Category: Generic

Third Time’s the Charm

Daily writing prompt
What daily habit do you do that improves your quality of life?
View all responses

I’m pretty sure this is the third time we’ve had this as the daily prompt. Not exactly the same prompt, of course, but essentially the same. I’ve only been playing along for a couple of months. I wonder how many daily habit questions they’ve given us in total.

The answer, of course, is having dinner with Jen after work. That only works when we’re both working from home. I have one day a week (sometimes two) where I am in the office and the evening commute throws off the time table and messes everything up. Jen is now in the office once a week too, but she’s a lot closer to home and gets out a lot earlier too. She’ll likely be able to keep to the dinner schedule.

Honorable mentions go to getting up early, exercising before work, sticking to regular meal schedules (for gastric bypass reasons), spending evenings with Jen even if we don’t actually do anything together, playing music, watching good television. Stuff like that. It’s all good for the mental health.

Daily (stupid) Haiku for You #14

Today’s dumb haiku for you is brought to you by my little Nikon point and shoot camera that broke recently and how I want to replace it but probably won’t be any time soon. (hint: $$$$$$$)

Compact cameras,
I want to grab a new one.
Why so expensive?

Internet Search

Daily writing prompt
What was the last thing you searched for online? Why were you looking for it?
View all responses

This one is going to be uber exciting.

Yesterday was this week’s day in the office. Usually that means one of our two or three buildings in Westwood, MA but this time it was Foxborough. That’s the second farthest commute possible without traveling to a building outside of New England. My GPS app took me on the fastest route which was also the long way around. It was 73 miles.

I spent the morning in Foxborough but was able to move up to Westwood for the afternoon. That’s the building closest to home, about 40 miles away. I did not have enough gas left in the car to get me from Foxborough to Westwood, and finally Robert gets to the point.

The last thing I searched for online was, “gas stations near <insert the Foxborough building’s address here>” in Google Maps.

What an animal I am, eh?

Stomach Fail

Why?

I’ve found that if I make a mistake while eating instant mashed potatoes and some of the instant mashed potatoes get stuck outside of my redesigned stomach, after 15-20 minutes those ‘taters will come back up in mildly spectacular fashion. It’s unpleasant and gross, but it’s also my stomach literally fixing the mistake and within minutes I’m back to 100% normal and all is well.

I’ve also found that if I make a similar mistake while eating quinoa it will last for hours, yes hours plural as in multiple hours before it clears up. It isn’t painful, I can just tell that there is something subtly off about my digestive situation. After a couple of hours I’ll convince myself that I’m imagining it and try to eat something small. That will get stuck behind the quinoa that I wasn’t imagining was stuck and that will be painful and cause foamies and nausea. Unlike the potatoes though they never come back up. I just have to continue to wait for it all to pass on its own, even though I’ve already waited multiple hours and no other food ever gets stuck for more than an hour, or an hour and a half tops.

Jen made quinoa tonight and it was magical. It also got a little stuck and two hours later I thought I was okay until I had a bite of a protein snack. Now my stomach hurts and I’m nauseous and spitting up foamy saliva and just waiting for the damn stuff to pass, damnit.

Why is the reaction so different when the diagnosis is exactly the same?

I finished mixing three songs and I’m part way through two more. I paused so I could watch episode three of Ahsoka but I had to pause that while I deal with my stomach issues. I still hope to finish the episode and the two songs (and the protein snack) before I turn in for the night, but it’s already 10:00 so maybe I won’t get to it all.

After typing up all of this on my iPad while leaning over a bucket in the bathroom, some of the protein snack came back up and I feel a lot better. Okay, so the snack and the instant mashed potatoes have something in common, but what’s the deal with the quinoa? Why no improvement after two hours plus? We may never know.

Okay, back to Ahsoka. May episode three be as good as episodes one and two.

Kids TV

Daily writing prompt
What TV shows did you watch as a kid?
View all responses

I watched a lot of TV as a kid. So much that I am sure I forget more of the regulars than I actually remember.

After school it was channel 56 in Boston. They aired cartoons in the afternoon and then sitcoms in the evening. We sort of put it on and just let it run.

Cartoons included the Hanna-Barbera stuff mostly. Flintstones, Jetsons, stuff like that. They aired various incarnations of Tom and Jerry and Loony Toons too. Bugs Bunny was my favorite of all of those, but the Loony Toons stuff was so much better than Merry Melodies.

The sitcoms got increasingly more adult focused as the evening rolled on. Happy Days and Lavern and Shirley were on earlier than Three’s Company or Good Times or All in the Family. I much preferred Happy Days. That was right up my ally when I was a kid in the late ’70’s.

Saturday mornings were all about cartoons too. The Super Friends were and still are the best. I am having a tough time remembering anything else. For a while we used to get Land of the Lost, which wasn’t a cartoon but was awesome.

I’m sure there are 10 or 20 thousand more shows that we all watched regularly but I can’t recall much more than these at the moment. Also, it’s a work in the office day and it’s 6:39am and I have to get a move on so…

…Rob clicks publish (without proof reading, sorry).

Plans for Next Summer

I found this article while surfing around Google News today and now I have to start making travel plans for next summer:

In pictures: Redheads celebrate fiery locks at Dutch festival

Sign me right the hell up, right now! A festival for red heads? Red Head Days! My people are gathering en masse! I need to be a part of this! It doesn’t matter that my step daughter did a study abroad program in The Netherlands and hearing about her travels has made me want to visit the country (and pretty much all of Western Europe). I would want to travel to this festival even if it was held in a condemned parking garage in Cleveland.

I need to be counted among the festival-goers! I need to celebrate my red headedness with my red headed brothers and sisters! What a joyous thrill this would be! I am so excited!

Sign! Me! Up!!!

Favorite Time of Day

Daily writing prompt
What’s your favorite time of day?
View all responses

What’s my favorite time of day? Do I have a favorite time of day?

I don’t think I’ve thought of this since the days of my carefree youth when I was such a night person I slept until at least noon whenever I could.

Today? I think my favorite time of day is tied to working from home in a way. I punch out of work at 5:30 or so and come upstairs and make dinner for me and Jen. Most nights we sit in the living room and eat dinner together there. That’s when my favorite time of day starts. That moment when dinner is served and we sit down together. From there until we turn in for the night, that’s my favorite time of day. All of the responsibilities have been taken care of, all of the work done. We just spend time together.

That’s the perfect time of day. That’s gold.