The Other Woman.

Sadly it happens with many couples. Out of nowhere an intruder comes into your life and without warning, nothing is ever the same again. It happened in the Beland household. It’s true. The other woman, we’ll call her Elise. She’s wonderful, patient and oh so even tempered. Elise is the name I gave my GPS system by the way. And without her, I still might be driving around Washington DC, muttering to myself “There’s the Capital…again.”

There are certain traits I took from my father; a love of nature, a lack of hair, and a usually keen sense of direction. That all comes to a halt when I have to wander between Baltimore and Northern Virginia for work. They have inner loops, outer loops and loopty loops. There’s the occasional north-south parkway that runs east and west, and then my favorite road, the Baltimore-Washington Beltway. I have yet to find Baltimore or Washington on this road. In defeat, I broke down and did something I thought I would never do, and that is I bought a GPS system.

It was a low point in my directionally challenged journey. Then the voice appeared. Quiet yet confident, always two miles ahead of the next guy. Even when I messed up, Elise was there to softly add “make a lee-gel u-turn in .4 miles.” We got to really know each other while stuck on the Delaware Bridge, interspersing her road knowledge with the occasional “gas and facilities in 1 mile.” I must admit, I was smitten.

Of course like any new relationship, reality has a way of bringing you back down to earth. Somewhere around exit 16 of the New Jersey thruway, the phone rang. It was my wife, asking where I was and when might I arrive home. The conversation snacked with reality.
“Where are you?”
“I’m in New Jersey, and guess what?”
“What.”
“I have a new girlfriend.”
“I see…good for you. And she would be….”
“It’s my GPS system.”
“Well as long as she gets you home I guess. And maybe she could direct you to a place that sells milk. We’re out.”

I know, your reading this thinking “his poor wife.” Well she is not all sweet and pure in this relationship either. There are times when I travel for work and she is less than innocent. And it’s not just one name I might add, but two. Their names – Ben and Jerry. And I thought she was just being cute when she called me her “Chubby Hubby.” I started to become suspicious when she slipped and called me her “Chunky Monkey.” I hate monkeys and enough with the weight jokes.

There’s hope for us yet. I suggested she spend some time with Elise. Get to know her. Maybe miss an exit and really bond. Go for as long as you like. With a little luck the entire family can go on vacation together, and Elise can tell us where the local Ben and Jerry’s might be. Talk about an open marriage.

From Slovenia...With Love!

I received a rather interesting surprise tonight. In reviewing statistics for my fledgling blog, I found out that with the exception of the United States, I have generated more interest in the country of Slovenia than anywhere else.

Before I hire a P.R. agent, let’s keep things in perspective. The total number of hits from this small European Country…it’s in Europe right…is seven. Not 1,700 hundred but seven.

Seriously, why? I can see it now, some fur trapping family just waiting for my next blog. “Boris, American guy talking about Minute Rice…What is this Minute Rice?”

Here is what else I found. If I needed to go for a book signing, pending the writing of a book, I can fly from Boston (Hartford does not go to Slovenia direct) to a place called Ljubljana, Slovenia for approximately $1,600. This seems like a deal to me as I recently had to fly to Daytona for close to $900. Ljubljana is also known as the city of “Wine and Vine.” This means they were probably under the influence while reading my stuff.

I’ll let you know when the fan mail starts to come in. I’m not holding my breath though. I hear their mail carrier has the flu…I’ll stop. OK OK One more…Knock Knock..whose there…Slovenian guy…

Blame it on Minute Rice

At a recent concert, I had the fortunate opportunity to be within 20 feet of the stage. The band played, people danced and whooped it up, and the venue was pretty much a wall of sound. And then the second song started. Lesser amounts of whooping it up took place and countless concert goers felt the need to text, tweet, or email right there on the spot. Total attention time: 3minutes and 45 seconds. The remaining 120 minutes of the show was a combination of “Yeah, great song,” followed by “who in the world can I tell it’s a great song.” Of course, countless photos were added in for good measure. As I watched this, I realized that we are a country with the general attention span of a fire fly on coffee. How did this happen, and who started this sad spiral downward? After a night of pondering, I have found the answer. MINUTE RICE!

Yes Minute Rice. It was invented in 1949 and produced by General Mills. It is now owned by Kraft. Minute Rice, taste withstanding, was basically the Industrial World’s way of saying. “Your time is too important for yummy rice, and who needs to stand over a stove for 20 minutes.” The ironic part is that it takes more than a minute to cook it. What’s up with that? No matter, the sinister seed (or grain in this instance) was planted. Focus and concentration are no longer needed. I’m pretty sure the Kung Fu TV show in the 70’s had an episode about this, but my lack of focus is preventing me from researching this little known fact.

It gets worse. From there, Microwavable Minute Rice was introduced. For people who don’t have the time or focus power to boil water, you now can microwave your minute rice. Today’s leaders were the children of the Minute Rice revolution. Need I say more…

There are others in this conspiracy. In 1957, Zenith developed something called the “Lazy Bones.” It soon became what we know as the Television remote control. This allows us the opportunity to change the channel over and over, which is good because we have to do something with all the free time that Minute Rice has provided for us. Space constraints do not allow me to go further into the history of Jiffy Pop. If you think the two are not connected, you are sadly mistaken!

My other concern is what is expected down the road. You know when we look back and say nostalgically, “Remember the days when we had to wait just a minute or two for rice? Ah, those were the days.” This may be followed by “Honey. hook up the Minute Mental Telepathy Unit and create some dinner.” I could go on and on, but I need to now focus on something else. I’ve spent 17 minutes writing this, and I’m exhausted. Oh look someone tweeted to me. Got to go…