Wings of Waning Winter

Winter is certainly on the wane her in Bastardland. Besides the annual ritual of shoveling snow while wearing gym shorts, the local wildlife is coming out of its winter torpor. One of the most unusual sights of this time of year is seeing insects crawling on the snow. In this vicinity, the stoneflies, specifically the Taeniopterygidae are the first insects to emerge at winter's end. I was able to snap a decent picture of an individual, probably Taeniopteryx nivalis, resting on the end of a pruned branch of one of our onsite apple trees:

From what I've read, stoneflies, which have an aquatic larval stage, are sensitive to pollution. Either the local "flies" have evolved a high tolerance for the waters of the New York metro area, or the onsite body of water is a lot cleaner than I had supposed. I hope it's the latter, just in case I ever trip and fall into the drink.

Recap of Mom's Visit

Mom left my place this morning in order to visit one of my aunts on Long Island. I'd have liked to have joined her, but I had to go to work tonight. She's on the fence about whether she'll return to the City of Y______ on Tuesday or go straight back to Virginia.

Before she left, one of her neighbors, who has never visited New York City, admonished her to "be careful". This amused mom to no end because she is a New York City (specifically a Bronx) girl, and she knows that New York is one of the safest large cities in the U.S., indeed the world. I can imagine how freaked out her neighbor will be when mom mentions that she took a subway ride down from the Bronx to midtown Manhattan. Both she and I can't figure out why so many people have such a distorted view of New York City.

I took mom to work on Friday so she was able to meet three of my two-legged co-workers and Fred and Ginger. She immediately took a liking to all of my co-workers, bipedal and quadrupedal. While onsite, we met two women from Colorado, and I gave them an impromptu tour of the vicinity. One of the women is studying Waldorf pedagogy in New Jersey. I told her that we ran some craft-oriented events which she should check out from a "Waldorf" perspective. I didn't tell her that everything I knew about Waldorf pedagogy can be attributed to the fact that I am a huge Nena fan, but I realize that the lovely Nena Kerner started a Sudbury school, not a Waldorf school. I don't know why I conflated the two... my mind gets kinda fuzzy when I think about Nena Kerner. Whenever I take someone to work when the site is closed, I run into lovely people I take on the unofficial tour- it never fails.

Over the course of her visit, mom and I went out for pizza (the stuff in Virginia is sub-par at best) twice, the first time to a local spot and the second time to the Yonkers location of Pepe's (the cold winter has kept the clam boats from going out, so we had a spinach, mushroom, and gorgonzola pizza rather than one of the famous clam pies). We consumed two bottles of vino, a bottle of Valpolicella and a bottle of Prosecco, and I gave mom the last bottle of homemade limoncello to take home, so I'll have to head up to Connecticut to buy pure grain alcohol, an errand which the abominable weather had kept me from doing these past two months.

On Thursday night, we went out to dinner with some of my long-standing friends, people that she hasn't seen in a long time. She always loved to have her kids' friends over to our house when we lived at home, and being able to hang out with them was a particular treat for everybody.

Mom got to meet a bunch of my neighbors, who all told her that I have a "satisfactory" grade on my neighborly report card. We visited the old neighborhood that mom moved out of seventeen years ago, and dropped in on our old across-the-street neighbor, who was crying tears of joy to see us. We were very close, she and mom had similar values and attitudes. I'm going to have to disagree with Morrissey on this one.

The highlight of the visit was mom attending yesterday's closing exercises for the program for which I volunteer as a coach. She got to see some of the older coaches who she hasn't seen in years, met the newer coaches, and fell in love with the kids in the program.

For me, the important thing was that mom got to see me interact with multiple social circles: friends, neighbors, co-workers, volunteer colleagues, random strangers. One of these days, I'll convince her to start a blog so she can meet the bloggerhood.

Hey, Ma, Watch This!

Today was the last day of this semester of my volunteer coaching gig. My reason for inviting mom up for the week was so she could attend our final day and the luncheon/awards ceremony afterwards. I've been coaching judo in this program for about twenty years. When she was still living in New York, mom would come down for our "closing exercises" every so often. She knows all of the old-time coaches. Two of our soccer coaches, Keith the Brummie and Handsome Johnny C., have been coaching for thirty years. Jerry, the track coach, for longer than that. She has known all of my compatriots in the judo room for years, with the exception of "Big Al", a very nice thirty-something Brazilian guy who has been with us for about seven years. Most of the "newcomers" have been around for ten years or so. I knew mom would be able to work the room, knowing so many people. She took an immediate liking to Big Al, who is one of the most genuinely nice people I know.

I had two classes to teach, a class of eight and nine year old girls and a class of eight and under boys. The girls class was a small one, and the girls are serious about what they do- one particular girl won our "most improved" award, and she's one to watch, a driven girl who has come to love our sport. I suspect she'll end up being best in sport next year, and made sure to tell her parents that we would love to have her come for extra lessons after the regular multi-sport program ends at noon. At the end of the class I told all of the girls that my mom was visiting so they should all line up to throw me for her.

The boys class was, inexplicably, visiting the dojo for the first time all year. We were kinda disconcerted when this group of over twenty boys showed up, having never been exposed to the sport. Sheesh, couldn't they have been sent to the basketball courts? We ran them through some exercises, then had them compete in a sumo tournament, smallest to largest. It was pretty nutty, but the kids broke a sweat and had some fun competing.

When the last kids left, we had some free time, so I went three rounds of randori with Gentle Jimmy G. Jim joked, "I feel bad about beating you up in front of your mom." I replied, "It's okay, she watched all of the eight year-olds beat me up." Mom would rather see me engaging in hand-to-hand combat with a bunch of big tough guys than to see me sitting on my ass in a recliner channel surfing any day.

After the classes, we had a nice luncheon, and various awards were given to the best and most improved boys and girls in each age group, and additional awards are given for sportsmanship and spirit. The award to the best counselor of the year, named after a boy who was taken from us by a runaway infection at the age of sixteen twelve years ago (the last time I saw him alive, he was smoking in front of his younger cousin, and I ripped him a new one, telling him, "Quit now while you still can, but if I ever see you smoking in front of her again, I'll rip your head off", so every time his aunt sees me, she cries, because she is reminded of him), was awarded by his cousin to a counselor who was "brevetted" to basketball coach, and has had a successful go at it. We had a nice meal, and mom got to chit-chat with all of the nice guys who beat the snot out of her son. For a bunch of guys who fight like hell, we sure get along well.

After the luncheon, Gentle Jimmy G. offered my mom and I a ride back to the Bronx, where I had parked my car. Al's apartment is not far from Jim's usual parking garage, so we all walked together. My mom and Al were having a conversation about my nephews' judo exploits and Jimmy joked, "Al's getting kinda close to your mom." I quipped, "He'd make a great stepfather." We started joking about my mom and Al getting hitched, and I called Al "my new dad". My mother and Al were both beet red, and my mom said, "I don't want to steal him from some charming young lady." Don't sell yourself short, mom!

It was a fun day. Mom got to see some old friends and got to meet some new ones. She got to see some of our counselors that she had last seen as little kids, and got to see her boy getting thrown around by some lovely kids. When we got back to my place, I made her promise that she wouldn't take so long to make her return. We resume our classes in October, I hope she can make it to our December end of semester party.

We Continue the Runup to St Patrick's Day: Bad Boy Doing Good

This post is dedicated to zombie rotten mcdonald, who would bleed music rather than blood if you cut him. He was the one who got me hip to a cover version of Screaming Jay Hawkins I Put a Spell on You that Shane MacGowan and a bunch of his friends put out to benefit the victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. I think you'll recognize some of the good people accompanying Shane:





Also in 2010, Shane performed an inimitable cover version of Neil Diamond's ode to cheap wine. The willowy blonde bassist is Cait O'Riordan, former bassist and occasional singer of the Pogues, who left the band to marry some dude named Declan:






Shane is still doing his thing, despite his long career of self-immolation. Every time I ponder Shane, my mind boggles that he has managed to outlive Kirsty and Phil. Given his predilection for alcohol and illicit pharmaceuticals, he'll probably outlast us all, embalmed for posterity. "The Bomb" could drop, as the video Roy embedded fearmongers, and Shane and Keith Richards would wander the smoldering ruins, fighting the rats and cockroaches for stockpiled opiates.

I don't know if that's a comforting thought or not.

Mother's in the Motherland

Around Christmastime, while visiting my mom in Virginia, I suggested that she come up to New York in March for the closing exercises and award luncheon at the end of this semester of my volunteer gig. Mom used to come to this event when she still lived in New York- she's on a friendly basis with the guys with whom I fight.

I spent the last couple of days furiously cleaning the apartment. Mom's not the type to be offended by a pile of empties, though... as soon as she arrived, she asked me if I had a cold beer. Did I mention how much I love my mother? Needless to say, I had a cold beer for her. What I didn't have for her was a spare key, so the two of us had to go to the local hardware store so I could have a couple of spares cut. As luck would have it, we ran into a bunch of neighbors, including a woman who is in the process of moving into the apartment upstairs from mine. I get along with everybody, so I got the neighborly equivalent of a good report card. On the main commercial drag, there were plenty of retirees hanging out on the benches that grace the sidewalks in front of certain stores. It was a matter of scant minutes to get two keys cut, and we walked to the bakery to grab a snack. A high school friend of mine owns the bakery, so I figured mom would want to see him. He was out drumming up support for the upcoming St Patrick's Day parade, the local parade now being the official city parade. The son is a carbon copy of my friend- he looks like his dad and he has a similar personality. Needless to say, mom took an instant liking to him, talking to him as if she'd known him as long as she's known his father.

Our next stop was the butcher shop a couple of doors down, so we could pick up something more proteinaceous... we settled on a couple of Scotch eggs. We chatted with the proprietor and his sons about the Cadbury ban- they have enough chocolate stockpiled for Easter, but if Hershey lowers the boom, kiss those imported chocolates goodbye for Christmas. We also chatted with the gent in line ahead of us, whose daughter now lives in Virginia, about a hundred miles away from where mom hangs her hat. He opined that he couldn't see himself living away from New York, and I vigorously nodded assent. Mom commented on how she missed the New York culture, that neighborhood feel with mom-and-pop stores and retirees hanging out on benches in front of their apartment buildings.

Mom is a Bronx native- you can take the girl out of the Bronx, but you can't take the Bronx out of the girl!

Short Shoveling

It's warmed up considerably this week, so I decided to put on a pair of gym shorts and go out to break up some of the larger piles of snow that have accumulated on the local streets. By breaking up the piles and exposing more of the pavement, I'm decreasing the albedo effect, creating better conditions for further melting. I've had enough of cruising around the neighborhood at 4:30AM looking for a parking spot, or parking on the street by the local school and getting up after two and a half hours of sleep in order to move the car before the 8AM no parking hours.

I typically use a coal shovel for this work (I keep one in the car throughout the winter, you never know when you're going to have to hit someone with a shovel), it is better at chopping ice than a snow shovel. Besides, I don't have anything to prove, so I prefer a "less weight, more reps" approach to shoveling. I also have a snow shovel handy so I can slide the piles of snow around the pavement to speed up melting.

Like I did in yesterday's post, I'm going to crib another of Thunder's categories, specifically "My Left Foot", which I suspect he cribbed from Christy Brown:

In the background, you can see my trusty coal shovel, used as an improvised hanger for my trusty plaid shirt, which I took off because it was warm enough to do without. In the course of my shoveling I cleared out two parking spots, which is important because my mom is coming up to visit for a week or so!!!!!

VaCATion's Over

I got to work tonight and saw this note on my desk:

It's a beastly night, rainy and above freezing, so the entire grounds are a mucky mire. The cats aren't going to go "on the scout" with me on a night like this. Here's Ginger, looking like she's got a serious case of ennui:

Here's Fred... if you squint, you can make out a certain Bastard in the background:

Looks like there's a friendly orb in the picture, welcoming Fred back to the site. I think I'd better call Thunder, he's the resident expert of orb phenomena.