How to Get The Most Out of Your Technology: TED Talk
The First Computer: a 240 Year Old Automaton
An amazing piece on the precursor to a computer. This automaton is two hundred forty years old, the creation of Swiss watchmaker Pierre Jaquet-Droz.
Continue reading →Part 60: Flight and Descent
full speed ahead I feel like I have spent the last eleven months climbing up the highest mountain without the appropriate equipment. Tied to me, was my mother. I was pulling her along day after day hoping to save her. We finally reached the peak. We made it. We arrived. With most of our bags intact. We have begun the descent into the new normalcy; it’s always easier as you go downhill, although you don’t have to pedal hard, you still have to apply the brakes. I am scurrying around for hours each day, shopping, delivering, and now making two … Continue reading →
59: The Scrapped Launch and Rescheduled Blast-Off
Well, my fellow time travelers, it looks like there was some kind of issue and my mother’s plane couldn’t go hyper-spacing through the wild blue yonder. The launch was scrapped. But wait! Because she is a wheelchair passenger, she and her fellow space leapers get first dibs at another flight: a flight leaving just about an hour and a half later with priority seating and to a closer airport, in fact, closer to where she will be living. There is a reason for everything. Later: the flight took off, it was smooth, it landed, everyone involved found one … Continue reading →
This Is New York: Video: Panhandler Party
Pissed consumer: It’s Always Something! The Car Stinks!
Today was a day of chores, as it will be for quite a while. If there is anything less than a hundred cans of cat food in my house, it is not enough (well, OK, I am kidding…almost not enough) and I decided to stock up before my time is claimed by the details of my mother’s move. Off I went to a pet food store and loaded my cart, as usual, with a good assortment of grain-free products. I loaded three huge bags into my car with the help of the store owner and went off to my … Continue reading →
Part 57: Back In The Saddle Again
Howdy, Buckeroos. I returned from a short sojourn where I tried to turn off my head and was partially successful. Toward the end of the week the phone began ringing with questions and issues; there went the final days of vacation but I tried to keep my cool. Before I sort through some of my trip photos (no place new, the annual cultural trek to the Berkshires which I have blogged about endless times before) and begin making sense of it all, I’ll just say this: Mom is leaving Florida next Tuesday. No more rats or lousy food. Except maybe … Continue reading →
A Slice of Life …
The Lower East Side of Manhattan Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village Are Highlighted The following video is a segment of a PBS broadcast about Robert Moses and the post-war re-building of New York City. Mid-way, it features the development in which I grew up, Stuyvesant Town and how it replaced hundreds of tenement buildings and displaced thousands of people. It is interesting to note that the original purpose of the building of Stuyvesant Town was to provide affordable housing to the World War II veterans and their families. At this time the management has changed hands several … Continue reading →
A Wonderful, Nostalgic New York City Video
My friend, K., brought this video to my attention and I sat there for almost a half hour glued to it: I had a bad case of nostalgia. I miss the old simple New York City of my childhood, the young ladies in white gloves and dresses, the young men in suits and ties, the Mamie Eisenhower outfits on mothers. This is one of the kitschiest “tours” of New York City I’ve seen. Of course the young man in the horse drawn carriage on a date was smoking–it seems so passeé. The streets that are now so impossible to … Continue reading →
The Most Incredible Bar Mitzvah Invite I Have Seen
Most amazing and creative My thanks to my dear friend Janet who sent this to me.Thank you!
Continue reading →For Father’s Day …
A little nostalgia for Father’s Day … back to the 50’s, when television dads wore suits and ties, when moms stayed home and cooked and cleaned. When Father Knew Best.
Continue reading →Part 52. Doubt
I hadn’t spoken to my mother or her aide for a few days. I was procrastinating since I had visited the lovely home in Flushing, that I decided, after much deliberation (as I also love the residence for seniors in the Bronx) that it was better all around for her to be situated as close as possible to me. I finally got around to calling last night about 7:30 pm. My mother goes to bed extremely early and I didn’t want to disturb anyone. As for me, it had been a rough, painful rainy day. I had a migraine and … Continue reading →
Song in my Head…
This has been one of the rainiest Springs I can recall. Rain. Cool. Hot, muggy. Rain, cool. Migraine weather. Here’s some relief … or maybe not. Love Billie Holiday, nonetheless.
Continue reading →Part 48: You Say, “Potato,” and I Say “Tomato”
Remember the George and Ira Gershwin song, “Let’s Call the Whole thing Off?” I feel like I should breaking into song every time I speak to a certain home for the aged that has so many departments and possibilities for my mother, they leave me spinning. I am being courted by the assisted living department, the nursing home department, the senior living building. Each one claims to be the best possible place. The senior living building person felt that my mother didn’t need a nursing home. The nursing home person claimed that my mother couldn’t live in the senior building. … Continue reading →
Part 45: Background Music
Since I last spoke to you, my friends, I have been consumed by the usual deluge of details. I spent several days on the phone and computer trying to make sense of possible placements for my mother. I made an appointment for this Wednesday to visit “am affordable assisted living” on Long Island. I have an appointment with an elder attorney on Friday. I made lists and lists of nursing homes in the area. Then I remembered what a friend said last week when I was describing the situation which is that my mother currently resides in an assisted living … Continue reading →
The Audacious Plan to End Hunger With 3D-Printed Food
3-D “printed” food You must see this, it is amazing! Print me up two slices of pizza, please. Click here to read this fascinating article and to see the videos on Mashable.
Continue reading →Watch and Be Awed
In ‘North Country Dreamland,’ Michigan’s Night Sky is Stitched Together from 10,000 Photos Article: http://news.yahoo.com/north-country-dreamland-michigan-photographer-presents-amazing-celestial-222900806.html Thank you, Kate.
Continue reading →Most Unbelievable Video
Here’s a little diversion for you, quite incredible. Who is going to clean all this up? Tuna Melt
Continue reading →Part 33: Saving a Princess
My little Princess Blue This morning we picked up Princess Blue from the vet. She has been languishing in the bottom of a cage for weeks. She has been spayed, inoculated and found to have a cancerous mammary tumor which was removed; in short, she’s been through a lot. She has also been found to be FIV+, the equivalent of HIV, however, cats are able to live with the virus for many years. We drove fifty miles out to the animal sanctuary that one of my cat rescue friends was nice enough to help us get into. Chris Arnault is … Continue reading →