Nope, not really close

From time to time I look for interesting rabbit holes at Duke University's Library, the Resource of Outdoor Advertising Descriptions (ROAD).  Last night, I saw a photograph of the illuminated billboards at Broadway and 37th Street in New York City.  

Inexplicably, its date is given as 1898, considering that one of the billboards promotes a production that claims it has been seen by President Taft, Vice-President Sherman, and Speaker Cannon.  It took a few seconds to confirm William Howard Taft was President from 1909-1913 and that the play, "Tillie's Nightmare", ran from May 5, 1910 - July 09, 1910 for 77 performances, and again for 8 more in December 1911.   

It should come as no surprise that a popular Broadway show was turned into a moving picture, although under an altered title.  The female lead remained Marie Dressler, while the male lead role went to a rising star who had already appeared in dozens of short films for producer/director Mack Sennett.  

The days just fly by

Enjoying every day with my wife, my best friend of 41 years.  After her long hard 2025, we appreciate her good days even more.

Walked a mile, rebounded for 15 minutes, ate only one full meal and part of another.  Vice:  12 oz Mexicoke.

Afternoon napping

From left:  Nelson and Kit Charlemagne

Waiting with faint hope

To begin with, I was pretty, pretty, pretty close to 40°33'56.9"N 75°35'07.2"W in the map screen shot immediately below.  

The next image gives you an idea of what I saw looking west from nearby Grange Road, April 21, 2024.  One white flower was visible in the middle of an open field, and I walked over for a closer look.   

Soon the flowers were gone and the field was planted in soybeans.  But next spring, April 29, 2025 to be exact, the same kind of white flowers reappeared, shown in the third image.  They're called ornithogalum nutans, or drooping star-of-Bethlehem, and evidently their bulbs are pretty hardy, if not always welcome.

Finally, a view of the same field looking south, January 6, 2026.  The area shown in the prior pictures hasn't yet been dug up or graded, but in my experience, there's not much reason to be optimistic.

Until the early part of the decade, the roadside was seldom tended, and wildflowers grew all along it, including chicory, hawkweed, red clover, and Queen Anne's lace.  A short distance away, purple asters thrived near the bypass.  All that has changed, and I'm glad I took pictures while I had the chance.

March 13:  Township appears to have scraped off all remaining topsoil and piled it up for transfer somewhere else.  And that's that.

May 3:  A recent township public meeting announced that a new police station will be built on the site. Late last year, the township bought the property from the estate of its former owner.  The house on the property would be razed, and several tall trees have already been cut down. That includes the biggest one in the center of the above photo, lined up roughly between the 2nd and 3rd orange cone.  

Shrug

And then things started happening, and writing in here went to the bottom of the priority list.  Let's see how I feel in a few days before going any further.

It just so happens

To create that post a couple of days ago, I went into my cache of 20th-Century photos taken in NYC.  There was one image that showed huge marquees for On The Waterfront, Brigadoon, and one I’d never heard of, entitled Susan Slept Here.  Guess what I’m recording right now from TCM?  

Beyond this point is more detail which I want to remember, but that I recognize will be of interest only to me.  You’ve been warned.

I don’t usually go into Bluesky, but this morning I did, and almost immediately saw a post from the New Yorker from one of their film critics.  It said that he’d been discussing Susan Slept Here with someone, and how it was a sharp portrait of mid-1950’s capitalist America, and… it was going to be on TCM in about 15 minutes.  I powered up the TV and the TiVo just after the opening credits began.  

What do you have to say for yourself?

Getting done what has to be done, whether it's getting PG to her medical appointments, keeping the household chores up to date, or fulfilling my duty as a citizen by reporting to the court house and making myself available for a jury.  Well, the last one wasn't necessary, as word came down this afternoon that those scheduled to report tomorrow morning were no longer required to show up.  Can't say I'm sorry for that, since PG has two appointments on Wednesday and another one Thursday morning, and I need to drive her to them.  

Trying to appreciate each day as it happens.  I saw it put in a different way:   if you count on a bad situation resolving quickly, or if you lose hope and feel that a bad situation will never get better, it can break you.  One day at a time, or The New Normal, is the least likely to send someone into the abyss.

Satisfied with the new mini-trampoline so far.  I was on it for 25 minutes today; five minutes here, 8 a little later, then 12 late in the day.  Anything to keep me from rotting, immobile, through the weeks of winter.  One thing I have to unlearn is that when I'm relaxed, I tend to close my eyes, which is bad for balance on the rebounder.

Besides that, by end of day, I had done some charting of one old videotape; I practiced my instrument or watched/listened to instrument-related videos for about an hour; and did the chores that needed to be done. 

Tomorrow, nothing on the schedule since jury duty is out.  Let's see how disciplined I am then.  

Saturday Evening Post

It began with a New Yorker reference to Rodgers and Hammerstein.  That reminded me that R&H had not always hit the mark, and I picked up a prior thread of misses like Allegro, Me and Juliet, and Pipe Dream.  

The latter referenced one of the stars, Judy Tyler, and I looked up more information on her 1957 death in a car wreck at age 24.  The online bio included a link to a JPG of an Earl Wilson column from 1955 that I, of course, wanted to read.  In it, she came off as ambitious, to say the least, and intent on making it clear no one else deserved any credit for her success.   

But shortly before the customary closing "That's Earl, brother" that I remember from growing up in the late 1960's and early '70's, in the dot-dot-dot section was a line about a Jelke Girl.  That's how I learned about Minot "Mickey" Jelke, scion of the Jelke Good Luck margarine family.  With a few years to wait before coming into a 7-figure inheritance upon turning 25, he decided to put that time to use by becoming a pimp.  (He didn't get away with it.)

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Otherwise on this Saturday:  Pizza and Pepsi for the main meal, with a pastry from a local Italian shop for dessert.  Walked a mile and a quarter afterward.  

Good Quality Time with my little cat in early afternoon.

Mid-afternoon, got blood orange juice for PG from Whole Foods, and I picked up some whole milk yogurt.  

Took a back road home and checked for whether a lone little patch of purple asters along the road was still in flower, which it was.  This picture is from a week ago, when I had time to stop and appreciate them from close range.

On the road

I usually take a walk around the neighborhood in late afternoon, when traffic in the area has thinned out, but today's mid-afternoon forecast was calling for rain in the near future.  A quick look at the radar showed the leading edge of the rain far enough to the west that I thought I'd be OK, so I put on my walking shoes and went outside.

  

I took one of my usual routes around the neighborhood, which led me into a nearby park.  The road into the park also contained a small lane facing traffic for pedestrians, and that's where I was when a car approached me.  

Instead of passing, it slowed to a stop next to me and the passenger-side window went down.  A young woman leaned across the seat, and with a smile, she stretched a hand toward me.  In it was a small clover.  "Four leaves?  How about that?" I said, and she nodded.  I took the clover and thanked her, we wished each other luck, and she drove on.  

I've had some unexpected experiences on these almost-daily walks: finding several coins, seeing a deer, a fox, even a coyote; and one evening, in someone's front yard I counted seven cottontail rabbits.  But until this afternoon, never a human stopping to hand me a four-leaf clover.  

My guess is that she was having a good day and wanted to share it with someone else.  At least I hope so.  

For what it's worth, less than a minute after she gave me the clover, it began to rain lightly, and it continued the remaining half-mile back to the house.

Kind of stands out, doesn't it?

If we are to believe Google Lens, this is a solitary Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus), "a large conifer native to eastern North America."

Also seen in the park:  Swamp Rose Mallow, White Vervain, Prunella vulgaris (aka Common Self-Heal), and a lot of purple loosestrife.  They're the reason for the wiggles in the path on the lower right below.

My Day

(1) caregiver (meds, prescriptions, appointments)

(2) TP volunteer image-link fixer

(3) info on cat-calming products

(4) make vanilla pudding?  make cinnamon buns?

(5) cranberry juice sweetener - how much / proportion?

(6) Dr ___, GI specialist - look up

(7) Take a walk and look for interesting images

I was strolling in the park one day

A couple of brief stops along the way, first to watch a bluebird whose box I'd walked by, and then to admire a patch of Dame's rocket along the creek.  Interested today in the distance, not the time on task.

I didn't bother

Things I saw but didn't photograph:  At the traffic light exiting a shopping center, across from the former world headquarters of Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.   In the grass between the sidewalk and a chain link fence, two Canada geese were walking.  As I turned onto the road, I saw several goslings walking with them.  

I took a shopping list into a store, and in one aisle I found someone else's shopping list.  Both lists had been written on paper that bore the name of the same children's charity.  

At the end of the day

   

The worm/caterpillar on the left was dangling at eye level over the sidewalk from an oak tree on the next door neighbor's property.  Between its size and its constant motion, I knew it would take a miracle to get a good focused image, and after four blurry tries, I settled for the one you see above.  What it is doesn't feel as useful to remember as just recording that it was there, and that I almost walked into it.

And now, what you've no doubt been waiting for:  Google Lens guessed that the thing in the photo above right is possibly an x-ray of a tibia, or else an image of paint peeling from a Ford F-150.  Guess I'll have to try something else.

Later:  Blue-tailed damselfly?  OK, I can accept that.

Ancora Imparo:  (1) learned that the WIN/Shift/S combination that does screen grabs also records videos, the way Dropbox used to do.  Used it to save a clip from a post on Xitter that showed a dog jumping ropes being twirled by a human and two other dogs.  (2) learned that FastStone accesses the latitude and longitude recorded on pictures taken with my Samsung Galaxy, and it can place them on a screen in Google Maps (Windows 11).  The grab below shows where I saw the insect on the right above.

Lots of unnecessary eating today, so I needed a walk late this afternoon.  The timeline on Google Maps (Android) isn't as detailed as it used to be, so when it told me just now that I'd only walked half a mile, I had my doubts.  (There should be an app for that.  A free one would be best for my budget.)

EDIT:  Did some searching and eventually settled on MapMyWalk.  Yesterday's walks totaled a bit over a mile and a half.  

Extra pep

Pretty good at staying focused today.  Besides the longer walk, I took an hour for practice at home and filled it with meaningful action.  No naps, and just one Pepsi in the category of junk food.  Good cereal for breakfast, a ham sandwich for lunch, and... and... no memory of what I ate at 5:00.  I think it may have involved whole milk yogurt from Whole Foods.

I wish this photo had been better, but at least I got a picture. There were a couple dozen rabbits in the yards I passed during my walk, including this one, who was stripping a young plant of the highest leaves it could reach.  

Google Maps and my timeline say I walked a mile and a half this evening.  Must have had some extra energy and motivation.  

  

This was in the field that last year grew soybeans.  Nothing planted this year, from the looks of it.  Nature is taking its course, with unpredictable results, like this large, brightly colored volunteer.  (Yes, yes, it's out standing in its field.)  Google Lens made a guess, but an unlikely one; I doubt that it's a plant that their AI says is native to Australia.  

Otherwise, I did some reading for pleasure, spent a minimum of time on Xitter, and burned a CD for PG with music I believe she'll enjoy.

My day

Pat's back has been bothering her a lot lately, and early this week our family doctor recommended some tests.  First, he gave her a prescription for an x-ray, and told her she could get that without an appointment at a nearby satellite office of the area's largest hospital system.  In addition, he told her that she should have a bone density scan, which could be done at the same office, but would require an appointment because there was more to it than just an x-ray.  

Back home, I set up the appointment for the scan and made a note of it.  But this morning, when I wanted to make sure of the date and time, I couldn't find it.  It wasn't in her email, not in my email, not in my Keep file, and not on the wall calendar in the kitchen.  

I found it soon after, but until then I was upset that I hadn't handled that important information properly.  Pat did her best to talk me down.  

When I remembered the information could be in Dropbox, I knew where to look for it, and calmed down.  I had printed the appointment from the hospital system's website to a PDF and filed the PDF in Dropbox.  At the time, I couldn't get the .ICS file to make an entry in the calendar program.  When I relocated it, right away I wrote the appointment info on the wall calendar and input it on the calendar program so it wouldn't happen again.    

This afternoon, I drove her to the satellite office for the walk-in x-ray.  The technician who called her name to come back to the x-ray room was friendly and outgoing, and I told her that we'd likely be back next Tuesday morning for the scan.  Then another woman approached and interrupted the technician, and momentarily I started getting hot at the interruption.  Fortunately, I kept my mouth shut, because the other woman was the manager, she had overheard me and had contacted the main office to change the 2nd appointment.  After the x-ray, Pat could go down the hall immediately to the room for her bone scan so we wouldn't have to make a second visit next week. 

Just nitpicking:  if she had first said "Excuse me, but I couldn't help overhearing... I'm the manager and..."  Otherwise, 10/10, no notes.  If the hospital doesn't do a follow-up, I'll have to email someone in charge.  I know that when I was working, it was always good to hear from a satisfied customer.  (And then I would  forward a copy of the message to the boss.)

Second chance

Last year about this time, I spied one white flower standing out in a fallow field of green.  

Yesterday evening, I returned to the area because from a distance, I could see...

...and then I got closer.

There's just one plant this year, but it's the same drooping star-of-Bethlehem that I spotted on April 21, 2024.  The location data in my phone confirms it's the same place this year.  The red 11 and blue 6 were last year's images, and the other 9 were from last night. 

     

A Good Day

I baked a cinnamon streusel coffee cake early this afternoon.  Then, went to Costco for one or two things and came home with four or five.  (The eggs were $5.79, but that was for a dozen and a half; the Diamond Crystal salt was 37 cents a pound; the pint of Kirkland vanilla, as yet unaffected by the Trump tariffs, was $10; and the Kerry Gold butter and the Rao's marinara sauce both had sale prices that put them below those on supermarket shelves (less than $6 a pound for the former and less than $5 a quart jar for the latter).  

As mentioned above, the coffee cake was made with cinnamon, but our open container of Kirkland (again) cinnamon, although it contained enough for the cake, was at a low level that made it difficult to reach with a measuring spoon.  The answer was readily at hand, though.  

Both PG and I save glass jars just for occasions like this.  There's a shelf in the pantry that holds a dozen or more jelly jars, home canning jars, and other glass containers, and from the stack I picked out one that had held Bonne Maman preserves.  

Maybe a visitor would wonder, but maybe not, if they understood that's how both of us were raised.  Our mothers and fathers had to quit school in their early teens and were thereafter blocked from high-paying jobs, which is why they insisted that their children get as much education as possible.  My mother said again and again that when you had an education, nobody could take it away from you.  

I got there in a roundabout way, which I can attribute to being the first in the family to go to college, but the inexperience that led me to take the scenic route on the road to a diploma also resulted in lasting memories of interesting detours.  That was back when a young person and average student could pay for college with federal grants without signing up for student loan debt.  Any advice I might give now based on that era is as out of date as cookbooks from the 19th Century.

Supper was homemade pizza, washed down with Pepsi, which I've otherwise given up to keep my blood sugar score out of triple digits.  It tasted terrific.  I'll be craving it for days to come.  

Rather than buy Pepsi in bulk, which would be a mighty temptation, I got two cold 20-ounce bottles at Wawa.  The price was $2.59 each, or two 20's for $4.00.  (Don't want to forget that I saw a caramel Lindt bar at Wawa and picked one up for PG.)

That's enough detail about the past day.  Time to go upstairs.

Everything all at once

Early in the week, I ordered some everyday household stuff from Amazon, and on impulse I added a paperback to it.  Then I took a good look at my everyday black shoes and realized it was time to get a new pair.  I'd be curious to know when I bought my first two pair of SAS Time Out.  Wouldn't be surprised to learn it's been 10 years between buys.

Yesterday, part of the order from Amazon arrived early on an Amazon truck, with the rest coming later via UPS.  After that, the SAS shoes were delivered by FedEx.  Neighbors with an inclination toward minding someone else's business got an eyeful of delivery drivers carrying boxes to our front door.  

Next week:  Naming Names paperback arrives via USPS.  That's pretty much all of them, except for DHL.

Once around the neighborhood

Tomorrow, it's supposed to feel springlike, but today was another late-winter day with cold wind throughout.  Not as cold as it has been, granted, but when I decided to go for a walk after finishing off the last of a pint of Graeter's Black Raspberry, I layered up and was glad I did.

Just before the last right turn into the home stretch, I looked across the street and saw two rabbits in the yard of the house on the northwest corner.  Encouraging, as was hearing robins at two separate times during the walk.  

Also heard a favorite song right after walking in to the Macungie Weis (aka the Nice Weis) this afternoon.  PG looked and sounded much better than she has in the weeks since she came down with a virus.  It was a good day, pardon the expression.