Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Blogfinger true conversations’ Category

True conversations: At the Wegmans Café. Re-post.

Posted in Blogfinger News, Blogfinger true conversations, Conversations we've heard, tagged , on July 30, 2020| 2 Comments »

Conversation: NYC Street Series. By Paul Goldfinger

Conversation: NYC Street Series. By Paul Goldfinger. Click left for full view

By Paul Goldfinger   (Some of us miss that Wegmans Café on the second floor; Will it ever return?)

Scene: Wegmans, Ocean. Upstairs café where they have numerous tables and chairs. It is a weekday morning, about 8:30 am. No one else is there. I arrive with my coffee, bagel, iPhone (to check BF) and The New York Times paper edition — looking forward to my mellow morning routine. I find a table with a view overlooking the store. I set everything on the table and sit down.

Disembodied female voice: “With all the tables up here, did you have to sit near me?”

I look around. There is a column facing me, and behind the column I see a woman sitting at a laptop computer. I didn’t notice her before, but now she is quite obvious.

She is about 40 years old and is staring at me, with a slight but (am I imagining this?) menacing smile. I instinctively react negatively to her voice, her tone and her appearance.

Men, I think, always incorporate an assessment of a woman’s appearance whenever they get to talk to one. I thought she was pretty unattractive, although, if it weren’t for her bad attitude, I might have found something to admire.

I stand up and step closer to her.

Me: “Are you kidding?” (I was incredulous, but I also considered the small possibility that she was just teasing.)

She: “No!”

Me: “Well then, I don’t care.” (I mean, really….is she nuts? — thought I. But maybe I do care…a little.)

She: “I’m putting my ear phones on.”

Me: Silence. I resume my morning activities.

Postscript: About 20 minutes later I look up and see that she is gone, but she left a souvenir: all her breakfast detritus. Normally I might have tossed it into the garbage, but it is, in an odd way, part of her, and I didn’t want to think about her for another moment. The busboy will get it.

SOUNDTRACK: Harry Nilsson

Read Full Post »

True Conversation at the Farmers Market

Posted in Blogfinger cartoon with Sue Gioulis, Blogfinger Presents, Blogfinger true conversations, tagged on January 3, 2019| 1 Comment »

Hats from Madagascar. Paul Goldfinger. Rear view window. Jan 2, 2019 Lakes Park Market in Ft. Myers, Fla.

By Paul Goldfinger,  Editor @Blogfinger.net

SCENE:  These hats are supposedly woven by natives in Madagascar.  They are beautiful, well made, and with wonderful colors. But if you imagine some native women sitting in front of a mud hut producing them, you might have difficulty reconciling the price, because the average cost is $50.00.

Most of the  browsers are women, and the salesperson is a woman.  A gentleman came by, and she tried to sell him a baseball cap. But he walked away, and then I stepped to the plate:

Me: Which are the  hats for men?

She: We don’t have hats for men; we have women’s and unisex. You can look at our unisex selection over there.

Me:  I don’t like the term “unisex.” I won’t buy a hat that’s “unisex.”

Me, silently talking to myself:  I think the term is obnoxious, and it is rarely used to refer to clothing.

There were, in fact, hats in that booth that traditionally were designed for men—baseball and pork pies.  But here they are identified as being “unisex.”  If a man came by who loved one of their wide brimmed “woman’s” hats, then she would say that he would be buying a “woman’s hat.”  But if a woman buys a baseball hat, that would be “unisex.”

I was annoyed…so I left and headed for the French crepes food truck to take photos of those French girls in their winter clothes.

Besides, if I bought the Madagascar unisex model, I would not know which bathroom to use.

Maybe this is the start of something big:  another ridiculous example of political correctness in America.

MONICA RAMEY AND THE BEEGIE ADAIR TRIO:

addendum:   Here is a link from one year ago where I wrote about these hats:

St. Louis Woman

Read Full Post »

True conversations: baby talk

Posted in Blogfinger Presents, Blogfinger true conversations on April 21, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Footsteps, sunshine, and an ocean like a lake. Ocean Grove. April 20, 2018. Paul Goldfinger ©. Blogfinger.net

 

Scene:  New York City–We were living in New York in 1968  when Eileen, age 24, delivered our first son, Stephen, at Mt. Sinai Hospital, where I was a doctor in training.

Before she was discharged, she was given some detailed instructions including how to bathe the infant. When we took her and baby-makes-three home, she bathed him in our tiny kitchen sink and she was quite nervous about it:

Me:  Getting paged at the hospital.  Eileen was on the phone; she was in tears.

Me: What’s wrong?

Eileen, sobbing:  I was giving Stephen a bath and I washed the left side first.

Me.   It’s OK; you can start with the left side and do the right side last.

 

Scene:   Wegmans today. I got on an elevator which was already occupied with a mom and her two young daughters;  the oldest was about four and she was very cute in a sparkly dress with a colorful headband.  I said to her, “Your dress is pretty. What’s your name?”

Little girl:  no answer–too shy

Mom:  Her name is Noa.

Me:  Wow, what a coincidence; my new grandson was born only 4 days ago and his name is Noah.

Mom: No, it’s not a coincidence, Noa is not the same as Noah.

Me: Really?

Mom: Noa is a woman’s name taken from the Old Testament.  The Bible story is that of biblical heroic Noa , one of 5 sisters, during the Exodus, obtaining the right to inherit property in the absence of a male in the family.

So it’s no wonder Mom got a bit testy–her daughter’s name is not about an old guy with an ark; it’s about women’s rights.  Truly a contemporary theme among many found in the Torah  (the Hebrew Bible.)

Mom: We’re from Israel

Me: Oh–thank you for explaining all that.

We had, by then, stepped off the elevator at the 2nd floor cafe, where Mom and her two daughters joined Dad and their young son for breakfast.  They were eating a giant pizza.

DUKE ELLINGTON  “There Shall Be No Night”   From the soundtrack of Ken Burns’ film The War.

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

True Conversations: How to meet a cheerleader.

Posted in Blogfinger Presents, Blogfinger true conversations, tagged on October 8, 2017| 3 Comments »

True Conversations.  By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger   (Former sports editor of the R-Hi newspaper)

Scene:  Fairlawn High School soccer field—- too many years ago to count.  It’s half time, and the Rutherford High School varsity is playing Fairlawn.  I’m wearing my sweaty navy blue and white RHS uniform, hanging around waiting for the game to resume.

Somebody:   There’s a Fairlawn cheerleader who’s name is Goldfinger.

Me: You’re kidding, right?

Somebody:  No.  She’s a good looker, too.

I grab a buddy, and we walk around the field to the opposite side.  A group of FHS cheerleaders  wearing red and white are standing in a clump talking and giggling. I’ve always had a curiosity about cheerleaders, especially how they do those splits, but I cautiously approached the group and asked, “Do you have a cheerleader named Goldfinger?”

Mildly hostile FHS cheerleader:   “Yes, she is the dark haired one over there.”  She looks promising.

Me to my friend,  “I’ll be right back.”

So I walk up to her.  She is in fact quite appealing in her uniform.

Me:  Hello,  my name is Goldfinger.  Is your name really Goldfinger?

She: Yes.  She doesn’t  seem to be in the mood  to exchange pleasantries with moi.  (I was taking French that year.)

Me:   You know, if we got married, you wouldn’t have to change your name.    (This was an all-time great opening line–or, at least I thought so.)

She: Rolling her eyes, turns and walks away.  Maybe she has no sense of humor, in which case I would not ask her to marry me anyhow.

Me:  I shrug and walk back to our side as the whistle blows.

To be honest, I can’t recall who won the game, but it’s a good thing it wasn’t baseball, because I did strike  out that day.

JIMMY BUFFETT:

Read Full Post »

%d bloggers like this: