“It could be better but it’s not terrible.”
Approaching terrible.
This recent observation by my colleague at The Grind, Godsend, about some holes we drilled through wood, could double as a single sentence summary statement about my entire life thus far. There’s always room for improvement, but if I become road kill under the wheels of a beer truck tomorrow, my 28,382,400+ minutes walking this planet have not all been entirely misspent excluding the fear, agony and humiliation I’d surely suffer were I to find myself flattened by a ten ton vehicle. Many of the nearly 16,293,600 minutes that I’ve lived in New York City have been okay, and thankfully, relatively pain-free. This excludes the emotional suffering incurred when my go-to market, Fairway, stopped carrying my all-time favorite summertime confection, chocolate dipped frozen bananas that they sold for two bucks Back In The Day. Oh, how I miss those rock hard bananas that, come to think of it, could also double as instant justice in lieu of a baseball bat. If A Mystical Being were to suddenly pop into my sacred space right now and offered me one of the following three choices:
A Mystical Being: You may resume committing your favorite consensual lewd acts to your heart’s content with Daffodil the Merciless, you may stuff yourself royally with chocolate dipped frozen bananas from Fairway for $3 each (price adjusted for inflation), or you may have your name fast tracked in the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Win $5000 for Life Sweepstakes and Pass On That Haul to Anyone of Your Choosing After You’re Dead, but here’s the fine print: the likelihood that you’ll be the actual winner is nil. What is your choice? Think this through. Choose wisely.
Hit the pause button. Mystical Beings, favorite lewd acts, frozen bananas, inane win-less contests, but back to favorite lewd acts: would I really prefer to lick a piece of frozen fruit on a stick over a willing cruel vixen? These days the sad but true answer is: yes. Where is this going, am I suffering a meltdown? Yes, I am! The mercury over here has been hovering close to 90 at midnight, and feeling closer to 100 during the day, with humid air that is thick and breeze-free. What do I think about this week-long heat wave?
Terrible.
Me: It is terrible and it could be better.
Going in the wrong direction from better.
I take no pleasure living in Hell. My energy is depleted. I now have three strategically placed fans blasting in my sweltering hovel* at all times — coincidentally inspiring me to rename my digs Fan Central Station. I rather like dry heat, but this humidity that engulfs me when I am walking two feet outside, making me leak two pints of perspiration that leave my clothes dripping wet and sticking to me like glue — not the most attractive image when clinging to runaway waist flab — has got to go. I hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. It impacts the order of my thoughts. Fantasizing about frozen fruit my market stopped carrying a decade ago should never, ever take priority in my mind over real or imagined naked fun. This is an outrage!
Meanwhile, I am now salivating over what frozen chocolate dipped blueberries might taste like? I wonder if Trader Joe’s carries anything like that?
*For anyone new to Lame Adventures, my modest abode is in a century old Upper West Side brownstone is not wired for air conditioning. In July and August of every year it is still 1913 in my rent stabilized garret.
Lame Adventures 
So sorry, V. The heat sucks all the life out of you. But 98 seems even more cruel than usual in NYC.
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The heat wave finally broke overnight Saturday into Sunday Cathy. It looks like temperatures will be in the 80s all week and in the 70s at night. Yay!
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I’m so glad! It’s great that you get a break.
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But it’s still kinda humid, so the bad hair days are in full force Cathy, so lately I look like I’ve been wearing a Chia Pet on my head. Not the kind of fashion statement I want to make.
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Oh well, at least it’s a little cooler. Your bad hair experience reminds me of an old “Friends” episode where the group is in Hawaii (maybe for Chandler and Monica’s wedding?) and in every shot of Monica, her hair gets curlier and curlier! In humid climates, my hair gets straighter and straighter. I think that’s one of the reasons I like the drier climate of Colorado. I usually have nice, straight, but thicker hair days.
I will say that my skin likes more humidity – which we are getting this summer with more frequent afternoon thunderstorms. I guess it’s a tossup…
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Now, that you point it out, Cathy, my skin does feel less sand papery and more olive oily at this time of year. As for my hair, it looks very much like a big brown cloud floating on my head when the humidity is sky high. Kids run in the opposite direction when they see me coming.
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It’s probably too hot to wear a bandana, huh?
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Go ahead LA woman, I think I need to read a response to that one.
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Your need’s been fulfilled.
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Dear Mike.. I am very upset over our trade. Ok thanks.. I need to vent a bit.
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Long term this will be okay. Pitching trumps a SS who is hitting better ober 3 months than what he projects based on his career prior to 2013.
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Infield was looking stellar with him. I’m disappointed the dealt him. Peavy? Time will tell
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Glad you two are working this out. Now, please excuse me as I slam my head in a door.
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When I first read this, I mispread bandana as banana. Come to think of it Cathy, I would sooner wear a banana on my head than a bandana.
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Great minds yadda yadda yadda. Especially if the banana were directly from the freezer it certainly would keep one cool.
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As well as serve as a fashion statement.
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Yes, that is a frozen banana on my head and yes, I am happy to see you.
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I thought so… Didn’t mean to insult you, V.
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The suggestion was rather entertaining, Cathy … kinda like a dare to see what would be the response.
Weather update: it was uncharacteristically cool out here today.
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Yaay! That gives your apartment a chance to cool down! (And the suggestion was exactly that – I can’t imagine seeing you in a bandana either).
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I could smell the bait Cathy! It smelled a lot like banana.
My sweat lodge has indeed cool down. It feels great in here tonight.
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Frozen fruit over sex or money?? The heat has fried your brain.
My condolences.
I will happily take this weather over the winter any day.
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You are right!
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I hate both extremes — heat and cold. I think I might have a one-way ticket to Cranky Old Broad-ville, Audra. Scary.
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I’m already there.. I’ll save ya a seat
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How many seats on THAT bus?
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Careful now….
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Hahaha!!!
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How are you sir? Great ending to a shabby game
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Dirt Nap-oli getting it done. But i was calling for Carp to pinch hit in the 8th. Luckily Farrell doesn’t listen to me. Like my kids!
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V, I don’t know how you’re doing this. It has been hotter than two hells and I have a/c. Seriously, it was 98 yesterday with a heat index of 100 plus. What the funkyhouse?? I do like the sound of frozen bananas though. And I love Fairway and Trader Joes. Stay cool, my friend. Just lie naked and let the fan blow — what else ya gonna do? Rain and cooler temps are coming.
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Brig, you sure had that right: it has been hotter than two hells! Even at The Grind where we do have a/c, it was hot in the office. If I could I’d take off my skin, or at least some of my flab.
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V, what do you mean “resume” committing consensual lewd acts? The heat has sapped your strength, your willingness, and your availability? Throw some berries in the freezer on a cookie sheet and hopefully this will cool your brain back to basic necessities again.
My empathies. When it’s hot out it can be nice, feeling like you are wearing a snowsuit in a sauna is unnecessary.
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Tania, I am also in-between partners, and I don’t mean that I’ve sandwiched myself between two willing temptresses (but how I rather like that idea!), so until I find a playmate, I cannot resume committing consensual lewd acts. I’ve also been too hot and too bothered to look. Wearing a snowsuit in a sauna is an excellent analogy, pal!
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Gotcha. (I hope you know that I wasn’t trying to pry into your personal life if you weren’t into sharing). Somehow the idea of prying reminds me of grilled-cheese sandwiches. The hot and sticky mess that gets delicious and gooey between two slabs of bread. Perhaps that’s the cheese’s lewd acting in the making.
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Yum, grilled cheese, Tania … I haven’t eaten that in forever. Soy cheese isn’t the same as a sharp cheddar. Thank you for triggering my A.D.D.
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I’m also lactose-intolerant so don’t eat the real deal. When soy cheese melts, it smells like popcorn, don’t you find?
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I’ve never sniffed melted soy cheese Tania, but I sense you’re an authority on these types of scents. Thanks for the tip. The other day I thought I smelled burnt toast in my building, but now I’m thinking that maybe it was something like a charred soy steak instead?
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Gads … I would absolutely cracked up and pushed over the edge in those conditions, thus it would have been frozen chocolate bananas over money, sex, alcohol, food, and whatever! Nonetheless, hand in there … stay above the fray …. stay safe.
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The heatwave finally broke, Frank. I quaffed a lot of iced tea … and more than a few pints. Overall, I’ve been a blob on feet most of this summer. Real attractive.
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I just don’t know how you live through summers there in the hovel. Is there no way to install a window AC? Do you even have a window? Please tell me you do; don’t tell me that all you have is the peep hole in your door and a crack in the wall. I loathe humidity. We have only a little of it here in Boise. But we’ve got Republicans. I’d say we’re even.
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Here in Texas we have humidity AND Republicans. But we do have AC, so that mitigates it….a little. I’d gladly do without AC every other Wednesday if someone would take Perry and Cruz off our hands.
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Spoken like a true patriot!
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Yes, Jean, I have windows and rather nice ones, but whether it be a window unit or a stand alone a/c, if I installed one it would blow a fuse on my building’s floor. I doubt that the Boise GOP would make me sweat like NYC’s humid air when it feels like it weighs 20 lbs per cubic inch.
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I was thinking about you this week sans a/c. Even my sweat is sweating. Looks like we’ll finally get a break tomorrow.
Signed,
Broiling in Brooklyn
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If even your sweat was sweating, Broiling in Brooklyn, I think mine was stewing me. Glad we finally got that break. I am already dreading the next heat wave and you know it’s coming.
Signed,
Miserable in Manhattan
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It’s hot hot hot here, LA, but not as hot as before. Things nay be getting better…
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That’s nice to know, Tom. Things have gotten better over here, but I suspect, only temporarily better.
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We here in the Windy City finally caught a wee break in the horribleness. Hopefully you’ll get a break soon too.
But, I must admit that I prefer this to what’s coming in about 4 months …
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I’m fantasizing about what’s coming in two months, Jules. I so love that great window in fall, until it slams shut, the days shorten and it’s dark by 4:30 and yeah, it starts to get bitterly cold.
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Yeah, we’ll The Real Feel temperature in nearby Bloomfield NJ home of Holsten’s (Soprano’s final scene) and the great Nevada Diner was a whopping 113 on Friday. I don’t think the mercury got us into triple digits but I guess it was hot. Maybe you should have waited, say about 6 hours in line at MoMA on Saturday to take part in the $25 Rain exhibit.
A shout out to my gal-pal and fellow Sawx rooter from CT, Audra. Yeah, I staid up till the nearly-bitter end last night. My Bride yelled from top of stairs at 12:56 am (this morning) “why haven’t you come to bed and what are you doing?” Had I been watching porn I might have not replied, but without missing a beat (as Mike “Dirt” Nap-oli was rounding 2nd base amidst his walk off blast to CF) I retorted “watching the Sawx just beat the Yankees in 11 innings!” I told her this morning that she should have called down to me earlier, say in the bottom of the 8th, when Nap grounded into an inning ending double play with the bases loaded. Maybe she could have given my beloved Beantown Bomber better luck–earlier. Then maybe I could have gone to bed Sunday night and not 4 and a half hours before I woke up for work today.
Sox have been keeping me up late for weeks. Was in Greece and Croatia for 10 days at end of June into early July and the games didn’t start till about 1:05 in the morning. Then when I get back on the 5th they begin a 3 city Weat Coast tour with games ending around 2 am. Jesus it would be easier if they sucked and I could ignore them. But at 60-40 they are about to eclipse last year’s win total, maybe by next week.
So that’s it from my lame-ass corner of the world. Glad to see you didn’t totally succumb to the heat and you were able to publish a new LA. Did enjoy your Pride Parade reporting whe I was in Europe.
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Writing from train on iPhone. Only noticed a couple of iPhuckups. Pretty good before getting any coffee.
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Thanks for filling in your fellow Lame Adventurers about why you’ve been M.I.A. from the antics around here. Gay Pride without you weighing in on the flesh and the feathers, what is the world coming to?
I did wrangle an invitation to MoMA’s rain exhibit from a friend who is a member, but even members have to wait three hours. No way. I value my time … sometimes, especially when the times flirt with being able to fry an egg off overheated me.
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It’s hard to sleep when it’s hot. Before we had AC, I used saturate a beach towel in cold water, wring it out, and lie on it while surrounded by fans. At least I got a couple of hours of sleep before the towel dried out.
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Thanks for the suggestion, Russell!
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Good to hear from you, V. I was concerned that — wicked witch though the heat and humidity may have you feeling, even though you’re not — that you had melted. Enjoyed this post, because in a sense it’s comforting to see that the heat has affected another mind much as it has mine — like making me too lazy to rewrite these two sentences even though they’re cumbersome to read. Not that your post is cumbersome to read — it’s just the tone that reflects my own. I have been thinking about you in your 1913 garret, for I can barely tolerate the heat here in Delaware. I have A/Cs in three windows, including in my writing studio adjoining my bedroom, but not in my bedroom (have to watch the 1894 electrical wiring in my house); so at night I sleep with the fan turned up high enough to nearly blow me out of bed. It’s hard to breathe, hard to think. I find myself wondering if I’ll ever feel normal again (well, normal for me).
Thanks for cutting through the humidity to add some levity to our long, hot summer days.
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I anticipate being on pretty steady mind melt over here until later in September Samantha. This week temps are less hot.
Please anchor yourself to your bed!
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I’ve anchored myself to the computer chair today (in air conditioned bliss) while launching myself on Goodreads.
The good news, V., is that I added your “Lame Adventures” book to my bookshelf there and wrote a review.
So, I guess if you go there and search for your book, it’ll come up. There was no cover image, but maybe that will appear a a couple days; it takes them a while.
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“in” a couple days, I meant, obviously.
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Awwwwwwwwwwww, Samantha, you’re so kind! I have yet to launch myself on Goodreads. I know I’m a pathetic sloth about marketing my book. You’re practically my publicist. Hey, I just checked out Goodreads. Thanks for the big thumbs up! I will join soon. and you’re right, I need to get the cover on there.
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Launching on Goodreads is a day-long chore, at least it was for me. And when I got done, I saw that the game is that if you pay them 50 cents a click, they’ll spotlight your book. Otherwise, I suppose, good luck in getting your book noticed among the other tens of thousands. But we try. (Goodreads is now owned by Amazon, I learned, after reading almost as many pages of fine print as are in the health care bill.)
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Wow, it’s that intensive? I was hoping I could do this in half an hour while cat sitting at a friend’s place over the weekend. Wish I could get the cats to do this for me.
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It’s like when you upload your first book to Amazon and have to read all the stuff, or scroll through it really fast and check the little box. Plus, the pages I was on or wanted to go back to kept vanishing. Maybe you’ll have better luck.
Believe me, with what I’ve been through this morning (personal stuff), I’d love to have a couple trained cats. Surely there’d be fewer miscommunications, because I believe even cats are better at listening below the fold in the conversation than are many humans.
No doubt you’ll be in A/C this weekend; so that’s a good thing.
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The cats I’m sitting are indeed very clever critters. It’s very possible that when my friend’s at work, they’re on her computer surfing the web. To mess with her mind, they make her think all they do is sleep all day. Nuh uh, not those two! They’re stealth in their shenanigans.
I no longer recall what happened when I uploaded my book on Amazon, I was in such a stupor when I did that, or maybe I just did that stupidly.
Right now, I’m basking in the wonderfully chilly air. I’m going to make up for all the lost sleep I’ve suffered this entire month tonight.
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That’s cats — stealthy shenanigans. The other thing is that they think they look so cool all the time when actually they can look utterly ridiculous — you know, like curled up in the bathroom sink or staring at a blank wall.
Do enjoy the chilly air. I haven’t slept much the past month, so I’m half asleep day and night.
I may not have to promote my books anywhere at all, because today the Indian who owns the liquor store where I buy my wine alluded to setting me up in an arranged marriage so I’d not have to work at all.
O.K. — to me that would be like riding among the sardines on a dark, non-a/c’d subway car.
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Maybe this arranged marriage will be the charm for you. Have you seen the film, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel? That film was too charming for me, but almost everyone I know (except, yay, Milton) loved it. He and I were both kinda gagging. Why he and I are two peas on a plate.
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Mr. and Mrs. Schmaltz of Glen Ridge liked it very much, thank you.
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So did my sister and my close personal friend, Jules over at mccrabass. What is it with straight people? Don’t you guys have standards? The pious Tom Wilkinson character made me want to throw up endlessly.
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Looks like we ran out of rungs on the reply ladder above, so I’ll reply down here: I did like “Marigold Hotel” very much. Maybe that’s because I’m old like them. Also, my arranged marriage, therefore, might be to a Schmaltz cousin. This, though, is scary — unless — he is willing to buy me a cousin of the white 7-series Beemer like the liquor store owner owns — maybe….
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Glad to know that you have a handle on your love-life criteria. I still utterly despise that film, but I know that Milton and I are in the minority here.
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Next time, buy a gallon of ice cream, dig a deep hole in the center and camp out, until the heat passes. I guarantee it will work!
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But I’m so lactose intolerant! Ice cream in the orifices is very risky over here!
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Try to be a more tolerant person.
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My first inclination was to agree wholeheartedly with Mike’s plaint. As I was formulating the question in my head, “what did lactose ever do to you?” I was reminded of the fact that S1 and D1 are both lactose intolerant and I’ve witnessed first hand (nose) what that can mean.
So let me be the first to come out and support your right to be the David Dukes of ice cream haters/segregationists.
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Your point is well said, but I have to wonder how much of lactose intolerance is truly physiological and how much of it is the result of upbringing. Is a person born intolerant or do they acquire it through indoctrination. As a society, we have a long way to go, but I do hope that one day we can have the first lactose president.
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No cheese, no peace.
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A piece for peace.
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Thanks for the advice, Dad.
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I just don’t understand your generation. Back in my day, we were tolerant of everyone, whether they be Irish, Italians or Lactose. But, today? Meh!
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Another sign of the generational divide.
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So, if you’re in a 1913 air condition less apartment, does that make you a bit of living history? Since I’m a mystical being wannabe I’ll choose the lewd acts thank you.
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Am I living history a bit? Hm … If you see how I dress, I could double for walking salvage.
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A cold as f*ck banana belongs in every New Yorker’s freezer, chocolate not included. By the way, as we’re speaking of heat. I’ll share a short story with you about delirium. The other day, I watered the wrong neighbors plants. They were weeds. I should have known they were weeds, but I thought nothing of it, really. It was hot. It took 30 minutes of talking with the ‘wrong’ neighbor before I realized my mistake. Insanity or old fashioned heat-induced delirium. I’ll let you be the judge.
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Sharing a tale like that, Heidi, confirms that you’re a card carrying Lame Adventurer. I loved it! Thanks!
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Yes, indeed…LAME! 🙂
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I’ve heard about the heat wave you’re suffering. Movies, yes movies might help. Yes, see them in the matinees, after work, late shows… that’s where you can enjoy popcorn and air-con in pitch dark coolness.
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During a heat wave last year, Arti, I saw five films in one day at the multiplex. Wearing my middle aged female cloak of invisibility I was able to slip into screening after screening completely undetected.
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As our blog-a-trix notes in her most recent responses, the heat wave in our fair metropolitan area has broken and those of us blessed with A/C have been able to turn them off. Windows open and a lightly humid breeze wafts through the once barricaded window sills.
And that’s great cuz I’m sitting on an eastbound train as it creeps toward Sinatraville (Hoboken, NJ) sans lights or air conditioning. The tone within our 6 car behemoth is morgue like. I can’t imagine if we dealing with the sweltering heat of he past couple of weeks.
Maybe it’s the hour of the day and (more importantly) the fact that it’s a summer Friday but I kind of like the darkness and reasonable temperature–not too warm and not too cool. It’s serenely (not eerily) quiet despite my earlier description of it being morgue like. No eager young businessman fiendishly scarfing croissants with little jam jars and honest to goodness stainless steel cutlery. Again I think it’s a sign that it’s Friday and it’s the middle of the summer.
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It might be civil to sit and ride the quiet car in the dark post-heat wave, but no way would I welcome standing (what I usually do) in the jam packed subway in the dark AND without a/c. I am at that stage in life where I can have a personal temperature surge. At. Any. Time. Without. Warning. Back to riding in the a/c-less dark like a herd of sardines sandwiched together, with one sardine showered in sweat … no, simply, no.
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I gave Phil a Lame update. We frowned. We have around two weeks for things to cool down there….
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I wish you guys were here right now. In recent days, the weather’s been fantastic, but I know this won’t last.
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Kudos to WordPress — it put my Schmaltzy reply in the right place, after all.
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You could probably make your own chocolate covered bananas for a lot less than $3 each. Freeze a banana and then put some of that hard shell chocolate sauce on it that hardens when it touches ice cream. You could even poke sticks into the bananas before freezing if you wanted, popsicle sticks or chopsticks or something. Or just go the easy route and put frozen banana pieces into a blender with chocolate sauce (the regular kind that doesn’t harden) and a bit of frozen yogurt and some milk and make a banana chocolate smoothie.
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All great ideas! But, unfortunately, my crummy freezer barely freezes ice cubes. I never use it and I don’t have a blender. For primitive living me, buying one for three clams is an economical alternative.
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No freezer in a heatwave, that really does suck.
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That comment would or at least the “No freezer in a heatwave” portion would make an excellent name for a band.
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I hope the heatwave has abated.. it makes me want to go lay down on the concrete basement floor just reading about this. Maybe on a stack of frozen bananas.
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That heat wave has not only long since abated, Jen, but in recent weeks, the humidity has been so low, at times it is almost bone dry with a comfortable warm breeze. Clearly a sign that the apocalypse is coming and will be centered in Manhattan — probably for the media coverage.
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The apocalypse is media savvy, who knew?
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Remember, you heard it here first.
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