can I help?

[experimental clearing house: if you take up a help task from this list, or have another suggestion, please enter it as a comment, bottom this page]

If you would like to volunteer to help out in some capacity, enter a comment (bottom of this page) or send an email to edwardaspiegel@gmail.com telling us how you could help, and we will try to coordinate. Or get in touch with one of the people "on the ground.".

1. Oct 15, 2010: Ed has not been able to copy the key to his apartment: Wilson 18 pins. Find out who copies these, get copies made.
2. Oct 18, 2010: Amazon-type CARE package for Ed: ask Predrag (hint: Kalvin Klein size 40).
3. Dec  2, 2010. Barbara is in

   Short-Stay Rehabilitation Program
   Village Nursing Home
   607 Hudson St
   New York, NY 10014  [map]

   If you would like to sit 3-4 hours by her side, let Mimi drmimicohen@yahoo.com, home 646-649-2162, cell 646-673-2656 know what days and times might work for you.
4. Ed has two phones at home; one rings too softly for him to hear, and the other rings loudly but the earphone buzzes. Technophiles, figure it out? Bring him a phone that rings but does not buzz?
5. CARE packages. Paula and Charlie phdoering@ameritech.net write: Since we are in Michigan one way we've been trying to help is by sending some boxes of food - Michigan cherry products and baked goods from Zingerman's here in Ann Arbor. Ed seems very happy with these small gestures and it makes us feel like we are sending some love to them at this tough time. Annalisa too has prepared some home-cooked delicacies.
6. Send DVD(s) to Barbara & Ed. Ed says nothing too serious for now. Ed currently has seen, or has scheduled on Netflicks: Top Hat, The Gay Divorcee, Singin' in the Rain, Casablanca, Arsenic and Old Lace, Big Deal on Madonna Street, Shall We Dance. Milena Cuellar milenacuellar@gmail.com is the acting Ed's Guardian Angel of Netflix.

Please give us your input, in the comment box below this post. Ed has not figured out how to read the blog, so here our communications are `internal.'

You can contribute a post to the blog by typing it as an ordinary email to edwardaspiegel.barbara@blogger.com.

[PS. Why this "Help Exchange?" Here are two anecdotes. (1) Two friends decided the Ed needs a cell phone. They did the market research, chose what he needed, and gave him one set of precise instructions who to call and what to order. 3 days later he had the cell phone. (2) Eight men decided that Barbara needs a TV set. Each told Ed in no uncertain terms what to buy and how to buy it, eight different sets of instructions. Two weeks later, in utter despair Ed went to buy a TV by himself and was sold a white elephant (that nobody recommended) by a Barbadian salesman.]