A Haircut for Betty Betty, Betty, Betty. You’ve been with us for five months now and I think it’s fair to say that your recuperation is complete. Your teeth are fixed. Your eyes are fixed. Your diabetes is more or less fixed. You still cringe when someone tries to pet you or, worse yet, pick you up. If that doesn’t happen in the right way, you get kinda nervous and maybe pee just a squirt…
Double New Yorker I wish the New Yorker magazine treated its subscribers like American Express has chosen to, with a designation on the card that declares “Member Since 1976”. I must admit, I am proud of that designation. And here is the thing, in the forty-five years of my membership, I have never once not paid the AMEX bill in full every month. It used to be that there was no choice to do otherwise,…
The Hill We Climb I know what you’re thinking. My constant references to my life on this hilltop and the fact that I spend a lot of my day exercising on my own personal stairclimber going up and down the hills to work on projects and generally do chores. So, it is not hard to surmise that the hill I climb is covered in dirt and rocks with an occasional succulent to step over. But…
Feelin’ Good We have all spent the day watching the Biden/Harris inauguration and I just listened to John Legend sing it best when he said he was “feelin’ good”. We are all feelin’ good today. We feel good because a terrible episode is over and already starting to fade to black. As bad as the four years have been, the longest four years I can recall, the last three months have seemed even longer and…
Double Barrel Every day when I sit down to write I am always want to write about something other than the Coronavirus and the nonsense in Washington. I opt to write about how I feel, how I occupy my time, what Betty is up to, and bigger things underway in the universe. But today, ostensibly the first working day of 2021, I am dragged back to reality, so let’s see what is on the plate.…
Me and Bobby McGee Janis Joplin took the song Me and Bobby McGee to number one on the Billboard charts in 1971 with her posthumous album named Pearl. It was the second such posthumous success after Otis Redding put out The Dock of the Bay, days before his death in 1967. Of course, Janis died of a heroin overdose and Otis died in a plane crash going to a gig, but they both have their…
Experiencing the Holidays My youngest son, Thomas, gave us two experiential gifts this year. One of the bright people at Airbnb came up with a revenue filler called Airbnb Experiences and he and his significant other, Jenna, thought it would be a good gift for us. One was the about learning to be Polish, done by a lovely woman from Krakow who is an underemployed tour guide. The other, which we did last night, was…
The Night the Lights Went Out No, this is not another Santa Ana wind emergency or a story about SDG&E and my struggles with Tesla Power Walls and the solar/battery system installed by Baker Electric. That has “resolved” itself by virtue of a simple call from Baker to me on a calm morning when I did not feel like getting crosswise with another vendor. They have done nothing to physically alter my system or its…
The First Key to Writing is to Write, Not Think Tonight I stumbled on one of my favorite movies while flipping through the Prime offerings. It was strange because rather than the normal indication that the movie was either included in my subscription or that I could rent or buy it for $X, I was offered the opportunity to view the movies for free if I was prepared to allow advertisements. That was a big…
Loving Pandemic The wave is cresting. 76.8 million infected globally (just under 1% of the world) and 1.69 million deaths (most likely severely understated at 2.2%). In the U.S. 17.9 million infected (a whopping 5.5% of the population) and 318,000 deaths (slightly better at 1.8%). California is an extreme hot spot with 1.89 million infected (also high at 4.8% of the population) and 22,735 deaths (1.2% but one of those right next door). San Diego…