When is a Lie Not a Lie? I’m sure that some of you will LOL about this, but I really do try not to write every blog story about how outraged I am about Donald Trump and the gang of Republican lawmakers and administration cronies that continue to stand up for the man. Today the situation has yet again shifted. As the parade of credible, patriotic career diplomats and intelligence professionals gets longer and longer…
The Chill in the Air As I walked my 200 steps to work today, I was reminded that the winds in lower Manhattan get pretty crazy through the canyons of buildings. It is pretty much windy all year long, but today it was windy with a distinct chill of the impending season. It was sunny and the sky was blue, like waking up in the Dolomites or Alps in the morning, but the Weather…
Buttered Rubber I’ve never been much of a seafood fan. I have found myself in plenty of situations over the years where it was impossible to avoid eating seafood. Obviously, there is seafood and there is fishy seafood. I’ve enjoyed plenty of shrimp cocktail, fish & chips, Haddock fish sticks, Fillet-o-Fish sandwiches, crab cakes and even an occasional light, white broiled sole or swordfish or other flaky fish. What I steadfastly avoid is oily…
Why Don’t He Write? We all remember Dances With Wolves, that wonderful Kevin Costner epic about life on the plains for a post-Civil-War soldier who befriends the local Indian tribe and realizes that they are better people than most western settlers he knows. Costner gets to his lonely and desolate frontier fort by means of a buggy ride from a noxious frontiersman who eats pickled eggs and farts loudly. He has one great line as…
I Think I’m Going to Cry Again Kim and I enjoy watching Michael Douglas and Akan Arkin in The Kominsky Method on Netflix. They are Hollywood friends of a certain age even though Arkin is 85 and Douglas is ten years younger. I am ten years younger again than Douglas, but I find this show hilarious. Maybe that’s because it’s written by Chuck Lorre, creator of The Big Bang Theory, and a man of…
On My Sleeve It is said by Shakespeare that Iago, Othello’s less-than-faithful servant, wears his feelings on his sleeve. We all know what a crafty fellow Iago was, so it seems somewhat like a head-fake to think that he would be so obvious. And long before that, the Roman army, which strongly discouraged its legionnaires from marrying (presumably for fear that they would go less than all-out if they had something to lose), allowed…
Constable Osman Almost Gets a Promotion It was 7:00am on the first Sunday in October and Constable Osman of the Trafik Polisi Turkiye, Güneybatı Bölümü (Southwest District – covering the provinces of Izmir, Aydin and Muğla) woke up with a big headache. October was make or break month for his promotion to Sergeant and he really needed the extra 750 TL per month the promotion would give him since his wife was expecting a new…
The Angel’s Trumpet The best part about traveling with a diverse group of people is all the interesting tidbits of valuable information you gather along the way. Today was no exception even though one is reminded that it’s important to be discerning in what one chooses to believe or not. Mr. Ripley had it right when he collected his curios from around the world. It may not matter sometimes whether it’s true or not, but…
Surrendering to the Darkness I usually don’t credit people for giving me titles since I usually snatch unintended catch-phrases out of thin air and feel the person had no idea what they were saying. But this one is different. One of our intrepid motorcycle tour guides, Skip Mascorro, the founder of MotoDiscovery, gets the nod. I will fill in the details of the day in a bit, but as we were getting our final ride…
Water, Water Everywhere I think we all have our stories about water. I’m not talking about the sea or mountain lakes. By water I’m referring to that stuff we drink. I had never drunk water out of anything but the tap until 1965 when my family moved to a little town in Maine called Poland Spring. We spent three weeks at the Poland Spring Inn while our temporary house was being readied. I distinctly…