Blog Archives

Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

This past Friday I went to see the newly released movie, "Call Jane." Here's my one-sentence review: "Call Jane" is a must-see; go see it.
The thing is, had this terrific movie come out a year or two ago it would have been a compelling period piece. But today its story is not only part of our nation's past, but may be our future, as well.
"Call Jane" is a fictionalized account of a real group of women in Chicago called The Janes - or collectively, Jane - who, from the late 1960's until 1973, ran a sort of underground railroad to bring women in need of an abortion to a safe, competent provider, as opposed to the back-alley butchers, extortionists and sexual predators who had the abortion market cornered before Roe v. Wade.
Elizabeth Banks plays the role of Joy, a perky, affluent 1968 Chicago housewife married to a lawyer and the mother of a teenage daughter.

Though she looks to be well on the other side of forty, Joy is happily pregnant until she has a fainting spell and is diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a life-threatening heart disease brought on by the pregnancy which will worsen as her pregnancy progresses.
However, abortion is illegal in Illinois, and though Joy makes the rounds seeking help to have her case ruled an exception that would allow for the termination of her pregnancy, all the doctors she meets with - all of them men - are either helpless to do anything or unsympathetic: after all, the baby has a good fifty percent chance of survival, even if the statistics are murkier on the the mother's chances.
And so Joy timorously descends into the grimy, dangerous, terrifying underworld of illegal back alley abortions. But along the way she discovers a phone number for someone named "Jane,"

...which turns out to be not one woman, but a group of women, a diverse mix of volunteers, younger, older, some mothers themselves, who secretly shepherd women in need to a safe provider.

But in carrying out their mission the Janes must also dance with the devil. In pre-Roe days the illegal abortion business in Chicago is in the grip of the Mob and anyone involved in that business must pay their due. The Janes also have the heart-wrenching task of dictating, with minimal staff and resources, who they can help and who they have to turn away. There were a number of heart-tugging, tear-inducing scenes in the movie.
But the film was also thought-provoking and revelatory. For me the most eye-opening scenes were those scenes that showed the abortion procedure step-by-step - well, only two steps, actually, dilation and curettage. With a preliminary shot of Novocaine. I couldn't believe how simple the procedure was, twenty minutes from start to finish. It became clear how, back in those days when women were denied abortions in a safe, sterile hospital setting at the hand of a reputable doctor, there were so many opportunists who saw selling and performing amateur abortions as an easy way to make an obscene amount of money from desperate women.
It seemed hard to believe, as "Call Jane" purported, that so many women sought abortions back in the day when they were illegal and frequently deadly. But it's true. After I saw the movie I researched the subject of the Janes and learned that in the years from 1969 to I973 the Janes helped over 11,000 women procure safe abortions. I also learned that, pre-Roe, every large hospital had an abortion sepsis ward to treat botched abortions where women often died.
I expect with abortion now banned in so many states the sepsis wards will be back in business.

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My Fried Green Tomatoes

10/28/2022

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This year my hubby Tom's garden gifted us with oodles of produce. Over the summer and into fall we feasted on home-grown blueberries, corn, green beans, peppers and tomatoes. In fact, Farmer Tom picked the final crop of peppers and tomatoes a few days ago, just ahead of the predicted first frost.
Among the tomatoes were a batch that didn't quite make it to the finish line before the frost. They were still green, but Tom picked them anyway.

Which now left a question to be begged: What does one do with a bowlful of green tomatoes?
I'd heard of such a thing as fried green tomatoes. Or, that is to say, I'd head of a movie called "Fried Green Tomatoes,"

...which, though it may well have been a worthwhile flick, I made a point of not seeing as it looked to me like a down-home schmaltz overdose.
But anyway, as I sat gazing at this bowl of green tomatoes,

...I found myself thinking of that film, the title of which suggested that fried green tomatoes must be an actual thing.
So I looked online and, yep, sure enough, turns out that FGT is an actual thing.

However, the recipes tended to call for smothering the tomatoes in a heavy blanket of flour and breadcrumbs then giving them a hot grease bath.

No thank you, thought I. If I'm going to blow out my cholesterol it's going to have to be for something more worthwhile.

I scrolled around for something to do with green tomatoes that didn't involve deep-frying them. I found green tomato salsa, green tomato relish, green tomato chutney, all of which looked healthy enough. The only problem was, when would we ever eat that stuff? Then I came up with an idea of my own.
I have an terrific recipe for oven-fried eggplant. It's so good, the eggplant slices come out crisp on the outside, tender on the inside, not a bit greasy or mushy, and so tasty that, though one can serve the slices with a side of tomato sauce, they can even stand on their own, unsauced.
(My son Tommy, pictured here with his bride Emily,

... can gobble up a whole plateful of my oven-fried eggplant, just picking up the slices from the plate unadorned and munching on them potato chip-style).

Here's my simply super oven-fried eggplant recipe:

Simply Super Oven-fried Eggplant

Ingredients:
A couple of eggplants
Two eggs beaten with a little water
Bread Crumbs
Olive oil spray
Salt

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Spray a cookie sheet with olive oil spray. (Cover the cookie sheet first with aluminum foil if desired for easy clean-up).
Slice the eggplant -unpeeled - into rounds about 3/4" thick. Dip each round into the beaten egg then dredge through the bread crumbs. Place eggplant slices in a single layer on the sprayed cookie sheet. Spray the egg plant with the olive oil spray then sprinkle with salt. Turn each slice over and spray and salt the other side. Place the eggplant in the oven and bake for ten minutes, then flip each slice and bake for another ten minutes. Serve with sauce and a side of spaghetti or eat them Tommy- style.

(That is, just pick them up off the plate and eat them).
Anyway, I decided to try my oven-fried eggplant recipe on the green tomatoes. Thinking that the tomatoes might need a little extra flavor boost, I substituted Lawry's Garlic Salt and onion powder for the salt.

First I sliced the tomatoes.

I tasted one of the tomatoes. It tasted like nothing. Not good, not bad, just...nothing. It occurred to me that it might help to marinate the tomatoes before breading them, just to give them some flavor to start with. I found a bottle of balsamic vinaigrette dressing in the fridge, so I used that.

I let the tomatoes soak for about 15 minutes.

Next I dipped the marinated tomatoes into the egg and bread crumbs,

...then arranged them on the cookie sheet and sprayed and seasoned them on both sides.

I baked them at 400 degrees, ten minutes on each side, then took them out of the oven,

...and served them up with dinner.

They tasted like breadcrumbs mixed with balsamic vinaigrette.
I threw them out.

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I'm Through With Poll Watching

10/26/2022

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It kind of crept up on me. It started with just an occasional glance at Fivethirtyeight to see how the midterm polls were percolating. Then, as the races tightened, I started pulling up that encyclopedic polling site two, three, four times a day, poring over the graphs, charts, and visual representations as if they were some sort of runic divinations that would magically shift in the direction I wished before my eyes if I just angsted hard enough over them.
But, alas, my addiction to poll-watching has apparently done nothing to alter the midterm predictions, lift my hopes, or boost my spirits. All it's done is make me feel all worried and weltschmertzy.
And so I'm done. I'm finished pulling up Fivethirtyeight to check the midterm polls. In fact, I'm done with looking at anything having to with the midterm elections. I've already voted, my ballot is cast and recorded, and now there's nothing more I can do to influence the outcome of the midterms, least of all angst over polls and political prognostications.
So no more politics for me between now and November 8. I've taken the pledge, sworn off the stuff, staying free and clear of it all.
I'm just having one, last, final farewell-to-Fivethirtyeight. It really is my last look. Really.

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Doing The Columbus Things, Part Three: Art And Movies

10/22/2022

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Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

DOING THE COLUMBUS THINGS, PART THREE: ART AND MOVIES

...Continued from previous post:
The following morning, Saturday morning, was our check-out day from the Aloft. We decided for breakfast to again walk over to the Northstar Cafe, where we'd eaten the day before.
Though we arrived at the restaurant shortly after it opened at 9 am the place was already pretty crowded.

But the service was nonetheless still fast and the food good. We ordered the same meals as we had the day before: Tom, the Country Breakfast and me the Breakfast Sandwich (See previous post, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/doing-the-columbus-things-part-2-german-village-and-the-franklin-park-conservatory), but this time we also split an order of breakfast potatoes, which were also really good, nice and hot and crispy.

Though the servers buzzed around the restaurant busy as bees, Tom and I were able to talk to our server for a few minutes. He shared that he enjoyed working at Northstar and was able to support his wife and child from this job without needing a second job to supplement his income. This gave us a good feeling about this restaurant. Though Northstar is on the pricy side, we figured that if its workers are content and well-paid then it's worth it to us to pay a bit more.
In any case, by the time we left the line at Northstar was out the door.

After breakfast we walked around Easton for a while.

Once again I found myself craving one last Dragon Donut, so we swung by the Dragon Donut shop again,

...before heading back to the Aloft to pack up and check out.

Our plan for the day was to see a 1:45 pm matinee at the Easton AMC, but as we had a good three-and-a-half hours to kill before then I suggested that we spend a couple of those hours downtown at the Columbus Museum of Art.
We hadn't been there since before COVID, and on this overcast Saturday morning we both agreed that the Art Museum was the ticket,

...especially since the museum is free to retired military and their families.

It so happened that the museum had a special exhibit, half a dozen 17th Century Raphael tapestries on loan from the Old Masters Picture Gallery in Dresden, Germany. Now, not being a fan of Renaissance art, I wasn't intending to pay the extra fee to see the Raphael tapestries. But as it turned out, the exhibit was included in our "price," so we received our sticker to see the tapestries.
I found myself mesmerized by them,

...the illusions of light,,

...and the human features,

...so much captured by the weaving of colored threads,

...a testament to the greatness of human ability when humans use this ability to create beauty instead of to wreak chaos and destruction.

So ran my thoughts while looking at the tapestries.
We spent most of the rest of our time looking at the contemporary works.

This poster on one of the walls asked for comments,

...of which there were many,

I left one, too.

After the museum we headed back to the Easton AMC for our movie, a sweet little rom-com called "Ask Me To Dance,"

...which we both enjoyed.
After the movie, though it wasn't quite 4 pm, we were ready for dinner, so we walked across the street from the theater to an Italian restaurant called Brio. Fortunately, the Saturday night crowd hadn't yet arrived.

I had a margherita flatbread, which was very yummy,

...and Tom went for pasta in tomato cream sauce, which he said was also delicious.

After dinner we walked to the indoor area of the mall to hopefully rustle up some dessert from the food court. We opted to split a Cinnabon.

While we sat in the food court eating our Cinnabon and people-watching, I took in the diversity of the folks in the mall,

...and it warmed my heart.
After we finished our Cinnabon the night was still young enough for us to take in another movie, so we left Easton Town Center and drove across town to Campus (as the area around Ohio State University is locally known), to the Gateway Film Center, one of Columbus's art theaters,

...where we bought tickets to a movie called "Pretty Problems,"

...which was shown in a small theater with about three dozen very comfy seats, which we had all to ourselves.

"Pretty Problems" was a comedy about an unwitting young couple,

...who make a new friend who invites the couple for a weekend at their country house, and the weekend turns out a lot crazier than the couple had anticipated.

After the movie, as we were leaving the theater, Tom said, "Haven't we seen a movie with that plot before?"
"Several," I replied.
Outside the theater was all lit up and pretty and crowded with Saturday night strollers, probably most of them University stidents.

Then we returned home.
My birthday getaway completed, I now felt officially 71.

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Doing The Columbus Things, Part 2: German Village And The Franklin Park Conservatory

10/19/2022

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...Continued from yesterday:
On Friday morning we walked from our hotel, the Aloft, to a restaurant on the Easton campus called Northstar Cafe.

Though a popular local eatery, Tom and I had never eaten there before, so we thought we'd try it for breakfast on this day.
When we arrived a little after Northstar opened at 9 am, the place was already filling up.

We learned that the restaurant operates on the semi-fast-food model: One orders one's food at the counter then grabs an electronic pager and takes a seat to where where one's food will be delivered by a server. We got in the counter line, which appeared to be of considerable length, but we were surprised how quickly the line moved and, after we sat down, how fast our food arrived.
Tom ordered the country breakfast, which was two eggs over easy topped with cheese on a buttermilk biscuit with bacon and a side of strawberry preserves.

I had an egg, cheese, and avocado sandwich.

We both agreed that our food was delicious, even if the presentation was rather minimalistic.
One of my sub-goals during my birthday getaway was to eat a Dragon Donut.
Dragon donuts is a little Easton donutery around the corner from our hotel that we discovered on our last stay at the Aloft.

The interior of the place is pretty basic, and they sell but one item, donuts, which they make in small batches in the store, then when one batch runs out they make some more, so the donuts are always fresh and delicious. And huge.

I opted for an iced vanilla cream-filled donut, which, in my state of high anticipation, I forgot to get a picture of. But it was delish.
With my Dragon Donut jones taken care of, we then set out upon our plan for the day.
Our plan for the day, planned out by moi, was to drive to German Village, a cute, touristy neighborhood that is sort of the south bookend of downtown Columbus, then walk three miles from German Village through downtown to The Short North, also a cute, touristy spot, which is sort of the north bookend of downtown. Then we'd walk back again to German Village.
Of course, we all know what happens to the best laid plans.
In any case, we drove to German Village, and decided to start off by visiting The Book Loft, a 32-room bookstore and Columbus landmark,

...where the books are crammed wall-to-wall inside,

...and spill out into the front yard, too.

It's a book-lover's dream.

Not surprisingly, Tom and I got lost in The Book Loft. Not from each other, but in the books. Subsequently, we spent more time there than we had planned. (But then, nobody ever enters The Book Loft without spending more time there than they'd planned).

Next to the The Book Loft there's a little coffee shop called Stauf's where we thought we'd sit for a bit and have some refreshment. Now, we'd never been to Stauf's before, but the interior was plain as could be, with concrete floors and sacks of coffee against the wall. There wasn't even much in the way of eats to go with the coffee, just a couple of muffins sitting on the counter.

To me the place was definitely lacking in ambience. But it was full of people. Which I guess gave it people ambience.

Stauf's must serve really good coffee, though, not being a coffee-drinker myself, I couldn't attest. However, Tom said his Peruvian light was quite good.

By the time we finished our drinks at Stauf's we found that we'd lost our mojo for walking three miles to the Short North and three miles back again, so we recalibrated and decided instead to just stroll around German Village, which is always a nice stroll, anyway.

I suggested that we next visit another Columbus gem, the Franklin Park Conservatory, which is a vast greenhouse,

...filled with every kind of plant,

...among which are displayed the beautiful, whimsical works of Seattle glass artist Dale Chihuly.

We also walked around the outdoor grounds, which were decorated for Halloween,

Then we headed back to Easton and our hotel.
For dinner we walked to another Easton restaurant called BJ's Restaurant and Brewery. I'll just leave it that we weren't crazy about the food and won't be going back.
After dinner we knocked around the idea of going to a movie at the Easton AMC, but then decided to just return to the Aloft and see if we couldn't scare up something good to stream on the TV.
I found "Friendly Persuasion," a 1956 classic starring Gary Cooper and a young Anthony Perkins (a few years before his "Psycho" fame) about a family of Quakers living in rural Indiana during the Civil War who face the moral dilemma of being pacifists when every able-bodied man in their community is needed to help the Union soldiers defend their farms and families against the fast-approaching Confederate army.

It was a good flick with a beautiful soundtrack.
To be continued...

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Doing The Columbus Things, Part 1: Aloft Again

10/18/2022

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Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

DOING THE COLUMBUS THINGS, PART 1: ALOFT AGAIN

My birthday seemed as good a whyfor as any to go on a mini-getaway with my mate. We only needed to come up with a whereto.
We decided that just getting out of the house, but not very far, would suit us fine, and that there was plenty to do right here in Columbus, Ohio. Besides, all I really wanted from my birthday getaway was to do some walking, eat some food, and see some movies, all of which I could accomplish locally. So we decided to stay in Columbus and do the Columbus things.
And so, on Thursday, October 6, we drove eleven minutes from our house to our not-very-distant destination, the Aloft Hotel at Easton Town Center, a vast outdoor mall the size of a small town and laid out like one as well, which would accommodate our wish to walk.
We'd stayed at the Aloft for our past anniversary, and were looking forward to staying there again.

Once again we were charmed by the open, cheerful pop art hotel lobby,

...and our cute, clean room with its retro décor,

...that overlooked a roof painted with flowers,

After we settled into our room we decided to go and eat, in hopes of beating the dinner crowd. We walked about a third of a mile across the mall complex to a Mexican Restaurant called Chuy's that we used to frequent pre-COVID.

Chuy's has several dining areas, all bright and colorful,

...and the best food. The taco chips arrived, as always, hot, feather-light and crispy.

As the portions are generally pretty substantial, we asked for an order of steak fajitas to share.

The steak was so tender and flavorful that we wondered whether the food had gotten exponentially better than ever or if it had just been so long since we'd eaten there that we'd forgotten how good Chuy's food was. We figured it was probably the latter. In any case, those were some awesome fajitas.
And though the place had been fairly empty when we arrived a little before five, by the time we left Chuy's was getting crowded.

After our delicious fajitas we strolled around Easton,

....stopping at a dessertery called Fay's Crepes,

...where we sat outside,

...and split a double strawberry crepe with a side of strawberry ice cream. C'était délicieuse!

Then we strolled for a bit longer,

...before heading back for the night to the Aloft.

To be continued...

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The Final, Terrifying Hearing

10/15/2022

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Did anyone watch the final January 6 Committee hearing this past Thursday? I did. It was terrifying.
There were new video images of the attack on the U.S. Capitol,

...including this footage of the mob screaming for Nancy Pelosi to be brought to them, threatening to drag her out themselves.

There was new information revealing that Secret Service agents had been monitoring online activity and knew a good ten days in advance that a group was assembling to march into the Capitol to commit violence,

...and that not only did the Secret Service take no action to prevent these people, but members of the Secret Service destroyed documents pertaining to their knowledge of January 6 events and lied to the Congressional Committee about what they knew in advance.
But even more terrifying than those revelations was a video of top leaders of our country, who had been secreted away to safety at a military post, scrambling to pull together police and military reinforcements,

...and communicating with Vice President Mike Pence, who took command of quelling the insurrection from where he was hiding out in the basement of the Capitol,

...while Donald Trump, according to testimony of White House staff, sat at his dining room table watching the Capitol attack on television, relishing what he was seeing, refusing for hours to take any action to stop it.
That image of members of the United States Congress in hiding is so terrifying because among them was Republican House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell.

These two men were there that day. They knew that our democracy was in danger, that their very lives were in danger, and that Donald Trump was responsible for inciting the violence. On that day both men spoke out against Trump and accused him.
But neither Representative McCarthy nor Senator McConnell voted to impeach or convict Donald Trump for his role in causing the Capitol insurrection, and since then both men have caved in to their lust for power and have rejoined the ranks of Donald Trump's leading supporters, helping to pave the way for him to run again for President of the United States. And that's terrifying.
And it's terrifying to know that, even though the January 6 Committee voted to subpoena Donald Trump to testify on the events of that day, to give an account of himself to the American people,

...he will likely ignore the Congressional subpoena without legal consequence or punishment, his power over his supporters and the Republican Party not in the least diminished, or maybe even augmented.

And it's terrifying that if the Republicans win back the House at midterms, as they are predicted to do, then they have promised not only to shut down the January 6 investigation on the attack against the Capitol, but to take revenge against the members of the January 6 Committee by conducting their own investigation against the Committee members.

But most terrifying of all is that not only does the Republican leadership not care about the attack on the Capitol and the attempt to overthrow our democracy, but enough Americans don't care and will vote into office those leaders who don't care.
What fools these mortals be. It's terrifying.

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Art In The Family

10/11/2022

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Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

ART IN THE FAMILY

Recently one of my children mentioned that she'd like to have this collage (or whatever you call it) that I made when I was teen ager,

...after I'm, you know, dead.
This collage-thingy that my daughter would like was my attempt at copying a Paul Klee painting called "Death and the Fire,"

...using a papier-maché technique used by my mom (who liked to dabble in art) that involved dying sheets of newspaper then ripping the dyed newspaper into small pieces fashioned into spit-ball shapes. My mom would dip each spit-ball into a mix of glue and water and then glue the pieces onto a section of painted wood.
Here's one of my mom's papier-maché-on-wood collage thingies, her interpretation of the dancing gypsy from the opera "Carmen," which she and we subsequently referred to as "Carmen."

Here's a shot of one of my brothers standing in the dining room of our childhood home in front of the spot where my mom hung my "Death and the Fire." I also made the fabric-on-burlap "Shalom" hanging that graced the door to our basement.

My "Death and the Fire" has, alas, faded over the decades, though years ago the colors were closer to Paul Klee's and definitely brighter.
It also hasn't helped the preservation of my oeuvre that years ago, back when we had a beautiful angora house bunny named Daisy,

...who lived in our family room,

...I once carelessly set "Death and the Fire," which usually sits on the fireplace mantle,

...onto the floor, where Daisy proceeded to chew a couple of chunks from it.

But anyway, when my daughter asked if she could someday have my papier-maché "Death and the Fire" I said, "Sure, you can have it," and I stuck a post-it note on the back of this objet d'art indicating to whom it goes.
Not that any of my other children have expressed any interest in inheriting it. In fact, none of our offspring have indicated any particular interest in inheriting any of the other objets my mate and I are likely to leave behind, d'art or otherwise.
There is one worldly possession of mine that I do wish one of my children wanted to have:

...this painting of Rigoletto, the mad jester from the opera of the same name. It was painted many years ago by an artist friend of my father who knew that my father loved opera. She worked on the painting for a year then surprised my father with it on his birthday.

I always loved and was fascinated by "Rigoletto," as we referred to this painting that hung in our hallway and was the first thing one saw when one stepped through our front door. My mother told me that it was painted on Chinese silk, which, though I didn't know exactly what Chinese silk was or why someone would opt to paint upon it, made it seem all the more special to me.

My father, in fact, was an art-lover and hung with a fairly arty crowd, some of whom now and then gifted him with one of their creations.
There's this cityscape of Girard Avenue in Philadelphia, a gift to my father painted by one of his friends, Dr. Goddard (I never knew what his first name was, only that he was Dr. Goddard, pronounced Guh-dar). The painting was the view from Dr. Goddard's window.

Now it hangs in my kitchen.

And then there's "Goiter Guy," as my siblings and I used to call him when we were young, who currently lives in my upstairs closet, as I've not yet found a more suitable place for him.

"Goiter Guy" is a piece one of my father's friends created from ceramic pieces that he fired and painted and glued onto wood. The artist copied a picture he found in a medical book depicting someone named Juvenal who apparently lived in the Alps in Roman times and had a strange swelling on his neck thought to be a goiter.

The friend made this piece for my father because he, my father, was an endocrinologist whose specialty was the thyroid, and because my father loved all things classical.
Oh, and then there was this picture, which my sister now has, which we called "The Siamese Fighting Fish."

     Family lore, as I recall it, was that this picture, some sort of glass art, was made by the royal artist of the king of Siam and given to my father by the king in gratitude for my father’s treatment of a member of the royal family.
  But what neither I nor probably my siblings knew back then was that Siam threw off the monarchy and became Thailand in1939. So, while it’s not unlikely that this picture, which hung among the other art on the walls of my childhood home and is now in my sister’s home – for she loved the Siamese Fighting Fish the way I loved Rigoletto – was given to my father by a friend or grateful patient, the donor was indubitably not the King of Siam.
         But back to “Rigoletto,” which now sits at the foot of the stairs because I never could find another place where it fit, nor can I hang it because it would cause problems with the electrical wiring behind the wall, or some such reason.

I would like for one of my children to be the inheritor and curator of "Rigoletto."
But, alas, not one of my children wants it. They say the picture frightened them when they were young and they no more like looking at it now than they did then. They say it's those crazy eyes.

Come to think of it, when I mentioned to my mother decades ago that, if none of my siblings were opposed, I would like to inherit "Rigoletto," my mother bequeathed it to me on the spot and urged me to take it away immediately, as soon as possible.
(Sigh). Sorry, about that, Rigoletto.

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71

10/5/2022

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A few days ago I turned 71. Funny, but turning 71 didn't feel nearly as momentous as turning 70 did (See post from 10/5/2021, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/70).

In fact, this birthday didn't feel momentous at all. It felt like...I don't know...just another birthday. But a very nice one. I received many phone calls - including a wonderful surprise call from a dear old childhood friend - and a finity of birthday wishes on Facebook.
My sister sent me a beautiful box of cupcakes.

Tom and the kids took me out to dinner at Harvest, a pizzeria that looks like a house,

...where one may enjoy one's pizza on the front porch if one so wishes,

...though we opted to eat our pizzas inside,

...where they were no less yummy.

After dinner we headed for Tommy and Emily's house where we had birthday cake. I made the cake. It fell apart. I don't know why. We ate it anyway. It was delicious.

And I felt none the worse for being 71.
Maybe entering a new decade of life is something like plunging into a pool: a shock to the system at first, but then you get acclimated. So I guess I'm now acclimated to the idea of being in my seventies. As long as I don't dwell on it too much.
Or look in the mirror too much.

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Everybody Into The Pool!

10/4/2022

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Enjoy The Blog?

Check Out The Books:

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

EVERYBODY INTO THE POOL!

...Continued from yesterday:
Labor Day weekend was unusually - and excruciatingly - hot in Los Angeles. The South Bay area where my daughter's family lives is typically so cool that most older homes, and even some newer ones, were built without air conditioning. But even in the South Bay the temperature would reach 97 degrees before the weekend was over.
That high was destined to be hit on Sunday, September 4, but not until the afternoon. And though Sunday morning was already plenty warm we decided to venture out anyway to eat at a nearby brunchery called Urth Caffé.

The place was cute as anything,

...and crowded as anything,

...most likely because the food there is awesome as anything, and the baked goods on display were works of edible art.

The outdoor section of the restaurant was a pet-friendly place, so since we'd brought Pinky with us that's where we sat.

My daughter and I had a delicious veggie omelette,

...and my daughter had a quite lovely cup of coffee,

...while the girls dug into the turkey bacon.

I resisted the pastries this time, but I promised myself that someday I would return to Urth Caffé and snag myself one.
After breakfast we went to The Comic Bug, a local comic shop with thousands of selections for comic book lovers of all ages.

By late afternoon when the heat was feeling demonic, it seemed only right to invite some
friends - especially those without air conditioning - to come over and cool off in the pool. And so the girls invited some of their friends,

...and then their parents invited some of their friends,

...people brought food (and their poochie),

...and I schlepped together a couple more pizzas,

..and, voilà, instant pool party.

As the day journeyed on into evening more folks came by,

...and the pool party turned into a sleep-over with a houseful of little girls spending the night.
The following morning after breakfast,

...it was back into the pool, with more friends coming over to beat the heat.

...and enjoy the day.

That was the last day of my travels, which began on August 18 with our trip to St. Louis, from where I continued - after a brief necessary stop at home in Columbus - on to Chicago, and ended with this visit to Los Angeles.
And so very early the next morning, Monday, September 6, after saying my good-byes, I Ubered back to the L.A. airport,

...to return home.

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Everybody Into The Pool!

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Books By Patti Liszkay​Available On Amazon

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Books By Patti LiszkayAvailable On Amazon

​DOING THE COLUMBUS THINGS, PART THREE: ART AND MOVIES

Books By Patti LiszkayAvailable On Amazon

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Books By Patti Liszkay​Available On Amazon

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Enjoy The Blog?

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​​EVERYBODY INTO THE POOL!

Archives

Categories

Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

CALL JANE

Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

DOING THE COLUMBUS THINGS, PART THREE: ART AND MOVIES

Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

DOING THE COLUMBUS THINGS, PART 1: ALOFT AGAIN

Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

ART IN THE FAMILY

EVERYBODY INTO THE POOL!