Tuesday, February 16, 2010
2-16
posted at 10:04 PM | Permalink | 2 comment(s)
The twenty-something daughter of one of my friends jetted off yesterday to spend a year in Taiwan teaching English and although of course it's hard for the family to have her half a globe away, and hard for her to be so far away, I'm sure, I'm so glad for her because it will be an exciting adventure as well as fascinating because it's such a different culture and useful because of the people and knowledge of people she will accumulate for whatever she'll decide to do afterwards, as travel and unpredictable experiences almost always are.

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Sunday, February 7, 2010
2-7
posted at 11:15 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
Spent a couple of hours about an hour away from home having a quick bite and afternoon tea and, as always, absolutely loved the vittles but I do have to wonder what they're thinking of with their early hours on a weekend and their unwelcoming and slightly surly attitude about "we're closing soon so the kitchen is closing so let's hurry it up," when you consider that staying in business is, presumably, their goal.

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Monday, February 1, 2010
Good question
posted at 8:56 AM | Permalink | 3 comment(s)
A train friend was musing and thinking out loud. He asked me a question for which I have no better answer than to say that I have observed the same thing. This is the question: why is it that if a relationship starts to sour, it is precisely the personality traits that attracted the two people to each other that make them want to beat their heads on the wall and plead, "Stop!!" This guy's current significant other was charmingly outgoing, smart, chatty, inquisitive, always in motion (his words) but now he reluctantly describes her as pushy, bossy, noisy, nosey and never calms down. It's an intriguing and interesting point partly from seeing opposite nuances of adjectives and partly from the personality and relationship points of view.

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Friday, January 1, 2010
Long weekend
posted at 10:29 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
Nice way to welcome the new year, this year, with a three-day weekend only a week after a four-day weekend. It's very relaxed. Since they schedule most holidays on Monday, these days, maybe they could just pre-determine that Christmas and New Year's will always be on Fridays or Mondays from now on. I suppose the calendar would get really messed up if we had to tie the holidays to dates but some clever legislator should be able to figure it out.

And I love the marathons that some television stations run on holidays. The Thin Man and Sherlock Holmes are this year's pleasures for me. They're not brilliant in terms of dialog or plot, I suppose, but they do hold up and they're lots of fun.

Kudos, too, to Panera restaurant which was open all day, has free wifi and fireplaces, and is always so welcoming to people relaxing in their pleasant cafe-like places.

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Monday, October 5, 2009
Conversation
posted at 9:13 AM | Permalink | 3 comment(s)
Why do some people come, all excited and worked up, bursting at the seams to share some issue or concern or problem, then pause for a reaction, and then continue on their merry rant without even the least lip service to whatever may have been said from the audience? Why not talk to a tape recorder if all they want is to hear themselves talk? Even adding "yes, that happened to me with them, too" doesn't get a nod from this genre. I remember joking with my mother when she would clearly not be listening to what one of us was saying, and I would say "hmm, did someone say something? wait! I heard something...." and then she'd chuckle (or not) and pay more attention. Conversation is meant to be two-way, I thought. Sometimes more one person or the other but both people usually expect to speak, yes?

On the other hand, I have had some unexpected and energetic conversations recently, too, in unexpected places and with people who turned out to be very interesting. You just never know, I guess.

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Monday, August 3, 2009
A few minutes of fame
posted at 12:48 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
A friend of mine was on a panel about Woodstock at the Darien Library last week. Apparently he was a young boy at the time, in a car on the way to spend some time at a house by a lake near Bethel and they got stuck in the traffic (as I did too, on the way to my family's house in Vermont). Well, apparently my friend wrote a short story/memoir kind of thing about it and someone saw it and showed it to a woman who was writing a book about Woodstock, what with the 40th anniversary and all, and one thing led to another and now he's having his fifteen or so minutes of odd fame. I say "odd" because (a) he doesn't remember it because (b) he wasn't actually there and (c) he was only 7 and anyway (d) his father hated "those annoying hippies."

An amusing/cynical side note is that the book is entitled "Woodstock Revisited: 50 Far Out, Groovy, Peace-Loving, Flashback-Inducing Stories from Those Who Were There" and is therefore an example of how untrustworthy titles and perhaps reporting in general are since we have personal knowledge of one of the 50 eponymous people not being there. But I'm happy my friend is getting time in the limelight - he's a really nice guy - and he does know what he's doing and he's having a blast with it. He's being interviewed by newspapers and was taped for appearances on NY1 as well as some stuff on WLIW.

Oh, AND he thought Darien Library was awesome - as indeed it is - and was delighted that I know and like it too.

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Thursday, April 30, 2009
Tales my mother told me
posted at 9:11 AM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
One of my mother's favorite phrases was "God writes straight with crooked lines." Keeping in mind that I'm not religious - primarily because, if there were a God, does he/she decide to side with one opposing interest one day and another the next? after all, enemies often each claim utter devotion to him/her and it seems unlikely that he/she would choose sides and many enemies do fight in his/her name, at least so they say; please don't yell at me, this is just an opinion - nevertheless I have always been inordinately fond of this thought for it seeing good. Optimism is something I do wholeheartedly believe in and strive toward, even if I cannot always achieve it. In fact it's clear that crooked (i.e., unpleasant or difficult) situations often emerge into superb unexpected outcomes. The most recent and pleasing (to me) was a difficult situation at work which resulted in both renewed and new associations and friendships, partly revolving around passion for the New York Times crossword puzzle which was another passion of my mother's, come to think of it. Ciao, mamma!

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