A New Kind of Heat

What can one say when the temperature goes from a mild, comfy 67 to, only one week later, a balmy, humid, your-thighs-are-burning 89 in the shade? I'm referring to the temperature, of course, in midtown Manhattan, not in the seventh circle of Hell...although some might argue there's little, if any difference between the two.

And no, my thighs aren't burning...they're merely toasty and warm.

***

Another cable in the office failed yesterday afternoon connecting my PC to the server -- I think it's a product, incidentally, of the heat as well as the disparity between 69-71 in the office during the day to the high 70's/low 80's it reaches sometime around 9pm after the cheap bastages who run my building have shut down the A/C. Things pop, skip and jump, and unless gremlins are coming in for the night shift, we're going to have to deal with it until September.

So I headed over to CompUSA a few blocks away looking to get a cable or a card-hub to solve the problem. I caught the sight (and, more importantly, the whiff) of a couple of homeless fellows jaunting about town. One was sporting a Hefty-Hefty garbage sack and a pair of blackish Nike hi-tops, the other was simply dashing in a pair of shorts (cullottes, cut-offs, or something akin thereto) and one shoe and not much else. Both were eminently fragrant, and it made my day (or at least my afternoon) when hi-tops turned to cullottes and told him he reeked (he actually said something more akin to "damn you stink like a mofucka"). Takes very little to keep me in laughter.

On top of that, there's little else happening...the new Coldplay disc is out, and I'll actually wind up doing the brick-and-mortar thing and buy it like the rest of the civilians, although it's appeared in a variety of downloadable locations now for about six weeks. I haven't really had a chance to download it, and I have enough respect for them as a band to actually drop the $15 or whatever it costs. I liked "A Rush of Blood To The Head" a lot ("Warning Sign" is, for me, an all-time keeper), and for me to willingly listen to new music takes a lot. So I'll give them a thumbs-up in advance. My other half says the album's getting praise, but she is a big John Denver fan, so what the hell does she know (just kidding...I just like to see if she's really reading; in fact, she hates John Denver with such intensity I think I am going to return the gift I planned on giving her for her birthday, the John Denver Christmas Anthology: Volume III on DVD).

In other news, work is -- as usual -- a juggle-fest and increasingly keeping me on my toes. I'm straddling the busy season of my stuff and that of our other matters and also trying to keep my eyes on the next few months, especially July, when I head out to the other half's place for a week or so. Lots to handle, lots to think about, lots of items on the list, and lots more on the way. But as much as having too much is a pain in the ass, it's great because having so much there means everything is interesting and there's no dull periods. And even better, since the other half is coming to NYC in early July, we're going to enjoy the hell out of the rest of the summer, look for an apartment, spend some time at the beach, maybe hit Maryland for a long weekend, and in general try and get prepared for September, October and November. And thereafter.

We actually talked about heading to Buffalo to visit my grandmother on a road trip, and while it would be fun, I'm not sure if it's going to be feasible. It's actually fun heading up to Buffalo, but there's not much to do beyond a five-mile radius of Buffalo itself. We could go to Rochester, but most of the people we know from Rochester have the personalities (and intelligence) of pet rocks. And we're not going to Syracuse, Ithaca or any of the other "Drink 'Til You Puke" college towns. We've had enough drinking as a hobby, thanQ VeryMooch. Next.

One final (and serious) note: one of my neighbors, a guy who's worked for the City of New York for a number of years, retired a few years ago; he actually never needed to work, but took a City job because he wanted to "give something back." He finally decided to stop working when he turned 50, and his wife, who has MS, has been steadily becoming more affected by the disease. I'm not sure if he stopped working because her condition has worsened or if his reatirement coincided with her decline, but in either case, he mentioned to me the other day that they are setting up an MS-specific charity so I'm going to get the info from him and post it here. I'm not necessarily asking, nor am I suggesting, you contribute; however, it would be great if you just considered contributing. I don't like to push or stump for charities, because people do and contribute in their own way at their own pace, and anything which interrupts or encroaches on that pace can make people uncomfortable. However, his wife happens to be a lovely lady, and he's one of the menschiest, nicest people I know. I saw the sign-up sheet for my building alone -- which has 300 families -- and it was a filled three-pages. I'm not sure if my (or anyone else's) involvement will make a difference, but it certainly can't hurt. So keep that somewhere on the back burner....thanks...

-B-