I see the Phillies have the best record in baseball as of this morning, and that’s with their star SS Trea Turner injured. The Yankees sit atop the AL, just a smidge above the O’s. Our Gnats briefly surfaced above .500 about a week ago, but have slipped to 20-23 now and the lineup is looking pretty weak. Here’s manager Davey Martinez, after a good cry.
This piece by Blake Ward is from tomorrow’s Met Diary.
When the tenth anniversary of my move to NYC came around, I selected a Friday evening in June to celebrate with a barbecue at my Gowanus apartment.
String lights swayed in the breeze. The coals glowed white hot in the grill. The popsicles were organized in the freezer.
One thing was missing: a cooler for drinks.
I walked to the nearby grocery store to pick up one of those inexpensive foam coolers that seem to be ubiquitous in the summer.
But after a fruitless lap around the aisles and a series of head shakes from store workers, I felt defeated and turned toward the door.
“Amigo!” a voice from the storeroom in back yelled.
I walked over to find a young man grinning and gesturing toward some empty cardboard boxes. He quickly fortified one with some layers of discarded Styrofoam and added a big black trash bag as a liner.
Together, we emptied some beer and two bags of ice into our new makeshift cooler, and I carried it proudly back to the party.
The drinks stayed ice cold all night.
Today’s puzzle headed right for the Dirty-Old-Man Department — our favorite! The clue at 1A was “Where you might shop for the sheer fun of it?” and when I saw it fit, I filled in VICTORIA’S SECRET right away. It led me to post this story on Rex’s blog:
“My daughter just turned 38, kinehora, has five children of her own (all gorgeous), and is an excellent RN in oncology. But back when she was in her nursing program there were a few rough periods, to put it mildly. During one, the State of NJ, in its wisdom, took away her driver’s license. So I became her father/driver.
“I got a call from her in school one day saying she forgot her notebook on her desk at home and really needed it, so could I drive it over? She gave me the classroom location and said I should just walk in through the door and she’d see me and come get it. I found the notebook, drove to the school, and located the classroom.
“I opened the door and stepped in. The professor stopped talking, and about 25 exquisitely beautiful 19-year-old women all turned to look at me. I became a stammering Ralph Kramden: ‘Homina, homina, homina,’ I explained. Finally, my daughter (enjoying the scene enormously) rescued me by coming over and taking the notebook. I later described the experience as stepping into the VICTORIA’S SECRET catalog.”
Phil! Get out of there! What the hell is wrong with you??
One funny feature of the puzzle was at 3D the clue was “Nun’s habit?” and the answer was CELIBACY. So it had celibacy crossing Victoria’s Secret. Make up your mind!! Maybe the nun was reaffirming her commitment after a visit to the store, because the answer at 16A was I MEAN IT THIS TIME.
In John McPhee’s piece in the New Yorker of 5/20/24, Tabula Rasa, he writes about a faux final exam he tortures his students with.
O.K., I would say, this is your final exam. Everything rides on it. Write these twenty words and spell them correctly. Moccasin.
I gave them plenty of time to wonder if there were two “c”s and two “s”s or one “c” and two “s”s or two “c”s and one “s.” Next?
Asinine.
Braggadocio.
Rarefy, liquefy, pavilion, vermilion, impostor, accommodate. By now, they were flunking out. Years before I even started to teach, I had clipped the test from Esquire, where T. K. Brown III, compiler of the twenty words, wrote that “impostor” is the most misspelled word in the English language and “accommodate” is the word misspelled in the greatest variety of ways.
Mayonnaise.
Impresario.
Supersede, desiccate, titillate, resuscitate, inoculate, rococo, consensus, sacrilegious, obbligato.
Raise your hand if you spelled all twenty correctly.
No hands.
Nineteen?
In 1975, Nina Gilbert raised her hand.
Eighteen, seventeen, sixteen . . . Across the years, zero to very few hands would go up until the countdown got into the twelve-to-six range. After six, for humanitarian reasons, I stopped asking for hands. At Nina Gilbert’s level, in five decades, no one else would raise a hand.
Nina Gilbert was a music major. She became an arranger and composer of choral music, ran education programs for the Boston Lyric Opera, and taught sequentially at Hamilton, Lafayette, U.C. Irvine, and the Webb Schools, in Claremont, California.
Moccasins: two Cs, one S.
Happy Birthday Tina Fey, born on this date in 1970 in Upper Darby PA. She’s been married to hubby Jeff Richmond for 23 years and they have two kids. He’s also in show biz. Tina can get pretty sexy. Love the stilettos, girl! Could she be hitting on Phil? Nah. I mean he’s cute. And he’s got that blind thing working for him. But, nah. Not Tina Fey. You might have better luck with that moccasin girl, Philly. Just sayin’.
“I got into medicine because I have a passion for confirming people’s birthdays.”
OK. I think that’s enough nonsense for today. Georgie — let’s post and then kick back and relax. How are we fixed for Diet Cokes? Do we have any without the caffeine? — it’s almost five.
The Wellington Files 