I made the mistake of resubscribing to The New York Times. I’m old enough to remember when New York City wasn’t a cesspool and the Times reporters weren’t ideological hacks. Of course, I haven’t found the sports section yet. But malaise doesn’t read well on a summer Sunday with low humidity and a pleasant breeze. The Magazine section ventures into transgender therapy among paediatric and adolescent populations. It’s a shame perversion is no longer considered appropriate to describe modern times.

What happened to “regular” people, who want to live in a safe neighbourhood, free from addicts and dealers? They’re there, I suspect, but they’re ignored. And “regular” is becoming a broader and broader descriptor. Politicians are more interested in being recognised than being effective. Mayor Adams, take note. I don’t care what you wore to the Met Gala or that you’re vegan. Deal with the homeless and mentally ill camped out on the sidewalks. It’s not like they don’t know you in Albany. Or Washington.

Let’s go back to the Warhol declaration, “In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” What he meant was that fame isn’t the point. Aspire for results that make a difference and endure, art that is beautiful. I think of the silk screen print he made of Marilyn Monroe, how it captured her beauty and her tragedy.

New York is still the cultural capital of the United States, but how long will that distinction survive when people are Hell bent on cultural destruction? Eventually the adults have to take a stand against barbarism.

Rant over.

Last night, the power went out. The power company is working on it. Around 7:00AM, I left the house to get breakfast at McDonald’s. I got the “Big Breakfast”,scrambled egg, sausage, hash browns, biscuit, and coffee. Plenty of food. Senior citizens hang out here, no surprise, and quite frankly, it’s rather pleasant.

I lived large this morning and ordered at the automated kiosk. It wasn’t hard or confusing. A nice kid brought my order to my table. Somehow, I feel like the kid, my fellow seniors and I are all part of a population that is either privileged enough or unfortunate enough, not to be in such a hurry to have to “drive through”. Kinda nice.There is a receptacle at every table to charge my phone. I need that when there is no “juice” at home.

I went to Mass last night. I hadn’t been in a while, because of my hip. I just decided I was going, no matter how I felt. This Sunday is the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, that Christ’s Body and Blood are truly present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. I’m too tired to get all theological on you, so I’ll leave it at that.

I’m eavesdropping on conversations, Old People Conversations about how much stuff costs, grandchildren, stuff like that. There’s no “news” on.

I’m watching the guy mop the floor, the people at the tables with friends, and I realise that we are the lucky ones, to have this blissful morning, all for around $5.99 plus tax.

That’s the price I saw on a three pound can of Crisco, a pure vegetable shortening sold in the USA, probably, Canada and, lots of other places. I grew up with a can of Crisco as a fixture in our kitchen. That was the go-to shortening for Mother’s fried chicken. We had fried chicken almost every week, I suspect. We liked it. And getting children to eat is one of the great challenges of parenthood.

Not only is Crisco steep, but Ice Cream Bars bearing the silhouette of our beloved Mickey Mouse, are $9.29 / 6 ct. carton. How can I cope? I can no longer purchase Eskimo Pies (take a guess why).

Then, when I returned home, I looked at my freezer, my cupboard, and I’m hoping I can get by. If there’s a holodomor (look it up), in the climate change zealots’ arsenal of strategies to save the planet, I won’t be surprised.

youtube.com/watch

“I feel totally unloved.” This is my “default setting”, if you will. J is sleeping upstairs at 11:30 AM. I’m waiting for a train to pull into Ashland on the Virtual Railfan YT channel. Here she comes in all her magnificent chromium steel splendour. Off she goes.

There are medications and vitamins and supplements I need to take. J’s lunch needs preparation

I want a piece of ass, without complications. Females only, please.

June 1, Wednesday, was #2 son’s birthday. He is now 34. I could write a novel about him and how he changed my life. That’s not a big deal. That is what children do, change lives.

Yesterday, my sister gave him a birthday luncheon, where we ate white bean chicken chili and had angel food cake with strawberries for the birthday cake.

K, my sister, and I easily slip into nostalgia about our childhood these days. In the Fifties and Sixties, up to the Kennedy assassination, childhood was an age of innocence. We had space to play and to discover the larger world. Mother would let my brother and me go downtown on the bus to the movies and send us to the store on our bikes to buy groceries. In general, we learned autonomy, without danger from criminals or perverts. The dope nightmare was just beginning in 1958.

Yesterday we talked about television and the commercials . What we didn’t know then was that TV was really about the commercials. The programming was chosen by the advertisers to fill the space between the commercials. Cigarettes, automobiles and breakfast cereal were the commercials we especially recalled.

Almost every adult smoked, except my mother, my Aunt Jean and my Aunt Opal. Aunt Opal had asthma. She was more interested in breathing than smoking. Mom and Aunt Jean didn’t smoke because nice girls didn’t smoke. And they were grown-up nice girls.

Automobile advertising touted a car’s looks, power, and the status the car would convey. They also suggested that women who drove could achieve a certain independence. This is a big deal. There was, or could be, a life for women outside of waxing floors and fixing dinner.

But breakfast cereals advertised on Saturday morning “kiddie” shows were a big hook baited for just us “kiddies”. Sky King was sponsored by Nabisco Wheat Honeys and Rice Honeys. Cheerios sponsored damn near everything. Outside of the Saturday morning time slot, The Beverly Hillbillies had Winston cigarettes and Kellogg’s cereals for its sponsors. We laughed at Jed, Granny, et.al. Then we watched the commercials for Winstons and Special K. Seamless. I even remember Granny sticking a Winston in her corn cob pipe, then puffing on it.

Which brings us to leprechauns and our title. Sometime after the 50’s-60’s time line, General Mills came up with Lucky Charms, complete with leprechauns, rainbows, and petrified marshmallows in the shape of stars, hearts and four-leaf clovers. Lucky Charms were “magically delicious”.They had a notch in #2 son’s World. He ate them and as a single Dad who needed to get him out the door and to school so I could go to work, this was important.

When I saw a Lucky Charms leprechaun Tee-shirt on Amazon, I knew that shirt was a perfect birthday present for my boy. He opened the package with the shirt, took it out of its plastic bag and immediately put it on.

I guess he liked it.

I went to another orthopaedic practice about my issues, my back and my hip. This time the Physician Assistant(PA) ordered X-Rays that included a view of the hip joints. The PA at the first practice ordered X-Rays that neglected to capture a view of the hips. And whaddya know!, there’s is none of that stuff keeps the bone from rubbing against bone. Ugh! Usually the way this is handled is by replacing the joint with an artificial joint. So I have that to look forward to.

And my back? There’s damage there too, but we are going to strengthen my back as best we can to see if we can defer any more surgery on my back.

Meanwhile, I got a new prescription for Diclofenac (sic), another NSAID to see if that offers better, more, any, relief. I am trying to get back on track.

Recommitting to healthier habits seems to be a daily task. I fancy myself getting up earlier than 10:30 AM, eating a nutritious breakfast, going swimming, AA. In other words, I want a Gold ⭐️ for participation

I cringe every time I hear a politician, usually a Democrat (in the USA) or Leftist, began a sentence “We need to have a conversation…”.

It’s like someone wanting “dialogue “ with their spouse, after they’ve hired an attorney and filed papers for divorce. They’re serious about only one track for the dialogue to run on.

But you knew that.

A lovely day, indeed. The sun is warm. The breeze is gentle, persistent, pleasant. I just watched a press briefing from a high level White House official promoting NATO membership for Sweden and Finland, as if surrounding Russia with NATO allies, will decrease, rather than increase, the likelihood of a war with Russia.

Nobody in Washington perceived Russia as a threat when the Obama Administration authorised the sale of our uranium stockpile to Rosatom, the Russian energy company owned by the Russian government. What happened?

Meanwhile, I watched an interesting video on YouTube about a Hindu temple renowned for its erotic relief sculptures. The video put the sculptures into a necessary context for us Westerners who have a very adolescent understanding of the erotic and human sexuality. Our values stand in contrast to the early Jesuits’ attitude to understand different cultures before they evangelised. Still a good idea.

In 1914 a terrorist act plunged the entire globe into a war, the likes of which the world had never seen before. Diplomacy failed and treaty obligations set two chain reactions in motion that could not or would not be stopped.

Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanov was Czar of the Russian Empire. His military was beset with massive corruption in the supply services and incompetence in the field command, with the significant exception of Marshall Brusilov. Rather than shift blame, Czar Nicholas eventually took direct command of the military. The losses forced his abdication. He ultimately paid with his life and the lives of his family members.

Imagine paying for the failures of government with one’s life. It is extreme, to be sure. Today the Czar would probably get a book deal, a spot on a talk show, and invitations to all the right parties.

I’m not expecting any American politician from President on down to take responsibility for the spectacular failures we have endured in the past seventeen months. But avoiding even the mention of failure does nothing to mitigate the magnitude of our losses.

It is easier to fire a football coach than it is to sack an incompetent President. Oh well.