Organized

My resource among professional organizers turned out to be a unique choice.

Karen Guccione has a background in social work.
She was perfect for the small task I needed.

Of course, she would be suited to undertake your daunting need to get everything ship shape as well.

I wanted someone who would schlep my excessive stacks of receipts and bank statements to the shredding event our public representative, Rebecca Seawright, had organized. I intended to go with but did not have an aide to stay with my husband that day.

Karen brought her large shlepping cart to help with the undertaking. She came back afterward to give me company, support, and compassion.

Karen’s web page will lead you to her services.

Entitled

My quandary over what to «name« a post has led me to refine my activity.

I think I am gaining skill in the art of titling a story.

It’s about defining what you want to say.

It’s about grabbing a  reader’s attention. It’s an important part of the process, especially in my «opinion« pieces. It’s very much a challenge for my poems.

Ok, so I have laid bare my longs and my shorts.

Here’s one where I came up with an “alternative” to the title I used.

Man walks into a bar

The original was «Barkeep, I’ll have a….« The subject was simply musing on the art of tending to a coffee bar.

Did ya know?

Saffron, that rare and expensive spice, is rare and expensive because it’s challenging to harvest.

As a spice, it’s a deeply yellow hue. The little florets are purple.

I did not know that.

Here’s advice that is both timely and practical, well, timely for me since there was a leak in my egg drawer.  Not eggs, I’m happy to report as that would be a big mess, but it caused a need for a clean-up.

Don’t keep the fridge door open for longer than 5 minutes. Then give your refrigerator 20 minutes for recovery.

I don’t think I knew that. Didya?

I learned a new word from the NYT The Morning pangram (I want to call it pan-a-gram, but it’s not). Monocracy, government or rule by one person, also referred to as dictatorship.

Barkeep, I’ll have a….

Baristas like bartenders have upped the ante. The more specific drink invention gets, the more knowledge and skill they have to exercise.

So it’s blonde and flat or almond and what have you. I don’t even know how to order from these menus.

Let’s face it, complicated is fun. And adds spice.

I thought of asking my Swiss cafeista today to prepare my cappucino mit schlag.

They call it Vienesse at Sotheby’s down the block. Adding not spice but calories.

There are moments

When are you most happy?

Like these:

We favor a Mexican place, but each of my friends and I tend to gravitate towards one or a few specific restaurants.

Speaking of lunch with a friend

Let me expand on this particular Mexican restaurant.

They deconstruct a delicious street food and serve it in a paper coffee cup. This touch kind of preserves the feel of a «off a food truck« delicacy when you dig in on the mix of flavors. The corn has been de-cobbed, as it were, for ease of eating. Aka, it’s not as sloppy a dish at table as when you walk through a street-fair.

We both really enjoy this menu choice at Tacombi. 

There’s an industrial feel to the location (ours is on the UES), and I see from their website that they favor this look. Other Tacombis have converted garages into dining rooms. It’s a style. I love it.

“Jumbotron Man”

A “Grace and Frankie” epenthesis

“If I asked you to marry me in a public place, would you say yes.”

“What? To be polite?,” she said.

“Seriously, would you?”

“No. I’m not ready. And you’re not the guy.”

Okay, he thought, hope holding back his tears, it’s too soon. She’s not ready. I’ll wait til the summer, ask her at a baseball game. The Lakers kind of suck, anyway.

Mistakes were made

A very short story

“She said no,” he said as he walked into the bar.  His friends gave out a communal sigh of deflation. “She said never,” he said.

“She doesn’t know what she’s missing,” John said. “She said never,” he repeated.

John patted his back with the thunderous confidence of a real pal. “She doesn’t know what she’s missing.”

He looked sheepish. He said, “She does. She knows what she’s missing.” He had allowed a sob to escape.

“She doesn’t want me,” he said with a mix of pain and surprise.

John said, “The waitress likes you. She’ll say yes.” The friends settled into weekday chit-chat and more beer.

A few weeks passed like this, with John urging him to move on, and he calling upon her rejection. The bar was quieter. Again, he said, “She said never.“

A girl, if girls can be in their late 30s, walked over to the table. John nodded to the friends to step away. The girl sat without asking.

He found himself laughing. They ordered burgers and a salad to share. “She has great teeth,” he said to himself. “I mean, I like her smile.”

“Where do you live,” the girl asked, “I’ll come make you supper Friday night.”

He demurred. “Are you sure?” The girl nodded. “I’m a good plain cook. I’ll make fish on Friday. Fish and rice.”

Sheila stopped him on the street. “You’ve recovered. Quickly,” she said.

“You said never,” he said. Sheila said, “Never is a long time. I meant not now, not then.”

“You recovered quickly,” Sheila said again. “Never,” he said.

Sheila reached over to adjust an errant curl on his forehead. He said, “You said no.” Sheila kissed his cheek lightly, familiarly as she turned to walk away.

Posters

The poster has been dorm room art for very many years.

The Poster House is a museum that treats posters as art and their designers as artists.

A poster for a bygone event is now a work of art  decorating a French cafe.

Lithographs were created as commercial art. They were made as accessible reproductions of famous works by famous artists.

They were utilitarian or they proselitized, or they were affordable, or they were mementos.

Poster House shows the best of these and expounds on their background. It houses a huge variety of these types of artwork.

Poster House displayed political art as well as advertising art at the exhibits I saw.

My first visit to the museum was in tribute to a boss back in the day who started his businesses selling posters via catalog.

Admission is  free on the First Fridays of the month.

It’s a sweet and friendly space. Go and enjoy it.

Music to your ears

You are hard-wired to react to music. We all are.

This is a neurological fact.

Music is what we, or rather our forefathers, used to communicate before they developed language.

You might think of song as words before words were formed.

This is amazing, as is the theory you will hear about in the video linked above.

Music releases dopamine.

It can help alleviate pain.

Music can stimulate memory as well.

It can mitigate the effects of Parkinson’s.

It also helps with other neuro- degenerative diseases.

Professor Daniel Levitan will tell you more in his conversation at StarTalk.