So, I’m watching an infomercial for Meaningful Beauty, by Cindy Crawford. Early in the commercial, they put two melons side by side and somehow the product they are selling protects their melon from normal decay, while the other melon quickly (with timelapse) decays. And then it came to me… If you want your melons to look as good as Cindy Crawford’s then use Meaningful Beauty;-)
Cindy Crawford is 58 years old, which is the same age of Brooke Shields.
So Harry wants to know what she has learned from her autopsy that she performed on Calexico Moore. She tells him she can’t, or that if she does, he can’t repeat it because she is currently an “interim” Chief Medical Examiner, and that might jeopardize her becoming permanent. Harry eagerly agrees to not relay the info she is about to give him. She tells him, the Moore case may not be a suicide. They make love and later she goes to take a shower. She hasn’t even finished washing his stink off of her when he has the phone calling a reporter friend of his, to let the reporter know that he, the reporter, should look into the Moore autopsy as to whether it is a suicide or a homocide. And, without telling her, Harry heads off to Mexico. *When I read that, my first thought was that if Harry and I worked together, and I had gotten a promise from him not to share info, and that he knew it might jeopardize me getting or keeping a job that was very important to me, I would never trust that “lying sack of shit” ever again. And, Bosch could call me up at all hours of the day looking for favors, and if I had caller ID, I wouldn’t answer his calls until “normal working hours & days” and when he finally did talk to me, I would put his request “in the queue” and not give him a damned thing more advantage than anyone else.
Now, I didn’t read the Bosch novels in the order they were published. I actually read “The Black Ice” just before I read “City of Bones” and these books were eight years apart. In “City of Bones” Harry calls up Teresa asking for a favor, not during regular business hours. It is New Years and Teresa is preparing to go to an event, but she agrees to let Harry come over to show her a bone. She meets him at the door, inspects the bone and identifies it as human, and she abruptly brushes him off to go through other channels. And she tells Harry not to call her again, but to go through channels. Having read the two books so close together, my memory and Teresa’s memory would probably be very close to what a “wronged” person would remember, even eight years later.
Harry Bosch is a lying sack of dog shit. Not to be trusted. And definitely not someone that is owed anything. No cutting in line. No, “you know Harry.” Yes, I know Harry. “That lying sack of dog shit, Harry Bosch,” can’t be trusted.
In “City of Bones” there is a young police detective, partnered with Kiz, that released confidential info to a reporter friend of his. This info is published, and as a direct result a man commits suicide. Now Harry can become incensed at this action. The only problem is that Harry doesn’t remember that he did the same thing to Teresa just eight years ago. She kept her job, but that doesn’t make Harry any more trustworthy. Because remember, Harry Bosch is a “lying sack of dog shit.”
I was just watching a muted commercial and there were two videos playing side by side in small windows. A girl in one video steps out of that video, reaches around and steps back into the other video… and they are playing basketball, and she takes a shot. This was done so smoothly that I immediately thought, “that was slick.”
Not sure how this would be done without a lot of precise planning. The girl has to come up to the screen in one video, the middle video (when she is outside of both of the current videos) has to look like she is stepping out of a window, reaching around, and then stepping into the next window.
[NOTE 08/06/24]: I think it is an AT&T commercial. A young girl is in a dentist’s chair, and the dentist is sitting nearby with a dental instrument in his hand. Nearby is his dental assistant. I think she is a light skinned black woman, with freckles. But, the little girl’s father is in the room, and he is playing with his new phone, and he is sitting on a horse. The little girl says something about since he got his new phone, he “has been sitting on his high horse.” The doctors says something to about the father sitting in the waiting room. (It is a small dental operating room.) The father then says something about, “I guess I’ll sit in the waiting room,” as the horses black tail swishes the girl in the face. The man then guides the horse to turn and he leans down to open the door. After the door swings open, the man turns the horse in a tight turn so that they can head out through the now opened door. *I may have seen an extended scene where the man bends down to make it through the door, while riding his horse. [end NOTE]
I decided to re-watch the movie, “Hannibal” this morning, early this morning. It’s 3:32 am on Saturday, March 9th, 2024.
I didn’t remember all the interaction between Ray Liotta’s character and Clarice at the start of the movie. But, one thing I noticed right away was how Biltmore looked as Clarice was driving up to the front door. There were large, old trees lining both sides of the front driveway. When I first visited Biltmore in spring of 2004, those trees no longer existed. I have seen another old movie where these trees were still prominent. I think I read that there was some type of “tree disease” and they had to be removed.
I just looked and “Hannibal” was released in 2001, so just three years later those impressive trees would be gone. They change out the garden at least four times a year, and on my first visit the garden was mainly freshly tilled soil (reddish clay maybe, no, fortunately I had a photo, see below). I don’t recall, but it seems like a grounds keeper told me I had just missed the Spring flowers by about four days. I guess I felt cheated. I think my Biltmore ticket cost about $65, although that may have been for a year’s ticket (unlimited visits, but extra for the Christmas tour). Whatever the cost, I decided to pay an extra $35 on top of my daily ticket price with the plan that I would come back to see the different seasonal plantings. And, I did, for summer, fall, winter and then the next spring 2005 to see the flowers I had first missed. I also paid extra for the Christmas tour, but really didn’t think that was worth the cost.
Oh, seems like I bought six extra yearly tickets as presents and gave two to Jim Kelley, Ray Sharpe and Jeff Mitchell. Jeff and Robin Mitchell may have been the only couple that took advantage of these tickets, and Robin was pregnant and the visit apparently more harried than you would like. So, these gifts in my mind, go down as one of the worst presents I ever tried to give my friends. Peppermint Bark was a good gift I gave to another family.
Now, it is March of 2024, and I just realized that I have not revisited Biltmore in twenty years, although I did visit it 5 times in 2004. I have been to Asheville several times since 2004, but never to Biltmore again. But, I haven’t been to Asheville in several years, probably since before Covid. I’m 70 years old, but seem relatively healthy and have been losing weight and keeping my Blood Glucose Levels down.
I also enjoyed Asheville for “Trillium a Bistro” where I enjoyed “Curried Apple” soup, and alligator sausage, gravy and polenta. Not sure if I had ever tried polenta before that time. Trillium didn’t last that long, but I did end up making my version of the apple soup, which is pleasing, both hot and cold, and vegetarian or with chicken. I had a good experience at Dobra Tea where I enjoyed a pot of Assam Bhramaputra without any sugar or cream. I still have a couple of cakes of Pu-Erh tea that I bought there years ago. But, this tea is an acquired taste and something entirely different from the black teas I grew up with. I have visited the WNC Farmers Market in Asheville quite a few times. I first became aware of ramps on one of my early visits. But I also tried various cheeses from another vendor, and eventually tried three different beans from Cara’s Corner Market (also facebook). I wrote about my beans excursion. All three looked delicious in the pictures I took, but the truth was that all three fell short in taste. It made me realize that the popular beans, butter and black eyed peas, had proved “the survival of the fittest.” These less popular bean varieties had failed to be as good flavored as the more popular ones. I bought some “gumbo file” powder there, which I added to some soup and I enjoyed some clove hard candy, which I later found online and still have a good sized jar. I just don’t eat this candy because of the high sugar content, but I do like the flavor. I’ve enjoyed my visits to “New Morning Gallery” in Biltmore Village. I think I’ve bought at least a couple of pottery mugs or bowls there. I’ve enjoyed my visits to the “Southern Highland Craft Guild Center” and getting there from “the back way” along the Blue Ridge Parkway, from Weaverville. I think I may have bought my special “alien” mug there, but I’ve also bought mugs at Mangum Pottery.
The WNC Farmers Market
Mangum Pottery in Weaverville, NC
I enjoyed eating at the eclectic Stony Knob Cafe about three times. I think I first saw a booth upholstered in Ostrich Skin there and thought of having one of my chairs done maybe in red dyed Ostrich.
The Stony Knob Cafe
The “Back Way” from Weaverville to the Blue Ridge Parkway (take a right here)
Walking up to the Southern Highland Craft Guild Center
If you come down the Blue Ridge Parkway (not from Hwy. 70) and turn into the Guild Center you may think you are deep in the forest but in fact you are very near the Veteran’s Hospital, and there is even a nursing home right next to the Center, but you can’t drive around to get to it. Come off the Parkway onto Hwy. 70/Tunnel Rd. and head back toward Asheville, you will quickly come to the VA Hospital and across the street, the East Village Grille.
East Village Grille on the left and the VA Hospital on the right.
I’ve enjoyed several visits to the East Village Grille and had a very good Philly Cheesesteak with fries, and another time, a good Pastrami on Rye and fries. With the Cheesesteak, I noticed another customer had a ruby red sauce, and I asked for some. I think it cost me about 35 cents extra, but they brought out a small black plastic cup of “Tiger Sauce.” It was delicious and I ended up buying some from Amazon, both for myself and for Christmas presents one year. Tiger Sauce had an “original” flavor but later they had a “Habanero – Lime” flavor which I liked even better. I think they discontinued the new flavor, but may have brought it back eventually. I still have several bottles of Tiger Sauce but just don’t use it because of the sugar content. But, if I remember, I may open a bottle for my next hamburger, steak or chicken dish. **Elsewhere I have recorded the VA Hospital “lawnmower man” incident.
I visited Asheville for a one day trip, staying overnight at a Quality Inn about a month before Hurricane Helene came through and devastated the place. It was a wonderful visit. The motel rooms had been renovated and I even had a quiet flush toilet. I saw black bears on the Blue Ridge Parkway and wild turkeys almost in downtown Asheville the next morning and the morning air was cool which was a welcome change from what it had been back in Fayetteville. And, the last place I visited before leaving town about noon the next day was the New Morning Gallery which is in the Biltmore Village District and where a bunch of water and mud came through five weeks later. What a gift that visit was!
I’ve written about this elsewhere, but I made a leisurely detour up to Asheville and also on the way back. It definitely wasn’t all Interstate. I guess as much of a “leisurely detour” as one can make going from Fayetteville to Asheville in a day, and then then the next day from Asheville back to Fayetteville. I saw a parachute team coming down in Maxton that morning.
I just finished watching Episode 1 of Season 2 of Will Trent. It was enjoyable, but partially through it I realized that it reminded me of another show from a few years back, “The Mentalist.” And, I couldn’t remember the name of the older show, even though I have referenced the opening segment of that show, as enjoying it immensely and saying to myself, “I’m going to like this.” And, I did like it for several seasons until the evil “Red John” character got killed off, and then we found out it wasn’t the “real” Red John. Once that happened I felt betrayed. I realized that I would be forever at the mercy of the writer(s) and that no matter what happened, it could always be changed. If I couldn’t trust, then there was no need to continue watching. If I had been watching “Dallas” when they revealed that the entire previous season had just been a dream, I would have felt so betrayed.
I liked the first season of Will Trent. But, now that I see the similarities with the Mentalist, I’m sure I won’t be invested in the second season. Oh well.
$10.99
I had an extended lunch with Jeff Mitchell today at Longhorn Steakhouse in Fayetteville today. I am normally late to most meetings, with friends or family. That wasn’t always the case when I was much, much younger. If “we” had a doctor’s appointment and we arrived 10 minutes before the appointed time, then mom considered us as “being late.” That is how I grew up as a child, but I think it was sometime about 1977 that things changed, and I didn’t intend to start arriving late, but it wasn’t important to me to stress out and arrive way ahead of time.
So, I arrived about 15 minutes early for our 11 am lunch meeting. When I drove into the Longhorn parking lot there were no other cars in the customer parking area at the front of the restaurant. I went online and found that Longhorn opened at 11 am. I looked at several other things on my phone to bide my time, and a couple drove their truck into the lot and parked about one space to my right. I was facing the front door. A short time after 11 am, Jeff drove up and parked in front of me, closer to the restaurant entrance. He was driving his white Toyota truck.
We went inside and were seated shortly in a booth.
I already knew what I wanted to order for lunch having gone online last night. Jeff came prepared for me to order whatever I wanted, but what I ordered only cost $10.99 not including tax, or my drink, unsweet iced tea. At Longhorn, especially the Longhorn in Goldsboro, NC, I normally go by myself, and I order their cheeseburger, and a bowl of their Shrimp & Lobster Chowder. I often order water as my drink, and I eat the whole loaf of freshly baked bread with butter that they bring to the table. I’ve also started bringing several slices of sweet onion and several sweet pickles (to replace the dill pickles the restaurant provides with their burger). But, today I ordered the 7-Pepper Sirloin Lunch Salad Combo.
The salad wasn’t that special. I think it had Romaine lettuce and some anemic tomatoes and I don’t recall anything else in the salad but the sirloin strips. And I found this steak was a little tough to chew. Maybe if it had been cut into thinner strips the toughness would have been less noticeable. *And, I planned ahead and brought my own salad dressing (my Italian dressing mixed with a little of the Cilantro-Lime dressing I had made several weeks ago for my salmon excursion.) and I put a couple of Castelvetrano and a couple of Kalamata olives in the same bottle of dressing. I used a empty glass spice bottle to transport my salad dressing & olives. I ordered the steak salad without their dressings. Online I had seen that the Longhorn dressings (except for no dressing) to be high in calories and/or high in salt. My dressing & the olives made the salad palatable. The Shrimp & Lobster Chowder was okay. I still think that this bowl of soup has better flavor at the Goldsboro restaurant even if it comes from the same can as other Longhorn restaurants.
Jeff and I talked about different things, some in the present, some from the past, and even about updating wills. Jeff has been a good friend and “like a brother” for many years. I first met him, about 1985 when he was stationed down at Camp Lejeune, as a young Marine. I knew him before he met Robin and got married.
So, now I’ve started to read another Bosch novel, “Echo Park.” This is jumping back several volumes from the later ones I have been reading, pre-Bosch/LAPD retirement. *Oh, I am doing this because I bought several Bosch novels at the last Cumberland County Library Book Sale. They were only a dollar each, and I was really buying them, not to read, but to incorporate into the Little Lending Libraries that I have been shifting various books between. I’m currently “on hold” as far as driving around to the various LLL locations because it is winter, but I plan to start back in spring, when it starts to warm up. I’ve probably got about 12 Connelly novels, mostly Bosch, but some Ballard & Lincoln Lawyer, and a few duplicates. But, as I said, I was going to leave one in each LLL I visit.
I’ve written about finding the Matthew Perry memoir in one of the LLLs, a few days before he died unexpectedly. That started my reading, and once I finished that volume I had made reading a habit, and I then started reading a Bosch novel. I put a novel in the little basket by my toilet, and because I go so many times during the day, I read several pages, sometimes a whole chapter, each bathroom visit. I have a Panera Bread gift card that I use as a bookmark. The face of the card is distinctive, and I am able to mark which page I stopped reading by putting the face of the card facing either the left or right page, and whether I need to start at the top of the page, or half way down, by the direction I turn the card, up or down.
Echo Park starts with LAPD having responded to a call of an abandoned vehicle, which ends up being the car that belonged to a recently missing young woman/girl. The auto had been left in an unused garage of one of the apartments of High Tower. Funny, but I didn’t immediately recognize the name High Tower, but as Connelly began to write the description of the small elevator, I began to envision the elevator and apartments that were filmed for “Elliott Gould’s portrayal of the private detective Philip Marlowe, in Robert Altman’s 1973 adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s novel The Long Goodbye…” The elevator is iconic, and from the movie, I think Marlowe had several attractive girl neighbors, who in various stages of undress, would exercise on their balcony. Marlowe also had a finnicky pet cat that he attempted to fool into eating “just any old brand” of cat food. The cat wasn’t fooled. How cat like.
So I’m using the Google Street View and moving up High Tower Drive toward the tower, and there are the extremely small garages on each side of the street, dead ending at the entrance gate for High Tower apartments. I’ve written about this before, that the Bosch series did for Los Angeles what Morse did for Oxford. If a location was being filmed, the street signs weren’t hidden or blurred out, but they were distinctively displayed, and I could go to Google Street View and find the exact location and look around.
I now attribute this “location realism” to Michael Connelly and it is recognizable in both the TV series and the novels. Connelly’s description of the small garages is spot on.
And “Eastside Luv” Cafe/Bar from another Bosch novel:
[NOTE 01/17/24]: I happened to see that I could watch “The Long Goodbye” last night, so I started watching. The High Tower Apartments & elevator are prominently displayed, Marlowe renting the apartment, to the right, as you come off the elevator. I’m not sure if there have been structural changes to the layout, since the 1973 filming of the movie, but it looks like the apartment across from Marlowe’s has changed. The current photo doesn’t show a balcony. The one his neighbors were exercising on.
Gower, Franklin, Beachwood Ave – Google Maps
Acopa Odin 8 7/8″ 18/8 Brushed Stainless Steel Extra Heavy Weight Forged Dinner Fork
I’m a little over 300 pages into “The Dark Hours.” This novel, by Michael Connelly, is mainly about Detective Renee Ballard, with assistance by Harry Bosch. We’re kept busy as Ballard investigates a double murder, and tag-team serial rapists, while finding a firehouse love interest and getting a new dog.
Let me say that I have not read much, for pleasure, throughout my lifetime. I definitely wasn’t interested in reading police/detective fiction, but I did watch a bunch of the British murder mysteries. Poirot, Agatha Christie, Midsomer Murders, etc. And, I’m not sure I’ve ever read any Stephen King novels, although I am a fan of the TV movies that were made from his books. Until recently I had never read any of the Connelly Bosch novels. But, now I am into my 4th Harry Bosch novel. I started to read one of the Mickey Haller (Lincoln Lawyer) novels, but just a page or two into it I realized I really had no interest, so I stopped and found another Bosch novel. *I do like the Lincoln Lawyer movies & series. I’ve enjoyed the Bosch series, but I have no desire to go back and revisit Harry and J. Edgar in their exploits. I’m coming to the point as I guess Connelly is too that life, after LAPD, for Harry Bosch is actively concluding.
I started to write this entry because earlier this evening I found myself, on the toilet (where I read), having defended Ballard’s & the LAPD’s actions regarding the rape case in the novel. Now, I think this is an acknowledgement of Connelly’s writing skills, in that I took the time to rehearse the police procedures written in the story, and their justification regarding the tag-team rapists.
I also find it comforting regarding how Connelly writes about the January 6th attack on the Capitol.
I’ve never thought that Donald Trump should be running for, or being voted for the President of the United States. I didn’t think that Hillary Clinton was any better choice, so in 2016 I did not vote for either candidate for President.
I didn’t make that mistake again in 2020, and voted early, and voted for Joe Biden. I now think he is too old to run for a second term, but if Donald Trump is once again the Republican candidate for President, I will vote for Biden again. ”I would vote for a dead Joe Biden, rather than vote for a live Donald Trump.” Trump brought a great deal of angst to American society, and we don’t need that again. He was definitely the wrong Leader during the Covid Crisis. He found it difficult to “bad mouth” Putin. He kicked some of our “long-time” allies in the teeth. He was going to “drain the swamp,” but quite often he didn’t have a better plan. But, he always said “I have a better plan.” And what might be even more frustrating was that, a bunch of seemingly intelligent Republicans refused to see how wrong he was for America. He wasn’t going to be able to “Make America Great Again,” because his image of a Great America didn’t include the Democratic half of our society. As Democratic led cities had burning in their streets, President Donald Trump admitted that he couldn’t make those cities great because of the Democratic leadership.
Nepotism isn’t the way to go, but Trump frustrated more loyal Republicans who in turn stepped up to serve America, and repeatedly became frustrated, because of Trump’s chaotic leadership style, and left service. But, I guess when enough loyal, old-school Republicans leave, you are left with Capitol Attacking shit who think it’s okay to try to overthrow a valid election. Just because Donald Trump wouldn’t admit that he was defeated fairly a bunch of time and effort was wasted proving that the last Election was fair. After all these years, now all of a sudden, Democrats are so wiley that they can cheat their way to victory. And what is more insidious than a President disparaging the American Electoral System. The worst damned Communist couldn’t do more damage than an American President telling the public that we can’t trust our system for electing a President. But this same man told his constituents to “not listen to the Media, come to me for your news.” When I heard this, early in the Trump Term, I thought to myself, “this must be how it was with Adolph Hitler.”
It just doesn’t make good sense to choose one source for your news, one man?! I would prefer to listen to multiple sources, and normally truth will be told in enough and in different ways for you to determine what is a good approximation of the truth actually is.
Donald Trump is a blight on the American System. America is under attack, and America could very well be brought down to nada under Trump’s leadership. Wake Up America!
For Republicans who believe that Democrats are smart enough to “steal the Election.” The only election stealer I heard about was a Republican from Bladen County that was harvesting absentee ballots and before he could be tried and convicted of that crime, he came down with Cancer and died. If you want an example of an election stealer, you have to look first at that Republican.
Bill Gibson, II 