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Showing posts from January, 2006

Year of the Dog

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So much has been going on, I almost forgot that this is the Year of the Dog. I just ran into my little buddies, Maggie and Kelly, two Chinese girls, ages 4 and 2, who live next door to me. They were off to visit relatives to get their packets of money for the holiday. "Hey," I told them, "bring back some money for me." Fortunately, they didn't understand English that well, so my lame joke fizzled in the rain. I went to the Chinese New Year festivities in New York when I was in college and it was a blast, literally. I was tutoring English back then and one of my Chinese students, Cathy, had invited me to come along with her and her friends to watch the celebration. It was fabulous; Cathy took me to a neighborhood restaurant, where the waiters counted the plates rather than wrote down our orders. And Cathy told me the dragons represent different villages in China. She said that a lot of planning went into the appearance of these dragons, making sure none of them r

Once Upon A Time in Bay Ridge

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So I finally figured out how to work the DVD player and sat down last night to watch Sergio Leone's gangster epic "Once Upon A Time In America." I was still feeling a little under the weather so I figured I'd stay in, even though it was a Friday, and chill with Robert DeNiro, James Wood and God knows who else was running around the flick. I half-expected to see myself in some of the crowd scenes. This was the fully monty version of the picture, all 3 hours and, hell, I don't know--45 minutes?--of it, told in the fractured sequence that the Leone had orginally intended. And what a piece of work. My mother used to make this Italian vegetable dish that she lovingly referred to as "my mess" and that's how I feel about "Once Upon A Time In America." It's a mess and I can't get enough of it. I've got about a list of complaints to rival the Manhattan phone directory and I still love this movie. Wandering plot lines, twisted dialog that

Rob the Gambler

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If you're going to strike out with women, then you might as well do it at a nice location. I learned this the other night when I went to an event at Lincoln Center and proceeded to get nowhere with three women in a row. Yes, I bit the dust, but I did it such nice surroundings. I wish I had rented a tuxedo. The event was part of Lincoln Center's "Young Friends of Film" series, where this group shows a movie and then everyone goes out to a room by the lobby to eat, drink and schmooze. At 48 I hardly qualify as young, but I do love movies and a shaved head is better than Grecian Formula for hiding those pesky gray hairs. With the proper lighting--like, say, total darkness--I don't look a day over 46. And nobody looks bad in Lincoln Center. Which Way to the Eats? This being a Friday night, I didn't have to worry about getting home early, so I figured I'd sneak in, check out the movie, and swipe some stuffed mushrooms before hitting the bricks. I wasn't fee

Pigs in Office Space

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Some lowlife at work stole my lunch today. This happened 8 hours ago and I still can't believe it. You get ripped off on the subway or your pocket gets picked in a crowded saloon, well, that happens. But when you put your food into the refrigerator at work in the morning and come back a few hours later to find it's gone, that's pig slop. I've brought my lunch to work a few days each week since I started there and nothing like this has ever happened before. It's never happened anywhere I've worked, and, believe me, I punched the clock at some serious hellholes in my time. My dad's aid, Mary, is a great cook and yesterday at my request she put together a huge serving of her famous pasta and vegetables. Now my dad doesn't like Mary's pasta--he doesn't like much, come to think of it--but I sure as hell do. I had some last night for supper and there was enough left to take for lunch today. This saves me money, as Manhattan eateries are notoriously exp

Happy Blog Day!

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It was one year ago today that I began this blog. I had heard about blogs for years, but it never occurred to me to actually start one of my own. So many blogs seemed to be straight out of the "Dear Diary" school of writing that I figured there was nothing there for me. But I slowly changed my attitude. First of all, what's wrong with Dear Diary? Everyone has a story to tell and you can find life lessons in the most routine lives. I love to write and I want to be a newspaper columnist, but none of the news organizations I've ever worked for never gave me the chance to write a column. Instead I had to cover car crashes, house fires, or write about insurance, taxes, real estate and other such thrilling topics. I decided I had to have some kind of showcase for my work, instead of telling editors, "hey, I'm a great columnist, take my word for it. Now give me a job." So I typed "blog" into the Google search demon and came up with the blogger.com sit

Option Three

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I sure hope there's a cat heaven. I had to remove the body of a dead cat in my garage yesterday and since I can do nothing for him in this life, I pray he'll find comfort in the next. My neighbor, an elderly Chinese man with limited English, actually found the body and flagged me down as I left my house yesterday. He gestured to my garage and since the door got stuck in the up position God knows how long ago, the place has been a haven for local alley cats. I started leaving food outside the house in hopes of attracting cats and frightening away any vermin, though that plan has been less than successful. My neighbor pointed to a spot in the garage and I saw the striped cat curled up behind some old wire fencing we used when we planted tomatoes in our garden. My neighbor kicked at the fence in an attempt to rouse the poor thing, but the cat didn't move. I knew in my heart he was dead, as no self-respecting alley cat would ever let you get that close. I feel terrible about th

Cell No

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I left my cell phone home today. I thought I had trained myself to the point where I wouldn't be able to walk out of my house with picking it up and clipping it on to my belt. I figured I'd go three feet from the door and then my legs would whip around on their own and send me back inside. Don't leave home without it, indeed. Today I went farther than three feet. In fact I was just taking my seat on the R train, watching the doors slide shut, when, oh, goddamnit, I realized I left the bastard home. I did this a few months ago and I actually left the train station, wasting the fare, to retrieve my cell. I found a dollar in the street on the return trip, so I got a piece of my investment back. It's not like I get that many calls on the thing. I can go days at a time without my cell making a peep and I have to check to see if I turned it on. (That's another problem I have with this thing.) But I've grown used to touching the spot near my hip to see if it's stil

Little Christmas

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I'm almost done removing the decorations from our Christmas tree. I've been doing it slowly, a few each day, and now only the lights remain. Once I get them off and remove the stand, I'll drag the tree out in front of our house Sunday night and leave it for the garbage men. This being Little Christmas, the day the Three Wise Men arrived in Bethlehem, I suppose I should respect tradition and take the tree down before midnight, but I'm in no hurry. It's sad to take down such a fine tree, the first we've had in our house in a long time. We had such a nice Christmas this year, I hate to see the old guy go. As I removed the decorations, it felt like I was taking the medals off a soldier, but I think now it's more like preparing a departed friend for burial. I wish I could take this tree back home to the woods, set it ablaze in a snow-covered field, and say a silent prayer of thanks as the ashes could curl up to the winter sun. Leaving it on the street to be devou

A Clean White Page

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Just for today, do not worry. Just for today, do not anger. Honor your parents, teachers and elders. Earn your living honestly. Show gratitude to every living thing. —Dr. Mikao Usui When I was a student at Our Lady of Angels School in Bay Ridge, my third grade teacher, Sister Mary You're-Going-To-Hell, would give us new assignments by telling us to open our notebooks to a clean, white page and begin our lessons. Now I hated Catholic school as much as the next man or woman unfortunate enough to go through that nightmare, but that phrase, that image of a pure white piece of paper stuck in my mind. And on this first day of 2006 it seems quite appropriate to think about it. It's a new year, a fresh start, a chance to begin again. Yes, those words are pretty tired by now, especially if you've seen enough New Year's Days come and go. But what is the alternative? Nothing changes, no new beginings, same old, same old? Sorry, but that's not doing it for me. So I'm going