Category Archives: Wuss Out Wednesday

World’s Dumbest Questions

I really hate to have a Wuss-out Wednesday right after a Tired Tuesday, and yet, here I am. I neglected to find out more information about the local business I was at Tuesday so am not inclined to do that post yet. It was too cold and windy to take Tabby for a walk, so yet another Pedestrian Post is out.

I suppose this means I’m always up for a post about Why I Can’t Write a Post Today.

I actually had started writing a whole post in my head while I was at work today. It would have done for a Mid-week Middle-aged Musing. Then when I sat down to put it on paper, I hesitated. For one thing, there seemed to be two or three different points I could make. Not usually a problem and when it is, it seems to me it’s a good problem to have. You can get multiple blog posts out of that problem. So what was my problem? Let’s just blame it on my wussy mood.

In the meantime, I want to finish this post quickly, because my favorite TV show, World’s Dumbest, is on at six. Oh, I can just hear it now: “What’s more important here, writing a decent blog post or watching a stupid TV show?” That is a good question, I’ll admit. I can’t even argue that it is not a stupid TV show. That is part of its charm.

My answer to the question is another question (don’t you just hate it when somebody answers a question with another question?): Why can’t I do both? Ooh, and here’s another question to answer the first question: Are the majority of my blog posts decent, even when I do not have a TV show to watch? And the final question of the post: Do I really want to hear the answer to that last question?

Weather Wuss

In my defense, I blogged about Mohawk Valley adventures Monday and Tuesday this week. Can’t I have a Wuss-out Wednesday? Pretty please? Who am I kidding, this is my blog and I can only write what I can write.

In my further defense, I think my brain is frozen. True, it was warmer today than yesterday, with less windchill, but I think the weather is having a cumulative effect. Then, too, there is my age (middle).

Anybody who is inclined to say something snarky like, “You think YOU’VE got it cold!” or even, “It’s January, for heavens’ sake!” just hush your head (pronounced “hush yo’ haid”). In fact, I’ve been comparing notes on Facebook, and the Mohawk Valley has been colder than a lot of people who have been doing even more griping than me (that’s you, residents of southern states!). And YES I AM grateful we haven’t had another blizzard. Yet.

Here’s a bit of half-baked philosophy I may expand upon some Lame Post Friday: It could always be worse. Most of us still like to complain. And many will deny that it could or they do.

I actually don’t mind the cold all that much, except that it has been too cold to take my nice little dog for a walk. Dogs like to go for walks, you know. And I can usually get a blog post out of a stroll.

So, sorry folks, that’s all I got. I’m going to go drink some hot chocolate or tea and ponder what sorts of Mohawk Valley adventures are available to me at sub-zero temperatures. We’ll try for something more interesting tomorrow.

Picture This

My place of employment considers both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to be paid holidays. Therefore I shall feel free to make another silly post, in addition to yesterday’s bit of whimsy (do you think that is a nicer word than “nonsense”? Discuss amongst yourselves).

The Mohawk Valley has gotten a dusting of snow for Christmas. Isn’t that delightful? The look without the pain of shoveling. As I write this I am aware that in other parts of the country people are sitting around in their shorts by barbecue pits thinking of our White Christmas with scornful pity. Well, to each his own, as the old lady said when she kissed the cow.

I am in Rome, NY for the holidays (thieves, don’t take note; there is really nothing in my house worth stealing) (I do this joke every time, but if you go to rob my house anyways, please clean the bathroom, it needs it again). Perhaps by next year I will get the proper camera or smart phone and be able to post pictures to this blog. That would be a good thing, because the city of Rome has some of the nicest Christmas lights around.

Some of the display came from a large, fancy restaurant called Trinkaus Manor, which tragically burned down some years ago. Many people from Rome cherish memories of driving out to Trinkaus at Christmastime to walk around and see the lights. After the restaurant burned down, the city ended up with them. What a great Christmas gift. I hope later on tonight to take a drive downtown and see the sights.

I see now where this would have been a better post with pictures. Oh well, one does what one can. It is Wuss-out Wednesday after all. Once again, Merry Christmas.

A Weary Wuss

Wuss-out Wednesday is getting to be a habit. In my defense, I’m tired.

Yesterday I avoided writing a post about Why I Can’t Write a Post by going for a run and writing about that. Today I’m too tired to run.

My husband, Steven, has spent the first half of this week fighting a cold. At last it seems he is victorious. And now it looks like my turn to suffer. So my lovely blog readers have that to look forward to: me kvetching about my symptoms. So far the main symptom is I’m TIRED!

Other people can write when they are tired. I bet some people are reading this with a smug look, saying, “I can write when I’m tired. It’s not that hard.” Well, THAT’S NICE FOR YOU!

We were at the laundromat earlier this evening, where I wrote a page on my novel. It was not a very good page, perhaps, but at least I wrote it. I’m tempted to use that as my reason: I used up all my words for the day on that! How can I be expected to write a blog post as well?

I know, it doesn’t work like that. It’s not a bucket, where you take stuff out and then it’s gone. It’s more a river: as you take stuff out even more flows in to take its place. Well, my river today is full of sediment (give me a metaphor, I’ll beat it till it screams).

I think the best thing to do is to take my weary body to bed and hope it’s only bluffing about coming down with a cold. I hope to come up with something more amusing for Non-Sequitur Thursday.

Happy Wuss-Out

What a good day for a Wuss-Out Wednesday. Tomorrow (Thanksgiving) begins a four day weekend for me. Anybody who does not have a four day weekend, please don’t hate on me; I didn’t always have it.

Where was I? Nowhere in particular. I tried to write something today while at work (YES, it was on a break, HELLO!). Not so good. I wrote a half-page or a page on my novel, though. Maybe it wasn’t any good, but the relief of seeing words appear on the page is undeniable.

So I have no post and no ideas for a post. In my defense, the weather made it ineligible to go for a run or a walk after work. Don’t give me that scornful look; that’s not nice. I did not care to run on icy sidewalks. My dog does not care to walk when there is precipitation. I don’t know why I am justifying myself to you who are, after all, probably sitting indoors right now looking at a computer of some sort.

My dear husband suggested that I merely say Happy Thanksgiving and leave it at that. Really not a bad idea. Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Hanukkah, or just plain Happy Wednesday.

Was that weird that Thanksgiving is actually tomorrow while Hanukkah and Wednesday are today? I do hate to be asymmetrical. Then again it may be appropriate for a Wuss-Out Wednesday.

Suitable for Wuss-out Wednesday

My life has been thin of Mohawk Valley adventures lately. On perusing the TV Journal, I find I am out of cheesy movies to write about as well. What’s a blogger to do?

Well, I was about to stop writing entirely, because my pen was beginning to seriously irritate my middle finger (cue jokes about that being my most often used digit). Then I remembered I had a pen with a built-in spongy thing in my pocket. I don’t usually leave the house without at least two or three pens plus paper. That’s how I roll.

So, spongy thing in place, what can I possibly write about? I suppose I could give another shout-out to Colonial Laundromat in Ilion, NY. That’s why I had no adventures Monday night; we had to do laundry. There isn’t much to say about that, except that it is a pleasure to at least have a clean place to do a tiresome chore, especially given my regrettable tendency to drop my brand-clean laundry on the floor.

Getting back to What Shall I Write About, I feel disinclined to do another Preview of Coming Attractions. For one reason, sometimes I don’t make it to the thing I previewed and then I feel silly or guilty.

That is as far as I wrote. Full disclosure: I wrote it on Tuesday, then remembered I had been to Ilion Little Theatre on Friday. However, on finding it in my notebook today, I deem it suitable for Wuss-out Wednesday. Hmm, that’s not a bad headline either. Waste not, want not!

Wuss-out Walk

For this week’s Wuss-out Wednesday, I offer a brief pedestrian post about a walk my husband and I took with our schnoodle, Tabby.

What I mainly wussed out of today was running. I spent all day at work trying to psyche myself into a running state of mind. I pictured myself running. I thought about various streets I particularly like to run on. I anticipated with relish writing a blog post about the run. All to no avail.

Well, you can look superior all you like, but the only ones who really are superior are the ones who actually did run today. To those readers, I hang my head in shame. To all others I explain, “Shut up.”

It has gotten cold in the Mohawk Valley, as one expects it to do in November. We even had some snow. Naturally I’ve been singing “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” but not too loudly, because I don’t want to get punched in the nose.

All that long introduction is because the walk was actually short and uneventful. It was cold. I keep telling myself, not as cold as it’s going to be. I had on my insulated sweatshirt, toque and gloves, so I felt pretty comfortable. It was about to get dark, helped on by sporadic cloud cover. We could see the moon, at a little more than half.

“The full moon is Sunday,” I told Steven. “We’ll have to take a walk after dark then.”

Everybody’s Halloween decorations seem to be gone, except for a few rotting pumpkins here and there. Some scarecrows remain, as well as pots of mums, but those are appropriate for Thanksgiving and fall in general. We saw a lighted Christmas tree in one window.

“It’s too early, but it’s pretty,” I said.

Tabby trotted along in a businesslike fashion, stopping the usual amount of times to sniff. She led us down Bellinger Street to Meyers Park. We saw a few trees that still had colored leaves on them, although in the fading light it was difficult to see the color. The trees in the park were mostly bare. I love the sight of bare branches against a grey sky.

Going up Prospect Street, we passed the parking lot for Basloe Library. I had thought to go there tonight, before opting for the walk. They are open till seven Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Perhaps I’ll make it there on Saturday. I haven’t gotten my library fix in a while.

We did not take a very long walk, but we enjoyed it. Another good thing about the cold was that a hot shower felt really good. I am now feeling all cuddly in my sweats. Having written my blog post for the day, I retire to plot real Mohawk Valley adventures for the rest of the week.

What a Wuss

It’s Wuss-Out Wednesday and I’ll just have to feel bad about that, if I’m inclined to. I’m not, really. It’s been a bad week so far. Bad for novels, bad for blogs, bad for running and bad for cute little doggies.

Tabby had to go to the vet for some dental work today. She had to be sedated, and Steven had to leave her there for a few hours. I don’t know who was more upset about it, him or her. I heard about it via cell phone at work, and I wasn’t exactly cheerful about it myself.

I would like to give a shout-out to Mohawk Valley Veterinary Clinic, where we bring her. They are very nice there and very professional. I’d like to give a real plug to them, sharing some pertinent information, but right now I’m busy wussing out. Oh dear.

Tabby is fine now. They called Steven and told him he could pick her up between 4:30 and 5, which information he duly relayed to me. I thought Tabby would like it best if we both came to pick her up. So, naturally, I could not go running. At least, if I had been in better shape, I suppose I could have run to the clinic and met Steven there. Um, I did mention this is Wuss-Out Wednesday, didn’t I? Well, I wouldn’t like to run without Tabby anyways, because she always walks my cool-down with me.

So this is me, wussing out on a Wednesday. No Mohawk Valley adventures are in the offing, so the rest of the week may seem wussy as well. What can I say? I live to write another day.

No Oomph?

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.

Guess What Day It Is!

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.