Personal – Page 3

Getting back into village life

I’ve been a hermit lately, ever since the start of the pandemic. I mean I do go out and I do travel, but I’m not doing what I used to do. I’m sort of stuck in that staying in mode. I used to be out all day and night. Now I’m not. I used to participate in the community, in a big way. Now I don’t.

Yesterday I went to a memorial in our village. It was for someone who was big in the town, who was almost the godfather of our town.

The memorial was in one of the parks in the village and there was a large turnout. There was a proclamation from the city in his name and a few beautiful trees were planted in his name. We have quite a few parks in the village, but this was his favorite, so it all centered around this park and him.

My point is that there were so many people there and I know 90% of them. I hadn’t seen many in quite awhile, ever since I stopped publishing the daily news here. When I covered the news I was everywhere every day, gathering up news, covering events. It’s a small village so it was easy to see most people most days.

The funny thing is that as I looked through the crowd, it seemed as if my news gathering caused a quarrel between many of the people present and me at one time or another, they weren’t too keen on things I wrote. I literally had issues over the years with half the people who where there yesterday.

Half of them yelled at me , or threw me out of their offices or called me names over the years. Yet in the end they gave me many awards and accolades. We were/are a dysfunctional family.

I remember the deceased telling me at a meeting once, “Tom, this is not for publication.” And at another point he says, “Tom, this is not for publication.” And a third time, he said, “Tom, this is not for publication.” And I held up my pad and said, “I have not written a sentence. You haven’t said anything worth repeating.” And the whole room laughed. I guess we did have good times through it all.

At one point, we thought it would all make a good reality show of the craziness we lived through daily. One of my friends worked for Endemol, a producer of reality tv, and she would always tell me to come in and pitch the idea, which I never did.

I caught up with so many people yesterday. The thing is, we all still live here and while the village is quickly turning into a city, the people are all the same.

I think I need to get out there again – go to things, participate again. Go to bingo at the women’s club, go to a meeting this week where our town’s yearly parade is planned, go to an arts festival meeting, attend a village council meeting. The good part is that I won’t be covering any news and it won’t be a job. I’ll just be one of the village people like everyone else.

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Shades of Frannie

This Strange Brew cartoon by John Deering came at a perfect time. We were recently talking about updates we need to do at our condo building and I was talking to the neighbors about things we had done in the past – so many years ago.

There was one neighbor who was a bully. She was a young wife, in her mid 20s, about 4’5″ tall or smaller, 90 lbs . wet, and married to a guy who was on the board. Let’s call her Frannie. She was from Italy, so this little dynamo talked with a thick Italian accent, bullying her way around the building.

She decided what color to paint the building, which tiles to use for the pool renovation, what the gardening should look like, which lights should replace the ones we had around the building and so on.

The “shades of white” cartoon reminded me that one day these guys showed up to show us shades of something – I think it might have been for an awning in the front of the building, it might have been tiles, I can’t remember.

I do remember telling them, “Let me call Frannie to look at these.” I didn’t dare make a decision without her, even though I was president of the board. As she was coming down to meet us, I told the guys, “See these three brochures you are showing us? All these choices? Frannie is going to take her time, go through every color and choice and then ask you if you have another catalog or brochure for her to look at.”

And right on cue, that’s what happened, after carefully looking it all over while we all remained silent and waited, that’s just what she did, she asked them if they had another brochure to look at.

We all bust out laughing and to this day, I don’t know if she know why.

Frannie and her husband were terrible neighbors. They moved some years back and rented their condo unit ever since. Over the years they have rented to awful people. Not one decent person, including the current tenant. I have to tell you some time about the one tenant who picked up stray dogs off the street and how two got into my apartment and practically destroyed everything in the living room.

One totally wild mongrel was jumping around like a kangaroo, he broke so many things in his way. I still have his dirty footprints on my white leather sofa to remind myself of that nightmare incident. They are covered by a pillow, but they are still there. It’s a conversation piece.

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Memories

My parents passed away – my Dad last September and my Mom the October before that. The house is still sitting as it was left. I’m not sure what it taking us so long to clean it out. Too many memories maybe, maybe too big of a job. There is 50 years worth of stuff in that house. 50 years this month.

I decided to start going a couple of days a week and try to make a dent. I started with my old room. I’m amazed that so much of my old art from when I was a kid and also from high school and college is still there. Not that anyone would dispose of it, but 30 years ago, Hurricane Andrew struck and the house was inundated with water. There was so much water in the house that the refrigerator was on its side. It was lifted up and thrown over! I guess maybe four feet of water or more was in the house.

The art was on the top shelf of the closet, I’m luckily it survived. Everything below that is gone now, destroyed in the flood.

There were piles and piles of large pads full of cartoons and comic strips I drew and also art from high school and college classes.

Yes, we had nude models in college for figure drawing. I guess we got used to it after the first couple of times.

It’s funny, but I remember this guy’s face from so many years ago. I know, he was naked, but it’s his face I remember. For some reason, it had a familiar look, almost like a famous person or so, so when I look at this I can almost remember him.

Here’s a more detailed figure. These nudes are from college, But one image from high school sticks out. We had to draw a pair of sneakers that were on the table and I remember doing that. I remember how happy I was with the results. I guess I’ll find that in the pile of art I now have.

Not sure who this is, but I don’t remember her being a model. Maybe it was from a book or magazine.

I saw this photo of the Obamas on my mother’s dresser. I don’t remember ever seeing it before.

When I picked it up and read it, I see she must have donated to them or his campaign or something. I was living out of the house by then so I guess I never saw this and she never mentioned it.

My mom loved the Obamas, so did my dad, I was happy to see that she kept the image along with family photos on/in the mirror like people do.

My mom gave to all sorts of charities, she always did. I’m glad to see she donated to political campaigns, too.

One sad thing about the way my parents passed away was that they left the house and didn’t come back in the end. And things are left as if they just walked out of the room.

This looks like my dad’s eyeglasses, just sitting on the side of the bed.

In the kitchen, next to the sink there is a towel and there are two spoons on it, looking as if they were washed and placed there to dry. Just like it was yesterday.

My dad used the dining room table as a desk. All of his papers are there – just as he left them. A pen sits on the pile, just as if he put it down and walked out of the room for a second.

All this reminds me of famous houses I’ve visited – the Roosevelts, Hemmingway, etc. Their personal papers and things were just sitting there, although they were probably set up and placed there. But it gives the illusion that they just walked out of the room for a second. In these cases at my parents’ house, they were really just left as I see them now.

I spoke to one of my brothers. We may start going through the house next weekend, to just start packing things up. We’ll do it as a group to make it go faster, I guess. We grew up up there. It won’t be easy.

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Hot or cold milk in coffee?

This Our Boarding House cartoon is from July 10, 1929. Almost 100 years ago, and we are probably still drinking our coffee the same way in the U.S. – with cold milk, if we add milk.

I live in Miami, so when we order coffee at a restaurant, if you order coffee, you get Cuban Coffee, which is espresso with about eight, yes eight, teaspoons of sugar.

If you want a regular cup of coffee, you order “American Coffee” and then you’ll get it. But in many cases, they give you warm/hot milk on the side if you ask for milk or cream with it. You have to ask for cold milk, like The Major here in the cartoon.

I guess it makes no sense to have hot coffee and then put cold milk in it, but that’s how it goes in the rest of the U.S. if you’re not in Miami. For some reason I skeeve hot milk put in hot coffee. As for iced coffee, I like it ice and coffee. That’s it. No milk, no sugar. I’ve ordered it at a McDonald’s and I have to explain to them more than once that I don’t want anything else in it, just the ice and coffee. They could not wrap their minds around the fact that I didn’t want anything in it.

I live on Cold Brew Iced Coffee when I’m in New York in the summer, usually from Starbucks, I order it on the app and pick it up. These days, as you know, it’s sweltering in summer so I drink that a lot. They know me at a few of the Starbucks in NYC and they just hand me the coffee when they see me without calling my name – I’m there that often. But they get it – ice and coffee. Nothing else. Well, one thing – they used to have these little square bites – they were lemon coconut, something like that. They no longer have that as an item on the menu. So it’s just the iced coffee, nothing else, right now.

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My doctors

I wrote about going to the doctor recently. It was about the mole on my head, which turned into a cartoon. But the mole was benign, meaning it was nothing. The doc cut it off and I’m good as new.

This was a new dermatologist because my previous one, the one I had been going to since I was a child retired! As did my dentist. It’s a weird feeling when doctors you have been going to all of your life retire. You think they are always going to be there.

My GP or PCP or whatever you call them changed over the years. Why? Because two of my doctors died, which is even worse than retiring.

One was hit by a deer, or maybe it was that he drove into a deer or swerved off the road while avoiding a deer, while vacationing with his family in rural New England. It happened years ago, so I don’t remember all the details, but I believe the doctor and his kids were killed and only the wife survived. Horrible.

A second doctor died a couple of years ago – from covid! Very shocking and sad. A doctor he worked with told me and was in tears while describing it the whole time.

All of these doctors were mild mannered and gentle. Very quiet and peaceful guys, who made you feel comfortable. All of them.

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Worrying about the wrong things

I had to go to the doctor’s recently. It was at a place downtown where I had never been and my biggest concern was the parking situation. and finding the location. I even did a dry run drive on a Sunday, to be sure I could find the place on a busy rush hour Monday. I wasn’t worried about the actual doctor’s visit, I was more concerned with finding parking and finding the actual place.

Then there was a follow up for the results. I was nervous about that. I wasn’t nervous about the results, I was nervous about how it would work. Will he call me on the phone? Will I be on Zoom on the computer? I never set up Zoom on my new computer because I haven’t used Zoom since I got the new computer, so what will I do?

That’s what worried me.

I had a recent conflict here at my condo recently. I was supposed to be on the board, the board members begged me for months to run, and then at the time of voting, not one board member voted for me. I did not want to be on the board, but I felt obligated, but yet I was upset.

A friend asked why I was upset since I didn’t want to be on the board anyway, and I was upset because I had gotten psyched up about it. I told him, “I wasn’t psyched up in a good way, like I wasn’t excited about being elected. I was psyched up in the way you get when going to the doctor or dentist.” Maybe that’s why I don’t dread a doctor’s visit since I psych myself up ahead of time into dealing with it. Sort of like being on the condo board.

There’s a cartoon in all this somewhere. Or maybe a Seinfeld episode.

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Getting her bearings

Cartoonist Liz Climo creates cartoons with animals doing cute things. This one stood out to me because it reminds me of my own mother. I think about her every day and I guess since yesterday was Mother’s Day, I really had her on my mind, but I do think of her every day and one instance similar to this cartoon always sticks out in my mind, and I don’t know why, because I have millions, maybe billions of memories of her.

I must have been 8 years old, maybe a bit older and it could have only happened a few times. It must have been summer because my brothers and I were all home from school. And during that summer, early in the morning, I would go into my mother’s room and wake her up. My father had already gone to work, and it was still quite early.

I would wake my mother up and she would roll over groggily and say, “Good morning, do you want breakfast?” And I would say “yes,” and she would sit at the edge of the bed and say, “Ok, just give me a minute, let me get my bearings.”

She never yelled, she never said, “Get out of here, I’m sleeping!” She woke up smiling and happy to see me and I always remember that. I always remember her saying the “get my bearings,” part.

I’m sure she yelled at me a thousand times in my life, but I only remember her being kind and happy.

I don’t know if it happened once, twice, 10 times or what, but that one summer memory is always in my mind and this Liz Climo cartoon really brought it rushing back.

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Vincent’s photos

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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I wanna quit the newspaper

I got this crazy note from my newspaper carrier. No joke.

I only bring this up now because I see the FTC is trying to make it easier to cancel subscriptions to everything. Right now you have to jump through hoops to cancel any subscription and that’s what happened here.

I called the paper to cancel my subscription and rather than just canceling it, they questioned me as if I was on the stand. Why did I want to cancel? “Well,” I said, “I never really read it.

You don’t read it? “Well no, like today. I didn’t read it.”

Why didn’t you read it today? “Well, to be honest, it wasn’t delivered today and I didn’t even miss it.”

It wasn’t delivered? “Well, no, that happens a lot . . . “

And then on and on, I go . . . “A lot of time it’s left out front where people pick it up off the street, other times, it just doesn’t come. It’s late, it’s this it’s that,” and I go on and on.

At the end of the conversation, I asked them to please not use my name and don’t say anything to the carrier, but of course they did, and I got the above note.

After the subscription was finally stopped, I got non-stop calls from the paper asking me to re-subscribe.

One day I was standing out front, very early in the morning, it was still dark out, I was waiting for an Uber to pick me up to take me to the airport.

Up comes a car, I think it’s Uber. It comes right up to me on the front lawn – right up on the grass. It’s the delivery girl! She has her usual music blasting and she hands me the newspapers for the whole condo, says, “Good morning,” backs up into the street and is off.

Since then I’ve resubscribed, but only to the digital version, not the printed paper. But I forget to read the digital paper and occasionally use it to read the tv listings only. I once read up to seven newspapers a day (no really), now I read none. I can read the comics online, which I do, I can get all the news online from social media, where all the stories are posted and I hate to not support the local papers. So maybe I’ll go back to print, soon.

By the way, about showing this letter to her boss. I know her boss, he lives next door to one of my best friends. I have his number in my phone and if I really had a complaint, I most likely would text him, not go through the subscription service.

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Accidental wine

I’m not much of a wine drinker, I’ve never liked it. But at Thanksgiving I was sitting at the end of the table and away from the kitchen and drinks and all that was in front of me was a bottle of red wine. I was at my cousins’ house.

Me too lazy to get up and get a drink, I didn’t want to ask anyone else to get it, I drank the wine. And you know what? I loved it.

It’s Hess Select from Napa Valley.

When I got home, I started buying bottles, for myself and to bring to holiday parties.

I still don’t drink a lot of wine, so I’ll pour a glass and drink maybe half. Rather than throw the rest out I’ll leave it on the kitchen counter, sometimes for a day or two and then I’ll get around to drinking it. You know what? Leaving it out to breathe, which has always been the thing with red wine, makes it so much smoother. I did this by accident, but now I make sure to let it breathe all the time now.

I’ll open a new bottle and let it breathe rather than leave the glass out as I had done. But now I am loving wine – the first time in my life!

In the photo above you see Yaupon tea. It’s a native American tea, used by Native Americans for over 2000 years. I heard about it recently. I started drinking it due to it’s health properties.

There are different versions – green, fire roasted, lavender-coconut and so on. I’ve been drinking a cup two or three times a day. It’s very mild, too. It’s rich in antioxidants, supports memory and brain function, good to manage blood sugar, cholesterol, blood pressure and more.

I’ve replaced most of my coffee drinking with the Yaupon tea.

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