Tag Archives: blogging

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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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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When in Distress, Vampires Often Help

Posted on June 16, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

Earlier today, a friend at work gave me some icy-hot (it was Equate brand) to rub on my knees. It seemed to help. I have spent most of the rest of the day wishing I had something similar to rub on my attitude. It’s not even Bad Attituesday!

It is, in fact, one of those days when I disprove one of my own rules: that writing begets more writing. I just finished and emailed out two articles for Mohawk Valley Living magazine. Shouldn’t I be all raring to go and write my blog post now? It turns out, not so much. I was just futzing around Facebook, looking for pictures, because that always seems to be a good fallback post. Of course nothing appeals. Maybe I should look again.

When in doubt, look for monsters. Here are a couple of pictures from Mark of the Vampire. I found them on a page I Like called Murder, Madness and the Macabre, Our Favorite Nightmares.

Bela and friend.

I gotta get me a dress with sleeves like that.

I’ve seen Mark of the Vampire a couple of times. I can’t believe I don’t have it on one of my horror collections. Maybe my husband will buy it for me for my birthday (he usually reads this blog, teehee).

I’ll throw in another picture of Bela Lugosi to round things out (you know how I like to include three photos). Here he is from Dracula in 1931.

“I bid you welcome.”

He was fine, yes. I haven’t seen an old horror movie in a long time. Perhaps that is the ice-hot for my attitude I seek. At any rate, it couldn’t hurt. We’ll call today a Non-Sequitur Thursday post (although the title I have in mind is more of a sequitur) and drive on. Thank you for tuning in, and I hope to see you all on Lame Post Friday.

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Not Tired, Tempest!

Posted on June 14, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

You’ve heard of the rule, “When in doubt, eat ice cream.” At least, if you read my blog post of that title, you have. The only treats I have in my freezer are fudge bars, so I ate one of those. I don’t think it’s helping.

I am trying to get my blog post done before leaving for rehearsal for The Tempest with LiFT Theatre Company in Little Falls, NY. This is the group that did Much Ado About Nothing last summer, in which I memorably played Friar Francis and Second Watch (or do I flatter myself?). Perhaps you read a few of my blog posts about it. I only have one part in The Tempest, Gonzalo, “an honest old counselor of Naples.” I’m still working on the character, but I am basically a garrulous old man. The way my body has been feeling lately, I will have no problem with the old part.

I will share more about the play, including performance dates, soon. I may even bring my Tablet to rehearsal and take some pictures. Won’t that be fun? And the nice thing about me taking the pictures is… I don’t have to be in any of them! Ah ha ha ha ha!

Yes, the conclusion to be drawn is that a fudge bar is not a substitute to a dish of ice cream when it comes to making a blog post. Then again, today is Tired Tuesday. Also, I do not want to be late for rehearsal. Happy Tuesday, everyone.

I Didn’t Mean to be Melancholy

Posted on June 13, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

I had meant to make a post about one of my recent Mohawk Valley adventures, but I’m afraid today is going to be more of a Middle-aged Musings Monday, if not Melancholy Monday, or even a Memories Monday. Oh, all right, I’ll stop alliterating and start blogging.

Today on my Facebook On This Day, I noted that one year ago today we brought our sweet Spunky home from his foster dad’s (I even wrote a blog post about it). Regular readers may recall that we sadly lost Spunkman (as Steven liked to call him) far too soon (I wrote a blog post about that, too). I miss having a dog, but the time seems not right to adopt another one yet.

Logging on to WordPress, I noticed a post from a blogger I follow about how she and her guy adopted a puppy, Meet Harper, the Resuce Pup! Full disclosure: I do not read all posts by all the bloggers I follow. This one I read. Rescue dogs are the best! And people who adopt them are awesome! Oh dear, that sounded like I was tooting my own horn, but I was not, really. For one reason, I have not adopted another dog since losing Spunky. I don’t know if I ever will, although as I read somewhere, pets happen.

So I am remembering our little Spunky, and our sweet Tabby, who lived with us from 2007 to 2015. Dogs enrich our lives immeasurably, but so is the sadness immeasurable when we lose them. I suppose I could say something profound about how you have to have the sad to appreciate the happy, and I even know such a thing to be true. But I’m afraid it would sound glib and trite, because profundity is not my strong suit.

I also feel I should apologize for intruding sadness into my silly blog, especially when the occasion for sadness is sometime past. Then again, who can explain emotions and why apologize for them? I like to say, sometimes you just have to feel that way until you don’t feel that way any more. I’ll try for a better post tomorrow.

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Run then Rationalize

Posted on June 12, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

As soon as I started my run today, my legs were not happy with me. I had been up and had coffee but nothing to eat. Well, if I would have eaten something, I would have wanted to wait a little while for it to digest, and then it might have been to warm and I’d have had plenty of time to talk myself out of it. I told myself I did not have to run as long as I ran yesterday. After all, last weekend I ran 67 minutes Saturday and only 45 Sunday. I had upped my time by the recommended ten percent to 74 minutes yesterday. It might be a good idea to ran the same today, but I do not always follow the idea course in my running.

I wasn’t going to run any hills, either. I had made up my mind to that, although I confess I was not as comfortable with that decision. There are a lot of hills on the Boilermaker (that is the 15K road race in Utica, NY, I am signed up to run on July 9, for anybody just tuning in). I don’t have to run hills EVERY day, I argued. A little voice in my head said, “Oh, just start running, you’ll talk yourself into it as you go.” As soon as I started running, my legs informed me that we were NOT going to run any hills and we certainly were not going to run for an hour and fourteen minutes.

Cutting right to the chase, I’ll tell you: I did not run any hills but I did run for an hour and fourteen minutes. I crossed State Street and ran on a bunch of streets I don’t usually run on, so it was a very interesting run. I’ll have to walk it sometime with my Tablet and take pictures to share. I probably won’t be doing that today, though. It’s not that my legs would object (they LOVE to walk), but it is supposed to be close to 90 degrees and sunny today. I’m kind of a vampire. I admire a sunny day, but it doesn’t pay me to get too close.

As I was running, I was narrating in my head. It seemed pretty interesting at the time, but now I’m not so sure. Then again, it is Wrist to Forehead Sunday. I think this brief description of my run will suffice. Now you have time to read other blogs. Isn’t that generous of me? Yes, yes, I know, that is only a rationalization, but rationalization is not always a bad thing. To prove this I will end with a quote from the movie The Big Chill:

Jeff Goldblum character: Don’t knock rationalization, where would we be without it? I don’t know anybody who can get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations; they’re more important than sex.

Tom Berenger character: Nothing’s more important than sex.

Jeff Goldblum character: Oh yeah? Ever go a week without a rationalization?

If I do not have the lines exactly right, sorry. I don’t have a rationalization for that, but I hope you will forgive me.

Lame Lycanthropy (Look It Up)

Posted on June 9, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

And the moon is full! Or was that last night?

I like to make a silly post on a Friday. For newcomers to the blog, the official term is Lame Post Friday, and I often indulge in random observations and half-baked philosophy. And I repeat that bit of definition perhaps a few more times than is strictly necessary, but you’ll have that. On this particular Friday, I am taking a vacation day, so I am feeling a little giddy. I’m just going to type in some silliness and get on with my fun day. I saw the above photo on my Facebook news feed this morning and said, “ooh.” It ties in with another photo I downloaded some days ago. I downloaded it with the idea that I would eventually find other pictures to tie in with it for a blog post and, as you see, I was right! I love it when that happens. Now let’s see if I can find that photo in my downloads (must figure out how to organize those downloads; as you know, I am not computer savvy)…

Oh no! I found it and it is not the photo I thought it was! It is the Mummy, not the Wolfman! How could I make such a mistake! How lame is that! Wait a minute, it’s lame. That fits right in. It’s even kind of random. I’ll go with it.

Mummy, Werewolf… Compare and contrast. Discuss amongst yourselves.

I downloaded two other Werewolf photos, to round out the post. I had been looking for one, because, you know, three’s the charm, but I could not decide between the movie poster and a humorous one, so I went with both (is that a run-on sentence? I don’t care if it is).

I guess it’s the disc cover, not the actual poster, but I think that’s OK. Or is it just more lame? Either way.

The movie had an excellent cast, although I find it rather sad. I’ll have to do a post sometime on the profound nature of horror movies.

I do not recommend an adversarial relationship with one’s stylist.

It looks as if he doesn’t want a shave and a haircut (two bits), and I can’t really blame him. He has only to wait till the moon wanes. And doesn’t that make you wonder what would happen if he did get a haircut as the Wolfman, then the moon waned. Would his face be like all cut up? His head completely bald? I’ll have to do some research on lycanthropy (my computer is underlining that word, but I looked it up in Webster’s and it is correct).

Incidentally, I got the first photo from Dracula’s House of Halloween and the last two from the Wolfman facebook page. I stupidly do not remember where I got the Loveboat photo and I am too lazy to try to find out. I did mention this is Lame Post Friday, didn’t I?

If Only I Could Write a Blooming Blog Post

Posted on June 2, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

I ran today, thinking I would sneak in another running commentary. It was a dull and boring run. At least, for a while I enjoyed it quite a bit. But I think it was only interesting to me as I was running it and it would not entertain anybody, least of all myself, to make a blog post about it. Still, a blog post must be made (because I say it does, that’s why!). I am currently cooking, so I could do a cooking post. If only I were doing something more interesting than heating up leftovers.

If only I could bestir myself sufficiently to take the Tablet out to the yard. At least one iris bloomed today. I posted a picture of the buds the other day. I think some readers would be pleased to be posted on current developments. Just a moment first, to stir the pot on the stove and lower the heat under it. And find the Tablet (as you may recall, I have a habit of misplacing it).

Maybe if I would have stood on my head…

I guess it’s not the best picture, because the stem is kind of bent over. Believe me, I know how it feels! Perhaps I should put a tomato cage over it or something. Steven arrived home while I was taking the picture, and I was able to assure him that I TOLD the young man who mows the lawn not to mow down the daisies, as Steven had asked him to do. You see, this nice young man who lives across the street offered to mow our lawn. In addition to being quite busy and (on my part, at least) a little lazy, we were happy to encourage this example of young entrepreneurship. The first time he did it, he did not mow the daisies in our front yard, which have become a little extensive this year. Steven told him to mow them this time. At the last minute, I reprieved them, though, because they were just too pretty. Here is a picture.

He loves me, he loves me not…

In front of the daisies is a peony bush that magically appeared after we had sufficiently discouraged the wild day lilies. I insisted it had been planted by my stalker, a statement that has yet to be disproved. The peonies have not bloomed yet, but look how many buds:

It started as one lone stalk and blossom, and there’s a lesson for all of us.

The main problem with the daisies is that they hide the lilies of the valley, which are also multiplying exponentially. However, I’m finding those blooms don’t show very well even without anything in front of the greenery. I tried to get a picture.

If you look really close, you can just see a few bells.

I’ve picked a few lilies of the valley and brought them inside. I used a shot glass for a vase, because they are so small (Steven collects shot glasses, although we rarely do a shot of anything). I love the smell. I tired to get a picture, but I fear they were backlit and do not show.

It’s frogs on either side of the flowers. Steven collects those, too.

We also have some daisies inside. Steven put them in water with blue food coloring, at my suggestion. I think they’re pretty.

Oh, yeah, he loves me.

So for not a running post and not a cooking post, I think this makes a pretty good flower post. We’ll call it a win for Non-Sequitur Thursday.

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I Am a Writer. I Mean a Blogger.

Posted on June 1, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

It’s spearmint. I’d like to get some peppermint.

This is a picture I took yesterday with my Tablet and neglected to include in my blog post. I realized I had left it out before I hit publish but I couldn’t figure out where to add it in. I figured I could use it in a future blog post. I thought it might be further in the future than the next day, but, well, it is Wuss-out Wednesday, and, once again, I got nothin’.

I really, really do got nothin’ today. Plenty of nothin’ as the song goes. Seriously, I am forcing my fingers to keep moving from key to key to put in the words you are reading now. When I pause to think of the next sentence, it is difficult to get started again. This has been happening to me all day. This morning when I was driving to work, I stopped for a stop sign. I did not stay stopped long enough to be late for work, but I had to remind myself to go. I did manage to get work done while at work, but it was not easy.

What is this malaise? Am I not taking enough vitamins? Is it that last ten pounds I can’t seem to lose (oh, all right, 15 pounds, sheesh!)? Not enough exercise? Poor quality sleep? Or am I just a big fat lazy bum who was not meant to be a blogger much less a writer? SAY IT AIN’T SO!!!

Now there’s a point to ponder, within that welter of questions: why did I say “a blogger much less a writer”? Am I saying a blogger is not a real writer? What makes a “real writer” anyways? I don’t imagine I can answer these questions without resorting to truisms or cliches (another point to ponder: what’s the difference between a truism and a cliche?). Not on Wuss-out Wednesday, especially.

I think I’ll go make myself a cup of mint tea.