Today is Sunday, June 25, 2023. Elliot and I returned to Forest Hills today after spending a long weekend with friends and family in Massachusetts. Even though we had a lovely time communing with nature and our friends/ family in the Constitution State, our commutes coming and going were positively nightmarish. Our commute back to New York occupied almost seven and a half hours, albeit we stopped twice: once to have lunch at Rein’s Deli in Vernon, Connecticut, and second, to have coffee and dessert at Atticus Bookstore Cafe in New Haven, Connecticut, home of Yale University. The first stop occupied more time than the second since there was a long line of hungry patrons waiting for tables in the 50-plus-year-old delicatessen. So we dashed for two seats that became available at the counter. We then ordered lunch right away.

While we were away, we missed the new news obsession which is what happened in Russia over the last several days. Everyone should know by now what happened with that mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin who almost staged an insurrection in Moscow but was rebuffed by some sort of deal to leave Russia for neighboring Belarus. I was secretly hoping that there would be some sort of armed protest by Prigozhin’s forces against that tyrant Putin. This crisis could only serve to show how weak Putin truly is. It also serves as a deflection from the Ukrainian war, which is good for the poor people of Ukraine who have suffered under Putin’s boot for so long. Only time will tell what the long-term effect of this improbable revolt against the whims of a despot will be.

The second news obsession was the continuous coverage of the submersible Titan which resulted in the death of five individuals, all superwealthy people. This was the story of this ill-fated expedition to the bottom of the ocean to view the remains of the ocean liner Titanic that sank in 1912. One of the passengers onboard, I learned, was Stockton Rush, 61, the CEO of OceanGate, who cofounded the company in 2009. The coverage of this underwater disaster was relentless. Elliot and I heard about it as soon as we arrived in Amherst on Thursday, July 22. I’m very ambivalent about the importance of this news story, as everyone onboard paid the price of $100,000 to take the deep-sea adventure, despite the apparent risks involved. What about the hundreds of migrants who drowned off the coast of Greece very recently? Wasn’t this a far more significant story, given the numbers of those who lost their lives trying to escape hardship at home? Just asking.

It’s getting late here. Suffice it to say that we had a busy but lovely weekend. On Sunday, we picked strawberries at a farm with Elliot’s daughter and her family. We had enough time to lean down and pick the fruit before it started to rain an hour or so later. We were having a bit of lunch at a picnic table when it started to pour. I missed seeing the animals nearby where “Sadie,” Elliot’s granddaughter, was feeding some goats.

We also missed the annual Pride March in Manhattan today. I heard there was an estimated crowd of 1 million people observing the parade. And the weather cooperated as well. I thought it was going to rain, but it didn’t. Instead of the “luck of the Irish,” I think you can say it was “luck of the gays” that was in full force today.

Have a good week.

Stay safe and be well.