RANDOM QUESTIONS - RANDOM ANSWERS

Random questions from another blog ... with my equally random answers:

1.) If you could truly sell your soul to the devil, what would you sell it for? = HOMEMADE FUDGE

2.) If you were really a robot, would you want to know? = ONLY WHEN MY BATTERIES WEAR OUT

3.) If you were the opposite sex for a month, how would you spend it? = PEEING.  PEEING HERE.  PEEING THERE.  PEEING EVERYWHERE. WHAT A RELIEF NOT HAVING TO SIT DOWN TO PEE.

4.) What historic figure would make the worst ghost to be haunted by? = EDGAR ALLEN POE -- I'D BE SHITTING MY PANTS EVERY NIGHT AT THOSE BEDTIME STORIES.

5.) If you could ask your future self from the year 2050 one question, what would it be? = WHERE DID I PUT MY EXTRA ADULT DIAPERS?

6.) Who would win a fight between MacGyver and Chuck Norris? = SERIOUSLY? I MEAN, SERIOUSLY?!  CHUCK NORRIS WINS. CHUCK NORRIS ALWAYS WINS.

DUTY, HUMANITY, AND A HEALTHY YEAR

New Year's resolutions are inevitable failures.  Therefore, I usually try not to make any.  But after an encounter with cancer in 2016, I'm trying to make some positive changes -- NOT resolutions, just lifestyle alterations when applicable.

One of the things I'm trying to do is eat less processed foods and eat more fresh vegetables and fruits.  In the last few months, Whole Foods and I have forged an excellent working relationship.  I may have taken it too far this week, though.

It starts out innocently enough: Make salad.

Perusing the produce section of the market, I see a package of baby spinach and toss it into my handheld basket.  Lettuce comes next -- a three-pack of small heads of romaine.  Can't forget celery, carrots, cucumber, tomato, yellow pepper.  Oh, yeah, and feta and croutons and walnuts and dressing.  Some blueberries, too, just because.

By the time I check out, the basket is unreasonably heavy, which I suppose is good exercise since I'm walking home with everything I'm buying.

Once home, I realize that I will have to individually pack my lunches for the week because I have way too much food to make and store a giant salad.  I start chopping stuff and dividing it all as I go, carefully readying several lunches, and I'm damn proud of myself as I do this; smug, I might even say.

Until I remember that it's a short week.  Monday is a holiday, and Wednesday is a day out of work for an appointment that cannot be rescheduled.  I make five lunches, but I only need three.

Later in the week, my youngest brings home his own groceries of healthy food (hummus and bananas and whole grain pasta).  Turns out he is making some positive changes, too.  This is fabulous news.  "I have extra salad," I tell him, "and it's all individually portioned out already."

Huzzah!  We may actually eat through the veggies before everything starts wilting and turning brown.  I won't have to give up my Whole Foods obsession just yet.  I mean, I'm not making that a resolution or anything like that.  Hmmmm, maybe I am, just a little bit.  After all, it's for duty and humanity!  (And for a healthy 2017.)

BULLSHIT BARNACLE BUTT

My daughter and I are on an adventure. 

It's an epic adventure, one that involves disposing of several massive pounds of bullshit that probably should've been removed months ago.  It's kind of like my basement -- I get most of the way through it, but that last corner, that last pile of crap that needs to be sorted and put away, just sits there, mocking me.  Every time I turn around, there's that pile still.

That's what today is like -- bullshit stuck to us like a barnacle.  No matter how productive we attempt to be, we have a barnacle full of bullshit attached to our butts.  Barnacle butts.  I have that old (dirty and insulting but funny) song stuck in my head, "Barnacle Bill, the Sailor," and it runs through my brain as we go from one venue to another, one city to another, criss-crossing the Merrimack Valley like basket weavers.  Bullshit barnacle basket weavers.

We look up while in one place (business) ... barnacle.  We go to another place (breakfast) ... barnacle.  We're sipping mimosas (okay, still breakfast) ... barnacle.  I'm starting to contemplate surgical removal of the bullshit barnacle when my daughter mentions one word that will solve all of our problems.

Shoes.

Aha!  No bullshit barnacle dares follow us to DSW.  No one can be agitated nor aggravated when combing the expansive clearance section of DSW, but still, before heading out to DSW, we do a complete walk around her car in the parking lot after leaving breakfast.  We don't expect to find anything, but there seems to be some solace in checking the perimeter to break the bullshit barnacle butt curse. 

It's like when our ancestors danced around the Maypole to ward off evil spirits.  We're just modernizing it for posterity's sake.

In the end, we try on lots of shoes (mostly boots), look at everything, and buy nothing.  It's just so nice to be somewhere without any of the bullshit that has permeated the morning (and many long weeks leading up to this morning) that it's like having a Get Out of Jail Free card.  Instead, though, it's a "Dump massive pounds of bullshit and remove barnacle butt from your life forever" card.  It's so awesome that I don't even need a new pair of shit-kickers anymore.

New shoes or no new shoes, it turns out to be a very productive day.

JUST ONE MORE REASON TO DESPISE SHOPPING

What's worse than going to the store without your shopping list?  Worse than bringing your list but forgetting a pen to cross things off as you go?

Answer:  Bringing your list and bringing a pen that worked perfectly well ten minutes before, but now the damn pen won't work.  I try everything, even using a lasagna noodle box as a writing surface, shaking the pen and forcing it across the paper, doing little more than ripping a giant gash across the list.

(back of my list -- with holes in it)

Oh, sure, I can use the otherwise useless pen to poke holes in my list, quite literally scratching out the list as I go, which is exactly what I do.  This sort of works except for one teeny problem: I brought cash with me, and I need to mind my spending to keep it within the amount in my pocket.

I immediately start looking for the aisle with pens and other stationery items, but this is a tiny grocery store.  Yes, the store has fabric dye and dog bones and wooden spoons, but it doesn't have tape, envelopes, or pens.  I am, to be exact, shit out of luck.

I try mentally keeping track of my total dollar amount, but I'm not a human abacus.  Eventually I start wondering if I'm at $27 or maybe it was $32 or perhaps I'm at $19.  I don't even frigging know at this point.

As suddenly as my pen stopped working fifteen minutes earlier, it magically starts working again somewhere near the baking goods aisle.  I quickly start calculating the items in my cart, but I cannot remember how much items were from five or six aisles over.  Was it $2? $3?  $5?  I cannot recall, so I start randomly assigning prices to things.

When I finally finish shopping, I underestimate my total amount by $17.  I rarely carry plastic anymore after having my debit card hacked, and I have to admit that I'm really liking not leaving a paper trail behind me.  Except, of course, my paper list.  My list that has pen scratches; my list that has numbers all over it; my list that has holes in it from a fickle pen that takes its sweet time to work (and nearly gets itself tossed to oblivion in the middle of the produces section).

Frigging pen.  Just one more reason to despise shopping.

THE LAST FEW GIFTS

In all the hubbub of the holiday season, I realize today while plugging in the tree (yes, it's still up and will remain up until at least the weekend) that I missed opening a couple of student gifts.  I tucked them next to the ottoman and completely forgot about them.

When I open them, I discover Hershey's Hugs -- the white chocolate ones -- which I promptly begin devouring, and some Godiva chocolates, which I do not devour because they're goddamned works of art and should not be molested.

I go back to work Tuesday after a well-deserved and much needed break, over which I did (no surprise here) schoolwork and correcting and planning and grades and copying and emailing coworkers and bosses.  I'm not complaining; I got to do this all from the comfort of my home while sipping mimosas.  But, still, going back to the grind has its positive (scheduled breaks) side and its negative (scheduled breaks) side.

Obviously, a student knows this about me because hidden in the bag with the Godiva chocolates is a small placard that stands by itself so I can put it right out on my desk Tuesday morning.  It's perfect.  The sentiment is exact, and it's going on display first thing.

It's perfect, it's appropriate, and, most of all, it's completely accurate.  Oh, well.  Back to work I go, but it's okay because I truly do hate people in general, and right now I hate mornings, too, so I suppose that must include morning people simply by osmosis.  Goodbye holiday break, hello daily grind. 

Bah.  Humbug!

TAKE A CHILL PILL, 2017

Rush, rush, rush, rush, rush. 

That's all I've been doing for weeks now, maybe even months.  I rush from one meeting to the next, rush to and from work, rush to complete errands, rush to get through the holidays.

Autumn into winter is one incredible mad rush with very little breathing space in between.

My break from school is full of more rushing around -- getting to the holidays, getting through the holidays; getting to the pile of work I bring home because I didn't get to it at school, getting through the pile of work I bring home.

I don't want to do this next year ... this year.  2017 is going to be different. 

My first order of business is to slow down, take care of myself.  I had a rough 2016; I don't want to do that again anytime soon.  I mean, I was up and I was down.  2016 had its moments, but it also had its moments.  The year ended like  some crazy-assed slide into home base, stealing it the whole way, ending with a huge cloud of dust wavering through the air waiting to settle.

So, I'm setting the pace for 2017.  No resolutions; just some simple thoughts on how not to end up slamming a wall face first come December 31st.  I practice my new pace today by taking a walk (it's a beautiful 42 degrees), eating healthy, enjoying a treat or two, chatting with good friends, watching sports on television (and a few other random things), and reading an entire book as I sit by the lit Christmas tree, snuggling under a quilt I made from scraps of fabric that had been sitting around for years (maybe decades). 

Oh, sure, I still have thank-you cards to write out and some chores to do (the cellar is still not finished), but today is all about me, taking time to relax and set the pace for the new year.  Chill, 2017, and we'll both reach December 31st together without the crazy hair and the saggy eyes and the bone-crunching aches.  We may not be getting any younger, but old Father Time doesn't have to know -- it can be our secret. 

HAPPY 2017 AND SABER ON!

Another New Year's, another wine sabering.  Life rocks!

While some of you will be partying with pals or fighting crowds at clubs or in big cities, I will be enjoying a bottle of bubbly that I pick up at a wine tasting.  Not just any wine tasting, though.  This is the tasting where bottles are opened by shearing their frozen necks wide open with a saber.

Not a light saber.  Not a fake saber.  Not a corkscrew that looks like a saber.  An honest to God, for real, totally legit saber.

This year we are using the cheaper alcohol, super-bubbly sparkling wine that packs an incredible pop when the corks fly off.  It's all about the proper freezing of the bottles and finding the nearly-invisible bottle seams.  Then, the proper technique needs to be employed, a one-two-three-BLAM motion that sends both the cork and part of the glass neck flying across the parking lot for every bottle we saber open.

After opening the bottles (I watch and film -- my hand is too small to hold the bottle steadily), participants and spectators are knighted, and we polish off every single opened bubbly so the saberers (is that even a word?) can bring home their trophies.

I invite people to come with me, but they cannot wrap their heads around the experience and beg out.  Wine tasting?  Sabers?  Drinking from bottles with sheared glass openings?  They ask me questions like, "Is your insurance up to date?  Does your policy cover glass shards ripping your insides from throat to intestine?"  I am undaunted.

You are all so wrong and so, so, so very unlucky not to witness what I witness, not to participate, not to be officially knighted by the saber.  (The honorable knighthood is bestowed with last year's long saber, whereas bottles are opened with this year's more efficient shorter, curved saber.)  I briefly feel sorrow for those of you who miss the experience, but then I open the bubbly, start sipping, and I forget all about the plebeians who are out celebrating without having lived through the wine saber festivities.

Be safe out there, people.  If I can drink from sheared bottles and live to tell about it, you can all be responsible and get yourselves and your loved ones home in one piece.  Happy 2017, and saber on.