Brought to You by the Vodka Aisle in this Polish Supermarket
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Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
When all Earth’s seas shall Levitate,
Dark shawled within the skies,
Upon our eyes will Starfish dance
Their waltz of Blind surprise.
The sun will Rise within wine Dark
As Argonauts imbibed,
Whose drunken arms embrace that sleep
Where Phaeton’s horses Stride.
Upon all of Earth’s wind-sanded shores,
As dolphins Learn to soar,
All we once were on the land
Shall be sealed behind the door
Of Ivory and Chastened Gold,
That the Mystery solved complete
Shall never til the seas’ Long fall
Wake mariners from their sleep.
— Van der Leun
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
— The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
Gerard Van der Leun
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I will never forgive them for what they did to the gas can.
That little gurl in the pool knocked the legs out from under one more american communist childish meme.
I have 2 old skool vented gas cans in the garage and 4 new skool unvented cans that have been liberated by me. Primitive knife wielding maniac vents. My wife swears a simple stroll through the garage imparts the smell of gas permanently on her garments. POL is my own personal cologne.
I had my 30 year old Craftsman stationary 4″x36″ belt sander tore apart, trying to find out why it is squealing so bad under load. Neighbor came by and told me my little metal can of 3 in 1 oil must be at least 30 years old cause they converted to plastic cans in the early 80’s. Mine still has the non-denominational price tag stating $1.19, so go figure. There are numerous POL products around here so the 3 in 1 gets used sparingly – hey! it’s a collectible now!
Well it appears that massive micro-dust build-up might have been the sanders problem. After spending an hour or so getting intimately personal with it and delving into the areas never before delved, with shop vac, various brushes and scrapers, and the compressor, it is now spic n span and a lot quieter. I bought this thing, I think, in 1980 and paid $99.99 for it. They don’t make this particular model any more but if you type in the model number 137.215360 Amazon has one, though the cheaperized plastic version, for almost 3 times the price and the reviewers throw it to the curb. So I’ll keep fixin’ the one I have.
Today is rainy so my sights are set on that bandsaw sitting over there needing some quality time. This’n: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00068U85S/?tag=reviewsofbo0a-20
I had a metal can of Singer sewing machine oil, circa 1972. At some point I let my husband borrow it and he never returned it, so I bought another container—now in plastic. But it still has that lovely warm aroma of light oil, which always reminds me of my Father.
I guess that Poles like vodka.
Reminds me of the beer coolers in 7/11’s. Being a non-drinker I would be asked to make the beer runs when attending family picnics and game days. I of course had to have directions; what kind of beer, where do I buy it. In the process I have come to a conclusion; the beer companies must give the 7/11 and other corner stores a better deal on beer than they do the super markets. I could buy a box of 30 “stones” for about $17 plus deposit at the 7/11 but at the supermarket it is about $18.95 or so. My theory is that it is simply marketing. If the price was the same everywhere a lot of small stores would actually go out of business. It seems that 80% or more of their profit comes from beer, wine and cigarettes. And fewer markets for their product will likely reduce sales overall. I dunno, could be some other reason.
GWTW,
Depends on what state you are in. Here all liquor stores have to buy from the same approved distributors at the same price for wine, liquor and high powered beer. A big liquor store pays the same price as a little one. Not sure about pricing for grocery store beer, which is limited to 3.2% alcohol. Most distributors have each item go on sale about every three months, so the store with more cash flow will only buy during the sale month, and carry enough inventory to bridge to the subsequent sale month. Also, liquor stores cannot sell below the price they paid from the distributor.
Walked into an Italian wine store and noticed in the center of the large tiled floor were two full-sized gasoline pumps, with volume meters, hoses, everything. But they were not for gasoline. One was for red wine and the other for white.
While we watched, a stout middle-aged lady drove up in her Fiat, took from the trunk a large demijohn, set it down by the red pump and filled it. Then she humped it back out to the car and threw it in the trunk. I thought the front wheels were going to come off the ground!
Only one wall had any shelves with bottled wine. The pumps clearly did all the business! We were on foot from the nearby campground so we bought a very bottle because we didn’t have much money. It was almost undrinkable. Almost.
I got a few of these for “water storage” (the little paper label is easy to remove).
20 Liter (5 Gallon) NATO Jerry Can (GJC20) with Flexible Spout
by Atlantic British LTD
Link: http://a.co/3dW9FLp
Absolutely leak proof, easy to pour from. Too bad they cost so much I’d get more.
I buy 5 gallon red plastic gas cans at estate sales. The old style that actually pours. They often have gas in them and I use it. $4
Seeing the Polish vodka aisle reminded me of a fun book titled “Five Billion Vodka Bottles to the Moon: Tales of a Soviet Scientist” by Iosif Shklovsky. The title comes from the author reporting the annual consumption of vodka in the USSR as it waned and how far the bottles would reach if laid end-to-end. Shklovsky was both a great physicist and writer, always on the wrong side of the administrators. His story of mollifying an annoying undergraduate, who turns out to be Andrei Sakharov, is priceless.