Seek and Ye Shall Find

Monday, January 18, 2021

I know that not all of you dear readers live in a state of wedded bliss.  As easy as it is to accomplish, occasionally a little nudge is helpful in finding your beshert (Hebrew for Mr. or Ms. or Mx. Right).  Here, then, is a brief profile of an eligible SWF, conveniently located in Manhattan.

 

"Friendly and soft-spoken, she explained that Hollywood elites conducted Illuminati blood rituals behind closed doors, that former Representative Anthony Weiner’s laptop contained a video of Hillary Clinton committing murder, and that photos from a recent meeting between Mr. Trump and Queen Elizabeth II proved that he had secretly dethroned her."

https://nyti.ms/3srlt7o

. . .

 

San Francisco is now enduring the same faux crisis as we have had here in the Holy Land, hand wringing over the departure of people unable to cope with the 21st century.  https://nyti.ms/35JMnxM  And the cloud, indeed, has proved to have a well-deserved silver lining.  San Francisco rents ended the year down 27%.  https://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/SF-rent-closes-out-the-year-down-27-15845136.php?utm_campaign=CMS%20Sharing%20Tools%20(Premium)&utm_source=share-by-email&utm_medium=email

While New York City and San Francisco are gaining a little bit more elbow room, urban areas generally throughout the United States are experiencing increased demand for housing.  https://nyti.ms/3nLfPcN

Home prices rose in all large markets across the country, including previously disfavored places, such as Camden, New Jersey, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Baltimore, Maryland.  The NYC/SF parallel prevailed here, too, in that many people fled no farther than across the nearest body of water, buoying up the real estate markets in Newark, New Jersey, and Oakland, California.

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

I am really worried about the lottery.  Today, the Powerball prize is over 800 million dollars and the Mega Millions nearly that.  Attracted by that much money, I bought tickets for each.  I don't know the difference between them; I assume that any money that they don't give me will go to a good cause.

The problem is with my prize money.  You get about half after taxes, but that's still a lot, 300, 400, 500 million dollars. And that's my problem.  What am I going to do with all that money?  Buy a fancy car with no place to go?  Upgrade Palazzo di Gotthelf without anyone able to come and see it?  Restocking my wardrobe would be equally pointless. 

I really like to travel, but I will have to sit in a hotel room in quarantine for the first 14 days after I get anywhere.  Even if the best restaurants were to deliver to my hotel room (a suite for sure), it's still takeout.  Regardless of which end of the culinary spectrum I might patronize, sitting at a table close to the kitchen, maybe even spying the cook/chef preparing my food, is a key component of going out to eat, assuming you can even go out.

I'd donate, certainly.  West End Synagogue, my favorite collection of anarchic Jews, could always use money.  However, we would probably have to wait until at least late this year to enjoy the improvements.  What all that money would certainly buy is a horde of old and new friends with helpful suggestions and/or sad stories.  Escaping that sort of attention might justify forgoing the prize money.  See, it's not so easy.

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

I can't speak for you, but there doesn't seem to be anyone on the list of people pardoned by the president as he left office that I would want to be stuck in an elevator with.  https://nyti.ms/3sBQm9v

Thursday, January 21, 2021

It was exactly 25 years ago, at the Café Edgar on West 84th Street (since relocated and renamed as Edgar Cafe), that I first met the amazing woman emerging as America's Favorite Epidemiologist.  And the rest, as they say, is herstory. 

. . .

I gasped when I first read that Michelin had awarded one star to a vegan restaurant in France.   https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/france-vegan-restaurant-michelin-star-intl-scli/index.html

In the past, unfairly, I would recoil at the mention of the V word, conflating vegetarian and vegan.  Then, I realized that half of my abundant diet was vegetarian -- the milchigs side of the Kosher yin and yang, milchigs/fleishigs.  In these very pages, I have sung the praises of B&H Dairy Restaurant, 127 Second Avenue, with its cuisine built around eggs, cheese and sour cream, dairy with a capital D.  However, the elegant Marge C. taught me that these products are only one step removed from animal flesh and, therefore, outside the vegan diet.  Marge informed me, but did not reform me.

. . .

It turns out that Amina S*** is a very common name in Tanzania, Burkina Faso and other parts of Africa.  That wasn't helpful, however, when I found a key chain attached to a mini-wallet on West End Avenue this afternoon.  The wallet held a credit card and a debit card in her name (instinctively, I thought of a woman), a receipt from a grocery store in the Bronx and a $50 bill.

Grandpa and Grandma Nick and Nora on the case.  The Internet mostly pointed to sub-Saharan Africa, which was a reach in a variety of ways.  There were also references to Facebook and LinkedIn, on the other side of the digital divide.  The on-line telephone number searches are no longer free and generally require subscriptions to use, but were able to reveal that one Amina S*** lived in the Bronx, corresponding to the grocery store receipt.

The last name itself connected to a variety of businesses on several continents.  One possibly outdated website promoted a line of modest, modish Muslim women's clothing.  No location was indicated, but there was an e-mail address.  

"Lost keys?" was the subject line of my message, containing only my telephone number.  The phone rang within two minutes.  The breathless young woman was right at the public school abutting Palazzo di Gotthelf and we met within 10 minutes.  We could not hug, but we had an emotional elbow bump.  Case closed.

 

Friday, January 22, 2021

The attempted insurrection of January 6th may be seen as a successor to "Les Miserables," rechristened "Les Deplorables."