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]
Today the rental agents were supposed to come around to the Longhill Pointe Apartments with a “mortgage” inspection. I decided to leave my apartment for the day, read more of “The Black Ice” at the Main Cumberland County Library in the morning, then go across town for lunch at Pharaoh’s Legacy for a Lamb Gyro Pita and Greek Salad, come back across town to the parking lot, for my cardiologist appointment, and then read some more until my 2:15 pm appointment.
I had been up early most of the morning before having breakfast at home, showering, dressing and leaving for the day, so when I went to the library and started reading, I was sleepy.
I was at the restaurant a little before noon and ordered soon after entering and being seated at a table directly in front of the entrance door. Unfortunately, the Greek Salad wasn’t as good as it normally is. The red onion was thin, the Pepperoncini skin was tough and there wasn’t much Italian dressing. Several previous visits to the restaurant, had delicious salads and the Kalamata olives especially had good flavor. *I even learned how to make the Italian dressing at home satisfactorily. There are things I don’t like in my Greek Salad… cucumber and sweet bell pepper. The basic dressing is easy to make at home: red wine vinegar, olive oil, Italian herbs, S&P, Dijon mustard and some sweetener. I’ve started using Romaine Lettuce (I buy the whole head because it lasts much longer than prepared, chopped Hearts of Romaine, which turns brown quickly.). I have several jars of Pepperoncini, and just bought more Kalamata olives from the Olive Bar at Fresh Market in Fayetteville.
I ate most of the salad, except for some of the tough Pepperoncini, and a bit of Romaine. I ate just a little of the pita bread, and then got a box for the remaining Lamb Gyro in the pita. I was in the doctor’s office parking lot about an hour and a half early, but eventually backed into a spot and started to read my book again. I went in to the office a little after 2pm, and at around 2:15 a nurse came out and directed me back, for a weigh-in, and some other tests. She commented on my loss of weight, as did the doctor later. He set up an appointment for another year from now. *I’m feeling good, but know that at my age, 70, a serious illness (even terminal) might jump out at me, unannounced. And, although I currently am healthy and able to easily take care of myself, cooking, bathing, grocery shopping, etc., if I lose my mobility that would seriously affect my lifestyle.
I don’t really want to move back to Jacksonville, Hubert or Swansboro, NC even though Mary Ann and her family are in Hubert. I am alone in Fayetteville, but I would be pretty much alone wherever I went now.
[NOTE 01/09/25]: When I remember, I take a sandwich baggy with me, to the restaurant, that has some pepperoncini, grape tomatoes & sliced sweet onion, and I now ask my waiter/ess for an extra cup of their Italian dressing. Usually, the restaurant’s pepperoncini has a tougher skin but their Kalamata olives, which I normally can’t find in my refrigerator, have a better taste.
I’m currently reading “Magic Foods For Better Blood Sugar.” Three of the ingredients they suggest for lowering blood sugar include: red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, and olive oil. These are all included in the Italian dressing.
I haven’t been making many salads for my meals, and most of those are not Greek salads, but I do have some Romaine lettuce in the fridge.
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.
1st Spring Visit2nd Spring Visit
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.
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.
50 Year Old Bill @BiltmoreLike the VA Hospital LawnmowerTiger Sauce Original FlavorBeans from Cara’s CornerBeans from Cara’s CornerI now use this bag for grocery shopping at Wegmans, etc.WNC Farmers Market Delicious Grape TomatoesWNC Farmers Market RampsAlien MugOther Side of Alien MugBiltmore First Visit Garden Dug UpBiltmore w/o Large TreesDobra Teas Assam Bhramaputra Tea VisitState Arboretum
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.
Fortunately, it only takes about 30 pages of the novel, “The Black Ice” to understand what the phrase “Black Ice” references. There is a Hawaiian version of a drug mix called “glass” but Mexicans are able to reproduce it more cheaply, and deliver it more cheaply, and money talks, so the Hawaiians are selling less and less. The drawback is that the Mexicans are using a brown heroin in the mix and this lends it’s name to their “Black Ice.”
But, we start with a dead LA detective, Plaxico Burrus… no, Calixeco Moore who apparently has committed suicide with a double barrel shotgun, in a cheap motel room, and a good portion of his head has been disintegrated.
Harry and Moore had met once, outside of work, at a bar, the “Catalina Bar & Grill.” Harry gets an education on “glass” versus “black ice.” But Harry also sees that Moore is just a committed drunk. And now, several weeks later, just before Christmas, Moore’s body has been found. *So I thought this bar would be easy to find in Google Maps, but then you realize that “The Black Ice” was written about 1993, so that was about 31 years ago. There are quite a few restaurants & bars that don’t last anywhere near as long.
Harry’s nemesis, Irvin S. Irving, sends him to notify Moore’s widow of her husband’s death. Harry knows that the widow is a teacher and that at the time of Moore’s death, he was separated from his wife. In fact, this might have been a reason, or one of the reason’s for Moore to commit suicide. But, Harry can’t remember the widow’s name, which she later tells him, it’s “Sylvia.” Harry is attracted to her.
Sylvia tells Bosch that she teaches English, and that she assigns different books to her students that have something to do with the history of Los Angeles. There is a quote from one specific book, “The Long Goodbye,” that she likes, “There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.” She says it’s about a detective, and Harry says he’s read the book. *When does Harry read a book?
“The Long Goodbye” was written by Raymond Chandler in 1953, and it was released as a movie in 1973, featuring Elliot Gould as Detective Philip Marlowe. I know the movie, having just rewatched it in the last week. In the movie, Marlowe is living at the High Tower Apartments, the apartments with the iconic elevator in a tower (located very close to the Hollywood Bowl). Because I haven’t read the Bosch novels in the order in which they were written by Connelly, I read “Echo Park” early. Recall that in “Echo Park” a young woman had been killed 13 years before, and only her automobile had been found in one of the small garages at the High Tower Apartments. When I saw the name “High Tower Apartments,” I immediately thought of the Long Goodbye movie, although at the time it had been several years since I last watched this film. The film is iconic, for the elevator in the tower, and Marlowe’s finicky cat that only will eat a certain brand of cat food, Marlowe’s scantily clad, and sometimes even nude female neighbors, and even for the movie’s ending when Marlowe shoots and kills his friend, who had killed his wife (not Marlowe’s wife) and set Marlowe up for a roller coaster ride with the cops & gangsters. *And one of the gangsters included a young Arnold Schwarzenegger. ***Written in 1953, released as a movie in 1973 and referenced in a Connelly novel in 1993. Before I forget, I’m also a Sterling Hayden fan, who’s character commits suicide by swimming out into the Pacific Ocean. Henry Gibson is also in the film.
So I went to Target today to see if they had celery seeds. I hadn’t found any at Walmart, and had mentally gone through the various other grocers that might have celery seeds in their spices section.
I rarely go to Target, but have bought various items there in the past. I walked off to the side in the store to their grocery section, and then looked back to one of the shelves. I saw what appeared to be about four hardback books laying on top of each other. They weren’t displayed for selling the books, but just as a display of “some books on a shelf.” For some reason, I decided to walk over to see which books they were, and even thought that they were about the size of a Connelly novel. And what? Yes, there was “Resurrection Walk” with a discount of 30% off the listed price. That would be about $21 dollars, plus tax.
And, as I’m writing this, the first episode of “The Rookie” is coming on again and I see that it is set in LA also.
I forgot. There is a dead Hawaiian “mule” who had a stomach full of drug sausages, but he had been strangled, and this is Harry’s case.
So, I am trying to think of how this story will all come together. Who killed the Hawaiian? Was Moore killed, or did he commit suicide? Will Harry screw Moore’s widow? Will Harry close two cases, before January 1st so that the department can say they have solved more homicides that year, than failed to?
Yes, he does screw Sylvia Moore before he heads to Mexicali. *Now, my next question is, “Does Sylvia Moore get killed by the end of ‘The Black Ice’?” And, I am still wondering if Harry actually marries Eleanor Wish.
Hotel De Anza, Calexico, CA
Sunshine Canyon Landfill
Monumento a Benito JuárezMexicali, Mexico
[ADDENDUM 03/15/24]: So I’ve finished “The Black Ice” and have now started reading “City of Bones.” It’s been about eight years, between the two stories and Bosch needs Teresa C, the Chief Medical Examiner of LA, to identify a bone as ‘human.’ He stops by her front door, at night, and she quickly authenticates it as a humerus bone, probably of a child of about 10 years old, and then dismisses Harry quickly as she is on her way to some event. It’s New Year’s Eve.
Now here’s the thing. You just have to go back and review the last time Teresa and Harry were together, intimately. Seems that Teresa had completed the autopsy on Calexico Moore and she had found evidence that he hadn’t committed suicide, but Harry doesn’t know this, but Harry is questioning her as to what evidence she has discovered. She reluctantly tells Harry, “you can’t tell anyone this because it will jeopardize my chances at work of becoming the Chief Medical Examiner and not just the “Acting Chief…” Harry agrees willingly to “keep mum” about whatever it is, and Teresa spills the beans, and then they make love. Afterwards, while Teresa is taking a shower, Harry calls a reporter friend at the newspaper and suggests that there is a conflict with Moore’s cause of death. A suicide or a homicide? And then Harry heads down to Mexico.
When I read this, I remember thinking, “If I were a male contemporary of Harry Bosch, and he treated me the way he had just treated Teresa, I would probably think Harry was a sorry piece of shit that couldn’t be trusted. The information she had given him, in confidence, and that he had agreed not to share, because it might cost her the job she wanted, he had shared, immediately with the newspaper, and it would be obvious where the “leak” had come from. If I were a male co-worker with Harry, I would write him off right then as being a lying son of a bitch that couldn’t be trusted, and there wouldn’t be anything he could do or say that would ever change that. *Even if he makes it in the end so that I get approval from Irvin S. Irving to become permanent Chief Medical Examiner, which Harry did. Harry would have betrayed the trust between us, and become just another self-serving dick. Make her out to be some self-serving bitch, but Harry was worse, a lying asshole that couldn’t be trusted. His word, was about as long as his dick.
So tired of the repeated Fanduel commercials on TV. Eat shit and die Fanduel!
Harry Brown from Onslow County was one of two Republican senators who did a “step aside” in order to let the North Carolina Lottery be voted into existence. The NC Budget had been approved on Friday, and normally since there would be no other business after the budget vote, the State Legislature usually is called to a close… but not this time. Harry went somewhere to get married over the following weekend. I think it was in South Carolina. And there was another, older Republican senator who had some medical issue. Maybe with his leg. Neither of these senators were available for the State Lottery vote that was held on the following Monday. Yes, they could have voted by proxy, but they didn’t. So, don’t say that the NC Education Lottery didn’t pass without some nifty footwork by some Republicans.
When this happened, I came up with a nickname for Harry Brown, “Step Aside Harry.” I have a cousin that is a staunch Republican and she always defended Harry Brown. So, WRAL has been at the fore supporting the NC Education Lottery, and there have been millions of dollars that have gone to NC schools since the lottery was enacted… but, you need to realize how small a percentage of what is spent by gamblers goes to schools. It’s not easy to tell where it all goes.
And soon NC gamblers will be able to gamble online, and FanDuel is pushing this bigtime.
I just have a personality that has never been drawn to playing the lottery or any other games of chance. The possibility of loss (which is always higher) has always outweighed any possibility of winning for me. I may have put money toward winning a TV or a car, but even those have been rare, and I have never played the NC Education Lottery (I wouldn’t even know how, and don’t want to know how.) or any other state lottery. I almost attended a Kentucky Derby once, when I was going to school in Louisville, KY, but because I couldn’t find parking, I went back home.
The NC Education Lottery is for a bunch of losers. It has to be, or the guys running the lottery would have gone into some other more profitable business. I’m not sure what you can do to make more money as easily as you can from gamblers. “Like taking candy from a baby.” Maybe you could sell illegal drugs, or become a pimp.
So, gamblers that are spending money on lottery tickets, have too much money. They fall into the same category as people who buy those large, long, recreational RVs that need a special tall garage built to park the RV all those months it is unused. Or, those that buy a boat. Yeah, that’s another black hole for your money.
This was the first Harry Bosch novel published in 1992.
Harry is reacquainted with a “tunnel rat” that he originally met while both were serving in Vietnam. Although this time, Meadows is dead and stuffed in a drain pipe next to the Mulholland Reservoir Dam. Harry first meets FBI Agent Eleanor D. Wish ( not her maiden name ) on this case. Irvin S. Irving is Bosch’s nemesis “from the get go.” *Recall that Irving in the books is white, but on the TV series he is black and played by Lance Reddick. Both the white & black Irving’s are bald, probably like Mr. Clean.
It appears that Meadows was part of a bank heist, and one of the tunnellers that stole a bunch of stuff. About a hundred pages into the novel the questions are why did the bank robbers choose the vault with “stuff” and not the easier to steal, vault with “cold hard cash?” But, I am hoping that Meadows comes out squeaky clean by the end, not a part of the heist, but merely killed because he came to know too much.
East/Overflow Parking Lot – Pedestrian Tunnel for Hollywood Bowl
Pedestrian Tunnel Bowl Side
By page 200 we’re guessing who has murdered Sharkey and left him dead in a tunnel at the Hollywood Bowl. At first, we are thinking that one of his previous scam victims has laid a trap for Sharkey, but that he calls him “Sharkey” by name seems more sinister, and we are left to believe that someone involved with the bank heist has sensed Sharkey as a threat and killed him.
*In “Echo Park” the High Tower Apartments, which are on the other side of the hill from the Hollywood Bowl, are of prominent interest. They were where a murdered young woman’s car had been left in one of the small garages. **But, when I saw the elevator tower in Google Street View, I immediately recalled seeing this in an old Philip Marlowe (LA detective) movie from the early 1970’s. Elliot Gould plays Marlowe, lives in an apartment next to the top of the elevator tower, has scantily clad and sometimes naked young women as neighbors, and has a cat that is finnicky about the cat food he will eat. And, I just rewatched “The Long Goodbye” in the last couple of days paying particular attention to the apartment interior, and the view (of the garages below) from his apartment. Seems like the balcony where the scantily clad neighbors lived has changed somehow from the current Street View. **Oh, and a young, pumped, thug, Arnold Schwarzennegar, takes his shirt & pants off in a scene, displaying his yellow underwear.
All of the above got me looking more closely at the Hollywood Bowl and the immediate area and at some point I was attracted to this pedestrian tunnel that allows people to park in what appears to be an “overflow” parking lot for the Bowl. I take it that this is the tunnel in which Sharkey was found, or for me it is more interesting to believe this to be so.
Maddie Bosch talking on phone, walking down Hollywood Blvd.
Bosch: Legacy, Season 1, Ep. 6
Hollywood Cactus Taqueria #1 – Bosch & Potter talking at night.
Citibank on W. Sunset Blvd.
In this episode, a young “boot” LAPD officer gets shot and Maddie is assigned to act as liaison to her family. Maddie is talking to Harry later and he tells her about being shot, when he was pursuing a couple of bank robbers in a downtown tunnel. *We see a large poster of “The Black Echo” briefly as the camera pans past Harry sitting in a chair. Harry begins telling his story of the events, and how in the darkness, he trips over one of the robbers, who now is dead from an earlier gun shot wound. But his partner is waiting around the corner and shoots Harry and Harry falls. Harry then hears the bad guy coming back to finish him off, but Eleanor Wish (an FBI agent, to be Harry’s wife, and Maddie’s mother) shoots the bad guy before he can shoot Harry again, and saves Harry’s life. Maddie does this also, later, at a marina where another bad guy has got the drop on Harry on a boat. *I’m currently reading “The Black Echo” (the first Bosch novel, and set back in the early 90’s) so now I have some idea where this is all going. That is if there aren’t differences between the book & the Legacy TV show. But, I haven’t read why the Army “tunnel rat” has been killed, but I am guessing it is to keep him quiet about an upcoming bank heist.
**When you realize that “The Black Echo” was written & set in 1992, then you have to go back to how things were then. I was a year or so into my “Microcomputer Systems Technology” training at Coastal Carolina Community College in Jacksonville, NC. PC monitors were multi-colored by this time, but there was no wide-spread Internet. In fact, in August of 1995 when I was hired at Fayetteville State University, the Netscape browser was not even a year old, yet. At the time, I didn’t know that Netscape was still in it’s infancy.
Maybe this is why I either misplaced “The Overlook” or never actually bought it at the book sale in “Little Washington.” I would not have gone looking for a signed copy of this book online. But, I have just ordered it for about $42 (including tax & shipping). Why? If it arrives with a valid Connelly signature as shown below, it would be well worth it for me, “Bill,” even though the “Bill” mentioned in the signature, wasn’t me… but maybe it was meant to be. ‘All the best from Harry Bosch, Good luck in court’;-)
from JOHN CARTERThe Overlookfrom BOSCHIf only, would this not be my perfect signed copy?
Apparently this is the novel in which the FBI agent, is having an affair and kills the husband, who has stolen radioactive Cesium, and somewhere during this case Harry is exposed to the radioactivity… later giving him a mild form of Leukemia (With mom dying of Leukemia, I find it difficult to imagine a “mild form.”).
On the TV Bosch, Lynn Collins plays the unfaithful wife, who’s husband has been murdered, by her lover, an FBI agent. The actress played Dejah Thorin in “John Carter.” I liked the “John Carter” movie, but later, much later, was reading online that this movie was a “stinker,” and had lost a bunch of money for Disney. In that movie, Lynn Collins looked like a goddess, while she was more haggard looking in the Bosch episode.
[NOTE]: I just recalled that I did a Google Maps Street View on some of the locations from the Bosch TV series that included this story (The Overlook). They had an outside scene for St. Agatha’s Hospital, which I eventually found was another “out of business” hospital that they had put a sign on. There had been an actual “St. Agatha’s Hospital” but that location had been razed to the ground, pending new development. [end NOTE]
I suppose this is the Overlook.
And this was the victim’s home (which is actually very close to the Overlook location.
St. Vincent’s Medical Center used as St. Agatha’s Hospital
Well, Friday started off with a visit to the cardiologist’s office to have an echocardiogram. I had forgotten that I had this scheduled at 9:30 am on Friday. I originally was planning to get up a little earlier and make it to Greenville, NC by 9:00 am to be one of the first in the Library Book Sale at the Greenville Convention Center. But, no, I knew the doctor’s appointment was more important, and I hadn’t remembered that visit until the 24 hours advanced notice time was past. But, the echocardiogram went quickly and I was on the road to Greenville before 10 am.
I had decided to take Hwy. 13 all the way to Greenville instead of going up I95 and then taking I264 from Wilson to Greenville. The Wilson to Greenville route was a few minutes quicker, but I have driven that route many times through the years, and wanted a more “scenic” trip.
You turn onto Hwy. 13 at Berkley Blvd. to head to Greenville. The Berkley Mall is within sight of this traffic light. I had driven this route at least once before, because I remembered Snow Hill and had taken a picture of a string of old buildings in downtown Snow Hill on a previous “pass through.” Hwy. 258 intersects Hwy. 13 at Snow Hill. I know Hwy. 258 from my old stomping grounds in Jacksonville & Onslow County years ago. I also recall my NC Driver’s License number because part of it has the number 258 in it. I was 24 in ’88 and there is a Hwy. 258.
Even though I had gotten a late start on my trip because of the echocardiogram, I knew I needed to stop and take a “walk around” break from driving. When I was younger it was nothing for me to drive for four hours straight, and stop only to refuel my vehicle. I might not even have to take a “pee” break back then. Now it is the opposite, I usually have to plan for a pee break, whether I need to or not, because I at least feel like I need to. *But, this was the first time that I came up with the idea to go into a grocery story and walk around there. I saw a Piggly Wiggly and drove into the parking lot, got out and went into the store.
I walked through the store, first looking at a spice section, and eventually around to their meat section. The meat section had good looking cuts of meat, and I noted that some of the pork chops appeared to have a good price, per pound. Didn’t really plan to come back to this store on my way back to Fayetteville, but that is what I did do, and I bought a package of pork chops for $1.59 / pound. **I may have even bought the same package of pork chops that I had taken a picture of on my first visit of the day that morning.
The book sale was a little disappointing. I did end up buying two Michael Connelly novels that I didn’t already have, “City of Bones” and “The Lincoln Lawyer.” “City of Bones” is an earlier Bosch novel. Although I like the “Lincoln Lawyer” TV series, I wasn’t enamored with the Haller story I started to read, so I put it down. A note on the book cover for “City of Bones,” is that I have seen that cover before. Probably at one of the book sale visits somewhere. Part of the cover has a raised letter grid that was memorable. Don’t know why I didn’t buy this novel when I saw it at the earlier sale. Also don’t know what happened to “The Overlook” novel that I recorded as having bought in Little Washington, but couldn’t find when I got home, still… to this day.
I bought the two Connelly novels and about 4 other, German Language, books. One of those language books was a novel with a title, in German, meaning something like “The Snowmaiden’s Secret.” Another larger book has a title meaning something like, “First Men” or “People.” And, the check-out woman said my total was $6, so I gave her a $20 and told her to “keep the change as a donation.” She asked me if I was sure, and I said, “Yes.” After all, a donation to most libraries is “a good cause,” and where else can you buy a book for a dollar, or three, or even @$10 for a book that probably originally cost $35?
So, I’ve read eleven of the Bosch novels so far and am currently reading the first, “The Black Echo.” Definitely hadn’t planned on reading any of them, but have enjoyed most of them, and really like the characters and story line differences from the TV series. ****e.g. Irvin S. Irving is white in the novels and black ( played by Lance Reddick ) on TV. It is necessary for him to be white and prejudiced in the book, “The Closers,” for the comment, “Irving is a Jewish name, isn’t it,” to make any sense. I never really noticed the animosity between Irving & Bosch in the TV series, although I do recall an office scene between the two where Bosch has realized that Irving “planted evidence,” shows him the archived photo that proves it, and Irving shreds the evidence in front of him. It is a shame that Lance Reddick died. I liked him in whatever I saw him in, especially “Fringe.”
All through my adult “working” life, I never read much for entertainment. I read a great deal for work, and enjoyed much of that, but I wasn’t interested in “wasting my time” reading fiction, sci-fi or detective novels. I wasn’t interested in historical fiction. If it’s history, I want it to be historically accurate. But, from my historical research on the Cape Fear River steamboats, I do realize that sometimes the researcher/writer has to draw items together, when there is no written evidence as proof. You have to do this just to make the story “come together.”
When I got home, I took one of the pork chops out of the package. They looked good, and they were cut a little thicker, but not actually a thick cut chop. I decided to dice up some onion, jalapeno, poblano, red bell pepper & a couple of small tomatoes and fry the pork chop up on the stove-top. I also added some cayenne pepper and a chipotle pepper and some of the adobo sauce, with sweetener & a little agave nectar. I didn’t fix anything else with the pork chop. No rice, or sweet potato, or even tortilla chips. No slaw or cucumber & onion salad. Any of these extras would have been good with this spicy hot pork chop. It did turn out very well. ***Part of no sides with this meal was because I had eaten a bunch at lunch time. I had a Shrimp Po’Boy sandwich with coleslaw and a side of fried okra. The sandwich and the okra were “good again,” and this time I noted that they had put extra fried shrimp on my plate around the sandwich, and there was a very generous portion of okra. There were so many okra, that I asked for a “to go” box, and a “to go” cup of water with ice. In retrospect, I may have gotten a few extra shrimp and a bunch more fried okra because it was “late” lunch-time and maybe the chef was trying to get rid of these items so as not to have any left (or perhaps not enough for one more plate).
Looking out the back door of Down on Main Street.
I was seated at a slightly different angle my last visit to Down on Main Street, and I think the black throw rug was in a slightly different position, but here was the kitchen door where the waitress came out of and did her dance with the woman customer coming out of the nearby Women’s Bathroom, and spilling some items. But note the man sweeping. Several of the men were in what I would call “a cleaning mode” which is definitely something I don’t have. I’m nasty, but it doesn’t mean I don’t recognize “clean” people, and even appreciate them.
As I am getting ready to pay my bill, and I had already taken my VISA card out (as I normally do), I looked at the ticket and noted that there was an extra charge (less than a dollar) if you didn’t pay by cash. I realized what this meant, but I did verify the meaning with my waitress a short time later. Yes, an extra charge if you paid with a credit card. So I fished around for enough cash and only included a $2 tip. The meal and unsweet tea were about $16. $1.60 would have been a 10% tip, so is that a 12.5 % tip? I think so. This waitress got the job done, but I didn’t really feel that she had “invested” enough in our brief relationship for me to be generous and give her a $3 tip. $2 felt cheap, but cheap I am, and I wasn’t going to pay a credit surcharge if I had enough cash.
Bill Gibson, II 