The highway of life

Today is Leonard Pennario's birthday. He would have been 85 today. He still would have had five years to go before he hit the dreaded 90. We had a joke about that.

What about the 90? That is it up above!

What about the 990? I have to take it today when I go to the chiro. That is the 990 pictured at left. I would have run a bigger picture but darn! The only ones I can find are on this site called Interstate Guide which will not let you copy big pictures. That is an amazing site. It is devoted to pictures of Thruway exits! There are thousands!

My brother George and I are into Thruway history: exits, tollbooths, footbridges. I will have to mention this site to him. Are there any other Thruway fans out there? I am just wondering.

Talking about Pennario's birthday, I spoke with Joan Benny yesterday. She is the daughter of Jack Benny. It was a fascinating interview and one thing we talked about was the famous bridge game in which Pennario, Joan Benny and two other music types beat a top team of financiers including my boss, Warren Buffet.

Some months ago I was trying to get a hold of Warren Buffet to ask him what he remembered of that incident, and I spoke with his secretary. I heard that Buffet favored Buffalo News employees but I never did hear back from his secretary, zut alors.

Perhaps Warren Buffet is mad that Pennario beat him.

It must be something!

I have to say one thing: I like my life now that I am mixing and mingling with these people. It has been such an honor to have met Pennario and to be tracking him along the journey of his life. Which even included the 90 on occasion. He told me that!

I am thinking of him on his birthday.

I am listening to him playing this beautiful Schumann.

Appointment with destiny

Today is the day I have to go and see about my tooth. There is this tooth in the back of my mouth that has been giving me problems what with the braces and everything. And my ortho and New Dentist got together and recommended this specialist. His name is Dr. Howard something-or-other and he is in West Seneca.

What about the Seneca Nation of Indians?


I should have them do a dance of good luck for my tooth!

I am not sure I ever told about my adventures with New Dentist. I know I wrote I was getting one.

New Dentist is the greatest. We actually met once before at the soup kitchen. I was cooking and he was the volunteer in the office! We sat around the soup kitchen and talked for a couple of hours the way the volunteers at the kitchen sometimes do and then I asked him what he did and he was a dentist.

Not only that, but he was Howard's dentist!

So now he is mine too. And my first appointment a couple of weeks ago was promising. I did not see one schuft or oik while I was there even though the office is on Sheridan Drive where I know there is many a schuft or oik to be found. And what is especially charming about New Dentist is that his office is not high tech.

Here is what happens when they have to send your X-ray to another dentist. New Dentist calls in the hygienist and dictates to her his pronouncements on the situation. Then she disappears.

Then New Dentist sits with you and chats. And then the hygienist returns with a neatly handwritten note. He goes over the note and corrects grammar and punctuation. He rethinks phrases. "It would read better if we said it like this," he says.

Then the hygienist disappears again. And you chat some more with New Dentist. After 10 minutes or so she returns with the note neatly rewritten. New Dentist checks it over. OK, it's good to go.

It is like 1888!

About a month ago when I began planning to write all those letters to Leonard Pennario's friends and colleagues, I had grandiose ideas that I would hand write the letters. But in practice, forget that!

So I admire New Dentist and his priorities and his aesthetics.

New Dentist also does not use a computer or anything when it comes to scheduling appointments. On the way out I asked the receptionist if I could take her picture for my Web log and she said yes. So here it is.


One question: What is that mallet doing on the desk in front of her? I hope they are not going to use that on my teeth! Certain aspects of 1888, you want them at the dentist's office. Others you do not.

Thinking about all this it occurs to me: Thanks to my teeth, my life is much richer. I meet all these people I would not meet otherwise and they are fascinating.

I wonder what adventures today will bring.

More important than Michael Jackson

Today, that funeral for Michael Jackson! Can you believe it?

What is with these people?

I have this theory that the problem is that most people are not religious any more so they need something to fill the void and this is it. They get to scream and cry and feel they are part of something.

There is no other explanation for this hysteria! I am sorry but it is true.

Now, hysteria over Leonard Pennario, that I could understand. But zut alors, not this.

Luckily I have my priorities in order and I know what is important. What is important to me right now is my car inspection. Preparations start now, even though it is still good for three more weeks!

Yesterday I took my car by Goldman Motors and Howard replaced my registration sticker which I have been carrying around in my glove compartment. Then he filled up my tires. That is a picture above of Howard filling up the tires. A prince among men!

Goldman Motors is the name of Howard's garage and office which is on the border of historic Black Rock. It is near the Pierce-Arrow plant.

The Pierce-Arrow plant is one of the great long buildings of the world.


In the long buildings department it is rivaled only by World Auto Parts which happens to be right next door.


At Goldman Motors we treasure our proximity to these architectural wonders. The time flew as Howard looked over my car.


I have to go back to Goldman Motors this weekend so Howard can check my brakes. After that he is going to go with me to get my car inspected because last time, a year ago, I went by myself and it ended up costing me $1,500.

Make that $1,500.50 because they took so long replacing everything and changing every single fluid that I had to kill time by going to Goodwill. And I found a record of William Kapell playing the Khachaturian Concerto and paid 50 cents for it.

Leonard Pennario had just died and I thought about that as I walked back to the garage where my car was being inspected. I was wishing Leonard were alive because then I could have told him about this record I bought. Leonard would have loved that, I remember thinking. He would have loved that I found his buddy William Kapell at the Goodwill and not him.

It was blazing hot and a guy pulled over and asked me if I wanted a ride. That is another thing I remember. Who can resist a gal walking along in a sundress and sandals carrying a William Kapell record? He could not, that was for sure.

Wow, that was a year ago!

Anyway this year I cannot go unaccompanied to get my car inspected because look what happened last time. So I will be spending some quality time at Goldman Motors in the next week. Here is one more picture. It is of Abu Ghraib!


Abu Ghraib is the sinister part of Goldman Motors where there are these two dark doors leading into cinder block cells.

Here is a closeup of one of the doors.


Speaking of Abu Ghraib I am a prisoner of my Web log. I must away and get on with my day. Much as I am reluctant to.

Ach du lieber, Michael Jackson's funeral.

It is crazy!

Stranger in the night

There was something else that happened at the soup kitchen yesterday that was funny and that I did not think to write. I was too angry at the slug complainer!

The office volunteer, Jim, told me this story.

He said a guy had showed up at the door earlier with a woman and a child. Jim began to tell them that the shelter does not take families. But it turns out that no, this woman is only a friend. She is taking this guy around and translating for him because he speaks no English.

OK, fine. There is a bed available, so Jim sits the guy down, begins taking down his information, starting with his Social Security number.

The guy has no Social Security number.

"Everyone has one," Jim says. "You get it when you are born."

It ends up the guy is not a U.S. citizen. The woman explains that. So Jim starts in on other questions. How long have you been in this country? Where did you stay lastnight? That sounds like a blues song! But it is a question we ask at the soup kitchen.

The guy and his friend are very friendly and cooperative as they answer all the questions but one thing is puzzling Jim. He cannot figure out what the guy is doing in America.

Finally the woman understands his confusion and ends it.

She explains, "He is on vacation."

Ahahahahahaaaa!! Jim explains politely that we do not take people who are on vacation. And they accept that and thank him and leave.

Where do we begin?

Perhaps they thought the shelter was a hotel.

Perhaps they thought it was a fine restaurant. A misunderstanding that does not surprise me considering the aromas that were emanating from the kitchen thanks to me and my Caribbean ham and black bean stew.

But imagine if the guy had been admitted! Howard and I were laughing about that later.

Imagine what he would tell his friends at home:

"There was this weird place I stayed at in Buffalo! You ate in a communal dining room. And there was only one thing on the menu. And besides the guy who signed me in, the chef was the only normal person in the place. And even she, all she would talk about is a pianist I never heard of named Leonard Pennario."

Ha, ha!

Here is the only thing I can think of. This is a Catholic soup kitchen and there are crucifixes and statues all over the place. Like this statue on the wall visible behind the big white head of lounge sensation Guy Boleri. You cannot quite make it out in this picture but I believe it is St. Francis.


Maybe the guy yesterday thought it was some kind of a monastery. Sometimes when you are traveling you can stay in monasteries. I have never been savvy enough to do that but some people have.

Another day, another puzzle.

That is my life!

Soup to nuts

So today I am at the soup kitchen, as you can tell from the picture above. And I make this stew I think is beautiful. I got it out of "The Moosewood Restaurant Cooks For a Crowd." My sister Katie gave it to me.

I was making Caribbean Black Beans and I added a whole mess of wonderful ham to it. It is great to take a vegetarian stew recipe even if you are going to add meat to it because most meat stew recipes, they have nothing but meat and onions and spices and maybe tomatoes, never many vegetables. So it is good to start with a vegetarian recipe and then think about adding the meat.

I served myself a bit to taste it and it was wonderful. You saute up these onions with all these herbs and spices and then you add the beans, plus, I added some leftover baked beans the kitchen had in the fridge. Plus the ham. Then it baked in orange juice.

I would serve this for a party! That is how good it was.

Then I made a rice pilaf to go with it.

And here is what happens. I am done and ready to leave because I have to interview Kaye Ballard, remember, about Leonard Pennario. And one of the guests shows up who is staying in this shelter where I cook at, as we like to put it in Buffalo.

"What's for dinner?" he asks.

This is a question we are not supposed to answer but I am stupid so I do anyway. I said it was a Caribbean ham stew with black beans.

"I don't eat beans," this oik says. Oik is a British word I am picking up from my British music buddies on Twitter. It means schuft!

"Well, you don't have to eat the beans," I said.

"You mean I can pick them out?"

"You can do whatever you want," I said. "You can eat the ham. The ham is in big pieces."

And this schuft, this oik, just looks at me angrily!

Then he goes on whining and complaining. And I start getting all mad.

Everyone is so entitled! That is what I whispered to Jim, the volunteer in the front office. He rolled his eyes and agreed with me.

So once again I will be getting no time off from Purgatory because of my, ahem, charity venture. Number one I get mad at the people I serve. "Bums" is the word coming to mind at the moment. And number two it made me mad so here I am writing about it for all the world to see. There are points deducted for that, too, in the great hereafter.

I will probably end up in Purgatory for a long long time the way I am going.

And not only that, but I will probably have to cook there!

Here is an artist's rendering of Purgatory. I am the woman with the laurels on my head, on my way to the kitchen!


Meanwhile Pennario will be up there in heaven thanks to all the candles I lit for him at church, which, I lit one just this morning. And he will be wondering where I am. So will my father -- and my grandfather the Lackawanna haberdasher, whose birthday is today.

All because I let that bum today get me mad and then I wrote about it. Not only that, but I used Howard's joke in the headline. "Soup to nuts" is what Howard calls my, ahem, charity venture. Today I say, he is right!

Ay me!

The big cheese

I hate to take away from the speculation about whether or not Sarah Palin will run for president when Obama's time is up.

But I hereby declare my own candidacy in this year's Celebrity Cheese Building Competition!

Remember last time I competed? Above is a photo my friend Judi Griggs took of me competing, bitterly, in last year's contest.

Now I have been invited back!

And this year they are initiating a Mary Kunz Goldman Law, something about each contestant will have his or own separate judge to measure the cheese tower before the wind or other circumstances has a chance to knock it down. I guess something like that happened last year, compelling me to -- perish the thought! -- lose. But I honestly do not remember much. I was in too big a hurry to get to the wine tent.

It is like when Leonard Pennario was 12 and learned the Grieg concerto in a week so he could play it for 2,000 people at the Texas Exposition, all he remembered of the performance was that when it was over he could go on the rides.

I am the Leonard Pennario of cheese building!

Those of you who are in Buffalo, come to cheer me on on July 16. Come on, you want to go to the, ahem, Sorrento Cheese Italian Heritage Festival anyway. July 16 is as good a day to go as any.

And note to out-of-towners: Send those prayers and good vibes in my direction!

If I win I get $500 for St. Anthony of Padua.

All year, he will help us all find our lost objects!

Romance in the night

Zounds, I almost forgot to check in! The day just passed and I did not notice.

I spent an hour and a half or something on the phone with the assistant to Leonard Pennario's manager at Columbia Artists. That was a highlight! She will be very valuable to the book.

But I hope I was not too ditzy! Because I had trouble sleeping lastnight. It must have been all that talk of Michael Jackson and his sleep problems.

Lastnight when I could not sleep ...


I was sitting downstairs on the couch reading "Somewhere in Time."

Goofy book, yessirree. But you have to be careful what you read when you cannot sleep. You do not want to read something work-related and if I read about music I often end up spring-boarding in my mind to my own book and things I want to do and do not want to do with it based on what I am reading.

I saw the movie "Somewhere in Time" when I was in high school which is when you should see it. Wow, my friends and I cried buckets. When he has to go back to the present day -- in the book, it's 1971! -- and then when he sees her and they play that Rachmaninoff.

That Rachmaninoff kicks in, you are dying!

But ahahahaha, that ballad they put in this video after the Rachmaninoff, it sounds so dated and forgettable. Was that even in the movie? I do not remember it.

Since when it came out I saw the movie again once and I have to say this, it did not hold up. Incidentally Leonard Pennario saw the movie too. He thought it was based on an intriguing and kind of touching premise but in the end it did not work out. I always seem to agree with him on movies. In this case I love that he took time out from his touring and whatever to see "Somewhere in Time" when it came out. That is Pennario!

Reading "Somewhere in Time" I was surprised to find that in the book, the hotel is the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. I went to see that place and I remember Pennario thought it was wonderful that I went to see it. We used to talk about going there for lunch but we never got to because of his health.

In the movie the action takes place at that Mackinaw Island hotel in Michigan.

But even though I have been to the Hotel del Coronado I was not thinking romantic thoughts lastnight, I will tell you that. Because the bad news is, the book "Somewhere in Time," I just do not like the writing.

No reason I can put my finger on.

Just do not like it.

"She kissed him casually, a woman tasting freely of her lover's lips."

I do not know why I do not like that sentence but I do not!

Then there are something like three pages of total porn. In the movie it is pretty tame but in the book he really goes to town with it. I was sitting on the couch lastnight reading it thinking, I cannot believe I am reading this.

Perhaps Michael Jackson ended up in that situation. Perhaps that is what sent him over the edge to seek out that powerful sedative.

If they find a copy of "Somewhere in Time" in his house then we will know.

The new wine

It is time for my friend Gary and me to bottle our Cabernet and the other night that is what we did.

Our friend Lou came over to help and Guy Boleri, lounge sensation, serenaded us on the piano while we worked. Guy was in the living room right over our heads! We do our bottling in Gary's basement which was once a speakeasy during the 1980s for UB students. There is a bar down there and a menu over the bar offering sandwiches and beer.

Gary has all this equipment including an old fashioned pliers-like implement that jams the corks into the bottles and seals them. Lou and I both practiced with that thing till we got good at it.

In between working we sampled the new wine which tastes yummy! And I got to hear about Gary's and Lou's love lives. Gary is in love with a Hispanic chick so Lou being Hispanic was giving him advice on what to say and do.

I just sat there and laughed unhelpfully. I love being the only woman in a houseful of guys on such occasions as this.

I thought about how at Sacred Heart we used to sing this song.

Lou is in love now too and he said that it is to the point where his love is returned. His lady friend is telling him, "I love you, baby." That is what he told me!

In between these revelations the siphoning hose we were using for the wine turned into the All You Can Drink Wine Spigot. All I could think about were those Laurel and Hardy movies where Stan Laurel would be sitting there with the wine spigot in his mouth, getting drunker and drunker. Laurel and Hardy are my favorite comedians and they were Leonard Pennario's too. Naturally we discussed that, when we were supposed to have been talking about Ravel.

Here is a picture of Stan Laurel bottling wine but it could just as easily have been me. Or Lou!


We all agreed that our Cabernet is fine stuff. If you went into a restaurant and received a glass of it you would rejoice! It is not for nothing that I go in halves with Gary at James Desiderio's for the grape juice as I admitted in my list of important things about myself. That is a good move!

We look forward to nights later this summer sitting in Gary's Florida room and drinking this wine and eating produce from Gary's garden. Gary is growing everything from wild garlic to Brussels sprouts to acres of tomatoes. And he let me taste his strawberries, just like in the song.

He is also growing slender Japanese eggplant.

This will be a magical summer.

Michael Jackson and me

All this Michael Jackson coverage has "Human Nature" rattling around in my head. This goofy song I have not thought about in years.

Or heard, I might add. If Jackson was so huge, how come we have not heard this stuff for years? It was not in radio rotation so far as I knew. That is, when I walked into restaurants and stores and whatever, I was barraged with all kinds of other stuff, but not this.

I have also not heard "Beat It" for years. Or "Billie Jean."

Which makes me think: They will not be listening to these songs in 100 years. Sorry.

However, I sympathize with Jackson in one respect. That is the insomniac business.

I was reading just now about how he was an insomniac and wanted this drug, this sedative. It sounded like a terrible sedative. The story gave me the impression that if you took this drug, you might not wake up. You had to have a nurse in the room with you to wake you in eight hours.

Imagine that!

It is like "Romeo and Juliet"!

The worst I have ever taken is Ambien which, I still have a bottle around somewhere. That is a souvenir of my year or so as a serious insomniac. I was the worst! I got into this groove where I just did not sleep three days out of the week. Then sometimes I could not sleep for two or three nights in a row. Incredible! I used to talk about that with Leonard Pennario because he had sleep problems too.

But then I went to the sleep doctor and he straightened me out without drugs and all I can think is that would have worked for Michael Jackson too. It is pretty simple. They do not let you go to bed before midnight and for five nights you have to get up at 5 a.m., then five nights at 5:15 a.m., and so on, until you are sleeping like a normal human being.

You are so tired you have no choice but to sleep! So you turn your pattern around and now I am a good sleeper.

I do not know why more people do not undergo that therapy. I hear it referred to as "last-resort." Last resort? It should be first resort! Drugs should be last resort. Those sleeping pills, they beat you up bad.

What I am getting at is, I feel a little of Michael Jackson's pain. I remember what that is like, when you cannot sleep and you are all exhausted and frightened and panicked. You start to think you are losing your mind. Here is a picture of me as an insomniac, a couple of years ago.


I believe that is where Michael Jackson was at, as we like to say here in Buffalo.

It is not fun, not sleeping.

Here is one thing funny. You are always hearing songs and poetry with the gist of "I've been up all night, and I'm waiting for the dawn, the new day brings hope."

When you are sleeping you do not want to see that dawn. That new day does not bring hope, I will tell you that right now. Whoever writes songs and poetry like that has not ever been up all night.

Unlike Michael Jackson.

And me.

The wicked stepsister

Ay me, things have been busy at the Leonard Pennario desk!

We have the University of Southern California including Pennario in a display they are doing of their august faculty. Pennario did not teach there but two of his most famous colleagues, Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky, did. They asked me for a picture of the three of them together, with the violist William Primrose.

Then there is a doctoral student at Juilliard who is working on a thesis concerning Pennario's performance of Ravel's "La Valse." It is wonderful that students are beginning to rediscover his work. This student emailed me about her thesis and I am conferring with her on it. I do not know why I think it is a she. The name is Asian so I cannot tell.

What else?

That round of letters I sent out at the evil Post Office are continuing to bring results. I just heard from the assistant to Pennario's manager at Columbia Artists. I have been wanting to get a hold of her so that is a big breakthrough.

Tomorrow is the day I talk with Kaye Ballard!

I was over at my friend Gary's house and he was excited at the idea of talking to Kaye Ballard so he played one of her records. It was "Ha Ha/Boo Hoo"! The cover has two pictures of Miss Ballard, one happy and one sad. She is an excellent singer and a great comedienne it will be an honor to converse with her.

Kaye Ballard played one of the wicked stepsisters in the Julie Andrews "Cinderella." Here she is in this picture. She is second from left.

Here is a clip where you see her at the beginning hilariously trying to get the prince's attention.

Then the clip goes into "Ten Minutes Ago." What a beautiful waltz that is. You could be corny in musicals back then. You were allowed to be.

Now I feel as if my life is a movie, talking to all these people!

Except for while they might never come down to earth again, I sure have to, on this rainy Tuesday morning. What is on the agenda today? Is not today the day they are planning some stupid send-off for our Memorial Auditorium?


It is a little late for nostalgia, you know?

Or, as this goofy German exchange student we used to have used to say: "It is not interesting." You should have heard that in his sleepy, condescending accent. My father nicknamed him Klutz. I feel like calling Klutz on the phone right now, just to hear him say that. Just to hear him say, "It is not interesting."

I do not want to see that silly Aud send-off. I want to watch that scene from "Cinderella" again.

"Ten minutes ago..."

Ay me!