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Showing posts from October, 2022

Flash Fiction: Kimchi

 Mental note to self:   Kat kidneys Kimchi with egg whites and hot sauce should be avoided if you have hemorrhoids and one is taking Plavix. 

The ABC Murders

The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie My rating: 4 of 5 stars Another excellent novel by Agatha Christie. It is dark in a certain way. The killing of individuals in alphabetical order and using an epileptic as Patsy. When I read books like these I see a certain pattern. I've been reading more mystery than science fiction as of late. After all, I got to stimulate my own little grey cells. But as I mentioned before I read many books at the same time. I am actually reading a science fiction novel. It is quite long. I am also reading my astrophysics books my philosophy books and of course the Bible. Not that I will profit from any of them but as I mentioned many times before if I can get my mind occupied then I won't be a pain in the rear to my family. View all my reviews

Cardiopulmonary Rehab I

Yesterday I officially started my cardiopulmonary rehab. The gym reminded me of when I used to go to LA fitness about 20 years ago. " piece of cake" I said. The session was just an hour when I was done I thought to myself "I just don't learn". The place is more than a gym it is a rehab and you don't have personal trainers you have physical therapists.  I do like modern technical gadgets. You get to wear a heart monitor smaller than a cigarette package I guess it works with Bluetooth. And a computer keeps in contact with your heart all the time. The physical therapist measures your blood pressure at the beginning, during, and end of the session. This time I only worked out on two machines. One machine is called a nustep, it is like a sit-down elliptical machine. You start off with 5 minutes to warm up, then you exercise on the device for 15 minutes. Of course, I started low at level 1 just doing 70 spm.  Afterward, my blood pressure was measured and it was no

Procrastinations

I  have been putting things off for as long as there have been things to do and we all have things to do. I tell myself I do it when I am older when I have more time when the Winter comes( I am a Winter person). I will do it tomorrow. And yet… The Bible rebukes this tendency,    “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.” reads James 4:13. “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”  Speak out about the things you think are important (Not on FB or in the congregation, speaking out will end you up in FB jail or a loss of privilege, and sometime that would be permanent whether just or not. Stop sweating things that don’t matter. Stop deferring what you have always wanted to do—stop deferring what you know you were meant to do, what you know is right to do. Don’t be arrogant. Be humble. Realize you cannot assume you will get six more months, let alone six more years.

Exception

It is an anime series that I found on Netflix. For some reason when I did the research on the show it called it a horror show but it is more science fiction. Just when I thought I'd seen it all in science fiction and anime related to science fiction I have to say that this one caught me off guard. It has some concepts that I thought about briefly and the artwork is pretty good. I have to say that is also a mystery. It does have some colorful language but I would put it in the PG-13 area. If you do see it let me know what you think.

The old ways...

  As I recover, I feel more energetic. So I try to do a little more.  Then reality sits in. I walk more, and I do well, but then, I get tired and winded. I am already gravitating to return to the in-person meetings. But the side effects of the Lasix, have kept me housebound. So why did I mention the old ways?. As I was growing up, using the bathroom if not needed or too much, was considered a lack of respect for Jehovah. Most of the time, we would use the bathroom during the song. We had special needs talks about using the bathroom during the song. the songs were considered prayers. The sisters would get a break because they had more needs than men, personal hygiene, taking their infants, congregational gossip and we even had special needs talk for them. Therefore, if you were to have explosive diarrhea, then well... use the bathroom. I have 2 fewer veins in my legs, so my feet will swell, and the Lasix removes the water and I urinate more. But I am still a JW with an image to maintain

What some people see

  “It’s tough to be alive now,” the actor Timothée Chalamet recently said. “I think a societal collapse is in the air — it smells like it.” The economist Deirdre McCloskey once put it, “For reasons I have never understood, people like to hear that the world is going to hell.” But is it?   One may be alarmed about the state of the world. Perhaps you’re horrified at the risks and dangers that lurk about—pandemics, political chaos, riots, people at each other’s throats, unprecedented events. Perhaps you’re getting a strong whiff of societal collapse. The Bible says the following: 2 Timothy 3:1-4 New International Version 3 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—  Marc
The Return of the Black Widowers by Isaac Asimov My rating: 4 of 5 stars Isaac Asimov is known for writing science fiction books but he dabbled in different types of genres. He was a professor of biochemistry at Boston University and wrote many nonfiction-related science books. I had the opportunity to read some of his science books but when it came to fiction well I kept to his science fiction repertoire, I know most of his sci-fi novels by memory, but not all sci-fi short stories. They are many. Since I am housebound I took an interest in reading his mysteries. I started reading "The Return of the Black Widowers". Apparently, there were more "Black Widowers" short stories that I wasn't aware of. I will try to fetch them. Come to think of it, Maybe in the future, I will try to read all of Asimov's books. After a bit of research it seems, Asimov was a member himself of NYC "Trap doors Spiders" which was a debaters club and dinner male-only dinne
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is actually the first Novel. After decades of reading mysteries and sci-fi, some stories are predictable. Aside from Hercule Poirot novels from Agatha Christie, I am also reading The Black Widowers series By Isaac Asimov. These are all mysteries :-) You may have read my Question on FB. "How do your Justify your existence?" One gues of where I got the question from ;-) View all my reviews

Shoes and Clowns

 The circus clown, at times, will wear big shoes to give him a funny walk. Clowns are supposed to make you laugh but what exactly is a clown? The etymology of a clown is varied but the basic definition is that of a poor farmer, In the American circus it could be a hobo or tramp, and when performing, people are laughing at the ignorance and stupidity of the clown (don't believe me? when you are on social media start replying to everything your friends write with the clown emoji, trust me your circle of friends will drop). Many of us have heard the Axiom: " walk in other people's shoes..." this is said to create some sort of empathy among those who are passing through certain difficulties in life. Some shoes are actually "hand-me-downs" the eldest in a family gets the shoes and once they don't fit, the next child in line gets them. It may even come from a family member like a cousin. The poor may even get their shoes from a thrift shop or a second-hand sho

Voici les 3 places dans le Vatican où l'on peux trouver le Nom de Jéhovah.

  Voici les 3 places dans le Vatican où l'on peux trouver le Nom de Jéhovah. 2 tombes de papes et un tableau Bien à toi. https://mewe.com/join/thefolder

Choices

 T o live a good life, you have to make good choices. You are what your choices make you, nothing more and nothing less.  It’s simple and it’s true, in theory. In practice, it’s hard. I know I made horrible choices. Look where I live now, In NJ's most famous ghetto, and even in the ghetto w e have smartphones designed to be addictive. We have genetically engineered food to be as irresistible as it is nutrient deficient. We have apps that bring us pleasures and distractions with the click of a button. We have the ability to work from home, to wake up and start working whenever we want. We can go wherever we want, do whatever we want, and say whatever we want. We have to struggle in just about every moment of every day to make good choices.  These choices add up to make you, you. You are the sum of one small choice stacked upon one small choice,   ad infinitum . If your life were a painting, these choices would be the brushstrokes that compose it. In other words, your life is defined

The way of the Coward...

 Bonjour...  I hope everybody's doing okay at least anybody who's reading this. Today will be one month since I had open heart surgery and I am recovering nicely under the circumstances so I have to thank God that things are going well. As many of you know I got discharged from the surgeon this week. Most likely today I will get discharged from the visiting nurse. Last week I got discharged from the physical therapist.  Yesterday I received a call from the coordinator from the Cherry Hill congregation. Norma and I are now part of that congregation we no longer attend the Mount Ephraim Spanish congregation. I personally did not want to move from that congregation the Kingdom Hall is two blocks away and I can walk to it in snow storms. One of my former circuit overseers wanted me to move for quite some time norma wanted me to move and many of you who have written to me in private wanted me to move. I see no purpose in moving but I moved. From my point of view and just my point of

Flash Fiction: Pop stop Lecturing...

Last Saturday my daughter and son-in-law came downstairs just to talk to me and my wife. With good intentions to relieve me of the boredom that I was feeling. The conversation rolled into the subject of entertainment for Christians. It was interesting, and I won't go into the details, but a striking remark from my daughter:" Pop I know you like to dive into things deeply but you are not an elder anymore you are just a publisher...like us in the English Congregation and you shouldn't judge us for our choice in entertainment".  It occurred to me she was right, I didn't think I was judging anybody; I was just explaining biblical principles in many facets of entertainment and our stance of being Christians I wasn't thinking about them. I guess I am bringing to the English Congregation the hardcore Puerto Rican Spanish culture I was raised in.  And this is why I claimed at my training up to that point in Jehovah's organization was just a waste of time. Nobody i

Flash Fiction: Papo doesn't smile

  When one is trained not to forget, like after major event,  burning down a house which really never happen during one's childhood it is hard to ignore other events. For example most Puerto Ricans families during that time period in the sixties, like us... lived in about all the boroughs of New York City and of course there were many get-togethers. Christmas parties, birthday parties, etc.  My family was no exception, and of course with these parties came the get together photos. Me being me knew the concept of Photography at around age 6, I was a notorious 'photobomber'. Children back then were not to be seen nor heard in family events. It was easy for to make weird faces and poses and other unpleasant gestures to the camera knowing that a month later it would be revealed. Yup, everyone know that the youngest of the Santana's males like his father can mess with their heads.  The solution was simple. My mother now was armed with a dog strap on her person or hidden behi