Tuesday, 12/10

It feels quite strange the first time you do it. Hopefully, I'll get used to it quickly.

Because I'm working ahead on all kinds of stuff for all my jobs, this past weekend I had the opportunity to write down a date. This date, to be specific--

1/23/20

Writing the “20” part of it threw me for a loop for a second. It didn’t feel right as I was writing it, nor did it look “right” when I was finished. Yet there it was, a date just a month or so away, written down by the very person it was throwing off for a second.

Although I don’t remember, I’d have to guess that I was probably just as thrown off a decade ago, whenever I first had to write down something like “1/23/10”. But because I don’t remember, I’m guessing I became used to it quite quickly, just as I probably because used to writing “1/23/00” right away and just as I’ll probably become quite used to writing (and seeing) “1/23/20” soon.

Maybe the strange thing is this—it really doesn't SEEM like we're at the end of a decade, does it? To me, at least, it just seems like it's the end of another year. It doesn't seem like the end of 1999, when the world was gonna end, or the end of 2009, or the end of any decade. For whatever reason, there just seem to be the pomp or the circumstance or the “this is what happened the past 10 years” feature upon feature in media. I don't know if it's because the world's too weird these days or we just don't have a centralized, shared media any more, or I don't know if I just haven't been paying attention.

But it sure doesn't seem like it's the end of the decade. And maybe THAT'S why I was so thrown off by writing down a simple date.

(jim@wmqt.com), who will (hopefully) get used to it soon.

Monday, 12/09

And here, people seem to think I eat well. Shows what they know.

Actually, I normally DO eat as well as I can. My diet usually consists of whole grains, fresh fruits & vegetables, lean protein, and nuts & (healthy) dark chocolate. That's usually what I eat, and that's why probably are of the opinion that try to eat well.

Because I usually do.

The past ten days, though, have been something else, starting with Thanksgiving and going through my birthday a few days later. Then there was this 48 hour span this past weekend--

Friday lunch—I grabbed a protein bar and some chocolate because I was running late after TV taping.

Friday dinner—I went running after work, and then didn't feel like making anything, so I ate a pint of Talenti Double Chocolate Gelato for dinner.

(No, I don't feel good about that. But it is what it is.)

Saturday breakfast—I break my cardinal rule and don't eat one, because...

Saturday lunch was all the food we bought from the Greek Orthodox Church bake sale, which for me this year consisted of Patitsio and six—count them, six—different Greek baked goods, including baklava (which does, in my defense, have walnuts in it)

Saturday “dinner”--a dozen or so cookies at the Peter White Public Library open house.

Sunday breakfast—I realized that I have a dark chocolate bar with blueberry & lavender filling I bought in Germany that's past its expiration date, so I start eating that.

Then around 11 or so Sunday morning, my stomach starts making noises. These aren't the usual, mellow rumblings that you hear from a stomach. Nope; these are like the wailing of a banshee on its way to hell for, oh, the third or fourth time. My stomach was making such weird & loud sounds that I thought it might start cracking the windows of our living room, which is where I was sitting.

THAT'S how loud my stomach was.

I mean: I can't blame my stomach. I kinda sorta had been abusing it for the past 48 hours, and I guess it just decided it was time to fight back. In all honesty, I'm surprised it hadn't started it sooner; say, after the ice cream for dinner Friday night. But apparently it had had enough, and decided it was time I knew.

Thankfully, I took the hint.

I drank a cup of tea (Blood Orange Smoothie from Spice Merchants, which is a roobois tea I highly recommend) and ate something I hadn't for quite a while—real food, like a slice of whole grain bread and a piece of fruit. I think my body thought at first I was joking, as it continued to grumble, but after a while the loudness started to quiet down, and that strange feeling I'd been having, literally in the pit of my stomach, started to go away. Then for dinner, when I had gnocchi and steamed broccoli and a glass of milk, my body must've remembered that I actually DO know how to eat well, and stopped fighting back.

If nothing else, I'm sure the windows in our apartment appreciated that.

So, now, I'm (hopefully) back on a normal diet, and everything's right in the world. However, if you're ever tempted to think that I eat well all the time, just remember the abuse I put my body through during that 48 hour span this weekend.

You'll probably never look at my dietary habits the same way again. I know I sure won't.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)

Friday, 12/6

T minus 18 days until Christmas Eve, and I’m proud to say I haven’t even devoted one second of thought to buying gifts for the holidays.

Well, okay, maybe “proud” isn’t the right word. Maybe “embarrassed” or “mortified” or “not totally surprised” would fit in that sentence a little better. But here we are 18 days out, and I haven’t done a thing yet.

I really need to get my butt in gear, don’t I?

As usual, I have an excuse, and as usual, the excuse is the same excuse that I always use--I just haven’t had the time yet. I mean, between my real job and my TV job (where I have to be in a few minutes, in fact) and my History Center job and my feeble attempt to have a personal life, there just hasn’t been much leftover brainpower to think about things. Heck, my birthday was Wednesday, and it wasn’t until, I think, Monday that I even wrote down a few gift suggestions, even though people had been bugging me about it for weeks.

My fault, and my fault entirely.

However, I’ve promised myself that this is the weekend that I will get my butt in gear and start devoting thought to this year’s gift list. There are a couple of events this weekend that are designed to put people in the holiday spirit—the Greek Orthodox Church Bake Sale and the Peter White Public Library’s Winter Wonderland Open House & Cookie Fest, just to name a few. So while I’m eating waaaaaaay too much food for the third time in nine days I’ll also start to think about what to give friends and family for the holidays.

After all, there are 18 days left. That’s, like, an eternity, right?

8-)

On that note, YOU have yourself a great weekend. If you have any holiday chores to take care of, I hope you get them done quickly and without hassle!!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Thursday, 12/5

You know, I’m thinking this would be a good time for me to make a plea I make every year, and that plea is this--

If you have the chance, can you please shovel the sidewalk by your house?

Here’s why. As many of you know, I walk to work every day, and I find myself dodging cars a lot more than I used to.  It seems that after the big snows of the past week people aren't keeping their sidewalks clean (or the city's not plowing as much as usual).  I realize most people don't walk a lot, and therefore don't give this a second thought, but take a look out of your living room window every so often.  Know what you'll see?

People walking down the street, and walking ON the street because sidewalks aren't cleaned off. 

Think of it another way--when you're driving down the street, how often do you have to dodge pedestrians walking on the street?  Know WHY you're dodging those pedestrians?  Because the sidewalks aren't cleaned off, and those pedestrians are forced to share the street with cars.

Cars like yours.

Because I know what it's like having to share the streets with cars, I’ve always made sure that the sidewalks around my house are cleaned off.  If you have an extra few minutes one day, think you could follow that example?  On behalf of everyone who walks somewhere during the day (a number that's a lot larger than you think), I offer my sincerest thanks.

I really do.

******

By the way, thanks for all the birthday wishes yesterday. As I mentioned you really didn't need to; my mom's the one who deserves all the credit. I had a nice day working, believe it or not, all three of my jobs. I did TV in the morning, radio in the afternoon, and wrote a History Center newspaper article at night. I don't know if a normal person would spend their birthday that way, but as we all know, I've never been accused of being normal.

Ever.

But thanks nonetheless!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 12/4

I don’t mind birthdays. It’s the part about getting older that I don’t like.

Some of you may know that it’s my birthday today, and I guess I’m okay with that. I don’t expect people to make a big deal out of it; it’s nothing more than the anniversary of me finally relieving my mother of the burden of carrying me around for ten months. If anything, she’s the one who deserves the honors today, since I wasn’t born until a month after my due date, and this was the day she was finally relieved of that misery.

So thanks for the extra 30 days, Mom!!

But whenever you have a birthday you’re forced to confront the fact that you’re getting older, and if there’s one thing you might have learned by reading this ramblings over the past decade, it’s that members of the Koski family don’t like to confront the fact that there’s nothing you can do about getting older. It just happens, whether you want it to or not.

Who do we see about changing that, by the way?

As I’ve gotten older I’ve noticed, despite my best efforts, more and more signs popping up reminding me of that fact that I am indeed getting on in years. Of course, the latest had to pop up on Sunday, right as I was about to celebrate another birthday. I finished working out and was about to read the newspaper (yes, another one of those signs that I’m “old”) and I noticed that I couldn’t quite make out the print on the page, which I found odd, because I usually have no trouble making out the print. It was then I realized that I wasn’t wearing my glasses, which, as for most “old” people, are bifocals. I slipped them on, and then had no trouble reading the print.

Aside from the heavy sigh the incident provoked, a bit of curiosity bubbled to the surface, as well. Even without glasses, I’ve always been able to read things with no problem. In fact, when I read newspapers after running or when I read in bed every night it’s sans eyewear. Yet for some reason this Sunday, I could not read the print in the newspaper until I put my glasses on I don’t know if it’s because the print was smaller than usual or because the room was rather dark because of the storm or if (gasp) my eyes are just getting a little worse as time (gasp) marches on, but for the first time, I couldn’t focus on the type well enough to read what was on the page. It didn’t matter how close I got to the page, or how far away I held it, something just didn’t work out until I used my glasses.

Oh, woe is me.

Since then, I’ve read many things—including newspapers—without wearing my glasses, and I’ve been able to see them just fine. But that fact that I had this particular problem for the first time just a few days before turning another year “older” affected me in the way that all incidents related to aging affect me—with me not handling it like an ”adult” would.

So at least I’ve got that going for me!

Don’t worry; I’m sure that as these incidents keep popping up, I’ll (hopefully) get a better grip on them. After all, as I’m always told, these incidents DO pop up more and more as you age more and more, and, as I’ve found, there’s nothing you can (yet) do to stop that. So like I said, while I don’t mind birthdays, this whole getting “older” thing is just not my cup of tea.

Sigh...and make it a heavy one, if you’d like!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 12/3

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m not a true Yooper.

Now I say this despite the fact that I was born and raised in the U.P., and I chose to come back and live here. But we all know it’s true; I’ve written enough in here about how I don’t like to hunt, camp, 4-wheel, or do any other of the stereotypical things that “Yoopers” do. And all the snow we’ve received the past six days has proven, once again, about how I apparently am not a true Yooper.

After all, I like plowed roads.

This all started Sunday, when I heard from an acquaintance in in Republic. When I asked her about the weather, she said it was snowing so hard she couldn’t see her barn, and that the road she lived on “hadn’t been plowed yet. They’ll probably get to it tomorrow night or so”. And that blew my mind in two ways--one was that is apparently takes three days to plow a road where she lives.

The other was that my friend, obviously a true Yooper, was okay with that.

Can you imagine (and maybe some of you can) being stuck inside your house for three (or more) days, unable to leave? You can’t get your car out to go to work or school, or to the store, or to anything. You’re just. . .there, and nowhere else. If there’s a major emergency, like your power goes out (which did happen to her for awhile after the first snow the day before Thanksgiving), or if you get sick, or if your wi-fi goes out, you run out of DVDs & chocolate, help can’t get to you. It’s you and whatever you have around, hunkered down for the duration. You’re not getting out, and nothing’s getting in.

Yikes!

This may be a sign of some personal weakness on my part, but I don’t think I could handle that. I think I’d go stir crazy if I didn’t have at least the possibility of leaving. I mean, if the weather was as bad as it obviously was around the vast majority of the U.P. this past weekend, I probably wouldn’t WANT to leave my home, but I’d at least want the option to get out. I’d at least want to know that, if I needed to, I could get out of my home and walk (or drive) somewhere. I’d at least want to know that, if need be, I could get my power turned back on, or that I could get emergency help, or I could get take-out delivered.

But to know that none of that’s possible, and to be okay with that fact? That obviously takes a much hardier constitution than I seem to have, so my admiration goes out to anyone who could handle a situation like that, including my friend in Republic and, I’m guessing, many of you. You’re obviously true Yoopers, and you should be proud of that fact.

I’m, obviously, not. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go look out the window and see if the plows have finally cleared off the sidewalk. After all, I don’t want to melt as I walk to work today, right?

(jim@wmqt.com), much more wimp than Yooper.

Monday, 12/2

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit it. I really need to stop looking through those catalogs piling up in my apartment.

Because of all the snow yesterday I was stuck inside and, for some bizarre reason, spent a little while leafing through a few more of those catalogs I was talking about last week.  And in one of them I cam across something that either delighted me to no end or blew my mind. I can’t quite figure out which yet, although I am working on figuring out which.

Now, those of you who know me really well know that one of my little, uhm, peculiarities is that I make up my own lyrics and own titles to existing songs, or just plain make up my own songs. I hear some tunes so often that I just start to sing my own versions for no particular reason, much to the eternal joy of Loraine, who says that’s the reason she married me.

Well, it’s either the reason she married me or the reason she constantly wants to slap some sense into me. One of the two. And I‘ll figure THAT out once I figure out my feeling about this catalog.

Anyway, the catalog belongs to Collector's Choice Music, a catalog and site where, in the past, I’ve purchased some hard-to-find music. This particular edition of the catalog has a holiday music section, and in that section I noticed a series of Christmas albums from American Beat music. And when I saw the titles of their versions of holiday classics, I knew that I had found out someone much more talented and warped than I.

Because, you see, from albums with titles like “Christmas at the Trailer Park, Y’all” and “If Toothpaste Tasted Like Christmas Dinner”, you get songs like this--

“Rudy the Redneck Reindeer”,

“Frosty The Beer Mug”,

“We’re Having Roadkill For Christmas Dinner”,

“We Wish You A Merry Mullet”

“All I Want For Christmas Is A New Tattoo”

And, perhaps, my personal favorite,

“My Christmas Turkey Was Beef Jerky”.

Wow. After reading some of those song titles, I just don’t know what to say. I feel like, all of a sudden, the bar on absurdity has been raised so high that I have to reconsider my place in the universe. I mean, I probably couldn’t come up with song titles like that. Or, if I could, I probably couldn’t put them in a blog that, on occasion, actually aspires to good taste.

Artists of American Beat music, I stand humbled before you. And I’m sure Loraine does, too. Either that, or she’s really happy she’s not married to YOU.

One of the two.

(jim@wmqt.com)