Buried behind the Village Green and a couple of huge trees, you’ll find these two classic hippie shops. I haven’t been in them in years.
Many years ago, Myrna bought a crystal ball in Modern Mythology, a shop that specializes in “Spiritual Gifts of Light and Love, Fairies, Wizards, Dragons, Fine Jewelry, Tarot Cards, Crystals.” I think that the crystal ball is still up in my attic, probably among those two big boxes of Myrna’s clothing.
Pondicherry, right next door, might as well be an extension of Modern Mythology… and the two stores share a website. Pondicherry specializes in yoga supplies and music. The store is named after the city on the southeast coast of India, home to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
The second floor of this building houses the Village Green Bed & Breakfast, with rooms that overlook the Green. Most visitors to Woodstock want to hide away from people as deep in the forest as possible. I guess for some people, the hubbub of the Green is an attraction.
These collard green plants survived winter in the Catskills! I began cleaning up my garden over the weekend, and found these tough specimens growing new leaves.
Myrna and I established the garden almost 20 years ago. This spring, I decided that it’s time for a general overhaul and upgrade. So, I‘m expanding the garden by about 100 square feet and replacing the fence and posts.
I called a local gold old boy to deliver a truckload of mushroom soil. He turned up several hours later with a dump truck load steaming with horse manure, which he deposited in a huge pile at the front of the garden.
“You’re the guy with the oriental wife,” he said, “aren’t you?”
“My wife passed away almost five years ago,” I answered.
Myrna used a little Mantis rototiller to turn over the garden. I’ve tried to start it… but no luck. So, I’ve been digging up the garden by hand for the past few years. No big deal. Takes me 3 hours to completely turn over 550 square feet. It’s good exercise.
Gardening in Woodstock produces surprising yields… surprising because the season is several weeks shorter up here in the mountains than down in the valleys of New Jersey. The trees have been blooming in Jersey for over two weeks, but they are just coming into bloom in the Catskills.
Now that I’m living full time in the mountains, I can keep a close eye on the garden. I expect a bumper crop of tomatoes: cherry, plum, grape and beefsteak.
When I visited Cebu last year, the Karaoke Queen’s family kept a tight rein on me. They didn’t want me to go anywhere unless Paolo accompanied me. Paolo is a big strapping young man.
The reason? Kidnapping Americans is a thriving business in the Philippines. Cebu is close to Mindinao, the jungle island home of Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim terrorist group linked to Al-Queda. Some of the kidnappings are fundraising efforts for Abu Sayyaf, others are just freelance rackets.
I was reminded of this the other night when I watched the “Locked Up Abroad” series on The National Geographic Channel. An American guy, Greg Williams, down on his luck, had decided to join a missionary group in the Philippines. You should watch the show, because it was fascinating.
What made the show especially fascinating for me was this: Paolo and I took a drive over to the container port one day. I can’t remember why we did that, but I really enjoyed the trip. The port also served as the ferry terminal and as a shipyard for some rusty old merchant vessels.
The sailors looked like pirates. I was enjoying the exoticism of the place and the faint aroma of danger and intrigue. The guys working in the shipyard were obviously tough guys, and they looked me over good. I must have looked like an easy mark to them.
Williams was kidnapped in that very spot.
I tried to laugh off the Queen’s family’s concerns over my safety. I even took a trip to the mall by myself, and promptly got lost in the taxi on the way home. Williams was led into the kidnapper’s trap by… a cab driver!
I don’t have any money… at least by American standards. Try telling that to Abu Sayyaf.
No matter what you want to say, you can find a picture on the subject somewhere on the web. I’m eating shit right now.
You know, I thought I’d never have to do that again. By the way, this poster is rather tasteful compared to some of the other offerings I found via a Google search.
Since Myrna died, I’ve been eating a steady diet of shit. We had it made back when she was still on the scene. Money was no problem, life was good, and work was a breeze. At least, that’s the way I remember it. If I were to really squeeze my brain, I’d probably recall that the normal problems of life also nagged at us. We were living in New York City, and the city is an asshole magnet. We endured plenty of assholes.
Nursing school is a steady diet of shit. Nursing’s a female dominated profession, and that alone provides me with platefuls of feces. I’m learning a whole new set of skills at age 59, and that’s a process that’s full of shit.
I guess that this is all a preamble to telling you that I failed an important test today… the medication administration test. I get another chance in a week or two. Why did I fail it? I’m damned if I know. I certainly studied adequately.
I have some big advantages over my younger classmates. I have years of work experience, discipline and I no longer want to fight it out with authority. But, I’ve got some deficits, too. My brain is not as agile as it used to be. I can’t quite describe why this is so. Short term memories don’t stick the way they used to. That’s a big part of it
Failure stinks. All through life, we struggle with failure. I think that we all hope that, when we reach a certain age, that struggle with failure comes to an end. Unfortunately, I think that only death brings that struggle to an end. I’m not ever certain that death ends that struggle. St. Peter demands an accounting, too. Or, so the Gospels say.
I will say this. Suffering through Myrna’s death was the most colossal episode of shit eating I’ve ever endured. That was like being buried in a huge mound of shit and trying to eat my way out. Nothing will ever again seem quite as shitty. (Well, it’s probably not a good idea to say that. Life has a way of proving me wrong. I take it back, God.)
I’m going to take a ride on the Road King and try to forget about eating shit for an hour or so. Myrna left the Harley to me for this very purpose.
I snapped this picture in north suburban Jersey on Friday night. This inflatable Easter bunny stands about six feet tall.
Inflatable figures for the lawn continue to grow in popularity in the suburbs. Every year, home owners find new holidays that deserve commemoration with a gaudy, kitcshy lawn display.
The Christmas displays spread out across the entire lawn and often have a story line. All the characters associated with the holiday are represented on some lawns. Keeping up with the Joneses pushes these displays to new heights every year.
You can buy these things at Walmart, Costco or Shoprite. People spend a lot of money on their lawn displays. The cost of electricity for the really elaborate displays can be steep.
I’m not knocking it. It’s fun to walk down the street and check out the lawn displays, particularly on Halloween. Well developed graveyards full of ghouls and zombies are common. I particularly like the characters that seem to be crawling out of their graves.
I found this odd, Picasso style painting of the crucifixion of Christ at the site of the Chinese artist named He Qi. I don’t know what to make of the naked woman. Is that Mary Magdalene? Many people think that Magdalene was Jesus’ lover.
Father George read the great gospel story of the Passion Play last week at mass. I’ve heard it so many times. Every time, a new element of the story strikes my imagination.
This time, I was fascinated by the role of St. Peter, the founder of the Catholic Church and the first Pope. What is to be made of Peter’s betrayal of Christ? At the Last Supper, Christ tells Peter: “before the cock crows you will deny me three times.” And, fearful for his life, Peter does just that.
Peter was weak. He was a sinner, just like the rest of us.
The gospels tell us that Jesus died to redeem us from sin. I’m not entirely sure what that means. We are born to original sin, because Adam and Eve rebelled against the will of God. Rebellion against the God the Father is the great sin of humanity. I can certainly identify with that.
Jesus’ death was an act of forgiveness. Through his crucifixion we are forgiven that original sin of rebellion against the Father. Those are the answers from the Catechism.
Was Peter’s betrayal of Jesus a sin? Or was it just ordinary human weakness and cowardice?
I am only struggling to understand. I don’t think that I will know the answers until I go to the next world to be reunited with my father and with Myrna. This part of the great story I now understand... the yearning to be reunited with the people we love. The resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday is the great hope of humanity. Now, I am old enough and weary enough to understand. One day, I will be resurrected and united with my lost love ones. I can only hope this is true.
Big Joe Vaccarino and I are trying to come up with a name for our duo act.
He’s suggested The TOGs (for Two Old Guys). I countered with The Cogs (for Crazy Old Guys).
This morning, I came up with The V-Twins, which I really like. I’m not sure we really need to emphasize our geezer-hood. V-Twin is, of course, the name for the Harley engine.
We’re booking for the summer season, so a name is required. I’ve named quite a few bands in my career. It’s a struggle to find something unique that says something about the identity of the act.
I like The V-Twins. I’m still waiting for Big Joe’s response to that one.
I passed my CNA (Certified Nurses Aide) certification! The test was tougher than I thought it would be.
A nurses aide does the real dirty work in the nursing home and the hospital, lifting patients, cleaning butts, giving bed baths, etc. You couldn’t ask for a tougher job. And the pay is lousy… maybe 12 bucks an hour.
I don’t plan to work as a nurses aide. Passing the certification was a requirement for my LPN course. I really don’t have time to work as a nurses aide. Classes and studying are taking up all my time. And, my job as a multimedia developer for a pharmaceutical company is keeping me going. It allows me to work at home.
The goal remains to become an RN. That goal is still a couple of years away. I’m about a third of the way through the LPN course.
When I was in the Philippines, we shopped every day in Mandue market. The meat we bought in this farmer’s market was far superior to the meat in U.S. supermarkets.
Of course, the means of production in the Philippines is completely different. Feed lots don’t exist in a poor country. All farming is small scale. When we visited the countryside, we saw small farmers cultivating the land with oxen. Even in the city, people kept chickens and pigs in the backyard. It wasn’t uncommon to see a cow tied up to a fence in an urban area.
The meat in Mandue market was, by default, grass fed and hormone and chemical free. Poor, subsistence level farmers can’t afford U.S. factory farming methods. The meat we bought in Mandue was like the meat I ate when I was a kid. It had a much deeper and gamier flavor, and the texture was like… well, real meat… not the creamy stuff you buy in the U.S. The difference was particularly noticeable in the chicken. U.S. chicken has no flavor or texture. Chicken raised in the backyard in Cebu tastes and has the consistence of a real chicken.
So, I decided yesterday to take the Karaoke Queen on an expedition to Fleisher’s in Kingston, a specialty grass fed meat butcher shop. Check out this YouTube video about Fleisher’s:
I bought a sirloin steak and a pound of hamburger at Fleisher’s, just out of curiosity. The Queen was outraged by the prices: $10 a pound for the steak, and $6 a pound for the hamburger. I’m mystified by this, too. In Mandue, the farmer’s market was cheap. In the U.S., old fashioned grass fed beef is a specialty product costing three to four times what beef costs in a supermarket. The butcher tenderized the steak, i.e., he pounded it with a piercing instrument, and he gave me cooking instructions.
I pan seared the steak for 2 minutes on each side and finished it over 10 minutes in a 300 degree oven. I BBQ’d the hamburger over a wood fire.
The meat does possess a bit of that gamy, dense flavor that I found in beef in the Philippines. Fat content was much lower. Perhaps, part of the attraction of the food in Cebu was that a Filipino family cooked for me. For the moment, I have to say that the cost of the meat at Fleisher’s is just too much.
I do understand the dangers posed by meat grown in the U.S. food factories. High fat content poses a direct threat to people inclined toward obesity and diabetes. Ingesting hormones and chemicals certainly contributes to one’s likelihood of falling victim to cancer. I think that it would be better if we returned to the old ways of meat production. What’s wrong with keeping a few chickens in the back yard? Even in the city of Cebu, a family often had one pig in a small sty in the back yard.
For the moment, I’ll stick with Shoprite. I can’t justify spending three to four times what I now spend for meat. But, I’m going to keep looking. Grass fed beef really should be cheaper, not more expensive.
I’m on spring break from nursing school for the next week and a half. Thank God! I’m exhausted. Last weekend I took the CNA exam. It’s been at least two exams a week for the past three months.
My nursing home internship has come to an end. Don’t know if that’s where I want to work. My next internship will be at a hospital. I’m hoping that there’s more action in the hospital.
Working in a female dominated profession… well, that’s a struggle. And, many of my classmates are very young… still in their 20s. It’s not easy to find any common ground with them.
When I complain to the Karaoke Queen that the young people are impossibly silly and spoiled, she answers:
“Don’t you remember what you were like when you were their age?”
Point taken.
The attrition rate has accelerated. My class started with 44 students. We’re down to 23 and counting. After the break, we’ll be taking our medications administration exam, and I expect a few more to drop out as a result of failing that. I’ll struggle with it, too.
The dropouts have almost entirely been the really young kids. They don’t know how to work, they’re spoiled and they are flitting from one school to another.
Spring break won’t just be a vacation. I’ve got exams on the first three days I return. But, at least I can sleep in for a week, get my Harley in shape and stay home.
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