Another Blogger’s Sick Day

Posted on October 31, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

I just can’t do it.  I can’t let today be the day I don’t make a post.  Oh, I know, there have been a few days I’ve missed, due to computer problems or, well, falling asleep.  I made my post for those days as early as possible the next morning.  I thought briefly of doing that today, but, well, here I am, here is the laptop, my fingers are not broken, I have  internet connection, and I am awake.

Full disclosure:  I don’t want to be.  I think I am coming down with a cold or something.  I’m tired, I have a sick headache, I feel inclined to do nothing but whine.  My dear husband, Steven, suggested I take today off.  It was a kind, loving suggestion.  But I just feel if I take one day off, I will take all the days off, and then I will not be a blogger any more.  I suppose that would not be such a great loss to the blogosphere.  There are plenty of bloggers out there, many of them better than I am in different ways.

So I begin to ask myself, why am I still posting every day?  I started this blog in May of 2011 with the intention of posting every day for one year.  I don’t know what I thought was going to happen after a year, but it seemed a good goal to set for myself.  Now six years and a couple of months later, I am still at it.  Sometimes I feel a little proud of myself for that.  Then I think of all the foolish posts I’ve made along the way (YES, I realize this is one of them! Sheesh!), and I wonder.

However, when one is coming down with a miserable cold, it is not the best time to question one’s life choices.  One is likely to feel the only good choice would be to crawl into bed, pull up the covers, and cry.  Well, at least I won’t do the last one.  For one reason, it dehydrates one to cry, and it is important to stay hydrated, especially when ailing.  I am sure some readers will feel I might just as well have taken tonight off (you know who you are). No matter.  I am counting this as my Monday Mental Meanderings, and I am going to make myself some hot tea.  Thank you for tuning in.

 

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Who Me? Run a 5K?

Posted on October 29, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

How about a Sunday Running Commentary to avoid a Wrist to Forehead Sunday later on.  At least, I will avoid a post about one.  As a worker at Monday through Friday employment (most of the time), although I appreciate Friday, I confess to some amount of angst on Sunday.  As I like to say in a philosophical tone of voice, you’ll have that.

I did not run yesterday and thought I might not run today.  For one reason, lots of rain is predicted, and Steven informed me it had already started by 5:30 when he got up to pee (we slept in to an almost unheard of 7 a.m.!).  I grumped downstairs for a cup of coffee on stiff knees and feet (yes, I’m old), feeling contented at the thought of my husband having the day off, too.  After coffee, I was hungry, but Steven wanted to do the dishes before fixing breakfast.  As I was contemplating having a piece of toast to hold me over, I realized it was not currently raining.

“You do the dishes while I go for a short run,” I suggested.  I noted that it was 53 degrees out, so I felt secure that my sinuses would not become irritated (often a concern for me).  I brushed my teeth, washed my face, got into running gear, and got myself going.

I crossed German Street and ran up the steeper side (it is kind of a slanted street), heading for the hill by Valley Health.  As I ran, I thought I would lead my Running Commentary post with the reflection that I was NOT going to run in any kind of 5K on Thanksgiving Day, as I had threatened to do in a recent running post.  To keep on schedule for that, I would have to run for 30 minutes.  I wasn’t going to run for 30 minutes!  I had just taken three days off of running (go ahead and judge me if you like)!  I was probably going to run for 20 minutes and have done.  Maybe 20 plus a few.  At least I was going to do the hill.

It sure took a long time to get to the hill.  This was more of a plod than a run.  Never mind, at least I was doing it.  Maybe my body would feel better as I went.  Only that did not seem likely at the time.  The hill was not fun, but I managed it without having a VCD attack (that is Vocal Chord Dysfunction, a breathing problem I have).  Once I got down the hill, I felt a little better about things.  I could rock this run.  Well, maybe not rock, but at least continue.  Twenty minutes?  Maybe 25.  27, same as I did last weekend.  Oh, just keep running.

I ran up and down a couple of streets, keeping an eye on the time passing and wondering how long I would go.  My legs didn’t feel too bad, but my breathing wasn’t so great.  I concentrated on taking deep, slow breaths, holding each breath in for a second or two before exhaling.  I took note of people’s Halloween decorations, to keep myself in a cheerful frame of mind.  Lots of ghouls, nice.  A few pumpkins.  Oh, one house that had a magnificent display last year was bare.  I think it is a rental property, which would explain things.

My run ended up lasting for 30 minutes.  When I was around 13 minutes I wondered if I would; when I hit 16 minutes it seemed likely, and when I got to 18 I was sure. At the bottom of my street, I saw I was at 27 minutes and picked up the pace, so I would not go over 30 minutes. It felt pretty good running a little faster.  I thought I should do this more often.  Perhaps I will.  And the Turkey Trot 5K?  Still on the table, I guess.

I felt happy as I walked my cool-down around the block.  Now I feel ready to sit my butt on the couch, crochet and watch Halloween movies, yes!  I hope to see you all on Mental Meanderings Monday.  Or perhaps I will have a Monster Movie Monday, just to mix things up a little.   Tune in tomorrow and see!

 

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Plans for Sunday on Slacker Saturday

Posted on October 29, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

A delightful array.

I thought I’d lead with a nice Halloweeny photo.  This is another Slacker Saturday post.  I’m using stuff from my Media Library, but with perhaps a little more method to my madness than previous such posts (has there been more than one?  I’m too lazy to check).

I’m starting this on my Tablet,  because Steven is on the laptop. I just really really want to  get my blog post done and get on to the Halloween movie watching portion of the evening.  The photo above was taken at Pumpkin Junction in Sauquoit last year.  We have not made it back there this year.  However,  Steven is actually off work tomorrow.

Aaaahhh… back on the laptop, typing with all ten fingers, as God intended.  Now I can get this post done!  As I was saying, with Steven off work tomorrow, we actually have a whole day together!  Yay!  Naturally, we think to make some plans.  A visit to Pumpkin Junction, perhaps to purchase a pumpkin?  It’s not too late to make a Jack-o-Lantern for Halloween!  And roast the seeds, of course.  Yum!

I would naturally take another picture of two of Steven.

 

I wonder if these fellows will be there again?

But Pumpkin Junction is not our only possibility for tomorrow.  We could also visit the So Sweet Candy Cafe,  in Utica, which decorates delightfully for the season.

He’s a dapper fellow, is he not?

Full disclosure:  there is every chance that tomorrow we will merely get comfortable and watch Halloween movies.  Whatever we do, I will probably write a blog post about it.  As always, I hope you’ll tune in.

 

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Break a Lame?

Posted on October 28, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

On the brighter side, I found my shoes, along with a few other things I’d been missing.

On the darker side (not that I ever actually crossed over to The Dark Side, but that’s a whole other reference), this is going to be another foolish post, even for Lame Post Friday.  I can’t help myself!  I have a play tonight and I am flustered!!! (Yes, it needs all three exclamation points, Punctuation Police.)

One problem is I ate something too large for dinner and I am sick to my stomach.  It tasted good going down, but now its just sitting there, tormenting me.  Oh well, it should digest by curtain time.

Another problem, incidentally, is that there is no curtain.  And I don’t need to know my lines.  Strike Story is the reader’s theatre piece beautifully researched and written by Angela Harris about the textile mills strike in Little Falls in 1912.  There is no curtain because we are not doing it on a stage but in a banquet room in the Travelodge Inn and Suites in Little Falls.  I do so appreciate hiding behind a curtain when I am not actually on stage.  The entire cast is on stage for the entire show.  That makes it a fun and interesting acting challenge, because we get to react to everything that is going on.  But there is also no break and chance to hide.  Yes, I am this weird combination of great big ham and little bitty scaredy cat (not too little, but let’s not get into my dieting woes right now).

What I was saying to a friend at work is, this is an important show.  It is important to the writer, director and cast.  It has historical significance.  It is an honor to be in such a play, and it is a responsibility.  In other plays, if I screw up, I fix it as best I can, and I will probably laugh about it, either as it’s happening or later.  There is every chance the audience will laugh, too.  Of course, I always strive to NOT screw up.  It just seems especially important this time.

So this is my foolish blog post dithering about my pre-show jitters.  I have been going over my lines and thinking about my character all day.  And, as I mentioned earlier, I found the shoes I wanted to wear.  I wore a different pair for dress rehearsal, and they were all right, but the pair I found is better, yes!  I am now perfectly well prepared to break a leg.

 

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Is a Throwback a Non-Sequitur?

Posted on October 27, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

Good evening and welcome to Non-Sequitur Thursday.  I am tired as I can be… OK, that is an exaggeration.  I bet I could be a lot more tired, for example, if I had gone running again today or cleaned my house or worked overtime or… see? I’m making myself more tired just by thinking about it.  Actually, now that I think about all the things I have not done today, I feel a little bit ill-used for being so tired.  What the hell, me?

Never mind all that.  I have a blog post to make.  Just now as I was casting about in my rather mushy brain for an idea, I remembered, Throwback Thursday.  People on Facebook post pictures from the past. Maybe I could do that!  I could even be non-sequiturish about it.  I bet I have some good stuff in my Media Library.  Let’s look…

I am not sure what he is looking at.

This is our late, much missed poocher, Spunky.  I guess sometimes Throwback Thursday can sometimes make you melancholy.

I can’t even believe what he is telling me to say.

Here is something more cheerful.  This is my husband, Steven, and I  as Dr. Chumley and Veda in the Ilion Little Theatre production of Harvey in the spring on 2012.  I believe I wrote a few blog posts about it at the time.

These days we use champagne flutes.

Now here is a REAL Throwback Thursday shot!  This is our wedding in October of 1990.  Look how young and cute we were!  I suppose we’re still kind of cute, for a couple of old folks (some people call us old something else that begins with an f, but I do not care to be vulgar).

I think three pictures is good for a foolish post when I’m tired.  Now all I have to do is slap on a snappy headline and I’m done.  I hope people will tune in again tomorrow on Lame Post Friday.  I will probably be quite flustered, because I will be about to leave for the performance of Strike Story  with LiFt Theatre Company in Little Falls.  I’m sure I’ve mentioned it.  I bet I even included a link to the Facebook event.  I just did again.  So this is not a completely useless post.  Happy Thursday, everyone.

 

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Tricks and Perseverance

Posted on October 26, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

I reminded myself all day to go running and to make a Running Commentary post.  Regular readers may recall, that is one of my tricks to get myself to run after a long, tiring day at work: remind myself all day to do it so it will be automatic and I won’t talk myself out of it.  Sometimes I have to ask myself, how can I keep saying I love to run when it is so damn easy to talk myself out of it?  One day perhaps I will take a whole blog post to discuss the matter.  For today, let us just accept it as true.

So I accomplished the first part of my plan: I ran. Now I am attempting to accomplish the second.  As I type this, it is more than two hours after I finished my run.  Ideally, I do not wait that long.  In fact, after I finished the run, I thought, “That was a dull run.  I’m not going to write about that run.”  Well, two hours later and no other blog post in sight, I am going to write a little bit.

I am slowly working back into running after my week-long pause following the East Herkimer Fire Department 5K (just thought I’d plug them again).  When I ran on Saturday, I managed 27 minutes.  Here is how I decided to run 27 minutes:  I seemed to remember that there is a Turkey Trot 5K somewhere around here on Thanksgiving Day.  I thought I might like to run it.  I further thought, to be really comfortable running it, I would like to run for 40 minutes the previous Saturday.  Then I counted backwards from Saturday Nov. 18, if I was adding 10 percent to my run time each week, what I should run Oct. 21 to get to 40 minutes by then?

I often figure simple math in my head when I run.  It is another trick I use.  Back in Army Basic Training, when I learned to run, Drill Sergeant Dillinger told me that the secret to running is to distract yourself, so you don’t think about how much it sucks to run.  I later found out that it does not always suck to run, something I never would have learned without the distract yourself trick.

Getting back to today’s run, part of it was fairly sucky.  I have been working on my feet for the past two days; my legs and feet are TIRED.  However, as I have mentioned many times: I know how to persevere.  Eventually my leg muscles began to feel more supple. My feet were still not best pleased with me, but you’ll have that.  I reminded myself that I do not have any place I have to go nor anything I have to get done this evening.  No need to recruit my energies!  I could just go ahead and BE tired!

And, yes, obviously I did have one thing to get done this evening:  make my daily blog post.  And, look at that.  I just did.  Ha! In your face!  I say that to my inner critic, not my dear readers.  To my dear readers I say, thank your tuning in.

 

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What’s the Story?

Posted on October 25, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

This is another pre-rehearsal hasty post (which is not the same thing as hasty pudding) (which I have no idea what that is anyways but thought I would throw it in there).  Will I ever take a break from doing plays and rushing off to rehearsal?  Yes, after this one.

And I really wanted to write a good blog post about it, telling a little about the play, its history, the Little Falls history it is based on, the event of its revival, the special guest involved…

And my brain has turned to mush!  The best I can do, it seems, is to tell you the where, when, etc., and link back to the Facebook event.

The play is Strike Story, by Little Falls resident Angela Harris, directed by Matthew Powers, and presented by LiFT Theatre Company.  The performance is 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 27, at the Travel Lodge Inn and Suites, 20 Albany St., Little Falls, NY.  Tickets are $5.  Guests are invited to arrive early as a cash bar will be available (I’ve been told that my character would NOT enter carrying a gin martini, dammit!).  I have linked to the Facebook event on the word event, above.

And this is my Tired Tuesday post.  I have to take my shower, finish getting my costume together, and get on the road.  I hope to see you all tomorrow, when it will probably be Wuss-out Wednesday.

 

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Neither Carnival Nor Much Soul

Posted on October 24, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

I feel like the reflection, blurry.

I would love to do a Monster Movie Monday, but the movie on my mind today does not exactly have a monster in it.  Carnival of Souls (1962) is low budget, atmospheric and CREEEEPY!  I admire it intensely, although I can’t say it is a pleasure to watch.  I find it unsettling.  What I really love is how scary it is using just make up, camera work, and acting.

This was my favorite among the posters I found.

This is why I don’t often write about movies I truly admire, especially horror movies.  I don’t want to tell you anything about it.  I feel a movie like this is best enjoyed if you allow it to unfold before you.  Well, maybe I could share a couple of pictures, which I found on a Carnival of Souls Facebook page.

I suppose we could call this a monster.

 

Here is another depiction of how I feel, only I am dry. And I have short hair.

Full disclosure:  I did not intend to write about this at all.  I was going to call this Migraine Monday, because I have been suffering this nagging headache most of the afternoon.  It is not a full-blown migraine, but you know how I love alliteration.  To add to my sense of ill-usage, it got worse AFTER work.  What’s that all about?  But I was afraid it would sound like whining and begging for sympathy.  I’m not, really. Actually, I’m afraid this is not a very good blog post, and I am offering a pathetic excuse.  Hmmm… that doesn’t sound much better, does it?  So judge me.  Happy Monday, everyone.

 

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Ah, Halloween!

Posted on October 23, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

In lieu of my usual Wrist to Forehead Sunday, I thought I would share a few pictures of our indoor Halloween decorations.  I think I even managed to photograph the decorations and not the mess surrounding them (don’t judge).  Of course I adore all things Halloween, but it is my husband, Steven, who has the flair for decorating..

It looks even better with the lights on. Maybe I’ll take another picture later.

This is our mantle.  Isn’t it fun?  Some of the pictures stay up year round, but we change the wreath and most of the stuff on the shelf per season. The exceptions are PeeWee Herman and the two ghosts center left (the viewer’s left).  We had a small witch’s hat we put on PeeWee in the past, but I guess Steven couldn’t find it this year.  We have seasonal hats we put on the ghosts at other times of the year.

Maybe this is too busy, but it gives you an idea.

This is our dining room table.  Some of the stuff is new this year.  The snowman in the middle was recently purchased at a garage sale.  Since we let the ghosts on the mantle pretend to be snowmen at Christmas, I decreed that this snowman could pretend to be a ghost now. Yes, I anthropomorphize shamelessly. It is part of my charm.

Yes, that is a wall mural in the background; it was here when we bought the house.

This is the buffet in our dining room.  The jukebox and the skeleton couples are there year round.  Most of the other things sing and dance, if Steven put fresh batteries in them.  For a while we were quite obsessed with these singing/dancing toys and were buying them almost indiscriminately.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

This last picture represents my contribution to the Halloween decor.  The Santa Claus stands there year round.  My Mom bought it for us at a second hand store in Pennsylvania a few years ago.  The shirt is one I got at a thrift store many years ago an have worn faithfully.  Unfortunately, when I went to put it on this year, I could see light coming through a large number of pinholes in its front.  I did not feel secure to wear it under those circumstances, but Santa does not seem to mind.

Oh, how I love Halloween.   I think it is time to finish with the blog posting portion of the day and move on to the Halloween movie watching portion.  Happy Sunday, everyone.

 

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Sluggish Saturday

Posted on October 22, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

Me on a more ambitious Saturday.

I thought I would lead with a photo of me finishing the East Herkimer Fire Department 5K last Saturday.  Yes, I am boldly wearing a Superman t-shirt, regardless of how slowly I run.  Steven purchased it at a church thrift store some years go for fifty cents.  Sometimes I even let him wear it.

At first I had meant to have Saturday Running Commentary today.  I ran for the first time since 5K (don’t judge), and it went pretty well.  But I like to do Running Commentary posts soon after the run when it is fresh in my mind.  Unfortunately, I had one of my sinus headaches this morning and it got worse as the morning progressed.  Sorry to complain about it, but there it is.

I took some ibuprofen and a decongestant, the I laid down with this thing my Mom nicely got me.  It is a sleep mask filled with seeds or herbs or something.  You heat it in the microwave or freeze it.  I heated it.  It felt awesome!  I fell asleep.  Twice.  The headache went away.  Yay, Mom!  Alas, the decongestant had the usual effect these things do, and I am doped up, brain and body dead, and quite sluggish.  This is why I rarely take decongestants, and why I forget how bad the effects are between doses.  So I make another note to myself and for a while I will rely on the mask, hot tea and sinus irrigation.  The next time I take decongestants, you’ll probably read about it here, when I have another foolish post such as this.

After I got up from the second nap, I felt more rested than I can remember feeling.  The feeling of sluggishness soon returned, and coffee tasted good but did not help.  I recently heard a name for what ails me: Old Farthritis, but let’s not go on about my ills.  I thought I would watch a Halloween movie from the ones I’ve DVR’d recently (TCM is doing a lot this month, yay!).  I tried Daughter of Dracula (1936).

“Look in my eyes… What do you see?”

 

Imagine my surprise when I heard in Ben Mankeiwicz’s pre-movie commentary that the movie is highly thought of by many critics.  I enjoyed what I saw, but I realized  that it is not as much fun watching a monster movie without my husband, Steve.  I stopped the movie, posted that thought on Facebook, and decided to make my blog post.  For what it is worth.

I shall close with another picture of me taken on a more ambitious Saturday.  Here I am in costume and character for the Utica Landmarks Society fundraiser, Ritz and Ragtime.  I think of it because Steven recently discovered it, having not seen it immediately after the event, when all the pictures were first shared.  I know exactly where it is on our downloads.

And I don’t care what you see in the movies: that flask does NOT stay nicely tucked into your garter!

Happy Saturday, everyone, and I hope to see you all on Wrist to Forehead Sunday.

 

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