The Home Builders Show (Or: Friday Night)

Friday evening my husband surprised me by suggesting we grab dinner out and then go to Salem to the Home Builders Show.

I always enjoy the home builders show but he has never cared for it. I don't know why; maybe be he is in the business as one of his three jobs?

So off we went. The place was full of displays. I was amazed.

We looked at replacement window places because we are considering making that investment. Our 22-year-old windows leak badly and in the winter I know all the heat goes out the cracks. We have attempted to put up things to stop the draft but to no avail.

Another thing I would like to do is put in a walk-in shower. One with a seat. This is forward-thinking for when we are too old to get over the side of the tub. I figure we should go on and make the house relatively handicapped accessible before we need it, you know? An accessible bathroom is the missing piece.

The third thing I would like to do is add on a sun room. I don't think that will ever happen because my husband doesn't like sun rooms, mostly because he claims they always leak.

Barring that, I would like to get an outdoor shed because if I can't bring myself to throw junk out of the house, I would like to store it if nothing else. That isn't going to happen either, though.

Anyway, we looked at those kinds of things. We still haven't made up our minds on the windows but we did see a few things we liked and will investigate. That is the purpose of the Home Builder's Show. To bring in business at a later date.

After we left, we found ourselves in a police blockade on US 419 as we headed for the interstate. This was a sobriety check. It was pouring rain and the policemen were in yellow slickers checking licenses. Their little police hats were in plastic and water raced off their brims.

I have been driving for 30 years and this was the first time I'd ever been in a sobriety check. I guess we aren't out late enough or in the city at the right times. We miss all of the excitement.

I have a problem with sobriety checks and similar things because I think they are fundamentally un-American.

Of course we breezed through that without incident - neither of us drink. It rained very hard all the way.

And that was the end of our Friday night.

Thursday Thirteen

1. So far this summer I've had an ear infection, strep throat, and now I have a blood clot in my leg. It's throbbing while I have it bent down to write this. Throb. Throb. Throb.

2. Writing at the computer is difficult if one is supposed to keep the leg elevated.

3. I have a laptop but I don't like writing on a laptop. I'm not even sure why I bought another laptop; I seldom use them. Mostly I just wanted to have something here as a back-up in case my desktop goes down. My last laptop had Windows Vista on it. It was old but my new laptop isn't any faster and nothing about it cries out to me, "use me, I'm the best!" That's probably because I bought the cheapest Dell I could find.

4. With Windows 10, one never knows when another update is coming, so I feel like the probability of a crash is always imminent.

5. I back everything up to a second hard drive, and sometimes if I'm working on something important, I send the file to myself in gmail.

6. I have tried to use OneDrive but apparently the Cloud is beyond my comprehension. I can't get the thing to upload. I don't blink my eyes in the proper sequence or something.

7. I'm still using MS Word 2007. I don't want to have to pay a monthly or yearly fee to Microsoft to use its products. I think you should only have to pay for it once and be done with it. It's not a visit to the doctor for an annual physical.

8. I believe that the cracks of our democracy are widening every day. When the earthquake comes, what will be left standing?

9. No wonder dystopian literature is popular. It is hard to imagine a utopian one. Human nature bends toward the dysfunctional.

10. I am feeling my age and feeling sad today, though I couldn't tell you why. It is a day to celebrate - 50 years ago we landed on the moon! And then we defunded the space program and lost all hope. Instead of reaching for the stars we reached for dollar bills and quarters. Watch the shiny nickel and dimes rain down. Enthralled by the chains of capitalism, we let our hearts and souls be derailed.

11. I like trains. Even the ones that jump the tracks.

12. In The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Gandolf gives his life so others may move forward. "You shall not pass!" he cries to the evil Balrog as the rest of the fellowship try to escape the mines of Moria. I wonder where our Gandolfs are today. Who will stop the Balrog? (Who gets to define what a Balrog is in today's world?) Who stole our better angels?

13. Gentleman may cry peace, peace, but there is no peace. Is life so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? - Ah, but hasn't it been purchased? Aren't most of us playing with bread and circuses, slaving at our corporate jobs, not living our best lives because we don't even know what that is anymore? When up is down and sideways is straight, who can tell what is good, what is evil, what is bad, what is moral? Where will we go to find answers? We must look within, and if the answer is not there, then we must look to the past for wisdom. Not the Bible - but the past. Look at what has been, and swear it will not be again.


___________________
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 613th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

Sunday Stealing

Sunday Stealing

1. Would you rather be the guest or the host?

A. The guest. That way I can leave. I'm not very big on large gatherings.

 

2. What do you like to wear when you feel fancy?

A. I seldom want to feel fancy. But if I have to dress up, then it's usually in something black.

 

3. How often do you try something completely new?

A. Most days. I try new guitar arrangements, or a new skill game, a new book, maybe something different with my camera, or a new source of information. Of course, none of that is completely new; I have some skill in all of those areas. I suppose completely new eludes me. I'm not going to learn skiing or anything like that. In the last few years, I've tried knitting (not so good at that) and crocheting (better at that, sort of). 

 

4. Do you enjoy weddings?

A. Not particularly.

 

5. Have you ever had something customized?

A. I've had people's initials put on things for presents. But nothing big, like a car.

 

6. Do you cook spontaneously or meal plan?

A. It's a spontaneous "what is in the cupboard" meal plan.

 

7. Name some books you like to read over and over.

A. I reread the Lord of the Rings trilogy frequently. Otherwise, I generally do not reread books, although of late I have gone back and picked up some classics I read when I was young. I have a better appreciation for them now.

 

8. What are you really good at?

A. Writing. Loving. Listening. Feeling. Imagining.

 

9. Do you sleep with windows open or a fan on?

A. We sleep with the windows closed and an air purifier running to drown out noise. I am a light sleeper, and even the sound of the refrigerator turning off and on in the kitchen will awaken me without some kind of white noise.

       

10. What is the easiest recipe you know?

A. Boiling an egg. Or maybe making toast. My cheeseball recipe is pretty easy and it's tasty: 2 bars of cream cheese, 2 1/2 cups of grated sharp cheddar cheese, a Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing Mix, and a bag of bacon bits. Mix it all up together, then roll in pecans.

 

11. Are you comfortable starting conversation with strangers?

A. It depends on my mood, but generally I can manage it.

 

12. Do you prefer quiet, or ambient noise when you relax?

A. Quiet, or a little music.

 

13. Who is your most adventurous or exciting friend?

A. My most adventurous friend recently passed away. She had been to all 50 states in the USA before she died.

 

14. What do you eat when you can’t decide what to eat?

A. Peanut butter crackers.

 

15. Do you have any funny pet stories?

A. Not really, no.

 __________

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.

Tuesday

On Sunday, as I headed out for breakfast with a friend, I spied a hot air balloon crossing a corner of the farm.

The cows were all huddled in the barn. Hot air balloons scare them. Sometimes it makes them stampede.

I did not call the law - it doesn't do much good, anyway - but it is a frustration. After all, if the cows run, scared, and break a leg, I'm the one with the loss. I did call my father-in-law, because it is his land, after all, because I thought the balloon might land in the field. The balloonist has no permission to do that.

But he landed elsewhere.

Unbenownst to me, Santa Claus was in the balloon, along with a TV crew.

****

My brother called me today. He is out of the hospital and his tests did not reveal any problems with his heart. Stress or reflux or both seems to be the diagnosis. He said he has a bad headache because they gave him nitro.

****

I spent part of the morning in jail. Well, not really. I toured the new jail under construction in Fincastle. It is a huge structure.

I went in one of the cell spaces. The cells are about 12 feet by 7 feet and very dark. There are no windows in this place, aside from some skylights. Each cell will hold two people and a toilet when it is done.

I would not want to spend much time in such a place. To never see the daylight, the grass, the fields, the trees. My gosh. I don't think I could stand it. It was bad enough when I had an inside office with no windows when I worked in a lawfirm in Roanoke so very long ago.

The United States puts more people behind bars than any other nation. You can read about this here. This is big business and I suppose an economy-builder. After all, our county is spending $20 million to build this jail; I saw what looked like 100 men on the construction site.

But I am not sure what it says about us as a country, that we put so many people in prison. Something like one person out of every 32 people has a criminal record of some kind. Which averages out to about one child per every classroom, more or less. It's rather mind-boggling.

I think it's sad that people can't behave themselves and thus end up in the court system, but I also think this kind of thing is a telling sign that we as a society are not doing something quite right. I don't know what it is we're not doing, though.

Tired now. I must be thinking too much.

Thursday Thirteen

I have computers on my mind this morning.

1. My computer, a Dell, has developed a hiccup. It has stopped reading my external hard drive and the fonts changed in Internet Explorer and I can't figure out why or how to change them back. When my computer isn't working right, I get very frustrated.

2. The first computer I ever used was a Commodore Vic 20. My mother bought it when they first came out, which was about 1981, and I immediately took possession of it. I learned a little BASIC programming on it and played a few games with it.

3. My next computer was a Commodore 64. This actually met my basic needs at the time; it ran a dot matrix printer and I had a word processing program that I used with it. I wrote articles for the newspaper on this computer. This was in 1985 or so. Oddly enough, in looking this up I discovered that there is a new Commodore 64 out, one that will run Windows.

4. My next computer was a Tandy T-1000, which was sold by Radio Shack.

5. That was followed by two computers that were built by a computer dude who had opened a local shop. This is probably the best way to go, but it is hard to find this as option around here anymore.

6. Then along about 1998, after the guy closed his shop, I bought an HP. I might have had two HPs, I can't recall for sure.

7. I know I had two Gateways somewhere in there. And then I bought the Dell.

8. I end up purchasing a new computer every three to five years, mostly because something starts malfunctioning. Either a piece of hardware stops working or the software configurations become frazzled that the computer thinks it alive and should get up and walk around the house. I don't know what happens to the darned things when all I do is turn them on and type on them.

9. Personally, I think I should still be using the Commodore 64 from way back when. Or at least my first HP. Shouldn't the things last longer than three years? I mean, that's about $300 a year when you get right down to it. I don't know about you, but I generally spend a $1000 every time I replace one.

10. At the moment, I have my old Gateway computer with Windows XP on it sitting on the floor of my office. I have a Toshiba laptop in a closet, and a Gateway laptop sitting on my desk. I have a Nook Color in the living room, and I'm writing this on the Dell. My husband has an HP computer in his home office. Shouldn't that be enough technology for two people? Shouldn't this damned Dell work right?

11. In spite of all of that, I do not have a smart phone. I have a six-year-old Nokia phone that doesn't take pictures, have a keyboard, have applications, or any of that stuff. I could text on it if we were signed up for that, but we're not. All I do is talk on it and I don't do much of that. We have lousy cellphone reception in the house so the phone stays in my car and I mostly use it for emergencies, like calling home to see if I need to stop and pick up a loaf of bread. My husband and I have 550 rollover minutes between us and we roll about half of those over every month.

12. I suspect if I bought a new phone, it would work better in the house. Other people's phones work okay when they are visiting here. I know because they came to see me and then sat and played with their applications instead of having a conversation. Which is why I have resisted purchasing a smart phone. I prefer to interact with people face to face.

13. This is a lame Thursday Thirteen, but what do you do? When you have something on your mind, it's on your mind.

Damn computer.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 219th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

The Agony of it All

Last week, as I minded my own business and began intensive work on a personal writing project that I aimed to finish, my computer decided it had enough.

Enough of me plugging in devices and using it for my own purpose. It wanted no more. The Gateway 830 GM had served me faithfully for over four years and it was sure its time had come.

The USB ports died. I first realized there was a problem Monday evening but thought little about it.

Tuesday morning, the external hard drive would not come up. So I thought it was the external device.

Then the computer wouldn't read my cameras. Or the printer. Or anything else, except for a very old scanner plugged in the back.

About the time I decided to unhook everything and haul it to Best Buy for a check up, everything worked again. So I backed up the hard drive and continued to work.

The next morning when I booted up, she was dead in the water where the USB ports were concerned. So I unplugged and headed to Roanoke.

The Best Buy guy, a young fellow attempting in vain to grow facial hair, said the problem sounded like a mother board issue. Of course while I had it on the counter his wireless mouse device worked properly in all ports so he could not be sure.

I lugged the thing back home. Of course when I set it back up, nothing worked.

A friend offered up her brother-in-law, who is a business computer technician. He could not come by until Friday, so I bid my time, limping along without the USB ports. It worked properly when he first arrive, but after a reboot everything was dead. After an hour he decided it was indeed some kind of serious problem and not a software or driver issue.

I had planned to replace the computer after Windows 7 was issued, (which happens in late October) not before, but since I really need a good working and reliable computer for my work, I knew my wallet would have to be a lot lighter.

Saturday I zipped around looking at computers. I took a little notebook and diligently wrote down model numbers, prices, RAM size, hard drive size, number of USB ports, card reader, etc etc. I visited two Walmarts, Staples, Best Buy, Sam's Club and Office Max.

Then I came home and looked at dell.com and other places.

After much discussion my husband and I decided I would buy an ASUS computer, because the tech guy and the Best Buy salesmen all swore that ASUS was the best component parts maker in the world and thus their computers must be the best on the market. Apparently they have been making computers for just a little while but parts for a very long time.

I ordered the computer online with pick up at Best Buy in Roanoke. Sunday afternoon we picked it up and returned home.

I began setting it up.

I noticed Sunday evening that the graphics looked fuzzy but I thought I simply needed to adjust settings. At one point I was concerned enough that I called the ASUS 24/7 tech hotline. I figured it wouldn't be too busy that time of day.

I received a recording.

The next morning, I began the set up process in earnest. Windows downloaded updates for a very long time. I used up a Norton Antivirus license, my last on a purchase that would let me put the thing on three PCs, and an MS Office license. Things were humming along.

And then I decided to see if the DVD player worked okay.

I put in a Lord of the Rings DVD. It would not show the picture properly. I had lots of pixel boxes all over the video.

Completely unacceptable, of course.

I then checked the device driver on my graphic card, fiddled with its settings, updated the driver - pretty much did everything I could except stand on my head.

Meanwhile, I started receiving a black screen and then it would come back with a notice that my graphics device had recovered from a serious error.

I called ASUS again, only to receive another recording. I checked their tech website in hopes of an online chat. No one ever appeared to help me out. I finally found a form I could fill out and request assistance. I sent off the request.

When no assistance was forthcoming after a couple of hours, I unplugged the ASUS and boxed it back up.

My husband and I went back to Best Buy and returned it.

Then I went around to several stores looking at brands and numbers again. I decided I wanted either a Dell or another Gateway.

Best Buy had a Dell and Gateway with similar specifications. The Dell was a little cheaper because it had fewer bells and whistles. I decided on the Dell.

Best Buy Roanoke didn't have it.

So we drove to Christiansburg at 8 p.m. to pick it up. We returned home about 9:40 p.m., because Christiansburg is not close.

So this today for a second time I have been setting up a new desktop. Norton was kind enough to allow me to transfer the license to this computer so I didn't have to pay for that again. I still had one license left on my MS Office so I installed that.

So far, so good. The Dell has withstood me for 7 hours now.

I did receive an email from the ASUS people about mid-day. Their response?

Do a full system restore. Hope that helps.

I do not recommend that brand of computer to anyone. I know parts can fail on any of them but their customer service certainly left me cold.

Free Range Zoo

Last week, we took a drive up the road a bit to visit a drive-thru zoo. I am not a fan of zoos, but this was allegedly an open zoo with the animals roaming about on 180 acres. While that may sound like a lot of land, it is not. Not for as many animals as they had in there.

The safari place sells buckets of food, too, and you are supposed to feed the animals from your car. This means the animals are conditioned to think that car equals food. Most of the animals hang out at the entrance of the park, because obviously by the time you get to the middle or the end, you've given out all of your food.

I found it terrifying to have the car suddenly engulfed by a slew of domesticated wild animals. I still have llama slobber on my car window, my repayment for not purchasing the bucket of food.

The following pictures were taken through the car windows, so there is some glare and reflection.

This is what greets you when you drive over the cattle guard and into the safari area.

They don't like unopened windows. Yikes. This is a llama.

These are either fallow deer or axis deer. I am not sure which.

When I saw this, all I could think of was hakuna matata, from The Lion King. However, the guidebook doesn't say they have wart hogs. This may be a kune kune pig from New Zealand.

I think this is an eland, which hails from Africa.

This may be an elk.

I am not sure whether this is a blackbuck from India or a scimitar horned oryx from North Africa.

Some kind of deer. Fallow deer, maybe.

The little axis deer are very small. They came from India. There were a lot of them.

More deer.

Notice the field. There is little grass there for the animals to eat.

This is a blackbuck, which comes from India.

I think this was another elk.

They don't mind getting close.

These were resting a little distance from the car. I think they're elk.

Elk, I guess.

They had several white animals. In the wild, when we see albino deer on the farm, it generally means the herd is too large and there has been too much inbreeding.

This is an axis deer from India.

I think I liked the zebra the best. This is a "Grant's zebra' from West Africa and/or Zimbabwe.

This bird was huge. Ostrich, I think.

This was further into the park. The animals all came running toward the vehicles. Note again the lack of grass in the fields.

A kune kune pig from New Zealand.

A llama who is figuring out it should have gone to the front gate, I suspect.

You could see the giraffes but they were in a different fenced-in area and so they did not come near the car.

A fallow deer. They are found in Europe and Asia.

The farewell team of llamas.

We probably won't go back. We both thought the animals looked listless and sad. We know how many cattle we can run on the pastures of our farm, and it's not anywhere close to the number of animals on this small acreage. The organization feeds hay and there appeared to be a steady stream of cars behind us with the animal food, but this is not what I consider fun. It was a nice outing with my husband as far as that goes, but animals like these need to be roaming free. At the least, the herds of small deer and llamas need to be thinned out. There were too many ostriches, too.

Pandemic Journal - Day 87

We continue to be careful with our outings here at the ol' farm. No eating out. No going to places just to go somewhere. No hanging out at Lowes. We go to the store when we have to - we're trying for every 10 days or so.

It is a good thing I like our home.

Late last week, I baked a cake from scratch - first time for everything, I suppose. I am trying to keep up with the bookwork for our several little businesses. Tedious work, that, and not a favorite thing to do. Actually I'm supposed to be doing that right now but I'm blogging instead.

Queen of procrastination, I am.

Last week the mattress saga finally ended when Sealy sent our replacement mattress under warranty. We had a Sterns & Foster with a 10 year warranty and it died in 8 years. I hadn't realized how much it had shrunk down and flattened out until we received the new mattress. No wonder I have back problems. Maybe this will help.

The new mattress did off-gas for a few days, which bothered me, but it seems to have stopped, or I have adjusted to it, one or the other. For the first two nights we had it, I woke up with my eyes swollen and my whole body feeling "not right," but that has gone away. Seems like anytime we bring anything new in the house, I have a problem with it anymore. It's frustrating.

My mother-in-law, who is 86, appears to have shrugged off the virus for the most part and is going about her routine of grocery store, pharmacy, etc., just as she did before March. We were shopping for her, but she decided to go herself and we can't stop her. I just hope she realizes that if she gets Covid, she will be alone because neither of us will be able to go care for her. But maybe she will be ok. I hope she is at least wearing a mask.

A friend who's been to Richmond said the people there are much more diligent about wearing masks and social distancing than they are around here. We are surrounded by a bunch of "me first" Republicans, so this is no surprise. It will show in where we spend our money. If a business is being careful and has masks on employees, that is where we will shop. I don't go into stores if I see many people without masks, especially staff. Besides, right now one is supposed to wear a mask in public under order of the governor. I think people should think of others and not be foolish, but I'm expendable so what do they care, right? Who cares if a fat ol' childless woman lives or dies? Not them.

I took some great photos of turkeys and a new baby calf, but the computer ate them when I downloaded them and also erased the SD card. I can't decide if something is wrong with the Windows Photo app or if my SD card is bad. It might be the card, as I took some other pictures and it wouldn't download those, either, but I was able to get them by using the camera to download instead of the card reader. I suppose it could be the card reader. This computer is five years old. I hate getting a new one anymore, they are such a hassle to set up. This is a Dell and I plan to use it until something major breaks.

Fortunately, I keep a backup of everything on the hard drive on an external drive. I also back a few things up to the cloud.

Really important things I email to myself - just in case.

Locally, last week someone vandalized the Confederate memorial at the county courthouse by throwing red paint on it. This does not surprise me, although the obelisk is not an ostentatious showing of the Confederacy like a statue of Robert E. Lee might be. I wrote several articles about the monument when I was with the newspaper. It probably needs to be moved to the museum and out of the public sphere. I don't want these statues destroyed, because they are art, but I think they belong outside of places where they are in your face. People are complaining that tearing down the statues is destroying history. Well, no. The history is there, in the history books, and in diaries and a multitude of other places. Taking down a statue is taking down a statue, not destroying history. So move them. It's rather like how I feel I can write what I want in my blog and not on Facebook. Facebook is in your face and you don't have a choice of what you see, sometimes. If you're reading my blog, you came here to read it and shouldn't be surprised by anything you see here, if you're a regular reader.

Speaking of Facebook, I have blocked loads of people on there. Most of them I don't know. If people are particularly nasty in comments on articles I read, I block them so I don't have to see their nastiness. I have not "unfriended" anyone on Facebook although I have unfollowed a lot of people so I don't see their FB posts in my feed. I think I'm down to seeing about three friends and news media of varying sources. Sometimes I go back and follow people, only to unfollow them again. If there is one thing I have learned these last three years, it's that a lot of people around me are racists and bigots. They're nice people and some of them wouldn't hesitate to help me out if I asked, I suppose, just I wouldn't hesitate to help them, but their morality and my morality are very different and I'd just as soon not be exposed to it. Or know about it, for that matter. That's probably very ostrich-like, but I am not interested in starting arguments. I like peace and quiet and I want everyone to be happy.

Right now my county has 10 active Covid cases. We've had a total of 44, with 4 deaths attributed to the virus. The problem is, I don't know where those 10 came from, and probably neither does anyone else.

So I continue to stay home as much as possible. I'm trying to find a new routine again, which I have to do anyway since my husband has retired and is here. That has been enough of a challenge without all the other stuff going on.

Saturday 9: Angel

Saturday 9: Angel (1998)

. . . because Bev recommended it

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

1) Sarah McLachlan wrote this song about someone she barely knew. She read the obit of Jonathan Melvoin, keyboard player for the Smashing Pumpkins, who died of a heroin overdose. What's the most recent news story that touched you deeply?

A. Mostly the news just makes me angry these days. It's a very deep anger. Does that count?

2) Ms. McLachlan performed this in tribute to Linda McCartney at the 1999 Concert for Linda. She was expressing her hope that, in death, Linda found relief and peace after a long and painful battle with cancer. What do you think happens to us when we die?

A. The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms play pinnacle on your snout. I hope I feed a nice tree somewhere.

3) Daytime dramas General Hospital and As the World Turns used this song on-air after a major character died. Do you follow any "soap operas?"

A. Not any more. I used to be a big Dark Shadows and Guiding Light fan when I was (much) younger. Now I watch Game of Thrones, Supergirl, and Survivor.

4) In 2007, Sarah donated her recording of this song to the ASPCA. Do you have a pet? If yes, how did you get it (shelter, pet store, etc.)?

A. I do not have a pet now. In 1984, I picked up my dog who lived for 17 years (outside, yes, I was a bad dog mama) at the flea market when she was about seven weeks old. The cows are not pets, but we buy them in herds from other farmers or at the auction house.

5) She admits she can't watch those ASPCA commercials, where her recording of "Angel" plays over sad photos of animals. Is there a TV commercial that really gets to you (in either a good or a bad way)?

A. Those Christmas commercials where the kid sneaks in from college and starts the Folgers brewing and his parents wake up to find him home used to make me sniffle.

6) In 1994, Sarah was stalked by an obsessed fan. Tell us about a time you were really frightened. In retrospect, was your fear commensurate with the threat?

A. My husband scares me every time he is behind the wheel because he drives with his ear toward the road instead of his eyes. He has never wrecked a car (but I have) so I suppose my fear is unwarranted, but damn I wish he'd pay attention and stop looking out the side windows.

7) Sarah was adopted by Jack and Dorice McLachlan. Though she has a friendly relationship with her birth mother, she always considered Dorice her mother and sees herself behaving with her son the way Dorice did with her. Is there anyone in your family that you feel you resemble, either physically or by behavior?

A. I am a lot like my aunt, my mother's sister. Neither of us like to cook, we're both not into fashion, etc., and we both like to color.

8) McLachlan is one of the founders of Lilith Fair, a summer concert series designed to showcase talented female performers. Do/did your summer plans include an outdoor concert?

A. No. I generally don't go to those because people smoke.

9) Random question: Which of these men would you most like to be seated with at dinner -- Clint Eastwood, Prince William or Jimmy Fallon?

A. I have no interest in any of them, and I most certainly would never sit with Clint Eastwood, so if I must pick one, I shall go with royalty and say Prince William. Perhaps I would remember to hold out my pinky whilst I drink my tea, but I am afraid my curtsey leaves much to be desired.

_____________

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

It's another one of those days when I have no clue what to write for Thursday Thirteen. So let's see what pops out, shall we?

1. The sun shines through storm clouds. I love that light when it looks like the end of a rainbow is in my front yard, only I cannot see it. It's a light of foreboding, for you know the storm is coming.

2. I'm at that age where I buy sympathy cards in bulk. I bought a box of "made in USA" sympathy cards recently because so many folks I know are going on to their next journey.

3. The pollen in Virginia has been heavy again this year. The trees are oozing it as their leaves come out. But isn't Spring simply delightful? I watch a slow-release of green coming forth every morning as I look out the window. Green looks so much better than brown.

4. Speaking of Virginia, we're the state with the most presidents, having offered up eight. There's a fellow named Jim Webb, who served as a Virginia senator (D), who plans to seek the office this year. He is so unknown I don't think he stands much of a chance, but I have learned never to be sure of anything when it comes to politics. He has the "right" credentials - he's white and male - so you just never know.

5. My physical therapist's daughter is graduating from college this weekend. Last night I dreamed about my own graduation, only it didn't go so well. My mother was in my dream, and she was ill, and the college staff manhandled her for some reason. I and several other students went to the office of the college president to complain. It was around midnight and the college president (a man, I do not know who), was having something akin to a KKK rally. Then I had to get my hair cut and I went to a midnight barber who charged me $500 for his work. My father said he would pay for it, but then did not; he actually wrote out a check and then tore it out of my hands, laughing. The next morning I went to my graduation but I had to get in the back of the line. It was a strange dream. I think a lot of the political stuff going on in the US found its way in there.

6. The streak of sunshine is gone now, and the sky looks threatening and gloomy. I grew up never worrying about tornadoes, but in recent years we've had a few in the area. But shhh. There is no such thing as climate change, you know. Despite the scientific evidence for it.

7. One of my dear friends is traveling around the U.S. even as I write this. She's sent me photos almost every day of the places she's visiting. Yesterday I received a bunch from Yosemite.

8. I do not watch much TV, but occasionally I latch on to a series. Right now I am enjoying Game of Thrones. However, it is terribly violent, bloody, and misogynistic. It is not the kind of thing I normally watch, but like millions of others, I want to know who ends up alive in the end.

9. My reading of late has declined. I need new glasses - again - and despite my efforts to fall in love with reading on a Kindle, I have not been successful. I like some things about it, such as the ability to enlarge the type, but I don't like looking at a screen after 8 p.m., and that is generally when I do most of my reading. It is a conundrum.

10. I was in a tornado once in Bristol, TN when I was there for a band competition. It would have been in 1977 or 1978, when I was in high school. We were at a diner eating, and we all moved away from the glass windows. We didn't know there was a tornado. After the storm cleared, we could see the evidence - a clear path of destruction that tore a path down a hillside and ripped an outdoor movie theater screen in half.

11. My office looks like a giant came in with a pile of papers, cried out "wheeee" and gave everything in his arms a big toss. I have stacks of stuff everywhere. Magazines and old interview notes, books, note cards, calendars - what a mess.

12. The photos in my office: my husband in uniform, my nephew making a play as a quarterback, Gandalf the White, a log cabin, a mysterious woodland realm, a scenic spring shot on my wall calendar, and a signed pictures of Bonnie Raitt and Charle Sheen (long before he went nuts and when he was good looking).

13. I'd like to teach the world to sing, but I don't think most of the world is interested in singing any more. All they want is money.



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 393rd time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.