Migraines and Milestones

Well, things are heating up at work. The signs are all around me, like harbingers of a hurricane. The barometer is dropping, winds are picking up, and dark clouds are gathering overhead. More phone calls, more insistent deadlines. It’s like I’m expected to work for my pay, for crying out loud. So, it seems, I will not be such a frequent poster as I have been of late. But I shall make my presence known, by God. Yes, by God, I will.

Everybody knows about the Neil Entwistle saga, the alleged murderer of his wife, Rachel, and baby daughter, Lillian. Apparently it was supposed to be a murder-suicide, but the murderer didn’t quite complete the job, so now the Boston area is assaulted with the biggest local criminal justice story since the flap over the infamous au pair Louise Woodward, the young woman accused of fatally shaking a baby. Comparisons are drawn between the two incidents mainly for their notoriety and the fact that they both involve British nationals. But I can’t help thinking of Charles Stuart, the local man who shot his pregnant wife, Carol, and then tried to blame her murder on a fictitious car-jacker 17 years ago. Both his and Entwistle’s acts were cold-blooded and evil beyond belief. But here’s the difference: Charles Stuart at least had the decency to kill himself and thus spare the families some measure of pain and the state the expense of prosecuting him and then housing him for life. So here’s hoping Entwistle’s attorney gets a change of venue to Michigan, where Entwistle can team up with Dr. Jack Kevorkian as cellmates. Because let’s face it: that guy’s as guilty as OJ.

Well, tomorrow’s the big day: I turn 50. Yep, half a century. You know, I can remember when my father turned 50 and the jokes I made about him. Little did I consider that someday I, too, would join the ranks of the aged and withered. I’m ashamed to say it, but I still haven’t bought my rocking chair — I don’t know what the hell I’m going to sit on tomorrow when I tune in to Matlock and Murder She Wrote. And where can you get a decent shawl nowadays? The GAP doesn’t sell them. Anyone know? I’m kind of a junior senior citizen about this. I need someone to take me by the hand and show me the ropes.