HERE WE ARE again, a quick 200-miler this morning to see little D1D1, and a side visit with Jan and Connie Nelson, our friends from Gig Harbor, WA. They’re in town for the holiday weekend.
It’ll be weird to see the Nelsons in the east. Usually I turn up at their place, park the iron piggy for a month, sleep on their boat dock at Lake Cushman, or in their backyard in Gig Harbor.
While headed south on the Henry Hudson Parkway I caught an accidentally decent shot of the Intrepid out through the passenger window. The bride leaned back in her seat to make way. I was looking out through the windshield, not the viewfinder. Got lucky.
A left on Canal, then down, down, down, under the mighty Hudson.
Pop back up out of the Holland Tunnel here, on the Jersey side.
We’re minding D1D1 this evening while Daughter #1 and Significant Other #1 escape for dinner out. No biggie, a neighborhood restaurant a few blocks away, but new parents so rarely get any time to themselves.
I walked to a local eatery just now to get take-out grub for us. For me, linguine bolognese with meatballs and a mesclun salad; for her, eggplant parmigiana and arugula salad.
Pardon my keyboard manners but I’m chowing down and scribbling and importing photos as we speak.
Daughter #1 of Daughter #1 will be 14 months old soon. She insisted on helping me lace up my boots this afternoon, when the bride and I were getting ready to head over to the Westin to check in.
See these books, old man? Read ’em. This morning. Before you got here.
While we’re here we’ll try to meet up for lunch in Manhattan with Brendan Burford and Karen Moy, from King Features Syndicate, a part of the Hearst empire. I’ve been writing Lee Falk’s Phantom for King Features ever since the great Lee Falk passed on.
A real gentleman. Lee wrote the strip seven days a week from 1936 to 1999.
This strip below we published yesterday, part of an 18-week yarn. Look how stealthy Diana is, getting the Phantom to promise while he’s unconscious.
I think it was the Romans who said it first: he who remains silent is understood to agree. Next morning the Phantom doesn’t remember his promise, of course, but, better to go to Baronkhan than to the frosty burgh where poor listeners go.
Apropos of Diana’s concern for public civility, I might as well divulge that I’ve suspended my 2016 campaign for President. Let’s be clear: I didn’t quit. Quitting is for quitters. I suspended.
You’ve probably all enjoyed the campaign, now in its 37th month. Don’t worry, another one starts on Inauguration Day 2017, only 11 months from now. Can’t wait.
Eight more candidates suddenly jump in, and right off the bat they get more ink than I ever did? That’s bullshit. I suspend.
Good luck, America.
Tony DePaul, February 13, 2016, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA
D1D1 is cute, looks a little like you. If you change your mind about the presidency, I’ll vote for ya’; at least your honest, and you ride motorcycles, so you can’t beat that!
Will