I saw this quote and it’s me! I do this all the time. But I didn’t know it was a sign of maturity. I do it so that I don’t have to have a long conversation. It seems easier to just say, “Ok” and leave it at that.
I say “ok” a lot on texts. I also do it because I don’t want to type, or dictate a text. A couple of my cousins sort of mentioned it. They sort thought it was rude for me to just respond, “ok” to their texts.
I do it to be agreeable and to answer a question or statement concisely. There’s a thumbs up thing now, so I can do that rather than even type “ok.”
For instance, I’ll get a text that says, “We’re meeting at such and such place at 2 pm.” And I respond, “ok.” Or they text, “We want Italian food, so we are going to such and such restaurant,” and I respond, “ok.” They have said, “Take the R train because the M train isn’t running,” and I respond, “ok.”
But seeing that they don’t care for those “ok’s,” I’ll sometimes answer, “Ok, looking forward to it,” or “That damn M train is always out of service!” or things like that, just not to be “rude” which I don’t think I’m being, I think I’m being economical.
One interesting thing is that two of my brothers type “okay” when they respond, they spell the whole word out, which I find interesting. I don’t think I have ever done that.
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I was wishing someone a happy birthday today on Facebook, and something new came up – past photos of that person with me, come up along with the birthday wish. This reminded me of my friend Vincent.
Years ago, when Vincent would send Christmas cards, he would include photos of you from the past year. I don’t know if he took the photos deliberately or not, but he would have photos of you at a Fourth of July picnic, or a birthday party or a trip we went on together or whatever.
Usually every December, when you opened your Christmas card from Vincent, out would drop two or three photos of yourself with others, including Vincent (0r not). It was usually some event you had forgotten about, nothing grand like a wedding but always a small event that faded from memory.
I was thinking of Vincent’s photos when the photos popped on on Facebook today, the Facebook photos aren’t current because I don’t take as many photos as I used to. I forget or feel awkward when we’re at a party or event or whatever, I think people may wonder, “What are you going to do with that picture?” But truth be told, everyone is taking pictures every minute of the day, so I wouldn’t be the only one. And 9 times out of 10, they say, “Send me a copy of that!”
Many times at events – with family and friends, I’m tempted to go around and get pics of people. Sometimes I’ll hand my phone to one of my cousins and say, “Go around and get pictures,” but they never do either.
One of my cousins is starstruck and he’s the first to get pics with some famous person or other, whether they want that or not. But I don’t have enough pics of family and friends. I’ve got to make an effort.
I don’t think I have anything from our family Christmas or Easter this past year when we all were together. There was a wedding a few months back, I don’t think I have many from that either.
I’ve got to make an effort to start getting pics of everything.
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Years ago, maybe 20 years ago, I asked a neighbor how she worked in New Hampshire and Miami – she and her husband, both lawyers, went back and forth between the two places. She told me, “Tom, all you have to do is answer the phone, the client/customer doesn’t have to know where you are, they are just happy that you answered the phone.” And I’ve always remembered that.
It’s so easy these days with all the digital things we have – iphones, ipads, etc. I’ve worked on planes, trains and at the beach.
Years ago, I think I mentioned, I was a printing broker and I handled school newspapers. I literally worked an hour or two a day. I picked up the newspaper ready for print at the schools and dropped them off at the printer and that was it. In between, I stopped at the office, but by 10 am, I was usually free the rest of the day. And this was before cell phones.
I was unreachable after 10 am. I don’t know how I managed to do this for 20 years, but I ran a very good business like this. Teachers occasionally would leave me voice messages on my home answering machine, but basically, that was it. I was free from 10 am until 8 am the next day. No fuss, no muss.
When cell phones came into play and websites and things like that, I seemed to be more tied to the office than when I was a printing brokers with no way of reaching me.
It’s always amazing to think and wonder how things got done in the past without being tied to our cell things 24/7.
I blogged about this one time – the fact that I would meet up with friends while traveling and we would just meet up at the appointed time and place without being able to text back and forth 100 times to arrange it all. I would tell friends I would be in NY on such and such date and if they happened to be there visiting, too, we would arrange to meet.
But how did we do it? I don’t remember. Did we say on such and such date at such and such time we would meet in front of this place and that was it? We always managed to meet up and we were always there at the appointed date and time.
Sometimes life was much easier and less stressful when we weren’t tied to wifi all day and night.
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Still lots of things going on this season. I missed the Lake Worth Chalk Festival last weekend and a few other art events, but managed to get to this past weekend’s Gifford Lane Art Stroll, which is a block party in our village. It’s a yearly thing – 25th year, this year and it brings out the whole village. It’s like a tv show where the full cast shows up for an event and they are all in one scene.
It was also “305 Day,” on Sunday, which is the area code for Miami and on March 5 (3/05).
The hit of the block party is cucumber punch which is delicious on a hot day, which always seems to be the case for this event each year – it’s been a cool winter, but Sunday was totally hot.
The first year I went, 20 years back, I didn’t know the cucumber punch had gin in it, and I really had my fill, I was feeling no pain. Now that I know the ingredients, I take it easy.
They used to serve the gin at a friend’s house where everyone lined up outside his green door and he and his wife and friends would serve it up to thousands. I guess after 23 years they felt enough was enough with the non-stop traffic through their house, so they have it out in someone else’s driveway now. So last year, I went to the driveway for the first time and got some punch and people started talking to me. But the homeowner was not having it, she started yelling, “Tom, you have your punch, now get out of here!” I couldn’t argue with her, because she is 97 years old! She’s a spry 97, but still.
This year while it was outside her house, she wasn’t around. She’s an avid bike rider at her age, so maybe she was out bike riding!
Anyway, it was a great day, I think I saw everyone I know there which is always nice. There’s a lot of food, live music and kibitzing. A perfect day for a small village.
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Lots of art shows and boat shows and all sorts of things on President’s Day Weekend. I spent a lot of time out and about with family and friends. First day was hot and humid, second day not as bad and on the second day, I seemed to know every other person that walked by, it was nice.
I parked my car far away from the festival, most of us do, so that when we leave, we aren’t stuck in all that traffic which is on top of the events. When I walked back to my car Saturday, I was dying. I was telling people it reminded me of the final day of Naked and Afraid where people are trying to make it to the extraction point and barely making it. I have a habit of not drinking, or eating, and it catches up with me.
We spent a lot of time at the children’s area, both days, where I still have Baby Shark playing in my head, but one area I liked is where there were easels set up and small kids painted. Some of the work was amazing. One eight year old girl did this fish painting that reminded me of Matisse or something similar. Amazing to see how the children created things. I noticed one interesting thing – the kids draw a lot of trees and water, which is what we are surrounded by and interestingly enough, the trees are palm trees! We are in Miami, so they paint what they see, what they know.
I would have taken pictures of the art, but parents don’t like strange men taking pictures of their kids’ art and especially their kids.
The paintings take forever to dry and they don’t offer to frame them which would be a great little business in itself, so after waiting a long time for the things to dry, they just sadly end up in the trash. All that beautiful work just thrown away. Not a good finish to all that creativity.
We had our usual hot tea and scones at the English tea room which is always part of the event, and listened to fantastic music by local bands. One great band had five or six members and I personally knew three of them, which was cool.
I may pop over again today for day three. I usually go all three days only because it’s hard to get back into the neighborhood once you leave due to all the traffic. So we’re sort of stuck here until the circus leaves town.
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We had a parade yesterday – the King Mango Strut, started in 1982 it’s usually the last Sunday of the year, but this year it was a week later, on Sunday, Jan. 8.
It’s a great small-town event and the best part is that most people know each other. It’s like Cheers, where everybody knows your name.
It was put off a couple of years due to the pandemic, but it was back this past weekend and it was so much fun. There are bands and lots of parodies of things that happened over the year – statewide, local and national. All one big parody.
It started as an offshoot of the Orange Bowl Parade and took on a life of its own. The center of town is shut down and the Strut takes over. If you haven’t seen people all year, they are sure to show up here on this very day.
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So I’m starting off 2023 in a quandary. A friend and I were headed to lunch a couple of days ago. We went to one of the most popular places in town but the wait was up to 45 minutes so we left. As we walked passed the restaurant, the restaurant owner came running after us. “Oh good,” I thought, “He’s going to get us a table, slip us in somewhere.”
No such luck. He says, “Do you want to meet the new commissioner?”
We lost a City of Miami commissioner (a city council person) for our district in the City of Miami, because the elected guy ran for another office in November, and he had to give up his seat, so now they have to replace that seat for the remaining 10 months.
I didn’t want to “meet the new commissioner,” but I followed in hopes of getting an open table.
The restaurant owner brings us to this guy sitting at an empty table. Here we go, I thought, a meeting. Not lunch. I actually knew the “new commissioner,” and I’ve known him for many years. We were just speaking the week before about a village issue. The restaurant owner asked me to sit down. I asked, “Can I order then? If I sit down can I order lunch?” He didn’t answer, so I asked a few more times and finally he said yes, half heartedly.
The restaurant owner didn’t know we knew each other and his reason for bringing us over to the table was so that we, or I, could be talked into speaking up for the “new commissioner” at the city commission meeting next week – so that the commission appoints him to the seat, rather than have an election, which is what most of the residents in the district/village want – a free and fair election. Not an appointment.
What bothers me after I thought about it all later, was that the restaurant owner didn’t know the “new commissioner” and I knew each other. So why did he grab me to speak up at a meeting for a stranger in his eyes? Why doesn’t he speak up for the guy if he is so interested in him getting the seat? Probably because he worries about getting involved in politics because it would hurt his business. But I should get involved?
When the “new commissioner’s” food arrived I could tell he didn’t want us at the table. He wasn’t rude, but when I sked him if we were going to talk politics the whole time he said, “Yes, probably,” which meant to me, “Get out now while you can.” So we didn’t stay at the table to eat, we walked down the block to another restaurant but now I am supposed to speak for this guy at next week’s commission meeting. He has already texted me a number of times regarding this. My goal now is to get out of it, especially since most of my neighbors want an election and not me to speak up for this guy’s appointment.
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I was watching the Connecticut news the other night and there was a story about Hartford. All of a sudden, the name Jimmy Hartford popped into my head. Jimmy Hartford was a made up name my friend Ernesto used years ago. Not for himself, but for a fake friend.
What I mean is, in the 1980s, my friend Ernesto and I used to run along the back of South Beach hotels. It wasn’t even called South Beach at the time and the hotels were mostly derelict. There weren’t many tourists, and many hotels at the time were occupied by older people. This is long before gentrification of the area.
So we used to run along the back of the hotels in the sand and then randomly jump in hotel pools. There were no barriers or security or anything and usually there was no one in the pools except for us. We just hopped a short wall, or just walked in off the beach which was not blocked in any way. When we were confronted, Ernesto would say we were there visiting our friend Jimmy Hartford, and he would make up a room number – Jimmy Hartford in room 301 or room 510 or whatever.
Many times, there was no such room number and most times we were thrown out.
It’s amazing that hearing the word Hartford brought back that memory from so long ago. These days I can barely remember friends and family members’ names at times and I remembered that.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the 1980s these days. They were perfect. Everything about them – the clothing, the music, the movies, the whole environment – the whole decade.
When we die, I often think that we could time travel and go back to any time period we choose. I would choose to live from Jan 1, 1980 to Dec. 31, 1989, and then do it all over again.
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I laughed when I saw this on Facebook. It reminded me of something that happened to me a few years back, maybe 10 years ago.
I was at a meeting, covering the news for our village like I did. And at the beginning of the meeting, this guy, Joel, stands up from the dais and yells out to me in the back row, “Tom, you can stay if you keep your mouth shut and don’t say anything!”
I was dumbfounded because I never spoke at meetings, even at important City Hall meetings, I would just take notes for the news story I was writing. I didn’t speak because I didn’t want to be part of the story. I quoted everyone else, I didn’t want to quote myself.
I said, “Joel, when have I ever said one word at any meetings?” He just sat down and proceeded with the meeting. Our village was like the Gilmore Girls, you know, everyone showed up for meetings, the whole town would be there in one scene.
I don’t hold grudges, even though that was a stupid and rude thing to do and we are still friendly to this day, but I hadn’t thought of that in years until I saw this quote on Facebook.
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I saw an article on line about Days of Our Lives, the soap opera – it’s moving from on air to the Peacock streaming platform.
The only reason it caught my attention is because seeing this hour glass and logo reminds me of summers so long ago. Way back when our mothers would watch this, I think it came on at 2 pm. How do I know? Because we kids would run around the neighborhood jumping from pool to pool at each other’s houses and as we ran along the sidewalks, we would hear the theme playing, “Like sands through an hour glass, these are the days of our lives,” and then the music would play.
Almost every summer day we would hear it coming out of each house as we ran down the block. I guess people listened to tv’s quite loud in those days and also people didn’t have air conditioning, so they weren’t locked in and confined in their cocoons and the sound came blasting out.
I had a similar experience in Boston a couple of times. When the Red Sox play, it seems like every tv and radio in town has the game on. And as you walk down the street, particularly Newbury Street, you can hear the game coming from each establishment. So you actually hear the whole game as you are walking – from pizza places, clothing stores, restaurants and so on.
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Tomversation 