The Blogfodder

Welcome to a new piece here on GRRiM, an advice column called, "The Blogfodder".
It's a play on words.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading it as much, or perhaps even more than I have enjoyed writing it. Which I haven't yet done, since I'm doing it now. Having fun so far? Good. Me too.

Dear Blogfodder,

My Mother-In-Law is staying with us for "awhile" and is really starting to get on my nerves. She asked us to repaint the room she is staying in because it felt too "old" for her. I have a feeling she isn't going anywhere soon, and she seems pretty comfortable, ever since she and her husband got into a big fight over how much tuna to add to the casserole.

She micromanages everything right down to the food served at each meal. But doesn't help shop or cook. She sure does complain if something isn't just right. My biggest issue is that my husband won't tell her "no" or draw any boundaries. I feel like he's not on my side!

Plus, we haven't, you know... in a long time. He won't, you know... when his mother is here and he's too cheap to get a hotel or take me on a weekend getaway. I'm afraid I'll never, you know... again.

What should I do?

Signed,
I Don't Know and I Want to

Dear I Don't,


There's a lot of ways to get rid of an unwanted pest like this fazzoo of which you speak. You just need to choose the right one. Does your Mother-in-Law drive her own car? There's a great website about how to make brakes stop working that's almost undetectable. If you're not mechanically inclined, look me up, I got a guy.

Or, perhaps you could take her on a long walk. One where only you come back.That's what I had to do when my associate, Vinny "The Mook" got too comfortable and started strutting around like he owned the place! Fahgeddaboutit!


But then again, She's just a sweet old lady who needs a place to stay and be loved! Clearly she feels lost, alone and abandoned. She has turned to you and your family to ground her and make her feel useful. You should go consult your priest on how to pray for patience. Or you make the first move and you make the arrangements to take your husband away for a nice long weekend. Give him the business like when you were dating. The whole thing... you know what I'm saying... the whole thing. I bet you'll get your time away from then on.
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Dear Blogfodder,

I got this guy who's all over me like a rash. Every time I do something or go somewhere, he's up in my grill. He outranks me in the family run organization of which I am a made ma... lifetime member. But he just doesn't treat me with any respect!

He took my cut of a job we did last month and wouldn't tell me why. He just said I didn't hold up my end. Well, I sure held up something! It was all over the news!

I wanna go to to the boss and tell him, but I'm afraid I'll end up riding in the wrong part of the car.

Help me, Blogfodder?

Signed,
Made in Brooklyn

Dear Made,


This fobondu is asking for a whack job. I mean, who is he to hold out on your end of the deal? You're a lifetime member of the organization! That's not good... Not good! Stand up and be a man!

You plant the seed to the old man that you seen him talking to the cops. Try to get permission to do the big job on him.

Then, you tell him you got a big deal working that you want to bring him in on. Tell him to meet at a neutral location, real late at night. Then do the full Luca Brassi on him and watch his beady eyes pop out of their sockets!

You'll get promoted for taking care of a rat. Of course, I'd be prepared to lay low for awhile after that. The "organization" ain't so good at keeping secrets no more.

But, on the other hand, maybe you oughtta know and respect your place. In the family, this man is over you, like a father over a son. Accept your position within the organization, and accept that this man, in his own special way is trying to teach you lessons about humility and patience.

Keep your nose clean and look for ways to get promoted using the knowledge this boombatz has given you.

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Dear Blogfodder,

I am a man in my twighlight years. I have enjoyed a good life. My children make good livings, I have a nice retirement. My wife keeps herself in shape, I got a five car garage and all sorts of toys.

But I find myself still feeling sad.

Can you help, Godfodder?

Signed,
Helpless and Hopeless

Dear Helpless,

At what age did your parents fill in your hop-hoo and decide to raise you as a boy? Common Nancy, you got the American dream... people kill for what you have! I've killed for much less than this! What a gabone you are!

If I was your family, I'd take you out to the edge of the property and gaboom! right in the back of your soft, lilly flower pansy-ass frou frou head and bury your creamy, bird-like body in the stump of a rotted out tree!

But I digress.

Depression is very real and I think you should benefit from professional help. You've lived your whole life and now you deserve to enjoy it. Sometimes, a simple chemical imbalance can cause the feelings you describe and that can be fixed by taking a pill daily.
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Do you need the Blogfodder's help? Please send your question, story or feedback here and maybe the Blogfodder will feature you in a future post.

Hens' Teeth! Horse Feathers! Cogency? An Unlikely Blog Entry!

Back by popular demand - Which I define as one person casually asking me if I still blogged - is my blog. For now, but not for long. You see, I have been having quite the time of it lately, since my promotion in June. All of a sudden, people can't get enough Bill.

Bill... God if I hear it one more time, I may scream. Would it kill people to hail me as "Your Excellency"? "Godfather"? "Dear Leader", even?

No, and it's just as well, because the mantle of leadership is difficult enough without being reminded of my level of responsibility each and every moment. It's hard to forget at three in the morning when I can't sleep, thinking of what must be done tomorrow... worse, thinking about what didn't get done today.

Of course, not sleeping well may be a function of the train, or rather trains that came through last night. Three of them, each louder, slower and clickety-clacketier then the last. What a treat. Can't a guy sleep with the window cracked? Just a little? Nope.

Since the last time I blogged, I skipped my 20th high school reunion, (newsflash - we got old), went to Pennsylvania for an incredible work camp week, had to say goodbye to a good doggy friend, finished a 5 year long painting project at home, went to a couple baseball games and attended a wedding and visited with seldom seen friends in Savannah, Ga.

Coming up is our 13th wedding anniversary, Labor day weekend's porch project, and our friend Greg moving in to the house with us for awhile.

You see, the lack of blog hasn't been dereliction of duty,  (heh, I wrote duty). It has been because I simple haven't found the time.

Notice my careful wording there... "haven't found the time". Time is funny. Well, time is actually not at all funny. It simply plods along at its constant pace, metering out the universe in a mostly uniform and completely unsurprising way. Time is like a bureaucrat in that it simply does exactly what is expected of it and nothing more.

We say we haven't got it, when really it's all we have. It is, of course, what we choose to do or not do in that time that makes all the difference. And make all the difference, it does.

Einstein's general theory of relativity stands in direct contrast to my statement that time is a constant. Indeed time, according to the great man, is more like water rushing around a rock. The closer the water gets to the rock, the faster it begins to move. The water outside a certain distance from the rock remains placid and goes at its pace, where the water within the influence of the rock rushes and roils and spits and ejects.

Time and space are directly interconnected and mutually influential on each other. To stretch the metaphor out to complete nonsensical drivel, which I am so wont to do, time is time and people are either smooth and laminar or people are big chunks of rock, forcing time into an altered state.

Entrepreneurial types burn bright, hot and constant. They don't cool below a certain level, but they sure are prone to flair. These folks, God bless 'em, are refreshed and renewed by the very work they produce. They are the human equivalent of nuclear fusion powered... the output they produce is the food they need to produce more output. And overall they are hot, hot, hot!

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Left Brain Bill Interjects: So, wait... I thought they were rocks. Now they're nuclear powered? What's in your Wheaties, ergot? I'm outta here. Too many mixed metaphors. How did you graduate high school. English wasn't a required class way back then? Jeez. Wake me up Monday morning when it's time to look at spreadsheets again.
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Well, I'm a nuclear fission man. If the atoms split too fast, the heat gets too high and the output is too much, I melt down.

So when the fission man is pouring on the coal (LBB: Oh, great, more mixing of the metaphor!), I need time to slow the reaction and cool off a little.

There is also a matter of the waste produced in a fission reaction, which is toxic and long lasting - measured not in years, but in half-lives of thousands of years. In my case, it tends to be jabs and barbs at the ones I love the most... an attempt, perhaps at bleeding off the energy that to me are inconsequential, but to the receiver are long lived and hurtful.

So, my spare time, what of it there is, has been spent desperately trying to sloooooow doowwwwn.

I love my morning cup of coffee and iPad time. It is my solace at the beginning of the day. When I am home, 3 mornings a week or so, I like to sit and drink coffee in the dark an read the news before anyone gets up. It's "me time".

Emily rightly wants help around the house, and asks I put away the dishes from the delicious meal she made and cleaned up after the night before.

Seems fair. How can I refuse? But the act of putting away the dishes while the coffee is brewing totally destroys my morning solace. Boo hoo, right? Well, I'm writing this blentry right now instead of putting those dishes away. I'll get to them, perhaps, later. Maybe.

I decided yesterday to dig up some weeds in my lawn. In an effort to take part in something I enjoy, yard work. It was my hope that I would get some exercise, enjoy the out of doors and zone out a little. By the end, I was digging so fast and pulling weeds so quick that if there was a Lincoln Town Car in the vicinity you'd swear I was preparing to say goodbye to an associate. Permanently.

So, done with digging, I decided to mow. A nice, leisurely mow. Except I was walking so fast I got shin splints and angina at the same time.

I went shooting a couple weeks ago and shot so poorly I thought they would take away my gun. Normally, this would be a calming, focusing, almost zen-like activity. I simply couldn't focus. There was no concentration. My heartbeat never slowed, my breath never regulated.

Which brings us naturally, to baseball.

I have come to enjoy the game of baseball, whereas before I'd rather engage in a good round of "thumb screws".

You can't force a baseball game. You cannot will it, wish is, yell it, tug it, push it or drag it into your timeframe.

It simply is.

And the batter is going to step out of the box after each pitch and adjust his glove.

The pitcher will sometimes balk.

The ump will call time, seemingly for no reason at all.

And there is nothing you can do. It is slow. It is methodical.

If you are at the park, there is ample time to enjoy feeling the sun on your face, enjoy the smells and ponder what vendor sold the product that now makes your shoe stick so tenaciously to the cement below your seat.

At home, It is many, many nap worthy minutes punctuated by moments of excitement.

The way we fission people like our lives to be.