Happy Frickin Valentines

Bought my wife a bracelet I can tell she hates.

Both kids have started the weekend whine-a-thon exactly on schedule.

The computer I worked so hard to fix last night has a slight smoky smell to it.



You know what, my beautiful bloggy friends? We need a giggle. My best friend Tommie called a couple of nights ago, with one of his patented hair-brained withdrawals from his dark and twisted mind...and this one made me laugh out loud.

Today's exercise: I would like for each of you who want to play, to come up with Three Items. The significance of these items will be that if you were at the grocery store and you walked up to the register with ONLY these three items, the cashier would find it so alarming they would freak out good and proper.

So, for example, envision walking up to the register with:

A tub of Hummus
Crackers
Rat Poison

Or picture the face of the cashier as you approach with:

K-Y Warming Liquid
A VERY large Eggplant
Tuck's Medicated pads


Ahhhh, that's better...smiling already...wanna play?

Friday 13th

Friday 13th has always been a fine day for me, and today has been no exception. My mom had her surgery, and she's doing well so far. Sitting up, giving the nurses some grief, holding her own tea.

Thanks to all of you who offered your well wishes...I'm going to bed before something shitty happens. I miss reading your blogs, I swear I'll find more time soon.

Jay

I don't feel a day over 200.

My dear friend Deb had a fine idea this week...to get people to share their first posts, a look back at where we had come from. The timing of this for me is quite...well...timely, as I am dangerously close to putting up my 200th post. So maybe this will do for a celebration, and we'll just get plugging along towards good ol' 300.

If you would like to play and give Deb some serious reading to do this coming weekend, go post your link on her Mr Linky, and repost your first post. As I read my own, I notice that my writing and topic selection is going downhill...quickly. Pretty soon HalftimeLessons.com will be nothing but 24/7 fart jokes. Hope you enjoy. PPffffft.


Originally posted August 23, 2008.

During a recent bout with morbid curiosity, I spent some time with a Life Expectancy Calculator, trading facts about my physical and mental past for...a number. A number which absolutely plays into the category of, “If you don’t want to know, seriously, don’t ask.”

So lets have a look at my scoresheet of suspect decision making to-date:

I smoked for roughly 17 years until the pretty girl I was courting said she would never marry a smoker.

I’ve had a weight swing of roughly 40 lbs in the past 20 years, and the swing rarely comes down…that damn gravity…

I spend the better part of my career in traffic, and when you couple that choice with a fairly significant and nagging case of ADD, my odds of a fiery demise are pretty well astronomical as compared to the norm.

And, I love you Mom, but you’re British. Your DNA isn’t gonna do me any favors, nor is Dad’s. Unless…do you want to share any deep dark secret about abducting me from a Russian couple on a yogurt farm outside Vladivostok?

Computing…

72.

As in, holy shyte ........... 72.

Let’s set aside the really emotional stuff for now, like the chance of missing a father-daughter dance, a grand-birth, or leaving my wife so early that she feels she HAS to replace me, and deal with the purely selfish. Time is no longer endless, like it was when I was a kid... you couldn’t move the clock no matter how hard you tried… couldn’t make Santa come but once a year, couldn't stretch summer to feel like it lasted more than a couple of days. Now, especially with kids, time moves exponentially, horrifyingly so.

72 means I’m well past halftime, and I only just realized. And clearly I haven’t been paying attention, and therefore haven’t been planning. Haven't been learning my lessons, haven’t been applying them to avoid the ones to come. If there were ever a time to start to do it “right”, it’s now.

So, at the tender age of 40, I'll call this lesson number one. Get with it, already.

Some of my favorite things...

My Family.
Poker.
Sex.

To read this list so far, you might actually think I was male...a few more...

My blog.
Writing.
Music.
Women.
Sex.
Eating.

Hmmm...yep, still male...not too many issues...

Sex.
Eating.

Um, Jay? Already said those, pal.

Sex.
Eating.

Ok...starting to...

Sex.
Eating.

...

Sex.
Eating.

Um...Security? Medic?




Ok...tell you what. For the sake for MamaKat's exercise, lets just focus on eating...shall we? Today my transformation to woman will be complete as I share one of our newest and newly favorite recipes with you. And I mean, this recipe is SICK. You know, sick good, not sick sick. Remember too that my wife and I aren't very experimental in the kitchen (I know...don't bother ;-) ) so this recipe is REALLY easy. And once I share this recipe on my blog, the only thing left to do will be to go shopping for Tampax.

Crockpot Chicken Chili

2 lbs chicken breast
1 can chicken broth
1 tsp cumin
3 cans Great Northern white beans (with liquid)
1 jar mild-medium salsa
1 8 oz block Pepperjack cheese

Put the chicken, chicken broth, cumin, salsa and beans in your crock pot. Cut the chicken into halves to fit them in if you want. Cook it all on low for 5 hours.

At the 5 hour mark, shred the chicken, shred the block of cheese into the mixture, and cook for 1-2 hours more. Serve it in bowls with tortilla chips.

Then go have sex. Fast. You know, before the chili kicks in.

WW - The Final Straw.

You know, I don't ask for much.

Air conditioning. A hot meal. Some cuddle time.

So HOW HARD IS IT? I mean, HOW FRICKIN HARD IS IT?

If you need me, I'll be at the Hilton, where they care consistently about my needs.



(Figure it out? I bet my OCD buddy Tena knows...If you get it, don't leave it in the comments...let the others squirm until they do. ;-) )

---

Thanks again to Angie
for another ragin' Wordful Wednesday...

Also Thanks to 5 Minutes for Mom for "Wordless" Wednesday...I always have such a problem being wordless...

Tuesday's Tribute - To happier times.

Hi.
It has not gone unnoticed that my blog has become a bit "heavy" lately with talk of sadness, feelings, tragedy, and cancer. And in fact, I had a big plan to lighten up today's Tuesday's Tribute with something light and pithy...you know, get back to basics.

But in the end, I am, like many of you, a parent. Of beautiful and innocent (mostly...but that's another tribute) kids. So before I could sit down and crack wise to you again, yesterday 11 month old Cora died. And again, like with Tuesday's family, I feel for these people. Now because I know what it feels like to love something more than I love myself, which is quite an accomplishment. And now that I know how cancer affects the young like Cora and Tuesday, and the older like their parents. And my mom. And my cousin. And me.

Many of you regulars know that Deb and I designed Tuesday's Tribute last year as merely a promotional tool, a chance to encourage others to talk about things they loved, or admired, or were thankful of, on Tuesdays. Anything other than our regular and beloved self-absorption! ;-) And at that time, neither Deb nor I had even heard of Tuesday Whitt, and her struggle. So this week I got an email from someone asking if we were somehow affiliated with Tuesday's family, and I told her what I will tell you now: I didn't know Tuesday Whitt, and don't know her family. But that being said, like many of you, I have been affected by her. So I will simply use my blog at times like these to honor the memories and struggles of undeserving victims of cancer like Tuesday and Cora, and I will try to raise money for accredited organizations like St. Baldrick's, and hope that in doing so I am somehow reducing the chance of someone else I love being affected by a horrible disease.

So today's tribute is to "happier times", and getting back to them, soon. And the only way I can think to deal with the sadness is to do something about the sadness. And my plan is to still raise as much money as I can to aid in cancer research for St. Baldrick's this month, and then shave my head on March 21st in tribute to a lot of kids who lose their hair and nails, and who don't get to make the choice to do so.

And in addition, tomorrow I will be taking my camera to work to find something happy/hilarious/disgusting/riveting to share with you on Angie's Wordful Wednesday. No Cancer talk. Promise.


For more information about contributing to the Cora Playground, visit www.corapaige.com. To contribute to my St. Baldrick's efforts, please go here.

Yet Another Jay and Deb Production.
To participate in Tuesday's Tribute, Fill out a Mr. Linky below with your name and URL address to your Tribute. Need a details, or a button? Go Here.