A Century in Provence I recently stumbled upon a story about Jeanne Calment, the French woman who dies in 1997 at the extremely ripe old age of 122 years. That makes her the longest living human by almost three years compared to 119-year-old Sarah Knauss of Hollywood Pennsylvania (she died in 1999). That means that Calment has held that record worldwide for twenty-three years. That’s quite an amazing accomplishment in an age when longevity is…
Staging the Next Stage We are blessed with several friends who seem to enjoy being of service to Kim, and by extension, to me. They like helping her pack, unpack, organize stuff, sort out her clothes and other stuff. For two weeks we had Oswaldo here and that was a pleasure. Every time I turned around he would be doing this or that quite tirelessly and with no complaints. I actually think he likes staying…
Decoupling I love that word, decoupling. You can go in so many directions with it. Icvbnt can be the bucket of cold water thrown on two dogs to stop them doing what they do (I witnessed that one day during my youth in Maine, when a huge dog got “stuck” tying to exploit a smaller dog that had kegeled itself into protective rigor). It can be a long-overdue divorce that has waited for the kids…
Capitalism on the Run Today I saw that a friend who is part of my motorcycle group and who declares as a conservative Republican put a post on Facebook that was intended to denigrate socialism and stand up for capitalism. He quoted Winston Churchill as saying, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” I found it necessary to…
A Chill in the Air Today I am wearing two long-sleeved shirts, the one underneath a mock turtleneck with the MOA logo on the neck (that would be Motorcycle Owners of America) and on top I have a RESIST t-shirt. Someone asked me what I was resisting and all I could think to say (since I thought it demanded a rapid answer as it was such a bold and simple statement of intent) was “everything.”…
Battery Math Today I went to a battery fair here in Escondido. I was invited by Baker Electric, the premier electricians here in Southern California, who installed my solar system last year. They were joined in this extravaganza, replete with free donuts and mimosas and great swag (umbrellas, string backpacks and notebooks with pens) by the strong and mighty Tesla, the dominant maker of home batteries. Naturally, I had to drive to the fair in…
Storage Stuff Today the moving truck arrived with our stuff from NYC. To be totally accurate, it arrived in two 24’ trucks, one with furniture and one filled to the brim with boxes. These trucks appeared on time at 8:00am (they drove down from their terminal in L.A.) and came with six very nice moving guys who stayed and went above and beyond helping us with rugs and moving furniture. They were on site for…
It’s All Debatable I have a friend, Gary, who reads this blog with regularity and who more or less shares the same political outlook I have. He was just out visiting the last few weeks and we got into mud wrestling more than once about which direction thing would likely go in the 2020 election. I am an avowed optimist and let’s just say that Gary is not so much. I usually attribute less than…
Boy Scout Bankruptcy Back in 1962 I was living in Madison, Wisconsin. At that time it was all about ice fishing, ice boat sailing and other middle-American pastimes. For vacations we would go north up to the Wisconsin Dells (sort of version of Lake George or Franconia Notch with lots of kid amusement areas) or even further north to Lake Superior for a cold, refreshing dip in the icy waters of the greatest of the…
Harvey the Rabbit I have heard for years about the famous Pulitzer Prize play by Mary Chase that was made into a movie starring Jimmy Stewart. The play was written in 1945 and the movie was made in 1950. What brings it to mind is a combination of issues starting with the image of Harvey Weinstein dragging his sorry ass into the NYC courthouse every day using a walker with two high-viz yellow tennis balls…