Beware of hip book reviewers in boxy-framed glasses. I read a raft of glowing book reviews of Life by Keith Richards in the New Yorker and the Times, etc. so broke my 3-buck-a-book rule and plunked down 17 dollars for the degenerate rocker's life story. Unbelievable to me that not one of these reviewers called Keef on his unmitigated BS. Every other page he's bragging about what a tough guy he is--"had to show him the blade" and other crap like that. Have you seen Keith Richards? He's a shriveled up string bean. Hard for me to believe anyone would fall for his tough guy talk if he wasn't flanked by body guards. Plus all the good stuff, like how he and his girlfriend were propositioned by Marlon Brando, was in the reviews. So I really didn't need to read the book. Well, as promised, I will ship it off to Alice--and be glad to have this time-wasting tome out of my life!

You see how the icicles practically touch the ground? Quite the tableau, I'd say, and makes you that more appreciative of the toasty fire. Nice way to decompress from the work-week, sitting by the stove and enjoying a poor man's latte.

Here's an odd development: I have a black eye and Cara didn't even punch me or anything. What gives? Am I being jabbed by some phantom boxer? Was I so wiped out from those mountain climbers that I fell on my thumb? The body breaks down with no provocation; but what's a bloke to do? I wish my family had stayed in England--then I could call myself a bloke without sounding like a poseur.

Haven't heard from my brother or my sister this week, and I seem to miss them more every weekend. There used to be a tape of Max and me speaking to each other with our little British accents--how I wish that hadn't got lost to the tides. Now Judy has given us a tape of Jessie reading a book when she was about six years old. I haven't listened to it yet, but I'm pretty sure it will set off a paroxysm of bittersweet tears.

Soon it will be Christmas and I'll have my three beautiful cuddly children home around the artificial pink shag tree I'm moments away from purchasing from Amazon.com--marked down to $34.95 from 99 dollars. And free shipping!

It's good to be kitcshy... in moderation.

When you eat at a place like this you must be punished. Of course, it was a week ago now that I ate there--first place Cara and I hit on the road--but it wouldn't surprise me if the sludge is still running through my veins.

So anyway, Jake didn't do anything wrong--no reason for him to suffer; but it's all about timing, don't you know. He happened to walk through the door (just home for tonight) at the exact moment I was about to begin my cheap-motel-room-workout in the comfort of my living room. Jake now calls it "Dad's crazy workout." Whatever.

Here's what we did:
Squats with 25 lb. barbells at each shoulder. 10 sets x 10 reps.
Burpees. As many as you can do in 30 seconds. 10 sets.
Bicycle situps. As many as you can do in 30 seconds. 5 sets.
Atomic situps. As many as you can do in 30 seconds. 5 sets.
Moutain climbers. Non-stop for 30 seconds. 3 sets.
Pull-ups. 12 reps x 3 sets.

Then you drink the smoothie, eat the eggs and curl up on the couch.

A crowd of kids hangs out in my office every day at snack time. This morning they were talking about plowing snow with their 4-wheelers, so of course I had to tell them about my magnificent Wovel. At the end of the day one of them stopped in to give me a new sign for my office. Not bad, ey?

As I waited to board my plane on Friday there was a report on the blaring TV that people were stuck on I-90 in Buffalo for 20 hours due to the "lake effect" storm. This, of course, was the exact route Cara and I would be traveling. But luck was with us all the way: we skirted one storm after another. Cleveland, Erie, Buffalo: we dodged them all. And then, still rolling 6's, we woke up to a snow day. After 24 hours of driving, we needed it. Plus I got to try out the Wovel (pictured above); it did a stellar job, as you can see below. It's a bit time-consuming, but the advertising is true: you can move a ton of snow with no sore back. It is a workout, though, which in my book is a good thing.

You won't have Birch Wisdom to blame for your boredom for the next few days. I'm going on my whirlwind tour of the Rust Belt. Yeah, me and the little lady will be tooling back to Maine in Grandma Easy's silver bullet. Hail to the turbo!

View from the dooryard, post grunting and groaning in the woods. You people probably heard of my sister's 3-day fast--awe-inspiring, if perhaps on the kooky side. Well, in my current bachelorhood I decided to try out my own program of self-denial. A bit ironic, I guess, since it's when the wife is away that you should feel free to gorge on greasy cheeseburgers. At any rate, I've spent the last couple of days essentially subsisting on green smoothies. The thing of it is, though, it's so tasty that the "suffering" is a treat. The recipe is as follows (you'll notice there are no measurements; I just dump stuff into the blender):
frozen blueberries
banana
frozen spinach
fat-free yogurt
pomegranate juice

I'm not sure if somebody could puff me up more than Camille with her last comment--though it was really Cara and Jessie who engendered the compliment-fest. I remember that picture of Jessie and me on the swing. I believe I might have once had a framed copy of it--or do I just remember seeing the photo at Jaime and Lorena's? I wish I had it in digital format so I could put it on the blog. If I could go back in time and sit on that swing with Jessie in my lap... makes me want to cry.