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* O C T O B E R *

27 October 2006 / Friday -- it seems that I have a slight backlog of news again -- I shall try to be as brief as possible -- LOL!!

Ken has not been back, so I assume that he and his wife are still unpacking and organizing their new home -- they sold the former larger house -- the store does not seem to be sold yet -- I still have some things he gave me inside, but do not have room for them yet.

I called Horacio in the Canaries because he never seems to find the time to email me -- my place is still intact BUT not living there causes MORE things that have to be repaired when and if I ever get back there.

I took Fabiola and her two remaining kittens to the vets a couple times -- one kitty had an eye infection and will probably be just like Blinky with one functional eye -- they are both VERY active and always jump on me when I go into the bedroom -- the vet said that Fabiola has very bad teeth and that several should be removed -- I never had this sort of thing done before and it is quite expensive; she is old and might croak due to the surgery -- I also wanted him to remove that warty growth on her chin -- when I save up enough I guess I shall have it all done.

In early September we had the remnants of some hurricane, wind and rain -- the water coming from the Jamaican neighbor's broken downspout -- -- caused more damage on the left side of the front window -- although he said he would fix it many months ago -- -- he never got around to doing it.

On my way to the post office in West Trenton I frequently saw a large exotic bird standing on a dam at the school for the deaf, so I took my camera with me and took this shot -- My Bird -- apparently it is a Cormorant, not too uncommon in this area but since I rarely go out, it was a change from the usual ducks and geese I see just about everywhere.

Nearby I always saw a banana tree on the grounds of the greenhouse of the official Trenton nuthouse -- so I decided to stop to take some pics after I took the one of the bird BUT the banana tree was no longer there -- the gate was open so I went and spoke with the man who takes care of the plants -- he took it inside the day before because it was getting too cold outside -- -- there are several, some many years old that bore fruit -- -- I mentioned to him that in the Canaries there are large plantations of platanos and asked if he also has Bird of Paradise flowers -- to my surprise, there were a couple plants of them too -- -- as well as innumerable species of cacti and succulents that I like. He said that I could trade him some of my plants from the downstairs windows for things he has there, and I hope to eventually do that. On the way out I decided to drive through the enormous woodland property and saw quite a few deer grazing -- -- I do see a lot of them dead along the roads almost every week.

It seems that there was a problem with spinach from California -- several people died, including this celebrity -- Spinach Celebrity Death -- that sad news was sent to me by Sherry in Florida.

MadM, an online buddy from California took a trip with his son to Yosemite -- I always wanted to go out west to look for fossils and visit Indian reservations -- maybe in my next reincarnation.

Out of curiosity, I watched a longish TV clip of a Justin Timberlake performance on the Ellen DeGeneres show -- hummmm -- is this a wardrobe malfunction during his song? OK, so my mind is in the sewer!

Speaking of sewers, on 15 October I was doing wash and went to the bathroom in the basement -- to my amazement, the toilet was backed up, probably for many days -- black ooze all over the floor -- why the hell did it clog up? I never flush anything down that would cause this to happen. Although it was Sunday, I called Joe, the plumber -- he came over the next day and unclogged it for me -- it was lucky that I called him when I did because he is going to Malta in a couple days and would not be back for 2 weeks! GAWD, everybody else travels except me! In the upstairs bathroom the faucets always drip, and somehow I thought they could not be fixed without going to the basement to shut the water off -- I just did not want to keep running up and down several times -- then I thought, why not look behind the drawers that are under the sink, but I could not figure out how to remove the drawers. Then I discovered a small lever on the sides of the drawers that allowed them to be taken out! Now I needed washers, but the garage is so packed I would not be able to get to the back to find them is my life depended on it, so to the Home Depot I went. I undid the faucet assembly and they were really cruddy inside -- I do not think I ever took them apart before. After scraping all the buildup off the things, I easily replaced the washer and they now work perfectly.

Did I mention that it has gotten MUCH colder? I was wearing a jacket, and of course, the usual knit cap inside -- the cats were always under the covers in their favorite sleeping places. I looked for a comforter for the bed, but could not find any -- I know I have TWO new ones from last year, but they seem to have vanished, probably buried under something! One early morning when I took out the trash I noticed a pile of things on the curb from the black charity warehouse across the street -- went over and there was a large plastic bag among their trash -- inside was a 100% cotton down comforter, white and totally new! SHE - IT! Now I have a warm something for the bed! Early this morning I changed the bed linens again -- the two new kitties already use the litter box, so they would not mess up the clean sheets and comforter, hopefully -- immediately, Fabiola and her youngins dashed under the comforter! Then I went to the basement to light the furnace -- if you remember, last winter Joe replaced the old heavy motor on the gas heater with one of the much smaller and more powerful ones -- within 15 minutes I could feel the heat coming upstairs through the pipes -- the cats noticed too! I went into the bedroom to take a pic, but only the young male came out from under the covers -- -- then I went to bed but could not sleep, so here I am, finally updating my YES before Halloween.

Otherwise I have been very busy, mostly changing to my Christmas format for eBay and a few associated web pages -- new simple animated gifs, banners, category map, backgrounds and all the rest [you can see a couple of them, below] -- it takes me MANY hours to reformat groups of items, some of which may still be in the style I used 2 or even 3 years ago -- some items listed in my eBay store are already in the Holiday format to remind peeps that it is once again gift buying time -- at the end of this month I may use it for everything I list OR wait until after Thanksgiving?

OK, as I was getting the trash ready to take out (it is now daylight!), I noticed the 3 kittys on top of the comforter, so here is the latest photo of them together -- -- Fabi is still snoozing with her head down.

Halloween fun stuff -- Liana / [xxx] - Happy -- Me / [xxxx] - Happy1 -- Fiery / [interactive game] - Halloween Hangman -- RonM / [original Photoshop] - Apple Pumpkin -- Cheryl / Munster Mansion -- RonM / - Mac o'Lanterns -- Anglz / [interactive] - Carve a Pumpkin -- Flin / [a real screamer!] - eCard --

31 October 2006 / Wednesday -- Halloween

Today was spent putting the loose ends together to have my usual Trick or Treat thing going on the front steps (I do it very year) -- I set up a chair to sit in, got a small table out of the entrance of the garages for trays of goodies, and set the whole schmoozle up at 18.03h -- -- about the only weird thing I had close by to wear was the Cat in the Hat hat I found last Halloween (that pic is in last years October news). I had 5 boxes / crates of bagged goodies ready - you can see two of the groups of white bags on the step behind the table -- my tenth taker was this lovely vampire, at 18:27h -- -- a lot of Hispanics and blacks stopped by over the next 3+ hours, kids and grown ups, some in simple costumes, others just walking by to go to the liquor store on the next corner, drug dealers riding by on their bikes while talking on their cell phone, customers from the Puerto Rican grocery store across the street, peeps walking to and from the bus stop, and others going to the laundromat two blocks away -- I had to get a LOT more boxes of candy, chewing gum and cigars out of my stash to replenish what was gone already. A previous neighbor dude, Manolo, came by and spent hours chatting and helping to hand out stuff -- his dad walked by earlier and I gave him some cigars, so when he came home he said some tall guy in a nutty hat gave them to him -- the son asked was it on a corner, with big windows -- YES, gawd, he knew right away it was me so he came over to see the latest happening! He filled me in on who died that we knew years ago when I lived across the street and he still lived at home a block away. He bought a place in Hamilton Township, a much more upscale area than where I am living.

A car stopped in front, and I was surprised to see a former student get out and come over to talk a while -- I had not seen him in at least 10 years but he looked just the same as when I had him in class -- the gal he is engaged to was driving the car. Some time later an Italian - Hispanic came over, introduced himself, Victor, and sat on the step beside my chair for at least an hour (pic snapped by Manolo at 22:06h) -- -- It seems as if he had called me several times on the phone for information on the sale of this property, but I never got back to him (because my answering machine is antique and rarely functions the way it is supposed to). We kibitzed for over an hour, he would take me out to dinner and talk about the sale -- I said, OK, when will his private jet be ready to take us to the Tavern on the Green in New York. Not a problem, he said! I learned about his foreign travels, his Spanish wife, his family who has a bar - restaurant on Mott Street, his 3 kids, his recent separation / divorce, his profession, a plumber, how he wants to open a shop, loves this property, the new girl friend from Guatemala, and other personal gems and tidbits. All this while I would be virtually grabbing passersby telling them to fill their pockets with handfuls of stuff to take with them, passing out cigars (everyone thanked me profusely, some even gave me a blessing), and trying my darndest to keep up with Victor -- I had not personally spoken with one individual for that long in MANY moons, and I found it most enjoyable (I have to include Manolo here too) -- I gave him the link to my property sale web page, asked him to read it and that he would then have absolutely no interest in buying the property -- somehow I seem to tend to be quasi cynical about things, but in a jokingly semi - serious way. Things were slowing down, I decided to call it a night --

-- as you can see, there is little left in the goody trays -- Manolo took the large cartons of empty candy / cigar boxes and wrappings in back to the curb for trash pick up on Friday; keep in mind that a couple days ago I put at least as many candy cartoons in the trash after I prepared the bags of goodies -- they were collected on Tuesday) -- -- I gave him 2 boxes filled with everything that was left over, and here I am, documenting my LONGEST Halloween session ever -- it was loads of fun and I emptied out a lot of boxes of things that were taking up space on the steel shelves Ken gave me -- fortunately or not, I still have twice as much left! Incidentally, if you look to the left of me in the last pic, I have been changing that window for a couple days, added a stepped shelf I made to replace the space wasting large cube the plants were on -- it is not finished yet, but when it is, you will see that exclusive news photo right here, so stay tuned.

* N O V E M B E R *

21 November 2006 / Tuesday -- there is not a lot of news lately other than trying to list as much as I can for Christmas on eBay, but even a small batch of five to ten items takes me several hours to do, including the scans / photos, after which I fall asleep at the futher muckin computer toy -- I washed clothes a couple times -- went to Sam's Club yesterday because there was little to eat for me and the cats, and I needed wrapping paper for the surprise gift I always send my winners in their package.

One thing I forgot to mention before was another example of how slovenly the local post office handles things -- on 22 September I received three packages from overseas on the same day by the same carrier -- #1 from England postmarked on 9 September (bottom), which usually may take a week or so to arrive -- #2 was from a friend in Germany with a postmark of 31 August (middle), also a LOT later than it should -- and the top package, also from the United Kingdom, postmarked on 29 June(on top) ! -- -- it took the freekin post office morons here almost THREE MONTHS to figure out that the ONLY address on the thing was mine and that the postage was from the United Kingdom, which sort of suggests that I should be the one receiving it! The lady who sent it to me said she had the same problem quite a few times with shipments to the USA (where public education is not the best, or so they tell us), and she got several NEGATIVE eBay feedbacks for it. I think that if she put the TO address in the center of the box and HER address in the upper left, which is the usual thing to do, there would have been no problem, at least not THIS kind of problem. Other types of glitches that happen much too frequently here is returning packages sent to me back to the sender with a stamp ADDRESSEE UNKNOWN -- FHUT THE WUCK, I have been living at the same address for years already, and the post office certainly knows me because I have been there MANY times to complain about these and other irregularities. Then there was an item that I checked the tracking number online -- it said that I received it on a certain date BUT I never got the thing! Who the hell did get it? Couple these things with MANY eBay glitches where items on my seller list disappear or do not show up on different web browsers, or doing a seller search on, for example, the Canadian eBay site which shows a different number of current items than on the American eBay server. I could scream my lungs out to the money hungry idiots who run eBay, but why bother -- the only thing they really care about is raking in the listing fees and commissions.

I also did the new 2007 banner and other images for my news section, once again from an original image titled Lupine, done by my pal, Essex Thomas -- that took me a lot of time, experimenting with sizes, color renditions ad infinitum -- I finally came up with two possible banners using slightly different older apps to render -- I prefer the second one, so that will probably be the one I shall use, God willing --

Thanksgiving sort of snuck up on me very quickly this year -- maybe old age causes that? Once again, my dearest brother did not invite me this year, although he did send me a nice card (sometimes I accepted, other times I did not for whatever reason, so maybe he simply got tired of inviting me), so I guess I shall celebrate it with the cats with something made of ground turkey -- my usual type of concoction that lasts us several days -- I always leave a lot of leftovers for the kittys too, and they luv it.

22 November 2006 / Wednesday -- add another slight glitch to my hard worked eBay stuff, especially important during the Christmas season -- I use two main outsourced servers for ALL my eBay and other listings, and last night I was ready to put a small batch of more expensive art works up for auction since it was a special 20 cent listing day -- I worked basically all day on taking photos and getting the seven items ready to list -- lo and behold, I find that the images are not appearing, so I checked the two web sites, libro.ws and itoyz.net and found that they had been hacked (probably along with many other web sites also on the same servers) -- the message on each was -- -- and -- -- do you think they were trying to tell me something? This interNUT stuff really sucks sometimes -- I got the exact same hack message years ago when the outsourced company was bought out by somebody else and they apparently let their security measures get lost in the shuffle.

OK, back to the holiday -- the only neato link I have received thus far was from Cyndi, who always likes to share things with others -- Thanksgiving -- I may get more, and they will appear here as they come in, if possible --

Lady Flin / [turn volume up] - Thanksgiving 1 -- incidently, that link is to last years top hit Thanksgiving eCard -- it completely disappeared from the InterNUT, and now she is back again for a superstar encore performance -- I could watch it a thousand times and still want more --

Thom / [turn volume up] - Thanksgiving 2 -- Lisa / - Thanksgiving 3 -- Mari / - Thanksgiving 4 -- Kyra / [turn volume up] - Thanksgiving 5 --

I made a ground turkey stew dinner for me and the cats which should last us three days -- today I also redeemed my five checkout coupons for a REAL turkey at Marazzos in West Trenton (I had seven coupons and gave the extra two to a cashier who said she will give them to someone who needs them) -- I hope to prepare the larger bird after my latest creation is consumed -- it is slightly over eleven pounds -- I also got fresh cranberries and may make my whole cranberry sauce to go with the big bird --

early this morning I called my virtual web host about the hack -- Jeff, in the Philippines, the obviously outsourced customer service rep (who spoke perfect English, incidently), denied it was a hack UNTIL I sent him my screen shots (seen above) -- it was fixed within minutes -- thank gawd for little favours.

If I do not get a chance to update again until after the traditional feasting day, I wish all my loyal readers a

* D E C E M B E R *

7 December 2006 / Thursday -- nothing really new again other than making large pots of food that last a couple days, eating / nibbling, cleaning out cat litter boxes, trimming their claws, spending sleepless nights getting small batches of new treasures, including some original art, on eBay, with a couple hour snooze sitting at the computer every now and then. I do not even have my Christmas card list started yet, but I did update my auction Holiday page [link below], including 22 midi music files of international seasonal tunes. I did the new 2006 format for my traditional special Christmas page but it is not completed yet to put online. I cannot believe that there are slightly more than two weeks before Santa comes again!

Tonight the cats and I will probably finish up the last turkey leftovers from the big bird I got free -- we have been eating turkey for 15 days already. The last time I went to Sam's Club I finally decided to get a tripod for my digital camera -- before, I held it manually when taking pictures for online sales and they were not always crisp and clear because my hand always moved a little -- they are better now, although my indoor lighting still sucks -- it is almost too windy and cold to take the pictures outside.

Ok, shortly before midnight I loaded my Christmas page online

19 December 2006 / Tuesday -- I spent most of today taking photos of some large format books and things for eBay, and finally designed my Christmas card for this year ( I felt extra creative for some reason) -- they are addressed and in the envelopes, so with any luck, they will get mailed tomorrow. As of today I received 9 cards, and a curious thing was noted about the stamps used -- three had the Chacón Madonna on them, one was a Disney stamp, and the other five were ALL THE SAME snowflake -- there were four different flakes in that series -- I wonder what the statistical probability is that this could happen. Also, one of the envelopes had no card or anything inside, and another did not have a stamp and it was marked return to sender, but I got it anyway, probably because the only address on the front was mine, the sender's was on the back!

Today was trash day -- half way down this side street the renters were either thrown out OR they disappeared -- the entire porch was filled with household and personal items in bags or piled up out in the open -- I went there just before one of the local scrounging dudes with a flat bed drove by and started filling the back of his truck with things, lucky me -- I got myself FOUR comforters that have to be washed (although they look clean), a 35 pound bag of cat food, two apparently new cloth cat bed / hideaways, a full unopened case of canned cat food, some new sports team hats, some new looking ankle high leather work / sports boots / shoes (NOT my size, unfortunately) and something else but I cannot remember what. The cats love the dry food -- I gave the ones in the kitchen one of the bed things as a pre holiday gift and they all try to get into it -- they always liked new places to roost.

I still hope to update my Christmas page and changed its file name to be similar to those of the past -- not a big deal UNLESS you saved / bookmarked the old link, which will no longer be valid after this update -- I did change the link URL, above, to the new one.

24 December 2006 / Sunday -- would somebody please set the calendar back a month or so to give me more time to do some things -- this year has flown much too rapidly by. I did a couple loads of wash including the comforters mentioned above, my Christmas cards are all sent out except 2 or 3 that I was not sure of the address -- have received few thus far. I am NOW cleaning the apartment a little, gave the cats fresh clean litter boxes, am washing their several cloth hideaways and updated my special Holiday page a couple times (a bunch of new links and stuff), vacuum the floors and what I can see of the rugs, and still have to mop the kitchen / bathroom / bedroom floors. My brother's daughter invited me for the family Christmas dinner, but I doubt that I will be able to get there -- my car is packed with heavy boxes of books with no other place to put them, I do not have a jack in case of a flat tire, and the traffic will be horrendous to travel that distance -- plus NO cell phone in case of emergency. It is Christmas already in many parts of the world. I guess I'd better get back to my cleaning chores.

Yesterday I went to a popular temple of devotion in upscale retirement rich west trenton after my last eBay post office run of the season and the services were outstanding --

you all should worship at Saint Marazzos in Ewing, NJ -- organ music filled the aire as you walked through the automatic doors -- awe inspiring --

further in, a small group of carolers dressed in period Dickens attire stood and sang chris mas carols -- nostalgic --

the faithful filled the house of worship as I've never seen it in the year or so that I've attended their flock -- amazing grace --

the minister spoke frequently, his voice resounded throughout the holy place, words of joy and obvious devotion -- it filled your heart to know that he had arranged this pageant so thoroughly -- hallelujah --

and when it came time for the interdenominational tigh offering ...

they even had extra help at the checkout lines so things would go much faster --

hey, this wasn't a small backwoods town ShopRite, this was Marazzos! -- constant hawking of FRESHLY BAKED COOKIES -- FRESH STORE MADE SALADS through the loudspeakers in a manly pastoral shepherd's voice --

as you watched the gals behind the lunchmeat section, some with Santa / reindeer hats on, scooping what they call store made salads outta the usual tubs of the stuff they buy at just about any wholesaler,

while visions of sugarplums danced in the heads of the gals in the so called bakery section as they religiously thawed out cases of what they call freshly baked cookies / pies / breads / cakes that they got from some bakery in philadelphia --

the organist sat near the main entrance, smartly attired and always smiling (how DO those types manage to smile constantly? (invisible scotch tape?), surrounded by gift baskets and cookie trays --

the carol singers reminded me of those from some steel plant in Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania (which probably no longer exists due to outsourcing to China or where ever) -- they sang when I was in the rehab place after my accident many years ago, only they sounded MUCH more cheerful then --

chris mas sure is one VERY special event, isn't it? Why did it seem totally different and MORE wonderous when we were kiddos, even if we didn't believe in santa claws?

25 December 2006 / Monday -- Christmas

Today I was up and around at about 09h -- for breakfast I had the last four small slices of cheese cake and my usual coffee, then I checked online to see if any more ecards or other things came in to add to my Christmas page -- updated that at least three times. Vacuumed the kitchen and bedroom one last time before I started to mop, taking breaks every so often. Called Lyn, my brother's daughter, to tell her I would not be able to get to her place for the family feast -- I emailed her saying the same thing last night but she said she will not get online again until tomorrow to be able to read it. I should really take a break of a couple days from all this interNUT stuff and just do things that must be done here, BUT I have been saying that for years already. It is now 17:30 and I just took a shower and have to get my chicken in the pot for dinner. Oh, yes, it rained all day here.

I just received the following sad news from my cousin Ted about his brother --

Ralph was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, living at 3227 Salmon Street initially. He graduated from Roman Catholic High School in Philadelphia in 1955, after which he served in the U.S. Army in Europe. In January 1968 he married MARIE HICKEY at Little Flower Roman Catholic Church in Hollywood, Florida. He and Marie resided in Arcadia, Florida, and Pine Island, Florida. Ralph was self-employed. Marie and Ralph had one child: RANDOLPH (RANDY) SCOTT BOJANOWSKI, who was born August 23, 1975.

He died in a Florida hospice after a prolonged battle with cancer. In accordance with Ralph's final wishes, he will be cremated, without ceremony.

May he rest in peace.

30 December 2006 / Saturday -- Today I received news of another death, slightly more distant this time, of the Mother of the above Ralph's Daughter's husband. She died on the day of her late Mother's birthday

Patricia Jean Van Valkenburg Stullenburger

26 December 1932 - 30 December 2006

May she rest in peace.

As I was about to go out to get some food early this evening, the doorbell rang -- a surprise visit from George who lives in Norristown, Pennsylvania and has been mentioned before in my news pages. He went to visit his parents in Morrisville, across the bridge in Pennsylvania, and thought that since he was in the virtual neighborhood he would stop by to say hello and wish me a happy new year -- -- he is seen sitting in the chair I spend most of my waking hours in, and you can see the Christmas cards hanging at the windows above him. We talked about what we had been doing recently -- he changes shifts to the new afternoon hours at his manager job because business is so brisk and he still travels a lot. He has not changed very much other than he looks a tad thinner -- -- than before and his hair is more gray than when I saw him last.

Oh, yes, before I forget -- on Christmas day when I went outside I found that some grinch had broken the front small van window -- -- both front doors were open and the windows rolled down -- they apparently only took the Altoids can with change in it and did not seem to have opened or looked in the back where there are several computers and other stuff from Ken, plus boxes of books and other goodies, which they probably could not read or use or sell. I really did not look very thoroughly to see what else was missing -- they could really have taken everything in there and they would have done me a favor! I had a small piece of glass and taped it to the inside of the broken window -- it has jagged edges and if they ever return I hope they slit their wrists and bleed to death, the bitches. One of these days I shall have to get it replaced, I guess.

This page seems to be drawing to a close. The below linked Christmas page will probably continue until my birthday, and on 1 January 2007 I hope to launch, God willing, the new formatted 2007 news page. So if I do not get back to this one, I wish everyone a cheerful Silvester [= New Years Eve] celebration -- do not drink and drive, you hear!

What Are You Doing New Years Eve?

You may listen to Handel's Messiah Chorus while viewing my Christmas page by clicking on the music icon below. Please visit my special page MIDI audio files of 20 Traditional Christmas Carols have been added ! musical selections open in new window and can be saved to your computer