I am back.

After 4ish years, I am resuming this blog. 

I am not even sure what the theme will be, though i do have some ideas of topics.  And the theme seems to be what i am going through.  Specifically, parenting. So as not to incriminate my children, I have a 76 year old son and triplet daughters, aged 41.

Lucky readers.

I think I am going to play an endless loop of "The Story of O" on streaming Netflix, volume really loud, through my open windows for my neighbors' enjoyment.

I really need to move.

Really.

Also, kudos to Netflix for offering only the dubbed English version of this film.

Here's how it's done

The New York Times has been irritating me since the early 1980's.   It's pandering to "Life Style content - first, with the establishment of a separate stand-alone section, replete with Sally Quinn-type reporting, and then with the osmotic seep of lifestyle coverage throughout most of its sections.  I don't read the Sports section, so I cannot attest to what's happening in Sports, though I do know that the Celtics lost to the Lakers last night; but I can easily imagine something in today's NYT on the house furnishings and lavish existence of Kobe Bryant.

This is not an accident, this osmotic glomming on to all things of the lifestyle angle.  It is purposeful and driven by advertising and desired reader demographics.  But it is not news.  I mean "news" as edifying, substantive, and worthy of conveying.

For instance, here, in yesterday's NYT, is a front page article, which to me is archetypal of its "life style" content: Trophy Hunters: With Their Eye on Interiors.

And this is what is really "news" on the art, skill, and substance of interior furnishing: My friend Lori's blog on decorating on a vapor budget and limitless drive and creativity.

Lesson?  Like my fellow blogger Lori, source it yourself when it comes to life style. Follow not the tastemaker.  Be your own, make your own choices.  Do not be fed fodder of pre-selected items chosen by others.  What is your taste?  That is the fun!

(Can you tell slightly that I am chafing to write about my neighbors some more but am channeling this to another topic of individualism vs. the masses of a@#es?  Then you know me well.  I chafe and yet I refuse to throw the proverbial or literal finger at my neighbors.  No, I disparage them from the safety of the internet shield.  It is my choice. And it is fun.)

Vengeance is mine

8 a.m. walking my 6/7 pound dog on leash.  Round the corner comes a woman with an all-terrain baby stroller, followed by a large un-leashed dog, who sees my dog and comes bounding toward me and my dog.  I pick my dog up in my hands, and say:

ME: Your dog should be on a leash.

HER: (nothing)

ME: It's posted right there (pointing to sign that is eye level, permanent and iterated at both end of the park, which is approximately 18 feet away from her.)  It's the first thing on the sign.

HER: I'm not from around here.  I don't know how to read.

ME:   Don't be facetious.

HER:  I know the law and I'll follow it if I want to.

ME:   Why don't you follow a diet.

HER:  I just had a baby two months ago!

ME:   I hope you had triplets.

(and away she went, traveling West at a somewhat rapid pace.)

(it was a good thing I was wearing slimming navy blue that morning)

(to my amour in Chicago, who has recommended this article this very morning, before I went on my dog's constitutional - and my institutional - and which article I have read perhaps three sentences and seen the accompanying illustration, I thank and now post: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/redeye/2010/06/by-leonor-vivanco-redeye-temper.html)

Sampleton

No longer Stapleton.  Now it is Sampleton.

I need say no more than direct you to this wonderful blog by my wonderful friend:
confessionsofastayathomelawyer.

And add that when I hear "Ice Storm", I think this

and not this

Me sitting in Staplegun, with neighbors attending

Yup, if I were to sit on my porch, this would likely happen.  However, my twist on this scenarios is that I am usually standing, having just innocently answered my doorbell.

Remind me to post about the three people who confronted me, all at once, one night, on my porch after I answered the door.  I was physically menaced (I prefer to do the menacing, thank you very much.  I am very good at emotional menacing.  I am going to darken my eyebrows and put in fangs the next time I answer the doorbell.  I wear black pretty often.)  Here is a teaser of that soon-to-be-posted post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdYas_8EDZM.  Wes Craven stole from me.

In the meanwhile, sit back and feel my pain.

Staplegun.  Bringing me one step closer to hermit-hood.

My next house:

Notice no eyes.

On being a snob

The New York Times posted an article today that is about as snooty as it gets.  The article details an auction of household contents of one Patricia Kluge, a woman who - per the Times - married a very wealthy man, spent his money building homes, collected things to put in those homes, climbed up a social ladder, divorced her husband, and then collected a lot of divorce settlement money.  While this sequence is not uncommon and could be considered laudable for the materially acquisitive set, the ex Mrs. Kluge is denigrated in the paper of record for having done all of the building, collecting and climbing in de trop common a fashion.  She is not even given a break for having chosen a wealthy spouse and securing a considerable divorce settlement.  No, she was just too assiduous in her efforts to ascend and, at root, just too common.

Herewith, is a quote from the article, regarding the attendees who have come to preview Mrs. Kluge's household contents to be put up at auction:

Certain of them, like Virginia Donelson, a Charlottesville native and playwright who lives with her husband, the novelist James Collins, on a farm in adjacent Orange County, came to view Mrs. Kluge’s 18th-century drawings and to see whether it was true, as some suggested, that “even if you didn’t know a vulgar person lived in the house, you’d know a vulgar person lived in the house,” once you had visited it.

Is that  not the rudest thing you have ever heard; the anonymous "some" who have "suggested" that you'd know a vulgar person lived in the house?  Excuse me, pardon me, forgive me, if I may: who is vulgar here?

And this leads me to my Etiquette Rule Number One: If you are going to be a snob, do it silently.  Second Rule: Don't be quoted or cited, even anonymously.  Exception to Rule Number One: It's fine to blog about your neighbors.  Exception to Rule Number Two:  blog anonymously about your neighbors.

Here is the entire New York Times article.