In other life matters...

I have neglected to mention an interesting thing that happened in the last week - whilst I was posting all those Disney World pictures. I was at work and the rabbi at the local synagogue and I were talking about a comic book program he had wanted to put on at the library (voted down by the other library board members) with several comic book writers and artists he knows. I said he should put it on at the synagogue. Then he brought up past writers that he knew and mentioned Elliot S! Maggin, whose Superman stories I absolutely adored when I was growing up. So I tell the rabbi this and turn to take care of another patron. He leaves and comes back a few minutes later with his cell phone and hands it to me, saying it's Elliot Maggin on the phone. So I talk to Maggin for a few minutes and tell him how much I appreciate all that he'd written, how I met my DH in a comic book although it was not one he'd written. We chatted for a few minutes and I finally gave the phone back to the rabbi, after telling Elliot that I was really not supposed to be talking to him or anyone else on a cell phone, because I was at work - in the library (where cell phone use is one of the prohibited behaviors, by vote of the aforementioned library board, prior to the rabbi's joining it, I might add). So he leaves with the cell phone and comes back in about 15 minutes with a signed copy of Kingdom Come, a novelization of a comic series- it being by Elliot S. Maggin. It is inscribed to "My favorite Rabbi". So I've been reading it since Tuesday - and I like it better than the set of comics because I can pick up a novel where I left off and comic books are too much like watching television, especially lately. With a book, I'm the artist, not that I can imagine the heroes/villains any better than Alex Ross (who was the artist on the comics) or Mark Waid voiced them - Maggin seemed to voice them better - the explanations of behavior made more sense than seeing them in the comic panels. That made my day - finally getting to tell someone that I liked their work and thanking them. Maggin did say that Dick Giordano, my DH's and my matchmaker, as it were, is ill, or so he had heard. I also got from Mark Evanier's blog that Gene Colan had a birthday - an 80th, so I went to Colan's website and wished him a happy birthday and thanked him for his beautiful artwork over the years. A nice couple of comic book things that happened.
And, in another matter, my daughter got a ticket from a patrol officer in Denville, Morris County for , get this, New Jersey drivers, "following too closely". It was Saturday and my DH figures they have a end of the fiscal year quota - or maybe the holiday. Elysha said there were at least 5 other drivers pulled over in the same area, so perhaps Morris County, or that particular township is a little short on cash now... The ticket doesn't mention how much the penalty is, nor does the wonderful website (which I would link to, but the site doesn't want to load - the damn thing is probably unattended like everything else- except the police dept.- in local goverments until Tuesday) that the ticket refers her to so that she can "pay online".