As a kid, I have a faint memory of the educational magazine for children, Highlights. There were always photos where you looked for stuff hidden in plain sight. I think this was the magazine of choice at Physician and Dental offices. A modern version could easily be "find the floss pick". Your investigation into the tree is a tribute to your persistence. To build on the theme, since we get a formal over the top table at Thanksgiving, why not add a floss pick as the final utensil everyone gets at the table perhaps next to the bread plate. Then, late in the evening after cleanup you can look to see if people feel empowered to leave their spent picks in random places around the house. Looking forward to your interview with the tree-keeper. He is definitely going anti-establishment since he frequents a small independent coffee shop next to Dunkin Donuts. Stick it to the man! Enjoy your holidays.
Mark! Or maybe leave the floss pick as the ONLY utensil??? Combined with the cheese on toast it would be an unforgettable holiday dinner.
True about the coffee shop! My little brother, who lives in the hood, says its a super cute little place called "Buen Sabor 2." He added, "I love a restaurant or deli with 2 in the name."
You are a problem solver! I think a floss pick would be fine at Dim Sum with the small bowls. When my kids were young and eating with questionable manners, I loved reminding them that 1/3 of the world uses a fork, 1/3 uses chopsticks and 1/3 eat with their hands. If we round down to 33% perhaps the other 1% uses a floss pick.
Having a number in your name seems cool. I always wondered if women in France wear Chanel No 1 thru 4 at times.
I am disappointed that you don't seem to have acquired the largest and cheapest of "the least of the pies". They shouldn't run out for a couple of weeks though.
Have a great Thanksgiving and enjoy the time together.
love the floss pick pictures - i've noticed some occasionally but i'm sure ill see them everywhere now!
please ask mystery tree benefactor if they've added all the items or if other ppl do as well! and what got them started! (obvious q's but i'm curious!)
Great issue as always, Anne...especially the odd missive about wayward floss picks. I've never quite had an article both fill me with intrigue AND make me dry heave! The whole affair is unfathomably gross in my mind, but I do love Kaitlin's TOTALLY different point of view :)
Larry! One thing I'm learning from publishing this newsletter is that a lot of people are a lot more squeamish than me. Almost every issue, someone comments that while they enjoyed the story, they almost threw up.
This is NOT intentional!
Anyhow I am very glad you enjoyed despite the dry heaves! :)
As a serious flosser, I prefer *GUM* brand soft picks. Smaller than floss picks they allow virtually undetectable flossing: at dinner, in church or the principals office. Allows you to remove food from inconveniently placed recesses.
I might actually try your suggestion. I bought my first pack off floss picks a couple months ago, at my sister's suggestion (I really HATE) flossing and found them even worse than regular floss. Maybe your way is the best way.
GUM soft picks are flaming BRILLIANT! Lose no time in running right out. Our kittens love to pick them out of the garbage and carry them around in their mouths.
The Floss Pic Bridal Photo! The War on Rats! All of it! 🤣 Thank you for a dose of home, Anne. Also: I love following the feud between the Mayors of my two cities. Adams vs Lightfoot! Epic! Happy Thanksgiving and thanks for the shout out!
Oh this is so funny! I'm sure you know this is not the first time he's tried to boost NYC by putting down some other area. There was a big uproar earlier this fall when he was picking on Kansas for not "having a brand" like New York. He made up with the Kansas governor as well by wearing a Kansas Jayhawks football jersey. And I'm like, what are the JAYHAWKS?
OMG 🤣 the Jayhawks! How did I miss the “Kansas doesn’t have a brand” thing! I’ve just gone down a rabbit hole reading this article and the attached tweets and also learned Adams had a thing telling Brooklyn residents to go back to Iowa, omg 😆 https://amp.kansascity.com/news/state/kansas/article266441461.html
The Mystery Tree investigation was (already!) such a delight to read, I can't wait to find out more about Jimmy's sweet caretakers. I would like to know: have they had fun encounters with neighbours and passersby thanks to Mr. Tree? I'm also interested in whether they think that people have an imperative to actively take care of the public space - in contrast to leaving all responsibility to the city government.
To give a bit of context for my last question: here in Antwerp, Belgium, only formal initatives to adopt trees are allowed since the city government assumes that freedom to use the public space leads to degradation. In my opinion, that is because people are made to feel that they have no actual agency about it. The bureaucratic process is too complicated for many people who would love to have a bit of green space to take care of. I feel like more anarchistic initiatives like the Mystery Tree would quickly be taken down - but maybe I should take it to the test 😁
These are great questions Tine! Here in NYC we have a very cool government-sponsored Citizen Tree Pruner program. Anyone can get training and then go around the city lopping branches or whatever. But now you've got me curious about the legality of street tree decorating.
Anyhow I share your thinking on this. The more you care for something, including your community, the more you appreciate it and enjoy it.
1st Runner-up: “Your experience may vary. Maybe watch while doing the dishes?”
2nd Runner-up: “I just come in the store and that’s it,” she said. “I don’t hang around.”
Miss Congeniality: “For far too long, the population of rodents has been able to roam around this city with a level of impunity, and we’re saying no to that!” That would be like removing the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Brooklyn Bridge (“The Worst That Can Happen” was the best song by The Brooklyn Bridge, agree?), and removing all the old men sending cold soup back every day in deli’s across the city!
Best tip: “The best use for Worcestershire sauce is on cheese on toast—splash it on just before you melt it under the grill.” I LOVE WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE. Thank Gawd for spellcheck!
“I think my most favorite one was the wedding.” THAT PHOTO IS AMAZING!! A floss-pick in the foreground makes that shot Pulitzer-worthy!
Opinion: Of course, people are using floss-picks in the street. Having something stuck in your teeth is akin to getting ‘caught-short” and having to pee, when there is no restroom available. I don’t disagree that such behavior is ugly, but it is necessary.
JRB! Oh man I would love it if that wedding-floss-pick pic won a Pulitzer. Because I DO think it says as much or more about life/humanity than your typical award-winning news photo.
And nodding at your spell check gratitude re: Worcestershire. I tried an unbelievable number of variants before I sought the aid of my old friend. What's your favorite WS use-case?
Interesting to read your thoughts re: street flossing. I wouldn't put it past people, but as Kaitlin noted, I just don't see it happening. I just now googled "street flossing" by the way and it's slang, according to Urban Dictionary, for showing off your pimp ride.
happy thanksgiving anne! i hope you have a wonderful holiday and enjoy the time off.
i loved mr. ogorodnikov's comments about the tree, and his rooting pun. so excited to hear more about "jimmy" next time!
i was listening to npr the other day and apparently in cambridge, MA (the city i lived in before i moved to where i'm at now) there is a huge rat infestation. i heard two terms i won't soon forget - "rat liaison" and "rat birth control." i'm glad i'm not there to see this big uptick in rats but...where i live now we have coyotes, so, it's always something!
re: dental piks - i just bought a new bag of these the other day. i have a gap between two of my very back teeth left from an orthodontic bracket and the piks are just a necessary evil for me. i asked for a waterpik this year for xmas so if santa brings me one perhaps i can cut down on my pik usage, but i will still need some for travel. i always throw mine in the garbage, but that sort of thing still can end up in the ocean unfortunately. i suspect they can end up on the street in similar fashion. i follow this woman on IG, caroline_south, who for years would post actually very beautiful rainbow collages of plastic she would find and take home from the beach. her account has shifted a bit these days, but if you scroll you can still see her collage work, or in her etsy shop. i remember she always found lots of piks.
I keep a bag of floss picks in my car. My commute used to be prime-time flossing (but never tossing them on the street!), but I work from home now. I keep reminding myself to put some in a jar on my desk to remind myself to floss.
I’m so glad Adams has his priorities straight. Rats are obviously among the biggest issues deserving of his attention 🙈 I feel like there’s got to be a connection between the abundance of rats and tooth picks on our streets. Like, are the rats digging them out of our trash?! Haha
I was in the ladies room of a wonderful restaurant* in Ponce Puerto Rico many years ago and a fellow guest was flossing with a floss pick. She volunteered that she had recently gotten a divorce and had invested some of the settlement in corrective dentistry. "I'm protecting my investment!" She added. I didn't stick around to see what she did with the pick.
Please do not refer to regular readers. Your readers are, by definition, irregular.
Said the pot.
This comment makes me feel seen.
As a kid, I have a faint memory of the educational magazine for children, Highlights. There were always photos where you looked for stuff hidden in plain sight. I think this was the magazine of choice at Physician and Dental offices. A modern version could easily be "find the floss pick". Your investigation into the tree is a tribute to your persistence. To build on the theme, since we get a formal over the top table at Thanksgiving, why not add a floss pick as the final utensil everyone gets at the table perhaps next to the bread plate. Then, late in the evening after cleanup you can look to see if people feel empowered to leave their spent picks in random places around the house. Looking forward to your interview with the tree-keeper. He is definitely going anti-establishment since he frequents a small independent coffee shop next to Dunkin Donuts. Stick it to the man! Enjoy your holidays.
Mark! Or maybe leave the floss pick as the ONLY utensil??? Combined with the cheese on toast it would be an unforgettable holiday dinner.
True about the coffee shop! My little brother, who lives in the hood, says its a super cute little place called "Buen Sabor 2." He added, "I love a restaurant or deli with 2 in the name."
Happy Thanksgiving!
You are a problem solver! I think a floss pick would be fine at Dim Sum with the small bowls. When my kids were young and eating with questionable manners, I loved reminding them that 1/3 of the world uses a fork, 1/3 uses chopsticks and 1/3 eat with their hands. If we round down to 33% perhaps the other 1% uses a floss pick.
Having a number in your name seems cool. I always wondered if women in France wear Chanel No 1 thru 4 at times.
I am disappointed that you don't seem to have acquired the largest and cheapest of "the least of the pies". They shouldn't run out for a couple of weeks though.
Have a great Thanksgiving and enjoy the time together.
love the floss pick pictures - i've noticed some occasionally but i'm sure ill see them everywhere now!
please ask mystery tree benefactor if they've added all the items or if other ppl do as well! and what got them started! (obvious q's but i'm curious!)
Megan, I started noticing them too, just as Kaitlin predicted! In fact I sent her my first floss pick photo over the weekend.
Thanks for the excellent mystery tree benefactor qs! I will definitely bring them up in the interview.
Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon
I had to Google this, but yes!!
Now you will hear about it everywhere all the time.
LOL
Megan -- I would bet a large sum of money that when you awakened today, you were not thinking you'd share "love the floss pick pictures"
Hahahahahaha!!!! That's the beauty of knowing you are waking up and reading the Cafe Anne Newsletter!
Great issue as always, Anne...especially the odd missive about wayward floss picks. I've never quite had an article both fill me with intrigue AND make me dry heave! The whole affair is unfathomably gross in my mind, but I do love Kaitlin's TOTALLY different point of view :)
Larry! One thing I'm learning from publishing this newsletter is that a lot of people are a lot more squeamish than me. Almost every issue, someone comments that while they enjoyed the story, they almost threw up.
This is NOT intentional!
Anyhow I am very glad you enjoyed despite the dry heaves! :)
The Eric Adams quotes that you showcase are truly hilarious. Thanks!
Isn't he the best? I keep worrying the Mayor might tone it down, but he never does.
As a serious flosser, I prefer *GUM* brand soft picks. Smaller than floss picks they allow virtually undetectable flossing: at dinner, in church or the principals office. Allows you to remove food from inconveniently placed recesses.
At the PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE, Mr. Berman?
I might actually try your suggestion. I bought my first pack off floss picks a couple months ago, at my sister's suggestion (I really HATE) flossing and found them even worse than regular floss. Maybe your way is the best way.
GUM soft picks are flaming BRILLIANT! Lose no time in running right out. Our kittens love to pick them out of the garbage and carry them around in their mouths.
Kittens with GUM picks is another good Tik Tok idea.
The Floss Pic Bridal Photo! The War on Rats! All of it! 🤣 Thank you for a dose of home, Anne. Also: I love following the feud between the Mayors of my two cities. Adams vs Lightfoot! Epic! Happy Thanksgiving and thanks for the shout out!
Jolene! I was not aware of the Adams vs. Lightfoot feud but looking forward to delving in! Happy Thanksgiving!
They have made up (at the moment, anyway) but early on it started with this and Lori went at Adams pretty ‘strongly’ on Twitter earlier in the year. https://www.newsweek.com/eric-adams-mocks-lori-lightfoot-teacher-dispute-says-nyc-emotionally-intelligent-1669626?amp=1
Oh this is so funny! I'm sure you know this is not the first time he's tried to boost NYC by putting down some other area. There was a big uproar earlier this fall when he was picking on Kansas for not "having a brand" like New York. He made up with the Kansas governor as well by wearing a Kansas Jayhawks football jersey. And I'm like, what are the JAYHAWKS?
OMG 🤣 the Jayhawks! How did I miss the “Kansas doesn’t have a brand” thing! I’ve just gone down a rabbit hole reading this article and the attached tweets and also learned Adams had a thing telling Brooklyn residents to go back to Iowa, omg 😆 https://amp.kansascity.com/news/state/kansas/article266441461.html
Yes that last one was before he was even Mayor! He was just getting started...
😂
Or was it at a press conference? 🤔
The Mystery Tree investigation was (already!) such a delight to read, I can't wait to find out more about Jimmy's sweet caretakers. I would like to know: have they had fun encounters with neighbours and passersby thanks to Mr. Tree? I'm also interested in whether they think that people have an imperative to actively take care of the public space - in contrast to leaving all responsibility to the city government.
To give a bit of context for my last question: here in Antwerp, Belgium, only formal initatives to adopt trees are allowed since the city government assumes that freedom to use the public space leads to degradation. In my opinion, that is because people are made to feel that they have no actual agency about it. The bureaucratic process is too complicated for many people who would love to have a bit of green space to take care of. I feel like more anarchistic initiatives like the Mystery Tree would quickly be taken down - but maybe I should take it to the test 😁
These are great questions Tine! Here in NYC we have a very cool government-sponsored Citizen Tree Pruner program. Anyone can get training and then go around the city lopping branches or whatever. But now you've got me curious about the legality of street tree decorating.
Anyhow I share your thinking on this. The more you care for something, including your community, the more you appreciate it and enjoy it.
Fun, fun, fun!!
Best line: “For a dog. Dead!”
1st Runner-up: “Your experience may vary. Maybe watch while doing the dishes?”
2nd Runner-up: “I just come in the store and that’s it,” she said. “I don’t hang around.”
Miss Congeniality: “For far too long, the population of rodents has been able to roam around this city with a level of impunity, and we’re saying no to that!” That would be like removing the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Brooklyn Bridge (“The Worst That Can Happen” was the best song by The Brooklyn Bridge, agree?), and removing all the old men sending cold soup back every day in deli’s across the city!
Best tip: “The best use for Worcestershire sauce is on cheese on toast—splash it on just before you melt it under the grill.” I LOVE WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE. Thank Gawd for spellcheck!
“I think my most favorite one was the wedding.” THAT PHOTO IS AMAZING!! A floss-pick in the foreground makes that shot Pulitzer-worthy!
Opinion: Of course, people are using floss-picks in the street. Having something stuck in your teeth is akin to getting ‘caught-short” and having to pee, when there is no restroom available. I don’t disagree that such behavior is ugly, but it is necessary.
JRB! Oh man I would love it if that wedding-floss-pick pic won a Pulitzer. Because I DO think it says as much or more about life/humanity than your typical award-winning news photo.
And nodding at your spell check gratitude re: Worcestershire. I tried an unbelievable number of variants before I sought the aid of my old friend. What's your favorite WS use-case?
Interesting to read your thoughts re: street flossing. I wouldn't put it past people, but as Kaitlin noted, I just don't see it happening. I just now googled "street flossing" by the way and it's slang, according to Urban Dictionary, for showing off your pimp ride.
As for "flossing etiquette" try this: https://southcharlottedentistry.com/the-etiquette-of-flossing/
The nice thing about flossing-picks is that they are discreet in ways that a fork, toothpick and your finger is not! Or regular dental floss!
As for Worcestershire sauce I put that sh-t on everything! Chili, Cajun stuff, etc. Just a great taste impossible to spell!
https://youtu.be/5WxwYqgonFQ
Oh I could watch that video a thousand times. A classic!
As far as etiquette, ALL dental hygiene belongs in the bathroom. Period.
Your advertising was not false. Super fun!
Yay thank you BA! So glad you enjoyed. :)
happy thanksgiving anne! i hope you have a wonderful holiday and enjoy the time off.
i loved mr. ogorodnikov's comments about the tree, and his rooting pun. so excited to hear more about "jimmy" next time!
i was listening to npr the other day and apparently in cambridge, MA (the city i lived in before i moved to where i'm at now) there is a huge rat infestation. i heard two terms i won't soon forget - "rat liaison" and "rat birth control." i'm glad i'm not there to see this big uptick in rats but...where i live now we have coyotes, so, it's always something!
re: dental piks - i just bought a new bag of these the other day. i have a gap between two of my very back teeth left from an orthodontic bracket and the piks are just a necessary evil for me. i asked for a waterpik this year for xmas so if santa brings me one perhaps i can cut down on my pik usage, but i will still need some for travel. i always throw mine in the garbage, but that sort of thing still can end up in the ocean unfortunately. i suspect they can end up on the street in similar fashion. i follow this woman on IG, caroline_south, who for years would post actually very beautiful rainbow collages of plastic she would find and take home from the beach. her account has shifted a bit these days, but if you scroll you can still see her collage work, or in her etsy shop. i remember she always found lots of piks.
Jerk Nugget! I checked out Ms South's IG and she indeed looks like she is having a lot of fun. Those collages are great.
"Rat Liaison" is a fantastic title and I'd love to do a story on that but I imagine the Boston press is already all over it.
Happy Thanksgiving JN I hope you have an absolutely wonderful day too! :)
I keep a bag of floss picks in my car. My commute used to be prime-time flossing (but never tossing them on the street!), but I work from home now. I keep reminding myself to put some in a jar on my desk to remind myself to floss.
Driving while flossing! Holly, I never would have suspected!
Never at stoplights, though. I’m a highway flosser only. Surface streets are too peoply.
I’m so glad Adams has his priorities straight. Rats are obviously among the biggest issues deserving of his attention 🙈 I feel like there’s got to be a connection between the abundance of rats and tooth picks on our streets. Like, are the rats digging them out of our trash?! Haha
Or....are the rodents doing the flossing?
Those creeps are doing something right. They're going to outlive us all! Maybe flossing is their secret?
I was in the ladies room of a wonderful restaurant* in Ponce Puerto Rico many years ago and a fellow guest was flossing with a floss pick. She volunteered that she had recently gotten a divorce and had invested some of the settlement in corrective dentistry. "I'm protecting my investment!" She added. I didn't stick around to see what she did with the pick.
*Rincon Argentina
LOL I know from personal experience that people are at their most interesting immediately following a divorce.
Dental pics!!!!! I’m always seeing those everywhere and every time I mention it people think I’m crazy. I feel so seen and heard 🙌🙌🙌
Michael Mohr
‘Sincere American Writing’
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
LOL that's great Michael. I'm glad you're feeling validated. :)
YES!!!!! My next SS post will be about Dental Picks!
Love both stories. Looking forward to hearing more about the tree! Have a great holiday!
Thank you Sue! Glad you excited about the tree as well. Happy Thanksgiving!!