In Again, Out Again
After a week of hustling to make sure Remy was cared for in the afternoons (her school's on "spring break") I got Allisyn out of the hospital Friday evening. I just took her back about an hour ago -- yet another complication. I was really hoping to have her home for Easter. Apparently, no such luck this time.
My mother was very kind - she sent some money, which I know she can ill afford, so Remy could have an Easter basket this year. I have also received mail from many of you who are reading this blog which express very kind sentiments towards me and my family. I want to thank everyone here, and I also will answer these various letters as best I can. I spend a lot of time on the road and looking after things, so my answer may not be as prompt as you might prefer. But I DO appreciate it. Thanks.
While Al was here we went through all the mail - it gets hard to keep up with when you're a "single" parent. We discovered a letter from our landlord drawn up the very day that I was in the office for over an hour paying our rent noticing us to quit our tenancy by May 7th. This had nothing to do with money - our downstairs neighbor has filed repeated complaints against us for the noise of our walking in the apartment after 9 pm. Yes, WALKING. He had threatened to force our eviction before, and we have taken it seriously and tried to work it out - do things differently, etc.
I walk in slippers after nine, and not because I find them comfortable. We have taken him to our church with us. We have even tried to socialize with him a little. From that, we have learned that he is going to move out in June himself. The only reason that he would go forward this now is to have the satisfaction of displacing us, for "revenge" - whatever. I do not know if he realizes that the stress of an eviction now will probably kill my wife.
Actually, if it does go to court, I think we'd do okay. Nontheless, I pray: Lord, help me not to hate this man, as I clearly feel I think I should. Why this challenge - why, now? Give me the strength to deal with it.
Dave Sings in Public Tomorrow
Bright and early Easter morn at 10am I sing in the chorus at Honey Creek Church of the Nazarene in Ann Arbor as a member of the annual Easter "cantata." This is our director Cari Gomez' first outing leading a chorus. She's doing fine, and the ad hoc chorus of church members is doing real well also. I have sung in choruses many years, starting with my hitch in the Cincinnati All-City Boys Choir back in 1970. But at this point it's been awhile - although I've been attending Honey Creek a couple of years I have not been able to participate in the regular "praise team." With what's been going on lately I almost backed out of this also, but I'm glad I didn't - it'll make for a really nice Easter service.
I don't expect anyone reading this to actually show up, but in case you are so inclined Honey Creek is at 5700 Jackson Rd. near the Zeeb Rd. exit off I-94 across from Meijer.
Read Alton's Blog
One of my favorite guys on TV is Alton Brown, host of the Food Network's "Good Eats" program. He's smart, witty and puts on a show that is both highly informative and amusing. Tonight I discovered he has a blog of his own at:
http://www.altonbrown.com/pages/rants.html
It is straightforward, funny and he's not afraid to take some pot shots at his counterparts on the Food Network - in interviews I've read that he views himself as an outsider there, a "little guy who's on the Food Network." But I think he has the best cooking show I've ever seen, as he explains
why things cook the way they do.
As to Alton's open letter to Martha Stewart, it is very pointed, yet reasonably stated. As for me, I still don't like Martha Stewart, and certainly don't think she "rocks," but I took no pleasure whatsoever in her recent fall from grace, unlike many other men that did. For me, Martha has never been much of a paragon of feminine virtue or taste, unless you think being able to diversify your portfolio a hundred-thousand different ways is particularly ladylike.
Martha reminds me of Bill Gates in that she is always trying to sell the public on ideas that don't really do anyone any good - by the time you buy all the materials for the crafts she makes, and spend the time it would take for you to get the project together, you've spent three times what you would've if you'd simply bought the thing off the shelf. The foods she prepares are far too exotic (and expensive) for my taste; on today's "From Martha's Kitchen" she prepared a Fava Bean and Fennel salad that looked completely nasty to me.
I also never cared much about how she handles the poor folks who take on the usually thankless guest role in her "Kitchen." Some can do it - if they are unselfconcious, confident, shoot a good game of bull and can kiss Martha's ass here and there, then they can get through the half hour without having to experience the heat from Martha's methane-strength scowl. I remember one pitiful episode with a young cook who obviously idolized, and was terrified by, Martha. As the girl kept trying to do her bit, Martha grew increasingly irritated and hard-bitten, muttering under her breath, unsmiling, turning her eyes downward so the camera could not catch the icy glint projecting from her eyes. How the girl who was the "guest" kept from running off the set in shrieking horror is a mystery to me.
Martha has innovated the art of transforming domestic homemaking into a televised spectator sport. She was able to expand that concept into a multi-billion dollar empire. That she was able to lose control of it through doing something stupid is not unusual - male CEOs do it all the time, though not many get caught. Normally it involves a negotiaited "mutual parting of the ways," a hefty severance package and the CEO moving onto screw up another company. But in Martha's case the company bore her own name; no such deal could go down without attracting some kind of attention. And when it's the SEC who gets wise and starts breathing down your neck, it's hell to pay.
Anyway, she has been convicted and sentenced to a year in prison. It is right for Martha to serve her time. But I don't think she should be the poster woman for the so-called "glass ceiling" phenomenon - she was too tough, powerful and independent minded to deserve that.
Uncle Dave Lewis
UncleDave41@comcast.net
PS: One of my favorite Alton Brown similes: Once he stated that extracting the broth from boiled meat and vegetables through the recommended fashion of pressing them in a colander with the back of a ladle "seems about as convenient as trying to dig a hole with a bowling ball."