Mightier Than The Pen

I have two quick things for you.

The first is I discovered a cure for hiccups. Peanut butter!

Along with the sciatica and that awful play this past weekend, Ariel was suffering from a case of the hiccups that hung on for about 5 hours. Fearing past bouts when he’s had them for a couple of days at a time, I did some looking on the internet and found cures that ranged from drinking water from the opposite side of the glass while sticking your fingers in your ears to rubbing the roof of your mouth with your tongue. Swallowing spoonfuls of sugar or breathing into a brown paper bag were also listed as cures. There was even the errant and somewhat misplaced suggestion of sticking your finger in your, oh dear, how do I say this delicately? Rectum.

But I also came across quite a few entries claiming peanut butter worked wonders. His own sugar, bitters and lemon remedy failed and drinking water in the prescribed fashion seemed more like a parlor trick one would perform in a hypnotic state, so we decided to give the peant butter treatment a try. Well, guess what? It worked. I’m a witness. No sooner had Ariel swallowed the peanut butter, than the hiccups were finally gone.

The second thing is I have posted a new review of Mightier Than The Pen on the reviews page.

Nothing caps off a snowy, sciatica-suffering weekend like a Broadway matinee. Ariel took his medication and stayed off his feet to rest up for our outing; he was determined we’d make the show.

We parked as close as we could to the theater so Ariel’s hobbling would be kept to a minimum after the truck, like every other vehicle parking entering that particular garage, was subjected to a search. The car in front had to pop the trunk, but the security guard only peered in through the back windows of our truck. Not much of a search, if you ask me, but it still felt like a violation, but that’s a separate issue. Who knows what they were looking for, or how they knew we didn’t have it hidden elsewhere in the vehicle?

Rosie O’Grady’s on 46^th street was where we ate lunch. I had the very very best shepherd’s pie I have ever tasted and asked the waitress to please tell the chef. Whether she did or not I don’t know. I was sort of hoping he’d come out and say thank you.

After lunch, on the way to the theater, we passed one of those pretzel carts. As we approached, I heard a woman placing an order for her brood of young daughters. "Can I have four pretzels to go?"she said. I had to chuckle to myself. I shouldn’t have. She had no choice really, the cart operator hadn’t set up curbside tables and chairs. Maybe she meant for him to bag them, but I didn’t stick around to find out. I had a show to get to.

We found our seats and marveled at how detailed the set was and got the word from the woman sitting next to me, a fellow Bette Midler fan, it turns out, that this show, originally a movie starring Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange and Sissy Spacek which she watches "at least 2 or 3 times a year" was going to be good. "Crimes Of The Heart". I’ve never heard of it, but this stage reproduction was directed by Kathleen Turner. A comedy set in Mississippi, 5 years after Hurricane Camille, centered around the lives of three sisters; a spinster-like nursemaid to their ailing grandfather, a would be singer/actress trying to make a name for herself in Hollywood, and another younger sister who has just shot her husband. Ready for a good time, we settled back in our seats, and at the request of the announcer we double checked the silent status of our cell phones, shut off our cameras and unwrapped any hard candies we might have to eat during the show. Down lights. Let the snoring begin.

Ariel and I took turns nudging each other awake during the 45 minute first act (the entire show was 2 ½ hours...this was going to be torture-second acts are usually the shorter of the two) but somehow we revived enough to make it through the entire second act after a refreshing intermission. Sadly, we both gave the show a 3. Remember, my rating scale is 2-9 (anything is at least worthy of recognition and not everything knocks my socks off) and unfortunately, the set is what added the extra point. The set deserved a better production. It was difficult to determine just what was going on with all of the characters. The neighbor lady, for instance, whom I first thought was just that, I later thought she was a fourth sister, but it ended up she was a cousin. I think, or maybe I imagined in my own mind to add some interest to the story that the lawyer who represented the younger sister could have the hots for her but there was nothing in the acting that even alluded to that. I’m going to have to watch the movie at some point to see what I obviously missed during this performance. There were one or two instances when I genuinely laughed out loud, but the entire audience was having a rip roaring good time throughout.

Perhaps a waste of two and a half hours, but at least I still have "pretzels to go" to consider.

You know I love where I live. My house, yes, of course, I cherish that. Nestled between a busy four lane county road and the serenity of a softly murmuring canal, it is very conveniently located to lots of places, like stores...if you can get to them. On second thought, the area is actually a chaotic baffling layout of asphalt and traffic. Trying to make a left hand turn onto or off that roadway is damn near impossible at just about any point during the day. Maybe this all sounds like a lead-in to a story. It is. You know I always have a story and this one is a combination of the aforementioned confusing roadways and my own principled stubbornness.

But before I get into that, let me weigh in. It is Friday, after all. I lost another 3 pounds this week so now I’m down to a wispy 207 from 210 last Friday.

It snowed during the night and until about 11 this morning. Today, I had 4 ½ hours to finish out my work week. Ending promptly at noon I needed to clean the driveway before the predicted freezing rain and sleet began.

Ariel’s sciatica has been acting up for the last few days and it came to a crippling head last night. I had to practically carry him into the house when he got home from work. I can sympathize. I suffer from sciatica, too. Knock wood, it’s been a good long while since I’ve had a flare up. I don’t look forward to slithering along the floor trying to get to the bathroom. That’s a curious visual. Anyway, Ariel had a prescription waiting at the drugstore for a muscle relaxant and an anti-inflammatory but there was 125 feet worth of driveway blanketed with 7 inches of snow standing in the way.

I figured that with my trusty snowblower, the task would take no more than about an hour, hour and a half tops. The toughest part is always the two foot high hillock of slush formed at the top of the driveway by the merciless plows relentlessly clearing the street which I would have to clean with a shovel before I could head out to the drugstore.

A little less than an hour into my chore, the confounded machine conked out on me. I had just filled the gas tank, so I knew it wasn’t that. I finally got it started, and let it run while I shoveled the rest of the driveway. It was going on 3pm when I finally finished, after suffering one more pass by an overzealous plow determined to keep me working. [enter an expletive of your choice here]

"Can you pick me up a can of soup? Something creamy like a New England clam chowder or a potato soup?" was Ariel’s simple request as I headed out the door, "But beggars can’t be choosers so, whatever they have will be fine." It’s a drugstore, but nowadays you can get just about anything anywhere, except what you’re looking for. Beef stew and chicken noodle were my only choices, whatever they have... Heading out of the parking lot I thought of the gas station across the street’s convenience store. Thanks to a cement island dividing the road, simply driving across to it was out of question. I would have to drive around the block to get to it–sort of. Delirious from all that shoveling, on my way to the only road, about 2 miles away, that would cross over to the side road I needed, I stupidly realized that I still wouldn’t be able to get to the gas station from that road. and that getting to the gas station that way was as impossible as making the two simple left turns that could have gotten me across the street and from drug store to gas station.

While I was traversing through the back roads I saw a woman whose car had gotten stuck in a ditch and I offered to help push her out with the aid of another passerby who also stopped and offered assistance. With the two of us poised and ready to push, a passenger from the stuck car, a seemingly rather able bodied young man who probably could have picked the car up and carried it to safety, got out complaining about stupid women drivers and walked away. The other good Samaritan and I just looked at each other, then at the apparently stupid woman driver, shrugged and got her on her way.

There is a strip mall along the side road I was heading to with a deli but all they had were small cans of non-creamy soups. Defeated, I headed for home, giving a quick dismissed thought of winding around another network of streets in another direction that would wind me around and under the interstate to get to the convenience store.

The irony is, and where my principled stubbornness comes into play, there’s a supermarket just up the highway, but I have not stepped foot in that store in over a year, maybe closer to two. I will go out of my way, by as far as over 5 miles to get a gallon of milk, just so I don’t have to go there. It’s convenient–I could walk there in ten minutes or less–but I got fed up after one too many times of not being able to get what I wanted, like milk for instance, no matter what time of the day I went there.

But I’m settled in for the night now, my driveway is cleaned, Ariel’s belly was filled with beef stew and now he’s zonked from his medication so maybe I’ll catch a few zzzz’s myself.

I wanted to get to this sooner and give you a rundown of how the weekend went, but, I didn’t.

Saturday was an all day affair cleaning out the shop. We arrived by 7:30am and didn’t finish until nearly 4pm and as you can see by the picture, (I took this with my cell phone and by the time the camera function activated, the dumpster was almost level, otherwise you’d see all that was in there) we filled this 30 yard dumpster rather generously. The junk consisted of mainly innumerable pounds of discarded glass of every color of the rainbow, cardboard boxes, old office equipment, and the list just goes on. It was impossible to imagine that all we threw away, plus the stuff we kept and moved to the storage garage next door a few weekends ago, all fit in the space we had. It was a sort of bittersweet moment; more than 10 years of our lives went out in the trash that day.

Later, while we waited for the truck to come retrieve the dumpster, I found myself squinting unmercifully in the afternoon sun, I discovered I lost my most favorite pair of sunglasses I have ever owned in my life, my Maui Jim’s. I don’t mind telling those of you who don’t know, they are rather expensive; more money than I think is appropriate for a pair of sunglasses, but from the moment they first went on my face last summer, I was in love with them. Also, something you should know about me, I am not one for showy prestigious stuff; cars, designer labels on clothes, sunglasses...you get the idea. Well, be that as it may, they’re gone and either in the trash, in the parking lot by Dunkin Donuts or on someone’s face who found them at Dunkin Donuts. When we called to see if anyone had found them, the answer was no. Of course!

And our friend was sick with some nasty stomach virus and that put the kibosh on our planned evening of merriment and we made due in the company of just ourselves and did what we could to that bottle of Jack!

And a very special note today, and I hope they check-in today and see I wrote about them, my father and my step-mother are celebrating their 25^th wedding anniversary today. Congratulations! I love you both!

PS. In a rare uncharacteristic moment, I decided to spoil myself and bought a new pair of Maui Jim’s and now all is right with the world once again.

It’s Friday and it’s weigh-in day. Taking into consideration that the last two meals I’ve eaten; Wednesday was meatloaf with mashed potatoes, string beans, salad with shrimp (you remember, they wouldn’t defrost), and biscuits and last night was homemade meat sauce with sausage on penne pasta, with garlic bread, wine and for dessert, a modest slice of chocolate cake with chocolate filling, topped by a thick gummy chocolate ganache, I weighed in at only one pound heavier than last Friday, 210.

As I was getting ready to write my blog this morning, I was surfing through some new channels my cable company recently added and came across this interesting story about cricket fighting in Beijing.

This is a sport that dates as far back as the 14^th century and was a favorite pastime of the emperors and oftentimes state duties were neglected by officials who became addicted to the sport. During the reign of the emperors a good cricket could make or break the fortunes of a family and a top contender could garner the same price as a fine stallion. Nowadays, although betting on cricket fights is illegal, the actual fight is not and crickets are bred and sold and for about $20.00.

For the actual fight, coaches arrive in the market places of Beijing with their favorite bugs in lidded ceramic pots. The crickets are "warmed" up by agitating jabs with some sort of poker, like a skewer. The ring is set up, a clear plastic container with a removable partition to keep the contenders separated between rounds. The combatants are weighed so they are fairly matched and deposited into their respective "corners". The partition is lifted and a hush comes over the crowd of spectators. The slightest sound could be a distraction and seriously affect the outcome of the game. With a little skewer provoking or a chirping from the aggressor, the match begins. As they toss and tumble inside the ring, the coaches have the enviable task of keeping their eyes on their own crickets.

The round is over when the loser withdraws from battle, either by backing away or jumping out of the ring and he is surely destined for the trash heap. The winner, on the other hand, is retired to his "locker room" pot, where a feast fit for a king awaits him consisting of, well, whatever crickets like to eat.

A busy weekend in store. Tomorrow is the last day of our cleaning out the glass shop. A dumpster is being delivered by 8:00am and later in the evening we’re having a friend over for a few laughs, some good food and some rousing contests of Turner Classic Movies edition of SceneIt?, possibly some nerve shattering Tip It, and the perennial "Let’s-kill-at-least-one-bottle-of-Jack-Daniel’s".

Have a great weekend!

When it rains, it pours. So true. You’ve had days like that, haven’t you? Of course you have. And if you haven’t, what’s wrong with you?

Well, yesterday, mine started as normal as any other day, in a discombobulated state. I had three goals in mind for the day; work, shovel what slush was in the driveway and get dinner ready.

My mother and my friend Sue were supposed to come to dinner on Tuesday night, but it was snowing and really crappy, so we decided Wednesday would be better. And given the temperature was supposed to escalate to the mid 40's and rain all day, I assumed the driveway would more or less take care of itself. But as the day wore on, all that resulted, as I could see from the side window in my office, was a marsh of slush and I decided I would take my "lunch" break from work and take care of that, so, a) neither of my dinner guests would have to trudge in ankle high muck and b) so it wouldn’t freeze.

As work progressed and I completed a huge report I was working on, I ended up with a discrepancy in dollar amounts so, I pored through hundreds of accounts looking for my mistake. I found it, thankfully, and well, I fixed it as best I could. It’ll take another application to completely rectify it, a step I don’t know, but I’m sure to I’ll either learn it, or learn not to skip a page anymore.

I realized my day was coming to an end, with no break for lunch (or cleaning the driveway, as it were) but by 5:00 I was able to close up shop. I mapped out the rest of my afternoon, calculating each move, to make my time count and everything continued to spiral. First, I dressed warmly to venture outside, grabbed the garbage from the kitchen so I could deposit it in the can in the garage to take out later. From there I went to the basement to get a few cans of diet soda for my mother and in the process three cans from another 12-pack fell to the floor, and one of them exploded, spraying cola all over me, the floor and entire side of the refrigerator. Well, I had no time to worry about that, I had a driveway to clear. On my way out of the basement, I realized, thankfully, I had forgotten to put the meatloaf in the oven. Oh man, I’m really getting agitated now! Tick tock tick tock. Ran back upstairs to start the oven.  I had premixed and formed my meatloaf so at least that worked in  my favor, otherwise it would have been pizza for dinner, I’m sure. Finally got outside and found that by then through all the rain and the rise in temperature, the slush factor was confined to just in front of the garage doors. But, it was a matter of principle and I began pushing the mess to and fro with my shovel.

Got the driveway and the front walk finished after both my mother and Sue arrived and then I still had the spilled soda to clean in the basement.

Dinner was a success, even though the shrimp fought us as we tried to defrost it to put on the salad. And then we repaired to the den to watch American Idol and that was a bit upsetting. I read Commander’s recap this morning and it seems he is in agreement of the upset, but he is a professional and realizes the palette with which he has to work and will go from there.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Colleen is a happy woman today! She’s been getting some well-deserved attention from me. It is now 5:42 pm and nearly 10 hours have passed since I’ve been sitting in front of this computer toiling away reworking the first 1/4 of my current chapter. It wasn’t easy, what with all the bits and pieces of notations and fragments of sentences that were just haphazardly strewn about in several working documents. My last writing session was not very productive.
 
Today, I wrote a paragraph that was saying basically the same thing as one I wrote the last time, with nearly the exact same words, and I didn't see it right away because they were separated by three other paragraphs. Both had the same idea, but each went about getting to it in a different way and the one from today was built on a really cool word I found in the dictionary this morning. I wanted to keep that word, so I had to combine the two and I was able to keep it and the  integrity of my storyline.

You’re probably saying to yourself that this chapter is taking forever and you’d be right. It is. But you see, this chapter is a big turning point in the story, and it needs to be handled just so. It can’t be just slapped together. And once I was done with that, some filler had to be outlined to get me from beginning to end, and where I originally planned on there being three segments, it became obvious one more would be needed to make the transition as smooth and sensible as possible, so a 4^th  section was added and outlined.

So, it looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me. Man, this writing books sure isn’t easy.

Now I’m totally exhausted, physically and mentally and Ariel is nursing a sore and violated mouth. He had a deep root cleaning done this morning, but in the oddest way–upper and lower teeth at once, but on only one side of his mouth. Maybe so that when he is able to eat, which presumably will be soon, he’d still have one side of his mouth that wasn’t all torn up to chew on. He had seven shots of Novocain plus some ‘sweet’ gas to keep him woozy, but he was able to drive himself home afterwards.

Well, this is it. I hear the kitchen drawer opening where we keep the take-out menus so it must be time to order something. On that note, I wish you all a great weekend!

Ah, well, the NY Giants won! Congratulations!

So, like I said in my last blog, I was in Atlantic City, losing my money on the slots, because I don't know any of the table games. But I was keeping tabs on the Superbowl throughout the night and made it to The Race Book Lounge at the Borgata just in time to see the Giants take back the game! The mood was electric in the room and I was caught up in the fury. It was then I wished I had seen the game in its entirety to validate the euphoria I felt at that moment. We sped through the game yesterday on my DVR when we got home to see the commercials and they left us unimpressed. Well, maybe the Dalmatian training the Budweiser Clydesdale...that was okay. But the rest were just boring.

Anyway, we met up with our friend and his brothers and parents for dinner at the buffet between the poker tournaments his brothers were involved in. We overate, as a matter of fact. While we stuffed our faces, the conversation came up about a mind bending puzzle I had given them some time ago and whether they had been able to figure it out yet. Turns out they hadn’t and it got me thinking I would post it here and share it with anyone who wants to give it a shot.

It's called "Who Owns The Zebra? " You can open it and print it out and when you think you have it solved, you can contact me through my comments or directly through colleenandeddie@aol.com and I will let you know if you are correct. Enjoy! And good luck!

I wanted to let you all know that the site has been updated.  Under The Author tab, I have added a bio which briefly outlines my writings from my early teens to the present.  In there are links to some of them, one of which will open into an Adobe PDF document. I have more items I wanted to post, but I need to locate them and when I do, I will put them up.   January's blogs have been archived and you can link to them either from the bottom of this page or from the Blahgs tab above. There is also a new rant on my What Burns Your Bacon? page.  Also there is a comments area in two places; one on the Blahgs homepage and one on the  Contact Us/Feedback page.

Well, it is Superbowl Sunday and we are about to leave for Atlantic City to help celebrate a friend's parents' 50th Anniversary.  Congratulations Ray and Mary! I will be recording the game-- mainly for the commercials--given that we'll know who won by the time we get home and save the trouble of sitting through something I can't follow. 

And I'm still at work on my current chapter in my next book. I believe I got all the wrinkles out and so from here on out it should be smooth sailing until I hit the hurdle of the chapter after that. But I love a challenge! 

Finally, the end of the week. It was a long one, that’s for sure, in part because of my work flow. Where I would normally have my short day on Fridays to roam and frolic, (who am I kidding?) my short day fell earlier this week. But my 40 hours are complete and now, at 6:38 pm I am free to go.

What’s it been, about a week since I last blogged? Well, you haven’t missed much, I spent my week working.

Get on with it, Brian! We get it! You have a job!

I trust you’ve been keeping up with Commander’s American Idol blogs this week. He sure had a lot to say. I personally think that little critter is rather astute.

Okay, this morning, before I left for my doctor’s appointment, one of our resident foxes was running loose in the yard. I tried to snap a picture but by the time I saw him again with camera in hand, he was on his way back to the wooded area behind my house.

I was rather expecting my doctor to tear into me for the deterioration of the progress I was making in my rejuvenation, but he was quite pleased with what he saw. He is, however, giving me 4 months to get my LDL’s cholesterol down (bad! bad cholesterol!) or else he’ll put me on Lipitor. I’d rather not be on anything but, alas, I am on Diovan for my blood pressure and that is staying in check. But the cholesterol count was the only thing that put up a red flag. Except my weight, which he is confident is a contributing factor to my LDL elevation.

Last January, at my first doctor’s visit in over 20 years, I was officially weighed in at 230 lbs. I changed my eating habits by cutting out as much salt as possible (for the blood pressure) and watched my portion size of home cooked foods. No more fast food and no more ordering in except for one cheat day on weekends. And I bumped up my exercise regimen by adding a daily 4 mile walk to my regular workouts. By the time summer vacation rolled around I was down to a sleek 197 pounds and was nearly falling out of my newly acquired size 34 waist jeans. I was so proud of that. Well, I guess I got a little over confident and stupid because I am up to 217 lbs as of this morning. Well, let’s be fair, Thanksgiving and Christmas were not so long ago. I keep repeating that and it helps my psyche.

So, let’s do this. Friday’s have always been my weigh in day so, each Friday, I’ll keep you updated as to my progress. I should have calibrated my bathroom scale when I first got home, but didn’t so I don’t know how far off it is. I have a goal; in mid-April, my niece is getting married and I would like there to be a little less of me by then.

I could go on and on but my deep dish cheesesteak pizza and jalapeno poppers are here and I must go before they get cold. I know! But, it’s my cheat night!