'98/'99, '08/'09

At one time, Jerry and I had considered having a party tonight... Not a New Year's Eve party. A 10-year anniversary party.

After all, neither one of us has ever liked New Year's Eve (The end of a year to me always seems sad). That's why each of us was sitting at home in front of our respective computers ten years ago tonight instead of at a party or a bar. And that's where we met. In an AOL chat room.

We didn't stay at our computers that night, though. He drove over to downtown St. Paul, where I was living, and we went to Over the Rainbow, a bar now long defunct, and joined the New Year's Eve party there.

And the rest is history. We are one of the internet success stories.

As it turns out, it's a good thing we didn't plan that anniversary party. For one thing, we're both too worn out. And tonight we'll help care for Joan, who is having her ankle surgery today. And no New Year's Eve party either. We still don't like them.. well, except for maybe that one.

HAVE A WONDERFUL 2009!!!!

crisis on ice

Picture it: late afternoon last Friday, the day after Christmas, St. Paul, Minnesota:

My sister Joan, an all-around cool person with just the right touch of eccentricity, was leaving work to catch the bus home.. The streets and sidewalks were wet, deceptively so. You wouldn't have realized there was ice. It just looked wet.

I was just leaving the gym, and Jerry came rushing in to find me. He had just gotten the call. Joan had just fallen and broken her ankle. An ambulance had taken her to the hospital.

So we rushed to the Emergency Room and sat with Joan while she endured xrays and doctors and nurses and being (almost) knocked out while they reset her ankle. She was in remarkably good spirits, which apparently says something good about the drugs they had her on.

Now she is confined to her apartment for a while, surgery lined up for Wednesday (New Year's Eve day -- good riddance, 2008!).... We bring her Big Macs or whatever else she requests. Our sister Mary arrives tomorrow from New Jersey for a few days to help out. And Joan's cat Alex is also looking after her (Cats sometimes when sense something is wrong?).

The doctors say she may be out of work for as long as two months. Life changes in a split second. Hang in there, Joan!

a brown christmas wouldn't be so bad...

Ouch, tomorrow is Christmas Eve already....

I'm so bad at this... December is too busy, work-wise and social-calendar-wise, and suddenly it's here.

The next days for us: tonight I need to wrap presents. Tomorrow a.m., work. Then, our next-door neighbor Dee wants us to stop over in the afternoon for a glass of wine. We will then spend the evening, Christmas Eve, with our friends Diane and Tony at their house, eating and drinking and playing games. Christmas Day, my sons Jon and Tom and my sister Joan will be coming over for the day, and we will open presents while Phil Spector's Christmas Album is on the stereo. Hey, you have your traditions, we have ours.. :-)

And I'm happy we're not traveling this Christmas... It's been snowing every other day for the past week or more, with dangerous windchills on most of the in-between days. There have been hundreds of weather-related delays at the Minneapolis airport all week, and the roads are treacherous. We'll enjoy the long weekend cozy at home and will occasionally be looking out our windows at lots of white. Friday through Sunday -- maybe sleep late?

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

down on main street

Spent a long weekend in my hometown, Millville, NJ, heading back to zero degree temps in Minnesota tomorrow.

*

Ate breakfast three of my four days here at Jim's Lunch, a great greasy spoon cafe in downtown Millville, at High and Main. It's very Millville. Funny thing, though: it's always very busy when it's open but is closed during the months June through October, the months when I'm most likely to visit home. So this time, during a rare December visit, I'm getting a Jim's Lunch overdose.

*

Visited siblings, cousins, the Jersey sights and foods while here... I need this now and then.... Gotta remember who I am sometimes. Work has been hard lately. Easy to lose perspective.

*****

Reading a good book, which my brother Davy and my sister Joan both recommended to me because they knew I'd like it: Main Street by Sinclair Lewis. Originally published in 1920, it's amazing how current it feels.

uglyfying your head

A cold snowy Sunday today. After bumming around one of the used-book stores, late morning/early afternoon, I ducked into the Espresso Royale coffeeshop for some hot coffee and cozy reading time. This coffeeshop is in the funky Dinkytown neighborhood of Minneapolis, adjoining the University of Minnesota, a few blocks from our house. Lots of people are there, probably all U of M students and nobody over the age of 25 except for this old guy in the corner reading his book (that's me). Elvis music is playing the whole time I am there (and I am probably the only person there who knows the songs).

Most of the guys, drinking their coffee and thumbing through textbooks or working their laptops, are still wearing their stocking caps, pulled down over their ears, each cap without exception ugly shades of gray and brown. For me (the old guy), one of the mysteries of current twenty-something guys is why the fascination with really ugly stocking caps? I mean, we were indoors, and these guys wear them all summer too, not just on cold snowy days, so it's not about practicality. It's meant to be a fashion statement, or an anti-fashion statement, isn't it?

... and, if you're gonna wear them, why not at least have some interesting colors to offset the drab winter landscape?...

"Back in my day", the anti-fashion statement was hair down to our butts. Now the hair gets covered up. Or, I don't know, maybe it's just a Minnesota thing.

The coffee was good.

a late-autumn sports update

A few days ago, Jerry's business partner Clark said he'd like to play some racquetball with him... Now Jerry has never played racquetball in his life, and with his back and neck problems, a game of racquetball would put him in traction for a week at least... So I said, tell Clark I'll play some racquetball with him... That offer threw my sister Joan into a tailspin... "You're not going to play racquetball!", meaning, I guess, that she thinks some intense exercise would give me a coronary. Hey, I used to play tons of racquetball, who cares if it was 20-some years ago?!.. I still have my racquetball trophies, who cares that they're dusty and falling apart?! so we'll see if Clark, 20+ years younger than myself, gets desperate for a game and if I survive it.

So to my sister, I guess my involvement in sports can only be as a spectator. I was thinking about that night before last at the Vikings-Bears game. There was actually a lot of exercise involved, lots of jumping up and down and high-fiving people around us... What a great game... Vikings 31, Bears 14. What made it even sweeter was that we had a lot of glum Bears fans sitting not far away (Have you ever noticed how Chicago Bears fans never have necks?). Plus there was a dopey looking guy sitting behind us wearing a "Palin 2012" shirt. It doesn't take a lot of brainpower to be a spectator, obviously.

Anyway, I had to hurry and blog something about the Vikings because at least briefly they are in first place in their division (even though they are only 7-5). A typical Vikings reaction to winning a big game like the Chicago game would be for them to lose next week to the lowly Detroit Lions (The Lions are 0-12).

Other local sports teams at the moment: NHL Hockey: the Wild are 14-8-1. Typical Wild season. NBA Basketball: the Timberwolves are 4-12. Not unusual for the Wolves. Guess we're going to go for the draft pick again.

That's it for sports talk, fans.
***
A later note, 12.7.08. Fortunately, I was wrong, and the Vikings managed to beat Detroit (just barely). So, for the moment, they are still in first place, and the Lions are 0-13.

turkey and lamb

I'm not much of a cook, but somehow I do manage to do well at roasting a turkey. So that will be my job tomorrow, the turkey and the stuffing. Jerry will be doing everything else. I think. Cooking, eating, maybe watching a little football on TV: that's Thanksgiving, I guess. When I was still living back in my hometown, Thanksgiving always also meant going to the Millville/Vineland high-school football game, a major South Jersey tradition. If I were there, I'd go again. Oh well. Hope you all have a nice Thanksgiving... and go, Millville!

I'm still on a kick reading Wally Lamb novels, currently his new one, The Hour I First Believed. It's an accomplishment getting through these long books, but at least I also get some good weight-lifting carrying these things around. Joan and I enjoyed seeing and meeting Wally Lamb last week as part of the "Talking Volumes" series sponsored by Minnesota Public Radio. This was held at the Fitzgerald Theater in downtown St. Paul, a sell-out crowd of about 800-people, 90% of them women (Remember -- Wally Lamb is sort of an Oprah discovery). He turned out to be fun to listen to, a crowd-pleaser, has a great personality (With novelists, you never know what to expect, personality-wise). His novels take place in New England, mostly Connecticut, generally flashing back to multiple generations of dysfunction. If you have a lot of time on your hands or are a fast reader, I recommend them very much.

the 23rd bond

Sitting here with my laptop, watching the Vikings game with Tom...

Last night we went to see the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. You know I'm a Bond fan, and, yes, I realize that the Bond movies aren't as much fun as they used to be -- too dark and brutal! --, but I love our tradition of going to the new ones when they come out, which is always somewhere around my birthday. Jon and Tom and Joan and Jerry go with me, maybe partly just to humor me, and the best part of going is watching with them... I do think Daniel Craig is a good Bond. I just wish they weren't doing away with the Bond traditions, like Moneypenny, the gadgets, the awful puns, etc...

You know I like traditions, things that don't change too much. Those are the things that will go through my mind as I'm lying on my deathbed!

My all-time favorite James Bond movie: You Only Live Twice. 2nd favorite: Goldfinger. Least favorite: Moonraker. Best Bond: Connery (of course). Best of the Roger Moore films: The Spy Who Loved Me. Best Bond song: "Nobody Does It Better" (Carly Simon), from The Spy Who Loved Me. Worst Bond song: whatever that song was in Quantum of Solace. Worst gadget: the invisible car in Die Another Day.
*****
Our 28-day "cleanse" ended yesterday. So Jerry and Tom and I re-started a Sunday morning tradition: bacon and eggs (and coffee!!) at the Dinkytown Cafe... Ah, the sweet pleasures of life... :-)

danger: heartbreak dead ahead

victims of the real estate market...

Jerry and I own two townhouses, the one where we live and the one where we used to live, which is about five blocks away. The latter property we were renting, until our tenant moved to Atlanta a few months ago. We decided to not rent it again, to sell it instead. It's still on the market. Nobody is buying.

Which means we have been paying double mortgage payments with no rental income, this at a time when Jerry's income is down dramatically (he's a real estate agent -- a double whammy!) and mine is not up.

So we have made a drastic decision. We have put the house where are living on the market also and will live in the one that isn't the first to sell.

The problem is that we fear we will sell where we are living first -- it is the more desirable of the two properties -- and we love this house.

I realize that, in these days of foreclosures and job losses, people are going through much more traumatic things than this, but that won't stop me from shedding tears if we have to leave this, the best house I've ever lived in or will ever live in.

'wicked' thoughts

I was walking through downtown yesterday afternoon on my way to the gym and realized I was surrounded by people scurrying to the Saturday afternoon matinee of Wicked, currently here on tour. Then I realized that it was cold and windy, temps in the low 20s -- it's winter again. Indoor activities will be providing most of our entertainment between now and April.

***

And we are falling right into indoor scheduling.. This week, for instance: Joan is treating us to Wicked tickets this Wednesday, then Thursday we're going to see Joan Baez.

***

Then next weekend, something I always look forward to: the new James Bond movie comes out... and then....

***

All kinds of good stuff to fill up the winter months... But, wow. It's such a long time til April. It sure was hard to put on a winter jacket again.

the survivor

One of the best things about yesterday was that there was no more political advertising: No piles of junk political mail, no political phone calls, no political TV advertising. Suddenly, overnight, the country changes back to Dr. Jeykll from Mr. Hyde, and the desperate viciousness goes at least into hibernation.

I mean, when you think about it, isn't our political system a total embarrassment? After the past year of so-called debates, isn't it amazing that there still has been so little in-depth discussion of real issues? And who would put themselves and their family through the degradation that it takes to run for President these days?

The election, despite it all, ended somewhat happily from my perspective. At least something will change. When I saw Barack Obama and took this picture at a rally a couple years ago, I was concerned that his handshake wasn't firm enough, it was limp. After seeing the excellent campaign that he has run since his nomination in August, I'm thinking that maybe his handshake has gotten stronger by now. Or maybe he is saving his hands for more important things. I think he'll make a pretty good President -- and an inspiritional one for many. He might not be a JFK, but, let's face it, neither was JFK.

the Phillies do it!

The Phillies have won the 2008 World Series.

***

When you're a fan of the Philadelphia professional sports teams, you wait a long time between chances to win the Big One. I think of my nephew Michael. He is an absolutely devoted Philadelphia sports fan, and, since he has been old enough to follow the teams, there has been a total drought of championships. He has had his heart broken many times during those years...

***

So, I say to Michael, enjoy it!!! The Phillies did it!

crossing paths with oprah

Ever since May, at my first appointment, my naturopath has wanted me to do a 28-day detoxification/cleanse to get all the "toxins" out of my body. He has been good so far, has kept me away from surgery or medication, so I trust him, but the program he recommends is pretty harsh -- no gluten, no dairy, no beef or pork, no eggs, no sugar, no preservatives -- (you get the idea) -- plus taking some powder stuff and capsules every day. So, being the Master Procrastinator that I am, I put it off. I mean, this has to be done during a 28-day period when you're able to have minimal social life. Certainly not during the summer.

Then sometime a couple months ago Oprah Winfrey announced that her newest "diet" was going to be a 21-day detoxification (Why only 21 days, I wonder?). Oprah has her followers, but I tend to be a little leary of the latest Oprah fads. After all, this is the woman who discovered "Dr. Phil". So I wasn't about to start a detox program while she was doing it.

But then Jerry made an appointment with my naturopath, who recommended the detox program for him too. Jerry is not the procrastinator that I am (unfortunately), so we decided to time the 28 days between our birthdays and before Thanksgiving and just do it. We are on Day Four, and all is well. I even set up a new blog covering the pain and cravings of the 28 days -- http://hellish28.blogspot.com. Check it out.

By the way, I'm not sure if this diet is supposed to cause weight loss, but, judging by the picture of Oprah Winfrey in the latest National Enquirer, that didn't happen for her.

(Your next question is, what was a copy of the National Enquirer doing in my house?)

And, reflecting back to my posting on October 8th, I did decide to read a Wally Lamb book, I Know This Much is True, and am enjoying it, 110 pages into it out of 897. 897 pages! A good book to read during 28 days of no social life, even if it is a former selection of the Oprah Book Club!

conversations at the urinal

Usually guys just look straight ahead in silence while they are standing at the urinal (too often these days at advertising on the wall), but conversation happens once in a while.

There was the time in the late 90s when I was at the urinal in the men's room at Dixie's Restaurant in St. Paul, and standing at the urinal next time to me was Norm Coleman, who was then the mayor of St. Paul. I was no fan of Mayor Coleman (except I appreciated him helping to bring the Minnesota Wild to St. Paul), and I didn't expect him to remember me even though we had had breakfast together once (with 3 or 4 other people), so I said nothing. Eyes straight ahead. The guy on the other side of him had no hesitation to speak, though: "Mister Mayor, I am really concerned about all this additional debt the city has taken on," and he went on a spiel about his taxes. To me, this was hilarious: Norm Coleman, helpless in mid-stream, a captive audience. The price of elected office.

Within the next couple years, he went on to change parties, become a Republican even though he had been elected as a Democrat, all to be annointed by bush & cheney as the 2002 Republican Senate nominee to run against Paul Wellstone. He would have lost that race, but Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash several days before that election -- six years ago today, a day that I'll never forget. We have had Norm Coleman these last six years, sitting in that precious Senate seat.

Fast-forward to Election Night 2006, mid-term elections. We were at a Victory Party, held at the Minnesota Club in downtown St. Paul, for Amy Klobuchar, who had just won the other Senate seat from Minnesota. We had worked hard for Amy's election. At some point in the evening, taking a break from the national good news of the evening, there I was at the urinal in the men's room, and who should walk up to the urinal next to me but Al Franken. We at this point knew Al Franken a little, had been to various fundraisers with him including one dinner party at his home. So I spoke, overcoming urinal etiquette. "Al, maybe in two years it will be your turn to celebrate." He grinned. At that point, he was still officially unannounced as a candidate for Coleman's seat.

So, I may hold the dubious distinction of being the only guy who has peed with both our two major-party Senate candidates. It will be hard for Al Franken to beat this incumbent, but, if we have to watch Norm Coleman sitting in Paul Wellstone's Senate seat for another six years, boy, will I be pissed!

like no other store in the world

I know better than to go to the Mall of America on a Saturday afternoon, but Jerry had me on a mission to find a shower-curtain rod a lot better than the cheapo one that we got at Target that keeps falling down and just broke a tile. I figured that Bloomingdale's must have some cool shower-curtain rods, so off I went to the MOA this afternoon.

As I was walking into Bloomingdale's from the parking ramp, I noticed their classy-looking sign that said "BLOOMINGDALE'S: Like No Other Store in the World"..... Hmmm, I thought. I wonder how much money somebody got for coming up with that slogan. I mean, isn't it totally meaningless? Isn't every store like no other store? Isn't even every Bloomingdale's like no other Bloomingdale's? That's what I should have been -- a slogan inventor, making big bucks for saying nothing. When you think about it, how many slogans mean anything at all? Consider this slogan, which might be the worst: "UPS: See What Brown Can Do For You"! I mean, really, does seeing what brown can do for you make you want to use UPS? Brown might easily be the least-inspiring color!

Anyway, I got to the bed-and-bath department in Bloomingdale's, and guess what. They have plenty of shower curtains but zero shower-curtain rods. I asked the saleslady what store might carry them, and she answered, "Well, certainly not Macy's. You might have to go to Bed Bath & Beyond."

Of course there is no Bed Bath & Beyond at MOA. The nearest one is several miles away down the interstate, and here I was already at the mall. So I wandered aimlessly and almost hopelessly through the MOA, through the mobs of people that all seem to be from out of town (A local would know to stay away on a Saturday). The highlight of my wandering was when I was walking past the Build-A-Bear store where my niece Ruthie used to work: I was wearing my Phillies cap, and another guy in a Phillies cap high-fived me!

Then, as luck would have it, I found a quality shower-curtain rod at one of the other anchor stores, Sears. Sears might not be like no other store in the world, but at least it was like no other store at the mall!

a home run

A reason to flip the channel from last night's final (thank God!) presidential debate: The Phillies were beating the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the National League pennant and head to the World Series. Let's go, Phils.... Philadelphia hasn't had championship team in so many years...

(wow, it's October 16th already and the World Series doesn't start til next week -- Was the Series always this late? Might be chilly baseball weather -- unless they end up playing in Tampa, that is.)

No TV tonight... I hate TV most of the time. And the work week was too busy.... So it's mellowing-out night tonight... Listening to Rachmaninoff, 2nd Piano Concerto. From there, maybe I'll get really wild and move on to the 3rd.

the 9th of October, many years later

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my son, Tom..... 27 years old today. wow!

*****

My sister, the autograph hound: Joan called me last night from New York, where she is enjoying her semi-annual Broadway trip. She was standing outside the stage door at the theater where she had just seen (all of) Daniel Radcliffe (from the Harry Potter movies) in Equus, waiting for him to come out and sign her program. Earlier she had seen the new production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons and had gotten autographs from cast members including Patrick Wilson, John Lithgow, Katie Holmes, and Dianne Wiest. Tonight she goes to see Patti LuPone in Gypsy, which she first saw last spring and which she loved so much she just had to see again.

She raved about All My Sons, and I was a bit envious after having just seen last week a great production of another of Arthur Miller's plays (this one from 1955), A View From the Bridge, at the Guthrie Theater here in Minneapolis.

richard russo

I can't handle watching any more of these so-called debates, "my friends", so I skipped the one last night and went over to the Fitzgerald Theater in downtown St. Paul to see and hear the novelist Richard Russo. As it happens, I have read four of his books this year, and here he was making an interview appearance at the Talking Volumes series sponsored by Minnesota Public Radio. His novels generally take place in small-town upstate New York, with quirky small-town characters and meandering, detailed plots. His best-known book is Empire Falls, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2001. The interview last night was interesting: he has a great personality, is very articulate and funny, gave good insights on how his books came to be.

But what was best was being an audience of several hundred people where most of them had read some Russo and were generally well-read. Reading a book is mostly sort of a solitary, intimate experience between reader and writer, and it was fun talking "book chat" to people sitting near me in the audience or standing in the line to get our books signed. Other authors that I've seen and met as part of this series have included Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood. Next month, Wally Lamb, author of She's Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True, will be there, so I need to decide whether to try to read one of those books before then (The latter has 928 pages -- ouch!)... Have any of you "friends" read either of these?

go, phillies!

It's a rainy day here. Not a great morning for the Twin Cities Marathon, but a good morning to write a blog entry. The problem is coming up with blog thoughts that aren't a further rant against Sarah Palin and her daddy, John McCain. Or there is the Wall Street bailout, which none of us begin to understand enough to even intelligently discuss. To try to escape from our dismal realities, I even rented four movies this week that I hadn't seen, and it's rare for us to ever rent a movie. How desperate must I have been to rent Napoleon Dynamite (which I liked, as it turned out... well, sort of)?

And how rare is it for me to feel sorry for average Republicans?.. I mean, let's face it, they aren't that crazy about John McCain anyway, and they are stuck with him as their candidate... He certainly isn't a good poster-boy for their pseudo- "family values"... Then he picks Sarah Palin as his ticket-mate, and even Republicans can see what a disastrous pick she is. They were scared to death of what she might say in her debate this past week with Joe Biden. She was awful, of course, but at least she didn't pass out or vomit, so they had to pretend that she won the debate! I mean, really! It was like these pretenders were having a fake orgasm!

One of the only good things about the Sarah Palin fiasco is watching the clips from her interview with Katie Couric. I kinda like Katie Couric, even though she is always last in the news ratings and her interviews are a bit "soft", and when was the last time she got all this attention? Then of course there is Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live doing her amazing, hilarious impersonations of Sarah. Oh, maybe this candidacy isn't so bad after all -- IF we can be absolutely sure that she won't win and that it's all just for laughs!

*****

The best part of the week: the Phillies beat the Milwaukee Brewers in the first round of the baseball playoffs.

the ghost

No, this isn't about John McCain....
*****
We live in a townhouse, our next door neighbor is an older lady named Dee (She used to hate us, now we're her best friends, but that's a whole different story)...

Two weeks ago, we had a day where something weird was happening... My garage-door opener stopped working... I figured it must need a new battery, but a new battery didn't help. Later that same day Jerry's garage-door opener stopped working, and his opener is part of his car, so there is no battery to run down. Then we realized, amazed, that when we pushed the button to open our garage, our neighbor Dee's garage door was going up and down instead of ours. How could this be? These things are programmed! And then the next day, everything was back to normal and our openers were working again, even though we hadn't done anything to fix the situation (Whatever the fix is!).

Jerry and Dee put their heads together on this and came up with the conclusion: we have a ghost. Jerry had already been convinced that in July he brought a ghost home from Denver with him, which has been giving him backaches during the night (Jerry's friend Sarah in Denver theoretically had a ghost in her house and night-time backaches, so it maybe got on the plane to Minneapolis with Jerry[??]). Dee, on the other hand, has been certain that she's been haunted by her late husband (Who was also good at tormenting her while he was alive). Plus, they've decided that there is a third possible ghost -- the guy who used to live where we live and apparently died in our house and who once had fixed Dee's garage-door opener.

Meanwhile, I, being the rational one, just sit there and listen as they talk, while I sip my drink.

But then it happened again three days ago. A whole day of our garage-door openers opening her garage but not ours. Then back to normal the next day!

?????