PopWars

We have a few works by Anne Havens. We bought a print from a show at Pyramid’s Village Gate location before we ever met her. And we bought a few of her 6x6s. Your can almost always spot an Anne Havens. The walls at RoCo were were full at the recent Member’s Show but our favorite piece there was not in the show. It was in the small sales gallery. It attracted my eye when we came in and I couldn’t get it out of my head. We arranged to buy it on the way out. It is an acrid painting on paper but Anne Haven’s husband, Stewart Davis. No, not that Stuart Davis.

My dentist is a perfectionist. He runs an especially tight ship. So it was a little surprising to spend almost fifteen minutes in the waiting room. And then my brother walked in. What a coincidence. But when he saw me he was thinking something else. He didn’t think he had an appointment today but he had received a phone message reminding him of an appointment. And he had already missed one while he was out of town so he showed up. I thought it was strange that I didn’t get either a phone call or a text message reminder. The receptionist had called the wrong Dodd and her message also announced that the appoint had been moved back by fifteen minutes.

We have lived here four over ten years and we finally walked around the block. It is not so easy to do. Most of the street back here dead end. We walked out to Culver, up to Titus and down Titus to the library where turned north on Kings Highway. This road get pretty forlorn and the guard rails on the side of thread love little room for pedestrians and there are no turns until you get to Lake Ontario. That’s where we turned east along the lakeshore and then up Log Cabin Road through the park to where Zoo Road becomes Wisner which takes us back fun circle. 7 1/2 miles or 12 kilometers.

Jeffery’s yoga class convened last night for the first time since the holidays. He asked everyone in the class what they wanted to work on. I said “I didn’t care” but that didn’t come out right. What I really meant was “I’ll do anything.” I don’t want think here. I want to surrender. The woman next to Peggi suggested core strengthening and that is what Jefferey went with. We spent a lot of time on our backs with our legs in the air and then rolled over to do forearm plank and crocodile.

Continuing with our cross training regimen today Peggi plotted a six mile route to Wegman’s and back. Actually we’ve begun thinking in kilometers and working toward ten of those. Our route began with us walking in the east opposite direction. When left it sunny. By the time we got to Point Pleasant it was windy and raining. I was carrying a back pack. There was nothing in it but we planned to shop and came home with 22 1/2 pounds of groceries in the pack. That changed everything. The recommend you plan on limiting the things you carry to ten pounds so that will be a piece of cake.

With the recent thaw the sidewalks are littered with drug bags. That and some nasty dog droppings.

We were still reading the Sunday morning paper when Gareth Bale put Real Madrid ahead 2-0 with a beautiful goal. They went on to win 7-1 against the team La Coruña side which is hardly a match.

We heard some chainsaws down the street and we followed that noise just see what the neighbors were up to. We turned toward the lake looking for clear sidewalk since we were breaking in our new walking shoes. We debated stopping at the Parkside for coffee and then turned into it hat funky little neighborhood behind Nick’s Seabreeze Inn. It gets really really hilly in there, just like the Pyrenees at the start of El Camino. Well, not quite that hilly.

We did stop at the Parkside when come out and by the time we got home Barcelona was already ahead of Real Betis from Sevilla. Lionel Messi and the toothy Luis Suarez got two goals each in that contest. Again, hardly a match. Copa Del Rey next week!

We met friends in Scotsville for a ski and some soup. We trudged through a corn field and then into the woods along the river. The water was high and it seems a little early for that. We came across four young horses and my fingers froze while I struggled to capture a photo.

There’s a house out back of us, down the hill and across the road. We’re not quite sure who lives there. A kid with a skateboard and at least four adults. Peggi thinks one of them is a bartender because of the hours they see. Their driveway is really steep and they don’t like to shovel so they are always struggling to get up it. Sometimes they give up and park in the road. On Friday night, when we got the big snow, one of the cars slipped off the driveway and partially down the ravine. It came to a halt against a tree and was as such an angle that I would have been afraid to swing the door open for fear that it would be just enough to roll the car.

So it sat there until tonight around dusk when first one and then another, bigger, tow truck showed up. There were five or six guys out there, smoking cigarettes and strategizing for at least an hour before they sprung into action. Peggi got out the binoculars and we watched someone climb a ladder and attach a pulley to a big tree. Someone else crawled under the car and attached a cable. We think the second tow truck also had a cable attached because he carefully positioned himself just before they began pulling. The car came up like a big fish on a line and they brushed it off and left. We left too, to see “Lady Bird.” I loved it.

We had an early link to this video, one that we weren’t supposed to share, but I’m happy to hear it has gone public now. We heard stories about the Cassorla brothers long before we ever met them. Most of the stories involved pranks or explosions. They built a reputation in West Irondequoit. Once we became friends they’d bring large containers of pretzels to our parties, salty stuff their father, Red, delivered to all the mom and pop stores in the city. They’d also bring stuff that blew up pretty good.

Red worked out of a warehouse over by the Public Market and didn’t retire until his late eighties when the brothers and Red all moved out west. Red was a Sephardic Jew from Spain and his sons drove him back here every year for the holy days. They’d all come to the Little to hear the band and catch up with old friends. Red’s eyes would light up when Peggi spoke Spanish to him.

And, although we never talked about it, I think there might have been a connection to the Cassorla brothers when Peggi and I hosted a wedding reception for our bass player many years ago. I was spinning records in the living room and the bass player’s brother asked me if it was ok to set off some fireworks outside. I said “Sure” and went on playing records until we heard the explosion. Neighbors for miles around called the cops. There were ten police cars out front when they rang our doorbell. They asked if I was the owner of the house and I said, yes. They said, “Come on, we’re going downtown.” I was guilty on all counts.

They put handcuffs on me and put me in the back seat. I could see our neighbors looking out their windows at me. For some reason we never went downtown. I watched the parents of the bride and groom leave our house and the party fizzle. Peggi told me later that the remaining guests carried on a lively debate as to whether the guy that actually set the fireworks off should fess up but he couldn’t do that because he had more fireworks in his car and he worked for the City so he was afraid he would los his job. One of the guests was a lawyer and I really wish I had heard that debate. It reminds me of the “The Dinner” with Laura Linney.

My story had a beautiful, surreal ending when after an hour or so in the back seat Steve Black left the party and walked up to the cop car. The cop slowly rolled the window down and Steve said, “Officer, I have a confession to make. I set the bomb off.” I remember saying, “Steve, what are you doing?” but the officer opened the door, put handcuffs on Steve and put him in the back seat with me. After another hour, they let us go but told us we had to be in court at nine the next morning. The charges were dropped when the arresting officer failed to show up.