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Boz and Zini keep getting bigger and are working their way into the daily routines. They still have only two basic speeds- Sleepy and Blammo. You can tell the latter by the pitter-crasher of little feet around the house, the cute little meows as they fight with each other, and the lack of any real noise when they interact with the three older ones of both species. Zoey is becoming more of a surrogate mommy to them, they think the dog is just a piece of furniture that moves, and Evil Cat continues to ignore them.
Then there's the other mode. In the sunshine-
- Zini hogging the Bed Formerly Known as Dog's-
- and, now their icon, the Two Bruddas:)
Note the homemade bed behind the cushion that Eleanor lovingly made for them by hand. They DO use it, but they're more likely to cuddle away from it. If it had come in a box, they'd be snuggling in THAT.
The other recent arrival was this, my birthday present from the kids which seemed, well, logical:
(I must have a real reputation as a caffeine fiend; my sister got me a Dunkies gift card, and most of my office gifts the past few years have been mugs.)
----
I'll skip over things from the present, because toward the end of last week I was sent back in time to a place that just came a-tumblin' down:
If you didn't grow up where I did, you probably would have no clue why hundreds of people in my former home town have been wibbling about the teardown of a long-abandoned Home Depot store. That's because of the history of the building you see there before it was retrofitted into More Saving More Doing mode about 30 years ago- for the three decades before that it was a new, strange but special place to so many of us. Starting, apparently, a few years before I was born, per this article from an unnamed periodical from 1955:
I don't remember the playground- or this, which apparently dates to the late 60s:
I've got my worries about that rabbit, who's giving off all the signs of a Level 3 sex offender;)
My memories began a bit later than these, but the history goes back way further- to the turn of the previous century in Lower Manhattan and to a merchant named Morris Modell. Remotely related to the Art of that family now hated in Cleveland for moving the Browns, Bill took his father Morris's sporting goods business and expanded it into a whole Shopper's World of low-priced merch. East Meadow was the first New York location, and it eventually sprouted a supermarket (famed for its pioneering drive-up service using miniature train cars), and an entire plaza preserved in celluloid in the chase scene of the early Redford Film "The Hot Rock." (You can see the supermarket just past the one-minute mark of the trailer.)
It acquired other small chain stores through the 70s, merged with a chain that briefly rebranded it, fittingly for Long Island suburbs, as White-Modell's, but the empire effectively ended in the late 80s when the East Meadow store was among those leased to become the newly-arrived Home Depot chain- except, at least in ours, for a small corner that reverted to the original Sporting Goods identity until that chain's downfall this year.
Like so.
The Modell's of my youth wasn't Lord OR Taylor, much less both of them. Most of the store was leased departments to smaller operators who paid rent based in part on their sales- hence, Jackie the switchboard operator would page everyone to "please phone in your gross readings" before the 10:00 closing time. I learned to run that switchboard- old fashioned cloth-wire ties on a Lily Tomlin pegboard, with direct lines to the then five other stores from Lake Success to Patchogue.
Because, yes, in my final semester of high school through that pre-college summer, I worked there- as did friends and not-so-friends of every clique in town. Jocks and stoners, cheerleaders and nerds- we learned, we laughed, we made personalities out of "Crazy Norman" the snack bar operator and Ray Greene the supervisor of the "Surprise Corner"- one of the few departments run by the store itself where the surprises mainly consisted of whatever might have fallen off a truck off the Van Wyck Expressway that week. (British-American bottled sodas, anyone?)
There was even a song wot I wrote, riffing on a still-popular Mickey D's ad campaign of the time. (Yes, that's Potsie from Happy Days and the father from Good Times, who must have been between temporary layoffs;) All I can remember is the last verse-
♫And every evening at ten,
Headaches from Lumber again,
Tell me what does it mean?
To work this job is insane!♫
As we would later say about Shea Stadium in its dying years, it was a dump, but it was OUR dump. And now, like Shea Stadium, it's a parking lot.
Less sentimental, in the teardown department, is the beginning this weekend of the end of toll booths on the entire length of the Thruway. Downstate bridges, and those on and off Grand Island near here, went to cashless tolling previously, but the overhead gantries have been going up over the past several months and this weekend was the turning of the switch. The tolls themselves aren't going anywhere- EZ-Pass will automatically deduct them and non-transponderers will get higher bills in the mail- but it will end the horrid summer backups at the End of the Line barrier that sits walking distance away from home.
----
Then there's the stuff that's Still The Same. (Insert Bob Seger joke here.)
The real estate people in my office have been incredibly busy the past few weeks as properties continue flying off the market here and the refi business booms as well. We've yet to see the big uptick in bankruptcies, but work's been steady, and with the expected rise in COVID restrictions, it's just a matter of time.
Last Thursday, I had my first in-person argument of a motion in over seven months. Then the next day, the Chief Judge of the State of New York sent a memo out. After me going that long with no in-person court appearances except a handful of small claims, all court hearings are back to virtual only. No new jurors, grand or petit, will be seated, and more restrictions are expected to follow. Thanks, COVIDiots!
We spent our usual Sunday morning, masked of course, in one of our favorite parks:
Lake Walton, they call it, which may be overstating it a bit. Not that the ducks care:
Ursula, close to ten years older than ours, was having a slow go of it, so we kept it to one trip round the big puddle, with a brief detour for her to check out some (seen but unphotographed) baby deer:
And somebody brought flowers! With a side order of nuts, which always seems fitting for her (and me;)-
----
The wind almost blew the roof off the place last night, and the Bills lost on a last-second Immaculate Reception, but a new week is here, and one way or another, we will give thanks next week, even if by ourselves.
Then there's the other mode. In the sunshine-
- Zini hogging the Bed Formerly Known as Dog's-
- and, now their icon, the Two Bruddas:)
Note the homemade bed behind the cushion that Eleanor lovingly made for them by hand. They DO use it, but they're more likely to cuddle away from it. If it had come in a box, they'd be snuggling in THAT.
The other recent arrival was this, my birthday present from the kids which seemed, well, logical:
(I must have a real reputation as a caffeine fiend; my sister got me a Dunkies gift card, and most of my office gifts the past few years have been mugs.)
----
I'll skip over things from the present, because toward the end of last week I was sent back in time to a place that just came a-tumblin' down:
If you didn't grow up where I did, you probably would have no clue why hundreds of people in my former home town have been wibbling about the teardown of a long-abandoned Home Depot store. That's because of the history of the building you see there before it was retrofitted into More Saving More Doing mode about 30 years ago- for the three decades before that it was a new, strange but special place to so many of us. Starting, apparently, a few years before I was born, per this article from an unnamed periodical from 1955:
I don't remember the playground- or this, which apparently dates to the late 60s:
I've got my worries about that rabbit, who's giving off all the signs of a Level 3 sex offender;)
My memories began a bit later than these, but the history goes back way further- to the turn of the previous century in Lower Manhattan and to a merchant named Morris Modell. Remotely related to the Art of that family now hated in Cleveland for moving the Browns, Bill took his father Morris's sporting goods business and expanded it into a whole Shopper's World of low-priced merch. East Meadow was the first New York location, and it eventually sprouted a supermarket (famed for its pioneering drive-up service using miniature train cars), and an entire plaza preserved in celluloid in the chase scene of the early Redford Film "The Hot Rock." (You can see the supermarket just past the one-minute mark of the trailer.)
It acquired other small chain stores through the 70s, merged with a chain that briefly rebranded it, fittingly for Long Island suburbs, as White-Modell's, but the empire effectively ended in the late 80s when the East Meadow store was among those leased to become the newly-arrived Home Depot chain- except, at least in ours, for a small corner that reverted to the original Sporting Goods identity until that chain's downfall this year.
Like so.
The Modell's of my youth wasn't Lord OR Taylor, much less both of them. Most of the store was leased departments to smaller operators who paid rent based in part on their sales- hence, Jackie the switchboard operator would page everyone to "please phone in your gross readings" before the 10:00 closing time. I learned to run that switchboard- old fashioned cloth-wire ties on a Lily Tomlin pegboard, with direct lines to the then five other stores from Lake Success to Patchogue.
Because, yes, in my final semester of high school through that pre-college summer, I worked there- as did friends and not-so-friends of every clique in town. Jocks and stoners, cheerleaders and nerds- we learned, we laughed, we made personalities out of "Crazy Norman" the snack bar operator and Ray Greene the supervisor of the "Surprise Corner"- one of the few departments run by the store itself where the surprises mainly consisted of whatever might have fallen off a truck off the Van Wyck Expressway that week. (British-American bottled sodas, anyone?)
There was even a song wot I wrote, riffing on a still-popular Mickey D's ad campaign of the time. (Yes, that's Potsie from Happy Days and the father from Good Times, who must have been between temporary layoffs;) All I can remember is the last verse-
♫And every evening at ten,
Headaches from Lumber again,
Tell me what does it mean?
To work this job is insane!♫
As we would later say about Shea Stadium in its dying years, it was a dump, but it was OUR dump. And now, like Shea Stadium, it's a parking lot.
Less sentimental, in the teardown department, is the beginning this weekend of the end of toll booths on the entire length of the Thruway. Downstate bridges, and those on and off Grand Island near here, went to cashless tolling previously, but the overhead gantries have been going up over the past several months and this weekend was the turning of the switch. The tolls themselves aren't going anywhere- EZ-Pass will automatically deduct them and non-transponderers will get higher bills in the mail- but it will end the horrid summer backups at the End of the Line barrier that sits walking distance away from home.
----
Then there's the stuff that's Still The Same. (Insert Bob Seger joke here.)
The real estate people in my office have been incredibly busy the past few weeks as properties continue flying off the market here and the refi business booms as well. We've yet to see the big uptick in bankruptcies, but work's been steady, and with the expected rise in COVID restrictions, it's just a matter of time.
Last Thursday, I had my first in-person argument of a motion in over seven months. Then the next day, the Chief Judge of the State of New York sent a memo out. After me going that long with no in-person court appearances except a handful of small claims, all court hearings are back to virtual only. No new jurors, grand or petit, will be seated, and more restrictions are expected to follow. Thanks, COVIDiots!
We spent our usual Sunday morning, masked of course, in one of our favorite parks:
Lake Walton, they call it, which may be overstating it a bit. Not that the ducks care:
Ursula, close to ten years older than ours, was having a slow go of it, so we kept it to one trip round the big puddle, with a brief detour for her to check out some (seen but unphotographed) baby deer:
And somebody brought flowers! With a side order of nuts, which always seems fitting for her (and me;)-
----
The wind almost blew the roof off the place last night, and the Bills lost on a last-second Immaculate Reception, but a new week is here, and one way or another, we will give thanks next week, even if by ourselves.