Cake Decorating FAIL

My friend Diane posted a recipe on her Facebook page recently for a "firecracker cake." It was a Bundt cake with red, white, and blue icing drizzled on it. It looked beautiful, and was even red, white, and blue on the inside. You can see pictures of what I wanted to do here.

I planned to give the cake away.

My husband accompanied me to the grocery store when I went for ingredients. He complained because I don't make cakes for us. Make cupcakes instead, he suggested, so he could have a couple.

I thought about it. I could make multicolored battered cupcakes, I decided.

Maybe I could figure out how to do something with the icing. I'm a creative person. I could be creative.

I made 12 cupcakes. Unexpectedly, I grew tired, something that happens more frequently than I care to admit when I am trying to do something. It is hard for me to stand up and cook for a long time and I suppose I'd had a busier day than I realized.

At any rate, I didn't want to make any more cupcakes.

I looked at the remaining batter. I dumped it into an 8x8 pan to make a small square cake. I thought, well, I could do a small cake and maybe make a fireworks pattern on it. I could make a gift of the small cake if it looked nice.

The cake parts turned out okay except the blues and reds were not dark enough. They were more like pink and lavender. It takes A LOT of food coloring to make dark red and dark blue.

After the cake and cupcakes cooled, I mixed up the icing. It looked light in color, but I personally don't think food coloring is all that healthy for you and I didn't want to continue adding more.

So I proceeded to try to make a fireworks on the small square cake.

In my opinion, it looked like someone had thrown up Pepto Bismal on a pair of thread-bare blue jeans.

No way was I giving that to anyone.

I ended up icing the cupcakes in white icing, blue icing, and
pink icing.

They looked okay.

There was still a little blue and pink icing left. So I spread it over the square cake to hide the fireworks effort.

That looks even worse, doesn't it?

Of course the square cake wasn't leaving the house. The cupcakes, however, did go to my intended destination, and the recipient was just as happy as if it had been a cake, I think.

I also handed out some of the square cake to a visitor, making sure I cut the part that was mostly pink. So there is not a lot of cake here for us to eat, which is good because we don't need to be eating it, anyway.

But there is a little, and the husband is happy about that. I think I made everybody happy and then some, with one little cake.

It even made me happy because I made others happy, even if I did not make a beautiful cake.

So how about you? What's your most recent recipe fail?

Thursday Thirteen

Yesterday was my father's birthday. He turned 74.

So here are 13 facts about my father.

Me and my father in 2012. He was playing
Santa Claus at one of the local churches.

1. He was born in a cabin in West Virginia. His father was a coal miner at the time.

2. When he was seven years old, his uncle bought him a shoeshine kit and he shined shoes in Summersville, WV to earn money.

3. His family moved to the area we live in now around 1949. Eventually they ended up in Salem, living in the house that shared a backyard boundary with the home of a young lady my father would marry.

4. During his early teen years, my father had a wholesale bait-selling business, complete with employees.

5. He also had a lawn-mowing business. Back then, he cut lawns for $2.

6. He joined the military when he was 17. He served for 37 months, part of that in Korea. His last military job was decoding messages for the government.

7. After he left the military, he worked as police officer in Salem and married my mother. They had two kids in four years.

8. After a few years, he went into sales.

9. He moved to rural Botetourt in 1969, purchasing property that bordered his father-in-law's old home place. He began farming and raising cattle.

10. In 1973, he started his own business selling industrial rubber products. The company was initially called The Rubber House of Roanoke. Later, the name changed to Cardinal Rubber and Seal.

11. He played guitar and sang in a band called Music, Inc. in the 1970s and early 1980s. Today he plays guitar and sings in a band called Stone Coal Gap.

12. In 1999, he became an auctioneer.

13. My mother died in 2000; he remarried in 2007.


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 402nd time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Black Squirrel

This little fellow popped up in the back yard Monday. I was surprised, as I don't recall ever seeing a squirrel this color before.

 

 

 

Mamma Fore

When I was a child, my grandmother, who passed away eight years ago this past Sunday (June 28), spent a good hour on the telephone talking to "Mamma Fore" nearly every day.

I have no idea who Mamma Fore was. I don't know how my grandmother and this woman met, or how long they knew one another. My aunt and uncles may know, but I was too young to understand anything other than if the phone rang, and it was Mamma Fore, you went and amused yourself for the next hour. You didn't ask for anything unless blood was involved, because Grandma was talking to Mamma Fore.

This came to mind to me recently while I was mentally listing folks I could call in the event of an emergency, followed by folks I could talk to just to chat.

The list for emergencies was pretty extensive; the list just to chat, however, was not long.

I know a lot of people and interact with them every day via the computer. I have hundreds of friends on Facebook, one person I have emailed at least twice a day for almost 15 years, and others that send me funny videos or bits of information, and to whom I return that favor.

But to call and chat? Very few people do that anymore. They chat via Facebook and/or text all day long - why would they need an hour-long block of time simply to focus on one person and one thing?

I daresay not many children today have Mamma Fores to worry about, because their mothers don't have that kind of time. They are too busy carting Junior off to a ball game or texting Dad about thus and such.

My grandmother had a small world. I remember my mother used to fuss because my grandmother could easily spend a half-hour on the phone with a salesperson, talking about everything from TV shows to the actual product in question. She invited the Fuller Brush Man in when he made his regular visits, and she always bought something from him.

Otherwise, her world consisted of her two young sons, one of whom was younger than I, and me and my brother.

Sometimes she talked to neighbors while she hung clothes. Occasionally she would go see Aunt Elsie, but not often - nobody went to see Aunt Elsie much (though they became great friends in the nursing home in their late years) - and every Friday, like clockwork, Grandma would walk the three blocks up East Riverside Drive to her old home place.

That's where one of her sisters lived.

She hauled us along and we played in the yard while Grandma did Aunt Neva's hair. The place always smelled like beans, mostly because from what I remember there was usually a big potful on the stove, simmering away all day with a big hunk of fatback in there for flavoring. Nobody ate beans that weren't cooked nearly to nothing in that household.

Sometimes Aunt Susie (my other great-aunt) would join the two sisters for her share of hair makeover. Apparently my grandmother gave great home permanents. They stunk terribly and made your eyes water, but gave you soft curls. Or so I gathered.

That was pretty much my grandmother's world, especially after my grandfather died. She had three TV stations to watch, and she watched the news regularly. She read every word of The Roanoke Times & World News, because even though she only had a fourth grade education, she seemed to think being well-informed was important. When those folks called to sell her something, she could converse about the topics of the day if the situation called for it.

And of course, when Mamma Fore called, the news could take up a bit of time. Back then the news was more than a sound bite and an emotional jab in the ribs; it was real knowledge made up of truth, facts, and science. Those are things we've lost along the way, so much so that I strongly suspect my grandmother was better informed than half of the population living today, in spite of the information at our fingertips.

I don't recall when Mamma Fore died. I suppose by that time I had become a teenager, one of those selfish persons who didn't visit grandmas much and who had no time for older folks. I'm sure it broke my grandmother's heart whenever Mamma Fore passed on. Shame on me for not knowing this.

Her loneliness, I know, increased a thousand-fold. Everyone's loneliness increases as we age, and our friends begin to leave us, dropping one by one. Younger people don't understand it.

I'm just beginning to.

I am missing those days of Mamma Fore, those simpler times of telephone calls and conversation. I am now old enough to reminisce of another time and place, I guess.

Book: The Goldfinch

The Goldfinch
By Donna Tart
Read by David Pittu
32.5 hours
Unabridged
Copyright 2013

This book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in April 2014. The Washington Post titled its article about this, "The Disappointing Novel That Just Won a Pulitzer."

This book is 784 pages, and it was very long to listen to. It has taken me, literally, two months to hear it in my car. In desperation I finally listened to the final three hours of it in my office, taking up yesterday afternoon to get through the final three discs.

Did it deserve a Pulitzer? I don't know. If this was the best out there for the competition, then I suppose it won as it should. But I think perhaps there were better stories available, maybe unfound or unrecognized as such. It concerns me that the things we value these days are not golden, but instead are some kind of gilded and bronzed enigma that should be something, but isn't.

The Washington Post reviewer calls the book a junk shop passed off as something unique and rare, to paraphrase. I cannot disagree.

The plot is simple: a young boy, Theo, is in a museum with his mother when a bomb goes off. His mother dies. In the confusion of the explosion, Theo, at the insistence of a dying old man, grabs up a 1600s-era painting called The Goldfinch and shoves it into a backpack. In his shock, he finds his way from the museum and home. He has a bad family life anyway, with an alcoholic and gambling father who had left the family a year earlier.

Tart spells this out painfully, giving us a blow-by-blow of young Theo's heartache, his inability to understand all that is going on about him, his surprise when his father turns back up, though the reader knows (nudge nudge) that the boozer has come back only for the estate money, whatever there may be. The boy goes with his father to Vegas. He makes a friend, he learns to do drugs.

The painting comes to symbolize hope, fear, sorrow, greatness, love - all of life - for this young boy, who grows into manhood keeping this great secret.

The joke's on him, though, for all is not as it seems. I won't give away any more plot in case someone actually wants to read this book. But the story meanders greatly, going into much detail and depth about things that may or may not matter. Nothing is permanent in Theo's life and the story of the ephemeral quality of life is thematic throughout, but never satisfactorily explained by the author, not even in the dramatic musings at the end of the book. In the end, it's a nihilistic point of view, that we're all just here to pass through airports.

The first part of the book was engaging, and I suppose that was what kept me involved. The book read more like three books, and it was really one long character study about a damaged person. Perhaps it should have been some sort of series.

Tart's work has more than 21,000 reviews on Amazon. Forty-one percent of readers give it 5 stars. Ten percent give it 1 star.

I give it 3 stars. It was interesting enough, obviously, or I would have stopped listening to it a long time ago, but it seemed overly drawn out. The ending came rushing at the reader without any real sense of deservedness. Much of what happened to the character seemed to have no impact on him or whatever message the author was trying to impart.

Because of that, I have problems not so much with the book as I do with the fact that this is the book that won the Pulitzer. I think I expected better, and expectations sometimes can color what we read or hear.

Sunday Stealing: Unusual Things

From Sunday Stealing

Unusual Things


1. Who was the last person of the opposite sex you laid in a bed with?

A. My husband.

2. Where was the last place you went out to eat?

A. Shakers, a local restaurant that serves excellent food and plays good music.

3. What was the last alcoholic beverage you consumed?

A. I had some blackberry wine in 2012 when I received my master's degree. Yes, I know, I'm a big load of fun.

4. Which do you prefer - eyes or lips?

A. Can't I have both?

5. Medicine, fine arts, or law?

A. Can't do without any of them.

6. Best kind of pizza?

A.  I prefer a vegetarian pizza with no black olives.

7. Is your bedroom window open?

A. No. Why would you ask that question? Are you are a sex criminal? (Big Bang watchers will get that reference.)

8. What is in store for your future?

A. Well, Monday and Thursday I see my physical therapist.

9. Who was the last band you saw live?

A. Elton John.

10. Do you take care of your friends while they are sick?

A. I am not a very good nurse, but I try. I take them food, call and check on them, run errands. Most of my friends have family and they turn to them first.

11. Any historical figures that you envy?

A. I can't say I envy any of them, but there are many that I admire.

12. How many songs are on your iTunes?

A. I don't have iTunes (gasp!).

13. What brand of digital camera do you own?

A. I have several Nikons and one Canon.

14. When was the last time you got a good workout?

A. I walked on the treadmill yesterday.

15. Are you experienced?

A. At what? Breathing? Yeah, I've been doing that for a good long time. Blinking? Been doing that, too.

16. If you need a new pair of jeans, what store do you go to first?

A. J. C. Penny.

17. Are you a quitter?

A. If I was, I think I'd have given up on blogging a long time ago.

18. What are two bands or singers that you will always love?

A. The Eagles, Melissa Etheridge.

19. What of the seven deadly sins are you guilty of?

A. Ah, now I have to look them up. Okay. Wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust,envy,and gluttony. I'm overweight so I guess I'll go with gluttony.

20. Did you just have to google the seven deadly sins to see what they were?

A. Yes, I did.

Saturday 9: I Miss You

Saturday 9: I Miss You (1997)

... because Smellyann suggested it

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

(Not to be an alarmist or anything, but that is one freaky video.)


1) In this song, Bjork knows what she's looking for in a mate, she just hasn't met him yet. If you are/were still looking for The One, what two qualities would you hope he/she possessed?

A. Intelligence and loyalty. I have both of those in my mate, so I am lucky.

2) The lyrics ask if you believe "that a dream can come true." Do you believe that dreams come true if you wish hard enough?

A. I believe dreams come true if you work hard enough. Sometimes things that you want to happen do simply happen, though. Serendipity and all that.

3) Bjork turns 50 this year. Do you treat "milestone" birthdays differently? Or to you, is your age just a number?

A. Generally, age is just a number, but I had a hard time turning 50. I dreaded it. (I personally think that is because I knew that something was wrong with me physically, it just had not yet manifested itself as a bad gallbladder.) My husband, bless him, knew I was nervous and threw me a birthday party. It was just a luncheon at the local pizza place with some friends, but I was really touched that he took the time to do that.

4) Bjork was always highly musical. At the tender age of 6 she began studying classical piano and flute. Sam is impressed because at the age of 6, she was still trying to master tying her shoes. Do you consider yourself musical?

A.  I do, actually. I can manage to pick out a tune on a number of instruments, including piano, organ, accordion, flute, saxophone, piccolo, guitar, banjo, and bass guitar, though aside from the guitar it has been years since I played most of those instruments. I can also sing decently, though not well enough to make a profession of it.

5) She was born and raised in Reykjavik, Iceland. While the city is known for its bar scene, beer was banned there until 1995. How often do you drink beer?

A. Never.

6) 66ºNORTH is one of Iceland's biggest employers. This clothier makes quality outdoor wear and this time of year they sell a lot of durable rainwear. Do you have a raincoat?

A. I have an all-weather jacket.

7) In 1997, when this song was popular in clubs, Titanic was popular in theaters. Sam saw it and yes, she cried. How about you? Have you seen the saga of Jack and Rose? Did you enjoy it?

A. I have seen Titanic and yes, I enjoyed it. I don't recall if I cried or not.

8) Also in 1997, singer John Denver died. Name a John Denver song.

A. Annie. Take Me Home, Country Roads. He also wrote Leavin' On a Jet Plane, which was made famous by another group. One of my favorites of his is called   Guess He'd Rather Be in Colorado. It's a beautiful song. Take two minutes and listen to it. 

9) Random question: If you had the opportunity to sky dive, would you take it?

A. When I was 24, I went up in a hot air balloon. My husband thought I was crazy and even though the ride invitation was extended to him, he chose to remain with the chase crew, on the ground. It was one of the best adventures of my life. If I were healthy, yes, I would go. So ask me again when I am feeling a little better, and I'll give an enthusiastic yes.

Sunset Earlier This Week

Just Thinking

This is a southern liberal's post, so if you're not of that mindset, you may want to move on. I am in a musing mood this afternoon. I also have a bad headache.

If you believe in a supreme deity, what do you think of this statement?

In light of all the horrible things that have happened to very good people, a supreme deity (God) cannot possibly be both all-powerful and all-compassionate and merciful. Thus, the supreme deity is either all power and not compassionate and merciful, or the supreme deity is not all-powerful, but is compassionate and merciful.

I know many try to get around this with the "we can't know the supreme deity's purpose for us" preaching, but I don't buy that line because it doesn't fit in with my idea of Free Will, which I think we have.

Free Will means you have the power to act without constraint, at your own discretion. If that is the case, then the deity can't have anything in mind for us.

Interference by a supreme deity, even for plans we cannot comprehend, means we do not have Free Will.

Two people were killed in a car wreck last night not far from my house. What sort of "plan" could that possibly entail? Or mercy?

What sort of plan could any merciful being have in mind for the horrible things that go on in this world? Shootings, beheadings, bombings, terrorist attacks, killings, incest, child abuse - what kind of deity would accept all of that just to fulfill some apocalyptic plan? Am I the only person who wonders about such questions?

Just thinking today.

Good week for liberals. Thank you SCOTUS, for bringing equality to the nation, and for keeping health care on the table.

Good riddance to flag worship, too.

Thursday Thirteen

Here are 13 sayings from Dove Dark Chocolate wraps:

1. Sleep late tomorrow.

2. Catch snowflakes on your tongue.

3. Be free. Be happy. Be you.

4. Don't settle for a spark . . . light a fire instead.

5. Feed your sense of anticipation.

6. Indulge your sense of enjoyment.

7. Satisfy your sense of surprise.

8. Feel free to be yourself.

9. Stay up until the sun rises.

10. Give a little love today.

11. Keep the promises you make to yourself.

12. Open your eyes to all the love around you.

13. Love every moment.


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 401st time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Twin Fawns

Two Years Ago Today, I Was Well

Tomorrow marks the anniversary of my trip to the emergency room in 2013. The ER doctors at Lewis Gale performed an ultrasound and decided I was having a gallbladder attack. They gave me a list of surgeons, suggested I contact them immediately, and sent me on my way.

My primary care doctor found a surgeon for me at Jefferson Surgical Clinic, and that doctor performed the surgery at Roanoke Memorial (Carilion). At first we were pleased with the choice, for the doctor had also operated on my nephew and had done a great job with him.

However, apparently young men receive better care than 50-year-old fat women. My husband overheard the surgeon saying he needed to hurry up and get my surgery over with because he had a tennis match. My post-op care was joke.

I am still paying for that tennis match. It's been two years, and my pain continues.

What kind of pain? Abdominal pain. Something happened in the surgery and/or healing process that left my muscles in my stomach in a perpetual Charlie horse. Imagine how that feels in the middle of the night when you wake up with one. Now think about that in your belly 24 hours a day. Constantly. Sometimes it eases a bit but it never lets up 100 percent.

Add nausea to that, too, almost every day.

Now try to walk, lift things, bend over, do your chores, or sit for any length of time while you have that constant knot in your stomach. It isn't easy.

Over time, I've developed a significant limp, back pain, and ankle pain, as well as chronic weakness on the right side. Doctors attribute all of this to this "pelvic floor tension myalgia" or "chronic abdominal wall pain," which means, basically, they don't know what the heck is wrong with me. I've also been told it's IBS, pancreatitis, spasms, and a number of other things. I've been checked for AIDS, hepatitis, lupus, parasites, cancer, Lyme disease, and vitamin deficiencies.

Mostly, the doctors tell me it's a result of multiple surgeries and scar tissue from events that took place more than 20 years ago. As a young woman, I suffered from severe endometriosis, ultimately ending up with a hysterectomy at the age of 29. I received my records from that last surgery (the final in a series of six) and the notes indicated so many adhesions and scars that the doctors opted to leave things as they were for fear they'd make my insides worse if they tried to clear the scar tissue away.

The gallbladder surgeon was told of my previous surgeries, but I don't think he paid much attention to it. In fact, in a subsequent visit, he told my husband and me that he didn't believe in scar tissue (a statement that sends my physical therapist into orbit every time I mention it).

Unfortunately, after that gallbladder attack, I developed severe ulcers, which were diagnosed in October 2013. I am mostly recovered from those, but in the meantime my doctor determined I have fibromyalgia. It's also been hard to keep depression at bay because of the constant ache and inability to get around.

Two years later, things are improved over what they were in November 2013, but pain continues. I walk with a cane much of the time, particularly on uneven ground. Last week I had my second steroid shot in my ankle. It's bruised and swollen, and the doctor gave me a brace to try.

I have been in physical therapy for 14 months. For a long time I could only walk a whole 2 minutes on a treadmill before I bent over double in pain, and now I can do 10 minutes (sometimes 15!). It has taken a very long time to build up to that, and I am nowhere near as healthy as I was prior to the gallbladder attack. But I haven't given up.

Health care is not yet what it should be. Some doctors care a great deal and I am fortunate that my primary care physician is one of those people. So, too, is my physical therapist. The surgeon, however, was a doctor who practices making money by practicing medicine, and that is quite different from a doctor who practices medicine. The latter are gems; the former are all too common.

I don't write too much about my health. I try not to complain about it here or on social media often (my poor real-life friends get the brunt of my bitching, I'm afraid), but it has greatly impacted my life.

Prior to the surgery, I had big plans. By now, I had hoped to have secured a teaching gig at the local community college. I'd planned to be standing in front of a bunch of eager learners, teaching English 101 or something. I had even hoped to go back to school to work on my Ph.D.

Instead, I've spent my time in the last two years visiting doctors, physical therapists, chiropractors, and specialists. I am taking a lot of medication that I would rather not be taking. It's quite difficult to hold any kind of position when you have to go to see a health care provider of some kind two or three times a week.

If nothing else, I hope my story serves as a cautionary tale. The doctors said my gallbladder needed to come out; it had disease and stones, the post-operative report said. But I wonder, had I given myself a little time and made some dietary changes, could I have affected that organ and saved myself the pain and agony of the last two years?

One should listen to doctors, of course. We are taught to do that and I had three of them tell me to have the operation. My husband, too, was eager to see me out of pain. But sometimes I think we act to quickly. We're too eager to operate, in too much of a hurry to get better right away. Sometimes time is the greatest healer.

I can't put my gallbladder back now. I will never know what could have been.

Now I wait for time to heal me again, watching the years tick by.

In Velvet

Sunday Stealing: Get It All Down

From Sunday Stealing

Get It All Down Meme

1. Are you a good dancer?

A. I dance like Elaine on Seinfield. So, no.

2. Are you a good singer?

A. I can carry a tune.

3. Are you a good cook?

A. I can cook well enough to keep us fed and fat. I am not a cook in a healthy sense of the word, nor in a Julia Child sense of the word.

4. Are you a good artist?

A. If writing, music, and photography are included in the arts, then I am a good artist. If you are speaking only of drawing, then I am not.

5. Are you a good listener?

A. Having been a newspaper reporter for 30 years, learning to listen has been a cultivated skill.  Sometimes it is the nuances that lead to the next question, not the words spoken.

6. What's your favorite clean word?

A.  Um. You mean like Ajax or Tide? Or just a favorite word? I hate it when I don't understand the question.

7. What's your favorite swear word?

A. The F-word seems to come out from between my lips with great ease, so I will go with that one.

8. What's your least favorite word?

A. I don't know that I have one.

9. What was the last film you saw?

A. True Lies. It was the only thing on Friday night that seemed to be worth watching.

10. What football team do you support?

A. I root for the University of Virginia for college sports. Mostly because everyone else around here roots for Virginia Tech.

11. Have you ever been bobbing for apples?

A. Not since I was about nine years old.

12. What's your most expensive piece of clothing?

A. My sneakers. Those things cost $150 every six months, and I have to have them because of my problems with my feet.

13. What's the last thing you took a picture of?

A. A doe and her fawn.

14. What's the last thing you drew a picture of?

A. I have no idea. I don't draw much.

15. Have you ever bought anything from eBay?

A. Yes, some parts for the recliner chairs on the sofa.

16. Have you ever invented a fairly unique meal or drink?

A. No, I have not. Although I will report that I never make meatloaf the same way twice.

17. Do you have any secret family recipes?

A. My grandmother's recipe for chocolate lush is considered the family secret. It's a kind of cake and pudding concoction that involves a lot of coco. Best with Cool Whip dressing on top and served warm.
_______________

Happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there, including my own.

Saturday 9: Daddy's Little Man

Saturday 9: Daddy's Little Man (1969)

... because it's Father's Day weekend

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

1) This song is about an afternoon visit between a father and son. What are your plans for Saturday afternoon?

A.  Don't have any. Plan to rest up and maybe if I'm lucky my husband will take me out to dinner. If not, I will fix us a salad.

2) The lyrics talks about enjoying an ice cream cone. Do you have any ice cream in your freezer right now?

A. I have frozen yogurt. Does that count?

3) Sam's father hates it when she swears. When is the last time you cursed?

A. This morning. I stepped down on my foot that the day before had received a steroid shot and said a few choice words at the pain. Takes those shots a few days to settle in.

4) In a recent ranking of movie dads, Mufasa (Lion King) and Atticus (To Kill a Mockingbird) got very high marks. Who is your favorite movie or TV father?

A. Obi Wan Kenobi, although he was a mentor, not a father. Gandalf the Grey also was not a father but he was a great mentor. I don't believe you actually have to shoot out the sperm to be a dad.

5) Sam's own father often traveled for business, and always remembered to bring her the little complimentary soaps, shampoos or body lotion he got from the hotel. When you take a trip, do you bring back souvenirs?

A.  I like to buy postcards of places we've visited, but generally hotel soaps are smelly and I only use unscented products. So I leave them for someone else.

6) Back when Sam was in high school, it was her father who gave her driving lessons. Who taught you how to drive?

A. A groping coach at the high school. We had "driver's ed" as a course way back then, and we all rotated through it when we hit 15. The coach was well-known for putting his hands on girls legs whilst they were driving, the ol' leech.

7) Sam's own father is easy to buy for: every year he wants a new pair of loafers, so every year for Father's Day she gives him a DSW gift card. Would you rather receive a gift that someone chose, even though it might not be just right, or do you prefer a gift card or cash so you can get exactly what you want?

A. I don't really care, so long as somebody remembers me. Although in these days of having too much stuff, I suppose cash might be the preferable thing. I could use it toward a vacation or something.

8) For family barbecues, Sam's dad dons his "Kiss the Chef" apron and mans the Weber. What's the last thing you cooked on the grill?

A. Hot dogs.

9) Sam's father satisfies his afternoon sugar craving with an almost endless stream of Butter Rum Lifesavers. When you crave a snack, do you usually want something sweet or salty?

A. I always want chocolate. But sometimes chips or pretzels do the deed.

______________________________________________

Today is my mother's birthday. She would have been 71 years old, but she died 15 years ago at the age of 56 - just four years older than I am now. Time does make it easier and changes the way we look at things, especially in retrospect, but a woman wonders what might have been.

Another Shooting, But Move Along. Nothing to See Here

I was saddened yesterday to read about yet another mass shooting in my native country.

How many more people must be gunned down by before somebody stands up and says, "Enough?" How many more young people of all colors and ages must die on our streets before somebody says, "Enough?"

Must we swim in blood before our elected officials get their heads out of their collective asses?

Why is it okay to be the nation that leads the world in violence?

Even the U.S. President, exasperated and frustrated, said yesterday that he didn't know how to stop this endless parade of stupid and irresponsible deaths. Wrong political climate. Too much power in the wrong places.

"At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries," Barack Obama said in response to the killings in Charleston - his 14th such address to the nation in the last six year. "It doesn't happen in other places with this kind of frequency."

And of course people dismissed this fact; I saw it happen several times on Facebook yesterday, but it is true. Among wealthy, first-world nations, we have three times as many homicides as other nationalities. We have more than Turkey, Germany, Switzerland, Greece, Spain, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, Italy - more than 30 other countries that are considered wealthy and civilized.

Does that make us the least civilized of the 30? I think so. In fact, I think we have become a nation of lunatics, apparently bred from wrong-thinking stock sent over long ago, with the fruitcakiness now oozing its way out of our brains and becoming mainstream, mistaken for some semblance of sanity.

I mean, why is your right to kill me greater than my right to live? Because basically that is what gun advocates think. They think their right to carry a piece outweighs my right to live a peaceful, tranquil life. They think it outweighs my right to breath and continue living.

Well let me tell you, buddy, it doesn't. You can take your gun and shove it where the sun don't shine, up there with the heads of those idiotic politicians. We need gun regulations and we need them now.

And guess what? If you already believe that mentally ill people and convicted felons should not have guns, you believe in gun control, too.

So what do we do, us citizens who "want to take our country back" but not in the way that the people who usually say that mean? Those of us who still have some sanity left and want to see a land of the free that is peaceful, with well-maintained infrastructure, and happiness for most instead of just a measly one percent? What do we do?

Here are a few ideas:

• Get money out of politics (bye bye Citizens United)
• Make voting mandatory
• Reinstate the draft
• Elect people with common sense instead of idiots
• Do away with the electoral college
• Dismantle corporate monopolies
• Stop watching Faux News & listening to hate-talk radio
• Bring back the space program so that people have something in which to have national pride
• Change the educational system so that it is focused on individuals and not lemmings. Add back art, music, philosophy, and civics courses.
• Institute a jobs program to upgrade the public infrastructure
• Tax the churches since they have become political
• Write letters to your elected representatives
• Write letters to media suggesting that hate-filled TV shows be replaced with things that teach morality (think Andy Griffith)
• Write letters to sponsors of TV shows that advocate for violence and extremism
• Don't watch that kind of stuff on TV
• Stop advocating foreign policies that do more harm than good (i.e., military intervention)
• Upgrade and improve our mental health system and stop using the penitentiary to warehouse people who are mentally ill.

And guess what, I've disabled comments so you can't fuss at me, because unless you agree with me, I don't care what you think. And guess what again, I own guns. I can shoot guns and have shot guns. I live on a farm and I think guns are necessary at various times and places.

But I also think you should have to pass a stringent background check before you own one.

Let me repeat this one point so that it goes deep inside your brain:

If you already believe that mentally ill people and convicted felons should not have guns, you believe in gun control, too.

For a similar point of view, and interesting comments about how much guns are actually used in self-defense, check out Dan's Smith's commentary here.