My wife, Joy and I just started watching Mad Men. Frankly I was a little bit leery about rehashing the 1950s and its prevailing attitudes. Drinking, smoking, antisemitism, treating women badly was the norm back then. The protagonist, Don Draper, is a mysterious, emotionally empty Madison Avenue ad agency creative director. Little by little we […]
I seem to be surrounded by broken things, things that are incomplete. Mom died just over a month ago, not more than two weeks after her 90th birthday. Many cousins I hadn’t seen in a while came to her party. We all had a great time. I traveled from California to New Jersey to be […]
Below is a watercolor I painted the day before I flew back to New Jersey to see my gravely ill mother. Dave, my younger brother, called me to say she wasn’t doing well. We had all gathered the week before for Mom’s 90th birthday. Although Mom was still alive when I painted this, it has always […]
Comfort zone: They say that it is good to be out of one’s comfort zone. I’m willing to risk getting back into it for just a little while. The past couple of weeks… make that months have pegged the discomfort needle to the maximum setting: numb. It started with planning for a trip back east […]
There is a saying, “I was so sick, I was afraid I wasn’t going to die.” I’ve been feeling that way for the past couple of days. I don’t know if I’m in the eye of the storm, if the medication is taking effect or if I’m better. But I am grateful for feeling halfway […]
My father was known (among other things) for his puns, shaggy dog stories and jokes (an arguable characterization). One of his stories is apropos of today’s situation. It so happens that there was a witch named Enza, who was forever trying to get into one particular house. The resident was fastidious about sealing the home, […]
I haven’t been sick since I started this blog in 2013. My health streak was broken on my 6 hour flight home to California yesterday. I could not stop coughing. When I got home, I got into my own bed and covered up to stop the chills. I slept a long time. I wasn’t sick […]
Yesterday, Dave, my younger brother and I cleaned out Mom’s apartment. She died last week, not long after her 90th birthday. I was able to fly out from California for her party. It was a lot of fun. Mom had a rough night just before I left to go home. Just before my plane took off, I […]
My brother Dave and I just finished cleaning out Mom’s apartment. I’ve been back on the east coast from California for about 10 days: since February 19. I was here in the east earlier in the month for Mom’s 90th birthday party. She was determined to have her party. A full six months before she was […]
Many of you, like me, may be classic movie fans. I tend to gravitate toward Film Noir. I’m a noiry kind of guy. Also, crime films. One can learn a lot from movies. Just the other day, I was watching White Heat, starring Jimmy Cagney. He played a sociopathic, homicidal momma’s boy named Cody. Cody […]
