Normal times for a Man with a Mission:
Thought for the Day:
All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.
Aristotle, Greek critic, philosopher, physicist, & zoologist (384 BC - 322 BC)
(Kind of a boring report for this weekend, but even JQP needs to slow down some times. I how ever did get one hell of a good SC-Redneck story from “Eric-the-Viking”, that I want to post later in the week)
On the Weekend:
Friday: This weekend was oddly relaxing, I did manage to go Friday to see my grandfather (who is in failing health), tend to family graves, go out to eat (no place new, we went to the Macedonian Joint, and ate Greek food, the owner had called and let us know he had a bag of egg shells for our friends “Big K. the Drummer-Man” and the “Lady Bird”, it’s a long story but she feeds the shells to her birds or something, and if we didn’t stop-by he would call every night at about 10pm to remind us that he had those shells), with the delightful and entertaining Mrs. John Q. Public and then off to home, I believe we were in bed by 12:00.
Saturday: I spent the day working on the house (yes, the upstairs bath) and then went into work for a bit to get ahead of the curve around noonish I went to Lowes and off to home; it got up to 50 degrees here, so that meant opening all the windows to get some fresh air in. My loving wife returned from her respite in the “Woman’s Hut” early, and there must have been something in the water over there, because she approached me with the expectations of performance that I have not been able to achieve since my 19th birthday, needless to say an itch got scratched.
Later in the day, after an unfruitful nap, we were off to a birthday party for a 6 year-old boy. His parents are dear friends of mine, and went through a bitter and nasty divorce, but he and his sister seem to be weathering the storm well. I was the first time I had really been around his mother and her family since the divorce about a year and a half ago. Which had been hard, because we (being the “Aunt and Uncle” to these kids) are very attached to them.
It was good to spend time with them, and her family wasn’t has odd, as they have been in the past, which in and of itself was somewhat odd. We got out of there and went to grocery shopping, and as you know I love a deal and am not afraid to go to seven places to find it, so that is what we did. We started out at 8pm and went home to drop of the first load (I then watched a little Boxing on Showtime, I am a big Boxing fan) then back out shopping for load two, returning home around 12:30, after dropping about 300.00, but due to my extreme bargain-shopping we saved just about that same amount. See what happens when you cut those damn coupons out.
Sunday: We skipped Mass, yet again. I tend to slow down on the church stuff after the holidays and jump back in around Lent (which as you know is my favorite holy day, Mia Culpa, Mia Culpa). I woke at 5am and made my chili with a twist. A few years ago I jumped on the band wagon of making chili with beer, which is good chili, but this year I used hard cider instead. And damn…. Brothers and Sisters it turned out great. While that was cooking, our neighborhood dog whisperer stopped by at the request of the Concerned and Animal Loving Mrs. JQP to assess one of the hounds, who she is convinced as gone around the bend (as in nuts).
Now, if you ask me, the whole concept of a dog whisperer is a bit around the bend, but its true, that is what he does, that and smoke lots of pot, which of course he and my loving wife did while he discussed the results of his “conversation”.
It seems in his professional opinion our dog lost something in a past life and she is looking for it. Gee, great, glad that was such an easy fucking fix, so off to the pet store with the hound my “Little Flower” went, in hopes that the damn dog would find what it was she needed. Funny, the hound needed everything; guess she had lost a lot in her “past-life”, to the tune of a little over 100 bucks.
Tanner the Miami Indian and Vietnam Vet, then stopped by to give us a large trash bag full of bread from a local trendy bakery, he had heard about my not being able to bake bread due to my broken fingers, and said “Hell, buddy, can you believe they were going to throw this out? So, I traded him some chili and after he left I fed it to the birds (its still Crow time around the 'hood).
About ten minutes after that, “Gerry the Artist” who lives down the block came over for a reason I am still unclear about and preceded to tell me that....Tanner knows “people” and that he (Tanner) is on his second interview with Halliburton. “Gerry the Artist”, then asked me for my famous Bloody Mary recipe (something, I never give out), it seems the local AA folks were having a dry Super Bowl party and he wanted to bring something, so I spent an hour mixing him some up, while he chained smoked and watched the Home Shopping Network in my den. I then sent him on his way with about three gallons of mix and a healthy serving of chili.
Later the day I made some of my G-Fathers hot-sauce (not a lot of heat, but a lot of flavor, it tastes more Cuban than anything, which makes sense since he and the family lived there for about 9 years, and yes, my family has a long history of being expatriates and ugly Americans), and some more Secret Cougar Sausage Slaw, since I have had repeated requests for both.
After dropping off the hound and its 100 bucks worth of things it had lost in a previous life, my Self-Directed and Very Assertive wife, took the remaining money from my wallet and announced she was off to get her nails and toes done, god-damn-it and there wasn’t anything I could do about it, so I gave her an extra 20.00 I had hidden (in the family Bible, she never looks there, she says the pages burn her fingers) and told her to buy something nice for herself at the Dollar Store while she was out.
I then spent the rest of the late afternoon watching pre-game shows and calling friends both far and wide (Sunday is my call people day, NC, CS, Fla. GA, MN, Mass. ND, TN, CA, HI, NZ, UK, the former East Germany and Indiana) and turning down invitations to Super Bowl parties.
I don’t know about you but the Super Bowl is an intensely personal thing to me which I find is best viewed, while wearing a pair of boxers and an old comfortable tee-shirt, with a belly full of good chili at my house from my couch.
Upon her return (and yes, I did tell her how pretty her nails & toes were, I am a lot of things, but fool is not one of them). I got a call from the Fla. gig, (yes, on a Sunday, about 10 mins. before the game started), they went with a local, which I had thought they might, no big-thing, I wasn’t all that hip to the idea anyway, but it was cool that it got down to me and this other person out of about 78, so there is a good chance they will keep me in mind. We then ate and got online with her bookie and watched the game. So, far we are up by about 75.00 bucks. Could have been better, could have been worst.
On Short-Term Plans:
Plans for the day, no court, yeah! No teaching, yeah! Just grant writing. One of my interns starts Tue. AM, so I have to get her all set up, then the rest of the week I am training or on the road doing my thing. Tuesday night is the traditional Fat Tuesday blow-out night, so I am sure Wednesday will suck b-a-d. That and I am in a training all day Wednesday with a bunch of legal people all f’ing day, joy, joy…
On Food:
Tonight steaks, I got some nice Porterhouses' and to that I will add fresh mushrooms and leek in a butter-wine sauce, Sour Cream Twice Baked Mashed Potatoes, with Blue Berry Cheese Cake. Tomorrow night steaks, 16oz. T-Bones, asparagus, and a Portuguese noodle dish I have wanted to try. Wednesday, a fish fry at one of the local Parishes. We have to go get that Good-Catholic card punched…
Your Bill for the Day:
SONNET 82
I grant thou wert not married to my Muse
And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook
The dedicated words which writers use
Of their fair subject, blessing every book
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,
And therefore art enforced to seek anew
Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days
And do so, love; yet when they have devised
What strained touches rhetoric can lend,
Thou truly fair wert truly sympathized
In true plain words by thy true-telling friend;
And their gross painting might be better used
Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abused.
Quote for the Day:
The best [man] is like water.
Water is good; it benefits all things and does not compete with them.
It dwells in [lowly] places that all disdain.
This is why it is so near to Tao.
Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu, Chinese philosopher (604 BC - 531 BC)
I remain, evermore;
JQP (just a mortal man today)
All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.
Aristotle, Greek critic, philosopher, physicist, & zoologist (384 BC - 322 BC)
(Kind of a boring report for this weekend, but even JQP needs to slow down some times. I how ever did get one hell of a good SC-Redneck story from “Eric-the-Viking”, that I want to post later in the week)
On the Weekend:
Friday: This weekend was oddly relaxing, I did manage to go Friday to see my grandfather (who is in failing health), tend to family graves, go out to eat (no place new, we went to the Macedonian Joint, and ate Greek food, the owner had called and let us know he had a bag of egg shells for our friends “Big K. the Drummer-Man” and the “Lady Bird”, it’s a long story but she feeds the shells to her birds or something, and if we didn’t stop-by he would call every night at about 10pm to remind us that he had those shells), with the delightful and entertaining Mrs. John Q. Public and then off to home, I believe we were in bed by 12:00.
Saturday: I spent the day working on the house (yes, the upstairs bath) and then went into work for a bit to get ahead of the curve around noonish I went to Lowes and off to home; it got up to 50 degrees here, so that meant opening all the windows to get some fresh air in. My loving wife returned from her respite in the “Woman’s Hut” early, and there must have been something in the water over there, because she approached me with the expectations of performance that I have not been able to achieve since my 19th birthday, needless to say an itch got scratched.
Later in the day, after an unfruitful nap, we were off to a birthday party for a 6 year-old boy. His parents are dear friends of mine, and went through a bitter and nasty divorce, but he and his sister seem to be weathering the storm well. I was the first time I had really been around his mother and her family since the divorce about a year and a half ago. Which had been hard, because we (being the “Aunt and Uncle” to these kids) are very attached to them.
It was good to spend time with them, and her family wasn’t has odd, as they have been in the past, which in and of itself was somewhat odd. We got out of there and went to grocery shopping, and as you know I love a deal and am not afraid to go to seven places to find it, so that is what we did. We started out at 8pm and went home to drop of the first load (I then watched a little Boxing on Showtime, I am a big Boxing fan) then back out shopping for load two, returning home around 12:30, after dropping about 300.00, but due to my extreme bargain-shopping we saved just about that same amount. See what happens when you cut those damn coupons out.
Sunday: We skipped Mass, yet again. I tend to slow down on the church stuff after the holidays and jump back in around Lent (which as you know is my favorite holy day, Mia Culpa, Mia Culpa). I woke at 5am and made my chili with a twist. A few years ago I jumped on the band wagon of making chili with beer, which is good chili, but this year I used hard cider instead. And damn…. Brothers and Sisters it turned out great. While that was cooking, our neighborhood dog whisperer stopped by at the request of the Concerned and Animal Loving Mrs. JQP to assess one of the hounds, who she is convinced as gone around the bend (as in nuts).
Now, if you ask me, the whole concept of a dog whisperer is a bit around the bend, but its true, that is what he does, that and smoke lots of pot, which of course he and my loving wife did while he discussed the results of his “conversation”.
It seems in his professional opinion our dog lost something in a past life and she is looking for it. Gee, great, glad that was such an easy fucking fix, so off to the pet store with the hound my “Little Flower” went, in hopes that the damn dog would find what it was she needed. Funny, the hound needed everything; guess she had lost a lot in her “past-life”, to the tune of a little over 100 bucks.
Tanner the Miami Indian and Vietnam Vet, then stopped by to give us a large trash bag full of bread from a local trendy bakery, he had heard about my not being able to bake bread due to my broken fingers, and said “Hell, buddy, can you believe they were going to throw this out? So, I traded him some chili and after he left I fed it to the birds (its still Crow time around the 'hood).
About ten minutes after that, “Gerry the Artist” who lives down the block came over for a reason I am still unclear about and preceded to tell me that....Tanner knows “people” and that he (Tanner) is on his second interview with Halliburton. “Gerry the Artist”, then asked me for my famous Bloody Mary recipe (something, I never give out), it seems the local AA folks were having a dry Super Bowl party and he wanted to bring something, so I spent an hour mixing him some up, while he chained smoked and watched the Home Shopping Network in my den. I then sent him on his way with about three gallons of mix and a healthy serving of chili.
Later the day I made some of my G-Fathers hot-sauce (not a lot of heat, but a lot of flavor, it tastes more Cuban than anything, which makes sense since he and the family lived there for about 9 years, and yes, my family has a long history of being expatriates and ugly Americans), and some more Secret Cougar Sausage Slaw, since I have had repeated requests for both.
After dropping off the hound and its 100 bucks worth of things it had lost in a previous life, my Self-Directed and Very Assertive wife, took the remaining money from my wallet and announced she was off to get her nails and toes done, god-damn-it and there wasn’t anything I could do about it, so I gave her an extra 20.00 I had hidden (in the family Bible, she never looks there, she says the pages burn her fingers) and told her to buy something nice for herself at the Dollar Store while she was out.
I then spent the rest of the late afternoon watching pre-game shows and calling friends both far and wide (Sunday is my call people day, NC, CS, Fla. GA, MN, Mass. ND, TN, CA, HI, NZ, UK, the former East Germany and Indiana) and turning down invitations to Super Bowl parties.
I don’t know about you but the Super Bowl is an intensely personal thing to me which I find is best viewed, while wearing a pair of boxers and an old comfortable tee-shirt, with a belly full of good chili at my house from my couch.
Upon her return (and yes, I did tell her how pretty her nails & toes were, I am a lot of things, but fool is not one of them). I got a call from the Fla. gig, (yes, on a Sunday, about 10 mins. before the game started), they went with a local, which I had thought they might, no big-thing, I wasn’t all that hip to the idea anyway, but it was cool that it got down to me and this other person out of about 78, so there is a good chance they will keep me in mind. We then ate and got online with her bookie and watched the game. So, far we are up by about 75.00 bucks. Could have been better, could have been worst.
On Short-Term Plans:
Plans for the day, no court, yeah! No teaching, yeah! Just grant writing. One of my interns starts Tue. AM, so I have to get her all set up, then the rest of the week I am training or on the road doing my thing. Tuesday night is the traditional Fat Tuesday blow-out night, so I am sure Wednesday will suck b-a-d. That and I am in a training all day Wednesday with a bunch of legal people all f’ing day, joy, joy…
On Food:
Tonight steaks, I got some nice Porterhouses' and to that I will add fresh mushrooms and leek in a butter-wine sauce, Sour Cream Twice Baked Mashed Potatoes, with Blue Berry Cheese Cake. Tomorrow night steaks, 16oz. T-Bones, asparagus, and a Portuguese noodle dish I have wanted to try. Wednesday, a fish fry at one of the local Parishes. We have to go get that Good-Catholic card punched…
Your Bill for the Day:
SONNET 82
I grant thou wert not married to my Muse
And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook
The dedicated words which writers use
Of their fair subject, blessing every book
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,
And therefore art enforced to seek anew
Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days
And do so, love; yet when they have devised
What strained touches rhetoric can lend,
Thou truly fair wert truly sympathized
In true plain words by thy true-telling friend;
And their gross painting might be better used
Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abused.
Quote for the Day:
The best [man] is like water.
Water is good; it benefits all things and does not compete with them.
It dwells in [lowly] places that all disdain.
This is why it is so near to Tao.
Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu, Chinese philosopher (604 BC - 531 BC)
I remain, evermore;
JQP (just a mortal man today)
posted by John Q. Public esq. at 2:20 AM
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