Saturday 9: Jamming

Saturday 9: Jamming (1977)

Because Eloquent Obi suggested Bob Marley. Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) In Jamaica, "jamming" means to celebrate. What's going on in your life today that's worth celebrating?

A. I'm not dead yet. That's personally. Nationally, I am celebrating Hillary Clinton's nomination for president, the first female to be nominated by a major party for the country's highest office.

2) The group that became famous as "The Wailers" originally called themselves "The Teenagers." What was trendy when you were a teenager (clothes, music, etc.)?

A. Guys had long hair. Disco was coming of age, along with the sounds of The Eagles and the Allman Brothers. Clogs were a big thing, too, I think. We called marijuana Mary Jane. Movie? Grease. We were kind of the bridge generation between the 1960s and the 1970s. A lost sort of generational, not really old enough to be Baby Boomers but too old to be anything else.

3) Bunny Wailer and Bob Marley were very close. In addition to being bandmates, they were friends in elementary school and later became family (Bunny's dad and Bob's mom had a daughter together). Who has known you the longest?

A. Not counting family, I have some Facebook friends who have known me since second grade. My husband is my closest friend who has known me the longest, followed by my friend Leslie, who has known me about six months less than my husband.

4) Does the person you named in #3, the one who's known you longest, know you best?

A. I suppose so. Between the two of them, one of them should be able to figure out what is going on.

5) Bandmate Peter Tosh became an avid unicycle rider. What's your favorite form of exercise?

A. I like to walk on the treadmill, when I actually do it, and I also like Tai Chi. I am not much on bicycles or anything that requires me to get on the floor.

6) Bob Marley was known for his signature dreadlocks. When were you last in a stylist’s chair?

A. According to my calendar, about three weeks ago.

7) Marley's charisma is credited for popularizing reggae music the world over. Are you a fan?

A. Not particularly. But I don't dislike it.

8) Mr. Marley is one of the highest-earning dead celebrities, and manufacturers pay his estate to use his likeness to sell their merchandise. What dead celebrity have you seen recently on a t-shirt, mug, poster, etc.?

A. I don't look for dead celebrity things. I have seen a Monty Python Holy Grail T-Shirt and some Lord of the Rings things, but I do not recall seeing anything about any dead celebrities. Well, I suppose some of the photos of dead presidents that were shown at the DNC would count.

9) Random question: Have you ever had your palm read?

A. I had a general palm reading combined with a tarot card reading once. It was about 10 years ago. The guy was pretty intuitive.

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

 
  

An Historic Moment

Tears came to my eyes earlier in the week when Hillary Clinton received the nomination to be the first female candidate for president. When she showed up on that big screen, crashing through the glass ceiling, I cheered.

Last night, when she finally said these words, "And so it is with humility, determination and boundless confidence in America's promise, that I accept your nomination for President of the United States" - I cried.

"Tonight we've reached a milestone in our nation's march toward a more perfect union," she noted. "The first time that a major party has nominated a woman for President. Standing her as my mother's daughter and my daughter's mother, I'm so happy this day has come. . . . When any barrier falls in America, it clears the way for everyone. After all, when there are no ceilings, the sky's the limit."

I never thought I'd see the day.

Suffragettes have had my attention for some time, because the women's right to vote was a battle, a hard-fought battle that had women literally beaten, spit upon, belittled, and run down as less than. Always less than.

It was and still is something to fight against. The war's not yet won.

My county's own Mary Johnston fought for women's right to vote, along with Virgina's Ellen Glasgow and other notable women of the early 1900s. Johnston, in a prophetic moment, said this in a New York Times interview in 1911:

"I regard the fight for the franchise as a piece of roadbuilding. One and all of the women who are engaged in this piece of engineering are the servants of the woman who is to be—of a creature great and strong and wise and free and lovely—a woman magnificently beyond to-day's most wonderful dream. She may not come in the fullness of might and beauty for 500 years, but she could not come at all but for the road we are building to-day. She must come over that road. So we build in faith and in the service of that great woman and of the children she shall bear, and it is a work of great religious significance."

It did not take 500 years. But it took nearly 100. Women received the right to vote in the United States in 1920. Fortunately for Clinton, other women have moved mountains to give her a platform - nameless women who have raised children, created homes, and served as teachers. Women who have gone into the Armed Forces, become police officers and firefighters, writers, poets and environmental leaders. Women astronauts and engineers, scientists and doctors. Geraldine Ferro, first vice president nominee of a major party. Jill Stein, the nominee of a third party (the Green Party) and others who have knocked and beat on the bottoms of the shoes of the patriarchy until finally the men have fallen over with sore feet. It took a world of women, beating on that glass ceiling, so Clinton could break through.

I am 53 years old. I have always had the right to vote. It was a right my mother refused to exercise because of a silly notion that she might have to serve on a jury. Serving on a jury, to my mind, is another great right of a citizen, and a duty she shirked over some nebulous fear.

But perhaps that was because my mother thought, as she taught me, that she was less than. Women all around me have always been less than in the eyes of the patriarchy that forms America, and especially rural America - from my grandmothers to my mother, my aunts, and to myself. In Southwest Virginia, this Appalachian mountain land, women are currency, not humans.

I grew up knowing I was less than from the moment some male doctor pulled me from my mother's womb and spanked my bottom to make me breathe. I knew it when my father told me he was saving money for my brother's education, but not for mine (though I'm the one with the masters degree). I knew it when a male coworker tried to rape me in a back room before I married and when a friend of my father's grabbed me in a parking lot and felt me up. I knew it when every male doctor I saw for infertility looked at me not with compassion, but with pity and spite because I was, from then on, even less than all the other less than women who could carry a child.

Do you understand? This is not something I expect everyone to understand. Not even all women will understand, and they may not want to. Examining one's life can be painful, and I acknowledge that many do not take the time to do this. And many women are happy with their status.

That is their right.

I have never been happy being less than. In many instances, I am more than and I have always been equal to - as are all women - even when those around me refused to acknowledge it. I may not be physically strong, but there was a time when I was smarter than many men I knew.

I still am. We all bring something to the table, regardless of gender. We all have something to add to this world, and no contribution outshines another. If it does, it is only because some mind has made it so.

My husband, a kind and intelligent man, knows last night was important to me. He handed me a tissue last night when I burst into sobs, but I do not know if he understood the momentous occasion or the reason for the tears. I don't know if he understands the implications. I do not know if any man truly understands what it is to be a woman, any more than I can truly understand what it is to be a woman of color in this country.

Last night, women were no longer less than. Women can now be equal to and even if Mrs. Clinton losses this election (so get out and vote for her so this does not happen), that glass ceiling will have a truly large crack in it, one that may be repaired but never solely replaced.

At long last, Mary Johnston's vision from 105 years ago has come true.

And finally, after having female leaders around the world look at the United States in confusion, we are with them. Croatia has a female leader and has for some time. Canada, Chile, Germany, Great Britain, Denmark, Finland, Grenada, India, Ireland, Jamaica, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland and on and on have female leaders in the 21st century (and many way before that - remember Cleopatra? Queen Victoria? Mary, Queen of Scots?).

And here we are now, the United States of America, after 240 years as an independent country, on the cusp of making a woman a leader of this nation.

Finally.

This is no fantasy we are living in. Hillary Clinton is not Wonder Woman or Xena. She's no daughter of Zeus. She's a human being who has worked hard, solidly, for decades to better the world and to move herself up, fighting battles against men who would deny her the right to take that first gasp of air she needed when she was a wee baby if they could. Men who proclaim to love life, so long as that life serves them.

We are servants no longer. Take notice, men. You are no longer kings.

I'm with her.

I'm a Democrat.

I vote.

Thursday 13

How to do you dispose of things you no longer want?

I have a bit of a clutter problem. It's not because I don't want to get rid of stuff. It's because I don't know how to get rid of it.

That's because it is not junk - not things that should be tossed in a dumpster. These are things like very nice Ashley end tables and a matching coffee table, glassware, etc.

So, what do I do?

1. Yard sale aka tag sale. I've already vetoed this, unless I pack up a truckload of items and haul them into town to a friend's yard. That is possible, I suppose. Except I don't have that many friends who live in large subdivisions or in town. Most of my friends live out here, on farms, too.

2. Estate sale aka auction. I could get an auctioneer to come and sell things, but I don't have enough to justify that.

3. Auction house. The alternative would be for me to load up a truck and take things to an auction house, which usually has a sale every Saturday or once a month, or whatever. No reserves, though, so you have to take whatever the bid is. Which means my $300 Ashley items could sell for $1. In that case, I might as well toss them in the dump.

4. Dump aka landfill. This is a good place for many items - clothes that are too yucky for a charity, old papers, that sort of thing.

5. Hazardous materials dump. My husband informed me this morning that our landfill now takes computers and similar items. I have several computers hanging around the house that no longer work but I had no idea what to do with them. Now I know I can take the hard drive out of them and toss the rest.

6. Recycle. I already do this with paper and plastic. Except for the multitude of excellent notebooks I have packed in a closet, the papers generally go. The notebooks, which I for some reason collect, I need to donate to a school.

7. Donate. This is a good way to rid yourself of items, but donations also bother me. I don't want to give things to Goodwill; I don't like reports about the organization that indicate it underpays people and overpays the CEO. That's the nearest donation spot for me, and easiest to get to, and I do drop things off there from time to time. But still, not everything I want out of my house is something I want to donate.

8. Sell it on Craigslist or Facebook. If I didn't worry about folks coming to my home, this wouldn't be so bad, I suppose. But I don't want people roaming around. And I don't want to drive the 8 miles to the nearest little village to meet folks at the coffee shop just to sell some little thing or to have the person not show up.

9. Freecycle. I have some things I could give away, but there again, I don't want people around my house and I am not able to haul things to the nearest little village.

10. Ebay. I don't have an account. I would have to learn to do it. But it has possibilities, I guess.

11 - 13 - I'm lost. No more ideas. So not a real Thursday 13 - maybe a first for me.

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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 459th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. 

Teach Your Children Well

Ignorance is not bliss.

Young people who are 20 years old should know how to dust, vacuum, do the laundry, and take care of themselves.

If they don't, their parents have failed them.

It is not the school's place, the church's place, the government's place, or my place, to teach a child who is now an adult how to put Pledge on a rag and not drown the furniture in polish. If a 20-year-old doesn't know that, then somebody somewhere along the way failed that kid.

Regardless of sex, an adult (that's somebody age 18 and older) should know how to fix food and clean. Those are basic life skills. If they can't do that, and apparently many cannot, then how in the world do parents expect them to accomplish anything at all?

They aren't going to. And maybe parents don't expect them to. I don't know.

I can't know. I have no children. I don't understand how it is to have the little darlings and to hug them and kiss them and keep them infantile until they are 30. You're right, I don't get that. I don't know why parents would not give children chores or include them as part of the household but instead set them apart as some "other" apparently always worthy of techno stuff and trophies, but never worthy of the time and attention needed to actually raise them to be decent, responsible citizens who are respectful of people around them.

My husband has for about a decade now complained about the young people who come in to his line of work and expect to start out at top pay. They don't know how to do anything and they don't want to learn. All they want to do is play video games on X-box and ride around on fire trucks. They don't understand, or care, that the firehouse has to be kept clean, that the trucks need maintenance, that learning to put out a fire safely requires hours upon hours of training.

Mom and Dad never told them they might have to break a sweat once in a while. It's such a surprise to them when they learn they have to work.

My brother, who is a CEO of a medium-sized corporation with multiple branches, has made the same complaint about young people who come to him for a job. They dress shabbily. They spend more time looking at their phones than answering questions in interviews. Their parents bring them to the interview! Why would he hire a person like that?

If a 14-year-old can't babysit, do chores, bake a supper, do the laundry, and clean up a room, if not the whole house, that child is not a successful kid. I don't care how many As or baseball trophies are in that kid's room. That kid can't take care of his or her self and is therefore a failure in basic self care.

My grandmother was giving birth to my mother when she was 14. Her six children were all potty-trained before they were two. I was potty-trained before I was two. Today I see young mothers on my Facebook page talking about whether or not their four-year-old is old enough to be potty trained. Please. I know a woman who had five kids who taught every single one of them to use the toilet before they turned a year old. They weren't damaged, and neither was I. But I predict a kid who is still pooping his pants at the age of four will be in therapy later in life.

Schools and colleges complain about these things - teachers talk about how little children know, how they can't even take care of basic things like washing up for lunch. Colleges complain about helicopters parents who hover over their children and keep them infantile. Why would a parent want to do that?

We were watching a silly show on one of the science channels the other night about homesteading. This family of four was about to die of starvation because a 23-year-old boy and a teenaged girl weren't helping. The parents were doing it all, trying to chop wood and garden and all the other things it takes to live like that. The kids were, well, playing on their cell phones, I guess. They certainly weren't involved. And that, the homesteading expert pointed out, was their biggest challenge, the lack of involvement by all in the group. It wasn't snow or heat or snakes that was going to do them in - it was the fact that these parents had not given their children a work ethic.

When I was 20, I was married and keeping a house. And I kept a neat, clean home and took care of a garden. I worked full time and went to school part time. I failed to have children, but not for lack of trying. I was sick a lot and I still worked hard.

I realize that was nearly 35 years ago. But some things do not change. People need to be able to care for themselves and their surroundings. And apparently, young people today cannot do these things. These are the same people who one day will be taking care of me when I am old and infirmed, and if they can't figure out how to use a damp mop, then I despair of their ability to help me with a bed pan.

It is not child abuse to give children responsibilities. Every member of a tribe for thousands of years has had responsibilities. Little children from very early ages learned to gather firewood and tend to minor chores; they have done that for as long as humans have walked the planet. And now, what? They're too tender, too soft, or too special to be part of the community?

This is, I think, the result of the "me" generation which has not taken the time to properly raise their offspring. Mothers busy working and fathers busy working apparently haven't the time to teach little Darling how to use the washing machine. Although my mother worked full time and sang in a band on the weekends and we lived on a farm and my father worked full time and sang in a band and we lived on a farm, and I learned that stuff. So well, that's an excuse, not a reason. The reason? It is easier for the parent to tell Darling to go sit in front of the TV or the video game, and Darling learns diddly squat.

I have relayed before various incidents with children in recent years, how they scream and cry, run around in restaurants, and generally act like wild heathens while their parents play Candy Crush or whatever they're doing. They ignore the fact that the kids are creating a ruckus. It all goes back to attention and proper parenting. Letting kids run wild is not appropriate or proper parenting. Parents are creating monsters, not citizens.

I did not have an easy childhood. My parents were tough on me and I resented - and still resent - some of that. But they also gave me a work ethic and taught me how to do the things that a person needs to know how to do, like cleaning and laundry, and for that I am grateful. I never fared well at gourmet cooking like my mother, but my husband and I haven't starved and if I have to I can whip up a decent dinner without too much thought or effort. Even now, while I am ill and under specific doctor's orders not to do certain things, I still work to keep my house clean and things under control.

I fear there are parents out there who will want to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. But before these parents respond with emotional anger and bristles up, I hope they ask themselves why what I have written bothers them.

Then I hope they wonder if maybe if it isn't because they know, deep down inside, that I'm right.

And if that is the case, then I hope that tonight somewhere some parent takes a child aside, and shows him or her how to sort out the whites from the colors and use a washing machine.

My Rocking Chair

The week after my mother died, back in August 2000, I marched into Grand Home Furnishings at Valley View and purchased a rocking chair.

For some reason, I wanted - no, I needed - a rocking chair.

I found one that I could purchase straight off the floor and had my husband go up and get it later that afternoon.

I placed the chair and accompanying ottoman where I could watch TV and rock. It was not a place I sat every day, but when I needed a little comforting, I would take a book and spend a bit of time there.

And then two years ago, the sofa broke, and we went through this long saga of getting new furniture. The end result of that was I ended up with a La-Z-Boy recliner/rocker and a living room full of furniture.

So yesterday, my rocking chair went to a new home. Like many of our hand-me-downs, a young firefighter now possesses this. 

A part of me was sorry to see it go, but the room certainly looks less cluttered. Now we have to purchase new end tables and rid ourselves of the old Ashley glass tables.

We are not very changeable, my husband and I. We tend to put the furniture where we want it and leave it there. This living room upheaval has been frustrating (not to mention costly) and I hope that by Thanksgiving we will have the room back in order, with the new end tables and pictures and all back on the wall (we painted in April; the pictures are still in the floor of the spare room).

I think ridding myself of the rocker was an interesting challenge in letting go. It served me for 15 years - and that's a good long time for an impulse purchase of a piece of furniture. It had done its due, and we're moving into a new phase as we age.

Time change. You go from green to tan. But the tan still rocks, so the comfort remains.

Our Great Outing

With temperatures roaming around near 100 degrees over the last several days, the air is tough to breathe and working outside near impossible.

So Saturday my husband took a rare day off from working on the farm. We took a drive.



This is us, getting ready to head out. My husband has a dip
of chewing tobacco in his mouth. Sigh.

 


This used to the Roanoke County Courthouse, but it is
now part of Roanoke College.

 


We ate lunch at Macados in Salem. They have good
chicken salad. While we were there, we watched a parade
of vehicles with confederate flags and other decorations
go by.

 


This is downtown Salem, or what's left of it. I remember it
differently than what it looks like now.

 


This is the ponds in Salem. I caught a big catfish in there
once during a fishing rodeo.

 


No trip is complete without a stop at Walmart for something.

 


Heading into Elliston, the Blue Jay Motel greets travelers.
I always take a picture of it because my great Aunt Ruth and
Uncle Ted once managed the place. Best blueberry pancakes ever.

 


Christiansburg means cars. We checked on the new Camrys.
Not impressed enough to trade in my 2014.

 


We drove through Christiansburg downtown.

 


We came across a car show.

 


We did not get out because it was really hot.

 


We went into this store to see if they had any chair
end tables. They did not have what we wanted.

 


This is what we went to look at it. Yes, junk.

 


Farm junk. Pieces of stuff that mean nothing to me.

 


The stuff does, however, mean something to my husband. But
he did not find what he wanted on this day.

And that was that. I slept most of the way home. I don't do well on long adventures anymore. We were out about five hours, I suppose.

Our great outing.

Sunday Stealing: Beach Boys

Sunday Stealing: The Beach Boys' Meme 
 
1. SURFER GIRL : “I have watched you on the shore, standing by the ocean drawer, do you love me do you surfer girl?” Were you ever interested in someone (other than a celebrity) who did not return your interest?

A. I imagine I was, but that was so long ago that those brain cells have long since departed, flying out of my ears and into the airwaves.

2. BE TRUE TO YOUR SCHOOL : “So be true to your school now, just like you would for your girl or guy . . ." Looking back, how do you feel about your high school days?

A. I was a quiet student who generally stayed out of trouble. I wish I had made more friends but that's the way it goes.

3. FUN FUN FUN : “…and she’ll have fun fun fun till her daddy takes the T-Bird away…” What was the worst punishment you received as a teenager?

A. Since I know some of my family reads this blog, I don't think I will say. It would then be disputed or I would be "remembering it wrong" and I'd just as soon not get into it.

4. I GET AROUND : “Round round get around, I get around” Where did you go on your last long trip?

A. We went to Charleston, SC last fall for vacation.

5. HELP ME RHONDA : “You gotta help me Rhonda, help me get her off of my mind” What do you do to cheer up after a personal tragedy such as a lost job, power outage, or broken relationship?

A. How odd that a power outage falls in there with losing a job or a broken relationship. A power outage is nothing. But to cheer myself up after a personal tragedy, I read or play video games. I remember the day of 9/11, which was a national tragedy and not a personal one, but a tragedy all the same, I came home and played video games on Shockwave for hours to numb myself to what was happening. And when I wasn't doing that, I was glued to the TV, watching the towers fall again and again, knowing all the while that there were firefighters in there (343, to be exact) who had lost their lives.

I also tend to have fake conversations in my head with people who have made me angry, saying the things I wish I had said or had the courage to go say.

6. CALIFORNIA GIRLS : “I wish they all could be California girls. The west coast has the sunshine and the girls there get so tan, I dig a French bikini on Hawaiian island dolls, by a palm tree in the sand” Where are the best boys found?

A. They come from their mother's wombs. Every boy is a best boy until his environment turns him into a not-so-best boy. While I don't discount the possibility of a genetic component for "bad," I think most bad boys are made that way.

7. SLOOP JOHN B : “I wanna go home, please let me go home, ya ya. Well this is the worst trip, I’ve ever been on…” What is the worst trip you’ve ever been on?

A. In 1989, there was a massive riot at Virginia Beach. We had reservations to be there about three days after the riots. We called and were told all was quiet and to come on down. (Remember, no Internet, and we only had two TV stations then.) It was quiet, all right. There was no power in our hotel, and it was so hot and humid I couldn't breathe because of my asthma. The hotel across the street had power and I told the night clerk I was going to sue the hotel and him personally if I didn't get my money back so we could go across the street (I got the money back). Hundreds of stores were closed because the windows had been broken out. The place was like a combination ghost town and military zone. It was a horrible vacation and we have not been back to Virginia Beach since.

This is a timely thing to recall, because this was a race riot that happened nearly 30 years ago. Racism has never gone away, and the issues have only been swept under rugs full of broken glass.

8. WOULDN’T IT BE NICE : “I guess the more we talk about it, it makes it harder just to live without it, but let’s talk about it…” What is your biggest wish?

A. There's always the "I want the whole world to get along" thing, but those wishes, while altruistic, are not doable, as we all know. Personally, I would like to get the clutter out of my house and have the place looking exactly like I want it. But at the moment I'm not strong enough to accomplish that. I could wish for better health but, while I may get some better, I am never going to be all better.

9. IN MY ROOM : “There’s a place where I can go and tell my secrets to. In my room. In my room.” What is your favorite thing about your own personal room or space in your home/office?

A. It's my space and it has my books and right now too much clutter, but otherwise, it's the place I go to shut out the TV and to have some alone time. Plus, Elder Scrolls V.

10. GOD ONLY KNOWS : “You never need to doubt it, I’ll make you so sure about it. God only knows what I feel about you” When was the last time you told a significant other or close relative that you loved them?

A. My husband and I tell each other that every day. He works in dangerous jobs. I don't want our last words to be quarrelsome, and you never know when those last words might come.

11. GOOD VIBRATIONS : “My baby has good vibrations, she’s giving me excitations…” When do you get good vibrations?

A. When there's a sale on at the book store.

12. KOKOMO : “We’ll go to Kokomo. We’ll get there fast and then we’ll take it slow. That’s where I wanna go…” What is your favorite warm weather destination?

A. I don't have one, really, because I don't like the heat. I have been to Myrtle Beach more times than anywhere else, so we'll go with that one.

13. DO IT AGAIN : “Let’s get back together and do it again…” If you could go back in time and gather up your school friends, what would you do again?

A. Nothing.

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I encourage you to visit other participants in Sunday Stealing posts and leave a comment. Cheers to all us thieves who love memes, however we come by them.

Saturday 9: Surf City

Saturday 9: Surf City (1963)

Because Melissa suggested Jan and Dean. Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) When the song was written, "Surf City" was a fictitious town.* Tell us a song that is set in a real place.

A. Elvis Presley's "Promised Land" starts out, "I left my home in Norfolk, Virginia, California on my mind" and mentions several other places. But one of my favorites, and one of my favorite versions, is "How I Got to Memphis" as played by Jeff Daniels on The Newsroom. The song starts around 2:00 minutes in the video. 

2) In the song, Jan and Dean sing about riding around in a 1934 station wagon, which means the car was 29 years old when the song was recorded. How old is your vehicle?

A. My car is two years old.

3) Are you good on a surf board?

A. Nope. I'm an old woman. I do good to get across the parking lot.

4) When you spend time out in the sun, are you careful about applying sunscreen?

A. Yes. Well, usually.

5) Dean's original partner was Arnie Ginsburg. When Dean was drafted into the Army, Arnie didn't feel like waiting so he abandoned show business and went back to college. Today he holds several patents. What is something you wish someone would invent?

A. A cure for cancer would be nice, but there is so much money in *trying* to cure cancer that I doubt we ever find a true cure, unless we get capitalism out of health care. So how about something more down to earth? I know. A way to get the lime out of my hard well water that doesn't involve using a water softener.

6) Jan was a perpetual student who juggled college with recording. He not only graduated from UCLA, he completed two years of medical school at the UC Irvine School of Medicine. Have you ever considered going back to school?

A. I went back to school and received my masters degree in 2012. I would go for my Ph.D. if I thought it would be of any benefit, but it's a bit late.

7) In 1966, Jan was sidelined by a serious car accident. During the years that he was unable to perform, partner Dean became a graphic artist. He designed logos and album covers for Steve Martin, Diana Ross and others. Do you feel you respond most to words, pictures, or music?

A. I respond to all three in various ways.

8) In 1978, CBS made a TV movie about Jan and Dean. If they approached you about a made-for-TV movie of your life, who would you like to play you?

A. The young Kate Jackson from the 1970s, when she was in Charlie's Angels. Or Sarah Michelle Gellar from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Or the young Sharon Gless from Cagney & Lacey. I don't know too many current young actresses. The old me could only be played by the highly esteemed Meryl Streep.

9) Random question:  Growing up, how did you learn about the birds and the bees? (From books/the web, from parents, from your friends...)

A. I am not going to answer this question, except to say I didn't learn it from the internet, I am far too old for that.

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

Thursday 13

Words that demean women that we should all stop using:

1. Slut, slutty -  term for a woman or girl who is thought to have loose sexual morals. It is generally used as an insult or sexual slur.

2. Bitch, bitchy - slang pejorative for a woman considered belligerent, unreasonable, malicious, controlling, intrusive, or aggressive.

3. Chick - a slang word implying a young woman is not capable of caring for herself or is an infant or infantile.

4. Airhead - a mindless or stupid woman (how often do you see this used to describe men?)

5. Ditsy - silly or scatterbrained (again, how often do you see this used to describe a man?)

6. Frigid - unable or unwilling to be sexually aroused and responsive or showing no friendliness or enthusiasm; stiff or formal in behavior or style

7. Emotional - easily upset or excited

8. Hysterical - uncontrolled, extreme emotion

9. Frumpy - dowdy and old-fashioned (dowdy should probably be added to this list)

10. High Maintenance - overly needy or prone to drama

11. Bridezilla - A woman planning her wedding who exercises a high degree of control over all or many minor details of the ceremony and reception. (What do you call the groom who does that?)

12. Hormonal - off kilter, out of control

13. "Working" - as in "working" woman, "working" mom. You don't hear anybody say "working" man or "working" dad, now do you?


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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 457th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. 

Having a Drink

I hope those are flies and not ticks on that poor doe.

All done and ready to rumble.

Gandalf Comes to Bag End

Gandalf comes to the Shire

Medium: Color Pencil

Time: Weeks!

At My Convenience

At my earliest convenience.

I hate it when I hear that on someone's answering machine. "I will call you back at my earliest convenience."

That means, "I will call you back when I am not doing anything else that I consider more important than you. Like playing Candy Crush or something."

"As soon as possible" is better, because while that basically means the same thing, it is easier to interpret that as saying "as soon as I've returned home, to my office, or whatever." As opposed to the above, wherein you're the least important thing on the list.

But really, why not just, "I will call you back."

That's your intent, right? To call back? So why does it need any modifiers? Just say, "Leave your name and number and I will call you back."

That's all that needs to be said. And these days, we all know to leave our name and number, and we assume that the person called will call back. If they don't, we call back, if it's urgent.

Of course, I'm talking old school here. Texting? I don't know what happens when you send someone a text and they don't respond. Do you get some kind of bounce-back, like with email, that says so-and-so is not available because they're on vacation?

Maybe someone can fill me in on that.

I have a flip phone, so I don't text. I know the emails I send to cellphones as texts aren't always answered, or answered promptly. So maybe texts just sit there, like Humpty Dumpty on a wall, hoping no one hits the delete button so the message disappears (or pushes you over the edge).

Courtesy has become such an obscurity I suppose I should not complain about "my earliest convenience." I suspect people who leave that sort of message thinks they are being polite, though the message is all about them. But we live in a society where everything is about me, and nothing about you, so I expect nothing less.

Sometimes when I am dealing with people on the phone, and I say, "Yes ma'am," the woman will stop. "You must be from the South," she will say. Or she may suggest I am old and antiquated, without trying to be insulting.

I can only imagine the lack of courtesy these folks deal with every day. A "Yes ma'am" must be quite a change of pace for it to be commented upon. And isn't that a shame?

Sometimes when I am dealing with folks and I say please, thank you, or I appreciate that, or thank you for your time, or whatever, the person on the other end seems rendered speechless by politeness. But there is no point in not being polite. Generally the salesperson is not responsible for what the company does. That man or woman did not build the product that is broken, or whatever the case may be.

My Monday wish is for more courtesy and politeness. Polite people don't, as a rule, do bad things. They don't yell or diminish people, they don't try to "put one over on you" and they don't make unfounded accusations. That's not to say that polite people sometimes aren't pushed to the edge and suddenly they are ranting, raving, and yelling, but on the whole, I think the world could use a bit more politeness.

In fact, a Roanoke café recently had it's street sign go viral because of what it said.

The sign reads:

“Small coffee”
$5.00
“Small coffee, please”
$3.00
“Hello, one small coffee please.”
$1.75

According to reports, no one has actually been charged $5, but people are being nicer when they come in. Money talks, after all, and there's a big difference between $5 and $1.75.

Like everything in a capitalistic economy, even courtesy has its price.

And I hope the waitresses bring the patrons their coffee as soon as possible, and not at their earliest convenience.

Sunday Stealing: Story Telling

Sunday Stealing

The Story Teller's Meme

1. What are your current obsessions?

A. This year I have taken up coloring, and I like that. Other obsessions are blogging, my health, the clutter around the house that is too much for me to deal with on my own, and the fact that I don't cook well. 

2. What are you listening to?

A. Nothing, at the moment. Well, the clothes are bouncing around in the dryer and there's a clock ticking on the wall, but that's about it. 

3. Which item from your wardrobe do you wear most often?

A. New blue thing. I have a sports jacket thing that I wear all the time. My mother-in-law gave it to me around 1993 and that was the original Blue Thing. I wore it out completely, and this year finally, after several tries, found a new Blue Thing. Which is what I call it when I take it off somewhere and misplace it. "Babe, have you seen New Blue Thing?" 

4. What are you reading?

A. I just finished At the Water's Edge, by Sara Gruen, and am getting ready to start Hold Still, by Sally Mann. I am listening to Homeport, by Nora Roberts, which I think I have been listening to for about six weeks now. I don't spend a lot of time in the car and that is where I listen to books. 

5. What’s for dinner?

A. I am making a turkey meatloaf, and we will probably have green beans and sliced tomato with it. 

6. What was the last thing you bought?

A. Groceries. If you don't want to count that, then a pair of $52 pants that were on sale for $12.58. They are the wrong color but they fit and for that kind of money I can wear them around the house. 

7. Guilty pleasure?

A. Chocolate. And Lord of the Rings.

8. What training did you get and how do you make a living?

A. I majored in English and have a masters degree in the humanities. I used to be a news reporter and a freelance writer, but health issues have forced me to cease most of my work. My husband and I also own a farm. I used to help him more but I am not able to so do so much now. 

9. If you could go back in time, knowing what you know now, and choose a different career path, what would you train to do?

A. I would have gone to school out of high school, obtained my Ph.D., and become a college professor, probably teaching English. I would have tenure by now and be ready to retire. If I hadn't done that, then I wish I had trained in computers. 

10. What’s your best time of day?

A. Sometime around 11 a.m. 

11. Do you like being on a team or are you a solo player?

A. Solo all the way. 

12. What’s your favorite way to create art?

A. I'm a writer. I write. I also play the guitar and a few other instruments. Lately I've taken to coloring (see above obsession) and am hoping to work from there to drawing. We'll see. I have never considered myself much of a "drawer." 

13. Name three items in your refrigerator: Watermelon, cherries, and blueberries.

14. Tell us about your first crush: My first crush was on my invisible friend, whose name was James.

15. The first time that I became a boyfriend/girlfriend was with who, when?

A. That is an oddly worded question. I suppose the first time I became a "girlfriend" was in the second grade.

16. Do you remember what you did on your first date?

A. My first date was a prom, so yes. We went by my grandmother's house to show her my dress (she cried) and then we went to eat at Fiji Island (local restaurant), and then went to Hotel Roanoke to the prom. My dress was blue, and he had on a light blue tux. He is not the guy I married. I was in the 10th grade and he was a senior.

17. How did you meet your current (or most recent) girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife?

A. We met beneath the football goal posts during the in-county rivalry football game in October 1982. Mutual friends introduced us (more like, pushed us together and then left us standing there).

18. How did your first romantic relationship end?

A. The invisible boyfriend just sort of went away. I have no idea how the one from second grade ended. The one from 10th grade ended when he graduated and went into the army.

19. Do you remember your first kiss?

A. No. But I remember my first kiss with my husband.

20. What do we still not know about you?
A. I still believe in Santa Claus. Well, the spirit of him, anyway.

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I encourage you to visit other participants in Sunday Stealing posts and leave a comment. Cheers to all us thieves who love memes, however we come by them.