Category Archives: personal

Late Post, But Here Are Some Zombie Pictures

Posted on July 13, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

I am late making my Wuss-out Wednesday post (yes, I really wussed out this time).  Never mind why.  It’s a long story and makes me look bad. Instead, how about a few pictures of zombies, as suggested in comments of a recent post.  I don’t watch as many zombie movies as I do vampire movies.  However, one must acknowledge zombies as the scary monsters they are.

So that’s what happened to Veronica Lake.

I believe this is from Night of the Living Dead, which we have on DVD but rarely watch.  I find it more creepy than scary, and a little sad, especially at the end.  Still, it is considered a classic, so I pop it in when I can talk Steven into it.

I feel a little like this, only without the bright eyes. I do not feel particularly bright these days.

I found this in my search for zombie pictures, and to me it is apropos.  Of course, I believe in making Halloween last all year long.  In fact, I just set my DVR to record several scary movies on TCM, including the delightfully creepy Mad Love, starring Peter Lorre, whose horror credentials are impeccable.  Another find on my search took me in different direction.

I guess I can’t stop running after all.

I must confess, I have not gone running since the Boilermaker.  At first I felt too tired, then it got too hot.  I suppose these are lousy excuses (as most excuses are, but, hey, I’m only human) (and not an un-dead one at that).  I think I must begin running again, though, with a thought to taking part in a Zombie Run in November.  That sounds like fun.

 

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Various Vampires on Tired Tuesday

Posted on July 12, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

It is Tired Tuesday (don’t judge), and I am resorting to my new favorite thing: downloading monster pictures from Facebook and writing stuff about them.  For one reason, I am mysteriously able to download on my own Facebook account once again.  I downloaded this one purely to test my machine:

He’s a pleasant-looking fellow.

It is a 17th or 18th century vampire burial. I downloaded it from Murder, Madness and the Macabre, one of my go-to Facebook pages.  After downloading that, I thought I would make this a vampire day and clicked around looking for more.  I went to The Golden Age of Monster Movies, always a good sources.

A new shot of my favorite guy!

Naturally I wanted to include Nosferatu, which, regular readers know, has my vote for the scariest movie ever.  I haven’t watched this one in a while.  Perhaps tomorrow I will give it a view.

Vampires can be scary in color, too.

Christopher Lee is the favored Dracula of many.  I do love the Hammer horror flicks of the 1960’s and ’70’s.  I only recall one vampire flick with Lee (perhaps you read my blog post about it).  I must seek out the other ones.

You didn’t think I would leave out Bela, did you?

What post about vampires would be complete without Bela Lugosi?  Oh, I’m sure others have written them. I may have written one myself.  I suppose your better bloggers would be writing scholarly commentary, comparing and contrasting the various vampires, perhaps including some of the blood-sucking lore and history of the legends.  And here we come to the ugly truth about me.  No matter.  It is Tired Tuesday, and I have made my blog post.  Now I must prepare for rehearsal for The Tempest (which I mentioned in yesterday’s post).  I must shake off my tiredness and act!

I hope I don’t meet up with any vampires.

 

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Love that LiFT

Posted on July 11, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

How about an update on The Tempest?  For anybody just tuning in, that is the play I’m in with LiFT Theatre Company of Little Falls.   I just got back from rehearsal,  where I was mortified not to know my lines better.   Still, I’m working on it, as are we all.  The week before last, I took a few pictures of rehearsal, which I have not yet shared.  I thought today I would repair that omission (that’s an expression I love: “repair that omission”).

Here is a wide view: You can see Canal Place, Little Falls Antiques Center, and The Shops at 25 West.

Weather permitting, we rehearse at Canal Place in Little Falls, where some of the performances take place.  LiFT is something of a traveling theatre company, performing at various venues in the Mohawk Valley.  Little Falls Antique Center and The Shops at 25 West are nearby.

You could read “CANAL PLACE,” if that guy’s script wasn’t in the way.

 

There are a couple of picnic tables and several stone benches we hang out on when we’re not on stage.

Rehearsals are fun.  When we’re not on stage, we run lines or discuss blocking, characters, or costumes.  OK, sometimes we also just chat.  After all, nobody’s perfect.  When we have to use the restroom, we go into Little Falls Antique Center.  When we need refreshment, we patronize Ole Sal’s Creamery, an excellent establishment.

Stone Mill is the home of an Inn, Ole Sal’s Creamery, the Antiques Center, a Black Box theatre and more.

I guess I haven’t given you much of an update, but I think the pictures are kind of fun.  We’ll that a win on a Monday.  Regular readers will recall that today is the day after the Boilermaker 15K, which I ran.  I’m still a little tired.  Lets call this a Muddled Monday and drive on.

 

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Post Race Post

Posted on July 10, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

I was going to title this “To Dress or to Blog?”  but I did not want to invite unkind comments about how nobody wants to see me naked.  Also, it would not be clear that this is yet another post about the Boilermaker.  Which I just ran.  Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! (That was a triumphant laugh, by the way.)

So this is not going to be a great post.  I ran. It was not easy for an overweight woman of my age who, as it turns out, perhaps did not train enough.  However, I finished without resorting to walking.  Full disclosure:  towards the end, my run could not catch up with some of the walkers.  I will write more about the run later.  For now my purpose is merely to publish something, so I can get on with celebrating my triumph as soon as Steven gets home from work.

For anyone just tuning in, the Utica Boilermaker is the best 15K race in the nation, possibly in the world.  It seems as if the entire City of Utica as well as the surrounding area turns out to run, volunteer or cheer folks on.  Runners come from all over the world, including elite runners from places like Kenya as well as those who run for fun and fitness from places like Syracuse and Rochester.  I believe folks come from farther afield, but I did not encounter any of those today.

My challenge now is to find a cute outfit to put on such that Steven will realize that the best way to celebrate is to take me out somewhere nice.  Or I could just sit here in my bathrobe, which I put on after a delicious shower, and he will probably make me a grilled cheese sammich.  I do like grilled cheese.  It is good to have options.  Tune in tomorrow, on Mental Meanderings Monday, which I will either tell you what I wore or describe in greater detail my triumphant Boilermaker run.  Happy Sunday, everyone.

 

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Scattered Saturday Before the Boilermaker

Posted on July 9, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

I confess, I didn’t have a whole lot of scatter, because I mostly hydrated and rested before tomorrow’s 15K run (it’s really a road race, but since I will be far back in the pack and more interested in making silly jokes than getting a fast time, I can’t say I’ll be racing).  For those of you just tuning in, it is the Utica Boilermaker Road Race, a pretty damn exciting event in the Mohawk Valley.

My plan was to go for at least one walk, so I was disappointed to hear thunder followed by torrential rain this morning.  Then it stopped.  Cool.  I wrote some post cards and walked to the post office, taking the long way back.  It has continued to thunder, rain, then stop for most of the day.  I may go for an evening walk during one of the stops but no promises.  I got a little more exercise walking from the second floor down to the basement and back doing laundry.  It is so pleasant to have most of my clothes clean so that I have a choice of what to wear (of course the perfect thing to wear in an given situation is usually the one thing that is still dirty, but you’ll have that).

In addition to doing laundry, I read an Agatha Christie book (I adore Agatha Christie), worked on my lines for The Tempest, futzed around on Facebook, and wrote a very little on my novel.

I left the house one other time so far, to get my hair cut at the Hot Spot Salon and Spa in Herkimer.  My stylist, Claire, nicely got me in, even though I did not call till yesterday afternoon.  She is way cool.  She did my hair the same as last time, very short.  She said it seems my hair likes to be short.  I thought that was a good way of putting it.  I like it short, because it is easy that way.  As another hairdresser once observed about me, I am the sort of person who cannot be bothered spending too much time on my hair (for another reason, however much time I take, I never seem to get the good results others do).  I would post a selfie of me and my new hair, but I’ve taken off my earrings, and I don’t like to appear in public without earrings.

Back home, I started dinner early, because we intend to go to bed early.  I had put eggplant in the crock pot this morning (ought I to have mentioned that earlier?  Oh well).  Now I made pesto, grated parmesan cheese, sauteed asparagus, and cooked angel hair pasta (my favorite).  My pesto is perhaps not real pesto (I don’t use a recipe), but I call it pesto, because it is fun to say “pesto pasta” (try it).  I put garlic, fresh basil, grated parmesan (I grated enough to put some in the pesto as well as some over the pasta), and oil in the blender and blend.  It turned out pretty good.

And that brings us to the present moment.  My stomach still continues knotty from Boilermaker nerves.  These will continue, no doubt, until the race actually starts.  More specifically, when I cross the starting line and am on my way.  Then it’s run for the beer!  Go me!  Happy Saturday, everyone!

 

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I’m Not Hydrated Yet!

Posted on July 8, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

I have have Lame Post Friday in the middle of vacation, can’t I?  Of course I can; it’s my blog and I’ll cry if I want to.  Wait a minute, that’s something else.

I have spent all day having Boilermaker Butterflies (I think I once wrote a blog post of that title).  I mean serious, stomach-churning nervousness.  I don’t know why.  All my problems will resolve themselves at the proper time.  I will run the race.  There is no reason to think I will not have fun.  Yet here I sit, trying to drink more water and worrying.

I went for one final run today (is it bad that I have begun the last three paragraphs with “I”?  Just something else to worry about), 30 easy minutes.  It didn’t feel too bad.  I found the shirt I wanted to run in, a large yellow tee with a Superman logo which Steven purchased for 50 cents at a church thrift store some years ago.  It is a little wrinkly, and I am considering ironing it.  I rather like the thought of running the Boilermaker in a freshly pressed t-shirt.

This morning I had several errands to run: an afghan to drop off, a trip to the post office, a visit to the library to print out my Boilermaker registration confirmation.  By 11:30 I was headed to Utica to Mohawk Valley Community College (MVCC) to pick up my race number and goody bag.  What a crowd scene!  However, people were nice and numerous volunteers kept things running smoothly.

For dinner I had a London broil in the crock pot.  Some time ago, a nice young man at The Sneaker Store told me I should have a steak dinner on Friday and pasta on Saturday.  I substituted roast beef in the crock pot then as I did now.  I plan to use fresh basil from my container garden to make pesto for tomorrow’s pasta.  Yum!

What I am mostly worried about now is that this is a truly lame blog post.  Can I possibly expect tomorrow’s to be any better as the 15K race looms ever closer?  I should probably have an in-depth conversation with myself about whether the race is worth all this anguish I put myself through, with perhaps a side discussion about why I put myself through such completely useless worry.  Don’t worry, any minute now I will move on to the point where I start to laugh at myself.  Happy Friday, everyone!

 

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Psycho Strangers on a Blog Post

Posted on July 7, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

So it’s not going to be All Boilermaker All The Time after all.  I am indulging in Non-Sequitur Thursday complete with pictures.  First a little cheesecake for the discerning viewer (you know who you are):

So how come John Gavin is so small?

We decided to watch Psycho, which we have on DVD.  I think it starts a little slowly, but Janet Leigh does spend the first scene in a bra and half-slip.  Some folks enjoy that sort of thing.  Here is a more atmospheric shot for a little less prurient interest:

I love the sky.

After Psycho, I suggested we continue the Alfred Hitchcock theme with Stranger on a Train.  I recently acquired that DVD at a yard sale. Score!  I would like to see again the remake, Throw Mama From the Train.  I love that Danny DeVito.

Ah, the fateful cigarette lighter. There was a lot more smoking in the movies in those days.

I would have liked to get a picture of the carousel, a more dramatic setting than the titular train, but I could not find one.  Full disclosure:  I didn’t look very hard.  Regular readers may notice that I am downloading pictures again.   I still cannot download them on my own Facebook page.  However I can download them from my husband Steven’s page.  So I am sneakily logged onto his site.  Don’t worry, I won’t cause any more mischief while I’m there.

“Good Evening.”

I close with a picture of the master himself, Alfred Hitchcock.  We could have continued our movie viewing with Rear Window, The Birds, Rope, North by Northwest, The Lady Vanishes, The 39 Steps, or To Catch a Thief.  I guess we have quite a Hitchcock collection (no, no Vertigo!  I may lose all cinemaphile cred by saying this, but that movie has always left me cold).  And I thought of a good title while I was typing this.  Happy Thursday, everyone.

 

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Last Long Run Before Sunday

Posted on July 5, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

It may be time for this blog to become All Boilermaker All The Time.  I went for my last long run before the big race.  The big race, for anybody just tuning in, is the Utica Boilermaker Road Race, the premier 15K race in the country (I say it with confidence, although I confess I have not researched 15K races), which takes place this Sunday, July 9, 2017.  There is also a 5K on Sunday, a 3-mile walk on Saturday, an Expo Friday and Saturday, and many other events and attractions.  I know I’m not mentioning everything; after all, this blog is mostly about ME (I say it with no apology for my egotism) (although I confess to having a good laugh at myself).

Where was I?  Ah yes, about to do a Running Commentary post about my last long run till Sunday (hey, is that a good title for the post, or is it too obvious?).

It was excellent running weather: not too hot, not too humid, sunny and pretty.  As I ran, I felt the sun was perhaps brighter and hotter than my own personal ideal, but running in the shade was fine.  I decided to run in the residential area behind Valley Health, what I refer to as “the suburbs.”  This took me up the hill by Valley Health as a kind of a warm-up hill, and I knew I would find a long, challenging hill as I went.

As I ran toward Valley Health, along German Street which gradually slopes upward, I realized I did not want to run any hills.  My body felt like it could keep going perfecly well on level ground but would be utterly defeated by gravity if I tried to push it.  Well, naturally on my Last Long Run Before The Boilermaker, I was inclined to push it.  I remembered of what I thought on a recent run: running hills does not become easier for me; I merely learn to keep going longer while it sucks.  I wondered if that was strictly true. Most probably it sucks less as I go.  Today I tried a new tack:  I told myself that going up hills was a psychological trick;  I just had to stop NOTICING how much it sucked.  This is an extension of a trick I heard about in the army:  just look at your feet and shuffle up that hill.

I took a wrong turn and ran down a perfectly level street that turned at a right angle then ended in a cul-de-sac.  Then I found the correct corner, when down a small hill then up, up, up.  I passed a lady walking down and said good morning.

“Boilermaker!” I added, fists in the air.  “Three days and a wake-up!”

“There you go!” she encouraged.  “Good luck!”

A short while later, I saw a fellow runner, headed down the hill.

“Boilermaker!” I called to her.  “We got this!”   She laughed.

I passed a few other walkers, including a very nice couple who let me pet their dog.  Yes, I stopped running long enough to pet the dog.  I like to pet a dog.

I ran for an hour and one minute, which is how long I ran yesterday.  In training for previous Boilermakers, I have been up to an hour and a half.  However, I feel an hour is good.  I tell myself, if you can run for an hour, you can run for two; just don’t stop.  I plan shorter runs tomorrow and Friday, and a couple of long walks on Saturday.  And in between, I hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!  Boilermaker, here I come!

 

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Fun at the Waterfront

Posted on July 5, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

I believe I mentioned Steven and I were visited by our good friend Tracy in the last few days.  We began our delightful visit with a trip to the Waterfront Grille at Gems Along the Mohawk  in Herkimer, NY.  It is one of my favorite Sunday afternoon things to do (and one I rarely get to indulge in), to sit at the bar and order drinks and appetizers.  We were happy to find seats at the bar.  Steven and I ordered some Chardonnay, but Tracy needed to put a little more thought into her drink order.  She is not as huge a wine-o-phile (oenophile, but I mispronounce that word) as I am.

Two of my favorite people, yes.

Here is a shot of Steven and Tracy enjoying themselves.  I was enjoying myself, too.  For one reason, the bartender, Meghan, asked me how my blog was going.  She remembered me and that I wrote a blog!  I felt famous.

Our delightful bartender, with a shot of the bar (no pun intended).

Meghan was making a joke with another patron as I took this picture.  I also wanted to include the slogan, “Life’s too short to drink the house wine.”  Actually, I find many house wines are perfectly potable as well as being within my price range.  I think life is too short not to drink wine.  That is, if you like wine.  To each his own, as the old lady said when she kissed the cow.

We ordered bacon wrapped scallops and steamed clams.  We split two appetizers among the three of us in order to save room for dessert.  Steven and I do not always order dessert, but Tracy is something of a bad influence on us.  That is another reason we like it when she comes to visit.

Steven enjoys being out with two beautiful women.

Steven insisted on taking a picture of Tracy and me.  I confess, I do not always enjoy looking at pictures of myself.  However, some people seem to think I am somewhat good-looking.  Why should I call them liars?

I thought I ought to get at least one shot of the brown water. It is still showing the effects of the recent flooding the area has experienced.

 

Another outdoor shot.

After eating and drinking, we wandered into the Retail Stores.  I especially like looking at the Herkimer Diamond jewelry.  I also picked up a few postcards to send to the folks I send postcards to.

Gems Along the Mohawk is located at 800 Mohawk St., Herkimer, NY.  The Waterfront Grille’s phone number is 315-717-0700. The number for the retail stores  is 315-717-0077.

 

 

 

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Did I Mention I’m On Vacation?

Posted on July 4, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

Monday, Monday…  I have at least two “real” posts to make, with photos taken by me on my Tablet.  However, earlier today, when I was frantically trying to make my post prior to rehearsal (for The Tempest with LiFT Theatre Company, as I have mentioned that I am in), I felt incapable of doing such a post.  I thought I would do a Movie Monster Monday, especially since I have discovered a couple of new Facebook pages for movies, but I find my laptop is still not allowing me to download (after I THOUGHT my husband Steven had fixed it.  Damn!).

Where was I?

Well, you see, I did not make my post before rehearsal.  Rehearsal went well and was fun.  We got an Antonia!  Um, did I mention we were trying to fill a part?  Well, we were and we did.  At the end of rehearsal, the woman thus recruited was saying if some other superstar wanted to part, she would graciously step aside — basically to the effect, if we could find somebody better…  I said, “You’ll do great!”  That thought was echoed by all present at the time.  Oh, it is wonderful to have a full cast!

Have I mentioned that Steven’s and my good friend Tracy is visiting?  Well, she is, and I have a couple of posts yet to write of the adventures we have had.  Today, well, this is what I can manage.  You see, after rehearsal, Steven, Tracy and I went to Asteroga Ale House in Herkimer.  I’ve had wine.  I am SO into the relaxing, enjoying my company portion of the evening.

We’re going to call this a Monday Mental Meanderings and drive on.  I hope to see you all on Tired Tuesday (what? I can’t get tired on vacation?).

 

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