Ages ago I posted a list I found on the web with suggestions about how middle class people should meet working class people. As someone from the under classes (my father was a small time criminal in and out of jail and I had more than one Christmas because of local firemen), but who has done fairly well in worldly terms, I think about such things. And now within the octave of turning sixty I find myself reflecting on where I’ve... Read more

It is now Monday at ten o’clock in the morning and we have not yet closed on our Newton house, and therefore cannot close on the Pawtucket house. Nor, while hope springs eternal, have we heard anything about a break in the logjam referenced at various points below this entry… At this moment I’m sitting in my very soon to be former office in West Newton, having just now put the last of my books into a box. I’m surveying... Read more

Elijah rock shout shout Elijah rock comin’ up Lord Elijah rock shout shout Elijah rock comin’ up Lord Elijah, Elijah Elijah Elijah, Elijah Elijah Satan is a liar and a conjure too If you don’t watch (mind) out He’ll conjure you If I could I sho’ly would Stand on the rock where Moses stood Ezekiel said he saw him Wheel in the mid’ of a wheel John talked about him Book of the seven seals Some say the Rose of... Read more

Grumpy… And I’m not the only one. As it turns out when we refinanced back in two thousand and two, lowering our interest rates, the attorney neglected to file the necessary papers. (This reflection will ultimately be about lawyers…) Fast forward. Even though there were subsequent refinancings (there were a number of opportunities to lower rates in those days), now as we are selling, all is stopped ’till that one event in ought two is resolved. I’m not sure at... Read more

Too soon old, too late, smart. I first saw that little bit of folk wisdom calligraphed on a bread board with a cutesy Germanesque spelling. As I’ve rooted around looking for a possible source I’ve found it attributed as coming from the Jewish tradition, the Dutch tradition and, yes, the German. Today, my sixtieth birthday, it just feels like regular old human wisdom. If only I knew then… Ain’t it the truth? In East Asian cultures at sixty one becomes... Read more

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I’m sitting in a Starbucks just off Watertown Square. I’ve purchased way too many expensive coffees here over the years. The virtue buried in this vice was that we’d decided to become a single car household (the major joy was feeling morally superior to our friends. But it did have a couple of other benefits for self and other…) oh some five or six years ago. This meant I would drive Jan to work at Perkins and then drive into... Read more

I was having a cuppa with an old friend and I was complaining how I was trying to hitch a ride on someone’s wireless network to check my email, but it seemed everyone’s site was password protected.. He launched into why people should always password protect their wireless connections. Then as an illustration mentioned how he’d recently learned his teenaged son and some fellow hooligans liked to drive around the neighborhood with a laptop up and looking for just such... Read more

Well, close enough… And certainly a good enough reason to revisit one of the great scenes of movie history… Vive La France! Read more

Well, we’re not done yet. Maybe today for the house. Actually I think it likely. We did a lot yesterday… But there’s also my office. That may drag on into the beginning of next week… After cleaning and doing the memorial service and a little bit more cleaning we came home, ate take out, and I simply went to bed. Eight forty… And now I’m up at six o’clock a.m. Haven’t had that much sleep in ages… Soon we must... Read more