“Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account”–Oscar Wilde
“May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions”–Joey Adams
“I have never heard anything about the resolutions of the apostles, but a good deal about their acts.”–Og Mandino
“I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the years,”–Henry Moore
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I’ll probably always see and hear rats, in whatever living space that I’m living in, after living in the last house that I lived in. Anytime that there is any sort of noise coming from the oven, these days, I think that there is a big, fat rat waiting back there for me to go to sleep, so that he can come out into my kitchen and prowl about while I am snoozing.
Several times, while living in that house, I came into the kitchen in the middle of the night seeking water, and the rat would be standing there, near the sink, staring at me, daring me to share the space with him. After I stared back at him, heart pounding, hoping that he wouldn’t skyrocket through the air and land his teeth on some part of my face, he would run off.
I would hear him running in there, between the walls of that house, during the day, and it sounded as if he wasn’t alone. I bought traps, and put peanut butter in them, and proved to myself that he was not alone. I never caught him. He must have been the King Rat, invincible.
Once you have lived with rats, or at least once I have lived with rats, you always feel vulnerable. When you come into your kitchen, at night, you are waiting for a big, fat rat to greet you. It causes you to drink less water in the middle of the night.
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I’m not sure that The Bee Gees are the group to put in the cd player when you are feeling slightly disconsolate. “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart,” wasn’t written to make the listener feel good, now was it? And yet, sitting here feeling a little blue, I find some relief from the slight depression that I am feeling as I listen to The Bee Gees sing that song. Sometimes a sad song makes me feel happy.
We have all had broken hearts. I refuse to talk to talk about any of mine, tonight. I prefer to focus on the women who have never really left my life, even though they left my bedroom, or they left mine. And I don’t feel like talking about them, either, tonight.
Sometimes, I get depressed when I have no email, or when no one has said hello to me on Facebook, or OpenSalon.com. This probably means that I need help. I need to go to Cyberspace Social Interaction 12 Step Meetings. I really do.
When my cat, Kobain, vomits up hairballs, he always does it on my bed, on the part of the bed that sleep on. I know that I don’t wash my sheets enough, but I really do not need the cat’s assistance in picking the time to take the sheets down the hall to the washer Why can’t he puke on the nasty carpet that we have on this floor, the carpet that looks mostly covered in puke; the carpet covered in dog and cat hair, the carpet that even I wouldn’t sit or lay down on.
My other cat, Jaggar, is in a playful mood: he just knocked my pill container off of my desk onto the floor, underneath the aquarium, that houses my turtles, almost knocking over the lamp that lights the aquarium, and keeps the turtles warm.
Damn cats.
And the dogs, tonight, are scratching furiously.
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Sometimes, when I am alone, I don’t care how much I eat, I don’t care how fat I get, I don’t care how high my sugar reading is in the morning, when I prick my finger, and lay my blood down on the little white strip that I have inserted into the small blue device that gives me the reading. I think that this is, perhaps the equivalent of drinking myself into a stupor, back in the old days, when self-destruction was more cut and clear. Nobody thinks that you are trying to kill yourself if you eat too many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You can even fool yourself.
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K Photos(Left to right): Worldwide known, and respected, horn-man, Lil Joe From Chicago gazes out into the crowd, as 2010 becomes 2011 in Atlanta, Ga. 2) And the sign said. 3) That guy from American Bandstand ain’t got nothing on bandleader, Mudcat; emceeing the New Year’s eve show for the 17th year in a row, at The Northside Tavern.
I’m trying to not have any more caffeine, tonight. I don’t want to stay up halfway through the night, so I fix myself a ginger tea, instead of a coffee, or my usual hot tea with milk. The ginger tea is refreshing, but needs a kick added to it, so I put in a teaspoon of Stevia. I try not to use sugar in my drinks, these days, because I am diabetic. In the old days, I used to load the sugar up. There was not enough of it around the way that I used it. I was always running out of it. Now, I am always running out of Stevia, and the stuff ain’t cheap. It is supposed to be good for you, while sugar certainly isn’t. I had a two liter plus cola beverage a day habit also. Is it any wonder that I turned out to be a diabetic. All that sugar made me fat, too. I like to eat more than I like to exercise. That is going to have to change.
A banana somehow seems in order. I bite off the ends and throw them one at a time to the dogs. Morisson catches his in his mouth, but I overthrow Bundy his, just to make him work for it. Morisson comes right back, giving me droopy eyes, indicating that he wants more banana. When I am freezing bananas he gets more banana, but, tonight, I only eating one banana and not freezing five or six of them, so he is out of luck.
(Excerpt from Mikel K’s memoir, “Baking Banana Bread From Scratch,” which you can buy below.
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K Yoga Pose of The Day: Triangle Pose
http://www.ehow.com/video_4961265_iyengar-yoga-poses.html
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K Poems of The Day
“Mikel, your writing pieces remind me of that potato chip ad “bet you can’t eat just one”. I enjoy your style, and humor, very much.”–Barbara Moore
“Mikel K: AMEN BROTHER! I’m impressed with the way you write, and deal with, daily life.”
–Annamaria Valeriano-Tussi
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The big thing that can kill you
She was throwing out a bag
full of Tupperware,
and I said, happily,
that I would take it.
She had switched over
to glass,
and then I remembered
that plastic was supposed
to be bad for you.
Still, I took the bag.
Sometimes, when you can’t
afford any better,
you have to go with
the small things that
might eventually add up
to the big thing that
kills you.
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I feel free
I’m no celebrity,
but I’m not locked behind bars, either.
I am near broke, but I feel free.
I am blessed, and I know it.
Henry, the Great Dane from next door,
who is visiting us, this morning,
feels free, too;
free to bark at everyone
who walks by.
My dogs feel free to sleep,
as does Anna, the other Great Dane
from next door, who is also visiting
this morning.
A great part of freedom
is in how you feel.
I feel blessed to have been blessed
with these animals who surround me.
I feel free.
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