Hot Tea and Buttered Bread.

A Lesson in Appreciation.

As I stepped onto my terrace and looked across the meadow this morning, a small breeze brought a reminder that was a chill in the air, and 74 degrees Fahrenheit is a chill when the daytime air temperatures have been in the upper 90s!  Last night, a bit of a cold front passed through, along with a heavy thunderstorm, as it sometimes does here.  Now, this morning, I inhaled the fresh air and watched as the rising sun brought the dew on the grass to sparkle and glisten.  The colors of the new sunrise shifted from a pink-apricot sky and settled into a mundane blue grey.  The clouds were just as grey, too.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it rains again later this day.  In the distance, a flock of birds chirped away.  A fresh new day is upon us!

Here we are, mid-summer.  The days are warm, the thunderstorms are strong, and every day is fresh with new life.  I took note that the trees are fully leafed out and green in their full summer regalia.  Even the fields are inviting.  I went back inside just as the breeze kicked up again.

Oh!  There it is!  The timer just went off on the stove.  You see, the bread I’m baking this morning is done.  It’s a pan de mie with oats.  It is a French sandwich bread with a tender crumb and baked in a Pullman load pan.  It’s among the best breads I bake.

It’s now time to bring out the butter and a hot cup of Earl Grey breakfast tea to get my day started!

What is familiar in my world is comfort, just as the changing seasons, jazz, and a slice of hot buttered bread and hot tea are.

 

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Dead Man Dripping.

A Lesson in New Décor, a Bath, Dying, Waterfalls, and Horror.

When I lived at Whispering Oaks Condominiums many years ago, I had a cute place on the first floor.  It had two balconies, a galley kitchen, two bedrooms, two baths, and a combination dining room-living room.  It was small, decorating was easy, and I made it cozy.  All was serene until one Saturday night when the water came down in glistening sheets along the living room wall.  It came not from the condominium above, but from the condominium above that on the top floor.  The water continued flowing down to the garden condominium, below mine.

The owner was at work that evening, since he worked nearby at Marshall Field & Company department store, and he worked a late shift that evening.

Why the water was coming from that unit on the top floor, was anyone’s guess at that point.  That is, until the firemen reached the top-floor unit and found the door locked tight.  It was an ominous quiet, broken only by the sound of relentless water streaming from beneath the doorframe. With a sharp crack, they forced their way in, only to be greeted by the surreal sight of the overflowing bathtub, its porcelain edges barely visible under the torrent.  The man, naked, pale, and motionless, lay slumped against the tub’s curved back, his arm draped on the side of the tub, and a twisted grimace frozen on his lifeless face.  The scene was both tragic and bizarre, a moment frozen in time, where the quiet intimacy of a bath had turned into a macabre tableau.

The body in the bathtub was an older man, the roommate of the owner.  He evidently was drawing his bath while he sat inside the tub, died at some point, and the water kept pouring and pouring from the faucet and over the sides of the tub, throughout that unit and down to the three units below.

When all was said and done, the amount of drywall and painting repairs was enormous for all four condominium units, but insurance helped.  Repair crews swarmed the building in the weeks that followed, wielding industrial dehumidifiers and cutting through warped drywall.  The affected residents exchanged tired smiles in the lobby and hallways, commiserating over the shared ordeal.  The owner of the unit, still reeling from the news of his roommate’s passing, tried to reconcile his grief with the practical nightmare of insurance claims and restoration costs.  Each floor of the building bore its own unique scars from the incident of a soggy imprint of a life, and death, left behind.

Several months after Joe’s live-in boyfriend, Guiseppe, died in the bathtub, another waterfall occurred.  Joe scheduled carpetlayers to remove his old carpeting and install fresh wall-to-wall shag carpeting.  The residents in the general area heard the soft tapping of hammers and thought little of the work being done.  But soon after they saw it.

Water was once again running down their living room walls.  The wall was glistening with the water dripping and flowing down.

Once more, the residents living below Joe ran upstairs to see if it was his crew that caused a small waterfall.  And sure enough, it was.  The carpet layers hit a water pipe in the floor when they were reinstalling new carpet tack along some of the walls.  A hole in the pipe was punctured, and voilà!  The waterfall.

Once again, his insurance had to pay for drywall and painting repairs in the three condominiums units below him that were affected.

 

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Threads of Defiance.

A Lesson in Obedience and Conformity.

I lived in a homeowner’s association where wet towels drying on the balcony railings became the norm early on.  It was one hot summer afternoon, as I returned from work, I looked up at my building after parking my car in the lot.  There, colorful and flapping, were Ambrose and Un’iqué’s wet towels.  They clung to the eighth-floor balcony railings, the corners flipping up delicately in the breeze.  Although the colorful terry cloth towels looked pretty on an otherwise mundane beige balcony, the rules of the homeowners’ association forbade anything hanging on those railings.

But Ambrose and Un’iqué did it anyway.  Every Monday, which was wash day, their wet towels would hang until dry.  In the heat of the summer, every time the couple headed to the neighborhood pool, you could bet their beach towels would be draped across the railings after they returned to their apartment.  Over time, the towels became more than an act of defiance; they transformed into a symbol of quiet rebellion.  Neighbors began to notice Ambrose and Un’iqué’s colorful display as a sort of unspoken statement: life, with all its messiness and imperfections, could not be entirely controlled by rules and regulations.  They did it their way.

Of course, it was against the rules, by-laws, and such, but in the interest of so-called community harmony, the board of directors looked away.  It wouldn’t be nice to point out infractions, they’d say.  In reality, they broke rules, too, and it wouldn’t be right for a director on the board to be sent a friendly violation letter.

No matter that, the buildings started to look like New York City’s nineteenth century tenements.  Remember, it wasn’t all about not offending the offenders.

Soon, the monotony of the beige façades was punctuated by a patchwork of drying laundry.  Mrs. Delgado on the third floor hung out her hand-sewn quilts.  The Nguyen family draped their vibrant picnic blankets next to their toddler’s onesies.  Even creaky old Mr. Carmichael, once the staunchest enforcer of the by-laws, let his Hawaiian shirts flutter in the wind on hangers.  No one cared anymore.

The board of directors convened an emergency meeting to address what they called “The Towel Crisis.”  Yet, each time they discussed enforcement, someone brought up the sense of community the colorful fabrics had inspired.  The formerly frosty interactions between neighbors thawed, and people began smiling at each other as they passed through the hallways.

Ambrose and Un’iqué, seeing their small act ripple outward, became minor legends in the community.  And while the buildings may have resembled New York City’s old tenements, there was warmth and vibrancy to them that was cultivated that not even the strictest homeowner’s association rules could suppress.

The heck with rules!

 

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Who Will Sit at My Table?

A Lesson in Lust and Trickery.

I’m just going to mention this now and then let it go, for it is a lesson for me for the future.  Over time, I’ve taken more discernment with people with whom I choose to surround myself.  Yet, every now and then I slipped in my judgement of who I let sit at my table, so to speak.

Oh, yes, I’ve let the wrong people into my life.  And sometimes I very imprudently let them overstay their welcome.

And for what?

Many times it was to make that other person feel good.  Well, I foolishly thought, I don’t want them to feel bad that they aren’t welcomed here, in my life.  These were people that liked me, but I knew deep down they were not the types of people I should have allowed in; they were the opposite of my own sensible values.

How stupid of me.

There are many examples I could give you, but I’ll give the most recent example of a luncheon I hosted.  I invited two people.  One of those people asked me if his current “love of his life” could come, too.  I thought about it for a bit, then assented.  All I knew about her was that she had a bunch of kids.

Okay.

Later I found out that she was married.  Still is, as far as I know.  That horrified me.  It angered my best friend.  I deeply regret allowing her to come into my home under that situation, being married to someone else.  Now, it should be no surprise to you that she is not welcomed in our home ever again.

If I would have known that she was still married, I would have replied, “Sure, she can come if she brings her husband.”

Oh, well.  Twenty-twenty hindsight, you know.

This is just one of many lousy choices I’ve made with allowing the wrong people to be around me.  Do I regret those poor choices I’ve made?  Of course I do; and who doesn’t?  Anyone who says that they don’t regret their poor choices is a fool, and a bigger fool if you don’t learn by it.  Yes, I learned a good lesson, which is to learn from those mistakes and not rush in making a decision on who belongs at the table.  Be astute.  Be guarded.

Here’s to a great rest of this year with whomever you and I decide to sit at our tables in the future.

And now, I put that person out of my mind, banished for all time.  Ciao!

 

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The Flashing Enigma.

A Lesson in Rubbish.

Back in the spring, for seven relentless days and nights, a strange light pulsed from deep inside a solitary garbage bag in the apartment house dumpster.  Two months on, I can almost imagine it is still flashing in a landfill:

 

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A Tart in the Making.

A Lesson in Modesty.

One afternoon a long time ago, when I discovered that the Stankles’ daughter had left her wet “M” on the condominium elevator floor (see my essay, “The Mark of Mordechi”), I also noticed another troubling pattern taking shape.

About a week later, as she walked through the lobby, this twelve‑year‑old was dressed in a way that was startlingly immodest for a child her age.  What shocked me was not merely the barely-there-bikini itself, but the contradiction behind it.  An exposed belly button with floss for bottoms and the top just covering the nips.  That’s it.

Her father is a “preacher” in a community fellowship.  Her mother teaches in a Christian school.  One would expect that parents who publicly live a life of Sunday preaching and Christian schooling would guide their own children toward modesty, dignity, and respect for themselves and others, particularly since it’s all laid out in the Bible.

If these parents claim to follow God’s laws, which includes the call to modesty, why is their daughter being sent into public areas dressed in ways that undermine or ignore those very teachings?

It was hard not to miss the wide disconnect.  The preacher man and his wife presented themselves as righteous leaders in public, yet the example they set within their own household tells a very different story.  They were rude and cold around people when it’s only them without the others, but the moment another Stankle appeared beside them, the transformation was instantaneous.  Suddenly it was All Christian, All the Time: doors held open, cheerful greetings, syrupy small talk, and enough forced sunshine to blind a person.  As a group, they radiated a kind of performative wholesomeness.  Alone, each one reverted to something far less Christian.

It does not come across as practicing what is being preached with a “Glory Halleluiah” on the stage every Sunday and Wednesday.

That is the deeper sorrow of it all; when those who are entrusted with shaping young souls fail to live the very virtues they proclaim, the child becomes the one who bears the confusion.  A home that should be a sanctuary of positive formation instead becomes a place of mixed messages.  I prayed that Maddee grows into a someone who has a clearer understanding of modesty and faith, and that her brother follows the righteous way, too.  But even more, I pray that her parents rediscover the integrity their public roles demand.  For the sake of their daughter, and for the sake of the witness they offer to the rest of us, I hope they all find their way back to the truth they profess and convert.

 

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Happy 250th!

Driving around town whilst taking care of errands, I waited for the red light to change.  The sun was out, the weather was pleasant, and traffic was light.  I looked to my right, and saw this interesting sight:

The New Liberty.

I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about the United States and how much it’s changed.  It’s no longer a young, beautiful woman personified as Liberty, but an old guy in a wheelchair.  Little promise of a good life, but one that necessitates taking on a crushing job with little promise of advancement.  Maybe I think too much.

The light changed, and I drove off, leaving Mister Liberty to his corner.

Happy 250th!

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Twinkie’s Temper Tremors.

A Lesson in Anger and Envy.

Twinkie Terwilliger had all the charisma of a dirty wet dishrag.  He took offense at anything that didn’t cater to his inflated sense of self-worth.  The moment someone failed to shower him with praise, acknowledge his so-called brilliance, or metaphorically place a sparkly golden trophy in his hand for simply being present, the subsequent scene was inevitable.  He couldn’t stand other people holding the limelight or doing something better than he, and his envy got the better of him.  His fragile-as-glass ego shattered into a million pieces, and therein the theatrics began.

His eyes bulged as if they might pop from their sockets, his face flushed a shade of deep red.  His entire body tremblef uncontrollably, reminiscent of someone in the throes of psychogenic tremors.  To the untrained eye, it might have looked like a medical emergency, but those who knew him understood that it was just another of Twink’s infamous tantrums.

As his voice rose, so did the drama around him.  He just had to be always be right, no matter the subject.  Everyone else was wrong in his mind.  He jabbed a trembling finger toward his supposed offenders, the veins in his neck strained with every shouted word, his bald head turned a bright beet red.  “There you go again!” he bellowed, and his voice cracked as if rehearsing for a poorly performed stage play in the junior high thespian club.  The words echoed sharply and accusatory, and it left his targets unsure whether to laugh, apologize, or simply walk away.

At workplace meetings, his fellow meeting-goers were drawn in by the commotion.  Their expressions were a mix of disbelief and thinly veiled amusement, and many were unable to suppress a smirk or guffaw.  Yes, they had seen this performance before, yet it still left them to marvel at the sheer cheekiness of it all.  Moreover, there was a certain dark humor to watch a grown man who’s sixty years old throw a tantrum that rivaled any spoiled toddler in a toy aisle.  Not a meeting went by where he didn’t scream and shout at perceived insults to him.  He also invariably imagined that he was insulted at every turn, for he had a serious paranoia problem.

When he was back in the neighborhood throwing tantrums, he had a personal crusader.  His father, whom everyone called “Papó,” inevitably stepped forward to be Twink’s personal crusader.  He completed the absurd tableau.  Papó nodded solemnly and would then puff out his chest past his beer belly.  His face wore a forced mask of indignation on behalf of his son.  “He’s just passionate,” Papó explained to the gathering, as though this outburst were some misunderstood acts of controlled brilliance.  He, defending his sixty-year-old child as if he were still a little boy on the playground, being teased for wearing a pink elastic eyeglasses retainer on his head!

The crowd would disperse, with knowing glances exchanged and whispers passed among them.  Meanwhile, Twink stood tall once more and basked in his father’s validation, as if he’s won a moral victory that rivaled Napoleon.  The storm would subside, until the next perceived slight against him stirred it anew with his temper tremors.

 

 

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Books that Form Us – #2.

Second in a Series of My Book Reviews.

 Good books do more than entertain; they shape the soul in ways that are subtle yet profound.  Here are the extensive books I read in May and June 2026.

Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England transcribed by John W. Parker and Son (1857).

✒️ Each of these 108 ballads, poems, and songs in this collection were written in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and compiled into this 1857 transcription by John W. Parker and Son.  This became a lengthy reading foray for me, not only because of the number of works, but also due to the language style that I needed to adjust my understanding of the writing style especially.  This is a very good book if you enjoy this sort of language arts.

Silent Struggles by Ann S. Stephens (1865).

✒️ Wow . . . what a lengthy novel filled with sea adventure!  Admittedly, this took me a couple of weeks to read, and I am a fast reader.  I somewhat enjoyed it, mostly for the themes of bravery and fate.  Amid a violent Boston storm, a young man and an aging minister, strangers to one another bound by an uncanny sense of fate, wait on a hill for a troubled ship to reach the harbor.  Their connection deepens when they witness a desperate escape at sea: Barbara Stafford, a courageous young woman fleeing mortal danger.  As the storm intensifies, both men show remarkable resolve, and the youth ultimately plunges into the raging waters to save her.  Their collision of among these lives sets the stage for a story shaped by bravery, destiny, and the unexpected ties that form in moments of crisis.

Jingle in the Jungle by Aldo Giunta (1957).

✒️  This is a short story that proves not every written tome had clean language back in the 1950s.  I dumped this story because of the taking of God’s name in vain.  I didn’t get past the second page.  This science fiction shortie was first published in “If Worlds of Science Fiction,” June 1957.

 

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