Well, I couldn’t even get through the first month and keep to my ‘every Tuesday blog’ goal. I think I was hesitant to return here again because I know that I need to write what’s weighing on my mind right now, and I’m not sure many of you will want to read it. (Oh it’s one of those Grief and Loss blogs again…ho hum.) I guess I’m hoping that for all of those people who lost somebody during these past few unforgiving years, maybe some of the topics I touch upon will resonate with them. Or for those fortunate not to be facing loss during such a dark period, I think I’m secretly hoping that it might help them understand us a little better or enlighten them. Since I can remember, comedy and tragedy have gone hand in hand. I’ve watched a lot of dark comedy growing up, and I believe at the root of most comedic moments is something rather sad, disappointing or downright disturbing. Think of your typical outtakes or funniest falls and stupidest stunts clip programs. What makes us laugh the hardest? The 1-year-old who can’t hold his head up well enough without plopping his whole face in the birthday cake. Grandpa getting smacked in the knee by the toddler with the baseball bat. The bride and groom traversing the dance floor until they get caught up in her dress and tumble to the floor like bad slapstick. I didn’t realize this second time around mourning a loved one that the looming gloom of death would also be accompanied by outright goofy thoughts and comedic moments. Death isn’t supposed to be funny, right? But when admittedly one of the first thoughts in your head is ‘Oh no, she’s not going to get to find out who won Dancing with the Stars,’ well, there’s something a little bent in your perspective – don’t you think? I really did think that to myself. Oh and the other dumbass thought – “she didn’t get to find out which couples stayed together and who asked for a divorce on Married at First Sight. (Yes, I really did have that thought.) When I was starting to pack up my dad’s room of too much stuff, I paused when I got to the Boggle and Quiddler word games and thought to myself – ‘I’ve lost my other word game buddy. No more Boggle and Quiddler.’ I think I teared up. At THAT thought. I really did. Why do we have goofy thoughts about what truly are insignificant matters? I think it’s that slow dawning of the new reality. The peripheral stuff — the games you played, the shows you talked about, favorite dishes, scheduled calls, the sweet notes you received in the mail — they were a big part of your interaction and when the person you loved suddenly goes away, you quickly realize that these shared experiences go with them. and your world feels blander. Sometimes to distract us from the dark and gloomy thoughts, we focus on the silly because it keeps us moving in a forward direction instead of gathering into a ball and sleeping all day. A friend started to help me earlier this week, working to pack up the kitchen, and I’m finding myself rediscovering my folks all over...
read moreFirst of all, I want to thank everyone who left a kind and thoughtful comment on my last blog or on my Facebook post sharing the blog link. It was my first entry in about two years and it meant a lot that the subject matter connected with so many of you. I appreciate you letting me use this platform to share what the past two years have been like and I hope also to motivate others who went through loss during this time to open up in some way, either to others or to themselves through whatever means feels most comfortable with them. We don’t have to totally relate to one another about loss to make an effort to understand someone and empathize with what they are going through. And it’s always a soft, gentle reminder that if we’re not going through the same thing right now, we will at some point in our lives. Let’s learn from each other now to prepare ourselves for that future day. So this blog title — what the hell could that possibly mean? I haven’t eaten a Cheeto in nearly 90 days. Big deal, you probably are saying to yourself. Well, you first have to know that I have loved Cheetos since I can remember the delightful first crunch and that joyous experience as a kid of taking our orange-dust coated fingers and leaving our trail wherever we might travel through the house or my favorite part – across various important documents like homework or cards we’re preparing to send and discovering these lovely orange imprints after the fact. This blog isn’t about snacks, though I could write a tome to challenge Ayn Rand. What it is about are those unexpected, lingering effects of losing somebody or in my case, the not so forgettable experience of finding someone you love has passed at their home. Whenever we hear about someone being found dead at their home, especially if it’s someone we care about, a lot of us might think or say aloud, well, I hope they passed peacefully in their sleep. I always worried after my dad died, if I might stop by to visit my mom on my day off one day and find my mom had passed. It was my greatest fear. She lived alone, didn’t see a lot of other people on a regular basis, so unless I had just spoken with her, it was a legitimate fear based on this new reality. The last time I saw my dad it was after I had picked up my mom at home after the paramedics took him to the nearest hospital. When we arrived, they escorted us to a small room and I knew immediately what they were going to tell us. Sure, he could be in a coma or something not quite as final, but I had a feeling ever since I spoke to the police officer on the phone who stressed with urgency in his voice that I needed to come immediately in the middle of the night to get my mom and accompany her to the hospital. I heard right then what was about to happen or who knows? May have already happened. Next, we were taken to a room to say our goodbyes, and I...
read moreIt’s been a while since I’ve blogged. I’ve written articles over the past 3 or 4 years but I haven’t written anything just for me – FROM me. Not on a regular basis or at any great length. I’ve had the desire to put my fingers on the keyboard and speak up about major events happening in the world, about life changes and personal heartache, and yet every time I’ve felt a rush of inspiration, I’ve extinguished it just as quickly. The last time I blogged, it was the morning of January 6, 2021. I probably don’t need to remind you what happened that day in American history. You would think it would immediately light a fire under my ass and I’d be typing away about the insanity unfolding on my TV screen, but instead I just watched it in anguish, shock, and anger at these cretins storming the Capitol. Wait. Cretins is too kind a word. So why didn’t I blog? Later that day in 2021? I blogged as it was starting to happen and then nothing more about it. And what happened to me in 2020? I could blame the pandemic. That seemed to shut down a lot of us. Much of my silence has been due to energy level – mine has been a lot lower for both health and time management reasons. But probably the biggest reason of all has been dealing with something up until then I haven’t really been faced with much in 50+ years. Death. In April 2020, I lost my Dad. In October 2022, I lost Mom, too. This photo is from Christmas time in 2019, the last season we got to celebrate with the two of them together. In the photo, Dad had just been declared the champion of that particular Boggle game. We took word games very seriously in the Cantos household. But there was always time for goofing around, as long as my Dad was somewhere nearby. So, yep, it’s been a pretty shitty decade so far, if you ask me, especially if you throw the pandemic and Capitol storming into the mix. Death isn’t something I’ve blogged about much. It’s not something many of my friends or family like to talk about either. It’s like religion and politics. We’re told that we should probably not go into too much detail. I’ve lost grandparents over the years and of course, mourned their loss. I had a close friend commit suicide when I was 18 and learned about it two days after I graduated high school. As you might imagine, that fucked me up pretty good mentally for a while and still pops into my head often. Up until 2020, the greatest loss I ever suffered that truly hit me hard was the loss of my first dog Dexter in 2013. And I have blogged about him before a few times. But that didn’t really prepare me for the rollercoaster which started to roll in June 2019, the last time my dad got really sick and went in the hospital not once but twice over the next six months. When he wasn’t undergoing surgeries and chemo to fight a very rare cancer, bile duct cancer or biliary cancer, he was taking a fall at home and breaking a hip,...
read moreWell, I intended to blog regularly in 2020. Maybe I would not be successful at blogging every day but I was hoping to blog weekly at least. So I did blog. On January 5, 2020. And then, well, life happened and I never blogged again all year long. What happened was 2020. Travel, socializing and life as we all knew it came to a standstill. A sweeping global pandemic entered the picture and not only took so many people from us, but took away our sense of comfort, freedom to move about and live our lives as we wish, and normalcy of schedule, habits and traditions. The year took me away from my co-workers and office and relocated me and my work to my couch, my dining room table and my home office to carry out my clerical responsibilities. And I’m one of the lucky ones fortunate enough to get to continue doing my job, unlike so many out of work. For me personally, 2020 also meant the loss of someone really important to me, my dad, and its huge, life-changing impact on the lives of his wife and daughter ever since. I planned to blog yesterday in honor of the 1-year anniversary since my last blog. Then I decided to write a few paragraphs today. And now I sit with the TV on nearby showing Trump supporters storming the U.S. Capitol building and driving the members of both houses of Congress into the tunnels and cloakrooms nestled inside the building as they attempt to protect themselves from potential danger and violence. As of this writing, Maryland has sent state police in to finally assist an emaciated and overwhelmed Capitol police force. I find myself experiencing so many emotions – anger, distress, sadness, and awe at the audacity of protesters kicking in windows of the U.S. Capitol and storming through the hallways and into members’ offices. I will continue to watch the news as you probably are right now, but I wonder what will happen as evening approaches. Will they remain and hold the building hostage or will law and order be restored? What message is this sending out to other groups for taking action into their own hands? And how is this demonstration of complete anarchy being perceived by the rest of the world, the people we align with in business, in scientific research and in global matters like the environment, world economy and human rights-related developments impacting all of us? Has the U.S. just turned a page to a new, much darker chapter? I wonder and I fear this greatly. ~ C....
read moreYou can follow me online at Instagram for my #dailypics, on Facebook for quips, observations and pop culture commentary and on Twitter for a little bit of everything including micropoetry and Thoughts from the Twitterverse like this below. As always, thanks for reading! — Chris K. This is a year we can all do better, whatever that looks like to us. I’m committed to the pursuit of happiness and believe we define and redefine that over a lifetime. Those who want to hop on the train with me have a seat saved. Not interested? That’s fine, too. #twitterverse (go on… click on the pic…) ...
read moreYou can follow me online at Instagram for my #dailypics, on Facebook for quips, observations and pop culture commentary and on Twitter for a little bit of everything including micropoetry, Thoughts from the Twitterverse including Haiku for You. As always, thanks for reading! — Chris K. Arrayed in new threads, One year arrives as one flees. What will we learn next? #twitterverse #haikuforyou #HappyNewYears Day...
read moreYou can follow me online at Instagram for my #dailypics, on Facebook for quips, observations and pop culture commentary and on Twitter for a little bit of everything including micropoetry and Thoughts from the Twitterverse like this below. As always, thanks for reading! — Chris K. Wishing everyone a beautiful new year of unexpected opportunities and second chances, love and friendship, forgiveness and kindness, and plenty of new discoveries in books, music, film and other arts. Catch ya on the flip side. #twitterverse (image source, unknown) ...
read moreThis week wraps up this year’s movie viewing for me and with it, the end of my #MovieMondays feature here on the blog, so it was important to me that I went out with a bang. To do this, I picked two movies that have received quite a bit of discussion and high praise released via Netflix yet also appearing in movie theaters in order to qualify for the award season. Will one or both of these films live up to the hype? You will have to read this blog to find out. My movie review blog days are far from over. I’m simply not declaring a particular day movie review day and will not be doing full reviews of everything I see, only the ones I choose to talk in great detail about, but I’ll be sharing my movie ratings for other films seen throughout the year. As always thanks for reading this week and every week, all year long. ~ Chris K. FILMS VIEWED WEEK OF 12/23/2019 – 12/29/2019 *click on photos to enlarge 111. The Irishman Biography, Crime, Drama (2019) Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci I will admit from the start that I am not a die-hard Martin Scorsese fan. I do happen to love a few of his films, in particular THE DEPARTED (2006) and GOODFELLAS (1990). However, I find some of his most acclaimed early work overrated, especially TAXI DRIVER (1976) and although I appreciate the acting and the cinematography of RAGING BULL (1980), I find it taxing to sit through. But I have found as Scorsese got older, I appreciated his choices and growing confidence as a director. So that brings me to his latest effort which has a running time of 209 minutes. I won’t lie, that fact did scare me. But just like an extra-long book, if the material is compelling, I’m not that easily scared, not if the work or the artist behind the work has a good track record or there is an incredible cast of actors to watch and enjoy. So why did this film underwhelm me so much? I keep asking myself that this morning. I think my biggest complaint about the Irishman is I felt like I had seen this tale before. It was called THE GODFATHER (1972) directed by Francis Ford Coppola and the storytelling was far more interesting and much tighter in its delivery. This film has a very slow pace with a multitude of characters introduced to us in a way that honestly seems confusing compared to other similar films like Scorsese’s own GOODFELLAS but who makes each character stand apart from the next. Conversations are loooooong and rambling, and by the midpoint of the film, I began to wonder if the film would surprise me in any way. The fact is it didn’t. Not really. Acting was good, but frankly some of the performers seemed like they were sleepwalking through it themselves, like they too felt they had done this before. I’m sad to say this isn’t on my best list. It’s not on my worst list either, but it’s disappointing to me. Score: 79 112. Marriage Story Drama, Comedy, Romance (2019) Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, Laura...
read moreYou can follow me online at Instagram for my #dailypics, on Facebook for quips, observations and pop culture commentary and on Twitter for a little bit of everything including micropoetry and Thoughts from the Twitterverse like this below. As always, thanks for reading! — Chris K. We can dwell on all we didn’t accomplish this year or we can look forward to a new year where everything is still possible. I like the latter option. You? :)) x #twitterverse (art source, unknown) ...
read moreYou can follow me online at Instagram for my #dailypics, on Facebook for quips, observations and pop culture commentary and on Twitter for a little bit of everything including micropoetry and Thoughts from the Twitterverse like this below. As always, thanks for reading! — Chris K. We are not a by-product of our relationships but a quilt made with fabric from all of the people who have woven themselves into our life. Trying to unwind the past out may be impossible but the good news: our present and future are always works in progress. #twitterverse (art source, Lisa Call) ...
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