Day one as a post-Powerball non-billionaire

Well, I didn't win Powerball.

Of course I didn't. But it would have been nice to get at least one of the numbers, especially the first one ...  you know, to build the suspense for at least one or two seconds.

I'm normally not one to gamble, since I don't see mucn entertainment value in it, and I'm probably going to lose my money, anyway. However, the incredibly slight possibility of turning $2 into nearly $1 billion (after taxes) was worth a WTF trip to the local Rite-Aid on my way home from work.

If nothing else, it made for some fun, harmless fantasies about what my wife and I would do if we won. Quit work, for sure, and pay off the house, but also get a little flat in London and be able to ride in the bed seats on the plane across the Atlantic.

I'm sure there would have been some charitable contributions, and maybe a building at one of our colleges or scholarships named after our families would have been in order.

And about 90 percent of our Facebook friends would have been history ... nothing personal, just trying to make the circle of people who may ask for money smaller. (Of course, I'm not talking about you. You, I would have kept.)

That was about as far as we got. No sports teams, or newspaper companies, or islands somewhere. Neither of us is extravagant, and I may be one of the few people who actually worries about blowing nearly $1 billion.

But the idea that really made me think was the concept of (assuming we didn't take complete leave of our senses) never having to worry about money ever again. We both do fairly well, no complaints there, but there's a difference between the nice lives my wife and I lead and being insanely, filthy rich.

However, it was not to be, and it never was. Oh well.

Snow in London

My wife told me it snowed today in London, so that for a change, where we live outside of Boston may be more desirable than the city we've visited twice and still fantasize about going to again.

And then we both said, "Naaaahhhh."

Of course, we were talking about Tourist London, where we envision snow as a lovely cover on all our favorite London places, and all the absurdly attractive people would break out their ultra-stylish winter gear. It is the London of Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Big Ben, West End shows and soccer at every turn.

Reality London (and the rest of the country) is obviously much different. Snow means icy roads, bundling up to sweep off the car and turning up the heat. It's not a never-ending adventure, but a place where people live, not everything is fabulous and there might actually be a few people who say, "Enough with all the football!" (Kind of like how I am with the NFL.)

Who knows? Maybe they'd find Boston to be some kind of great adventure.

Transitions

I broke off a relationship recently.

Actually, "relationship" isn't really the best word for it. For the longest time, although the young woman involved knew it was me every time I called, I didn't know her name for months. I just called her up on Monday nights to let her know I was coming, she did what I needed her to do and I left.

My wife knew about the whole thing, and as many of these things do, the whole thing started because of being wronged by another woman ... in this case, the one who gave me pizza order to someone else.

What ... you thought I was talking about something other than the girl at the local pizza parlor? When her partner messed up my order, she kind of gave my wife and me a "Yeah, I'm with stupid" look, and we got a good laugh out of it eventually.

I ended things at the pizza place because my wife and I moved out of the area. When you live somewhere for eight years, like we did before moving, you develop habits and routines that you don't realize you have to change until the time comes.

Not only do we need to find a new pizza place (we tried our first one in our new home the other night; it's a solid contender), we need to find other local restaurants, figure out where to go grocery shopping, find a new dentist (which stinks in this case, because the dentist we were going to is one of the few I've ever liked), get a new vet for the cat and a whole bunch of other things.

We got the cable and Internet set up, and I made the arrangements for garbage pickup. I can also report that junk mail has already found us.

And, oh yeah, we need to figure out where everything is.

* * * * *

I spent most of my moving day ... at my old house.

We were closing on our old house and closing on our new one the same day, shuttling between offices while dealing with the moving crew our agent helped us pull together at the last minute when our orignal mover no-showed. Our new mover had to make two trips, and I got the duty of waiting back at the old house for the mover to come back.

I walked around the neighborhood a lot, charged my phone in the car and waited ... and waited. Finally, I knocked on the door and asked, "Do you mind if I come in for a while?"

He was OK with it, so I spent more than an hour in a living room that less than 24 hours earlier, had been my living room, watching movies on his DVD player and playing with his adorable dog. (Seriously, I'm not a big dog person, but I fell in love with his dog. He was so sweet.)

And it was weird as hell. Our buyer got his stuff moved in pretty quickly, so it didn't take long for him to make it his house, even before I hadn't gotten all my stuff moved off the lawn and out of the garage yet. At one point, I was stumbling around looking for a light switch or something, and actually had to remind myself, "This was just your house! This shouldn't be that hard to find!"

It wound up being a very long day, and the movers and I didn't get back to our new house until after midnight, meaning I didn't spend a second in my new house on my moving day.

* * * * *

We aren't done moving in yet, but we're getting there. Lots of stuff is in, and we're not far from the point where we'll be working on decorations.

It should be nice, and it'll be nice when all these transitions are done.

The years ... they go so quickly

When I was a kid, we used to get a newsletter from my school district every month. It had the standard things you might expect: lunch menus, news about the district, announcements and lots of other stuff you can probably find on a school website now.

One month, and I don't remember how old I was, I read an announcement that my high school was starting a hall of fame. In later years, they put plaques of the enshrinees on the walls at the entrance to the high school, although I don't know if it still exists and I haven't done nearly enough to gain admission even if it does.

But what I remember in particular was that to be eligible, you had to have graduated 25 years earlier. As I read that, I did some quick math, knowing that I would be 18 when I graduated, so even if I went on to a fabulous career doing something or other, I wouldn't even be eligible until I was 43.

At that point, I remember thinking two things:

1. 43 was old.

2. 43 was a long way away.

Today is my birthday. I'm 43. Next month, my high school's graduation will mark 25 years since I graduated.

Since then, I've gone to college and graduate school, gotten married, moved to Massachusetts and spent 17 years in my field.

And I'm not entirely sure where the time went.

Looking into Paul Blart's future

My wife and I were leaving the mall last night when we came across a sign promoting "Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2," which, if this plot summary on Wikipedia is true, may be just about the most-convoluted story I've ever seen.

But I'm still a little worried about our man Blart, because malls aren't what they used to be. You hardly ever hear of any new ones, and while plenty of them are plugging along, others are struggling to stay relevant.

So that got me to thinking, "What kinds of things could Paul Blart do if the mall security thing didn't work out, and how can they be turned into movies?" After all, Kevin James seems like a decent fellow, and why not let him have his own meal ticket?

I came up with a few ideas.

"Paul Blart: Strip Mall Cop" -- This one's the most obvious, since the strip mall has basically replaced the mall in a lot of places. And after all, someone has to keep order at Michaels, right?

"Paul Blart: Mixed-Use Development Cop" -- When business is slow, he can ride his Segway to where the housing was supposed to be built, but never was. Or, if he's at the development near where I live, once he makes sure all the kids are safely home, he can gaze upon the business that never showed up, at least until he runs out of space on the road that never got finished.

"Paul Blart: Campus Security" -- If the college is anything like where I went to grad school, that Segway will come in handy for seemingly doing nothing but handing out parking tickets all day.

"Paul Blart: Boston" -- The "Blart" franchise delves into the psychological thriller genre, as Paul has an interview for a new job in Boston after the mall closes, but is confronted by an potentially unbeatable foe ... bumper-to-bumper traffic for miles around with no apparent reason or end in sight.

"Paul Blart: Transit Police" -- In this sequel to "Paul Blart: Boston," the good news is that he got a job with the MBTA. The bad news is that he's in danger of being fired for not shepherding a train through seven feet of snow by himself, forcing him to find redemption.

"Paul Blart: London" -- After a half-hour of driving-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road gags, the entire United Kingdom holds its breath as Blart tries to foil a plot to kidnap the beautiful princess and her Manchester United and English team star husband known to his legions of fans as "Q," whose story dating back to his birth in United States to a rakish English father and glamorous American mother is known nearly as well as the princess'.

"Paul Blart: London 2" -- A Norwegian stalker is targeting an English actor of stage and screen, and Blart partners with an American superfan to foil her nefarious efforts. Featuring a cameo by Benedict Cumberbatch because ... Cumberbatch.

I was planning a Blart/"Ocean's 14" combo reboot, but "Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2" was set in Vegas and looks like a worse movie than "Ocean's 12" was. (Seriously, how could so many talented people make a sequel to a movie as good as "Ocean's 11" and screw it up that badly?)

However, my suggestions should be enough to make "Blart" the "Hunger Games" franchise for the food-court set. Now as long as we never see any photos of Kevin James wearing nothing but a snake, everything will be fine.

I'm fine, but I really don't want to hear that word

I had a dentist appointment today, just a routine cleaning, although my dentist likes for me to come every three to four months because calcium builds quickly on my teeth.

Unlike my previous dentist, who not only inflicted a lot of pain, but seemed to like it, trips to my current dentist are usually pleasant. Everyone is very friendly, and they do their best to make it as painless as possible. Plus, when I've had problems, they've taken me right away and solved it quickly.

I even had a wisdom tooth removed without pain!

Today, the usual hygienist cleaned my teeth; I've gotten used to her calling me "my friend" (which she did on my first visit), or "honey," since I think she calls everyone one or both of those. We talked about her recent skiing-related injury, and how the main thing she was worried about when someone came to her aid at the bottom of the mountain was that he'd call her "ma'am."

After the X-rays and the cleaning, she said she wanted to look at my tongue, my lips and my cheeks. I  was pretty sure why, and sure enough, when she was done, she informed me that I was clear of oral cancer.

That's not a surprise, since I've never used tobacco in my life, but still ... she said cancer during my exam.

Cancer

Cancer killed my best friend. Cancer killed at least two of my cats. And now someone was checking me for cancer.

To be honest, I'm at the age where today shouldn't have been the first time I talked with someone about cancer, but I haven't been to a doctor for a few years. (I know, I know ...)

And even though I was fine, talking about it was a little unnerving.

Let's all celebrate the Golden Globes, shall we?

Tonight, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association will hand out its awards for excellence in television and movies during a little shindig called the Golden Globes.

Also, from what I understand, there will be drinking. And with drinking comes tomfoolery.

Sounds like a perfectly good excuse to have a little party of our own on this here blog, although it's a strictly BYOB affair, and as always, if you come to my metaphorical house, don't pee in my metaphorical pool. (Also, if you come to my real house without permission, I will call the cops.)

There are a few things I'm hoping for this year. Of course, I want things I've seen and people I like to win awards and those I don't to not win. But I also would love, just once, for one of the hosts during the exercise in killing brain cells known as the red carpet show to ask an interviewee, "Did you dress yourself in the dark?" or "Were you on crack when you picked that out?" or "Where is that slow boat I assume you put your stylist on headed?"

I also hope, that in this year of all years, especially in this week of all weeks, the rich and famous who generally spend their lives being told by everyone they meet how wonderful they are will understand that it's not the end of the world if they're the butt of a few jokes.

I'll probably open the chat sometime between 6 and 6:30 EST, and although familial obligations will probably take me away between 7 and 8, feel free to sign in with any social media account and get the party going in my stead.

So tell your friends. The party is open to all who want to share some awards-show laughs.