I'm Back

No, I have not forgotten about my blog, and yes I will post a typical Kellie's World piece again soon (I'm working on something right now). In the mean time, I have to tell you how upset I am that my post on Johnny Depp has jumped to the top of the list of my most popular posts. It's not even a good post; it's just the subject matter that's making it pop on Google searches. I'm tempted to delete it. 

Death By Marriage

Today's guest post is an excerpt from blogger and author Scott Bartlett's new novel Royal Flush. In this vignette, the Wisest King Alive is getting ready for his wedding ceremony. I think the same man presided over my nuptials.

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The Wisest King Alive buttoned his tuxedo lethargically. His beard flowed absurdly over the front.

“Tuck it back like this,” Eliza suggested. She had been fussing with his facial hair for the past hour.

Whose bag is this?

Photo Credit

Why am I the one who has to carry the marital aid through airport security? I’m not the one who needs it. Hell, I don’t even need Kellie’s company on my own personal pleasure journey. I’m perfectly capable of handling my own travel arrangements, and when I travel alone, I can arrive anytime I please, though I do prefer it when Kellie gives me a ride. 

On more than a few occasions, the TSA agent has spotted something suspicious in my luggage, triggering a public search of my carryon bag. I think they do it for the entertainment value. You can’t tell me that they don’t x-ray at least a thousand pocket rockets a day. Security agents know exactly what things look like and they are not dangerous unless you encounter severe turbulence and accidentally poke someone’s eye out. They just want to watch you cringe when they waive the damn thing around. Kellie could have purchased a nondescript beige appliance, but no, she had to choose the flaming red model with a cubic zirconia encrusted periphery that dazzles the eye and makes everyone’s head swivel trying to locate the source of brilliantly flashing light.

Beyond my periodic tuneup, we’ve set some ambitious goals for our Alaskan cruise. On those days when we don’t leave the ship for an excursion, we'll be doing morning and afternoon workouts; there will be no pigging-out at the buffet trough, and we’ll both be doing some reading. I’ve selected three light pieces for myself: the August edition of Foreign Affairs, The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy, and Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story. Kellie didn’t bring any books so I’ve made a selection for her, something a little deeper than pulp I’ve chosen for myself. She’ll be reading Fifty Shades of Grey.

I downloaded the entire trilogy for her a few weeks ago after her friend Melissa sent her a text about the book. Melissa was so captivated by the story that she sat in bed reading till almost two in the morning. After finally putting the book down, she jerked her husband up for a little late night literary romp. David welcomed his wife’s new nocturnal energy and enthusiasm, but the benefit was short lived. Melissa finished the entire trilogy in less than a week. Luckily for me, Kellie is a slow reader. 
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Another post for the dudes at Dude Write.

Divorce

 Sharks Cove on Oahu
courtesy of TripAdvisor

You wouldn’t have known it by looking at me, but I was miserable. Instead of going home to my wife and children after a day of working on the ship, I spent a couple of hours at the gym to avoid returning to my empty apartment. Each night I'd drink a bottle of wine and numb myself to sleep. In the morning I would wake up and repeat the same lonely routine all over again. Eight months had passed since I separated from my wife. Tomorrow I would be appearing before the family court judge for the last time. My divorce would be final, dropping a painful milestone on an unhappy period in my life. Rather than picking up the bottle again, I grabbed a towel and headed down to the hot tub.

Road Rage

Source

Yesterday I had the pleasure of driving 733 miles from Park City, UT, to my home in Oceanside, CA. Many of you were on the road with me and some of you really pissed me off. If I were six inches taller I’d drag you from your pickup truck and whack you in the head with the wrist brace protecting my arthritic right hand. I don’t know what candy store issued your drivers license but some of you need a little refresher course on the rules of the road.

Turn The Ship Around

There are occasions when I’m not in a very good mood and I just may be a bit negative. Kellie might say that the occasions when I’m not negative are as infrequent as Haley’s Comet – that’s if she had any clue about astronomy. But Kellie has a remedy for adjusting my emotional state, she calls it smile therapy. She insists that I grin for 30 seconds, and before 30 seconds can pass, I’m laughing, and the bad mood and contrary attitude have evaporated. Kellie intuitively understands that you cannot not maintain a negative attitude or foul mood while behaving in a joyful manner.

You Should Have Known Better

You know, I don’t write these posts for my own benefit. There’s valuable information here that could save you from considerable misery and hardship. For example, if you want to know how to avoid maiming your genitals, checkout The Serrano Pepper Incident. If you think your wife may be trying to kill you, read A Series Of Unfortunate Events. Or, if you can’t understand why your husband never seems to listen to you, then remediate your science knowledge by studying Evolution: Why Men Don't Listen. 

With all the lessons I’ve shared with the blogosphere, you might think that my own wife would actually learn something from me, but sadly she as not. It seems that she failed to gain a thing from Read The Label, Obey The Label, which clearly explains the hazards of confusing sleeping pills with laxatives.  Like me, Kellie sometimes suffers from a little congestion while traveling, so before our six hour hike up and down the Virgin River in Utah’s Zion National Park, she decided to take a stool softener to help ease things along. Instead, she accidentally took a sleeping pill.

Don’t make the same mistake Kellie made; keep reading Living in Kellie’s World and take these lessons seriously.

Doing It With Regularity

Kellie and my oldest daughter both vetoed this post when I first wrote it about a year ago, so it went unpublished. It may be Kellie's World, but it's Joe's Blog, and I'm posting it. I know full well there's a price to be paid for such brash independence.

Summer Vacation Time Is Here

Kellie's Blogging Court

Some bloggers blog anonymously. Well, it's probably no secret that I've taken the full public disclosure route for Living in Kellie’s World.  Not totally though; Kellie still has veto authority, and so far she's only exercised it once – to reject my post about certain bodily functions that sometimes go awry while traveling. But I didn't delete it. The draft is still sitting there waiting for me to say "screw it" and publish it anyway. And since I’m finding it very difficult to write during the summer, the urge to override her veto is very tempting. Too bad she’s also in charge of the Supreme Court.

We leave for our summer vacation on Saturday, and in the past, vacations have been good fodder for my blog. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. In case you missed them, here are some of the escapades from past vacations.

The French Holiday 
The French Holiday – Part 2
Love and Marriage
A Series of Unfortunate Events 

Wish me luck.

Auntie Linda

Today's story isn't a typical Kellie's World piece, but when I sat down to write, this is what came out.

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Top to Bottom: Linda, Joe and Tony

Call me Auntie Linda she insisted. That was difficult because she was only two-and-a-half years older than me. My mother’s only sibling felt more like my sister than my aunt. Linda lived on Essex Street with my grandparents, and I lived on Ridgewood Avenue with my immediate family. We were only a few blocks apart, walking distance for Brooklyn back in the early sixties. Living so close, we saw each other frequently, and while we played well together most of the time, occasionally we fought. When she pissed me off I’d pound my fist in her back, smack between her shoulder blades, taking her breath away. Then my mother and grandmother would argue about who was at fault.