Really, Fire Company?

I am holding a pot holder distributed by a local fire company.  It is printed with the words, "PREVENT FIRES   NEVER WALK AWAY FROM A STOVE WHILE COOKING."  

Friday Night

  We were invited to dinner and a movie in Schaghticoke this evening.  Dave was transported by Uber.  I thought I might drive over later, but I don't like shrimp scampi so I stayed home and ate half of a frozen Pepperidge Farm Coconut Cake instead.

So long ago, yet near in memory

   I was driving today from my house to the outside world.  I hadn't gotten very far when I saw something that tore at my heart.  It was the sight of a woman shoveling snow from her walkway.  Her name is Teresa and I believe she's nearing retirement age from her position as a school administrator.
     One of those clarified moments in time struck me, from the time of my high school years.  We, my sister and I and her best friend Sandy had returned from a rooter's bus trip to an away basketball game.  We had been in our kitchen late at night, talking and maybe drinking cocoa,  my parents already having gone to  bed. Sandy left for home.  Dorothy had probably walked her at least part way home, as that was their usual practice, which sometimes extended into a lengthy series of each then walking the other part way home until the mathematics of it overcame them and they would dissolve into hysterical laughter, even at unseemly late hours.  But this was December and there was snow on the ground and lightly falling.  Dorothy had returned and we were still up.  We were never in any hurry to go upstairs to bed.  Who needed sleep back then.
    In a short time, there was a rapping on the living room window, the one nearest the chair where my mother sat in the evenings.  We looked out and saw Sandy, who was excited and laughing. "I've got a baby sister," she yelled through the window.
    In my mind, I still see us as the girls we were then even though that newborn baby girl is now ending her career after a lifetime of work.  Well, bless my soul, what's wrong with me?
   

OJ Trial for the Common P{eople

    I watch all the award shows, but realize that lately I'm unfamiliar with the movies, because I very seldom go to the theater, and even the television shows, because most of them are on channels we don't get.
     So when I was given the opportunity to share my son's Netflix, I decided to watch  " Making A Murderer."  I started at the beginning and am now up to Episode 9.  It's not usually the genre I prefer, but for some reason, it's must-watch TV.  The courtroom sequences and the interactions between the defense and the prosecution  definitely  parallel those of the OJ trial.  The crimes dealt with are at least as brutal and arguably even more depraved than OJ's.
  However, there is one major difference and that is in the cast of characters, real life as they may be.  Within the OJ scenario, all the people were sleek, well-groomed, fashionably dressed, well-spoken,  beautiful.  In "Murderer" the people are real all right, and not to belittle our neighborhood, remarkably similar in appearance and manner to the folks sitting at the stools of  one of the local bars.
    The main issue in trying to assert the accused Steve Avery's  innocence, in the face of what looks like undeniable guilt, lies in the fact that he may have been framed---by the law enforcement agency no less.  Shades of the glove that didn't fit.  In this case, it's a car key. Even more damning is that Stevie had recently been released from prison after having served 18 years for a crime that he didn't commit, and that the police had not only illegally mishandled protocol and evidence but had falsified items and records as well.
    The people are mostly unattractive, as most of us are minus the trappings that money and fame can provide.  They  are the downtrodden folks, of the type championed by the late Eugene V. Debs, but nonetheless deserving of the same pursuit of justice as the more fortunate. I have wavered in my opinion of his guilt throughout the episodes.  First I thought he was guilty, then not, then probably so, probably not, maybe not, most likely guilty. I'm waiting until the final episode to try to make up my mind.  But now I read that, because of public attention,  there may be another entire series.  If he's guilty, he deserves to burn in hell for eternity, if not, he's still no hero.  I think we will never know for certain.
 

Second Chance

     It was the premiere of "Second Chance," and because it was on after the moribund "American Idol," I watched it, or almost all of it.  The plot is complicated:  a set of mutually dependent twins, he non-verbal except with her and she dying of cancer, are able to bring back to life, through scientific genius, a man whose genetic code will allow the female twin to survive her cancer.
    The person who fit the bill by providing, though unknowingly, the body, was a disgraced ex-sheriff who everyone thought had committed suicide, but who in fact had been murdered after seeing a pair of villains who had broken into his son's office on a nefarious mission.
    I was able to follow the complicated plot, but my mind kept balking at one of the details.  The ex-sheriff, as he was known, had been of necessity brought back to life  so he could sustain life in the cancer-stricken twin.  And this is where my mind stopped accepting the premise.  The murdered man was a time-worn man of 75 who had aged badly.  When he was rejuvenated, he was youthful, strong, and capable.  The thing is, when he encountered his family and other acquaintances, they did not recognize him.  So either he came back in a different physical configuration, or else his family had a very poor memory for past appearances, and hadn't had access to any pictures of what the old man looked like when he was younger.
    And that's what got me thinking.  If I were to magically appear as my 30-year-old self, would anyone in present-day life recognize me?  So far, I've been able to know it's my reflection in the mirror, though pictures are another story, and Face-time images worst of all.  No one even was clued by the old sheriff's voice, though cigarettes and whiskey had made it quite raspy.  Whereas, I've been told that my voice still sounds the same, so I guess if I ever am brought back to life, I won't be able to secretly spy on how my family and friends react to my absence.  That might have been interesting.
   
 

Regis and the Shark

  I guess you've got to go where the work is, but really, Regis, and Joy too, Tai Cheng?  Mr. Cheng's take on Tai Chi is going to allow people in their senior years to play golf, tennis and even water ski.  That's after they've lost those skills because of advanced age, but with some simple home exercises they regain their previous abilities.  And while the program is priced at about $500, it has been reduced to $80, and if you act now, the price is only $60, payable in 3 installments.
    And Michael Strahan is sucking up all the jobs, following in your footsteps, now going to host the summer Pyramid series.  I'll bet you would have been better at it.

Christmas Passed

Scars

This year, I hung our old Advent calendar,

A wooden framed tree with miniature ornaments, 

One for each day.

But it was forgotten and the little gold star

Didn't even get placed atop the tree.

I put it away.

This year, I burned my hand cooking Christmas dinner.

No one to tell and no one to notice.

It will go away.