what do the normal folk do?

Jerry decided to take a whole day off -- today, a Saturday -- and he somehow talked me into taking the day off too... His reasoning -- "I need to work this Sunday, so you should just work Sunday too instead of today, and we'll spend the day together." This time of year, I'm working all the time, and right now so is he, but I rearranged a client appointment and cancelled a haircut appointment (and I desperately need a haircut) and took the day off.

So now what? My idea of taking a day off would have been to stay at home and "chill", but, no, Jerry said we should do what normal people do on a Saturday. Which is what, I wonder?

We started by going out to breakfast, at Victor's 1959 Cafe ("revolutionary Cuban cooking") in south Minneapolis, then headed to the Mall of America (the opposite of "chilling"), the highlight of which was running into comedienne Joan Rivers, who I actually like very much. She was there for some promotional event for QVC cable shopping network, I think, and also to autograph a couple of her newer books that I had never heard of and had no interest in. If she would have been signing copies of her old bio, Enter Talking, I would have waited in line (It's one of my favorite celebrity autobiographies). She is 75 years old now but has had so much plastic surgery that she looks like a very blond mannequin. Scary! but she's still funny.

The Mall was mobbed today, thousands and thousands of people. We bought some shirts on sale at Macy's and then wanted some coffee, but all of the coffee shops either had long lines (I don't do lines) or had no available seating. So we left the chaos of the Mall behind and headed into Bloomington, where we found a very cool Starbucks in a very seedy strip mall, and had a leisurely cup of coffee while we read the newspaper -- much more my idea of a day off!

Tonight, Tom is here. We're going to watch In Bruges on DVD and then play cards til we head to bed.

Then we'll get up and go to work, which for us this time of year, is normal.

if i were an Oscar voter

The Academy Awards are Sunday night, and here is where my votes would go:

Best Picture: I liked all the nominated films for Best Picture, but this is the order in which I would rank them: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Milk, Slumdog Millionaire, The Reader, and Frost/Nixon. I'm a little surprised that I'm picking Benjamin Button ( a Brad Pitt movie, of all things), especially since Milk and Slumdog Millionaire are so great, but I think it's the one that is best overall. Slumdog Millionaire will, of course, win this category, but I'm thinking that it won't look nearly as good five years from now as it does now, especially with all that "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" stuff ( a TV show that I hate).

Best Actor: Sean Penn in Milk. He's amazing.

Best Actress: a tough category. Kate Winslet is great in The Reader, and she will win, but how can anybody be better than Meryl Streep in Doubt?

Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. Of course.

Best Supporting Actress: Amy Adams in Doubt.

Best Director: Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire.

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Best Original Screenplay: Milk.

If Slumdog Millionaire wins everything, I'll be disappointed but unsurprised.

And Hugh Jackman is the host on the awards show this year?.. a non-comedian??

****
A later note: Hugh Jackman was great!

presidents' day

This morning, I asked Jerry who he would rather spend today, Presidents' Day, with -- me or Barack Obama? -- and was surprised when he answered "Barack Obama." Ouch!

Doesn't matter. We're both working today anyway (and I bet Barack is also).. We did take the morning off to take my sister Joan to the doctor to have her cast removed. She is now once again among the walking! The wheelchair is history.

What is "Presidents' Day" anyway?.. When I was a kid in New Jersey, we had both Lincoln's birthday (Feb 12) and Washington's birthday (Feb 22) as holidays every year, and somehow it all got merged into a Monday holiday called Presidents' Day, which meant that Lincoln and Washington got smushed into bad company like Franklin Pierce and george w. bush. Maybe that's why fewer and fewer companies have this as a paid day off. What's to celebrate??

definitions of a miracle

I was reading about the pilot of the "Miracle on the Hudson" plane being interviewed on Larry King. You know the story? The U.S. Air flight that was taking off in New York, hit a bunch of birds, and crashed into the Hudson River? Amazingly, everyone on the flight survived, and the pilot and crew were great in time of crisis.

But I keep thinking about how this event keeps being called the "Miracle on the Hudson". What is a "miracle", anyway? According to Wikopedia, "A miracle is a sensibly perceptible interruption of the laws of nature, such that can only be explained by divine intervention..." So what was the divine intervention in this case? It seems to me that a better divine intervention would be to not have those birds there at all. In other words, maybe the miracle is all the thousands of flights that don't hit birds in the first place. Maybe this wasn't a "miracle" at all, maybe it was more of an "oops".

And who was watching out for the birds? (Apparently they weren't sparrows!)

Continuing with Wikopedia, though, I also see a more watered-down definition: "In casual usage, 'miracle' may also refer to any statistically unlikely but beneficial event", a description which I guess sort of applies when a plane crashes and all the people on board survive -- certainly more of a "miracle" than the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team winning the gold medal, for instance. And for the news media to start reporting the news using less dramatic terminology? -- well, I guess that would be a miracle.

will work for food

For me, it's easy to lose perspective this time of year... I get kinda weird when I work long hours day after day... A couple nights ago, I was bleary-eyed and goofy when Jerry picked me up at the office... It was late, and I was starving and on the verge of crabbiness (and you've never seen me crabby, I'm sure)... "Where should we go to eat?" Jerry asks, trying to accomodate... I feel the need to drown my sorrows in something greasy, so I say, "I'm really in the mood for Psycho Suzie's!" So he drove me over to Psycho Suzie's, where I ranted at him about my day until the cocktail started taking effect and the sausage-and-mushroom pizza arrived at our table, and suddenly life was good again.

Meanwhile, there are all those people out there suddenly without jobs, and I'm wondering where that will all end... More homeless people?.. Believe me, you don't want to be homeless in Minnesota in winter. Target Corporation and Best Buy are headquartered here in Minneapolis, and even they are laying off significant numbers of corporate staff. So for now, I guess I won't complain about being overworked.
****
Didn't watch the SuperBowl this year (Arizona? Pittsburgh? halftime show?.. who cares?), went to a movie instead (Frost/Nixon). Still need to see a couple more Oscar nominees, The Reader and Benjamin Button, maybe The Wrestler and Doubt if I don't run out of time.
****
Just finished reading a good book, Polanski by Christopher Sandford. Not the best biography I've ever read, but I enjoyed it very much -- Who has had a more dramatic life than Roman Polanski?
****
Am I missing something, or what is the big deal about Michael Phelps smoking some pot? Where's the loyalty, Americans? This guy won eight Olympic gold medals! Let him have some fun!

#100

I realized that this is my one-hundredth blog posting since starting Et Maintenant? in August of '07. As I sit at my computer here on Blogger.com, often with a blank brain, I still try to keep in mind the book Jon gave me, Nobody Cares What You Had For Lunch, and make an effort not to be too mundane or at least to keep the mundane relatively interesting. Sometimes I get reactions, often I get silence.

At my book group this past week (which I hadn't attended in a couple years but was happy to get back to at least for a visit), there was some discussion of blogging. My friend Barb was putting in a good word for my blog, and others were saying they can't imagine putting thoughts in blog form for the whole world to potentially see.

What the heck, I enjoy it anyway. I doubt that many strangers stop by this blog site and pay much attention to it.

The site I don't really understand is Facebook. I do have a Facebook page, due to peer pressure I guess, but I don't get the overall point of it, especially the "What are you doing right now?" part. Barry, in the book group, said his wife is on Facebook and must have too much time on her hands because she puts things on there like "Right now I'm having a Coke".... and of course that comment goes out to all her Facebook "friends", who I'm sure are thrilled that she is having a Coke....

Others are very into Myspace. My sister Joan (who is recuperating nicely from her ankle break, thank you) has favorite Myspace sites that she checks almost day, like Lindsay Lohan and other celebrities and controversial characters. I don't do Myspace. You can only read what a Myspace member has to say if you are accepted by them as a "friend".. and I'm sure I couldn't emotionally handle a rejection if I asked to be somebody's Myspace friend and got no response!

So I stick with my blog, which is apparently there for the world to see, friend or not, and I'll head into the next hundred posts. Try to contain your excitement.
****
Our book group selection, by the way, was The White Tiger (the 2008 Man Booker Prize winner) by Aravind Adiga, which we all liked. It's a novel about India, life in the lowest of castes, definitely not a book that would prompt you to buy a plane ticket to India however. For me, reading it was a good companion experience to seeing the excellent new movie, Slumdog Millionaire, also about dirt-poor Indians, which, unfortunately, no one else in the group had seen yet. (I'm on my annual mission to see all five of the Best Picture Oscar nominees -- have so far seen two of the five.)

great expectations

January isn't a great time to be moving into a new house, but I bet the Obamas won't be carrying any boxes into the White House in the next few days so it won't likely be a problem for them... The job I'd like is being one of the movers getting the bush family the heck out of there -- as fast as possible, maybe breaking some furniture along the way (like real movers).

I for sure don't envy Barack Obama as he becomes President. There are only 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week -- Where does he start to undo the disasters of the past eight years? Yet the pressure on him to perform is intense.

As 2008 ended, I heard so many people say how glad they were to see the year end and how they expected 2009 to be so much better. A lot of people found 2008 to be a total downer, for financial reasons, for personal reasons, whatever. I can understand that, but at the same time I've never been glad to see a year end. I'm never even glad to see a day end. There aren't enough of them.

And I admit I've always been better at looking back than at looking forward. And looking back at 2008, I'd rather think about the good -- at least, selfishly, my own personal memories:

--- November 4, Election Night.
--- (Without getting too corny) all the time spent with family and friends.
--- The Phillies winning the World Series.
--- Vacations, in particular the week in New England in September and the four day trip in August to Alaska (pre-Palin).
--- Labor Day in St. Paul -- Marching in the anti-war rally against the Republican National Convention (and not getting arrested).
--- Some great theater -- especially the touring production of Jersey Boys, the Jungle Theater's The Gin Game, and the Guthrie Theater's A View From the Bridge.
--- All the books I read during the year. My favorites: Pictures from a Revolution by Mark Harris and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz.

With that, I'll lay 2008 to rest. I apologize for being a Pollyanna.

Best of luck, President Obama... Show them how it's done. Hope you like the new house.

oh, to be in Phoenix!

It would be pathetically predictable for me to go on and on about this Minnesota winter -- how it is the worst in years; how it was 17 degrees below zero (not counting windchill) as I was walking to work this morning; how we are currently having days when the temp doesn't even go above zero all day long; how it seems to snow every other day; etc., etc.

So I won't. You know how I hate being predictable.

But this evening I was thinking about Phoenix, Arizona, where the temperatures today were about 75 degrees (above zero). Tom and I were at the Minnesota Wild/Phoenix Coyotes hockey game in St. Paul this evening. The first thing I always think is, how did Phoenix, a city out there in the middle of the desert, get a team that plays hockey, a winter sport? And then I'm thinking, what about those Coyote players, flying north to play in Minnesota, where the temps are 90 degrees cooler than where they left. Gosh, it must have been a shock to their systems. They were awful tonight, even with Wayne Gretsky coaching, losing to the Wild 6-3.

And I do have to say that I'm sure that a winter in Minneapolis is not as bad as a summer in Phoenix!

.... but I do admit, as I go out there to scrape ice off my car windows, that a couple days in Phoenix might feel good right about now....

Maybe this coming weekend, for instance, when the Arizona Cardinals are hosting my Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday for the NFC championship, the winner going on to the Super Bowl (Sorry, I just switched from hockey to football).. ! I could hang out with the Eagles fans that you know will be interspersed in those home-team stands .. (And how did Arizona ever get a football team, anyway??) Go, Eagles!!
*****
It's been a while since I've blogged, and I've been meaning to have some profound thoughts looking back at 2008, and here it is the 13th of January already.. Is it too late? I'd hate to be like one of those people still wishing people Happy New Year in March!

zero to sixteen to fifty

Do you know that old song, "Sixteen Candles", the song that starts "Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, baby, I love you so"... ? It was a big hit by the Crests back in the late 1950s. Well, my sister Joan once heard on the radio that this record was released on January 6, 1959 (which I haven't verified, but, hey, it had to have been released sometime!)... The significance of January 6, 1959?? -- the day Joan was born...!!

so have a listen to the song by clicking the link below, then be sure to wish Joan a Happy 50th Birthday, Baby!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl-o5LsYtKU

'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.