Passengers on Life’s Ride
Here’s a headline that will be tough to top, from nypost.com: “Full of hot air? MTA manager caught using blow-up doll in attempt to skirt HOV rules.” And here’s a pic:
Wait — here’s another wacky headline: “‘90 Day Fiancé’ star: I make $50K a week selling my farts in a jar.” The entrepreneur’s name is Stepanka Matto.
Yesterday talk-radio host Mark Simone, a Trump friend and supporter, asked if anyone had purchased a BBB hat. Kudos.
I was a big fan of Greg Norman when he was one of the world’s best golfers. I’m disappointed he is supporting a Saudi-backed league.
Troubling math for California in an article by Emma Colton at foxnews.com: “… 38% decrease in people moving to California at the end of September 2021 compared to the end of March 2020. The study found a 12% increase in residents moving out of state.”
Good news and bad news on my personal literary front. I just added another story, Down and Across, to the Curious Sicilian file, which brings it closer to the 200-page target I’ve set. Unfortunately, while scanning for a place for it, I noticed that the text at a lot of pages does not reach the bottom. Somehow the Google Docs file has been skewed. I tried to close the gap in a couple of places and the file would not cooperate. Anyway, here’s the beginning of the aforementioned story:
Despite a frame kept thin by a hyper metabolism, Jake Brown, 55, struggled to reach the worn couch, double scotch on the rocks in hand. His back was killing him. His ankles were stiff. He hadn’t bothered to dress, simply throwing on a robe. He sat in the corner to his left, which had molded into a comfortable shape through the years. He immediately reached for an open pack of cigarettes resting on the nearby table, on which a lamp stood. He inhaled deeply. There was still nothing like the first smoke of the day. Everything in the one-bedroom apartment was coated with nicotine. He was unable to recall the last time he’d had it painted. He moved in 30 years ago, sneaking into the rent-controlled flat upon the death of his uncle Ike, a bachelor taken by a heart attack in his prime. Jake found thousands of dollars in nooks and crannies
He opened the crossword puzzle book to the last page. He berated himself for having forgotten to buy a new one while he was out for a few minutes yesterday afternoon. He would not go out today, as he was still stinging from the embarrassment of having shuffled along like an old man. He did not own a computer, resisting the temptation of the easy scams it promised. He hadn’t been to the doctor or dentist in decades. He feared he wasn’t long for this world. Although he’d lived enough for ten lifetimes, he didn’t want to leave.
He picked absently at padding that protruded through a hole in the sofa. The theme of the puzzle was immediately obvious in the first clue: ROBBER, five letters. He filled in THIEF. When, further along, the answer was MURDER, he recalled his first, accidental, striking his victim too hard with a hunk of pipe in the wee hours near an ATM the old timer had just visited. In the blank space before GAMBLER, he wrote DEGENERATE. He wondered how much he’d pissed away on the horses, drugs, booze and broads through the years, money he considered well-spent. It had to have been a million.
Another gorgeous late fall day led to a decent return for the floating book shop. My thanks to the elderly woman and her interpreter, who bought ten books in Russian translated from English; and to the woman who purchased four kids books; and to Lynn, who took home Call of the Wild by Jack London and The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, neither of which she’d ever read, very surprising given how much she reads.
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