Charlie

We had a 2013 Mazda3 hatchback, which was a good car and a lot of fun to drive. We replaced it with an SUV only because it was getting hard for old men to get into and out of.

Gee, after reading all these comments about brakes, I don't feel so bad about recently paying $500 at the dealer for brake replacements on my M-B at the 40K mile service.

I have a base model 2020 Kia Soul which I bought new in December for $19K, and I have never been more impressed with an inexpensive car. (Our other car is a 2015 Mercedes.) It is my regular daily driver, but unfortunately, the pandemic has curtailed my travel so much that I still haven't put on enough miles to need a service. My brother-in-law, a retired GM executive who still owns Cadillacs because he gets a big discount, says he always chooses a Kia when he has to rent, because they are comfortable, reliable and have excellent engines.

Perhaps the most handsome man I ever hired.

I can certainly see the Tom of Finland side of him, but I never saw a resemblance to JFK, Jr.

I asked my spouse--a retired architect--and he said US architecture does not use metric measurements unless they are working on a project that will be constructed in a country that does use metrics; e.g., when he was doing the plans for a building in Singapore, he had to do everything in metric.

Of course, Kevin had a graph already prepared for such a question, which he answered only 95 minutes after it was asked.

Playing Rummikub.

The pink sheets and princess phone undermine the leather come-on.

Almost too pretty, and far too carefully groomed to be a good ole boy.

Oh, then that definitely was you. I was watching from the roof of the Mine Shaft.

I always open the carton and check for cracked eggs, but if I find one, I return the carton to the shelf and try another one. I also pick up and inspect pieces of fruit, check each banana in the clump and pull off the bad ones, test tomatoes to see how soft they are, etc. Why should I pay for something that I will have to throw away when I get home? CoVid isn't going to deprive me of my right to inspect the apples for wormholes!

Those were not what are usually referred to as truck stops; they were places where empty trailer trucks were parked, and were referred to simply as "the trucks," as in, "Let's go to the trucks!" Oh, by the way, I think I saw you that night.

An article in the travel section of the Sunday LA Times recommended that when traveling by car in these days of coronavirus, plan a route that includes truck stops, because they are the only places where public restrooms are guaranteed to be open.

One of the first escorts I hired in NYC in the 1970s saw that the t-shirt I was wearing had a slight tear in it, and he proceeded to rip it off me and then rip off my underpants. I was obviously shocked, so he asked if that wasn't what I was expecting, because he said he had other clients who always wore shabby old underwear because they wanted it ripped off. The next time I hired him, I made sure to wear old things that I was ready to throw away anyway, just in case.

My gaydar was pretty good even in my late teens, when I detected that a few kids I knew were going to be gay even though they didn't know it yet. But it works best when most of the guys around me are straight. I think it has something to do with sensitivity to slight differences from the norm.

Me, for now.

Is he calling an Uber? His tire is flat.

That first black and white photo has to be very dated, because that certainly is a not a 55 year old.

I never read a book, but I did exactly what you did. I just followed my parents' example (they weren't close to being millionaires, but they were happy).

I didn't know he made a deodorant. I like his toothpaste.

Except for the tats, they have surprisingly similar images.

I have been watching a lot of live tennis exhibition tournaments (i.e., no ATP or WTA ranking points for players) on Tennis Channel, ESPN2 and CBSSN, and have also noticed mis-fits between commercials and breaks in play, because the umpires are not observing the usual longer breaks between games demanded for live broadcasts, especially for matches being played in Europe. There are fans in the stands for some of the European tournaments, but the numbers are small and the fans are spaced out throughout the stands.

What a beautiful seascape.

What a beautiful seascape.