On the cheap — Vacation Day One Three years ago at this time we — The Anomalous Duo — were just arriving in Portugal for four days after having started our adventure a week before in Barcelona. For a couple of working stiffs with limited resources, we have managed to do some interesting traveling in our 12…

And we say PLEASE run more damned buses — “Please step away from the door” male computerized voice intruding on everyone’s ride except that of the person blocking the sensor and setting off the announcement. That oblivious nimrod has earbuds screwed in firmly and is staring at a screen (natch). Please step away from the door — Please step…

Glad we went, won’t be back any time soon — Look, I get it. I don’t live in such a bubble that I don’t see that even the last 72 hours in this country have brought an almost unbearable number of mass shootings. And to her credit, the young lady who was overseeing the metal detector just inside the massive…

And an announcement of sorts — None of the advice from the Bestselling Author and her Agent was new to me or probably any of us at a recent small gathering in one of the city’s exclusive university clubs. No typos in the query letters, spell the agent’s name right, read the agent’s profile in Publishers’…

It was too easy to call this piece A Tree Grows in Harlem — It’s a great mystery to me why anyone works so hard to become mayor of this city because all eight million of us hate on the winner of every election with great exuberance and commitment. …

Yeah, right — Of course we’ll forget. There are some very well situated people in this world who count on that. …

Helpful advice from the woman who did — This photo is misleading…or maybe not. Certainly I wouldn’t put my hand near that face. Would you? Except the cat was cuddly and friendly, purring and sliding the side of its face against my hand. We call them bodega cats regardless of whether the shop we find them in are…

I already hate it — These annoying “ads” began showing up in my email about a month ago and I would like to have a quiet word with the marketing genius who decided that my email account is a good place for advertising. Just so you know, genius, I mark every single one of these…

You know how this goes by now. — Maybe I’m just not that up on what ladies with tarot cards can or cannot predict, but if my neighbor was a psychic — who advertised in neon, no less — I’d want her to be telling me WTF happened to my building and when it’s going to be fixed. …