It was kind of a planes, trains, and automobiles nightmare getting home from Virginia last Saturday. From now on, please try to refer to my airport at JF**K. The real heartbreaker was after I got on the A train, they were doing track work, so I had to get off at Utica Ave, wherever that is, and take a shuttle bus to downtown Brooklyn. Because I had luggage, I sat in the back, where the local youths were talking about giving their girlfriends "the white medicine". Nice!

Anyway, a good ol' fashioned howdy to everyone in DC, hope to see you all again soon. In New York. It was a busy, fun week, just the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it...

Ooo, ooo, ooo, I remembered something else I liked about The Black Monk. Not that it enhanced the production at all, but the set was a big curved weathered wood floor. Like a sk8r park in Anatevka.

I may never get to Russia, but it's okay, Russia keeps coming to me. Last night, I was held hostage for a three-hour performance of Three Sisters. Not only did Irina and Olga look too much alike for me to keep them straight, the actors all played multiple characters. I mean in the same scene, either by talking in a funny voice or standing up or throwing on a shawl. Here's my plot summary: they're all tired, they want tea, some want to go to Moscow.

This evening, I saw the abominable The Black Monk at Theater Row of Death. It also was about a woman who wanted to go to Moscow. I'm glad I didn't have to review it because I don't think I have a kind word to say. Wait--I liked the piano and cello combination for the accompaniment. As for the story, I'll quote a friend of mine, "Are you kidding me with this crap?"

Finally, what's so great about hope? I won't even use a political example, but rather the commercial showing Tide Detergent's Loads of Hope semi-tractor trailer full of washers and dryers that goes around to flooded areas and people can was their stuff. "They brought us hope," says one of the dampened. No, they brought you the means to wash your clothes and sheets and towels, and that's a good in itself, it doesn't have to be a portent of something else. Are these people staring down the road, hoping other trucks full of appliances will roll through? (Personally, I'd like a mobile garbage disposal truck, because for some reason, garbage disposals are illegal in New York.) Hope is dumb. Expectation, optimism, forecasting, these I respect.

I'm posting this from the fantastically-named Gravesend library, where I'm killing time before a doctor's appointment. This neighborhood seems to be where the Red Nile (Russian) meets the White Nile (Italian) sections of Brooklyn. There's Arturo Toscanini Elementary School, which is across the street from A&S Pork Store, where Aunt Millie will personally construct all your holiday gift baskets. Then there are stores, borsht emporia, I assume, where the signage is all in Russian. Here at the library, the book carts have signs in Russian, for the employees, I assume, they're not in English. There are notices in the windows, again, completely in Russian, which are either about a guy who was murdered or an author who'll be here, judging by the layout.

Criminality in Brooklyn! Yesterday at the 7th Ave stop of my train, I heard a man yelling "Police! Help!" over and over. Then I saw a kid with a backpack tearing up the stairs. The train driver (conductor?) described him over the radio to the station police. I imagined the man who was robbed as an immigrant, because of the backpack, and he's probably devestated by its loss. Unlike the thief, who'll probably get next to nothing.

Later, in Bay Ridge, I was enjoying my pre-support group tempura shrimp and seaweed salad when the door opened, there was shouting, and a ball rolled against my foot. I rolled it to the waitress who chased it, then went back to my Sudoku. A few minutes later, three kids about 12-14 years old burst in, demanding their ball. The sushi chef/owner, who obviously knew them, said, "No, get out or I'll call the police." But they walked in and started looking under the tables for the ball. I said, "It isn't here, it rolled against my foot." But he kept looking and yelling "Give me the ball!" I repeated that it wasn't there. "So they have it?" "Go outside," I said, "and they'll give it to you." "Give it here!" he yelled again. "Did you understand what I just said?" I asked, and in retrospect, he probably didn't. I was surprised that the intervention of the (white) customer didn't defuse the situation. It was obvious these kids enjoy picking on the Japanese staff. The waitress gave the ball back (not outside the restaurant, as I thought was wisest) and the youngest kid grabbed a pen from the podium. "Give me back my pen!" the sushi chef/owner yelled. "It's not yours," said the little a-hole, then they left. I kind of had an idea they might want to hassle me when I left, but surprisingly, I felt like after I'd seen the teen robber earlier, I might just have it in me to kick a teenage punk in the nuts.

An unbelievable day of eating! Met old City Paper pal Dave Morton (who toasted me at my good-bye party with, "I loved the way Janet wasted my time"), now a doctoral candidate in history at the U at Hell's Kitchen in downtown Minneapolis, where everything I tasted made me say "oh my god!". Said things were: lemon/ricotta hotcakes, house-made buffalo sausage with maple (of which I am certainly no loyal fan), something crunchy, and red pepper flakes ("It's a journey!" I said to Morton, "I know, I just got to the pepper"), and aforementioned buffalo sausage baked into bread with walnuts and toasted! Go there, if you live within 500 miles.

This afternoon, I saw "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" with friends Dave and Karen Karges. I had a rare experience of disliking the first half but liking the second. Then I had another fabulous meal around the corner--bleu cheese salad and tuna tartar, which was like sushi perfected, on crostini instead of in rice, and with big proportions of tuna and ginger. I ate every tiny lump.

It's sixteen degrees here. But I'm getting back into the swing of Minnesota, and it's been a lot of years since I had to warm up a car while scraping ice off the windows, so misty water columnaries, there.

My aunt Jocelyn is going to be buried Monday, and I was handy when they wanted someone to read a rememberance from the family and one of Joc's poems, so I'm happy to have a part. She was an important part of our lives growing up, and one of only two people I can think of off the top of my head who were universally liked, the other being my dad.

Walleye count: 2 meals (would have been three, but the catfish sounded better Tuesday night) with a further leftover walleye meal in the fridge for today.

Why do we insert a d in fridge when frigid and refrigerator don't have one? It's not like we (English speaking peoples) are all about making things easy to pronounce.

What's with the disclosures these days? A woman at the theater Saturday looked iffy and when I asked her if she was okay, she said "I'm having a panic attack. I'm just so scared," she continued, "about a health issue." What was I to say? "Well, it's a musical, it'll probably take your mind off things." "That's what I thought," she said. "Let me know if there's anything I can do to help you," I said, and fortunately, she started gabbing with a woman in her own damn row.

It was a mild late-fall evening in NYC, so I walked from Houston Street (where I saw "Slumdog Millionaire", which is a good movie, I guess, but even though I don't like kids, I have a low tolerance for watching child abuse) to 57th, buying a few items along the path. I was walking behind a guy and a girl I thought was his girlfriend, and he was explaining to her how his parents had been married a long time, and his mother had had a couple of miscarriages, but they didn't think they could have kids. But then when she was very aged, she became preggers with him, and "they were supposed to abort me, but they didn't". He grew into a strapping young man, I can report.

Tomorrow I'm off to Minnesota for a week for a family emergency. Don't rob my apartment, kay?