I spent most of this day wondering how I would close this month out. March has, as it does each year, dragged and flew. At the beginning of the month I knew I would make it to the end. Granted, I also knew there would be some very late night close encounters, which there were. And 2021 will forever hold the asterisk for when I published yet fell asleep before I could post as hubris, but I did it.
Most of all WE made it!
Whether you made all the way through all the slices, or missed a slice or two, or more, as always…
🎵 I’m so glad we had this time together… 🎶
* tugs on ear * [Some of you will get this]
We have survived an entire year of Life in the Times of Covid! It has not been an easy year for any of us. But with the vaccinations happening slowly but surely we can finally see the better days coming ahead. I imagine next year’s challenges will be sprinkled with the things we get to do again compared to now and it will be great.
Being that today is Tuesday, it seems fitting as we know return to our usual Tuesday slices.
Yesterday was all about Broadway, but I also miss concerts. I have a long history with them.
First concert: The Spinners with Dionne Warwick, NYC 1970s (don’t remember the venue, I was nine or ten years old with my mother).
Last concert: Tituss Burgess at Carnegie Hall, NYC February 2020 (Thank you D-Fab!)
Best concert: Queen, Madison Square Garden, NYC September 1980 (First rock concert, saying I was underage and had NO business being there doesn’t cover it, but by God IT WAS GLORIOUS!)
Worst concert: I’m happy to say I’ve never been a bad concert, not even a ho hum one.
Loudest concert: Oh that’s an easy one – Metallica 2009 at Prudential Center. My ears rang for nearly three days.
Seen the most: Metallica and Jay Z, three times each.
Most surprising: Isaac Hayes live at Prospect Park Bandshell – June 2008. Surprising solely because of the gut punch of his passing away two months later.
Wish I could have seen: – Hands down Prince #1 I don’t know how I let that sexy motherfucker slip through my concert wish list unseen, *deep spiritual soulful sigh of regret*. Also, Nirvana is another one I really wish I could have seen.
Grateful I had a chance to see: Linkin Park in concert at NYC’s Madison Square Garden in July of 2008. LP had to cancel part their 2015 concert tour which included its stop in NYC. In July 2017 we lost Linkin Park’s lead singer Chester Bennington to suicide.
I still have the tickets for the “Welcome to Blinkin Park” concert at NYC’s Citifield Stadium that was scheduled the following week.
Next concert: Live in person? Who knows… Stay tuned…
I am the first person to admit, while I do well enough at English – I am a writer, poet and blogger after all – my skill in mathematics leaves MUCH to be desired. I never cared about my X and don’t you dare ask me about Y I’m that way. Surprisingly, geometry and I got along. Acute, obtuse, isosceles, squares, and pretty much any dang thing that suffixed in “-agon” were good buddies of mine because it was shapes – my artist brain understood those type of figures. Other than that? Fuhgettaboutit! I get confused looking at math problems in TV and movies. “Good Will Hunting” became a foreign language every time Matt Damon’s character, the eponymous Will, stepped to the black board. Hell, a depiction of high school Trigonometry would have been/still remains out of my depth of comprehension.
Suffice it to say when Sudoku became a ‘thing’, I saw numbers, heard you have to do math and promptly said “Uh… noPe.” To be fair, over the years I have looked at a game or two, tried to fathom it out, but the (il)logic behind them seemed as variable and numerous as, well, numbers. I am not a fan.
Thus, I am not quite sure how on earth THIS happened last night…
A messy win, is a win nonetheless.
A friend online mentioned sudoku and yesterday became one of those weird times where I thought to myself, Meh, why not? I googled “easy” sudoku games, hit a random link and printed one out. I assumed by easy it meant I could complete it in about 30 minutes. HAH! Did I say HAH! ? What I meant was *snort-chortle-snigger-HAH!*. That nonsense took nearly 90 minutes, and as you see from the various scratch outs and overlays; I did not have an easy time at all. However, unlike every other game I attempted in the past, for once I saw the pattern. I had more than half the game done within the first hour. It’s the most I had ever done and it made me determined to complete this miracle. The remainder was correcting my mistakes in order to figure out the rest of the game.
I did not find this fun or relaxing. I still do not understand the appeal. It will likely be a few more years before I am thus intrigued to try again. Still, I was so stunned that I had finally, Finally, FINALLY completed my first sudoku game I took a picture for prosperity. A memory I get to share now, with no plans to try it again in the immediate future.
I am not Catholic, but I like the basic idea of Lent. Well, my interpretation of it anyway. The idea of sacrifice, of giving up something. Sometimes, I’m surprisingly good at it.
The year I gave up chocolate was stunningly easy by the Friday after Lent started, Snickers candy bars and I separated from our daily habits. Separated to the point, that once Lent was over, I didn’t pick the habit back up again. It was not a conscious decision, I simply stopped.
On the other hand, the year I attempted to give up my potty-mouth…? I woke up at 5am that Wednesday morning, and by the time I reached work at 8am that same morning – well… Let’s just say, the the less I say about that bullshit the better.
Then was was the year I gave up meat. Not just beef and poultry, seafood as well. I good thing right? How is it I wound up in Atlantic City for a friends birthday for a weekend in early April. A weekend that included an All-You-Can-Eat Seafood Saturday at one of the restaurant. A restaurant where the ONLY thing that did not have some form of flesh in it was a salad. Not the salad, that might have indicated choices. No it was literally A single salad, for the rest had some form of meat mixed in. There was something like seven different salads available. I could only eat ONE in the entire buffet. My friends thought I was insane as I stuck to my miserly guns as they cracked open crab leg after crab leg after crab leg. I was proud of myself, because I did not cave. For any of you who read may have read my About Raivenne page – you know how I suffered.
This year it was junk food.
Because yes, leave it up to mean to give up comfort food the year of Coronavirus. At work it would have been easier. There I have to make an effort to get up and go to the vending machine or the concession stand if I want to munch. I did not realize how much garbage I consumed daily until I noticed had a little something of a surplus in my finances. Thanks to self-isolation that bump also included how much I have saved by not being able to go to Starbucks..
From the files of Good Deed/Unpunished : Lent started on Ash Wednesday as always – my order of Girl scouts arrived that Friday. The following week I had to give away a cake because I could not eat it. I also was gifted a variety snack box of the chips. And because Fate and than wretch Karma like having fun, I was reminded by a friend that it is technically 46 days of no cakes or chips or cookies or…or…or…because why not?
Every single day I glared at the Thin Mints, Dipsy Doodles etc mocking me from atop the refrigerator, and the Häagen-Dazs giving me the cold shoulder for ignoring it in the freezer. All the while thinking to myself how they were going to be Alllll Minnnnnne. Oh I relished sinking my teeth into the salty savor of chips, the sweet goodness of butter pecan, come Easter Sunday.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the Junk food.
Easter Sunday came and went and I have yet to touch any of it. Not even to sniff the plastic.
They say it takes 21 days to break a habit, a minimum of 90 to break an addiction. It’s now Tuesday night, 48 days since Ash Wednesday and I just started thinking about it. Now I wonder if my junk food days are behind my like Snickers. Let’s see how long it lasts.
I went to my office to work. On a much needed break to …
get coffee
rest my eyes and
absorb some sunshine to replenish my Vitamin D stores
… my work wife and I go to the only place that is open around the immediate office area.
Until this past weekend, we have had back-to-back rainy or at minimum dreary days. This did absolutely nothing to ease to ease the cabin fever that was beginning to sink in. Another reason I was grateful when my work wife offered a ride as she was going in as well.
Let’s see… Be in a car for 40 minutes with a person I know is not sick or spend over an hour on mass transit around who knows how many strangers who either are not able to observe the at least 6ft of social distancing being asked of us while riding the subway or who simply refuse to observe. I think you can guess which path I chose to take to work.
Three weeks ago in the New York City before Covid-19 there were scant signs heralding the early spring season; not so any more.
The very first of the tulips planted annually had begun to bloom! Even better was the sight of these…
The Cherry Blossom trees had blossomed! I had not realized how much I missed seeing these annual harbingers until I saw them. For a moment it felt like a normal spring day. Then a masked person walked into view.
Still, I smiled at the reminder that THIS is what’s normal and we will get back to it soon enough.
A fellow slicer posted how he was informed by the maker of her computer that it was no longer covered. He knew nothing was wrong with his computer and it was a marketing ploy, something to get him to buy something bigger! Shinier! Newer! He wisely and humorously ignored it knowing his ” outdated (sorry, I meant to say seasoned friend” was just fine for now.
I wish I could say the same of mine.
I found the receipt, she became mine in 2013. I wasn’t a poor black child but I was, and still am, a far cry from affluent and I never was a tech snob. She was not the newest thing on the market. As a Win7 when the world was fawning over the less than a year old Windows 8, she wasn’t the newest thing on the previous year’s market, but she was more than ready to do what I needed her to do and was new to me. The first time I turned her on and she zoomed to life I knew we were a good match.
But that was in 2013 and with apologies to Barbara Walter – this is 2020.
She was a little for a bit clunky when I finally fed her Windows 8 in 2014, but we worked it out. All the while I was adding new programs and apps and streaming services. I upped her memory, we had our moments of defragg and we checked-disked. Got her a bigger hard drive to move files around. Still, she nearly choked when Microsoft insisted on adding Windows 10 a couple of years ago. I saw the blue screen of death for a moment and my computer life flashed before my eyes, but again, she came through it. She wasn’t champion level anymore, I knew this, but she she still worked out like a contender.
She had been showing more signs of reaching that point since the fall of 2019. But the beginning of the year was the first time she hiccuped in the middle of a file and I lost work. Luckily, I had saved the file recently to an external drive, so it was not a huge loss, about twenty minutes worth of work photoshop work, but it was my first loss. She had begun to loose speed long before then. Having Chrome ask do I want to wait for an application or exit the page had become a regular thing. A few weeks ago I heard the first serious overclocking. The zooming sound a system makes when it’s trying far too hard to do far too much at once. I used to work with computers, I know the difference in sound between a computer that’s I’m hustling, but I got you rush from the I’m getting there, but uh, you gotta give me a min zoom that is too loud and too long.
I am working remotely from home for who knows how long. She does not like the latest apps I installed to to make this happen.And I mean does not like.
Then this past weekend I heard a zoom, a click and a squeak. That is a mechanical failure waiting to happen on the brink of the highest degree. I have no choice. Girl wasn’t getting old, she is old.
“Who you calling old?!” she seemed to say as she glitched, unintentionally giving vercity to the situation.
I was supposed to take two separate trips over the next couple of weeks. Coronavirus put the kibosh on those plans, but it left me with funds to do what I have to.
“You, darling” I sadly said to my beloved system as I pressed Place Order for a new customized new system I configured. “Just hang in there for me a little will ya?”
I’ved duct taped, downloaded, upgraded and “given her all I can, Captain” and she has given me all she can. It long past time I let Della go soft into that dark pixelated night.
So this conversation snippet happened on the train ride home:
LS: So, angels are good girls that never got caught, Good girls are bad girls who got caught and were sorry for their deed, Bad girls are wicked girls who got caught and were sorry they got caught, Wicked girls are bad girls who got caught and are not sorry – period But then there are wicked girls who can’t get caught because they own up to their misdeed before it even happens, so what do you call them?
A couple of weekends ago, many fans of the rock band Avenged Sevenfold were really upset when the band did not appear to open for Metallica in Philadelphia. The band was forced to cancel when guitarist Synyster Gates’ wife went into labor and he flew home to be present for the birth of their first child. I can only imagine how much worse the discord would have been had it been a member of Metallica.
Coach Sarunas Jasikevicius, a former NBA player with the Indiana Pacers and current head coach for Ĺ˝algiris Kaunas of the Lithuanian League was being questioned by a reporter for allowing one of his players to leave, during the midst of his team’s semi-finals games nonetheless, to attend the birth of his first child. Firstly, Jasikevicius’ initial expression was priceless. You could all but hear him think Did that asshole really just ask me this bullshit?  His spoken response was condescending to the reporter, but frankly he had it coming. It was a stupid question, clearly intended to start some drama, that backfired and the reporter ended up getting schooled as the kids say.
Granted, musicians only tour every few years as new music drops. Concert fans can pay a lot of money to view their favorites bands live, still it was a concert.
Sports fans have more potential for access to their favorite players and when it’s crunch time I understand fans want the best players front and center, still it was a game.
This is playing a semi-final game or performing at a concert compared to bringing new life into the world for the first time. I might have more sympathy to those upset by this were it the third, fourth, fifth baby. Clearly you get how it works by then, but the for first time. If the partner has the chance to be there, and s/he wants to be there, then s/he should be there – period.
I would have liked to hope that even most those who choose not to have children, or those who have been there done that, can at least have some empathy, but as always, social media snatched the rose-colored glasses off of that fantasy — quick.  That this is even a question for some people as to why at least a first time-parent would want to drop everything and be there, honestly kind of appalls me.
Kudos to the fans in Philly who were understandably disappointed, but took it in stride. Kudos to Jasikevicius who understands that a player’s personal needs will sometimes trump his professional ones.
Priorities:
— Some people have them.
— Some people at least understand them.
— Some people really need to seriously get theirs in order.
A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.
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It’s Slice of Life Tuesday – let’s see how others are slicing it up:
Let’s see who among you have been paying attention:Â Who is my favorite band?
Happy Mother’s Day to me! Metallica stage at MetLife Stadium 05/14/17Â
!! METALLICA !!
And who is in the tri-state area this week? Yup, Metallica! Being the hard rocking mama I am, of course I saw them this weekend as the played Mother’s Day; VIP section naturally. Â Oh, how I love those guys! So worth the temporary tinnitus!
At some point in the concert James (Hetfield co-founder, lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist for the band — for those who don’t know), asks the audience who wants to here some old school Metallica from the early 80’s. A friend seated next to me promptly announced that she had not been born yet.
A woman sitting on the other side of my friend appalled by her relative youth visibly cringed “God I feel old.”
I laughed, rolled my eyes at my friend and told her to shush, reminding her that she was younger than my children. Granted, it is only by a couple of years, but technically years younger.
“You can’t be that old stop it. I know, because I’m pretty up there.” She shrugged clearly thinking herself the matron among the three of us.
I took a good look at her, figuring she was in her very late 30s and grinned “I guarantee you, I am older than you.”
Numbers were shared and as I figured, not only was I older than she, but by nearly a decade (I am a month younger than James Hetfield – for comparison).  She was gobsmacked to say the least.
I grinned whipping my purple curls around as the opening notes of “Whiplash” sounded.
“Hey, this just means we have plenty of years left to rock out and we’ll look damn good doing it!”
<>==========<>==========<> Writing Our Lives #52essays2017 Challenge –Week 20
A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.
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It’s Slice of Life Tuesday – let’s see how other’s are cutting it up:
Raivenne-lations 