DRIVING IN THE DARK

Negative:  It's raining.

I hate driving in the dark in the rain in the winter. 

The lines in the street are all dirty from sand and salt that's put down when it snows.  It's impossible to make out the lanes and the curbs when the streets are wet in the winter.  I could be driving off into oblivion and wouldn't know it until I hit a tree or a house or an overpass.  The rain makes it impossible to shut off the defroster, which just blows into my face as it curls off the windshield back at me while I drive. 

When I approach an intersection, I have to put my window down to see who's coming from the other direction.  When I put down my window, rain pours into the car.  When rain pours into the car, I get soggy and aggravated.  When I get soggy and aggravated, it becomes hard to stay focused on driving.  I have to stay focused on driving because the streets are wet and they're dirty from the sand and salt, so it's impossible to make out the lanes and the curbs.

Driving in the dark in the rain in the winter sucks.

Positive:  It's not snowing.

WISH LIST

More snow due today. I don't mind too much.   

What I'd like more is:

Warm sand between my toes

A cold margarita in my hand

Cabana boys on the horizon

Calm ocean swells

A pleasant sea breeze

Sunrises that stun the senses

Sunsets that heal the soul

A grass skirt

A coconut bra

That's my summer Wish List … a little early.

Come on, Spring!

AROUND THE GLOBE

So the Boston Globe is for sale.  Again.

Look, I'll tell you what's wrong with the newspaper business. 

The first thing that's wrong is they're hiring kiddos who don't know grammar.  Between  semi-literate reporters and equally grammatically inept copy editors, it's a wonder news people can throw a sentence together without futzing it up, which appears to be rarely.

The second thing that's wrong with the industry is that it raised prices too high.  Newspapers were overpriced at 50 cents just a few short years ago.  Now that they're somewhere in the vicinity of $2+ per paltry paper, they've priced themselves out of the daily market.  If they're hemorrhaging money, raising prices on the consumers who keep them in business is suicide, slow and sure-fired suicide.

Another thing wrong with the newspaper business is that people don't read their news from paper sources anymore.  They read it online or on their phones.  Why buy the paper cow if you get the endless ink for free?  Those (hint hint - Boston Globe) who even so much as belched that they were going to charge for access to their websites, shot themselves in your proverbial feet.  Ouch, and duh, all at the same time there, kiddos.

But the thing that really sunk the Boston Globe is its smugness.  The Globe is a puke bucket for the liberal media.  Now don't go judging me.  I'm not fan of the conservative opposition, the Boston Herald, either, but there's a huge difference between these rival papers that goes beyond political bents. 

You see, the Herald is a paper that reports the news, caters to blue collar workers, and leans to the right.  The Globe is a propaganda mouthpiece for the political elite who masquerade as working class (Kennedys and Kerrys and Warrens and Moores), bleeds socialism, and sometimes throws a news piece in between its op-ed leftist chanting.  I dislike both newspapers, but I dislike the Globe a lot more these days.  Reading the Herald is like reading a research paper on Reaganomics; reading the Globe is like reading a translation of Mein Kampf. 

A local auto dealer is trying to buy the Globe.  While he's a fun-loving dude on TV in his ads, he owns a llama farm on Martha's Vineyard and sips Asti with the nouveau riche.  There's no doubt his intentions are more to keep the propaganda presses running than to actually report serious news.  I mean, without the Globe's stellar reporting, we'd never know that Elizabeth Warren speaks eighty tongues of Cherokee, that the Massachusetts Welfare system has zero cheats, or that John Kerry is secretly a woman in disguise.  (I believe they also reported about space aliens living in Western Massachusetts, and that Elvis had been spotted stuck to the seat of a marble-sculpted port-a-potty in Louisburg Square.)

So, the Boston Globe is up on the chopping block yet again.  This time may it rest in piece, once and for all.

MONDAY, MONDAY

Monday, Monday.  You suck.

Well, it's back to the grind today.  I got nothing done on break.  Well, not entirely true; I got tons of stuff done but nothing I really truly had to get done.  My to-do list is as bad as it was a week ago.

It doesn't help that I had a days-long migraine leading into break.  It doesn't help that I broke a tooth and fender-bender-ed my car slightly over break.  It isn't important that I accomplished piles of things I didn't expect to and mismanaged my time for important things like taxes and FAFSA and my nephew's upcoming birthday.

I need a vacation planner.

No, not the kind who helps you decide where to go and what activities to do while you're there.  I need someone who can help me budget my time to actually get stuff finished.  My life is full of semi-finished things:  books half-written, clothes half-sewn, junk half-put-away, hand-made blankets started so long ago that my kids are too big now and I've forgotten how to crochet. 

I didn't finish getting the school photos together into a montage.  I didn't get to see my son's puppy.  I didn't file my taxes.  I failed to clean out the basement.   I didn't correct a single paper.  I didn't go to the gym.

I need a do-over break, but I'll have to wait until April.  Maybe if I start now and work every single night, I can accomplish the stuff on my list so April break will be for relaxing.  Wait, let me pick myself up off the floor because I laughed so hard I just feel off the computer chair.

Monday, Monday.  Back again.  Here so soon.  I've got to tell you, Monday, I didn't miss you one bit.  I'm betting the feeling was mutual.

PANTING FOR CLOTHES

For some strange, inexplicable reason, I decide to sort out my pants collection.  Okay, it's not such a strange reason.  Every morning when I get dressed for work, I realize I can't fit into anything.  Here's the troubling part -- I haven't gained a pound.  I have weighed exactly the same for a few years now, but all of a sudden, my clothes don't fit.  I blame gravity.  My friend blames cheap Chinese fabric that shrinks every time it is washed.  (I think she's on to something.) 

I start sorting into piles.  The first pile is the stuff that still fits.  I am surprised to find not one but two pairs of jeans I didn't know still fit me.  It's like Christmas morning -- Yippeee!!! Butt not so big!  Woohooo!

The second pile is stuff that I swear has shrunk because these pants fit fine in the fall -- when I weighed and looked exactly the same.  Maybe with the loss of a pound or two or five, I can fit back into this stuff again.  I just cannot wash these pants ever again.  Never.

The third pile is for the stuff that fit last year, but for some reason doesn't fit this year.  Some of these pants are the exact same sizes and styles of pants that still do fit and are in pile number one.  Go figure.  I am more convinced than ever that my friend is correct; it is the fabric not my body that is defective.  This pile would require a five to ten pound weight loss, and I am just crazy enough to hold on to this stuff (in the back of a small closet, hidden away and out of sight), in case I get sick and drop body mass.  This is not such a far-fetched idea with my penchant for pneumonia, though it rarely sneaks up on me anymore.  I'm learning to outsmart it before I get to the rapid weight loss stage.  But, just in case, I have pants.

Pile number four is actually a trash bag.  This is my WTFDTSEFOMBA pile:  When The Fuck Did This Shit Ever Fit Over My Bulbous Ass.  I call it my WTF Ditsefomba pile.  The WTF Ditsefomba pile will go directly out the door.  I don't ever want to see it again.  I was never this size, at least not since I was thirteen, and I have no idea how those clothes ever made it through any kind of wearable cycles.  The WTF Ditsefomba pile is the one that proves, beyond any shadow of any doubt that cheap fabric is to blame for the demise of Western Civilization as we know it. 

I did go shopping on Friday.  I tried on eight pairs of pants and came home with two pairs.  I will also tell you that the pants are different sizes.  That's right, you bastard manufacturers, try and figure out ONE size system that will actually be universal, could you?  And I will also admit that I hate to buy women's jeans because they're all made to look like we live in Mexico.  Everything has jagged stitching and giant rhinestones attached to the too-small back pockets.  Look, if I want to attract more attention to my booty, I'll wear a neon light between my ass cheeks.

I'm starting to think it's time to take up sewing again.  At least the patterns run true to the charts (though the actual sizes make my eyes bulge), and the fabric can be pre-shrunk in the washing machine.  Either way, I have at least four pairs of pants in my work clothing rotation now.  At least until I do the laundry again.  Once that fabric shrinks up, all bets are off, and the new stuff become WTF Ditsefomba.  You and my scale are my witnesses.  I'm counting on you.

MARGARITA TIME

This poem was written Friday,

The day before this post.

I'm finishing the school break

And it sucked quite more than most.

My life was kicked around some,

My psyche took abuse,

The only damn thing missing was

A bad Carnival cruise.

I broke a piece of tooth off

And scraped paint off my car

And suffered massive pain inside

My jaw where the nerves are.

I broke a piece of pottery

(A memory of my past).

It was so effing cold outside -

A week of Arctic blast.

I spent part of my Friday

In the early afternoon

Dealing with a relative

Who is a loony tune.

I started drinking early

And I kept on drinking late:

Keep that blender going, kids,

No need to hesitate!

But here's the best about it

That I can clearly say --

February 22

Is National Margarita Day,

OLE!

BANNER DAY

I've had a rough couple of days. 

It starts Wednesday morning when I accidentally knock a piece of handmade pottery from a shelf and it smashes into pieces.  This isn't just any pottery; this is the pottery mug in which my drink was served on the last night of the Plymouth State University Medieval and Renaissance Forum where as visiting undergraduate (from another college) I presented a paper at their graduate conference.  That mug has been with me for sixteen years.  Gone.  Killed by my own hand.

Then, I break a tooth.  After going for a coincidentally pre-scheduled panoramic jaw x-ray (and lamenting my timely broken tooth), the oral surgeon finds suspect shadows on the film and performs an emergency examination of my jaw and mouth to see if I have masses growing under my palate.  He hands me the second copy of the x-rays and insists I come back in six months for a follow-up picture.

I drive from there to my grad class in Salem, where the computers won't cooperate, and I am forced to handwrite for an hour while everyone else types merrily away on their own laptops.  I have to conference with the professor afterward and decide that narrowing down a topic for a research paper really is a pain in the ass, and why am I writing a research paper, anyway, when this is supposed to be a composition writing seminar? 

To cap off an otherwise perfect night, as I am pulling out of the parking area at school, I edge out into the street past the obstructed view of SUV's parked neck and neck with the narrow exit to the main road.  I end up swiping a Chevy Malibu.  No damage except her car now wears the paint of my car, and I have her tire tracks all over the front near my driver's side headlight.  But still, we must have campus security take our statements, exchange info, and stand in the sub-zero wind chills for twenty minutes.  Once home I spend another forty minutes uploading accident photos and my statement to my insurance guy because I know I won't be home in the morning -- The car has an oil change scheduled at 9:00 a.m.

Pissah.  A banner day.

Thursday is better, but not by much.  Thursday is a manic-depressive day.  I get the oil changed and tires rotated on the car - YAY.  It won't pass inspection without $350 worth of work - BOO.  They can do the work right then and there - YAY.  I don't have my credit card with me, only my check book - BOO.  They let me drive the car home and call in my credit card number - YAY. 

There is a message on my home answering machine from the owner of the car with whom I had the extremely slow-motion fender-bender - BOO.  No insurance claim will be filed - YAY.  My car's paint is simply wiping off of her car - YAY.  My car is missing a 4"x6" chunk of paint in the front - BOO.  Nobody's car even sustained a single dent - YAY.  No surcharge - YAY.

I arrive at the dentist.  He actually saves and fixes the broken tooth - YAY.  He finds a small cavity in the tooth next to it - BOO.  He gives me lots of novacaine - YAY.  The drill sprays freezing cold water into my upper teeth, sending my body hurtling to the ceiling from the shock - BOO.  The dentist finishes in no time and my teeth look better than before - YAY.  I tell the dentist about the shadows the oral surgeon spotted on my film - BOO.  Dentist compares it to an x-ray from 2004 and shows me that the shadows do not seem to have changed and explains it could even be the way I was holding my head during the pano - YAY.  I discover that I cannot speak correctly - BOO.  I forget I got dropped off at the dentist and have to walk home in the icy wind - BOO.  Hours later my lower right jaw bone feels extremely painful from the novacaine injection - BOO.  I notice what appears to be residual nerve damage as my mouth will not function correctly, even though I clearly have full sensation back - BOO.

I go to visit a friend - YAY.  She needs a witness for some paperwork - YAY.  It means we have to wait for her soon-to-be ex to come by and sign, too - BOO.  I serve as witness for them both so they can send the needed paperwork to their son for a college experience abroad - YAY. 

My friend and I celebrate by going to get frozen yogurt - YAY.  My mouth still is not cooperating, and I feel as if I am making a huge mess of myself - BOO.  My yogurt order comes to $6.66, meaning my yogurt embodies the Sign of Satan.  If only the place hadn't been out of jimmies.  If only I'd put a strawberry on top.  What do I do, what do I do? 

What I do is take a deep breath.  After all that has happened in the last thirty hours, it seems perfectly fitting that it all be topped off with 666.  After all, I've faced destruction, disorder, disaster, discord, and disjointment.  What's adding a little Devil mojo going to do?  Scare me?  Ha, I doubt it at this point.  I've been roughed up enough in the last day.  Maybe I'll just take a nap, but, with my luck, a leg will snap off the couch.  Oh well.  No sense in stopping now - I'm on a roll.

EN POINTE

School break: Not a vacation.

Contrary to popular belief, teachers do not have school vacation.  Vacation carries with it the understanding that one is paid.  I am not paid for the days I am not teaching.  That includes snow days, holidays, and the weeks' long summer siesta.  I am only paid for the days I am actually in the classroom.  Snow days are made up at the end, taking days away from summer that are already owed to me.

I get paid for sick days, that's true, and I am allowed three personal days.  I cannot remember the last time I took all my personal days, and the last time I took extended sick time was when I had to have surgery to have my foot rebuilt.  I would've been back to work after a couple of weeks, except that the huge fiberglass cast on my right foot prevented me from driving, and there was no one else to get me there.  Though the surgery was necessary, I scheduled it during breaks so that 25% of my time would be unpaid time.  Honestly.  The surgery was first thing in the morning the day after Christmas.  I've worked through pneumonia (except the couple of days when I could not move or had a fever so high that I was a human furnace), heel spurs, migraines, peri-menopause (you women know what I'm talking about - try that without access to a bathroom except once every hour), and bursitis in my hip.

Why am I telling you all this?  It's not to make me look like a martyr.  It's to give you some sound footing for what I am about to tell you, and that is:  Monday morning is going to kick my ass.

I hate school breaks because I get into the habit of staying up very late and getting a full seven to eight hours of sleep, a luxury I never afford myself on school days.  When school is in session, I sleep anywhere from four to six hours a night, throwing in an occasional seven hour sleep-through so I don't keel over at my desk in front of the students.  I spend most of the days en pointe, constantly performing, attuned to the classroom, often shifting gears faster than Michael Schumacher (he's retired, but still).  At the end of the school day, I'm beat.  By Friday evenings, I'm comatose.

Having school break is like having an entire week of Saturdays.  Nobody likes going directly from Saturday to Monday.  Nobody.  But that's what's going to happen to me come Sunday night.  I am already anticipating it; I'm already dreading it.

I set my alarm clock for 5:05.  I do this for two reasons.  The first reason is so I can watch the news for about twenty minutes before I truly have to get my butt into gear.  I immediately make the bed so I'm not tempted to stay there, then I slog down the stairs and pretend the world is a wonderful place to be in the cold, in the dark, on a weekday. 

The second reason I set my alarm at 5:05 is so that the alarm clock talks to me.  Okay, it talks to me anyway because the radio is my alarm.  I'm not one to set a buzzer so that I have heart failure every morning.  I set the clock for 5:05 so the first thing I see when I wake up is SOS.  That's right.  SOS.  Help.  Help me.  Oh dear lord, it's time to get up for work.  SOS.  And it makes me laugh because it is ironically funny.  (I believe I have mentioned this SOS penchant of mine before.  See, even my blog screams SOS.)

Since I have to get up anyway, I might as well have a sense of humor about it.  It's especially funny after a long, unpaid break, a break in which I only get half of my to-do list done.  A break in which college lacrosse unexpectedly starts early.  A break in which we have wind chills to cut through bone and home.  A break in which I spontaneously join a friend for lunch.  A break in which a cousin I never knew I had sets me into a family-tree journey of discovery that I find addictively fascinating.  A break that starts and ends with snow storms.

A break that certainly isn't a vacation and is completely devoid of routine.

Monday morning 5:05 cannot come soon enough.  Bring on the routine; bring on the paycheck; kick my ass back into gear.  I'll be ready … in about four more days.

GETTING GASLIGHTED AT THE GAS PUMP

Goddamn politicians.

While I am at the gas pump today, while the nozzle is inside my car, the computer automatically changes the gas prices.  Now, if the prices fell, I would be jumping up and down.  As it turns out, I am jumping up and down because the price is climbing as gas is emptying into my car. 

"I'm sorry," the attendant says, "but I have no control over what the computer does."

I search around in vain for Gas Station Guy, my go-to guy, but he is nowhere to be seen.  Attendant Guy has in his hands the gadget that changes the gas prices.  He is watching it, wide-eyed, and backs away from me as I rage.  I mean, when I pulled into the station, shut my car off, and started getting gas, the price was $3.51 per gallon, which is highway robbery as it is.  

"It's not fair," I whine.  "You haven't even raised the price on the sign yet."

I feel sorry for the guy, I really do.  I am reasonably sure this poor man is the owner of the station, and I know the higher the prices go, the less business he will have.  People will fill up at convenience stores, lesser chains, and other places just to save a few pennies.

 

But, for god's sake, could he please wait until I'm done gassing up before he hits me for the higher price.  I understand it's not really his fault, not directly, anyway.  It's Obama's fault.  It has to be.  If everything was Bush's fault when he was president, and everything was Clinton's fault when he was president, and all the world was in danger when Jefferson took office centuries ago, then certainly there is no one to blame except the elite minion with the large ears who hasn't bought his own gas since the prices were under $2 a gallon.  

Attendant Guy seems to be filling the car as fast as he can, and he hands me the receipt.  "I did what I could for you," he assures me, "I'm sorry.  I'm really, really sorry."

No, I'm the one who's sorry.  I'm sorry the out-of-touch politicians are ruining this country.  I'm sorry that computers automatically raise gas prices simply to screw us while we are filling our tanks.  I'm sorry I voted in the last election because all the parties seemed to have disenfranchised the Common Citizen.  And I'm damn sorry I didn't buy gas yesterday when I had the chance.

It's not fair.  Goddamned politicians.

LIVING WITH GHOSTS

I'm spending the evening with ghosts.

In this neighborhood, that usually means ghosts that belong to other families.  I live directly behind one cemetery, next to another cemetery, and in one of the most active haunting sites in town.  The last house I lived in (two houses away) had several strange things happen, including televisions that turned on by themselves and the disappearance of random silverware.  The silverware snitching seemed to be a neighborhood thing, as several of us lost serving pieces for no reason.  One minute the stuff would be in the drying bin, and then we'd never see it again.

I overlook the driveway of the most haunted house on our little patch of old farmland.  I believe it is also the oldest of the old houses here on the block.  People don't stay there very long, and it goes up for rent about every three months.  One of my kids came home from a sleepover around 3 a.m. (the Witching Hour, in some circles) because she was uncomfortably unnerved being there in the dark, and a state police officer told me that one night he saw a woman in a long dress walk across the street and disappear right into the side of the house where no door existed.

These are not those ghosts.  These ghosts belong to my family.

 

A cousin I never knew existed contacted my brother recently.  It seems this cousin has been on a genealogical search and discovered our family through his grandparents.  Our grandmothers were half-sisters.  I didn't even know my grandmother had a half sister, but, then again, my family had a bad habit of getting pissed off at each other and cutting ties, never speaking to or of the others for all eternity.  You'd think we were Italian.  Or Irish.  Well, yes to the Irish, but mostly English and Scottish and Welsh, at least on that side.

This cousin hoped to find a bit of information, possibly a picture or two, from the old days when the family lived in Vermont.  Might we have any such information, he was curious to know.

Oh, you poor, unsuspecting, about-to-be-broadsided, nice gentleman.

I am a bit of a hoarder, and in my capacity as family hoarder, I have somehow managed to obtain 99.9% of the family photo albums from the past several generations.  Unfortunately, no one saw fit to actually write names on most of the stuff, especially the much older, pre-1900 stuff, so much of it involves speculation.  Quite frankly, there could be pictures of anyone's family in my house.  But the truth is, I have three large boxes full of photos and documents.  I also have the index cards of genealogical research that my grandmother did by hand, painstakingly taking her family tree back to the Salem witch trials and beyond, and taking her husband's family tree back to the court of Queen Elizabeth I.  (Just think, my relative may have been the real brains behind Shakespeare.  The irony is not lost on me, thou gnarly-fingered airy-worm.)

To be quite honest, as I sometimes am, I am thrilled by all of this.  I have finally found a reason to delve into the mountain of photos and documents.  I now know that the few marked pictures I assumed were family friends are actually relatives.  The stuff another distant cousin sent to me years ago is starting to make sense.  I wondered at the time why on earth my West Virginian cousin would send everything to me when he had kids of his own who could take the stuff.  Obviously, they were as confused as I.  Keep century-old pictures of people we don't know?  Why?

Why, indeed.  I know now why I am Keeper of the Family Crap.  I know now why I have carted these boxes from move to move to move.  I may even suspect why the local ghosts are leaving me the alone:  I have a battalion of my own spectres living right here in the house with me.  I am spiritually connected, so to speak.

I start scanning pictures to send.  The first picture I send my new-found cousin is of someone with his same last name.  Are they related?  Turns out it is his deceased brother.  Well, I'm off to a perfect start, I suppose.  However, I do believe he has hit the Motherlode by contacting us.  I have the pictures, I have a scanner, and I have a little time this week in between everything else I am supposed to be doing.  Maybe this was meant to be.  Maybe this is my relatives' way of making sure I don't waste time cleaning and putting things away where they belong when I could be happily making a mess of my present by cleaning up the past.

I am spending the evening, and probably many hours over the next few months, with my live and dead relatives.  While there is no haunting, it is daunting.  It's also amazing. 

Welcome to the family, Cousin; I, for one, am thrilled.

TO THE ARCTIC ... AND BEYOND

Thank goodness it's a federal holiday.  It snowed here yesterday, and although it wasn't very much snow, the wind blew it all over the place.  There are a few errant drifts as high as two feet immediately surrounded by bare brick walkway.  Any clean-up done Sunday resulted in simultaneous drifting exactly where the shoveling had just been completed.

Because it is a federal holiday, I do not have mail delivery today.  I do not have to get the trash or recycling to the curb by this evening.  I do not have to get up and slog through snow drifts to get to my car because I'm on break this week so public schools are closed.  

In other words, I've no reason to get myself outside to clean up yesterday's windy, snowy mess until it warms up a little bit more around here.

Oh sure, it's supposed to be blustery and chilly today, too.  But I'm thinking perhaps with the gusts from yesterday and last night, all of the excess from roofs has blown down.  I'm hopeful more snow has blown off the two vehicles I need to clear.  And I'm really wishing for sunshine to give me the illusion of warmth while I work.

Spring may officially be six weeks away, but the threat of snowy Nor'easters remains a constant back-thought until the third week of April, at the earliest.  I love New England, and I do love the snow.  Shoveling the same spot twice for a single storm?  Yeah, I don't love that so much. 

Go ahead, winds, give me the best you've got.  But when you see me step outside with shovel in hand, you'd best be getting on back to the Arctic where you belong.  

FEBRUARY HEADACHES

February break.  Phew.  Finally. 

I seriously think schools get February break for two reasons.  One reason is to keep ski resorts and airlines in business.  The other is to clear out some of the germs.

The kids are sick, the teachers are sick, everybody is sick.  I have had a throbbing headache for six days now.  It's a real blow to my ego when people tell me how horrible I look, that my eyes look heavy, and ask such things as, "What is wrong with you?"

I don't know what's wrong with me.  Sinuses.  Menopause.  Old age.  Plague.  Maybe it's from the carbon monoxide I suck in every day, all day long, at work from the massive construction vehicles right outside my classroom.  The workmen are so close that I can open my windows and grab them by the throat if I so choose.  I figure that might startle them and probably get me fired, though.  One of the workers looks just like Santa Claus, and I certainly don't want to get on Jolly Old St. Nick's Shit List, that's for sure.

I have tried a lot of different things for this headache:  ibuprofen, acetaminophen, caffeine, chocolate, and pomegranate margaritas.  I have tried getting extra sleep, drinking more water, and keeping the students a little quieter.  Nothing seems to be working.

The worst thing about these headaches is the vertigo.  I cannot stand too quickly nor turn my head too suddenly.  Wearing my glasses makes me dizzy; not wearing my glasses makes me dizzy.  Being too warm gives me the spins; being too cold gives me the spins.  A couple of times at work I have walked into things (taken a corner too short or simply lost my balance and faltered slightly) because my equilibrium is slightly off.  I am in a constant state of feeling like I just stepped off the Tilt-A-Whirl at an amusement park.

People tell me this is going around.  They also tell me I should be thankful it's not the Noro-virus.  I am hoping I'm immune to that as I've had a couple of strains of it already.  The last bout of the Noro-virus was enough to peel paint off the walls.  It ripped through my house like a tornado, devastating anyone who caught it.  The Noro-virus is the worst smelling flu of all time, and I cannot even imagine being on a cruise ship when this hits, as it has hit several cruise lines in the past few years. 

Anyway, I finally hit the aspirin for my headache.  I figure, "What the hey.  Thins blood, right?  Maybe I need to thin some of the blood vessels that are throbbing in my brain."   This could be the placebo effect, but I am actually feeling now like I just have a regular, old-fashioned, run of the mill headache and that I have not suffered a brain bleed in my frontal lobe.  Thank goodness for good old aspirin!

So many things I want and need to do during my February break.  Now, though, at the top of my list is only one thing:  Get rid of this headache.  When and if that happens, I really will be saying, "Phew.  Finally."

AND SO IT BEGINS

And so it begins. 

Sure it's freezing cold outside.  Of course snow is in the forecast.  Naturally the sports stores are out of foot warmers.  This is par for the course.

The camera memory cards are cleared.  I find the password to the photo site that isn't as user-friendly as my regular photo site but is the one necessary to upload the finished batch of pictures.  I remember to stock up on batteries, packing the ones I bought two weeks ago in anticipation.  Once the season starts, AA batteries are on my weekly shopping list.  It's $5 well spent.

The double-batch of stew is warming.  The crock pot has been dusted and set aside for the trip.  Beach towels will serve as insulators to keep the pre-heated crock pot from melting the floor mats and also to buffer the container from sliding around behind me as I drive.  I cannot worry about the contents possibly spilling, and it must arrive warm so the stew will be properly piping hot two hours after the starting whistle.  There is a method to my madness.

I run through the names of players and parents, ticking off the ones I remember and throwing the rest into a jumbled pile of brain mush.  I have to memorize more than one hundred names every September when the school year starts again.  Recall names of people I only see for a few weeks every sport season?  Faces and personalities and camaraderie -- Yes.  Names -- Not so much. 

I realize I forgot to buy beer for the tailgate.  It's okay; it'll probably be a hot chocolate, coffee, and tea tailgate, anyway.  The last time I tried to bring the beer, I found myself accompanying a player (mine) to the hospital to get stitches and ended up taking the nearly-full cooler with me.  Perhaps it's my bad luck charm, and maybe I'll be better off without it.

It's February.  It's the height of winter here in New England.  Today college lacrosse season starts.  I have my winter gear on, I have my camera loaded and ready to shoot, and I have the stew warming.  I am ready.  I am psyched.

And so it begins.

VALENTINE VENTING

So … I'm blogging with some pals of mine, actually participating in a blog where none of us has been kicked out. 

Wait.  Let me rephrase that. 

We are bloggers (a core group) who collectively have been thrown off of not one but TWO blogs.  That's right -- We as a group have been banned from two blog sites.  Well, first we got banned from one site, a regional news station here in Boston, and then we started a blog site for banned bloggers.  Somehow we blew up that blog, too, so now we're on a blog for banned bloggers who have also been banned from the blog for banned bloggers.

It is the Blog for Banned Bloggers From Banned Blogs.

We are multi-talented.  We are alliterative.  We are alliterally multi-talented.

This is not the first nor even the second blog from which I have been banned.  Not even the third.  Nor the fourth.  Might be the fifth, maybe the sixth or seventh.  I have even been banned from national network television blogs.  HA!  Beat that with a stick until it's dead, why don't ya.

I know, I know.  I should be ashamed of myself.  And I am.  Not. 

Hell, for a few days, I even got banned from my OWN blog.  That's goddamned gifted, if you ask me.  I mean, who the hell complained about the contents of my blog?  Certainly not me, and I'm the only administrator.  Apparently God himself disapproved of what I was posting.  Or maybe it was Bill Gates.  Sometimes they both mistake themselves for each other.

I don't want to bore you with the minutiae of how and why I have been banned (multiple times) from these blogs.  Also, I believe the gag orders are still in place, so it wouldn't be prudent to upset the litigants just yet.  But I can give you a little flavor, a taste, a barbecued tidbit as it were, of why the Sandbox Outcasts are now the Outcast Sandbox Outcasts. 

Take Thursday's conversation, for example.

The topic is, of course, about love since it's Valentine's Day.  It starts out innocently enough.  There are some games to play (holiday word games) along with some spirited posts about the Hallmark holiday.  I, of course, encourage everyone to shake their booty for me, which the gentlemen are happy to do.  And Tin.  She's always up for a good booty shake, even more so if firemen are around.  Valentine's Day is just another lame excuse to shake, shake, shake.

Suddenly, someone on the blog mentions fugitive cop-killer Christopher Dorner.  The conversation quickly turns dark, which, for Valentine's Day really isn't anything unusual.  After all, on February 14, 1400, King Richard II of England died while being held captive in Yorkshire at Pontefract Castle.  Ironically, he starved to death … on Valentine's Day.  No one sent him chocolates, apparently.  Captain James Cook, British explorer, whose sailing master was coincidentally William Bligh (yes, that William Bligh, captain of the mutinous Bounty crew), died on February 14, 1779, at the hands of rebellious native Hawaiians.  Then there's the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre, February 14, 1929, in which seven members and known associates of the Moran gang were mowed down in Chicago by members of rival Al Capone's gang. 

It seems that red is the color of Valentine's Day for a multitude of reasons. 

Back to Dorner.  The blog conversation today turns to an in-depth discussion about the cabin in which cop-killer Dorner allegedly lost his life the day before (February 13).  There is talk of an incendiary device, whether intentional or not, that set the hide-out on fire, trapping the maniac gunman inside.  Charred remains are found, and they are tentatively identified as Dorner. 

When the news hits the wire service, our blog lights up. 

I am catching up on the blog posts after a long day at work.  The posts string together without regard to time lapses, but I am suddenly very aware that there must've been a gap.  There must've been a substantial gap.  One post after an offhand reference to Kentucky Fried Dorner, one of the bloggers posts, "Has anyone been to Burton's Grill?"

Wait a sec.  Fried fugitive to grill food?  This is like transitioning at 100 mph.  This is like zero to whacko in less than a paragraph.  This is why I love this group of Outcast Sandbox Outcasts.

 

Happy belated Valentine's Day to all of my crazy blog friends.  You know who you are; we share a collective brain.  Happy day to my 'BZ reject friends, to my CBS reject friends, to my Jericho reject friends, to my Sandbox reject friends, to those I've offended on the Globe, Herald, Tribune, Keller at Large, and Conversation Nation blogs.  I apologize for partaking in the massacres of those blogs, but it seems to be a standing Valentine's Day tradition.

I'm in good company.

 

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, KIDS

My Top Ten Damn Nasty Freaking Fortune Cookies For Special Brats With Ineffectual Parents

One company discontinued their line of romantic fortune cookies when parents complained that the fortunes were not appropriate for children.  Well, duh; they're fortune cookies, presumably for after dinner, presumably at a nice restaurant, presumably patronized by adults.  (Yeah, yeah, I see the carryover of yesterday's theme.  Relax.) 

So for all of you overly-involved parents out there, here are some fortunes just for your precious little overly-coddled dah-links. 

10.  You're so obnoxious even your grandparents hate you.

9.  Life was good … before YOU were born.

8.  If I had a dog that looked like you, I'd shave its ass and teach it to walk backward.

7.  Your parents send you to summer camp so they don't have to spend time with you.  Even better if it's sleep-away camp.

6.  No, your parents didn't accidentally lose you in the mall.  It was on purpose. 

5.  If the other kids call you fat and ugly, it's because you are.

4.  When your dad says you're a tool, he doesn't mean you're a hammer.

3.  Hey, asswipe:  There is no Santa.

2.  Your helicopter parents just landed.  In flames.

1.  The real reason why your parents demanded the company stop printing romantic fortunes is because your parents don't love you, and no one else will, either. Ever.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.  May all your fortunes come true!