Condomania

I’ve never been a “joiner,” though at one time I was a Camp Fire Girl wearing a felt vest embroidered with earned beads – such as the red bead for learning how to fry an egg on a rock, a skill I never used more than once. What the point of that outdoor exercise was escaped my beanie clad head. The experience involved a flat rock, a sunny day in high-summer, and, of course an egg. Of the latter, we had plenty in rural Iowa. You also needed a mom willing to sew endlessly. My two brothers were Cub Scouts,…

My father used to call my mother “Chief of Stuff,” partly because she was of Native-American heritage, and partly because (like his favorite author, Mark Twain) he thought pretensions of grandness or position were positively hilarious. I think that’s why he enjoyed the antics of Al Capp’s cartoonish figures, you remember the ones that poked fun at capitalists and bureaucrats like Senator Fogbound McFog or what ever he was christened in the Sunday Funnies. Lil Abner. What a guy. A real genuiney Socialist.   Roger Sherman. And so it is that I sit here wondering what father would do if…

My neighbor in the unit next door, ex Green Bay Packer extraordinaire Mr. Willie Davis, was around this condo’s halls during the playoffs and I noticed him later on television, in a clip celebrating the Pack’s victory over da Bears. The scene was a locker room somewhere in Chicago. For a big guy, he’s quiet as a mouse. His hands may be big as southern hams, but his manner is as soft as a summer night. Speaking of hams, there will be plenty of eats at the condo Super Bowl party down on floor one. I’m desperate for a huge…

You know that little red square with the M on the front….the icon on your tool bar? It’s directly to the left of my digital “time,” to be more specific on this Monday night: 6:05 p.m. I just finished my evening meal, about which my doctor has decreed that there be no meat larger than a deck of cards, i.e. 2oz. For one who grew up eating huge slabs of Iowa pork, 2oz. is barely there. But I have lost 15 lbs, though I do need to knock off the hardboiled egg-snack around 10a.m. Now back to that damnable little…

  Photo courtesy Wikipedia. Wow, I have received my first condomania comment, though I’m not quite sure if the comment sent by “Noodle” (who are you?) is quite what I expected. That said, Noodle comments that he/she never knows what to expect from me, but always enjoys my community blog. Additionally, Noodle compares me to Miss Havisham, the distraught character from Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. Expecting the worst, I researched Havisham on Wikipedia. The image above is a depiction of the lady who, when jilted on her wedding day, continued to live on (in her wedding dress), residing in a…

In this condo building are various lawyers, a few of them are Judges, friendly types who would not smack you down if your opinions differed from their opinions. My grandkid was recently admitted to the High Court in New Zealand, and yes, she’s a genuine barrister who graduated wearing a curly white wig. About ready to start her second semester at Case Western Reserve LS in Cleveland, she doesn’t resent having to spend an additional year preparing to take the New York bar exams, the extra year being required for grads of “foreign” schools. Let me brag. She received ‘honors’…

I’ve only lived in Wisconsin for fifty years, but that likely qualifies me as one who is keenly aware when deer hunting season trots into view. And I know who Brett is, or was, or whatever. Hanging on my Christmas tree is a tiny green and gold Packer ornament with a jersey reading “OO” which is about where Brett is these days. Old heroes go down hard, but you’ve got to wonder when BF hit the turf in Minneapolis, if his head, or the turf, suffered the greater damage. I’m also fond of cheese curds. We have a few heroes…

I live on floor seventeen and if we have a fire alarm, we are to walk to the first floor and we are not to use the elevator. When I moved into this condo building six years ago, it was a new structure and we had numerous false alarms set in motion by construction dust. One trip down those stairs and back up made me swear to never use a StepMaster machine. That said, a guy on my floor runs up and down all seventeen flights, just to keep in shape. Yes, he is certainly in shape. Anyway, my sedentary…

My condo is my home and the home to several hundred others. The hallway on my floor is filled with boxes of clothing and other gently used items, bound for Meta House in Riverwest. It’s where abused women recovering from various addictions live in far less luxurious digs than mine. Downstairs in our Community Room several boxes with similar contributions are headed for the Salvation Army. Tis the season of giving in the Third Ward, a Boutique Resale store run by Goodwill helps fill the stockings of people lacking fat wallets. It’s neat and clean with imaginative displays and a…

When I first moved into my condo six years ago, there was a great outcry during December. No Menorah? Why no Menorah when there is a giant Christmas tree in the lobby? Last year a Menorah with real candles was placed on the front desk. Unfortunately, it was stolen. This year, it was replaced, albeit with electric candles which I deem far less attractive. But the Menorah itself resembles a mid-century sculpture. It’s pretty cool, if that’s an okay word for a Menorah. The lobby’s faux tree is up and decorated by decorator elves, but it lacks character. I mean…