the rix mix

Gave a buck & fist tap to the big guy on the front stoop, pronounced him my bodyguard. He's more likely to put it toward some 7-11 chicken wings than a beer. He also lives across the hall & one night knocked on the door because I'd left my keys outside in the lock.
***
 Pre-pubescent daughter in B&H store commercial tells her wuss dad she has 700 FB friends, demands new computer, & calls him "so 20th Century."

The proper parental response is to say, "Technologically-speaking, I'm sending you back to the 19th Century."
***
My a/c is trying. But I don't have a machine I expect to cope all that well with day after day of high 90s & not dropping below a humid 80 at night & never a gusty thunderstorm.
***
Teed off on my Methodist pastor brother on FB today for posting a "Put back prayer in the schools. Share this if you agree" graphic.  I commented, "Sure, but them all pray; Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans. Let the atheists read something, too."   But even that isn't what I mean. Anyone can pray anytime, anywhere. There was always something wrong about compulsory Bible reading & the recitation of the Lord's Prayer to open a public school day.

Labels: Elizabeth NJ, potpourri, religion, weather

Low sixties here today, forties through weekend. Every day like this is one day closer to spring, & one more day without snow or icy slop. But Jersey is a humid coastal state, & winter is when we have our clean, clear dry cold air, good for people with allergies - just about everyone is allergic to one thing or another.  A deep freeze is  necessary for a really colorful early springtime when the crocuses, tulips, forsythia & dogwoods all bloom.  So it's a trade off. I don't think many people really mind cold, sunny days. Just layer up.
***
 Surrendering to uncontrollable lawlessness, Newark NJ city council passed a discriminatory & possibly unconstitutional law: 

Ordinance limiting hours of late night Newark eateries passes unanimously

Many of the city’s eateries won’t be hiring armed guards late at night because many will not be open.


From Lyons Avenue to Broadway, restaurants in high-crime areas must now close their doors at 10 p.m. on weekdays and 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

If you own an eatery in a designated high crime area, you are  treated like the cause of crime rather than as  a victim of the city's inability to protect your business, for which you pay taxes. That's prejudice.  The police chief inaccurately stated that suburban businesses aren't open late. First, & most obviously,  a city isn't suburbia. Good American cities stay open late. In New York City nightlife doesn't even get rolling until midnight. But suburbia in Jersey has 24/7 diners, Dunkin' Donuts, McDonald's, convenience stores & supermarkets. Many fast food places close for only two or three hours for the cleaning crew & breakfast menu  turnaround.
***
Pathetic dust up between an Oxford Professor of Poetry & the British poet laureate over the latter's suggestion that texting has "tremendous potential" for poetry.


Carol Ann Duffy is 'wrong' about poetry, says Geoffrey Hill
Oxford professor of poetry attacks Duffy's praise of text language
I don't know if it does or doesn't. You let poetry happens wherever it happens. But I do know that hardly anyone outside of the realm of poetry knows Hill or Duffy much less cares what they say. I began writing poems when poets still had some cultural credibility beyond poets, & it was common to find a few books from New Directions, Pocket Poets & Black Sparrow on bookshelves of people who'd attended college.

Although the terrain of poetry has expanded & more young people are participating in it, they - the poets - are still constrained by boundaries, as if a poet involved in  something other than poetry is no longer acting as a poet.

Labels: about writing, in the news, New Jersey, potpourri, weather

The Star-Ledger on Monday & Tuesday were so thin I wondered who would pay a buck for it.

Dailies have been in decline for 70 years, maybe more. The decline steepened with the advent of cable news, but they were doomed when the internet ruined the classified ad business. You wanted to buy a used anything, look for a job, rent an apartment, find a soulmate, you bought a newspaper. People read classifieds as entertainment. The pages adjacent to the classifieds were filled with large ads from car dealers & realtors. The "news" wasn't what sold newspapers. It was classifieds; also comics, Dear Abby, daily horoscope, the crossword, the word puzzle. When Calvin & Hobbes & Far Side ended, I didn't have much reason to buy the Star-Ledger at all.
***

My step-sister's son - that makes him my step-nephew - sent me a friend request on Facebook.  I don't know why, curiosity maybe. I accepted. I liked my two step-siblings' kids when their kids  were kids & I saw them two or three times-a-year. They were energetic, noisy, cheeky without being disrespectful. Years after my dad passed & I'd lost touch I ran into several of them,  high school kids on the Point Pleasant Beach boardwalk one August night. They all resided down that way. They recognized me first. I was pleased they were hanging out on the boardwalk.  My step-sister was an amusing, smart woman, probably still is.  But she's turned - not unexpectedly - into a raving Tea Partier.   That's where Republicans go now & it's sad. Can't even talk to them anymore.

Labels: potpourri

Raining almost continuously for 32 hours, finally ending. The snow (we had a lot of it) is nearly all gone. The old sidewalks around here become pans filled with cold water, stepping around them on the grass is no better. Three Christmas cards arrived. A lot of folks have said or written this year that the holiday either sneaked up on them or they had difficulty finding the spirit. I was preoccupied & distracted & didn't get out any snail mail cards, but the card exchange at Street Prophets I participated in the past two years & enjoyed wasn't organized at all this year. It's one of those projects that takes a committed card lover to pull together & you can't blame the volunteer who decides she's made enough lists for other people & it's someone else's turn.
***
You'll rarely hear me praise Dean Martin albums but I have to admit his 1959 "holiday" collection, "A Winter Romance," is swell. Dean's smooth, detached style suits the material. There's only three Christmas songs on it if we don't count "Winter Wonderland" & "Let It Snow," & the inclusion of songs like "The Things We Did Last Summer" & "Out In the Cold Again" is inspired - most likely the inspiration of arranger Gus Levene & producer Lee Gillette at Capitol rather than Dean, who sang whatever he was handed & treated everything the same. In '59 his propensity for openly mocking his material hadn't taken over; from the Sixties on he could hardly sing a really good song all the way through on stage without pissing on it, & by that time nobody was forcing him to sing bad ones. Did he even sing "That's Amore" anymore? I bet there were Rat Pack performances in Vegas when Dean heckled Frank once too often during a reverential moment & Frank felt like kicking him in the ass. But Dean, who knew how it felt to get punched in the face repeatedly, was immune to ass kicking & everyone knew it.

Labels: holidays, music, potpourri, weather

Have to be suspicious of any religious group that follows an ancient scripture, embraces the newest technology, & has designated the fedora as G-d's preferred hat style but they never look cool wearing them.
***
Note to guy accused of participating in the beating death of a Peruvian immigrant in Plainfield NJ: The ability to state in court, "I didn’t fully comprehend what they meant by ‘you have the right to remain silent,’" sort of argues against an inability to comprehend. & tell your own mom that she won't convince us you're a "good kid" by rolling out your baby mama's one year old child. If your defense lawyer hasn't already told her.
***
Note to myself regarding a CD reissue on my 2009 Favs list: A great vinyl record album cannot be replicated on a CD reissue. Digital remastering may improve the sound, & the music is still great, but the original full-size cover, liner notes, production, year of release, & concept are also components of what made the album a great package.

Labels: music, potpourri, religion

spanning generations of appreciative fans.

Chris Connor, the great jazz singer whose lush, foggy voice and compressed emotional intensity distilled a 1950s jazz reverie of faraway longing in a sad cafe, died on Saturday in Toms River, N.J. She was 81 and lived in Toms River.

A singer who used little vibrato and was admired for her inventive rhythmic alterations of ballads, Ms. Connor belonged to the cool school of jazz singers that included Anita O’Day, June Christy, Chet Baker and Julie London.
***

Our new mailboxes installed outside by sidewalk.

Me: How long before the gangbangers spray it?
Louie (handing me key): I'm the gangbanger. Have these in my other buildings, no problem. It's federal property.

Not that the laws stopped them from painting the blue ones on the corners. Louie's plenty tough but he's no gangbanger. At least the box is larger, no scrunching larger envelopes & I can have books & CDs delivered here instead up the street at Gina's. No names or apt numbers on the boxes. I'd prefer them on the walkway to the front entry, away from the sidewalk.
***
Today is the 70th Anniversary of the start of World War Two. Germany invaded Poland from three sides, claiming it was a "defensive action" against Polish aggression. Two weeks later the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the East, the infamous "stab in the back," & Poland ceased to exist as a nation.

Labels: obituary, potpourri

Apparently, Russian immigrants have completely taken over American competitive professional show dancing. I don't get the connection. Was this a popular thing in Russia? I was watching a PBS show of the Latin dance competition. During a break in the contest, there was an exhibition by the Junior Division champions. The girl dancer was announced as 13 years old, looked a leggy 21, & she & her 15 year old partner clearly engaged in an artistic simulation of the sex act, from passionate foreplay to intercourse. She actually lay down on the floor for the latter, with the guy on top. They were Russians, too. The audience loved it.
***
Why would anyone now believe Sara Palin has the character & emotional stability to handle the Office of President of the United States? It's mind-boggling. She's unaware that we can actually compare her with other powerful, successful women. It doesn't freak me out that Nancy Pelosi & Hillary Clinton are respectively second & fourth in the line of presidential succession. Hillary has everything one needs to be president, I would've easily voted for her over John McCain, & it wouldn't have mattered to me if Obama had picked her for VP, had he figured it was the only way he could win.

For all the nasty stuff I've written about George W. Bush, I never called him, or perceived him as, a quitter. That he was made by Karl Rove & placed so much value on Dick Cheney tells us his presidency couldn't have been any better. But the man absorbed all the punishment accompanying the job. It didn't drive him back to drinking, although he could act like a dry drunk. The Presidency would hammer Palin into pieces.
***,
Pathmark was madness. The supermarket has a mix 'n' match 10 for $7.70 sale to get the .77 individual price, & a lot of other stuff on sale at higher prices ending in 7. It probably works out alright elsewhere, but in my Pathmark it's too much to expect customers to read simple instructions, understand the concept of mix 'n' match, & count to ten. I was only there for bananas, green peppers, & coffee.
***

Labels: Grandma Palin, potpourri, shopping

"Pastor Dan" Schultz & "Mrs. Pastor" are two really lovely people I met & know only online. Today, after a two-year process, they signed the final adoption papers for two children, a sister & brother they brought out of the Wisconsin foster-care system. Although they shared the experience at Street Prophets, they set some limits, one of which was that they hadn't posted full photos of the kids until today, when they debuted as an "official family." The kids are now ages 12 & 6. Here's their Meet the Family photo & diary. Wunnerful. This is a dream come true for the Schultz's, they're very happy. They both have extended families in the State. Their two children, now son & daughter legally as well as of the heart, will receive all the love & nurturing they need & then some. The kids have gradually realized that love in this particular home will abide forever. I can see that from thousand miles away.
***
Martha Mason lived 61 years in an iron lung, was by all accounts an extraordinary, delightful person. Graduated Wake Forest, wrote a book, had hundreds if not thousands of friends. Constantly entertained visitors at her home in western North Carolina. She died peacefully at home, age 71. There's someone makes you hope for heaven, winged angels & all.
***
Blogged.com rates me 6.6 in the "recreation" category & expects me to celebrate by placing a linked graphic in my blog? I didn't ask them to score me.

Labels: potpourri

Swine Flu is the news today. According to the Center for Disease Control, it isn't all that different any other virulent form of flu. We catch it from other humans the same way. We try to avoid it the same way. We treat it the same way. It's especially dangerous for the same categories of humans; young, elderly, & others with weak or undeveloped immune systems. The panic seems to be fixated on the word Swine rather than on Flu, like if we catch it we grow hooves & oink, & the fact that current vaccines probably don't immunize against it, . But reasonably healthy people get it like any other flu, become sick, & recover. It isn't transmitted by eating pork. If you eat undercooked pork, you should stop anyway, it can make you very ill.

Pandemics are disruptive as well as deadly. Hospital emergency rooms overflow (which spreads the disease); schools close; day care centers, senior housing & nursing homes are at great risk; workplace absenteeism rises; & everyone tries to avoid crowds. Although the mortality rate in America would be low, the deaths & costs add up. & poor countries would be devastated.
***
newjerseynewsroom.com
News website founded by Star-Ledger writers who took the buy-out last December. Lean & easy to navigate. Like it or not, this is one form of news journalism in the post-print world. Although local weeklies & smaller market dailies may hang on (with websites), the era of the huge, big city newsroom is coming to a close. I don't know what these writers will do when their buy-out money runs out. The Star-Ledger was visibly weakened when they left.
***
N.J. Supreme Court will not hear appeal of beach-access ruling

On principle, I'm not crazy about this ruling against the NJ Dept. of Environmental Protection, which sought more public parking & rest rooms in tony Avalon NJ. But it would have cost Avalon millions, & it would have constituted a heavy, unfunded local mandate. Some other shore towns are far more exclusive, & they all owe us for beach replenishment. Even where there is reasonable access, I've noticed that Jerseyans are not packing the beaches in shore towns with no convenient snack bars & amusements. Beaches in those places are sparsely used on weekdays, & there's plenty of space for a blanket on weekends. Boardwalk towns attract the big crowds, for good reason. But avoid Sandy Hook during the summer. Besides being crowded, noisy, & dirty, I've seen people brazenly digging up plants & shellfish beds, not a Park Ranger in sight to stop them.

Labels: in the news, potpourri

Each Palm Sunday the youth choir was invited to join with the adult choir to belt out "The Palms" by Jean-Baptiste Faure:

O'er all the way, green palms and blossoms gay
Are strewn this day in festal preparation,
Where Jesus comes to wipe our tears away,
E'en now the throng to welcome Him prepare

***
Dunkin' Donuts 99 cent latte sale convinced me the same beverage is NOT worth $2.39.

After I go through the checkout line at ShopRite, I have to take all the items out of the yellow plastic bags - always double-bagged, place the food in my backpack, then hang the plastic bags back on the bag rack. Too much trouble to ask the cashier to bag em any other way.

Encounter with short Hispanic man who spoke not a word of English. He had a cellphone. First, he seemed to want to know where he was. El-Mora? Yes, Elmora. Then he wanted to know something about cafe Americano. I couldn't tell if he meant Dunkin' Donuts or some other place with that name. Then he asked about Elizabeth Ave. From where we were, it was a long way off. I could only give him general directions & try to describe the county courthouse, a landmark impossible to miss. We were both amused by our attempts to communicate, & I'm sure he was glad I didn't just brush him off a street after dark. But if he had talked to just about anyone but me, walked back a block to the Exxon station, odds are at least 50/50 that person would speak Spanish. What the odds on him being here legally? 1000 to 1?

Applause for South Florida winning the WNIT, & Louisville's furious 2nd half comeback to beat Oklahoma in WNCAA semifinal. For all the attention given the men's Big East this year, I thought the women's side of the conference was also the first or second strongest in the country, just that there was such a large gap between UConn & rest of the teams. Big 12 was overrated. Now Louisville plays UConn. Okie All-American Courtney Paris promised to play back her scholarship if the Sooners didn't win the championship. Bad precedent, but she can afford it when she signs her WNBA & endorsement deals.

Labels: Elizabeth NJ, potpourri, shopping, sports

The receptionist, fiftyish & attractive, was showing a lot of cleavage. Maybe a little too much for the location. I really tried conversing entirely with her face. The thought kept intruding, You're looking at them again. Not looking at them required as much concentration as the conversation. I could look at them & pay attention to what she was saying. She had a nice face. I appreciated all of her that I could see.

But at the same time, in a gray, icy winter, I felt justified in enjoying the sight of an attractive, middle-aged woman. & since I'd met her a number of times, I knew that she always dressed with style, on other occasions she was wearing a colorful scarf. Some receptionists try to be blandly uninteresting, some do not. She's also friendly & talkative. I learned that she was about to start an evening school course & would take a bus there.
***
I'll tune in for Springsteen's halftime show & maybe stick around if the game is close. After the Janet Jackson incident the NFL has gone with graybeards. I don't think anything can top the 2001 "Walk This Way" with Aerosmith, Britney, N'Sync. Nelly, mary J. That circus had something for everybody.
***
Last night, Dave Letterman showed the infamous censored Bill Hicks routine from Oct 1993 that was cut out of the program. Only the first part, the "Let's find Billy Ray Cyrus & kill him Show," was pure Hicks, (one could also imagine Sam Kinnison doing it). Were reality shows around then? It was too late to prevent Miley, she was a year old. It was an edgy routine for a mainstream late night talk show of that day or this. Dave says he wasn't aware of Hicks' terminal cancer. Hicks died four months later. Hicks had appeared 11 times on Letterman's earlier NBC show with expurgated material. Hicks' elderly mom was the guest for the segment, nervous, but warmed up & got in a few dry zingers.
***
The California octuplets: An ethical problem for the doctors, but questionable morality for the woman, who already had six children. The fertility industry - that's what it is - is immensely profitable. These are probably not doctors just returned from Rwanda. Desperate people come to them; people with no children who dream of having one baby. This Californian woman needed to be investigated by the Div. of Child & Family Services before an in vitro procedure that could result in multiple births. There's a dangerous, obsessive psychology involved with a woman who is willing to risk her own health & the economic & emotional well-being of her family to have more babies just because she can't or won't do it naturally & she happens to have some leftover frozen embryos in the fridge.

She already has an autistic son. & there's this weirdness:

Nadya Suleman holds a 2006 degree in child and adolescent development from California State University, Fullerton, and as late as last spring she was studying for a master's degree in counseling, college spokeswoman Paula Selleck told the Press-Telegram.

Is she rich? Who was caring for the children while she was in class?

Labels: potpourri

Despite the rain & slush, & not bringing an umbrella, & wearing leaky sneakers, I enjoyed the browse at Family Dollar store. Really gave it a look. I came back with Palmolive dish detergent, a Mr. Clean scrub brush, paper towels, 3-pack of black crew socks, & orange juice (I'm careful about food in nonfood stores). Couldn't decide which cleaner would really blast the bathtub. I browsed the store with an open mind. Didn't care for the mop selection, cheap area rugs, bathtowels, & pillows.

The day is so miserable & ugly as to have a beauty about it. Elizabeth has a lot of ugliness anyway, so there was no gilding the drooping lily this afternoon.

Earlier, I ordered an inexpensive polyester fill comforter, burgundy, on sale. I sleep on a futon, on a hard mattress & a soft, folded down comforter covered with a sheet, & on top of those is the dingy old comforter that's been washed too often & not enough, & is the only item I have requiring a giant machine at a laundromat & a long tumble in an unpredictable dryer. Time to retire it. I'll wash it when I have the chance, & stow it in the closet.
***
Google Alert notified me that Redtelephone66 psych music blog had used my capsule review of The Hassles "Hour of the Wolf" LP. That's why I google alert my name; most of the alerts point to one of the many Rixons in Australia & ignore the "Bob" part. Maybe my ancestors included thieves, whores, & debtors transported down under. Cool.
***
Rutgers women got their first high quality win of the season last night, beating #17 Notre Dame 78-68 in South Bend before a crowd of 10,000. That place must have been rockin'. Rutgers fell out of the rankings this week, if they beat South Florida they'll climb back in. Still, doesn't look like anyone in Big East gonna touch UConn this year. Huskies could go the NCAA championship undefeated. They brushed Oklahoma aside & destroyed North Carolina. Besides being a great team, they caught a season when many traditionally strong programs are erratic or struggling. But Rutgers may be the only opponent capable of psyching out UConn, just by being Rutgers.

Labels: Elizabeth NJ, home furnishings, potpourri, Rutgers, shopping, sports, weather

Bless the super of the apt building up the street. He always has excellent holiday decorations, including lights on a tall evergreen tree & a big star at the top, & he hasn't taken them down yet. Cheered me up on lonely, cold Sunday night.
***
A volunteer from the Marine Stranding Center reported that three of the five remaining dolphins that had been residing in the Shrewsbury River estuary since June were spotted in Sandy Hook Bay. That's just one observer. Which leaves two dolphins unaccounted for. Two others had died. Maybe halting bridge construction at the entrance to the estuary was the solution. Shrewsbury may freeze over later this week.
***
No one is more Catholic than a convert:

Rev. Richard John Neuhaus died on Jan 10. Former radical leftist Lutheran pastor turned neocon theologian & ideologue; converted to Roman Catholicism in 1990, ordained a priest a year later personally by His Eminence John Cardinal O'Connor of that church across 5th Ave. from Rockefeller Center. A celebrity catch for the rightward sailing Catholic hierarchy as it countered widespread pedophile scandals & multi-million dollar lawsuit awards, resulting in hundreds of church & school closings, by using the power of the Eucharist to squeeze & embarrass moderate Democratic politicians on behalf of the Church's powerful extreme right financial benefactors & political allies. A fake scandal to divert attention from the real ones. Neuhaus was the apologist the Bishops trotted out on TV to rationalize it all. & he was very good at it. So much intellect & activist Gospel spirit twisted 180 degrees & put in service of such crappy ideas & awful leaders. You'd think he was imitating reactionary protestants. Heh. Hopefully, he was welcomed into Heaven by Father Thomas Merton, a rather different sort of convert.

Labels: nature, obituary, potpourri, religion

Cold snap here, notable for duration rather than the temps. Sikenced the holdout crickets tucked away in warm crevices near houses, a few sluggishly sawing away as late as Saturday evening.

Robert Pinsky writes a kind of poetry I've never been able to write well; a compressed poetic poetry unmistakably American but which has small connection to the American language as we actually speak it (as I hear it). This causes me to dislike the poetry at the same time I envy it. Or he's too intellectual, sometimes. But I love many poets far more scholarly in their work than Robert Pinsky, poets who flaunt it; & poets with far more elaborate language, language that flies somewhere else; & poets with far more compression. Maybe he just isn't fun, or funny, enough. I've met & heard many fine poets, very funny in conversation or setting up poems in their readings, couldn't get audience chuckles out of lines designed to generate them. . Not punchy enough, poor timing, or requiring knowledge most people don't have; the latter happens when poets test out their new poems only on fellow academics. There's deinitely a prejudice against humorous poetry. But too many of my poems have punchlines. Early exposure to Bob Dylan is partly to blame; every verse on his Highway 61 Revisited album may end in a punchline. Robert Frost, too. He was a punchline poet in his most famous poems. "Good fences make good neighbors." What was I to do? What I didn't do - enroll in an academic writing program where they make you revise a poem 100 times & get rid of the punchline. & you still haven't actually studied poetry with Robert Pinsky.
***
Strange to hear advertisements for Drew University on the radio. The Madison NJ school was always the kind of place prospective students had to find - it didn't try hard to find them. It's a brainy sort of campus, if not as smart as it once was, quietly snobby, & it costs a bundle to go there. About the same as Princeton. The part-time per-credit hour tuition would make you faint. Now, if one is shopping for an edjikayshun, one might ask, What do I get at Drew that I can't find elsewhere for less. The answer is, not much. Drew used to sell itself when you visited. I had a few friends there I loved visiting, not a prayer I would ever be a student. It was as close as you got in Jersey to an ivory tower campus atmosphere. The real world was as hypothetical as you desired. Pretty campus, small downtown a few blocks away, good pubs, train to Manhattan, & in one of the wealthiest areas of the United States. Div. III sports. Monmouth University in West Long Branch is a far better party school near the beach with Div 1 basketball. Centenary College in Hackettstown is more bucolic. Nearby Fairleigh Dickinson more geared to business careers. Then there are the state schools. No wonder Drew has to advertise.

Labels: about writing, potpourri

Curious trash pile up the street, too dark to poke through it. I plucked off the top a small VTech Lesson One electronic learning toy from about 1980, looks like a little keyboard computer. I won't invest 6 C batteries in it, but if one of my 9V adapters fits, I'll see if the little view screen & speaker do anything. Google doesn't find much, so it isn't a collector's novelty. The Hong Kong company is still in business, turning a profit by staying one step behind innovation. VTech did manufacture a true collectible, the Laser 128, the only legal knockoff of the Apple IIc.
***
Cold water in the bathroom was turned off for four days while a long section of pipe was replaced. To access the pipe on this floor, the plumber knocked a big hole through the wall inside the clothes closet, & I'm grateful he wasted no time repairing the wall on Sunday considering what crawls around in there. The lack of cold water coincided with the hot water turned back up to proper temp, which made showering difficult. I had to jump under the shower before the full stream of hot water came up from the basement & escape before I was lobsterized. Today's extra-long steamy shower felt good.

Nurse in Times Square war photo reunites with Navy

NEW YORK – A 90-year-old who says she's the woman being kissed by a sailor in Times Square in one of World War II's most famous photographs reunited in town with the Navy on Sunday — days before she is to serve as grand marshal of the city's Veterans Day parade.

His picture from V-J Day became one of the 20th century's most iconic images. But Eisenstaedt didn't get the names of either party, and efforts years later by Life to identify them produced a number of claimants, says Bobbi Baker Burrows, a Life editor with deep knowledge of the subject.

Cute. There's absolutely no evidence that she's the woman in the famous kissing photo. But if she proved she was a nurse in New York on V-J Day, she's as good a choice as anyone.
***
While we're still angry at Mormons for pouring millions of dollars into the campaign to pass Prop 8:

NEW YORK – Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a 13-year-old agreement barring the practice.

Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints say they are making changes to their massive genealogical database to make it more difficult for names of Holocaust victims to be entered for posthumous baptism by proxy, a rite that has been a common Mormon practice for more than a century.

Of course, even voluntary conversion to the Latter Day Saints wouldn't have saved Jews from the death camps. Bizarrely, Adolph Hitler also received a posthumous proxy baptism.

Labels: potpourri

Last night I decided I have a cold, not allergies. I get hit with allergies twice-a-year for brief periods, not seriously, it isn't a ragweed thing. I haven't had a cold in a few years, an unexplainable mystery, unless they were so mild they fooled me. I average two, fall & early summer. Sometimes a child's sneeze has certain ripe sound & I think, "Here comes my cold." When I taught piano, I considered it important to have my fall cold as early as possible, since it usually made me immune to the various mutations the kids spread around all winter. I'd clean the piano keys with Lysol & frequently remind the kids, "If you need to sneeze or cough, stop playing."

Some kids won't stop what they're doing even to throw up. Ask any elementary school teacher. Of course they booger everything they touch.
**
A 7-11 is never your corner store.

A man paid for his USA Today with spare change. The clerk counted it & said there was only 66 cents. The customer said he had counted it & there was 75 cents. This went back & forth, yes, no. I had a half pound of change in my pocket, reached in, pulled out a dime, handed it to the clerk & said, "There, he has his newspaper." The clerk, recounting the change as he put it in the register discovered he had 85 cents, the customer had given him the correct amount.

I used to stop by a 7-11 every day driving to work. I always got a medium coffee. Sometimes I bought a paper, danish, orange juice, a pack of smokes, sometimes nothing except the coffee, always paying the same clerks. One morning I was preoccupied, probably sleepy, filled up the cup, it was all of a dollar if that, & absentmindedly strolled out of the 7-11 without paying. Leaving a line of waiting customers, the clerk followed me out of the store yelling, "You didn't pay for that coffee." He was a clerk I had seen five times every week for months. Embarrassed, I went back in & paid for the coffee, but I never again set foot inside that place. I found a friendlier store, slightly out of the way, added maybe 3 minutes to the commute. The store had a middle-age woman cashier with 6 piercings in each ear, I asked her how she came to have so many & she replied her daughter had talked her into it. I also asked her "If I ever forgot to pay for my coffee, would you just remind me the next day?" She said, "Of course, what else would I do, chase you out to your car? That's silly."

Labels: Elizabeth NJ, potpourri

This post isn't showing on my list, although the atom feed sees it. Yesterday, edits were appearing in the published blog but reverting to the previous version when I opened the edit window. An entire paragraph kept disappearing. With good reason hardly anyone using blogger wants to give advice on these kinds of glitches, because they've had them also, & you don't want to suggest anything that might be irreversible,

Dear Pastordan:

The Brewers are struggling, but they never had a real chance against Lou Pinella's Cubs, & they're in the Wild Card race. The Badgers are ranked 8, Packers 2-0, I'd call that a pretty good Sept. in Wisconsin.

regards
A.P.

A lovely day. I walked to the clinic, needed the doctor to fill out a form for another matter, & it is not a lovely walk. Along the way I found a perfectly fine Star-Ledger on top of a garbage can, brought it to read in case I had a long wait. Also had a novel in my backpack. The wait was reasonable & the doctor was familiar with the form. Stopped by main library on way back, picked up a couple more novels. I'd like to get into the history section there. Not today.

Discovered why I walked straight into a telephone pole Friday night in a place I'd walked hundreds of times at all hours in all weather. Although the pole is set back several feet from the curb, there had been no sidewalk around the base, it was sticking out of a large, square section of dirt, so even if you were looking down while walking, you'd go around it. But within the past month the city installed a new curb, fancy brickwork next to the curb, & an entire block of brand new concrete sidewalk, & now the pole is literally in the middle of the sidewalk. When I walked into it I was on automatic pilot, & there never had been a pole sticking out of the sidewalk at that point, because for me the sidewalk didn't run into the pole, until I painfully learned on Friday night that now it did. But it is a reminder to be attentive.

I sidetracked into South Amboy once, driving up Route 35 late one afternoon, staying in the right hand lane as I day-dreamed, the through lane became a gradual exit lane & I drove over a mile before I realized I wasn't on Route 35 anymore, & the surroundings were totally unfamiliar, I didn't know where the hell I was exactly. So I just kept going until I recognized a gin mill I'd been in once to hear a band, & from there I basically followed a trail of local dives where I'd heard bands to get to a road I knew would take me out of South Amboy.

Labels: potpourri

Later. Whew. was hot. Alright in the shade, where there was shade. From inside Dunkin' Donuts, sipping on an iced decaf, I watched a construction site with ditchdiggers down in a ditch, & hoped they were union workers & not cheap day laborers. They were working dangerously close to a couple of backhoes, & I hoped the heavy machine operators were union guys, too. No way of telling. Except nobody was wearing hard hats & they were still at it after 5 pm. Half listening to Fox News, the daily chatter & soundbites of insignificant campaign news passed off as important & even scandalous. But it's nothing. Utterly, tediously nothing. There or anywhere else. It's like today's blog post. Or like the middle rounds of a heavyweight fight when both boxers gave up on the quick knockout & are expecting to go the distance & they just shuffle around & feint & tap at each other, concentrating on defense, or on cutting open the mouse over the opponent's eye, while the ringside announcer tries to make it sound exciting, & you find yourself distracted by the celebrities, professional female escorts, & oddballs in the crowd, & expressing opinions of what people are wearing.

Surprisingly few for sale signs on the residential streets around here. This city has on of the worst foreclosure rates in the state. The reason may be that it's been many years since houses in this section were bargains, & Hispanics bought them from the old generation in the 80's & 90's & settled in as the city's new middle class. The style of their backyards is often a throwback to the sensible old "European" yards I remember as a kid; very little grass, sunlight on the veggie garden & tomatoes, shade everywhere else.
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Just wussed out & canceled a late afternoon appt with the shrink. These appts are 5-10 minute long visits scheduled every month or two months, my choice. I have to take two buses, a walk & one bus, or my preference, just walking over a mile on shadeless streets to a part of town I don't like. My appt days seem to be a magnet for unpleasant weather. Today is 90 degrees, sticky humid, the sort of day if there's a thunderstorm it'll pop up suddenly out of nowhere. I used to take a train to Elizabeth & walk down there in any weather for a twice-monthly 45 minute private session with a therapist who began on time or profusely apologized if she was running late & told me how behind schedule she was running. I stay with this doctor because he's nice guy & knows me & is in possession of a thick mostly uneventful case history dating back almost ten years so when he's informed I've actually canceled by phone (when they get around to listening to the messages, they were too busy to answer) he'll take that as a sign I'm o.k. & still have a supply of Ambien, & use my absence to jump forward on his schedule, since he's always behind schedule, sometimes way behind. I still have to go to the post office & mail a rent check & a birthday card for a Leo.

I was awoken early this morning by a robot call from the VISA card fraud unit inquiring about a debit recorded on my account at 3:45 am. Since I wasn't in a 24 hour Walmart & there's only one automatic monthly payment on the card & this wasn't it, I was alarmed. I phoned back & a robot voice gave the amount & recipient, a company in California, & when I didn't recognize those I was passed along to a live human. I asked for the full name & address of the recipient & was relieved to recognize it was the annual payment for my web site host company in silicon valley. I don't pay much attention to my websites, they just sit out there 24/7 attracting a few visitors a day, & it costs me less than $10 a month.

Labels: potpourri

I drank a 12 ounce can of Barq's root beer today. It wasn't good but most soda isn't. Mistake. It had so much high fructose corn syrup, caffeine, & carbonation that for the next two hours I had jitters, gas, & peed about five times - I lost count. Another crap product brought to us by Coca Cola. I didn't know it was the only root beer promoted as an energy drink. If I ever want to do that to myself, I'll have a double espresso shot cappuccino so I at least get some pleasure out of the experience. I suppose most beverages sold as "root beer" are no such thing anyway. Hire's, A&W, Stewart's are all owned by the same company, so much for authenticity.

Labels: potpourri

Bush sympathetic as war toll hits 4,000
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While I appreciate that author & TV epicure Anthony Bourdain's favorite album is Funhouse by The Stooges & music by Billy Joel in his kitchen is grounds for immediate firing, I was saddened to hear him say on Letterman that his daughter would never taste a "grilled cheese with the crust cut off." Unless he meant she will taste a grilled cheese with tomato & bacon on rye with the crust left on.
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Spent a constructive hour in the library moving my online postcard collection over to Photobucket. Discovered by accident that the library website lets me put books at the main library on hold & have them delivered to the branch library. I've used the website to renew books, but it isn't what I'd consider user friendly. it looks like it was designed a decade ago & they've been grafting stuff on ever since.

I like my branch library. But it's been at full capacity for a long time. I doubt if they can squeeze a new book in without having to remove one. There's no comfortable chairs just for sitting & reading. It has a pleasant children's room that lacks a children's library assistant, so there's not much going on in there except on special project days, & the "homework helpers" service. I see lots of children with their parents checking out stacks of books. I used to visit the children's room in Rahway to look at the aquarium & other cool stuff on display.
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Rutgers handily beat Iowa State tonight in Iowa, 69-58. I had my doubts about the Scarlet Knights making it past the 2nd round until Coach Stringer said she was running the "55" defense again, which she had dropped in the losses before the Tournament due to a depleted bench. The Star-Ledger devoted a 1/2 page to explaining the "55." It's working. But it's the offense that's been impressive. I'd picked Liberty U to upset Old Dominion without doing some minimal research & learning the second-leading scorer was injured, one of the remarkably talented Frazee triplets. The remaining two combined for 39 points. Shoulda consulted my nephew before going with the only major first round upset I had on the bracket sheet.

Labels: potpourri, sports