Early Tuesday Evening...a

around 7, when I think about it I have accomplished a lot today---good session with the health care nurse who helps me replace the ostomy bag; a good conversation with my brother David where we went back in time and talked about many incidents and memories of the past. Very meaningful. David soldiers on in the face of very difficult physical odds. He should really be admired for that. Luckily he has his wife, his daughter and her husband and his friends. A very supportive group. Still, he has to cope with a lot. 

Other stuff: paid a credit card monthly fee; got very inexpensive toothpaste---browsed the Shakespeare and Company bookstore for a while; I don't dare to buy any book now, as I am on an austerity budget, or at least trying to adhere to one. Thank heaven for the used book store on Broadway between 80th and 81st street. It has been very helpful. I scan their one dollar shelf as often as possible. On Saturday, came up with an exceptional auto biography called Lost in America, by Sherwin Nuland. It came out in 2003--it is really a study of the author's relationship with his father and with the environment that he lived in until his early twenties. This environment was dominated by family members who spoke mostly yiddish, who were intimidated by much of New York city life, and who could barely survive economically. In the course of his growing up, the author works hard to separate himself from his hermetically sealed environment, but of course, since it is his family, he must return and face its reality from time to time, even into his twenties. Very good picture of a certain kind of Jewish experience for a young man growing up in the late thirties and early 40's. A family still trying to live by rules created in the home towns in Europe that they had left to come to America. Holding on to them with a vengeance. Nevertheless, the author becomes a successful doctor---had to deal with one year of a frightening break down, recovers and lives to be a successful surgeon and finally write this excellent book.  More of this some other time---the people the author writes about were figures (somewhat peripheral  but nevertheless present) from my childhood.  Their vision, their cadences, their world outlook still seems very familiar to me, even as I myself, like the author, have managed to exist in a totally different zone.

the rest of the night---not sure---will probably go back to the John Grisham novel---a very efficient page turner---maybe listen to the world series a bit, and then....time is always free, as we move towards November.