Thank you for the pictures of beautiful NYC.  I love to visit there.  It's been quite a while now.

I sit here in my little mobile home in the middle of a big field of pasture grass and tumbleweeds and know I could never live there.  But I do appreciate its unique and intriguing personality.

I also love living in a box in the middle of a field.  It's different -- quiet.

There was an old woman, who lived in a box...

greenie225 said:

in the middle of a big field of pasture grass and tumbleweeds

I love the City but this sounds good to me as well!

took a walk today ...

I pulled this panel out of a garbage can when the dude in the pix comes by and asks if it's mine, told him he could have it. He let me take just one shot before fleeing, afraid I was going take it back.

maybe I should have kept it ...

082702

It is lovely and peaceful here.  I do love visiting your beautiful city tho.  It's a little scary for me since I'm just not used to so many people and so many super tall buildings.  I saw my first Broadway play when the theaters opened up again after 9-11.  I was hooked immediately!

Old Town

I was very much into history back then, researching ancient myths and legends of our walled Old Town. We argued over how much truth there was to one particular story, me and my best buddy, and decided to see what it may have been like. I sneaked out early before sunrise, met him at the bottom of the steps leading to the top of crumbling town fortifications.

Up there we crossed over two weathered figures carved in stone, still guarding the main gate leading into town from the river. They celebrate two boys, bakery helpers, baking bread before sunrise to feed a town known to sleep late. As history has it, they finished early, leaving much time to cause a bit of mischief. They climbed to the top of the walls where the beekeeper kept his hives and sealed all the hive entrance holes just as early sunshine woke the bees eager to get out for the day's harvest.

That's when they heard ominous sounds below, outside the walls. Soldiers from a rival town down river were attacking, hoping to surprise the Old Towners still in bed and settle a dispute over rights to tax river traffic. The boys raised an alarm, waking the town. While waiting for reinforcements they thought of throwing hives down on the invaders, releasing very angry bees which put the raiding party to flight, back to their boats and back down river.

There were no bee hives on top of the wall for us, but some loose boulders we pushed over the edge smashed to pieces down below, giving us an adequate demonstration of what happened hundreds of years ago. There also was at least one early riser in town who alerted my buddy's mother to her son balancing on decaying walls. She came running. I hid in a niche behind the steps but she found the instigator and slapped me until I was burning red all over.

Menu

As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to order in, Thursday is the day. You don't want to order in on Mondays because you get the weekend's leftovers, it's is a good day to bake a Cornish Hen, sprinkled with onion soup mix. Tuesdays is my intermittent fasting day, only water, I've gotten used to it for many years now, Wednesdays is up to creative imagination, only desperate people order in, but by the time Thursday rolls around you get a fresh batch.

Last time around the favorite crispy duck I ordered was a bit dry so this time Roomie gets on the phone instead, discusses the menu with the Hunan person on the other end, emphasizing Crispy Duck a bit more juicy, Lo Mein with Ten Ingredients, the Jalapeno Yellow Tail appetizer and one Fantastic Roll (spicy tuna and eel.) No extra rice, no duck sauce, no wontons, no fortune cookies.

Since it's Thursday, Dinner arrives in no time, including wontons, duck sauce and fortune cookies but no extra rice. Plenty of juicy Crispy Duck and Lo Mein for lunch tomorrow. Cat loves the Yellow Tail and begs for more duck.

I'll think about the weekend tomorrow.

economics 101

There was only one set of Chopsticks in last night's delivery but I found another set in my kitchen drawer from deliveries past.

What's this? They Shrunk The Chopsticks! The one on the left is the new one. I can't see myself eating with baby sticks!

But not so fast .... they turn out to be the same length but the new ones are a bit thinner now. Instead of getting, say, 1000 sticks you now get 1100 sticks from a log. Add the savings from cutting down on the paper wrapping and we're talking real money!

Feels cheaper, but It's just for takeout anyway.

more hitchhiking

I hitchhiked a number of times after that trip to Asia, courtesy of the US Air Force.

On leave, wanting to visit New York, I check with the dispatcher to see if there is room on some aircraft flying in that direction and score a ride on a mostly empty Air National Guard training flight. Shortly after takeoff the pilot summons me to the cockpit. 'You know electronics ... this radar isn't coming up, can you take a look?' I don't know nothing about no airplane electronics ... crawl down into the belly where I see a likely power supply, turned on and indicating all's well. I crawl back up through the hatch ... Copilot: 'Never mind. I forgot to throw this switch. We're ok.' Shortly thereafter the cabin fills with smoke, a fellow hitchhiker thought he had thoroughly stubbed out his cigarette before throwing it into a trash can. A fire extinguisher takes care of that.

Most memorable is hitchhiking to Germany on a KC-135, the plane used to refuel jets in midair. A Captain, Military Attaché to some embassy in Europe, has an opening for an armed guard to protect two shrouded palettes. I report as ordered, he hands me a belt with holster, then a Colt 45. Now I did do very well in basic training shooting a rifle but had never been near a sidearm. I had no idea Colt 45s were that heavy. The palettes are loaded on an otherwise empty plane, no fuel tanks on board, with me standing by for any ... I don't know what. This was in Norfolk VA as I recall but I guess they trusted the people on the plane, I didn't have to be armed on board during the flight.

Back in the air after refueling in Nova Scotia the pilot calls us to the cockpit for a treat ... we're flying right into a shimmering curtain, the aurora borealis fills the sky in front of our plane. Awesome. Unforgettable. I spend much of the rest of the flight lying on my stomach down under the aircraft in the bubble where the operator would be piloting the refueling boom, drifting in and out of clouds with the ocean way below.

Heavy fog shrouds Rhein-Main Airbase where the palettes are loaded into a van with black windows, me watching in the drizzle, armed. Just then a package slips out of one of the shrouds and splashes down in front of me, producing a black liquid oozing my way. 'Don't worry.' says the Captain, 'It's just ink.' Seems it wasn't even disappearing ink!

I make out a familiar Oldsmobile idling at a safe distance on the end of the flight apron. Dad has pulled strings again. 'Ummm.' How to say this ... 'Sir ... that's my parents over there?' He's most understanding, collects the Colt 45, belt and holster and I'm off. Home again.