Mary Chung's, Rodney's, Hillel and Me

Finally, FINALLY, Hillel and I were able to hook up on a night when Mary Chung’s , in Central Square, was open -- they’re only shut one night out of the week so, naturally, that’s usually the only night H and I can get together.
We met at Rodney’s beforehand -  a used and rare book sellers. Meeting there, I’d sorta forgotten, is a sure fire way to fall into a serious fold in time, only to awake 6 hours into the future, dazed and toting a sack of 20 books -- everything from that collection of Sherman Alexie poems you’ve been looking for since ’91 to that Martin Millar you’ve been keeping an eye out for since god only knows when (I’m still hunting ‘Dreams of Sex and Stage Diving’  -- no luck yet).

Okay, so we pry ourselves outta there -- him without so much as a slim volume of essays. Me? After much painful winnowing, I narrowed my haul to four books (JUST four -- the pain, oh the pain of it all!):

Lark and Termite -- Jayne Anne Phillips (LOVED her collection of short stories -- Black Tickets. They spoke to me on a molecular level)
Splitting -- Fay Weldon
The Physics of Superheroes - James Kaklios
Teapots Transformed -- Leslie Ferrin (a wild collection of way cool sculptural type functional teapots)

As we strolled down Mass Ave we passed a new, to me anyway, all-things-used shop, Boomerangs. They had jam packed bookcase after bookcase sitting just inside the shop window. Utterly cruel, I tell ya, seeing as I’d just shot my wad at Rodney’s.

In any case, at Mary Chung’s the hostess showed us to a cozy red vinyl booth toward the back. This being the absolutely ideal place for keeping eyes peeled for:

1) Stray elderly Whitey Bulger foot soldiers out to settle old scores (and steal awesome book finds from random art babes).

2) Black clad ninja warriors, just up from Chinatown to avenge themselves (while also making off with my tome bonanza) and snarf a plate of Dun Dun Noodles.

3) Hot babes, voguing past random, book buying art honeys (in hopes of snatching up a paperback while my eyes were busy elsewhere of course).

Now we’re all cozy and cruising the menu and, naturally, running up against our usual food issues. Hillel’s a strict vegetarian (me, I’m a lazy ass veg -- I’ll eat fish) but that’s not it. See, Hillel has odd and serious vegetation prejudices. He does NOT like eggplant.

Mon dieu, how can this be? Mein Gott, what is wrong with this boy? Marone, what’s an aubergine lover to do?

How can he name himself a righteous vegetarian and not be simply mad about Yu Hsiang Eggplant, Chinese Eggplant With Basil, Baba ghanoush, Baingan Bartha and please, don’t you dare forget Pizza Melanzane!

Mind you, Jen is like this too. She approaches major hurl fits when I ask her to throw an eggplant on the grill for me.

Sheesh, the two of them -- they’re like me when it comes to lima beans and brussels sprouts. If god intended me to eat them, he would have made them purple or, at least, a MUCH darker shade of green. Or maybe they’d actually be dark Belgian chocolate. Yep, I could go for that.

Hillel and I compromised and got the Yu Hsiang Bean Curd.

Sigh. My revenge here is that the comments feature is still busted so neither can refute the charges or poke fun at MY strange appetites. HEY, sushi is SO a good breakfast food! And a ten AM craving for seaweed salad is NOT weird!

Hmmph.

Werewolves of London -- Warren Zevon

Cousin Cousine

Nick, Lucia and Matteo

Mi madre, Lucia Fanelli Maderer, had two brothers -- Matteo and Nicholas. They grew up in the Italian ghetto of New Haven, Connecticut in the late 1920s and '30s. Their parents/my grandparents, who I never met, had come over from the small town of Gioia del Colle, near Bari, in south east Italy.

Matt and Nick stayed in the New Haven area, while Lucy spun off to Miami and Manhattan to seek her fortune and, possibly, meet Mister Right. With fortunes elusive and Mister Right being out of the country, presumably on business, Lucy decided to return to New Haven and go to college. All this being pretty radical and adventurous considering the time (mid 1940s) and her background (poor immigrant laborers -- I imagine, at the least, college seemed an unattainable dream).

It was at the New Haven Teacher’s College (now Southern Connecticut State University) that my mother met my father. He was at the not yet coed Yale and a busboy in the dining hall of the teacher’s college. He would zero in, hovering by my mother’s lunch table, in efforts to be noticed and make some serious time with her.

He made play after big play, eventually wearing her down -- their lifelong love/hate/love/annoyance relationship began. That and the seemingly endless, to me anyway, nomadic years. Each school year brought a new prep school or college town -- a brandy new apartment, different schools for the kids, fresh hurdles to clear and challenges to meet. Joy.

We’d head back to the New Haven area once a year to visit mother’s brothers and their families. We were, assuredly, alien-esque to them just as much as they were to us -- particularly my Uncle Matt’s family.  Their four kids, all near to my age, were full of life, energy, top 40 culture, with grand amounts of confidence and exuberance. Bleak kid that I was, when told to go play with them, I’d stand at the sidelines, seemingly invisible, watching -- watching and waiting for the never arriving invitation to join the big fun.

Uncle Nick’s three kids were all older than I. Danny was the Harley riding warm, friendly buoyant eldest with plans to join the police department. Angie was the secretive, fashion conscious, sorority sister. “Little Nicky,” (who’s now about 6’7” or so) was closest in age but at the ages of 10 and 13, of course, not into playing with his little girl cousins. Oh my, no. We may have been alien-ish in Uncle Nick’s house too but I felt visible and welcomed.

My fav cousins were from my mother’s cousin Carol’s family. They lived in Yonkers. Goddamn I loved visiting them! We seemed to always be heading over the George Washington Bridge on our way to see them with daddy pestering and nagging us all to join him in the bridge song while we crossed. The lyrics consisted of “George Washington Bridge” sung over and over again. I don’t recall the melody (thankfully?). Maybe it’s in the You Tube clip at the end which I might or might not be happy about not being able to hear.

I’ve spoken of Gary and Della, who's written for Tell Me a Story, before. Their older sister Cheryl was in college and not around so much. I remember her though as this astounding, classic beauty. She was Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, Geraldine Chaplin and Cheryl Guzzo -- warm, talented and, oh-my-god-I’ll-never-be-so-gorgeous-and-sophisticated intimidating to little me.

Yup, enough to give a young cousin a complex and a half. Oh yeah and she was really nice to me too. Sheesh.

I’d love to be in contact with Danny and “Little Nicky” again but no amount of Googling, on the slim info I’ve got, brings them up on my screen. I’ve not seen them since Uncle Matt’s funeral, ten years or more ago. As we sat in Matt’s living room after the service, making awkward conversation, I brought up that it’d been 30 years since I’d last been in his house. They allowed that it had been that long for them too. That came as a big shock -- they always lived just a couple of towns apart.

All this time I’d thought that I missed out on the big Hollywood-esque, tight Italian American family childhood because of our peripatetic academic upbringing.

Huh...guess not. Plus, I smell a mystery. Where’s my deerstalker and pipe?!

The George Washington Bridge Song

There's No Crying In Baseball

 Baseball is no longer an Olympic sport --‘the hell? 



According to the article
:

"Each of the 28 existing sports was put to a secret vote by the IOC, and baseball and softball failed to receive a majority required to stay on the program. The other 26 sports were retained."

So, badminton, dressage (dressage!?) and rhythmic gymnastics are considered ‘sports’ but NOT baseball?

Beach volley ball, an excuse to get bikini clad babes bouncing, jumping and tumbling about, is in but baseball is out?

Hmmph, interesting.



What’s next to be included at the expense of an honest to god sport?



Will there be stiff gold medal competition in croquet?



Paint Ball?

Mini Golf?


Will there be Olympic committee sanctioned motorized lawn mowing competition?

Will Pole Dancing be included? I realize that takes some strength, coordination and flexibility as well as, naturally, a WAY tiny costume. Considering the committee's other choices, I can only guess that Pole Dancing’s a shoe in!



Here’s a way interesting person — Im Dong-hyun, legally blind Olympic archer. Is that some mega heroic stuff or what? He has 20/200 vision in his left eye and 20/100 vision in his right eye. This means he’s legally blind. Wow.

"I don't have any problem or difficulty when I shoot, so I don't wear glasses. The target looks somewhat unclear, but it's not much of an inconvenience,"

That’s some gold medal inspirational stuff right there.





There's No Crying In Baseball from a League of Their Own

Friday Sparkle and Comment Blogging

First the sparkle (courtesy of my 'front yard'):

And then the bit about comments AND the comment. I was fooling around backstage here at Tell Me a Story and seem to have banjaxed the comments feature. 'the hell? Swear to god, I was just trying to tweak the proscenium and shit but NOOOOOO. I went a light bridge too far and torpedoed the commentariat-age. It'll be back soon though. Sweah to gawd!

In any case, here are Hillel's thoughts, memories and the like on last night's post:

Your timing is good - wakes and shivas are much on my mind this week. 

I was at just such an event at a dear friend’s house several times this week (shiva is every night for a week after the funeral) because she lost her beloved and raucously colorful mother. 

Example: Barbara requested that everyone wear something purple to her funeral; apparently the room was awash with every shade of lilac, lavender, and plum. 

While shiva is a quieter occasion than an Irish wake, there is still much storytelling that happens, and often much laughter too as we recall the dearly departed’s quirks and peccadilloes. Humans are storytelling creatures after all, and we bring people – those alive and those not-so – closer to our hearts by knowing their tales. 

Sometimes I wonder what my kids will say about me when the time comes…

The Jami would have been at one or another of my boys’ brises. My father, while not a teetotaler, was not a big drinker (occasionally, a congregant would give him a bottle of something as thanks for a service rendered. Let’s just say those aged well in our cupboard.). New babies, however, are welcomed into the world with wine on their lips, though I suspect that’s partly as anesthetic for the surgery the lads are undergoing.

BTW, thanks for the Waltzing Matilda. You’d have to have a heart of stone not to be affected by that song. I haven’t heard it in a long time and it gets me every time. And Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen is a good antidote (and was one of my dad’s favorites).

Best version of Waltzing Matilda ever (if you're not deep into the single malts after hearing this....well...no comment from me):

June Tabor -- The Band Played Waltzing matilda

Der Totentanz

Have any of you ever been to an Irish wake?

No, no, I don’t mean a wake that happens in Letterkenny or Duleek. I’m talking about those wakes, possibly mythic now mind you, where everyone’s rat-arsed and, by turns, weepy and euphoric in their memories of the dearly departed.

They’re all dancing to Uncle Aedan’s rendition of Jailhouse Rock, remembering the last time Aunt Letitia was in stir for offenses against the crown...and shit.  And then the stories, so many stories, flattering and not so much, good times and not hardly, all had with the much-too-soon-to-that-cold-grave friend.

This, THIS is how I want to go out. Yep, I’m just THAT anal -- so much so that I’m aiming to plan my so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish party.

Possibly, I’m just THAT much into having a good time and don’t want to quit well after the rest of me has laid down for the last time. Possibly I’m a control freak. Probably both. Hell, I’ll already have exited stage left (stage left...of course) so I won’t know who's dancing, who's zooming who and what tunes are being spun but I want to imagine.

I’ve never actually been to so rollicking a send off. The ones within my family have been informal but staid -- Irish and Italian sides both.

Apart from that, well, I paid a shiva visit one evening after Hillel’s father died. I had no idea what to expect though I’d anticipated a kind of a solemn-ish version of the, possibly mythic, Irish wake. You know, instead of jitter bugging out to Bei Mir Bist du Schoen there’d be thought filled, quiet Waltzing Matildas with murmured wishes for peace in Hebrew and Yiddish. Possibly I've got that tuneage backwards but mebbe not.

So then -- back at sitting shiva. Yes, yes on the much activity and wonderful support from all. There was a quorum times 5 packed into the living room -- a total SRO happening (Aba Bromberg was a rabbi and entirely molto fab dude -- the man had a following). The joint was packed to the rafters -- children spinning and whizzing by with Imas chasing after them. Much Kaddish went down as well as, I imagine, a bunch of other stuff too. Dunno -- it was my first time and I don’t know much Hebrew. (that last bit being an understatement of cosmic proportion.)

No dancing and raucous storytelling though, at least not while I was there. I’d kinda had my heart set on a mazurka or, possibly, a boureka. Mmmmm.

Not sure if it was then or at the bris of one of his sons but I have a distinct memory of he and I hustling off to the kitchen for a shot or three of Jami.  You know, to calm the nerves, celebrate, mourn and....something.


Eh, we probably did that on all those occasions. We’re traditionalists!

Blue Jay Way

Now appearing daily at Bob and Donna’s Wild Life Cafe...

*********drum roll, bitte*********************

Sigfried

A Blue Jay.

No. Honest and true.


Flower

After our herd of stray cats, Rocco, Gaston and Greta, finish their respective breakfasts, Sigfried lightly sets down on the very edge of the Kibbles ‘n’ Bits plate for his turn at snarfing down the morning vittles.

The first few times I saw him gobbling up the early AM grub, he was all nervous -- molto anxiously looking around after every single peck. It was as though he was all afeared that Old Man Grant or Old Lady Maderer was gonna storm out, any second now, to yell ‘Hey, get your goddamned beak outta that cheap ass cat food! No, I don’t care how hungry you are -- get gone!’

Not bloody likely seeing as Bob and I have been known to look on fondly, if nervously when Rocky, (raccoon -- of course), and Flower, (skunk -- you knew that one though), chow down. We draw the line at letting them come inside though. Yep, we have standards, alright. Yes indeedy we do.

Besides, Coco won't allow it.

Still and all -- how could Sigfried know this for sure? He had the agitato tweaks to rival any pro meth head. Yep, he had those for a whole day, maybe two. Didn’t take long for him to get used to the berobed, grinning frowzy broad, standing just inside the door watching him blimp out.

Here’s how you can tell when you’re giving Saint Francis of Assisi a run for his money. This morning, when I went to the door to see what Wildtiere we were currently featuring at the Valhalla All You Can Eat Diner and Wildlife Sanctuary, there was Sigfried -- calm as could be, like he’d just smoked a big fatty (blue jays are notorious potheads, you know). He looked up at me and, honest and true, signs (in blue jay versus pigeon sign or straight up ASL) ‘more please -- I gotta big day ahead of me.’ Signs to that effect anyway -- swear to god!

Rocco

Mind you, it’s the same look that our feline customers give me when they’re feeling especially peckish so I’ve seen it before.

Blue Jay Way -- The Beatles

Favorite Things

Sing it with me now!
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

Okay....maybe not.

Yes, yes yezzzzz I’m trying to perk up after a down few days and have run smack dab into the side of my personality that makes Polly Anna, Anne of Green Gables and Rebecca of, yes, Sunnybrook Farm look like devotees of Nietzsche.

Sigh -- I’ll just never be all mysterious, deeply brooding and roiling with dark creative energies like Dorothy Parker or Emily Dickinson.

OK, how’s ‘bout I begin instead with

Breathe deep the gathering gloom
Watch lights fade from every room
Bedsitter people look back and lament
Another day's useless energy spent

No? Ah well. These are some of the things that can always bring me back from Agitation Island, The Canyons of Crankiness and the vast, treeless Desolation Desert.

Stopping at Louis after work where, honest to god, the entire bar waves hello when we walk in -- yeah, a la Cheers. YOU try frowning after that!

Coming home to my Amazing Bob, getting a big ass hug and kiss and maybe even an oatmeal, butterscotch, spinach cookie (yeah, I said spinach -- please, I have a thing for vegetation -- OK?) fresh from the oven.

Coco, who may occasionally neglect her morning alarm clock duties, will ALWAYS greet me at the door at the end of a hard day in the pixel mines. Oh sure, she wants dinner but she’s willing to wait until I’m done skritching under her chin, patting her head and exclaiming over her obvious kittenish perfection first. She’s selfless like that, you know.

If it’s low tide, a nice post work beach walk puts me right again. High tide? I can sit on the the seawall steps, soaking my hot tired tootsies in the fab cool surf. (christ, I sound like a personal ad 'likes long walks on the beach at sunset.' I'm a goddamned cliché I tell ya!)

Studio action! Oh, you betcha! I just primed a new 6‘X2.5’ canvas and it is just tingling with anticipation, waiting for me to hit it with some vibrant base coat color. Possibly that’s me and not the canvas who’s all bristly, tingly and anticipationy. I’ll have to check on that.

Exercise -- not a fav thing exactly but a good turn on the treadmill or the elliptical will sure as hell burn off some of my bummed out yet manic energy. For that matter, if I’m so down that I don’t have even the finest, most microscopic shred of energy, a solid, fast walk will bring me back to functioning levels again. Funny how that inertia shit works.

And Chianti. Favorite things -- duh.

OK -- tide’s out, sun’s down -- time to go breathe in some salt air versus that gathering gloom crap.

When Will I Learn?

When will I stop trusting so, relatively, easily? We’re all marks to one degree or another but it’s a long ass time since I’ve felt/been so thoroughly duped.

It hits me hard when my faith and trust in someone is so horribly abused. I would never expect a nurse, of all people, to exhibit such amazing callousness, total cluelessness and spectacular lack of  diplomatic ability as the one I spoke of yesterday. Yes, that person is a nurse and the 'geriatric care manager' for my folks.

God knows, I’ve known more than my fair share of nurses given the amount of time I spend at Mass General Hospital (AKA my home away from home) and I’ve never ever had an experience like this. For that matter, since losing my hearing, just 7 or 8 years ago at the dewy, blossoming even, age of 46, I’ve yet to run into ANYONE exhibiting such completely daft obtuseness. This includes one or two impatient, eye rolling clerks at CVS -- annoyed when I wasn’t able understand what they asked of me. It was something deep, trenchant even, such as ‘do you have a CVS card’ or ‘did you find everything you were looking for.’

How is it that someone can present so well on paper (resume), in interviews and then shit the bed (a lovely little phrase, doncha think?) so spectacularly just months after coming on board?

Back in my pressroom production management days, we always hired folks with a one to two month trial period built in -- on the assumption that precious few individuals can sustain best possible behavior over a two month stretch. If they were gonna crash and burn it’d happen in the second month. We started doing this after a few bad experiences -- folks with great paper and initial presentation skills but...yep, that’s where their beauty began and finished.

It’s always easier to hire than fire. I think the trial period is a winner.

I’ll be back to my regular tales of daring do, rants about cars and such and paeans to dear friends and other assorted loved ones tomorrow.

Monty Python -- Gumby Brain Specialist

How To Lose Friends and Alienate People

*while flushing your credibility down the toilet

Maybe you’re a manager trying to make a point with an employee. Perhaps you’re a wage slave attempting to persuade the boss to see things your way. It could be that you’re a flock of pals trying to sort out a complicated issue. Possibly you’re a consultant, having a conversation with one of the folks responsible for hiring you.

I really want to help you avoid the immolation of your credibility and the complete destruction of any/all chances you’ll ever be listened to again (outside of a court of law possibly).

Let’s say your gig involves being a go between, a neutral party to a group -- a family say -- who desperately need help in managing a complicated situation and communicating more effectively about said predicament.

The following are some handy tips which I sincerely hope will help.

No No Numero Uno

Neutrality is key -- it’s one of the things you’re being paid for. Therefore NEVER become best buds with any of the parties. And DO NOT take sides. You’re Sweden, you’re Switzerland with a healthy dose of Bill Richardson, Madeleine Albright and old Otto von Bismarck too.

No No Numero Due

Confidentiality is a part of the job. It’s not enough to merely SAY you respect private communication, you must actually do just that. Running off to tell others what’s been said is a grand way to make any delicate situation significantly worse. It’s especially irksome if you’ve asked whether or not you could make the conversation contents public and been told:

    A) No.

   B) I don’t feel that’s wise given the situation and could make matters worse.

and/or

    C) Can you find a way to assist without referring to this specific conversation?

In case you’re unclear -- all of those responses are a big ol’ negatory good buddy. If you’ve done this, MEGA congrats -- you’ve just made a complicated situation a bazillion times worse. Nice job!

No No Numéro Trois

When having email conversations with anyone about, pretty much, anything, remember that tone and humor often do not translate, especially if you’re not BFFs and/or haven't known each other forever and a day.

Additionally, unless you have the comedic chops of a Carlin, a Bruce, Robin Williams or Woody Allen you’re never going to successfully pull off a ‘joke’ at a deaf person’s expense.

Yup, it’s true -- ending your big condescending and ill informed argument with ‘Can you hear me now?’ is a sure fire way to lose every shred of credibility you have now or ever will have -- within this lifetime or any other possible future existences for that matter.

If you’ve committed this stupendously unlucky faux pas, you’ve crossed the Rubicon of acceptable professional conduct. In fact, you’re in another star system now.

and finally (for now)
No No Zahl Vier

In your role as negotiator, diplomat, caregiver or just living, breathing human being on this good green earth, it’s considered dreadfully boorish and unhelpful to tell folks who’ve been threatened, humiliated and/or castigated that they should just ‘get over it.’

I think that one is pretty self explanatory if you’ve at least two functioning brain cells anyway.

OK, that’s my rant for the day. I’m off to enjoy the beauty and calm of the surf.

Friday Heaven Blogging

Rocket Man

The Old Man, Vati, Pop, Daddy has a rather large sense of theater — sadly, he was stuck with a litter of surly, humorless kindern who were forever and always trying to fit in (and failing).

At the dinner table he would ask us all about our respective days — what happened, what did we do and see. Collectively and individually we responded with ‘nothin’, ‘went to school’ (my, how utterly and fully clarifying!) and ‘every word spoken by me now is an unnecessary and vile stain on silence and the nothingness existing within my dark, tortured soul!’* OK, I fib on that last bit — Pop would have totally loved it molto grande² if any of us four brooding souls came up with something so dramatic even if we hadn’t intended to be all ironic and archly funny.

So, what did Vati do? How did he cope with  our uncooperative bullshit? He had us respond to his question:
 “What kind of a day was it?,
with
 "It was a day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times. And YOU were there.”

Yep You Are There was in reruns in the ’60 and we’d watch it con la famiglia. I loved that show and totally enjoyed declaiming the hell out of that intro at the dinner table. The old man could always make me laugh even, and especially, when I didn’t want to.

So, how was my day today?

For absolutely no reason, that I can come up with anyway, Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s tune Rocket Man off Madman Across the Water came into my head. The old internal jukebox had it looped too. MY GOD I loved that song!

Back in the ‘70s my taste in music was heavily influenced by my older sister (Beatles, Stones), my father (who was and still is a huge Dylan fan. He’s also keen on Springsteen and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band) and my cousin Gary (The Who, Hendrix and more). Elton John was my first, all my own, musical choice He and Taupin were mine, mine, mine ALLLLLLL mine. I was just wild about every last tune on Madman Across the Water, Honky Chateau and more. But then, THEN (queue the heavy ‘a monster’s comin’ musical
intro) that heinous, wildly egregious, saccharine-to-the-point-of-wicked-hurlage piece of perdition “Don’t Go Breakin' My Heart” came along.

I listened to nothing but Long John Baldry, Neil Young, ELP and only the heaviest classical (Wagner and Liszt anyone?), I could find in an attempt to rinse that tune right outta my hair.  Elton and I were SO finished.

And then this morning, like a freshly rediscovered love letter from a first beau, Rocket Man crept into my skull.

She packed my bags last night pre-flight
Zero hour nine a.m.
And I'm gonna be high as a kite by then
I miss the earth so much I miss my wife
It's lonely out in space

Simultaneously, I became floatingly happy and so wistfully sad I that thought I might need to lay down for a bit.

And I think it's gonna be a long long time
Till touch down brings me round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no I'm a rocket man
Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone

I’ll never hear this outside of my head again. The weight of that, like a sumo wrestler with an extra special glandular problem, felt crushing at 8 AM.

At the same time though, I had to smile. My internal DJ spins it on occasion. I think she deserves a raise.

* courtesy of Mr. Sam Beckett

Bookends

 I met my buddy Hillel at The Field in Central Square (Cambridge) last night. It was one of our rare nights of having dinner in town versus here on the Neck at our happening local joint, Louis.

He sits down next to me at the bar and, first thing out of his mouth, ‘happy anniversary.’ Huh? Y’all just MUST know that I blow King Kong sized chunks when it comes to remembering birthdays, anniversaries and such. But then it came back to me (OK he helped bring it back), we met, a bazillion and three quarter years ago (29 to be precise) on July 17th when I was hired on at the print/copy shop where he was employed.

Over these 29 years we’ve been getting together regularly for dinner, laughs and mondo scrutiny of every last little thing going on in our lives. We may have missed one or two bits but that’s only ‘cause we’re all fastidious and shit. There’s no issue we’re unable able to talk to death (a fun yet lingering and thorough death, mind), bury, resurrect to full zombie glory, toy with like Coco 'plays' with her mouse ‘friends’ and then drop an Egyptian obelisk on for the final-ish kill (my fav zombie killing method).

You’d never think Hillel and I would have much in common -- there’s an Adriatic or two worth of difference between our temperaments. Here we are though, 29 years later, still having dinner, drinks and radical dissections together every week or three.

I loved going over to his place to hang when we first met. He lived in a big old, run down triple decker near Brookline Village (well before the area was all posh) with two awesome roomies -- one being of the knight in shining armor variety. They had a pet gerbil who was allowed to roam free (yeah, I know -- this is playing in your head now too) Freaked me right the fuck out when I first saw Hemingway racing out of a cupboard to his food dish. And then I wanted to pet him and hold him but he’d slipped away into the walls. Ah well.

Over these past THREE decades, since those gerbil watching, spanakopeta snarfing (the man knows his way around the phyllo dough!), smoke filled evenings so much more LIFE has happened.

 Hillel hitchhiked across the US, sleeping in fields. Caught a flight to New Zealand and on to Australia. China next, where he got mugged by some nasty ass infection, ending up a guest at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Hong Kong for a month. I think he should write about this here -- don’t you?!

He came home, married, dropped three sprogs (one’s leaving for college next month -- eek!), became a grant writer and does all those long ass bike rides like the Pan Mass Challenge and the Boston/NY AIDs ride. Yep, the boy’s in some serious shape.

Hillel and I both eventually moved out of the city and into the ‘burbs -- him to Newton and me to the Neck.

We both wanted to be closer to our places of worship. 

The Newton Center Minyan for him. The beach for me.

Song for Hemingway (the gerbil)

Poetry Man

Back in the Bronze Age when The Amazing Bob and I were pre-courting (AKA finding any and every excuse to ‘accidentally’ run into each other at work. You know, so as to banter, flirt, engage in wanton, mutual jibber jabber and otherwise make with the googly eyes ) we talked of poetry, literature, music and art. And Sea Anemone. Of course.

Bob was really into Shakespeare, Twain, Ginsberg,  Kerouac, Diane DiPrima and more. He introduced me to the French surrealist poets (folks, remember that a little Prevert, Rimbaud and Baudelaire works a treat when you’re trying to get some luscious, little  hottie between the sheets).

I just read, in Sunday’s Globe, that Olympia Dukakis will be playing the role of Prospero (Prospera now) in an upcoming production of The Tempest out in Lenox . Day-um, she'll be a zillion kinds of awesome. I wonder if there’ll be ASL ‘terping . That'd be another 500 kinds of awesome, don'cha think?!

From The Tempest

Caliban to Prospero and Miranda -- words from the colonized to the colonizer.

You taught me language, and my profit on’t
Is I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!

Prospero to his daughter when cutting short her wedding celebration, trying to make it out as just a mirage anyway. All this so he can get back to work (filthy rotten bastid!):

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

From MacBeth - Upon hearing that his wife has died, Macbeth wonders, wonders, wonders.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Just gotta post this link one more time. I'm SO psyched to find this site! Go look, go look -- it's so damned cool!
ASL Shakespeare Project 
Phoebe Snow -- Poetry Man

The Ecstasy of Saint Fratelli

Saint Fratelli, for those of you not up on all your saints (and how could you be -- there’s so damned many of them!), is the patron saint of baked goods with special consideration given to cakes, tortes, cheesecakes and cookies.

Actually there are two Saint Fratellis -- John and Pino. These brothers from Torino, Italy, stood firm against the infidel hordes of Little Debbie, Hostess and Drake’s who threatened to overrun the landscape south of Boston.

In the dark days of my youth, I thrilled to Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies, Hostess Ding Dongs, Drake’s Cakes' Funny Bones but then...then, I read the side of the package and was terror stricken. Or maybe just all squicked out -- one or the other, I forget now.

Polysorbate 60 -- what is this shit? From a must read Wired column on Cool Whip, of all things.

Polysorbate 60
Polysorbates are made by polymerizing ethylene oxide (a precursor to antifreeze) with a sugar alcohol derivative. The result can be a detergent, an emulsifier, or, in the case of polysorbate 60, a major ingredient in some sexual lubricants.

em, molto wicked GACK!

and then there’s Stearoyl Lactylate -- this one just sounds scary as all hell but, apparently it's OK. Consumable without producing instant outbreaks of pestilent boils. It just sounds like it.

This looks like Sam Raimi 's next possible feature to me:
Twinkie, Deconstructed by Steve Ettlinger. The subtitle is 'My journey to discover how the ingredients found in processed foods are grown, mined (yes, mined), and manipulated into what America eats'

em...experiencing more hurlage here.

To be all fair and honest, my tastes evolved in addition to my reading of the ingredient list. Sadly, Funny Bones still call my name though.

On Saint Fratelli’s designated feast days we gather at the bake shop (25 Broad St, Quincy, MA) to remember these selfless holy men in an appropriate manner. Nothing’s more venerating than walking through the shop’s door, inhaling the rapturous, near intoxicating scent and then scarfing down a Big Bird Cupcake.

When is the feast day of Saint Fratelli? Saturday. Any Saturday, most Saturdays along with the occasional Wednesday.

Given my current and more or less constant state of dieting (due to too much faithful observance of course), I mostly go in for the contact high. I drink in the sweet perfume of the butter cream frosting, savor the magnificent aroma of bread fresh out of the oven and then I buy cupcakes and tarts for Jen.

Sigh. Saint Teresa's "devotions of ecstasy?" She was big on their Chocolate Gateau.

No Cure for the Summertime Blues

Jen and her sister Erin packed up the van this morning with kayaks, bikes, grillage instruments and enough beach chairs to make the folks at the Cape Cod Beach Chair Company weep with envy. They’ve just blasted off for a week (A WEEK!) on Plum Island with the rest of the McMurrer clan.

So yeah, the bitch ABANDONS me for an entire week to do....what? Sit on a sandy beach (ours is a tad rocky with tons and scads of razor clams. Hmmph, it’s a perfectly nice beach, you know), swim (we have ocean here AND the water’s probably warmer than way up north too!), lay abed through late morning, smelling the fine salt air while reading gloriously trashy vampire novels (fine salt air -- check. trashy novels -- check. beds -- got that covered) and enjoy fabola conversation and meals that she and her family of cooks (pro and très gifted amateurs all) create.

High Tide at Home

OK, she’s got me on that last bit but...but I can order out like a pro! Conversationally though, welp, y’all probably already know that, for me, a sentence without a string of curses and/or profanity laden opinionating is a rarity. Em, I’m just here to add color and the R rating. You knew that already though.

What I want to know is this -- who’s going to listen to me whine, kvetch and fume about:

1) the bankster/oil industry/health insurance/big pharma crime against humanity du jour

2) the heat -- as in ‘did the AC crap out AGAIN or am I having another fucking hot flash?!' (I seem not to be going gently into that 'good' menopause)

3) aging -- specifically (today anyway), regarding how much my feet seem to hurt after wearing nothing but Vans and flip flops for the last month. It’s summer for fuck’s sake! I should NOT have to wear real shoes in this heat! (yes, my rap gets a bit elliptical -- yes it does)

4) how I slept or didn’t last night (fine thanks, aside from the myriad claustrophobia themed nightmares that is.)

and the list can and often does go on and on.

Why a beach vaca when we LIVE on a damn beach? Hey, it’s what we do.

Funnily enough, there’s an article on Plum Island in today’s Globe -- dune erosion and how houses are at risk of falling into the ocean.

Bitch better not fall in while she’s up there -- I've got Cosmos and complaints to share with her! Also, too -- me undiluted, straight up, no chaser all week? Poor Bob.

Friday Ink 'n Cat Blogging

Never let it be said that I'm unaware or unobservant of internet tradition. OK, so this is possibly Louis the XV blogging but, HEY, there's a cat in the damn pic!

Which somehow gets me to work. Dunno what medicine Ken, the press room manager, was mixing up this morning but DAY-UM it was pretty! It brought visions of Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko and Larry Poon canvases to mind. FAB-fucking-OLA!

 and then the two meet -- Cat AND ink!!!!!

They Say It's Your Birthday

Coco -- devilishly planning mayhem. Of course.

We're gonna have a good time
I'm glad it's your birthday
Happy Birthday to you.
 
Somehow, Coco did NOT get the musical reference when we sang this to her. Hmmph.

The Amazing Bob™ and I adopted our flossy little alarm clock three years ago today. We found her at a shelter in Plymouth, MA.

This was a few weeks after our much loved Big Orange Pumpkin (AKA B.O.P. -- who adopted us/took over almost the minute we moved into the neighborhood) failed to return home after one of his nights of carousing and playing king of the neighborhood. We later heard that there were fox sightings, possibly coyote, in our area (mind you, we’re just one town south of Boston -- it’s a densely populated ‘burb) and that almost ALL the neighborhood outdoor cats had gone missing.

B.O.P. -- King of The Neck

Jen and I made Beloved Missing Cat signs at work and posted them on every telephone pole and tree within a 6 block radius of our house. We spoke with everyone we saw on the street and at Louis. A few times a day, Bob, Oni, Jen and I went out on searches --looking under bushes, porches and on the beach (B.O.P. loved prowling, patrolling the beach at low tide). We haunted the local shelters -- hoping he’d turn up there, all cranky about us being late to chauffeur him home.

fuzzy shot of alleged killer fox

Nada. No positive results.

When it became clear that B.O.P. wasn’t coming home our anxiety and fears turned to full on sad, angry mournfulness. We missed him terribly, continuing to check the doors and windows every hour just in case.

I wanted another furry companion right away but Bob, ever the laid back Dancing Wu Li Master of all things feline, said ‘Be patient. Wait, wait. The cat we need will find us.’ My response? ‘There’s a shelter in Plymouth doing a ‘Tuxedo Day’ this Saturday. We’re going.’

See how well we communicate?

We met our future Coco there. She was just mad shy, seemed depressed and overwhelmed, with a major side of totally FREAKED OUT. Coco (named ‘Mom’ then -- she’d recently given birth) was a boneless wonder when I picked her up -- traumatized by all the apparent chaos. I recognized my own small self in her -- my own horrid childhood fears and anguish. We had to rescue this sad, fuzzy bundle.

With our respective maternal instincts kicked into 112th gear, Bob and I brought her home for endless spoiling. This being one of our special talents.

During her first week in Hough’s Neck Heaven, the newly christened Coco would just sit and watch us. She was in a constant state of ‘cringe’ as though she was looking out for the next blow, the next swat -- and she probably was.

During the day, while I was at work, Bob would speak softly to her, offer her treats and just give her the space she needed. At night I would lay on the couch, Coco on my chest, and speak peaceful bon mots.

Within a few months she had claimed HER chair, assumed her alarm clock duties and was racing around the house like an overheated atomic particle -- always with this sly look over her shoulder as if to say “you can’t catch me, Nyah, nyah!” Sure, she sits on our laps but, more often than not, she’s off chasing her super balls, leaping into the air after them like Barishnikov (had he been a cat, that is) or playing “Catch Me If You Can” for hours.

Still.

She’s four years old today (the last three of those years with us) -- does the toddler energy level never wind down?!