IronKneeLooking for life's little ironies.
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Name: Ed
Birthday: 5/25/1947
Gender: Male


Interests: The current profile picture was taken on my sixty-first birthday on May 25, 2008. That's pretty much what I look like now. You can now leave anonymous comments to this blog. Click the comments button and then click on "anonymous." I look forward to hearing from you.
Expertise: Here's a little CV.--Born: 5/25/47, New Orleans;--B.A. degree: 1969, Spring Hill College;--M.S. degree: 1972, Florida State University;--Married: September 1, 1973;--First child: 6/6/75 (Susan);--Ph.D. degree: 1976, Florida State University;--Second child: 9/27/77 (Catherine);--Florida Teacher of the Year for the Panhandle Region: May 1986;--First book published: 1992;--Retired: May 2003; Bay County Council on Aging "Volunteer of the Year" award for 2004: January 2005.--That's it in a nutshell.
Occupation: Retired
Industry: Education/Research


Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website


Member Since: 8/28/2003
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Sunday, November 15, 2009

Eye-witness to Crime

Like most people, I've seen the odd running of a red light or stop sign, which are "crimes" of a sort, but today I saw the real thing up close and personal.

I discovered, via Beth, some fantastic seafood gumbo that comes pre-packaged and ready to heat up at Publix.  It's a Publix brand item, but it has whole shrimp, crabmeat (including the odd shell), okra, tomatoes, and a wonderful dark roux like real seafood gumbo is supposed to have.  The package says it has "Cajun" spices, but it's really Creole gumbo.  The best Louisiana food, in my opinion, is Creole, not Cajun, but the Creole-Cajun distinction is hard for non-Louisianaians to comprehend in the world of TV chefs who have never set foot in Louisiana.  The gumbo doesn't come with rice, though, and gumbo without rice is like Eggs Benedict without Hollandaise sauce.

A few doors down from Publix is the China Wok.  I went in there today to buy a small carton of their white rice to put in my gumbo.  A boy of maybe fifteen or sixteen went in just before me, and he might have even held the door for me.  I had seen him coming out of a Firehouse Restaurant a few doors down with rolled coins in his hand, and I became suspicious of him immediately.

He got to the counter ahead of me, and he said something to the Chinese man behind the counter that I didn't catch.  I placed my order, and I heard the kid say to the Chinese man that he had rolls of dimes.  I think he said each roll was worth $20, and he had five or six rolls.  The man gave him the bills, and the kid took off sort of running.  I looked out into the parking lot, and he was dancing around. 

I paid for my order (96 cents, but they gave me a nickle in change from my dollar bill, which I put in the tip jar), and left the store.  I was walking to my car when I saw the Chinese man come out in an obviously aggitated state.  The kid had ripped him off.  He had wrapped up pennies and claimed they were dimes.  The Chinese man was pissed off.  I asked him if the boy had given him pennies instead of dimes, and he said yes.  I told the man to call the cops, but, alas, he didn't understand me.

What that kid did was a crime, albeit a low-level one.  I doubt he wanted that money to buy tickets for the Christmas Dance at his school.  If he's doing that at fifteen or sixteen, what is he going to be doing in ten years?

The people who own that Chinese restaurant are obviously immigrants who are working their butts off to succeed in the American Dream.  They recently opened a second restaurant in our neighborhood that I haven't been to yet, and there are usually two, three, or four toddlers and young kids in there when I go in.  They weren't there today, though.  When I've talked to the kids in the past, their English was faultless. 

What I'm seeing in this restaurant is emblematic of the immigrant experience in the United States.  The parents are limping along in English, getting robbed in one of the oldest stings there is, and their kids are playing on laptops while their parents dish out wonderful ethnic food behind the counter.  I assume the parents are documented and legal aliens, but I don't care one bit if they're not.  They're helping this country be itself, and I'm for that.  I just wish they hadn't been victims of crime this afternoon.

Irony?  How often do you see that kind of thing happen?

ED


Saturday, November 14, 2009

BIG Mistake

For the last several years I've helped a priest friend of mine with his weekend homilies.  He's from Poland, and he doesn't think his English is as good as it really is.  Writing English is still problematic for him, so I've helped him out.

On Thursday of this week I checked my Catholic calendar, and I read that this Sunday is the Feast of Christ the King.  When I was in college in Mobile, Alabama, that used to be a big deal that featured a big parade of all the Catholic entities.  I marched in it twice in coat and tie as a Spring Hill student.  I'm sure they gave that up decades ago as too triumphalistic. 

When I talked to my priest friend on Thursady about his homily for this weekend, I told him I had a couple on file from previous years for Christ the King.  I sent both of them to him.  I thought one of them was unusually good.

He called me tonight to say he and I had made a big mistake.  He had read over the homilies and chosen the one I thought he should use.  When he got to the church for evening Mass today, he discovered that the Feast of Christ the King is next week, not this week.  Since he had nothing else prepared, he read the gospel for next week this afternoon.  He said the people who were trying to follow the reading in the book in the pews gave up in frustration. 

This priest has an extraordinary sense of humor, which is why I think we can be such good friends.  At the end of Mass he told the congregation he had a confession to make.  He told them what had happened (he hadn't bothered to double check me on the Feast of Christ the King), but he told them his mistake didn't get them out of coming to Mass next weekend.  Apparently the congregation roared with laughter.  There are definitely worse ways of ending Mass.

ED


Thursday, November 12, 2009

Dinner Party

Beth and I went to a dinner party tonight given by my mother-in-law (age 91 on December 7th) at my daughter's restaurant, and we had a wonderful time.  There were fourteen people in attendance, and the food was to die for.

We started off with drinks and hors d'oeuvres that consisted of the best bite-size crab cakes I've ever eaten and a bite-size round of corn bread topped with grilled smoke sausage and a dallop of apricot chutney.  Next was a Caesar salad.  The entree was beef tenderloin with sauce Bearnaise with fingerling potatoes and fried green tomato.  The dessert was fresh berries with Chantilly cream.  I had a glass of excellent red wine with the meal.  I asked for a go-box for my leftovers, and my daughter filled up a large box with enough meat, potatoes, and rolls to feed us for several meals.

Tonight's occasion was the perfect solution to how to entertain when you live in a retirement center, as my mother-in-law does.  I was more than proud of my daughter, Catherine, and my son-in-law, Mike, for seeing to it that Liza's great-grandmother entertained her friends in style.

ED


Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Electric Disturbance

Last night, in the middle of the night--right?--we had a power outage. It woke me up because a machine Beth uses at night started beeping loud.  It was louder than an alarm clock, and it woke me up.  I woke up and told her to go fix her machine, and she did.  I went back to sleep immediately, and I woke up at 7:30 this morning.  She didn't wake up until 11 o'clock.

ED  


Tuesday, November 10, 2009

The Aftermath of Ida

I'm happy to report there was no aftermath.  The sun was shining when I woke up this morning at about 9:30, but it got cloudy as the day progressed.  I had some minor drizzle as I was delivering Meals on Wheels this morning, but I never got wet.  I just heard on the TV that we had wind gusts of 47 or 48 miles per hour, but I was never aware of that.  Ida was pretty much a non-event for us.

Every time I pass a Catholic church, I say prayers.  At this time of year, I say, "From the terrors of the hurricanes, O Lord, deliver us.  Our Lady of Propt Succor, hasten to help us."  I think this time my prayers were heard.

ED



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