Category Archives: humor

Heelpath and End Zone

He’s a handsome fellow.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, Steven and I hit a couple of local watering holes.  We started at Heelpath Brewing Company at the Frankfort Marina.  I keep thinking I will do a pint or a flight of draft beer, seeing as it is a brewery, after all.  Then I order Rustic Ridge Winery Untamed Red, because yum.  Steven got Untamed White.

“What shall we drink to?”  I asked.

“How about that elf?”  Steven suggested.

“That’s a troll,” I said.  We drank to it, and I took a picture of it.

As you can see, the Christmas decorations were still up.

After enjoying a glass or two of wine as well as some good conversation with the bartender and other patrons, Steven and I drove back to Herkimer.  We still felt like being out and about so stopped at the End Zone Pub and Grub.

The bartender whose name escapes me.

We had a great conversation about wine with the bartender.  Of course we sipped a little wine while we talked. I thought I had made a note of the bartenders name, but I can’t remember which notebook I had at the time.  Before we left we took a picture of two nice young ladies we were also chatting with.

I don’t remember their names either.

Incidentally, this is the post I started to write five days ago and just could not finish.  I don’t know that the final version was worth waiting for, but at least the picture of the troll is cute.

 

Bring your Brain!

I’ll be at Meeples this week!

Rather than my usual Monstrous Monday or painful whining about being unable to make a blog post, I thought I would do another plug for Brainstorming the Bard this Saturday.  All interested parties are invited to Meeples Mug House in Little Falls, NY for the purpose of bringing summer Shakespeare back!  LiFT, Little Falls Theatre Company, previously performed at Benton’s Landing on July’s Third Thursday and at Canal Place during Chicks Along the Mohawk.  Let’s do it again!

A dramatic moment from a previous performance

I guess I don’t have a whole lot else to say about it, so maybe this will be a monstrous post after all, or I may whine about not having a lot to say.  No, no, we can’t have that!  I’ll look for more pictures.

A full cast photo from that year.

Look how colorful we are!  What a fun bunch!  Wouldn’t you like to join us and speak forsoothly?

Swords drawn! Yikes!

I have been writing down a few ideas of what we can do.  I am hoping other people will also have ideas, or at least not shoot down mine.

I’m the one in the orange tights.

Meeples Mug House is located at 598 E. Main St., Little Falls, NY.   Brainstorming the Bard will happen this Saturday, Jan. 18 at 3 p.m.  I hope to see you there!

 

But I’m Missing Svengoolie!

I pause in my meager activities for a Wrist to Forehead Sunday post.  Of course I rarely get much useful done on a Sunday, but some weeks I feel worse about it than others.  Today I am mostly concerned that I not be making my Sunday post at 4 a.m. Monday.  It looks as if I will at least meet that goal.  As long as I am not too fussy about what sort of post I make.

I went for a pretty good run this morning.  After that, I did not feel like doing much, but after a shower, breakfast, and lounging on the couch and reading a book, I managed to accompany Steven to the grocery store.  We neglected to bring the list so forgot to purchase garlic powder.  These things happen.

I made a pot of chicken soup, using fresh garlic and two yellow onions.  It was yummy!  I still have to put the leftovers away, so the useful portion of my day is not over yet. My only other useful task of the day was a load of laundry.  Now I have clean pants and handkerchiefs for work, at least for the next couple of days.

Earlier we thought to clear our DVR by watching a previously taped movie.  This is a handy way to feel we are accomplishing something when in fact we are just watching television.  Hey, I will take fake usefulness on a Wrist to Forehead Sunday!  However, the movie was Fearless Vampire Slayers, and we neither paid much attention nor watched the whole thing. However, we did delete it so cleared our DVR of two hours’ worth of space.

Now we are watching a DVR’d Svengoolie.  The movie is The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, a movie I saw previously without a character host.  I wrote about it in a blog post titled Sorry, Cecil and Rays.

Now I see I am over 300 words.  Let’s get that leftover soup in the fridge and get back to enjoying Svengoolie!

 

Who me? Tipsy on a Saturday Night?

We had a fun afternoon and I do not know if I can manage a plot post about it.  Yet I took a few pictures so think I can include a couple of those,

Two of my favorite people toasting.

We began our oblations at the Irish Cultural Center in Utica, .NY.  it was an awesome setting!  We walked down  Varick Street looking for more. I paused first in hopes of getting an outside picture of the center.

I couldn’t get back far enough to get the full picture.

We went back down Varick Street in search of another drink.

We enjoyed another drink here here.

We stopped at Nail Creek Pub and Brewery, but did not ask many questions about it.

Looks like a pretty fun place.

Here is a shot from the Celtic Harp, where we stopped for just one more. It was a wonderfully fun Saturday afternoon, and now I am making a blog post about it. I would like to get back to enjoying my Saturday.  Thank you all for tuning in.

Oh dear, I see I am not up to 200 words.  Could I perhaps offer another photo…

Nice people!

Here is a picture of Nail Creek Pub and Brewery.  I got the names of the sweet couple in the foreground but alas do not have it handy. That’s OK,  I will share them and their names later.  In the meantime, I will call this my Shattered Saturday post for the week, and get back to enjoying my weekend!

 

Cheered by Murder Mysteries

I wrote another sentence on the post I just couldn’t seem to write yesterday.  Now I am going to have my usual Lame Post Friday.  I feel sure many of my readers have been expecting it.

A happy couple, and may I say a handsome one.

I am sitting here with my dear husband Steven, and it is a little difficult to make a blog post when we keep wanting to talk.  We started reminiscing about murder mysteries, starting with the most recent, Fabulous and Fatal.  Above is a picture of the two of us, looking fabulous (or do I flatter myself?).  I should share a picture of the whole cast.  That was a great show.

As much fabulousness as allowed by law!

There are more murder mysteries on the horizon.  A plan is afoot to revive Rubbed Out at Rubies  to benefit RCIL.  More informative about that later!

Who killed Benny the Bootlegger?

There will be a couple of cast changes, and I intend to find another outfit. I’ll post more pictures as soon as I have them.

This is an even better cast photo.

My writing struggles continue, but it certainly makes me feel better to think about murder mysteries.  I may have to write a few new scenes for Ruby’s.   Then maybe a new murder mystery…

I’ll keep you posted!

 

Just Write One Blog Post

OK, this is not quite the same thing as type-it-in-back-space-it-out.  I just added a photo I took on a recent Mohawk Valley Adventure, typed in one sentence, and realized I could not go through with composing the entire post. At least I put a headline on it and saved what little I had as a draft, but what the hell, me?

This morning I wrote a little in the TV Journal, as I have been trying to do lately.  A quick check showed me I have been steady since Dec. 26.  I feel I must give myself a little credit for that at least.

Regarding my apparent inability to write before my shift starts and while on breaks at work, I said to myself, “Just write one sentence.”  I repeated it in my head as I got ready and drove to work.

And I wrote one sentence!  And then another one!  They were not good sentences, unfortunately.  Mostly I wrote about the fact that I was writing, expressing some surprise that I was doing so.  Still, I wrote a couple of paragraphs.

I really do not know why I feel as if I am starting from several steps behind scratch.  It is not as if I have gone any considerable length of time without writing at all, and I have not suffered any devastating mental or physical ailments.

In the meantime,  I see I have surpassed 200 words with this nonsense.  I shall close with the picture I opened the unfinished blog post with.  Call it a Preview of Coming Attractions, if you like.

Did the troll put a hex on me, do you suppose?

 

Maybe I Am The Peanut Gallery

Once again my plan of writing my blog post in advance did not work out.  Some fellow writers will understand and sympathathize with my apparent inability to write, others, including a good number of non-writers, will scoff and tell me to get up off my lazy duff and WRITE, damn you!  Sometimes I find my own self in the latter category.

I have a few Mohawk Valley Adventures to write posts about. Unfortunately,  before writing any this evening, Steven and I got out and about and ended up at Applebee’s for Winesday.  After splitting a bottle of Chardonnay,  I feel disinclined for further activities. What a bum am I!

With a new year and new decade (and, please, do not any of you be didactic and tell me the new decade technically begins in 2021), I have been trying to write more.  Full Disclosure:  I have not met with much success in this endeavour. Any suggestions from my lovely readers?  Further Disclosure: my first impulse was to type “from the peanut gallery,”  but I was afraid people would take it amiss.

So I guess that is two questions I have:  Are there any suggestions to increase my writing output?  And: Does anybody reading this mind being referred to as the peanut gallery?  Please submit any answers as comments below.  I warn you, if nobody expresses an opinion, I will feel free to refer to my readers as The Peanut Gallery forevermore.

 

Was There a Spring in my Step?

I felt myself incapable of writing a blog post earlier.  Go ahead and judge me if you are so inclined.  I had a headache and was battling a down mood.  Oh, stop playing that miniature violin (you know who you are); I was not asking for sympathy, I was just giving you the picture.  Anyways, I thought it would be all right, because I planned to go running and could make a Running Commentary post.

It was not a particularly eventful run, but I did it, so I give myself credit for that.  It was grey but not precipitating, cold but not freezingly so.  In fact, at times I almost thought it could be March.  I felt some indefinable hint of spring in the air.  I kept asking myself why I felt that way, since it was in fact cold.  I suppose it could have been the feeling of 30 degrees instead of ten.  Or it could have been the mud.

I spent most of the run in the road, because I kept encountering ice on the sidewalk.  I stayed on the left side facing traffic, and I was wearing my road guard vest (reflective vest, to you civilians).  I would have been better served to stay on the quieter streets but unfortunately wound up on German Street for a few blocks. That was where I encountered most of the mud, because I kept as close as I could to the curb.

My legs felt pretty content to be running,  and my breathing was fine.  I am SO going to rock the Boilermaker 15K in July!  I may even be writing better blog posts by then.

 

Hit Publish Before I Backspace It Out!

“Oh woe is me!”

I have the type-it-in-backspace-it-out disease.  You might think that is why I opened with the picture of Bonita having a Wrist to Forehead moment, but I actually picked that before I realized I was going to hate everything I started to type.  What’s a blogger to do?

“Perhaps if we pooled our resources, we could make a blog post.”

The disease continues in the second paragraph.   What the hell, me?  Perhaps it is time to retire Monstrous Monday and come up with a few feature.  Or start writing my blog posts before I feel too tired to do so.

In my defense, we were watching a two hour Dateline we had not seen before,  and it was a good one!  It was very frustrating,  because of the villainous — I could even say MONSTROUS woman involved.  Would she get away with murder?  Would she keep her ill-gotten gains?  I must not say more, because I did not include a Spoiler Alert.

Plenty of monsters here!

Aaaaaand type-it-in-back-space-it-out continues.  This is where writing with a pen and paper is superior to computers.  When I HATE what I wrote, I do not obliterate it but merely cross it out.  Sometimes when I go back and read it later, I find it is not so bad after all.

Hmmm… did I just say something about writing my blog posts before I get too tired?  Once again, the solution to my problem stares me in the face, saying, ” Helll-Oh!”  Write earlier, with pen and paper.  I can type when I’m tired.

In the meantime,  maybe one more monster picture before I hit Publish.

Most of us don’t, sweetie!

 

Still Christmas? Time to Move On?

Not bad feet if I do say so.

Here is my view for the evening.  Astute viewers will see that my leggings are Christmasy while my slippers are neutral yet fun.  That is symbolic of my mood right now: reluctant to give up Christmas yet cognizant of the necessity to do so, and ready to have fun.

Right now I am sitting on my couch having a wonderful time with my husband Steven and our friend Kim. I must — or at least I very much want to — make a blog post, but it is difficult to do so while also participating in the conversation.

I guess that could make this a Wrist to Forehead Sunday post.  I am having a nice time but may be unable to make a blog post. What to do, what to do?

I guess it need not escalate to swooning proportions.

Here are the jingle bells.

I thought I would include for comparisons sake my view on New Year’s Eve.  Same leggings, different slippers.  I was wearing the jingle pair last night and part of today.  Steven is having a hard time letting go of Christmas and I guess so am I.

My main focus right now is to make my blog post today.  I have had far too many days of making a post in the early hours of the next day, and even a couple of shamefully missed posts. It is a new year. A new chance for me to make 266 consecutive posts (leap year, you know).  I love a new year and a new start.

OK, it is five days into the year (my  WordPress timestamp may say six, but I daresay that is not important). More didactic sorts (you know who you are) may say that renders my new start late and therefore ineffective.

I cannot deal with this sort of naysayers.  All I can say is Happy Sunday, and I hope to see you all on Monstrous Monday.