Urgh ~ Blog 42

Ideally, this would be an experiential blog. We'd talk about the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, complete with photos. There would be a review of the Science Museum. Pictures from the top of the Prudential Building. A breakdown of what an "esplanade" is and a discussion of the Red Sox pitching staff for next year (overpaid and underwhelming).

But it's rainy. Perhaps you heard there would be a snow storm on the East Coast. The thing about being on the coast is the ocean keeps our air warmer than the inland areas. That's why it's pouring rain right now.

An ordinary 2.5-year-old chocolate lab would be dying right now. Dukakis, Daisy Duke's predecessor, would be clinging to the ceiling with his toenails. Throw a damn tennis ball! Throw a sock, I'll chase it! Daisy Duke spent the last two hours on her back, paws in the air, head cuddled into my side on the couch.

Netflix has The West Wing on instant streaming. This was discovered yesterday; we're currently watching the seventh episode of Season 1.

There is a vague sense of underachievement in the air. This is the voice that has helped me keep excess weight off my frame for the last 10 years. It says we should be exercising. We should be cleaning. We should be *doing* something.

It isn't easy to take a day off. Maybe I spent 25 years striving to do nothing more than watch my favorite TV and movie shows and maybe that's why there is this sense of guilt. You should be moving or you'll be fat again.

But it's cold and it's raining and Toby Ziegler's got a thing going on right now, so we're going to stay right here. Happy early New Year.

SnowMyGod ~ Blog 41

This is what it looked like in NH almost a dozen years ago. Man, when
you say it like that ....

I can be a little cocky from time to time. It was one of my very few personal failings.

So it was in the winter of 2001, my first in New England and my first in a snowy climate other than Minnesota, that I spent the better part of four months scoffing at Northern New England. You think this is cold? My car froze to a parking lot once when it hit -25 (the wind chill was -60) in Minnesota. You people know nothing about winter.

In early March of 2001, my first true Nor'easter was coming. My boss called me and told me to stay home from work. They were canceling all the basketball games for that night, so I wouldn't be missing anything.

"But it hasn't even snowed yet," I protested.

My boss, a long-haired New York hippy who named his daughter after John Lennon, was known for playing the cynic about New Englanders. Not this time.

"Schorty, just stay home," he said.

Candy ass. It's March. This can't be that bad.

That turned out to be good advice. At the age of 23 in Newport, N.H., I didn't have any friends in town, but I did have a satellite dish and every movie channel Dish Network offered. I checked the TV schedule, made some evening plans, and cuddled into the couch. It started to snow late in the day, so I couldn't really see much happening. A few times, the satellite dish cut out because the wet March snow was sticking to the satellite dish. Fortunately, the dish was mounted just outside my dining room. A few brushes with a rag and I was back to HBO.

From the third floor, you could tell it had snowed a bit. People were trudging up and down the sidewalks. But it couldn't be that bad. It was March. This was New England.

I went to bed around 1 a.m., then logged into CNN at 10 a.m. to get my morning update. There was an article about the storm on CNN. I clicked on it.

About three-quarters of the way through the story, which was all about the gigantic snow totals, there was a line about my little town of 6,000 people:

"Newport, NH got 38 inches of snow," the article claimed.

Poppycock. This is New England. I know snow. I grew up in Minnesota. Still, better go clean off the car a bit early, just in case it's kinda bad down there.

I'd never seen anything like it. It was sunny out, which meant it hadn't snowed for more than 16 hours. But you couldn't see any of our front stairs. There was just a pile of snow that started above the top step. It was hip deep. I waded out back, to the small parking lot where my car was.

There was no deviation in the snow pack in the back to suggest there were any cars underneath. When your car is a Toyota Corrolla and about 36 inches tall, 38 inches of snow will do a number on it. I'm not even sure how I dug the car out. I had to find it, which was tough. Then it took at least an hour to shovel around it. The guy paid to plow our driveway took a solid hour to drive around with his plow, clearing it off.

Whoa.

Coming home that night, the road was lit by the moon. It was like driving in a bobsled track, with snow piled up on each side of the road to form a thick wall of road salt and ice. A deer was on the road. I slowed down. The deer turned to run, but couldn't get over the ice wall. So, I turned on my emergency blinkers and followed the deer for about a half mile, 'til the deer got to a driveway that had been plowed out. He exited the highway and I continued home.

I'd say I've never seen anything like it, before or since, but that would be a lie. It snowed another 30-something inches a few weeks later, just after all the snow from the first storm had finally melted.

In New England, a Nor'easter is a name for a particular kind of winter storm. The wind swoops off the Atlantic Ocean, blowing back onto land. The wind comes hard from the northeast and, if the storm stalls, it will snow for 36 hours and inches.

I treat Noreasters differently now. Two years ago, in Maine, I brought a ski helmet, goggles and snow shoes to work because a storm was predicted to drop 20 inches of snow. If it did, I was going to be walking home.

There's a Noreaster in the forecast for tonight and I have to commute 52 miles in it to get home from work. I'm bringing my winter jacket, gloves and hat; I'm also bringing a blanket and pillow, in case I decide to sleep in the parking lot at work.

The newspaper's still gotta come out and there's nobody better to do it than me. I guess I still have some work to do on the cocky thing.

Have a Holly, Jolly ... What The Hell Is That? ~ Blog 40

I was coming back from grocery shopping when
I spotted Santa and his seven reindeer atop a giant
pile of road salt next to the Mystic River. Tis the season?

You hear a lot of things about New England. It's not religious. The people are rude. People are too busy. What you don't hear is how evidently and obviously they love Christmas here.

Oh, people love it everywhere, to be sure. This isn't a Boston-is-better-than-you blog (We are, after all, the 10th-most expensive state in the nation and the home to Mitt Romney. Seriously, that's all I've got.). Maybe I was naive to think Christmas wouldn't be a big deal here. Whatever the case, I was certainly wrong.

You see it everywhere. People drive around with reindeer antlers hanging out their windows like people in Florida drive around with Florida Gators flags. I saw one car owner go the extra step and put a red reindeer nose on the front of his car.

And then there's this guy.

This cannot be legal. I mean texting and driving, of course.

Driving home from work last night on Interstate 93, I passed the most-well-lit vehicle I have ever seen. The back bed of the pickup truck was filled with lit candy canes. The rear gate had a lit version of Santa and his reindeer. On the driver's side window, there was a sign to check out the truck's Facebook page.

Seriously. Santa Truck has a Facebook page. The most recent comments are, "Hey, I just passed you on Interstate 93."

This is what our living room looks like.

Dubious legality aside, the spirit is laudable. You can feel it when you go downtown, as we will tonight. Molly Lu Who and Nacho Man are coming to Boston tonight to spend the night and Christmas morning with The Wife, Daisy Duke and myself.

What are we doing? Making nachos, of course. I have seven different kinds of cheese (most, admittedly, not for the nachos) in our refrigerator and three kinds of chips. Nacho Man is bringing meats and cheeses of his own. There are myriad alcoholic beverages in the fridge and Smart Water for the morning after.

TW has to work until about 5, but that's OK. Nacho Man, Molly Lu and I will take the Blue Line down to Quincy Market. There will likely be carolers. There will be a holiday lights show called Blink. We might even bring Daisy Duke (pets aren't allowed on the subway, but you see it all the time).

This is Christmas in the big city. I kind of like it. I'm still not wild about buying or receiving presents, but it's about more than that. I could get into the religious notes and get really into the weeds. There is an argument among some Christians that Easter is the more important holiday, but let's not get into it.

At the least, people are having fun, and fun is a good thing. Here's hoping you're having fun at some point today, tonight or tomorrow. God bless you for putting up with me and/or my blog and merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, TW ~ Blog 39

A few years ago, I made a misguided attempt to write The Wife 25 Christmas love notes in the month of December. It was misguided for obvious reasons (25 is a lot) and not (work used to keep me absurdly busy).

Inspiration comes in strange forms. So it was this morning while watching a music channel. It was a summer festival in Glastonbury, England and Coldplay was playing. There's a lyric at the start of one of their songs that hits home: When you try your best but you don't succeed; When you get what you want but not what you need; When you feel so tired but you can't sleep; Stuck in reverse.

The last three years have been tough. People tell you not to define your life by what you do for work, but most people don't feel passionate about what they do. Three years ago, we thought there might be something other than journalism I could do for work. According to my records, I've applied for at least 75 jobs in the past three years. I've interviewed for exactly two non-journalism jobs; one was a three-month temporary job. Stuck in reverse.

A journalism degree isn't a license to print money; it also isn't a license to do anything much other than journalism, which isn't exactly a growth industry.

Through all the false hopes and layoffs, TW has been solid as a rock. They tell you a lot of things about marriage when you're getting married. It's about loving unconditionally and giving yourself to the other person. What it's really about is having the other person's back.

We're at an age when a "normal" 30-something wife would have certain expectations about what her life would look like. There would be a house and normal 9-to-5 jobs. There would be a retirement fund being contributed to on a regular basis. We'd like all of those things, but it hasn't worked out that way. Yet.

We fight. Oh, we fight. If a coffee filter is left in the coffee pot or someone leaves food that the dog destroys, we get annoyed at each other. It's easy to get carried away with day-to-day pettiness.

Then Something Big rolls into the scene and I am reminded how incredible TW is. The bigger and more stressful an issue is, the easier it is for her to handle. You could say she's got my back. Big time.

We've known each other for 10 years, minus a year or so we didn't talk to each other. More on that here. We have mundane days, and nights we sit on the couch watching TV, cuddling with the dog and not talking.

Hopefully, Big Things will stop rolling onto the scene. We're ready for stability. We're ready for mundane. But if a Big issue comes along, I know it's not really a Big deal. She's got my back.

That's not a sexy image of marriage. They don't tell you about that in pre-marital counseling, but it's exactly what the vows talk about: Through thick and thin, richer and poorer, health and sickness, I'll be there.

The last three years have been dramatic. We quit our jobs and moved from Utah to Maine. I didn't have a career. I got laid off. I spent months on the couch, losing my sanity. PA school happened. We moved to Boston. I got laid off a second time. You wonder when it's all going to stop.

There is one constant: We can handle it all. It's been 10 years and we still like each other. Usually. A few years ago, I never figured out how to express that in 25 different love letters. That's a lot of letters. Coldplay has my current mood explanation. I know it's cool to hate Coldplay, but they've captured how TW takes care of me in this song. Lights will guide you home; And ignite your bones; And I will try to fix you.

In Lieu of Killing My Dog ~ Blog 37

The dog was suspiciously absent when I came in the door early from the track. She is usually right there, on the couch.

Instead, there was the thump of a dog jumping off the guest bed and a kind of slinking approach from Daisy Duke. This approach invariably means trouble is afoot.

Is that ... A packing peanut in her mouth?

Yes, these are the joys of pet ownership. Daisy Doofus mistook packing peanuts for actual peanuts. She was flat on her back, in the submissive pose, within seconds of my arriving. She is sitting beneath my chair as I write this. It is a pensive silence.

These are the joys of pet ownership. I was going to blog about Christmas in the big city or weight loss or the 1987 Minnesota Twins, but when life hands you blog fodder and you are blogging almost every day for 90 days, you take it.

Thank God I own a dog.

Who'll Stop The Darn Rain ~ Blog 37



It's warm enough for baseball, at least.


This is supposed to be longer. But it's work time and time is pressed to get a blog done while people are still reading the Internet. It's not like there's anything else to do.

It's raining throughout the Northeast and it has been for about 48 hours. Schools were delayed in New Hampshire and parts of Massachusetts because rain froze into ice, then was rained on, which is a tricky surface to navigate on the way to classes.

We could complain about the weather, as many Midwest friends often do in the winter. But how about some perspective instead: It's 47 and raining in Boston right now. It's also Dec. 18 and I was able to go for a run with Daisy Duke today wearing running shorts and a long-sleeved running shirt. If it wasn't for the soggy tennis shoes, I would have thrown in an extra half hour of running.

Yes, there is a gigantic blob of moisture floating over and around New England and the forecast calls for days' more of rain. At least it's rain and not snow.

The Wife would prefer snow, as to go sledding on in Boston Common and to promote holly, jolly Christmastime fun. If it could snow Dec. 24 and melt Dec. 26, most of America could probably get on board with that. Skiers and snowboarders and snowplow operators might have some reservations.

In Utah, it doesn't rain from the end of April until the middle of October. This gloomy stretch known as, "spring, summer and fall," tests how much melatonin your body can handle, especially if you are involved in outdoor activities. When we moved to Maine in May of 2010, The Wife squealed with glee when we had to go to the car during a torrential downpour. It had been five years since she'd seen a good thuderstorm.

Growing up in the Midwest prepares you for everything. It will never be colder anywhere in the United States, at least not for an extended stretch. And it will never have more mosquitos in summer. Days on end of rain flooding us throughout December? We can handle that. At least it's rain and not snow.

Going to School ~ Blog 36

The Wife and I made a quick trip to Minnesota this weekend to be with her family for a weekend before Christmas. Her Dad gets into the Christmas decorations to the point he strings a lit Santa and reindeer above his driveway. He has five Christmas trees. Christmas is a big deal in The Wife's family.

We made the short drive to The Wife's Brother's house on Saturday to visit with our niece and nephew and to enjoy a holiday meal together. TWB's wife, Mrs. Krabappel, and I have a long history of annoying our spouses. She is a Simpsons devotee, and I can quote the 'Clown College' episode at extensive length.

You can almost hear TW and TWB rolling their eyes at us.

But Mrs. Krabappel is more subdued than normal right now. She is in school studying to be a physical therapy assistant and has finals all this week. She is practicing for a skills test this afternoon as I type this and she is stressed about whether she will pass.

It is all so familiar. The Wife spent 23 months in graduate school studying to be a physician assistant. We are still recovering and rebuilding our lives and careers.

Mrs. Krabappel is hilarious when she is not in school. She is a devoted mother of two great kids when she isn't physically at school. And she is a great baker of sugary confections . . . When she has time for such things.

It is hard to see someone you care about struggling. Mrs. Krabappel's life will take off when she gets out of school. She knows that. But it does not make the reality of school any easier for her or her family.

For now, it is stressful. Mrs. Krabappel has 17 months of school left. We will have a big party or a big present, or both, waiting for her when she graduates. We can wait 17 months for a good party. It is too soon for her to plan that far ahead. After all, we have to visit her on another Christmas before that happens.

Second Amendment Thoughts ~ Blog 35

I am typing this on an ipad from my in-laws' house, so this will have to be short. The Wife and I stopped at the Newtown, CT exit off Interstate 84 about a year and a half to go. We were coming back from New York City, we were hungry and TW was annoyed with me. That rarely happens.

According to Google Maps, we were a couple of hundred yards from the site of the shootings today. I can't say anything about that horror show to indicate how terrible it truly was.

What I can say is the shootings show a little something about the ridiculousness of a small number of guns' rights advocates who, after the movie theatre killings in Colorado, argued that if patrons had been armed, the event would not have been that bad.

They are not going to suggest we start arming second-graders, right? Armed guards at the doors? Metal detectors outside kindergarten?

I have no answers for you, though I know you would not see the headlines blaring "30 stabbed to death" if guns were illegal. Admittedly, I do not get guns. They mostly seem like toys to me. It is an Olympic sport. You can go clay shooting or to a range. You can hunt with them. But a gun in your home is 10 to 20 times more likely to shoot a friend or family member than an intruder. Tell me again about personal safety being protected by guns.

And yet, I think people should have the right to hunt with guns and, in some cases, be carried for personal protection. I do not have any great ideas. I would simply prefer to never see a place I have visited on the news next to the word, "tragedy."

Back to Nature ~ Blog 34

The payoff for an hour and a half of work.

My shoulders hurt.

Ordinarily, the cause could be a workout in Piers Park, lifting weights in the gym or fallout from one of my many, many moves. Since yesterday I did nothing other than climb a 3,166-foot mountain, I have to assume it's related to that.

Mt. Monadnock rises in southwestern New Hampshire near the cute and kinda-grungy college town of Keene. I was visiting Four Eyes, who lives in Brattleboro, Vt., the town The Wife and I considered moving to this past spring.

This is what we moved to New England for. There was a little country deli down the street form Four Eyes that makes some of the best soups, brisket and fudge brownies I've ever consumed. We ate fantastic burgers. We saw cute little art shops. TW, in a visit last spring, fell in love with a furniture shop for some reason. The trees are tapped with rubber tubing, already prepared for the flow of maple syrup in the spring.

And then there are the mountains. Boston's great, but the biggest hill I've hiked in the last six months is maybe 200 feet tall. Monadnock, Four Eyes claims, is the most hiked mountain in the nation. But this was no Disney-fied tourist hike.

The Monadnock trail rises 1,850 feet from the state park in 2.1 miles. It's an average grade of 17 percent, with the steepest section at about 30 percent.

With that kind of vertical, I was often using my hands to steady myself on the descent. In many places, I dropped both hands to rocks and lowered myself using my arms. That's why my shoulders are sore. It's a good sore, the kind of dull ache that lets you know you did something yesterday.

Three years ago, as we considered where The Wife would go to PA school, she asked what I would do without the mountains. Oh, I'll figure something out.

There's no substitute for mountains. Monadnock reminded me of that. Vermont and New Hampshire are a special place, with mountains and hiking difficult enough that you can spend hours hiking and leave you weak in the knees. Or, in my case, the shoulders.

Mr. Cleaning ~ Blog 33

I think this is an actual photograph. Not of me, though.

We aren't big on gender-assigned roles in our household. That is at least partially due to the fact that I have no interest in fixing stuff around the house, partially due to the fact that we don't own our condominium, and partially due to the fact that I enjoy doing other things.

Yesterday was a good example. Ferried The Wife to work with Daisy Duke riding in the back seat. Daisy Duke moved up to shotgun as we went to Trader Joe's, then back home, then back out to Stop & Shop and Walgreen's.

Then it was on to unloading the dishwasher, cleaning out the sink, making lentil vegetable soup and making a breakfast omelette thing that TW seems to enjoy. On the side, I did laundry. I threw a bunch of dishes back in the sink, wrapped up the trash and ... my God, it's 7 p.m. already. Daisy Duke went back in the car and we shuttled back to Sommerville to pick up TW. She's a precious and dainty thing and needs a chauffeur.

Could be talking about Daisy Duke; could be talking about TW. Let's just leave that up in the air.

The moms out there, like Sarah32Flavors, know what this is like. How is it possible for grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning (and blogging and running at the track) to take eight hours? It just doesn't seem possible.

It's not fulfilling, but it's not NOT fulfilling, to paraphrase TW. It's a Catch-22, this life. You want to get all this *stuff* taken care of because you have the time to do it and, well, somebody's gotta do it. You almost, kind of enjoy it. Then, you feel kind of bad. You should want more for yourself. What do other people think?

I can't tirelessly defend these kinds of days, nor do I think I have to. There's no imminent attack on people kind of enjoying doing chores. The attack is from within our own heads, like it's not OK to have a humdrum-but-productive day.

I have days like yesterday and think, "I could get used to this." I work part-time at a job I enjoy and that pays reasonably well. I like doing chores and really enjoy cooking. Full disclosure: I also do oil changes and some work on our car (replacing spark plugs and headlights, recharging the air conditioning system), so I'm not totally off the Man Wagon.

It's possible I will get to a place in my head where I'm completely OK with this kind of life. It's possible that I will be frustrated by not winning some sort of blog of the year award for the rest of my life. This I know for sure: I make a mean lentil soup.

ADDENDUM TO BLOG 32
I forgot to mention in yesterday's blog about the purse-snatching that I made a horribly illegal left turn out of the parking lot. If there were police officers watching, I hope they died a little on the inside.

The Purse Snatcher ~ Blog 32

If you had one of these straps, wouldn't you be just
as likely to forget your purse is around? I would.

Fridays are salad days. Literally. It's the day I stop at Shaw's for about 1.5 pounds of salad. Such was the case a few days ago, when I loaded my plastic carton with veggies and topped it with a little blue cheese dressing. Why ruin a good load of veggies with blue cheese? Because too much of a good thing is bland and tasteless. I also add bacon. Deal with it.

As I opened my car door, I noticed a purse-like bag was sitting in the top of the empty grocery cart I had parked next to. Curious, I closed the driver's door and picked up the black, foot-long bag. It was zipped shut but I wasn't sure exactly what it was. I unzipped and looked -- cash, a wallet and other lady-like items were inside. I zipped it back up and started walking toward the front door.

As I passed the Salvation Army bell-ringer, I asked her to keep an eye out for frantic women in the parking lot. "Let them know I found their purse and brought it to guest services," I told her.

On my way back out of the store, the lady stopped me.

"That was very nice of you," she said. "But it might have been a police thing."

"A police thing?"

"No, a police STING. They've been running sting operations around here."

For serious? (Sorry, the Minnesota in me comes out from time to time.)

That sounded far-fetched. I mentioned my story to Pablo when I got to work. Pablo is the local government watchdog. He likes to yell about the government and, frankly, his rants are often the most enjoyable part of my evening. I like my job; his rants are just that good.

Pablo informed me that we had, indeed, written some stories about Manchester, N.H., police doing stings in the area. About half a mile from Shaw's, they'd left a purse and a DVD player outside a GameStop. They'd also left a purse in a cart outside Walmart.

I'm not saying the purse I found was part of a sting. There is no follow-up when you do something nice like return a purse to a store. It's not even nice, really. That's just what you do. As Pablo spread my story around the newsroom (it took the place of one of his evening rants, though we still heard him complain loudly that gays should be seeking gay marriage, not marriage), a similar reaction took place:

Seriously?

Apparently, there is no hardened crime in Manchester and it is a place with few problems. There are no meth addicts; no children at local schools need to be told not to use drugs; nobody gets in drunken bar fights. There is no crime in Manchester, so they're down to doing purse stings.

You can argue that taking a purse or taking money from a purse isn't really a crime, it's entrapment. And the very fact that you can make that argument tells me it's not a serious crime. Still, a pair of men face felony charges in Manchester over the stings.

I like to think that, as I picked up the purse, there were videotapes whirring. Police officers — a half dozen of them, at least — felt their pulses quicken as I looked in the bag and saw the money. "He's taking the bait!!!" they all heard ringing through their heads. And I like to think that it ruined their day when I zipped the purse shut and walked back into the store. Because, for them, it was back to eating donuts and sipping their coffee. I was rewarded with the virtuous taste of blue cheese salad with bacon. I hope they saw me eating my victory salad and questioned what they were doing with their lives and maybe, just maybe, they cut the sting short that day and went out to catch a drug dealer. In another town, of course. Manchester doesn't have any crime.

Presented Without Comment ~ Blog 31

It's possible my dog is too calm. Does this count as a comment?

How To Meet People and Meet People ~ Blog 30

Go Twins!

When we were considering moving from Maine to Massachusetts, The Wife raised a valid concern: How are we going to meet people?

In the past, we became friends with people we lived with and with my co-workers. In Boston, we wouldn't know anybody and I wasn't going to be working with anybody who lived near us. It was a valid question. How are we going to meet people?

The answer, it turns out, was to turn me loose in a public park. The truth is way less creepy than that sounds.

We live near a park where people commonly allow their dogs to be off-leash. As I have a dog that I commonly allow to be off-leash, Daisy Duke and I are there often. But, as of the end of August, the only person I'd met was Ray, an 85-year-old former jazz musician and, he says, World War II veteran.

In early September, there was a skinny guy sitting on a park bench with a Minnesota Twins cap on. This is odd, in part because we're Red Sox territory and in part because nobody outside of Minnesota and the Dakotas likes the Twins. Even as I type this, I'm wearing a Red Sox sweatshirt. It was cheap. Stop judging me.

I walked over to the guy.

"Are you a Twins fan?" I asked.

"No."

"Oh, well, you have a Twins cap on, and that made me wonder."

"Yeah, I used to live there," he told me.

"Oh? Where?"

"Stillwater."

"Uh, that's funny because I graduated from Stillwater High School," I told him.

"Oh, my wife graduated from there."

"When?"

"1999," he told me.

"My brother graduated in 1999."

Not only does Nutmeg's Mom know my brother, she actually likes him. They were in theater people together and you know how theater people are. (Disclosure: I lettered in theater).

These coincidences are the foundation of our relationship with our new BFFs. In truth, Stillwater High is one of the biggest in Minnesota and everybody in their right mind should want to live there. Still, it was absurdly coincidental that we had connections to people in East Boston.

A few dinner dates and an ill-fated candlepin bowling trip later, we have new BFFs. It's unusual, as a couple, that we both like both components of the other couple. Sometimes, the guys like each other but don't care for the ladies, or vice-versa. This time, it's all mutual and consensual. That also sounds way creepier than I meant.

Nutmeg's Dad and I hang out often because he works at home, which means we can go on long walks out to the Airport Hyatt at 2-ish. We get along famously, in part because he brought good scotch over to our house for the first dinner date and, in part, because I had good gluten-free beer in my refrigerator to offer him.

It's improbable, to be sure. But, sometimes, that's how things work out.

Smell The Roses ~ Blog 29

It's Dec. 5 and we have this.

I wouldn't have noticed if it wasn't for Nutmeg's Dad. We were finishing up a walk on the harbor.

"Stop and smell the roses," he called after me as I walked away toward home.

What? Oh, the rose bushes up ahead. My God, there's flowering rose bushes in December. Global warming is a marvelous thing. That was my first thought. Then I remembered my morning exploration of The Weather Channel. It was 18 degrees in my hometown of Lakeland, MN, this morning. Coastal living has its advantages.

My Attempt To Like Christmas ~ Blog 28

This is an actual tree. It's at least 50 feet tall. 

No post yesterday? No post yesterday. Tomcat, my uncle, is in town and we were too busy doing Boston things for me to sit down and blog.

Standing entirely too close to the tree.

It's holiday time in the big city, which means Christmas lights. The Boston Harbor Hotel, which hangs the largest American flag you've ever seen for the Fourth of July, currently has a giant light display hanging in its rotunda.

Just down the street from the Harbor Hotel, Tomcat and I went to Quincy Market to check out the light show synchronized to music from the Boston Pops orchestra.

Christmas hasn't been my thing. Perhaps you've noticed that. But I can get into this kind of Christmas tradition. Tomcat and I had to wait at Quincy for 15 minutes for the show to begin with maybe 10 or so people. The Salvation Army ringer was sitting 15 feet from his kettle, shaking his bell once every minute or so. It was not a happening place.

All the lights on the trees around the market shut off. Tomcat broke out his iPhone to take video. Here's one from opening night (skip the first minute).

I'm not a cultured man ("No!" you say) so I can't tell you what song the speakers played. Hallelujah was repeated, over and over again. Tomcat doesn't impress easily but called it, "somewhat amazing. Just wow." That's high praise.

Christmas can be fun. This isn't breaking news to most people but it's somewhat revelatory to me. The season is actually kind of nice. What's to dislike about having a hot toddy and watching skaters on Boston Common?

Like any 7-year-old, I've been guilty of focusing on the presents. Dreaming up a Christmas list isn't easy when you don't really want anything. Opening presents isn't particularly awesome when you don't know what you asked for.

But Christmas trees with light shows synchronized to classical music? I can get used to this.

Scenes From a Marriage ~ Blog 27

Blogs are slow to arrive on Fridays because Friday is Chore Day in the Patrick household. For me it's Chore Day, anyway.

A couple months ago, my brother (whose last name is also no longer our given family name) was chatting with The Wife on Facebook. She told him that we liked having a condo because there wasn't any maintanance to do.

"Well, what's Jim do, then?"

Lots of stuff, it turns out; especially on Fridays.

A year and a half ago, I wrote the definitive piece about the courting period with TW. It's 6,000 words, it's about four-fifths of the whole story, and it's worth your time to check it out.

TW often points out that there's no such thing as a Hollywood ending. Someone could easily assume that our marriage is pretty much just leisurely walks on the beach with Daisy Duke and romantic dinners out in the Old North End. In reality, our dog eats something she shouldn't and ends up pooping all over the living room at 3 a.m.

Marriage isn't glamorous. This could be a shock if you base your perceptions of reality on movies, TV shows or books on the topic.

We did, for the record, get rid of the couch.

Then you have a day like today. I went to Best Buy (Daisy Duke rode shotgun). Set up a new router, set up a printer and discarded of packing materials. Then I thawed some beef, walked to The Maverick convenience mart and bought some onions and peppers. When I got home, I cooked the beef, added the onions and peppers as well as canned tomatoes and beans. Voila! ~ Chili!

Then I made the bed, took out the recycling, fed the dog and took the dog out.

TW and I haven't seen each other in about 48 hours. She left for work this morning at 6:15. I work evenings; she's in bed by 9:30. Sometimes, I am acused of not doing the most-correct chores around the house. Sometimes, the dog eats 5 pounds of dog food and craps through the couch.

This is what life looks like regardless of if you live in Boston or Decorah, Iowa. Life is just life. And that chili's not gonna make itself.

City Slickers Boston ~ Blog 26

It's kind of unbelievable this is so close to the city.

The definition of "determination" can be skewed by where you live.

Today, two days after a failed attempt to go hiking with Daisy Duke, we loaded back in the car for a second attempt. When we got to the Sumner tunnel, traffic was a standstill because construction had narrowed the tunnel to one lane.

Undeterred, we rolled off into the side streets of Boston, eventually ending up on a back highway and sneaking our way into the Fellsway. If they gave a Congressional Medal for city driving, I would be wearing it right now.

The Fellsway is a pair of natural areas and is primarily a state park. Dog hiking is the first thing the Fellsway's wikipedia page lists for activities in the area, so I figured it was probably Kosher to bring Daisy Duke.

Technically, it's an on-leash hiking area. Technically, there is nobody there to enforce that rule. Technically, I'd be willing to pay several fines a year if it meant not getting dragged through the woods by my somewhat-trained Daisy Duke.

Interstate 93 runs right through the Fells and you can clearly see a tower of some sort on a rock bluff at the southern edge of the area. Daisy Duke and I glanced at a trail map, then set out from the parking area in the middle of the Fells. There are dozens of trails and it's got to be tough to get lost. Just stay near the interstate.

The view from the trail.

That logic served us well. Walk toward the sun. When you can't hear the interstate, you need to work your way to the left. That brought us on an almost-direct course to the tower.

It also brought us into a small herd of deer.

Daisy Duke is not renown for her attention to detail. And so it was that she stood on a rock not 75 feet from a large, white-tailed deer. Daisy Duke practically looked right at the deer, then turned away and sniffed the ground, completely unaware of the opportunity just a few bounds away. The deer took off through the woods; Daisy Duke never noticed.

"You're clueless, dog," I told her.

We moved ahead another five minutes, snapped a few pictures at the tower, overlooking Boston, and began to work our way back.

The dog and I aren't so different, really. We're both good at ignoring what's right in front of us. In Salt Lake, I'd drive half an hour or more to access hiking spots with Dukakis, Daisy's chocolate lab predecessor. Dukakis and I would go up Mill Creek Canyon and hike Grandeur Peak, the Pipeline and Dog Lake (aptly named) several times a week until he got too old and we moved farther away from the city. Out west, hiking was a part of my routine, daily activities.

But there's no hiking out east, I told myself.

My drive to work takes me straight through The Fells. The trailhead is nine miles from our house; it takes about 15 minutes to get there. It's not the west, but it's a worthy workout. Daisy Duke and I spent an hour and a half in the Fells today. On the way home, she passed out with her head on the emergency brake handle in the front seat. She's currently cuddled up on my right arm, snoring lightly.

I've been in Boston for almost six months and I'm finally giving in to the idea that I'm the closest to hiking I've ever been in my life. I'm determined to take advantage of the access.

Four Weeks To Go ~ Blog 25

Muhahahahahahahahahaha.

As a kid, Christmas lasted about an hour and a half. The fun part was from 5 a.m. 'til, at the latest, 7 a.m. Wrapping paper went flying. Our stockings had Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and jelly beans.

As a childless adult, Christmas is trickier to navigate. Some would argue it's not age appropriate to ask for table hockey games that are somehow the exact same price they were 25 years ago. (Seriously, are they somehow immune to price inflation?)

I have been rightly accused of being Grinchy because I don't want presents at Christmas time, and for a long time I've acted the part. When we lived in Utah, it was easy to be bugged by Christmas because it made me aware of my religious differences with my Mormon friends. The Wife and I toured incredible light display at the Salt Lake Temple one year, but I felt out of place. We never saw the Mormon Tabernacle Choir do holiday music because, in part, I don't know the vast majority of the songs they sing.

Boston is more familiar. The 50-foot Christmas tree at Quincy (pronounced 'Quin-zee,' to TW's annoyance) is awesome, with a light show coordinated to the music from the Boston Pops. Downtown is bustling with shoppers and sales.

Then there is the literal Grinch. The Broadway musical based on the Seuss book is in town; TW and I went to the show Saturday night with our new BFFs from the neighborhood. It was a delight, though you honestly don't realize how few words you know to the song, "You're a Mean One, Mister Grinch," until you try to sing along with it.

"You’re a foul one Mr. Grinch

You’re a nasty wasty skunkYour heart is full of unwashed socks,Your soul is full of gunk Mr. Grinch"


After the show, we walked around the corner to diner, then walked to Finale, a Boston restaurant that specializes in chocolate deserts and hot toddies. We road the subway home.

It occurred to me during the show: What if I actually like the Christmas season, I just don't like buying or receiving presents? That's not even a complete statement. It's not that I don't want presents, it's that I don't want anything (or, at least, nothing I'm willing to admit to on this blog).

The Grinch was fun. The Christmas tree at Quin-zee is huge (TW asked if they chopped down a giant redwood in California and shipped it here). I bought several pairs of pants for myself during a Christmas sale.

Maybe my heart isn't two sizes too small, after all.

A Creature of Habit ~ Blog 24

I would have taken this picture, had I remembered
my phone, it not been raining, and I not been a wimp.

Moving around the country is a way of forcing yourself to try new things. For The Wife and I, it only works for a short period of time.

We've already had to ban ourselves from going to Boston Beerworks, our favorite Boston pub food spot. TW and I will fall in love with a place and dine there so often that we never want to eat there again. Hence our recent ban on Beerworks, which has excellent bar food and over a dozen of their own beers on tap. Just talking about it makes me want some.

Everybody has a comfort zone. Some people think TW and I lead an exotic life. TW's sister-in-law, PTA, always says wonderful things about our little family bouncing around the country from spot to spot or eating in different locations. What people don't see is how we order Buffalo wings, nachos and a bacon cheeseburger at pretty much every bar and grill we go to. At the Thai restaurants, it's pad thai. At the Chinese places, it's hot and sour soup.

Occasionally, I convince myself to try something new. Such was the case today, when it was decided Daisy Duke and I would go off to The Fellsway for a hike. The Fells, as it's called, is a fantastic recreation area about 15 minutes from our house. There are large bodies of water for Daisy Duke to float around in; there's a small hill with a stone lookout tower that I've always wanted to check out.

It was a rash decision to go hiking this morning, made out of frustration with the status quo. I have literally nothing to do today. The house is picked-up-ish, there's plenty of food in the fridge and the car has finally been legally registered in Massachusetts. Damnit, Daisy Duke and I were going to try something new.

I put on a sweatshirt, a Red Sox cap (when in Rome), and we went to the car. It was raining faintly, but it wasn't enough to convince me not to go. We're trying something new whether I like it or not.

On the drive to The Fells, I started thinking about how I didn't have a jacket. And it's raining harder now. No, damnit, we're trying something new.

Then I started thinking about how the dog would get muddy. No, damnit, we're going to The Fells.

We'd just popped out of the Big Dig tunnels on Interstate 93 when I noticed three huge DOT snow plow trucks drive by in the opposite direction. They were overloaded with sand. Apparently, this little rain storm is supposed to turn to ice and snow.

I looked to my right at Daisy Duke, who was curled into a tight ball in the front seat so she could nap. This dog doesn't have any grand plans for today. She won't know what she's missing. We went home.

Trying new things is hard. Some of the most-cherished experiences, hobbies and foods in my life come from feeling uncomfortable about trying something new. Who would have thought I'd like downhill skiing?

But there's a limit to what makes sense. And there's nothing on the agenda for tomorrow, except for a possible date night with TW. Maybe I'll order something different, like vegetarian chili on my order of nachos.

You're a Mean One ~ Blog 23

I can make this face without makeup, minus the hue of green.

If you want to start a religious argument, and this works among all brands of Christians as well as non-believers, you can always say my favorite religious holiday is Thanksgiving.

Works every time.

"But it's not a religious holiday," they always respond.

Sure it is. It was started by Puritans as a time of thanksgiving to God.

"Yeah, but you don't go to church," is the typical response.

A lot of people don't go to church on Christmas and they still consider it a religious holiday. Christmas and Thanksgiving are inextricably intertwined. Moreso, as Christmas Creep has overtaken my favorite holiday, with Walmart staying open all day and national stores opening for sales at 8 p.m. (Does anybody want to bet that next year it won't be 6 p.m.?)

This is a minority opinion, to be sure, but Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday simply because it's very, very difficult to screw up. There are no presents at Macy's for Thanksgiving -- there are no stocking-stuffers that include gravy.

It is the simplest of holidays. Get together with family and/or friends; eat a lot of food; watch football. We'll see you again next year. It's beautiful.

For years, The Wife and I hosted Thanksgivings in our Utah home. We invited other wanderers, people with no family or who didn't want to be with their families. It was an eclectic gathering. The instructions were simple: We'll cook turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes and stuffing. You should bring whatever food you would really, really want to be at your Thanksgiving table.

Joey G. was a Thanksgiving regular. He's allergic to poultry so he always brought lasagna. Here Comes the Sun was a Cambodian-by-way-of California; he brought fried rice once.

We were not hosting Thanksgiving this year. Our Boston apartment has lovely granite countertops and a five-burner stove. It is also 537 square feet, according to TW's measurements.

Fortunately, we're nice people and have friends. Jo-Jo (our former Maine landlord and Molly Lu's mother) invited us to her sister's house outside Boston. It was lovely having someplace to go, with easy company and people we know. We watched football, then played football in the backyard with the kids. Thanksgiving is exceedingly hard to screw up.

It wasn't the same as hosting Thanksgiving, which we aspire to doing again in the future. But 537 feet is 537 feet. Which brings us to the next holiday. Where do you put a Christmas tree in an apartment with no spare square feet? Try saying those last three words aloud.

But there we go, letting Christmas creep into a log about Thanksgiving. That will just have to wait for tomorrow, when we discuss The Grinch. That may or may not be a reference to myself.

This Is Very Sick ~ Blog 22

This is how you get rid of CSA stuff, including kale, potatoes and onions.

Yesterday, for the first time in 22 weekdays, there was no new blog posted on Mass Hysteria. I was busy and I was sick. It was also due to work reasons; I slept until 11:30 a.m. and left for work at 2 p.m.

But you don't care about that. You come here for frivolity and food. Hence that picture up there. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but it smells fantastic.

The throat is scratchy and burny. It hurts to swallow. Naturally, I went to Trader Joe's to stock up on food. There's no choice. Tomorrow is cooking prep day for Thanksgiving and that stuffing isn't going to make itself. It has 3 sticks of butter. It's amazing.

But that damn CSA has left us with a stock of veggies that has to be dealt with. The onions from four weeks ago are already rotten. Actually, they were bad a week ago. So, I threw some kale in a pot with some bacon, some chicken sausage, some onions, some chicken stock and some parmesan cheese. It smells spectacular.

This is what I do when I'm sick. No more running. Limited dog antics. And cooking. Lots of cooking. No eating. Just cooking. That little red pot on the stove is jammed with garbanzo beans and bay leaves and it's bubbling along.

Even when you're not hungry, it's comforting to have food boiling on the stove. Here's hoping I'm hungry by Thursday at 2 p.m.

Back to Reality ~ Blog 21

In fairness, this is pregame.

So much for 19,000 fans at NBA games. I'm done blogging about sports after tonight. I swear. But this is what the vast majority of sports reporters know well: a near-empty arena hours before a game.

I've worked with guys who show up minutes before the start of a game. They aren't particularly respected. There's work to do. Hands to shake. Information to gather. Blogs to write (in my case).

I drove 110 miles today to Hartford, Ct., to cover a hockey game. I left home at 3 p.m. to beat insane rush-hour traffic on Interstate 90; that tactic was mostly successful.

And here goes another Friday night at work. Hartford Whale vs. Portland Pirates AHL hockey. They'll be happy if 2,500 people actually show up tonight. There are currently about 100 fans here. The Whale have some of the coolest hockey sweaters you've ever seen.

The Wife is a little less than happy I'm working my sixth straight evening shift (two of which were just freelancing gigs). Busy weeks are a rarity for me, not the rule. This week has shown how much I like to work.

"You're going above and beyond what any other freelancer has done covering this team," a Utah Jazz media contact told me.

That's almost surprising to me because I mostly operate at one speed, and that speed is apparently abnormally hardcore. I showed up almost three hours early for Wednesday's NBA game; tonight, I was in the hockey arena two hours early.

But that's OK. I had a blog to write. Certainly TW won't begrudge that.

*crosses fingers*

I Love This Game ~ Blog 20



The office.

 A couple of days ago, I chronicled why sports reporting isn't necessarily a dream job. Today, I'm going to tell you why it's still pretty awesome.

The best games to attend for work in Salt Lake City were the games when Kurt Kragthorpe was sitting next to you. (This is a blog first, using real names, but Kurt's a public figure and we have nothing to hide here. He's the columnist for The Salt Lake Tribune and a friend of mine.)

Journalists are famously jaded people. It's happened to me. My jokes are often in horrible taste when I'm around other journalists. Ordinarily, they are just horrible.

That jaded attitude spills over into everything they do at work. They complain about the pregame food. They complain about the free shuttle bus that takes them from their hotel to the game. They complain about security measures. They complain about the people they cover. Those are just the examples from covering the Super Bowl.

Kragthorpe never says a negative word. He sits there quietly, looking at stats. When the game starts, he'd talk to you.

"Did you see that?"

"Oh my God. That was huge."

"Wow."

That last one is my favorite. Wow. Kragthorpe and I were peas in a pod. While the other writers were busy complaining, or checking Twitter, or making jokes amongst themselves, Kragthorpe and I would sit there and take it all in.

We're jaded, but we're not that jaded.

If there was any epiphone from covering Wednesday's Jazz-Celtics game in Boston, it's that I still think sports writing really stinking cool. Actually, I think writing in general is really cool; sports writing moreso because we're paid to watch sports.

It's not about perception or what people think of you. It's a little about having a free ticket to see the circus that is a sporting event and some of the best athletes on the planet. There's drama of players trying to make a name and trying to tie the game. I apologize for the rhyme. Last night's game just really has me in a good mood.

Kragthorpe would have loved it. The Celtics had a bunch of aging All-Stars who kept trying to pull away from the mostly no-name Jazz, but the Jazz kept coming back on them. It was the best game I've seen in a long time.

Don't mistake this for being a fan. Kragthorpe and I don't care who wins and loses. Utah lost last night but it didn't bother me because I got a better-than-usual story out of it. That's what it's mostly about -- finding and telling good stories.

Writers forget that. They complain about how long it takes for the elevator to move at Fenway Park. They sit there in the press box with the windows closed on a beautiful day. They complain about having to work nights all the time and the older ones don't like having to update Twitter. Or checking email, even.

Me? I'm sitting here with a goofy grin on my face because I got to pretend to be an NBA beat writer for 60 hours. And it helps that some good stories came out of it. The best part is one every writer can be thankful for: Nobody destroyed me in the online comments. That's not your cue to go do so, but feel free. My job is still pretty awesome.

Yes, Al Jefferson, We Drink Beer ~ Blog 19

The lords of all creation.

Athletes are notoriously difficult to interview. In college, they go through media training that teaches them to always stay positive, evasive of touchy subjects and to speak in cliches. Baseball players are the worst. In the movie Bull Durham, Kevin Costner's character tells a young pitcher how to toss out cliches in order to avoid actually saying anything. Baseball players have taken the advice to heart, sadly.

But there are moments where you can crack the egg. It's what makes reporting fun.

On Tuesday, the Utah Jazz held a practice session in a small college gym located right next to the Boston Common. The players lounged in the stands, waiting through a 10-minute interview period. There were only three reporters there; the guy from Sports Illustrated sequestered Gordon Hayward for almost the entire time.

That left me to wander between players who had never seen me before. I asked random questions about basketball, they gave the best answers they could. It's a painful process for both of us.

Building an actual relationship with players and coaches is difficult, bordering on impossible. We are natural enemies and we both know it. At least, that's the perception.

That's what happened at the end of question-and-answer time yesterday so entertaining. My friend from Utah, Grizzly, was standing near me and Al Jefferson, arguably the most notable Utah Jazz player. I made a brief mention of where Grizzly and I were going to meet later, Boston Beerworks.

"Hold up," Jefferson said. "Reporters drink?"

I'm not sure if he was trying to be funny or he has never heard any jokes about journalists.

"I'm a beer guy; Grizzly's into whiskey," I told Big Al.

"Wow, man."

What ensued was the most random conversation ever. A Utah Jazz assistant named Ron Boone (who played in the ABA, back in the day) piped into the conversation. Boone was a nice guy and we started talking about Mead Hall, one of my favorite beer places in the world.

Boone mentioned he lived near Mill Creek Canyon in Salt Lake. I asked if he'd ever been to the Wing Coop.

Again, Al Jefferson piped in.

"What about wings? Where is this?"

And we were off. Food is my second-favorite topic in the world. The Wife has heard my Wing Coop wing-challenge story approximately 100 times and it's to the point that she can't even listen any more. But Al Jefferson's never heard it.

The wing challenge at the Wing Coop is simple. Eat 11 wings in 11 minutes without drinking or eating anything else and you win a T-shirt that says, "I've been to 11." If you like Spinal Tap, you simply have to do this challenge, I explained.

Jefferson was into it. Boone agreed the normal wings were pretty good. I went on, describing the sweat beading up on my head, tears coming out my eyes and hiccups that accompanied the absurdly hot wings. Al Jefferson felt my pain. As a capper, I told them, I called into work sick that day because my stomach was tied up in knots.

For about 10 seconds, we were all laughing like normal human beings. It reminded me of a scene from Shawshank, where Andy Dufresne gets beers for the roofing crew just to feel normal again.

Then, a coach blew a whistle to get Jefferson and another player over with the rest of the group to watch game film. As we walked away, Grizzly told me, "That stuff about the wings was gold."

There's more I could say about moments like that and how I've missed them over the last three years that I've been mostly on a copy desk. It's fun talking to these guys. It's fun telling stories. It certainly beats having a real job.

Let's Go Jazz ~ Blog 18

Two and a half years ago, when The Wife was giving her notice at work that we were quitting our jobs and leaving Salt Lake, a male co-worker raised his hand and said, "I'd like to have Jim's job."

I did not exactly work in a salt mine, or so it would seem to a lot of people.

This blog is about a lot of things, but it isn't about sports. TW has often said she would never know she's married to a "sports guy." I was the assistant sports editor at The Salt Lake Tribune, but you would have never known it to visit our home. There's no sports posters or paraphenalia. We don't watch ESPN. In the last two years, we've attended exactly four sporting events together (one Red Sox game, two minor-league baseball games and one college football game).

Sports isn't who I am, it's what I do. Sports writers aren't like other journalists. Most of us got into journalism because it was fun going to games with friends. In high school, I attended 46 home games for soccer, football and basketball; I know because I still had the $5 punch card in my wallet until a year ago.

Sports writing and being a sports fan are two very different things. Do sports writers get to go to games for free? Yes. But there's more to it than that.

A good beat writer shows up for a game at least a couple of hours before the game to go over notes, watch for injured players warming up and to schmooze with team officials.

There's no cheering in the pressbox, at least among professional journalists. College kids will sometimes start high-fiving, but there's usually somebody in the pressbox to tell them to hush up.

There's also no drinking on the job, which is probably for the best because you usually have at least one tight deadline to make. The vast majority of games start at 7 p.m. and the vast majority of deadlines start around 10 p.m. A good beat writer can easily work until 1 a.m. writing a game story, composing a notebook and blogging. When people would ask me who I root for, the answer was a pat, "The clock." The game has to end so I can do my job.

Did I have a cool job in Salt Lake? Sure. I also worked every Friday and Saturday night for seven years (10 years, if you include my jobs before Utah). Every time I covered a Utah-BYU football game, every time I showed up to cover the Super Bowl five hours before game time, every time I was among two dozen parents at a high school soccer game, my wife and dog were at home without me. It's not a 9 to 5 job, which is fine when you're 23, single and have no friends. After a decade, it grinds on you.

That's why I enjoyed bringing 21-year-old journalism students with me to Utah Jazz games. We'd take our press passes and walk around the inside of the stadium. I'd walk with them directly onto the court and stand in the middle of the floor ... because we get to do that. Wide-eyed, they'd stand there and take a picture with their phone. Then, I'd tell them, "There's 19,000 people up there in the stands that would kill for the kind of access you get to have. The trick is converting that kind of access into telling those people something they didn't already know from watching the game."

And that's the trick that awaits me for the next few days. The Utah Jazz are in Boston this week for a game Wednesday night. I'm covering and writing about practice today, the game tomorrow, and another practice Thursday. I'm also working at my normal job Tuesday and Thursday nights.

For me, it's a treat. The biggest events I've covered in the past two and a half years are state high school basketball games and minor-league hockey games where I'm one of two writers present.

For my old paper's beat writer, Grizzly, it's more of an endurance test. He's on a four-game roadtrip. The Jazz won in triple overtime last night, which led to a good story. It also led to a lack of sleep. Grizzly went to bed around 2 a.m. last night and woke up around 4 a.m. to catch a flight from Toronto to Boston. Practice is at 11:30 a.m. I'd be surprised if he's not drinking coffee.

He won't be complaining, though. After all, there's lots of people that would be more than happy to have our jobs.

Squashing Our Hopes And Dreams ~ Blog 17

It's almost this bad.

Why do I do this to myself?

That was the thought Saturday as I was picking up our winter CSA share. I am the worst localvore ever. I buy a locally raised turkey and then complain about how much it costs. It also tasted terrible. We prefer to go to local bars and restaurants and then I order buffalo wings and nachos at every one of them.

If you know me at all, you know I am not a man of refined tastes. My beer-nerd friends (OK, mostly just the Bearded Bearnut) will jump in here to defend me; they might also note that I occasionally drink a Miller Lite.

I aspire to being a super yuppy, minus the iPhone and the iPad and the skinny jeans and the horn-rimmed glasses. And I want to want to love my CSA share. I simply don't.

This is the second attempt at a Community Supported Agriculture share. You pay a lump fee before the growing season, then each week you pick up your produce. It's a way to support local farms and local produce while maybe saving a buck or two on buying stuff at the farmers' market (or Whole Foods).

The first, in Portland, brought weekly allotments of kale, chard, collard greens and other things we never, ever eat. On the year-end evaluation form, we pointed out there were hardly any of the vegetables we eat on a regular basis. Where were the corn, the cucumbers, the tomatoes? Give me a pepper or give me nothing.

For some reason, it was decided that a second shot at a CSA was in order. The upshot of a CSA, aside from supporting local agriculture, is it forces you to eat healthy foods.

I lost five pounds over the last three weeks. That coincides with our first 40-pound winter CSA share being delivered. There were leeks, potatoes, squash, squash, more squash, carrots and about 10 pounds of leafy green vegetables.

I made a cabbage soup, with onion and potato. I made a huge, two-bowl salad from a pair of cabbages with a soy/ginger/garlic dressing. And aside from one serving of salad, I ate it all by myself.

You do not need that much fiber in your diet.

Then, three weeks later, we picked up our second 40-pound load of veggies. TW unloaded the bok choy, leeks, lettuces, radishes and myriad other things I can't even identify on some friends in Portland. We still have a 5-pound bag of carrots sitting in the fridge.

The attraction to this CSA was value. It's $240 for 120 pounds of produce. If it was 120 pounds of red peppers, I think I'd be OK with that. As it stands, we have a 10 pounds of squash rotting in our basement.

Even the weight-loss effect is temporary. I went out for garlic herb fries Saturday afternoon and put on all the weight I'd lost. That's OK. I'd rather be a little pudgy and happy than eating squash.

The 'B' Word: Bureaucracy ~ Blog 16

Why can't this be a normal state? It's not even a state, technically, but the difference between a commonwealth and a state is pretty semantic, so we'll let that one slide.

Every state has quirks and hoops you have to jump through. In Maine, you have to register your car at the DMV, pay taxes on that vehicle at city hall, and get your car inspected before you are good to drive for a year. Then you have to repeat the process. Every. Year.

Minnesota is absurdly expensive. I had to threaten so sue the state of Utah (with a real lawyer and everything) before they would issue me a driver's license. If ever there was an argument for a nationalized vehicle tax system, people who move around a lot would be entirely in favor of it because you never know what you're going to get at the DMV.

Or, in Massachusetts' case, the RMV. We don't have a DMV, we have a Registry of Motor Vehicles. Fine. Whatever. Couldn't be that different, right?

I had to take the subway downtown because there's no way I'm trying to park in downtown Boston, near the RMV. The subway was packed so I got out early and walked a half mile to the RMV. There was nobody there! Score! I was about to sit down when I noticed the signs that loudly announced the RMV "accepts CASH OR CHECKS ONLY for registration." Worried they would call my number, I literally ran out the front door and to the CVS across the street. I got $200 and arrived back at the RMV two minutes before they called my number.

I got up to the teller with my registration, insurance and title. That wasn't enough. Only in Massachusetts.

"You need an RMV-1 form from your insurance agency," I was told.

My what from my who now? I have an insurance card ... RIGHT HERE. Absurd.

"You can go to the UPS store up the street and use their computers."

Convenient. Well, it would be if I found the UPS store quickly, which of course I did not. Eventually, while on hold with Progressive, I found the UPS store after asking for directions three times. Maybe I need a smart phone.

Standing in the front corner of the store, I answered a few questions as discreetly as possible. I asked the very helpful customer service rep, "Does any other state require this form?" Nope. Just Massachusetts. We're a little different here.

Progressive then emailed me the RMV-1 form. SCO ... wait, the co-owner of the vehicle has to sign this thing? Do they have to? Yep, says right there they have to. But ... Crap. That was my reaction. So, I have some paperwork for The Wife to sign. Only took 1.5 hours to figure that out.

When we first got married, TW was annoyed because her name wasn't on many legal documents for cars and houses, or even power and cable bills. We've been on a seven-year campaign to correct that.

Thing is, your spouse is legally entitled to ownership of a vehicle or house regardless of whose name is on a title. With a second person on the account, you don't have more flexibility, you actually have less, as with the two-signatures requirement. 

Come to think of it, the best customer service I've ever had at an RMV — sorry, DMV — came in Utah, after I threatened to sue them to issue a driver's license. I got to skip the line and was out of there in 10 minutes, after they apologized profusely. There's something positive to be said for our lawyers.

Feeling Subtextual ~ Blog 15

For the last two and a half years, there has been an underlying theme to every day of my life. It started small, when we left Utah bound for the East Coast, on a reverse path of the Oregon Trail.

What am I going to do with my life now?

About a thousand days have passed and the sound is much, much louder. And the answer changes, depending on which way the wind blows or what experiences I have that day. I'm wasting time and I know it.

On days like today, when there's a relatively productive domestic agenda including exercise, shopping, laundry and cooking, it's tempting to just chuck it all. Why do I bother coming to work at all? I make enough to support gas, insurance and a car payment, but I could make $10 an hour in Boston as a barista. Seriously. The Wife and I saw a job flyer at a Starbucks in Beacon Hill, one of the nicest neighborhoods in Boston.

It's tough, these gray, slushy days, to want to do much of anything. And still, I write this blog. Writing is important to me and I know that. Tomorrow, I'll cover a minor-league hockey game in Worcester, a Duluth-esque town an hour or so from Boston. Next week, I'll cover the Utah Jazz for 36 hours while they are in town and play a game against our beloved Celtics. I'll be torn about whom to cheer openly for, of course.

It's not much, but it helps. Writing pulls me out of my funk. I'm already in a much better mood than I was five paragraphs ago. My Mom is the only person who's going to read this, but that's OK. My parents and my grandparents were my only readers when I worked in New Hampshire and Vermont and that worked out all right.

There is, of course, a problem with this model: People don't buy newspapers any more. Newsflash. People still read newspapers, it's just online, very selective, and not profitable.

What's a guy with a love of alliteration to do? I still don't know. There's a book rattling around up in my head, somewhere, but for now the answer is simple. Blogging is cathartic. I'm going to stick with that for a while. Maybe I'll get involved in politics and maybe I'll go back and get a master's degree. But I'm going to do something. Because all that housework I did today? I did a terrible job at it. And writing beats stirring drinks at Starbucks. So, you're stuck with reading at least another 75 blogs 'til I hit 90.

Sorry, Mom.