Shipwrecked & Comatose

"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley." - Robert Burns The above quote is one I have returned to often in the past four years. I am an obsessive planner, and I often have to remind myself not to count on the world aligning with my latest schemes. (Which I suppose brings me to another similar quote by John Lennon. " Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans ." My last post was a long rambling beast about how I was going to deal with the situation of having nothing new to do in 2024. It was such a beast I can't imagine anyone read it to the end (although as of writing this post, it has 34 views).  The TL:DR of the post was I had nothing exceptional to look forward to. Life was a big blank slate. I had no plan. I was going to have to learn to embrace uncertainty and take life as it comes. My path was to simply live one day at a time and take the best possible care of myself. I would be mindful, be healthy, exercise and

  Whenever I see men who are "sneakerheads", who own multiple pairs of pricey sneakers, I want to scream to the world that men no longer have the right to say women are the ones who are overly obsessed with shoes. ### Why do pen manufacturers continue to put those shirt clips on their pens? I even have them on my styli. What's the point? Everyone always fiddles with them and breaks them off. How many people still put pens in their shirt pockets? Let's retire the clip and find something else to fidget with. ### KEVIN: It's kind of early for chocolates RACHEL: What a strange thing to say - as if chocolate has a timeline ### Kevin is the most saintly husband to ever walk the earth. Why? Because for the first two or three weeks after my fall, I was almost completely unable to move my right arm. That meant he had to help me get undressed every night. It's not nice to make a guy always take his wife's clothes off and have it not end in the way such an action is

It's my least favorite season now. We are in the midst of the coldest and darkest days. It's easy for me to fall into a pessimistic state of mind.  My consolation is that winter is temporary. One reason I don't pack up and move to a warmer climate is because I take some enjoyment from watching the seasons change.  On one of my favorite opinion sites, OnlySky, Writer Adam Lee said it best. He calls this The Clearing Season . The world isn't dead. It's only sleeping. The sun is already on the ascent and making the effort to shine a bit more each day. The bare trees will be green again one day.  Maybe this is the time for me sit quietly and wait for my turn to bloom this year.  I say this because I want to talk about my New Year's Resolution today, which isn't a resolution at all (I ditched that word years ago ).  Resolve is a tricky emotion, which is why in this blog I often write about goals or plans at the beginning of the year rather than resolutions. You m

Why have cinnamon graham crackers become so hard to find?  ### Most of our fingers have alternate names. The first finger is the index or pointer finger. The fourth finger is the ring finger. The fifth finger is the pinky. But the middle finger is never anything but the middle finger. Why is that? Why doesn’t it have another name? Maybe I should give it one. The curse finger? ### I noticed today when my phone decides to show me a bunch of memory photos, no matter what the theme is, there are always more photos of food and drinks than anything else. I will leave that here. ### First the Ozempic commercial put Magic permanently into my head. Now Chevy trucks are infecting me with a Come and Get Your Love earworm. Well, David Paton seems to be enjoying the revival of his career. Let’s hope it does the same for Redbone. ### I wonder if George Glass was from Canada ### Further signs that I'm way too easily amused: It's so cool when I'm walking outside on a windy day wearing hoo

Perfume is one of those cosmetics that I love in theory, but hate in practice. I like the idea of having a "signature" scent or two, but finding the right one is a struggle. I feel like I spent the last decade trying to find a scent that smells good out of the bottle, still smells good on my skin an hour later, and is still perceptible by the middle of the day. It never used to be this hard. When I was in high school I remember there were few perfumes I couldn't wear. I had a hard time picking a favorite. This was the 80s when perfumes were bold and aggressive. Popular ones were easily recognizable. I remember Giorgio (that one stank), Obsession, and Poison (a divisive scent that I liked, but it gave me a headache when I wore it daily). I had a full wardrobe of fragrances in those days. I rarely bought perfume for myself. Many of my perfumes were ones people gifted my mother. She was much pickier about her scents than I was, so I ended up with her rejects. I received a fe

If you read this blog regularly, you know Kevin and I have a tradition for New Year's Eve. During the course of the year we write down happy moments and occasions on scraps of paper and put them in a box. On New Year's Eve we open the box and look back on the best of the year behind us.  Sometimes the unhappy moments of a year can cast a shadow over one's memories. The box is a reminder there are always plenty of good times and encourages us to find joy in small things. So what was in this year's box? January 13th (Friday the 13th!) - We saw Leopoldstadt January 17th - We were invited on a cruise to Iceland February 2nd - Kevin gets a new camera February 7th - Kevin gets a new car February 17th - We saw Kimberly Akimbo March 31st-April 2nd - Rachel performed in Picnic (my last play?) April 10th - Saw Immersive Monet with Mom (after a few tries to take her) April 28th-30th - Kevin performs in Lost in Yonkers May 28th - Mom's birthday pasta dinner at our place.