Chris Forman's Blog, page 6

Back in the USA

Teresa and I just spent two days in Montreal, and we had a good time. Since Montreal is a very European, this is as close as I can get to getting her to Europe since she has a fear of flying. Only five hours north of here by car, an easy five hours too, and I've never been there.
Montreal is a small city, under two million people, and in some ways it reminds me a bit of Edinburgh with the mountain in the background, a bit of Dublin in the way some of it is laid out and a bit of New Orleans...

The most amazing sighting.

We were in Aldi's in Middletown today and I saw the most amazing thing. Now before I tell you what it was, I have to say that I don't really like Aldi's all that much, but we decided to stop off today since we had a quarter to rent a shopping cart and some bags in the trunk. I was kind of half-heartedly browsing while my wife took a more serious approach.
Okay, you want to know what I saw. Well, as I looked up from the frozen foods section I saw a man a bit older than I, his hair was...

Walden Public Library

If you have nothing exciting on the schedule for tonight, July 8, come out to the Josephine-Louise Public Library in Walden at 7:00 PM. I'll be there with copies of Chalk Dust and Chalk Outlines and I'll be doing a reading. I'll have some giveaways of Five Fingered Firebugs and there will be refreshments too.

I took 147 ninth graders to Washington. What was going through my mind?

The first weekend in June, I, along with eleven other chaperones, took one hundred and forty-seven ninth graders to Washington DC. What was going through our minds? We were perfectly sane and we've done this before. This was my seventh trip and Lisa and Doug have done thirteen of them so we knew what we were doing. What was going through our minds was how much fun it was going to be, and the memories the students would have after the trip.
I have to say that the kids were excellent. They...

Surprise party

I threw a surprise birthday party for my trophy wife Teresa last weekend and it went great. We had it at our friend Paula's house and the cover was that we were going there for a graduation party. It worked because she was indeed surprised. She had no clue at all. We had over 50 people come, we invited more but it was a busy weekend, so Teresa got to see old friends, new friends, and family.
I lieu of gifts, my daughter Nicole suggested donations to the local food pantry. Great idea and...

New addition to the family

We have a new addition to the family, a Weber One-Touch that my daughter Nicole and her husband Brian gave me last fall. I put it together today and I may do the trout on it tonight just to see how it works. The new Weber is the second one here, I have a three burner Genesis, and the fifth in the family. I gave each of my daughters a new E-310 as house-warming gifts. That way when I visit there is a nice grill waiting for me, plus they can cook well too.

New Review for Chalk Dust and Chalk Outlines

I just got a nice review from a woman who won a copy of Chalk Dust and Chalk Outlines through Goodreads. She said, "Nice simple mystery. Believable characters. "Short and sweet, and just what I was aiming for as I wrote the book. Hey, I'm not deluding myself into thinking that what I write is great literature. What I write is simple escapism and entertainment. I write what I'd like to read and hope that some people like it. If you haven't read this one yet, please do.

Killer Cuisine

Lunch was good; at least Maria and Dan Hart thought so. The man two tables down might disagree, that is if he could say anything. He wasn't saying much because he was face down in his lunch, dead. Dan stopped eating, partly from the shock of what he just saw, and partly because his wife slapped his burger of his hand saying, "Don't eat. I think he's been poisoned." She got up to take a look and Dan just sat there. He looked at the burger on the floor and shook his head, and then he picked u...

Thump-Thump update

Just thought I'd post an update here for anyone I left hanging with the last post. The stress test looked good and I see the doctor on Wednesday. I have a few things to tell her that I'd forgotten about when I was in the hospital, and that people have noticed.
Getting some rest is good and I'm feeling stronger, and a bit less emotional. I did learn one more thing, don't drink coffee when using Lopressor. Two cups shot the BP way up. Now I have one cup of half-caf in the AM.
Thanks again to...

Thump-thump

The other day I had a rather frightening experience. I was at work, and for those of you who don't know I'm a teacher, when I started to feel some chest pains, shortness of breath, a cold, clammy feeling and some feelings of doom. That started at about 8:30 and by noon I Googled Heart attack symptoms and realized I should do something about it. So I went to Nancy Brother, the school nurse, and told her, knowing full well what was about to happen. She gave me an aspirin, took my blood...