Daily writing prompt

What food would you say is your specialty?

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My food specialty? I don’t have one. Boneless chicken breasts are my usual go-to dish. Prior to going through weight loss surgery I usually paired it with a quinoa and stir fried veggies thing. Now it’s usually some sort of potato and maybe some broccoli, all cooked in an air frier.

Nothing special. Nothing you’d call a specialty either. Just a few things I know how to prepare and therefore prepare them all the time. When my wife gets sick of something I find something else to cook.

For a while, I was trying to make Tewksbury Tweets my culinary thing. Those are a kind of no-bake cookies. They have tons of sugar in them so post-gastric bypass I have only made them once or twice. They are a sort of holiday gathering treat thing now. I still like making them, but I can’t eat them myself. I promise, that’s not a bad thing. Only my taste buds disagree.

Another possibility from my distant past would be dry Cheerios. Oh yes, a bowl full of Cheerios without any milk. That was the stuff. Pair it with a great big bottle of Coca~Cola and you’re in heaven. I looked at the nutritional information on a Cheerios box recently and I can still eat them. I just have to keep the serving size small. Maybe one of these days I’ll try them and see if my stomach still likes them.

So in summation, the answer to the question what is my food specialty is… nothing, really.

Daily writing prompt

What major historical events do you remember?

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I have a specific answer to this question that I am going to go with, but I am 52 years old and there have been a lot of things of historical importance that I’ve lived through. Unfortunately, most of them have been recent. May you live in interesting times, and all that cursed crap.

Here’s a short list of major events that I will not be talking about today.

• September 11, 2001
• January 6, 2021 coup d’etat led by the nazi who had just been ousted from the white house who has yet to face any consequences and is still somehow running for president again.
• November 2016 when the United States elected a nazi as president
• October 23, 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut
• February 26, 1993 World Trade Center truck bomb
• The 2004 Boston Red Sox coming back from down 3-0 to the Yankees to win the American League Pennant and then go on to beat the Cardinals to end their 86 year World Series drought. Sorry… that’s probably only historically important for sports fans in Boston, but this list was getting pretty heavy and I wanted at least one happy memory to read about
• Nov 4, 1979 – Jan 20, 1981 Iranian hostage crisis, including the failed military attempt to rescue the hostages
• Barack Obama winning the 2008 presidential election. What a fantastic day that was. His inauguration a few months later still stands as one of the proudest moments of my life. Too bad the 2016 election and the 2021 insurrection had to spoil it.
• The supreme court legitimizing gay marriages. Another day where I was supremely proud of my country. Unfortunately it was spoiled by the overturning of Roe vs Wade.
• November 9, 1989 the day the Berlin Wall came down. I don’t recall exactly, but I may have shed a tear that day. What an amazing moment that was.

Okay, that’s a good list of honorable mentions, just off the top of my head. None of those are the event I am going to talk about, purely because I have an almost interesting side note to one major event that really isn’t that interesting but is just sort of a random coincidence (can a coincidence not be random?) that my sister and I experienced.

April 19, 1995 was the day that schmuck Timothy Mcveigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. That was the first really devastating terrorist attack on US soil and look at that, it was carried about by someone who wasn’t a muslim… who woulda thunk. Ugh.

Anyway, my sister and I were on vacation in Washington, DC at the time. That morning we had plans to attend a White House tour. We arrived early at the staging area which if memory serves was outside and down the street a ways. We expected to go into the White House itself at around a specific time, but we sat there waiting and waiting and waiting. It seemed like we were there forever. Finally we were brought to the building and we went through the security screening. I had a back pack with me and they pulled me aside and gave my bag an extremely thorough search. I think I said something to the security guy screening my stuff but I can’t remember exactly. I can remember getting a really serious, scary, I’m-not-going-to-have-to-shoot-you-in-the-head-am-I? kinda look from the guy. Woah, calm down. I’m just a red head from Boston. I am nothing to worry about.

A few hours later we were at the Washington monument and we finally got the news. A government building in Oklahoma had been blown up and tons of people were dead. Terrorism in the United States. Ah, so that’s why the security guy looked like he wanted to kill me where I stood. The guy knew what was going on and was EXTREMELY on edge. I tip my hat to him for keeping his head and not ending me over some stupid comment I may or may not have made. Thanks security guy. I totally understand your point of view.

So there you have it. I have taken a major historical event and made it all about me. You’re welcome.

Daily writing prompt

What’s the biggest risk you’d like to take — but haven’t been able to?

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I’ve already sort of done this once and I am by no means planning to do it again. It’s just something that if I were in a situation to do it, I probably would.

When I was in my mid-20’s I changed careers. I went from loser working in a warehouse for practically nothing to a career college student. It sounds like I am kidding, but I am 100% serious. Seven years later I changed careers again when I ran out of Computer Science courses to take and let myself graduate. I went from career student to career programmer/analyst.

I am truly happy where I am and I have no plans to change careers again, but in a perfect financially secure world I probably would. If we hit that hypothetical zillion dollar lottery, for example, I would change my career. I would probably open a recording studio and blow my fortune on a dead industry. Either that or I would become a professional photographer of some kind. Again, probably just opening a studio and blowing all of my money watching the business fail. Like I said, these are hypothetical. Career wise I am not going anywhere.

How about I give you a second option as a bonus? Lucky you, right?

I love living in New England, but part of me really wants to give my life long home state of Massachusetts a chuck and move to Southern California. San Diego, or someplace in that vicinity. I fell in love with San Diego at first sight and have dreamed about living there ever since. It’s too much of a risk though. I could never do it. I have too much family and responsibility here at home and I would never be able to let myself let any of that go. So I stay in my beloved New England, which really is where I belong anyway so it all works out.