Thursday, July 31, 2008
Like today's blog post
Later. Whew. was hot. Alright in the shade, where there was shade. From inside Dunkin' Donuts, sipping on an iced decaf, I watched a construction site with ditchdiggers down in a ditch, & hoped they were union workers & not cheap day laborers. They were working dangerously close to a couple of backhoes, & I hoped the heavy machine operators were union guys, too. No way of telling. Except nobody was wearing hard hats & they were still at it after 5 pm. Half listening to Fox News, the daily chatter & soundbites of insignificant campaign news passed off as important & even scandalous. But it's nothing. Utterly, tediously nothing. There or anywhere else. It's like today's blog post. Or like the middle rounds of a heavyweight fight when both boxers gave up on the quick knockout & are expecting to go the distance & they just shuffle around & feint & tap at each other, concentrating on defense, or on cutting open the mouse over the opponent's eye, while the ringside announcer tries to make it sound exciting, & you find yourself distracted by the celebrities, professional female escorts, & oddballs in the crowd, & expressing opinions of what people are wearing.
Surprisingly few for sale signs on the residential streets around here. This city has on of the worst foreclosure rates in the state. The reason may be that it's been many years since houses in this section were bargains, & Hispanics bought them from the old generation in the 80's & 90's & settled in as the city's new middle class. The style of their backyards is often a throwback to the sensible old "European" yards I remember as a kid; very little grass, sunlight on the veggie garden & tomatoes, shade everywhere else.
***
Just wussed out & canceled a late afternoon appt with the shrink. These appts are 5-10 minute long visits scheduled every month or two months, my choice. I have to take two buses, a walk & one bus, or my preference, just walking over a mile on shadeless streets to a part of town I don't like. My appt days seem to be a magnet for unpleasant weather. Today is 90 degrees, sticky humid, the sort of day if there's a thunderstorm it'll pop up suddenly out of nowhere. I used to take a train to Elizabeth & walk down there in any weather for a twice-monthly 45 minute private session with a therapist who began on time or profusely apologized if she was running late & told me how behind schedule she was running. I stay with this doctor because he's nice guy & knows me & is in possession of a thick mostly uneventful case history dating back almost ten years so when he's informed I've actually canceled by phone (when they get around to listening to the messages, they were too busy to answer) he'll take that as a sign I'm o.k. & still have a supply of Ambien, & use my absence to jump forward on his schedule, since he's always behind schedule, sometimes way behind. I still have to go to the post office & mail a rent check & a birthday card for a Leo.
I was awoken early this morning by a robot call from the VISA card fraud unit inquiring about a debit recorded on my account at 3:45 am. Since I wasn't in a 24 hour Walmart & there's only one automatic monthly payment on the card & this wasn't it, I was alarmed. I phoned back & a robot voice gave the amount & recipient, a company in California, & when I didn't recognize those I was passed along to a live human. I asked for the full name & address of the recipient & was relieved to recognize it was the annual payment for my web site host company in silicon valley. I don't pay much attention to my websites, they just sit out there 24/7 attracting a few visitors a day, & it costs me less than $10 a month.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Surprisingly few for sale signs on the residential streets around here. This city has on of the worst foreclosure rates in the state. The reason may be that it's been many years since houses in this section were bargains, & Hispanics bought them from the old generation in the 80's & 90's & settled in as the city's new middle class. The style of their backyards is often a throwback to the sensible old "European" yards I remember as a kid; very little grass, sunlight on the veggie garden & tomatoes, shade everywhere else.
***
Just wussed out & canceled a late afternoon appt with the shrink. These appts are 5-10 minute long visits scheduled every month or two months, my choice. I have to take two buses, a walk & one bus, or my preference, just walking over a mile on shadeless streets to a part of town I don't like. My appt days seem to be a magnet for unpleasant weather. Today is 90 degrees, sticky humid, the sort of day if there's a thunderstorm it'll pop up suddenly out of nowhere. I used to take a train to Elizabeth & walk down there in any weather for a twice-monthly 45 minute private session with a therapist who began on time or profusely apologized if she was running late & told me how behind schedule she was running. I stay with this doctor because he's nice guy & knows me & is in possession of a thick mostly uneventful case history dating back almost ten years so when he's informed I've actually canceled by phone (when they get around to listening to the messages, they were too busy to answer) he'll take that as a sign I'm o.k. & still have a supply of Ambien, & use my absence to jump forward on his schedule, since he's always behind schedule, sometimes way behind. I still have to go to the post office & mail a rent check & a birthday card for a Leo.
I was awoken early this morning by a robot call from the VISA card fraud unit inquiring about a debit recorded on my account at 3:45 am. Since I wasn't in a 24 hour Walmart & there's only one automatic monthly payment on the card & this wasn't it, I was alarmed. I phoned back & a robot voice gave the amount & recipient, a company in California, & when I didn't recognize those I was passed along to a live human. I asked for the full name & address of the recipient & was relieved to recognize it was the annual payment for my web site host company in silicon valley. I don't pay much attention to my websites, they just sit out there 24/7 attracting a few visitors a day, & it costs me less than $10 a month.
Labels: potpourri
