Sister #2 teaches at a college in Upstate New York in the heart of the Mennonite community. She was in the local coffee shop doing some work when this grand old dame walked in, opened her laptop bag, plugged in, booted up and started surfing the internet.

Isn’t that contrary to their belief system? I know they’re big advocates of modest dress and quiet lifestyles, so what’s up with the laptop?

I just stumbled across this quote from Andy Warhol about Coca-Cola:

A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the president knows it, the bum knows it and you know it.

Isn’t that beautiful? I swear, if I worked in the marketing department for Coke I’d create an entire ad campaign around that.

Early morning in New York. This is 42nd Street looking east from Broadway at 6:30, a short time after the sun came up. While the rest of you were dreaming of sugar plums, I was on my way into the grind. Look at the way the colors of the sky are reflected in the Bank of America building on the left.

This is about a half block further east. Note the ornamental neon lights in the spire of the Chrysler Building are still on. Click on it for a better look.

As a homage to The Daily Smoke, I’m including this black and white pic of Grand Central Station and the Chrysler Building.

3-Year Old Daughter got her hands on a pair of scissors and decided that now would be as good a time as any to start on the road that will lead her to a spot on Project Runway.

The first step in dress design is, of course, cutting cloth. And since they look like bolts of unspooled fabric, why not start on our priceless dining room curtains? Just look at those lines! They’re perfect. Here’s the left curtain:

And for the sake of uniformity, she also tailored the right.

Mrs. Wife put her on the phone:

Me: Did you cut our curtains?

3-YOD: Yes, Daddy! Wait ’til you see it!

I wasn’t quite sure how to take that.

Sister #2 came to town for a five-day visit. I like when my family visits. There’s no stress! I get along with all my siblings extraordinarily well, but I suspect the fact I’ve lived 500 miles away from them for the better part of the past 25 years might have something to do with it. I’m certain they’d be less tolerant of my foibles if I lived just down the street.

If you don’t mind my saying so, Mrs. Wife and I are most excellent hosts. And that’s no idol brag. Ask around. Tomorrow, I’ll hit her over the head with the Kandinsky exhibit at the Guggenheim, but over the weekend it was all-Jersey, all the time.

Moments after her arrival we whisked her away to the Bruce Springsteen concert at Giants Stadium. This was the last concert at Giants Stadium before the wrecking ball transforms it into a parking lot, so the show had some historical heft to it. As I mentioned in previous posts, Mrs. Wife is related to the Springsteen clan, so we were gifted some great seats and briefly chatted with family members before the show in an access-restricted area.

I’m not the biggest Bruce fan in the world but you’ve got to admire the guy’s work ethic. He just turned 60 and still pumps out a highly-entertaining three-hour show. He played, appropriate enough, a cover of The Rolling Stones’ Last Time. Also, bizarrely, a cover of You Sexy Thing by Hot Chocolate. Hearing Bruce sing My Hometown and Jersey Girl (a Tom Waits song!) in New Jersey almost makes moving here seem like less of an ordeal.

Photo: Todd Heisler/The New York Times

We took Sister the Second to Seaside Heights. It’s a bucolic Jersey Shore beach town that has all the necessary accouterments, namely, a boardwalk, an amusement park and pork roll and cheese sandwiches. The Daughters have been going to places like this for so long that I don’t think they realize how special they are.

This carousel is from 1918 and still has its original Wurlitzer organ. 3-Year Old Daughter doesn’t care a whit about any of that historical significance stuff.

I, once again, was forced to teach 7-Year Old a valuable bumper car road rage lesson.

Both Daughters are deadly accurate with a skee-ball. It’s talent they inherited from their mother, who I seriously don’t remember ever beating. It’s her game. Well…one of them.

For family lurkers, here is daughter and Mrs. Wife, strolling on a sun-drenched, sea breeze swept boardwalk.

I was in the throws of really enjoying my self-pity when I stumbled across this gem from the BBC:

Former French President Jacques Chirac has announced that he has given away his beloved dog after it attacked him for a third time. (It bit him on his belly!)

Mr. Chirac’s wife, Bernadette, said the dog had been treated for depression after finding it difficult to come to terms with leaving the Elysee Palace.

Hey, do you know what, Mrs. Chirac? Fuck your depressed dog! This is a bad time for me to read about a dog who’s receiving treatment for depression because he can no longer live in a French palace. I am, for the time being, tapped-out of empathy. Bring him here and I’ll give him something to be depressed about. I’ll stomp on his little Maltese paws.

C’mon Universe! Give me a break, would ya? Don’t throw stuff like this in my path right now, okay?