Dis 'n Dat

I was never a huge McEnroe fan, due to his obnoxious behavior on the court, although I always appreciated his artistry with a racquet, his agility, and his competitiveness. I never thought that I would be quoting him, as I have done above; yet, his words seem to be the perfect antidote to so much we see and hear around us today.

The words also serve as a personal reminder. As much as I'd like to be serious and often fall asleep thinking serious novelist thoughts, day after day I wake up as a cartoon writer who cannot draw and has to borrow pictures.

Tomorrow, I will be on the island of Saint James* and will absolutely not be serious.

                                                                                 *

GEMINI: "...The Sun's voyage through the sign of Aries is a call to explore your options and expand your horizons. Once Mercury starts moving forward on the 23rd, you're going to know exactly what you need to do next to stop tormenting yourself about all the ifs and maybes." 

Sysa...Sisy...

Actually, I just wanted to be able to sleep all the way through a night without waking from a dream that I am a human abacus, a melting snowball, or that I'm Sisyphus being chased down the hill by the rock.

Since the mercury starts moving far upward for the air and the sea sometime tomorrow afternoon when I arrive on the island of Saint James, I will know exactly what to do: find Chico and order some lobsters for Monday.

                                                                           *

I love my American Heritage Dictionary, which has been by my side since 1979. Strangely, I have always had a faculty for being able to spell many, if not all difficult words and a complete inability to spell certain easy words, such as racquet, used above (much preferred to racket). My only problem with my beloved AHD, or any dictionary, is that, in order to look up a word like Sisyphus, you pretty much need to know how to spell it. 

I confess, it's becoming easier, simply to google  words like exercize and legnth, which stump me every time.

                                                                        *

Today's Correspondence:

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From: Thomas McDermott [mailto:twmcdermott@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2011 9:28 AM
To:DPW
Subject: [BULK] Refusal to Take Recycling

We recently corresponded about snowplow damage to our fence; now, we have a new problem. For three straight weeks the recycling truck has refused to take glass and plastic material from our curb. For the first two weeks, I noticed that our helpers had placed those materials in the blue or wrong basket (photo), but the recycle crew did take all of the paper. Today, the glass and plastic were in the proper basket, but my wife has just reported that they left it again with no explanation whatsoever. We have been leaving these kinds of materials in the same place for several years with little problem.

Why is this occurring? What are we suddenly doing incorrectly? How to we fix this problem?

If this is not under your jurisdiction in Public Works, please pass this message on to someone who can help us with this problem. We are unaware of any changes in city recycling procedures and simply think it's strange to suddenly have the crew leave these items without the courtesy of a note or any message about why. For nearly $XX,XXX annually in taxes, we find this unusual, especially since we are perfectly willing to abide by your new rules, if we know what they are.

Thank you.

Tom & The DG

1 Hidden Spring Lane

Good Morning Mr.. McDermott and DG,

The reason the recycling has not been collected for the past few weeks, is that the bin is broken.  If the recycler goes to pick it up, all the recycling will fall all over the ground an then we will have another problem. If you would like to replace the bin we sell them at public works for $7.00 all you would need to do is come and pick it up. 

Angie

City of Rye

914-967-7464

Dear A: 

Thank you for responding so quickly. Please mention to someone in City Hall that it would simply be common courtesy, not to mention good service, to put a little tag in the bin so people can replace them before the bottles and other material build up. Or, perhaps I just did not see it or respond when the crew member walked up to our door to let us know, in which case, sincere apologies.

Tom

While I was hitting send on this last ditty, two DPW gentlemen arrived at the door to explain the situation in person. They listened politely to my suggestion to actually let people know about broken bins, but told me people pay no attention to those kinds of things. They very nicely offered to return with a new bin and I have prepared a check for $7. He appeared, I paid, and I have a new bin.

Only after writing the check did I realize that these bins get broken by the crews themselves more often than not, but case closed.


Moral: pack an extra swimsuit, the water's fine and don't go all kerplonkety about silly stuff, as they say on Saint James. Or, as Chico tells me, "Tom, you here now, man, hear what I'm saying?"

And I will hear.

* you will not find this very small Bahamian island on your map, because I have changed the name to protect the innocent from having too many visitors, anyway, there is no golf, service is really, really slow, roosters may wake you before dawn and well known celebs might run you over on their way to harass Queen Conch, who just ignores them. She knows real royalty when she sees, since she sees through royal eyes.