Sixteen stories below my office window is the elevated rail system known as MetroRail. There is a station there. There is a train in the station. Below the train is a body. Whether she jumped or was, as speculated by the guards, "sucked under" the train is anybody's guess.

Train service has been halted. The news helicopters circled for half an hour or so, making a racket and hoping for a glimpse of body, of blood, for the early news.

The train doors are open. The guards and police and EMTs are wandering up and down the platform. The fire rescue vehicle is long gone. The rubber neckers are not.

Because my window overlooks this scene, the guys from the offices across the hall have been coming in all afternoon, offering opinions, watching for any movement or body bags.

Vultures against the glass, alas.

I woke this morning to a general feeling of unease. Malaise. Free floating anxiety. I'm waiting for my phone to ring with bad news.

I don't know why this is, but I've been off balance since last weekend when I went to visit the 'rents. My father is disappearing, but my mother has already left the building.

She denied ever being "that woman's mother." That woman being me.

She knows that my father is "the man who takes care of [her]" but not what his relationship is.

She is blind in one eye and can't see out of the other.

She barely remembers how to eat, or walk. She can't follow a simple order, like "pick up your foot."

I have to go back this weekend. Do I know how to show myself a good time, or what.

BlogMadness

I won the first round, and the excellent SeaDoc is in the runoffs. I begged shamelessly and repeatedly for votes in the first round, and although, to judge by the other division scores, I wasn't the worst offender, the judges made bad tsking sounds over that. I feel guilty, and I don't even know if the rant was directed at me. But, well, it's a cultural thing. Guilt? I got it.

Nevertheless, I will note that I'm in an elimination round, and would deeply appreciate any and all votes I might get that would allow me to keep playing. Again, I'm #18, the entry is Back Home, and I'm up against an Open Letter To Atari.

Thank you. And if you can't feel it in your heart to vote for me, would you just sign the guest map?

Sounds like a Monty Python skit, a little bit, doesn't it? Sort of a cross between the Spam skit and the Gammy Leg/Eat Me First skit.

But it isn't. I was used to seeing Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen's names in my in-box because I'm subscribed to Sony's music service, and whenever there's another "essential" release, they let me know. I hate to break this to them, but I have all the essentials, just not on one CD... except for the one I cut myself out of my collected works. But I digress.

I've given up all hope that one day one of those sent-by Bruce or Bob messages will actually be from one of them, but I still get a little fantasy thrill when their names pop up.

Madonna, on the other hand, has no business knowing my e-mail address. So imagine my surprise when she wrote me (personally, I'm sure) to tell me why she's supporting Gen. Wesley Clark. Her rather imaginative capitalization and punctuation aside, there was nothing there for me to see. I read the missive from morbid curiosity, and then sighed, thinking "THAT ought to just be another nail in his political coffin." and sent her note to the trash.

But celebrity spam seems to becoming a trend. The past two weeks have seen me get a note from Michael Douglas (he's against guns and for joining the NRA Blacklist -- and a little too late on that one, Mikey, I signed up months ago), and William H. Macy & Felicity Huffman (who appear to be married and sharing an e-mail addy) suggesting that I do more to support Roe v Wade. How does Bill know what I've been doing, anyway? And why is my contribution up for debate?

Celebrity e-mails, another curse of the computer age.

Came into the office today to discover 155 messages in my blind "Webmaster" inbox. They were all (except for one, written in Spanglish, asking information about a patient that would be a HIPAA violation to give out) variations of the newest e-mail virus.

You know the one. The one that has a subject line of test, and an attachment of about 30K? You have to open the attachment and unzip a file, then run the exe file to infect yourself.

I guess there are people using computers who do just that (asshats). Christ, even my 86-year old father, who has never in his life even turned a computer on, knows better than that. Even he knows about computer viruses and how one gets them and how one never opens e-mail attachments.

But there's 154 virus e-mails in my in box. My personal e-mail is crawling at a salted slug's pace today, because the servers are clogged with virus-laden e-mail.

I swear, how do these people live? How do they operate heavy machinery, or even lap tops, huh? Even Oprah must have talked about computer viruses at some point. Even the Star or the Weekly World News has to have covered the issue.

So why, in the name of all that is holy, do people insist on opening bogus e-mail, and launching the bogus attachments? Surely by now, they know that when the body of the mail says something like "This my first game. I hope you like it." or "Testing." or "You first to see new thing. Open fast and enjoy!" that nothing good is going to come from opening the files.

Well, you'd think that, but you'd be wrong. I've gotten 157 (they're still coming in, even as I type) messages to prove you wrong.

PS-- Voting is still open in BlogMadness, and I still need your votes. Please? I'm down on my knees, I'm begging you please. I'm number #18, Back Home.

Despite the title of this entry and the fact that the New Hampshire primary is tomorrow, there is nothing political here. At least, not on the presidential scale. On the scale of BlogMadness, this is national, and meaningful. To me and about fifty other bloggers who don't get out much.

The voting is open, and I'm seeded 18th in the Bills division, against #15, the fabulous SeaDoc, who is also shamelessly whoring for votes. Seeding and division placement is random, they say, and I should just hope so, seeing as I'm from Miami and those damned Bills have a special place in hell for Dolphins fans. Unless the Bills is just like, you know, bills to pay. In which case I have a lot of experience.

Either way, gentle readers, I'm begging here: please don't let me lose in the first round. I'll write about reality tv and Paris Hilton if it'll get you to vote for my entry. Or not write about them, if you prefer.

I was out of pocket over the weekend, and just discovered that the voting opened on Sunday. There's only 34 hours left to keep me from shameful dismissal.

My self esteem is in your hands.

Oh Captain, my Captain.

Captain Kangaroo, dead at 76. So he looked like a kindly grandfather when he was, uh, thirty? No way.

I remember the white braid on his black jacket, and how large his pockets were. I remember that nobody made fun of his hair, but when the Beatles tried the same style they were lampooned. I remember that it was the first "must-see TV" of my life. I realize that I thought he'd been dead for years.

Yep. I knew it this morning. It was going to be a sucky day in my neighborhood.

Goodbye, Captain. You were the first, and the best.

Everyone knows that when the phone rings at midnight it's either a drunk, a wrong number, a drunken wrong number or really bad news.

When the phone rings at 7AM, it usually isn't a drunk, but it's probably still bad news.*

This morning it was my friend Jeffrey in New York calling to say thanks for the really cool flannel jammy bottoms, he liked them very much and the RLA and I are two of his closest friends, and oh yeah, he'll be killing himself today.

It just doesn't get any better, does it?

* or it's just my neighbor calling to tell me someone's walking their dog

UPDATE: Jeffrey called to say he's going to commit himself to an in-patient program for a while. The RLA is still a little pissy about me calling Jeffrey's girlfriend to give her a little heads up on his plans for the day.

I forgot my bite plate last night and woke up with a clenched jaw and a blinding headache, halfway to a migraine.

To make things more interesting, I had to go to the pharmacy when I got to work. They've given me a personal representative, so the entering of refills is painless, and in return I've decided to try and pick up my scrips before I go to my office. It's a compromise on both our parts.

But the service quality was its usual abysmal self. The snotty clerk behind the glass refused to make eye contact with me at any point in our transaction. This included handing forms back and forth, asking for a pen, turning in new prescriptions and taking the drugs that were ready. I was there for at least ten minutes. Not once, not even for a nanosecond, did the bitch make eye contact. She spoke at me, or in my general direction, but she never looked at me.

This sort of thing just drives me wild. I'm a freaking customer. Take my money, look me in the eye and say Thank you.

And that goes for customers, too. Put the fucking cell phone down for a minute, look at the clerk and make your request. Do not point or wave vaguely at something and expect the clerk to know what you want or mean. Do not keep yapping about your inane and inconsequential crap to the invisible person at the other end of the line. Put the phone down. Be polite. It won't kill you to be polite to the worker bees of the world.

Can you break your teeth from grinding them too hard?

I'm supposed to be making soup right now, Yellow Pepper Soup from the Silver Palate New Basics cookbook, to be precise, but I'm in my studio, typing. The RLA loves Yellow Pepper Soup, and I thought my dad might like it, so it was on the to-do list. Earlier in the evening I went out to get my car radio repaired (check) and stopped by the auto parts store for a gallon of anti-freeze/coolant, 'cause the lovely Zelda Bleu is leaking fluids.

Well, you know, once a gear head, always a gear head, right? So I loitered up and down the customization aisle and found a cool stick shift sock that had tiny little neon strips in the seams, and a set of techno/racing style pedals (gas, clutch and brake -- I only drive a stick), and took those and my anti-freeze up to the register.

The kid looks at the pedals and the stick sock and looks at me and says, "Are these for your son's car? Or yours?"

Well, bite me.

When did I start looking like someone who's old enough to have a son who drives a custom car? Or any car, for that matter. And that's when it hit me, like the wet kiss at the end of a hot fist.* I am not only old enough to have a kid who has a custom car, I'm old enough to have a kid who has a kid.

I turn fifty this year, and while that's never bothered me** it's never bothered me because I don't look or feel my age. Until now, I suppose, if some pasty-faced kid in a polyester shirt with his name on the pocket is asking if I'm buying custom accessories for my son.

I can't even write that off as some kind of male chauvinism, because if I DIDN'T look old enough to have a kid who drives, he'd have been asking me if it was for my boyfriend, right?

Well, crap. Let me count the blessings here. I'll get to join AARP and get some nifty discounts that I'm currently not even aware of. I'll get free checking at the bank, except I already do. Discount movie tickets? Um, hmmm. Stumped. What other benefits are there?

I'm not dead yet.***

So, what should I do this year to keep the wolf at bay? I'm thinking Paris for my birthday itself. Learn something new? I started teaching myself how to knit better, and how to write better code. I could learn enough French to get by in Paris. I could force myself to learn to roller blade. I could force myself to listen to top 40 radio to see what's popular these days.

Or I could revel in the fact that I'm finally old enough to have earned my bad attitude and curmudgeonly ways. Yeah. That. And Paris.

*Firesign Theater: The Further Adventures of Nick Danger
** Much
*** Monty Python and the Holy Grail

As seen at Solonor's and http://solonor.com/archives/002199.html#002199">The Smarter Cop.

The following is a list of the 100 best rated movies on IMDb.com (by their loyal readers).


Bold the ones you've seen. Italicize the ones you want to see. Underline the ones you own. Put an asterisk by your favorites. (Or, in my case, just click on my list of movies) Write down the ones you don't want to see on a 3x5 index card and memorize their names, so you can tell complete strangers how cool you are for not wanting to see Citizen Kane. (Last step optional.)

For me, though it isn't on the list, that would be Titanic. Why anyone would want to see it is beyond me... Boat sinks, damn near everybody dies. The End.


1 Godfather, The (1972)
2 Shawshank Redemption, The (1994)
3 Godfather: Part II, The (1974)
4 Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The (2003)
5 Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The
6 Casablanca (1942)
7 Schindler's List (1993)
8 Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The (2001)
9 Shichinin no samurai (1954) (The Seven Samurai)
10 Star Wars (1977)
11 Citizen Kane (1941)
12 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
13 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
14 Rear Window (1954)
15 Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
16 Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
17 Memento (2000))
18 Usual Suspects, The (1995)
19 Pulp Fiction (1994)
20 North by Northwest (1959)
21 12 Angry Men (1957)
22 Fabuleux destin d'Am?lie Poulain, Le (2001)
23 Psycho (1960)
24 Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
25 Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (1966) (The Good, the Bad & The Ugly)
26 Silence of the Lambs, The (1991)
27 It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
28 Goodfellas (1990)
29 American Beauty (1999)
30 Vertigo (1958)
31 Sunset Blvd. (1950)
32 Matrix, The (1999)
33 Apocalypse Now (1979)
34 Pianist, The (2002)
35 To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
36 Taxi Driver (1976)
37 Some Like It Hot (1959)
38 C'era una volta il West (1968) (Once Upon a Time in the West)
39 Third Man, The (1949)
40 Paths of Glory (1957)
41 Fight Club (1999)
42 Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001)
43 Boot, Das (1981)
44 Double Indemnity (1944)
45 L.A. Confidential (1997)
46 Chinatown (1974)
47 Singin' in the Rain (1952)
48 Maltese Falcon, The (1941)
49 Requiem for a Dream (2000)
50 M (1931)
51 Bridge on the River Kwai, The (1957)
52 All About Eve (1950)
53 Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
54 Se7en (1995)
55 Saving Private Ryan (1998)
56 Raging Bull (1980)
57 Cidade de Deus (2002) (City of God)
58 Wizard of Oz, The (1939)
59 Rash?mon (1950)
60 Sting, The (1973)
61 Alien (1979)
62 American History X (1998)
63 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
64 L?on (1994)
65 Vita ? bella, La (1997) (Life is Beautiful)
66 Touch of Evil (1958)
67 Manchurian Candidate, The (1962)
68 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
69 Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The (1948)
70 Great Escape, The (1963)
71 Wo hu cang long (2000) (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)
72 Reservoir Dogs (1992)
73 Clockwork Orange, A (1971)
74 Amadeus (1984)
75 Modern Times (1936)
76 Annie Hall (1977)
77 Ran (1985)
78 Jaws (1975)
79 On the Waterfront (1954)
80 Braveheart (1995)
81 High Noon (1952)
82 Apartment, The (1960)
83 Fargo (1996)
84 Sixth Sense, The (1999)
85 Aliens (1986)
86 Shining, The (1980)
87 Strangers on a Train (1951)
88 Blade Runner (1982)
89 Metropolis (1927)
90 Duck Soup (1933)
91 Finding Nemo (2003)
92 Donnie Darko (2001)
93 General, The (1927)
94 Toy Story 2 (1999)
95 Princess Bride, The (1987)
96 City Lights (1931)
97 Great Dictator, The (1940)
98 Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
99 Lola rennt (1998)
100 Notorious (1946)

Allie asked, why not go to another pharmacy?

Because, Allie, this is America. In America, we don't have socialized medicine because the brainwashed, the brain dead and the pharmaceutical companies have decided that would be one step away from communism and that would be bad. One of the few worthwhile benefits of working at this hospital is that, although the pharmacy doesn't take insurance, employees can purchase meds at 10% above cost, or $1.85, which ever is cheaper. I can't use my insurance to buy my parents drugs: that would be fraud. It would also be about $10. a prescription. If they buy them themselves (and at 85, they have Medicare, which does NOT cover drugs...) some of my mother's meds would cost over $300 a month. By suffering the insufferable Mr. Pimple, I can save about two hundred dollars a month for them.
On another front, my office is about to move again. We will be sharing space with another team, unrelated to the work my team does. They have a manager who is one of the most toxic individuals it has ever been my misfortune to meet. In this, he is typical of the average employee at this institution.

Six months ago, when the move was announced, my manager took us to look at the office space, and we all picked out our rooms, ordered furniture and waited for the painting, carpeting and furniture. I was going to get a private office for the first time in about seven years.

A month ago, it was announced that this other group would be sharing space. Fine. Two weeks ago, we went down and reorganized ourselves. The furniture that had been ordered was for certain rooms and configurations, but we were able to sort it out and make it work. The Toxic Manager complained that if my manager had one of the two rooms with a window, then he had to have the other one. Although, when asked, he insisted that it had nothing to do with square footage, or a case of "if he has it, I need it too." There was no other reason offered, except that it was his wish. Period.

My two co-workers who had been assigned that windowed room were switched to my office, and I was sent down the hall to a small, but still private, office.

Toxic Manager had a shit fit. If my manager had people in private rooms, then HE had to have people in private rooms. I was thrown out of my office, and my other co-worker, the Boy Wonder, was moved from his private office to another private office. I was told I'd have to share space with one of the Toxic Manager's people. I said that I didn't care to do that, I as rely quite heavily on my team, and need to work with them. Toxic Manager told me that what I wanted was irrelevant. HIS person was going to get the single.

I offered still another floor plan. I said what if the two huge manager's offices get configured to each hold two employees (the way we had it originally) and the other two big offices get two employees, and the two smaller singles become the managers' offices and the little bitty, odd-shaped room becomes the conference room? That way both managers get a single, and none of their employees do. Each manager has four employees in two large offices. Everybody has the same square footage.

Toxic Manager refused to give up his window. The director refused to listen to this crap and said: here's the deal. Each manager has a window. One manager can have two private offices and the stupid crap room that is going to seat two people, even though the space is so small that you can't push the chair away from the desk, you have to slide in from the side. The other manager will have the two two-person spaces. Toxic Manager, you liked that decision, so the other manager gets first choice.

My team. Except Boy Wonder insists on having his own space. Big Man insists that he's too big to share any space with anybody, and he already lost his window, so therefore, if Boy Wonder gets a private office, he gets the other. That means I will be sitting in a space so small that I won't be able to turn around at my desk: literally.

Boy Wonder and Big Man are no longer speaking. I have lost any hope of a private office. In one afternoon, the Toxic Manager has managed to take a well-oiled team, one which truly had an esprit de corps, and turned it into a feuding, toxic pile of crap, just like his own "team."

And we will all have to share space. Toxic Manager is known to snipe, and make snide comments and belittle and badger. And we, having stood up to his bullying, will now be the focus of his bile. Toxic Manager is a bully. He is loud and he is abusive. And so, he gets his way. Because even the directors above him don't want to stop him or even confront him.

One afternoon. That was all it took to make my work place go from a respite from the back-stabbing snakepit that is this institution, to more of the same. One afternoon and one toxic bully.

Once upon a time, a consultant came to this hospital to analyze the pharmacy and make recommendations about how to improve service. He left saying that the only thing that could help would be a small thermo-nuclear device and a fresh start.

That didn't happen. Too damn bad.

I had another run in yesterday with the short little man who is a day-time manager. I shall refer to him hereafter as the Insufferable Mr. Pimple. Did I mention he was short? There's a latent element of Napoleonic complex, I think, as well as the classic "arbitrary use of petty power". Of course, maybe he suffers from Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and must be accorded special treatment under the Americans With Disabilities Act. Or maybe he's just an odious little prick. You decide.

For reasons that are completely specious, the pharmacy has decided to allow employees to drop off and pick up prescriptions during highly constrained hours. Like, from 5AM to 11AM, and 8PM to midnight. I work on the other side of campus and get to the pharmacy building only on my lunch hour.

The clerks take my 'scripts with no problem, or they did, until the Insufferable Mr. Pimple took over. Then we began a dance. The clerk would point to the sign, and say, OK, this once. I would look at the sign and explain that by changing the hours, the pharmacy administration had arbitrarily and without negotiation, changed my employee benefits. I refuse to accept this, therefore, I will continue to bring in my prescriptions at my convenience.

The Insufferable Mr. Pimple doesn't like this attitude. The Insufferable Mr. Pimple doesn't like me. I know that this is a personal thing because the Insufferable Mr. Pimple hands prescriptions to other employees right in front of me, without so much as a nod to the sign stating the new hours. But for me, the Insufferable Mr. Pimple goes so far as to tap the sign in the window and yell at me. TAP, TAP, TAP!!! You CANNOT pick up your medicine. We Must Follow The Rules!!! And then he says hello to Mrs. Rodriguez from Finance, and hands her her meds.

I say: if We Must All Follow The Rules, why are you giving Mrs. Rodriguez from Finance her meds and no grief? And the employee behind her? And the two in front of me? But not me?

The Insufferable Mr. Pimple lost it at that point and told me that he wouldn't fill my prescription at all today. If I didn't like that, said the Insufferable Mr. Pimple, I could just go talk to his supervisor.

Which, needless to say, I did. I pointed out to the supervisor that the Insufferable Mr. Pimple is Hispanic, as were the employees he was happy to help, whereas I, well let's just say that I have a last name that would have had me wearing a yellow star in Nazi Germany, right up to the point I got off the train at Auschwitz.

The supervisor was shocked, SHOCKED! that I would imply such a thing. I said, "Uh-huh, yeah, sure, right, whatever. How come I'm the only person who gets a lecture and a TAP TAP TAP, then?"

The supervisor couldn't rightly say. But he could order the Insufferable Mr. Pimple to issue my meds, and he did.

Except, of course, he got them wrong, and only filled them for one month instead of three, thus ensuring that he and I get to do our dance again, and again, and again.

Last night was Movie Night here at Today's Shoes. Me and the RLA* and another two couples got together for dinner and a movie. Dinner was supplied by the host couple (not us, thank G-d, but the bar was set quite high) and we brought the movie. The other couple were simply entertaining. They'll get their turn.

We did Indian last night, and as I mentioned, dinner was afuckingmazing. There were homemade samosas, and hard cooked eggs with a tomato dip and dal and a 9 treasure rice and a mango/cardamom ice-cream desert and chai. Every item lovingly and exquisitely made by our hosts.

The tone of the evening was set during dinner when, for reasons that are obscure to me now, we all tied our napkins on our heads, pulled our pants up to our armpits and, as our hostess came in from the kitchen, stood up, hunched our shoulders and yelled "Moi brain 'urts!"

The RLA has a notorious history of bad movie choices. He has forced me to sit through hours and hours of films whose celluloid stock would have had a better life as guitar picks. I cannot count the number of times I have squirmed in the dark, looking at my watch by the light of the exit guides buried in the aisles and praying for electrical failure to end my misery.

But Bollywood is Bollywood, and how bad can it be if it has my personal fave, Shahrukh Kahn? Well, last night we found out.

Three hours, and only four dance numbers, and one of them was a sort of reprise of the first number. Shahrukh doesn't show up until two hours in, and then he does a hot dream sequence dance number that must have been an out-take from some other movie, as it bore no relation to the plot in any way, shape or form.

The movie was a passionate plea for peace and end of tribal warfare, or so it seemed to think. The six of us are old cronies from back in the radio comedy show days, and so the three hours just flew by as we did our best Hindu Mystery Science Theater 2000 impressions. Our faces hurt from laughing, which was just as well, because the movie sucked. The RLA is now no longer allowed to pick foreign films, either, as it seems his track record for flops is in no danger of ending any time soon.

Shahrukh does get shot in the back, after which he runs, does a little kung-fu fighting, cracks wise, takes out an army of bad guys, saves the girl, runs some more, smokes his last cigarette, cracks wise some more, runs again, finally begins to bleed and spends another ten or fifteen minutes dying. The guy's a genius.

To add further insult to our marathon viewing, this was a modern day epic set in LA (except Vancouver stands in for LA) and somewhere on the northern outback of India. This meant no cool period costumes. There were special effects, notably some slo-mo, and a backwards running sequence that could just have been an attempt to do an MJ moonwalk.

Well, it was fun, and I can't wait to do it again. Couscous and Lawrence of Arabia?

*RLA = Renowned Local Artist

A few entries back I said I was looking on the internet for a soap I remembered from childhood. My Aunt Helga brought it to me from Germany. It was shaped like a teddy bear and grew fur. It had a toy inside.

When found, it turned out to be "Fuzzy Wuzzy" soap, and it was selling on e-bay for over $100. Another e-bay search turned up today's brand of the same item, imported from Europe... Germany, in fact. It's called "Soapy Soap" and comes in shapes like kittens and gnomes. It grows fur, and has a toy inside. It was selling for under $10 a bar.

I ordered two kittens, and a squirrel.

My Aunt Helga was a war bride. She was married to my most dashing and handsome Uncle Milton. Dashing is the perfect word for Milton, who was really my cousin and not my uncle. But dashing is an elusive quality, and not suited to this age. I suspect, that had my mother and Milton, who were first cousins, been living in the shtetl, and not America, Milton would have been my father. To me, growing up in the late '50s and early '60s, Helga and Milton were the most glamorous and sophisticated adults I'd ever seen.

Milton took me to my first horse show one summer's day in Newport, Rhode Island. He picked me up in his red convertible Mustang, with white leather interior. The top was down. We were on a date. I was maybe, at most, eight.

Helga, with her German accent, and a father who spent the war working as a "stationmaster", was a bitter pill for the immigrant Jews of my grandparents' generation. Even at eight, you can pick up on that tension. Helga took my mother shopping on Belleview Avenue. The stories of what my mother saw that day were often repeated.

Milton was an "efficiency expert" what ever the fuck that meant. In the early 60s it meant that he worked up at Cape Canaveral, doing something for NASA. He was somehow involved on the Mercury Project, something vague with the space suits. How cool was that?

They had two sons, each as glamorous and dashing as their parents. The older one lived for a year or so in a tepee, a real tepee (15 foot poles and canvas), in their wooded Connecticut back yard. He went to medical school, became a doctor, left medicine and was last heard to be living on a wooded island somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.

The blonde one played sax, like his father, and was rumored to be a ski bum, a tennis bum and a few other dubious or vague professions.

The kids both moved west, Helga and Milton divorced, Milton died.

But I have rich memories, an extra bar of Soapy Soap, and an eight year old niece.

There is a wild ride going on in the blogosphere this week. The incredibly witty and popular Tequila Mockingbird's author, Julia, has been plagiarized by, as she would say, some random asshat. He (the random asshat) even went to far into the stupifyingly stupid zone as to request from Ms. Julia a link back to his blog, which is no more and no less than a patchwork of other blogger's words. Sometimes he alters the occasional he to a she, but pretty much not.

Ms. Julia sent a polite e-mail along the lines of "this is a copyright, and this is what is means, and what you are doing is a violation of that, you probably didn't know, so I've told you, and now you should stop."

Not only did the asshat (I'm really starting to like that word, Julia) NOT stop, he went so far as to taunt her on her comment board, while, at the same time, disabling his own comments.

Here is a link to Tequila Mockingbird, and the story in her own words. Really. Her. Own. Words. Here is another link, to another blogger's perspective on this. I won't give you the link to Bryan Lamb's (AKA asshat) blog, because really, why bother.

On the one hand, I'm a little jealous of Julia. Her talent, her audience. Hell, her stalker plagiarizes her. Mine only threatened me with death...

But since we're on the topic, I thought I would quote the ultimate authority on the subject: the inimitable Tom Lehrer. I present, in its entirety, his immortal ditty, Lobachevsky.

(From) TOM LEHRER REVISITED

Lobachevsky

(Spoken intro) For many years now, Mr. Danny Kaye, who has been my particular idol since childbirth, has been doing a routine about the great Russian director Stanislavsky and the secret of success in the acting profession. And I thought it would be interesting to st... to adapt this idea to the field of mathematics. I always like to make explicit the fact that before I went off not too long ago to fight in the trenches, I was a mathematician by profession. I don't like people to get the idea that I have to do this for a living. I mean, it isn't as though I had to do this, you know, I could be making, oh, 3000 dollars a year just teaching.

Be that as it may, some of you may have had occasion to run into mathematicians and to wonder therefore how they got that way, and here, in partial explanation perhaps, is the story of the great Russian mathematician Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky.*

Who made me the genius I am today,
The mathematician that others all quote?
Who's the professor that made me that way,
The greatest that ever got chalk on his coat?

One man deserves the credit,
One man deserves the blame,
and Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name. Oy!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobache...

I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky.
In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics: Plagiarize!

Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize...
Only be sure always to call it please, "research".

And ever since I meet this man my life is not the same,
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name. Oy!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobache...

I am never forget the day I am given first original paper to write. It
was on Analytic and Algebraic Topology of Locally Euclidean Metrization
of Infinitely Differentiable Riemannian Manifold.
Bozhe moi!
This I know from nothing.**
But I think of great Lobachevsky and I get idea - haha!

I have a friend in Minsk,
Who has a friend in Pinsk,
Whose friend in Omsk
Has friend in Tomsk
With friend in Akmolinsk.
His friend in Alexandrovsk
Has friend in Petropavlovsk,
Whose friend somehow
Is solving now
The problem in Dnepropetrovsk.

And when his work is done -
Haha! - begins the fun.
From Dnepropetrovsk
To Petropavlovsk,
By way of Iliysk,
And Novorossiysk,
To Alexandrovsk to Akmolinsk
To Tomsk to Omsk
To Pinsk to Minsk
To me the news will run,
Yes, to me the news will run!

And then I write
By morning, night,
And afternoon,
And pretty soon
My name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed,
When he finds out I published first!

And who made me a big success
And brought me wealth and fame?
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name. Oy!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobache...

I am never forget the day my first book is published.
Every chapter I stole from somewhere else.
Index I copy from old Vladivostok telephone directory.
This book, this book was sensational!***
Pravda - ah, Pravda - Pravda said:
"Jeel beel kara ogoday blyum blocha jeli," ("It stinks").
But Izvestia! Izvestia said:
"Jai, do gudoo sun sai pere shcum," ("It stinks").
Metro-Goldwyn-Moskva bought the movie rights for six million rubles,
Changing title to 'The Eternal Triangle',
With Brigitte Bardot playing part of hypotenuse.****

And who deserves the credit?
And who deserves the blame?
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Oy!

(See how easy it is to copy when you give credit to the author?)