My own moment of Zen

I'm making a major life shift this month. The path is uncertain but too enticing to refuse. [Image via and via]

Sentimental Sunday

When I was teenager I had a raging crush on Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits. I kind of forgot about him for years but then I read this interview and I'm crushing on him all over again.

Your moment of Zen

Tulum, Mexico, view from my cabana - 1990s.

Personal trivia

My friend and former employer gets invited to the occasional White House function but this encounter on the Vineyard happened by chance. Tom has spent every August there for many years.



Boston Globe tells me:

One diner who kept his distance was Northampton attorney and Obama fund-raiser Tom Lesser, who happened to be at the restaurant with his wife, Maggie Spiegel, and their daughters Grace and Elisabeth. Obama stopped to say hello and, before leaving, took a quick selfie with the girls. Patrons applauded as the president and first lady departed.

I watched those girls grow up. I still have a note from Gracie that she left for me when she was about five years old. They're both gorgeous young women with fabulous careers now. [photo credit Martha's Vineyard Gazette]

Life's little mysteries

Apparently I have a Sulia page which I only discovered because someone I don't follow and who doesn't follow me posted it to the twitter. The page that comes up at the link looks like Facebook. Not sure how that happened. I'm certain I didn't sign up for it myself. I still haven't figured out what the point is with Sulia and I can't keep up with the social nets I'm already active on. I haven't even joined Tumblr or Pinterest, which I'm told is mandatory these days.

Not complaining. Often stumble across various sites that post my work. They don't steal it outright, just a blurb and a link. Rarely seems to generate much traffic but always happy to see my message get wider exposure. But still, I am truly mystified.

There are places I remember

So I have this little secret blog. It was my first one. It's evolved over the years. Currently revisiting my youth after I fell in a rabbit hole and found a treasure trove of old photos.

So far I have My Easter tradition. The Lake. The neighborhood playground. Main Street. View from my mother's hat store.

Not done yet.

Photo ops

So tired last night, apparently I saved this as a draft instead of publishing it. So publishing now:

Today was a travel day. I'm back from a few glorious days at the beach. Weather was perfect until this morning. We woke up to gale force winds. Much flying of chairs off the deck. Half the shells the kids collected blew away. It was high tide. The roiling surf was vicious, slapping at the bottom of the stairs to the beach. It was an eventful trip home.

I'm skipping the Mittanic schadenfreude over David Corn's release of the unedited Romney tapes and posting a couple of photo ops I collected while I was enjoying the ocean air. Well except for this Charles Dharapak catch of Romney at the after-release presser.

This one also from Charles Dharapak. Unfit Mitt strikes a classic pose while "inspecting" Air Force airplanes before disaster struck his campaign.

Don't remember how I found this billboard that's somewhere on I-84. I like that this happened.

And a picture my sister took of the quietest sea on our beach outing. Water so calm, the net fisherman pulled way in right in front of the cottage. We saw the whole operation. They caught a fair amount of big fish. I applauded at the end and the kid on the boat waved to me.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Doctor, doctor give me the news

Late start today because I had a doctor's appointment. At three. Just a routine check-up but it takes me all day to get ready and calm myself enough to drag myself into the office. I suffer from an extreme case of "white coat anxiety."

So while I catch up on the news, just click over and read everything at Charlie Pierce's place. He and his guest bloggers are tearing up the internets with great posts from the RNC.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

When pigs fly away

A sad moment for me. Newshoggers is shutting down. I blogged there for a couple of years. My most viral posts were published there. I came to love my co-bloggers like family. It was a special place and hosted some of the best foreign policy analysis ever.

But times change. Everyone has now moved on to other ventures so they've archived the blog. Newshoggers isn't dead, but will join so many others in a sort of eternal rest. May it live in memory (and on google) forever.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

I want to be a part of it

As long time readers know, I collect links to livestream webcams. (A few of my favorites on way down on the sidebar.)I was thinking about my friends in the Northeast who are about to battered with storms tonight and suddenly remembered I could watch in real time on the Times Square livecams. Last I checked the first storm passed through. I'm told there's a second round on its way.

[Suggested soundtrack]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

The Mormon rapid response team

In all the years I've been blogging at Detroit News, I posted about Mormons for the first time just this weekend. Since then I've been deluged with emails from Mormons. Really long emails. With multiple links. They're apparently very sensitive about how their charitable contributions are calculated.

I read all the way through every one of them because, I know nothing about Mormons. Never even met one in real life. They tell me they are not an organized group. They don't speak on behalf of the church. Yet their emails are nearly identical. Except for this one stray phrase which caught my interest:

There is a book out on the Mormon way of doing business. We are trained from a young age to learn skills that can be transferred to the business world.

I want to read this book. I wonder if I can buy it without joining.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Who knows where the time goes

I'm terrible at Mondays. Somehow lost this one on the internets today. DougJ slipped me the spare key when he left on vacation, so I'm guesting at Balloon Juice for a few days. Which means I'm also hanging out in the comment section instead of blogging. And my last couple of posts at Detroit News generated a record breaking deluge of email. To my private address. Much of which needed to be answered.

DetNews edited one of the post titles. A new first. On the bright side it was a good edit. So there's that...

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Name checked

Yes, it's a Politico piece that flags a throwaway post but still, I'm such a geek. Never get tired of being name checked and quoted by a major news org. Thanks Tim.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Many rivers to cross

I've crossed the 59th Street bridge many times in my life. If memory serves, there was always a few squeeqee guys lurking at the traffic light at the end. And there was a whole long block full of motorcyles on the way to the West Village.



Click to embiggen. It's worth it. [Sorensen NYC photo, via]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Hey Mambo

Wish there was actual footage of her performance for this one but the recording is so good, I'm posting it anyway. Not quite PC I guess, but for reasons I no longer remember this was one of my favorite songs as a child. The song was covered by many. I vaguely remember Dean Martin doing it. But no one did it like Rosemary.



[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Life's little milestones

Not one who likes to boast, but I've been toiling away in varying degrees of total obscurity at this blogging thing for nine years and counting now. And I'm still not so jaded that a link in an establishment news site doesn't still give a me a little thrill. Discovered quite by accident yesterday that an old Detroit News post of mine was linked in both the WaPo and the WSJ.

No name check, just a bare link, but still it's encouraging to see my work spread even just a little beyond my usual venues. Jamelle, sitting in for Greg at The Plum Line linked me in at this sentence:

Instead, Gingrich argued in a news conference in January, Romney was a “vulture capitalist” who did more to extract wealth than create it:

Then that post was quoted in this WSJ blog along with the link. Pretty sure I've never been linked in either before so thanks Jamelle, fun to get two firsts in one day. Encourages me to keep this little hobby going.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Kindness of strangers

Sometimes you're the recipient. Sometimes you're the bestower.

So upon my return to the Little City, I'm in line at the grocery store and the tiny little old lady behind me engages me in a long conversation about the box of Cool Whip she was buying. I saw her counting out the exact amount of the purchase in her hand. On a whim, when I got to the cashier, I asked if I could buy it for her. Of course she protested but I told her my religion required me to do something nice for a stranger and I was way behind on my tithe. She hugged me before she left.

Thought at first the cashier was pissed that I paid for a black woman. But guess she was just stunned. She said to me, "You're a rare breed."

I said, "Just paying it forward."

[Original graphic]

National Poetry Month

The month is almost over and I haven't officially marked the occasion though I do love the form and I've read a ton of brilliant poems posted by more ambitious social media denizens than me. Still, I feel I should do something before it's over and rather than try to impress you with some obscure poet from the vast breadth of my poetry knowledge, here's the source of my earliest exposure to poetry readings.



It's quite possible that Bullwinkle is responsible for instilling a love of poetry in me at such an early age. Also, too, still my favorite cartoon series of all time.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Put the load right on me

I didn't get around to posting about Levon Helm's death when it happened. I was unusally sad that he died and didn't have the heart to talk about it right away. The Band was big on the soundtrack of my misspent youth. I saw them live at the Filmore East back in 1970 or 71 maybe. It was a such a great concert. My first one in a high profile venue like the Filmore. And of course, it being in NYC made it extra exciting. As I recall, we also ate at Katz Deli. I'll never forget that old Jewish waiter. He was a riot. It was a golden time in my life, and listening to The Band always evoked warm memories.

Otherwise, I don't have any great personal stories about Levon but Charlie Pierce wrote a gorgeous tribute. And Elvis Costello's eulogy was moving.

Admit, I didn't really follow Levon's career after The Band broke up, so I didn't hear this song until he died, when it seemed everyone on the internets was mourning. Even though there are many other songs that mean more to me historically, this one seems the best to mark his journey to the Summerlands.



Can't stop listening to it. Makes me wish I had followed him longer, and somehow made my way to his barn in Woodstock.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Happy Blogiversary to me

Speaking of Blogiversaries, just realized that yesterday was mine. Nine years ago, I published my very first post. It was about an anti-war demonstration I stumbled into in lovely downtown Northampton. Haven't, despite many requests, shut up since. Figure I must have billions of words floating through the intertoobz by now.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]