• Mid-morning man

    I’ve probably written this post before, but I don’t care. My editor is on vacation this week, so this one’s going straight out – repost, new ground, correct spelling, good English, or not.

    The spell checker on my phone… is unreliable. I was going to use another word, one of a few colorful choices rhyming with duck, but I’m feeling polite.

    I pride myself on self-awareness. I like to think it’s one of my strengths – the silver lining to low self-esteem. The monitor runs pretty close to 24/7, so I’m usually right on top of things. Whether I cope well is another matter, but I figure I’ve got half the battle licked.

    Some people say they’re morning people. Others say they’re night folks. I think it’s one thing to be a night person but a little creepy to admit it. Maybe it’s the books I’ve been reading. Well, I’m here to tell you I’m neither. I’m more of a 9 to 11a.m. kind of guy.

    What does any of this have to do with today, my status, or the relative humidity in Skokie? Not much really. I just felt like sharing a random quirk, wondering if I’m as strange as I think. No, I’m beyond wondering. I’m embracing the strange today. Sorry Cheryl. At least I warned you.

    I wonder if I’d find a correlation if I plotted the caffeine levels in my bloodstream during the day. I wonder if I’d find proof of a coffee fulfilling prophecy. Maybe I need to drink bigger. Maybe a thermos just isn’t hacking it.

    Carafe? Jug? Barrel?

    “John’s Jiggy Java has a wonderful, balanced flavor, with a smooth finish, and a hint of oak that you won’t find anywhere else.“

  • A tale as old as fire

    We’ve been bad lately. Few of our meals have been home cooked the last few weeks. It begs the question: has my mood driven our dinner selection, was it the other way around, or were we involved in a tragic dinner-depression feedback loop?

    Begging or not, that’s not really why I’m writing. I’m writing because we didn’t have salsa.

    “Holy hot sauce Batman!”

    The thing is, I was ready to bust out of my funk. I was ready to go toe to toe with the blue mood. I was going to make us some dinner, everyone was going to sit down around our new/old table, and they were going to love it – and me.

    I oiled up my pan, got ready to chop an onion, and let my mouth water at the thought of the southwestern dish I was ready to whip up.

    No salsa.

    It’s the story of my life.

  • Thirty!

    My immediate family is small, so I try not to let events go unnoticed. One almost slipped past my radar though. Fifteen days ago I got my customary alert on my phone. A birthday was imminent. That birthday is today. What I didn’t realize is it’s a milestone. My cousin is now a full-fledged, card carrying member of adulthood. It’s not a particularly exclusive organization, if you could even call it that. He’s part of that lose web of folks eking out a living, entitled by experience to start thinking of themselves as “old.”

    My one and only cousin (going by the strictest definition) turns thirty today.

    Happy birthday, my good (old) man!