Category: Life

  • ODDS and ENDS: Touching Toes, Vince Guaraldi’s Evolution, Halloween Candy, and Vote

    (There’s no money in it, kid.)

    May daughter can touch her toes. This is a huge point of pride for her, and one she likes to show off often. I think their gym teacher had them do it at school the other day. My wife, also, can touch her toes, and she, accordingly, is very proud of this fact. I, on the other hand, cannot touch my toes. I am equally proud of this fact. I’m like an inch away from touching them, and if I put forth a little more effort, I am sure I could snap my knees in half and do it. Furthermore, I don’t think I have ever been able to touch my toes. I am sure that someone out there might think of that as a shortcoming, or even a failure, but I would like to point out that my lack of toe touching has not held me back in life. I have been a very productive member of society, achieved many thing in my life that I am very proud of, all while overcoming my lack of phalanges connection. I shall continue to preserver.

    Do you know who Vince Guaraldi is? He’s the jazz piano player who wrote all of the Peanuts/Charlie Brown music. A long time ago, I bought his first jazz album on CD: Vince Guaraldi Trio. I think the reason I bought was that I wanted to know what his non-Peanuts music sounded like. This was like twenty years ago. Then this week, a thought came in my head – totally random – that I should listen to Guaraldi’s discography in order, and hear how his sound evolved from that first album. It is an interesting development, from a very traditional jazz sound, to becoming something that has a pop angle to it by the end. Sadly, Vince died in his late forties by a sudden heart attack, so it feels like his career was cut short only half way through.

    I’m not eating my kid’s Halloween candy this year. Personal vow, there really isn’t a story there. I just don’t want to feel like a thief around her.

    Vote

    (What’s that you say? You love this blog but wish you could do more? You are in Luck! Just hit that Like, Share, Comment button, and if you are feeling super supportive, please follow this blog! A lonely writer in New York City, will be greatly appreciative!)

  • Dispatch from the Car: Schedule Issues?

    Let me establish this from the beginning, it is 9am and I have my computer on my lap while I sit in my car. I’m doing the Alt Side Parking dance, and any minute the street sweeper will coming rolling by. I bring all of this up because I’m having more issues with scheduling my life. The only time I would have today to get any writing done is this magical hour and a half; sitting in the car on the streets of New York.

    I write about scheduling often, I know. I just might be on a Quixotic quest to somehow find the perfect way to lay out all the tasks I must accomplish in a week, and like puzzle pieces, find a way to make them all fit together for maximum efficiency, and minimum effort. I am positive that I can create this system.

    And the reason that I think this is because for ten plus years, my day job was scheduling. I scheduled, rehearsals, classes, and events for a couple of studios in New York. The more efficient and tighter I could make a schedule of studio spaces, the more money I could make for the company, and the better off we all were. I wasn’t the greatest at it, but I was pretty good, and had a decent career because of it.

    Yet, in my personal life, I am really shitty at it.

    I could also argue to myself that what I am really trying to do is put order on the uncontrollable. It’s like I’m taking chicken nuggets, and trying to assemble them to recreate a chicken. Sadly, those pieces, no matter how much energy is devoted to this endeavor, will never fit together to form anything resembling a chicken. Let alone, I’m not even sure nuggets are chicken.

    I hope you get my metaphor.

    The point here people, is that I feel compelled to blame my lack of an effective schedule as the reason why I am not accomplishing more in my day. I need to complete something every day, check a box, cross it off my list, as long as I get something done. (I think this is the real reason I blog every day. I accomplish a task five days a week regardless if anyone sees it.) And right now, I don’t feel like I am accomplishing anything.

    And I haven’t gone to the gym in three weeks, but that’s a different story.

    (Like, Comment, Share, or Follow. Any one of those will do, but a combination, or selecting all four will make me a very happy blogger out here in the sticks. And Thank you for taking the time to read it.)

  • Thoughts on the Coming Holidays

    Last night, before we went out Trick or Treating, we had dinner with another couple and their kid. As we were catching up, we inevitably started talking about the rush of the coming Holidays. Thanksgiving, and for them Hanukah, followed by Christmas, then New Years, and both of our kids then have their birthdays about a month after New Year’s. October to the end of January is really a marathon for us.

    But it is a wonderful time of year. Walking around last night, as the kids went from stoop to stoop asking for candy, it was a cool but not cold night. There was a crush of kids, always is, but in that chaos was such an eternal innocents to the costumes and candy, and the façade of a world where all children need is to ask for candy, and they receive it. I envy the people who are able to sit in front of their homes, wine or cocktail in hand, and just be generous, and a little tipsy. The changing of the leaves around here has been slow in coming, which created a canopy of yellowish and orange on those tight little streets.

    After we got home, and were able to get the kid in bed, the wife asked me when we should start taking the Halloween decorations down? Usually we take then down on the upcoming weekend, as we do have Thanksgiving ornamentation that needs to be placed around the apartment. Leaves and gourds, and lots of orange garland.

    I’m trying to stay positive and upbeat during this time of year. The Holidays still have a tinge of sadness for me. This will be the fifth season without my Mom. I feel her in all the things that we do and celebrate, and I can’t help but now think about how “this might be the last year” with certain other family members. I’m trying to find the positive in this realization, as maybe enjoying the time we have should be the paramount concern.

    But as such, the marathon is on. The Holidays are afoot! If I’m a good boy, I still might get my martinis and lobster rolls for Christmas!

    (Speaking of gifts! If you are thinking of getting me something this year, make it a “like” or a “share” or even a “comment.” But if you would really want to warm my heart, then follow my blog. Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays!)

  • It’s Halloween, Ya’ll!

    We are already to go for Halloween tonight! The kid wanted to go as Hermione Granger. But not just basic school girl uniformed Hermione. No, my kid wanted to specifically be Hermione from the end of the movie version of Prisoner of Azkaban, with the pink hoodie, jeans and Time Turner. It’s not so much a costume as it is more like cosplay. Not that it matters, it’s what she wanted to do, and I was more than happy to help her achieve it.

    So far, this is the kid’s Halloween Costume History:

    1. Baby Dalek from Doctor Who
    2. Butterfly
    3. Witch from Room on the Broom
    4. Dee Snider from Twisted Sister
    5. Wonder Woman
    6. Hilda from the Hilda book series
    7. Hermione Granger from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban movie

    Except for the first two costumes on the list, all the others have been her idea.

    When I thought about the kid’s costumes last night, and made this little list, I had the hardest time remembering what I dressed up as on Halloween. I know I did Indiana Jones, and a California Raisin, but I can’t remember any of the others. Yet, I have memories of Trick or Treating. I remember the neighborhood I grew up in, and going with a big group of friends. My mom taking us out, while dad stayed at home handing out candy. The one family on the block that turned their home into a haunted house that you could walk through. The junior high boys pulling pranks and trying to scare the little kids. I remember so much, just not what I had on.

    I don’t know if I have blocked something out, or if I’m getting older and this is just how memory works.

    This year, just like last year, my goal is to give the kid a feeling of normalcy, and just being a kid. We’ll go out, and hit up the brownstones in the neighborhood. We’ll be goofy and compliment kids on their costumes, and eat too much candy.

    (Hit the LIKE button! For the love of God, like this blog! Comment on it! Share it! Become a follower! Klaatu barada nikto!)

  • ODDS and ENDS: Elon’s Twitter Deal, Pickled Out, and Brett and Climate Change

    (I see dead tweets ahead…)

    Elon Musk bought Twitter, and we all can’t stop talking about it. Maybe he’ll reinvent it and it will become the town square where ideas are freely exchanged. I doubt it. Social platforms, and the internet as a whole, is a place for people to create their new fictive personas. In most cases, people want to stay anonymous, which leads people saying things they never would in real life. You cannot slay people’s id, especially when you have given it a platform to flourish like the weed it is. No, I feel like Elon wants a bit of attention from us, and he’s getting it. The way I see it, the tech wunderkinds are starting to over play their hands. Zuck and his Metaverse is a vanity project of epic proportions. Apple is just rolling out new models and hasn’t “innovated” anything in years. And little Elon just bought something, that he hopes goes up in value, and then he’ll unload it. At the end of the day, this is all about making money. They are just big corporations now, doing what big corporations do; new boss, same as the old boss.

    Give it a rest with all the Pickleball news stories, already. It’s the Amway of sports; Its cool that you’re into it, but I don’t want to hear about it.

    Hey! Brett Stephens has come around to understand climate change is real! But he’s still Brett Stephens and thinks the market will solve the problem, and we shouldn’t rush into making any changes too quickly. I love how conservatives continue to believe that the profit motive leads to good, altruistic, moral decisions that benefit all. (Does no one else find it odd that out of the Seven Deadly Sins, Greed is the only one that leads to salvation according to capitalists?) If the market has a choice of solving a problem or making money, it will always choose making money. (DuPont is my prime example of that.) I am glad that he has come around, and he is a conservative that is willing to come to the table to find solutions; that is a big step forward that I wish more people would make.

    (It’s the end of the week, and what better way to celebrate than by sharing a nice, well-earned like, comment, or even following this blog! Sure, the joke I was going for doesn’t really land, but in Old Milwaukee, it doesn’t get any better than this! And, if you share this blog, that would help too. Thanks.)