I’ve never smoked but my lungs have

We flew to Casablanca on a Moroccan airline a while ago.  The no smoking section lit up like a World War One smoke barrage two minutes after takeoff.  I was going to complain to the stewardess but she was smoking too.

When we landed at the airport in Casablanca I thought the terminal was on fire.

And it was overrun with feral cats.

The flight from Casablanca to Tunis was almost as bad.  Or maybe we’d gotten used to the smoke.  Hard to say.

Didn’t see any cats in Tunis, though.

But both ends land at the same time

I used to fly a lot in my business.  First class, business and coach.  And it always struck me funny that in a lot of planes the coach passengers were paraded through the first class cabin to get to their seats.

Most of the first class passengers were already seated and never looked up or acknowledged the steerage folk in any way.

It reminded me of dining in an outdoor restaurant in LA or New York or Puerto Vallarta with the homeless walking by, watching us eat cracked crab and the like.

I never liked the table right next to the sidewalk.

Or the isle seat in first class.

Football as a soap?

I looked through the paper today and there was only one tiny article about the NFL.  One column wide, an inch deep and not very interesting.  Sad.

I keep expecting more stories about players driving drunk or beating somebody up in a bar parking lot at three in the morning.  Or dealing drugs.  Or demanding more money, or a better contract.  Doesn’t that stuff keep us amused?

I guess it’s the man version of the daytime soaps.  And I miss it.

On the other hand, I’m getting more done on Sundays.

How do you discover a rocket?

The National Geographic put out a book: 100 Scientific Discoveries That Changed The World.  They included the rocket but left out the steam engine.  They included a tomato crossed with a kiwi fruit but left out the hypodermic needle.  They included the internal combustion engine but left out the printing press.  Curious, don’t you think?  Their 100 discoveries were printed in a book.  They sell magazines.  They sell printed magazines.  The written word has changed the world, right?  Okay fine, the written, then printed word.

Maybe they plan on coming out with another book: 100 Not So Interesting, Kinda Mundane, Mechanical Discoveries That Changed The World.

They can put the internal combustion engine in that one too.  Maybe they could consider including the steam engine as well.  And jelly beans.

Buzzing around

I wrote about dead downtowns on Friday.  And I claimed we don’t see a lot of people buzzing around in their suburbs.

But that’s not really true, is it?  Inside the megastores planted in those suburbs there’s plenty of buzzing around going on.

I read somewhere that a judge wouldn’t let a Mall keep teenagers out just because they were hanging out and not shopping.  The judge basically said that Malls had replaced town squares as a place for young people to meet.  Old people too, I guess.

I guess Malls and megastores are our new downtowns.

I was going to write ‘sad but true’ but that isn’t the case, is it?  It isn’t sad it’s just different.

Well, it’s a little sad.

Big stores and little downtowns

Some cities will probably always be viable.  New York, Chicago, San Francisco and cities like New Orleans are all looking pretty good, and probably always will.  Places like Boulder will probably always be pretty cool too.  But smaller, older, industrial cities are in the dumpster, aren’t they?

We drove through the Midwest a while ago and I was saddened by the state of older industrial cities.  And I realized they all have a few things in common; an empty factory or two, sprawl, and giant mega-stores just outside the city.

I don’t have a solution for the empty factories, that’s for someone smarter.

But people are still there and they still shop, don’t they?  Just not downtown.

Very sad.

Sprawl and giant stores didn’t just kill the little stores; they killed the little downtowns.

Those wonderful downtowns with their individual little shops, actual people buzzing up and down the sidewalks, and a sense of energy all seem to be gone.

Now we seem to be mostly a nation of sprawling suburbs, don’t we?

We don’t see a lot of people buzzing around those suburbs, do we?  Except in their cars, because it’s too far to walk to anything.

It’s sad, but I guess it isn’t terrible.

It’s visually boring, but not terrible.

For the struggling industrial cities the solution is as simple as it is impossible: A Wal-Mart, a Kmart and a Target in their once thriving little downtowns.

But that’s never gonna happen.

And that seems pretty close to terrible.

What’s with muscle-bound strawberries?

Have you ever grown strawberries in your back yard?  You should.

Then you’ll know what a real strawberry is.  It’ll be small, and red inside as well as outside.  And it’ll taste rich and deep and strawberryish.

It won’t look anything like the behemoths you find in the supermarkets.  A gigantic, hard, almost red, chunk of fiber, that looks like an apple when you cut it open.  All white and tough, with just a tinge of pink near the edge.  And if you’re lucky maybe you’ll find some actual red just at the very edge.

It’s not a strawberry.  It’s a deformed apple-looking-kind-of-almost-fruit-thing with bigger-than-they-should-be-pale-green-seeds all over the outside.

And it won’t taste like one either.  Bite into one and you’ll think your taste buds died.

And the seeds will get stuck in your teeth.

Makes your mouth water, doesn’t it?  Yeah, right.

Where has all the corned beef gone?

When I lived in New York, years ago, you could get great corned beef in pretty much every deli there.  And there was a deli every other block.  It was great knowing you were never more than fifty yards away from a really good sandwich.

You can’t find good corned beef in very many places in Albuquerque.  Actually, I haven’t found any.

We cook corned beef at home to make up for it.

But it isn’t the same.

I think it’s the bread.

You can’t get that here either.

Two slices of really good Jewish Rye with a crusty crust and a just right soft inner with a big ol’ pile of corned beef thin sliced off of a chunk of corned beef hot out of a pot of water that hasn’t been changed in so many months its practically a broth is so full of flavor its even good cold.  It should be finished with some mustard and a good pickle on the side.  Not the over-brined sour tasting things that pass for pickles in most parts of the country, but a real subtle, crunchy fresh just right New York Pickle.

Wake up America.

Our taste buds are getting screwed.

Jockey shorts are right handed

I’m left handed, but I never realized my shorts were right handed until I hurt my right thumb.  We Lefties do so many things right handed we hardly notice.  Scissors, pliers, our pants, shirts, the gearshift on our cars and even books are all most convenient to our right hand.

So, until your right hand is incapacitated you never experience how hard it is to unzip your Levis and dig around in your shorts with your left hand.

Sorry ladies, it had to be said.

Embers

He had a book and a small, dying fire.

The embers weren’t bright enough to read by, so he tore off the cover of the book and threw it on the embers.

It smoldered for a moment then burst into flame.  The flame lasted just long enough for him to read the first page.  And give him a little extra warmth.

When the flame died down he tore off the page he’d read and threw it on the fire.

Burning it gave him just enough light to read the second page.

The second page gave light to the third, the third to the forth, and so on through the whole book.

Each bright burning page lit the way for the next, until the last page had been read, and the dawn had come.

Winter, spring, summer, fall, seems only half right

I get the spring and fall seasons.  In the spring everything springs up fresh and green, right?  And in the fall everything turns brown and falls down.  Leaves fall, tall grasses flop over and the bushes all look dull and lifeless, kind of like Detroit or Cleveland.

But winter?  What do we win?  It’s cold, it gets dark way too early, and we have to wear coats.  And driving in the snow or slush is no fun.

We can’t call it colder, that doesn’t sound like a noun.  I mean how stupid would you feel saying: Gee, it seems colder this colder?

And summer?  What are we summing?  Simmer maybe.  In Albuquerque, where I live, we do a lot of that.

Or suntime?  Right now we can say: We have fun in the summertime.  But to say fun in the suntimetime would sound stupid so that’s out.

Simmertime would work except that most of us stay indoors with the air conditioning on.

On the other hand, it would be fun to say: what are you doing this simmer?

We gotta find two new words.

My wife seems to forget where we live. Every time

I usually drive whenever we go anywhere.  As we drive home and I pull into our driveway my wife acts startled, then starts collecting her stuff.

Every time.

It’s as though we’ve never been in our own driveway before.

I smile or chuckle and she says Oops! Or Oh!  Or something in that vein, and starts collecting her stuff.

She could start collecting her stuff on the way down our street but for some strange reason she doesn’t.

It’s completely my fault, because I forget to say something on the way down our street.

Every time.

Anyway, I have to let her out on our driveway because our garage is so full, when the car is parked inside the passenger door won’t open.

So I pull up and wait while she collects her purse, the newspapers or magazines at her feet, her day-planner, the thing she put in the back street, a scarf, a sweater, any assorted packages, also at her feet, and climbs out.

Then I pull into the garage, having lost those thirty two seconds forever.

We’re home!