Matt and Jeff

My weekend is well under way. My weekend and your hump day started with me going grocery shopping again. I bought mostly fruits and vegetables and some chicken to add to my salads. Oh yeah, and the zero calorie decaffeinated iced tea that I love (I can only find it at one place and, thankfully, that is the store closest to here). Of course, I bought a couple of kinds of giardinieras that I use for my salad dressings too.

I met a few people from work (who are also on their 4-day weekends) at Applebee's here in town for lunch. Applebee's doesn't have many choices that are weight-loss/health-friendly, I learned, so I got a grilled chicken breast that came with two sides. I chose steamed broccoli for my first said and steamed broccoli for my second side. I also drank iced tea even though some of the others were drinking Golden Margaritas. I love margaritas but I like fitting into my existing clothes instead of buying new clothes even more.

When I first woke up I stepped on the scale and saw that I had lost 12 pounds since last Wednesday. I realize that will not happen every week but eating, mainly fruits and vegetables, has really worked so far. I pee like a racehorse as I take in a lot of liquids and the fruits also add to that liquid intake.The salads assist with disposing of a fair amount of waste too. I do know that my body is doing what it is made to do at this point.

Sorry, I got side-tracked: calling my dad, setting-up a grooming day for Jeff and working on paying some bills. I am not sure how I got everything done when I had two-day weekends and then three-day weekends. Tomorrow I am going to work on cleaning the garage. It is weird how the garage closes-in on us during the winter months and then we have to make room for the other two seasons. Winters seem to last a lot longer these days; it is really nice today though.

Jeff and I just went to the post office to mail some bills. Jeff, being a dog, doesn't have many bills but he loves to ride in the car so I bring him with when I am paying our bills when the opportunity is accommodating for him. He doesn't have a checking account of his own so I usually pay his bills for him. That is one of the benefits of being Matt's best friend (don't tell him but he is probably in the top 20 but he is not my best friend). I know he would sell me out for a bowl of kibble is he had the chance. I can appreciate that. I would not leave him in the car alone very long and this was just a drive-up and slip the envelopes into the box kind-of a deal. Speaking of Jeff, I called and made an appointment for him to get his nails (or claws or whatever a dog has) snipped and a bath. Why did I agree on having him in Geneva at 7 AM? Granted, I will still have the rest of that day off and Saturday off but, 7 AM?

Yes, he is driving and no, that is not a Cubs' cap

I mentioned, in Friday's blog, that the Andre' The Giant special was going to be on HBO soon. Well, soon is today and I am going to watch it when I am done writing today. Cha Cha still has a few days in Austin. She flies home on Thursday and boy, will her wings be tired.

I am still on the fence about the Facebook thing and whether I should leave the social media giant. Cha Cha got off of it several years ago for goodness' sake; she felt that what has ended-up happening was happening. She has been the brains of this operation for just about forever. I am too nosy and I like to stay in touch with you; Facebook seems to be one of the easiest and quickest ways to do that with all of our different schedules, longitudes and latitudes...

Okay, I have Andre on my mind now so I will wrap this up. I have the thought-span of a collie. Thank you for reading my blather and maybe, while Jeff is getting a snip snip here and a snip snip there and a couple of la-di-das I will find a place with WiFi and I will blog. If not then, I will find time to write again tomorrow. TTTT...MITM (out).

Liking the 4-Day Weekends So Far

It's 15:04 on the eve of my returning back to work for three days. I am loving this four-day weekend thing so far. Yes, this is my first week of getting all four of the days off but I am already used to it. Jill is headed to Austin (Texas not Steve) for work so I may sign-up to work a few half-days or some full days or a combination thereof while she is gone. I may change my mind on the extra hours as the next four-day weekend approaches.

I have really been watching what I have been eating over the last couple of days and, based upon what I have been eating, I have to pee a lot. I have pretty much been eating fruit (grapes, bananas, raspberries, blueberries, mango, cantaloupe, musk melon, honeydew melon, pineapple...) and drinking a lot of water and zero-calorie beverages. That makes me wonder how many times I will have to go to the bathroom over the next four days at work. I know yesterday and today have been eventful in that arena. I did make a few salads for work tomorrow - maybe that will help soak up some of the fruit juices.

I really don't have much to blog about today but that has seldom stopped me before. I am watching a Netflix original movie. It is called Win It All. I did not realize it was a poker movie but it has Keegan-Michael Key in it so I am all-in (pun intended). I am about 65% into the movie and, to this point, I cannot recommend the movie. Maybe there will be a big turn-around but I don't see it. The only reasons that I am keeping it on are: that I like poker and I am curious how it will end. Not super curious I suppose.

I have to excuse myself for a moment because of the aforementioned fruit juice dilemma.

The end of the movie stunk and I do not recommend this movie. That is two hours of my life I will never get back.

There is a lot of crazy stuff on the news lately; I am not talking only about of Goofus in Chief. The whole Facebook thing  is crazy. Cha Cha got off of Facebook a year or two ago because she didn't want everybody to know all of her business. She works in technically savvy industry and she does a lot of the digital content-type things for the her company. I had been on the fence of getting off of social networks but I would not stay in touch with people without those platforms. It is a riddle wrapped in an mystery, inside an enigma. For now, I will ride this out and see if Zuckerberg will back good on what he is trying to do.

So I changed the station and there was Keegan-Michael Key on a commercial. I am not sure if he is stalking me or I am stalking him. And there he is again. I had to add his photo there because he clearly is trying to get some more ink (virtual ink) in the blog. I will await the residual checks for all of the P.R. I am throwing his way.

Okay, I am clearly running out of things to write about. Thank you for stopping by. I don't know if I will blog again before Wednesday but I will try (I may not even try now that I think of it). I clearly do not more than I do know. Thank you for slowing down to be here for a bit. TTTT (Wednesday)? MITM (out) TA!

I can be an Easy Mark Sometimes

It is day three of my four-day weekend and I am already thinking about Sunday when I go back to work. It is 10:20 and I have gotten a lot of things done. I have done the laundry, cleaned the kitchen, eaten three bananas, drank some decaffeinated zero calorie iced-tea, binged watched the HBO series Barry created by and starring Bill Hader. I thought the binge would last a bit longer than it did but there are only two episodes so far. The show is, what I would call, a dark comedy. I don't mind dwelling in the darkness now and again. It makes coming back out into the light so much more appreciated. I have been a very empathetic person for most of my life and it does cause pain and confusion often. Given all of that I still would never change that trait about myself. Caring for and about others is what, I feel, we should all be doing all of the time. A boy can dream.

I did watch the news this morning and I am getting tired of that. It is the same garbage every day with just different characters doing the same stupid stuff that somebody else did yesterday or the day before... I must say that the political climate in this country is really screwed-up. I am sure that anybody who reads this or knows me knows how I lean politically and philosophically. That being blogged, there are screwed-up people and situations on all sides but I believe that I am following the least screwed-up side right now. I worry about people who being taken for granted and discounting in this country and in the world. I know there have always been people who have gotten the short end of the stick but it saddens me deeply when I see so many peoples being discounted or disrespected or disregarded or disenfranchised... I guess those are some of the ones they are talking about when they say people are "being dissed." It saddens me a great deal. Ha, I write about garbage and I hear the garbage truck out front. I find humor and irony in the smallest things sometimes.

I have begun watching what I am eating again. I am not sure why but I have let my trousers get a bit snug again over the past several months. I am going back to, mainly, salads and fresh fruits and vegetables and such. Maybe watching less of the news would stop me from trying to find comfort though harmful means like not considering the consequences for my actions. I know I need to start working-out again too. I have so many excuses and reasons not to but there are many more reasons that I should. I have an entire gym in the basement and that is only 13 steps from where I am right now.

The whole Facebook breach and all makes me think about leaving Facebook. I know I have written about that before but here I still am. Cha Cha left Facebook a couple of years ago and she has never regretted it. I knew that they have been profiling me for quite some time because the advertisements that would appear on my page or when I posted a blog... would be eerily connected to what I had posted about. I am on the fence about it but I know I would miss connecting with you. Just another thing for us all to worry about. I know that the stations that I watch on Roku are profiling me too. HBO Now, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Netflix... all recommend shows that they believe I would like to watch. They are correct about 85% of the time.

I saw that there is a special coming in HBO called "Andre' the Giant" beginning April 10th. I liked WWF Wrestling back when I was still in college. I always knew it was fake but the absurdity that some people thought it was real always humored me and it was funny to watch when you knew it was phony.. I had a friend in college (I will call him Bob because that was his name) whose dad was the Vice President of the Illinois Boxing Commission. Bob got a pair of duckets (some people call them tickets) from his dad to a match in Chicago (still called Chicago Stadium or "The Madhouse on Madison" at the time) and he took me with him. We sat at the ringside table (scorer's table). Talk about the best seats in the house. Anyway, Andre got a bad decision, in his mind, and he came right up to the table and slammed his fists down on the table. I am really glad that I knew wrestling was fake or I would have wet myself I think. I still remember the mole on the inside of his thigh and saw that his mole was about the same size as one of my hands. He was 7'4" and weighed around 500 lbs. You may remember him form the movie The Princess Bride  as also.I really like that film. Here is a clip of him on Late Night with David Letterman. He once drank 117 beers in one night. He must have gone to Southern Illinois University.

Okay, I am going to wrap this up. I thank you, as always, for stopping by. There will probably be a blog again tomorrow. Have a great rest of your Friday. I am not sure what to call this day for me other than #3 of 4 in the days off I guess. TTTT...MITM (out) TA!

I do not think that means what you think it means!

  It rarely does in my case  

I thought I would blog again today because tomorrow isn't promised to any of us. I hope I have tomorrows for today and tomorrow, at the very least, since I have the days after those days off. I have had to reread those last two sentences because I am not sure that they mean what I mean them to mean. When I die I want to die on a night before a day that I have to work. Wouldn't it stink to die right before your weekend? Not like we'd know, I suppose.

I have been working on my novel but I am not certain that it will be done before I am. What the heck is it with me and the great beyond today? I don't remember any particulars about my dreams from last night. I do like that, in my sleep, I can steer the directions of my dreams and/or if anything awful is or is about to happen in my dream I can steer the course of my dream. I had tried to do that for years and, now that I have stopped trying about six months or so ago, I can do it. I have always wanted to be able to meld with other people's dreams while dreaming but I am not sure that is possible. I am not even certain that is even a thing. I suppose that might just be telepathy?

The mailman just delivered a box for Cha Cha for a big work thing she is doing. I texted her that it had arrived and she typed, "oh man, can you bring it to me?" Of course, I said "yes" and now I have to get out of my Hugh Hefner pajamas again and drive to Geneva and deliver a package. I will put some other clothes on before I go rather than go nude even though the weather is pretty nice already. Maybe I should buy a big brown truck? By the time you read this (right now) I will be back already and it will seem, to you, like no time has gone by. I wish I had a Delorean DMC-12 with 1.21 jiggawatts so I could be back here before I got out of my pajamas. With those butterfly wing doors only one car could fit in the garage so that is impractical. Since you are reading this now I am already back. Maybe I did have 1.21 jiggawatts? Okay I am getting dressed now even though I am already back. 

I still have so many things to do and it's almost 14:00. It was nice to see Cha Cha for about 55 seconds. She said she will not be home late tonight. I know she really thinks that but she will not be home early either. It's okay, we don;t have anything planned for tonight. I have to pay some bills (as always).

I need to stop eating so much again. I think I am going back to fruits and vegetables and salads with giardeniera for dressing. I eat when I'm happy. I eat when I am sad. I eat when I am bored. I eat the wrong things. I know what to do and how to do it but I have just not felt like doing it again for some reason.

I just looked out the window and it is snowing now. Not very heavily but I am tired of the snow for now.

I know I talked a lot about The Rockford Peaches and how my mom was their bat girl back in the 1940's (I didn't talk about it in the 1940's, rather, she was bat girl in the 1940's and I was not even though of in the 1940's) and now they are making another movie about the team and the AAGPBL (All-American Girls Professional Baseball League) for Netflix. More of a documentary this time and focusing a lot about The Peaches because of the film A League of Their Own. There is a big deal going on in Rockford in May/June and it sounds like my mom will have a photo, at least, in the International Women's Baseball Center. I wish that could have happened before she died. I think my brother may even fly home from Hawaii to be here. I guess Penny Marshall and Tom Hanks will each be directing part of the film. Marshall directed the movie and Hanks portrayed the coach of the team in the movie.

I have some bills to pay so I had better end for now. I like when radio stations say they are going to take a break to pay some bills and they mean commercials because the advertisers are paying them to run the spots. I do not have ads but I know that blogger inserts ads when I post the blogs. I wish they did not do that but they do. Thanks for stopping in again today. I do appreciate you and, surprisingly, I think I will be back again tomorrow. Have a great night and I will blog you again tomorrow. TTTT...MITM (out) TA!

It's Pajama Wednesday!

I cannot believe that I do not have to work any overtime this week. I did not sign-up for any overtime either because I really want to feel what a four day weekend feels like. So far I am loving it. I have laundry going and am going to reorganize my closet before Sunday. It's funny that I put my pajamas in with this load and, like Hugh Hefner would have done, I put on another pair of pajamas. I think I may need to get a sea captain's hat for days like these. I will clean the kitchen and give the inside of the refrigerator a once-over and get rid of whatever has expired or turned fuzzy or rotted... Oh yeah, and I also saved two human lives yesterday. I hope karma is real and the cosmos will return the favor to me one day.

Yesterday at work I was asked if I wanted to go to dinner with a few people after work. I said yes, as Cha Cha was still going to be at work. It was me and four ladies (just a coincidence that I just wrote about Hef. It was a very pleasant time. We laughed and talked and drank. I had two huge margaritas and I slept like a baby last night: worked hard 12-hours, ate a good dinner, margaritas and then took my usual melatonin and the prescribed sleeping pill and got about nine hours of sleep I think. I am not going to use this method often because it may lead to disaster eventually. I have several tasks around the house and so-forth to keep me busy until Sunday when I go back to work.

The Blue Lotus monastics 

I am thinking about going up to Woodstock Saturday to the Blue Lotus Buddhist Temple. I am not religious at all but I am very spiritual. I think it is nice that many people are religious one way or another and, if that helps them cope or understand..., I think that is fantastic. Jill and I had gone to the temple every week for a long time but when I began working Saturdays a few years ago that was not possible. I miss going there and am looking forward to returning. I cannot believe how much the meditating helped me. And the Buddhist monks are so kind and non-judgmental and caring. I still use meditation now and again because I would not last very long in a penitentiary, I fear, if I gave into some of my primal instincts. That was an over-exaggeration because I very seldom feel enough animosity to harm anything or anyone. I suppose everyone meditates in one form or another but totally clearing your mind for awhile really helps the stress and challenges of every day life. For me it kind of recharges me I guess. My mind can not be trusted be to unleashed. That last sentence is something a news agency would take out of context if I were ever involved in an altercation.

A few years ago I lost my wedding ring. I was certain that I lost it at work and it was gone forever. I though I lost it in a box and it was goodness knows where. I know, when you hear a set-up like, that there is an obvious happy ending. I was reaching into my backpack over the my weekend and I felt something in the bottom of my backpack. I bet you can guess what I found in the bottom of my backpack. Yes, my wedding ring. I wear it most of the time again though I do not wear it to work.

Jill and I watched a Netflix original series (only three episodes, so far) called Trump: An American Dream. The show is very well done and it sure shows how he became the person that he is today. None of what I have seen on the documentary surprised me a lot but there are some things that surprised me some. It is a British documentary (Channel 4 - United Kingdom) so it seems to be unbiased though, I believe, our minds check our own personal boxed biases as we watch it; at least that is the way it is working for me. I think all of us, no matter what the topics are, make our views see fit the way that that we believe they are. This show has a lot of footage of when he was first starting to: build buildings and start casinos and hotels and host Wrestlemania... It is also cool to see clips of all of the news people and talk show hosts from back in the day like: Rona Barrett, Geraldo Rivera, Liz Smith, Howard Stern.... The show really makes me feel sad for Melania Trump. I will say no more about this show as to not sway your opinion in case you decide to watch it. IMDB (Internet Movie Data Base) calls the show "a documentary through five decades." I cannot wait until the next episodes are made though I am not really certain of they ever will be made? Perhaps we are living the next episodes right now? Here is a clip if you want to check it out.

I think I will end now because the washing machine just called to tell me that the dryer is hungry now. Thank you for stopping by. Wish me luck on all my projects over the next four days. But, with me being home for the next four days, I hope to blog more. TTFN...MITM (out)!

Always Look on the Blog Side of Life

I haven't blogged in a few weeks. I am not sure why but, for some reason, I have been in a funk. Funk is a funny word. I knew some people, when I was younger, that had the surname of Funk. I think I would like that as my last name; that would be funkadelic. I suppose my funk has something to do with my changing of work shift and the time change? It has been like topsy-turvy town. I can hardly ever remember what day of the week it is right now. We have been working mandatory overtime (one extra 12-hour or 10-hour shift per week) for about two months or so and it, at least this for now, is finally over. I wonder how long this reprieve will last. I may sign-up for some days of overtime but, when I sign up, it will be on my terms rather than having to work the days they assign me. I can even sign-up for half days. It has been nice seeing more of Cha Cha and doing things together.
Since I work tomorrow we are going to lunch, dinner, supper, lupper, linner, dunch... with: my dad, Noah (Fabio), Splenda (Chloe), Andy (we need to get him a blog nickname) today so I can attend. We are all meeting at Maggiano's Little Italy this afternoon. I may take a short nap before then because I am still pretty tired from all of those extra hours at work. I used to work crazy hours with no repercussions but that, eventually, lead me to having health issues which are under control now. Sorry,

I just got a call from my dad asking where the restaurant is (weird timing since I just typed that as he called). I don't know why I apologize because it's not like I am doing a live blog and I walked away for a few minutes.

I am thinking and I may not even take an extra day this coming week and enjoy one 4-day weekend. I have a lot of things that I can get done around the house. Maybe I will wait until like Monday night to make that decision based on what the weather looks like ahead of me. Half-days would not be that bad since I would work 06:00 - 11:00 and be home at 11:12 or so. I have a few days to decide.

I keep wanting to write something political now and again but politics is one of those very volatile topics that you cannot talk about without upsetting someone I think. My dad and I differ greatly on politics so we cannot even talk about that at lupper today. He will try to bait me now and again but I am a smart fish and I know when there's a hook under that worm. Maybe someone else will bring it up and I can just chime in now and again? I think he will be the only one leaning the way that he leans at the table so it would even seem like bullying if we did talk about it. I will stay out of it no MATTer what comes. Isn't that what the 5th Amendment to The Constitution allows us?  It is not precisely about this but I think it gives us the right to not incriminate ourselves. I am not sure if, by merely discussing politics, I am incriminating myself but I am not sure what rule more closely applies here. It does expose me as a bleeding-heart liberal but I am not ashamed of the the fact that I care about other people (even strangers) and things being done to people or animals that they would not have done unto them. I do agree with the conservative side on some things so maybe I shouldn't peg myself as a liberal. I am a liberal-minded person who is willing to cross the line occasionally to make the proper decisions.

My left foot is falling asleep. It's better that one than the other one because there is less to wake-up when my left foot falls asleep. Always look on the bright side of life. That song (that red link) says about everything I believe even though it is difficult to always practice many times.

I think that a great place to end. I will probably not blog again until Wednesday at the earliest. Thanks for hanging in there with me. We are all on this big blue marble together floating through goodness knows what. We don't know how long we will be here or where we might end-up but I am happy I am on this planet with you. Have a great day or two of three or four. TTT?...MITM (out) TA!

Otis Campbell for One Night

It is so weird having Wednesdays though I will get used to it. I started my new three-day shift on Sunday and I think it went pretty well. I was immediately made a trainer and I trained new employees for the entire week (Sunday, Monday and Tuesday). Now my weekend is here and I have to do a mandatory shift on Saturday and then go right into my regular schedule the following day. The twelve hour shifts versus the ten hour shifts do make a difference on the feet. I may have to get some nurse/doctor shoes are something. I wore tennis shoes two days and then tried my black Nike boots I used to wear when I was still working at the police department. I miss that job but the overnights were killing me. Hopefully, we will be off of the mandatory overtime and I will have four days off every week. I may still sign-up for some ten hour overtime shifts now and again just to make some extra cash while Jill is at work too. I can pick the day I want that way depending on what is going on in my world. That stupid daylight savings time didn't help much as it occurred about three hours before my first day on the new schedule.

Today Jill is in the office so: I did the laundry, went grocery shopping, did the bills (ugh), made dinner (will just need to warm it up when it's dinner time). I have the taco meat prepared, the guacamole is made and in the refrigerator chillin', the rice is ready to be reheated and the corn is celery salted and cilantro'd. So, at this point it's mostly just reheating some items and cooking the shells. 

Last night I drank two bottles of wine (one huge one and one regular-sized one) and I slept like a baby. I guess I was pretty annoying because, what I was told, was that I just kept repeating myself over and over. I suppose I was the Otis Campbell of the house.

 I don't know why I took a photo of the bag 

When I got home from the store I was putting the groceries and I got to a bag with: pepperoni in it and some vitamins and yogurt bites for kids just beginning to eat soft foods, some very expensive looking Jamaican coffee and a few other things. This was not my bag and, for the life of me, I do not know how I got this bag. So, I finished putting away the groceries that I had bought and I re-bagged the stuff I had not purchased and took it back to the store and gave it to the woman working at the courtesy desk or whatever that is called. There was no receipt in the bag so maybe the person who did pay for the stuff will have the receipt and get their stuff back. Even if they don't have the receipt they can probably just tell the person what was in it and get it back. I did not mention the store so that some unscrupulous blog reader doesn't go to get some free Jamaican coffee and take foot out of a toddler's mouth. 

My dad just called and he seems to be doing well though he does sound pretty sad. We are going to get together next week and work-out some things that he is going through with paying the nursing homes where my mom stayed and the funeral and and visitation costs. He also found some stuff from when my mom was the bat girl for the Rockford Peaches women's baseball team (as seen in A League of Their Own).  The 75th anniversary of the Rockford Peaches is this year and they are having  a celebration on May 30th and June 1 through the June 3 at their stadium in Rockford. I have been staying in touch with a guy who read my mom's obituary in The Rockford Register-Star and came to the visitation. My dad has found a few things that I can make copies of and take up there when the celebration happens. It sounds like my dad wants to go to that celebration too so that will be nice. I hope Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Rosie O'Donnell and Madonna make surprise appearances. There going to be showing the movie at dusk at Davis Park in Davis Park in Rockford on June first. I sounds like fun to me. Home run derby, exhibition game... More about that as the date approaches. I hope the mandatory overtime is done for the year by then. It will come again around fall before Christmas time though.

I guess I am done for now. Tomorrow I am going to reorganize my closet among other things. I will probably have time to blog again tomorrow too - whoopee! I want to try to blog more often and this new schedule may help with that. Thank you for stopping in again (or for the first time and if this is your first time please don't make it your last time). Have a great night and I will be back when I am taking a break and I come out of the closet. TTTT (96% of that happening)... MITM (out) TA!