By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Nov 27, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET Winston is a several month old Ocherese weighing all of 2 1/2 pounds but with lots of confidence and spunk–and an annoying habit of making a 6:30am donation in my home office beside my work chair.
Me: (Le…aving for work.) “Hey Sweetie. Good morning.”
Winston (tail wagging and prancing outside my home office): “Check it out. I did it again.” (With evil puppy grin)
Me: “Come on, man. That’s not cool.”
Winston: “What?”;Laughing in mischievous way to self “Oh, yeah. That. Sorry. You gonna pet me?”
 Me: “What if I did this to you every morning in your little pin? It would get old and you’d eventually stop licking me so much, right?”
Winston: “John, C’mon…I am a puppy. What do you expect?” Adding, “Pet me. Or I’ll do it again when you’re gone.” (Laughs mischeviously to self again and barks)
Me: “Whatever” as I reach down to pet Winston goodbye.
By Jeff Smith, on Wed Nov 27, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET  Q. I work for a New York state assemblyman who has consistent turnover of attractive female staffers in the office. I recently heard that one reason behind the turnover is that he has slept with more than one of them. At least he’s not married, I guess. Even though it’s not exactly ideal, do you think it is problematic enough that I should leave, or does it sort of come with the territory in politics?
—No name or initials, obviously, New York City
Is this kind of thing more pervasive in politics than elsewhere? Perhaps; as Kissinger said, “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” But that doesn’t make it right. If he’s slept with multiple members of his staff who have then quit or been fired, then yes, this is problematic enough for you to leave.
Do people in supervisory positions occasionally fall in love with subordinates? Sure, and yes, it can be complicated. But if it’s happened multiple times and caused “consistent” turnover (your words), then it’s not a fairy tale connection between principal and aide. It’s a pattern, and one with which you should avoid any association, because politicians (or bosses in any field) whose offices have patterns remotely like this don’t typically have bright futures (see: Filner, Bob).
Q. I work in a charter school in New York City and believe in the mutually beneficial relationship between a public school and its community, though in the charter world that’s hard: We are often treated as outsiders and insurgents. Relatedly, I am very concerned with what happened in the mayoral campaign around charter schools. Eva Moskowitz of Success Academy, with a few other schools, held a rally and march across the Brooklyn Bridge. It was obvious from the media coverage and the way it was discussed internally that the intent was to warn one of the mayoral candidates that opposition to charter schools would be dangerous. My concern, shared by many of my colleagues, is whether such a protest is unethical—or even worse. The organizers seem to have made a point to keep the rally from [using] obvious campaign rhetoric, but it seems that a rally about an issue that has been a source of debate in the campaign, held during a general election period, is inescapably political in the way that bars public schools from participating. The twist, perhaps, is that charter employees are not government employees, unlike district schools’ staff. Our schools’ budgets rely on public funds, yet the workforce is made up of private individuals. The call to action was done during work time; thus, while we were being paid with public dollars, flyers sent home to parents were printed on a copier paid for with tax dollars. I’m curious what you think about both the legality and the ethics of such an action.
—Concerned, New York CityThe narrow legal question is whether the protest organizers acted inappropriately. By using taxpayer resources to engage in political activity during work hours, the answer appears to be yes. (I am not a lawyer, and—for the uninitiated—I violated election law myself a decade ago.)
The broader question relates to this assertion: “[A] rally about an issue that has been a source of debate in the campaign, held during a general election period, is inescapably political in the way that bars public schools from participating.”
I completely disagree. Even if charter school employees were government employees, lots of public employees have interests that are “inescapably political” around which they organize during election season. Have you ever heard of AFGE (a union of federal government workers) or AFSCME (state and local government employees)? Their members don’t take vacations from political organizing because it’s election season. Quite to the contrary, election season finds them at their most active; elections focus the attention of voters, journalists and candidates, so timely activism is savvy. No one—unless their job specifically requires them to refrain from partisan political activity—should be precluded from participating in political activity during election time or any other time. And charter schools in particular—whose very existence hinges upon state law and local regulation—may find employee (and family) mobilization critical to their survival.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Nov 26, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET Is the stop light becoming the abacus of transportation technology?
Maybe I am just restless and hate waiting.
Maybe I am a complete fool when it comes to technology and logistics.
Maybe I have no right or qualifications to comment on topics, like traffic control, that I know nothing about.
Well, there’s the thing. Even if all those things are true they haven’t stopped me before.
So here goes. I was sitting at several stop lights today for very long periods of time. Several minutes which is a long time in stop light time. And there was no other traffic because it was very early. This happens to me most days and got me thinking that I probably spend about an hour a week sitting at stop lights when there is no reason to —if we had the proper smart technology. For some people sitting at stop lights unnecessarily for 50 hours a years is a huge loss in production and an inefficient use of their time. (In my case, it is probably a good protective measure and prevents me from screwing things up, but that isn’t true for everyone).
Which got me thinking about the abacus as I stared (leered, really, at the stop light). For centuries, even millennia, the abacus was considered an advanced and ingenious discovery for making mathematical calculations. And is still used today in many countries that haven’t moved over to hand calculators. (Which are actually much superior in terms of speed and efficiency).
At the time the abacus was invented, it was a breakthrough technology right up there with fire and the wheel…..but that doesn’t mean we should never try to improve on the abacus.
Hence hand calculators. So, is there a “hand calculator” like advancement on the horizon for smarter stop lights? Or is this truly the best we can do? I don’t know.
I would just hate to find out that every time I was sitting for several minutes unnecessarily at a stop light with no cars in sight it was because someone somewhere was operating the stop light from an abacus-like system. That when it was invented was an utterly brilliant breakthrough but over time could have been improved on.
By Artur Davis, on Mon Nov 25, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET If you are an American over sixty, you remember when you learned that John F. Kennedy had died. If you are one of my contemporaries—too young to have experienced Kennedy, too old to be a cynic about his aura—you may recall a different snapshot, of the moment you thought Jack Kennedy had been reborn in the form of some youthful contender who could turn an inspirational phrase and stab a finger in the air.
Your moment might seem absurd now: Gary Hart in the glow of winning New Hampshire in 1984. Or bittersweet—the November night in 1992 when Bill Clinton retired the WWII generation. Yours might be agonizingly recent – Barack Obama on a dream-lit stage in Grant Park in 2008. It’s been the longest quest in modern politics, the effort to recreate an ideal of power that was extinguished exactly 50 years ago, and it has never ended well.
Pretenders like Hart imitated the style without Kennedy’s strength of purpose. Clinton, Kennedy’s equal as a tactician, never matched his capacity to lift the country’s moral tone. As for Obama, he has gone steadily backward in terms of his hold on the public’s imagination. Kennedy did the opposite, expanding a one vote per precinct squeaker into the last presidency that never dropped below fifty percent approval.
The consistent take on Kennedy, which Chris Matthews argues in his 2011 book “Elusive Hero” and Thurston Clarke reprises in his recent effort, “JFK’s Last Hundred Days”, is that the late president’s genius was his disdain for conventional wisdom, whether it was about the grip of the decaying boss structure in his party, the permanence of the Cold War, or the rigidity of social barriers like racism. True, as is their assessment that JFK never stopped growing and adjusting to circumstances: he reversed his worst blunder, the Bay of Pigs, with his mastery during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and one doesn’t have to share Clarke’s cherry picked rendition of Kennedy’s last few months to appreciate that the leader who died in Dallas was wiser and more substantial than the image-meister who barely left a footprint in the Senate.
 But Kennedy’s strategic deftness in avoiding war with a country that no longer exists surely is not what resonates with this post-nuclear generation: nor is the hedging on civil rights and Vietnam that kept his popularity intact the quality that frames him as an exemplar of presidential vision. To account for why he still outranks all of his presidential peers in public esteem, to find why a presidency whose early days exist only in black and white newsreel still resonates, requires understanding two other elements of Camelot.
First, Kennedy is the last president who consistently challenged rather than promised. JFK’s successors have outdone themselves in bidding to give us more of what we want – the liberal ones offering more entitlement, the conservatives offering to return more tax dollars to us, or to restrain your tax dollars from being squandered on “them”. Kennedy read the country’s mood as less self-absorbed than that, and America rewarded him.
And then there is the fact that Kennedy managed to invigorate his supporters without ever really pitting Americans against each other. The rhetoric of politics has been set on a different course ever since: modern liberals describe a country weighted down by privileged interests that have stacked the deck; modern conservatives paint a picture of a society under siege from permissive forces who are burdening success and undermining our values. You can search Kennedy’s speeches in fine detail, and the trait that is missing is a demonization of his domestic antagonists.
He must have been tempted: dogs were being marshaled against children in Birmingham, southern governors were re-litigating the Civil War, and can anyone dispute that the Republicans of his day genuinely were Neanderthals on poverty and health care? That Kennedy resisted the urge to define American politics as a clash of light versus darkness yielded a practical dividend for him – no president since has enjoyed consistently high approval ratings from his rival party – but it was also borne out of the skepticism the old war hero had for blood-feud ideology.
The ironic side of Kennedy no doubt admired Shakespeare’s passage about the Welshman who brags that he can “call spirits from the vasty deep,” and the rejoinder that “So can I, so can any man. But will they come when you do call them?” More than a few charismatic politicians have issued their share of high-flown calls. The last one we have answered, and kept answering, is John Kennedy.
A version of this essay was published in Politico in November, 2011.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Nov 25, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET Please!! Seriously! Would someone just contact this poor guy from Malaysia and take the $10M he has been trying to give away for the last decade —so he’ll quit filling up my (and others) email inbox and Facebook message box?
Here’s the latest from him. (see below) He’s been pursuing me under various identities for years. Sure, I’d love the money but it seems like such a hassle and then there are the tax consequences and having a new lifelong friend (named Godfrey Lau??). What would that entail? I am not ready to make that kind of commitment but am sure someone younger and more adventurous would. So, please, have at it. And help this poor Mr Lau out so he’ll leave the rest of us alone.
“My name is Mr. Godfrey Lau, an external auditor working with MayBank Malaysia. I have taken pains to find your contact through personal endeavors because a late investor who bears the same last name with you has left funds totaling a little over ( $10 Million ) with Our Bank for the past Eight years and no next of kin has come forward all these years. To affirm your willingness and cooperation to my proposal, I will like you to get back to me as soon as possible and treat with absolute confidentiality and sincerity.”
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Ok. I don’t know what to think about this!!
In my post above I asked for someone to please, please help the poor guy from Malaysia who has been working feverishly for years to give someone in the US $10M for a little help on a minor matter.
I finally got someone to offer to do the job.
But her response seems suspicious to me:
“Hi,you got a nice looking profile picture that interest me to write… you for a mutual benefit,I must confess you look very attractive.I hope we can be friends?my email is(tfr19799@gmail.com)Regards,Tracey Fujikawa”
Heck, I can’t even be for sure she is responding to my request to help out this Malaysian feller. They both seem crazy as loons, though, if you ask me— and like they deserve each other.
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Bad habits are like spam emails.
We sign up for them (both spam emails and bad habits) motivated by a belief we are getting some reward without paying the usual price.
You can unsubscribe and think that the bad habit won’t return. But somehow the level of spam (bad habits) stays fairly consistent. And we don’t really know if the bad habits are the same old ones or some new and recently devel.ped bad habits.
Same with spam email. We aren’t sure if the unsubscribe didn’t work or if we signed up for a new bad habit. I mean spam email. What I suspect is really going on with spam emails is that it is much harder to shake them off….to end them for good…with just a simple unsubscribe click after we have finally had enough.
Unsubscribing from spam emails —or ending a bad habit–is never that easy. And there always seems to be a disappointing number of them in my inbox at the end of each day. Spam emails, that is. And the filter to eliminate them works about as well as just trying to stop a bad habit. We may need to just embrace the fact that spam email will always be with us and focus instead on just eliminating our bad habits Or vice versa.
By Jeff Smith, on Fri Nov 22, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET Was John F. Kennedy the last honest politician?
Yes, that’s an intentionally provocative framing of the question, but given recent events, the idea warrants a deeper examination.
In stumping for the health care reform bill that bears his name, President Obama promised dozens of audiences (37 in all in the past four years) that “if you like your plan, you can keep it.” But he knew that over half of those who had purchased insurance on the individual market would lose their plans during implementation of his health care reform bill, and his administration assumed that, given the typical churn in the individual market, people would not notice the difference.
House Speaker John Boehner told two undocumented teenage girls that he’s “trying to find some way” to pass a comprehensive immigration bill. Yet, with a sufficient number of Republicans having publicly declared their support for such a bill, everyone in the Capitol knows that the votes are there to pass it if Boehner would simply agree to bring it to the floor despite it lacking the support of a majority of Republican legislators.
And Toronto Mayor Rob Ford recently claimed that he was prepared to admit smoking crack cocaine well before his ultimate admission; it’s just that reporters were asking him the wrong question.
Surely two of our nation’s most powerful leaders would be aghast at their inclusion in a category with the buffoonish Rob Ford. But there is a common thread: a lack of public candor by leaders who feared that transparency would damage them politically. Faced with similar challenges 50 years ago, our nation’s young president could not have responded more differently.
President Kennedy’s stunning candor following the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco seems quaint now that spinning, exaggerating, parsing words, and shading truths have become accepted parts of our nation’s political dialogue. But when leaders make mistakes, be they in the public or private sector, anything less than complete candor can empower rivals, the press, or, worst of all, law enforcement, to seize on a false statement, turning a speed bump into a full-blown scandal. As President Nixon taught us, the cover-up is almost always worse than the crime; it is a lesson I learned all too well.
There are many memorable photographs of former President Bill Clinton, but perhaps the most memorable is the one of a 16 year-old Clinton representing Arkansas at Boys Nation, beaming while shaking President Kennedy’s hand. Kennedy, of course, was Clinton’s role model. But there was one area in which, at a critical moment, Clinton departed from Kennedy’s playbook: crisis management.
The Bay of Pigs debacle was an unsuccessful 1961 invasion of Cuba by a CIA-trained paramilitary group who hoped to overthrow Castro’s government, which routed them in three days. The media clamored for Kennedy to address the events, which he did with clarity and candor. First, he acknowledged the United States’ role in the coup, and admitted the coup’s failure: “The news has grown worse instead of better.” Kennedy confessed surprise and disappointment in the outcome, showing a vulnerability rare among leaders as he described “useful lessons” from the “sobering episode.” He pledged to “re-examine and reorient our forces of all kinds.” Last, he fully he accepted responsibility.
There’s an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan . . . further statements, detailed discussions, are not to conceal responsibility because I’m the responsible officer of the Government.
He did not blame the CIA for insufficient planning, or blame his national security team for offering poor information or guidance, or blame anyone for anything at all.
Read the rest of…
Jeff Smith: What John F. Kennedy’s Legacy Teaches Us About The Value Of Candor
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Nov 22, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET Wisdom….
Insanity, they say, is repeating the same thing that has failed over and over again and expecting a different result.
But hold on a minute. Isn’t it also insane to try to act sanely over and over again if you find that sanity seems always to leave you mildly depressed, bored and asking yourself, “Is this really all there is?
I mean, c’mon. And maybe the next time you try the failed thing over again, you might get lucky and there really is, finally, a different result and then you look like some kind of genius. And become rich and famous, albeit insane. But that still is probably better than not repeating the failed thing and only seeming “sane.” Anybody can do that for goodness sakes. Live a little!
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My definition of sanity is having just the right about of insanity. And no more. But no less either.
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“When you repeat the same thing that has failed over and over again and expect different results, that is called insanity””But when you repeat the same cliches that have failed to change behavior in others over and over again and expect different results (and the cliche is the definition of insanity above), you may well be clinically certifiable.” Something to think about….
(I have a feeling this is going to be a fun little series)
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My addendum to “Do it Anyway”If you embrace the weakest parts of yourself, your conscience will continue to make belittling self-talk comments to you about being “a loser.”Do it anyway.
Just to piss-off your conscience.
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“Sanity” may not be repeating the same thing over and over and expecting the same results.
But it is almost that boring.
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“Insanity is repeating the same thing that has failed over and over again and expecting different results.””Masochism is repeating the same thing that has failed over and over again and NOT expecting different results. But doing it anyway because you get a “charge” out of it.”
“Insanity is when you repeat the same thing over and over again….until people stop noticing and assume you are talking to yourself in a repetitive way.”
Or something like that….
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If you are insane and it is because of some reason other than repeating the same futile behavior and expecting different results, you have got a real problem on your hands.”
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Nov 21, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
My health care rant, albeit a restrained rant with a reasonable solution offered. (It’s different from what you might think. Really.)
Something is just wrong when the level of customer service a person gets at a car dealership trumps –in fact dwarfs—the level of customer service that same person can expect when seeking medical services at a hospital.
I am not trying to debate health care policy or criticize ACA/Obamacare. I am trying to discuss something simple, relevant and useful that is really apolitical and patient-centric.
Recently I have spent time in the only place I approach with more trepidation than going to a hospital—car dealerships. And with the intention of buying a new car. All things being equal I would have preferred to check into a medical facility to have routine blood work done.
But here’s what I experienced to my surprise and despite my reservations about car dealerships. At the car dealerships I was treated with some the most extraordinary “customer service” I have ever encountered in any professional transaction in my life. The employees at the car dealership anticipated my ever question, concern and desire—or was at least tried to. And then respond to it. If I had to rank them for “customer service’ I’d give them a solid and well earned “A” grade.
By contrast, my experience recently with “customer service” at hospitals and related medical facilities has been just the opposite. Don’t get me wrong. The hospitals eventually got the job done, as they almost always too. And in their defense they are under extraordinary stress and are over-extended and customer service has been more of a luxury or afterthought in their business. But does it have to really be that way?
Oh sure, there are the incentive arguments about the hospitals’ customer really being insurance companies and so on and so on and the impact of various healthcare policies further distancing the patient vs healthcare provider relationship. But who said customer service can’t extend to the person being interacted with as well as the effective payor? No one I know of.
Besides, I have always thought of healthcare as different from other businesses and industries. There is a slightly different mission in the healthcare profession (or should be) than just making money. People’s health is at stake. A higher calling is assumed that would suggest customer service wouldn’t be limited in the same narrow, linear way that would be expected in, say, a transaction at a shoe store or fast food restaurant. In other words, more than just a direct interest in the immediate paying customer.
When we discuss, debate and argue over health care policy we always seem to focus on issues like access, choice, who pays, what will be covered, what policy, what system, how much research, what technology, and the like. As we should, I emphatically add! But can’t we also add excellent customer service to the long list of expectations we have from healthcare providers?
A client’s (or patient’s) personal needs, wants, concerns and fears may not be as urgent or as weighty as the issues that surround all other services being delivered in the healthcare industry. And many, I will concede, do an admirable job with customer service already. But I doubt that most hospitals do as effective a job at customer service as the local car dealership just down the road. Or the nearest family restaurant. And that is disappointing. And I would contend that closing the customer service gap in healthcare facilities and expecting customer service that is almost attentive and patient/customer-focused as when we get our oil changed isn’t an unreasonable request. It is not about politics or policy. It is just a simple request for better service. Please.
And whoever realizes this in the healthcare industry and acts on it first and forthrightly will likely dominate the industry in the coming years regardless of who the most direct payor is. It’s just good business for the bottom line, too.
And because in the end, it is–as it should be– about the patient, not the insurer. And it is that person not their payor who is the real and most important customer.
By Michael Steele, on Thu Nov 21, 2013 at 1:30 PM ET Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met with President Barack Obamain Washington on November 1st, and leading up to his visit, White House press Secretary Jay Carney put his best diplomatic smiley-face on it by noting “the visit will highlight the importance of the U.S.-Iraq relationship under the U.S.-Iraq Strategic Framework Agreement (SFA),” and that Obama “looks forward to discussing with Prime Minister Maliki efforts to enhance cooperation in the fields covered under the SFA, and to coordinating on a range of regional issues.”
Of course, after the two-hour meeting, President Obama remarked, “The United States wants to be a strong and effective partner with Iraq.” No doubt. Maliki came seeking more weapons and the president sought a “strong and effective partner.” While this face-to-face meeting may have served to raise Maliki’s diplomatic profile, in the eyes of many it diminished the profile of the United States and its professed commitment to justice, human rights, and international law. The president should have refused this meeting.
No one should doubt, least of all Prime Minister Maliki, that he owes his position to the United States, which sacrificed its blood and spent billions of its treasure to pave his way to power. But Maliki’s failure to be a true partner with the U.S. and his cozy relationship with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, as well as his recent actions, have created more problems than solutions for the United States.
On September 1, 2103, at the apparent request of the Iranian Mullahs and on the orders of Nouri al-Maliki, Iraqi security forces attacked and killed 52 Iranian refugees (and kidnapped seven, including six women) at Camp Ashraf in eastern Iraq.
Camp Ashraf was settled more than 25 years ago by 3,400 members and sympathizers of the principal Iranian opposition known as the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). The U.S. military disarmed Ashraf City in 2003, and in 2009 turned over control of the camp to the Maliki government in Baghdad. At that time, the United States assured residents of Ashraf City that the Iraqi government would treat them humanely in accordance with international law. As refugees, members of the opposition and their families are protected persons according to the Fourth Geneva Convention, and should not be subject to harassment, much less kidnapping and murder by the military forces of Iraq.
Last year, some 3,000 residents of Camp Ashraf were forcibly transferred to Camp Liberty, near Baghdad. 52 of those remaining at Camp Ashraf would meet a different fate.
In the attack, most of the murder victims were handcuffed, identified, and then executed with a bullet to the head, according to a statement by the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq. Some were slaughtered in Ashraf clinic where they had been taken for medical treatment. All of these individuals had signed an agreement in cooperation with the United States, which had guaranteed their safety and protection until their final relocation. The U.S. failed to keep its word.
While the United States, the UN, the European Parliament, and Amnesty International all condemned the massacre and kidnapping, world leaders have been hesitant to affix responsibility, particularly in the face of reports of “coordination” between the Maliki and the office of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khameini.
As Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats noted in a statement, “The Iraqi military is murdering unarmed refugees, and there is every reason to believe Prime Minister Maliki, at the behest of the Iranian Mullahs, ordered these criminal acts. Come what may, Maliki will be held responsible for this reprehensible slaughter of civilians in his own country.” Likewise, Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee made clear “I hold the Iraqi government directly responsible to protect the community, to investigate this matter thoroughly, and to prosecute the perpetrators of this heinous act.”
Which makes Maliki’s visit to the White House that much more problematic.
For Maliki, the man whose cooperation with the Iranian clerics was crucial to carrying out this atrocity, to enjoy the prestige of a personal meeting with President Obama is totally unacceptable. For many Americans, let alone Iranians, Maliki has clearly betrayed the trust that the United States displayed in him; and has undermined the very safety and security the United States had promised to those refugees.
No political consideration or calculus to compel Maliki to release the hostages is immoral, misguided, or unacceptable. The lack of meaningful action by the U.S. in support of the hostages and the failure to hold accountable those who slaughtered 52 men and women is inexcusable.
Maliki’s visit presented the perfect occasion for President Obama to honor the commitment made to protect the refugees now at Camp Liberty; a commitment that can only be ensured by moving the refugees out of harm’s way and returning them to their homes.
Moreover, the visit afforded the president the opportunity to make it clear to Maliki that there will be no more U.S. aid, no more arms sales and no further political support unless the 7 refugees taken hostage at Camp Ashraf are released and full protection is provided for the 3000 refugees at Camp Liberty. At least that’s what a “strong and effective partner” would have done last Friday.
(Cross-posted, with permission of the author, from TheGrio.com)
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Nov 21, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
It’s 6:57 AM on Mullholand Drive in the East End of Louisville.
I have over slept. Again. And this blonde dame keeps waking me up and telling me she’s made me a cup of Joe and that I am late and she’s not waking me up again.
She’s a looker alright. Nice voice. But with a motherly sort of tone. And makes a mean cup of Joe.
Yeah, that’s right. She’ s not just another long-legged blonde dame trying to make it through another overcast windy day in this two bit city. She’s got normal length legs. Not long ones. But as for the rest of the description, it’s dead on. And this wasn’t going to be just another ordinary day.
I had a dentist appointment because I hadn’t had a teeth cleaning in 8 months and was getting an oil change for the first time in 7000 miles.
Yeah, I live on life’s edge not by choice. But because it’s the only way this kid has ever known how to live.
Oh yeah, and that normal length legged blonde beauty I was telling you about? That’s my wife. That’s right. And that’s Mrs Brown to you, pal.
And she was serious about not waking me up again and now was getting really irritated with my little game of narrating this Wendesday morning like I was a narrator in a 1950s Film Noir movie.
She’d had enough. See? See? And, frankly, so had I.
For now anyway.
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