Posted on

Three Days of a Hundred Years of Darkness: Hurricane Sandy and 12 Months of Nothingness

One year ago today, 8.5 million people in the New York City area were without heat or power as Hurricane Sandy blasted the soft middle of our lives — thrusting us backward a hundred years behind a wall of water into at least three days of cold and darkness:

Monday night, at 11:00 pm sharp in Jersey City, New Jersey, the lights went out and stayed off until last night at 7:43pm.  That’s three days without power or heat.  Hurricane Sandy was a massively nasty beast, and we’re just now starting the recovery process.  We are hungry and scavenging for food.  Supermarkets are closed.  Few places have power.

For many of those directly touched by the floodwater a year ago, life has yet to return to normal, and many will never recover the good lives they once had before the storm; and that is a clear failure of the government safety net and the lack of any sort of real social fabric that meshes us together.  The King has no clothes, and we don’t, either!

When it is better, and more profitable, to cut and run and abandon than it is to stay and rebuild and recover — we all have a problem.

Continue reading → Three Days of a Hundred Years of Darkness: Hurricane Sandy and 12 Months of Nothingness

Posted on

Neighbors: Insight into Extended Family Life in Portugal

One of the unexpected delights of our move to this house has been getting to know our neighbors – they live over the field to the right of the house – they are the parents of our landlord and the lady of the house supplies our bread – and our pizza dough, and tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, apples, lettuce, onions, garlic, mushrooms and anything else we have use for.

To say they are farmers is to underrate their innate ability to work with the land and belittles the considerable skills and talents they possess throughout the whole family.

Continue reading → Neighbors: Insight into Extended Family Life in Portugal

Posted on

Approaching Venice

We were on a mission — to get the real flavor of Venice in an afternoon. If we liked what we saw, we would come back and spend more time exploring.

Venice has an undeniable reputation for being one of the “must see” cities in Europe — the famous floating city — or the famous sinking city — or should that be stinking? It is a city of water and of gondolas, rich in history and culture and once the trading center of Europe.

Our ferry took us along the north coast of Venice and around to San Marcos, past all the canal outlets and gave us a good view of what Venice was like behind the scenes. Once again we got reasonable seats on the ferry and I was able to take photographs out of the side windows as we motored past. I was surprised to see that there was room for greenery on the main island — this canal looked particularly shady and inviting.

Continue reading → Approaching Venice

Posted on

Freedom Ends in Drought and People Dying of Thirst

We have a severe and dangerous water problem in the Unites States.  We’re running out of that liquid gold and there’s no way to replace what we’re using at the rate we’re using it.  We can live without oil or natural gas or electricity.  We cannot survive a week without water.

Sure, we lived through the Dust Bowl Days and the horrific droughts of the 1930’s — but that didn’t stop us from building cities in the middle of the desert and the lack of such a precious resource didn’t stop us from planting tons of trees and lots of agriculture that our water tables could not naturally support.  Now, we’re not only in danger of growing fewer crops, we’re tempting the death of our Empire in total loss swaths of our nation as water wells and aquifers naturally dry up and die. Continue reading → Freedom Ends in Drought and People Dying of Thirst

Posted on

Why I Hate Starbucks: The Evergreen Trenta Iced Green Tea, No Water, Light Ice Saga

Starbucks are supposed to be the “third place” — after home and work — where you go to relax and enjoy your life.  Starbucks also sells their service as the place where you can make really specific drink orders and have them fulfilled with glee and not hostile resentment.

Today, I am going to share with you my ongoing and miserable experience with a particular Starbucks store in Midtown Manhattan that just plain out refuses to correctly make my drinks order — even though they’re the ones who taught me precisely how to order my drink!

Continue reading → Why I Hate Starbucks: The Evergreen Trenta Iced Green Tea, No Water, Light Ice Saga

Posted on

Why I Love a Rainy Day: Guitars Crave Moisture

Nothing can kill a great guitar faster than dry air.  Dry air makes us sick and dry air destroys our guitars.  Wood likes to be moist — but not too moist — and in my experience a guitar can handle too much moisture much better than it can handle too little water in the air.  Dry wood tends to crack.  Moist wood tends to swell.  Keeping my guitars properly “watered” is one of the ongoing dedications of my day — and checking the water content of the air is as regular a practice for me practicing Jimmy Bruno’s Five Fingerings.

Continue reading → Why I Love a Rainy Day: Guitars Crave Moisture

Posted on

Living With Abby, Our Strange and Wonderful Cat

Picture the following scenario — I am up at three in the morning because I feel like I need to get a drink of water, the sensation of dehydration all over me. I get up out of bed and find my way to the door, and am about halfway to the kitchen when I just about trip over a bowl of cat kibble. This is not the first time this has happened, and I doubt that it will be the last. The cat is trying to send us a message and we must hear her loudly and clearly — “I WANT MORE FOOD!” When our cat Abby feels that there is not enough food in her bowl, she will drag it out into the middle of the room. It doesn’t matter that there may be what looks like plenty of food in the bowl — it is her judgment call, not ours, that ultimately matters.

Continue reading → Living With Abby, Our Strange and Wonderful Cat