A moment in time

The grass is always greener

Recently when I was in New York, I was reminded of this cartoon from a year or so ago. It’s always funny to be that when I’m at the museums, I see people, including myself, looking out of the windows, rather than at the art.

I visited only two museums when in town – MOMA and The MET, must visits for me when I’m there. I didn’t visit one of my favorite places, the Museum of the City of New York, not sure why. I always like going through that Spanish Harlem neighborhood walking toward 5th Avenue to the museum.

The MET recently raised admission rates to $30 per person. They either want to keep large families out or want to keep art away from the masses. I remember when not too long ago it was pay what you want. When they started charging at a local arts festival in town, in Miami, when I asked why all of a sudden, they said, “We want to keep the riff raff out,” I assumed they meant me.

The magnificent Hudson Valley view from Washington Heights

I did get lost in Washington Heights, for some reason I was looking for Riverside Park and I ended up there. Yes, it reminded me of the the movie, “In the Heights.” The center part is very much like the movie, very chaotic, lots of people, bodegas and businesses. As you reach the Hudson River and the George Washington Bridge, it turns into the beginning of the Hudson Valley and it feels as if you are upstate.

At the MET Museum I kept running into this guy/kid, he looked to be sort of young – 18 to 22 maybe. He was by himself and very interested in the art. I liked the way his hair sort of came up like a mushroom.

It was one of those instances where you keep running into people when you are somewhere, almost as if you are stalking them. I suppose I was if I took this photo. I just found him interesting, he seemed so cool. Not many young people visit museums by themselves and are so into the art. Perhaps he’ll be a big famous artists one day.

I’m glad to be home, but I’m looking forward to being back in New York in September and October – I’ve got a wedding to attend, Comic Con (yes, got my tix already), and of course pumpkin and apple picking upstate, We may do that in Connecticut this year rather than upstate New York.

I remember the green paint incident, one of my first days in NYC this this summer. I still have it on my clothing, the paint won’t come off. A souvenir of the summer of 2022.

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Some cocoa butter . . .

Amazon Prime Day is over and I’m gonna miss it. Not for the bargains, for the Jon Baptiste commercial!

It’s the song of summer! I can’t get it out of my head – the line that says, “I need some cocoa butter and camping supplies,” makes me laugh every time. I actually would wait for the commercial, which was not hard to do since it seemed to be on every few minutes. It’s short and sweet and catchy.

I had written it down to use in a cartoon and I couldn’t come up with anything. Them I remembered a cartoon I used for a past Prime Day and I added the text.

Now to be honest, the 1000 times I’ve seen the commercial, I thought he was singing “Cold, Cold Butter,” but a reader corrected me so I changed the cartoon early this morning before most people saw it.

Butter made sense to me because I thought they were trying to show that Amazon/Wholefoods, delivers food, too.

I did take advantage of Prime Day and I bought a new Surface Pro 8 computer so you’ll be seeing my new cartoons created on that.

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Selfish travelers

I was on a plane and as is the case often, a couple asked if I would exchange seats so they could sit together. I told them NO.

I think this is the first time I said no, as it’s happened to me more than once and I always accommodate people. But I think I’ve had it with that and I told them, “NO, I don’t want to move.” And for the rest of the flight, I felt uncomfortable and guilty. I avoided the guy who was sitting next to me the whole time, we didn’t speak, I didn’t eat or drink because I didn’t want the flight crew reaching over him and I didn’t want any interactions with him. I felt he was being a schmuck by asking me to move so his wife, who was sitting in front of him could sit next to him.

I know, I know, it sounds selfish on my part. But it’s not.

It was a husband and wife who wanted me to switch seats and they ended up sitting one behind the other for the trip. They also asked the lady sitting next to the wife, if she would exchange seats with the husband, who was sitting next to me, and she said no, too. She said she needed to sit next to the window because she feels “wonky” if she doesn’t. They literally wanted to take the window seat away from the lady or me.

I didn’t give a reason for not wanting to move, I just declined to move. And this moronic husband who wanted us to change seats says to his wife, “Oh well, you like to sit next to the window.”

I think people are getting tired of this seat swap, it’s become a regular thing. People just book flights and then deal with the seating situation later, I guess.

But I carefully booked my flight months in advance and I planned my seat months in advance – not over the wing so I have a view, and on this particular side of the plane so I could see the skyline as we lifted off, etc.

I’ve given up my seat many times over the years – one time to the large Bush family so they could all sit together, Jeb’s, not George’s. But this time I was not doing it. And through the whole trip, I ignored the guy next to me, so there were no pleasantries and it was an uncomfortable flight because of this. I felt guilty the whole time and I should not have been made to feel that.

And you know what? The lady in front of me who refused to give up her seat felt guilty the whole time, too. Know how I know? Because she didn’t talk the whole time to the wife who was seated next to her, but when they were departing the flight, she said, and I quote, “Goodbye, and I’m sorry.” So she felt the need to say she was sorry because she must have been feeling guilt about it the whole time, ruining her flight, too.

Selfish travelers plan ahead or just deal with the seats you’re dealt!

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Wellness check

Today’s comic almost reminds me of something that happened some years back, maybe about 10 years ago.

I had taken a friend to the doctor’s office, which is at the hospital next door. I live next to a hospital. My friend had a cancer scare. Luckily everything worked out and he was totally fine, but this was a check up for something and we went to a cancer doctor, an oncologist.

I sat waiting in the waiting room and in walks the UPS guy and after him the FedEx guy with deliveries. Both of them knew me since they were my delivery guys, too.

Both of them separately had such a worried look on their faces. They asked me if I was ok, and I don’t think they believed me that I was there “for a friend.” But it was so nice to see their genuine concerns.

It’s weird that I would have the same delivery guys as the hospital which is a huge complex. Even though I am next door, I am in a neighborhood full of houses, you can’t see the hospital from the street, it’s on a lot of property and is sort of a campus, so you would think they had their own delivery thing going on.

But then again, I would see the delivery guys in the center of the village, about a mile away in the other direction, so I guess they covered the whole zip code or something. Many times I would be walking by in the downtown area and they would give me my packages as I walked by, saving them a trip to my house later in the day. It was more of a convenience – they would do this early in the day and their schedule would have them coming to me later in the day, sometimes 6 or 7 pm. So it was nice of them to give me the packages at 10 am as I walked by, rather than have me wait till the end of the day.

Anyway, this cartoon reminded me of that. I didn’t get the idea for the cartoon from those situations, but after I drew it, it reminded me of those situations.

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Land crabs and tourists

*Land crabs looked like this after it rained a few decades ago.*

I’ve noticed something – but maybe it’s nothing.

When I was a kid, come winter, every other car on the road was a foreign plate – you know, from a different state. It seemed that everyone drove down to Florida.

Over the years, that disappeared, I didn’t notice it until the last couple of years when the foreign plates showed up again. In droves (no pun intended).

I am guessing that maybe it had to do with the pandemic, and maybe people felt safer driving their own cars than being crammed up together in an airplane and I noticed it even more during the period when flights were being delayed or canceled by the thousands, I guess people felt they could depend on their own cars rather than the airlines. Also, I know it was very hard finding a rental, I tried, so I guess bringing your own car along was the thing to do.

Now I notice the cars with the out of state plates are gone. But the airlines are starting to cancel flights again, so who knows. But then again, it’s summer, so there really aren’t tourists here in summer.

Another thing I noticed when I was driving today was a large sign that warned people about land crabs. I don’t know if it was warning them not to drive over them or not to pick them up.

When I was a kid, that was an issue. After it rained, the streets were full of land crabs who were flooded out of their holes/homes. You had to be careful not to drive over them or they might puncture a tire. These crabs were all over – by the hundreds – they even appeared in back yard pools. They would break the screening around the pool areas and just end up in the water.

I have not seen that for years because of all the over-development. I thought the crabs disappeared due to that, so it was interesting seeing the sign today, warning people of the crabs. The sign might be left over from the big rains/tropical storm thing we had a couple of weeks ago. But again, I didn’t even know there were any land crabs to be warned about, I haven’t seen any in decades.

So far, as of today, I haven’t seen any tourists or land crabs. Things a good thing.

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Cartoons that hit home

I found these to be some of the best political cartoons this week related to the Texas school massacre

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Steve Kerr slams lack of gun control

I can’t stop watching this. Please watch the whole thing.

The nurse needed nursing

My father was in the hospital recently. Nothing major, he had hurt his leg, he had to have it checked out. He would get anxious at times and I guess to calm him down, they had some sort of nurse in the room with him. She was just there for comfort, not to actually nurse him, more of a sitter. For a few days it was a different person each day.

It was unnerving at first, but then sort of turned into a reality tv camera – you know, it’s there, but you don’t notice it/her. You go about our conversations and business and she is just taking it all in, but you ignore her – you know, “Don’t look at the camera!”

Well, one nurse was a complete mess. She complained of having a headache, she had a backache, she also said her blood sugar was 300! and she some other issues. She complained about not having eaten, she wanted to know where her replacement was so she could go down to the cafeteria and eat.

She didn’t get the memo to shut up and just “film” the scene.

My father was cracking up. He said, “She is supposed to be taking care of me, but I think I have to take care of her!”

Other than all that, she was very sweet, at times she reminded me of my grandmother, my father’s mother.

One man sitter was noisy as hell. He totally ignored us, which was good; he was on his cell phone most of the time, talking loud, which was bad, almost yelling; he was a loud talker. I had to literally shout over him to be heard in the room!

Dad’s home now. The nurses/sitters are off “filming” someone else now.

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Vintage history

I came across this picture online. It’s Coney Island, one day in 1906. It’s crazy, seeing all these people crammed in together at the beach, and so many of them in black suits.

My favorite part is these little guys at the left, if you look to the left of the guys walking, there is a smaller guy digging in the sand. He’s very intent on doing what he’s doing. Does he have to go back to a labor shop the next day, was he a newsboy working 6 days a week selling newspapers? Kids didn’t have it easy back then, but these three looked happy on this day.

I wonder what the two kids that are walking are talking about? They seem deep in conversation.

The one guy at the very bottom, where his head is partly cut off looks like a time traveler – but I always see some sort of time traveler in old pictures, that probably aren’t. I guess it’s his haircut that looks very modern.

I colorized this image below. Makes you feel like you’re almost there, doesn’t it? If you click oh the two large images above and below, they will open much larger.

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Returning to the 1980s

I’m always wanting to return to the 1980s – my favorite decade.

I always imagine that when we die, we can return to any time period we like – mine would be to relive Jan 1, 1980 to Dec. 31, 1989 and then do it over and over again – sort of like a 10 year version of Ground Hog Day.

I saw this picture recently, the Kevin Bacon poster. it’s from 1986 and it’s still hanging in the subway – at one particular station in NYC. Still there, 36 years later!

I’d like to visit it and sort of be in a picture in front of it, transporting myself to 1986. It’s at the 71st and Continental subway station in Forest Hills Queens. I am always at that station, too. I get off at that stop (and get on) when I’m coming and going from the city when I meet my cousins in Queens. I will visit this when I get to NY in a couple of months. Look for it here!

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