New Thing #124: A Vision In A Cabinet

At a little before 7pm Friday night I saw it. At about 7:30pm I received confirmation I wasn't crazy.

In between I received three indications I might be.

See, what happened was....well, it does sound kind of crazy now that I think about it...

I saw an image of George Washington in one of my kitchen cabinets.

Go ahead and take a close look at that picture above.

I'm talking about the left-most cabinet, below the reflection of the light.

It may not hit you at first - it took my brother a couple of looks before he went from being one of three people to think I was nuts to the only one who confirmed what I saw.

(After I posted the picture on Twitter he first said, "I think there was something else in that Beet Burger." [It wasn't meat! HA! That will never get old.] But after I exclaimed that I couldn't believe he didn't see it he wrote, "whoa. Not gonna lie, just saw it. I was fully prepared to make fun of you again, also. Bummer." So it's possible you'll see it. Joining him in disbelief, by the way, were my friend Dave [via Twitter], and my wife, who didn't see it live and in person.)

Anyway, I've lived in this house for 8 years and I hadn't seen this happen until now, so I guess it's OK if it takes you a minute or two.

The funny thing about it, though, is that the closer you get to the image, the less recognizable it gets:

What does it mean? Is it like that time the crying statue of the Virgin Mary was in my neighborhood and people lined up around the block to get a look? Will a museum come calling to accept it as an exhibit? Will it hit the news like those Jesus faces in grilled cheese sandwiches?

Am I just working too hard and, like Dave said, is it that "summer break can't come fast enough"?

I think that's just absolutely ridiculous.

Because clearly it means that George Washington is trying to send me  a message through my cabinet.

New Thing #106: Identifying As A Bostonian

I grew up in Queens, New York. My whole family is still in New York.

I'm proud to be a New Yorker.

But the fact is, for the past 17 years (14 straight), I've lived in Massachusetts.

For about half of that time I lived in Boston.

And for the second time in my life I've seem somewhere I live and care about be attacked.

I happened to have a chance to reflect on this "where I'm from" idea quite a bit these past few days.

In Quebec I was asked a number of times, "Where are you from?"

Usually when I'm asked that question, I'll say something like, "Well, I live in Framingham, near Boston...but I'm from New York."

This weekend, though, that answer became simply, "Boston."

I don't know why. Maybe because it was easier to explain to people. Maybe because I knew they didn't care about my life history - they just wanted to know where our group was from.

Whatever it was, for the first time in my life this weekend I uttered the phrase, "I'm from Boston" with no qualifiers.

Then on the way home from Quebec I waited on pins and needles for updates from my wife as I heard awful news from Boston trickle in bit by bit.

By the end of the day I was proud of the Bostonians who responded at the scene...and I thought about how I or someone I know could have easily been among the victims. (More than 140 victims in a small city like Boston makes you feel like you have to have known someone affected.)

I've written before about how upset I was on September 11, 2001.

At the time I was only out of New York for five years.

The Twin Towers were a backdrop for so much of my New York experience, but they were never a place I spent a lot of time. In my life, I maybe spent a total of six hours in that immediate vicinity. I didn't know anyone who worked there. While shocked at the loss of life on September 11th, I did not spend much time thinking, "That could have been me."

But I've spent countless hours where the explosions happened on Monday.

And rare have been the moments I've been there by myself.

Usually I'm with friends or family - really, the people I care about the most in the world.

And if I'm not there, I know of numerous instances where friends or family have been there without me.

And these friends I mention -  friends I've spent time with there or who spend their time in that area - they're the friends I made in the city where I've now lived for half my life.

Explosions at the Boston Marathon. That kind of tragedy really hits home for me.

New Thing #44: A Broken Windshield

Who do you call when your windshield's busted? If you live in New England and have listened to any AM radio you know the answer to that question.

As a matter of fact, you know of many windshield replacement companies, all of whom advertise on the radio.

In my 15+ years of living in Massachusetts, and 10+ as a car owner, I've never needed to utilize any of those windshield-replacement businesses.

Until now.

Obviously, this was an unexpected New Thing. (Editor's note: I think I'm using too many quotation marks. New style guide rule: I will capitalize, not set off in quotes, New Thing when referring to these events.)

On Monday my wife took the Venza and she said a rock hit the windshield and left an impression. (That impression is the picture below.)

Tuesday I took the Venza, and I'm not sure anything even hit the car, but that one impression became a line almost all the way across the windshield. (That line is pictured above. The damage looks worse from the inside of the car than the outside...but when you touch it from the outside, it feels like anything that touches the glass will cause it to all fall apart.)

She called to see if it could be replaced in the parking lot at work...the company was all booked.

They're going to come to the house Wednesday, perhaps as you're reading this.

That's kind of a bummer. Even though things are so busy at work that I don't know that I could take even 5 minutes to come out and meet the glass fixers, I would have liked to have seen the process.

Because if you've heard the commercials, you know they come to your car. They replace the glass anywhere. They have specially trained technicians, and portable ovens that keep the glass at just the right temperatures.

It sounds like it would be a process that was worth watching.

As it is, hopefully the new windshield goes smoothly. And in the future my only experience with windshield replacement companies is the occasional (constant?) annoying commercial on the radio.