Okay, my lips are unsealed and my fingers unfrozen: My fourth grandchild and second grandson was born yesterday in Tokyo, and I'm so happy and proud. He's just beautiful and a good, healthy size and weight. That makes 31 years between my first (who has two boys of his own) and little Coshin. Happy day!
Now for the ordinary stuff. I interviewed Harry and Pat V. for a profile in The Breeze after going over to the clubhouse to get a ticket to the "Antiques Roadshow (Sunrise Bay style), to be held near the end of the month.
Dropped off a picture of my large, very old platter which I thought I'd bring for appraisal, but now probably won't--read on. Drove up to Manahawkin and stopped into the little shop run by Ray Verde, who's going to do the appraisals. We had a long talk which included info on postcards (I have several thousand) and the fact that the antique/collectible market is dead in its tracks. Not very encouraging.
I then went to The Home Depot to pick up more of the small, flat containers I find useful for my garage-clearing. The big ones are just too darn big--hard to handle and things tend to hide on the bottom--but these are ideal. Well, naturally, what else: They didn't have any, which kicked off my tale of woe:
Asked at the desk and was casually questioned by a fortyish blonde who called me "hon" and chewed gum in my face. She couldn't find any and went to ask someone else. He had to go get a fork lift, as he said they were--inexplicably--stored over electrical. He left me cooling my heels for a good twenty minutes; finally, I went looking for him. Had to wait while he and two others (yes, that's two other salespeople) helped another customer--or played pinochle, for all I know. Finally he unpacked the boxes, but I wasn't sure if they were the size I wanted--must measure the ones I have. Bought a larger container with "$8.00" on it, which ran up as eighteen dollars and some cents. Yet another clerk said he'd meet me back where they were displayed; I waited roughly fifteen minutes and he never came. Finally, another did, saw the sign, and I got it for eight dollars...
...after only about an hour and a half on an errand that should have taken ten minutes. What gets me is that while I was there, a voice on the loud speaker summoned various salespeople by name to a "training meeting." What in the world is covered: How to thoroughly screw up while chewing gum and frustrating a customer? What added I. to I. was the casual attitude and languid disinterest that characterized most of the seven or eight clerks to whom I had to appeal.
Oh, well, I'll just forget it. Got a congratulatory call from brother Jim, in Virginia, and lots of e-mails re Baby Bop. Saw more pictures of the little angel on Google and have been in touch with his Dad.
WIDER: Rappoport slays me. He's so imaginative and cool, I can't resist his visions.
http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2013/09/09/the-war-on-syria-is-just-a-television-series/
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TUESDAY
I started off the morning with some annoying problems with Amazon Japan re Christmas gifts, but I don't want to go into detail. Left at...
6 comments:
You know, Mimi, I think I might go to a shrink, if he or she was the kind of shrink who'd pick up a pistol and cap the teevee. We expect history to repeat itself cyclically, and in many ways it does ... but there never was television until, as he says, 1950 or so. So we're in the first century of a fairly radical experiment. Could this explain why we're so vile and stupid? I wonder.
Congratulations on your new grandson! You'll have to get yourself to the other side of the Pacific and spoil him a little. Or maybe a lot.
Jim, did you ever read "The Pukey," by Nigel Dennis? It's a short story published 53 years ago in the U.K. (Dennis was A Brit who died about 25 years ago.). You can find it on-line. It's quite short and I suggest you read it, then tell me what you think the Pukey represents.
Yes, this is relevant to your comment.
Mimi, you made a post concerning that story about a month ago. The title was so intriguing, I did indeed look it up and read most of it, I think, before I was interrupted by She Who Must Be Obeyed and therefore never finished it. I will do so today and get back to you.
I'm back, having finished reading "The Pukey." Thanks to your hint, it's pretty obvious that the pukey represents the magic-talking-Satan-box, as one of my co-workers used to call the television.
The subject matter brought to us by TV, as many, many people have said so many times, is very poor stuff indeed, falling mostly within the stupid-to-toxic part of the spectrum. However, I'd go even farther: regardless of content, it seems to me that the very process of television-viewing is unavoidably subversive of our thought process. It gives us too much and demands essentially nothing of us, in terms of active participation. In creating total war, nuclear weapons, and television, man may have invented his own doom as a species.
You got it right away! I did write a play about it (practically all the words are Dennis') and will present at this month's Players & Playwrights meeting.
I hope the P & P like your play. I'd like to read it, if it's at all possible. Do you think you could email it to me? (jcwetzel@mchsi.com) If you want to send it as an attachment, I have the software to open the usual sorts of files.
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