Jacked Up Friday

First Friday Calling

I’m just taking just a quick break between Pahlaniuk books this time so I knocked out a couple of Diane Capri short stories yesterday.  I wrote about her earlier in the blog.  She’s creating her own series of stories about Lee Childs’ redoubtable Jack Reacher.  These two stories presented two vignettes about the pair of FBI agents trying to track him down.  They were entertaining if a bit farfetched.   Somehow they are allowed to see a video showing Jack’s latest rescue of a damsel in distress just minutes after it happened by a shadowy government agency.   They even catch another shadowy glimpse of Mr. Reacher.  I enjoyed the stories because it helps bridge the time until the next real Reacher is published; next week!  In other Reacher news I saw the first preview for the movie called Jack Reacher this week.  I cannot believe they honestly believe Tom Cruise can portray Jack Reacher.  Reacher is supposed to be six foot five and 240 pounds of dangerous, implacable human being.  Cruise is about half that but he’s surprised me before.  If he pulls off a believable Jack Reacher he deserves an Oscar.  In other news I’ve been trying to shrug off an infected thumb for the last few days.  I caught an edge with a finger nail and then just stripped it off.  There was a little blood but I didn’t think anything of it until I noticed a couple days later that it was swollen a little and shot intense pain up my arm every time I touched anything with it.  It’s amazing how much you use a thumb for; something you take for granted until it hurts every time you use it.  It is the primary digit I use for the space bar when typing so this is being typed a whole lot slower than my usual semi-blistering pace (heavy sarcasm in play here).  I made the mistake again of mentioning it to my wife and she went into full medical crisis mode with my thumb being soaked, abraded, and then lathered with antibiotic cream.  She pronounced a full recovery is possible after the obligatory lecture on my idiocy.  After work last evening my boss and I headed over to Brew City to mark the First Friday of the Week.  It had been a couple of weeks but our table was available however there was a new waitress who carried on her predecessor’s talents in every area.  My wife was all decked out for our Friday date when I got home.  I tried to capture a picture of her as she was descending the stairs.  It came out fuzzy but trust me, she was a vision.  We headed out for the magically imbued Zorba’s pizza and I made a concerted effort to be more communicative.  My wife is extremely vocal and we had slipped into a mode where I let her do all the talking.  This led to my mind wandering and checking out the sports on the ubiquitous screens around the restaurant.  It’s funny how women tend to notice these small peccadilloes in behavior.   I think this blog has energized me a little bit, maybe it’s the self-examination but I made a conscious effort to do better.  I even started a couple of conversations this time.  I found it made for a much better evening for both of us and left my wife amazed; not a bad thing.

Trust me - She Looked Great!

The Offending Thumb