Educating Myself My daughter called me today very concerned about Mayor DeBlasio’s announcement that he intends on opening NYC public schools in the Fall, but only for two or three days per week, so more or less half time. The idea is to use existing facilities and using them to the maximum social distancing capacity and filling in with online learning of the sort used this Spring around the world. She was both concerned about…
Tik-Tok Hong Kong Some places in the world just can’t ever seem to avoid being on a schedule and always racing against the clock. Hong Kong seems to have caught this disease in extremis. The Nineteenth Century was a time of great fascination by the world in China. Since the days of Marco Polo in the late Thirteenth Century, Europe has been drawn to China and its exotic goods. The tales brought back by Marco…
We Laugh and We Cry Kim’s best friend Cecil died this morning. He had a heart condition for some years and despite Kim’s best efforts to medicate him, exercise him, cook healthy fresh food for him, and brushing his teeth every evening to keep the plaque monster at bay, he still died. We can’t be sure, but the very empathetic vet who cared for him in his last hour said he believed it was his…
We Laugh and We Cry Kim’s best friend Cecil died this morning. He had a heart condition for some years and despite Kim’s best efforts to medicate him, exercise him, cook healthy fresh food for him, and brushing his teeth every evening to keep the plaque monster at bay, he still died. We can’t be sure, but the very empathetic vet who cared for him in his last hour said he believed it was his…
He Made Me Laugh He was not 2,000 years old, but only 98. He did not invent the cure for cancer or climate warming. He did not lead the nation through a devastating war. He did not make any big feature award-winning films or wright Top-40 songs. He did not run for or hold any grand public offices. He did father one of the great movie-makers and TV sitcom stars of our age in Rob…
The New York Dreams Kim, through her Facebook traipsing, heard of a series called American Experience: New York done by Ric Burns, younger brother to famed documentarian Ken Burns. It is a historical perspective from the western origins as a Dutch colony in 1609. There are chapters of this documentary like any good series and it is all done chronologically naturally. Given my forty-four years living in New York and Kim’s thirty years, the city…
The Spectrum of Life When I acquired my house in Ithaca twenty-four years ago (1996), it is fair to suggest that the technological world looked a lot different than it does today. Back then, the important elements to consider in a home were to have water, sewer, electricity, gas and telephone connectivity. The first four were easy since the United States had had a century of infrastructure roll-out that insured that most every place had…
Residentially Believable I have now been a California resident since February 4th at the very latest. I arrived here in my car on December 21, but was back in NYC in January for a few weeks while we wrapped up move-related logistics and closed-out our apartment. The movers finished up on February 3rd and the apartment was empty and broom-cleaned that night as we slept in the hotel next door. I surrendered my apartment keys…
Handout to Mouth The other day I went to the Apple Store at the North County Mall near here. Let’s start by understanding that I am not at all a Mall Rat. In fact, I stay as far away from Malls as I possibly can. I have a problem with consumer inundation and the specialty of big department stores and, indeed, malls overall, is to inundate the consumer with choices. I’m always amazed when I…
An Overindulgence of Crocs Last summer I did something very much on purpose to see if I could handle the trauma. I bought a pair of black Crocs to take and wear around Western Ireland during our family vacation, with the idea that I would dispose of them there (they are $45 shoes after all and made of cheap plastic) rather than lug them home in the suitcase. This was a new concept for me…