Peanut Butter

Daily writing prompt
Which food, when you eat it, instantly transports you to childhood?

I am running late this morning and should not take the time to write this post until later when I am caught up with life. I have an answer for this one though. Not a sarcastic bird flip of an answer, an actual honest answer and I want to get it down before I do anything else.

I am huge. I used to be super tall and incredibly fat. Then I had my stomach ripped to shreds by a professional and now I am super tall and a less death defying weight. I’m still huge though. I have always been huge. Even when I was a tiny person. I was always taller than almost all of the kids my age (though I was never the tallest in my class) and I was always wider than almost all of the kids my age. It was noticeable by all, and many a person commented on it, thinking they were being clever and conversational when they were in fact being complete fucking assholes.

But I digress.

My mother was often asked by strangers what she fed me to make me so big. Hey strangers… fuck you. My mother had a standard answer: Peanut Butter. Let’s face it, dear readers, I loved me some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Like… I loved them. I was such a big fan that you could probably make an argument that peanut butter was literally (and by literally I clearly mean figuratively) my first love, but that would be incredibly gross so let’s not go there.

I still love peanut butter. I really do. I have not had it since the gastric bypass surgery. It’s not something that I cannot eat. It doesn’t have any of the things that mess me up when I eat them. I’m still a little scared of how I would react to it though. I am afraid the sticky nature of peanut butter would cause it to get hung up getting into my new stomach pouch thing and it would trigger a bad case of The Foamies. One of these days I will try and and see how it goes, but I am a little gun shy about it so I won’t be trying it today.

The result of all of this though, is that when I do eat peanut butter it definitely makes me feel like a kid. It makes me feel like a kid who is ashamed of himself to the point of self loathing because some random fucking stranger in some random department store thinks I am so fat and disgusting that they have to comment on it. Hey strangers in the random department stores… Fuck You.

I have spoken.

Donald Sutherland

Everyone in America, and possibly on Earth, loved Alan Alda as Hawkeye Peirce in M*A*S*H. Seriously. We’re talking national treasure here.

For me, I was like everyone else. Then I saw the movie. One watch was all it took. From that moment on, in my head when I thought of Hawkeye Peirce, I thought of Donald Sutherland. Every time. No exceptions. Alan Alda? Phenomenal as that character. Donald Sutherland? Better. I have spoken.

To our kids, Donald Sutherland will always be the bad guy in The Hunger Games. To me? Hawkeye.

Rest in peace, Donald Sutherland.

History

Daily writing prompt
Who is your favorite historical figure?

I don’t have a single favorite historical figure. I have a bunch of them. It is time for a (partially satirical/sarcastic) list!

  • Abe Lincoln, of course.
  • Niall of the Nine Hostages – He was an Irish king. DNA tests imply that the overwhelming majority of people of Irish descent are descended directly from him. Respect, bro.
  • I would say the Yardbirds Big Three, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck, but Clapton turned into an anti-vaxxing, racist prick, Jimmy Page had that whole thing with the “relationship” with a 13 year old girl, and Jeff Beck died before I could ever see him live and I would be too embarrassed by that to face him.
  • Barak Obama. Yeah. Eight years in the White House and the closest we came to a scandal was that one day he wore a tan suit.
  • Ted Williams. Maybe we could go fishing.
  • General William T. Sherman of the March to the Sea fame. He just seems like he’d be a fun guy to hang out with. As if he was a little unhinged, but in a good, funny way.
  • Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart.

That list is just off the top of my head. I’m sure if I spent more than 0.68 seconds thinking about it I would come up with more. Also, better. This will do for now though. Happy Thursday, everyone.

It’s a Hot One Out There Continued

The current temperature is 95 degrees. Hot enough for ya?

A few minutes ago I went outside. Today is trash day and I walked out to the street to bring in the barrel.

Woah! It’s hot out there, kids. It’s steamy hot.

I love it.

On an unrelated note, I just got another notification stating that the 9-1-1 service is up and running again. Good job, whoever it was that fixed whatever was wrong. We can now easily call for emergency services in Massachusetts again. Thumbs up.

It’s a Hot One Out There

The heatwave has arrived. It’s 93 degrees outside. Wait, don’t you have to be over 90 for three days to officially rank as a heatwave? So maybe it’s more correct to say that the potential heatwave has arrived. Whatever.

I still have the windows open in my little office space. My Nest app is telling me that it’s 81 degrees in this room and 76 degrees in the living room. It’s definitely warm enough to approach being uncomfortable, but given that since losing weight I find myself really cold all the time… it’s kinda nice right now. For the first time in months I don’t feel cold at all. Not even a little bit.

I just got a public safety alert on my phone. Looks like the 9-1-1 service is down for the entire state of Massachusetts. Here’s hoping none of my neighbors need to call for emergency services any time soon. It would suck to dial 9-1-1 and get a busy signal or some sort of error message.

Similar to yesterday, I am still exhausted. I failed to get six hours of sleep yet again last night, though I only missed it by about five minutes this time. I’m really tired. Really, really tired.

Three hours left in the work day. Fingers crossed I can make it through in one piece. Also, fingers crossed we don’t melt in the heat today, and fingers crossed we don’t need to call for an emergency service. Hang in there, Massachusetts.

Global

Daily writing prompt
What countries do you want to visit?

Is it a cop out of an answer if I say all of them?

Why limit yourself to a subset of the globe when you can see it all? This is all hypothetical, isn’t it? Spin a globe, stop it with your finger at some random spot, go to that place. That’s how it’s done, folks.

If we are going to limit ourselves to some hypothetical subset…

I’ve only been to one country outside of the United States and that was Canada. As I am a little on the lazy side when it comes to traveling, all of my top choices of countries to visit would likely be places where most folks speak English, and most road signs are also in English. The UK and Ireland would all more or less tie for first place on the big destinations list. Australia and New Zealand would be on the short list too, but only after the British isles. After that, how about literally everywhere in Europe. Start in the West and work my way East. Simple.

After that? I really don’t know. Brazil, Morocco, India, Japan. Maybe a road trip from the Southern tip of South America all the way home. That would be pretty fantastic. Then we could rerun the plan starting at the Southern tip of Africa and ending in France or Spain, and then fly home from there. Just imagine how much the rental car would cost for a trip like that. Yikes, but totally worth it. It would make our epic drives to and from Disney look like a walk around the block.

I’ve kinda gotten off subject though, I think. The short answer to the which countries would I like to visit question is every country in the British Islands and more of Canada. I want to go to Newfoundland, where my maternal grandparents came from, and Ireland, where my paternal grandmother came from, and Scotland, where Jen’s family came from. I want to trace our roots, as it were. That would be fun.

We have to go back to Disney World twice before we leave the country though, and after that we need to go back to Southern California which will likely include a day trip into Mexico… which just implies that any plans I have for international travel are likely to never get too far beyond hypothetical. It’s like John Lennon said, life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.

Champs

I live in greater Boston. I don’t follow the NBA or the NFL. I do follow the NHL and MLB.

While I don’t really care about the Boston Celtics, I am pleased that my city apparently just won another pro-sports championship. The Celtics just won it. Game five ended a few minutes ago and the Celtics won the game and the series. That’s 18 NBA Championships.

Congrats, Celtics. Now I just have to avoid sports radio for a couple of weeks as they aren’t going to cover anything other than the Celtics.

Oh well. Hey, the Red Sox beat the Blue Jays tonight too. That’s good, right?