hotel at the airport for kindly refunding my money; they could have been sticklers for the regular routine of not allowing customers to cancel unless it was 24 hours prior to arrival. They made an exception for me and I thank them.
I'm also glad that I arrived and departed New York when I did. This weekend would have been a messy affair to put it mildly--storm, wind, rain, and flooding. A Nor'easter that traveled up the East Coast of the USA, wreaking a bit of havoc and leaving a real mess in its wake. A lot of rain and flooding as far as I can see from the news reports. There would have been no boat trips and very few outdoor activities had I been there this weekend. So the weather gods were with us earlier in September!
Although traveling can be tiring and sometimes unpredictable, I love it. I love the expectation of new adventures as well as the emotional constancy of visiting with close friends and family. I have said it before but I'll say it again--I am forever grateful for the wonderful friends who grace my life. I will continue to travel until I am no longer able to travel. It would have to be poor health only that would stop me from seeing those I love. In my next post, I'll include some photos of the places we visited on this trip.
I remember where I was on 9/11 in 2001. I remember a colleague running into my lab to tell me that there had been an attack on the World Trade Center in NYC. I was beside myself after hearing that news. I was not in the USA at that time, like I was this year. I’m glad I was in NY State this year to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers. This video of the drones recreating the Twin Towers brings me to tears every time I watch it. It is incredibly beautiful and poignant.
https://youtube.com/shorts/2CDs-Vt9wUA?si=2192fUaX83YHpb_r
I have looked further into the Ad orientem issue and understood that it has been quite controversial for quite some time. Apparently the Ad orientem format is traditionally preferred because it forces the congregation to focus on the actual celebration of the mass and not on the priest who is saying the mass. It is supposed to be more reverential. I had never thought about this before and in truth I've never particularly focused on the priest who says mass except when he steps into the pulpit to deliver his sermon.
I'm including some links in this post so that you can read more about it if you are so inclined.
Facing the People, or Facing the Altar? | Catholic Answers Magazine
Ad Orientem – Immaculate Conception Catholic Church
Why is Ad Orientem worship so controversial?
I retain my opinion--that I prefer the Versus Populum format of the liturgy, where the priest faces the congregation while saying mass. I understand that Ad orientem is the historical and long-practiced way of saying mass. It doesn't change my viewpoint.
If we are first going to choose tradition and take up this priestly orientation again in order to promote reverence and avoid distractions, then my suggestion is to go further and ban the use of guitars and all other musical instruments except the use of the organ in church. I would also ban the singing of modern songs/hymns and focus only on the time-honored traditional hymns that we grew up with (and that many people got tired of--not me). I would ban musical groups from performing in church at Easter and Christmastime. I would ban singing altogether with the exception of church choirs that sing only traditional church music. We did not have musical groups performing prior to Vatican II, so they are not necessary to the celebration of mass. Nor did we have liturgical dances on the altar (as was the case at times when I was a teenager). They are distractions. We have one Latin mass (the high mass) each week on Sundays here in Oslo at my church. If we are going backward in time, then all the masses should be celebrated in Latin as that is the language of the early church. Why focus on changing only one aspect of the mass?
It has become quite silly in my opinion to focus on changing only one thing--how the priest faces during the celebration. I have never focused on the priest except when he faces us to give his sermon, which we could also do without since most of the priests simply regurgitate the gospel that can speak for itself for the most part. We can return to my childhood days when my mother would attend weekday masses that were quiet, short, and without sermons, just the celebration of the mass. And while we're at it, remove most statues and the accompanying small chapels that honor the saints. These can also be distractions.
I realize that I sound quite harsh (some of what I write is of course a bit satirical). But if you are going to choose tradition, then go all the way and return the church to pre-Vatican II times. Streamline every aspect of the mass and boil it down to one predictable format. If that's what the Vatican thinks is going to draw in more of the faithful, then let them try. I'm not sure that the lack of attendance at mass has to do with these things. But I don't know. Perhaps there is a backlash against all things modern. For those of you who think that I am planning to leave the church, I am not. But I am voicing my right to have an opinion.
The mass I normally attend on Sunday mornings, the 9:30 am Norwegian mass in the St. Joseph chapel, has changed its format. By that I mean that the priest, who used to face the congregation when he celebrated mass (versus populem or toward the people), now faced away from the congregation (ad orientem or toward the east). I stayed in my pew for all of ten minutes and then left the church, hoping that the 9:30 am English mass at St. Olav's church across the street would have the usual format with the priest facing us. Luckily that was the case. But this is going to become a dilemma for me if the ad orientem format completely replaces versus populem. The St. Joseph chapel has now physically moved its altar against the back wall so that the priest has to face away from us. This was done deliberately and I have no idea why. I only know that I hate the change. I find it rude, stiff, and unwelcoming. The priests have celebrated masses versus populem for over sixty years, since the Vatican II Council, and I see no reason to change the format now. This means that all masses in the chapel will now have the priest facing away from us, and God only knows how long it will be before the masses in the larger church will remain versus populem. And this is not just Oslo, Norway. It's also the case in many churches in the USA, New York City and Tarrytown among them. I have to ask why. The decision to change the format is up to the local bishops and pastors. This means that the pastor of St. Olav's church decided to change the format without even consulting his congregation, asking us what we think of such a change. The ad orientem format is supposed to align the congregation with the priest so that we all face the same way in the celebration of the liturgy. It is supposed to be more solemn and respectful and less narcissistic. The focus is supposed to be more on solemn worship and less on emotion and feelings. Again, it makes no sense to me.
You may think that I am making a mountain out of a molehill. You are entitled to your opinion. My opinion is that this is another example of 'change for the sake of change'. The actual change has neither been discussed nor explained to the congregation. It's just another example of a religious patriarchy forcing unnecessary changes on the faithful.
So I wrote to the church pastor and told him how I felt. I mentioned that I will no longer consider increasing my financial support of the church, as I had actually thought about doing. That's life, and I owe no explanations to anyone. I mentioned that Christ sat around a table at the Last Supper and broke bread with his disciples. He didn't have his back turned to them. He wasn't rude or unwelcoming. I said that I found it rude that the priest now faced away from us. We could hardly hear what he said as he mumbled to himself. I did not feel more in touch with the celebration of mass; I felt annoyed and disappointed. Irritated at a religious patriarchy that again decides what is best for everyone. They will not drag in more churchgoers this way. I need only think of the Church of St. Vincent de Paul in Albany NY that has its altar at the center of the church and chairs for the congregation clustered in a circle around it. Those masses are packed with people. Those masses are welcoming, inclusive, warm, not stiff. I've written about this church before: A New Yorker in Oslo: The Church of St. Vincent de Paul I wish there were more like them, and I hope that they do not change their format.
The pastor of my church did write back to me, thanking me for my concerns. He hoped that we could one day sit down and discuss our viewpoints. I wrote back and reiterated my concerns and my disappointment, and mentioned that perhaps the church as a whole should consider addressing the pedophile scandals that have plagued the Catholic church for many years. Those are the issues that need addressing and resolving, not worrying about changing the orientation of how the priest says mass. I have not received a reply and I know that I won't. Ad orientem or versus populem is a distraction from the more important issues facing the church. For the first time ever in my life, I wished that I was at a service in a Protestant church, where women can be ministers and where the tone is welcoming and inclusive, the way that Christ would have wanted it, in my opinion. I wonder sometimes if any of the religious clergy actually consider what Christ would have wanted or preferred. They think they know with certainty what Christ wants, because they are ordained as priests. But I don't think they do, in my humble opinion. They're only human, and humans are not infallible.
(For an interesting discussion and debate of these issues, I refer you to this article: Ad Orientem: Thoughts on debating the non-essential | Catholic Culture The author presents the pros and cons in depth. But still, I want the priest to face us when he says mass. It's what I've know for my entire life, and I don't see the point of this change now, especially when there are no good reasons for and explanations of it).
I'm gifting my readers this NY Times article--Trump's Broken Promises, in 11 Charts, written by Steven Rattner. It's absolutely worth reading.
I'm fine with change for the most part, because change is a part of life, and our lives will continue to evolve and change even if we are resistant to the changes. Alan Deutschman summed up my attitude toward change generally when he wrote 'change or die'. But I'm not fine with unnecessary or frivolous change, or both. A number of so-called leaders need to leave their mark on things, so they 'make changes' to existing systems and structures that seem to be functioning perfectly well. Necessary? No, for the most part. Frivolous? Yes, if you're spending taxpayer dollars on vanity projects that reflect your narcissism. I'm a 'don't fix it if it ain't broke' kind of person. I'm also against 'change for change's sake'. There's too much of both in politics, in religion, and in the workplace. Here are some quotes about change, reflecting the pros and the cons:
Do not ever take down a fence until you know the reason why it was put up. –GK Chesterton
Change the changeable, accept the unchangeable, and remove yourself from the unacceptable. --Denis Waitley
Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes. --Hugh Prather
The main dangers in this life are the people who want to change everything... or nothing. --Nancy Astor
All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward. --Ellen Glasgow
Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are. --Bertolt Brecht
Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts. --Arnold Bennett
Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are. --Soren Kierkegaard
If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living. --Gail Sheehy
The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life. --Leo Tolstoy
I'm always willing to accept change, just as long as it isn't change for the sake of change. If that change will result in a better way of doing things, then I'm all for it. –James Van Fleet
Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. –Maya Angelou
I can wholeheartedly recommend this movie from 2024 for families and for people looking for a film that taps into the area of their hearts that becomes inextricably bound to animals. Or birds in this case. The film is based on the true story of a Brazilian fisherman, João (played by Jean Reno), who rescues a penguin that has swum into an oil spill. Penguins cannot fly, but they use their wings, which have become flippers, for swimming and for balancing when they are on land. The oil coated the penguin's flippers and body and has made it nearly impossible for him to swim. João cleans him off and feeds him, and the penguin (named Dindim by Lucia, the daughter of Calista, the friend of João's son who drowned when he was a boy) becomes attached to João, and eventually to his wife Maria (played by Adriana Barraza). He stays with them until February, when he migrates from their Brazilian island Ilha Grande to Patagonia, Argentina, his natural breeding ground, a journey of five thousand miles. He then migrates back to Ilha Grande again in June, staying with João and Maria until he leaves again in February. He does this for eight consecutive years. In Patagonia, he and his fellow penguins are studied by a research team that quickly realizes that Dindim is an unusual penguin, one who is friendly to humans. They tag him in order to track his movements. As fate would have it, Dindim becomes a local celebrity back on Ilha Grande, and a video taken of him goes viral. The researchers eventually discover this, and send a journalist and his team to the island to interview João and Maria and to meet Dindim. I won't give away the entire story, but it ends on a realistic but happy note.
It was a pleasure to experience a movie that taps into your emotions in a very real way. João, Maria, and the townspeople are kind souls who are quick to help when help is needed. You end up rooting for Dindim and João, and you realize that not only has João rescued Dindim, but Dindim has helped to heal João. The movie never feels forced or unnatural. Dindim comes and goes as he pleases (realistic), and João describes himself as Dindim's friend. It's a lovely friendship, one that will capture your heart. Kudos to the director David Schurmann and the writers Kristen Lazarian and Paulina Lagudi Ulrich who have done an excellent job of telling a captivating real-life story of a penguin and his fisherman friend.
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| small half-timbered house |
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| large half-timbered house |
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| gorgeous hydrangeas |
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| beautiful garden |
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| Fregatten Jylland |
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| take a short tour with the little train |
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| typical storefront |
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| an old-style pub |
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| Italian restaurant |
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| looking out over the water |
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| view of courtyard from street |
Display in front of DeCicco and Sons in Tarrytown NY Tarrytown lighthouse harbor in Kingston NY Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge Esopus Meadows ...
