Charlie

At my local Phillips76 station here in Palm Springs I paid $3.85/gal for regular.

Hmm. He describes himself as "a new, fully trained masseuse." I would think that his training would have included the news that a "masseuse" is a woman, not a man.

FrankR's caveat is a good one. If your auto insurance is bundled with homeowner's insurance, cancelling the auto insurance will affect the homeowner's insurance. However, keeping the car may not be financially reasonable if you don't use it.

No and No

My first apartment was a small studio, so I had to make the bed when I got up if I wanted a couch to sit on. The habit stuck, and so I have always made my bed every day, even if no one else is going to see it.

Many years ago we spent a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend at the Arizona Biltmore, but I have no idea if it is still as good as it was then, although the fact that Frank Lloyd Wright was the consulting architect in 1929 will never change.

One of my favorites also.

He looks much younger in the massagem4m ad than in the rentmen ad. Although the address for the massage service is 12th and Market, I assume he is actually somewhere south of there in the Gayborhood.

The last royal event I watched on tv was E2R's coronation in 1953. However, I was in London for the Silver Jubilee in 1977, and saw her on several occasions.

Our agency provides each residence a large green waste container upon request, and empties it every week, on the same day they pick up the trash and the recyclables.

When we bought our present house last year, the city inspector certified that we had combination smoke/CO2 detectors in every room. But when we later applied for a mortgage a few months later, the inspector sent by the bank to look at the house pointed out that they were not combo monitors, only smoke detectors, and said we would have to install CO2 detectors before we could get a mortgage. I called the realtor through whom we purchased the house, who was shocked, and he went out and bought separate CO2 detectors and installed them himself the same day.

States that I consider mostly Southern are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Southern Delaware is Southern, but northern Delaware is not. A large part of physical Maryland and Virginia is Southern, but the heavily populated areas around DC are not. North Florida is Southern, but south Florida is Northern. East Texas is definitely Southern, but the rest of the state is really Western, and the same is true of Oklahoma. Southern Missouri is Southern, but the northern part of the state is Midwestern. West Virginia is a category unto itself. IMHO, to qualify as truly Southern, an area's economy has to have been historically agricultural.

My last few cars have all had keyless starters, so I was surprised when I bought my 2015 Mercedes that it had an actual key; I have to remove it to turn off the engine. However, my cheap 2017 Toyota/Mazda has a keyless fob. We have an attached garage which is next to one of the bedrooms, but we also have loud carbon monoxide alarms, which are required in all houses sold in Palm Springs.

What about fried chicken or roast turkey?

If you search this message board, you will find threads about the Oxford comma.

Because I was fairly lightweight, it was one of the few things I was reasonably good at.

What is said during the ceremony can vary--some people write their own script. In a state like Pennsylvania, which allows "self-uniting" marriage ceremonies, you don't even need a third party to say anything. What matters is a valid license and an official marriage certificate from the state. The officiant at my own wedding, a Deputy Commissioner for Civil Marriages in the County of Riverside, CA, said, "I now pronounce you spouses for life," which I thought sounded nice.

You have to pitch the idea to Guy Fawkes. Creating new fora is entirely his prerogative.

When I was a kid, my grandmother lived in an old house on the Hudson River that had been a stop on the underground railroad before the Civil War. Escaped slaves were brought up the river from NYC at night and unloaded on the river bank to be hidden during the day, before being moved farther north the next night. There was a secret entrance from the basement into a large brick room that had been built under the side yard, where the slaves stayed during the day. The house was built at the foot of a hill that sloped down to the river, and an ice house was built into the base of the hill. There was also a tunnel from a secret entrance in the ice house to the big brick room, so there was a second means to escape if the entrance in the basement were discovered. The house had no electricity and no indoor plumbing, other than a hand pump in the kitchen sink, so there was an outhouse in the yard. I used to stay with my grandmother during summer vacations. In the later 19th century, the West Branch of the New York Central RR had been laid between the house and the river, and my parents used to put me on the train near our home in NJ; all the men who worked on the railroad knew my grandmother, and they would stop the train in front of the house and let me off, where she was waiting for me. I loved those summer days, often spent fishing on the river bank for catfish and perch, which my grandmother would clean and cook for dinner, but without electric light, there was nothing to do at night but read by a kerosene lamp, and I hated to have to go to the outhouse in the dark. Unfortunately, the house was torn down in the early 1960s when Con Edison was planning to build a storage plant there, for a project that was stopped by environmentalists.

I rarely eat Chinese food, but I love Japanese food and have been to Japan a few times. I am not very dexterous with chopsticks, but I always use them when eating Japanese food, even if I fumble with certain foods.

I can empathize with "no one old enough to be my dad." If my father were still alive, he would be 112.

When I was 21, a hand written letter was the most convenient way to communicate with someone in another city; there was no email. Even a phone call from Philly to NYC (landline, of course) was a long distance call that cost extra money. I know the Herrick poem by heart, but I didn't think the weekend activities would include rosebuds.

When I was 21, I was picked up on the street in Greenwich Village one evening by "Peter," a very handsome, powerfully built older man ("older man" to me in those days meant anyone over 35). He took me back to his apartment, and we were partially undressed and just getting into it when the doorbell rang. Friends of his, a straight couple, had just stopped by on their way home from dinner at a nearby restaurant. He let them in, although he was shirtless. I was still in the bedroom, but after a few minutes of waiting for him to return, I dressed completely and emerged. I could tell that the couple were surprised, and intrigued, and after about fifteen minutes of rather awkward conversation, they didn't seem at all inclined to leave us alone. I became fidgety, and finally said I had to leave. "Peter" was obviously irritated by the whole situation, but he let me go; however, he slipped me his number and I slipped him mine as I left. I went to a diner on Sheridan Square, where I was picked up by someone else, who then picked up a third party, and we all went to the third guy's place for some rather interesting sex (my first experience with poppers). A few days later, I received a phone call from "Peter." He immediately went into a spiel which was as heavy as any paid phone sex you could imagine, and I came by hand during the call. But the things he said he wanted to do with me scared the shit out of me, even though I found it terribly exciting to hear. He insisted that I travel back to New York that Friday, because he was going to make me his complete sex slave for the weekend. He was so intense that I agreed to go, although I knew I wouldn't do it. Instead, as soon as I was off the phone, I wrote him a letter, explaining that although I was extremely attracted to him, I was not psychologically prepared for what he had in mind. I received a very short, gruff acknowledgment in reply, and never heard from him again. Even after all these years, I still sometimes wonder if my life would have taken a different course if I had gone to see him that weekend.

No. 3 is a mistake: there are FIVE in that one.

I was in England when the fire occurred, but it was in the news there. I later learned from friends in NYC that someone I knew as a regular had been killed. The place reopened, but it was never really the same after that.