What can we help you find?

By Jerry ZezimaWhen you’re scheduled to have heart surgery, nothing tests your heart more than pre-surgical testing.I have had more tests than I ever had in school. Fortunately, I have passed …

By Jerry ZezimaWh…

By Jerry ZezimaWhen you’re scheduled to have heart surgery, nothing tests your heart more than pre-surgical testing.I have had more tests than I ever had in school. Fortunately, I have passed them all, which is more than I can say for the tests I took during my ignominious academic career, when I regularly made the dishonor roll.My worst subject was math, followed closely by all the others, so I may not be exactly correct in stating that I have had 27 pre-surgical tests.“How come I have to take all these tests?” I asked Paige, a nice staffer in the office of my cardiac surgeo…

By Jerry ZezimaIf you need open-heart surgery, as I do, the best person to perform it is a plumber.Who also happens to be a cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon.In my case, that would be Dr. John…

By Jerry ZezimaIf …

By Jerry ZezimaIf you need open-heart surgery, as I do, the best person to perform it is a plumber.Who also happens to be a cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon.In my case, that would be Dr. John Goncalves, whose impressive credentials qualify him to operate at Home Depot.“I’m a plumber,” the good doctor told me in a meeting to discuss my upcoming surgery. “And I’m going to fix your plumbing. But I’ll do it in a hospital.”“I suppose a hardware store would be too crowded,” I said.“This isn’t a minor procedure,” Dr. Goncalves informed me.“Are you going to u…

By Jerry ZezimaAs much as I appreciate receiving a daily barrage of email pitches for fat removers, teeth aligners, night vision binoculars and other amazing products I can’t possibly live withou…

By Jerry ZezimaAs…

By Jerry ZezimaAs much as I appreciate receiving a daily barrage of email pitches for fat removers, teeth aligners, night vision binoculars and other amazing products I can’t possibly live without, I subscribe to the theory that I can’t unsubscribe from stuff to which I never subscribed.That’s the quandary I can’t seem to get out of even with a 20-volt cordless drill, which I don’t want because I might hurt myself so badly that I can’t use the computer to unsubscribe from these relentlessly irritating offers.It’s enough to make me buy a bottle of vegan gummies, which I w…

By Jerry ZezimaEver since my wife, Sue, has been out of commission with an injured hand, which required surgery and has prevented her from performing important tasks like keeping me alive, I have h…

By Jerry ZezimaEv…

By Jerry ZezimaEver since my wife, Sue, has been out of commission with an injured hand, which required surgery and has prevented her from performing important tasks like keeping me alive, I have had a whole laundry list of things to do.At the top is — how did you ever guess? — laundry.For the past 46 years, I have been a basket case when it comes to dirty clothes. But you know the old saying: Everything comes out in the wash.That’s why I have been washing, drying and folding shirts, pants, shorts, socks, towels, washcloths, bedsheets, pillowcases and, of course, underwear, w…

By Jerry ZezimaIf it weren’t for my wife, I would have starved to death long ago. If it weren’t for me, we both would have starved — or we would have had to eat out every night for a while �…

By Jerry ZezimaIf…

By Jerry ZezimaIf it weren’t for my wife, I would have starved to death long ago. If it weren’t for me, we both would have starved — or we would have had to eat out every night for a while — because Sue recently had surgery on her right hand and couldn’t cook.That left me to be her right-hand man and make dinner without having to call either the fire department or an ambulance.I became a kitchen magician after Sue tore ligaments in her thumb, which resulted in an operation that left her in a cast.I may not be the chief cook in our house (I am the chief bottle washer and h…

By Jerry ZezimaAn apple a day may keep the doctor away, but it won’t keep me away from the doctor.That’s because I have reached an age — the big 7-Oh — where medical appointments have be…

By Jerry ZezimaAn…

By Jerry ZezimaAn apple a day may keep the doctor away, but it won’t keep me away from the doctor.That’s because I have reached an age — the big 7-Oh — where medical appointments have become a major part of my life.I have been making so many trips to see one doctor or another that I should win an award from the American Medical Association and get free health care until I am dead, which at this rate will happen either next month, because the frenetic pace will kill me, or when I am as old as my mother, Rosina, who is almost 100 and sees fewer doctors than I do.“I guess th…

By Jerry ZezimaHow many newspaper columnists does it take to change a lightbulb? If the columnist is yours truly, the answer is zero.That’s why, after proving to be too dim to perform this sim…

By Jerry ZezimaHo…

By Jerry ZezimaHow many newspaper columnists does it take to change a lightbulb? If the columnist is yours truly, the answer is zero.That’s why, after proving to be too dim to perform this simple task, I gave up and called Kevin the Electrician.Kevin had been over recently to help install our new central air-conditioning system.“It’s 130 degrees in your attic,” he said after working up there to put in a fan needed to cool down the AC so it could work without overheating.“You worked without overheating,” I told Kevin, who had to go through the roof — literally — t…

By Jerry ZezimaMy 7-year-old grandson wants to be a paleontologist when he grows up. I, his 70-year-old grandfather, have given him a head start because, let’s face it, I’m a fossil.And I kn…

By Jerry ZezimaMy…

By Jerry ZezimaMy 7-year-old grandson wants to be a paleontologist when he grows up. I, his 70-year-old grandfather, have given him a head start because, let’s face it, I’m a fossil.And I know a lot about prehistoric life. That’s why I should be a tour guide at my grandson’s favorite place, the Museum of Natural History, which he likes to call the Dinosaur Museum.We went there recently because my grandson had made a startling discovery — what appeared to be a fossilized crab, which he found in a field at his school.“It looks like a trilobite,” I said.I knew this be…

By Jerry ZezimaA great many people have told me where to go, but I’m not inclined to listen because it’s hot enough here.Still, the question of where my wife, Sue, and I would go if we sold …

By Jerry ZezimaA …

By Jerry ZezimaA great many people have told me where to go, but I’m not inclined to listen because it’s hot enough here.Still, the question of where my wife, Sue, and I would go if we sold our house keeps coming up because a great many people have said they want to buy it.Over the past few weeks, we have received postcards, texts, emails and phone calls from Real Estate brokers who covet our home, sweet home.Not only that, but they want to pay cash, with no fees, commissions or closing costs, and we wouldn’t have to make repairs or do anything that would entail any kind of p…

By Jerry ZezimaI don’t want to give lip service to elections, one of which is coming up in the fall, but I recently won a contest by a vote so overwhelming that it amounted to much more than a wh…

By Jerry ZezimaI …

By Jerry ZezimaI don’t want to give lip service to elections, one of which is coming up in the fall, but I recently won a contest by a vote so overwhelming that it amounted to much more than a whisker.That’s why, thanks to the support of my grandchildren, who are not too young to have cast ballots, I am keeping my mustache.The issue came up when my wife, Sue, the very person who encouraged me to grow a mustache, said that after four and a half decades, I should think about shaving it off.“It might make you look younger,” she said.“I already look young because I’m imm…

By Jerry ZezimaThis pudgy piggy went to the shoe store.This pudgy piggy did, too.This pudgy piggy wanted flip-flops.This pudgy piggy bought two.This pudgy piggy cried OMG, all the way h…

By Jerry ZezimaTh…

By Jerry ZezimaThis pudgy piggy went to the shoe store.This pudgy piggy did, too.This pudgy piggy wanted flip-flops.This pudgy piggy bought two.This pudgy piggy cried OMG, all the way home!And that, boys and girls, is the story of my recent footwear adventure.It all began when my wife, Sue, said it was time for me to get a new pair of flip-flops because the ones I had been wearing for approximately the past decade were beginning to disintegrate.I flip-flopped in rubbery comfort at the beach, the pool and around the house. I even ran errands and threw out the garbage in …

By Jerry ZezimaWhen it comes to Stress, I put others to the test. That’s why my cardiologist ordered a stress test for me.“Now that you’re 70, you should have one,” he said. “Have you …

By Jerry ZezimaWh…

By Jerry ZezimaWhen it comes to stress, I put others to the test. That’s why my cardiologist ordered a stress test for me.“Now that you’re 70, you should have one,” he said. “Have you ever had a stress test?”“I can’t remember,” I answered.“Why?” the doctor asked.“Because,” I said, “I’m 70.”So I made an appointment for what I feared would be a cardiac calamity.On the appointed date, I was taken to a room with a treadmill, a computer, all kinds of medical equipment and two very nice nurses, Ivy Brandafino and Angela Townson, who would administ…

By Jerry ZezimaI like to think I’m hot. I like to think I’m cool, too. In reality, I am neither — unless I have to stick a big, heavy air conditioner in the bedroom window and another in the …

By Jerry ZezimaI …

By Jerry ZezimaI like to think I’m hot. I like to think I’m cool, too. In reality, I am neither — unless I have to stick a big, heavy air conditioner in the bedroom window and another in the office window, in which case, if I even survive, I am both.For the past 26 years, which is how long my wife, Sue, and I have lived in our house, we have vowed to get central air conditioning.And every year, when the place starts to feel like a sauna and I feel like sitting around in a towel, which really gets Sue steamed, I have had to lug not one but two bulky air conditioners upstairs and …

By Jerry ZezimaSince my cardiologist put me on a Mediterranean Diet, I have been looking forward to a daily meal of spaghetti and meatballs or a few slices of pepperoni pizza.Instead, I get the …

By Jerry ZezimaSi…

By Jerry ZezimaSince my cardiologist put me on a Mediterranean diet, I have been looking forward to a daily meal of spaghetti and meatballs or a few slices of pepperoni pizza.Instead, I get the uneasy feeling I will be eating prodigious quantities of another Italian-sounding food: zucchini.To put it mildly, I am not a fan of zucchini. Or squash of any kind. Nor, for that matter, do I like most vegetables.“They’re good for you,” said Dr. Rohit Maini. “And they are an important part of a Mediterranean diet.”“I can’t afford to go to Italy every day,” I told him.�…

By Jerry ZezimaWhen it comes to croquet, a leisurely game that sounds like it involves chickens, I cannot mend my wicket ways.That’s because I am not very good at it.Proof came when my wife…

By Jerry ZezimaWh…

By Jerry ZezimaWhen it comes to croquet, a leisurely game that sounds like it involves chickens, I cannot mend my wicket ways.That’s because I am not very good at it.Proof came when my wife, Sue, who makes delicious chicken croquettes and recently bought a croquet set, soundly defeated me in a backyard blitz.Our 7-year-old granddaughter also put me to shame before she got bored with the inferior competition and went off to blow bubbles.Sue, a fan of the TV series “Bridgerton,” in which rich, snooty characters in 19th-century England play a croquet-like game called pall-mal…

By Jerry ZezimaAs a geezer who can barely make it up the dozen steps in my house without getting winded, I never thought I would make it up and down 2,500 steps at a baseball stadium without keelin…

By Jerry ZezimaAs…

By Jerry ZezimaAs a geezer who can barely make it up the dozen steps in my house without getting winded, I never thought I would make it up and down 2,500 steps at a baseball stadium without keeling over, being carted off the field and finishing the season on the disabled list.But I somehow survived the big climb — and got a medal for my efforts — as the oldest guy to complete the Big Climb, a fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the world’s largest nonprofit funding organization for blood Cancer research.The event, which featured about 1,100 participants, was held …

By Jerry ZezimaI do windows. They’re a pain in the neck, especially if I stick my neck out the window to clean a pane, but spring has sprung and, even though I am no spring chicken, I have to spr…

By Jerry ZezimaI …

By Jerry ZezimaI do windows. They’re a pain in the neck, especially if I stick my neck out the window to clean a pane, but spring has sprung and, even though I am no spring chicken, I have to spring into action to do the spring cleaning that gives me a window into my life as a suburban homeowner.I am supposed to do the windows every spring, but if memory serves (I would like it to serve me a beer, which is what I need after doing the windows), I forgot to do them last year.So my wife, Sue, wants me to do them now.The problem with cleaning windows, which I can clearly see even if …

By Jerry ZezimaIn case I am run out of the country, which is probably inevitable but would give me a great reason to have my own Travel show, I just renewed my passport.“Now I can visit my mot…

By Jerry ZezimaIn…

By Jerry ZezimaIn case I am run out of the country, which is probably inevitable but would give me a great reason to have my own travel show, I just renewed my passport.“Now I can visit my mother,” I told Jenn, a very nice postal employee who helped me and my wife, Sue, with our renewals at a post office branch on Long Island, New York.“Where does your mother live?” asked Jenn.“In Connecticut,” I replied.“You don’t need a passport for that,” she said. “At least, not yet.”“I can’t afford to go anywhere else,” I said. “But if I had a TV series, I w…