Saturday 9: Nevertheless

Saturday 9: Nevertheless (I'm in Love with You) 1969

Unfamiliar with this week's song? Hear it here.

1) In this song, Liza Minnelli acknowledges that she may be "taking a terrible chance." Have you done anything risky lately?

A. I find it risky simply going to the grocery store anymore. But that's normal risky. I haven't done anything beyond normal risky in quite a while.

2) In 1969, when Liza recorded this song, she was 23 and her career was really beginning to take off. She was a sought-after guest on TV talk and variety shows and received her first Oscar nomination. Give us a quick overview of your life at 23.

A. When I was 23, I had three years of marriage under my belt. I was attending Hollins College (now Hollins University) part-time as well as attending Virginia Western Community College part-time, working a part-time job, and doing a little freelance writing. We were getting ready to build our house, so we were looking at various house plans. I was driving a black Ford Thunderbird. I was on Interstate 581 heading from VWCC to my job at a law office when I heard the announcer say that Challenger had exploded, and I had to pull over because it upset me so much. I have always been a space program geek. 

3) Also in 1969, the first Gap store was opened in San Francisco. What have you recently added to your wardrobe? If yes, where did you buy it?

A. I bought bras last. I purchased them at Walmart. Not exciting, I know.

4) Liza says she always has apple juice in her refrigerator. What's something you're certain to have in your frig?

A. A gallon of unsweetened tea.

5) Liza's favorite card game is poker. What's yours?

A. Rummy.

6) Though Liza recorded the song in 1969, "Nevertheless (I'm in Love with You)" was written way back in 1931. It has been recorded more than 50 times by artists as diverse as Bing Crosby, Andy Gibb and Bob Dylan. Before today, had you heard it?

A. I don't recall hearing this song before.

7) "Nevertheless (I'm in Love with You)" is credited to Bert Kalmer and his partner, Harry Ruby. Another one of their hits was "Who's Sorry Now?" Do you owe anyone an apology?

A. Not to my knowledge. I have discovered through the years that people can be angry or upset with you for a long time and you never know it. So, there is probably someone somewhere who thinks I owe them an apology for something.

8) Together they also wrote "Hooray for Captain Spaulding," sung onscreen by Groucho Marx in the movie Animal Crackers. There were five Marx Brothers in all. How many can you name?

A. Just the one mentioned in the question, Groucho Marx. 

9) Random question: Do you believe talking to plants helps them grow?

A. I don't think it hurts anything. 

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I encourage you to visit the posts of other participants in Saturday 9 and leave a comment. Because there are no rules, it is your choice. Saturday 9 players hate rules. We love memes, however. 

Notewothy

In the National News

Covid numbers are rising and are high in 26 states.

The WNBA All Stars team beat Team USA in a fast-moving and high-scoring game of women's basketball on Saturday, July 20, 2024.

An outage on Friday, July 19, left airports, hospitals, and businesses stranded when the Internet went down.

President Joe Biden decided on Sunday, July 21, 2024, to drop out of the presidential race due to health issues and concerns about his age, making him a one-term president. He has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to run for the office. He gave a speech about his resignation on Wednesday, July 24, 2024.

U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned on July 23, 2024 following the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump on July 13, 2024.

An explosion of hot water and rocks in Wyoming shocked visitors and forced the temporary closure of an area of the Yellowstone National Park. No one was injured.

A major fire in California near Chico has forced evacuations as over 70,000 acres burn. Called the Park Fire, it is believed to have been intentionally set.

Celebrity Deaths

British blues and rock musician John Mayall died at the age of 90.

Abdul "Duke" Fakir, the last surviving member of the Four Tops, passed away on Monday, July 22, 2024.

Local News

Botetourt County Board of Supervisors at its 7/23/2024 meeting approved a change (4-1) to ordinances that allow for civil fines for grass height and inoperable vehicles. The changes move these nuisance ordinances away from the sheriff's office and into the community development office under the authority of the county administrator, though the issue could still be taken to the courts if landowners do not cooperate with the locality. According to comments at the supervisors meeting, the sheriff had said he did not have the staff to enforce the ordinances.

The county supervisors declared a state of drought for the county.

The Botetourt County Historical Society won a grant of $6,500 to use for the upcoming 250th anniversary of the nation.

Thursday Thirteen

One of the things I've noticed for a while now is the decrease in products that I buy, as in, there is less of what used to be in the box.

This is nothing new. It's cyclic and we've gone through this before. I remember when Pop-Tarts were made smaller sometime in the 1990s and I boycotted Pop-Tarts for years in protest. (Now I cannot stand them; they taste like cardboard. Were they that bad when I was a kid and I loved them?)

The eggheads who run things call this "shrinkflation," which is where you are paying about the same price you were for a widget, but the widget is smaller. So here are 13 things I've noticed that are now less in size but cost around the same.

1. Nestle Semi-Sweet Chocolate bags dropped from 12 oz (down from the original 16 oz) to 10 oz. It doesn't matter so much if you're making chocolate chip cookies, but it played havoc with my fudge-making capabilities last winter, as all of my recipes call for the larger amount of chocolate.

2. Dove Sensitive Skin Soap was one of the first "shrinkflation" items I noticed, as suddenly I was going through a bar of soap much more quickly than I used to. I checked and sure enough the old bars I had under the kitchen sink were 4 oz, while the new bars in the bathroom were 3.75 oz. That's about a week's worth of washing in that quarter ounce.

3. Honey Nut Cheerios boxes have gone from 12 oz to 10.8 oz. I prefer the smaller boxes anyway; no one eats this but me and by the time I get to the middle of a family-sized box they are starting to taste stale. Cereal is quite expensive now, though. I only buy it when it's on sale.

4. Candy bars are smaller. I can tell this mostly by the calories, because they used to be 240 calories and now, they're 220. Some are even less. The loss of calories is good, but the candy costs more for less. Some of it doesn't taste as good as it did, either. I don't know what they've changed in some of the recipes for candy bars, but they did themselves no favors. (Cadbury Eggs grew smaller a few years ago, and this past year I think they were smaller still. So small, in fact, that I couldn't justify the 50 cents for them. They also don't taste as good as they once did.)

5. Nature Valley bars. I eat the cashew ones, and they are not as long as they used to be. They're about 1 bite less.

6. Potato chips have changed bag size. A lot of chips have dropped from 9.75 oz bags to 9.25 oz bags, or some variation thereof. And the price of chips is through the roof; we have started cutting back on our consumption of these. We shouldn't be eating them anyway.

7. Bounty paper towels have dropped from 165 sheets to 147 sheets. I don't know why they didn't do a round number, like drop it to 145 sheets. Weird.

8.  Sun Maid Raisins are now in a 9 oz box when it used to be a 12 oz box for about the same price. Doesn't matter so much in the recipes I use, but it does matter in some things. 

9. Some toothpaste has dropped from 4.1 oz to 3.8 oz. That's probably a week's worth of toothbrushing, like the Dove soap. Essentially these drops in personal care items mean you end up purchasing at least one more item a year than you would have at the old larger size.

10. Coffee has dropped from a 2 pound can to a 1.9 oz can. Fortunately, only my husband drinks coffee and he only has one cup a day.

11. Sugar is no longer in a 5-pound bag; it's in a 4-pound bag.

12. Ice cream used to come in 1/2-gallon (2 quart) containers; now the containers hold 1.44 quarts.

13. Trash bags have changed in number in the boxes. Hefty bags went from 90 to 80 in a box. I suspect the same goes for Zip-loc and other bags, but I haven't paid attention to that. I try not to use those in favor of non-disposable storage containers.

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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while, and this is my 867th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway. (It's really more than that, but I've put some of them away, never to be seen again.)

Pink Sunset

 

Ugly People Doing Ugly Things

House of the Dragon - SPOILER ALERT

If you're not caught up on the House of the Dragon series, you may not want to read further. Or if you have never watched Game of Thrones but plan to one day, you may want to skip this.

My husband dislikes this show, House of the Dragon on HBO. It's a spinoff from Game of Thrones, set 100+ years earlier than Game of Thrones.

I don't much care for the show, either. As my husband said, it is a show full of ugly people doing ugly things.

We seem to be watching it out of habit, and because there isn't anything else on to watch right now.

Initially I thought I would like to see two women vying for the throne, but it turns out, that isn't a draw.

I need somebody to root for in a story, and there isn't anyone. None of these characters are especially likeable. In Game of Thrones, the very first person we like is Ned Stark, and we rooted for Ned Stark. His death, then, was a gut punch.

People die on House of the Dragon and there is nothing. I do not feel anything.

When Princess Rhaenys Targaryen died after Aemond Targaryen's dragon killed her dragon, nearly killing the young King Aegon Targaryen in the process, I didn't feel anything. Her character had not been well developed. And the young king came across as a spoiled brat, sort of an early version of Joffrey from Game of Thrones. I'm sorry he is badly wounded and the portrayal of that is striking, but aside from not liking to see anyone suffer, I don't feel for him.

Actually, there are so many characters, and so many with similar names, that I have a hard time keeping them apart.  And I think that is part of what is wrong with this show. It is moving slowly to try to develop so many characters with so many similar names that it becomes a bit wearying trying to keep up with them all.

It's also a little boring. I think it needs more dragons and less people.

I can recall the names of characters from Game of Thrones even though it has been years since I saw that, and I have no desire to watch that series again. I have to go to the HBO House of the Dragon page to look up the names of all of these ugly people doing ugly things. I can tell you the name of the two women who are vying for the throne - Alicent and Rhaenyra - and a crazy guy named Daemon who is Rhaenyra's uncle and husband, and a guy named Cole who is Alicent's lover, and that's about it. But there are oodles of other characters, and I cannot keep them all straight.

Fantasy has long been a favorite genre, and I am not ill-equipped to deal with a show on this scale. But I have to be interested in the characters if I want to take the time to track them.

And these characters do not interest me. I keep waiting for that to change, but we're about done with this season. I think it'll be at least a year before the next season shows.

By then I won't remember a thing about this show.

Too Much Fertilizer?

My husband pulled these extra-large radishes out of our little garden the other day. Apparently, we left them too long in the ground. The wallet is for size. My husband's hands are twice the size of mine. 

They are as big as turnips! We didn't eat them; we threw them out for the animals.