my three songs

a new feature here on finkipedia, based on a contest run on many radio stations and named after the one that was a regular feature on the WHFS afternoon show years ago.

very simple- i give you 3 songs, you give me the common link between them. a little difficult to do because of the lack of sound, but i think i can come up with some that are common enough that you'd know them and can figure out the link.

sometimes the link may be related to the lyrics, or sometimes it may be related to more of a generality about the songs themselves.

here then is your first installment- a relatively easy one, i think:

1. bangles, "manic monday"
2. prince, "little red corvette"
3. sheena easton, "sugar walls"

good luck.

even leonardo was 6 years old once

brendan's taking to sketching things lately- he got a sketch book for christmas, and likes to sit in bed before going to sleep sometimes drawing things he sees in his room. the other day, he must have been thinking about something he saw in a puzzle book or a worksheet at school, because he came up with this:


hard to see unless you've got a 21" monitor, but my favorite part is the answer key, written upside down on the lower left.

also of note: the pepsi can, because i don't believe we've ever had a can of pepsi in this coke-loyal house. he must be sneaking it on the side.

a stitch in time

walked into work this AM a few minutes before 9, and our receptionist said to me "rough one already". not too unusual a comment for a thursday, because it's my half day and therefore usually busy. the story unfolded further when our office manager took me aside in the hall, coat still on and coffee still in hand, and said "a patient of yours walked in a few minutes ago- he's on coumadin and fell yesterday morning, and his arm hasn't stopped bleeding since. and that's not the bad news."

uh oh.

put down the coffee, hung up the coat, rolled up the sleeves and fixed mr. jones up quick with a single well-placed stitch and a pressure dressing. the other stuff, more business than medical, will take quite a bit more to resolve.

i always knew fixing people would wind up being the easiest part of this job.

great work, if you can get it

kids went back to school today after a 4 day weekend (off friday and monday). erin was talking to them yesterday about how nice it is to have 4 day weeks- goes by so fast, weekend here before you know it, etc.

despite the holiday, my office was open yesterday. this led to another discussion about how great it is to be a kid, because when you grow up, long weekends are few and far between, and every week seems like a full 5 day week.

brendan's comment: "that's ok. i only plan on working 2 days a week."

not sure if that means he's got his career path set on 1) corporate tycoon or 2) priest.

doubt the latter.

lose the extra "o"

rant time again...

straight from a communication to parents from the principal's office at our school (slightly paraphrased): "...it seems that they loose their mittens and hats very easily".

while not as prevalent as some of the other grammatical missteps i've soapboxed on before, this one has annoyed me for years: the misspelling of "lose" as "loose".

this isn't one i've seen (thank god) in any print media, but i've seen it quite often in personal communication. i didn't realize the word "lose" was that confusing, but unless i really am sending my kids to school with gloves that are too tight, it must be.

open season

flu season here in DE- swamped in the office, and feeling the effects at home too. brendan started it the other day, erin started with some symptoms last night, and molly woke today with a temp of 104. owen and i have dodged it so far- we'll see how the week goes.

patients always ask me how i'm able to stay relatively healthy. i use the same line on all of them: "you never see a farmer with a sunburn, do you? constant exposure builds my tolerance". whether it's true or not, so far, i've been lucky.

our lenten journey

i usually eschew the traditional catholic behavior of giving up something for lent- for several years now, i've spent the time focusing more on prayer than on not doing something i probably shouldn't be anyway.

this year, the kids have for the first time chosen to give something up. owen, on his own, decided to give up the wii. he's been enthralled with it the past few weeks, so this is a big deal. so far he's doing very well.

owen's explanation for giving up the wii was that he knew he should be giving up "something i really like to do". on those grounds, when brendan was asked what he would be giving up, he offered "i'm giving up waking up grumpy."

and you thought jesus had it hard for 40 days in the desert. 3 days down so far, and i must say, they've all been great. if this kid gets to easter waking up happy every morning, i'm lobbying the vatican to make lent a year-round season.

CCCLXII days until finkbowl XIII

the guests are gone, the house is mostly clean, and there's still one gladware container of gumbo left over. another successful finkbowl has come and gone. thanks to all who made the trip, from near and far. we always have a great time, but this year's game made the day that much better. couldn't have scripted it better.

things i learned this weekend:

1. i am most definitely allergic to mangoes
2. don't continue to bet a seemingly unbeatable hand when your opponent asks "what's the ranking of hands again?"
3. cheering for "eli" and "plaxico" and "osi" is way more fun than cheering for "tom" and "randy" and "teddy"
4. super bowl commercials just ain't what they used to be. bring back the budweiser lizards!

kitchen confidential

cooking marathon starts in about 1/2 hour. over 4 gallons worth of soup to pump out today- gumbo and chowder. because i only make the gumbo once a year, i learned years ago to make enough to enjoy afterwards too. (only took one year without leftovers to convince me to make plenty extra.)

got news earlier in the week that superdad lead guitarist mikey will be unavailable for this weekend, which means that "middletown's favorite three-car garage band" may need to change their name to "plan B". we'll see if the show goes on...

joy in mudville

hold the football! baseball news from the hot stove too hot to let go...

after last year's historic collapse, the faithful were screaming for something to be done this offseason. and while endy's extension was nice, and dumping paulie bag o'donuts cleared some space for the HGH cap, this is the news we've been waiting for.

hopefully, sir johan will inspire pedro to get off his rocker and actually train for this year. then we may finally have a rotation that will get us through until october.

now, if only someone could teach delgado (aka cerrano) to hit a curveball, we may have a shot.

one week to go!

preparations are well underway for sunday's big event- finkbowl XII in just 6 days!

did some menu planning last night, will be making the circuit of the local groceries sometime this week. keeping with the tradition of the last few years of making a regional dish representing each of the teams, current plans are for some NE chowder and reuben sandwiches. of course, the gumbo will make its annual appearance as well, along with a few other things.

the celebrity death pool that we tried out last year was good but not great, but i still wanted to have some kind of contest that would last the year between finkbowls. i put together a year-long sports championship pool with wagers on different sporting events throughout the year. we'll see how that goes over. usual finkbowl wagering rules specificially prohibit off-site involvement in any competition. however, to increase interest in this year's special event, i'm opening it to anyone interested. the only caveat is that while you need not be present to participate, you must be present to collect. if you win but don't show at finkbowl XIII, your earnings roll over to next year. interested? let me know.

life goes on

for the second time in a month, i'm having to get started here after posting about deaths and funerals. and even though this time it involved family, seems a little easier to move on. gram's passing has been something we've all taken well, and are moving on from with comfort and peace.

makes it easier to address the matters at hand- finkbowl XII, only 10 days away!

movin' on up

just got word that gram has passed on. sounds like it was peaceful, not just for her but for my mom as well, who was at gram's side when she died.

this was all very sudden in a way, because although her alzheimer's was worsening over the past few years, her general health was fairly good. the cruelty of a disease like alzheimer's is that it often extends a person's decline because it doesn't affect anything more than the mind. in this circumstance, the sudden onset of an overwhelming, terminal disease like leukemia can be seen as nothing more than a blessing.

working in long-term care for the past 4 years as i have, i harbor very strong views about end-of-life care and an individual's right to die. (maybe fodder for another post someday, but just to clarify now- euthanasia is murder and is not part of my right-to-die philosophy). gram was allowed to die in comfort, with dignity, and with her daughter and a priest at her bedside.

a beautiful end to a beautiful life.

comfort care

sorry about the paucity of updates lately. a mini-vacation to start the year, followed by a ridiculously busy week last week in the office, and now a weekend of illness (others, not mine) make for not much time to check in here.

erin's battling some kind of flu bug, brendan's just getting over a weekend of MOOFE (multiple-orifice odorous fluid expulsion), and my gram was diagnosed with acute leukemia yesterday.

87 years old and in the throes of alzheimer's disease, she's not been herself for years. but she's maintained fair overall health until the past day or two, when she drifted out of sorts a bit. the nurses at her assisted living facility sent her over to the hospital yesterday at 10, and by 4 we found out it was likely leukemia.

already stricken with a terminal illness (her alzheimer's), the decision on what to do now was fairly simple: comfort care. she will likely enter under hospice care tomorrow, and soon move on to a better place.

no better comfort care than up there.

2007, we hardly knew ye...

working christmas week and relaxing the week after kept me off the computer for a bit, so the year-in-review post i was planning is coming out now. hey, if the NCAA can have its title game on jan 7, then you can get my best-of column on the 8th.

here, in no particular order, are my best-of's for 2007. not that every one of them were new in 2007, but they were new to me, which as you are now well aware is all that matters in this space...

• best album- "the virgins '07", the virgins: as recently as early december i'd have put the art in manila disc in this space, but i found this EP on itunes after catching one track on XM radio, and fell in love instantly. hoping that maybe they'll play a live show locally in '08.
• best book- "better", atul gawande: the author is a surgeon and frequent contributor to the new yorker. his book is a collection of essays on how the medical profession strives to better itself and humanity in the process. great even for non-medicos.
• best blog- the comics curmudgeon: and you thought i'd say this one, right? the curmudgeon is way better than this sorry old rag. it's hilarious, well written, and updated daily for your reading pleasure. if you're a fan of newspaper comics, you'll love this site.
• best new toy- the recent acquisition of the wii makes this a little tough, but i've got to go with the acoustic guitar i picked up in august. just as interactive, and works outside too.
• most prescient use of background music: fox's BCS selection show. i stand corrected.
• best movie- i went to one movie in 2007. i watched maybe 2 more on TV. so i have no authority to even have this as a category. but since everyone needs a best movie, i pick "superbad", since if i had seen it, it would probably be my favorite.
• best joke: a grasshopper walks into a bar. bartender says, "hey, you know we got a drink named after you?" grasshopper says, "oh yeah? you got a drink named fred?" not really fair, because that's my favorite joke every year.

happy new year!

4 days into january, and brendan may have the line of the year already - actually, the quote was from wednesday, only about 40 hours into the new year: 8 days after christmas, surrounded by games, books and two video game systems, one floor above a ping pong/pool/foosball table and bins full of power ranger toys, one floor below an entire room full of legos, wearing a long, pouty look on his face: "i have nothing to do".

god bless america.


here, from some happier times this christmas break:

a day trip to longwood gardens...


and the christmas picture you all almost had...

no better feeling...

than the one you have when you're minutes away from the end of your last work day before a vacation. i can smell the barley and hops from here. not a long break this time, but a much needed 5 days at home starting tonight.

(no worse feeling than the minutes before returning to work after a vacation, but fortunately i come back next thursday for a short 2-day week.)

wii are the champions

been a strange week for me- worked the weekend before christmas and christmas day, so despite the holiday i feel like i haven't really had my vacation yet. i'm off a few days next week, so after tomorrow at 5pm it's happy hour until after the new year.

santa was good to the fink clan as usual. molly got the pink fishing pole and toothbrush she asked for, brendan was thrilled with his webkinz, and owen had all 6 bionicles that santa brought him built by dinnertime.

the big hit for everyone has been the wii. brendan likes it, owen loves it, and grandma and grandpa are infatuated with it. it's been on almost non-stop since christmas afternoon. the interactivity makes it so much more enjoyable than other games, and the fact that it involves some physicality makes playing it a little more justifiable. it wears on you, though- i'm nursing a sore shoulder thanks to the baseball game, and i'm a little worried owen may develop little leaguer's elbow without playing a single game of little league.

after a few flying controller incidents, the boys are getting better about wearing the wrist straps. still funny watching them jump all around the living room, though. thank god there's not a soccer game as part of the package- i'm not sure my living room could handle it.

merry christmas!

no post tomorrow, so here's my chance to wish you all a merry christmas.

don't forget to track santa tonight- always fun to see where he is before your sugarplums start dancing.

sounds of the season

i've often got a few things rattling around in my head that i think would make good posts. this one's been brewing for a few weeks, but got tabled because of the events of this past week. time to pull it out, if for no other reason than to transition to a sense of normalcy and restore some brightness back to this blog.

i'm a big fan of christmas music, and have assembled what i think to be a pretty decent collection. i thought it would be easy to do a "top 5 christmas songs" post, but then as i started to compile my list, i realized how hard a task it was (bing's "white christmas" is by christmas law supposed to be #1 on every list, but i couldn't put it even in my top 5). i tried breaking it up into traditional and modern lists, but even that had too many crossovers (elvis' "blue christmas"- traditional? not exactly an old english carol there. sting's "gabriel's message"- modern? the song's got its roots in medieval times).

so, i decided to make the list of "top 5 christmas carols", whereby "top" is defined as "most likely to give me the warm-all-over christmas fuzzies". here we go:

5) "must be santa", mitch miller & the gang: if you grew up with a mitch miller album like i did, you know this is on your list too. back when we'd stack 5 LP's on the turntable, and they'd drop down one after the other, then we'd flip them over to hear side B on all of them, this was the song that the arm got lifted back and the needle replaced so we could hear it over and over.
4) "christmas must be tonight", robbie robertson: i love this song. i remember hearing it in the christmas rotation on WBAB, long island's finest rock station, and found it on a compilation disc a few years back. great lyrics, pleasant melody, way better than that paul mccartney song.
3) "i believe in father christmas", emerson, lake and palmer: at the risk of coming off like some classic rock geek, this was also one i picked up an appreciation for thanks to WBAB. got this one off yet another random christmas compilation.
2) "(there's no place like) home for the holidays", perry como: this is always the first christmas song i listen to every year. i won't allow myself to listen to christmas music before thanksgiving, and usually at some time on black friday, i'll pull out this song and put it on. i think my love for this one goes back to a 4th grade chorus concert.
1) "rockin' around the christmas tree", brenda lee: we didn't have this song on LP as kids, but it certainly got its fair share of radio airplay. i always liked it a little, but after "home alone", it became my favorite song of the season. (that movie for me is a classic, and i absolutely love the scene with him dancing by the tree to this song, with his bb gun over his shoulder and the cardboard cutouts moving by on the toy train.) never feel more christmasy than when i'm swingin' to this song.

honorable mentions: "do they know it's christmas", band aid, "twelve days of christmas", john denver and the muppets (by far the absolute best version of this song- "BA-DUM-BUM-BUM"), "i saw three ships", sting

intentionally left off: "white christmas", bing crosby (see above), "little drummer boy/peace on earth", david bowie and bing crosby (got nuthin' but love for bing, but this song just doesn't do it for me), "father christmas", the kinks (fun, but not fun enough)

if you managed to get through all that, and still care enough to leave a comment with your top few, be my guest. remember, though- my blog. i always win.