A powerless weekend

Sorry to be away so much the past few days. Wish I could tell that something exciting had happened, but not really. Instead my little town experienced a nasty dose of winter with snow, sleet, and ice. It started Thursday afternoon, but didn't get bad until Friday.

And Friday morning, we lost electricity at my house and didn't get back until this afternoon. Not much fun. It got cold in my house. Really cold. My roomie had left Friday afternoon to pick up Mikey to spend the weekend with us. Before he left, he started our old generator. It ran for a while and then died. We don't know what's wrong with it. He and Mikey spent the night in a hotel in Durant while I put on as many clothes as I could and suffered. It was a long, cold night.

My roomie bought a little generator and got back in town Saturday afternoon. The little generator was able to run the electric blower on the gas furnace, so Saturday night was much warmer although still as dark.

Mikey did okay. He missed playing Wii and doing the other things he enjoys with us that required electricity, but he was a lot of fun and full of energy. I'm always glad to spend time with him.

Sunday afternoon, OG&E finally got the power back on. Woohoo! By the time Mikey got home from church, the Wii was ready to go. He and my roomie played a football game. As always, I'm impressed with the Wii's graphics and sound. After that, he had to return home with a promise that he could visit again soon.

Anyway, I've spend the evening and night doing laundry and chores that I couldn't do without electricity. It's amazing how quickly things deteriorate without power. A lesson in learning to be better prepared.

I'm going to close now. I hope you're warm and safe. And that your home has electricity. Take care, and see you tomorrow!

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True Confessions of a Sushi Sissy

By Stephen B. Bagley

I confess freely I’m a sushi sissy. I can’t handle the raw fish, but the cooked sushi? I love delicious spicy shrimp wrapped with sticky rice and seaweed, shrimp tails on rice logs, and crab and avocado also wrapped with rice and seaweed. Yummy! No, really, it is. Don't make that face.

However, I know a hardcore sushi fanatic. She can clear a sushi platter with the greatest of ease and obvious enjoyment. And she likes this particular sauce — wasabi — on her sushi. Lots of wasabi. What I didn’t realize was that her taste buds had been surgically removed many years ago after a freak flame swallowing accident. Now she could drink boiling battery acid and say it had just a bit of fire.

Anyway, recently I bought a sushi platter for me and my roomie and decided that I’d try wasabi. How hot could it be? I would soon learn.

Wasabi is a chalky green. That should have been my first clue, but hey, she liked it so obviously it was good. Never trust women.

So I took a piece of spicy shrimp sushi and ladled the green sauce on. If only I had noticed the plastic spoon was melting, you wouldn’t be reading this, but I didn’t until much later.

Without a pause –- which goes to show that my overwhelming brilliance does not extend to survival instincts –- I popped the sushi piece into my mouth.

I chewed.

Once.

The world went white.

I couldn’t breathe. My entire body shuddered. My tongue actually attempted to tear itself out of my mouth.

You know that little thing that hangs down at the back of your throat? Mine caught fire.

Then I made the mistake of gasping. The wasabi fumes rolled up my nostrils and down into my lungs. My sinuses responded to this assault by producing a flood of snot. My eyes wept like they haven’t wept since Old Yeller died.

My face turned a shade of red that is only appropriate for the butts of lusting baboons.

Meanwhile, the bite of wasabied sushi was traveling down my throat leaving a line of fire. My stomach tried to dodge, but it wasn’t quick enough. It received the food with much grumbling.

After I recovered, I turned to my roomie and with my voice as steady as I could manage, I croaked, “Hey, this is really good. You should try it.”

For some reason, he didn’t believe me. People just don’t trust other people anymore. It’s quite sad, I think

Copyright 2010 by Stephen B. Bagley. All reserved. Excerpted from Floozy by Stephen B. Bagley.

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Monday Monday Monday

Monday. Monday. Monday. Monday. Monday.

Doesn't matter how you write it. It's always Monday. Even when your Tuesday is your Monday, somehow the fates know it's really Monday and reward you accordingly. And I had a Monday all day. Irate customer after irate customer. Difficult task after difficult task.

I was so glad when 5:30 p.m. rolled around when I could lock the doors and roll the phones to the answering service. Long, long, long day.

I thought I'd have something more interesting to tell you, but not tonight. But tomorrow, we'll have something exciting. Or funny. Or both. But we'll have something. See you then. Have a great night and wonderful tomorrow.

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10 Funny Quotes on Thursday

1. The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not. - Mark Twain

2. I told my wife that a husband is like a fine wine; he gets better with age. The next day, she locked me in the cellar. - Anon

3. Son, if you really want something in this life, you have to work for it. Now quiet! They're about to announce the lottery numbers. - Homer Simpson

4. If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular? - Anon

5. When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity. - Albert Einstein

6. Thoughts don't stay in some people's heads because they get lonely there. - Stephen B. Bagley

7. A word to the wise ain't necessary - it's the stupid ones that need the advice. - Bill Cosby

8. Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. - Rich Cook

9. Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much. - Oscar Wilde

10. I just broke up with someone and the last thing she said to me was "You'll never find anyone like me again!" I'm thinking, "I should hope not! If I don't want you, why would I want someone like you?" - Anon

Talk to you tomorrow!

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Obama & me

I've never liked Obama, but I HATE the glee some people show at his setbacks. I've always believed in praying for and hoping for the best from ALL our presidents because what they do reflect on and affect the whole nation. If God moves Obama so that he's successful in addressing our problems, I'd eat crow and be delighted to do so. If we cannot work together -- if we cannot move beyond blame, bitterness, and anger -- then we deserve our doom.

Tonight I had a conversation with a friend who told me how she hated Obama and his family because they were "bad for the nation." Out of the blue -- because, trust me, I rarely show this much wisdom -- I asked her when was the last time she had prayed for him and his family and asked God to bless them.

She paused and then said, "Never."

I suggested we pray for them right then.

She could not. She said she would choke on the words.

So I said if we hate a person so much that we can't pray for him or her, then we're letting that person get between us and God, and we can't do that if we expect to be happy. (Of course, I didn't express it as easily as that when I talked, but that was the point I finally stumbled to.)

Mind you, this is not some knee jerk conservative. She's smart, funny and a good person, but hate has crept in and curled around her soul. It was a disturbing conversation for both of us.

After we hung up, I thought for a while and have added this resolution to my list: Unless I have prayed for the president that day, I will not give myself leave to criticize him. And I don't mean a prayer in which I ask God to change his mind or to remove him from office. I mean the prayer that I pray for my friends and family: That God will keep him and his family safe and bless them with joy, health, and wisdom and an ever-increasing desire to draw closer to our Heavenly Father.

I don't know if this is a solution to all the bitterness that's out there, but I'm going to try it. I hope you do, too.

Enough preaching. I'll talk to you tomorrow. Take care and have a great night.

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Price

"There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." - Master sportswriter Red Smith

It's easy to tell the price for being a writer. It's no big secret. The price is loneliness. It's sitting at a computer shut away from the world while you put words on the screen. If you're lucky, you have friends and/or family who give you space and are grateful for your presence when you return to them. If you're unlucky, they resent the writing and the time you're not available. Lots of people have to juggle uncompromising demands on both sides. Somehow from that juggling, art emerges.

Or sometimes not. I have a friend who has a wife and children and wants to write, but they come first and he never has time, he says. Of course, plenty of writers have families and somehow write anyway. Depends on the writer's drive. How strongly does the story inside you ache to be released? Enough that you give up sleep, give up TV, give up movies, give up social occasions, give up your life?

Maybe the price is really time. The time you spend writing isn't time you can spend on anything else. Who's to say you have to be a writer, anyway? You can be anything else. The world needs more doctors, more nurses ... that would be a good career. Of course, there's a price you have to pay for any career. Nothing worthwhile comes free.

Could the price be your soul? You put the words out there, and people hate them. What you sweated over -- what you bled over -- they dislike. It's a whip to your heart. Or worse, they ignore them. Your books are remaindered, your paragraphs forgotten. You disappear in the flood of written words. Nobody notices when you go under for the third time. You don't matter.

Perhaps the price is you. Who you are, what you believe, the things you do, your hopes, your dreams ... That's what's required of you. Everything.

And in the end, you'll have the success you deserve, but it might not be the success you wanted. Not everyone has bestsellers. Not everyone saves the world. Not everyone gets to be happy. Can you live with that?

Can you put words on paper even though only your cat will ever hear them? Are the worlds in your head worth the world you're neglecting here? Can you explain to your lover on your anniversary that you just have to finish the latest chapter? Are you willing to put in the backbreaking work? Are you willing to have your heart broken?

Can you give it all? Whatever your dream is, can you give it everything?

'Cause that's the price.

That's always the price.

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Words

It's always comes back to this. Me at my keyboard, pounding away, living in other worlds, not necessarily better than this one, but at least not so random. Words, always words. My only true love affair. The only one I'm truly faithful to.

Bad things happen to me, and even during the midst of tragedy, somewhere in my head, I'm thinking about how to write it down. What will I say about it? How do I tell it so that my readers know what I'm feeling? And if I write it well, they'll feel it, too.

Is the impulse simply the need to share misery? Or is it the drive to make the world seem rational? We humans all impose our narratives on life. We attribute motives and make judgments. We see the world within the rules of our stories.

Those rules can be terrible. Maybe our rules say that our children shouldn't date outside their race or religion. Maybe our rules say gay people should be tormented and killed. Maybe our rules say all government is bad and needs to be torn down by violence. Maybe our rules worship evil and proclaim it as good.

It's our story, and we can change it. No end is truly written, no fate set in stone, no cruel god curses us to endless failure. Everything and nothing and all between are possible. This is our story. We can write something different if we choose.

And if we're willing to pay the price. We'll talk about paying the price tomorrow. Talk to you then.

"If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you were pleased with yourself there you have remained. But once you have said, 'It is enough,' you are lost. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing; do not stop, do not turn back, do not turn from the straight road."
-St. Augustine

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Books read in 2010 so far

A friend of mine keeps track of every book she reads each year. I thought I'd do that this year. Here's my list so far along with how many stars out of a maximum of five stars that I'd give them.

*** A Darkness Forged in Fire by Chris Evans
**** Altar of Eden by James Rollins
*** Cowl by Neal Asher
**** Crush it! By Gary Vaynerchuk
*** Design it Yourself Newsletters by Chuck Green
***** First Lord's Fury by Jim Butcher
*** Marvel Visionaires Chris Claremont
*** Orcs: Army of Shadows by Stan Nicholls
*** Robot Titans of Gotham by Novell Page
**** The Chocolate Cupid Killings by JoAnna Carl
*** The Light of Burning Shadows by Chris Evans

First Lord's Fury is a great book, the conclusion of an epic fantasy series by Jim Butcher. (Butcher writes the Dresden Files, the basis for the the short-lived show on SyFy channel.) Highly recommended. I hope he returns to these characters again in a new series. I think there's still plenty of stories left to be told in that fantastic world.

James Rollins's Altar of Eden is also a good book, but it dismayed me with its vulgar language in places, and frankly, it's not one of his best. Characters are slight, and the plot has a few holes. Still, Rollins is one of the best thriller writers out there, and I didn't think I wasted my money.

The Chocolate Cupid Killings by JoAnna Carl is also the latest in a series. I've not read any of the others, but I'm going to look for them. It's an excellent cozy. Carl, by the way, also lives in Oklahoma. I love Oklahoma authors!

Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk is a great book for anyone who is trying to turn their passion into a life-long career. It's worth your money if you've ever thought about telling your boss where to go and leaving to follow your dream.

Anyway, that's the books I've read so far. I'll be adding to this list as the year goes on. I hope.

I hope your tomorrow is good. Talk to you then.

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Castles

So really, what can I do? It's all well and good to write out my resolutions, but keeping them -- now there's the rub. Especially when my life is in a routine. A rut even.

It's battle between me and me. My present life versus my future. Apparently it's no holds barred, take no prisoners, no mercy from either quarter. But I have to win. Future me, I mean. There's a glorious life out there. Sometimes I can see it. Sometimes I can taste it. Sometimes I can feel it. Can't you? Or have you given up on your dreams?

I understand if you have. Dreams are tough. If you're not careful, dreams can crush you if they don't make into reality. Some people put their heads down and avoid dreaming altogether. Who can blame them?

I never know if my dreams are possible or impossible. I have them nonetheless. I suspect you have them, too. The problem isn't in having dreams; no, it's in figuring out how to achieve them. I'll be working on that the next few months.

Hope you're working on achieving your dreams, too. Talk to you tomorrow.

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." - Henry David Thoreau

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Once again

Okay, let's go over this again. I don't link to blogs that don't link to me unless -- and there are only two blogs under this exception on this blog that I know of -- your blog rightly belongs in one of the other categories of blogs, such as: Science, Writing, Financial, etc. And if you remove the link to my blog, I'm going to unlink you, too. It's simple netiquette to share links. I want readers to my blog just as you do.

Doesn't matter to me that you've unlinked me because you're not sure what my commentors are going to say or you're expressing your dislike of my humor or my political or religious views. Once we're unlinked, we're unlinked. Link me back, and I'll link you back.

It's that simple.

So sending me an email requesting linkage and then not linking to me? No go. Won't happen. And if I think your blog is inappropriate for my readers, I won't link to you, but hey, you don't have to link to me, either.

No hard feelings one way or another.

I realize almost all the people who read this blog are wondering what's this about. So naturally I'm not repeating my rules to you. It's for someone else.

Anyway, hope you're had a good Wednesday. I'm going to call it a night. Take care and have a great tomorrow!

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Tragedy?

I've been sort of following the talk show drama on NBC, and on the news tonight, they interviewed a person who said it was "a tragedy" how NBC was treating Conan O'Brien. Obviously the meaning of "tragedy" has changed. I thought it meant something like the crash of a plane or a tornado smashing a town or an earthquake. Apparently I'm wrong. Instead it means a group of old white men arguing about how many millions they can make. Who knew?

I'm a Leno fan, although not enough to watch his show regularly. Leno is mainstream, something for which he's regularly criticized by TV critics. TV critics watch so much TV -- and TV is basically repeat after repeat, even in the new shows -- that they are desperate for anything new. Leno is not new. He's familiar. Safe. Dependable. He's a four-door sedan when the critics want a Lamborghini. Look, guys, you might look good in the Lamborghini, but the sedan will get more mileage and be more useful.

By the way, how do you get the job of a TV critic? Seems pretty cushy to me. If they disagree, I'll let them work in my office for a week taking care of demanding and angry customers while I do their job watching TV shows and meeting celebrities. And when the week is over and they desperately want to return to their jobs ... I won't switch.

It could work.

Hope life is treating you well. Talk to you tomorrow.

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Tired

Not getting enough sleep lately. For some reason, I wake up at five every morning and then can't get back to sleep. My sleep rhythms are messed up. Don't know why. So I'm running on an empty tank lately. For that reason and some others.

I had a good day Saturday. Felt good so I got a lot done. I finally have all my Christmas decorations and Christmas tree down and put away. That look most of Saturday morning and a lot of the afternoon. Then I cleaned house, did laundry, and generally was very productive. Sunday was more of the same, although less active because I did take nap, which helped me feel better, but didn't seem to recharge me as I would like. Getting ol -- more mature.

Been reading Murder by Dewey Decimal and Murder by the Acre to prepare for the writing of Murder by the Mile. I haven't read either of them for a while so I was pleasantly surprised by some of the writing in both. In places, I said exactly what I meant to say. Of course, I found a few awkward spots that I'd write different now -- more so for MBDD than MBTA -- but I've certainly read worse from other writers, so I feel inclined to be more forgiving than I was when I was editing them. I must be getting soft in my ... maturity.

Still trying to follow the low carb diet. I cheat, of course, but I'm getting better about that. I'm trying to change how I regard food. I don't want it to be the center of my life. "Eat to live and not live to eat" -- An old saying that might have more meaning in it that I had originally thought.

This is a photo of a stream in Wintersmith Park. Lovely if a bit cold.



And now I'm going to bed. I'm worn out. More sleep and tomorrow will be better. I hope you have a good night and a great tomorrow. Talk to you then!

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Riddle me this

I should have posted last night, but I was locked in Lexulous death matches with Frenzied Feline and her sister so I didn't. Yes, you can blame them. Or my lack of willpower. No, let's blame them.

Anyway, here are Ten Riddles for our Ten on Thursday post to stretch your brain. And try to resist looking up the answers on Google, okay? I've always loved riddles, particularly since reading The Hobbit as a teenager. Who can forget that marvelous riddle game that Bilbo and Gollum engage in?

Riddle 1
I can be quick and then I'm deadly.
I am a rock, shell, and bone medley.
If I were a man, I'd make people dream.
I gather my millions by ocean, sea, and stream.
What am I?

Riddle 2
I appear once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years.
What am I?

Riddle 3
I bind it and it walks.
I loose it and it stops.
What is it?

Riddle 4
What is it that you will break even when you name it?

Riddle 5
I am the beginning of sorrow, and the end of sickness. You cannot express happiness without me, yet I am in the midst of crosses. I am always in risk, yet never in danger. You may find me in the sun, but I am never out of darkness.
What am I?

Riddle 6
What is put on a table, cut, but never eaten?

Riddle 7
When one does not know what it is, then it is something; but when one knows what it is, then it is nothing.
What is it?

Riddle 8
I have a little house in which I live all alone. It has no doors or windows, and if I want to go out I must break through the wall.
What am I?

Riddle 9
Feed me and I live.
Give me drink and I die.
What am I?

Riddle 10
I soar without wings, I see without eyes.
I've traveled the universe to and fro.
I've conquered the world, yet I've never been anywhere but home.
Who am I?

I'll post the answers in the comments tomorrow. Good luck!

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Lexulous

So I've been spending too much time playing Lexulous on Facebook the last couple of days. In case you don't know, Lex is a Scrabble clone. I enjoy Scrabble, but can never find people to play with me. I've been delighted with Lex, although I confess that I've been using words that I have no idea what they mean.

Lex allows you up play tiles, and then it checks if the word is correct without there being any penality if the word doesn't exist. (Only if you don't play a Challenge game, which so far, I haven't.) When I get stumped, I just play combinations of letters until I stumble across a word.

Here is a list of words I've played that I had no idea they were words until I played them:

ZI
OY
AIT
ZIN
QOPH
XI

Cool, eh? Particularly 'QOPH.' I had no idea there were even any Q words that didn't have an U in them. I have looked those words up and know what they mean now. I guess I'm learning things, too. And any day you learn something new is a good day.

Hope you had a good day. Talk to you tomorrow.

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HSCC: Afterwards

Well, my last 2009 Christmas get-together was this afternoon. I guess Christmas 2009 is finally over. It was a good Christmas. Family, friends, laughter, tears, prayer, singing, praising, shopping, wrapping, decorating, and a few wonderful low carb meals ... It was everything I should have wanted most and everything I really needed. So one more time, let me say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I prepared the food for today's gathering so I thought I'd share a picture of the table. And hey, I didn't eat as I cooked this year. Hurray for me! Although as you can tell, not much cooking involved, just putting it all together. And now I realize a tablecloth would have made everything look nicer. Oh well, Martha Stewart has nothing to fear from me.



I hope you had a good weekend. Mine was. Talk to you tomorrow.

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Then & Now

This look back at 1909 has been making the email rounds. Thought I would share it with you here.

THE YEAR 1909

This will boggle your mind.
The year is 1909.
One hundred years ago.
What a difference a century makes!
Here are some statistics for the Year 1909:

The average life expectancy was 47 years.

Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.

The average wage in 1909 was 22 cents per hour.

The average worker made between $200 and $400 per year.

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births took place at home.

Ninety percent of all doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION! Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and the government as 'substandard.'

Sugar cost four cents a pound.

Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.

Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering their country for any reason.

Five leading causes of death were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30!

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented yet.

There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.

Two out of every 10 adults couldn't read or write and only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, 'Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind,regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.'

Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.

There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A.!

Plus one more sad thought; 95 percent of the taxes we have now did not exist in 1909

You can now forward this to someone else without typing it yourself. From there, it will be sent to others all over the world -- all in a matter of seconds!

Try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years.
***
I have no idea if the statistics quoted here are correct, but they sound right.

How was your first day of the year? I started my resolutions, but don't have them quite ready to share with you yet. I did walk today and working on my blog and a few other things that I had intended. So far, so good.

Oh, I played a fun game of Lexulous on Facebook with Frenzied Feline. Lexulous is a Scrabble clone and lots of fun. I have three other games going now. Anyway, thanks Frenzied Feline. And thanks, Jean, whom I'm also playing -- and losing to.

Anyway, a good day. I hope yours was too. Talk to you tomorrow.

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