You don’t have to look far to find my answer to this question. Literally the post before this spells it out nicely.
It’s cats, of course. Obviously. Cats of all shapes and sizes.
There is none of that unconditional love crap with cats. You have to earn their love. You have to earn their respect. I mean, it’s not that hard to do… just keep their food and water bowls full and their litter box clean and you’re most of the way there. Still, it’s the effort that counts. It’s the process that makes it worthwhile, you know?
Here’s to cats. Also, here’s to easy to answer daily writing prompts that I’m pretty sure are repeats of old prompts that don’t really inspire a lot of… writing.
We just completed the Barbenheimer film festival. We watched the Barbie Movie yesterday and we watched Oppenheimer today.
Wow. What a movie.
I had a really hard time with some of it. When I was a kid I was terrified of nuclear weapons to a degree that I am nearly embarrassed by. I know we all were. It was the early 80’s and the end of the Soviet Union was unimaginably far away, but something about nuclear weapons both fascinated me and terrified me and left me confused and scared and basically a mess throughout my teen years.
Watching this movie brought all of that back to me and hammered me right in the face with it.
Yeah… Oppenheimer was hard for me to watch. I am very glad I did though. Let that be your spoiler free review. Go see it.
The simple answer is that I don’t. Outside of this blog, that is.
I stopped using facebook. I stopped using twitter. I’ve been trying to find an app to replace them both but nothing really gets there. Threads is okay, even though it’s another evil zuckerberg product. Mastodon is okay. So is bluesky. Unfortunately few if anyone from my actual social network is on any of those social networks so I end up just responding to guitar and photography (and sometimes political) posts from other people and it’s like I am talking to the void… which I sort of am.
At work there is Google’s chat and Google Meet and Zoom and other things like that, but that is work communication, not online communication. It’s the same but very different, you know? Within the family we use FaceTime and I love every call, as well as group texts. Again though, that’s sort of different. I think it is at least.
This little blog gets a pretty healthy amount of engagement. Not compared to real blogs, but for a 52 year old introverted doofus in Massachusetts, it feels pretty engaged. At the same time, none of my actual social network, apart from one or two people, follows this at all so there isn’t any real world tie in. Mostly, at least. I had a few real world friends and family members following when I first started posting publicly back in 2008, but I doubt any of them are still coming around.
It’s kinda sad, really, you know, when you stop and look at it objectively the way this daily writing prompt is forcing me to do. I often think about stopping all together, which given that I post about 6-8 times a day doesn’t quite seem possible. Still, it is like shouting at the void… but maybe deep down I enjoy shouting at the void? I don’t know.
While I was getting my ass kicked via my stomach yesterday I wasn’t thinking about taking pictures at all. Then there was this magic moment. I was in my step son’s room on the day bed we put in there after he took his bed with him to his apartment in Vermont. It was one of only two places where I could lie down and somehow get some relief from the stomach pain. It only worked if I was laying on my side, and it only worked if I was on the couch in the living room or the day bed. Well, the floor in the living room worked for a while too, but I didn’t want to go back there.
Jen was in the living room watching TV and I was in a cycle of sleeping for a half hour or so, then waking up because I was uncomfortable, then rolling over onto my other side, then sleeping for another half hour. I want to say it was sometime after 8:00pm but I am not sure. As I was entering the wake up and roll over stage it occurred to me that my photo a day challenge was in jeopardy. I had my phone with me but I didn’t have the energy to think of something to snap. That’s when I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Robin Sparkles was in the room with me.
134/365
BAM! The Photo a Day Challenge survived! Then this afternoon I chased it with this one, again with thanks to Miss Robin Sparkles.
135/365
And the Photo a Day Challenge survives through another day. Maybe tomorrow I will come up with a different subject. Like, the other cat. Get ready, Lily Pad!
My wife and I just used our under-the-weather-stay-at-home weekend to finally watch The Barbie Movie.
I did not need a movie to tell me that women are treated poorly in our society. I’m married to a woman who works in tech. I see evidence of the double standards every day. It’s disgusting.
To my wife and my step daughter I say that I am sorry the world we’ve given you doesn’t value you enough.
And if you’re one of those incel motherfuckers who thinks that the movie was an attack on you and America and whatever, you are the problem with our society, not the other way around. To you, incel motherfuckers, I say: Fuck you, slime.
My movie review? Great movie. Great fucking movie. If you haven’t seen it yet, get on with it. See it.
Today’s haiku is brought to you by both my wife and me feeling sick yesterday and how it’s affecting us today.
We both feel better, But neither of us feels good. Canceled our weekend
Yeah, we both feel better but neither of us feels particularly good. We’re getting there, but we canceled all of our weekend plans. We were supposed to meet with Harry for lunch today, but he’s a little under the weather too. We’re just missing out on everything. I suppose it’s worth it as long as we continue to improve. Hopefully we’ll be back to 100% by Monday.
There have been so very many road trips. Road trips to New York, NY, Washington DC, the mountains in NH, various Canadian destinations, Vermont, western Massachusetts, One crazy drive home from Indiana, and multiple epic drives to Florida and back.
So many road trips, but unlike most of these “pick one” sort of prompts, I am actually going to only pick one to focus on. It was fourth of July weekend in 2008 and Jen and I had tickets to see Rush in Saratoga Springs, NY. A road trip was required. It was our first venture into Vermont together as well as our first visit to upstate New York. We made a bunch of noteworthy stops including one extra special landmark on the way.
First was Quechee Gorge which is on Route 4 in Vermont, not far from the New Hampshire state line. The view was fantastic and we’ve been back a few times just to check in and make sure the sites are still glorious. They are.
Just a ways down route 4 you come to the second notable landmark. This one is super important. Woodstock, VT. We were so taken with this little town that we agreed we would move there when we retired (we probably won’t, but I’m still game if Jen is), and it ended up being the first stop on our honeymoon. We spent our wedding night in a bed in breakfast in town and it was everything we hoped it would be. I absolutely love this town, and every time we drive up to see the kids I want to stop and visit even if we just drive through. I love Woodstock, VT.
One other important spot from this drive was in New York. It’s a place we talked about revisiting at the time but still haven’t managed to return to yet. Lake George. We had one spot overlooking the lake that was just spectacular and put it on our vacation to-do list. Maybe this summer? What do you think, Jen?
Eventually we made it to Lake Champlain which, while maybe not as scenic as Lake George, offered us one touristy spot that we’ve actually gone back to at least once. Fort Ticonderoga. The fort played a role in both the French and Indian War (1754-1763) and the American Revolution (1775-1783). The fort is a great place to visit (including the public gardens attached to it) and the views are pretty amazing. I am willing to stop there any time we’re in the neighborhood.
The final noteworthy landmark on this road trip, apart from the simple fact that road tripping through rural Vermont is just freakin’ gorgeous, was taking a ferry across Lake Champlain. We’ve done this for fun a couple of times since. It sounds silly, but I’ll do it every time we’re nearby.
Finally, there was that Rush concert I mentioned. It was on the second leg of the Snakes and Arrows tour and it was an amazing show. We sat in the back of the balcony (it was either the back row or the second to last row… I think it was second to last) and it didn’t matter that we were nine miles away from the stage. It was perfect.
Look at those crazy kids.
And there you have it, kids. Highlights from one particular road trip. I could have focused on a dozen others as we tend to road trip a lot. This one was special though as it was the inspiration for our wedding night location and I will always love it for that reason.
I had every intention of answering Friday’s writing prompt question on Friday, but I woke up sick and my whole day went down the toilet (literally and figuratively) and I never got around to it. That means that you get Friday and Saturday’s writing prompts on Saturday. I can see how amazed you are.
I will keep this one short and painful and hyper focused on the goings on in my stomach yesterday. The answer to the question at it’s basic level was I couldn’t eat a snack if I tried.
I woke up a little late and my stomach was a little sore. As I started to go about my morning routine that soreness became major pain. I tried to have some water, as I always do at the start of my morning, and had to stop after a small amount. I got my first round of vitamins in at least. I was curious if the pain was due to hunger, which sometimes happens, even though I knew it wasn’t. I tried to eat a protein bar but had to stop after a few bites.
That was it. I had another little bit of water later in the day but that went badly too. All in all I finished the day with about eight ounces of water (the goal is 64) and maybe five grams of protein (the goal is 80). I couldn’t have had any more if I tried. The very thought of food made me feel nauseous.
So the literal answer to the question of what snack I could have eaten at any given moment yesterday was none. Today might be a different answer, but I am going to take it as easy as I can. I probably will stick to protein bars until dinner just to make certain that everything is okay now.
I’m sure I will let you all know how it goes as the day rolls on. stay tuned?
Inside the Red Head's Head 