Maine puns are for the week ~ Blog 48

Oh for good intentions.

In fairness to myself, I drank as much as I planned last night. I also ate bacon poutine at Nosh because life is short and for the living.

Portland is my kinda town. It is small, beautiful, has a rural side, and there's bacon poutine. So much for not going wild on the calories.

But it's a new day and there's salad to eat. Salad with bacon on it, of course, but mostly vegetables. At least, that's the plan. One never knows when there's bacon poutine around.

You're On Vacation, I'm Not ~ Blog 47

Fenway Park, from the third-base side roof.

During our first year in Salt Lake City, The Wife and I entertained 16 different groups of visitors. The majority of those groups were people I knew and the vast majority were my family. Despite the fact that they pretty much all live in Florida, my family is like that and I love them for it. They'll visit me anywhere.

And so it was last week that my 19-year-old cousin visited with his girlfriend. Ry Guy and Dutch were in town for three days. This is the fourth time since July that a member of Ry Guy's immediate family has visited. My uncle came with my aunt; My uncle visited by himself; Ry Guy's Sister came with her boyfriend.

I've gotten pretty good at the touristy thing in Boston. We paid for a one-hour tour of Fenway Park that was worth it just for the views from the rooftop.

And, as is the custom in our family, we ate like hungry wolves who have just discovered a steaming pile of tater-tot nachos. Those are an actual thing here in Boston.

Living in Boston is a test to a food addict like myself under normal circumstances. For less than $10 I can get a giant container of great Chinese soup down the street. I can get cheesey calzones, Italian pastries or fresh macaroni and cheese at Quincy Market.

At some point you have to say no. Or punish yourself, like I did Saturday with a self-flaggelation of a run. Daisy Duke and I did 2.5 miles, then I ran another 4-ish miles by myself while she recuperated. Nutmeg's Mom and Dad wanted to go out to watch an NFL game Saturday night; I had 1.5 Guinnesses (around 200 calories) and didn't order any food.

You have to cut yourself off sometime. So it will be tonight, as I travel to Maine to visit Nacho Man, The Bearded Beernut and Molly Lu. We'll have crem brulee and I'm sure I'll have my share. We'll go to The Great Lost Bear, where it's talls for smalls night. You can get most of their beers in 24-ounce glasses while paying 14-ounce prices.

Living here is a challenge because there's always an excuse to indulge. Whether it's visitors, great restaurants or great friends getting together, I don't have to look far for a reason. When we lived in the desert of Utah, 30 miles west of Salt Lake City, there were no excuses to go out, unless you count Tracks, the worst/strangest/best brewpub I have ever known, in scenic Tooele. It was easier to keep things under control there, even with the 16 different groups of visitors.

It really boils down to control. We've lived in Boston for six-plus months and have had about 10 different groups spend the night in our 530-square-foot condo. I love the guests; I love the food; I also love fitting into my pants.

That's why I'm going to the track right now to run six 800-meter repeats. Then Daisy Duke and I will go for a little jog. I know I'm going to spend some calories tonight but I can do something now to not feel like a total blob tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe I'll even enjoy a Guinness at The Great Lost Bear.

A Blog Written Out Of Duty ~ Blog 46

The guy at the grocery store was in a hurry, but I got a look at him. He had shades on, but that's where the comparisson should end. He was middle-aged and paunchy. He looked nothing like Val Kilmer.

There was nothing in his appearance to justify the license plate that read, "ICEMAN."

I wanted a gum-chewing son-of-a-gun to step out of the car and chomp his mouth in my direction. Then we'd play volleyball to the tune of a terrible, terrible Kenny Loggins song.

Oh, New England. This is a funny thing to appreciate about you, but your license plates are consistently excellent. I can't figure out at least half of them. A former co-worker has an entire Facebook album crammed full of pictures of license plates; most are from New England.

It makes the 50-minute commute to work far more entertaining when you can ponder the hidden meaning behind license plates the whole way.

Why I Run ~ Blog 45

This is my motivation to run. Or something.

One of the primary reasons to get a chocolate labrador puppy is because you need to run. Labs are notoriously spazzy. There are myriad videos on YouTube of the phenomenon. This is a representative sample.

Instead of inspiration, I have yet another impediment to exercise. Daisy Duke is unusually laid back. In the mornings, she doesn't jump off the guest bed to greet me. Instead, she groans, stretches, rolls onto her back and lays there with her paws in the air for at least half an hour before deciding to come cuddle with me on the couch while I drink coffee.

I watch TV while I drink my coffee, and there, in plain site for all to see, are the annual spate of exercise commercials. P90X is on there, as are Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers and all the other members of the billions-of-dollars-a-year exercise industry. The commercials appeal to me and I weigh about what I weighed in sixth grade. That says a little about me now and a lot about me then.

Not much has changed since I was morbidly obese. I still like watching TV and playing video games. And now there's a 60-pound, cute-as-a-button (since when are buttons cute?) chocolate labrador sitting on my lap. Right this second, actually, she's got her snout wrapped around my right wrist, which makes it tough to hit the 'Y' key.

Contrary to what a lot of people think this year, being physically fit isn't about being motivated. At least, not for me. Those idiot guys at Gold's Gym who drink Muscle Milk and spend hours lifting weights? They're motivated, and often by girls or the thought of girls. I simply really dislike being overweight. It is my resignation to the fact that I have to exercise that gets me off the couch.

You can actually hear me rolling my eyes when I get off the couch to go exercise. It's about to happen here in a few minutes. There will also be an accompanying sigh. This is what it takes to be who I want to be. Damn that idealism.

Mostly, it's who I don't want to be. I don't want to be on medications, though the world wouldn't bat an eyelash at the news if it were true. I don't want to be a 70-year-old who can't go for a walk with his dog. I don't want to be unhealthy, and that's far more my motivation than actually wanting to be healthy.

And so I'm about to do yoga. Daisy Duke and I just got back from a 25-minute run. My back is a little bit sore. It has been, off and on, for about a year. It started when I went skiing in Tahoe, making aggressive turns at around 40 mph. The G-force from the turns tweaked my back; I walked like an 85-year-old for a week.

Therefore, I do yoga. It's not something I love admitting because I know what that sounds like. It sounds like I'm some urban yuppy who drinks lattes and spends far too much money on food and beer. That's not true at all. I don't like lattes.

Nobody would say a word if I decided to see a doctor about this back. The wife is a physician assistant; she'd probably approve the idea. But, if it's possible, I'd like to delay that doctor's visit. Like it or not, yoga helps.

I'll roll off the couch in a minute here and do Downward Dog in my living room with no yoga mat while I'm watching a YouTube yoga video. I don't really want to, but my back hurts. And my next dog, be it Beau or Luke Duke, would probably appreciate it if I'm physically capable of going for a run.

Boom ~ Blog 44

Note the police boats, of which I see at least three, sailing around this
natural gas tanker in Boston's harbor. Our house is about a half mile
from this ship's location, at the bottom of the picture.

The Wife and I went for a walk with Daisy Duke on New Year's day. At the end of the harbor walk, a quarter mile away from an open, grassy stretch, I could see a police SUV with its lights on. This meant I would have to put Daisy Duke on a leash.

As we got closer to the end of the walk, the SUV took off at a high rate of speed. Then I noticed the police boats. There were two helicopters buzzing around slowly overhead. On the other side of the harbor, I could see two more police cruisers running around with their lights on.

Then I saw the front end of the big ship that was moving through the harbor. I recognized it instantly from this PBS show about liquified natural gas arriving in Boston. If you have five minutes to kill, check it out. This natural gas place is a couple miles from us, as the crow flies.

There's good reason for the police presence. As it turns out, a rogue grenade launcher could set off an explosion that causes second degree burns anywhere within a half mile of the ship. These are what have been called "Boat Bombs." That's the least that could happen. Boston's mayor has sued to try to keep the boats out of our harbor and lost. There's really no way to be totally sure someone bent on a suicidal attack won't set off a really big bomb near my house. It's not like this is out of the realm of possibility. Two rocket launchers were turned in at a Los Angeles gun buyback last week. That's not comforting.

But this isn't about that. There's risk everywhere. I get that. Somebody could take out a gasoline truck in Minneapolis or start firing guns at a University of Utah football game. There's nothing stopping them. I could tell you about the scale of the explosion from a liquified natural gas boat blowing up in the harbor, but suffice to say, I think it would be pretty bad news.

I spend a lot of time on my couch, not worrying about the fact that I live in a potential terrorism target. The oldest boat in the U.S. Navy lives about a mile from us. On the Fourth of July, police take over the harbor as the USS Constitution floats out to sea for its annual turnaround trip. We have tunnels. We have an airport next door.

Thankfully, I'm distracted by everyday life. Chances are greater I'll get into a car accident and die on my way to work than by an act of terrorism. You can reason it away. But still, as a police helicopter and Coast Guard helicopter hover overhead, making sure you don't suddenly pull out a rocket launcher, there's at least a little reason for pause. We don't live in Maine anymore.

Minnesota Should Renounce Me For Being Cold ~ Blog 43

The most amazing heating devices known to man.

A year ago, my feet were really cold. There were two factors at play. For starters, it's fairly obvious that I am afflicted with Raynaud's phenomenon. If you don't want to click the link, the short version is that my fingers and toes go white numb at the slightest hint of cold. It's at least partly psychological, as 66 degrees in summer is fine but if I'm in a 66-degree room in winter, body parts go numb. Gloves and thick ski socks don't really help. It sucks and it partly explains why I must never live in Duluth, Minnesota, ever again.

It helps my extremities stay warm if we can set the heat in our apartment or home to at least 68 degrees. That was a problem a year ago. We were in a three-story home in Portland, Maine. Our home had a heating-oil system, as many homes in northern New England do, and heating oil isn't cheap. Take the price of gasoline, subtract 20 cents, and that's about the price of heating oil. Last winter, it was around $3.75 a gallon.

The Wife was in PA school a year ago, which means she wasn't making any money. I was unemployed, collecting federal benefits to the tune of about a thousand bucks a month. Contrary to what you've heard, living off student loans and federal money is not a lavish lifestyle. We qualified for food stamps. We could have gotten heating oil assistance programs. I wasn't OK with that.

Setting the thermostat at 60 degrees, on the other hand, I was OK with. The heat popped all the way up to 64 first thing in the morning, to make waking up a little more tolerable. Then, wrapped in a sweatshirt and blankets, I'd spend the day on the couch, applying for work.

We burned through about 500 gallons of heating oil last winter. A rough guess would put our cost at about $2,000 for the winter. At 60 degrees.

My feet are cold as I type this, but only because I went to the basement of our place in Boston to rearrange and organize the space. These are the things you do when you live in a small condo in the big city. The condo is a balmy 70 degrees, so those toes should warm quickly. There's a chocolate lab wrapped around my right arm, her snout almost on top of my right wrist, hindering my ability to hit the 'Y' key on the keyboard. I'm plenty warm.

Our rent includes the price of heat and hot water. The condo is heated by a little Rennai heater, which runs on natural gas. It's about 2 feet to my left. It pops on briefly and blows out rather hot air. This little unit, with no duct work in the condo, heats the entire 530 square feet rather nicely.

TW is out at work, making money to pay back those student loan debts and put food on the table. I have a part-time job, making about enough each month to pay the rent.

It isn't glamorous nor are either of us doing exactly what we want to be doing. We want more for ourselves, though not financially. We want careers that we're satisfied with, and there are signs that we might both make some steps in that direction in the next year.

A year is a long time. Three years ago, we were in a tiny apartment in Salt Lake City, living well below our means. We were preparing to quit our jobs so TW could go to PA school. We knew there was a rough road ahead, but we told ourselves, "We can do anything for two years."

I won't begin to comment on the naivety. Two years is a very, very long time to have cold fingers and feet.

A new year is a time to reflect on how far you've come. There's a saying that goes, "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans." That's true for a lot of people. For us, life is turning out more or less the way we planned. That's gratifying, to be sure, but it's also exciting because we have big plans ahead. There will be curve balls. Nothing goes exactly the way you plan. But when I look at where we were a year ago and compare it to the present, it's easy to see things moving in the right direction.

Here's hoping we can all say something similar a year from now. God bless and happy new year.

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.