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The Saint Patrick's Day Frogs

3/17/2019

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Back when I was young, when my family lived in a row house on Barnett Street in Northeast Philadelphia,

(Our old house, today)

...and I was a student at St. Timothy's school,

...I used to love St. Patrick's Day. I loved the day for three reasons. First of all, even though St. Patrick, beloved Catholic saint as he was, did not merit for his feast day a Holy Day of Obligation on the Church calendar - which would have snagged a day off from school for us Catholic kids - St. Patrick's Day was nonetheless treated as a day of fun at St. Timothy's. We were allowed to wear something green with our uniforms and bring our crayons to school and towards the end of the afternoon our usual classwork was suspended,

...and we were allowed to instead color pictures of St. Patrick that Sister would hand out to us.

   The second reason I loved St. Patrick's Day was that the day after the following day was March 19, St. Joseph's Day, which, while also not a Holy Day of Obligation, was important enough a Church feast day that it was a day off from school.
     But the very best thing of all about St. Patrick's Day was the St. Patrick's Day Frogs.
       The St. Patrick Day Frogs were a delicacy to be savored only on St. Patrick's Day and found only at Haegele's Bakery, which was a block up Barnett Street from our house.

      The Frogs were a sort of amphibian-shaped pastry, the bottom two-thirds of which was cake and the top third a mound of vanilla creme the kind of which was used to fill creme donuts. The cake bottom and creme top were covered with green fondant upon which was piped icing eyes and a mouth.
       Every St. Patrick's Day my mother would buy each of my four siblings and myself a St. Patrick's Day Frog. For me coming home from school to my St. Patrick's Day Frog was on a par with the the delight of waking up on Christmas morning. I truly loved those bright green cream-headed cake frogs.
          I believe - though the passage of years may have blurred the time line for me somewhat, and if anyone wishes to correct me on the exact year I will stand corrected - but I believe that I was nine years old and in 4th grade at St. Timothy's when I ate my last St. Patrick Day's Frog .
           It was when I was ten years old and in 5th grade,

...at my new school, St. Christopher's,

...that my Catholic conscience bloomed and, likely inspired by the more advanced doctrine taught in the 5th grade catechism in tandem with the exhortations of my teacher, I became aware that it was required of me to give up something for Lent. I believe I picked sweets because that's what everybody else in the 5th grade of my new school said they were giving up for Lent. So I gave up sweets, too.
       It was to my joy when I came home from school on that St. Patrick's Day to find that my mother had traveled across town to Haegele's to buy my brothers, sister, and I our Frogs. And to my horror when I remembered that it was Lent and so I couldn't eat my St. Patrick's Day Frog.
       I wanted so badly to eat that Frog, to bite into that sweet green icing at just the spot where one hit part cake and part creme, my favorite way to eat it. I yearned to eat the Frog, I longed to eat it, but I knew that I couldn't eat it because it was Lent and I'd given up sweets and I truly believed at ten years old that a Catholic could no more put into her mouth something she had given up for Lent than she could eat meat on Friday.
     And it wasn't just that I longed for my St. Patrick's Day Frog. I grieved for it, too, because now I knew that St. Patrick's Day arrived in the middle of Lent, that it would always arrive in the middle of Lent, and that I'd never eat another St. Patrick's Day Frog for the rest of my life.
      I don't remember who ended up eating my Frog.
      But I'm sure I didn't grieve for too long, and I rather think that was the last time my mother made the trip to Haegele's for the St. Patrick's Day Frogs, anyway.
       Anyway, that was fifty-seven years ago, and in truth I'd forgotten all about the Frogs.
        Until last night when my brother Joe sent my sibs and myself this picture that he found yesterday on the Haegele's Bakery Facebook page:

I swear, somehow, someway, I will eat another St. Patrick's Day Frog before I croak!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, Everyone!

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Still Angsting After All These Years

3/15/2019

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     The night before last I lay awake in the middle of the night angsting. I was angsting about chord progressions. Specifically the progression of the chords in the song “Take My Breath Away,” the theme from the movie “Top Gun”: C, C Maj 7, Am; C, C Maj 7, F; Dm, D min 7, G, G7; C, CMaj 7, F, G, C.
     I chose these chords to ruminate on because the following day was my piano students’ spring recital, and, “Take My Breath Away” being one of the songs I was performing, I figured if I was going to angst in the middle of the night I might as well angst productively.
       After a while I stopped thinking about chords and started thinking about minutes. I always think about minutes before my students’ recitals. I like to know how many minutes a recital will run so once the performances start I won’t feel like glancing at my watch, angsting and wondering whether the recital will run too long or too short.

To this end before the recital I timed each student’s piece several times,

...and my own.

    One less recital detail to angst about.
    And so, in the wee hours of recital day I thought about the minutes, mentally listing each piece and its length, adding up the minutes in my head one more time. Six students plus me with pieces ranging in length from one to eleven minutes, still adding up to thirty-five minutes total. I finally fell back to sleep.,
    And the next day, despite all my pre-recital angsting, I managed to arrive at our venue, Graves Recital Hall, in time,

…as did all my students, who were able to warm up in the practice area,

…or, if they wished, on the Steinway concert grand they’d be performing on.

And, as always, the excitement of my students was a cure for my own nerves.
And I remembered my chord progressions, everyone's pieces were lovely and calmly executed,

...and all the minutes added up.

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An Idea To Solve The Catholic Clergy Sex Abuse Problem

3/13/2019

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    A couple of days ago there was an article in the New York Times about the efforts of the Catholic Church to make amends for the rampant pedophilia among priests that has been documented over a period of seven decades, and for the Church hierarchy's enabling and covering up of priests' sex crimes against children and the vulnerable.
      Some bishops have been holding special Masses called Masses of Reparations in which the presiding bishop begs forgiveness of God, the victims of sexual abuse and the community for the sins of the priests and the negligent church leadership.
       Other bishops and priests have led worshipers in special prayings of the rosary and special prayers for abuse victims.
      There have been homilies and letters and messages of sorrow and regret read by the Catholic clergy to parishioners, and Catholic TV broadcast a 12-hour service of prayers and penance as an offering of reconciliation.
       But these responses haven't been easing the hearts and minds of the Catholic faithful, who have likewise been disappointed that the recent Vatican summit on clergy sex abuse came up with no real ideas for making reparation for past crimes or for preventing future crimes.
        Actually I've come up with an idea.
        In biblical times when one wished to publicly exhibit deep and sincere repentance for a grave sin committed by oneself or by members of one's community, one abandoned one's fine clothes and donned sackcloth and covered oneself in ashes in a show of humility before God and men in hopes of receiving forgiveness.
       If the powers that be in the Catholic Church are sincere in their repentance and desire to rid its clergy of sexual predators who disguise themselves as men of God to lure their prey, this is the approach the Church should take.
       However I'm not saying that the Catholic clergy should abandon their vestments and start wearing sackcloth. I'm saying they should abandon their vestments and start wearing the clothes that the rest of us wear.
        Pope Francis should issue a papal edict, legally binding by the Roman Curia and the Holy See, proclaiming that in humbly begging forgiveness of God and men for the sins committed by the Catholic clergy against children and the vulnerable, as a penance for these sins henceforth all members of the clergy, from the priests to the bishops, archbishops, cardinals, even to the Holy Father himself, will no longer wear any distinguishing clerical garb or vestments. The edict should establish that from now on members of the Catholic clergy will dress the same as everyone else.

No more Roman collars,

...or cassocks,

...or liturgical vestments.

No special garments for bishops,

...or cardinals,

...or even the Pope.

Not only would this shedding of special or ostentatious clothing be a sincere and meaningful show of repentance and humility before God and humanity, but without benefit of the outer coverings that believers are programmed to believe sets priests upon a pedestal high above above the rest of humanity and beyond judgement for behavior that would be considered unacceptable or unsavory in anyone else, pedophiles would have one less tool of seduction to use upon the young and the vulnerable.

Let priests minister to the faithful in the dress of the day,

...just as Jesus did in his day.

References:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/nyregion/reparation-masses.html

https://www.gotquestions.org/sackcloth-and-ashes.html

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Revisiting The Limping Elephant

3/10/2019

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A Facebook comment on a post from last week resulted - as Facebook comments often do - in some back and forth between myself and the commentor. The conversation took a turn - as conversations often do - which led to me posting this photo of myself circa fifth grade,

...questions about which led me to reply with a blog post from five years ago in which I used the picture, which engendered interest in the old post as well as the picture.
So just for fun - and for those who haven't already read it the first time around or more recently after finding it in one of my last week's Facebook comments - today I'm re-posting this old blog entry from 1/30/2014.
Enjoy! (or not) ;)

I'll Tell Ya what's in a name!

Patsy Ann Rupp, 1961

      In last Saturday's Columbus Dispatch there was an article about a woman named Sheila who intends to legally change her name. She absolutely hates the name Sheila. She thinks it's really ugly. She won't allow that name spoken in her house. So she's going to change her name.  To Sexy. She likes the name Sexy.
         I imagine at this point you're all asking the same two questions:
        1. Why the heck would anybody want to be named "Sexy"? and
         2. What's wrong with "Sheila"?
        Now, I have no idea what the answer to the first question is, but I know the answer to the second. What's wrong with "Sheila" is that Sheila hates it. And this I understand. Totally.   Because I hate "Patricia". It's really ugly. I won't allow that name spoken in my house.
        And while Sheila may hate "Sheila", she should consider herself lucky that her name is pretty much nickname-proof and therefore incapable of devolving into an even worse form. For "Patricia", on the other hand, there are several awful nickname devolutions:
     - Tish (evokes a tissue)
     - Trish (evokes a tissue in the trash)
     - Trisha (evokes a tissue in the trash in Italy).
      - And then there's the worst of the variations, the one that was my parent's true intention for me, for which "Patricia" was merely a portal of social convention:
        Patsy Ann
        That's what my parents named me.   Patsy Ann Rupp.
        I have a very early memory of someone, probably some friendly adult, bending down and asking me my name and me replying, "Patsy Ann Rupp" and feeling immediately embarrassed for saying such a silly-sounding string of words. From then on I was embarrased by my name and tried never to say it myself.
        Still, I kicked around the planet with that name hung on me for a good decade before I realized that I had the power to modify it and still be within the acceptable boundaries of "Patricia".
        The above school photo was taken when I was ten years old.  It is one of the last photos in existence of Patsy Ann Rupp. Soon afterwards I re-rolled myself out as Pat Rupp.
        While "Pat Rupp" was a considerable improvement over "Patsy Ann Rupp", it flowed not at all, sounding less like a real name than the sound that might be made by the approach of a limping elephant: pat-RUPP, pat-RUPP, pat-RUPP, pat-RUPP. I still didn't like it . But it got me through high school.

Pat Rupp, Senior Prom night.

  After high school I put five hundred miles between me and the limping elephant and headed off to college in the midwest.
        Basking in the friendly vibes of the heartland, I changed myself into Patti, charmingly pronounced by those of my new friends who hailed from Cleveland and points west as "Pyetti".
        Which was fine, I liked Pyetti Rupp well enough. But it got even better when people started dropping the first name and I became known as "Rupp", or better yet, "Rupper", or best of all, in a sort of pre- "Big Lebowski" style, "The Rupper".
        Though to this day some of my college friends still occasonally refer to me by one of those variations on my old surname, when college ended and my first "real" job began with US Army in Germany, I had to return to using a forename and somehow slipped back into the limping elephant name for a few years.
        Then along came a name-changer.

I'd known Tom Liszkay back in college, and I won't go into how fate threw us together while he was stationed in Germany and I was working there. But I did like his surname, "Liszkay", not to mention the fine package that came with it.
And so I finally ended up dropping the limping elephant for good.

Tom and Patti (at last!) Liszkay, February 19, 1977

      So I finally made peace with my name. And I'm good so long as nobody calls me:
        1. Patricia
        2. Patsy Ann
        3. Pat Rupp
        4. "Mother". (For reasons that I won't go into but have nothing to do with my own mother, I hate being called "Mother").
        On the other hand, if one night the angel Gabriel appeared to me in a dream and offered to change my name for me and take care of all the necessary paperwork and historical revisions, I just might take him up on it...if only the name "Sexy" weren't already snagged... ;)

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Other Refugees, Other Countries

3/9/2019

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Last year my daughter Claire, a nurse at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago,

...worked in Bangladesh where she delivered medical care in a camp for the impoverished Rohingya refugees,

...who fled across that country's border to escape brutal violence and persecution in their homeland, the Rakhine State of Myanmar (see post from 1/3/2018, "On Her Way To Bangladesh").

Towards the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018 the Rohingya migration became the biggest, fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world,

...and within half a year over one and a quarter million refugees had poured across Bangladesh's border into Cox's Bazar, where the primary refugee camp, the camp where Claire worked, was set up.

Bangladesh is the most densely populated country on the planet. It's a third-world country rife with social problems and battling wide-spread poverty among its own population.

And yet in 2017 Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said, referring to the Rohingya refugees, “Bangladesh is not a rich country ... but if we can feed 160 million people, another 500 or 700,000 people, we can do it.”

By the time Claire arrived at Cox's Bazar the number of refugees there was closer to a million. From the window of her medical clinic,

...Claire, here with a Bangladeshi medical colleague,

...could see the refugees walking a cross the boarder past the soldiers.
In a few weeks Claire will be leaving again for a refugee camp in Iraqi Kurdistan.

one      Kurdistan is also in the midst of a refugee crisis as in recent years over two million Syrians, Christian Iraqis, Iraqi Yazidis - who are of their own ethnicity and religion - and other impoverished displaced foreigners have crossed its border seeking safety and asylum.
      When Claire first told me that she was going to Iraq I was worried for her safety. However she explained to me that Kurdistan, though technically part of Iraq, is its own autonomous state and is currently accepted as such by the government of Iraq.
      She likewise assured me that Kurdistan's border with Iraq was strong, secure, and heavily fortified with Kurdish troops.
      "Well then," I asked, "how are all those refugees getting in across that heavily fortified border?"
      Claire laughed. "Mom, they're refugees. They come into the country at the port of entry, of course."
       Of course. I'd forgotten that's how refugees normally enter the country in which they're seeking asylum, and that the right to seek asylum has been international law and the law of humanity since ancient times.
       Funny how one forgets that living in the U.S.

References:
https://www.mercycorps.org/articles/bangladesh/rohingya-refugee-crisis-quick-facts

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2017/09/rohingya-crisis-explained-maps-170910140906580.html

https://www.reuters.com/article/US-myanmar-rohingya-bangladesh-trump-exc/exclusive-bangladesh-pm-says-expects-no-help-from-trump-on-refugees-fleeing-myanmar-idUSKCN1BU07C

https://thekurdishproject.org/infographics/kurds-and-the-refugee-crisis/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_asylum

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What Made Rush Limbaugh So happy

3/7/2019

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From time to time I listen to Rush Limbaugh on our local Fox news affiliate radio station. Yesterday he was gleeful, positively over the moon, about a New York Times report that record numbers of migrants are now pouring across our southern border, over 2,000 a day, over 76,000 last month. Limbaugh somehow spun this as being President Obama's fault, referring to Obama's program expanding the number of Central Americans with children and victims of domestic abuse eligible to apply for refugee status in the U.S.
What made Rush Limbaugh so happy was his conviction that this movement of people was proof that Donald Trump has been right all along about our country needing a border wall to keep these people out.
As it turns out, most of the 76,000 are parents with children fleeing violence and destitution in the gang war-torn countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

It also turns out that these exhausted, often sick, dehydrated, or injured refugees, who've crossed Mexico on foot and continue to travel in caravans for safety, are crossing the U.S. border between legal ports of entry - often geographically treacherous, dangerous areas -

... then seeking out border patrol agents to whom they turn themselves in and request asylum.

According to the United States Immigration and Nationality Act, "Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival ...), irrespective of such alien's status, may apply for asylum ..."
Which means that migrants on our soil have the right under our law to apply for asylum, notwithstanding Donald Trump's attempt - which was struck down in court - to abolish this law on his own.
Ours is the richest country on the planet, with an over-abundance of land, food and resources,

... a country founded as a haven for refugees and built by the hard work and dreams of the huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

...the wretched refuse, the homeless, the tempest tossed.

And yet our billionaire President, cheered on by a small but loud minority,

...which includes the likes of Rush Limbaugh, himself a millionaire 500 times over,

...continues to erect walls against the helpless and the desperate and to make the hallmark of his administration cruelty to refugees, even small children, to whose suffering he and his disciples are blind, to whose pleas for help they are deaf.
I wonder if God will punish us all for this?

References:
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/us/border-crossing-increase.html

2. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/immigration-reform-central-american-refugees/494948/

3. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/trump-central-american-refugees.html

4. https://www.wbur.org/news/2018/12/03/asylum-explainer

5. https://www.uscis.gov/legal-resources/immigration-and-nationality-act

6. https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article91978142.html

7. https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/trump-is-not-king-cannot-change-us-asylum-system-via-executive-action

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River's Edge Grill, Legend Hills Orchard, And A Film Festival For The Road

3/3/2019

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...Continued from yesterday:
Late Saturday morning we checked out of the Berlin resort and headed home from Ohio Amish Country,

...driving southwest back to Columbus through the same small towns,

....hills,

...and farmland.

We stopped for lunch in the town of Utica at the friendly Rivers Edge Grill,

...where Tom ordered the meatloaf, which he declared the best restaurant meatloaf he'd ever had,

...and I had a mushroom and Swiss burger that looked and tasted like a real burger - that is, one made from fresh ground beef as opposed to the frozen patty variety. It was really good, as were the hot, tasty fries.

After lunch drove over to the nearby Legend Hills Orchard Farm Market,

...where we bought some apples.

We left Legend Hills Orchard,

...and within the hour we were back in downtown Columbus,

...where we arrived just in time to catch the 2:30 pm presentation at the Wexner Center for the Arts Film Restoration Festival.

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Good Eats And Other Amish Country Attractions

3/2/2019

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Good Eats And Other Amish Country Attractions

...Continued from yesterday:
We started off Friday morning with the yummy offerings of the Berlin Resort's breakfast buffet,

...my favorite being the gooey iced cinnamon rolls.

After breakfast we drove back into Berlin to walk around the town and peruse the crafts stores, which in Amish Country are legion.

We started with a big, new, many-roomed store at the edge of downtown called Country Gatherings.

The interior was open and airy,

...and full of cute, bright, homey things,

...and cheerful, inspiration-themed decorative pieces,

....which one perused while gentle music and a light, pleasant potpourri wafted throughout the store.
"Isn't this place soothing?" Tom asked as we strolled among the wares with fellow perusers.

I agreed that it was indeed,

...as was the place next door,

...which was of a similar genre,

...down to the dulcet music, pleasant potpourri,

...and up-lifting decoratives.

We then continued up he block,

...stopping into some of the stores along the way to look at the merchandise on display.

We stopped at a used book store,

...where the offerings were mostly of the chaste, wholesome, variety,

...though I did, surprisingly, find this copy of Hemingway, which I bought. I'm not a big Hemingway fan, but I did start reading the first few pages of this one and was hooked.

"Think they'd stock my book?," I asked Tom in jest, even though I believe the story I tell ultimately has an altruistic, even spiritual message about how we inhabitants of this big blue and green marble need to watch out for and care about one another. It's just that the characters in my book aren't very wholesome or chaste. (Definitely not chaste).

We also stopped at a thrift store,

...where I found these kicky banners for my grand daughters' birthday parties,

...and another thrift store,

...where we picked up a few useful items for which we spent less than $8 altogether.

...including this ceramic goose clock,

...thanks to which my piano is now stylin'.

But, alas, I'm suffer non-buyer's remorse over this beautiful $20 set of dishes, below, that I let go.
(Dang you, Marie Condo for getting all up in my head!)

By then it was lunch time, so we walked back up the block to our car,

...then drove four miles through the countryside,

..to the town of Charm,

...and our favorite lunch spot, the Charm Family Restaurant.

I had my favorite, the veggie wrap with garlic mayo and a side of excellent fries,

..while Tom had the perch, which he declared very tasty.

While deciding what kind of pie to order for dessert we had some church spread and jelly.

Church spread - also known as Amish peanut butter - is an Amish delicacy served after Sunday services made of peanut butter, butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, marshmallow creme and vanilla extract.
Is it good? Oh yeah.

For dessert Tom had blueberry pie,

...and I had pecan.

After lunch, swearing we wouldn't eat again for the rest of the day and needing to walk off our pie, ice cream and church spread, we returned to Berlin for a visit to Sol's, the area's largest country crafts outlet,

We then walked next door to the German Village Center,

...where we visited all the stores,

...including the pharmacy with an old-fashioned soda fountain,

...the hardware store,

...where I bought a rubber chicken toy,

...for my new grand poochie, Jack, Emily and Tommy's new doggie, who they told me loves his toys,

...and the Gospel Bookstore, which we reckoned likewise would not stock my book.

Having finally done a decent job of walking off lunch - foresooth, we were by then even bouncing around the idea of dinner down the road - we returned to the Berlin Resort, where the sun was beautifully setting,

...until that good Amish Country cooking , did, in fact, start calling to us again,

...and lots of other folks, apparently, who we joined at Boyd and Wurthmann's Rsetaurant, which was opened until 7:30 pm on this Friday night.

Tom got the all-you-can-eat fish dinner, which came with a side of mashed potatoes and beef gravy,

...and a mountain of really good coleslaw,

...while I had a grilled cheese with fries,

...with an Amish peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the side.

After dinner we walked around the resort grounds for a bit,

...down to the children's village.

Then we walked back to the hotel,

...in time to watch the evening's movie, "The Hunger Games,"

...which are definitely not played in Amish Country.

To be continued...

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Back To The Berlin Resort

2/28/2019

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A couple of weeks ago I reminded Tom that our 42nd anniversary was coming up.

      "Amish Country?" he asked.
      "Amish Country," I agreed.
     It seems that each year as our anniversary approaches we toss around the idea of doing something different, something special. But this year we just cut to the chase, because every year after tossing around a few interesting anniversary trip options we always end up admitting that what we really feel like doing is spending a couple of days in Amish Country,

...at the Berlin Resort in Berlin, Ohio,

...doing the same things we always do: hanging out at the hotel, walking around the grounds,

...walking up and down the main strip in downtown Berlin,

...looking at all the stuff in the dozens of Amish craft and tchotchke emporiums that line the strip,

...and eating comfort food,

...all of which we did on this trip, which was in truth pretty much a replay of our past four Amish Country anniversary trips.
I suppose that Amish Country now kind of feels like "our" place. Or maybe we've just become programmed.
In any case, in the late morning of Thursday, February 21,

...we set out from our neighborhood,

...and traveled east of Columbus on US route 62, and were reminded after a few miles that Columbus really is a provincial capital, as very soon outside the city one is in the heart of farm country,

...and small-town Ohio.

Our first stop was in Danville, about an hour outside Columbus,

where we always stop for lunch,

...at a cute little place called The Hangout,

...where the prices are right,

...and they serve the best veggie sub on a warm, soft roll,

....and the hottest, crispiest, tastiest fries. (Note to self: Next time do not order a small order of fries, left. Order half an order or split a small order).

After lunch we drove another forty-five minutes through the scenic countryside,

...until we reached Berlin, in the heart of Ohio Amish Country,

...and the Berlin Resort.

As always, our room was pretty and spotlessly clean,

...as was the whole hotel.
After we settled in we did a once around the place.

The ball-room.

There are several lounge areas around the building,

...and a gift/
snack shop,

...from which one can borrow games.

Among the several work-out and weight rooms,

...this time I discovered a yoga room,

...which I later utilized.

When dinner time rolled around we headed into town,

...to one of the few business establishments that's open after 5 pm,

...the Farmstead Restaurant, which is open until 8 pm,

...and where we partook - make that over-partook - of the copious buffet,

...and I couldn't resist getting my carb on.

After dinner we returned to the Berlin Resort in time for my favorite of the hotel's amenities, the 7 pm nightly movie shown in the hotel theater.

We learned that the Berlin Resort is one of the few hotels in the world with a movie theater inside.

The hotel has a list of movies that the guests can choose from, but it's first come, first serve request-wise. On Thursday night Tom and I were the first guests to put in a request. There were quite a few good movies on the list, but we'd seen them all, so from among the offerings we hadn't seen we chose "The Minority Report" with Tom Cruise. It was watchable.
In any case, as we were the only ones who showed up for the movie we had the theater to ourselves,

To be continued...

...which was cool.

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Dear Jeff Bezos

2/24/2019

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Dear Jeff Bezos,
Mind if I call you Jeff? Lord knows you’re being called a lot worse these days. But then I expect that even you would agree that you may have made some less than admirable choices lately. And not particularly smart choices, either,

...like sexting with your married girlfriend Lauren Sanchez – jeepers, isn’t that what loopy-brained teenagers do?

Aw, well, it's true that love can make you a little loopy-brained. I know. Been there and done that myself. Well, not the sexting, of course.
But who loves you, now, Jeff? Your soon-to-be ex-wife of 25 years who found you out?

Oh well, we all found you out, of course, thanks to the National Enquirer, which published the story and the sex pictures - that is, the ones that weren't too steamy even for for the National Enquirer - that you and your girlfriend exchanged.

     Which also begs the question: If Lauren Sanchez loves and cares for you so much how come she forwarded those intimate love notes and nude pics you sent her to her girlfriends? One or more of whom tattled to the National Enquirer?
     I don't think Lauren's girlfriends must love you all that much, either.
   And then besides your relationship woes and the public reveal of your sexting there's all the hate you're receiving from the citizens of New York City and of other cities as well who consider you a robber baron extortionist for your demands to be courted by them with billions in tribute money before you'll decide which city to choose for your new second Amazon headquarters.

Then to top it all off you've got a hapless sixteen-year-old who's being used by wealthy political operatives to sue your newest acquisition, the Washington Post, for $250 million dollars.

So here you are, Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, but surely not at this moment the happiest. And definitely not the most loved or admired.
But I have an idea for you that could change all that and turn around your life and your legacy.

Actually it was my nephew Randy who came up with the idea,

...during Sunday supper tonight.

His idea was this: That you should build your Amazon 2 headquarters not in whichever city offers you the most money and the least grief, but in Detroit. Imagine it, all the jobs, not only the 25,000 Amazon corporate positions, but all the other jobs: the construction jobs, the maintenance jobs, the security jobs, the service jobs, the restaurants and retail stores that would come to the city, the rise in prices and desirability of housing, all the tax dollars that would pour into the city - of course you wouldn't require a tax abatement for Amazon or any other freebies from Detroit - to replenish the city's meager coffers, money that could revitalize schools, parks, infrastructure and all the city services and potential tourist attractions. An Amazon headquarters would be a renaissance for the city and you would go down in history as the man who saved Detroit.
Think of how loved you would be by the people of Detroit, how respected by everyone else, how admired. Think of how good you would feel. And you'd still be rich.

References:
https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/jeff-bezos-reportedly-embarrassed-after-new-girlfriend-shared-their-private-texts-with-friend/news-story/e6fb3404444db740cf58af7a045bf2e5

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6577797/Jeff-Bezos-gushing-text-messages-TV-anchor-having-affair-with.html

https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/money-and-power/a26251113/jeff-bezos-lauren-sanchez-relationship-timeline/

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