Livin' on a Jersey Diner

Good Monday, Stroock's Books constituents, but not as good as we would like. We have the darndest sleep problem wherein we drift off and wake up 45 minutes later wide awake.  

Yesterday we crossed the dread Hudson River for a family gathering. Between the Shabbat service oneg, the family gathering and Saturday baseball we had quite a gluttonous weekend and ice-cream three days in a row. We'll never drop below 240 pounds (or 17.1 stone) this way. 

Dance taxi is over. We have our evenings back. We're thrilled. We'll be reading a lot about Ireland this week, maybe even with an adult beverage.

Long time reader(s) will recall every March 30th we post about the death of Andrew Breitbart. Every year we say the same thing, we were pretty much inconsolable. Well, our late friend Diane Bennet Gates was sitting next to us trying to do just that. Three years later, when the Raritan Valley Community College Humanities Department was fucking us over, Diane was extremely supportive and helped reconcile us to what was happening. She helped us realize we could move on. Diane was a great comfort.

Zero Hedge reports: 'Following a historic loss to Marine Le Pen’s right-wing party in European elections on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron said he is dissolving the French parliament.' Populist parties rampaged across Europe yesterday and seem to be on the march everywhere except Britain, where the Tories deserve ruination. We await events. Exit question, given the stranglehold the permanent technocratic elite has on western governments, do elections even matter?

We live in Chindia, Bridgewater, New Jersey. We bring this up because Oldest Daughter got her yearbook Friday, whereupon we learned there's something call the 'Patel count'. For reader(s) who don't know, the surname Patel is the Smith of India, and therefore, the Smith of Chindia. We'll put it this way, there are two Patels on our block. We checked the yearbook index, the Patel count tops off at thirty-one (31). 

Monday Metal: at the afore mentioned Somerset Patriots game, the team was, for that night, the Jersey Diners. This being New Jersey, during the 7th inning stretch they played Bon Jovi. Everyone in New Jersey knows Bon Jovi is better than Bruce Springsteen. Everyone except the fuckwits who think Central New Jersey is a thing. Anyway, they played Livin' on a Prayer, because, well, because, 'Gina works the diner all day....' My god, Livin on a Prayer has over a billion views. One day we'll write a scene where soldiers get together in a kind of communal rock & roll prayer vigil and sing this: