Darryl

Posted on | May 15, 2012 | No Comments

My wife said it was a stupid name for a cat. I guess maybe it is, but the fact remains that he is, in fact, a Darryl – the name fits him.

Who knows how names fit cats, sometimes it is the cat who has a distinct behavior or mannerism that causes the name to appear (Tiggers bounce and Dustys like to roll around and get dusty).

The history of Darryl is that we rescued a (very pregnant) cat in the town where we work and, eventually, brought it home where we raised her five kittens from birth to weaning time. Darryl was part of three of them that I named Larry, Darryl and Darlene (kinda after Larry, Darryl and Darryl but, the second Darryl in our case was a she).

We ended up getting the mother cat fixed up and adopted her out, plus two of the kittens (Larry – aka “Lawrence: – and Darlene) got adopted to a nice couple in town.

Which left three…

We could not adopt out one by him/her self and we could not keep just one, so… and then there were eight, definitely too many. One has since traveled to the next dimension and we are left with the (mostly) manageable number of seven indoor cats.

Anyway, this is supposed to be about Darryl.

Each morning, except for Saturday, my wife gets up first, the dog moves over to me to get a few more minutes nap time, and Darryl comes up onto the bed and screeches into my ear. See, this is the time to throw the tea bag wrapper, over and over and over again, until I get tired of it and try to ignore him or he decided to wander off in search of breakfast.

I do not really mind playing with him, but really he could pick a better time of day. Anyway, he is a good boy, scared of his own shadow, does not like being picked up, and meows like a wimp. But, like all the others, I would not like to lose him, much to the chagrin of the relatives who think we will end up on the 6 o’clock news for “cat hoarding.” But at least we do not usually do not have to worry about drop-in visitors any more, not that it was ever a huge problem.

Category: One Word, Real Life

Soup of the Day

Posted on | May 14, 2012 | No Comments

Ingredients:

1 bag dried lentils
1 big can of crushed tomatoes
1 bottle of beer
1 package of italian sausage
2 onions
1 bunch scallions
1 chili verde pepper

1 qt chicken stock

olive oil

1 t salt
1 t black pepper

2 T hungarian paprika
4 T garlic powder
2 T chili powder
2 T ground coriander
1 T ground cumin
2 T oregano
1 T celery seeds

1. Cook the sausages on a grill, then slice thin when cooled.
2. Chop the onions, scallions and pepper and cook in a preheated soup pot in a bit of olive oil.
3. Once the veggies soften, pour in the chicken stock.
4. Dump in the entire bag of lentils.
5. Increase the heat and pour in the big can of crushed tomatoes.
6. Add in all the spices (paprika, garlic powder, chili powder, coriander, cumin, oregano, celery seed, salt, pepper.
7. Add in the sliced sausages.
8. Heat for hours on low, stirring occasionally.
9. Add more liquid (beer, water, stock, tomato juice) as needed to keep as a “soup” and not a thick lentil paste.

Serve with a buttered, toasted, garlic-salted french baguette and a small green salad.

Category: Cooking

What Do You Like?

Posted on | April 27, 2012 | No Comments

Liking something is subjective.

My wife likes vegetables and fruit for snacks. I do not. I had an issue the other day at work, due to the coverage for that day, I did not get to take a lunch and ended up with a massive migraine headache. The next day my wife reminded me of this and told me to take extra food to “snack” on, something I could eat without taking my government-mandated 1/2 hour, something like, as she suggested, carrots.

Um, no. When I am getting dizzy from lack of food and tired from running around and cranky from dealing with customers who are always right, I do NOT want to snack on a carrot.

Thank you very much.

But I digress, enough about fruits and vegetables.

Two of my favorite movies are Smokey and the Bandit and Babbette’s Feast.

One is full of southern humor and innuendos, the other is a foreign movie with subtitles. How can I like both? I have no answer, I just do. I once sat in a theater all day, watching all the Pink Panther movies back to back to back. I do not like shoot-em-up movies, do not like violent movies, do not like horror/scary movies. Took me months to get the nerve to watch Gremlins. But, having read the books, I really did enjoy the Millennium Trilogy (foreign versions), go figure.

There was a Taxi episode in year one of the series, when Elaine, who worked in an art gallery and was a taxi driver, attended a show at the gallery, inviting her friends from the garage, all the while dreading that one of the people would find out that she was a taxi driver, OMG. The people spent a lot of time wandering around looking at the art, trying to figure out if the artist was going to die (so that, presumably the net worth of the painting would rise). Sick of all that, Alex picked out a painting that he wanted. When asked why he picked that particular one, he stated simply “…because I like it.” He was not dragged into the hoity-toity of the artsy people, he liked something and so, he would enjoy it.

Same thing with music and books and food and vacation spots and whatever. Just because you like something, that does not mean that someone else will like it – and if you do not like something, that means nothing as other people will like it, for reasons that make no sense to you at all.

So, keep writing that book, someone will like it. Just do the best you can, no shortcuts, make sure all the grammar and spelling mistakes are gone and make sure someone else reads and/or edits it before posting it online to sell or giveaway even. Because even if I like something, if I see Type Ohs or grammatical errors, even in a giveaway book, you can be sure I will not return to buy something else from you.

Category: Opinion, Real Life, Writing

Oh, Just One More Thing…….

Posted on | April 26, 2012 | No Comments

Been watching Columbo reruns on Netflix starring Peter Falk. Great show.

I had forgotten that he had passed away last year after suffering the effects of Alzheimer’s disease. I went online to see if I could find any quotes from him about the show, whether he liked making it as much as I enjoy watching – or if it was just a job to him? I hope he liked it.

Interesting that one of the actors who turned down the part of Lt. Columbo was Bing Crosby.

Also interesting that the costuming of his character, from the rumpled suits to the famous coat to the car, was all Mr. Falk’s idea. They wanted him to be nattily dressed, like a sharp-dressed-man kind of look, with a nice car and all. Cannot imagine that it would have had the same success as a show. The entire show was his look, his mannerisms, his speech, his apparent ineptitude and nonchalance when he actually turned out to be Sherlock-like in his reasonings and deductions on each case.

I would watch too much television if there were still shows like this.

Category: Real Life, Reviews

Touch Typing

Posted on | April 13, 2012 | No Comments

Can you touch type? By that I mean, can you type without looking at the keys and going back over to remove the mistakes?

I cannot, so I type slow, a curse at my present job. At my High School, Saint Bernard’s in Uncasville, CT, my typing teacher (a very tall Nun) tried. When we looked at the keys, we were smacked with a ruler across the palms, wasn’t cruel at all, but it did get your attention. Unfortunately, I still have to look at the keys. And it is not easy having a laptop with a smaller-than-it-should-be keyboard. Had a new computer all picked out with a full-size back-lit keyboard two years ago, then I lost my job.

Been all downhill ever since, financially.

So, anyways, when I look at the keys as I type (and make corrections), it comes out like it should, no spelling errors, no missing punctuation, etc. Perfection personified…

But when I type without lokling at the keys and do not make correctioons, this is what happens. Not gonna get a book deal tyoing line this…\

So, back to looking and fixing… You can imagine at night, when I am tying in the darkness as my wife sleeps next to me, I have to tilt down the cover of the laptop and check out where the keys are that I am typing. Or, when I am playing a game in the dark, forget it. Hit the wrong key and, “sorry, you died”, as they say. I should get some of those glasses with the little lights in them. Only, do they wear out or are there tiny batteries that you get to put in the glasses when the lights no longer work? No clue.

When I see someone touch typing and typing FAST, without looking at the keys, that is cool. My wife types circles around me, and does not look at the keys, I am always amazed to see the speed and the accuracy, as I plod along in my prose. At least I have progressed beyond two fingers and a thumb, another 50 years and, who knows, I might hit 50 (small) words per minute… Good thing tweets are short, eh?

Category: Opinion, Real Life, Writing
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