Tricia’s Mind Almost Tricked Her Into Giving Birth

Hello and ahoy, dear readers. Did you take the time to read my grandson Max’s guest Blog for this here “lifestyle column” yesterday? Well, you should have. He talked all about his art. If he keeps up his pace, he’s going to become the new Jackson Polanski. You know, the one who splattered paint all over the walls and called it art, because it was…regular people just needed to be told it was for them to realize it.

As Max told you, I had to go to the store yesterday morning. I had to pick up some kibble for Hannah Montana, a tube of Dr. Rembrandt’s Tooth Paste, a box of oatmeal, and a few other sundries. Did I tell you that my groatmeal I ordered over the Internet came in the mail the other day? It did. Turns out, it was bird feed. I gave the rest of it to the birds outside, but that left meal without a meal! That’s why I had to pick up the oatmeal. It might be a while before I give groatmeal another try.

Well, no sooner did I walk in the door than I heard my grandniece Tricia making all kinds of a ruckus. Now, I’ve gotten used to Tricia and her friends making noise around the house, but this took the cake! She was screaming that the baby’s coming! When we got her to the clinic, the good doctor told us she was having what are known in medical circles as “Braxton Hicks Contractions” and that she wasn’t really having the baby. It was all in her mind. She must get that from her mother’s side of the family…that mother of hers has always been a touch on the nervous side. After that, I was so relieved that I went to get the car while Tricia finished up with the doctor. I believe that it was only the contractions that she was imagining, not the entire pregnancy. I’m going to ask her to guest Blog for you again tomorrow to tell her side of the story.

Until next time!

Ahoy,

The Codger

There’s Nothing Like a Big Bowl of Piping Hot Groatmeal

Good morning, dear readers. Thank you for taking the time to spend some time with this round table discussion “lifestyle column” this morning. Did you get a load of my grandson Max’s ghost writing yesterday? It was dynamite! Now that’s some real talent there! I felt like I was reading a spooky Hallowe’en article written by myself, not by a ghost writer at all.

The next time your missus offers to make you a full breakfast, be sure you show her this Blog first: Health Food Made Easy. It’ll tell her everything she needs to know about the different kinds of oatmeal (that is, if she doesn’t buy you Dino Egg Oatmeal). Now that that blogger brought up the difference between the original Irish Oatmeal and those commonplace “Scottish Oats”, I’m convinced that the common-law Mrs. Codger doesn’t understand the difference (and thus, may be depriving me of some nutritional value). I’ll take the real Irish Oatmeal, thank you very much. The missus probably just saw “Scottish” in the name and bought it because she thought it was cheap.

Or better yet, I might go ahead and order up some whole oat “groats”. They say they’re more nutritional than even the Irish Oatmeal. It sounds like they’re hard to find, but thankfully, we have the internet. The Amazon bloggers are selling a canister with a special “Health Blend” of oats and groats, and it has an absolutely beautiful parakeet on the packaging:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B000FPH1BQ/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=284507&s=kitchen

I hope it gets here soon so I can turn to the missus and have her get me a nice big bowl of piping hot groatmeal.

Until next time!

Ahoy,

The Codger

I Have an Upset Stomach

Good morning, dear readers. Or I should say that I hope you are having a good morning, because I certainly am not. I just got done making a batch of my famous Bicarbonate of Ovaltine Elixir on account of my upset stomach. The cause? I’m willing to bet that it was that dinner I went out to last night. Oh, that brings me to my good news: My grandson Max is home from California, and me and the missus wanted to take him out to a nice welcome home dinner (since his own parents didn’t even do that much). Of course, I let Max pick the place.

He selected a restaurant in the city that serves Indian cuisine. Not Native American Indian, but India Indian, from the foreign country. I’d never had that type of food before, so I went with the one dish on the menu that I knew: Chicken Marsala. No sense in taking chances on a dish when you might not like it.

The last time I had that Chicken Marsala, it came over spaghetti noodles, and there were mushrooms on it. But at this Indian restaurant, they made it different. It was in a spicy sauce, which didn’t sit well with me. But I ate it just so I wouldn’t offend the chef. I guess this means I won’t be moving to India any time soon!

Until next time!

Ahoy,

The Codger

The Codger Survives Childhood Illness

Good morning to you all, dear readers. Well now, I suppose you are all wondering why I wasn’t here with you yesterday. The answer is simple: My grandniece Tricia arrived yesterday, along with her housemates Derek and Jessica, and their newborn baby, Nevaeh. As soon as they got here, they came inside, where Nevaeh promptly vomited onto my computer.

It went everywhere: In between the keys and the buttons, into the speakers, into those buttons you can use instead of the mouse that I never use, into the paper clip storage compartment, into the disk slot, just everywhere. I cleaned it up as best I could, but by that point I thought it best to let the remainder dry on its own. And that’s what did the trick: I turned on my computer this morning, and it fired right up, just like usual. But as for yesterday, after the incident with Nevaeh’s vomiting, my creative process had been completely disrupted.

Not that I’m mad at Nevaeh, mind you, and you shouldn’t be either (even if she is the reason why you were deprived of your daily helping of The Codger’s pearls of wisdom, such as this very one you’re reading as we speak). This was my first time meeting Nevaeh, and I was very excited to meet her (since I’ve never met anyone else whose name was “Heaven” spelled backwards). Apparently she was a bit overly-excited to meet me. Perhaps her mother had read to her from my lifestyle column. I need to go spend some quality time with my new houseguests now.

Until next time!

Ahoy,

The Codger