Saturday 9: Trolley Song

Saturday 9: The Trolley Song (1944)

Because Stacey suggested Judy Garland. Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) In this movie clip, just about everyone (except Judy) is wearing a hat. Do you wear hats for fashion, for warmth or for both?

A. I don't wear hats anymore, unless I need a stocking cap because it is freezing outside. I used to love hats but after I wore one with my wedding dress, I have never worn another (aside from said need to keep from freezing).

2) This song is from Meet Me in St. Louis, which was a huge hit and the second highest grossing movie of 1944. When is the last time you watched a movie in the theater?

A. I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens whenever it was on, back in the spring.

3) The movie follows the Smith family as their hometown, St. Louis, to prepares to host the 1904 World's Fair. What's the biggest thing happening in your hometown?

A. Um. Nothing much. There will be festivals and things in the fall, but right now it is kind of dead.

4) This week's featured artist, Judy Garland, is best known as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. That movie is shown so often that Sam thinks she may have seen it a dozen times. Is there a movie or holiday special you've seen over and over?

A. I have, of course, watched The Lord of the Rings (all 3 movies, over 10 hours of video), multiple times. At least a dozen if not more. I've also seen The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, Dirty Dancing, Under the Tuscan Sun, and Steel Magnolias multiple times. 

5) Judy admitted to being perpetually tardy. Are you usually prompt? Or are you always running late?

A. I am usually 5 minutes early. I am seldom late.

6) Judy's first professional performance was a rendition of "Jingle Bells" when she was just two. How old were you when you entered your chosen profession?

A. I first published an article when I was 21, but I had been writing long before that. I had been told I would be writer from the first day I started school, I think.

7) Thinking of "Jingle Bells," here's a wintery question for a hot summer day: What's your favorite carol?

A. Do You Hear What I Hear?

8) Judy was a very demonstrative person. She enjoyed hugs and admitted that, when she nervous, she took emotional support from physically reaching out. Are you demonstrative?

A. I can be with the right people. Friends and husband. But not so much with people I don't know well.

9) She told Barbara Walters that people would be surprised to learn that she was a good cook and specialized in desserts. Do you have a sweet tooth?

A. I am a chocoholic. I guess I do.

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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.

Books: The Nightingale

The Nightingale
By Kirstin Hannah
Copyright 2015
440 pages
Kindle Edition

The Nightingale is a best seller, deservedly so. I have read some of Hannah's other books (Magic Hour and Summer Island) and not necessarily been overly impressed, but she did a great job with this one.

In a rather timely piece, Hannah takes us to Vichy France, giving us a quick glimpse of the nation prior to Germany's invasion and then taking us on a heady journey following two sisters as they struggle to endure the hell that war brings. They have suffered rough childhoods - the early death of their mother and the abandonment of a father crippled by World War I.

Sister Isabelle, the younger, is in and out of boarding schools, and always searching for her father's love. Vianne, married and mother of one, lives in the family's older home in a more rural area. When war comes, each is impacted in different ways. Isabelle initially is sent from Paris to live with Vianne, and along the way sees the atrocities to come as a German plane guns down a legion of women and children before her eyes.

Vianne, more sheltered, thinks that things will only get so bad even though her husband leaves for war. After her sister disappears and heads back to Paris, though, things slowly become worse for Vianne as a soldier billets with her and she finds food and resources difficult. Then she must watch as her Jewish friend is herded into a cattle car on a train, and she knows her time has come to find her moral ground.

Isabelle, meanwhile, is keen to fight, and becomes part of the French underground. She leads downed Allied soldiers across the great mountain range that separates France from Spain, saving 127 flyers.
 
The book reads with historical accuracy - hopefully as well-researched as it seems to be - and the author manages an interesting trick of having the story told in "present day" (1995) by one of the sisters - only we don't know which one until the end.

It's a fast read even at 440 pages, and the intrigue and detail gives one much to ponder, especially if compared to the political climate of America today. Are we too doomed to determine our morality by the blood of our neighbors?

Certainly something to think about.

Thursday Thirteen

Here is information from  the 2015‒2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans,” as provided by the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion:

1. A lifetime of healthy eating helps prevent chronic diseases.
2. Healthy eating is one of the most powerful tools we have to reduce the onset of disease.
3. Following a healthy eating pattern that’s right for you is important to improving health through nutrition.
4. A healthy eating pattern includes a variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, protein foods, fat-free or low-fat dairy, and oils (including natural oils and those from plants).
5. Healthy eating patterns limit added sugars.
6. Healthy eating patterns limit saturated and trans fats.
7. Healthy eating patterns limit sodium.
8. Most Americans can benefit from making small shifts in their daily eating habits to improve their health over the long run. Small shifts in food choices can make a difference in working toward a healthy eating pattern that works for you.
9. Regular physical activity is one of the most important things individuals can do to improve their health. 
10. Everyone has a role — at home, school, workplaces, and food retail outlets — in supporting healthy food choices.
11. A healthy eating pattern includes a variety of vegetables from all of the subgroups—dark green, red and orange, legumes (beans and peas), starchy, and other; fruits, especially whole fruits; grains, at least half of which are whole grains; fat-free or low-fat dairy, including milk, yogurt, cheese, and/or fortified soy beverages; a variety of protein foods, including seafood, lean meats and poultry, eggs, legumes (beans and peas), and nuts, seeds, and soy products; and oils
12. You can download a very large .pdf of the "dietary guidelines" here.
13. I am not sure what happens if you didn't grow up eating well and exercising, and you're over 50 now. Too late to change?

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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 461st time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. 

The Right Planner

Day Timer.

Day Planner.

Day Minder.

Day Runner.

Desktop calendars.

Page-a-day calendars.

Daily, weekly, monthly. At-a-glance. Organize. Task notes. Calendar. Contact list. Phone numbers.

Sketch books that pretend to be planners. Planners on your computer. Calendars in Google. Microsoft Outlook.

So many ways to plan and take care of our day. Be on time. Be here. Be there. Do this. Do that.

Write it in Evernote. Or OneNote. Or an Excel chart.

File it.

Pile it.

Toss it.

Scan it.

Use the software in your phone/tablet/computer. Hope you don't lose it.

Write it on a scrap of paper, and hope you don't lose it.

Amazon offers you 2,700 ways to go about organizing your life. You can do it in all colors and by the school year, if you want.

You can do it for a single year, five years or whatever else strikes your fancy (use blank pages and you can chart out your whole life).

A friend of mine told me last week she had a life plan that took her up to age 99. I didn't say anything, but boy, that is some planning.

What do you do when something unexpected happens if you plan like that?

Google gives you 59,600,000 results for "day organizers." That's millions. Millions of ways to organize your seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years.

I have gone through a number of various planners in my lifetime. I've used all of the main brand names - some I find too strict, some not strict enough. Some don't give me enough lines. Some are too big, some too small. Some don't have enough extras, some have too many.

Some come with refills, others don't.

They come in large sizes and small sizes. Some are big notebooks. Some are half-notebook sized. Some fit in your pocketbook or pants pocket. Some are like briefcases.

What I use now for appointments is a combination of a pocket calendar that I carry with me and a 2003 version of the Microsoft Outlook with calendar. I put them together once a week to sync them up, and print out a monthly calendar. The monthly calendar stays at my desk and I write appointments on there as I make them from home. Then I transfer them into the computer

It is tedious and multi-stepped, and probably more effort than I need to put out. But I don't have a smart phone to worry about losing, and this is what has evolved to meet my needs over time.

But other planning - life goals planning, that sort of thing? It's just in my head. No solid dreams written down - nothing that says "See the Grand Canyon again" or "Visit Scotland" or "Visit the museum home of every writer you can find" or whatever it might be that I sometimes think of doing. Things that I know I will never do, anyway.

That would be a goal planner, wouldn't it. There are 46 million goal planners listed on Google. That's a lot of different ways to work out your life goals.

I didn't ask my friend who has her life planned out to age 99 how she worked that out. Maybe I should give her a call, and see what she used for that. Maybe there is a 100-year-plan life journal goal-setting date planner out there somewhere.

I need a new planner. But I want one I can do lots of things in, not just set dates. So I guess I need to go look at these millions of planners and see if there is one that might suit me.

But then again, maybe I need to stop worrying about planning, and just let life unfold. Because some things you just can't plan for.

What about you? How do you plan? Or do you plan at all?

Sunday's Sunset

Sunday Stealing: Gal's Meme, Part Deux

Sunday Stealing: Gal's Meme, Part Deux

1. What did your last text message say?

A. I don't text. I own a flip phone and we're too cheap to upgrade.

2. Are you someone’s best friend? Tell us about your friendship.

A. That would be my husband. We have known each other since 1982, when we met at a football game. However, he rode the same bus as I when we were children, only he has no memory of that. I remember him, though. He was four years older so of course he paid no attention to the younger kids. Anyway, he's my guy, I go to him in good and bad, and he's always there.

3. What are you doing tomorrow?

A. I'm answering this on Saturday, and Sunday my husband plans to "work the cows" which means, get them out of the field and give them their shots (required by law) so we can haul some weaned calves to market. I won't be helping but I will be keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn't get hurt.

4. What do you think of when you think of Australia?

A. Kangaroos.

5. Last person you talked to on the phone? What about?

A. My husband. We discussed the odor coming from the fireplace area in the living room that is driving me crazy.

6. Any plans today? Do tell.

A. Today I have been doing laundry. Exciting stuff, that.

7. What makes you happy?

A. Being able to do the things I want without worrying what someone else thinks.

8. What’s your favorite room where you live?

A. At the moment, my office, but if we get the odor in the fireplace area fixed then it will be the living room (which is actually part of a "great room," which means the kitchen, dining, and living room area are all one big space).

9. Biggest annoyance in your life right now?

A. Pain.

10. Last movie you saw? Review, please.

A. Um. I don't remember the last movie I watched.

11. If you are jealous of anyone, tell us about it.

A. I'm not jealous of anyone.

12. What is the most serious relationship you’ve had?

A. The one I'm in now, wherein I have managed 32 years and 9 months of marital bliss.

13. Should anyone be jealous of you?

A. I know that there have been people who have been. I used to receive "anonymous" notes occasionally when I was writing at the newspaper from people who thought they could do my job better than I.

14. What do you usually do during the work day?

A. My days are erratic and generally revolve around physical therapy and doctor appointments.
 
15. Tell us about someone that you really don’t care for.

A. Did you ever watch a show called Orange County Choppers? The dad on that show was the biggest jerk ever. My husband liked the show but I would leave the room whenever it was on. 

16. Do you use the phrase “Have a good one” daily?

A. No. And in the south, it's "havea gud 'ern."

17. How old do you wish you’d be turning on your next birthday? Why?

A. I can't turn back time so it seems silly to waste precious energy on this question.

18. Do you still like amusement parks? Tell us about your last trip to one.

A. No, and the last one I went to was in the early 2000s; we went to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg. Neither my husband nor I like the rides.

19. How did you get one of your scars?

A. I have one on my left thumb from when I was helping my grandfather saw up a tree. I sawed my thumb instead.

20. Will you still love me tomorrow?

A. Of course.

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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: Into You

Saturday 9: Into You (2016)

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


1) In this video, Ariana Grande and her boyfriend take off on a motorcycle. Are your trips usually carefully planned? Or would you prefer to just spontaneously get up and go?

A. I am lucky if I get a trip - we live on a farm and someone has to be here to look after the cattle. Usually our trips are like this: where do you want to go? How about such and such. Ok. Make a reservation. We get there, then we figure out what we're doing. So a little planned, a little get up and go.

2) As they ride through the desert, they pass several cacti. This makes Sam sad, since she had a potted cactus on her desk and managed to kill it in no time. Do you have luck with house plants?

A. That is hard to do, kill a cactus. I'm impressed. I used to have a green thumb but I don't have any house plants at the moment. I started having trouble with molds in the dirt and ultimately tossed them all out.

3) This song mentions the appeal of acting "a little bit scandalous." Tell us about a time you were the subject of gossip.

A. I try to keep a low profile. However, as a news reporter I suspect I was the subject of a lot of speculation, scandalous or not, at various points as I worked on articles. Once a town councilman told everyone he met that I was out to get him and make him look bad in the newspaper. That was never the case with anything I wrote. I just quoted him. Usually that is all you have to do. People make themselves look bad.

4) Ariana's mother is an executive at a company that makes, among other things, alarm systems. Is your home protected by a security system?

A. Yes. Several of them, one of which kills. Go away, burglars.

5) Ariana has her own fragrance, "Ari," available at major department stores. When you're at the mall, do you accept the scent strips you're handed? Or do you say, "no, thank you."

A. "No, thank you." I am allergic to everything on the planet, and that includes scents and fragrances.

6) Ariana has said Mariah Carey is her "favorite human being on the planet" and her biggest musical influence. Who is your favorite female vocalist?

A. Melissa Etheridge. I also like Sheryl Crow, Bonnie Rait, Chrissie Hynde, Pat Benetar, Ann and Nancy Wilson, Stevie Nicks, Natalie Merchant, etc. 

7) A big fan of horror movies, she admits Freddy Krueger of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies was her favorite growing up. Do you like scary movies?

A. I watched them when I was young. Now I am old and would rather not have a heart attack watching something like that.

8) She had a brief relationship with rapper Big Sean. Do you like rap music?

A. No.

9) Random question: Which kid were you in school -- Class Clown, Brain, Jock, Stoner, Cheerleader, Teacher's Pet?

A. I was the brain and teacher's pet (I suppose they frequently go together). My nickname in the 6th grade (or one of them, anyway) was "computer head" - and that was in 1975 when computers were things we only read about or saw in movies. I wasn't the teacher's pet for every teacher but I was for many of them.

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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 Thirteen #460

1. My count is off on Thursday 13. I think this is #461 but the notation on the side says it will be #460, so we shall go with that. Happy 460 weeks of doing this to me. That's almost 9 years of doing this every week. However, Colleen over at Looseleaf Notes has been doing it the longest. I'm just runner-up, I think.

2. The sun is shining this morning. We've had rain almost every day for the last two weeks, so those rays are welcoming. Thunderstorms this afternoon, though. I already feel the changes in the barometric pressure in my little pea brain.

3. Earlier in the week, I cleaned off a single bookcase in my office (I have four). The criteria for putting books in the "take to the library" pile was not whether I read the book, liked it, or who had given it to me. It was if it smelled musty or like book dust. Which basically means that books that were not printed on good paper went out the door, because cheap paper tends to become dusty and smelly more quickly than good paper. One of my book cases has historical research books filling its shelves; those I will have to inspect more carefully.

4. That book case now has one entire shelf free, and a second one that I started on has a shelf free, too. Bare space. What a concept.

5. We have lived in our house for 29 years. When you stay in one place, things pile up in corners and drawers and dark hidey-holes that you don't even remember exist. It is easy to put things somewhere and forget about them. I've reached a place where I want some of the clutter gone. Not the things we treasure, but the things we never use and never will - time for those things to head on out the door.

6. That means I also need to go through my clothes closet and toss clothing. I wonder what my criteria for that will be, aside from whether or not it fits. Maybe that should be the only criteria. No holding things back for when I lose that 10 pounds (ha).

7. I began physical therapy again this week. I think it is a good thing - but it certainly hurts!

8. My calendar for August has a pictures of Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings on it. Many people think Samwise is actually the hero of the trilogy, because without his steadfast courage, Frodo would never have reached Mt. Doom in order to destroy the ring. If the ring had not been destroyed, it wouldn't have mattered what else happened because Middle Earth would have been overrun with evil. I tend to agree with this. It is kind of like a traditional marriage of the 1950s. The husband went out and was the super salesman or whatever, but he could not have been successful if his wife hadn't been taking care of picking up the dry cleaning. The person behind the curtain seldom gets the credit.

9. Our school students returned to the classroom on Tuesday. This is very early. The stores have notebooks for 17 cents. I have to resist the urge to buy a few. I have piles of unused notebooks in a closet because I always purchase some. I need to donate them to the local elementary school, I think. Or else start writing in them.

10. I have been playing with a pen name on Facebook. Another writer quickly sniffed me out publicly. I am fooling around with the notion of writing up something using this pen name. What name? Ida B. Knowing.

11. I changed my Facebook feed so that I am no longer seeing political news on it (at least, not as much). It makes for a much nicer morning to wake up to hippie quotes about peace and love than to the blathering of talking heads who think I can't figure out what presidential candidates say when I hear it.

12. The TV stays off when I am home until 6 p.m. I don't watch the morning news or talk shows. I don't watch game shows or soap operas (not that the ones I used to watch are on - they aren't). I do listen to music but this morning all I am hearing are the sounds of my fingers on the keyboard and the steady rhythm of a clock. For some reason I find that tick-tock comforting.

13. The little twin fawns that were born in the front yard have not been around as much as I'd hoped. I have seen them in the distance a few times, but they aren't coming around so I can take great photos. In fact, they have not been close enough with their mother for me to be sure they are the same twins - she has distinctive markings on her front feet. They have grown considerably, though. And they are starting to lose their spots.

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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 460th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. 

When Facebook Friends Pass On

Last week I learned that a blogging friend, who turned into a Facebook friend, passed away.

Her name was Patricia and we "met" online around 2004, when we were both using AOL Journals as blogs. She lived in Tennessee, had written a couple of romance books, loved dogs and wolves, and was married to Chuck for over 50 years. She had no children.

We spoke one time on the phone.

Chuck passed away in 2014 and Patricia passed away last week. I did not know any of her friends and would not have known she had died if someone hadn't posted something to her page.

I do not know what I am supposed to do with people who are my friends on Facebook when they pass away. At first I left things alone, thinking the family would eventually remove the page, or turn it into a memorial page, as Facebook allows, but that generally hasn't happened.

So there would be reminders of birthdays and anniversaries, just as if the person were still happily living out their life somewhere.

I found it kind of creepy. I wouldn't mind being reminded of the person annually, perhaps on the date of their death, but these public celebrations of personal events felt wrong.

So even though I had friends on Facebook whom I knew in person, and whose funerals I had attended, some time ago I went through and "unfriended" anyone who I knew had passed away.

I "unfriended" my friend Patricia as soon as I learned she had died. I had no other connections with her, and nowhere to send a condolence card.

I felt bad about it but it seemed the thing to do. I daresay no one will do anything with her page, and so far, they haven't.

How do you handle this situation on Facebook? This is different from getting angry at someone and "unfriending" them or blocking them - these people are dead. You don't want to forget them, but if the family isn't going to take away their page or turn it into a memorial page, well, then, what?

Facebook says this:

Report a Deceased Person

How do I report a deceased person or an account that needs to be memorialized?
Memorializing the account:
Memorialized accounts are a place for friends and family to gather and share memories after a person has passed away. Memorializing an account also helps keep it secure by preventing anyone from logging into it.
If Facebook is made aware that a person has passed away, it's our policy to memorialize the account.
To report a profile to be memorialized, please contact us.
Removing the account:
Verified immediate family members may request the removal of a loved one’s account from Facebook.

 

They also have ways to set up your account to become a memorialized account if you die, but you have to take steps yourself to make that happen. You need to set up a legacy contact, who is someone who will be responsible for your account if you pass away.

 

Personally, I would want my page deleted within a month of my death, or as soon as someone could get to it. If my husband wanted to make it a memory page or something, that would be his option. (That goes for this blog, too.)

 

What do you think? How do you deal with this issue? What do you think should happen to the online accounts of people who die?