My Last Light Bulb

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 

And Eternity in an hour.

William Blake may have seen a world in a grain of sand, but I have seen my capital M mortality in a light bulb.  

They don't make them like they used to, which is a very good thing, since the last light bulb in that fixture had separated into two parts while I wasn't looking :  metal ring wedged into the socket and glass bulb dropped to the floor and rolled under the bed.  So, off to Home Depot, where we sprang for the LED bulb.  Since the eyesight, does in fact, grow dim with age, we figured the price was right for the brighter light and for the fact that it should last longer than its predecessor.

Turns out that sucker will last longer than its purchasers.

Some are Born to sweet delight,/Some are Born to Endless Night.

But not if you install an LED light.

According to the package, at a usage of a mere three hours a day, it should last 22.2 years.

Hmm-mm--mm.  I will probably have been carted off to my semi-final (and as yet undetermined) resting place by then.

But this light fixture is in use only half the year, so that brings its life span to 44.4 years.

I will definitely have been carted off to my final resting place (an ash plot in Mount Auburn cemetery) by January 2059.

It gets more dramatic.  This light is on no more than a half an hour a day, which brings it's life span to an astonishing, and sobering, 132.2 years.

The house may not be standing by then, although it was solidly built 133 years ago and has a new roof.  Even if the house is abandoned in the great flood of the next century, the light bulb will be worth salvaging, unless the grid has collapsed and the residents of my leafy suburb have regressed to a state of feral paleolithicity.

I have just had a birthday, and as the years pile up, I have more and more thoughts about lost possibilities, last-time events, and the disposition of valuables.  But I never expected those thoughts, bitter or sweet,  to be triggered by a light bulb. 

You Can't Always Get What You Wah-ahnt!

Let's all sing a chorus with Mick and the boys in (dis)honor of America's biggest geriatric criminal crybaby.

According to an article in the Boston Globe this morning, (and you can take it for what it's worth because I certainly didn't fact-check it),  Whitey Bulger's main goal in life, once he stopped racking up body count, was to remain at large forever.  "At large" is such an odd term when it refers to a moral midget like the Bulge,  especially since he was living anything but large holed up in California, where he was playing tightwad by stretching cheap tube socks over soda bottles to stretch them out. (Either that or developing some kind of Molotov cocktail for his own personal Ragnarok.)

D'ya see what this Bulger fella is whinin' about now?

At any rate, his desired endgame, when he felt that death was near, was to head to Arizona and crawl into an abandoned mine where he would curl up, die, and remain hidden forever.  Cue up the 1930's gangster voice:  You'll never take me alive, copper.

Well, tough luck, boyo! You'll just have to settle for life in the can--that would be the "But if you try sometimes well you just might find/You get what you need" portion of your program-- and the rest of us can head into the holidays thinking about some other kinds of turkeys.

Spies, Lies, & Cries

Mea Culpa

Trouserville's Department of Corrections, Amplifications, and Moderately Sincere Apologies would like to issue follow-ups to some previous posts.

1.  Spies (Happy To Be American) 

Well, I was so pleased to see that the secret court issued a now sort of public wrist-slap to the secret spies of NSA. Guess the judges weren't too impressed with the defense.  "Yes, indeed, we did indulge in a little bit of domestic overspying, but golly gee willikers, Mr. Judge, it was technical difficulties and we fixed them and plus we set up a compliance department and we now have 300 people making sure we don't over sneak." 

I think I'd feel more secure if they could bring back the spies of yesteryear! 

Not very secret spies Boris and Natasha

Mad Magazine's Spy vs. Spy

2.  Lies (Go DIrectly to Jail)

We don't need no stinkin' fact checkers; Trouserville's family and friends keep this blog on the straight and narrow.

I passed on what I thought was reliable dope from the Wall Street Journal regarding New Improved Monopoly Empire Now Without Go To Jail Cards.  Turns out it was just plain dopey unverified dope. I did drill down to the Hasbro website, but I missed the public outcry and the subsequent revelation that all is well:  you can still go to jail.  My sister informed me of this because she is a professional who pays attention to details, not a lazy oldster who only skims the silly news, and not even every day. You can read her accurate reporting in the Monopoly Empire post on her blog, Pink Slip.



3.  Cries (Compare and Despair No More)

I have been hewing to my resolve to compare and despair no more on the fitness front.  But that resolve was sorely tried by an article about James Kales, at age 98 a Senior Olympics medalist.  Here's the trying part:  although he did some field and track sports in his youth, he didn't take up tennis until he was 85,  and at the same time took up serious dancing. These activities (tennis six days a week, dancing three to five nights a week), plus a little bowling and sensible eating allowed him to bring home two gold, three silver, and one bronze medal in decathlon activities like shot put, discus, javelin. 

Sigh! I'm more than three decades younger and the only shot put I can handle is the shot I put in the gin & tonic.  Discus? Does flinging an old CD down as a coaster under the gin & tonic count?

Of course, this article appeared in the Wall Street Journal, so take it for what it is worth. And just to avoid any future corrections Mr. Kales, much to his annoyance, did not actually win a medal in discus.

Book Me No Book

Stevie! Stevie! Stevie!  Yah makin' me crazee!  I wanna read yah book.  Fuh real. Only I don't, um, wanna book-book.  I wanna stuff it on my Kindle. Only, ya know, the papah-back won't fit in the USB port.

Dear Mr. King,

I don't consider myself a complete fangirl.  I haven't named my dog, Cujo. I don't have a tattoo of Christine the demonic car across my shoulders. And while I have a niece named Caroline, she never  has and never will be called Carrie.  At least by me.

I have not read even a tenth of the 112 books you have published, but I admire your story-telling abilities and writerly discipline. The Shining, without a doubt, is the scariest late-night reading ever. Red-rum. Red-rum. Maximum creep factor. (The movie version just made me laugh out loud, but I'm not sure how much you had to do with that.) You also get personal cred for being a Red Sox fan and for your charitable endeavors. 

So, Stephen,  what's up with the latest book?

Looking for a little light reading for a late-summer evening, I hopped onto Amazon to purchase one of your most recent books, Joyland. Well, knock me over with a card catalogue; it's not available as an e-book. Huh-whuh?

I know you have your reasons.  They are right there in the book description:


"I love crime, I love mysteries, and I love ghosts. That combo made Hard Case Crime the perfect venue for this book, which is one of my favorites. I also loved the paperbacks I grew up with as a kid, and for that reason, we’re going to hold off on e-publishing this one for the time being. Joyland will be coming out in paperback, and folks who want to read it will have to buy the actual book." – Stephen King

Well, okay, there is a kind of a logic to that, and I get the noirish aesthetic angle. I loved paperbacks, too.  But right now I just don't want to buy an actual book.

Here's the deal:  I'm old. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be. I don't want to go piling up stuff that my relicts will have to deal with. I like books that are invisible until I plunk the magic twanger and they magically appear, glowing in the dark.

Another thing is that it is summer.  The height of the tourist season here on lovely old Cape Cod. The nearest bookstore is miles and miles away, and, like I said, I'm old. I don't want to spend a half-hour trying to turn out onto or in from our lovely old Route 6. Talk about a clogged artery.  Nor do I want to spend over an hour making the ten-mile trip back from a possible fruitless outing to the nearest metropolis.

Yes, I could order it from Amazon.  I don't worry about the carbon footprint thing. The UPS truck is coming into this neck of the woods anyway. I order little things all the time in the summer--plastic storage containers, a watering can, a crochet hook--because I don't want to drive to a store which will be filled with tourists, one of whom has probably grabbed the last C2032 battery right from under my watery eyes. Or to a store that has the goods, but not in a version I can live with. I mean, really, do I look like the kind of gal who want to be using a baby-pink watering can? If this is the last watering can I ever buy, I want to like the color. 

But I just don't want to order something I don't want. Not even if you want me to. I'd like to have my own choice of reading experience. 

Maybe I will get to read the book someday. Maybe somebody I know will buy it and pass it on. Maybe I will trip across a copy later on this year. But for now, I'm afraid it's NO SALE.

Sincerely yours,

Kathleen "The Codger" Rogers

Chain Gang Grannies

A Trouserville Public Service Announcement

Fellow agesters, before you take up a life of crime, and end up as a Chain Gang Grannie or Grampy, make sure

1. you have enough marbles left to plan the caper

2.  you are still nimble enough to make a clean getaway

3.  that if you are going to steal a car, choose one that is large enough for your baggage

Don't follow the sad example of the fellow in Australia who, after purchasing a knife at Kmart, went into the parking lot and held a young woman up at knife point, but couldn't make a getaway before the police arrived because he couldn't get his walker and groceries into the car in time.

Oh, dearie me.  He's 0 for 3.

Here's another couple of tips:

4. If you are going to drive around stealing porch plants and garden gnomes, don't assume that your victims have poorer eyesight than you do, or at least rub some mud on your number plate.

An elderly man on a crime spree in Canton, Ohio, drove around taking things from people's porches and lawns, until one of his victims saw him in the act and wrote down his license plate number.

5.  Don't scoff the law in Great Britain.

According to an article in The Daily Mail, police there arrest 40 senior citizens a day for such heinous crimes as "overfilling a wheelie bin" or rollerblading to endanger.

6.  If all else fails, follow the example of the elder statesman of crime, Boston's own Whitey Bulger:  Don't trust anyone, and if you are caught just keep lying and laughing. 

My New Mantra

My New-woo-woo Age days are long gone.  Haven't seen those chakra crystals in years.  Hope I didn't mistake them for candy. I'm as likely to levitate as to meditate and all the weirdo books have been passed on or reincarnated. That doesn't mean I can't have a mantra.  You know, a nice, comforting little catchphrase to help negotiate the downward spiral.

Thanks to my nieces, who keep me au courant with You Tube, I now have a doozy. Not only do I have a mantra, but I share it with a totem animal:  Honey Badger.  Not Honey Boo-Boo, although I'm sure she would make a fine totem and she does generate a steady stream of mantra-worthy comments ("a dollah makes me hollah"), but Honey Badger.

Honey Badger is some kind of Asian weasel and the subject of many a nature video. I won't get sidetracked here by praising the glory of an economic system which allows this guy, Randall, to parlay one amusing YouTube video--a snarky voiceover on a low-budget nature video with over 59 million views--into some kind of media empire, complete with apps, contests, books, swag, and whatever else constitutes success these days. 

I want to concentrate on what I learned from Randall and Honey Badger. 

What I learned was this suitable-for-almost-every-occasion mantra: Honey Badger don't care; Honey Badger don't give a $#!+.

This is an excellent motto for growing older, don't you think?  It sure comes in handy for me.

Can't find the car keys?  HBDC. Repeat it long enough and the car keys will appear, or I'll lose all interest in wherever it was i was headed.

Don't feel like going to the condo's annual meeting? HBDGAS. Don't worry.  If there is something I need to know, I'll get a notice or I can gossip with the super.

Donate to this or that charity not already on my list? Answer this or that survey? Iron those pillowcases? Rate that tee shirt purchase? Fruit or ice cream for dessert? Paper or plastic? 

Thanks to Honey Badger, I don't have to devote one minute of my allotted span to worthless activities or pointless decisions. 

I just mutter that mantra and waddle on.

Accelerating Decrepitude

It's all too true what they say about time:  the older you get, the faster it passes.

Why, it seems like only a few weeks ago I was writing about the As We Change catalog, which contained items to combat thinning hair, prevent sun damage, and cover up as much flesh as possible while exercising.  I had the temerity to poke fun at its vision.

The universe scoffs, and in a matter of days, I have been cast out of the demographic of aging but active to that of borderline vegetable.

Or so it would seem from Gold Violin, Helpful Products for Independent Living.  Gold Violin? I am sure they wanted to write "Golden Harp," as in post-life sitting on a cloud and strumming, but were turned down by the marketing director.

While some of the products might be useful for anyone over the age of 30 (a rolling book cart in several kippy colors, a mini Crosley radio in several kippy colors, and a Cotton Dream blanket in several ghastly pastels), those products are few and far between.  There are three or four dubious items such as the Border Print Kaftan  on page 3 which would make eyeballs explode if you wore it, as suggested, at the shopping mall or for an evening with friends. Unless, of course, your friends were other Golden Violinists.  At least the Kaftan assumes some mobility, if not fashion sense.  

The bulk of the catalog is devoted to the "far between," a vast tundra of items which appear to be consumer versions of nursing home equipment.

Do I need to recite the litany? I will anyway, but the product descriptions need no comment. 

Ultralight Designer Travel Chair:  "Go anywhere travel chair is ideal for taking Mom shopping or helping your husband enjoy a cruise."

Gold VIolin Waterproof Shirt-Saver: "Take the worry and the stains out of mealtimes . . ."

Wipe Assist: "Even with limited mobility, you can maintain personal hygiene and keep your dignity intact."

Super Absorbent Wellness Briefs: "Based on designs used by NASA astronauts . . ."

People, we are talking strollers, bibs, diapers. I don't know whether to laugh or cry, or to stock up now. I am not immune to the fantasy that I will live to be old-old, that I will drop neatly and tidily in my tracks, and that I will maintain sufficient flexibility to wipe my own ass. But who knows what kicks in the head the universe has in store. So I'm not taking any chances.

Note to my younger family members:  I'm filing this catalog with the important papers so you'll know where to find it. I would hate for my Border Print Kaftan to become soiled with unseemly bodily excrescences, and I'm advising you now to do those upper body workouts so you will have the muscular wherewithal to push my sorry butt around Star Market in the Ultralight Designer Travel Chair.  I'm doing my part on the exercise front so we won't require the "Bariatric Travel Chair":  Supports 450 pounds.

Compare and Despair No More

Fitness news that doesn't bother me:  48 year old Boston woman on track to break a record for scaling the highest peak on each of the seven continents, plus the North and South Poles. She's way younger.  She's blond.  She has killer quads. She trains by striding along Revere Beach pulling a 50 pound truck tire behind her. Did I mention that she's way younger than me? Or that I don't much like extremes of cold or elevation? I wish her well.

FItness news that sends me hurtling into the morass of Compare and Despair: 85 year old competitive downhill skiers yukking it up on the slopes at minus 20 degrees, a friend's 81 year old mother who competes in triathlons, and John Whittemore who was shot-putting (and I don't mean shots of Jack Daniels) until the year of his death at 105.   I just want to lie down and reach for that box of Godiva chocolates I've been saving for an emergency.

I'm not an utter couch potato;  I've been saying for years "If you stop, you drop." But a triathlon? Can't run for the shin splints, fell off my bike the last time I rode it, never passed Beginner's Swimming because I wouldn't stick my head under water. You know that sadistic epigram:  no pain, no gain?  I say, "Hah!"  I say "Double Hah!"!  How about:  if there's pain, I'll refrain. Which leaves me with a regimen of trying to walk and chew gum at the same time and performing some random stretches.


But lately I've been seeing reports that makes me feel lots better about my level of fitness. Health gurus consistently recommend walking as the ideal exercise especially for the out of shape who want to get back into shape. Sounds ideal, doesn't it?  You don't need lessons, or a high-tech costume, or a membership in a ritzy health club. 

So why aren't parks and sidewalks and beaches jammed with happy wanderers? Why has SDS gone from being an old leftie group to a new disease: Sedentary Death Syndrome? Turns out  there are lots and lots of people out there--of all ages--who are too out of shape to even begin a walking program!  Read that sentence again.  Believe it or not, but that group of  does not include the disabled, the deformed, or the dead, only the ordinary unfit who can't walk across a room with gasping for breath.

Yes! This is shocking news, but at the same time heartening to contemplate.  There are millions of ordinary unfit Americans who couldn't begin to get themselves out of the way of even the slowest moving zombie. Millions who need a Segway to haul themselves into line at the Shake Shack.  Millions who will never need more footgear than the single pair of bunny slippers they wear while shuffling from the couch to the kitchen for refills on Cheetos, Ho-Ho's and Yoo-Hoo's during the commercial break on Cupcake Wars.

By those standards, I am 98th percentile in fitness!  I am competitive! I am an Olympian!  I could beat those cream puffs to the snack shelf without even breaking a sweat.  I could slam dunk those Doritos right out of their grasping claws. Compare and despair no more.

Race you to the refrigerator, sweetie! Last one there is zombie meat.

"Burning Man"?  Oh, we thought you said "Baking Man."

If Trouserville didn't already have enough proof that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, Googling for cupcake images provided sufficient evidence in and of itself.  Now I have to worry about what worries me more:  Cupcake Apocalypse  or Zombie Apocalypse?

Not So Merry Mouseketeers

Wipe that goofy grin off your face, Mickey.  Everyone's very favorite Mousketeer died today. Sob! Annette Funicello has gone to the Clubhouse in the Sky.

The talent given to you and me
we must develop faithfully
so we can be good Mouseketeers.

The boys all wanted to "date" her, and we girls wanted to hate her, but we couldn't because she was so damned nice, and, really, in our hearts, we wanted to be her.  I had brown hair, so why didn't I look like Annette? Well, that would be genetic; once and "een" always an "een" so the best I could hope for was Doreen who looked like she came out of the same boiled-potato-face gene pool that I did.  


When she graduated to the beach blanket, I still wanted to be her.  Q: Why couldn't I have fun like Annette?  A: Because my mother was mean, and back in the 1960's good Catholic girls didn't wear two-piece bathing suits or show cleavage.



By the time Annette got around to shilling for Skippy peanut butter, I had long stopped worrying about being Annette.  For one thing, ours was a Peter Pan family, so I wasn't impressed with her taste.  For another, she and Frankie and the gang were way over on the other side of the Great Cultural Divide of 1967. Summer of Love didn't include any beach blanket bingo as far as I could tell. 

But she'll always live in my heart as my first style icon.  And while four years older seemed an awful lot back them, it's not a lot now, and I think "So young to go."  Maggie Thatcher also died today, but she was 87, and I certainly never thought of her as an icon of anything beyond annoying politics, although, come to think of it,  her helmet head hairdo did resemble Annette's.

So, on this sad day in Trouserville, let's raise a glass of milk and chow down on a peanut butter sandwich in honor of Annette Funicello, always and forever a good, good, good Mousketeer.
  

Talkin' about SABLE

and I don't mean mink!

Every sub-culture has its own jargon. For us knitters, "stash" isn't a bag of weed,  it's bags and boxes and bins of yarn which must be hidden from sight or risk an appearance on Hoarders. Stash may start as an extra skein or two, but it often leads to SABLE:   Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy. 

No picture of my SABLE is included today because there is no camera big enough to capture it. Let's just say that it is bigger than a bread box: two closets, seven or eight large baskets, a breakfront, and few shopping bags.  Some of it, though, is set aside for "destash," which can mean donation, gift, trade, sell, or compost. I really don't want to be remembered as the crazy yarn auntie whose de-stash has become a moth-eaten de-trash.

Have you ever participated in a grand de-trash? One with a Size XXXXL dumpster, hantavirus jokes, and an entire box of disposable vinyl gloves?  I have and I tell you now: take pity on the folk who will have to dispose of your detritus.  There is no E-bay for a rolled up carpet that's become a squirrel nest.

This may be my one and only Public Service Announcement ever, but please take a moment, a few moments, a day, a month, a year, a decade and deal with it.  You may be laughing at my mountain of yarn, but consider that this scourge of prosperity comes in many forms, none of them pretty, and one of which may apply to you. 

How about WABLE:  Wine Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy? Just as my father-in-law in his later days told us he wasn't buying any green bananas, I ask why anyone my age is buying wine that won't be ready for thirty years?  None of us are living in Downton Abbey, and we don't need to lay down the port for the next two generations.  Trust me, the grandkids would  rather have the money than the Chateau Blah-Blah-Blah.  If the zombie apocalypse comes, it'll be the undead, not your grandkids, who'll be glugging it down, unless, of course, your grandkids are the zombies. So let me hear those corks popping, boys. 

As for some of your other "treasures," there are probably more than a few that are way past their drink-by dates.  Down the drain.  You will never be making wine vinegar out of them.  The eight open bottles of balsamic already in your kitchen cabinet  taste lots better than what you'll ever make from that deteriorating Yuckee Cellars cabernet.

Seen this guy in your mirror,
My Preciousssss?

Don't forget BABLE:  Book Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy.  Most of us old croakers have already done the acquisition, and have the groaning shelves to prove it.  Many, many of us find it impossible to part with our beloved hoards.  

I have two words for you:  reality check.  Take a very close look at those shelves. (Tip: stop being so vain and use your trifocals.) Admit that you are never going to read that ratty old paperback copy of The Iliad required for Western Civilization your freshman year in college. Toss it.  It's full of dust mites, paper fleas, mold and a ticket stub for A Clockwork Orange. That copy of Janson's History of Art?  Straight to the recycle bin.  No one wants it.  No one.  If you want to see art, go to a museum or be amazed at what you can see on line. (Go ahead and click the link, it's office-friendly and very tasteful.)

Those Joyce Carol Oates novels?  You didn't finish reading them the first time, and you will never be desperate enough to go back and try again. Bag 'em.  Let's talk about the cookbooks. Are you going to spend one nanosecond of your remaining time on the planet learning how to make puff pastry from scratch or how to bone and stuff a goose? Thought not. Even Martha Stewart doesn't have time left for that kind of crap. And since you haven't seen your crockpot since 1985, why are there three crock-pot cookbooks on the shelf?

I'll stop here on the book front because I feel another rant about books coming on and I'd like to save that for another post.  Until I attain the nirvana of B-FABLE (Blog Fodder Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy), I'll keep that rant on the shelf. There'll be plenty of room, once I get rid of the Anglo-Saxon textbook, the Collected Works of Shakespeare held together with red duct tape, and that extra copy of Janson's.






Trouserville Tip:  For those of you in the Greater Boston area, I'd like to recommend donating your books, CD's, and DVD's to More Than Words, an organization that works with young people who have had a tough time of it, training them in retail and e-tail by operating a bookstore/cafes and an online book shop.  They will bring their van and pick up your stuff, but not the Anglo-Saxon textbook, or the Janson's, or the old National Geographics,  or . . .you get the picture.

Extra! Special Report: Papal Fashion

Trouserville Exclusive!  I just got a sneak peek at the  What I Wore fashion feature for next Thursday's  NYTimes Styles Section which will feature the oldster of the moment, Pope Francis I.  His Popiness shares a rundown on his schedule and fashion choices for his first week in power.

March 13
First day as Pope.  Busy.

Wore the pre-tailored off the rack whites.

Thank God no one could see my shoes.

Official Papal Tattoo

Faked everyone out by naming myself Francis--heh, heh, not the Birdman of Assisi, dudes, but Francis Xavier, Soldier of Christ, co-founder of the Jesuits, rabid globe-trotting missionary.  BTW, I find those references to Francis the Talking Mule to be offensive. FYI, I come from Argentina, not Bolivia, and in Argentina a mule has four legs.  

Considering tweeting under name @F-Papa instead of @pontifex to appeal to a new demographic.

March 14
Second day as Pope.

Visited Benedict.  Emeritus Shmeritus, but he offered me a deal on some inside information.  Told me to lose the eyeglasses, says they me look like just another two-Euro cleric.

Still wearing the god-awful, too tight, off the rack whites.  Sheesh, you think those uppity Italian tailors could have run up an XL while they were at it; not everyone has an Armani model body type.

Popemobile very comfortable compared to riding the bus to work back in Buenos Aires, though.

March 15
Third day as Pope.
Same white duds.

Issued edict declaring FrancisFrancis to be the official espresso machine of my reign--IF they can customize the paint job to gold and white.

Issued edict declaring that from now on papal robe would have divided skirt, aka, gaucho pants. 

Had lackey call Prada to put in order for red gaucho boots to replace the lame red house slippers and to ask for a matching riding crop.

March 16
Fourth day as Pope.

Received Keys to the Kingdom and Keys to the Sauna.

Told lackey to book sauna for inauguration party. 

Asked lackey to order ivory towels to replace the red ones I brought with me from home.

Found out it was a gay sauna.  Told lackey to book it anyhow, but to make it clear to the attendees that same-sex marriages would not be countenanced during the festivities.

March 17
Fifth day as Pope.

Formal wear for Sunday Mass.  Triple Crown is mucho heavy. Couldn't wait to get back and change into my ivory sweatpants, Holy Mary Mother of God tee shirt, and my kick ass Torquemada wrought iron neck chain and knuckle rings.

Grand Inquisitor Torquemada

Green beer chug-a-lug party with Sean O'Malley in honor of St. Paddy's Day.  Good times! Agreed to offer special prayers for the Patriots and the Red Sox, drew the line at the Revs. Doesn't he know I'm a San Lorenzo  fan? Ravens Rule, Revs Drool!  Did ask him if he could get me an introduction to Boston celebs Tom & Gi since she and I share a continent of origin even if we don't share the same body type.

Made note to  issue order of excommunication for Trouserville; she is a godless secular humanist and can expect the Inquisitors when she least expects it.




A big Trouserville Thank You to my sister Trish who supplies me with a steady stream of inspiration on ecclesiastical topics.  Bless you, my child.