"...you're welcome"

As King Empress of the Earth, and outer Colonies. I give to each of my good, and loyal subjects one of these for your birthday. Below a prototype. Style, and colors on the way.

It beats a hover board.
It's a fusion powered ramjet pollution less safe via variable force field "Floatercycle". Btw you could run into a wall with this all day at 50 mph, and at most just get dizzy. You can't run anybody over either...even, and especially if you tried.
The Ministry of Imperial Research has made this actually "Human Proof". Something heretofore thought impossible. They are also currently working on 'safe' greasy foods, and Algebra for idiots.
You're welcome.

"...asparagus"

My old radio friend Claude Horvath mentioned that he was always amazed at my feelings about other races religions cultures. In that I didn't seem to have specific hostilities. Well I'm not remotely angelic. I'm a grumpy Drama Queen from way back. I can't stand certain individuals. However going after whole races religions or nations is just too damned much work!

Anyway my ma my extended family traditions had much to do with my attitudes. I'm from a multi-ethic family of many colors. A lot of that in this country...more all the time.
As a child I thought a mommy could have a baby of any color. This seemed to be happening before my eyes as my new cousins showed up. I thought all mommies were having babies of all the colors. No one in my family told me otherwise. With this as a given we all turned out as we are. 'Hate asparagus though. 

"Brooklyn Heatwave 2018 BC" ... before COVID

 

From 2021 '18 seems a simpler more innocent time.

Well summer has air-burst like a tactical nuclear warhead over Coney Island. Which I still haven't seen this season. Coney not the bomb. It was 238f degrees, and humid in the Emerald City this afternoon. So of course I went out for a long walk in the sun. See around the corner above.

No I didn't end up in the hospital though I did think of going. This as I hung half off a park bench gasping for air, and clutching my chest. The phrase , "...What da Fuck were you Thinking!!" did come to mind.

They were handing out bottles of water outside my local library. With special attention to kids, and elders. I didn't even have to ask. Some nice NYU grad student City Volunteer came up to me as I stumbled by, and shoved a bottle in my hand.

"Are you alright sir?"

Aw crap do I look that bad? Well okay I'm 138, and wandering about on the surface of the sun. So yeah I could see her concern. Actually I wish they was handing out ice cream I could 'a used a hit of that. Yeah that stuff will kill me now, but so what I likes it.

Wait it get's better.

Another NYU kid, they were wearing the t-shirt, this do-gooder comes over, and offers to help me into the library. For those of you reading this in the civilized world. Thanks to the new Hotter Climate in NYC public spaces in summer are now Thermal Shelters. This includes libraries,...just like science fiction.

I imagine these nice kids are trained to see folks in trouble, which besides gasping for breath I had no idea I was in. What the heck I let them walk me,...they held me by the arms. Which was sweet. I like that folks are nice to old folks, and kids. The "Baby Snatching" by armed enforcers at our border has awakened humanity is some.

Anyway they dump me in a nice chair, and I'm good. Wait again,...get's even better. One of the librarians asks me if I would like a book or magazine to read while I got better from the heat.

Did I just win the humane society lotto or something?

Hey I'm game. I asks if she could find the "Collected Prose of Walt Whitman" the Penguin edition if it was handy. She smiles, and goes. A few minutes later she, and Uncle Walt appear.

I'm figuring this is Candid Camera or whatever passes for that now. Anyway there I spent the balance of the afternoon. In the air conditioned womb of the same library I've been going to since I was six. I moved back to my old 'Hood after some decades of ambiguous adventures.

Today was a good though profoundly hot, and interesting day.

"...Advise, and Consent"

Fauci's Moment. Smart man. I wonder who will play him in the movie. Perhaps a Kevin Costner sort with two days growth of beard, and in his old Navy leather jacket. The House guards open the great doors carved with the symbols of our national honor. Slowly "Fauci" hero to millions enemy to millions of others enters the great hall.

All goes quiet. Dust motes drift in the slanted sunlight.

The only sound from his faded cowboy boots clicking on the marble floor. He approaches the bench with grim calm. Trump's daughter watching from the family jet over Riga quietly sez to no one "...we're fucked." Yeah that's how I'd shoot it. Cut to scene in an Idaho whorehouse. Trump saying, "...that bastard loser. I could 'a had cool a jacket like that."

"...time, and again"

My friend Rudy mentioned he may soon be using a cane to get about. I'm now using one of them. Folks were already holding doors for me giving me seats on the bus, and subway. Offering to help me carry things up the stairs. Before I'd politely refuse,...but these days the help is needed. My dear sister Sylvia held me by the arm as she took me about for a haircut, and Easter suit make over. This thoughtful attention started in increments over the last decade. The first time was at the movies when they didn't ask for my ID for the Senior discount. Age is slow so are the signs. I don't mind. I find it fascinating, and sweet.

"...wings"

Here's an idea I've had. What with time going by I'm considering legacies. I'm thinking of having the City Council in recognition of a feat of an early mine to slap up a nice plaque in my swell honor.

It goes...

"On August 16th, 1960 noted Drama Queen Uncle Sidney on this spot as a 10 year old boy did build a balsa wood scale model of a Tiger Moth bi-plane. It came out pretty good,...his Mom helped."
I figure shiny plaque in Brass with blinking Neon Lights seems reasonable.

I'll pitch the postcard, and t-shirt sales at this grand exhibition to the Council. 

Also as I'm mostly not dead yet I could wander over for personal appearances. It's a win win!

(This a short Lockdown pandemic memory from a years ago...2020.)

Once upon a time...

It's after 2:00am,...I'm checking cabinets...the faeries might have left me something. That, and watching Netflix. They just added a series of videos from around the world. This of folks doing what we're all doing at 2:00am during Lockdown. Going quietly nuts. Speaking of which here's atop my fridge a snap of the bunch of leaves that storm tore off a tree a few days back. I adopted it...put it in water pruned it back a bit. So far so good.