FUNDRAISING TIME (NO, NOT FOR ME)

...it's for the Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla. My colleagues from WHUD are down there today and tomorrow for the annual radiothon benefitting the hospital.


Noodle did have a brush with a tough situation a few years back, with a condition that presents almost exactly like leukemia - which wasn't (can we get an "amen"?), but which was still plenty nasty and required more long hospital trips, tubes and needle-pokes than any little one should have to handle. She was dealt a lousy hand, but by no means the worst. So far there's been no need for her for a facility as advanced as MFCH, but one scary experience is more than enough to get this particular dad the rest of his life worrying about the what-ifs. There are far more harrowing stories involving kids from all over the Hudson Valley - thankfully, a great many of them have ended happily, and you've been hearing some of them on WHUD.


Having that hospital there in Westchester means sick kids in the Hudson Valley and their families don't have to add to their worries trying to negotiate New York City. MFCH doesn't even look much like a hospital...



Which is a highly reassuring first impression, both for parents and kids.


At any rate, the station is down there until Friday afternoon, the number to call to pledge is 1-888-499-KIDS, and here's the link to donate.

I'VE GOT A THOUGHT...FORMING IN MY BRAIN

Thanks for the help on the WHUD podcasts...got a couple ideas brewing that I'm going to run by the powers that be for their thoughts. We should be hearing something shortly!

GENIUS WANTED

Been racking my brain on what kind of parenting topics would work in a potential WHUD podcast. Your ideas, as always, are welcome!

SHOULDA KNOWN

We get completely prepped for the mother of all ice storms and a six-day power outage...and no outage. Not so much as a flicker.

But the day's young and it's still schmutzy outside, and no telling what'll happen this evening.

(plug) Unless you've got WHUD on, of course. Live and local, baby. (/plug)

One parting word of advice: don't go letting your elderly or heart-conditional neighbors and relations try shoveling this stuff. It's crusty, unpleasant and heavy. Get the neighborhood teenagers off their butts and let them earn a buck or twenty, while you play with the Wii for a change.

OH, THAT?

My full-scale debut went well on WHUD and WBPM, or so I am told.

Imagine how it'll be when I hold the copy right side up.

RECALIBRATING THE CLOCK

At this time tomorrow morning, I'll be at work. Not on the air just yet, but getting the hang of things over at the new place. My first official on-air day is December 8

Which means I will have been up for around two hours already. So if any of the next day's posts are a bit off coherence-wise, I hope you'll understand that sometimes glarble forf penguin kershlump.

Hooray for once again being gainfully employed, but a month of putting Noodle on the bus while me and Beast waved her goodbye was tremendous wonderfulness, and now Beast knows a panoply of rock-star moves thanks to being home with me and accidentally switching on VH1 Classic while a Who concert was playing. My son is to pancake syrup and ketchup what Keith Moon was to alcohol, but aside from that his tastes are running more toward the keyboard-player end of things. Which is a relief, because when he gets to be my age and older I'm thinking you want to be living more like Tony Banks and less like dear Keith, who never did get to be my age.

And it looks like Beast wants to be back hanging with his pals at nursery school anyway. Dude's got a girlfriend. I can tell she's his girlfriend because a couple weeks ago when I took him to a special music day back at the nursery school, he glared at me when I called him Sweetness as I am wont to do on occasion because...

...if you're going to use a sports figure for a nickname you could do a whole lot worse, but Beast has yet to discover the glories of the NFL.

It's a shame John Facenda never did lullabies.