kvetching up

In 1971, when I was very little (about a little more than a year after my dad died), my mom saved up enough money from her job as a computer programmer at West Coast Drug to buy a home in Rainier Beach--4910 S. Rose Street. It was a lovely home, with a very large cherry tree, an ill-placed grape arbor (always in the shade), a separate garage, 4 bedrooms a breakfast nook, and more. It did albeit, have  a bit of a carpenter ant problem, but it will always be a repository of happy memories. For reasons I cannot explain, there was a large black and white television on wooden legs IN MY ROOM. I was certainly an early adopter of that trend. Until Jenny died, it's also the last time I had a television in my room. I digress.  Next door to us was a duplex, where a single mother lived with her young son, next to her a black Metro bus driver, likely one of the first ever-I presume one of the first, who kept an very unfriendly Afghan dog chained in the yard  A house stood next to us ...

I love the train. I prefer riding them in Europe. 4 hours is the ride from Northampton to Penn Station. The girls are sitting and talking across the train car from me, catching up. I am listening to a story--not voluntarily--being told by Abby about a roommate had irresponsible sex and asked Abby to drive her to get Plan B. Abby doesn't understand train etiquette. She is clearly excited to see Leiney, which just melts my heart. The last time the three of us rode a train together must have been Europe. I remember presidential candidate Paul "Clinton is a pander bear" Tsongas talking about the hollowing out of Massachusetts and the East Coast back in 1992. No one has done anything about it--and to be clear--the bone yards of industry are filled with bldgs which are made of brick, most likely from clay dug and fired in Renton, once the location of the largest brick manufacturing plant in the US.  A brief aside--we are on a train that just dropped people off in Springfield. N...

My sleep hygiene is worse than my dental hygiene, and that says alot.  I went to sleep this morning after 4 a.m. , yesterday, about 3:30.  I got up, thanks to Buddy's insistent coaxing, just after 9.  After I had brewed coffee, Jenny came out of the bedroom and into the the living room, just around 10 am. She was in pain, so I comforted her. We snuggled on the couch for hours, watching first Seinfeld and then 2.5 hours of Who Killed Jeffrey Epstein.  The modem went on the  fritz after the first two episodes but t it just needed a reboot.   At 1:22 p.m. Abby was finally ready for our drive to Renton originally scheduled for 10 a.m.  I had let her sleep. Given her sleep patterns are as fucked up as mine, and the reaction one gets from a teenager when they are disturbed, I opted not to bother her.  Oh, also, given my ADD addled mind, I also forgot that I had promised to wake her. Abby drove via 25th until it turns into Montlake and then into 23r...