Category Archives: personal

Come On, Friday!

Posted on October 4, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

What a terrible blogging day! And not just because of my writing tribulations. Technology has got me down!

I wrote something while at work today (I really feel I must say each time that it was on a break, although I don’t imagine any management types read this blog) (still, you never know) (six degrees of Cindy’s blog?).

Where was I? Ah yes, wrote something at work. It wasn’t very good. Still, it was words. I could have published it. That is, I could have published it if I could have gotten it typed in at my desk top. Unfortunately, my desk top decided to act up.

It has been doing that a lot lately. It gets rrrreeeeaaaallllyyyy ssslllloooooooowwwww. And then it stops. Yeah, kind of like my writing some days.

So I got quite frustrated and stopped trying. I came downstairs and got on our Netbook. That works a lot better. Unfortunately, it is not so good for typing. The keyboard is much smaller than I am used to. You are reading this (oh dear I HOPE somebody is still reading!) and it probably looks pretty OK. That is, if I have caught all the typos I have made with my FAT fingers.

And just now I hit SOMETHING that made this whole thing disappear. I luckily found it under Drafts. WordPress is really a very good site. Hmm, maybe some readers feel it is less than lucky that I found it.

Anyways, will all this trauma, I am not up to perking up the less than stellar stuff I wrote earlier. I can only try to come up with a somewhat catchy title and have another Non-Sequitur Thursday.

Oh well, maybe it’s not catchy. Maybe catching, like a virus. Oh dear.

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No Oomph?

Posted on October 3, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

I was thinking today that I could very easily end up writing a blog entirely about How I Can’t Write a Blog Post. I would probably want to call it something different from Mohawk Valley Girl, though.

Well, I don’t think anybody could blame me for not having any Mohawk Valley adventures last week; I was sick. So what can I write about this week? If I had more oomph, I would come home from work, have a Mohawk Valley adventure and write about it. And here we come to the ugly truth about me.

As I search for something new to say about not having anything to say, I was surprised just now when my computer seemed to consider “oomph” a word. I thought it was, you know, one of those words people use that isn’t really a word. It means, you know, whatever it seems to mean in the sentence. I thought the word origin was the noise people make when they heft something heavy.

I looked it up in the dictionary after writing the above paragraph (Steven keeps one by the computer) (The American Heritage Dictionary, Third Edition, New York, 1992). It says: “n. Slang. 1. Spirited vigor. 2. Sex appeal [Of expressive orig.]”

So it seems I am right about the word origin. I guess I used it to mean spirited vigor. I mean, not to brag, but I have PLENTY of sex appeal. Sex appeal in SPADES! DRIPPING with sex appeal!

Sex appeal, as you may know, is of very little use in the composition of blog posts.

I hope you have enjoyed this week’s Wuss Out Wednesday.

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I Can’t Phantom It

Posted on October 2, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

I believe I mentioned watching a cheesy movie last weekend while I was suffering from a sinus problem. I was too fuzzy-headed to pay even my usual desultory attention to it, but I think I can come up with a paragraph or two.

Phantom from 10,000 Fathoms (1956) starts right out by showing you the monster, which looks a little like a low-rent Creature of the Black Lagoon. I don’t particularly mind low rent; it adds to the cheese quotient. Ah, but here’s the point: the title says “phantom” but, to me, that’s a monster. Perhaps the writers considered a phantom a kind of a monster. Or maybe they just like alliteration as much as I do. No matter.

A lone fisherman in a boat apparently does not see the monster, although we can look down into the water and see it perfectly well. I suppose it’s a little petty to carp about a thing like that in a movie like this. After all, we WANT to see the monster, and the writers of the movie wanted the fisherman to NOT see it. Call it dramatic license. After dispatching the poor fisherman, the monster disappears for what seems like a long time (ooh, could that be why they call it a phantom?).

I found the plot a little hard to follow. Nobody is what they seem, except maybe the mad scientist’s beautiful daughter (all your better mad scientists have one). Well, I guess he’s not really a mad scientist. He is an oceanographer. But he is working on something he is being awfully secretive about. His assistant, his secretary and his janitor are all trying to find out what it is.

The assistant is the most sinister of the bunch. He keeps sneaking around carrying a harpoon gun. I wasn’t clear on what exactly he does as an assistant, since it seems he’s not privy to the doctor’s actual work. Then again, I was not clear on a lot during this movie, most notably my sinuses (for once I have an excuse other than my usual “just not paying attention”).

I didn’t mind the assistant being sneaky; at least his motives were made clear later. I’m still puzzling over what the main guy is even doing there. He shows up when this federal (I think) guy is investigating the sailor we saw get whacked in the first scene. He says his name is Ted Baxter (did you all just flash on The Mary Tyler Moore Show? I did). We later find out he’s really Ted Stevens, a prominent oceanographer who wrote a book on which his picture is prominently displayed. Didn’t he think the guy he is going to see — the mad scientist/oceanographer — might possibly have a copy of his book? Perhaps modesty overcame him.

I got a little chuckle thinking that Ted’s fake name sounded more real than his real name. I read somewhere that when people come up with aliases, they often use their own first name for a last name. For example, in Tootsie, Michael Dorsey becomes Dorothy Michaels. It would not have surprised me to find out that Ted Stevens’ real name was Steven Tedford. But I digress.

As I was saying, I never did find out why Ted was masquerading as Ted Knight, but in any case, both Federal Guy and Mad Oceanographer find him out quite soon and with very little difficulty.

Every so often the Phantom Monster shows up again. We find out what Sneaky Assistant is up to, we watch Mad Oceanographer at work, and of course Ted romances Beautiful Daughter. I never really figured out the whole plot (blame my sinus infection), but I think it boiled down to the beware-of-science-there-are-things-we-aren’t-supposed-to-know paranoia that became so popular at the dawn of the atomic age.

I will have to watch this silly movie again when my head is less fuzzy.

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Writing This Time

Posted on October 1, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

Well, I did write something today, but this isn’t it.

I started to write a post on the last cheesy movie I saw. When I was watching it, I had a lot to say, although most of it took the form of, “You’d better not hurt that turtle!” and “Helen! Get out of there!” The post should eventually find its way to this space (doesn’t that sound like it will get there with no help from me?). Today, though, it seemed to be taking off in all directions (how’s that for anthropomorphizing a piece of writing?).

Feeling the need to change gears, I turned a page of my notebook (actually turned back a page, just to give you an idea of how organized my notebook is) and wrote a half page or so on my novel. My novel, in case I haven’t mentioned, is not going very well. Far from going off in all directions, it seems to be sitting dead still. It’s like some misshapen blob; I huff and puff and push it, but it won’t start rolling. Sooner or later I will get it to the edge of a hill (or cliff) and will go head over tail, jouncing wildly. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

Like yesterday, I do not despair. For one thing, my sinus problems (I probably shouldn’t say it out loud or I will jinx myself) seem to be receding. I don’t say my head isn’t fuzzy, because it still is (or was that obvious?), but for the first time in days I can conceive the possibility of perhaps feeling a little bit better someday.

Woohoo!

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I Do Not Despair

Posted on September 30, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

After writing yesterday’s post, I felt indefinably better and thought I would go write something else to see if it made me feel better yet. I thought I could report any results today, on Wrist to Forehead Sunday.

Some of you are probably saying, “We know: she didn’t write anything, and now she’s sitting there with her wrist on her forehead, typing with one hand to tell us about it.”

Well, the joke’s on you, because I am typing with two hands. Still, the writing something else did not go as well as hoped. My brain still felt fuzzy. I thought I could watch a cheesy movie and write about it in the TV Journal. This is a technique that has served me well in the past. Yesterday, not so much.

I would start to write stuff, then the damn movie would go into a long sequence with no dialogue. I can’t keep my eyes on the screen and write in a notebook. My handwriting is messy enough when I can look at it! As dialogue returned, I thought of a number of things I could write in the TV Journal, but my fuzzy brain betrayed me. I knitted instead.

Today, I thought instead of Wrist to Forehead Sunday, I would try for a pedestrian post, so went for a walk with Steven and Tabby. This seemed like a fruitful idea: the weather was drop dead gorgeous. There might be fall/Halloween decorations to observe. Other people might be out walking that I could interact with or at least describe.

Um, no. It was a very pleasant walk, but quite uneventful. I know, that doesn’t usually stop me. Come to think of it, it hasn’t stopped me today. Two paragraphs about the walk after four paragraphs about me trying to write. My word count is higher than yesterday! Woohoo!

Regarding future plans, I do not despair of writing a post about the cheesy movie I saw yesterday. And I’m going downstairs right now to watch another monster flick. And, who knows, as the week progresses, perhaps my head with unfuzz, and I will be back to having Mohawk Valley Adventures.

Stay tuned!

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I Whine, Then I Write

Posted on September 29, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

A few days ago, when I was taking kind of a blogger’s sick day, I speculated that had I stayed home and napped, drunk tea and read all day rather than going to work, I would have felt better and been able to write a better post. Today I had the opportunity to test that theory.

If you’re guessing I discovered the answer was not so much, give yourself a pat on the back, if you are able to do so without dislocating your shoulder.

Yes, I am still ill. Tuesday will make a week, but I think I will make bold to call my primary care physician on Monday to book an appointment. In the meantime, I need a blog post for today. Naturally I did not go running. I did not even feel up to a slow, gentle stroll with my schnoodle, Tabby. As I made my way upstairs and waited for the computer to get to the right page, all I could think was, “I can’t write a post! What can I write a post about? All I can say in a post is that I feel sick and I can’t write a post!”

Boohoo for me. Sorry about that.

The fact is, now that I am typing and words are appearing on the screen before me, I feel somewhat better. Still headachey, still light-headed, but insensibly somewhat better. Could it be the magic of writing? Or has the caffeine from the tea I just drank kicked in?

No matter, I am over 200 words. I have long decreed that an acceptable length for a blog post. But this somewhat better feeling is so interesting, I may go downstairs and try to write something else.

I’ll report on it tomorrow, on Wrist to Forehead Sunday.

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An Attempt at a Pedestrian Post

Posted on September 27, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

Determined not to spend another post kvetching about my symptoms (well, not the WHOLE post), I came home and took Tabby for a walk. I thought I could check out the state of Halloween decorations in the neighborhood and make a full report.

For one thing, it was (and still is as I type this) a beautiful day. Warm, sunny, blue skies. This is why people love September! As I drove home from work, I saw at least three people out walking their dogs. It was obviously the day for it.

Unfortunately, I wanted nothing more than to lie down, stare at the ceiling and let the room spin (this is the kvetching part which I really cannot restrain myself from including). Over the counter remedies were not the miracle I was hoping for. I spent a good part of the day telling myself that Not As Crappy was at least an improvement. Still, dogs like to take walks, and I thought some gentle exercise in the fresh air and sunshine might help.

I got out the door as soon after coming home as possible, in case I came up with a clever and irrefutable reason not to go. I changed from my steel-toed work shoes into running shoes and grabbed a poop bag. I put on my prescription sunglasses and did not even bother carrying my clear ones. It was that sunny. Oh, and I found my crazy old lady hat. The wide brim was most welcome.

Tabby was so excited, she almost couldn’t be still while I put the leash on her. I hoped she didn’t think we were walking down to meet Steven. Once we started walking, she seemed more interested in sniffing every pole, tree and random patch of grass than in checking out the cars that went by (she doesn’t know from cars; she thinks Steven is in all of them). I let Tabby sniff almost as much as she wanted to. For one thing, that gave me a chance to stand still.

Down Bellinger Street and Church Street towards the Historic Four Corners. That comprised three blocks, by which time I realized that, standing while Tabby sniffed notwithstanding, I was not up to a long walk. I pulled her towards German Street, so we could just go around two blocks. She did not want to do that. When Tabby does not want to go, she stands perfectly still and looks at you. Then she pulls you in the direction she wants to go.

For a minute I let her pull me. Then I looked all the way down Main Street and thought that I just couldn’t do it. I turned us back toward German. She baulked. Finally I compromised by crossing the street. This she seemed most anxious to do, not even wanting to wait for passing traffic (we did, however). Then she still wanted to go south. I won the argument, and soon Tabby was walking along perfectly nicely as if this was the way she had wanted to go all along.

Well, will you look at this. I’m over 500 words and I have not even mentioned the Herkimer scenery. Unfortunately, there were very few Halloween decorations to be seen. No matter. It’s supposed to be even better weather this weekend and SURELY my sinus problems will have resolved themselves by then.

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Guess What Day It Is!

Posted on September 26, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

The problem with being ill is that all you can do is be ill. Thank heaven for Wuss Out Wednesday.

I daresay I might have been able to write a few paragraphs if I had stayed home from work. I could have spent the day alternately napping, drinking hot tea and reading. If I got ambitious I could have multi-tasked by reading and drinking tea at the same time. But I went to work. I need the money; this is a hobby, not a paying gig.

I guess yesterday I covered the balloon head and why doesn’t it show. Can’t think of anything new to say about my symptoms. However, after reading my true crime book on a break, I thought of something that gave me a chuckle.

I have reached the dramatic courtroom scenes, and I thought, what if a lawyer said something, and the other lawyer jumped up and yelled, “I object!” And the first lawyer said, “I’m just saying.”

Well, I thought it was funny. I went and told a co-worker and she laughed at it (or at me for thinking it was funny, I suppose). Perhaps not as good as having a camel walk around saying, “Hey, Mike! Guess what day it is!” However, one must make do.

Steven purchased some over the counter drugs for me, so perhaps tomorrow I can write a better post. As always, I hope you’ll stay tuned.

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I Was Going to Blame the Book

Posted on September 25, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

I was moderately pleased with my blog post yesterday, especially since it was not a Monday Middle-aged Musing. I had high hopes of writing something not contemptible today.

To help matters along, I left the book I’ve been reading in my bag. It is a true crime book, and I’m really having a hard time putting it down. I thought it would help if I refrained from picking it up. Oh, I know, leaving it home would have been even more helpful. I’m only human, after all.

I wrote a couple of paragraphs on my novel before work started. I spent the first couple of hours at work thinking about what I would write. My brain hummed along. This was going to work out fine.

Several of you are probably rolling your eyes (you know who you are, don’t deny it), saying, “And then when she got to break she couldn’t write anything. We’ve HEARD this before!”

Well, I didn’t exactly write nothing, but I could not be pleased with my lead. I decided to just write whatever I could and try to cobble it together later. One contemptible sentence. One not so bad (these are my impressions at the time; I haven’t gone back to check on their veracity). The thought occurred to me, “Wow, writing sure is different from reading.” Then, “Well, duh.” The post certainly was not working out well. I wrote a little more on my novel.

I really wanted to get back to that true crime book.

I went back to work determined to think some more about what to write. Really, this is the method I have been using since I got this job and usually it works out very well. Think while working, write on break.

And then I started to feel ill. Steven has had a frightful cold this week. He went to work Monday feeling just awful. Well, I can’t say he never gave me anything (actually, when spoken it’s “never gave me nuthin'”).

There was nothing I could do but suffer. The only thing that made my day the least bit bearable was reading that damn book on breaks. Otherwise, I would have put my head down, fallen asleep, and embarrassed myself either by snoring or falling to the dirty floor.

As the afternoon wore on, I couldn’t understand how I could possibly look normal, feeling the way I felt. Why wasn’t my head eight times normal size and shaped like a balloon? Why wasn’t my face at least red and throbbing in front of where my sinuses were? I comforted myself with the thought that maybe it was not a cold after all. Maybe it was allergies. Isn’t there frost in the forecast? Relief could be a mere day away.

And that is the, as it turns out, extremely long story about Why I Didn’t Write a Blog Post Today. Hmm… perhaps not as contemptible as I had feared.

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Don’t Swallow Your Oxygen Gum

Posted on September 24, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

In my ongoing quest to find cheesy movies to write about, I watch some pretty bad ones. I try to make it all the way through them, just on principle. However, I think it is OK to write about a movie I didn’t watch all the way through, as long as I make a full disclosure.

Full Disclosure: I did not watch all of Battle in Outer Space (sorry, didn’t write down the year) (I’m not even sure I wrote down the right title; I can’t find it in any of Steven’s movie books). I don’t think I even watched enough to warrant a spoiler alert.

Steven and I tried to watch the movie twice. The second time, we weren’t even sure we had tried it before. The title didn’t sound familiar (I think I have established that it is not very memorable). On consulting the TV Journal before writing this, I learned that it was two weeks between attempted viewings.

Once it started I said, “Oh, yes, we started to watch this. Remember, the credits are in Japanese.”

Steven asked, “Is this the one where the guy goes up in the air?”

The scene Steven referred to is pretty much all I remember from the movie, and it goes way beyond “Waaait a minute” and into “Huh?” or even more vulgar expressions. A group of men (no women in this movie, another thing to dislike about it) are walking through a space ship, in outer space. Suddenly one of them starts to float up to the ceiling. One of his colleagues pulls him back down.

“I forgot there’s no gravity here,” Floating Guy explains. And they continue to walk down the corridor. On the ground! As if there’s plenty of gravity!

Excuse me, what? Just by knowing there’s no gravity they can act as if there’s gravity? It’s never explained. Not even some bad science crap like, “Push the button on your belt to create your personal gravity field.” I suppose some people would have found that harder to swallow than force of mind overcoming all, but I like an explanation, however spurious.

For example, I don’t know if anybody remembers a cartoon from (I think) the 1960s (I saw it in the ’60s) called Marine Boy. Marine Boy could function perfectly well in the water because he had — I kid you not — Oxygen Gum. I was about three years old (don’t sit there doing the math and shake your finger at me like I’m pretending to be younger than what I am) (I’m 49). I took things at face value. The only thing I found odd about Oxygen Gum was that Marine Boy put it in his mouth, gave one chew and was done. I did not have gum very often, but I knew you were supposed to keep chewing it.

I did not spend much of my young life pondering the inconsistency. I suppose it wasn’t too many years later that I began to understand the limitations of animation.

I don’t intend to spend too much of my middle age wondering what the makers of Battle in Outer Space were thinking with that gravity thing. The movie was dull, and there were not enough scientific howlers to distract me from that.

Perhaps I could find some re-runs of Marine Boy on the Cartoon Network.

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