Thursday Thirteen #320

1. If I had any advice to give about how to stay married for 30 years, it would be to hold hands. Touch is very important and our society does not do it enough.

2. Things on my desk: a contract, a coffee cup that says "You Rock" (it has tea in it), nasal spray, maps, a calendar, Elmer's glue, and a pedometer.

3. The mountains break the horizon as they roll toward the sky, and the sight of the Blue Ridge always brings squeezes my heart.

4. I read somewhere that to clean fruit you should soak it in a mix of vinegar and water. I couldn't recall if it was white or apple cider vinegar when I tried it this morning on some grapes, so I used white as that was what I had the most of. I couldn't tell any difference between that and rinsing things off like I always have in the past. But maybe the vinegar neutralizes a pesticide or something.

5. There is a meme going around Facebook where you tell people a certain number of things they probably didn't know about you. I have been careful not to like any of those so I didn't play the meme, but I do memes on my blog all the time. Weird.

6. I have recently developed an interest in the Tao Te Ching. I think it is something I will make a study of for a while.

Vultures

7. I just received an early morning phone call from a neighbor telling me vultures were chasing a newborn calf! There is little we can do about vultures; it is against the law to harm them. But they will kill a baby calf. (My husband has gone to take care of the little thing.)

8. Things to make besides money: friends, love, time, music, magic, and breakfast!

9. One of the good things I have found about e-readers is they don't get musty and smell. Since the smell of an old book can set off an asthma attack, this can be a good thing. I think the concept of e-readers is good, I just can't give up the tactile feel of a real book. Plus I never have to plug in a real book or worry about the battery going dead.

10. It is easier for me to give away fiction books than nonfiction. I don't know why.

11. I'm not sure I can come up with three more things to finish out this Thursday Thirteen! So here are some books on my shelf: Building Web Sites for Dummies, Blogging for Dummies, Office 2007 for Dummies, and Resumes for Dummies. I sense a theme there.

12. My paternal grandmother, who is 93 and lives in California, fell on Sunday and broke her hip. Doctors performed surgery and put in a 10" pin and said she had a few other breaks that would have to heal naturally. They did not expect her to live through the surgery but she is hanging on.

13. I really need to have a yard sale but (a) it's the wrong time of year and (b) I live so far off the road that no one will drive up here. How do you get rid of stuff? I really want to know.




Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 320th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.