Category Archives: commentary

Do Something Lame

Posted on July 19, 2014 by mohawkvalleygirl

I shall never forget the sad morning when I thought to myself, “I wish it was Thursday instead of Wednesday.” Then I thought, “You idiot, it’s Tuesday.”

Thousands of Monday through Friday wage slaves are nodding wisely in agreement (hey, I MIGHT have 1,000s of readers. It could happen!). Others are shaking their heads in disparagement. I think the ones that annoy me most are those that smugly chirp, “Do something you love. You’ll never work a day in your life.”

I have to take exception to that. I can’t believe there is any job you love SO much that there is NEVER a day that you wouldn’t rather stay in bed an extra hour, go to the beach, stay home and watch old movies, whatever. Perhaps it is a matter of proportion. These people feel that as long as MOST days they are happy to get out of bed and go to their job, they can gloss over the occasional bout of Don’t Wanna. I can only say, “That’s nice for you; the rest of us work for a living.”

Well, what’s wrong with work anyways? Work is what gets us stuff. What else but work gives one the satisfaction of a job well done? May I point out that many of us spend much money and effort WORKING OUT?

I think it is a matter of definition (and not the definition your muscles get if you work out enough; that’s different). I quote Mark Twain in Tom Sawyer. Work consists of anything a body is obliged to do. Play consists of anything a body wants to do. (OK, I’m paraphrasing. I can’t quote, because I don’t have a copy of Tom Sawyer handy).

He’s got something there. Then again, there is the school of thought that says we always do what we want to do. For example, I don’t want to go to work, but I do want to get paid.

I think both schools of thought have a point, but quite frankly, it is not the way people talk and I for one am not going to begin talking that way at my age. I will continue to WORK on my novel, and insist that I am doing something even though I DON’T WANT TO. So there.

Does anybody remember what I was talking about? I think it was Friday. Today is Lame Post Friday, my favorite day for half-baked philosophy. Getting back to the “never work a day in your life” folks, I argue thusly: That sort of job is not easy to come by. In the meantime, I attempt to get at least some enjoyment out of every day. And I can’t imagine any job where the day before my day off is not a pretty darn good day.

Happy Friday, all.

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Feeling Un-Cool

Posted on July 14, 2014 by mohawkvalleygirl

I’m just going to put it out there now: I intend to run the Boilermaker next year. And right now, I’m going to write a Wrist to Forehead Sunday post about my intentions.

For the uninitiated, the Boilermaker is an annual 15k race in Utica, NY. It’s huge, in any sense of the word, and it’s the most fun you’ll ever have running 15 kilometers. I’ve run it three times. I had been going to run it this year, but I was having trouble getting my training started and I just let myself feel too intimidated at the thought of me and 13,999 other runners.

Yes, they set the cap at 14,000 runners and it filled up in a matter of hours. That’s how cool this race has become. How un-cool do I feel that I wasn’t one of them? Pretty darn un-cool, let me tell you.

I’ve been doing pretty good with my running just recently. At least, it goes pretty well when I run, but I have not been running enough. My main concern this year is to be ready for the Herkimer DARE 5K August 16. I think I’ve got that pretty well in hand, if I keep doing what I’m doing only a little better.

And isn’t that the essence of running, and in fact life in general (watch out, I’m veering into some half-baked philosophy now)? To do a little better.

Hmmmm… suddenly I’m starting to feel a little better. Anyone can improve themselves. I can improve. Now to get my wrist off my forehead and get going.

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Leave Katy Perry Alone!

Posted on July 12, 2014 by mohawkvalleygirl

For today’s Friday Lame Post, I offer some half-baked philosophy about something I saw on Facebook recently. This meme (they’re called “memes,” right?) showed a quote from Katy Perry saying she was reminded about how the angels were helping her. A drawing of a superior-looking woman offered the tart comment that apparently angels were not concerned about starving children in Asia; they had their hands full helping wealthy, pampered celebrities. Oh, these narcissistic entertainers!

At first glance, one is inclined to say, “That’s right! Shame on you, Katy Perry for invoking the angels. YOU don’t need any help!” Then I thought about it and I have to ask, what is she supposed to say? If, for example, she had said, “I’m so talented and awesome, I did all this MYSELF!” no doubt some people would be saying, “Katy Perry, you egotistical slut. Admit you had help!”

Why shouldn’t angels have helped Katy Perry? May I remind you that financial backers of Broadway shows are often called angels. I understand angels come in all shapes and sizes. I really can’t say who any given angel might choose to help.

Let’s get back to the starving children in Asia. Oh, and children in this country with cancer, and homeless pets and people, and all the other truly deserving causes we could name (naming them would take a whole blog post by itself). It would be nice if some angels would help some of those, wouldn’t it?

Waaaaait a minute (in that voice I use when pointing up a plot hole in a cheesy movie)! If angels come in all shapes and sizes, could it be that WE are the angels? I’m betting that any number of my readers already are. We support causes, give to charity, and encourage others to do the same. I daresay most of us don’t do all that we COULD do. For heavens’ sake, I’m a blog-writing factory worker, not Mother Theresa.

Not to be too gooily uplifting, but writing this post has reminded me that sometimes we are the answers to each others prayers. I will continue to look for more ways in which I can help. In the meantime, let’s leave Katy Perry alone.

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What I Can Write Right Now

Posted on July 9, 2014 by mohawkvalleygirl

It is a dreadful thing when one has made up one’s mind to write and the only thing one can find to write about is one’s apparent complete inability to write anything worth reading.

Um, you figured out that “one” is me, right?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, what’s a blogger to do? Today I’m going to do what has worked for me in the past: just write whatever I can write right now and trust that better words will be forthcoming. what I’m really hoping is that they will be forthcoming today, and I can type this into my Drafts section for use one day when I am really desperate (making a Full Disclosure, of course) (um, as it happens, I am using it today. Don’t judge).

Part of my problem is the weather. It is a sticky, icky day, conducive to lounging around near a fan and doing nothing. Of course I am not doing that; I’m at work (writing on a break, as usual). I remind myself that I have written on such days before but the memory does not seem to help.

My novel plods on. OK, it’s a hot mess. I can’t figure out what I want to happen or even how I would like it to end. I am reminded of a poster hanging in a guidance counselor’s office in my junior high school, “If you don’t know where you are going you will probably end up somewhere else.” I thought it a dire warning at the time. Now I think, “If you enjoy the trip, at least that’s something.” But now I’m making global statements and veering into half-baked philosophy. Leave that for Lame Post Friday, Cindy. We were talking about one novel, not Your Life.

I guess I’m not going to solve my novel problem by writing a blog post about now being able to write. Still, it felt pretty good to put some words on paper. One does what one can, after all.

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In Praise of Nothing

Posted on June 30, 2014 by mohawkvalleygirl

Yes, it is another Wrist to Forehead Sunday. I have spent the whole day doing nothing much and now I’m going to write about it.

Some people have to be up and doing every minute. When you waste time, these people argue, you are wasting your life away. Another school of thought says, if you enjoyed yourself, the time was not wasted. I say it wasn’t wasted either way. If it wasn’t fun, maybe you learned something. Or maybe you did something useful you weren’t even aware of. Or perhaps you just recharged your batteries.

My day today was a battery re-charging sort of a day. I lazed around. I read a Georgette Heyer novel. I’m watching Snapped. Most importantly, I hung with my husband and dog. How could I possibly consider the time wasted?

I have the next week off at work. I have big plans: to run, to write, to clean and more. But today I did not do any of it (unless you count this blog post as writing, which I suppose I do). Right now I am having a day where I’m just doing nothing.

And I think that is pretty OK.

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I Could Go for a Bloody Mary

Posted on June 17, 2014 by mohawkvalleygirl

Once again, I spent time before work and on breaks working on what should have been a perfectly acceptable blog post. And it’s just not there yet. Luckily, it is Monday. Having skirted Wrist to Forehead Sunday with another Running Commentary, I feel free to have a Middle-aged Musings Monday.

What I was musing about today veers a little into half-baked philosophy. And into religion, which Mohawk Valley Girl usually stays out of (likewise politics). In fact, I was about to stay out of it today, but I don’t have a whole lot else and, really, one must not shy away from controversy. I’m not sure how controversial I’ll be, half-baked as I usually am. But here goes.

When people think God is punishing them, how do they know? I mean, it seems easy enough: I do something wrong. Something bad happens to me. God must be punishing me (or Karma or the Universe; I’m non-denominational).

Boy, wouldn’t that be nice, if I thought I only did one damn thing wrong!

Anyways, we’re not talking about me. Let’s try an historical example. When Mary Tudor, also known as Bloody Mary, ruled England, a lot of stuff went wrong with the country. She thought for sure God was punishing her for not bringing everybody back into the fold of her religion. So she kept burning those she considered heretics. Bad things continued to happen. She thought she probably had not burned enough people so redoubled her efforts.

Do you suppose it occurred to anybody at the time that perhaps she was being punished FOR burning people and not for NOT burning ENOUGH people? I’m not saying that’s what I think God had in mind (I do NOT pretend to know what God thinks), I’m saying, HOW COULD SHE KNOW?

This whole topic is a lot more complex than I am making it right now. However, this is what I pondered at work today, when I wasn’t working on the blog topic that didn’t work out. And this is what I’ll post. We’ll try for a Mohawk Valley adventure tomorrow.

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I Liked Philo’s Dog

Posted on June 10, 2014 by mohawkvalleygirl

This week I offer Mystery Movie Monday. I would prefer Monster Movie Monday, but I didn’t have a monster movie to hand. Instead, I asked Steven to make a selection from his DVD set of 50 Mystery Classics. He chose The Kennel Murders (1933), a Philo Vance mystery.

Spoiler Alert! I probably won’t give away the solution, because I didn’t properly understand it, but I will certainly give away some major plot points.

I was a little concerned to see the word “kennel” in the title, knowing Hollywood’s history of NOT being kind to animals (perhaps you read my blog post about it). I did not want to watch a movie where dogs die.

Sure enough, a dog gets murdered. Philo does not seem too exercised about that murder, although the dog’s owner threatens to kill whoever did it. I was not clear on who did do it, and I couldn’t figure out how it fit in with the rest of the plot. Then again, as regular readers know, I don’t always pay a whole lot of attention to these things. Another dog gets hit on the head with a poker, which does figure in, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The movie opens on a dog show. There is Philo Vance with an extremely cute Scotty dog. His dog does not win, but Philo loves him. So there’s one reason to like Philo Vance, at any rate.

Next we meet a beautiful heiress (is there another kind?) who can’t seem to get any of her own money from her unpleasant trustee or guardian or whatever he is to her besides unpleasant. It’s pretty clear who the victim is going to be and there will be no shortage of suspects.

It is a bit of a surprise later on when one of the suspects who was starting to look really good (as a suspect, I mean) ends up dead. I guess I should have seen that coming. After all, it’s “murders” plural in the tile, and I’m pretty sure they didn’t count the dog.

The dog that gets hit on the head seems to make a full recovery and I guess helps solve the mystery. Or helps Philo prove he has correctly solved the mystery. Like I said, the solution kind of mystified me. As is often the case, the “proof” would never hold up in a court of law. For that matter, the medical evidence was pretty spurious, too. But these are mere quibbles. One must take movie mysteries at their own estimation or not at all.

Philo’s dog has a pretty good scene where he shows Philo something important. I just love a cute little dog.

In retrospect, I’m thinking it might have been a good idea if I had paid more attention to the movie, maybe made a few notes, before I tried to write about it. Then again, it’s Monday.

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Just an Expression

Posted on June 7, 2014 by mohawkvalleygirl

For today’s Friday Lame Post, I offer another edition of Cliches Revisited.

“It’s like living in a fishbowl.”

People usually say this about places with large windows and no curtains. My first response is, you’ve probably never lived in a fishbowl, so how would you know? It seems to me that living in a fishbowl would be a whole lot more boring, even if it had one of those little castles or sunken ships. In your average living room, picture window or not, there is usually at least a television set. All a fish can do is swim around. They can’t even run out for a loaf of bread as many of us can. The fish don’t seem to mind, but then I don’t know what a fish thinks.

I know, it’s Just an Expression. I realize it means, “I feel as if everybody can watch my every move!” Oh, get over yourself. Most of us are not that interested.

Next cliche: “Kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray.”

I have never personally licked an ashtray, but I would think that the consistency is probably much different from the mouth of a smoker. Hello! Glass, metal or plastic covered with ashes… the mouth of somebody you presumably like well enough to kiss.

I know! Just an Expression. Look, people can feel free to kiss or not whoever they want, as far as I’m concerned (as long as the other person wants to be kissed). But just say, “I don’t want to kiss a smoker.” You do not need to engage in inaccurate hyperbole (or is hyperbole inherently inaccurate and I am guilty of redundancy?).

Oh dear, those were the only two cliches I thought about while I was running this morning. I think three would make a better post. Ooh, there’s a cliche, “Third time’s the charm.”

What is it about the number three? Three wishes. Three Little Pigs. Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. This is not a cliche I can argue with. Three is, apparently, a very good number. The best I can do is buck the system and not deconstruct three cliches. Thank you for playing. And have a nice Friday.

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Watching for Skunks and Psychos

Posted on June 4, 2014 by mohawkvalleygirl

Is there any better feeling for your legs than the cool-down walk after a run? I suppose there could be, but I’m not familiar with it.

Steven has two early shifts this week, so I thought I’d take advantage of the early rising and get a run in before the heat of the day. It only partially worked out for me.

I should have suspected the temperature would not be cool when it did not seem to cool down yesterday evening. I put the fan in the bedroom window, realized the air coming in was warmer than the air already here, took the fan out and shut the window. Of course I’m used to warm nights. I’m pre-menopausal (oh shut up, it’s a perfectly natural thing that women go through and I’m not going to pretend I’m not middle-aged). I never know if it’s the weather or hormones. My trick is to tell myself it’s hormones, then I wait quietly for the feeling to pass. It took me years to realize the benefits of waiting quietly, but we’ll save the half-baked philosophy for Lame Post Friday.

It was 3:38 when I left the house. I’m still a little nervous about running before dawn. Today being garbage day I was more wary of skunks than psychos. As I turned onto German Street, I thought I smelled one. Yikes. Um, skunk, not psycho. I don’t know what a psycho smells like.

A note about my breathing. I have dreadful sinus problems. I usually cannot follow the “in through your nose, out through your mouth” dictum, because my nasal capacities are not usually up to it. My sense of smell is unreliable. Sometimes I smell things that other people do not. Sometimes I can’t smell things that other people can. It is most inconvenient. On today’s run, I tried a nose inhale every so often to check for skunk odor. I didn’t smell anything after the initial whiff, although I later caught a nice floral scent.

It was a very lonely run. Block after block of no cars, no people and no lights on in houses. I passed a young man walking on my street almost as soon as I left my house. Heading home after a hard night out? Or a hot one night stand? These are the speculations that add interest to my runs. I either saw him two more times during my cool-down walk or I saw two similarly dressed young men. If it was the same man, perhaps he was out for a long walk pondering a problem. Maybe it was a ghost. How cool would that be?

The mugginess started getting to me early on. There was barely a breeze to relieve me. I felt a little ill-used, running in the dark and not having some cool air to run in. I cheered myself up by thinking about the bottle of water waiting on my deck for me and the cool shower after my walk.

I kept an eagle eye out for skunks. Psychos did not concern me as much, although naturally I watched for them too. I saw an animal cross the sidewalk way ahead of me. A cat, I assured myself. As I approached a trash can and bag, the rustle of an animal startled me. I hear my feet scrape on the sidewalk as I stopped short. A cat flew out from behind the bag and across the lawn. Definitely a cat. Phew!

It was really not a problem to keep running. I can’t say I reached the “I can rock this” stage, though. I am skeptical of my ability to rock anything prior to four in the morning. Then again, if I keep up these early morning runs, maybe I’ll surprise myself.

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Cheesy TV

Posted on May 20, 2014 by mohawkvalleygirl

Here is a new feature I recently came up with: Cheesy TV. Regular readers know how I love to write about cheesy movies. Well, they are not always easy to come by. However, I am discovering a whole world of cheese on cable television.

I have a long-standing addiction to true crime shows. I prefer a real documentary where they cover the facts of the case. I despise re-enactments. I find they are always cheesy and usually unnecessary. However, as re-enactment fests take over my true crime channels, I occasionally tune in to one. And I find they sometimes have a charm all their own. The dialogue in the re-enactments, which is often supposed to play like they’re being overheard, is laughable. The acting is of the scenery chewing variety. And when they show a photo of the actual people, you see the casting director had a very flattering idea of their attractiveness.

I almost feel I should include a spoiler alert, because this episode did not turn out as I expected. However, I also feel I can treat a true crime show, however cheesy, differently from now I treat a cheesy movie. I will also point out that I was paying my usual desultory attention to this one. They may actually have said who was going to end up dead and I missed it.

I will preface this essay by saying: Nobody deserves to be murdered. I suppose there are those who will dispute that statement, but I am not going there today. I would like to talk about a murder victim who, I feel, could have avoided the situation in which the murder took place. I intend to comment on this, and on the cheesy nature of the program which presented the case. I fear sounding insensitive, since an actual person did, in fact, die. Sorry about that.

OK, on with the write-up. Steven and I watched one of the cheesier crime shows on Investigation Discovery: Deadly Affairs. This one is narrated by the divine Susan Lucci, which I feel make it a cut above the rest.

Lucci presents to us a guy who has a girlfriend who is really a guy. They are off again/on again, because the guy is a serial cheater. Then they go on again and move to this cowboy town where the guy insists his lover live as a man and they keep their love affair a secret.

Soon the Guy is having an affair with a hot single mother. At first she doesn’t mind that he has a boyfriend, then she does, so he sends the boyfriend packing.

As soon as the Girl moves in, she discovers the Guy is a control freak. After many public screaming matches (all we see is a fairly hilarious fight about him telling her what order to hang her clothes in), they break up. The Guy can’t stand being alone, so he gets the Boyfriend back by telling him he can live as a woman and they can get married.

However, the Girl did not think they were permanently broken up, and she is not happy with this development. She follows them around, announcing in a loud voice that the fiance is really a man. She even has the nerve to crash their wedding. Naturally the Guy starts having sex with her again. Any slimy hound dog serial cheater would. But he makes no move to get rid of his new wife. Tensions escalate.

Of course I’ve been thinking all this time that Boyfriend/Wife is going to get it, probably from the Girl, because the narration keeps talking about jealousy. Imagine my surprise.

The Girl is out drinking one night and gets all maudlin talking about how she wants to “make amends.” Those are the exact words, used several times. If only she can see the Guy without his Boyfriend/Wife, she can “make amends.” So she goes over to their house at two in the morning.

Hello! Who goes over to somebody’s house at two in the morning and expects the wife NOT to be there? And if you really want to “make amends,” it is a better plan to wait till a decent hour of broad daylight and, for example, SEND FLOWERS! Maybe write a nice note. A conciliatory phone call.

The story is that the Boyfriend/Wife beats the poor Girl to death while the husband is sound asleep upstairs. Did you buy that? I didn’t. I don’t know what went down, and I don’t think the producers of this show did, either. I think they picked the version they liked best, and I’m kind of glad they did, because it certainly gave me something to write about.

I can believe the Girl SAID she wanted to make amends, but I don’t believe that is really what she had in mind. And I sure as hell don’t believe that the horn dog that started it all slept through a beat-down of that magnitude.

Really, when I think about it, it is a very sad story. That Girl did not deserve to be murdered and buried in the desert (oh yeah, I left that part out) (the post is getting a little long). I think what she needed to do to begin with was to find a classier guy to set her sights on. Same goes for the Boyfriend/Wife, although I lost a whole lot of sympathy for him when I found out he was a murderer.

But it is a fun show to watch. Susan Lucci pops up a couple of times looking delicious in an evening gown, about to go out on the town with a hottie who, presumably, does not plan to murder her. Lacking cheesy movies and sometimes time to watch a whole movie, I will continue to embrace cheesy television.

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