Tag: pizza

Lydster: She’s Not Us

Mother’s Day pizza

licorice pizzaThe weekend before she graduated from college, the Daughter came home. It happened to be Mother’s Day. Since it was Tulip Festival weekend, with its requisite traffic jam, my wife and I took the bus to church. Afterward, my daughter drove my wife’s car a couple of blocks away from church, across from the Washington Avenue branch of the Albany Public Library.

We went out to a nice place for pizza and other Italian dishes, leaving plenty of leftovers. My wife and daughter visited my MIL, while I talked to my sisters on ZOOM. As it turned out, my MIL was sleeping most of the time during that visit, and my daughter nodded off as well.

It got to be after 9 pm, with my daughter finishing a binge of the ABC procedural High Potential. I knew what my wife was thinking, so I said it out loud. “Do you want to sleep over tonight and go back in the morning?” And she did have to return by Monday morning because one of her tasks at one of the other Five Colleges was to put in three hours of cleaning the art rooms.

Wisdom

The Daughter said what I knew to be true. Her driving at 9:30 pm was her prime time. Her mother and I were projecting OUR sleep patterns. Moreover, if she had driven back early in the morning, the sunrise would be in her eyes much of the way. I realized, yet again, she’s not us. And she has generally made good decisions in these situations.

My wife asked her to text ME when the Daughter arrived, knowing full well that my wife would be asleep by the time the return trip was completed. And two hours later, I get the minimalist “HERE.” I gave a thumbs up.

Next time: the graduation from Hampshire College.

 

Ask Roger Anything, especially this

blogging on a pizza

Yeah, I’m asking you to Ask Roger Anything because I do. But I’m seeking, especially this particular wrinkle. I would like you to list the names of bands or solo musicians, as many as you like. And I must name the ONE or maybe two or three favorite songs from the artist or group, and why.

I hope that your choices include folks from whom I know more than one song. Don’t ask me about Dexys Midnight Runners because I don’t know any other tunes, though I have heard some in the past.

It’s interesting to me that music, most of which I have heard before, is now more likely to make me emotional. Sometimes, it’s sadness but more often, it’s joy. One example is the end section of Surf’s Up by the Beach Boys, originally scheduled for the Smile album, but which appeared at the end of the Surf’s Up album.

Books

I linked to a meme on Facebook. “Umberto Eco, who owned 50,000 books, had this to say about home libraries: ‘It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones…

“‘If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the ‘medicine closet’ and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That’s why you should always have a nutrition choice!'”
So you could make me cut my 2,000 or 3,000 books – I didn’t count them –  down to (ouch!) 100. What would I keep? You could ask that.
Or whatever 

There was an item on Quora recently. “Can you answer this question: ‘Can you explain the process of blogging on a pizza?'” I was tempted to respond that I tend to blog on media slightly more permanent than a pizza, but I didn’t know how helpful that would be.

But you can ask anything else as well. I will answer, more or less truthfully, in the next month.  Please make your requests in the comments section of this post, email me at rogerogreen (AT) Gmail (DOT) com, or contact me on Facebook. Heck, I’m still on Twitter as ersie, more out of inertia. (This is why I don’t call it whatever.) Always look for the duck.

Pizza and compassion, to go

On this Thanksgiving day, I’m thankful.

pepperoniandveggieIt was a Monday in late September when I was coming from a meeting, and heading to church. This guy named “Tim” was looking for something to eat.

Being very close to a pizza shop on Lark Street in Albany, I asked him to come in and order a slice or two. While we were waiting, Tim told me what a screw-up he had been.

He’s fallen off the sobriety wagon, again, and he’s embarrassed that his brother will be coming to town to go to some rock concert. Tim knows his brother will be disappointed.

I had no words of wisdom. I told him that I thought he was being terribly hard on himself, that he should keep on trying.

As I packed up my pizza slice to go – I WAS already running late by then – Tim gave me a big hug. And I’ll tell you the truth: I wasn’t fond of Tim hugging me with his boozy breath and slightly malodorous self.

But what I remembered from a very different story informed me: Tim needed to hug ME, Tim needed to thank ME.

So, on this Thanksgiving day, I’m thankful. Thankful that I don’t have Tim’s addiction. Thankful that I had the means to buy him dinner. Thankful that I can try to see the situation from Tim’s point of view.

It’s hard for us to be inclusive, to embrace those who are different. We may be OK with gay people or black people, but waiting the extra time it takes for a person in a wheelchair to board the bus may make us cranky. I suspect there are areas we all have that push against our blinders.

May we all be thankful, and ask for greater awareness and compassion for those around us, especially those we might find different or “lesser.”

Also: John Green: On Not Seeing Hamilton

Eight Poets to Discuss Over the Thanksgiving Table

The Muppets auditioning for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

November rambling #1: Rebecca Jade’s new video, and Confessions Of An Idiom

What happens if the Elephant in the Room decides to make the Skeleton in the Closet bring the truth to light?

Librarian_need
What Evanier said about Paris. Ditto. This is the second time this year my cousin Anne, currently working there, has had to report that she is safe.

Samaritan Lives Matter.

Fall of the House of Bush.

Marilynne Robinson warns against utilitarian trends in higher education.

Middle-Aged White Americans Are Dying of Despair.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Prisoner Re-entry.

The First County Clerk in the US to Approve a Same-Sex Marriage License. In 1975.

Egypt’s women-only taxi service promises protection from male drivers.

A New Alcott Emerges From The ‘Annotated Little Women’.

Now I Know: How Matthew Broderick Helped Shape American Computer Law and The World’s Most Prolific Author.

Berowne’s participation in the French Revolution. No, not that one.

A tumor stole every memory I had. This is what happened when it all came back.

Renaissance Geek: Eddie is 51, which is divisible by three.

Simply Red: The Con-Man Behind the Rightwing’s Starbucks Cup Freak-Out.

Wondermark: Throw Back the Dead Man’s Coin.

Binghamton, Now & Then.

Stop expecting artists to work for free — or worse, for “exposure”.

God, on Lawns.

Tosy has 10 opening sentences to short stories that do not exist, yet. But one of them could.

David Kalish: My imagined contract with cockroaches.

The new music video Weather the Storm by Rebecca Jade, the eldest niece.

Allen Toussaint – seven of his greatest songs. Plus Top 10 Allen Toussaint Classic Rock Covers, and finding a big hit in Toussaint’s trash can.

K-Chuck Radio: The WABC Sonic Experience!

Dustbury’s Feel Bad songs. Plus Connie Stevens (!) sang the original of a soul classic.

The Beatles: A 5 Minute Drum Chronology – Kye Smith.

“Love and Theft” – The Veiled but Tangled Roots of Jimmie Rodgers and Tommy Johnson.

Confessions Of An Idiom. What happens if the Elephant in the Room decides to make the Skeleton in the Closet bring the truth to light?

Mad magazine: Overheard at the New Amazon Bookstore.

The Absolute Best Way to Reheat Pizza.

Mark Evanier continues to list the twenty top voice actors in American animated cartoons between 1928 and 1968, including Jackson Beck (Bluto, King Leonardo) and Dick Beals (Speedy Alka-Seltzer, Davey of Davey and Goliath) and Clarence Nash (Donald Duck, Huey, Dewey, and Louie) and Bill Scott (Bullwinkle J. Moose, Mr. Peabody).

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, the first-ever Disney character and a long-eared precursor to Mickey Mouse, features in this long-lost animated film. Another, obscure, Disney film, John Henry.

The finale of a recent episode of Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris, a program I forget was even on the air.

GOOGLE ALERT (me)

What comics creator has most changed the way people think about comics?

 

Cheaper pizza

The Daughter is doing order of operations at school.

General problem 2I went to the local pizzeria on a recent Saturday night. The cost was $10.50; I gave the cashier a $20 bill and a $1 bill. But he gave me back the dollar bill, and then gave me change for the $20, which was $9.50.

As it turned out, they were out of five-dollar bills, so he was going to give me nine one-dollar bills and 50 cents. Seeing this, the owner yelled, “Just charge him [me] ten bucks.” The clerk says, “But I’ve already closed the register.” The owner overrides the register to reopen it, puts back the $9.50 and gives me a $10 bill.

Of course, I gave the clerk $21 in the first place so he would not have to give me a bunch of ones. If you’ve ever been in retail, you know that you don’t want to give away ones if you can help it, and certainly not nine of them. I knew that, the owner knew that, the clerk, not so much.
***
For some reason, I’m reminded by a story from long ago, where a guy I knew wanted to buy milk and a newspaper. At the time the milk was 99 cents and the newspaper, 35 cents. But the register wasn’t working properly, and couldn’t give the total, though it could give change. The problem is that the clerk couldn’t figure out the change from $2, because he didn’t know the total of the purchase.

The guy tried to explain: “99 cents is a penny less than a dollar, so it’s $1.34. These are non-taxable, so it’s $2 minus $1.34 is 66 cents.” This was too complicated.

I worry that when the computers all go down, no one will know how to add and subtract, never mind do multiplication and division.
***
gas_prices I was watching the NBC Nightly News and saw this story: Gas Prices Drop to Lowest Level in Nearly Four Years, using the picture. I had to write to them.

“The average price drop is NOT 30% [as Brian Williams said], it’s 30 CENTS, as the graphic showed, from $3.34 to $3.04,” I noted. If it had been 30%, the drop would be about $1.
***
The Daughter is doing the order of operations at school. At a website quaintly called Math is Fun, it reminded me that the order in which one does math problems is:
P
Parentheses first
E
Exponents (i.e. Powers and Square Roots, etc.)
MD
Multiplication and Division (left-to-right)
AS
Addition and Subtraction (left-to-right)

I’ll admit to forgetting where the exponents fit, exactly.

So what is the answer to the item posted above?

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