February 2018

              Once I completed my stretching and was sufficiently warmed up, I began the evening watching Olympic women’s snowboarding. A few minutes in, one of the commentators just explained “for those of you not familiar with snowboarding,” what people in the snowboarding biz mean when they refer to a snowboarder’s “front side” — it means “the chest and the front of the body”) versus the “back side” — which means “the back of the body, like your back and your bottom.”) Understanding that distinction is key to distinguishing a “front flip” from a “back flip.” What if I’d had the TV muted? I might never have known… He didn’t talk about left versus right, in case you’re wondering. I think he didn’t want to get into that degree of technical detail for fear of losing the audience. 

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             They’ve now switched to men’s downhill skiing. A skier named Ryan Something began his descent, and within a few seconds he bobbled, smashed into a gate, fell on his face, lost a ski, and slid down the hill. He came to a stop, face down in the snow. After a few seconds, he managed to collect himself and get to his feet, and limped off the side of the course. The expert commentator said, “I don’t think that’s how Ryan intended for his Olympic debut to go.” I’m so glad that guy is there for us, providing the kind of keen insights that we viewers could never hope to come up with on our own. (FYI, Ryan was bruised but suffered no major injuries.)

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             So just now they showed a woman luger who was coming down the chute at top speed. She miscalculated and grazed the wall, spectacularly crashed against the opposite wall and then spun, hurtling out of control down the course, with bits of debris bouncing in her wake. Surprisingly, the commentators didn’t say anything about the debris, from which I inferred that it wasn’t little pieces breaking off her sled, but instead little poops of terror that the poor woman was unable to control. (Luckily she wasn’t injured, despite a possible case of what one of my friends with no medical experience termed “terror incontinence.”)

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             The reason I’ve seen 6 or 7 events in one night is because my husband records an entire day’s competition, then fast-forwards through all the commercials and human interest stories, so we’re going to be able to see the entire Olympics in less than 3 hours. The downside is that I enjoy a lot of those human interest stories. I got mad at him last night because he fast forwarded through Dr. Oz’s expose on groin injuries, Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir comparing the aerodynamics of sequins vs. rhinestones vs. feathers, Katie Couric making ramen noodles with Red Gerard, and — the one I most wanted to see — Mike Tirico and Ted Ligety discussing ski socks, callus pumicing and blister care while getting pedicures together.

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             There was some dead time between marquis events, so they showed part of a curling match. (I think it’s called a match. It could be called a game, a set, an arc, or an ordeal of curling. I don’t know.) Happily, the curling commentators were refreshingly interesting and seemed very knowledgeable. In fact, one particularly astute announcer confirmed something I’d suspected for a long time: some of the best sweepers out there don’t wear grippers on their shoes.

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             Winding up tonight’s competition watching biathlon, it occurs to me that it would be a much more interesting sport to watch if the competitors were allowed to shoot at each other as well as at the targets… and if they put bayonets on the rifles.

©NLWalsh, All rights reserved.

September 2015

Today I break with protocol by announcing my wonderful husband T’s Quote of the Year before the December 31 deadline, because he’s not going to top this. It requires a bit of context to appreciate how exquisite it is, so bear with me.

Some background re T: he has many, many terrific qualities, but they don’t include abundant patience or a more-than-5-minute attention span, and in his own words, he “can’t hear for s—t.” He also thinks he’s really funny (which he is, but not everyone appreciates his colorful sense of humor).

So T had to go on a business trip to the Midwest. He left on a Sunday evening. The cab was late, it was raining, and traffic was terrible. At the airport, he ran to security but then had to wait 20 minutes in line to get screened. TSA selected him for additional body wanding (I think he actually enjoyed that part) and wiped his hands for explosives. He sprinted to the gate, only to learn that his flight was delayed.

When they finally boarded, he had a middle seat at the back, near the toilet. It was so crowded they made him check his carry-on bag. The flight was noisy and bumpy, and he couldn’t sleep. After landing, he had to wait over a half hour at the baggage claim. He made it to the Hertz counter, and even though he’s #1 Club BSD status and should get to bypass check-in, he had to wait in a long, slow-moving line to get his contract.

At this point, T’s processing capacity was maxed out. He couldn’t listen or interact or wait any more. Only the most reptilian part of his brain was working, and it just wanted the journey to be over so he could go to his hotel, punch a hole in the wall, and then collapse in exhaustion.

T trudged to the Hertz lot and stopped at the booth to grab the car keys, thinking his ordeal was almost done. But no – in the booth was perhaps the most conscientious Hertz employee in the world, a sweet young woman who painstakingly went over every term of the contract with him.

Before giving him the keys, she accompanied him to the car, where lizard T had to stand there and seethe as she closely examined every inch of the car’s exterior and interior, noting every scrape, nick and smudge on an official form. She made T sign and initial the form in several places, then recited a lengthy litany of rules, which, as she handed him the keys, concluded with, “And there’s no smoking or sex allowed in the car.”

THAT grabbed T’s attention, and his conscious mind sprung into action, the opportunity to be a smartass shoving aside his lizard brain. He shot back, “What? You should’ve told me that earlier! I’ve got a couple of hookers waiting for me downtown right now! What am I gonna tell them?”

The Hertz lady’s jaw dropped, and her expression changed to shock, horror and total revulsion. She took a step backwards.

In the seconds of awkward silence that followed, T’s synapses furiously replayed the exchange in his head, trying to make sense of her reaction. Then it hit him, and T spoke (drum roll) the Quote of the Year for 2015: “You didn’t say ‘no smoking or SEX,’ did you?”

She replied quietly, tensely, “I said no smoking or PETS.”

T jumped into the car and sped away in shame without looking back. He knew he could never fix what had just happened. He knew that sweet young woman would forever remember him as the most disgusting creepy old pervert to ever disgrace the driver’s seat of a Hertz vehicle.

Stay tuned for next year!

©NLWalsh, All rights reserved.

December 29, 2014

        I think enough time has passed since Christmas that this post won’t make you question my reverence for the holiday.

©NLWalsh, All rights reserved.

Summer 2016

           First off, I realize this story doesn’t reflect particularly well on me, although in my own defense, it was really low-level bad behavior that should have only minor karmic consequences, like a few more days in Purgatory. (By the way, I swear I’m not making this up.)

            It happened during my visit to the grocery store on Tuesday, early in the afternoon, which happened to coincide with the arrival of a big pack of seniors who came on the bus from the nearby assisted living complex. I don’t have anything against seniors, but they clog up the aisles and checkout lines and decimate the yogurt selection. I wasn’t bummed out, but I also didn’t feel lucky to be shopping for groceries on senior day.

            I’d gotten almost everything on my grocery list when I reached the bread aisle. The only other customer there was a senior lady down at the far end, facing toward me. She was tall, with gray helmet hair and a pissed-off expression on her face. When I turned into the aisle, she gave me the nastiest, most seething stink-eye glare ever and held it on me for at least 6 full seconds before I looked away. WTH?

            That was really weird, I thought, and turned my attention to the bread. I threw a loaf of whole wheat into my cart. Then, you know how sometimes you can feel someone staring at you? I looked up and started forward and saw Ol’ Stink-Eye was now parked about 20 feet from me. The second our eyes met, her expression went from her natural “resting bitch face” to a hideous, disdainful, contemptuous sneer that wordlessly telegraphed, “My hate-fire burns deep for you, vile maggot, and I wish I could shank you in the heart and watch the life bleed out of you.” Stink-Eye’s lip curled and I could see a little bit of her teeth. Her extreme hostility was palpable and very disconcerting. I valiantly smiled at her, in an attempt to defuse whatever it was that was happening, but my pleasant-and-cheerful vibes shriveled in the face of her blistering negative energy.

            What was her problem? I’m a peaceable sort. I felt disturbed and kind of violated. I broke our eye-lock and stopped to peruse the hot dog and hamburger buns. I threw some in my cart and pushed on, with my eyes aimed straight ahead, not at her. I just wanted to get past the malevolent eye of Sauron and her cart ASAP. I wanted out of that wretched aisle before she could scorch the joy and light out of my human spirit.

            Stink-Eye was stopped at the English muffins as I passed by her cart. I kept plenty of room between us, since she could’ve been packing. Although I really didn’t intend to, I couldn’t help glancing at her as I passed. In that moment, her face squinched up into a gruesome, beastly sneer and — get this – with eyes still shooting daggers at me, she reached for her brown naugahyde purse, which was open at the back of her cart, snapped the top shut and clutched it with both hands against the cart handle, as if I was going to try to snatch her purse!

            That was enough – I’d had it. She was completely off the rails. I beelined for the end of the aisle. What did I do to deserve this? Nothing! I just happened to be shopping at the same time as the Queen Grandmother of Darkness. At the very end of the aisle, I had to slow down just long enough to pay silent homage to the Tastykakes display and unwrap some cupcakes with my eyes. Then, as I started the U-turn into the next aisle, I did it again. Some primal instinct made me take a quick sideways peek at her. There she was. Her cart was facing away from me, but her neck was twisted almost 180 degrees around (like in The Exorcist) and she was glowering over her shoulder at me, with eyes narrowed and an evil grimace on her face. Unbelieveable!

            I rounded the bend and made it to frozen foods, the last aisle, and felt very relieved. I needed to get waffles, and it took a minute or two to find the whole-grain, high-fiber, least toxic kind. With my Eggos selected, I crossed them off my list, and was about to turn back toward the front of the store to check out when BAM! THERE SHE WAS, just a couple feet in front of me. I hadn’t felt the disturbance in the Force, and from her surprised expression I knew she hadn’t sensed I was there either. She went pale. Her mouth turned downward unpleasantly into an intense, angry pucker-frown, and the rest of her face contorted hatefully as her eyes shot red hot laser beams at me.

            That was the last straw. She’d made me mad, Irish-DNA fighting mad. My thoughts began racing so fast that I couldn’t consciously keep up. This was NOT NICE. I’d had enough of Ol’ Stink-Eye’s abuse. She didn’t own the grocery store — I had every right to shop at the same time as her. It was time to take a stand. If the crazy old bat thinks I’m menacing, then I’ll give her menacing. Silently, I returned her stare and smiled a creepy smile. And in an instant, the idea burst from somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind, and I felt myself do the “I am watching you” gesture at her – making a “V” with my index and middle fingers, pointing them at my own eyes, and then pointing them at her eyes.

            Her jaw dropped, and she puffed up her chest in prissy, righteous indignation. She spun her cart the other way in a screeching U-turn, and hauled ass away from me. The whole showdown happened in the space of a couple seconds.

            OMG, I won! She was gone! My brain ratcheted back to normal. It turned out Ol’ Stink-Eye wasn’t so tough, turning tail like that and running away as fast as her orthopedic shoes could carry her. I felt good. The dark clouds had parted and I felt the sun’s warmth. Light had triumphed over darkness. Victory was sweet! It was well worth an extra few hours in Purgatory.

©NLWalsh, All rights reserved.

July 2014

I think once you’ve reached a certain age, you have an obligation to preserve your image for posterity and commission a large portrait of yourself. The portrait must be displayed prominently in your home — in the entryway or on the living room wall — although those with more avant-garde tastes may opt to have theirs painted on the exterior of their house or on their garage door. As long as it’s big and imposing and kind of creeps out your family, pets and visitors, it’s mission accomplished. Those newfangled photos printed on canvas won’t cut it – it must be a proper painting.

For mine I’m going to keep it simple. I’ll be seated in a deep sapphire-blue wingback chair next to a window with a verdant view of treetops and countryside. My schnoodle will lounge on a tufted ottoman next to me. I’ll smile, but in a mysterious way, where you can’t tell if it’s happy or mischievous or demure or simmering with passion, anger or desire.

Makeup will be natural but elegant: black mascara & eyeliner, a touch of smoky eye shadow & saucy reddish-plum lipstick. Jewelry will be bold but understated silver or gold – no stuffy pearls. I’ll wear my hair down & sport a little black dress with a V-neck – one that shows some cleavage. (If you’ve reached Roman numeral “L” and they haven’t yet dropped to the floor, let the neckline plunge, baby – show ’em that the girls are still up & about.) And of course, in my perfectly-manicured hands, I’ll clutch the handle of an exquisitely-woven, well-worn, rich brown leather whip, which loops jauntily around my shoulders.

©NLWalsh, All rights reserved.

July 2016

I’d like to share a recent travel-related embarrassing experience. I returned from France a few days ago, and as required to reenter the United States from another country, I had to fill out a US Customs Declaration form. It included the questions: “Have you visited a farm/ranch/pasture outside the US?” and “Have you been in close proximity of (such as touching or handling) livestock outside the US?”

I answered yes to both, because in Normandy, our group stayed at a beautiful chateau on a horse farm. While we didn’t sleep in the stables amongst the animals, we were free to roam the place and hang out at the pasture fence and pet the horses and see the newborn colts and have the whole genteel pastoral experience. (“Willl-burrr!”)

So after deplaning, I waited in a long line to give my form to the Customs officer in the little glass booth. He read it, eyed me and asked, “Were you on a farm?” I said yes and explained. “Oh, OK. I’m not concerned about horses,” he said, and stamped the form and handed it back to me. (I was really curious which animals were of concern, but didn’t ask, as I was pretty sure it would increase the risk of being strip searched.)

After that I went to the baggage claim, found my suitcase, and joined a big sweaty sea of humanity in line for the second Customs checkpoint. As we were funneled forward, I saw there were two Customs officers processing my line: a young trainee (I’ll call him Sprout) and a grizzled older guy (I’ll call him Longtooth) who was overseeing him. Their job was to look at the outside of each traveler’s suitcase (I think to confirm none were leaking white powder, currency or hazmats), check that their form had been stamped, then place it on top of a big pile on the desk, after which they’d wave you through. It was a very quiet operation; all I heard were mumbled hellos and thank yous.

When it was my turn, I handed Sprout my form while Longtooth glanced at my bag. Then Sprout put it in the stack, but when he turned to wave me on, Longtooth stopped him and pointed at my form, frowning. They exchanged a couple hushed words, then Sprout turned back toward me and said, in a booming voice, with better projection than any game show announcer, “WHAT WERE YOU DOING WITH THE LIVESTOCK?” The 100 or so people in earshot all stopped and gaped at me. I could feel them thinking, “So that’s what a depraved international bestiality tourism pervert looks like. Poor defenseless creatures! I hope she burns in Hell.”

(Needless to say, I trotted out of there as fast as I could. My boyfriend Trigger and I had such a good chuckle about it later – he laughed so hard that oats came out his nose!)

©NLWalsh, All rights reserved.

I’m sick. I have a horrible cold or virus or whatever & have been congested & achy & coughing for almost 3 days now. I’m exhausted & drugged up on DayQuil & NyQuil & still feel awful.

I’ve read 4 books on my Kindle, which I think I enjoyed despite remembering nothing about any of them.

The song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald “ keeps looping in my head, along with “Hopelessly Devoted to You” from Grease.

I can’t sleep due to the roaring congestion in my ears, so I’ve decamped to the guest room downstairs with my faithful dog, Jack.

At 2AM, after wandering the house like a ghost, I lay down in the hallway & listened to the alternating snores of my husband & son. They’re very in sync.

At 4AM I sat on the floor of the utility room drinking kombucha & eating pumpkin seeds in the pale glow of the washer & dryer signal lights.

At 6AM, Jack & I watched several YouTube videos about knife making. He thinks in the next life he’ll be a blacksmith.

This afternoon I made a list of all the English words I could think of that have the “mn” combination in them. (I got over 100.) (English major.)

Illness does not become me. I’m really pale & confused & pitiful. Lest you think I’m a total animal, please know that I did brush my hair & my teeth, twice at least.

I think if I was a pioneer I would have died within a week of my family purchasing their covered wagon.

Please don’t tell me to get a Neti pot. I watched videos about that, too, & it’s just not going to happen.

©NLWalsh, all rights reserved.