Tag: scary

Fire at our favorite hotel

Kelly and I don’t stay in hotels very often, but there is one hotel that we try to stay at once a year.  It’s the closest we get to a regular vacation.  Every May during the big antique show in Brimfield, we try to go for a long weekend and we stay at the Publick House in Sturbridge.  We truly love the place.  We bring our dogs with us, and they have a good time too.

So obviously we were quite alarmed when our friend Carron told us that she saw on the TV news that there was a fire at the Publick House.

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Baby it’s cold outside

Yes, Geoff is correct in the post that he just put up.  It isn’t cold outside.  At all.  But I’m not talking about actual weather, I’m talking about that blasted song.  I’m talking about that “Christmas Song” that’s commonly referred to now as “The Rapey Song.”

You know the one.    Once you actually listen to the words you get uncomfortable each time you hear it.  It’s a duet.  It’s ostensibly about flirting, a date, and a storm.

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Um, apparently this is actually happening

I’m still not entirely clear on how this happened.  But apparently it did.  OK, technically it hasn’t happened yet, but it’s going to happen because it’s in calendars and there’s advertising.  And I’m going to be rehearsing.  Perhaps I should explain.

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I’m not a workaholic, I swear

After the post I wrote most recently and some discussions I’ve had with people in various parts of my life, I’ve run across a fair number of people who seem to think that this schedule I’ve been living, this logging of 60-70 hours of work a week, minimum, is fun.  That I do it because I like it and that somehow I’m not aware that it is inherently bad for me.

They are so, SO very wrong.  But they refuse to understand that this has been a matter of survival.  This has been the way that I’ve adapted to keep us afloat and alive and not living on the streets.  So few people truly understand that our economy here in the US has fundamentally changed.  Geoff and I are living proof that the old way, each having one job, having some security in that job, buying a house, and then eventually retiring just isn’t the way things work anymore.

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2015 has been kicking my ass

Regular readers will recall that a little while back I said we’d be away for a while due to the death of a friend.  Truth be told, his loss was, at the time, the latest in a long string of Very Hard Things 2015 had handed us.

It seems, however, that June might bright A New Hope.  (Sorry)  But, before we get to the good stuff, let’s go over where we’ve been, shall we?

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Please Hold, we will be with you shortly

I have a post percolating in my brain about Game of Thrones.  Geoff and I have both been working crazy schedules between his school schedule and interviewing for work and my endless work schedule.

Then Jay died on Saturday.

Jay was really Carron’s friend, but he was a larger than life person who made the world a happier, better, and funnier place for being in it.  I knew Jay through Carron but both Geoff and I had met him and like him immensely.  He was Carron’s brother from another mother and circumstances in life had left him in a position to always make sure that Carron had what she needed if there wasn’t enough work that month.  He was generous, giving, hilariously funny, and kind.  Everything you’d want in a best friend and separated at birth brother.

Jay was violently murdered on Saturday in Mexico.  No, I won’t link to the article or any photos.  We don’t want or need to remember him that way.  I choose to remember him as the kind man who made Carron so happy and and who was so good to so many people.  I choose to remember the man who loved animals and always had a dog nearby.  The man who contributed to animal charities and animal rescue.

So we’ll probably be a little sporadic in posting around here for a while.  Between our schedules and the fact that a giant hole has been torn in Carron’s world, Game of Thrones posts can wait.  We have funeral preparations to make, emails to send, and people to contact.

Requiem in aeternam, Jay.

~Kelly

Basil and the pothole from hell

Poor Basil.  He has suffered immensely this winter.  Still, our Mini Cooper has, like us, managed to survive this record-breaking winter and has been buried in snow more times than I can recall.  At least digging him out isn’t so bad most of the time since he is so small.  And it certainly makes it easier to park in narrow spots nestled between snow piles.

But getting through this winter unscathed was not meant to be, I guess.  Last night, on Route 99 where it goes under Rutherford Ave in Charlestown, we hit what was probably the biggest pothole I have ever seen, at least on a road that wasn’t being washed out underneath.

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Happy Birthday Frederick Douglass aka give the people what they want

Much of the world seems to be celebrating Valentines Day today.  Regular readers of this blog will know that I usually celebrate the anniversary of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre aka the Mob war in Chicago.  I have also been known to wear all black and express my affection to my Spirit Animal, St. Grumpy Cat.

Today I’ve chosen a different tack.

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Reasoning vs. rationalizing

Science is important.  It is something that both Kelly and I take quite seriously. It’s one if the reasons Kelly has worked as a science educator for a decade, and one of the reasons why even some of our hobbies involve a lot of science.   We feel quite passionately about it.

And it’s also why we both get so frustrated about the problems with scientific literacy in America – demonstrated by things like this survey that shows the gaps between scientists and the public when it comes to views of science.  And if you want to see scientific ignorance displayed in all its factually-challenged glory, and I mean some truly godawful stuff,  just turn on a television.

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