the rix mix

Spring is late to this part of Jersey. Our midwinter deep freeze & March ice storm stifled it. Usually, there's plenty of little flowers by now, forsythia in sunny places showing green & hints of yellow if not yet in full bloom, & the dogwood buds swollen near to exploding. Perhaps the season will be all the more intense.

Lifeless in appearance,
sluggish dazed spring approaches-

William Carlos Williams, "Spring and All"

Another guy in building agreed that a gun was fired outside about 3 am last night. Pop pop, pop pop pop. I immediately moved into the hallway after the first two shots. He said he peeked out the window - a dumb thing to do, it was someone shooting into the air through the sun roof of an SUV in front of the apt building diagonally across the street corner, the vehicle drove away. He said he heard two more shots when it reached the corner in the other direction. I didn't hear those. A warning, I suggested, to someone living over there? Maybe, he said, or just a crazy gang kid waking up his girlfriend after the bars closed. The only gun battle I've been near was in a public park in Linden, cops chasing someone after midnight for reasons I never discovered. A party was winding down in my place at the time, & my next door neighbor was sitting in the backyard, drunk. It sobered him up.
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The Brits don't like the Iraq War or having their military forces in the mideast crossfire. But they have high regard for their Royal Navy, & they get even more pissed off than us Americans when their common sailors are taken captive & paraded before cameras. Iran, don't screw around too long. The British take this stuff personally.
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Rix Mix is hitting the google search jackpot this week, huge leap in meaningless page loads. Happens once-in-awhile. It's the return visitor stats that matter. Y'all come back, y' hear?

Labels: Elizabeth NJ