Pride of Ownership For a long time I have pondered the lease versus buy decision involved in home ownership. I have owned many homes, both primary and secondary. For a long time I have said to anyone who would listen, that multiple home ownership is a false idol and should not be coveted. I found myself saying that again today about the ownership of a pied-à-terre. I like to do the math for people to…
The Gift that Keeps on Giving I wrote a story almost two years ago about my saga of trying to get Mercedes Benz Escondido to install a trailer hitch on my new GLS 450, as they had promised they could and would when I bought (actually leased) the car. The outcome of that story involved MB Escondido splitting the outrageous $3,600 cost to install what is a $575 factory option. Today is the first time…
Trailer Travails Today I am getting ready for our one-year-postponed 25th Anniversary gathering of my motorcycle club. The plan is that on Friday we will drive with our friends Chris and Ann (and, of course, Betty) to Las Vegas with our motorcycles (actually, both of the bikes are mine since Chris will ride my Kawasaki and I will ride my BMW) in my motorcycle trailer. We will unload the bikes in Las Vegas and then…
One More Go It’s Saturday night and we have nothing on. I drove son Thomas to the airport this morning for his return to NYC after a wonderful week with him here. I’m a little sad to see him go, but I am a big believer in the concept that birds gotta fly and at 26, Thomas is out of the nest and winging his way into his life. In fact, as I look at…
Laborers One should never be too old or too set in one’s ways so as not to be open to learning and improving oneself. When I wrote my story yesterday and mentioned that I would be hiring a pair of Mexican laborers, a term I view as only descriptive and not in any way derogatory. Being half Venezuelan and often being mistaken by marketers as having a Hispanic surname, it would be hard for me…
Mothers Day This morning my sister Kathy and I received a text from my sister Barbara with a picture of my mother’s grave marker. The marker is a bronze image of our mother in her youth, her DOB and DOD spanning 100+ years, and the expression of love, “We will look for you always.” It still, four years since her death, brings a pang to my heart. I feel the need to examine that sentiment…
Super Powers At some point in all of our lives I think its fair to assume everyone wished for one sort of super power or another. The classic one that has found its way into many dreams is the ability to fly like Superman. Many super powers are hard to imitate or pretend in any credible manner. Spider-Man’s ability to eject web string from his wrists has been reasonably imitated by various toy and costume…
The Beverly Hillbillies While son Thomas is here this week we want him to have the opportunity to see everyone he can. Therefore, we planned a day up in L.A. even though I am always intimidated to drive up into L.A. traffic. Intimidation isn’t really the right word, but I definitely don’t like L.A. traffic. And L.A. sits like a massive lump in the middle of the state. It extends east/west from the beach at…
Homebody Betty For eleven years we had Cecil and he followed the nature of his Bichon breed and could never be left alone, even for a few hours, since his high anxiety nature would cause him to do strange retaliatory things. For instance, once when he left alone for a few hours, he jumped up onto the kitchen table and peed all over it. That sort of action can only be designed to pass a…
Grey Gardens That name always rang a bell, but I don’t recall ever really knowing to what it referred. Then, today I got a typical mailer from Esquire magazine, one of my vestigial subscriptions which I am forever threatening myself to allow to expire, but am never quite ready to allow to lapse. That email was recommending to me 38 great documentaries to watch. Many of the suggestions like March of the Penguins, Free Solo,…