Category: Life in the Big City

Smart move

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

the linc

The traffic is already awful when there’s a game:

Pope Francis is due in Philadelphia in September, and the city’s football team will be nowhere in sight.

According to Sports Illustrated writer Peter King, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput sent a letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on July 8, 2014 requesting that the Eagles be out of town for the pontiff’s visit — presumably hoping that football would not interfere with the millions expected to gather in the city that weekend for a mass outside the Philadelphia Art Museum.

The NFL released its full 2015-16 season schedule on Tuesday, and the Eagles will not be in Philadelphia during the pope’s visit. NFL senior vice president of broadcasting Howard Katz responded to the archbishop in October, according to King, saying the football team would be in New Jersey playing against the New York Jets on September 27.

“The pope did influence the NFL schedule,” Katz told King on Tuesday. “My name may be Katz, but I wasn’t taking any chances.”

Blood test

~ susie

BLOOD DRAW LAB

I have to get a blood test today for my thyroid meds or they won’t refill my prescription (I don’t know why, I’m doing fine), so I went over to the local ambulatory center (which was a hospital until right after I moved here). I sit and wait my turn for about a half-hour. One of the patients is watching a movie trailer on his phone; it’s really loud, and he’s chortling loudly as he watches. “DAY-UMN!!!” he says to the woman he’s with. “He shot him right in the stomach, yo!”

I finally get in to get my blood drawn and I’m bitching to the technician how much easier it was when doctors took blood right in the office. “I know, I remember it, too,” she says. “I don’t know why they stopped.” I tell her it’s because doctors were making so much money, ordering extra tests.

“Don’t kid yourself,” she says. “They’re still doing it.”

He snapped

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

This happened in my neighborhood. I heard through neighbors that the kid was bi-racial, and his mother was embarrassed about it. So she wouldn’t let him out of his room. Very sad, even more maddening that the neighbors kept calling the cops and city agencies and nothing was done.

Do I think this kid should go to prison? Hell, no. If he goes to prison, the head of DHS should be right there with him.

And speaking of my neighborhood: Another dead body found.

Elections have consequences

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

Capitol Lighting

And thanks to the usual anemic turnout, our state legislature is run by even worse wingnuts than the last batch:

HARRISBURG – The Republican-dominated state Senate on Tuesday approved a bill that would invalidate Philadelphia’s new mandatory paid sick-leave law.

The bill, which passed 37 to 12, would effectively preempt local governments from requiring companies to provide workers with paid sick days. The measure’s supporters say it is necessary to have uniform rules across the state for businesses to operate.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. John Eichelberger (R., Blair) called Philadelphia’s new sick-leave law “a mistake.”

Critics of Eichelberger’s bill, many from Philadelphia, said it would disproportionately hurt low-income workers who often work through illness for fear of losing their jobs – and stomps on Philadelphia’s right to decide what kind of business climate and practices it wants within its borders.

The bill “denies the city of Philadelphia the right to govern itself,” said Sen. Vincent Hughes (D., Philadelphia), ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Polish lunch day!

~ susie ~ 5 Comments

Syrenka_Polish_Philadelphia

I’ve been jonesing for some Polish food. So I drove down to Syrenka, the Polish cafeteria, and got myself some potato pancakes and a gołąbki (or galumpki, as we always called them). It’s a cabbage roll stuffed with ground beef and rice in a tomato sauce. For some reason I’ve never understand, Polish restaurants don’t have anything approaching a real tomato sauce — everything seems to be made with ketchup, even spaghetti and meatballs.

syrenka2

I know you’re jealous.

Just awful

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

This story is horrible on so many levels.

He was left in the park where we played as kids, and where my own children played. It’s awful. But I will withhold judgment of the mother, because I have friends with disabled kids and I know the strain they’re under. We used to fund things like respite care, but not so much these days.

Relatives say they would have watched him, but who knows? It’s an enormous task, taking care of a child who’s this profoundly handicapped. The whole thing is very sad.

Prisoner of New York

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

New York

So I went up to Brooklyn for a family event Saturday. My other son was supposed to drive, but his license expired. And then the GPS stopped working, then took me the wrong way, through the Lincoln Tunnel instead of the Holland, and I had to drive through Times Square and the rest of Manhattan to get to Brooklyn. Oh, plus my EZPass ran out of money and I was stranded in a toll lane with cars backing up behind me, honking their horns and screaming at me.

All this took me an extra hour. But then I got to hold my grandson, so that part was worth it.

Very sad

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

anthonystokes

I remember this case. I thought at the time he didn’t sound like a good candidate, but it’s hard to deny someone’s second chance, especially when it’s a kid:

In 2013, then-15-year-old Anthony Stokes was dying and desperately needed a heart transplant that he couldn’t get because, according to doctors, he had “a history of noncompliance.”

Stokes’s family suspected that his low grades and a history of trouble with the law gave doctors reason to believe that he would not be willing to take his medicine or show up at subsequent doctor’s visits. The Georgia teen’s story story sparked outrage, and the hospital quickly reversed its decision, giving him priority on the transplant list.

But two years later, after he received a transplant, Stokes’s “second chance” has come to an abrupt end.

Tuesday afternoon, Stokes died after a stolen vehicle he was driving jumped a curb, hit a pedestrian and collided with a pole in a car chase with police, according to WSBTV.

The pedestrian was hospitalized for her injuries, and Stokes’s car was nearly split in half by the sign, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Police said he had to be cut out of the Honda by first responders and rushed to a hospital, where he died around 9:00 p.m.  on Tuesday night.