PopWars

We opened the garage door of my parents old place at 8 this morning and there was already a handful of hungry garage sale hounds trying to get in. We brought all sorts of furniture out onto the driveway and then it would rain and we’d move it back in and when the rain let up we’d move it back out again. And all the while people came and left with their arms full.

A woman with a buzz cut came up to me with a vase that had been marked two dollars and asked if I would take five cents. I said, “We’ll, that’s one fortieth of what we were asking but sure.” The offer was so bold, I liked it. She turned out be a special person who was shopping with an aid. She said, “I hear you’re into art.” I said, “I’m way into art” and she said “I paint abstracts. I paint what’s in inside me.” I tried to give her encouragement but she didn’t really need any. I had placed a partially used, ten gallon bucket of drywall compound in the “Free Stuff” pile and a woman asked how much we wanted for it. I said free and she heard “three” so she gave my brother-in-law three bucks. My brother-in-law is good. He was even able to sell one of my father’s bricks.

My high school girlfriend stopped by and showed me a picture her grandson painted. It was great to see her. My parent’s next door neighbor kept stopping in, I mean like ten times, and she paid for all her purchases in quarters but each time she would negotiate the sale and then go back to her house for the coins. My father took us all down to Nick’s for dinner and Nick stopped by the table to tell us a few stories. Hadn’t heard the one about his brother-in-law winning thirteen million in the NYS lottery. Animated weatherman, Scott Hetsko, was dining with his family at the next table and The Chinchillas drummer was in the house.

There was pretty cool picture in the paper this morning of the penitents in the “Procesion del Silencio” in Spain. My brother, who is in town for a few days, converted to Judaism. No mean feat. I reminded him of how we used to try to remain silent between the hours of noon and 3PM on Good Friday (tomorrow), the hours when Jesus hung on the cross. Of course that was impossible but we did manage to give up candy for Lent. This Catholic stuff is hard to shake.

I found this piece of paper (above) in front of our old house in the city. I hung on to it. Since we lived in St. John’s parish, the same parish I grew up in, I assume it came from there and it seems to me that this whole notion of saints is still worthwhile. I have my own definition and it includes some deeply flawed but miraculous individuals. I started a list in the right hand column of this page.

I was out at my dentist in Webster and the hygienist took X-rays. She spotted a suspicious spot above a crown and said it appeared to have changed since the last X-ray but she wasn’t able to show me the two shots on the same screen. They use Kodak Dental Imaging Software and she said both the dentist and her had tried to figure that out to no avail.

I said, “There must be a way to do that.” She said she “was afraid she would mess things up if she just started clicking around.” This is exactly the wrong attitude to have with software. It has been designed to have you click around until figure out how to do what you want to do. That’s why they call it software.

While I was out there I had to stop in front of Mini City to take a shot. Of course the owner came out and asked if he could help me. This happens to me all the time and I can’t help but wonder if all photographers are plagued with people wanting to help them or if it is just me or maybe the things I like to take photos of. I told him I liked his sign and I just added the shot to my “Funky Signs” site.