Maisy and I visit the Mohegan Sun

This year Maisy asked for a couple of chauffeured trips to the Mohegan Sun instead of a Christmas present. ( Chauffeured by me, I mean.) She can't drive that far anymore but loves to go for a half a day. It's something she wouldn't otherwise get to do. Since I am without pressing appointments at the moment, I agreed.

Yesterday we went off into a grey, low-light sort of morning. There were spots on Route 16 and Route 2 where low clouds, fog-over-swamp and water reflecting the winter sky all blended into one shade of white. Stands of dead and limb-less trees poked though erie white air. Despite the surreal scenery, it's a long haul, but we pulled into the garage around 11 a.m.

It's peculiar to me to visit a casino. I am not a money gambler, and am simply not wired for this particular thrill. In all my life, I have only played the slots once or twice for five minutes. Once, I tried keno and won ten bucks. Even the win seemed, well, uninteresting. So for me, a visit to a casino means people-watching, reading or scribbling down a poem or a sketch.

After we arrived Maisy got settled in the penny parlor, leaned her cane up against the machine, took off her glasses, put her gratuity card in the slot and started pressing buttons like mad. I took off on two laps around the circular building. The crowd was still light for the start of a weekend, and floor seemed thick with attendants.

One thing at the Sun, there are mechanical wolves, high up, looking down at you. Their heads move around and sometimes seem to follow you as you walk. Sometimes one will wag its tale as you approach, flex its ears, and seems to follow your progress down an isle. I figure there must be cameras in the eyes. I swore one was watching me as a sat cross-legged on a bench for half an hour watching the flocks of passers-by.

After a while, we had lunch, just sandwiches at the food court, then Maisy headed for the quarter machines to get serious. I went to the Birches, ordered an after lunch Amaretto and orange juice at the bar. I sat in a cushy chair by the walkway to read my new Harper's. I think I heard thunder several times that afternoon, though it was hard to tell over the hysterical beep and jingle of hundreds of slot machines.

I had checked on her several times, made two final laps around the casino, and she was finally ready to roll. Around 3 p.m. we left under a bleak sky and promptly missed the entrance from 395 to onto Rt. 2. We shot way north in the wrong direction without realizing it, then had to back track in the rain. Finally on 16 we drove out from under the clouds into a brighter, reddish sunset.

Merry Christmas Maisy

Bent Pin Quarterly Vol 2, No 1 now online!

The January 2008 issue is now live - view the table of contents and follow the links:
http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com/2008/01/january-2008-contents-with-links.html

NOTE: Bent Pin closed in November of 2009. The Bent Pin Archive and Index are moving, albeit slowly.... to:
http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com   Note: the author index now at http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com/p/author-index.html is part of the archive

the home landfill

I have been cultivating a landfill in the front room, an archeologic wonder, fully stratified. This construction is not as threatening as say, the Collier brother's looming magazine stacks, but it certainly is confusing. (This concept comes fully recommended and tested by the cartoon bird/journalist Shoe, who has one, quite similar to mine, covering his his desk. )

This has happened to me, or more correctly - I have created this sort of problem, many times over the years. Usually I move and in the process I box or toss the stuff. Wherever i set up shop, eventually new strata deepen around me. The paper is endless - unopened junk mail, multiple copies of poems that were marked up by workshop participants or printed out for readings, article clips, old newspapers, magazines, instructions for various devices or software, sales slips, drawings, notes. Then there is the actual stuff - the collection of odd items that are saved because someday I might glue them together in a 3D collage. (My level of delusion is fairly high, though I occasionally do make one....)

Periodically I can't stand it - usually just before a big project. Or to avoid beginning a new project I choose to dig, shift, toss and codify rather than start what must be done.

This is a short note. I am making progress on a project and it will be out by the Jan 13 deadline now posted on the site. I am making progress on the landfill too. Everything in its time.

Oil Pastel: Preoccupied

Like many of my works on this blog - this piece is partially physical and partially digital. The base work is an oil pastel, with some small alterations made digitally -  ie filling in around the edges with black.

The surreal state of late

Everything goes a different way than anticipated. Usually later. With all my writing about late publications, I am late too, so late in so many ways.

Hope you all had a satisfactory New Year's eve. Old acquaintences have an annual party, and this year I was thinking I would go. Looked up from working too late. I was trying to get the magazine out, and at the same time upload stuff to a new youtube channel my boss created.  This divided flipping continued long into the night.

Some notes of the evening:


• Bent Pin is going to be a week late due to software glitches, ticks and odd computer behaviors  and me. I don't charge for Bent Pin though. I am tired and am spending way more time than I want on computer woe. My brain is late.

• After midnight on Jan 1 around 2:45 or so, I heard something outside and looked out to see what it was - the DANBURY NEWS TIMES HAD ARRIVED EARLY ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE NEW YEAR!

• Had a reasonable view of the fireworks out that window earlier in the evening. Pretty colorful. Saw the little dipper between the clouds while walking the dog tonight.

• Did I make any resolutions? uhhhh. My resolutions are going to be late also. I can't figure out what to resolve. EXCEPT MAYBE THIS I resolve to do more real things and fewer unnecessary cyber things. Right now I am going to do something very real - I am going to sleep.

Watch out when business people recommend their clients

When a friend recommends someone to sell your house, tile your bathroom or pull the engine out of your antique VW, stop up your ears and run for cover. Pause, steep some tea, pour yourself a glass of sherry or amaretto. Have a beer or a latte. Sit and contemplate alternatives. Or at least ask a few questions and do some research. Sure your friend means well, but good intentions and good advice are not the same thing.

Especially beware when friends, relatives and others recommend people who are clients in their businesses. Just because the client successfully buys services or goods doesn't mean they are good at providing goods or services themselves. Many businessmen espouse the motto, "One hand washes the other." So, they try to throw a little business to their clients by recommending them. They don't necessarily know anything about their clients practices or reputation as a service provider, and are not aware of complaints or legal actions pending against them either. All they know, is they guy pays his bill or they hope he will soon...

The unmerited assumption that a business person is trustworthy can play out badly for the one doing the trusting. I know this from painful experience.

A friend recommended a real estate agent to me several years ago, quite a few years ago, THough th ending was eventually a good one with a different realtor it cost me a year of time to right it. The lesson I learned was this - don't fail to investigate and read the fine print because you think this person your friend recommended has your best interests at heart 

I recently heard another sad tale right in the family. My cousin-in-law who is a nice fellow and a very good businessman, recommended a mortgage banker to my Uncle, told the guy, the Uncle needed a fixed rate mortgage.

When the Uncle, after also asking for a fixed rate mortgage himself, reads the mortgage contract he sees that his interest rate is guaranteed for two years only. BUT INCREDIBLY HE SIGNS IT ANYWAY. After all his daughter's husband who is very smart, recommended the guy and he must know..... NOT NOT NOT! Next year his interest rate will sky-rocket because he assumed this was the best he could do since his daughter's hubby recommended him. Or in his case,  it likely has more to do with his irrational belief that the world would end before the two year initial interest rate expired....

ALWAYS investigate. May I take my own advice.....

Will the morning paper become an afternoon paper?

The News Times, which cut a bunch of staffers last summer, and which is under new ownership, seems to have a rotating deadline for its home delivery.

Once upon a time, the weekday paper was supposed to be delivered by 6 a.m. so people on their way to work could have it before they left for the day. No more. The new deadline is 8a.m. When a friend called at 8:20 this morning, the News Times answering machine bleated that if the paper hadn't be delivered by 11 p.m. to call back. 11 PM??? Perhaps the News Times is planning to return to its roots as an AFTERNOON PAPER. Or even an EVENING PAPER?

I doubt that. What is happening though, is a bit of difficulty staffing the home delivery roster. Home carriers are poorly compensated independent contractors on whom is foisted much of the true long term costs of delivery. They use their own vehicles, on which they are raking up milage, which lowers resale value. They pay for their own gas, oil, maintenance, and have higher insurance costs as well, and shovel out extra early in the snow. By contract, they must deliver the paper seven days a week, every week, every month of the year. If they want to go out of town, or have a day off, they have to pay someone else to make the deliveries while they are gone. The also have to keep books, and must "buy" their allotment of papers from the company.

Now that gas is over three bucks a gallon, I am wondering if the News Times is having difficulty finding people foolhardy enough to take the job. Enterprising boys and girls on bicycles are apparently in short supply as well. Moms think it's way too dangerous for them to be wheeling about unsupervised, at so early an hour when who knows who is lurking about.... Besides - they have to be in class before 8 a.m.!!! Wow. It's a different world.

Adults who do take the contracts soon realize after their first independent contractor's check - that they will net a pittance after their costs, to get up at 3 am. to make all their deliveries before six. These folks are getting wise to it all. As a small concession, apparently the company is hoping to make home delivery contracts more attractive by making the delivery deadline later.

Among the other staff cuts the paper has made - is the real human being who used to answer the phone when people called to say their paper hadn't arrived. All in all, some old-time subscribers are not happy. I know one who is planning go switch to the Daily News which is always in the neighbors driveway when she passes by on her 5:30 am walk. I suggested she could take a peak a Ct news online. She's considering the idea.

Ironically, readers who get home delivery are paying subscribers. Online readers, (the up and coming, thing for newspapers hoping to compete with Internet news) are supported by an expensive infrastructure, but they read between the gaudy, flashing animated ads for free.