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2019 Nutshells, Travel

Trying for some spontaneity to make travels ‘happier’

May 15, 2019 No Comments

It’s hard to explain my visceral reaction to the article. Just reading the headline left me in an emotional pretzel: anger, revulsion, disdain, dismissal, disbelief.

I steamed and growled!

It was about a survey that found people who are spontaneous travelers also tend to be happier.

WHAT?!?!

“That’s utter malarkey,” said the guy who had just pulled an all-nighter researching rental cars and driving Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way … and had no idea whether malarkey was a kind of fish or something you scrape off your shoe.

Spontaneous?!?

2019 Nutshells, Family

Hey mom: A few ground rules for calling at work

May 9, 2019 No Comments

Dear mom,

First off, happy Mother’s Day! Wow, it’s been 46 years and you’re still there for me, continuing to “parent” me and tell me when to put my napkin in my lap or how to properly chew my food. Am I the luckiest son in the world, or what?

Anyway, I wanted to say I’m sorry I got mad at you for calling me this week … at work … in the middle of the day. It’s just that it’s work, and it was the middle of the day, and I recognize that there are emergencies when you need to call me, but I just didn’t feel that a bird flying into your house and perching itself on the fireplace qualified.

Why? Well, for starters, you left the screen door open. That was just a pure invitation to neighborhood wildlife that they had every right to come in and take a look around. Secondly, the bird willingly flew back out, causing no damage, inflicting no violence on your or your cats and generally breaking no laws, aside from trespassing, which most lawyers will tell you is going to be exceedingly hard to prove in court.

2019 Nutshells, Family, Parenthood and Children

Coming to terms with a daughter’s ear adornment

May 1, 2019 No Comments

She brushed her hair back in a flourish … over her ear. Something glimmered. And sparkled.

Gasp! Are those …

I do notice things, even though I’m just an oblivious male, the type of species that has gone hours before recognizing its own body parts are on fire. Hey! It was easy to miss. There was a basketball game one!

But I had noticed this.

Are those … Are Those … ARE THOSE … EARRINGS!?!

2019 Nutshells, Childhood, Parenthood and Children, Running

Days of track and field … and the dangers that came with it

April 24, 2019 No Comments

How the memories came flooding back in. There we were, at a middle school track meet. The first for my daughter since joining her school’s team.

If you’ve never participated in a track meet then you’ve missed out on one of life’s unforgettable experiences. It is also the closest thing to war that most of us will ever see. There are super sharp javelins flying in every direction. There is constant gunfire from starter pistols. People are always running for their lives or rolling around on the ground in agony … sometimes with javelins sticking out of their ribs. And coaches sound like brave generals giving poetic and inspirational talks that basically revolve around: “If you’re gonna’ die, then today is a great day to do it.”

WHAT?!? Die?!? I’m running one time around the track, coach! What the heck are you talking about?

Nutshellcity News

Hottest tips for 2019 summer traveling

April 17, 2019 No Comments

As summer creeps up on us, and the thought of travelling looms, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and researching on the best ways to use rewards points, best travel gadgets to waste money on and how to score luxury stuff for peasant prices. So, for your benefit, I’ve put it all together in my “Brian Thompson’s Get-Gone Guide to Summer Traveling:”

Best packing method: A lot has been made of travel cubes – mesh bags that allow you to look down on the rest of society who don’t know what travel cubes are – and new packing techniques, like the KonMari method of rolling everything like sushi. But I actually subscribe to the “big ball method” where you wad everything into a giant ball, jam it into your suitcase until the zipper pings across the room and ignore the wrinkles because most of the stuff you’ll never wear anyway.

2019 Nutshells, Animals, Houses, yards and projects

The great porch cat infestation

April 10, 2019 No Comments

Great! Porch cats! Oh man, how in the world did it come to this?

When our good neighbor passed away last year, her two cats, who had themselves adopted her years before, went in search of a new place to eat and lay their heads at night. Porch cats are funny like that: Kind of nomadic. Never bitter or too down about their luck. Resourceful and enterprising. Unfazed and upbeat.

Most of all, they can always spot a sucker.

Exhibit A: My front porch.

I have my daughter to thank for this. A lot of people left food out. Offered to help. Pitched in.
That’s what neighborhoods do. They pull together and help those in need. They take each other in, and care for everyone. Porch cats included.

2019 Nutshells, Getting old ... er ... older, Houses, yards and projects

The all-over creaky, sore funk

April 3, 2019 No Comments

Sore. So … sore. Not pain. Pain is more specific. It signals injury. That you hurt one thing, in one specific place. It’s isolated. But not sore. Sore is everywhere. Sore is kind of a … creaky funk? An all-over malaise. An affliction. A general misery.

Sore is … well … sore is getting older.

This occurred to me the other day as I bent over to pick up a piece of trash outside my office. Thanks to gravity, I had no trouble getting down there. But as I faced the prospect of standing back up, my body creaked and groaned like a diesel-belching steam shovel. “OWWCHHHH!” I moaned as I got back to my feet. It must have been terrifying because two college students observing this whole episode in the hallway stared in horror. “Are you ok?” they asked. I think they nearly ran to get a defibrillator. Or maybe a shovel, figuring it was better to whack me over the head, put me out of my misery and bury me in the back parking lot.

2019 Nutshells

A failed multitasker’s search for focus

March 27, 2019 No Comments

I got excited when I heard the webinar instructor mention that only 2 percent of the population could be considered this: super multitaskers. Doesn’t it sound cool? Super troopers. Superman. Superstar. Super duper. Superfluous.

But “super multitasker?” Now, that would be truly special!

And maybe I was one.

He was about to give us a quiz that would test our ability to multitask. He said no one he had come across yet fell into that category of amazing people, but maybe today would be the day. “Yeah, maybe today,” I thought. “Maybe I’m the Golden Multitasker!”

2019 Nutshells, Florida, Weather

The positives of pollen season

March 20, 2019 No Comments

Ah, pollen season. That special time of year when the glorious temperatures that we Floridians finally get to experience are ruined by a rain of tiny particles that clog our eyes, stuff up our lungs and generally cover the world in a thick film of yellow crud. Thanks, flowers! But pollen provides many benefits, and I’m not just talking about the very necessary pollination effect, which I would describe in great scientific detail … if I had any clue what that was.

So, instead I want to expound upon the virtues of pollen season by offering some of the many important upsides that come with the so-called “pollenpocalypse.”

• It gives you the chance to try out a yellow car.

2019 Nutshells, Family, Florida, Running

Liberating running … or a bunch of idiots lost in a swamp?

March 13, 2019 No Comments

“Did you get good grades in college?” my daughter asked. “I don’t mean any offense, but here you are, this accomplished guy. You go to conferences in New York. You win awards. You have a good job. But you did these really dumb things like swam across marshes … in your running shoes … without a phone … without a coach … with a guy who almost drowned! So, I mean …”

Well, that certainly didn’t go as intended.

I had been trying to explain the joy of running. And more importantly, running long distances. How it’s freeing. And fun. And when you run with really adventurous (stupid) people – like I did in college – it becomes an experience you can later tell at the dinner table … where your daughter will question your IQ.