This is a picture of plants growing up through a grate in a nearby parking lot. They get an A for effort, plus it is another sign of the crumbling infrastructure around south Florida. I, for one, was fooled when I read ten years ago that Florida was a recently built up area. It is, but it seems they have chosen the worst of everything. For one thing, they have never learned how to properly pave the streets.
I finally had to throw one dude out of the store. You can decide who was right; he took a couple of [$1.00] CDs outside to “read the labels.” I informed him not to take any merchandise out of the store until it was paid for and apparently he figured this was the beginning of some sort of discussion. Wrong.
Then to replace him enters a lady. She has some “Wedgewood” porcelain or the nature of it. She wasted fifteen minutes of my time with the notion that I would “look up” prices for her on the Internet (since I was “already looking things up”.) It never happened. Mercifully she caught on that I was not there to investigate whims, but it took a good half-hour of my life to get to the point where she grasped it.Dickens has reorganized the entire store. Customers are finding things I had no idea were around. That is likely a good sign. For example, this lady came in today and bought a gas mask. An Israeli army-issue gas mask, with carry case. I didn’t know it was there. Had she not mentioned her boyfriend even though such things were in the distance, I might have been more interested. My rule states that any woman who has a husband, boyfriend or children will mention them in the first minute of every conversation.
Another lady was in with absolutely perfect legs. Let me say what I mean. Her legs had, within the previous hour, been completely shaved or waxed clean right up to the top. Thus, wearing a mini-skirt past her upper thighs, she stole the show. I mean, her legs, which were classically shaped, suddenly became beacons of her offerings. Her skirt arrived less than a quarter-inch of your imagination, pal, maybe a sixteenth in college mode. Plucked and preened, indeed they were, and I saw it. Ha, and you did not.
The blog. I had to do it between other things, but I have it working. “Tales from the Trailer Court” is now being published. So everybody be nice to me, for that might be your 15 seconds of fame. Part of my intention is for the blog to obviate some of my email, although email will never be entirely replaced.
There is an antique show just west of Dania [say “DAY-nee-ah”] Beach Blvd. the third Thursday of each month. I should pen them a thank you note. The prices are so outrageous they drive people right over to my door. One customer reported a thirty year old camera for $225. When he suggested that was too much, the vendor got snarky. The show is popular and well attended. They have live music. Otherwise, I have a general dislike of sealing off public streets for private functions.I met Sam, a metal guy. He takes metal objects and turns them into jewelry. We got to talking and we have agreed to discuss collaboration on an idea I had twenty years ago. Memphis was my budgie bird and I had tried to find a cage that was large enough for him to fly around. All the large cages were tall. Those are for finches or birds that hop. I could not find a cage for birds that fly from perch to perch So I had planned to build one. I did not get past the stage of how to weld the metal.
Do not underestimate this project. The cage
[Author's note 2016-01-21: as usual, the project did not progress beyond the planning stage.]
Then I decide to learn that old Kenny Rogers tune, “Ruby”. It was originally written about the Korea and only the fantastic short-sightedness of the general American has proven more enduring than “that old crazy Asian war”. I want to upgrade the bass line and see if we can get any mileage from it. However, talk about an indistinct grouping of notes. I think the original bass player played the wrong changes several times. There are also some timing errors and at least two different drummers, all of which indicate the music was patched together in a studio over different time periods.
The song sounds corny to me and I wonder if some of the lyrics would even be acceptable today. I never listened to it much long ago because Kenny Rogers went from a rock musician to “Country and Western” which, to me back then, was akin to treachery. Can anyone recall the hit he had with the recording of a heartbeat in the background? His band was called the “First Edition”.
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