On the subway home last night, a woman sat down next to me. She had short gray hair like mine, was dressed much as I was (black pants/bright cotton shirt), and pulled the same book I'm reading out of her bag: The Master, which I have just finished and loved. We spoke briefly about the book and then went back to reading it.

Nazi appliances that beep when they've finished and then keep beeping until you go and do something about them.

I was waiting to see my son in CT this afternoon and there were a group 0f 18-20year olds (or so) sitting in the grass. No tats, no piercings. A studied unkempt look seems to be the vogue. Long hair, sloppy clothes and all. One was wearing a T-shirt with a Grateful Dead skull and roses from the cover of the album just after American Beauty. Another few were engaged in conversation extolling the virtues of Eddie Van Halen.

Jeez..."the more things change...", eh?

Probably both. If they were identical, they would have been sitting in the same seat. Indiscernibility of identicals, you know.

Dude get with the program, we were talking about dopplegangers, not identicals. Some people etc.

Personalized plate on a new GTO: FSTGOAT. Dude, you call your GTO a goat?

Maybe this belongs on the Cheerful thread...

I'd been hungering all day for pasta with a barely cooked tomato sauce, and stopped at Fairway on the way home to supplement what's left of the weekend greenmarket haul. I wanted plums, but they looked anemic, as did the Jersey beefsteaks, so I allowed myself to be seduced by a pile of pretty heirlooms, ridiculously priced at $5.89 a pound. Still a reasonably economic dinner for two, I rationalized.

The cashier held up the bag of tomatoes and looked at me quizzically. Heirloom tomatoes, I said. Non-comprehension. Jitomates, um, viejas, I tried. Likewise. Shaking her head, she rang them up as juice oranges, 33¢ worth.

Make that a VERY economic dinner for two.

I don't whether to put this here or under annoyances, but it's more than annoying, so here it is: I learned at the doctor's office today that I've put on 20 lbs. in the past three years. Do you think it has something to do with the food boards?

Nah, I felt guilty enough as it was.

And they weren't near as good as the greenmarket ones...

This afternoon I was working on the computer in my shorts, thinking about going to the pool as it's very hot. My house is a pigpen with boxes everywhere and kiddie toys and beans on the stove. All of a sudden I hear the front door open followed by "knock! Knock!" I run into the other room, thinking who did I forget was coming over and in walk 2 couples I don't know. They're smiling and looking around and introduce themselves as my customers. They saw a mention about Rancho Gordo in the LA Times, ordered and decided to stop by as part of their vacation. I'm a little shocked and perplexed. I didn't quite know what to do as they described the beans they'd ordered and how much they liked them. I was flattered and horrified. I live in a fairly rural place on almost three acres but it's not a dream hacienda and this year this is little ag going on here (the bulk of the beans are grown on the nearby delta). It's not like Rancho Gordo is a place you'd want to visit. It's my house!
Anyway, they were very nice and I hope they enjoy the rest of their trip.

P.s. Now I lock all my doors!

Not sure if this is surreal but it's never happened to me before.

I'm alone in the office, after hours, right now as I type this. Or so I thought. I heard a strange noise and go out to look, but all my co-workers are gone and their doors are shut. Suddenly I realize that the noise is coming from behind the door of one of them (I'll call him Ralph). Ralph is snoring. He did have a few beers at lunch (another co-worker's last day). This the first time in over 14 years of working with him that he has fallen asleep "after hours" that I am aware of (he might do it a lot after I leave but then I wouldn't know that!) Normally if I was the last here I would shut out all the lights in the suite and lock the door behind me.

The question is - do I wake him? Leave him to sleep? And if I do leave him to sleep, lights on or off?

Fly

It's weird when MF is broken.

A couple of hours of pure farce last night helping to conceal my local bar's recently aquired cat from an unexpected health inspector. It involved coughing loudly to conceal the yowls of the cat, which didn't appreciate being held tightly behind a curtain, drinking noisy rounds of shots to emphasise the normality of the evening, and finding various ways to distract the man's attention. Like an episode of Fawlty Towers. The upside, apart from the hilarity, was drinking free throughout - and the manager still owes me, in my view. The downside was this morning's hangover. And a side benefit was discovering that the Emergency Exit doesn't open - otherwise we could have smuggled the cat out the back way.

Just as well the health inspector didn't check the Exit door.

So, we have a P10K problem?

What Pingarina said.

Maow.

I am frequently teased, but, thankfully, more often indulged (like a strange child..) when I tell stories of the bar and store cats I've known. There's something...tough, wise in the bearing of a bar kitty. They're not your average pampered pet.

No, they generally have to work for a living.

And, of course, there are the stories they could tell, but never will...

There is this guy in my neighborhood who is a dead-ringer for Moby, the musician. He goes running every morning in the park at the end of my street wearing only a pair of shorts . . . no shoes, no shirt. This guy might weight a hundred pounds, has a shaved head, and his skin looks like it has never seen the sun. He does this even when it is fairly cold outside. It still startles me to be walking my dog in the morning and see this creature come running past.

I had fondue last night.

Now that is surreal.

Sunday, I was talking with someone who suddenly made the comment "first we'll take Manhattan, then we'll take Berlin" which I quickly identified as Leonard Cohen. Last night while flipping to The Alternative on VH1 they were playing the video for said song.

On the subway this morning, a heavily inked young woman with this sentiment encircling her wrist:
What go's around, come's around.

Wouldn't you spell check before you had something indelibly printed on your skin??

Reminds me of that cafe just off Leicester Square which for years boasted a Dinning Room. You'd think they'd check before putting it up. I noticed on my last trip it had been fixed.

Or this one, over a Chinese restaurant on 2nd Ave: Szechuan Armoa

When "Toy Story" was really big, I bought Bob a Woody doll for his birthday. (I think every guy should get a Woody and a Buzz on his birthday, and we already had the Buzz.)

So Woody's batteries have been dying for months now, and he no longer can sing or strum an entire song. (He's got a guitar, and if you strum it, he sings and whistles "Home on the Range." He also does a fake little "tuning up": five notes of a chord.) Strumming now results in either that chord or the first section of the song, and only rarely, the whistling.

Well, this thing is possessed. I mean it. It had been at least a year since last he sang the song, and Logan's mother picked him up. She sat him on her lap, and his head fell forward into her breasts, and he sang the whole damn song. That has happened three times in the last few weeks. And only with her.

And just now, with no one in the room but me (Bob's gone and Logan's napping in the other room), and Woody somewhere on the other side of the sofa, he started strumming his tune-up chord. Twice. Loudly.

I just about fell out of my chair.

Man cycling up 2nd avenue with a parrot on the handlebars.

There is a very loud cicada that is living in our central air duct. He follows us from room to room. I am thinking of starting a thread about feeding him.