The Bloggy Blogface!

    The last time I went bowling, I was a moody jerk. This is according to various sources whom I bowled with that evening. I don't disagree with them. Every time I have bowled as an adult, I seem to get noticeably frustrated with myself. Not so much because I suck (I do, like many of us), but because I used to be good. Good, damnit! I won trophies as a kid. TROPHIES. I had it man, I really did.  But, then I stopped bowling. Aged out of the youth league and just quit bowling altogether.  Fast forward a couple decades later, my bowling game is both depressing and predictable. I will always start out strong, then get progressively worse each game. First game I'll get a few strikes and finish maybe with a 150. Next game less strikes and maybe a score of 96. Final game I'll get zero strikes, maybe one spare and finish with a 72. And no, this isn't because the pitchers of beer we're sharing start kicking in. There's something deeper going on here. Maybe.  I recently...

  In all fairness, I've just stopped counting the years. I mean, I know how old I am today, sure. I just don't care to tell anyone. And there's nothing wrong with this approach, really. I'm not lying on any application forms, nor any other random documents that ask for my date of birth. Those who need to know, know. And that should be good enough, right? A friend recently asked if I knew what time I was born. For some reason I thought this was listed on birth certificates, but they are not - at least not back then at this particular hospital. I remember my mother saying sometime in the very early hours overnight, to perhaps sometime at dawn. I also remember her saying I was supposed to be born on the 16th. That must have been pretty annoying for her. Imagine hoping to get some rest overnight and then BOOM, it's time. Guess I needed an extra day's nap in there? Who knows. I do share a birthday with a handful of celebrities and great people. Michelle Obama, Jim Ca...

 In the February tundra that is upstate New York, in a hospital room some eleven-hundred plus miles away from me, a doctor named Oleg signed off on my mother’s death certificate. She had been in and out of the hospital for a couple months, after falling repeatedly at the apartment. My father had to call 911 a few times to help get her to the emergency room, and after the third or fourth time falling they just kept her there. At some point, she broke her hip. Then she may (or may not have?) caught COVID in the hospital. She wasn’t vaccinated. There was talk of sending her back home (potentially with COVID) which sounded rather suspect coming from medical professionals. Things at home seemed rather unclear about hospice care, so sending her back with a serious pandemic diagnosis didn’t seem like a great idea. My father is vaccinated, but would still have needed to come into close contact with her constantly if she went home. That didn’t end up needing to happen.  I flew to Alban...