Palladin3/3/2010
by Ames S. amess@sober24.com
I finally got tired of my daughter hogging the Netflix queue with all her reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so I asked her recently to add some things that I might be interested in, too. With Netflix there’s a wide selection of movies, Internet downloads, old TV shows and such, and as we went through the list of available items, we came across one of my favorite TV shows from the early 1960s, Have Gun -- Will Travel, with Richard Boone as the hired gunman, Palladin. Read More
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The Next Right Thing2/25/2010
by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com
I’m amazed the Valentine’s Day flowers I gave my wife last week are
still blooming. Even more, I’m amazed I gave them to her in the first
place.
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Follow the Plow2/17/2010
by Ames S. amess@sober24.com
I was driving up to Connecticut in the snow the other day to visit my sister when the light dusting the weathermen had predicted became more like a raging blizzard and the highway I was on suddenly got icier and harder to see. My sister had just lost both of her beloved longtime pets to natural causes within two weeks of each other and was feeling the incredible loss of what were family members to her. Read More
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Contemplating Shangri-la2/11/2010
by Ames S. amess@sober24.com
Shangri-la has finally come to my neighborhood. The Shangri-la Express, that is. Described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton, "Shangri-La" is a mystical, harmonious valley at the western end of the Kunlun Mountains, a mythical Himalayan utopia -- a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world.
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Becoming Different2/3/2010
by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com
Change is not the most popular word in an alcoholic’s vocabulary, but
it’s one that cannot be ignored. For me, over the years, its perception
and ultimate implementation in my life has, well, changed.
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‘I See You’1/28/2010
by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com
My friend John G. was admitted to the intensive care unit of a Staten
Island hospital quite a number of years ago after a long period of
uncontrolled boozing and drug use. He was admitted in a blackout and,
as he told it over the years, had no idea where he was when he
eventually cleared up enough to care. It certainly wasn’t his first
hospitalization for alcoholism and drugs, or his last, but it always
provided a moment of levity for those of us who knew John.
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The Gray Zone1/21/2010
by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com
When I was younger, I wanted things in life to be either black or
white. It’s like I had an overwhelming need for things to be one way or
the other. Anything in between caused me to think too much, and my
thinking capacity was easily compromised.
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An Ounce of Prevention1/12/2010
by Ames S. amess@sober24.com
I
was happily eating a crunchy toasted almond granola bar yesterday when
an old filling in one of my back teeth fell out. Suddenly there was
something not so tasty that I was chewing on and I knew right away
things weren’t quite right. Either the granola bar was filled with
pebbles, or it was time to visit the dentist.
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