the embers of the pre-computer chip world...

Nicely put in my audiobook about giving board games to children after they had become enamored of video games.

The weather MAY be remembering that it is supposed to be Spring.  Nice and sunny but still windy and chilly. Looking out the window down here in Greenwich.  it is nice to see clothes on a line blowing in the breeze.  Very country.

Finished a book by Simon Doonan, Eccentric glamour : creating an insanely more fabulous you.   One was enough. He is quite over the top.  I wanted to read it just because he is the husband of Jonathan Adler, who grew up in Bridgeton.  I am less thrilled hearing the Jonathan won't admit that.  He says that he is from Philadelphia.  Simon has some good points such as that all women are aiming for the same look....the librarian look is out and, due to the easy availability of  many FAKE things, everyone wants to look like a porno star.  He suggests eschewing this look and going for individuality.  He describes various categories of looks.  Celebrities are pictured along with their answers to his questionnaire. He was dropping a lot of names but I had not heard of most of them.  He also describes games he plays with his husband to keep the love alive.  Simon is a window dresser at Barneys New York and wrote several other books, including Confessions of a window dresser.

So much easier to just stay home

The more I stay home, the more I get aggravated when I go out.  Left the house today and saw my new neighbor children hanging out in front of MY house with their dog (no leash).  Looking out the window I get the impression that they are not the kind of people to pick up the poop.  Almost stopped to warn them, but I will wait until they do something bad before complaining.  Also saw trash in their yard ALREADY.  And they have a white van with Virginia plates.  (We don't like them kind in my town). I always greet the thought of new neighbors with a great deal of trepidation.  It is all just so horribly predictable.  And I AM a glass half empty kind of gal. Then I got annoyed following an SUV that had a super reflective back window that was blinding me with the sun.

Went to the health club, although I really didn't want to.  Gained weight this morning and almost felt like saying f*** it and going back to being a couch potato.  It is so much easier than trying to work out EVERY DAY.  Felt better after the fact and they really do have a nice shower and free products there.  They also have this new kind of water fountain where you can fill up your water bottle.  I haven't used it for that but apparently it is the latest thing.

Finished a book, my first by Salman Rushdie.  I was forced to read it by my book club.  The title is Luka and the fire of life and it is a fantastical young adult novel.  Sort of clever, with a Dog named Bear and a Bear named Dog and Gods behaving badly.   It involves a quest to get the fire of life to help his father recover.  I experienced my usual reluctance in the face of science fictiony stories.  It was written for his son, during the time of his hiding.  I borrowed it from the Vineland Public Library (FIC Rushdie Salman).

I've been living in the past all weekend

Is this what it is like to get older?  The past suddenly seems more interesting than the present.  Saturday night I went to  a concert at the Landis Theater in Vineland, NJ.  Lauren Fox sang songs of Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen.  She seemed like Joni Mitchell of long ago.  When she sang Leonard's songs, she put on a fedora.  It was interesing getting the back story behind various songs.  She sang the one Joni wrote while hanging out with Leonard at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City.  Then she sang the one that HE wrote there, but it was about Janis Joplin.  He was quite the womanizer.  (Actually, weren't we all?)  It was taking me back to my youth.  She finished up with a song by each of them.  The word "FREE" came up an awful lot.  We all wanted to be free forever, not realizing that we could be imprisoned by our own selves.

Also thinking about the past a lot as someone is researching a communal house I lived in perhaps from 1975 - 1980.  So, there is a flurry of emails back and forth as we all recall things.  I have been procrastinating on my answers for a questionnaire that he sent out.  I had better hurry before all the stories THAT I REMEMBER have already been mentioned by others.  It was a good time at Atlantic Street House in Bridgeton, and I still love all the people, those that are not DEAD.

Sunday I went to a classical music concert which was fabulous.  Had to drive all the way down to Stockton State College in Pomona but at least a friend went with me.  I HAD to hear Rachmaninoff piano concerto #2 as it holds great sentimental value for me.  I was in LUST with a Frenchman who chose that record at my mother's house (she was away), put it on the stereo and proceded to tell me that it was "the most erotic piece of music ever written".  Need I say more about our subsequent activities?  I enjoyed hearing it again and reminiscing about former loves and one night stands. (I need to make a list!)

Finished a book, Beautiful ruins : a novel, by Jess Walter.  It has been mentioned in quite a few places and lists.  It jumps around a bit between time periods and locales.  Interestingly enough, I was on the Italian coastline in 1967 and there was a rumor that Liz Taylor and Richard Burton were dining in an outdoor cafe in Protofino.  So this guy writes a fictional (?) tale of a hotel owner who encounters an actress who apparently had a daliance with Richard Burton and is being hidden away in this obscure town and inn on the coast.  Later in life, an old man and a young writer meet at an agent's office in Los Angeles and, along with his assistant, they reveal more details about this story.  I thought is was pretty interesting and suspenseful and could almost have been true.  I borrowed it from the Vineland Public Library (FIC Walter Jess). 

Foiled again

Planned to spend three hours online today at the Bridgeton Public Library.  Even thought they have a nice big table to put my computer on and a soft chair, I was thwarted in my purposes and am now using the public computer with a limit of one hour so I am RUSHING.  Had to make two trips with my crap as they do not have any ramp.  Then was told to move all my stuff because green tablecloth from last night must be removed.  Got all settled in and the wireless wouldn't work.  Library Director went to reset and then it was too slow.  Boy, do I feel ike a library patron.  One setback after another!  So, I could pack it all up and go to another library or I could just break down and buy the Internet for my home!

Had a nice breakfast with my friends, the regular Saturday morning crowd.  Feeling self righteous as I took home half and got fruit instead of potatoes.  Then I went to the health club at the hospital in Bridgeton and worked  out for almost an hour.  We all decided we weren't too enthusiastic about the new name for hospital system.  Now it will be called INSPIRA to compete with VIRTUA and be ready to take over even MORE businesses and they don't even have to be in South Jersey.

Too much going on around here!  Tonight there are so many things going on around here.
- Bay Atlantic Symphony at Cumberland County College
- Lauren Fox singing songs of Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell (that is were I am going)
- Bowling for Columbine with satellite interview with Michael Moore - 6:30 at Ashley McCormick center

Out of sorts today

Came out of my house to go to breakfast and found that someone had been riffling through my car and stealing things.  They stole my makeup bag (new), my kleenex, $5, my snacks and sunglasses and tire pressure guage and the worst thing was...my AUDIOBOOKS.  They can be really expensive and I will have to pay the libraries I borrowed them from.  Since I am a retired librarian, I do not have the nerve to ask them if they have a special rate for victims of crimes.  Luckily, they did not go into the trunk.  I am into and out of my car a million times a day and 99% of the time I get the locking thing right.  BUT: they smashed the window of my new neighbor's car, so perhaps it was lucky I left my car unlocked?!  He has only been a resident for three weeks and is probably rueing the day he moved to Bridgeton.  I could have told him to expect bad things to happen once or twice a year.  I could make quite a list.  Each time I call the police although it has never helped me.  At least this time, they made a valiant effort of taking fingerprints, but said they thought the guy(s) were wearing gloves.  So now I have fingerprint dusting powder all over my car. 
The other reason I am out of sorts is that I went to THREE libraries until I found one with good parking spots available.  (I know it sounds crazy to not want to walk a few extra hundred feet and then go to the health club to exercise, but....)  So the Millville Public Library is good cause there is a lot of room to spread out and I haven't yet been here this week, but THE SEATS ARE HARD.

Finished the book The blind side, by Michael Lewis.  The movie was much more engaging.  You never hear much about Michael Oher, but he is still on the Baltimore Ravens and they won the Super Bowl so he must be doing something right.  After the Super Bowl, I wanted to read the book.  I borrowed it from the Bridgeton Public Library (796.332 LEWIS).  It is the story of a black guy who gets adopted by a (Republican Evangelical) rich white family in Tennessee and becomes a football star.  He has a real shy kind of personality.  He came from a family of 13 with a crack addicted mother.  He guards the quarterback's side of greatest vulnerability, his "blind side".

On my Nook, I finished a book by Walter Mosley called The man in my basement.  It was not one of my favorites.  I seem to be obsessed by this writer.  This good-for-nothing black guy gets hired by some guilty white guy to keep him a prisoner in his basement and take care of him for a whole lot of money.

What happened to the day?

It seemed like your average dank and chilly March day when I left the house.  In the middle of my exercise class, I turned to the side with the imaginary ball and saw it was SNOWING.  Huh?!  No wonder a friend of mine is leaving for Florida.  The wait for Spring is ENDLESS.

Another stoplight, oh no!  My small up-and-coming bank now has a new Shoprite across the street and they are putting a STOPLIGHT at the driveway.  Another impediment to progress and speed.  Have you ever noticed that they are always putting UP stoplights and never taking them down?  So, life and traffic just get slower and slower.

Inspira - the new (stupid) name of the merged health care system.  I used to work at Bridgeton Hospital.  Then it got merged and became South Jersey Regional Medical Center.  My health club has had three names, but I still call it "the center" the name three names ago.  Inspira sounds like the name of a drug or that someone wants you to think good things about them like in inspiration.  The secret name was just announced today.  I have been dreading this moment because I HATE CHANGE.

Slower by the day

OMG...it took me TWO hours to deal with my email today.  I thought one hour was a long time.
Of course, there have been some side trips, like verifying that Ella Reeve Bloor lived in MY HOUSE in 1895-1898.  I learned two other interesting facts about this somewhat obscure socialist/communist.  She wasn't actually married to Mr. Bloor; they just pretended to be married while researching for Upton Sinclair about the meat yards of Chicago.  Sinclair later published a best-selling book on this topic called The jungle.  I also learned that she is buried at Harleigh Cemetery in Camden, New Jersey.  She grew up in Bridgeton, New Jersey, another one of our moderately famous residents-who-don't-live-here-anymore.  Others in that category are Sylvia Beach, Jonathan Adler, and James Galanos.  I am one of the obscure people who still live in Bridgeton.

After seeing Paula Poundstone at the Landis Theater in Vineland, New Jersey, I had to listen to the audiobook version of her book, There's nothing in this book that I meant to say, read by the author.  It was funny, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, but a lot of jumping around between historical stories and her own life.  Celebrities discussed are Charles Dickens, Sitting Bull, Lincoln, Helen Keller and Joan of Arc.  Perhaps if she paused at the right times, the jumping around would not seem so glaring, but then again, maybe not.  I learned a lot about her, such as that she is not into sex (with anyone), is a recovering alcoholic, adopted three special needs kids, is a compulsive talker and cleaner, bites her nails, and lives in Santa Monica.  You can find this audiobook at the Bridgeton Public Library (AUDB BIO POUNDSTO).