The Wellington Files

  • Farmer Cheese and Lox

    Have you ever tried to fix something but only made it worse? Me neither. Here’s what happened at Uber.

    We’ve been seeing the initialism DEI more often. It stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Uber placed its longtime head of DEI, Bo Young Lee, on leave due to complaints that a recent event she moderated was insensitive to people of color. Wow — isn’t the whole idea behind her position to be sensitive to exactly those people? What happened?

    The event was called “Don’t Call Me Karen.” For those of you who live under a rock like I do, a “Karen,” according to the NYT, is slang for a white woman with a sense of entitlement who often reports Blacks and other minorities to the authorities.

    The problem was that the presentation came across as a lecture on the difficulties faced by white women that was insensitive to the concerns of minorities.

    Several weeks later, a Black woman asked how the company would prevent “tone-deaf, offensive and triggering conversations” from becoming a part of its diversity initiatives.

    Bo Young Lee fielded the question and said “Sometimes being pushed out of your own strategic ignorance is the right thing to do.” The comment prompted more employee outrage and complaints. To paraphrase Mike Birbiglia: What she should have said is . . . . . nothing.

    But, apparently, Bo don’t know. She’ll be on leave for a bit.

    Today’s poem from The Writer’s Almanac had me drooling pretty quickly. It’s called “Market Day” and is by Linda Pastan.

    We have traveled all this way
    to see the real France:
    these trays of apricots and grapes spilled out
    like semi-precious stones
    for us to choose; a milky way
    of cheeses whose names like planets
    I forget; heraldic sole
    displayed on ice, as if the fish
    themselves had just escaped,
    leaving their scaled armor behind.
    There’s nothing like this
    anywhere, you say. And I see
    Burnside Avenue in the Bronx, my mother

    sending me for farmer cheese and lox:
    the rounds of cheese grainy and white, pocked
    like the surface of the moon;
    the silken slices of smoked fish
    lying in careful pleats; and always,
    as here, sawdust under our feet
    the color of sand brought in on pant cuffs
    from Sunday at the beach.
    Across the street on benches,
    my grandparents lifted their faces
    to the sun the way the blind turn
    towards a familiar sound, speaking
    another language I almost understand.

    Laurence Olivier was born on this date in 1907 in Dorking, Surrey, England. He died peacefully, in his sleep, in 1989, unless he was just acting. Olivier was working with Dustin Hoffman on the movie Marathon Man, and one scene called for Hoffman to be out of breath. Hoffman darted out of the studio, ran around the block several times and returned, out of breath, to shoot the scene. Olivier was surprised that Hoffman did that and asked him about it. Hoffman replied, “What would you have done?” And Olivier said, “I would have pretended.”

    The theme of today’s puzzle was AS SEEN ON TV, but you had to read the AS as A.S., and the long answers were each a TV personality with the initials A.S. I.e., AL SHARPTON, AMY SCHUMER, ADAM SAVAGE, and ANDY SAMBERG. (Short answers also included Fashion designer Anna SUI, and Darth Vader via his childhood name ANAKIN Skywalker.) egsforbreakfast noted if the theme had been ASS SEEN ON TV, Tucker Carlson would have been an answer.

    Impressively, the constructor was a young (18-year-old) gentleman from Vietnam. Here’s what he said:

    “Greetings from Vietnam! I started solving crosswords two years ago to improve my English and thought crossword construction would be the perfect way to take my hobby to the next level. As a non-native English speaker, my puzzle being published really boosts my confidence in my English proficiency!

    “I first used AS YOU KNOW as the revealer [of the theme], but later scrapped it because I felt it was too simple — and because the revealer would not apply to everyone, as not everyone knows ADAM SAVAGE. After some more digging, I uncovered AS SEEN ON TV, which is much snazzier and makes the theme tighter.

    “I am not familiar with American pop culture, so to decide which A.S. was crossword-worthy, I relied on the frequency of Google Search results and looked for past appearances in crosswords. Further crossword constraints led me to drop some notable names with the initials A.S., such as AMANDA SEYFRIED and ADAM SANDLER. However, in the end, I am pleased with the diverse final set of theme entries. Some others, like ANAKIN Skywalker and Anna SUI, managed to sneak in!”

    If that doesn’t impress you, try putting a puzzle together. I tried once and gave up after just a few minutes. Ain’t got the chops.

    Here are two young lasses sporting Anna Sui dresses. Good shot, Philly! — Owl Chatter needs to keep up with the latest fashions. And then some purple woman is hawking her perfume.

    More nonsense tomorrow. Thanks for popping in.

  • The Sisters

    Let’s start today with a nice shot of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

    Here’s what they say about themselves on their home page:

    The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are a leading-edge Order of queer and trans nuns. We believe all people have a right to express their unique joy and beauty.

    Since our first appearance in San Francisco on Easter Sunday, 1979, the Sisters have devoted ourselves to community service, ministry and outreach to those on the edges, and to promoting human rights, respect for diversity and spiritual enlightenment.

    We use humor and irreverent wit to expose the forces of bigotry, complacency and guilt that chain the human spirit.

    The Sisters have been regular invitees to the LA Dodgers Pride nights, honoring the LGBTQ+ community. This year, they were going to receive a special Community Hero Award in recognition of their good work. But then the Dodgers reversed direction and told the Sisters to go f*ck themselves.

    According to the NYT, the decision came after heavy pressure from conservative Catholic organizations, including the Catholic League and CatholicVote, and after Senator Marco Rubio wrote to MLB Commish Rob Manfred questioning whether the inclusion of the Sisters would be “inclusive and welcoming to Christians.”

    The Sisters released a statement expressing their outrage. Owl Chatter reproduces it in full below, but wishes to highlight the following:

    “To be condemned by representatives of the Catholic Church is particularly ironic, given that organization’s long history of condoning and concealing the sexual abuse of children. It’s a statistical fact that children are at less risk in the company of drag queens than clergy.”

    Here’s the entire statement:

    The Dodgers capitulated in response to hateful and misleading information from people outside their community, who target not only the LGBTQQ++ community but also women’s autonomy over their bodies, people and communities of color, and other faiths and nationalities.

    Brian Burch, president of CatholicVote, condemned the Sisters as a “blatantly perverted, sexual and disgusting anti-Catholic hate-group.” This is simply not true. The Sisters began in 1979 in response to the AIDS crisis, when gay men, who their faiths and families had abandoned because of their orientation, were sick and dying. The Sisters were among the first to raise money to help care for people with AIDS and to create and distribute safer-sex information.

    In the decades since, the Sisters have grown with chapters across the world. They are a 501(c)(3) charitable organization that annually raises thousands of dollars to distribute to organizations supporting marginalized communities. They support other groups, including several mainstream churches, in their work. Sisters are regularly called upon to minister to the sick, the dying, and the mourning.

    “Our ministry is real. We promulgate universal joy, expiate stigmatic guilt, and our use of religious trappings is a response to those faiths whose members would condemn us and seek to strip away the rights of marginalized communities,” said Sister Rosie Partridge, abbess of the San Francisco Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

    The Sisters are not anti-Catholic, but an organization based on love, acceptance, and celebrating human diversity. To be condemned by representatives of the Catholic Church is particularly ironic, given that organization’s long history of condoning and concealing the sexual abuse of children. It’s a statistical fact that children are at less risk in the company of drag queens than clergy. Yet, the LGBTQQ++ communities are consistently targeted by the right, because it is easier to foment fear of the unfamiliar than to take a hard look at very real threats ranging from gun violence to global warming.

    Do not let people who hate us all decide that some parts of our community are more tolerable than others, that some shall be seated at the table while others are locked out. We all stand on the shoulders of brave souls who endured much to get us this far and we owe it to them, and those yet to come, to condemn the voices of haters at every turn. The struggle continues, but we look forward to a better, more inclusive world where human diversity is seen as an advantage, not something to fear.

    With their craven and idiotic decision, the Dodgers stepped on a hornets nest. Other groups are dropping out in support of the Sisters.

    The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California has pulled out. The ACLU pointed out that the Dodgers, who broke baseball’s color line with Jackie Robinson in 1947, had previously been “champions of inclusion.”

    LA Pride, organizers of the LA Pride Parade and Festival, said that their organization will also not attend the event. The group, which claims to have organized the world’s first permitted parade advocating for gay rights in 1970, said it was “very disappointed” in the team, which it described as a longtime partner.

    “This feels personal for me both as a queer person but also as someone from East L.A., as an Angeleno,” said Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a theoretical physicist, public intellectual and “multigenerational Dodger fan” who protested the team’s action. “It feels humiliating to be a Dodger fan right now.” And here’s a nice touch: “I saw someone tweeting that they hoped that the Giants would invite [the Sisters] to throw the [first] pitch,” the physicist said. “You can’t let the Giants upstage you.”

    For the Dodgers, Pride Night has become a growing and essential component of each season. Last year, the Dodgers wore custom-designed, rainbow-colored logo caps (see below) for a game during what Eric Braverman, the club’s senior vice-president of marketing, communications and broadcasting, said “has become one of the most anticipated nights of the season.”

    It is still possible the Dodgers will reverse course and do the right thing. The ghost of Jackie Robinson is watching.

    I had several exchanges with students during the final exam in my Business Law class. The first one was my favorite type of exchange. A young woman came up and asked me about one of the True/False questions: It was about a negotiable instrument, and the question was: True or false: Once an instrument is “order paper,” it cannot be changed to “bearer paper” via an endorsement.

    So she comes up, points to it on the exam paper, and asks me: “If an instrument is order paper, can an endorsement change it to bearer paper?” I looked at her for a second. Then I said: “That’s the question I’m asking you. That’s what you have to tell me.”

    That happens once every few years and I cherish each time.

    The next one involved a young man. The question was on the point that an instrument must be in writing to be negotiable, but the definition of “writing” is very broad. You can write it on a banana and it passes that test. It can be a negotiable banana. So my question on the test was, can an instrument be negotiable if it’s written on the side of a cantaloupe. And it was driving this one very good student nuts. He came up to me twice about it. The second time went like this:

    Student: “What do you even mean by a cantaloupe?”

    Me: “You know, a melon.”

    Student: Was it cut in half?

    Me: No.

    Student: How do you even do it?

    Me: You’ve never written on a cantaloupe? I’d use a Sharpie.

    Student: Did you cover this in class?

    Me: Yes, but in class it was a banana.

    It turned out that was the only question he got wrong on all three tests. I gave him an A+.

    We went down to Philly today to pay our respects to Judy in light of Hank’s passing last week. It was great to see her, and her beautiful new apartment. Judy — that Michigan beer in your fridge is from us. In case any of your guests might enjoy one. I forgot to mention that we brought them.

    Judy played a video for us. Hank recorded it as a birthday greeting to mutual friend Jack during the pandemic, when they couldn’t get together. It was wonderful — funny, well-executed, and very Hank. It warmed our hearts. We didn’t get to see Hank during his illness — this video left us with a very good last image of him.

    We stopped at Dallesandro’s nearby for cheesesteaks before the visit. What a great place! There are constant lines down the block and the wait is a good half hour. But so what? The cheesesteaks are huge and perfect. I’m not exaggerating — there must be 50 billion pounds of meat on each one. Totally not greasy. You’ve got to figure out the system — what window to go to when, and what to order, but if I could do it, you could do it. Everything takes place outside — you order, you wait, you pick up your order. There are a couple of tables outside, but mostly people take their orders away. We will certainly make it back there again at some point.

    Good night everybody! See you tomorrow!

  • Synesthesia

    I didn’t think I’d like the poem in The Writer’s Almanac today. The title is a little weird — “Widnoon.” It has to be pretty simple to get through my thick head, and that didn’t seem simple. But I was wrong, though I did have to read it a few times to appreciate it, so here it is. It’s by W. S. Merwin.

    On the green hill with the river beyond it
    long ago and my father there
    and my grandmother standing in her faded clothes
    wrinkled high-laced black shoes in the spring grass
    among the few gravestones inside their low fence
    by the small white wooden church
    the clear panes of its windows
    letting the scene through from the windows
    on the other side of the empty room
    and a view of the trees over there
    my grandmother hardly turned her head
    staring like a cloud at the empty air
    not looking at the green glass gravestone
    with the name on it of the man to whom
    she had been married and who had been
    my father’s father she went on saying nothing
    her eyes wandering above the trees
    that hid the river from where we were
    a place where she had stood with him one time
    when they were young and the bell kept ringing

    I liked Met Diary today too. (I get the Sunday MD on Saturday.) It was full of pieces where absolutely nothing happens, like the parody piece I sent in where I get into a cab, reach my destination, and get out. Here’s the one I liked best, by Rebecca Chandler.

    As I sat on the subway on a Wednesday morning, my eyes drifted from the clock on the upper left screen on my phone to the charge signal on the right. I was going to be late for a meeting, and my phone was at 1 percent.

    I looked up to see how many stops I was from my Midtown destination and realized I had gotten on the wrong train. I sighed and got off in the heart of Chinatown.

    With my phone now asleep, I removed my headphones and headed toward a different station, listening to the bustle and murmurs coming from a sidewalk fish market as I started to walk.

    When I got on the next train, there was a young couple with a stroller sitting across from me. As my eyes drifted to the right, I saw an older woman sitting near the couple playing peekaboo with the baby in the stroller.

    I smiled.

    The young couple smiled at me smiling at the woman, who was smiling at the baby, who was smiling at the woman.

    I got off at 42nd Street.

    It was like that scene in Reservoir Dogs where everyone is pointing a gun at someone else, except with smiles.

    Peekaboo!

    Have you heard of SYNESTHESIA? The clue for it was: “Neuropsychological trait in which one might ascribe colors to numbers or tastes to words.” It’s new to me and fascinating. (Oliver Sachs wrote about it in “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.”)

    Wanderlust posted this comment, which initiated a short back-and-forth:

    “A friend was describing this strange phenomenon he’d read about regarding people who associate colors with letters and numbers, and I said, ‘Doesn’t everybody?’ We decided I have SYNESTHESIA. I do think of every letter as having a color and some have textures. To pick a random chain, J is light purple, K is orange and L is kelly green … for me. Another synesthete might have different colors for those letters. I’ve read a lot about it and some people feel it much more strongly than I do. The colors are leaping off the page as they read. Others incorporate sounds. It’s not a bad condition to have.”

    Weezie wrote:

    “I have a mild version of it; a dear friend refuses to hear about it on the grounds that her four years of art school was more than a lifetime’s worth of listening to people talk about what colors numbers are.”

    Then Wanderlust:

    Hi, fellow mild synesthete. Since I posted what colors J, K and L are for me, I’m curious what they are for you.

    Weezie’s reply:

    “I actually don’t have colors for letters! I do for some numbers, like 4 is definitely a rich spring leaves green, but it’s more about colors and certain sounds, especially music. Like, the red-eyed vireo that’s endlessly chirping right now? That is so clearly a faded salmon pink. Letters have personalities in my head but not colors. J is someone taking a nap in an armchair, K is a toddler having a tantrum, L is an accountant. Brains are strange and fascinating!”

    Pete chimed in next:

    “My nephew has SYNESTHESIA, he’s an accomplished musician who sees music in colors. He’s also on the autistic scale, so when I ask him if the synesthesia influences his playing in any way, he really doesn’t get my question, he just plays. He just got called into a Prof’s office for a plagiarism issue in an essay in his master’s program – the prof fed his essay into an automated checker, and a previously published paper came up with the same content but without a citation in the essay. He had to ask the Prof what that paper was, the Prof didn’t know, so my nephew pointed out that he was the author of the paper in question. So, can you plagiarize yourself? Discuss.”

    Here’s a song by Mayonnaise called Synesthesia. [Mayonnaise are a five-piece Filipino alt-rock band. Very good. Reminds me a little of Mumford and Sons.]

    Here’s a light and jaunty poem Owl Chatter would like to send up to Vermont Lizzie. It just came in via email from the Poetry Foundation. It’s by J. Patrick Lewis and is called What to Wear Where.

    When I was a boy
    In Looziana,
    We wore blue jeans
    And a red bandanna.

    My folks moved up
    To the state of Maine,
    We wore duck shoes
    In slicker-suit rain.

    My folks moved down
    To the state of Texas,
    We wore brand names
    Like Lazy X’s.

    Now that we’re living
    It up in Vermont,
    We wear pretty much
    Whatever we want.

    And, speaking of Vermont, the clue at 43A today was “Vermont municipality SE of Montpelier,” and the answer was BARRE. pabloinnh says he lives not too far from it and that it’s pronounced “berry.” Wow — good to know! When it partners with Wilkes, it’s pronounced “bair-uh.” (In connection with GLOAT, he also said: “Both my sons won sportsmanship awards in HS and I told them the downside was they couldn’t brag about them.”)

    Here’s what Pete had to say about BARRE:

    “And who doesn’t know BARRE VT? It has a population of over 8,000 for cripes sake. It’s the only hamlet+ sized area east of Montpelier until you get to Maine. It’s also the self-proclaimed ‘Granite Capital of World’! I know, being self-proclaimed anything doesn’t amount to much, but still, these 8000 people at least have the gumption to make grandiose claims, and you don’t want to ignore 8000 with gumption. They’d probably like to tell you that if you have granite counters in your kitchen you have them to thank, but their lawyers have advised then not to do so, as all the radon that’s seeping out of those counters and killing you and your family represents a huge liability for them. Gumption alone ain’t going to erase that fact.”

    Do you know the symbol for Capricorn? I thought I did — after all, it’s my goddamn sign — but I’ve been wrong all these years! Well, half-wrong. It was simply clued at 32D as “Capricorn’s symbol.” So I thought “goat.” When I saw the answer had seven letters, I figured it might be “the goat.” But it turns out to be SEA GOAT. In fact, the original animal associated with the sign is the mythological sea goat — half goat, half fish. How did I not know this? Am I half moron? Don’t answer that!

    There was a pair of SKORTS in the puzzle — you know, those combination skirt/shorts. The clue was “Golfing attire,” and it was near CUTE and ER NURSES, in the SE corner, where the dirty old men hang out, apparently. That’s the same corner where the miniskirt and ASCEND appeared a few days ago. My extensive research reveals that skorts are generally less sexy than miniskirts, to no surprise, but one of my tax students looked pretty good wearing this pair to our final exam last week.

    There was so much wonderful stuff in the puzzle today — a real FEAST, which was the answer at 27A, for “quite a spread.” Even curmudgeon Rex liked it.

    I learned what an LOL CAT is — it’s a photograph of a cute cat on the internet accompanied by a humorous caption that is usually misspelled and grammatically incorrect. They are uniformly terrible, so I’ll spare you an example.

    There was BEARD OIL, clued with “muttonchops moisturizer.” Where else but in Owl Chatter can you run into great stuff like this! I couldn’t get this one because I wrongly thought muttonchops was a mustache and kept thinking of mustache wax. It’s more “beardy.” Here’s a famous eggsample.

    And if you’re a Wizard of Oz fan, the clue at 31D was “Dorothy, to the Wicked Witch of the West,” and the answer was MY PRETTY.

    Welly tells me his pretty is Wilma. He’s very romantic.

    Owl Chatter Sports Dept. After chattering about umpire Don Denkinger recently, I went on eBay and spent a few bucks for his autograph to add to my collection. It’s not very valuable, but “The Call” played such a big part in baseball history, I wanted to have it. It came with the autograph of another ump, John Shulock, who is still alive, and just turned 76.

    Shulock umped 3,050 games over 24 years. He got his start as a replacement ump during the 1979 umpires’ union strike (a different type of strike from the ones they usually call). When the strike ended, Shulock was one of seven replacements offered a position. But his crossing the picket line left a sour taste. Fifteen years later, Denkinger said  “To this day, there are still hard feelings.”

    Shulock was involved in an ugly scene in Sept., 1999, when he was struck in the mask by a fastball from Tampa Bay pitcher Wilson Alvarez. Thinking he had been intentionally targeted and that the catcher DiFelice made no effort to catch the ball, Shulock charged toward Alvarez until he was intercepted by DiFelice. He was cited by league officials for display of temper, overly aggressive behavior, and physical contact with DiFelice. He was also disciplined for inappropriate public remarks when he told reporters, “I hope somebody smokes a line drive off Alvarez’s head. I’ll be the first to laugh.”

    I think he’d be the only one to laugh, no?

    See you tomorrow, everybody! Thanks for poppin’ by.

  • The Story of Aram

    About twenty years ago, back when Caity was in high school and just sixteen, she came bouncing down the stairs one day and announced that she had a new boyfriend.

       “Great!  What’s his name?”

       “Aram.”

       “What an unusual and beautiful name!,” I said.  “What’s his second name?”

       “Kachadurian.”

       “Aram Kachadurian, Aram Kachadurian.  Why does that name sound familiar to me?”

       “It’s a classical music composer,” she explained.

       “Caity, you’re going out with a classical music composer?!?  Those are all older men.  And they’re dead!  You know your mother and I don’t want you going out with older men, especially dead ones!”

       “No, it’s just the same name as the composer.  Aram’s not dead.”

       “You’re sure of this?  He’s not dead?”

       “I’m sure.”

       “Okay, then, that’s a relief.  Kachadurian sounds like an Armenian name—is he Armenian?”

       “Yes, his dad’s Armenian.”

    Now this was terrific news.  We had a friend in law school—Ed—who was Armenian, and he was a great guy.  Very funny, smart, not bad-looking, good manners, etc.  And rich!  His folks were, like, bazillionaires, I think!  They’ll pay for the wedding!!  I’ll chip in for the flowers.  This is fantastic!  These thoughts ran through my brain in about 2 seconds.  But all I said to Caity was—“Sounds great – I look forward to meeting him.”  And she said, “I’m sure you will soon.”  And that was that.

    A couple of days later I met Aram.  I could tell pretty much right away that he was very different from Ed.  He was nothing at all like Ed.  He was the exact opposite of Ed.  He was “Op-Ed.”

    First of all, he arrived on a blazing red motorcycle.  This is not good.  You do not want your 16-year-old daughter appearing in the same paragraph as a motorcycle.  (He also had a truck.)

    Next, there was his head.  It was shaved completely bald.  This is not necessarily a disaster.  It’s a style these days, and he could be on his high school swim team or something, but it was certainly striking and made me hope he wasn’t one of those skinhead-Nazi types.  (As it turned out, he was on the high school wrestling team, though that doesn’t completely rule out the Nazis.) 

    There were some tattoos, but these weren’t too bad – just a couple, and fairly tasteful.  No swastikas or snakes, and nothing gang-related, thank goodness, not that I could know for sure.  The piercings, though, were quite numerous and all over the place.  Eyebrows, lips, tongue – just all over the place.  I cast my thoughts back to the the great men of history:  Thomas Jefferson . . .  George Washington . . . Ben Franklin . . . Derek Jeter . . . . none of these men were pierced.  (Alright, maybe Jeter a small tasteful earring, but you get my point.)  There was no association of greatness with piercing.  I put this on the debit side, no question.

    He joined us for lunch.  I never saw anyone eat like him.  He looked at the silverware like he never saw a spoon or fork before.  It was like in “The Little Mermaid” when Ariel found a fork at the bottom of the sea and had no idea what it was.  He ate everything with his hands – even things like rice.  I gave Caity a look that said “What’s with his eating?” and she gave me a look back that I’m fairly certain I interpreted correctly as: “I don’t know, but if you say anything about it I will kill you in your sleep tonight and you know I’m not kidding.”   

    I let it go.

    His language was as you might have guessed.  “Hey, can I get the fucking salt?”  I said, “Aram, you should be economical.  Suppose you could buy something for ten dollars or get the exact same item for eight, you’d pay eight, right?”  And he said of course.  “Well, ‘can I get the salt’ and ‘can I get the fucking salt’ will both get you the salt – you don’t need the extra word.”  “I get it,” he said, “that’s good.”  Two minutes later:  “Hey, can I get the fucking mustard?” 

    We were out once and when we came home we found that Aram had left a note for Caity on the front door.  I was just going to glance at it to make sure there was no emergency, but the horror of it drew me in.  Every word had something terribly wrong with it.  I sat down with a pencil and paper to try to work out what it said, like when the British captured a German document during World War II and turned it over to their cryptographers to decipher.  It took me a good fifteen minutes to come up with the following essential points (with only about 70% certainty): (1) Aram had come by earlier. (2) No one was home.  (3) He’ll call or visit later.  I showed it to Linda incredulously.  “Look at this!  If you held a gun to his head I don’t think he could spell “cat” correctly!”  

    We had absolutely nothing in common.  He wasn’t a sports fan.  We had nothing to talk about.  If I was trapped alone with him it was torture.  I had to make up some excuse to run away.  “The upstairs closet, the hinges, I have to, you know . . . make yourself at home . . .” and I’d flee upstairs, or sometimes just drive away with absolutely nowhere to go.

    Our initial response to the relationship (insanely), was to wave it off.  A little teen romance.  It couldn’t possibly last.  She’ll end it in a matter of days.  But the days and weeks turned to months, and it was only getting worse.  Finally, Linda said I had to talk to Caity, to convince her how wrong Aram was for her and to break up with him.  I said, “Linda, has it ever happened in the history of Earth that a father talked a teenage daughter out of a boyfriend?”  “Well, we have to do something,” she “reasoned,” and she thought I stood a better chance than she did.  So I picked a time when Caity seemed in a relaxed mood (a “window of lucidity”), and we had a little talk.

    “Hi Beaner.  Got a minute?”

    “Hi Dad. Sure, what’s up?”

    “It’s about Aram.”

    “OK”

    “Let’s take a moment and visualize Aram.  Like pretend he’s standing right here near the couch.”

    “OK”

    “Good.  Now on this other side of the room, let’s pretend we have Claire’s boyfriend Tommy, and Meredith’s boyfriend Greg, and maybe Tricia’s boyfriend Billy.  Got it?”

    “OK”

    “Good.  Now, looking calmly and objectively at all of these fine young men, doesn’t it seem clear to you that Aram is very different from these others, and in fact FROM EVERY OTHER PERSON ON THE PLANET EARTH??!!??  HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY BE DATING THIS GUY?”

    But all she said was, “No, Dad, you don’t really know him.  He’s good.  There’s a lot to him.”  And I said, “I DON’T KNOW HIM? (I was still speaking in capital letters.) WHAT IS THERE TO KNOW? HE CAN’T SPELL CAT! HE DOESN’T USE SILVERWARE!

    But she just repeated that I don’t know him, that I was wrong about him.

    I finally just told her to be careful.

    “I will Dad,” she lied.

    “I know you will Beaner,” I lied right back.

    And the months stretched on.  They spent all of their free time together.  Caity went away with Aram and his mom to West Virginia for a weeklong summer trip.  Aram joined us on a winter ski weekend.  She skipped school on his birthday so they could “hang out.”  Stuff like that.

    And the dark clouds of Aram settled over us and we were very concerned.  I’d say we settled into a long-term “Level 3” depression.  “Level One” is something like a kidnapping.  The police and local media get involved.  Your life is a relentless shrieking nightmare and you can only eat or sleep with the help of medical intervention: intravenous or prescription drugs.  “Level Two” is when the doctor tells you she found a “bump” on an X-ray.  “Bump” is the happy term, like, “Oh this ride is bumpy, or Look at the clown’s bumpy head!”  But the word they write on the chart that you glance at is “lesion,” and then they say the most frightening words in the language:  “It’s probably nothing.”  Then they say, “But let’s just run about $15,000 worth of tests to rule some things out, all of which involve certain death.”  So for the next few days until the biopsy results come back (negative, of course), you can think of nothing else.  In a Level Two depression, though, the police and local media are not involved.  You can eat and even sleep with maybe just some over-the-counter help. 

    “Level Three,” what we had with Aram, allows you to eat and sleep okay, and there are stretches during the day when you don’t dwell on it.  But there’s a dark cloud overhead at all times, and it’s what you fall asleep worrying about at night, and it’s what you think about first thing in the morning.  (Level Four depression, BTW, is all other times – it’s how things are with teenagers in the house when everything seems to be going well, at least on the surface. It’s the best you can hope for.)

    Sam’s bar mitzvah was coming up and Caity said she’d like Aram to come.  I started in about how he’d have to dress up a little and watch his language, and she said, “Don’t worry, he has Jewish neighbors.  He’s been to bar mitzvahs and knows all about them.  He’ll be fine.”  And he was.  He looked quite sharp and was quite respectful, as far as I could tell.  But he must have made a bit of an impression, because the following week we received from quite a smattering of aunts, cousins, etc. a good half dozen of what I came to call “that young man” phone calls.  The calls would start off saying what a wonderful time they had and how beautifully Sam did (blah blah blah).  Then, about 5 minutes in there’d be a pause followed by: “That young man with Caitlin . . . are they serious?”  “Aram?” I’d respond innocently. “Nah, it’s just a teen romance.  How long can it last?  Why?  Didn’t you like him?”   

    And the months rolled on and they celebrated their first anniversary.  They fantasy-talked about getting married (eventually), but no kids – Aram didn’t want to have kids.  Caity was now a senior at Chatham High (Go Cougars!), and Aram graduated from Watchung Hills High School (for those of you who don’t believe in miracles – he graduated!).  He was working part-time at a nursing home nearby and going to Raritan Valley Community College.  Caity would graduate HS that June.

    Then, one day something happened that changed everything for me.

    The event started as this story did with Caity bouncing down the steps. 

        “Dad, can you drive me over to Aram’s?  His truck’s being fixed.” 

        “Sure.  When do you want to go?

        “Well, I still have to put my makeup on . . . but I can do that in the car.  Let’s go now.”

        “Fine.”

    So she gathered up a huge bag of powders, creams, various implements, etc., and we jumped into the car.  It was an eight-mile drive.  She set a mirror up on her lap as a base and put a whole array of little things around.  Then she took a big dark pencil out of the bag and started writing on her face.

    “Caity!  What are you doing?  You’re writing on your face!?!”

    “Dad.  How long have you lived in America?  This is eye liner.  Everyone uses it.”

    “Everyone?  You mean to tell me your mother writes on her face with big pencils like that?”

    “Of course she does.”

    “Alright, I guess.  It’s your face.”

    She refrained from a more abusive response to my moronism either out of pity at my hopeless obtuseness, or since I was at that moment in the act of doing her a favor.

    In any event, we arrived at Aram’s, and Caity said she wasn’t done, but she could finish up at a table in the front yard—there was no need for me to wait.  So we said our goodbyes, and I told her to call if she needed a ride later.

    Now Aram’s driveway isn’t the narrow type that you drive up and then back out of.  It’s wide.  So you actually turn entirely around so you can leave facing the street.  This was good because the traffic was heavy sometimes and it could be hard to back out into it.  So I maneuvered around to face the street.  At this point, by pure coincidence—I don’t think I could have managed it if I tried—my side-view mirror was exactly angled so it faced Aram’s front door.  And as I glanced at it, the door opened and out popped Aram.  He couldn’t tell that I could see him because the car was facing away from the house.  And Caity didn’t see him since she was still busy finishing with her makeup.  So what I saw could not have been a little show he was putting on for anyone.

    There was a very small front porch with three steps leading down to the front yard.  He took the first step, and then noticed Caity at the table in the yard.  At that point he stopped, and before walking down the last two steps he did a little dance: A little happy dance, with his arms swinging sideways and his legs buckling at the knees.  It was nothing really.  It looked silly.  It probably lasted under two seconds.  But those two seconds changed everything for me.  I suddenly saw him through Caity’s eyes.  And I began to think, maybe we were wrong to be looking for someone who can spell—everyone uses spellcheck these days anyway, right?  And maybe we were wrong to be looking for someone with good table manners.  I mean, really, what could be less important than that?  Maybe we should be looking for someone who, when you come to visit on a lazy Sunday morning with nothing special going on, is so happy to see you, is so brimming with joy at the mere fact that you exist, that he can’t walk down three stupid steps without exploding into a paroxysm of flailing arms and legs.  Maybe that’s not so bad.  Most people do a lot worse.

    And from that moment on, I was perfectly fine with Aram.  The dark clouds parted and lifted.  Because I knew that he would never do anything to hurt Caity; that he would always, in his crazy way, try to make her happy; and that if he and I had nothing in common, then we had one thing in common: we both appreciated to the core what an extraordinary gift it was to have Caity in our lives.

    * * * * ** * * *

    They were together for a few more months, but then Caity broke it off.  She would be heading off to college in the fall and didn’t want a relationship at home to hold her back.  She was pretty shaken up after she told him.  They got together a few times after that, as friends.  He helped me pick up a couch with his truck.  He graduated from Raritan Valley — good for him! — and the last we heard of him, he was somewhere in the south with Homeland Security (I’m not kidding – feel safe?), in a position, I would bet, that is not overly dependent upon writing skills.

    Thanks for dropping in. See you tomorrow!

  • No Strings Attached

    Puppets for sale: $50 each, no strings attached.

    These puppets are so lifelike, I bet you can’t tell which of these four is a real person, amirite?

    Give up? It’s the one on the left. And it’s Ralph Lee, who created the others, along with many many others and many amazing masks. Sadly, Lee died last Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 87. The obit in the NYT called him “a creator of giant crustaceans, lizards, skeletons and sorceresses.”

    His puppets appeared in productions of his own theater company, Mettawee River, and in those of, among others, the Metropolitan Opera, the NY Shakespeare Festival, NY City Opera, and the Theater for the New City. His most famous puppet may be the “land shark” that devoured Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, et al, in SNL’s early heyday (starting in 1975).

    In 1974, he created and staged the first Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village with the help of some theater friends. It started small but has grown into a major annual NYC event. He won an OBIE for it.

    Lee was born in Middlebury VT and his first few years of education were in a one-room schoolhouse. He went to college at Amherst. He taught at Bennington in the 70’s and one of his first productions was called Casserole. Its scenes, which incorporated his puppets, were staged all around the campus, with the spectators transported from one scene to the next in hay wagons.

    His first marriage ended in divorce, but he married Casey Compton in 1982 and they stayed married until his death. She also worked with him, and last February they jointly received a lifetime achievement OBIE award.

    Lee is survived by Ms. Compton, as well as by three children from his first marriage, Heather, Jennifer and Joshua Lee; a daughter from his second marriage, Dorothy Louise Compton Lee; six grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter. Much of his work survives him as well — the countless extraordinary characters. Which is good — “The sculptor in me wants to be immortalized in his work,” he said. “I think I always had the urge to build things for eternity.”

    Today’s puzzle had a special “dirty old man” section. At 55D, the clue was “Mini display?,” and the “mini” was a mini skirt, because the answer was KNEE. Get it? A mini “displays” the knees. And placed right next to it, droolingly, was ASCEND.

    Here’s a scary-looking woman wearing one.

    Remember that episode on Cheers when the bar held a charity auction of the guys and a real man-eater type, chain-smoking cigarettes, won the bidding for Woody? “You better be good,” she tells him. Woody asks Norm if she seems “a little scary,” and Norm says, “The electric chair’s a little scary.”

    Alana HAIM was in the puzzle, the co-star of Licorice Pizza. Hi Alana! She’s also in a rock band, Haim, with her two sisters. She’s from LA, 32, Jewish, and single. Her dad is an Israeli-born former professional soccer player.

    It’s been a long, tiring day. Too pooped to chatter any more. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.

  • Hank

    Owl Chatter, and all of us, lost a dear friend yesterday, Hank. We go way back to the first days at Brandeis in the Fall of 1967. Welly and I were roomies with Hank sophomore year. He and Judy were family to us, in the best sense of the word. He took extraordinary pride and joy in his children and grandchildren. I have often quoted him in saying “Having grandchildren is one thing that is not overrated.” Of course, the best thing he ever did was marry Judy — don’t start me about her. It would never end.

    I’m not going to chatter about anything else tonight, though I’m sure Hank would want us to keep churning out the usual nonsense. We can return to that soon enough. I’m just going to share one of my favorite poems by Kooser, from Winter Morning Walks:

    I saw the season’s first bluebird
    this morning, one month ahead
    of its scheduled arrival. Lucky I am
    to go off to my cancer appointment
    having been given a bluebird, and,
    for a lifetime, having been given
    this world.

  • Safe!

    Six years ago, Keiko Kawano felt her smile was beginning to fade when she stopped doing certain voice exercises. She found it a struggle to lift the corners of her mouth. So she started learning about the facial muscles that play a role in smiling. After reviving her own smile, she set about helping others. Her motto is “more smile, more happiness.”

    She started offering one-hour sessions in a gym and then began “teaching smiling” at nursing homes and for corporations. She had individual clients who wanted to develop a winning smile to land a job or get laid. Oops, I mean “improve marriage prospects.” IBM Japan engaged her for a session for their employees and their families. It was well-received. She’s a smile coach.

    Her business took a dive when people hid their smiles behind masks (although she adjusted her focus to work on eyes), but when the pandemic passed and people unmasked, business boomed. Many people realized their smile muscles had atrophied behind masks. They needed Keiko’s help to get their smile back. And a nice smile can make you feel happy — it doesn’t have to be the other way around, i.e., the happy doesn’t have to come first. Psychologist Masami Yamaguchi, who has studied how babies look at their moms’ facial expressions, said: “Intentional muscle moves will send signals to your brain and generate positive feelings, even if you are not feeling happy.”

    Here’s Keiko. She does have a pretty smile.

    Yesterday’s Owl Chatter included some lyrics from Elton John’s Tiny Dancer. They included the line: “Pretty-eyed, pirate smile.” I looked up “pirate smile” today. The Urban Dictionary defines it as “a smile that will make you do anything. You know you’re gonna do it, right, wrong, good, or bad you’re gonna do it anyway.” It’s also defined as “a roguish smile: a dishonest or immoral smile that causes trouble.”

    It’s hard to find examples. This one of Keira Knightly came up in the search. She’s not smiling, but I think it captures the feeling a little, no? Would you do what she asks?

    And then there’s Susan’s smile. Vermont Lizzie sent me this shot this morning. I commented on Susan’s extraordinary smile and noted the coincidence of my writing about smiles today. Liz gave me permission to use it. For those of us lucky enough to have known Susan, it goes right to the heart.

    Hi, S. Miss you.

    The puzzle today played with words that should mean something when you remove a negative prefix, but don’t. E.g., if you change discombobulated to just “combobulated,” it doesn’t mean poised. The general term for words that are broken apart is “unpaired words,” and when the prefix is a negative, they are called orphaned negatives.

    Commenter Lynn shared this:

    At Milwaukee Mitchell Airport, they have a “recombobulation area” just past the TSA checkpoint, where you can collect your stuff, put your shoes back on, and generally recover from being discombobulated after going through security. From what I understand, it is the only airport with such a designation.

    Can you use some recombobulation?

    Did you know that NACHOS are named after their inventor Ignacio Anaya? His nickname was Nacho. He worked in a restaurant in Mexico not far from the U.S. border and a U.S. army base. Some army wives popped in one day when the chef was out. He said, Hold on, I’ll whip something up. He threw some tostadas on a plate, grated Wisconsin cheese on top, put it all under a broiler, and then topped it with jalapenos. The rest is history. Anaya never directly profited from his “invention,” but was promoted to chef and eventually opened a restaurant of his own.

    He met a hot little jalapeno pepper named Marie Antoinette Salinas, and married her. They had nine kids. She let them eat cake. Anaya lived to age 80. He was honored posthumously with a bronze plaque in Piedras Negras. That city also holds a three-day Nacho Fest every year around October 21, the International Day of the Nacho.

    This might look like the original concoction:

    Elisabeth SHUE was in the puzzle, clued as “Actress Elisabeth of Leaving Las Vegas, a bruising film with Nicolas Cage who is determined to drink himself to death in Vegas, literally. She’s a hooker and they meet up. I forget if he actually dies. She received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her work, but lost out to Susan Sarandon in Dead Man Walking. Cage won the Best Actor Oscar for his role.

    Shue is 59 today. She was only 32 in the film, and quite alluring. She was born in Wilmington DE, but raised in South Orange NJ — a Jersey girl! — on the Morris-Essex line no less. She attended Wellesley College and then Harvard. She has been married to film director Davis Guggenheim since 1994 and they have 3 kids.

    OK fellas, eyes down here. Let’s finish with a bad call. It was October 26, 1985, Game 6 of the World Series between St. Louis and Kansas City. STL had a 3-2 lead in games and was up 1-0 in Game 6 going into the bottom of the ninth. They just needed three more outs to win the Series.

    KC’s Jorge Orta hit a slow grounder to Jack Clark at first who tossed to the pitcher Todd Worrell covering. Orta was out by a step but Don Denkinger, umping at first base, called him safe. The TV replays confirmed that Orta was out, but this was before replays could be used to reverse calls. So Orta was safe. KC rallied and went on to win the game 2-1. The next day they trounced STL 11-0 in Game 7 for the Series win.

    Denkinger believed he got the call right until he viewed the replay after the game with Commissioner Pete Ueberroth, the Commish with the hardest name to spell in MLB history. I had to check, like, five times. About 30 years later, in a Sports Illustrated interview, Denkinger explained how he blew what came to be known as “The Call.” Worrell, who took the throw at first, was tall and the throw came in high. So Denkinger could not watch Worrell’s glove and foot at the same time. And the crowd noise along with the softly tossed throw prevented him from hearing when the ball hit the glove. (A common umpiring technique at first base is to watch the base while listening for the “thock” of the catch.) It was the perfect storm for a blown call.

    Denkinger received death threats, and his home in Iowa was given police protection. The FBI investigated the most serious notes he received. He eventually made peace with The Call, keeping a framed photo of it in his home, and a painting of it in a restaurant he owned. He autographed photos of it for fans. He even reconciled with Whitey Herzog, the Cards’ manager, and spoke at a dinner for the Whitey Herzog Youth Foundation in 2005.

    He had an excellent 30-year career. He was behind the plate for the 1978 Yankees-Boston tiebreaking game for the A.L. pennant (the Bucky Dent game), and for Game 7 of the 1991 WS, when Minny’s Jack Morris pitched a 10-inning shutout to beat Atlanta, 1-0. He called balls and strikes when Nolan Ryan threw his sixth no-hitter in 1990. Perhaps fittingly, his final game was in Kansas City on June 2, 1998. He retired due to a bum knee.

    Don Denkinger died in Iowa last Friday at age 86. He is survived by his wife Gayle and their three daughters. Unless Saint Peter is a Cardinals’ fan, he should be up there in heaven by now, calling ’em as he sees ’em.

    Good night everybody. See you tomorrow!

  • Grid is Life

    Owl Chatter often refers to “Rex” of “Rex Parker,” whose blog on the daily NYTXW is usually entertaining and illuminating. He posted some family pix today. Here he is with his daughter in Beacon NY yesterday. Note his “Grid is Life” shirt.

    The puzzle had some neat stuff today. It started off with “Bovine animals that are raced in Tibet,” which was YAKS: hard for a Monday. Remember the famous “One small step for man” moon quote? Well, 23A was “Simple ballroom dance,” for ONE STEP, and two lines above it SMALL appeared, and two lines above that SPACE appeared, clued as “Astronaut’s realm.”

    It had MOOD, MAD, and MADD, as well as ARGON and ARSONS. It had “Kind of oil derived from marijuana, for short,” for CBD, right near POT, weirdly clued by “Bonsai tree holder.” It continued the “beer” theme with MICROBREWERY. And it met its tuchas quota nicely with “Get a move on, slangily:” HAUL ASS.

    egsforbreakfast commented: “Before retiring, I transported donkeys for a living. I was damn good at it too. People used to say, “ That egsforbreakfast can really HAUL ASS.” I stuck to donkeys because they’re smart, unlike the YAKS. I never met a brainiac.”

    The puzzle also, at 42A, took a moment to explain why the NBA team in LA is named the LAKERS. The clue was “California basketball team originally located in Minnesota.” [That’s the same reason the team in Utah is the “Jazz.” It moved from New Orleans.]

    But constructor Tomas Spiers wandered into a minefield with 55A: “Big muscle for Popeye after he eats spinach.” ANS: BICEP. A comment: “There is no such thing as a bicep. Biceps means “two heads” and refers to the two anatomic structures that form the muscle. Likewise the triceps and quadriceps muscles with three or four heads. You can’t make it a single noun. Don’t get me started on the item of clothing called a PANT!!!”

    Others were equally irate.

    Here are some solid ‘ceps. Don’t mess with this babe.

    One of the theme answers was TINY DANCER.

    Blue jean baby, L.A. lady
    Seamstress for the band
    Pretty-eyed, pirate smile
    You’ll marry a music man.

    Here’s a duet Elton John sang with Miley Cyrus at the Grammys.

    Do you have a favorite Pope? If so, is it Leo XIII? BTW, if you look at old-time baseball photos you will notice the ballplayers are not wearing uniform numbers. The practice of assigning numbers to players and having them displayed on their uniforms only gained full acceptance in 1937, and was based on the Popes being numbered, although roman numerals were not used on uniforms. This also explains why for several years in the early-to-mid 1900’s the Popes wore vestments that were similar to baseball uniforms with baseball-type caps for certain ceremonial rites.

    [Don’t believe anything in that last paragraph having to do with Popes. Numbered uniforms did start in 1916 in Cleveland. They only became universal in both leagues in 1937.]

    Anyway, I mention Leo XIII because on this day in 1891 he issued an encyclical addressing labor issues that for the first time made social justice part of the Church’s mission. It’s the Rerum Novarum. It calls for laborers to be paid a fair, living wage. It says to employers: “be mindful of this — to exercise pressure upon the indigent and the destitute for the sake of gain, and to gather one’s profit out of the need of another, is condemned by all laws, human and divine.”

    BTW, an encyclical issued on a recurring basis is a cyclical encyclical. The Papal assistant entrusted with distributing these around Vatican City on his bike when ill was said to circulate cyclical encyclicals by bicycle sickly.

    Here’s a photo of Leo XIII, getting ready to officiate at Arnie Gurowitz’s bar mitzvah at Temple Shohei Ohtani in Forest Hills.

    See you tomorrow.

  • Ground Control to Major Tom

    Happy Mother’s Day! Hope yours isn’t a rotten tomato! Mother’s Day was made official by Woodrow Wilson in 1914 after prolonged urging by Anna Jarvis, whose mom was a peace activist who cared for the wounded on both sides in the Civil War. Anna Jarvis lived the last years of her life in a nursing home, nearly blind, and almost penniless. On her wall was a letter with a $1.00 bill sewn to it. The letter read: “I am 6 years old and I love my mother very much. I am sending this to you because you started Mother’s Day.”

    Remember “Octomom?” Natalie Suleman was the first woman to give birth to surviving octuplets back on Jan. 26, 2009. Here’s how they looked in 2020. She has six older kids, for a total of 14 (I’m not kidding). I mention her in my tax class when the topic of the child credit comes up.

    Here’s a piece from today’s Met Diary by Theodore O’Neill to start us off:

    Monroe Street in Brooklyn. The early 1950s. One or two hours of daylight left on a hot summer evening. Dinner was over, and a bunch of us kids were hanging around near the corner of Ralph Avenue, mostly doing nothing.

    Coming our way from Patchen Avenue was a kid on a bike. Nothing special; no one we recognized.

    Suddenly, from a stash in his handlebar basket he began pelting us with seriously overripe tomatoes.

    None of us escaped the onslaught. And none of us could react before he sped off across the trolley tracks on Ralph Avenue and disappeared.

    We never saw him again. But as I stood there covered in rancid tomato slime, I had to admit: “The guy was good.”

    Yesterday was the 4th anniversary of Chris Hadfield’s return to Earth from the International Space Station. Chris is an astronaut from Canada who had spent over a year up there. He was the first Canadian to command the ISS, and had been the first Canadian to walk in space before that.

    Hadfield is a devoted fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs and wore a Maple Leaf jersey under his spacesuit on one of his flights. He sang the Canadian National Anthem at a Leafs-Canadians game on Jan 18, 2014 in Toronto.

    He was born in Sarnia, Ontario, where the city airport is named after him, as are public schools in Milton and Bradford, Ontario, an asteroid, and a species of bee.

    But none of that is his “claim to fame.” That comes from the version of David Bowie’s Space Oddity (“Ground control to Major Tom”), that he produced from the Space Station and released on May 12, 2013. It’s gorgeous and has received over 52 million views on Youtube. Bowie’s record company sought to enforce its copyright, which raised novel legal questions over whether a violation could occur in space. But after Bowie himself saw Hadfield’s video (and loved it), he insisted that the complaint be dropped. Here it is – it’s very much worth a look and listen:

    When Owl Chatter started up, I thought I’d use a poem of Kooser’s in it from time to time, but I didn’t expect many other poems to play a role. I hadn’t run across other poets I could relate to and enjoy like Kooser. But so many have popped up recently in The Writer’s Almanac and other sources that move me, and seem to fit in, so poems have become a bigger part of the Chatter than was intended. My mom and brother wrote poems, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised.

    Today’s offering from the Writer’s Almanac is coincidentally “Nurse,” and it’s by Dorianne Laux. The coincidence is that it’s Mother’s Day, and my daughter Caitlin is the big mother in our family, with her five incredible children. And she’s a nurse.

    Nurse

    My mother went to work each day
    in a starched white dress, shoes
    damped to her feet like pale
    mushrooms, two blue hearts pressed
    into the sponge rubber soles.
    When she came back home, her nylons
    streaked with runs, a spatter
    of blood across her bodice,
    she sat at one end of the dinner table
    and let us kids serve the spaghetti, sprinkle
    the parmesan, cut the buttered loaf.
    We poured black wine into the bell
    of her glass as she unfastened
    her burgundy hair, shook her head, and began.
    And over the years we mastered it, how to listen
    to stories of blocked intestines
    while we twirled the pasta, of saws
    teething cranium, drills boring holes in bone
    as we crunched the crust of our sourdough,
    carved the stems off our cauliflower.
    We learned the importance of balance,
    how an operation depends on
    cooperation and a blend of skills,
    the art of passing the salt
    before it is asked for.
    She taught us well, so that when Mary Ellen
    ran the iron over her arm, no one wasted
    a moment: My brother headed straight for the ice
    Our little sister uncapped the salve.
    And I dialed the number under Ambulance,
    my stomach turning to the smell
    of singed skin, already planning the evening
    meal, the raw fish thawing in its wrapper,
    a perfect wedge of flesh.

    The clue at 12D today was “Miniature-cheese-wheel brand,” and the answer was BABYBEL which I thought was pretty easy. Oddly, Rex said he never heard of it. Which led Ted to comment:

    How do you not know what BABYBEL is? Do you just, at the market, run screaming past the cheese section with your eyes closed? The objectively best part of a market? The CHEESES!

    Cheeses, man.

    To which Rich F. replied:

    If you are a cheese enthusiast, the case can be made for running screaming past the BabyBels with your eyes closed. They’re just no Gouda.

    Did you know a “small fox with unusually large ears” is a FENNEC? They are mostly found in North Africa, the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas, and crossword puzzles.

    There was also a BEARCAT, clued as “University of Cincinnati athlete.” But bearcat is only the alternate name for the binturong. It’s long and heavy with short, stout legs, and thick black hair. They are omnivorous. This one looks like he’s enjoying a nap after a big meal. We’ve all been there, but I rarely make it to the high branches.

    Thanks for popping in! See you tomorrow!

  • Sammy the Owl

    When times are dark, heroes rise up. And so we have former NY prosecutor Mark F. Pomerantz, appearing before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday. He said he agreed to appear because he respected the law. He went on:

    “What I do not respect is the use of the committee’s subpoena power to compel me to participate in an act of political theater. We are gathered here because Donald Trump’s supporters would like to use these proceedings to attempt to obstruct and undermine the criminal case pending against him, and to harass, intimidate and discredit anyone who investigates or charges him.”

    Mr. Pomerantz cited NY law protecting the privacy of active investigations. He also noted that his revealing information about grand jury proceedings would be illegal, so he invoked Fifth Amendment privileges. Thus, he managed to avoid answering many of the committee’s queries, noting “I am glad that the law allows me not to cooperate with this performance of political theater.”

    Bravo, Counselor.

    There was a lot of neat stuff in the puzzle today: Do you know what a zythophile is? It’s someone who likes beer. It comes on the heels of yesterday’s beeramid. (Burp!)

    And have you heard the term HEADDESK? The clue for that was: “Expression of frustration stronger than a facepalm.” It’s when you’re so frustrated you slam your head onto your desk. Or in this case, your table.

    Rex’s blog today included this comment by “BK:”

    “I drank beer with my friends.

    We drank beer, my friends and I, boys and girls.

    Sometimes I probably had too many beers. Sometimes other people had too many beers.

    I liked beer. I still like beer.

    I like beer. I don’t know if you do. Do you like beer? Or not? What do you like to drink?

    Hanging out and having beer with friends – which I gladly do and fully embrace.

    Proudly a zythophile since 1982!”

    It led me to post the following material:

    Rex — perhaps you can tell us if BK’s post is the first time a sitting Supreme Court Justice has commented on your blog. (Burp!)

    HEADDESK made me think of “dope slap,” which reminded me of a call made to Tom and Ray on Car Talk years ago. A woman called in and described a problem she was having with her car.

    Caller: My husband thinks this is the problem: [. . . ], but I think he’s wrong and this is the problem [. . . ]. So what is it, guys? — is my husband wrong, or do I deserve one big dope slap?

    Tom and Ray: Brace yourself.

    In a gift to dirty old men everywhere, the puzzle contained a POLE DANCE today at 20A, clued by “Do some spinning at a club?” Apparently it’s become a fitness thing as well as a strip club staple. Since Owl Chatter is nothing if not classy, here’s a nice shot of two young gymnasts.

    “It might be 70 feet long” was the clue for SONNET. What? Yeah, you know — that kind of feet. A “foot” is a unit of meter in poetry. A sonnet has 14 lines. If it’s in iambic pentameter it has five feet per line. Thus, 70 feet.

    Get this! — The clue for RICE was “Texas university whose mascot is Sammy the Owl.” Way back when, Rice used a canvas owl as a sort of mascot for its teams. In 1917, when students from football rival Texas A&M kidnapped the owl, Rice students pooled their resources and hired a private detective to go to College Station, TX to find him. Upon succeeding, the detective sent a coded telegram that read “Sammy is fairly well and would like to see his parents,” giving the mascot a name for the first time. It stuck. The canvas Sammy was replaced by a live owl for a time which flew into the stadium before games. It was eventually replaced by a student in an owl suit.

    Sammy has had quite a history. In 1991, his head was stolen. In 1992, the student wearing the owl suit was fired because his performance of the “Owl Shimmy” was deemed too distracting for female fans. In 1993, the student wearing the suit fainted during halftime at the game vs U of Texas. He was attended to by the refs. In 1995 Sammy was elected homecoming queen. In 2004, he was featured in a Playboy story on college mascots.

    Here’s Sammy in his original canvas form and in his later incarnation. Yikes — I just noticed he’s armed. Well, it is Texas — even the owls have guns.

    The clue at 46D today was: “Titular girl in a 2020 Taylor Swift tune,” and the answer was BETTY. BTW, “titular girl” just means her name’s in the title — get your minds out of the gutter, fellas.

    (Pabloinnh commented: “This Taylor Swift person seems to be pretty famous. Have to find out something about her.”)

    Here’s what TS said about the song: “So, the song ‘Betty’ is about a 17-year-old named James learning to apologize, because James has lost the love of his life basically and doesn’t understand how to get it back. I think we all have these situations in our lives where we learn to really, really give a heartfelt apology for the first time. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody really messes up sometimes, and this is a song that I wrote from the perspective of a 17-year-old boy. And I always loved that in music you can slip into different identities and sing from other people’s perspectives.”

    Swift’s performance of it, below, was at the Grand Ole Opry House at her first appearance there in seven years for the Academy of Country Music awards. She made a point of wearing pants (sorry guys) because of the overwhelming dominance of male artists in country music. She drops the F-word in it, although it has been cleaned up in some versions, including this one. The song also contains a candidate for the Owl Chatter Awkward-Rhyming Award:

    Standing in your cardigan
    Kissin’ in my car again.

    You’ll never guess who was in the puzzle yesterday, ballfans — SHANE Victorino. Remember him? The Flyin’ Hawaiian! He’s still only 42. He mostly played from 2005 thru 2015, and mostly with the Phillies, although he had a few good years with Boston too, and won the WS with them in 2013. He also won with the Phils in 2008. You may recall him only as a right-handed batter, Don, but he was a switch hitter for most of his career. He limited himself to batting righty starting in 2013 with Boston due to a variety of back, knee, and hamstring problems. Victorino is a fan of Bob Marley and used Marley’s songs “Buffalo Soldier” and “Three Little Birds” as at-bat music when he played for the Phils and Red Sox, respectively. The crowd at Fenway would sing along with the chorus of “Three Little Birds” when Victorino came to bat.

    Shane was an All Star twice and won Gold Gloves three times. He also received the Lou Gehrig award in 2008 for being a mensch. Only he and Jim Thome hold the distinction of hitting two post-season grand-slam home runs. On June 3, 2007, the Phillies celebrated “Shane Victorino Day.” They gave away Victorino hula figurines, and flew his father in from Maui for the game, although he had to pay his own cab fare from the airport. [No he didn’t.] Victorino capped off the day with a walk-off home run! How’s that for a Hollywood ending?

    Shane and his wife Melissa have two kids — one of each flavor.

    Marjorie Saiser is a Nebraskan, like Ted Kooser, who’s a fan of hers. Kooser said of her: “no contemporary poet is better at writing about love.” 

    This beautiful, wrenching poem of hers from today’s Writer’s Almanac is called Bad News Good News.

    I was at a camp in the country,
    you were home in the city,
    and bad news had come to you.

    You texted me as I sat
    with others around a campfire.
    It had been a test you and I

    hadn’t taken seriously,
    hadn’t worried about.
    You texted the bad news word

    cancer. I read it in that circle
    around the fire. There was
    singing and laughter to my right and left

    and there was that word on the screen.
    I tried to text back but,
    as often happened in that county,

    my reply would not send, so I went to higher ground.
    I stood on a hill above the river and sent you
    the most beautiful words I could manage,

    put them together, each following each. Under
    Ursa Major, Polaris, Cassiopeia, a space station flashing,
    I said what had been said

    many times, important times, foolish times:
    those words soft-bodied humans say when the news is bad.
    The I love you we wrap around our

    need and hurl at the cosmos: Take this, you heartless
    nothing and everything, take this.
    I chose words to fling into the dark toward you

    while the gray-robed coyote came out of hiding
    and the badger wandered the unlit hill
    and the lark rested herself in tall grasses;

    I sent the most necessary syllables
    we have, after all this time the ones we want to hear:
    I said Home, I said Love, I said Tomorrow.