Sunday Stealing: Raquet Questions

Sunday Stealing


01  What is the worst nickname that anyone has ever called you?

A. I was one of those incredibly nerdy kids, the one who received 110 on a test because the other kids could never get a curve grade because of me unless the teacher gave me extra points, so some of the kids called me Computer Head. At the time I did not take it as a compliment.

02  Have you got a favorite flower?

A. I am partial to irises and roses.





03  Do you add a sauce, ketchup or other artificial flavorings to your food?

A. I use ketchup on French fries. Occasionally I might go wild and use a little BBQ sauce.

04  Describe yourself using only words that begin with the letter 'T'.

A. Thoughtful, Thinking, Truthful, Turbulent, Tragic, Trembling, and according to my husband, "tolerant but temperamental."

05  What is/was your lover's pet name for you?

A. He calls me baby, baby all night long.

06  What is your least favorite color?

A. Orange.

07  Who did you vote for in the last election, and did they win?

A. I voted for Hillary Clinton, and no, she did not win.

08  What is/was your grandfathers’ names?

A. Claude and Joe.

09  What is the best present you ever received?

A. My engagement ring.

10  What is 17 1/2% of 97 + 42 x (6 / 2) – 137 ? [Editor's note: Holy shit!]

A. Geez. I haven't done a math problem like this since 12th grade. I came up with 49. Does anyone know if that is correct? *edited: apparently not!* [Tina, if you are reading this, what say you?] [Tina is my former high school algebra/trig teacher, who reads my blog. I hope she reads this!]
*edited* Tina says:
17 1/5% of 97 + 42x(6/2) - 137
Must use the order of operations.
PEMDAS - really only using MDAS part
Multiply, Divide, Add, Subtract in that order!.
so... 171/2% of 97 is 0.175 x 97 = 16.975
42 x (6/2) = 42 x 3 = 126
16.975 + 126 - 137 = 5.975
 Tisk tisk...my children!!
Tina

11  What would be the best possible way you could die?

A. Just go to sleep and never wake up.

12  Given the choice of absolutely anything, what would be your dream job?

A. With no restrictions whatsoever? I would be at travel writer.

13  What position do you sleep in at night?

A. I sleep on my back now. I cannot sleep in any other position due to the weird issue with my abdominal muscles.

14  What is the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you?

A. So many to choose from. How about the time I got into a fist fight in the parking lot at high school with another girl?

15  Who is your favorite fictional character?

A. Eowyn from Lord of the Rings. She is no man. I am also a fan of Xena: Warrior Princess, Supergirl, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

16  What food do you hate most in the world?

A. Coconut.

17  When was the last time you were ill?

A. I have ongoing health issues, but the last time I was sick with a cold or virus was about six months ago.

18  If you were transformed into a wild creature, what would it be?

A. A doe.

19  What was your favorite toy as a child, and whatever happened to it?

A. Blue, a stuffed dog. A friend sewed it back together - it was very worn - and when my nephew was young, I gave it to him. I don't know what happened to it after that.

20  What's the most amazing thing you've ever seen?

A. Birth. It is amazing to watch cows give birth, and last summer I was fortunate to see a doe give birth to twins in my front yard.
 

Saturday 9: Some Guys Have All the Luck

Saturday 9: Some Guys Have All the Luck (1984)

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

1) Do you consider yourself lucky?

A. No.

2) When did you last risk money in a game of chance (lottery, raffle ticket, slot machine, etc.)? How did you do?

A. Actually, I won. Which invalidates the previous answer, I suppose. But I played a dollar in a "winner take half" pot thingy at an auction and I won $100. Not counting all the times in between when I've played the lottery. I seldom win anything on the lottery, though I have won $2 once or twice. 

3)  There's a major football game this weekend. Will you be watching? Do you have any money riding on the outcome?

A. Is it Superbowl weekend? I guess I won't be watching. I think I will be watching PBS. And no, no money on the outcome. I don't even know who is playing.

4) The composer of this song, Jeff Fortgang, is an interesting guy who's had two disparate careers: first pop musician, then Yale-educated clinical psychologist. It's possible that many of the patients who see him for help with anxiety or depression have no idea that he wrote this song. What's something your coworkers (or, if you're not working, casual friends) would be surprised to know about you?

A. I used to play in a rock and roll band. I've mentioned it here several times but my casual friends would have no idea, unless they read this blog.

5) Similarly, fans are often surprised to learn that this week's featured artist, Rod Stewart, is a history buff who loves reading about WWII. Is there a period of time or historic event that has captured your interest?

A. I have always been partial to the era of Mary, Queen of Scots. However, I love history and am very into my local history, too. I once was president of one of the local historical societies (which might also be an answer to #4).

6) Rod met his current wife as the result of a dare. Penny Lancaster, then in her 20s, spotted the decades-older celebrity in a bar and only approached him because her friends bet her she didn't have the guts to talk to him. Are you, like Penny, vulnerable to peer pressure? Can your friends talk you into doing things you might not otherwise do?

A. Not very easily, no.

7) Rod vividly recalls being 11 years old and going to see  Little Richard perform in a film comedy called The Girl Can't Help It. When you were a kid, did you enjoy going to the movies? What do you recall seeing?

A. In 1979, after the Salem Valley 8 opened, we went to the movies every week. It was within walking distance of my grandmother's house. That year was saw a bunch of B-rated films, like Sinbad, but the one that affected me most was The Amityville Horror. That movie scared me so badly that I have never watched another horror film.

8) The lyrics tell of when Rod's car overheats and he calls a friend, who doesn't come through. Tell us about a time recently when you were there and helped a buddy out.

A. Most of my "helping" is done by listening, or coordinating. I'm very good at finding the help others need if I know they need it. I am not physically able to help much anymore, but if I am aware of something then I do what I can. An example would be sending my husband over to fix my friend's septic tank. I didn't do the work, just made the connection.

9) The lyrics mention that "some guys do nothing but complain." Who do you know who is like that? Do you have a friend, relative or coworker who just always seems to find fault?

A. I think that might be me. I can complain with the best of them. Well, no, my mother was the best complainer ever, followed by my grandmother, so I guess that puts me in third place.

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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.  

Down the Drain

This is a rant. Go away now if you are looking for cute pictures of niceties. You can come back tomorrow for that.

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Most people who have been reading my blog for any length of time are probably aware that I am not happy with the current state of the nation.
 
Give it a year, and I think a lot of people are going to be really unhappy, but they will have to find it out for themselves. Some will never figure it out, and will blame somebody else. It's the nature of being human.
 
With all of this quick change going on, to me it feels like a chronic beating over the head. Unfortunately, every time Republicans are in charge of the government, I feel like I am being beaten. It is the verbal patronizing, the language, the authoritarianism, I suppose, that makes me feel like I have a boot over my face. Not only that, Republicans in Congress are just mean. And they really dislike women. Honestly, every mean person I know is a Republican. I know nice Republicans, too, but I can't think of a single mean Democrat. I probably know some, but I don't know who they are. I know that I know mean Republicans.
 
Anyway, since that is how I have been feeling, like a beaten down dog whimpering in a cage, it has been hard to blog. I try not to blog too much about political stuff here because that is not what I want on Blue Country Magic. But when it is all I can think about, and all that is in the news, and all that is eating at me, it is difficult to write about fawns and daylilies.
 
I am not writing on Facebook, either, even though I sometimes want to scream out responses to the things I see posted. But I am not very good at arguments. I can state my case and you can agree with it or not, but I don't want to argue with anyone about it. So I don't argue. If I do post something, if you don't agree, don't agree. I generally won't waste my time fighting about it. Usually I just hit "delete." It's the best key on the keyboard.

That type of thing, of course, pertains to opinion. Now, if I'm stating a fact, like, say, 4+4=8, or the ground is made of dirt and rocks and compost and dead things, and you don't want to agree with that, well, that just means you're ignorant. I might argue with you over a fact. A real fact, not an alternative fact.
 
A friend, a moderate Republican who occasionally shows glimpses of a soul when he talks to me, doesn't post a lot of political stuff on Facebook, either. I still have hope for him,  but yesterday he posted a video on Facebook but he made little comment about it except that it made him think (about what, I do not know). The video was by some dude who claimed to be in Iraq (no way to know for sure, he might have been in his basement in Mississippi). He said that he had been told that right now, with the [whatever name I decide to call the person leading the country]'s ban on immigration, the Iraqis are fired up. After all, we're supposed to be on their side but their nation was spelled out as being bad and their people couldn't come here, not even the ones that fought with us. This guy said if he went out on the town, the Iraqi people, not ISIL or Al Qaida, would kill him. Torture him, behead him. And is that the kind of people we want in the U.S.?
 
What I wanted to respond to this video was this:

Matthew Shepherd (December 1, 1976 – October 12, 1998), beaten, tortured, and left to die near Laramie, Wyoming on the night of October 6, 1998. Significant media coverage was given to the killing and what role Shepard's sexual orientation might have played as a motive in the perpetration of the crime.

Nine black church congregants were killed by a white shooter June 17, 2015 in Charleston, S.C.

The KKK and black lynchings.

Any newspaper reporting crime in any day in this country.

For further information, here's a report in the Washington Post on Hate Crime. 
 
And there is this graph here at the FBI site:

I just pulled out Virginia because that is where I live. In just those areas, which doesn't even include most of Southwest Virginia, there are over 160 murders. And look at all of those violent crimes.
 
And then I would have liked to have responded with this:
 
FBI Hate Crimes Statistics

Overview

• In 2015, 14,997 law enforcement agencies participated in the Hate Crime Statistics Program. Of these agencies, 1,742 reported 5,850 hate crime incidents involving 6,885 offenses.
•  There were 5,818 single-bias incidents that involved 6,837 offenses, 7,121 victims, and 5,475 known offenders.
• The 32 multiple-bias incidents reported in 2015 involved 48 offenses, 52 victims, and 18 known offenders.

Single-bias incidents

Analysis of the 5,818 single-bias incidents reported in 2015 revealed that:

• 56.9 percent were motivated by a race/ethnicity/ancestry bias.

• 21.4 percent were prompted by religious bias.

• 18.1 percent resulted from sexual-orientation bias.

• 2.0 percent were motivated by gender-identity bias.

• 1.3 percent were prompted by disability bias.

• 0.4 percent (23 incidents) were motivated by a gender bias.

 
Because we're such a calm, non-violent society, after all. We worship our mammas and apple pie. We don't gang up on gays, or black people, or Muslims, or people of different faith.

What crap.

My point is, this weird view that Americans have that we're such a peaceful, tolerant and welcoming nation is bullshit, and the world is calling us on it. We are violent. We are mean. We are as bad, if not worse, than any other nation in this word. as far as violence and hatred and just plain vileness goes. Only we do it in the name of "Christianity" instead of some other religion, so somehow or another, because a bunch of people worship a really blatantly fucked-up version of "the Prince of Peace," that makes shooting one another and dropping drone bombs on people all right.

And to make this point even more strongly, here is this, from The American Bar Association:

In 2003, there were 30,136 firearm-related deaths in the United States; 16,907 (56%) suicides, 11,920 (40%) homicides (including 347 deaths due to legal intervention/war), and 962 (3%) undetermined/unintentional firearm deaths.

CDC/National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, WISQARS Injury Mortality Reports 1999-2003 http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars

• The rate of death from firearms in the United States is eight times higher than that in its economic counterparts in other parts of the world. Kellermann AL and Waeckerle JF. Preventing Firearm Injuries. Ann Emerg Med July 1998; 32:77-79.

• The overall firearm-related death rate among U.S. children younger than 15 years of age is nearly 12 times higher than among children in 25 other industrialized countries combined. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 1997;46:101-105.

•  The United States has the highest rate of youth homicides and suicides among the 26 wealthiest nations. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  Rates of homicide, suicide, and firearm-related death among children: 26 industrialized countries.MMWR. 1997;46:101-105. Krug EG, Dahlberg LL, Powell KE. Childhood homicide, suicide, and firearm deaths: an international comparison. World Health Stat Q. 1996;49:230-235.

Still think we're so nice? Let's see. How about the 2006 murders at Virginia Tech? The Sandy Hook murders in 2012? The Oklahoma bombings in 1995? How about the guy who beat another guy to death in the gas station about four miles from me, because he didn't like the way the other guy was driving? Or maybe the murders of a couple of young women near UVA? Or the shooting of a couple of journalists at a local TV station?

Or maybe the stabbings, gunshots, fights, and domestic violence runs that my husband's EMS/Fire crews see every single night in Roanoke would convince you, dear reader, that we are not a peaceful people?

We are the ONLY nation to have used an atomic weapon on real, live people. We have lynched people on the say-so of a single person. We are completely capable of ostracizing and being cruel to someone different than us. We do it every single day. Every. Single. Day.

And we're terrified of people who are thousands of miles away from us.

Frankly, I am as frightened of some of the people in my community as I am anybody else in the world.

We can keep fooling ourselves that we are better than others in the world, but we're not. That boat has sailed and is so far gone it is too late to wave bye-bye to it. The only thing we have is greed and a religion that worships money.

Some of us, though, want a better world.

We ain't gettin' it today.

Thursday Thireteen #485

Thirteen pictures that have nothing in common except I took them.

A secret glen of trillium.

Bear running through alfalfa.

A calf.

An orange rose.

Sunrise through forsythia.

A January rainbow.

Canadian Goose.

Fence.

Our house from afar, in Autumn.

A black swan that found its way to the pond.

Rose after rain.



Fawn.

Turkey.

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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 485th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

A Big Wind Came Through

So today this happened:

The cedar tree split in two.

Half of it fell across the driveway. Good thing I wasn't going anywhere.

Poor tree.

Removal begins. Good thing we have a backhoe.

More work.

There it goes.



He's pulling it away, off to a brush pile.

Sunday Stealing: Cool Guy Questions

Sunday Stealing: The Cool Guy Questions


1.) When was the first time you ever swore or said something profane?

A. The first time? I've been swearing for at least 40 years or longer.

2.) Have you ever had unrequited feelings for someone?/Have you ever been friendzoned?

A. I don't know what friendzoned means. Have I ever loved someone and had that person not love me back? Yes.

3.) What's a false assumption a lot of people have about you?

A. That I am snobbish and stuck up when I'm really just introverted and a little shy.

4.) Have you ever questioned your sexuality?

A. Can't say that I have, no.

5.) If you could bring one person back from the dead, who would it be and why?

A. The person who invented gunpowder, and then I'd explain to him/her what her invention ultimately leads to, and then send the person back into time to never invent the stuff.

6.) What did you do on December 12th last year?

A. I had a swollen ankle. I went to the bank, fixed my mother-in-law's computer, and noted that I had a pain level of 4 in my abdomen.

7.) When was the last time you truthfully told someone you hated them?

A. I have an actual date for this answer, but I decline to reveal it at this time.

8.) What is your opinion on this song? What about this song?

A. No clue. The link I followed was dead. But I like music.

9.) In less than four sentences, describe the entire plot of the last book you read.

A. Young girl is sent away from home to live with spinster aunts. She is spunky, gets into trouble, and is generally a creative and curious person. She grows up and goes to school, and things get better for her. (The book was Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.)

10.) Describe the appearance of the most untrustworthy person you can think of (they can be a person you've met or a made up person). Are they male or female or neither? What about their appearance makes them untrustworthy?

A. He is dressed in black, carrying a Bible in one hand and a fistful of dollars in the other. His charisma is unfathomable and people instantly like him. He is untrustworthy because of the lies he tells that keep others poor and downtrodden while he makes himself wealthy.

11.) What is the most cringe-worthy thing you've ever seen?

A. A cow that had been struck by lightning. You really don't want details.

12.) What is your biggest regret?

A. I quit a job in 1985 for stupid reasons, and even though I went on to college and finished up my degree, I think financially it was a bad move.

13.) Do you have any cousins? When was the last time you saw them?

A. I have many, many cousins. I last saw them at a funeral. That seems to be when I see family anymore.

14.) Describe the worst birthday you've ever had.

A. Nothing really stands out.

15.) When was the last time someone provoked you to the point of violence?

A. November 9, 2016. I ripped the newspaper to shreds, then placed the remains in a pan and threw a match on it. Do not do that. It flames up very quickly.

16.) OH NO!!!! Someone has gotten you to drink a truth potion and now you have to truthfully answer every question you are asked!!! What's the worst possible question someone could ask you?

A. I can't tell you, because then I'd have to kill you, but it concerns a possible homicide. I used to be a journalist; I have been privy to many, many things.

17.) Describe, in detail, your first serious relationship. Describe how it ended.

A. My first serious relationship began at a football game, underneath the goal posts, and ended with a ring on my finger and this morning, 33 years later, a kiss that has to hold me until he returns home.

18.) Introduce your best friend. Tell the story of how you met.

A. I have several close friends. My longest-running friendship is 33 years old (not my husband). We met when I went to apply for a job at a law firm in 1983 (incidentally, the same job I regret quitting in 1985). She interviewed me for the position, hired me, and we became fast friends. We still talk on the phone about once a week and have lunch frequently. We are both intellectuals, highly read, and we have in-depth conversations that would probably be the envy of many a professor at a university. We discuss everything from the stars to religions to politics to health. We have many discussions about books.

19.) To the introduced friend, has our interviewee lied in any of these questions? Are you surprised by any of these answers?

A. I would think the answer would be no to both of those. I do not generally lie. I may not tell all I know, but I don't lie.

20.) To finish up, what is your biggest irrational fear and how did you get it?

A. I am a bit OCD and I constantly worry about leaving things on, like the curling iron or the coffee pot. I have eliminated much of that by purchasing auto-off appliances. I am also not a fan of snakes; when I was about 8 years old I was playing around in a brush pile and suddenly found myself covered in baby snakes. I remember screaming and running to my mother, and when my father came home he burned the brush pile. I guess either no snake bit me or they were not poisonous, since I am still here. I have other snake stories, too, but that is good enough for now.


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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.