Enter the Dragon Again!

On February 21, I wrote:


I have been going on nicely for the last few months since Christmas, going on about my eBook reader. I bought a Kobo, a Canadian eBook reader sold by Chapters, and I love it. It had the ability to download library books, albeit with 21 day limits, but still, they were free. It comes with 100 Classic books (out of copyright so they can give them away) plus two “best sellers” of their choosing and the ability to purchase a number of titles (thousands of them) on line and wirelessly. They also have almost 400 books on their web site that are free as well. I am basically a slow reader, given I usually just read before bed and like lots of guys, I do read on the toilet. OK, but I don’t spend much time there, and I fall asleep easily, although I seldom stay asleep.

Kobo usually has some sort of sale or another on the weekends, and this week they had a 20% off sale. I am delighted with reading a Howard Jacobson book, “Kalooki Nights” addend I was looking forward to getting his award winning “The Finkler Question”.

Jacobson, born the same year as I was, described himself as "a Jewish Jane Austen" (in response to being described as "the English Phillip Roth"), he also states, "I'm not by any means conventionally Jewish. I don't go to shul. What I feel is that I have a Jewish mind, I have a Jewish intelligence. I feel linked to previous Jewish minds of the past. I don't know what kind of trouble this gets somebody into, a disputatious mind. What a Jew is has been made by the experience of 5,000 years, that's what shapes the Jewish sense of humor, that's what shaped Jewish pugnacity or tenaciousness." He maintains that "comedy is a very important part of what I do”.

So, on Saturday I purchased it. It sells for $18 in paperback and as an eBook it was $10. With a 20% discount, it was $8 plus tax. I was delighted. I had several free books as well as my original 100, so I figure, how much time do I have? How many books can I read? If I were to retire tomorrow and read non stop for the rest of my life, how many books can I read?

Enter the Dragon!

Les calls on Sunday morning to say he has been obtaining eBooks. Using his computer and through Torrents, he had downloaded lots of books, noting he is obsessed, as usual, with technological issues. Les has thousands of TV shows and movies as well. He is sure, in the never ending great conspiracy theory in the sky, that there are disgruntled employees of publishers releasing information and they are all “out there” (Mulder and Scully). He has for me, should I desire, 623 novels ready for my Kobo.

I will not go into what was there, and I can not print this because the book police will arrive at my door should I actually do this. I can only say that the download of 623 books (all beyond copyright dates of course) took less than two minutes to get from the flash drive into my computer, less than two minutes to get from my computer into my eBook reader, and two hours for the eBook reader to sort it all out.

There are 32,000 legal books available from Project Gutenberg’s web site http://www.thalasson.com/gtn/ in various formats, and they include such things as all of Mark Twain’s novels. Free eBooks are amazing because so much is available.

Les, the Dragon, let me know later in the day that he was working on a 7,000 volume download!

I’m back to my original dilemma, how much time do I have? How many books can I read? If I were to retire tomorrow and read non stop for the rest of my life, how many books can I read?

My Kobo says I have 732 books available. Borders just went Chapter 11 and will close 30% of its stores. Do you think there’s a reason?

I believe we’re in the middle of the revolution, and we didn’t know we were in one to start. It’s all so gradual. One day we believe one thing and the next day it’s another. All business is changing and we can’t quite figure out how to win in this environment. We used to depreciate computers over five years, and than we went to three years, and now it may be a straight business expense.

Time will sort it all out. I will donate my “real” to an institution if there is one that will want it. My digital library will go down with me, I guess.

When my old friend Dale Landry, the former president of the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology was buried, they put one of his favorite novels in his pocket, a wonderful gesture. When I go, I’m liable to carry off a major library, good until my batteries wear out. In fact, I may be good until my batteries wear out as well.

Enter the Dragon again!

The email came this morning. He has downloaded 8,055 volumes! He attached a list for me to peruse, and dangle in front of me! I was hooked!

On Thursday, I will arrive at lunchtime, with a 8 Gig flash drive in my hand. I will not even try to get them on to my Kobo, but will peruse the titles for a time and make some intelligent decisions. There is no way in hell that I, or frankly anyone I know would have enough time left in their lifetimes to read 8,055 volumes of anything!

I have to admit it, I am hooked! I am amazed by the possibilities!

Toilet Troubles

When I was in Japan in the late 80’s and 90’s, the western style toilet was just coming into most places, although the traditional Japanese toilet was still in use. At the time, most tourist places had them but anywhere else one would have to ask, and maybe, even be taken for a walk to find one. My wife was walked for two or three blocks out of a restaurant by a hostess so she could find a western toilet.


The thing that got me about them was the occasional pictograph showing you how to use the western toilet. In reality, I would have needed a pictograph showing me how to use the Asian toilet.

There is certainly no way today, that I could possibly squat over a porcelain hole in the ground and “go”. One has to keep their pants and underwear at their ankles, any longish coat or shirt or sweater held up from the ground, and back over a hole trying not to soil something or other. Yuk!
I have included all I could find this afternoon, some from Japan and Malaysia and Cambodia, plus a “real” Japanese toilet so you can understand the dilemma.



To add to the problem, in the part where urinals exist, the bathrooms are coed. It is a bit unnerving to have women walking around behind you while you are at the urinal. When I complained about it, I was assured that Japanese women are used to this so it wasn’t a big deal for them. “I know”’ I explained, “My complaint was we were invaded by the women on our bus, the ones already with us, not the locals!”

Blog Traffic

This week, so far, I have had visitors to this blog from the following places:


Country numbers

US 225

Canada 79

UK 77

Netherlands 36

South Korea 31

Germany 19

Brazil 11

Spain 9

Italy 8

France 5

OK, I am overwhelmed! I have thought all along that I had a few more readers beyond my immediate family, neighbors and friends. I have lived in many different cities, and know lots of people, but until today, when I looked beyond the basic numbers which had already overwhelmed me, I never realized the scope of my “messages”.



This is a wonder world for me. It has given me a new creative outlet for the wealth of stories I’ve been telling forever, and it gives me a chance to contact a few old friends. I have been reasonably obnoxious with it, stuffing down the throats of people who make the mistake of asking, “What’s new”?



Thank you all for your continuing support. I have learned about my writing style, my non-linear thinking patterns and I have now done something I thought I’d never be able to do. Not only have I done it but I’ve stuck with it, at least so far.



So, if you’re still out there, I’ll keep on trying. My life is full of these stories (as is yours if you’d just look for them) and as long as I can remember (or make ‘em up) I’ll keep on going. This is a labor of love!



The chart (map of the world) shows the scope of this blog. It knocks me out!



God bless you all!

Furnace Fable

This was a long time ago, and I’ll try not to drag it out. It is just strong in my memory.


In the late 60’s, my friends Ricki and Mike were living in a house in Columbia, Maryland. For some reason, beyond me now, they needed or got a new furnace. Since Columbia was new at the time, it’s hard to believe they needed one, but somehow, as this ancient mind recalls, they had one coming.

Mike had a friend who could get them a “deal”, and he would install it as well. I am reminded of this today as my next door neighbors just had another new furnace installed today; about two years after a friend got them a “deal”. (I know, you regular readers probably thought they bought another car!)

It was installed and everything seemed fine.

On a Friday evening, a few weeks later, as I remember, Rickie’s mother had a premonition. She was not prone to such events, but she had a strong feeling something was wrong with her “kids”. She called at about 10:00 p.m. and Mike answered, however, he was slurring his words, and in the middle of the conversation, he passed out!

Rickie’s Mom and her Father (or her brother, I can’t quite remember) jumped into the car and drove the 20 or 25 minutes to her daughter’s house. They arrived, and used a neighbor’s phone to call the police and fire department.

They banged on the door, and when nothing happened, and the police were present, they broke in the window and entered the house. The first one in grabbed the dog from the floor of the living room, and brought him outside. The firemen ran in and helped to bring out Rickie and Mike, both passed out in the house. The doctors at the hospital said they were a bit short of death when they were saved.

Carbon Monoxide had been building up over the few weeks the improperly installed furnace was installed.

A new furnace repairman arrived in a day or two and corrected the errors. They lived, and I learned a great lesson. Some things just don’t make sense as a DIY project!

Who knows what would have happened without her mother’s intervention. The hunch paid off big time!

Neighbors #2

I wrote about neighbors recently, and I promised more. There have been so many neighbors in so many different places, that the stories go on forever or at least, I hope they do.


When I moved away from my house in suburban Birmingham, MI, I moved into a rental house in downtown Birmingham. This was a wonderful place to live, just urban enough to be interesting, and never gritty! It’s just upscale urban.

Now, in fact I was in a home about to be torn down to make way for four townhouses. The architect who owned it had to wait until City Council approved his plan to demolish my house and build the others. In his own best interest he decided to rent the house (actually a semi-detached home with two apartments) rather than let it sit unattended. He wanted two tenants to help pay the taxes and mortgage until the plan could go through, which it eventually did.

I took the larger of the two apartments, a former architectural office with rough textured walls, with two floors and one bedroom and one bath. It was great, and while I was living like a college student, it suited my needs. For a bit my oldest son, who had a post degree job in Birmingham, lived with me until he was ready to move to Washington DC, where he stayed.

The apartment next door was occupied by a guy who became my buddy. He ran a wine department in a local store, and was a great consultant on what to buy and what the best buy was. I bought lots of stuff from him and he arranged for lots wine for school parties for us.

He was a former drug runner, who was under indictment by some agency or another, and was constantly awaiting some kind of trial. There were a number of nefarious crimes he was accused of, but he seemed to stay out of jail. He had a bad record of international travel which cost him his veil of secrecy. He traveled a lot, to all sorts of interesting places, and was watched carefully as he had no visible means of support. The government is good at looking at you once you draw their attention.

When I knew him this was all behind him, all except a trial, and I lost touch with him after he moved out. I saw him again once in a while but eventually he was gone from the wine job and he had no forwarding address.

The one thing that stuck with me over all these years is that I asked him where you would buy drugs around there. We were away from downtown Detroit, but nearby. I had no idea, nor was I looking, but I thought, given my kids are all in high school, I wondered how far afield one would have to go to purchase, we will say, some marijuana.

We were sitting out on our adjoining front porches, enjoying a glass of wine and talking, and he started to laugh. I asked why, was my question funny? No, it wasn’t, but he asked me to wait a bit and he would answer.

A little while later a silver VW bug came down the street. My neighbor raised his hand to them and whistled, and then he laughed and went over to see the guy who had stopped on the street. He returned a few minutes later with a bag of grass.

You see, much like the proverbial Good Humor or Mr. Softee Man, you just had to wait until our local drug dealer came around the corner and wave. He did not use a bell or music, but, this was the 80’s!

The $300 Night Light (The First Post repeated, February 21, 2009)

As you know by now if you've come from Facebook, this is the first day of my third year with this blog, and this is the 553rd post. I decided to go back and publish the first one all over again, even though you still can see it on line. Most people don't go into the archives, at least they didn't until I started posting the most popular ones on the side, and the first one, the Vagisil one went "viral",  at least for me, with over 1300 views! So here's the first story, and I hope there are many more to come.

We have an over the range microwave oven, which has a fan and a light in the bottom of it. This is a Jenn-Air which was about $600, and is about 3 or 4 years old. (OK, I paid $400, and it was an out-of-date model!)


I replaced a bulb in the bottom portion, used to light the range below it and it becomes a night light. I twisted the bulb the wrong way because it’s in a backwards position and it came apart in my hand. This caused a big bang, and a flash and no more light working.

I checked around and there was no separate fuse. I used a meter and there was no electricity. I gave up.

My wife wanted it fixed, and we found a guy who was willing to come out and look, as most appliance repair places will not bother with microwaves.

The visit, with tax, was $77. I fried the board, and to replace it will be $179 plus $30 labor. My wife wants her light. The oven is still good and a new one (of the same brand and size) is $600.

I know I can get a new one of another brand for about $300, but it didn't work for her.

I have now ordered the $300 night light!

Enter the Dragon

I have been going on nicely for the last few months since Christmas, going on about my eBook reader. I bought a Kobo, a Canadian eBook reader sold by Chapters, and I love it. It had the ability to download library books, albeit with 21 day limits, but still, they were free. It comes with 100 Classic books (out of copyright so they can give them away) plus two “best sellers” of their choosing and the ability to purchase a number of titles (thousands of them) on line and wirelessly. They also have almost 400 books on their web site that are free as well. I am basically a slow reader, given I usually just read before bed and like lots of guys, I do read on the toilet. OK, but I don’t spend much time there, and I fall asleep easily, although I seldom stay asleep.


Kobo usually has some sort of sale or another on the weekends, and this week they had a 20% off sale. I am delighted with reading a Howard Jacobson book, “Kalooki Nights” addend I was looking forward to getting his award winning “The Finkler Question”. Jacobson, born the same year as I was, described himself as "a Jewish Jane Austen" (in response to being described as "the English Phillip Roth"), he also states, "I'm not by any means conventionally Jewish. I don't go to shul. What I feel is that I have a Jewish mind, I have a Jewish intelligence. I feel linked to previous Jewish minds of the past. I don't know what kind of trouble this gets somebody into, a disputatious mind. What a Jew is has been made by the experience of 5,000 years, that's what shapes the Jewish sense of humor, that's what shaped Jewish pugnacity or tenaciousness." He maintains that "comedy is a very important part of what I do”.

So, on Saturday I purchased it. It sells for $18 in paperback and as an eBook it was $10. With a 20% discount, it was $8 plus tax. I was delighted. I had several free books as well as my original 100, so I figure, how much time do I have? How many books can I read? If I were to retire tomorrow and read non stop for the rest of my life, how many books can I read?

Enter the Dragon!

Les calls on Sunday morning to say he has been obtaining eBooks. Using his computer and through Torrents, he had downloaded lots of books, noting he is obsessed, as usual, with technological issues. Les has thousands of TV shows and movies as well. He is sure, in the never ending great conspiracy theory in the sky, that there are disgruntled employees of publishers releasing information and they are all “out there” (Mulder and Scully). He has for me, should I desire, 623 novels ready for my Kobo.

I will not go into what was there, and I can not print this because the book police will arrive at my door should I actually do this. I can only say that the download of 623 books (all beyond copyright dates of course) took less than two minutes to get from the flash drive into my computer, less than two minutes to get from my computer into my eBook reader, and two hours for the eBook reader to sort it all out.

There are 32,000 legal books available from Project Gutenberg’s web site http://www.thalasson.com/gtn/ in various formats, and they include such things as all of Mark Twain’s novels. Free eBooks are amazing because so much is available.

Les, the Dragon, let me know later in the day that he was working on a 7,000 volume download!

I’m back to my original dilemma, how much time do I have? How many books can I read? If I were to retire tomorrow and read non stop for the rest of my life, how many books can I read?

My Kobo says I have 732 books available. Borders just went Chapter 11 and will close 30% of its stores. Do you think there’s a reason?

I believe we’re in the middle of the revolution, and we didn’t know we were in one to start. It’s all so gradual. One day we believe one thing and the next day it’s another. All business is changing and we can’t quite figure out how to win in this environment. We used to depreciate computers over five years, and than we went to three years, and now it may be a straight business expense.

Time will sort it all out. I will donate my “real” to an institution if there is one that will want it. My digital library will go down with me, I guess.

When my old friend Dale Landry, the former president of the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology was buried in the late 90's, they put one of his favorite novels in his pocket, a wonderful gesture. When I go, I’m liable to carry off a major library, good until my batteries wear out. In fact, I may be good until my batteries wear out as well.

Valentines Day dinner, a week late

I know, it’s a week late, but last week the restaurants were very crowded and last night was a great night to go. Did I buy roses on the 15th? No, I wasn’t that bad, and it wasn’t, as you can see, a wait for better prices, it was really about a good night to go. I did buy after Valentines Day candy (50% off) for the women of my office (this was not sexist; there are no other men in my office).


First of all, there were three of us, my wife, my daughter and me. My daughter wouldn’t have gone with us if she thought she would stand out in any way, except because she was beautiful. She took a bold move by just going, and I doubt she would have done this except it was one of her favorite restaurants, and she is, as we all are, a foodie.

We spent the day doing various things at home mostly, but for sure the never ending Food Channel is the background noise of most of our home lives. It’s usually playing out there even if no one is watching. My mother used to leave the TV on all the time just for the background noise.

My daughter had already gone on line to view the menu for the day, or a sample menu, and she and my wife were discussing what they would have. The wind was blowing and it was so cold that I decided to drive them up to the door and I’d walk from the parking lot but I gave up that idea when I saw valet parking. The “Queen Mary” (my car) was driven by another but she’ll just have to get over it. Here was one parking lot where there were better cars to steal than even mine so I felt fine leaving her alone.

You can see what we had. Mine was the more regular stuff, Caesar salad, steak with creamy garlic mashed potatoes and roasted root vegetables and the sticky toffee pudding, a dessert to die for. As you can see, if we didn’t drink dinner could almost be considered reasonable. But, what would the occasion be if we didn’t drink. Since Canadian drinks are small by US standards, driving home is not a problem after several hours of sitting, the three minute or so drive home was uneventful.

I almost forgot to mention, my daughter was too embarrassed for me to ask for a "doggy bag", which was really for Max, the doggy, so she agreed that I could ask for it when she was in the washroom. However, when we got home with the piece of my steak that was left over, she went running for Max to give it to him immediately!

SNL replayed the show with Paul McCartney. I said I wanted to see him sing and I’d be right up. It was weird because he wasn’t singing and someone I didn’t recognize was on. I didn’t understand until I looked at the clock and saw it was 2:00 a.m.! I had been sleeping in the chair for three hours!

We had a really nice evening.

A Great Program if you can understand it....

One of my favorite programs is Glary Utilities. There is a free version and a pay version, and I’ve never even bothered to look at the pay one as the free one is pretty good. It cleans up the computer and eliminates registry problems as well as other stuff. As you can see from the following review from “fileforum” it does lots of things I have no idea how to do or why. But for free, it’s wonderful.


Glary Utilities 2.32.0.1126

Glary Utilities offers numerous powerful and easy-to-use system tools and utilities to fix, speed up, maintain and protect your PC. It allows you to clean common system junk files, as well as invalid registry entries and Internet traces. You can manage and delete browser add-ons, analyze disk space usage and find duplicate files. You can also view and manage installed shell extensions, encrypt your files from unauthorized access and use, split large files into smaller manageable files and then rejoin them. Furthermore, it includes the options to optimize memory, find, fix, or remove broken Windows shortcuts, manage the programs that start at Windows startup and uninstall software. Other features include secure file deletion, an Empty Folder finder and more.

It has to be updated every now and then, and when it needs to be updated it will tell you when you go to open it. I usually am in the middle of something else and will sort of stop and update if possible.

Today I was working and decided that my computer was slowing down way too much, so I would run Glary Utilities in the background as I worked. It told me to update and I did, paying no attention to what I was doing but just clicking the appropriate buttons. What you see on the screen was what I saw!

I knew I had downloaded a new version of Glary by the look of it but I had no idea what it said or what I was supposed to do. Using my own logic, I went to their website and downloaded a new copy, but paid attention. I hit the button without looking at the category, and it said Language!

As I hit it when it came up, what you see here is the Albanian version of Glary Utilities, the first alphabetical listing for Glary!

You can get any version, even English from: http://www.glaryutilities.com/

Another Great Dinner (at the risk of becoming a cooking blog)

This was a really great dinner last night. I will admit that the idea and the recipe itself came from Chef Michael Smith, as did the advice he starts with. It was so good, although I made some changes and I will suggest some others. It’s worth doing and I will make it, with changes, sometime next week. It was so full of flavor, and a good thing to eat while we watched “Biggest Loser”. On Tuesday night I aways get to cook now, after my wife and daughter come home from yoga. It’s my chance to shine in the cooking department. I highly recommend this dinner!


A recipe is merely words on paper; a guideline, a starting point from which to improvise. It cannot pretend to replace the practiced hand and telling glance of a watchful cook. For that reason feel free to stir your own ideas into this dish. When you cook it once, it becomes yours, so personalize it a bit. Add more of an ingredient you like or less of something you don't like. Try substituting one ingredient for another. Remember words have no flavour; you have to add your own!


Michael Smith

Halibut Provencal

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 4x6 ounce halibut filets, dried on paper towels (I used tilapia, which was wonderful and half the price of halibut. It is a bit thinner, so it cooks up even faster. The whole dish is very quick after you start to cook.)

• Salt and pepper to taste

• 1 large onion, peeled and chopped

• 8 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

• 4 ripe tomatoes, chopped or 1 can of whole tomatoes (I will use a can of Italian tomatoes the next time as they are very flavorful. The vine ripened tomatoes I used have not much taste in the winter months.)

• 24 black olives, pitted (I will chop them in quarters the next time.)

• 24 green olives, pitted (I will chop them as well.)

• 1/4 cup of capers

• 1/4 cup best quality balsamic vinegar

Directions

1. Preheat a large heavy skillet. Add enough oil to cover the bottom with a thin film. When wisps of smoke begin to appear, season the halibut with salt and pepper and add to the pan. Sear on one side until it has a crispy golden crust and releases easily from the pan. Flip and sear on the other side, remove to a plate and reserve.

2. Add the onions and garlic to the hot pan, and sauté until they smell great, a minute or two. Add the tomatoes olives, capers and balsamic and heat through. Add the halibut back to the pan and continue heating until the fish is cooked through, another five minutes or so.





Moroccan Zucchini

Ingredients

• 2 zucchinis, cut in half, lengthwise (I did 4 zucchinis, and added a bit more couscous and stock. I had way too much for 4, so I’d leave the couscous the same and add a bit more stock.)

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 1 large onion, chopped

• 1 cup couscous

• 1 cup chicken stock (add a bit more if needed)

• 1 small bunch basil leaves, chopped

• 4 ounces feta cheese

• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. Place zucchini; cut side down, onto a baking dish (use parchment paper on a cookie sheet) and roast in the oven until it turns golden brown. Scoop the pulp out from the centre of the zucchini, keeping the skins intact for stuffing. Reserve pulp and skins.

3. Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the onion. Sauté until golden brown then add the zucchini pulp, couscous, chicken stock and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer then turn off and rest until the couscous has absorbed all the liquid. Add the basil leaves and feta cheese and stir well. Spoon the mixture into the zucchini skins and place in an 8” by 8” baking dish. Bake until golden brown and hot.

Max's Cookie

My daughter, the baker, was hard at work on February 13 making cookies for Valentines Day. Now we do celebrate this as a family, and always have. I know many people don’t bother with it, but it’s a nice way of reminding yourselves that there is love in your house, even if it’s only for your kids. However, my wife and I always exchange gifts as it seems like the right thing to do and we always have something for the girls.


Both girls received Starbuck’s gift cards as it’s something they’ll use, and my daughter that’s still home got a big red pillow shaped like a pair of lips.

My daughter told me the week before, when she and my wife came home from the spa, that I was to buy my wife a spa package for Valentines Day, and I believed her! I did as she said. What am I nuts? To go in another direction would have proven not smart.

I received a book I wanted and some chocolate, my favorite thing!

So my daughter was working hard making decorated cookies, and both my wife and my daughter told me in no uncertain terms, there is a cookie for Max (our dog) on the plate. Do not eat Max’s cookie. You can see it on the lower right side with a paw print on it.

I took the photo so I could show you, packed up my stuff, and left. I returned at noon to get something I had forgotten, thought to myself, “Great, I’ll eat a cookie. This one is not a good one, it has a mess on it. I’ll eat that one.”

You guessed it, between the morning and the afternoon, I had already forgotten and I ate Max’s cookie!

It was not a dog food cookie; it was a regular cookie specially decorated with a paw print for Max. I was dead meat! There was nothing I could say or do to console either my wife or my daughter. Max could care less; he loves any cookie you give him, especially a human cookie, all sweet and good.

I survived because Max didn’t care.

I will try and remember the directions.


I will try and remember the directions.


I will try and remember the directions.


(try writing this fifty times…..)

Finally, my oldest son tells the real story....

On June 17, 2009 I wrote the story “Dancing Toe to Toe”. It went like this:


In 1968 or 1969 my boys were at home playing in the front of the bathroom. This was a two room bathroom and the playing area (or holding area) was in the front with the toilet and bath in the back. The boys were about five and two at the time.

Their mother was taking a bath in the back room while they were playing in the front part. The oldest was playing with his fourth toe stuck in the linen closet door, not on purpose, just jutting out into the door jamb.   The younger one, slammed the door and removed the top part of the toe.

There was some blood, although the foot was in a sock preventing a huge mess, and there was screaming from all involved.

My wife quickly left the bath, dressed, called the neighbor to come and help and the neighbor drove her to the hospital with the kids.

I was at work at the time, and by the time they reached me, I ran home to look for the toe first, in hopes of reattaching it. Needless to say it was in the sock, but I was too late to do anything about saving it.

A year later we had another son.

He was born with eleven toes……


Today I received an email from my oldest son, the one with 9 ½ toes, and it said:

I sent the below to my friend Eric at his request. He is telling this story in China. While I took a little poetic license, and there is an entirely undeserved shot at my parents included solely for narrative diversity, it is not just my story or my brother’s story – it is all of our story, and it is now international. Our toes are going viral, so to speak. (BTW, the nickname referred to below was “Dr. Mengele.”)

I was 6, my middle brother was three, and my mother was 8.99 months pregnant with my youngest brother. My mother was taking a bath, and my brother and I were in this sort of anteroom outside the bathroom that had a linen closet. We were playing spaceman, with the closet being the spaceship. I entered the spaceship and my brother closed the hatch. I traveled the universe, and when I returned and walked out of the spaceship, I saw that the bottom of my sock was very dark. I took off the sock and saw that the next-to-last toe on my right foot had been severed, and the bone was sticking out the top. I got woozy and called for my mother. She came out, wet and extremely pregnant, and saw the horror. She did not have a car, so our neighbor took us to the hospital in his two-seater, open-top convertible Jaguar, with me on my mother’s lap (as you will recall, the rules about transportation of children were a bit looser at that time).

The doctors sewed up my toe, and we eventually made it home. My father had found the toe in the bottom of my sock (I like to think that in this day and age, my mom would have looked for the toe and brought it with her on ice, but since this is not the only indignity I suffered at the hands of my parents, confined to the limitations of their era, I cannot dwell on this minor point). My father said that he found the toe and had baked it into the casserole we had for dinner that night, and that the person who found the toe would get a prize. This turned out not to be true, which was a relief, digestively, but a slight disappointment because nobody got a prize.

Just weeks later, my youngest brother was born with an extra toe on the same foot.* It is actually this unnaturally wide last toe complex, that has two bones and two nails (i.e., six of each in total on the foot), so it is like an adjunct toe piece, replicating fairly precisely the portion of the toe I lost. As it can be confirmed, my brothers name is from the Hebrew, meaning “eleventh digit,” or “he who hath taken the flesh and bone of his brother.” We were prodigious in the three-legged race, in which we each compensated perfectly for the handicap of the other.

And, as you know, the saga of my curious toe situation figures prominently in the creation of your family, since I disengaged my big toenail while helping you move into your apartment building where, on that very day, indeed within moments of my toenail dissection, you met your wife to be. The centrality of my toes to all our lives continues to pervade our lives – because, of course, her name comes from the Latin and it means “un-nailed toe, smooth, like an olive.”

Later in that same day on which you met your wife, my neighbor, Artie, saw me examining my toe on the porch in my Cleveland Park house, and asked what had happened. I explained, and he told me he was a retired podiatrist who had a full podiatry office in his basement, and told me to accompany him. I went to this dank basement, with all these tools covered in plastic and years of dust. He took out his choicest devices and went to work on my foot, leaving it red, swollen and totally nail-less (i.e., smooth like an olive). I believe it was you who nicknamed him. In any event, any hope for a return of a normal nail ended in that basement. Now, an odd, very thick, horn-like substance sprouts from the damaged area, grows for awhile, and then falls off. Certain African tribes grind the resulting horn into a powder and prize it as an aphrodisiac. It is decidedly not an aphrodisiac in my house.

* Let’s just assume it was the same foot. That really brings a symmetry to the story.

Willaim F. Buckley and my friend Jim

This one has a bunch of stored memories in it and some of them may be incorrect. They will not change the story, but times and places may be confused over time.


Jim Striby, who I wrote about on March 16, 2009 (you can go back and read this one on line) in a post called “Jim Striby was my Friend”, was a colleague of mine at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). We were both in the Art Teacher Education Program, and he was the Department Chair, while I was the Director of Student Teaching.

We were often chosen to be on visiting teams to do assessment of similar programs or called in to visit campuses to review various aspects of someone’s programs.

Jim had taken a consultant job at (here’s the real problem, I am not sure where he was but I think I remember) the Art Education Department at the Penn State University (maybe). It will not matter as I said, since Jim is “gone”, there’s no way to recover the information.

In any case, he was on campus somewhere, and at the end of his day or two, he was to be delivered back to the airport by a cab or a limo, but in some conveyance, and he was dropped off at the Presidents reception area to wait for the ride. It was heading toward evening and he went in and sat down.

Visiting the campus the same day, unbeknownst to Jim was famous writer, columnist, TV personality and arch conservative William F. Buckley. Mr. Buckley was also left at the Presidents reception area to wait for his ride, the same one of course. When Jim arrived, Bill Buckley was seated and waiting.

Jim was taken aback, clearly in the presence of “American royalty”, and not necessarily in a good way. He immediately recognized that they would be together for a while. They introduced themselves, and they had the next 30 minutes together.

“What did you talk about?” I queried, given the situation. He told me they sat and told each other why they were there, Mr. Buckley having made a speech that day. After that Jim, who was an avid reader, knew Bill Buckley had written several mystery novels, as he had read a few, spent the next 30 minutes discussing mystery writing.

Oh what joy, to be with William F. Buckley for 30 minutes and not having to discuss politics!

Neighbors (Neighbours for Canadians)

This is not the house mentioned but it is one in the same  neighborhood that must be for sale, so I could find a photo.


Over all the years and all the places I’ve lived, I’ve had wonderful and certainly interesting relations with my neighbors. In each place I have had unique experiences, both close and removed, depending upon where we lived.

In Michigan, no matter where I was, the neighbor relations were coolest. That could have been the different situation I found myself living in, or it could be that the neighborhood culture in Michigan is in fact a bit different than the other places.

I often write here about my next door neighbors, sometimes in glowing terms and sometimes with great jocularity, but it is always well meaning and never mean spirited.

Since they are prone to read these pages, I must mention that this is not about them!

As I began to ponder neighbors as a topic at about 5:00 a.m. this morning, a flood of stories poured into my head from its recesses. There are so many neighborly tales to tell, some of them defy telling, and some are way too intimate for me to embarrass myself or any former or current neighbor. Perhaps, should I leave a “kiss and tell” book, where names will be named. At this time we will continue to keep our PG rating.

I do have crime related dramas and a drug deal gone awry story, but I’ll save such for another time. I thought I’d start with a small drama, one not even involving me.

I left my family home (I was asked to go) and moved to a small, about to be torn down property in downtown Birmingham, Michigan. My wife and kids stayed in the house for a few years. We sort of knew the neighbors; at least we knew the older couple next door and one or two of the neighbors across the street. As the boys grew older, and I was gone, my former wife began to know the neighbors across the street because they did not appreciate teen aged boys and their friends causing property damage and general mayhem in the neighborhood.

Soon after I was remarried my now ex-wife remarried, and since she and her spouse both had homes, they decided to sell both homes and buy one together. After her house was sold she thought she should do the neighborly thing and visit the older couple next door and let them know she was moving and have a nice goodbye conversation.

She walked next door to say goodbye, and rang the bell. A woman she had never seen before answered the door. She asked for the neighbors and found out that they had moved away two year before!

Braised Country-Style Pork Ribs and Creamy Polenta

On January 29 I wrote:
I haven’t done a food post in a long time and I feel the need coming on. In my non-linear thinking, why not? It seems to be I just go with what I’m thinking, and fortunately or unfortunately, much of my life had worked that way.


A dear old friend from Baltimore sent an email to me the other day and he said, after the posting about my mother’s 100th birthday:

“Wonderful remembrance. Thanks for sharing and if your Mom can read these e mails from heaven my best wishes to her for a happy birthday. Great recipes too. Ever consider publishing a cookbook of them?” Jack


We have appeared in a cookbook published in Alberta a few years ago, where we had three recipes, but nothing planned, so far. We appeared in the Calgary Herald many years ago, about ten times, cooking with the kids. We also did one family cooking event for the Hamilton Spectator. But this week, instead of Greek Meatballs, the January 29 delicacy, I am going with the next big hit around here, which was Braised Pork Chops over Creamy Polenta.

To be fair, I took the basic recipe from Chef Melissa d’Arabian’s “Ten Dollar Dinners” show on the Food Network. I had to change the Country Ribs to Pork Chops as Country Ribs tends to be a US cut, available here in Canada but basically it would have to be ordered, so I just used bone-in pork chops, pretty much a thinner version of the same thing. I used my own polenta recipe as hers was too strange for me to do and way to high in fat content.

So here’s the big hit at my house from Tuesday evening. I came home from the grocery store at five before six o’clock to say good-bye to my wife and daughter as they left for yoga. I had until eight o’clock to make my dinner, a Tuesday night recurring event. This is my one, guaranteed chance to get to cook each week and its fun! Its newly minted, so I hope to keep it up and add to my knowledge and to yours, as well as add it to my other blog, the one with my mothers cookbook plus all of my own recipes. http://renascookbook.blogspot.com/

Braised Pork Chops and Creamy Polenta.

Braised Pork Chops

Ingredients

• 3 pounds bone-in pork chops

• salt and freshly ground black pepper

• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil

• 1 onion, chopped

• 1 carrot, chopped

• 1 stalk celery, chopped

• 4 cloves garlic, minced

• 2 tablespoons tomato paste

• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

• 2 bay leaves

• 2 1/2 cups chicken stock

• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, for garnish

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Pat the ribs dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat and brown the ribs on all sides, working in batches if needed. Remove the ribs and set aside. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon oil to the Dutch oven and reduce the heat to medium. Add the onions, carrots, celery, salt, and pepper and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring, to remove the raw flavor, about 3 minutes. Deglaze the pan with the vinegar, and then add the red pepper flakes and bay leaves.

Add the ribs back to the pan and add enough stock to reach halfway up the sides of the ribs. Bring the pan to a simmer, cover, and place in the oven. Braise until the meat is tender, about 1 1/2 hours. During the last half hour, uncover to allow the liquid to reduce and the pork to brown.

Serve the ribs over Creamy Polenta and garnishing with parsley.

Creamy Polenta

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup whole milk

• 3 cups water

• 2 tablespoons butter

• 1 cup coarse polenta, or corn grits

• Ground salt and black pepper

• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan

• ¼ cup Pecorino Romano Cheese

Directions

In a medium saucepan boil 1 cup water and 1 cup milk. Mix polenta well into 2 cups cold water. Add this mixture to boiling liquid, lower heat and continue stirring all the time. Add butter to mixture, season with salt and pepper and continue over medium-high heat, whisking constantly to keep the mixture lump-free. Boil very lightly for 25 to 30 minutes. At the end of the cooking time, add cheeses and the rest of the milk and continue to stir for a minute or two.

Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish. Put into the oven at 300 degrees for 30 minutes or until you are ready to serve.

Enjoy!

The "New" Building

Yesterday, two of our continuing pottery students showed up at the temporary office, excited about the look of our “new” building. Right after they left I received this email:


Like a lot of other Dundas residents I was most pleased at last year's announcement that the DVSA and other groups would benefit from the Federal infrastructure grant programme.

In particular - as a former member of the Town of Dundas Local Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee (LACAC) - the statement in the media release that the grant would, in part, "restore, renovate and enhance a heritage building dating from 1836" caught my eye.

I would therefore be interested to know how red stucco in any way relates to the restoration or enhancement of of a heritage building?

Was this based on an architect's recommendation? was it a cost saving measure?

Thank you....

(I am withholding the name here but it was signed)

I replied:

In the interest of community spirit I feel the need to respond to your question.

The stucco emulates the colour of the brick. The stucco was already in place on the building (parging) for the last hundred years. Under the stucco is insulation, thus eliminating interior wall restoration.


Not everyone will love everything we do, I know. Wait for the completion of the building before choosing a single target, even one so obvious. Interestingly, most people love the colour.

Go figure.

Arthur Greenblatt

Executive Director

Dundas Valley School of Art

He has since replied and was a bit apologetic; he was just asking a question.....

If you'd like to see more photos of the renovation, go to:  http://www.dvsarenovationproject.blogspot.com/

Today would have been my mother's 100th birthday

Today, February 8, 2011, would have been my mothers 100th birthday! I am pleased to celebrate this day, as has some of my family, with inane little bits that symbolize her life to us in strange but wonderful ways.


On the days my mother received her Social Security check, she would declare it an “Amy Joy Day”, named after a chain of US doughnut shops. She would stop by Amy Joy and buy doughnuts and bring them to my sons, her grandchildren. Today, many of us went to their local doughnut shop, Dunkin’ Doughnut and Tim Horton’s, and purchased doughnuts in memory of Grandma Rena We made it an “Amy Joy Day”!

My oldest son drove to the doughnut store, missed a turn and had to come back making three right turns. My mother drove only making right turns. She would plan out her route so she never had to turn left.


She loved us all, her grandsons and her later granddaughters, and I spoke with her very day, no matter where I was, and sometimes several times a day. She warned me to stop calling her because one day she would pass and I would be left with an empty feeling, wanting to call. I kidded her about it of course, but she was right. Much as she had done with her mother, I called and when there was no one to call there was a big hole in my day. I still, when the times call for it, start to reach for the phone.

Her recipe blog, http://renascookbook.blogspot.com/ is homage to her. After a number of recent posts from this blog relating to food, I go into the whole story and include lots of photos.


Enjoy it all.

Rena, we all miss you. She has been gone since 1997 and hardly a day goes by when we don’t refer to her and her memory in some way.

Sleep easy!

Dining Delight

My dining room furniture was built by my Great Uncle Abe in 1917, in my Grandmothers living room. It stayed there until the late 60’s, when my family moved away from the old neighborhood. It came to me in the 70’s, and it has moved with us ever since. This story is not about the furniture, but is caused by the furniture and our living situation.


When moving here, and everywhere else we’ve moved, we have to take the dining room furniture into consideration. It is large, and we need the space to have it. In our current home, the table, chairs and the sideboard live in the dining room while the china cupboard lives in the living room. We have two other china cupboards as well, one is in the hall and another one is also in the living room. The combination of antiques and “family furniture” is sometimes a difficult fit.

There is an advantage to buying IKEA, and that is that you never have to worry about passing it on to anyone. So, distributed among the antiques there is a large helping of eclectic Swedish modern.

We usually eat meals in the kitchen, and our table/counter works well for the four of us. The dining room is reserved for more formal events, as was customary in days of old, and we eat holiday dinners in there as well as we usually use it for dinner parties. We are really good for up to six people in the dining room. The minute we go over six, we need to put in the leaves. This is no problem as such, but when the leaves are in and we have more people, there is not really enough room for the dining room table in the dining room!


The answer to the problem came about through trial and error. The first time we tried it many years ago, we put in the leaves and opened the table and it straddled two rooms. While this was not a problem by itself, there are walls separating the living room and dining room that left some people behind the wall on either side.

The solution, as much as it pains me to admit it, is to change the rooms whenever we have a larger group for dinner. Now, when we have a very large group, we do a buffet. We set food out and people go all over and find a place to sit; in the kitchen, living room and the family room, and all is fine. However, for a more formal setting we move the table and chairs into the living room, and open the table. We move a large stuffed chair, a side table, a coffee table and the piano bench into the dining room. The living room becomes a living room/dining room for the night and the dining room looks sort of like a reading area. (you will have to forgive my hat,coat and gloves which I arranged on the chair on the right and forgot!)

It works!

Not A Fashion Statement

I needed steel toe boots. In order for me to visit my soon to be renovated building during the renovations I needed to have steel toed boots by law. I could borrow a hard hat as the construction manager has some around and they are flexible in size, they can be adjusted. Boots however, are not hanging around and even if they were, they are not adjustable in size.
I used to own a pair years ago, which I gave to the Goodwill. They were a “bargain” I picked up new for $15 and never had any reason to wear. I do go for the bargains as always.

I have to start out be explaining that over time my feet have grown, probably in direct proportion to my weight. However, what matters is I wear either a 13 wide or a 14 regular, although there is nothing regular about a size 14 foot! One can either find a great bargain like my $15 pair, or find a very expensive pair of shoes in a large size area or specialty store. I wished to avoid all this, especially because these had limited usage, unless I choose to continue to wear them. All I knew was that I had to have them and they need to have a green triangle visible on them to proclaim their steeliness!

I looked on line, and while I could find them, I wanted them sooner than waiting for the mails to deliver them. The bargains, if there were any, were in the States and that meant a whole lot of potential problems with additional taxes and duty, and they would not be a bargain in the end.

I went over to Mark’s Work Warehouse to see if they had them, and of course they did. But they were expensive and the size I needed were available on line and not in my local store. When I looked on line I found that Factory Shoe had them, and my experiences there have always been good so I thought I’d try them. They were close and did carry large sizes.

I arrived the morning after the large snow storm, and I was the first customer as the parking lot was just getting cleared. I was actually the first customer in two days because no one came out in a blizzard to buy shoes and they closed after a short while that day.

The sales staff was only too happy to wait on me. I explained my problem and they had at least 4 or 5 pairs that would work. I tried on the first pair of 14’s, and they were great. I put my orthotics into them and tried them on and everything was correct except, I was sad to say, they were $169.99. That would have been more than I had ever paid for shoes in my life and seemed like a waste, however, I would do it of necessary. The saleswoman continued to check and she came up with these. They were a winner. They had everything I wanted plus they are usable as snow boots as well. Not that I had to have snow boots, I have several pairs, but they could have a life beyond construction.

They were high up on an upper shelf, but she spotted them. They were a 13EE, which worked and were a more reasonable $139.99. However, upon closer inspection by the sales woman, they were clearing them out (who needs a 13EE?) for $85!

My day was made! The boots are great and are even made by Sorel, my favorite snow boot people.

OK, it’s definitely not a fashion statement in my world, my daughter did make fun of me when I appeared wearing them later in the day, but they worked!

Cocktail Party Blues

We were invited to a lovely cocktail party last evening at one of our nicest local restaurants. It was given by an architectural firm we do business with, and was attended by clients and vendors. It was several hours in length, and we stayed about an hour, post work.


Before we went, I chose to change, as jeans and a sweater did not seem appropriate for this event. Now, being an old guy, I thought carefully about what to wear. I decided to put on a tie, even though it’s not normal for me to wear one anymore. After years of wearing a tie every day, I gave it up at the turn of the century (this one).

I chose dark slacks, a dark blue shirt, my mildly checked sport coat and a rust colored wool tie plus loafers. I decided for fun to wear a tie bar, figuring someone would notice my unusual choice and ask about it. It’s a "Man on the Moon" commemorative tie bar I found in a box of old GI Joe’s my kids received in the early 1970’s from a friend. I just call it my GI Joe tie bar.

I was shocked. No one asked, of course, about my conversation piece, but more over, the world has changed. I was the only person wearing a tie! Of the more than 60 or 70 people I encountered, I was it! Maybe one escaped my checking, but I felt like I had a neon Old Guy sign around my neck! I was not the oldest there by any means, it’s just times have changed so much that coats and ties are definitely not the rule anymore, and I never noticed!

Don’t get me started on everyone else drinking wine while I stood there with a gin martini!

Pre Historic Cell Phone

In the dimly lit last, at least in mine, there was an early form of communication that was passed down among the children as a legend, or a rite of passage perhaps. I am talking about the string and tin can telephone.

In the days when we had one phone in the downstairs hall, with one number and used by all, communication was expensive. When I wanted to talk to my friends I went outside. There were seldom if ever long distance calls and if one ever was made or came through, it was loud at our end.

We learned through word of mouth that you could make a free telephone out of two tin cans and a piece of string. Lots of arguments went into what size cans and what kind of string you used, and if it had to be waxed or not, but sooner or later we had to experiment.

First, a group of us chose the cans that were most available, Campbell soup cans from the trash, and washed them out carefully. Then, we chose kitchen string, which of course was most available as well and not waxed, even though I still think waxed would have worked better. Then we connected it and stood, four feet apart, speaking to each other. This was stupid and we realized it. No matter how softly we spoke, we could hear each other anyway without a can!

We reconfigured our connections, and we made a string maybe sixteen to twenty feet long and I stood with a friend or two on one side of the street and some other guys stood on the other side and we communicated. This seemed to work.

However, before we could establish this fact with some degree of certainty, a car came down the street! We hadn’t planned for this! We should have, in the hindsight of the last 60 years, lowered the string to the ground. However, being seven or eight years old we raised our hands so the car would come under the string. Not the best plan, given radio antennas.

The car antenna grabbed the string, the cans flew out of our hands and we ran like hell hearing the cans hit the car and the street with what seemd like a giant bang!

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night...for Greg....

My father-in-law, Greg Hetzel, passed away on January 27, and I feel the need for a proper memorial. I wrote a piece two days ago about my daughter and her dream, but I thought I should do more. The photo on the left shows Greg, in blue, with family in summer, 2008. 



I plan a memorial web site or blog, but most of the needed photos are “old school” and I have to scan them in order to get them ready for some form of publication. So, saying that and because at least one of my sons has already said that I probably already have my own obituary written, or at least ready to go onto the internet, I will use that which I had in fact, planned for myself.

My children, seeing this I hope, will take the hint and reproduce this when the time comes (not before please).

This is a fitting memorial for anyone, and I saw and noted that when I first read it somewhere, about 1957.


Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.


Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.


Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


And you, my father, there on that sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Dylan Thomas