I didn’t have a good night’s sleep, but I had a great breakfast, chocolate chip brioche French toast, eggs, and sausage, and two strong cups of Marie’s coffee. Marie’s Fresh Roasted Coffee Beans & Gifts is an official member of my pantheon and so gets name checked. The poor sleep is coming too often of late, great breakfast’s have the proper frequency. I might sometimes fail at dinner but never breakfast. I’m on one of my kicks to be more of a frugivore. It’s tough for me as I can’t eat my favorites, apples, raisins, and figs, for health reasons. Now I’m concentrating on the watery fruits, oranges, and watermelon. I’m trying to eat an orange a day. Will it keep the doctor away? Maybe that’s why Dr. Kwah, my gastroenterologist is leaving my hospital system, I drove her away with oranges. I suspect that isn’t the reason. She’s in my pantheon too. If you’re in the NYU system and need a great GI doctor check her out. She’s new there so she should be accepting new patients.
While I didn’t leave the house yesterday I had a very me day. I watched two sporting events, The Mets, they beat the Phillies behind another superb pitching performance by deGrom, and parts of the Lakers-Rockets basketball game. My default is to root for LeBron James, I also want to root for James Harden and the Rockets smallball lineup. I’m going with the Lakers, they won to tie the series 1-1. What made the Met game special is that for once they didn’t waste a great start by deGrom. They were going up against the second-best pitcher in baseball, whoever is facing deGrom, and managed to score 14 runs. It usually takes 7 starts for them to score that much for deGrom. They are not doing as well today, losing 5-0.
My fantasy team is not doing very well. We are in second to last place. This year we did a draft. Five of my top ten picks have been injured and missed most of the season. Tough to win when that happens. Next year I hire all new trainers.
I also watched at least two streaming concerts, The Kennedys, and the Greenwich Village Folk Festival. I have a feeling I watched another one in between and I’m blanking on it. That’s not too surprising. The old GVFF had a big influence on me. The first time I listened to WFUV it was to hear it broadcast. That’s where I first heard Christine Lavin, who I’ve been a fan of ever since. She hosted part of the show last night. Ron Olesko, another friend, and Folk Music Notebook colleague hosted the rest. After hearing it on the radio I started going to the festivals in the Washington Square Church and discovered so many musicians I still love. It was very much like the Falcon Ridge Emerging Artist Showcase but for six hours. It would then be capped by a headliner. Oh, now I remember what other show I watched, Susan Werner, I switched to her when one of my less favorite artists was playing GVFF. The ones I knew I wouldn’t miss were Carolann Solebello and Diana Jones.
I completed the trifecta, sports, music, friends, by talking to Katrina and Allison on the phone. It still takes an effort for me to call people but it’s worth it. I just have to keep reminding myself of that. Just as I need to remind myself that I’ll be happier if I take walk. That means today. Today! That reminds me, it’s Labor Day. People forget that this is not designed to be a day to go to the beach and have cookouts. It’s a day designed to honor working people and especially organized Labor. The holiday was a creation of unions. I’m always dismayed by progressives who badmouth unions. These same people will badmouth corporations. They don’t realize that the best check on corporations is organized labor. It’s not just that unions brought us this three-day weekend, they brought us weekends off, the eight-hour day, and overtime pay. They gave us sick leave and health benefits.
We often hear how we are losing well paid manufacturing jobs for low paid service jobs. Why are service jobs paid less? Because for the most part they are not unionized. Amazon is justly criticized for how they treat their warehouse workers. What people don’t get is that they treat their workers better than most companies. If the warehouse workers unionized they could have much better working conditions and higher pay. Of course, their employers fight unionization, but so does the government. Workers need government protection in order to organize, and they are too often denied that, especially in Republican states and nationally under Republican administrations. We need to change laws, which no administration can do on their own, it takes the legislatures. The so-called right-to-work laws are designed to be about the right of employers to break unions and prevent their formations. I’m not saying don’t enjoy yourself today. I would never say that. Happiness is a virtue and will make you a better person. What I’m saying is to just spend some time thinking about this and all those who are forced to work today. Then work to make things better.
Wise Madness 