OK, so we were going to meet up to celebrate The Lovely Bea’s **th birthday at the Boulevard Woodgrill in Clarendon. Bea’s partner in crime, Placid Jamie had arranged the soiree, but her fiancee’s father was diagnosed with an incurable illness earlier in the day, and they were flying to be with him. When Jon-without […]

(Under the new Social Credit System, what Chinese shoppers purchase will help or hurt individual ratings. Customers shop at a supermarket in Shanghai. Photo Reuters). You have heard me rail about the husband of US Ambassador Samantha Powers before. Birds of a feather and all that- both members of the power couple are archetypes of […]

For lunch yesterday, I went over to the Outback that anchors a unique strip mall that is the heart of the neighborhood. It was constructed as part of the 1930s FHA single-family housing development adjacent to the Buckingham Garden apartments. The complex was created by the legendary building Alley Freed, one of the brain-trusters who […]

No, it will not be the last time I write about the Willow Restaurant. In a way, it is always going to be with us. I got to thinking about it while I was ignoring the Presidential debate last night and watching the Cubbies cement their place in history by winning their first postseason series […]

(My wonderful daughter-in-law and I found ourselves in the middle of the Michigan Marching Band for “Hail to the Victors!) I was exhausted from the weekend travel. When I was invited to the Homecoming Tailgate in Ann Arbor, I thought I would have some income-generating work on Friday and Monday, so I was squeezed into […]

(Some politician or another. Photo AP) There is a firestorm in progress downtown. Something about the prospective third most powerful figure in Washington deciding he really wasn’t that interested in pursuing the job, after some interesting and scurrilous information was spread around by means of some salacious edits on the Wikipedia pages of some prominent […]

I was scrolling through the messages this morning, marveling at the fact that as constructive paying labor has diminished, the discretionary time has done the same thing. For goodness sake, it is past noon and I am still in my bunny slippers and wondering if I should shave. Then I realized that if I did […]

(October still life, with Syclone). OK- despite the success in starting all five major motors on Saturday there was one little kink. The new battery for the Syclone didn’t fit. Or rather, it fit well enough to get the 4.2 cubic inch turbocharged V6 to turn over, but only with the battery jammed into the […]

(Three of the five engines successfully resurrected at Refuge Farm this weekend. Not shown is the ’59 Rambler and the ’04 Turf Tiger). Never got to generate a story yesterday, Gentle Readers, though there was certainly enough on which to comment. One of them was really depressing. They took a classmate off the ventilator up […]

I am at the farm to get the place squared away for Hurricanes and a foot of rain this weekend. I think I have enough candles, batteries, lanterns, oil lamps and propane to get through any short-term disaster, and the tragic events in Oregon had me numb, even as the meteorologists were changing the prediction […]