Bad Juju

THERE MUST BE SOME BAD JUJU FLOATING IN THE AIR TODAY. Everybody seems to be complaining about something wherever I go. I’m getting my coffee and the person in front of me in line is moaning about the weather.

“It’s going to be hot all week. I don’t like hot weather. I just don’t like it.”

Well, Lady, it is summertime in the Midwest and it is supposed to be only 88° today and 93° tomorrow. I would call that warm, maybe bordering on hot, but it ain’t Death Valley.

See? Now she’s got me doing it. I’m complaining about her complaining.

Bad juju.

By The Sea, By The Sea

 

GUESS WHERE I’M AT? NO. NO. NO, NOT THERE EITHER. I AM IN FLORIDA -The Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood Area. What am I doing down there when there is a perfectly good winter going on in Indiana without me? Well, for at least a few days, that is the idea.

Ever since our five week visit to Ireland I have been cold – freezing even. I needed to do something or I was afraid that I would not survive to see another Springtime. The cold feeling exhausted me. I was empty Physically, Emotionally, Creatively, and even Socially. I felt like I was an empty shell with freezer burn. I hated feeling like that and I don’t think I was very good company for anybody. I was either silent or snapping at everyone – and that’s just not like me. Going to where it was still warm so I could thaw myself was the solution. So here I am in Florida.

It Warms My Cockles

 

OH, THAT FEELS GOOD!

It may be 33 degrees outside, but I am roasty-toasty warm inside. The furnace is on. I’m wearing three layers (not chickens) and I have my electric throw plugged in and I have a Hunter’s Hand Warmer in my pants. I’m warm and I like it.

I would never have been a great Arctic explorer. Amundsen and Byrd would have pushed me overboard when they caught me trying to convince the crew that Miami was close enough to the Pole.

“Let’s all stop here and have a hot toddy.”

When the thermometer begins its slide into the range that causes talk of things like “Wind Chill” and “Antifreeze,” I break out my Thermal Thongs.

It Warms My Soul…And My Knees

I’M NOT TERRIBLY SURE THAT I HAVE A VIABLE SOLUTION TO THIS PROBLEM. Then again I’m not sure if it is really a problem that needs to be solved or just a condition that must be endured.

I’m cold. I have been cold ever since we landed in Ireland and now that we are heading home soon I don’t see a change in the offing. We are returning to November. November does not hold much promise as a time of warm weather. It’s just not part of its makeup. That looks to be the prognosis until, at the earliest, late March/early April. And I’m putting a rosy glow on that idea.

Right now my backbone feels like it is made of permafrost, tundra, and out of work Snowmen. I have tried standing in front of open fires and all that has done is singe my sweatshirt. My spine remains icy cold.

I Am A Creature And I Want My Comforts

SOMETIMES HAVING THINGS DIFFERENT IS GOOD…SOMETIMES NOT SO GOOD.

I’m a person who likes his creature comforts. I like being warm when it’s cold outside. I like to take a shower with hot water. I want to have the toilet flush when I push the handle. Am I asking too much?

I am in much of Ireland it seems.

It looks like there are different standards of expected comfort. In every place we have stayed in Ireland, not just on this trip, but over the last 13 years of my personal experience.

Whose Hot Idea Was This?

 

SWEET DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS, IT’S HOT! I haven’t been this hot since my junior year of high school and this girl from…never mind.

It has been in the mid 90s and above since what seems like the day after Christmas. I like warm weather, hot even, but this hot spell has pushed my limits right off the table.

I love it when the Weather Bunnies on TV say things like, “It is 96 degrees, but the Heat Index is 187,” or whatever number they toss out. After “96 degrees” the rest is as relevant as chocolate sprinkles on a Hershey Bar. It doesn’t change anything, add anything, or make it any better. When life has been reduced to sticking your head in a pizza oven to cool off something like “Heat Index” is not all that important.

Words? I Know Dozens Of Them

 

Oh, The Creative Process. It’s not as simple as those three little words might indicate. It is a delicate and fragile thing – a lot like a soufflé, one jarring moment and it all falls as flat as a three week old Dr. Pepper.

On a good day I can sit down and knock out enough to fulfill my daily blog requirement in less than an hour. I try to keep it between 500 – 700 words. That is enough to make my point (If I have one) or at least get to the punchline. That’s all I ask. I don’t try to push my Muse too far. Of course there are those other days when it all hits the wall like wet spaghetti.

Throwback Thursday – From June 2015 – “Four Corners”

Four Corners

THERE IS AN ODDITY of cartography that draws thousands of people to a dusty, flaming hot and remote spot on the desert land of the Navaho Nation.

I really can’t tell you what state it is in because it is, and it isn’t, in four different states simultaneously.

This spot of dusty Navaho land is called “The Four Corners Monument” and it is where the borders of Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico meet in a pinpoint of bureaucratic, “I’ll be darned.”

For some reason, thousands of people every year drive out into the desert, fork over the price of admission to the Navaho land, and the pose for pictures while trying to stand exactly on the spot of congruence.

I was there myself not long ago. It was a hellishly hot day and there was no shade. There was a line of people (couples, families, bikers – I don’t understand that one either) all waiting to have their pictures taken.

This Can’t Go On

IT IS MONDAY MORNING. I don’t care what the calendar says or on what day of the week you are reading this. It is a Monday morning in my world.

For some reason I feel like I have been dragged behind a bus for the last two days and I don’t know why. I don’t have a cold although it is 28 degrees outside and snowing. I haven’t overexerted myself that’s for sure. I studiously avoid doing that. And I’ve been getting my beauty sleep – two hours in the Rip van Winkle Memorial Chair in front of the TV and about six hours in an actual bed.

I Kinda Like The Idea

“IT’S GOOD TO BE KING!” – Mel Brooks

Even in a world with very few Monarchs who are anything more than figureheads being a King still sounds like a good job. The days have passed when mobs of peasants used to storm the Palace with torches and pitchforks. Very few people have pitchforks anymore and I don’t recall ever seeing anyone carrying a real, honest to goodness torch. Yes, I think that might be the job for me – “King Krafty.” That has a nice ring to it.

There are only a couple of obstacles in my way.

The Hermit Ventures Forth

THIS HAS BEEN ONE OF THOSE DAYS ALREADY. Up early to try to get in some writing, then coffee time at St. Arbucks, a trip to the pharmacy, and then to the bank, and to the everpresent Kroger.

What will be on the agenda for after 10 AM remains to be seen, but I’m not terribly hopeful?

Weather Or Not

THE COLDER WEATHER THAT COMES THIS TIME OF YEAR HAS ITS CONSEQUENCES. It can be hard on the driveway as the cycles of freezing and thawing temperatures turn those little hairline cracks into gaps that could house a family of raccoons.

The cold can also make it hard to get comfortable sitting in the car. Thank goodness that problem is easily solved if I remember to use the Remote Starter feature to get the car all toasty warm.

But, That’s Just Me.

“WE’RE HAVING A HEAT WAVE – A TROPICAL HEAT WAVE.”

It’s not often that one can quote Marilyn Monroe.

We have been having a real, honest to God, hot spell here in Terre Haute (That’s French for, “I’m stuck to the leather sofa.”)