My phone was DEAD for about 5 days and trying to get repairmen over was a real problem because the new company that took over Bell Atlantic has been on strike for a couple weeks already. They finally arrived, said the wires in the main junction box in the street were bad, so they changed connections. That did not work, so they returned after some hours and tried a different main line. It finally worked again and I felt a little more linked to the outside world.

While the phone was out I even had some free time to clean the apartment a little, and work on a letter to the local and State authorities about a recurrent problem this street has with HEAVY industrial haulers going by at all hours of the day and night. You can access the text and pics at OPEN LETTER. I hope that nobody asks me what the file name (trs) represents = Trenton Really Sucks! All I have to do at this point is to get the individuals to sign it, then send it off to various politicians.

Well, we have been having a VERY rainy month thus far. Some northern counties have been declared disaster areas. I now have 3 Siamese kittens and 2 Sphynx kittys running all over the place, and finally put an ad in the local paper to sell the Siamese. Hopefully they will find new homes soon, as they are eating more than I do!

I have thought about this for a LONG while already. The Internet is filled with X-rated sites, and even web cams in streaming video of males and females showing off their naked bodies and even auto-stimulating themselves. It was always shocking to accidentally (or otherwise) click on a link and find these usually fabulous bodies being exhibited for the world to gawk at. From teenagers using their parents cable modem (I wonder if the parents know they are doing this, or would call the police if their kid went to a motel room with a new online pal, saying their under-aged kid was seduced!?), college students with high speed connections through their schools (is this really the type of research resource it was meant to be??), to over-sexed older -- and frequently much less attractive -- individuals from every country wanting to have some REALLY safe sex in a semi-anonymous way! Hey, many even get to meet their viewers!

You might want to check out the live action cams, which are MOSTLY rather kewl things such as FROGS or fish in aquaria or an OUTDOOR FEEDING STATION where you might be able to see deer and other wildlife munching away. Or if you want to spend hours seeing all the web cams go to CAMARADAS.

Hey, I like my body too -- for what it is worth at this point. I may NOT be the most handsome creature these days, do not work out or even look in the mirror that often. Should I share myself with the rest of the world? A lady at the flea market who works on a horse stud farm says I am kewl, and she should know a great stud when she sees one! OK, so I have you panting, salivating and wanting to see more already! Should I or should I not?? Hey I was always a sort of private, shy individual who would NEVER think of even going to a nude beach or anything.

OK, what the hell! Try to remember that the pics you will see are NOT for younger eyes, so all you under-aged viewers please DO NOT click on the following link. <<Amorphous Phallus>>

No comment other than IF I ever find out the mother fuckers who did this, their ass is grass!

Well, after an abundance of rain last month and VERY warm and humid days, we now seem to be in early winter already! Tempertures at night have fallen into the 40s, and the days have been very like late autumn. I even had to put a comforter on the bed so the cats could keep warm at night.

Marie is a cousin on my dad's side of the family. One of the Kardas-Bojanowski line. When we were kids, my parents always took us to visit ALL of our cousins at Christmas, and we saw many of them frequently at Wildwood, where some of them had summer homes, as did we. When my parents died, our always fun visits with the rest of the family sort of disappeared with them for some reason.

I remember visiting Marie's parents place (Uncle Tom and Aunt Marge) in Roxborough, on the outskirts of Philadelphia, and sort of recall a big old house filled with all kinds of interesting things.

With the advent of the Internet, Marie and I would email each other with some frequency. She always wanted me to visit her, meeting at the Polish shrine of the Black Virgin of Czestochowa in Doylestown, and stop by her home to catch up on things since we last actually saw each other as kids. After my accident in the 80s, I really do NOT get out as much as I used to, and RARELY take trips other than to buy groceries. So I always put it off until I was feeling better and up to making the trip.

Sometime before last Christmas she was diagnosed with cancer and she later moved to California to be closer to some of her children and grandchildren. When I heard the news I included her in my prayers while holding the first class relic of St. Jerome which I have always sitting in front of me at the computer. She had a brain tumor removed and was being treated for lung cancer, which apparently was rapidly spreading.

Ted, her brother, another of the Bojanowski's who has kept in contact with me regularly via email over the past several years, sent me her address in California, and I started writing her a letter, always adding to it and still unfinished, that I wanted to send her when I finally completed it.

Well, on 8 September she again returned to the vicinity of her parents' old neighborhood, and I finally did get to make the trip, getting lost twice in the process - I never was really good at finding places while driving unless I had been there several times in the recent past. It is a hilly section just outside of Philadelphia -- loads of rock outcrops along the highway. And the street leading up to Ridge Avenue was perhaps the steepest that I had ever driven up, with the little Festiva making all kinds of weird noises.

I finally arrived and met Ted and his brother Joe , who I had not seen since I was a teenager, Marie's husband Joe and some of her children and their wives, MOST of whom I had never met before, except on my genealogy pages, unfortunately.

Marie was attired in a beautiful light pinkish (or was it lavender ?) dress, with a string of pearls around her neck. Of course she looked older than I remembered her, but I could still see her resemblance to her mother, and in my mind's eye she was still the beautiful young girl I remember from my boyhood. Her hair was somewhat thinned, which is usually normal following radiation therapy. Where mine grew back it is once again blond instead of gray, perhaps a tad sparser though -- a detail which I had not read about before anywhere.

As I knelt before her coffin, I tried to tell her, as tears welled up in my eyes, that I was sincerely sorry that I could not get to see her again long before this, about the letter that I had never finished and how I prayed for her recovery. I brought a little Pope John Paul II bear for her, knowing her deeply religious nature and thinking she would like a last little surprise from me having a Polish connection, placed it beside her.

Ted and Joe also got one of the bears, as did several other family members. I left the funeral home just after 9pm, planning on returning today for the funeral mass and burial. BUT I got up Saturday at 8:20am, and finally left the apartment at about 8:45, and had just driven past Langhorne , Pennsylvania when I calculated that I would miss the mass and never find the cemetery on my own, so, much to my dismay, I turned around and returned home.

Marie, I am glad to have seen you one last time, and am sorry that I could not accompany you on your final earthly journey. And I promise that I shall visit the Shrine in Doylestown and light a candle in your memory.

Marie Rothwein (née Bojanowski), born in Roxborough, Pennsylvania on 8 December 1932; died in San Jose, California, 2 September 2000. May you Rest In Peace.

Millions of years ago the seas teemed with all kinds of microscopic life, and as with all life forms, they eventually died. Their zillions of tender little bodies sank to the bottom of the oceans, were buried, the rocks hardened, the carbon compounds from these organisms eventually changed into petroleum and gas, and not all that long ago, in the geological scheme of things, man discovered that he could dig wells and obtain this fossil fuel and sell it by the barrel. It is sent to refineries where the crude oil is changed through chemical processes into gasoline, heating oil, and innumerable other byproducts which man uses in his daily life.

Cars, trucks, busses, ships, airplanes, farm machinery and even your lawn tractor and gas appliances use some form of petroleum products to function. Can you imagine what life would be like IF, for whatever reason, this nonrenewable natural resource became more difficult to acquire or just simply disappeared?

Gasoline prices have been rising. I filled-up my Festiva this morning at $1.49/gallon = 3.7854 liters (that would be about 39.4 cents a liter). In England, at some pumps, it is $4/gallon, although in Europe, in general, it is sold by the litre. The price of this fuel to the consumer is affected in some part by the taxes placed on it by their governments -- which in some cases amounts to 85% of the cost! In those countries there is a trade-off -- pay higher taxes and receive more health, retirement and other benefits from the state.

Point #1 - people get used to functioning under a particular system and get hyperventilated when certain details begin to change in some marked way. There have been demonstrations throughout Europe complaining about the sudden rise in fuel costs, demanding that the taxes be eliminated, or at least reduced. Will they also be unhappy if they find a corresponding reduction in their social services and benefits because their government would no longer be able to afford these perks due to decreased revenues through taxation? Many situations in life are not really as simple as they might appear at first glance. France appears to be the only EEC country which has thus far reduced its tax on gasoline.

Point #2 - countries and political parties get their money to function from several sources : taxation, bribes a la Chirac in France, soft money a la Clinton in the USA, selling relief supplies donated for the needy a la Sadam Husain in Iraq, oil producing nations by selling their barrels of crude a la Persian Gulf, among many other innovative ways. And, lest we forget, oil happened to be the MAIN reason for the Gulf War not so long ago. In the past, wars might have been started to gain a throne, acquire territory, expel infidels, acquire natural resources or just something to do to boast the economy in some way.

Point #3 - the rich get richer and the poor and middle-income families seem stuck where they are for some reason. Why does the net worth of some of the Fortune 500 INDIVIDUALS equal or exceed the gross national product of some countries? They market their company's software, stuffed toys, real estate they got for next to nothing compared to its rental value, publications, talk show crap and other "commodities", most of the actual details of which are handled by agents and lawyers, while the INDIVIDUAL just continues to rake in the profits.

Point #4 - the profits of major companies always seem to rise in the long run. Cost of medication, gasoline, food and personal necessities, utilities, housing rentals and sales, bank charges, highway and bridge tolls -- you name it and it is ALL more expensive than it was even a couple years ago. Is the consumer simply being milked out of every cent they have available (and even UNavailable -- via credit cards!) so that the rich dudes and stockholders, who sit comfortably in their easy chair typing in a few words and code on their computers to acquire yet more stocks, options, bonds and other securities, can bathe in the quarterly dividends at the expense of the general public? The only plausible reason that I can find for all of these enormous gains is that we are being grossly overcharged for most of what we are billed for! And, as the passive sheep which we seem to be, nobody seems to provide hundreds of busses for the flocks of angry demonstrators who demand a change in this worldwide disease of PURE GREED! (except perhaps those possibly enlightened ones who massed at the World Trade Organization meetings earlier this year -- not that it got them anything but arrests and bruises)

Point #6 - I personally see NO reason why an oil producing country MUST increase their output OR lower their per barrel cost just so that some foreigners do not freeze to death during an excessively cold winter, get their farm products to market, use mass transportation instead of a car, or cut their grass. After all, they seem to live in warmer countries, grow few crops in deserts, quite happily have their coiffeur drive them where ever they want to go in one of their fleet of Rolls, Mercedes and sports cars, the women have the shape of their nose surgically altered (after all, it is one of the few body parts that anyone other than their husband is ever able to look at!), and most of them are the chosen of Allah! Remember? The infidels of the Crusades! Curiously, we also happen to be infidels in their somewhat weird society, nominally based largely on "religious" doctrines. What would happen if an overly zealous non-elected demagogue would want to upset the global economy and start some kind of crisis in an oil producing country? Is it already starting? I think we all know what the outcome would be, and it would be a disaster like none other in history. The EURO has somehow been slipping mysteriously! Has the great economic boom of the 90s come to an end? How far away is a back-to-basics recession? Will the school kids still be able to afford their cell phones and ISPs? Hey, the Mennonites - Pennsylvania Dutch are also a somewhat closed, well-functioning society having religious doctrines as their guiding principles. And guess what? They do NOT need gasoline for their LIVE horse power!

Point #7 and last - Clinton orders release of some strategic oil reserves. OK, BAD security move -- GREAT political soundbite for Gore just weeks before the elections! Hey, we pay some of the LOWEST gasoline taxes in the entire world (and are blessed with the shittiest health care and social benefits system found anywhere!). Can we conserve more? Find alternative energy sources? Get around town on a bicycle instead of using a gas-guzzling convertible -- and exercise off some of that flab at the same time? Keep the heat at 65 instead of 75 or higher -- that is what sweaters and blankets were made for? Switch to wood-burning stoves -- and hey, I am sure they still sell coal somewhere? Think about it - if economies are based on the stupid robber-baron idea of supply and demand, maybe if we would demand LESS, existing supplies might become so abundant that prices would have to go down or the sellers would go out of business! Forget the ineffective demonstrations -- hit them where it really hurts!

Congratulations to the people of Serbia on their apparent largely bloodless coup and hopefully the start of the long awaited era of democratic government. May their popularly elected leaders have the wisdom to reunite all of Yugoslavia and incorporate it into the new Europe.

For some highly provocative cartoons by perhaps Serbia's leading political cartoonist, Predrag Koraksic, make sure to visit his site -->> CORAX.

Oh, well, what a bore it has been lately! The weather has been swinging from COLD to Indian Summer warmish. I finally had to put my heat on because the cats were complaining about how cold it was getting.

I have been spending virtually every non-sleeping moment adding treasures to my eBay auctions, hoping to be able to pay more of my OVERDUE bills. I finally did send out the gas, electric and phone bills which were unpaid since July!! The biggest ones, for the city taxes are still waiting on the sidelines.

I feel really ratty. Usually overtired, cannot sleep well, try to eat something balanced, usually. I should go for a check-up, as I have been putting it off for over 2 years already! Problem is, I know they will find something nasty, and am in no mood for such news at this point!

I still have not started any painting or work on getting the tree-weeds from the yard, and it seems that another year will go by without doing anything on these 2 big jobs. I have boxes of crap all over the place and just do not find the energy to move them downstairs, to clutter THAT area up even more than it is already!

And the elections? GAWD!! What a circus! Hey, I may even go out and vote this year for the first time since I returned to the States. Even Mickey Mouse is better than Bush!!

Election Day Special

WOW, I just went to the new senior housing complex a couple blocks away to VOTE! First time in the US!! I got there around noon and I was only number 58. I handed out some Gore and Bush promo bears and Hillary Clinton and Robert Kennedy limited edition bears to the retired ladies outside selling cakes and other delights, and to the volunteers and the 2 voters inside. They even gave me some coffee, and I later bought an entire pan of really yummy bread pudding with loads of raisons from the nice ladies in the patio.

The process was easy. You sign a couple things, get a slip with a number on it, give it to the lady at the booth thing, then go inside and close the curtains. It was fun pushing the levers down and hearing the clicks, and if getting myself out to vote is any indication of a national trend, then we just might see a GREAT increase in voter turnout this time, instead of the scandalously low numbers in past presidential elections. Why is it that more voters exercise their rights (and civic duty!) in most European countries than they do here? Their candidates are certainly NOT any more exciting than our limited selection of big spenders! If I remember correctly, in Belgium the citizens MUST vote, which I think is a great idea.

GAWD, after staying up until 4am, 8 November, to watch the vote tallies, I discovered that each web site had its own numbers (CBS had the best coverage), Gore won Florida, then they changed it to Bush, then, when my eyes were already half-closed, they had to do a recount! I wonder if it had anything to do with Georgie's brother being governer of Florida? They vote on punch-cards there. How easy it might be to put in a BIG batch for Bush to substitute some of Gores!! This really sounds weird!

Last December I wanted to see what a tail would look like, so I started growing one -- in my hair DUH! So I let it grow until now and sort of came to the conclusion that although it was kewl, it just was NOT me. So Bernie took pics of it for posterity, and I must admit, after seeing them, that it was not all that bad after all -- problem was that I could not see the thing, so I really had no idea what I looked like with it!

I sometimes used a rubber band to keep it together, but forgot to put it on for the pics, but you get the idea anyway. You can see that ever lovable Sphynx cat, Fabiola, in the pic, taken at the old place in West Trenton, where I still go every couple days to read the New York Times, visit the fish and garden, and snuggle up to Bernie's kittys.

It is almost 1am, Friday morning, 24 November, and I just got back from my brother's for his annual Thanksgiving bash.

As he moved since the last time, I called yesterday morning for directions, which I carefully wrote on a little pad -- and I even remembered to bring the page with me!

So I started off about 13.00, having about an hour to get there -- had I to arrive at the scheduled 14hr it would have taken me longer to get there, but I woke up way too late, had to pack the 5 cases of bears I was taking for the kids, and remember the fantastic cranberry sauce I made the day before -- after promising it for at least 3 years already!

10+ cups of cranberries, about 4 of water, 3.5 cups of normal sugar the usual ingredients. But I was my usual creative self and added about a cup of brown sugar, a cup of piñones (= pine nuts), and 3 sticks of cinnamon.

While it was cooking I decided that there was too much cinnamon so I removed 2 of them -- later removed the last one because it was tasting too cinnamony for my delicate taste. When it was cool I emptied what was left in a bottle of Gran Marnier (orange liquor) and let it cool. I really liked it --and still have a lot of it left, some of which I promised Slugmama when I see her next.

OK, so I took the Turnpike -- he suggested the Parkway, but I could never figure out which was which. So I wound up GAWD knows where and had to use my intuition and asking at a couple gas stations how to get to their town -- which nobody had ever heard of, including me! I whipped out a 1966 map -- the only one I had handy, and some of the roads he mentioned were not even on it yet! OK, so I winged it a little!

It was fun to leave the earthy soil areas behind and once again, after a couple years, seeing good sand and loads of pine trees! And they are in the area of the Great Dismal Swamp, where the Jersey Devil is known to appear every so often! Come on out, you devil you, and let's play!

Anyway, I finally got there around 15:30, and as usual, they had not yet started. Their 5 kids were there, 2 of them with their respective hubbys. Was nice to see them after a year!

The turkey, trimmings, and his wife's pies were great as usual, and they even packed a Sonny-bag of left overs for me to munch on at home and share with the kittys.

Their new place is across from a little church of some kind -- Methodist, I think, built in 1823 -- and has a nice, restful graveyard along side! This excited the Steven King part of me, and I guess I had hoped to see loads of spirits get together for their holiday feast or something -- but no such luck!

Around 18h they took me to Ocean City so I could see the beach and ocean for the first time in over 3 years -- the boardwalk had a couple bike riders flitting by (very typical!), and a couple strollers. I just had to go to the waters edge, sniff the salt spray, check out the perfectly clear sky and bright stars, and slosh my feet through the sand. I really miss the shore! It's so relaxing and comtemplative, bringing back fond memories of younger days when the family spent summers at the Jersey shore.

After returning to their new place, which is somewhat smaller than the old one -- heated with a wood stove and a real fireplace redone with a kewl gas log-like thing (which really heats the place fabulously!), we finally did the huggy thing, their 2 doggies got in their last barks, and I started on my happy, FULL way back to glorious Trenton.

No problem finding the right roads this time! BUT.......

Along route 55, just outside of Glassboro, the ole Festiva started chugging. I glanced at the gas gauge, which I never bother to look at, and it was NEAR empty. Lucky me! A sign I just passed said GAS at the next exit!

Unfortunately the chugs started really groaning and as I pulled over to the shoulder, it just died! Lucky me! ALL ALONE, COLD DARK NIGHT, and with a CORPSE to contend with!

I remembered that they have convenient emergency phones at regular intervals, so I lifted the hood, put the emergency flashers on, and started on my happy way to find the life-saving phone. IT WAS COLD AS ANYTHING, with a nice breeze to make it more exciting. About a 5 minute hobble down the road, cane in hand, I found the phone. I told the operator that I was out of gas and was starting to freeze, and could they send a gallon of gas so I could fill-up at that gas station. OK, no problem, they said.

I hobbled back to the car, sat for 45 minutes and was starting to freeze. Decided to go back to call them again. The answer was that they had taken care of it already and that someone was on their way. GREAT! Back to Festiva.

In the meantime a car with 2 guys stopped to ask what had happened, and that they had a cell phone (lucky duckies!) if I needed it to call someone to come and bring me gas. Unfortunately I was half way home already and didn't have any phone numbers handy -- not that anyone in Trenton or where ever would come and rescue me anyway. OK, they said, they would go and bring me gas. HURRAY!

So, slightly warmer of heart, at least, I got back in the car and waited a while. As I got more numb and half frozen (the temp must have been about 20 degrees - not counting wind chill and all that neat stuff!), I remembered the blanket I have in the back, so I bundled myself in it and thought I might even sleep a tad before they returned. Couldn't sleep, and when I looked at my watch, 2 hours had already gone by!

Oh, well, I would write a note (like the sailors did in the Russian sub), saying how well the NJ emergency road assistance program works -- which they could find on my frozen blue body if anybody stopped to check before daylight! BUT, what would all my happy eBay winning bidders do then? GAWD, what a dilemma!

Plan #2 - hobble back for a third time to that stupid phone and suggest that if they don't send gas soon, that an EMS vehicle might be more appropriate! I opted for plan #2!

Half way back to the phone -- and my fingers and feet were ready to snap off already at this point -- a car with those nasty profiling State Troopers stopped and asked what was wrong. Shivering and with my teeth chattering, I told them my tale and they drove behind my stranded car. I went to their window wanting to see if they could help -- and the guy on the right was checking for my license plate on a many-paged list he had -- probably of stolen vehicles? -- and he said to wait a sec -- I said I was going to sit in my car before I drop over or freeze upright.

OK, they pulled along side and said they thought the gas station was closed and that they would check, PLUS they had some seedy-looking characters in the back of the car that they said they had to dispose of too.

OK, I just gave up at that point, went back to the car and again wrapped the blanket around me and over my head, and leaned back waiting to become a fresh frozen hunk of meat -- STUFFED with turkey, at that!!

About 10 minutes went by -- while I thought that maybe if I thawed out in the sun -- had it to be shining the next midday, that I might just be revived somehow. Then, in my frozen fantasies, I heard something pull up --

It was the troopers! And they had already dumped their passengers and brought a little gallon thingy with gas!! HURRAY!! But I couldn't even use the keys to unlock the gas cap because my fingers were frozen stiff, and the nice young dude opened it for me. I asked where the station was, so I could fill up -- and how much I owed him. NOTHING! OMG, nice people still exist! I was really surprised! Forget the chicken-in-every-pot thing -- a gallon of gas to a stranded car is much more appetizing!

I thanked him as effusively as a frozen fillet minion could, and they even waited to see if the car would start -- which it did, of course. Gas usually does that to most cars!

I went to the gas station -- HAD I KNOWN!! It was probably a 15 minute hobble from where I was stranded!

Anyway, all's well that ends well! It took me a tad longer to get back home than it normally would, I had another thrilling experience to add to my long list of tales, and I am still stuffed!

OK, so I am sitting at my computer as usual and hear this thud outside. Loud enough to make me get up and look out the window. Saw a guy walking his pitbull across the street looking in the direction of my downstairs front windows.. So I went down and found two of the plate glass windows broken! Time around midnight. And this time the video camera inside WORKED, and the tape shows that the glass seemed to break without help from anyone -- although there is a bullet hole in the one next to it!! VERY STRANGE!

The glass guy came over and spent over 3 hours boarding it up and getting rid of the fragments! GAWD, it would have taken me 20 minutes if I had the boards I used before -- and could move as well as I used to!

Just what I needed at this point! The repair estimate says $1,774.69!! Shit! I can't even pay my normal bills, then this happens!

** D E C E M B E R **

NO COMMENT on the election results! It would take too much room!

OK, the holidays are fast approaching and somehow it just seems like any other day. I am still waiting for the auction results from Philadelphia to see whether I can pay my taxes and other back due bills before the end of the year. It seems as if the lady in charge went to Ireland after the auction and will not return until almost Christmas! And I am still waiting for the glass people to repair the window! Don't know where the $$ will come from to pay them yet! I just hope that something NICE happens before Christmas, instead of my usual technical glitches!

It is snowing lightly, for the second time, with a little left over from our first snowfall. The windows downstairs are NOT yet fixed, and I still do NOT know anything about the Philadelphia art auction!

Two days BEFORE Christmas and it is 11 degrees outside and I can NOT even look out my windows because the storm windows are covered with frost! And the Philadelphia auction finally called me to say that they can NOT send me any $$ from the sale of my art works until they get payment for them from the winning bidders!! HOLY SHIT!! Their auction rules say that winning payment has to be made within 3 days of the auction end, and it has already been 13 days thus far!! There goes my hope to get taxes and other things paid before the end of the year! Looks like I am GRINCHED again! And the idiots wanted me to put more art works in their 2001 auctions! Yeah, right!

GAWD, wrong holiday! Let me try this again.....

I was up until 6:00 on 25 December, changed my main Beanie page to a MAP -- I never did like those pages with frames! Then I took a shower and finally crawled into bed -- getting up at 15h!

And for all you stay-at-homes, here is a kewl site for New Year celebrations around the world!

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