Gremlin in the Refrigerator

 

I CAME OUT OF THE BEDROOM ABOUT 4 AM SALIVATING AND LUSTING GREEDILY OVER A LEFTOVER SLICE OF MEATLOAF THAT I HAD PRUDENTLY SAVED FROM MY DINNER THE PREVIOUS EVENING. I WAS NOW LOOKING FORWARD TO A COLD MEATLOAF SANDWICH SMOTHERED IN ITS OWN JUICES AND ACCENTED WITH KETCHUP WHILE AMERICAN CHEESE DOUBLED AS WATERPROOFING TO INSULATE THE WHITE BREAD ON EITHER SIDE, FOR AN EARLY MORNING BREAKFAST, AS MAN IS AFTER ALL A CARNIVOROUS SAVAGE DRESSED IN FINERY TO COVER HIS INDISCRETIONS AND ELEVATE HIMSELF ABOVE THE ANIMALS.JUST THEN I HEARD NOISES NEAR THE REFRIGERATOR AND AFTER INVESTIGATING FURTHER, I LOOKED AROUND THE KITCHEN AND FINDING NOTHING REMISS I OPENED THE REFRIGERATOR DOOR TO REVEAL A SMALL CURIOUS LOOKING LITTLE GREEN CREATURE JUST FINISHING OFF MY SLICE OF MEATLOAF!

“WHAT IS THIS I SHOUTED ANGRILY! “

“YOU DO KNOW, I AM SURE, THAT IT IS RUDE TO STARTLE A BEING WHEN THEY ARE DINING! “SAID THE CREATURE.

“WELL EXCUSE ME, BUT IT IS ALSO TRUE THAT TO BREAK INTO SOMEONE’S HOUSE AND HELP ONESELF TO THEIR SLICE OF MEATLOAF, WITHOUT ASKING FIRST, IS ALSO RUDE,” I RESPONDED ANGRILY!

“I DID NOT BREAK IN, BUT MERELY APPEARED IN YOUR REFRIGERATOR! IF I HAD ASKED POLITELY, WOULD YOU HAVE LET ME EAT IT? “THE LITTLE MONSTER QUERIED.

“NO, I WOULD’VE THROWN YOU OUT AS I WILL DO NOW!”, I YELLED.

“CAUTION, SIR, I AM A MAGICAL BEING MORE THAN CAPABLE OF CAUSING ALL OF YOUR MECHANICAL DEVICES AND COMPUTERS TO STOP FUNCTIONING PROPERLY. IS A MEASLY SLICE OF MEATLOAF WORTH ALL OF THAT TROUBLE? “HE STATED, CROSSING HIS ARMS, SEEMINGLY READY FOR A DEBATE ON THE FINER POINTS OF BLACKMAIL AND RETRIBUTION.

AT THIS POINT, WE HAD A STALEMATE AND THROWING HIM OUT WOULD FEEL GOOD FOR ABOUT FIVE MINUTES UNTIL THE STOVE AND THE REFRIGERATOR AND THE IPAD STOPPED WORKING.

“I HAVE A QUESTION FOR YOU” I STATED. “I HAVE NOTICED TROUBLE LATELY TRYING TO START THE CAR. DOES THIS HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH YOU?” I QUERIED.

“NO IT DOES NOT, BUT IT COULD BE ONE OF MY COUSINS. MY COUSIN ONO LIKES TO MESS AROUND WITH TOYOTAS. IT COULD BE HIM. I COULD TALK TO HIM AND TELL HIM TO LEAVE YOUR CAR ALONE “, SAID THE GREMLIN.

“THAT WOULD BE VERY HELPFUL AND I INTURN WOULD BE WILLING TO LEAVE SOMETHING OUT FOR YOU TO SNACK ON WHEN YOU STOP BY.“I OFFERED.

AT THIS POINT, WE CALLED A TRUCE AND I SHOOK HIS SMALL GREEN HAND. BEFORE LEAVING, THE GREMLIN CLEANED UP THE MESS HE HAD MADE ON THE REFRIGERATOR SHELF, THEN DISAPPEARED.

SINCE OUR ENCOUNTER, I OCCASIONALLY FIND SOMETHING MISSING IN THE REFRIGERATOR OR ON THE COUNTERTOP AND I HAVE STARTED A NEW TRADITION OF MAKING A SECOND MINIATURE MEATLOAF, ON MEATLOAF NIGHT, AND LABELING IT IN BRIGHT, BOLD, RED LETTERS:

PROPERTY OF GREMLIN, DO NOT EAT, THIS MEANS YOU!

AND ALL OF MY DEVICES AND MECHANICAL OBJECTS HAVE BEEN WORKING JUST FINE, AND THE CAR HAS NEVER WORKED BETTER!

Jim-OCTOBER 2026

Chocolate Makes Me Happy

 

Chocolate makes me so happy! I will never get tired of the taste of chocolate. It all started when I was pregnant and I would walk seven blocks to Bloomingdale’s bakery in the heat of the summer to buy their chocolate brownies. Well, the pregnancy chocolate craving never left me.

When I taste chocolate, it really does make me feel good. It could be milk, dark, or white chocolate, it doesn’t matter. Cookies, donuts, cake or ice cream, whatever it is, as long as it’s chocolate, I’m a happy camper.

I’ve tried to put my foot down and not allow myself to keep anything chocolate in the house. When I do this, I’m miserable to the point that I remember I have Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup in the refrigerator, and I start squirting it into my mouth. My willpower is at its lowest point when I do this. The next thing you know, I’m in the supermarket loading up on chocolate sweets again.

Chocolate also makes me happy not only because of the taste of it but also because it is so versatile. It can be used to make chocolate egg creams, chocolate milk, icing on a chocolate cake, chocolate bars, jelly rings and pudding.

Yes, as long as it’s something chocolate, I have had them all and more!

Ellen
11/26

The Firetruck

 

Monday afternoon at 12:20 PM 65th Place, a main street connecting Maspeth and Woodside was looking well having just received a facelift of hot steaming asphalt. Our intersection did not have a traffic light, but we did have older people, very young people, and young parents attempting to cross the intersection with baby carriages. In addition, the speed bump had not been reinstalled yet and the trucks used 65th Pl. as a service road connecting the L.I.E. and Queens Boulevard, two main East/West arteries through Queens.

On came the firetrucks screeching like tortured souls, or all the Hounds of Hell on a midnight ride, tearing through the streets with willful abandon. I guess it came down to a choice between people potentially burning to death or pedestrians possibly crushed by a 50-ton fire truck streaking through Maspeth.

Jim-OCTOBER 26’

Scents and Tastes

 

-- How I miss scents and tastes. This experience is so hard to explain. 

It has been six long years without my sense of smell and taste since getting covid. Such misery. Such a handicap. 

Instead, I get phantom smells. They appear out of nowhere, with no warning and no explanation. Sometimes I smell cigarettes. I will look around the room, wondering who is smoking, but there is no one there. Other times, I smell chicken and gravy or turkey and mashed potatoes. For a moment, I wonder if someone nearby is cooking. 

Then there are really strange ones—odors I can't identify at all. They seem to come from nowhere and disappear just as mysteriously. Sometimes they are unpleasant. Sometimes they are simply weird. I have even wondered if some of them could be coming from outer space. 

The strangest part is knowing that the smell isn't really there, while my brain insists that it is. I can smell it, but I cannot find it. There is no source, no explanation, and no way to make it stop. 

I live in a world that has gone strangely flat. The pleasant memories tied to apple pie, the ocean, perfume, rain, flowers, and clean laundry have become distant. 

The food is still there. I can see it, chew it, and feel its texture, but it tastes like nothing. My cup of tea reminds me of dirty dishwater. 

I can't cook in the same delicious way I used to because I can't taste the spices. Sweet, salty, sour, and savory have lost their personalities. Eating has become more about texture than pleasure. 

What I miss most is the connection between scent, taste, and memory—the way a smell could suddenly transport me somewhere, or a favorite food could bring back a moment from the past. 

The world of tastes and smells has gone on without me, and I have no way of finding my way back to it.

Georgia

Sounds of Silence

 

The silence I sensed felt physical. I could feel the space between the sounds.  Trees swayed softly in the breeze. A car passed somewhere in the distance. I heard a dog bark, followed by the familiar music of an ice cream truck. Then, nothing. 

No sirens. No horns. No buses groaning to a stop. No construction hammering away. Just the quiet. 

In New York City, true quiet is rare. There is always something moving, ringing, roaring, or calling out. Even when the streets seem calm, there is a constant hum underneath it all. 

Here, the quiet seemed to stretch out around me. I began to hear things I normally wouldn't notice—the leaves moving in the trees, a bird calling from somewhere nearby, the faint sound of a car several blocks away. 

I wasn't used to this kind of silence. It wasn't the absence of sound. It was a sound of its own. 

For a moment, I could actually hear the silence.

Georgia

Gelatinous Beings

 

Gelatinous Beings 

On my recent trip to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, I had the unique pleasure of visiting the six-month-old Jellyfish Museum. Of course, we took the tour. Our guide seemed to have an encyclopedia’s worth of knowledge about the many species of jellyfish, one of more than 4,000 species found in our oceans. 

My favorite was the Immortal Jellyfish. It can, in a sense, live forever. I am not kidding. 

This jellyfish is quite small, only about 4.5 millimeters. It is transparent, with a bright red stomach. Originally from the Mediterranean, it is now found throughout the world, having hitchhiked across the oceans in ships’ ballast water. 

It has no brain or heart and functions with a simple network of nerves. But what makes it truly remarkable is its unique ability to transform from an adult back into a juvenile and then grow into an adult again. This process is called transdifferentiation. 

These tiny hitchhiking immortals eat plankton, fish eggs, larvae, and small mollusks. They use their tiny stingers to catch their prey. 

Here’s how it achieves its biological immortality. When its environment becomes threatening, or when it is stressed or injured, the jellyfish can transform from an adult back into a juvenile. Its cells reorganize, almost as if the adult melts away, and then, when conditions improve, it grows back into an adult with the same DNA. 

Sounds like reincarnation to me. 

Unlike typical jellyfish, this cycle can repeat indefinitely. Of course, they are not invincible. They can become sick, and predators can still kill them. 

These jellyfish were first described in 1883, but their ability to essentially reverse their life cycle was not discovered until the 1990s. The discovery sparked interest in aging and medical research and raised fascinating questions about how living organisms age and regenerate. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the Jellyfish Museum and would love to go again. I highly recommend a visit to anyone who loves the mysterious and fascinating creatures of the ocean. 

Georgia

The Bus Stop of Babel

 

At the center of the most ethnically diverse county within the United States is a bus stop that connects three separate lines. Though located in the calm vicinity of a sprawling cemetery, during rush hour it becomes a clamorous confabulation as people flock to board, or alight to transfer from one bus to another. There is a lively cacophony as friends chatter in different languages, raucous adolescents preen and strut as they squawk, crow or shriek their greetings and farewells. Older women titter and cluck as they share the day’s events; older men hoot at each other’s jokes. Mothers coo to infants nestled in carriers.

 

As this daily migration begins to ebb and the sun begins to sink on the horizon, a mockingbird often appears to perch on a nearby streetlight and fill the air with the many songs he has acquired from parts and parties unknown. In a merry voice he offers greetings to his unseen bird friends: “Bonjour, Monsieur Bluebird! Salutations, Sir Sparrow! Lovely to see you, Lady Lark! Blessings upon you, Mrs. Blackbird, and felicitations to all your fledglings!” 

 

The sun sets, the bird departs, and I drift home to roost for the night.

Shelia S.