New Year's Resolution

December 29, 2007

I was truly amazed last week when three people told me that they missed my Blog entries and I should be doing more of them. Although I enjoy doing them, I hesitate because I never feel they are good enough to interest other people. Well, if my friends are actually reading them and miss them, then I will include writing more often as part of my New Year’s Resolutions……right next to going on another diet to lose some of the material that has surrounded my waist. These are the times that I’m jealous of those skinny people who don’t care about eating and dislike so many foods. What’s that saying, “eat to live”, as opposed to me who “lives to eat”.

Easy to say I’ll write more, but it’s really not that easy, especially when I’ve had so few things to “Bitch” about. Had a real blast writing about some bad breakfast experiences, but recently they haven’t been that bad, unless I’m just beginning to mellow……nah, not possible. It might be that I’ve transferred my restaurant bad luck. A group of us who golf together also get together every Saturday for breakfast. One of the fellows loves very well done home fries, burnt beyond recognition is how he orders them. Well naturally even when the waitress writes it up that way he’s the one that gets them uncooked, almost raw ones. And I thought I was the only one.

This same fellow usually shows up early as I do so we have an opportunity to shoot the breeze before the rest show up. I was surprised to find out that he was a “Counter” like me. I guess this needs an explanation. Here’s an example: Went to a concert that my daughter was performing in. Looked at the program and found out that the chorus had 35 members, but then proceeded to count all who were actually performing. Had to tell my daughter that 37 were on stage. I go to restaurants and count how many customers there are, church services, count the attendees. Birds at my feeder, count them. Have no idea why. It was great to meet another “Counter”. He wasn’t kidding either. Shortly after our conversation we were golfing together. Going toward the green on one of the holes he called out to me and said “34”. I didn’t react so he repeated it several times. It was then that I realized that he was telling me how many Canadian Geese were on the fairway. “Counter” status confirmed.

I will continue to look for things that might entertain all my strange friends and provide me with material to live up to my New Year’s Resolution. My best wishes to all of you for a Healthy, Happy 2008.

“Bitch” about. Had a real blast writing about some bad breakfast experiences, but recently they haven’t been that bad, unless I’m just beginning to mellow……nah, not possible. It might be that I’ve transferred my restaurant bad luck. A group of us who golf together also get together every Saturday for breakfast. One of the fellows loves very well done home fries, burnt beyond recognition is how he orders them. Well naturally even when the waitress writes it up that way he’s the one that gets to uncooked almost raw ones. And I thought I was the only one.

This same fellow usually shows up early as I do so we have an opportunity to shoot the breeze before the rest show up. I was surprised to find out that he was a “Counter” like me. I guess this needs an explanation. Here’s an example: Went to a concert that my daughter was performing in. Looked at the program and found out that the chorus had 35 members, but then proceeded to count all who were actually performing. I go to restaurants and count how many customers there are, church services, count the attendees. Birds at my feeder, count them. Have no idea why. It was great to meet another “Counter”. He wasn’t kidding either. Shortly after our conversation we were golfing together. Going toward the green on one of the holes he called out to me and said “34”. I didn’t react so he repeated it several times. It was then that I realized that he was telling me how many Canadian Geese were on the fairway. “Counter” status confirmed.

I will continue to look for things that might entertain all my strange friends and provide me with material to live up to my New Year’s Resolution. My best wishes to all of you for a Healthy, Happy 2008.

AH, THE GOLDEN YEARS

How many times, during your working years, have you thought about that wonderful upcoming time in your life when you’ll retire and begin to live the good life? Stop dreaming folks; it’s not going to be the good life you expected. Now you have all day to chase your wife around, but have forgotten why. Oh yes, now you’ve also got time to travel, but a lot of the travel is to the doctors, prostate checks, eye checks, hearing checks, heart checks, and ingrown toenail checks. In between all these is the occasional pleasure trip, tours where the young tour guides make you scramble desperately to catch up to get close enough to hear what the hell they’re talking about. Please note that old ears also don’t work as well as they used to.

Let see what other wonderful things the Golden Years bring us. Many, many night time trips to the bathroom, struggles to get up out of chairs when you’ve sat too long, and frequent heartburn and upset stomachs from years of abuse. Oh yes, and don’t forget the start of some short term memory losses.

As I’m writing this I’ve been trying to think of something positive to include in this little Golden Year observation. I finally realized that I’d forgotten just about the only plus there was when I entered those Golden seventies…………I can now hit from those “Golden” senior tees. They brought my scores back into the eighties after several years of absence.

Hurray, now it’s all worth it!

Finally an entry - August 16, 2007

When I think of Stephen King and that Harry Potter author I can’t even comprehend their writing abilities, especially King who can knock out six or seven hundred pages at the drop of a hat. I started this Blog site and was proud of the few little paragraphs I entered. Then a couple of people wrote me that they enjoyed what I did. Well that was start of my writing curse. Now I felt under the gun. If you write something, it has to be good, entertaining and funny. With that pressure my brain went dead and did not believe that anything I wrote would be worthwhile.

The first few Blogs were easy since bitching and moaning is pretty much my forte, but my subject material has been eluding me. Restaurant trips have been fairly pleasant with no major calamities. Golf game seems to have improved, many rounds in the eighties and one even par nine hole round ( can you believe it? ). Bought a new vehicle, same color Buick Enclave that Tiger shows in the commercials. I’ve also been playing Nike golf balls, do you think this had something to do with the game?

One thing coming up in my life might provide me with some interesting material. Those of you who know me know my penchant for Polish food ( or is it the waitresses ) and the frequent visits to New Britain’s Polish restaurants. All these years talking to the girls, eating the food, created a desire to go to Poland some day to see what the country is all about. After all, I am 100% Polish…..didn’t know that hah! Well anyway Marge and I have decided to go. We’ve joined a tour group that will spend 10 days in Poland and the Czech Republic. Should at least be a few calamities to bitch about.

Point to ponder:

1. Ever notice that the service in restaurants stinks when it’s not busy. Try to get a coffee refill. No way, they’re all in the kitchen gabbing.

2. Gas prices always go down after you’ve filled up.

APRIL 10,2007 - FIASCO

Well, Friendly’s Restaurant in Southington, Connecticut made my list. What list is that you might ask? It’s my list of restaurants never to go back to again. I know, I know, I was going to stop all this bitching of mine, but last night’s fiasco cannot go unreported on this site.

My Grandson’s high school Volley Ball team was conducting a promotion at Friendly’s where for a three hour period; they would receive 10% of the restaurant’s proceeds. Well here’s how it went arrived at five minutes to five. Got my lukewarm pot of coffee, my wife’s water and our menus. I’ll be back to take your order I was told. About fifteen minutes later our very polite waiter finally returned and gave us a real sales pitch about the wonderful fried Flounder Dinner they had that evening. Golden crisply fried, flaky filets. Sounded great so we both ordered it, but asked for a substitute of mashed potatoes instead of the rice. Would you like gravy he asked…..we said NO!.. Who wants brown gravy with fish?

He left us to place the order so we chatted, watched all the booths fill up, and waited, waited and continued to wait. People who arrived ten to fifteen minutes ago were getting fed. Needless to say, my blood was starting to boil. We summoned him on one of his walk bys and asked about our dinner. Believe or not he began say that our fish takes a half hour to cook. I almost fell off my chair. Well after 45 minutes, here comes our long awaited $9.00 dollar dinner. I could not believe my eyes; our mashed potatoes were submerged in a sea of brown gravy glop. Took quite some time to convince him that I was not going to eat them, so he decided to let us begin eating and he would bring us a side of plain mashed potatoes.

What other choice did we have at that time, so we began eating something I’ve never had before, flounder that was so over done that I actually had to chew it. That along with cold coffee, cool vegetables began to be the worst meal I ever had. He brought out the only palatable item, our warm, plain mashed potatoes. I’m sure by this time he was afraid to come near me because we only saw him again when he dropped off our bill. And guess what? Even that was not correct; he gave us someone else’s bill for around $32.00. That was the topper…….do you think I left him a tip? Goodbye Friendly’s and my good friend Joshua ( our waiter ).

February 28, 2007

As all of you my avid readers (….lol ), might have noticed, there has been a noticeable absence of entries in this Blog site of mine. Started this back last October and used it as a means to get my gripes out about a bunch of things that I found annoying. Felt good and I was happy to find out how many of you agreed with me. Lately though, I can’t seem to get myself to put anything on the screen. I can’t call it writers block since I certainly don’t fancy myself as a writer. It’s weird. I keep putting “Do Blog Entry” on my calendar and to-do sheet, but keep having to transfer it to the next day. Well, today I finally got up the energy to get it started. Maybe it’s because today is my 72^nd Birthday and I don’t want to run out of time.

I’m not quite sure what approach I want to take with future entries, bitch or not to bitch, that is the question. There are certainly many more on my complaint list, but I’m not sure this is what will tempt you to continue reading my stuff. Therefore, I will only provide you with two little sarcastic questions to end this short blog entry. I promise you that all the next ones will ooze optimism.

First question: Are they selling TV advertising time at bargain rates? Are the breaks getting longer and longer or is my memory just failing me? I’m able to go pee, peel and slice up an apple, salt it and even come back and watch a little Public TV before the damn program returns.

Second question: Have computers been given the power to think for themselves? I firmly believe they are getting to be a little like the “Hal” on 2001 space odyssey. They can change things, break things and do all sorts of things without me doing anything. And don’t tell me I must be doing something to cause it, I’m not that smart.

So long for now, see you in a couple of days.

2006 IS DEAD!

I’m writing this at the crack of 2007. Not quite at the crack of since it’s already twelve hours into the new year, but it sounded good to me as I prepared to say so long to last year. 2006, although not what you would call super eventful it did prove to be a pretty good one. No great trips this year except perhaps Myrtle Beach last March when I took everyone’s money. Ate too much toward the end of the year and put back some of the weight I had lost trying to get in shape. Quality of the golf game continued its downslide except for a late season comeback. Did get hit in the head with a golf ball….line drive shot out of a practice bunker by my playing partner. Bled bad, but thank God no stitches required.

Went fishing again in Maryland, again caught s..t, but had a nice time. Most of the good time in Maryland was spent drinking Pennsylavania’s Yuengling Beer. Great stuff. Also got a chance to see Annapolis and ate the hell out of plates of Oysters. So good, I even took Oyster pictures.

Also had a nice time visiting fourteen Connecticut wineries. Lots of wine tastings, picnic lunches and fodder for the wine cooler our kids bought us. Connecticut wineries have what they call a Passport Program. You take your passport to the winery you visit and get it stamped. If you visit the required number of wineries you enter your completed Passport in a drawing to win of three great trips to Germany, California, and Canada. Needless to say, we didn’t win, but it was a nice way to spend our days traveling Connecticut.

Looking back, I think that the best part of the year was that I stayed pretty damn healthy for an old fart over seventy. Hope I have this kind of luck in 2007.

You’ll notice that there were no bitches in this Blog. I thought I’d bring you a whole new batch in 2007. Till then!