Saturday 9: Blame

Saturday 9: Blame It on the Bossa Nova (1963)

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

1) This week's song tells the story of a girl who found love at a dance. Share a happy memory from a party, prom, or dance you attended.

A. My husband threw me a surprise 50th birthday party. He got a hold of my phone and called everyone in it, I think. There were people I never would have expected to come there. It was humbling to see folks cared enough to take a few hours out of a Saturday to see me and eat pizza.

2) This record was a big hit for Eydie Gorme, which surprised her. When she first heard the song, she disliked it and had to be convinced to record it. Tell us about a pleasant surprise you had recently.

A. We had a calf born that is almost white. I need to get out and take a photo of it, when it stops raining.

3) "Blame It on the Bossa Nova" is about love at first sight on the dance floor. Eydie's husband Steve Lawrence maintained he fell in love with her the first time he heard her sing. Have you ever felt a sudden, powerful attraction to someone? If yes, did you act on it?

A. Yes, and yes.

4) While this was a solo success for Eydie, she was also known for recording and performing with Steve Lawrence. He was just 22 and she was 29 when they married. Eydie admitted she was self-conscious about the difference in their ages. Do you think age matters in a romantic relationship?

A. No.

5) Eydie was fluent in Spanish, which enabled her to pay for her classes at City College by working as an interpreter. Tell us about one of your early jobs.

A. I was a legal secretary for a lawyer. At the time, everything was typed on an IBM Selectric II, and it had to be perfect. No errors. No sloppiness. I wonder what happened to that work ethic. I still have it but I don't see it in others.

6) In 1963, when this song was popular, The Rambler was Motor Trend's car of the year. It was a 9-passenger station wagon, perfect for families. What do you remember about your childhood family car?

A. I remember that we had a green station wagon that my brother wrecked. We also had a blue Dodge Charger. My parents went through a lot of cars.

7) Also in 1963, President Kennedy made a state trip to Ireland. Have you visited the land of your ancestors?

A. No. I kind of live in the land of my ancestors. They settled here before the American Revolution.

8) The pilot for Gilligan's Island was filmed in 1963. Were you a fan of the show?

A. In reruns. I was too young to watch the original.

9) Random question: Crunchy, smooth or organic peanut butter?

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

My Voice Is Back

At some point around the first of this week, the last of the rasp that I'd been living with as an excuse for a larynx for well over a month went away.

Poof. Like magic.

Except it was a long time going, and my voice became a little stronger every day as the cold or virus or whatever it was finally began to clear my system.

The first thing I did when my voice was back was pick up my guitar and sing a song. Songs are good.

***

The issue at the bank over my name magically went away after my husband dropped off copies of our Real ID and complained to someone there. We signed the papers we needed to sign and took care of business and everything's lovely. But still. WTH was that all about?

***

Like most of the nation's population who live in a house, our house rose in value. There's been a housing shortage for a good while now, since about 2018, I suppose. The county did it's every four-year reassessment and the average increase in real estate value was about 40%. Some properties went way up, like over 100%. They were probably undervalued to begin with.

To see the whining on the Facebook, and then to hear the whining at the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, you would think that these people had all been lined up against a wall to be shot. In the first place, the county supervisors have net set the tax rate for the upcoming fiscal year. Until they do that, and I guarantee it will not be the same rate as it now, there is no way to know what anyone will be paying in taxes. Do I expect mine to be more? Yes. Am I complaining about it? No. It makes my bottom line look better.

So many people seem to think they should not pay taxes at all. They think they are some gift to humanity and the ground upon which they trod is sacred and blessed, or some such BS. I think it is a privilege to be alive, and paying taxes is what I do for that honor. Do I like everything my taxes support? No. Do I agree with everything the government does? No. But these people are mean. 

They demean the supervisors when they speak to them. They are ill-mannered, noisy, confrontational, and bullish. I never saw much of this kind of demeanor at meetings until after 2016. And then it grew progressively worse and after the George Floyd riots, it really hit its stride. Some of the people talk to the supervisors like they are not even human. 

I wouldn't talk to a dog the way some of these people talk to the supervisors. What is wrong with them? Who taught these people manners? And these aren't all folks I grew up with - no. The vast majority moved in here in the 1990s and think that gives them some right to overstep societal boundaries. My family was here during the American Revolution. They haven't a thing on me. But you don't see me acting like some know-it-all buffoon at a Board meeting.

Thursday Thirteen

Here are some memes I've collected in recent years.

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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 849th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

What's My Name?

Right before the pandemic hit in March 2020, my husband and I went to the DMV and obtained our REAL IDs from the Commonwealth of Virginia.

This identification is recognized by the state and federal governments.

When I married, I chose to drop my maiden name. I changed my Social Security card. I changed my driver's license. Some places would not make the change no matter how often I complained about it, like hospitals and oddly enough the women's college I attended. So even though officially, as far as I was concerned, I was First Name, Middle Name, Married Name, the Maiden Name has followed me around.

When I went in to get my Real ID, I had to take along identifying documents that my husband didn't need. I had to take my birth certificate, my marriage license, and some kind of bill that had my name on it. The latter was difficult because when we married 40 years ago, the utilities were put in my husband's name. That is how it was done back them. I mean, we were only 9 years out from women being able to have a credit card when I married. 

Most of the documents I had in my possession were not the documents the state needed for my Real ID, but they had them on file. I had to pay for the copies so they could then use them to get my driver's license. It seemed a little obscene, because they could pull it up and look at it right there, but I later needed the documents for some of my husband's retirement paperwork, so it all worked out in the end.

Still, I consider the ID requirements to be gender biased and discriminatory against women. Taking your husband's name is what people do. I know some people hyphenate or sometimes they keep their maiden name, but the majority of women who marry a man take the man's name. They've been doing this for hundreds of years. The marriage license is on file with the state; they pulled it up and looked at it. It was right there. Yet it cost me considerably more to get the Real ID than it cost my husband because I had to get hard copies of those documents.

A Real ID is supposed to be the most valid ID you can have next to a passport. I don't have a passport, but I do have Real ID. The state recognizes my name as First Name, Middle Name, Married Name. 

So, imagine my surprise when last week an officer at a banking institution informed me that she would need a document with ALL of my names on it - first name, middle name, maiden name, married name. How many women do you know who have documents with all of that on it? Not many women have all of that on their driver's license, I bet.

I argued with her that the Real ID should be enough. I also told her if she was going to make this difficult, then the reason we were talking would go away quickly enough as it was just something we used for convenience. I don't need to deal with this bank, although I have dealt with this bank for almost 40 years. I am even a stockholder in this bank, which makes this oddball requirement all the more egregious.

We are still trying to work this out. But now I don't know who I am, if my Real ID isn't good enough for a bank but is good enough for the state and the federal government. 

Sunday Stealing

1. Have you ever smoked cigarettes?

A. I tried them when I was in high school - most kids did in the 1970s - but they weren't something I enjoyed, and I never picked them up as a habit. 

2. What do you think of hot dogs?

A. I eat the all-beef kind. I prefer what most people call a "streaker" dog - I don't put anything on mine but mustard and pickle relish. I can't eat chili, it's too hard on my stomach.

3. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?

A. Water. I drink a cup of hot water. If I'm feeling really wild, I might put a dollop of honey in it.

4. What's your favorite piece of jewelry that you own?

A. My wedding band. I also have a pair of dragon earrings that my friend gave me a long time ago that I like, but I don't wear them because they're a bit heavy.

5. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink?

A. Water, water, and water. I used to drink tea and root beer, but I haven't since the end of 2020.

6. Do you like to travel?

A. I don't mind traveling. I am the kind of traveler who prefers to go to one place and stay in the same hotel for 4-5 days as opposed to driving all over and switching hotels every night.

7. What should you be doing right now?

A. Exactly what I am doing. I am waiting on the dryer to finish drying the bed linens so I can make the bed.

8. Your phone rings. Who do you want it to be?

A. The executor of the estate some long-lost (and now dead) relative that I didn't know existed who has left me a nice chunk of change. Or maybe the Publisher's Clearing House telling me I won. Do they even do that anymore?

9. Do you like to ride horses?

A. No. We had horses when I was younger, and I found them scary. We had a pony and my father put me on it when I was 9, with only a piece of twin for a lead. The twine broke, the pony bolted with me hanging onto its mane and screaming. It turned hard and I fell off and at the least had the wind knocked out of me, but suspect I broke a rib given the pain I was in for a long time. My father insisted I get right back on the horse after he caught it, but that's a myth. I would never get back on another.

10. In a social setting, are you more of a talker or a listener?

A. Listener.

11. What's in your pocket right now?

A. Lint.

12. Last thing that made you laugh?

A. 

13. How many TVs do you have in your house?

A. Two. We have one in the living room and one in the bedroom. The one in the bedroom is small, and we use it about three times a year, or if someone is sick in bed.

14. Who's your loudest friend?

A. I don't think I want to answer that question. There is no point in embarrassing people.

15. Favorite sports team? (If you don't have one, just state that.)

A. We root for the University of Virginia in college sports here, because everyone else roots for Virginia Tech. We like to be different. However, I have been pulling for the Virginia Tech women's basketball team this year; they are awesome, and I've even watched a game on TV. I don't have a favorite team in any of the professional leagues.

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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: Shambala

Saturday 9: Shambala (1973)

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

1) This week's song refers to the mythical kingdom of Shambala. Can you think of another song that mentions to faraway, mythical land?

A. Well, there's Olivia Newton John's Xanadu, or there's "a land called Honalee" in Puff the Magic Dragon.

2) "Shambala" is performed by Three Dog Night. The name is derived from an Aboriginal Australian legend. In the outback, hunters would sleep with a dog beside them. If it was very cold, they would sleep between two dogs. If it was freezing -- you guessed it -- it was a three-dog night. Was it cold last night where you are?

A. It was below freezing, but we seem to be heading for an early spring. Maybe the groundhog was right.

3) The lead singer is the late Cory Wells. Early in his career he was a member of the house band at the famous Sunset Strip nightclub Whiskey-A-Go-Go. Cory was a bit of an anomaly at "The Whiskey" because of his sober lifestyle. When did you most recently enjoy an adult beverage?

A. I don't drink anything but water. Still. 

4) Bandmate Danny Hutton auditioned to be a member of The Monkees TV show. He didn't get the part. While he was a talented singer-songwriter, NBC was looking for musicians who could also act. Have you ever fantasized about a career as a performer?

A. I played in a band and was a performer in high school, but I am not keen on the spotlight. Maybe in some other universe.

5) Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys was an early supporter of Three Dog Night's. What's your favorite Beach Boys song?

A. Good Vibrations is the only one I can think of. I read recently that Brian Wilson is quite ill.

6) In 1973, when this song was popular, one of the best-selling toys Curious George plush doll packaged with a Curious George book. Can you recall a favorite book from your childhood?

A. Miss Osborne the Mop, by Wilson Gage, was one of my favorite books when I was 9 or 10. It was a Scholastic Book, I think.  

7) The Exorcist was in theaters, terrifying audiences. It's still ranked among the scariest movies of all time. Have you seen it? Did it scare you?

A. I saw it at some point, but it was a long time ago. I always get that one confused with Rosemary's Baby. I think I saw them about the same time. Or around the same age.

8) Roller skates were a big seller in 1973. While most rinks had skates available for rent, committed skaters had their own pair. Are you better on roller skates or ice skates?

A. I'm not very good on either one. I'm lucky I can stand up on a flat surface.

9) Random question -- Here's $100. What will you spend it on?

A. I would either donate it to the library or buy books.

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

Thursday Thirteen

1. "Line on the mirror, lines on her face. She pretended not to notice; she was caught up in the race." Those lines from the Eagles song, Life in the Fast Lane, haunt me when I look in the mirror now. My face is starting to show my age. There are lines. I never snorted lines, though.

2. My husband said the lines on his face remind him of this: "Every time that I look in the mirror, all these lines on my face getting clearer," which are the opening lines from Dream On, by Aerosmith.

3. My voice is finally starting to come back, though it still sounds a little croaky. It has more volume now. My doctor diagnosed this as tracheal bronchitis, which is something I used to get a lot when I was a child. It means that my last sinus infection tied in with my asthma, I think.

4. A younger person yesterday was asking me, "What happened?" She was talking about the rise of the former guy, which she rightly called a cult, and all of the fear exhibited by people who support him. I explained that it started under Reagan and coalesced after 9/11 (she would have been about 3 years old then), which is when I first felt the fear and anger radiating off of people in the grocery store. It would rise and ebb, but it never went completely away. Now people think rude and crude are acceptable behaviors, and manners belong only to the "woke" (whatever that is), and meanness is their creed. The cruelty is the point for them. I apologized to her for not leaving her a better world.

5. She also fears the loss of her rights. Women's rights. I think it's a very real concern. It has been in my lifetime that women could have credit cards in their own names. Or inherit property in their own names without having to split it with their children, in this state, anyway. The recent ruling in Alabama about embryos being "humans" chilled her. The loss of abortion rights was a blow to women who want autonomy over their own bodies. These are scary times, but all times are scary, and every generation seems to think they're the ones who are going to get live through the Second Coming. I've read old newspapers and books. Nothing much has changed for centuries.

6. Speaking of women's rights, I'm having an issue with a banking institution that thinks they need more ID than the State of Virginia or the US government. And I've been a customer for years and years. They're about to lose my business. I have a Real ID. That should be enough. I've been angry about this for days.

7. What do you do with your coins? Banks no longer take them in rolls. You have to drop them in some machine and then they take a percentage of the total. That doesn't seem right. A roll of 50 pennies is 50 cents. The bank should give me 50 cents for 50 cents, not 48 cents for 50 cents.

8. I am supposed to be eating for heart health, digestive health, lung health, and nail and skin health, and for fat loss health. I cannot figure out how to do this. Or maybe I just don't want to.

9. A new medication that I was given says on the directions not to take it within 4 hours of any other medicine. I am on medication that I take every 4 hours, so I haven't started the new medication because I can't figure out when I am supposed to take it.

10. When I was at college, I found the atmosphere invigorating, enlightening, and occasionally frightening. But the experience, which lasted 8 years because I was going part-time, was the best thing I ever did for myself. I met wonderful, strong, encouraging women who think like I do, and I made a few friends. I grew into myself. I was happy in classes; I love to learn. I missed out on the bonding because I was an older student and didn't live in the dorms, but I was still young enough to fit in. I remember one evening when we were taking a break during a 3-hour class and some of the young women were talking to me. One of them noticed my wedding ring. "Oh my God, you're married!" she cried, and they all wanted to know what it was like, being married. This was back before cell phones, when people really talked to one another.

11. Another friend tells me she has determined that social media/the Internet is evil. She says it is harming young people, who can't tell the difference anymore between real life and life online, and in general adding to the fascist line of populist thinking that has brought such a twist into the political realm. I can't disagree. I liked the Internet better when it was monitored bulletin boards and email. I liked the closed nature of AOL when it first went live, because if you had a problem, you could report it. Now if someone chases after you or is inappropriate, there isn't much to be done about it.

12. I haven't chewed my nails in three years, but they still are thin and brittle. There are lines and ridges from where I damaged them by chewing on them. I will never have pretty nails. But they look better than they did.

13. It's been two years since my husband gave up chewing tobacco. He eats a lot of sugar free candy instead, which probably isn't good for him, but I don't miss the chewing tobacco. That stuff smelled bad, and it made a mess everywhere he went. It trailed after him like the dust on Pig Pen in the Peanuts comics. No, I don't miss having to sweep up particles of tobacco around the trash can every morning.

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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 848th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

Going Backwards

When I was 5, my father had me and my brother in a vehicle when he stopped at a convenience store on Apperson Drive.

I don't recall what kind of car we had in 1968, but I want to say it was a Dodge Charger. At any rate, he left us both in the car while he went in to fetch whatever he was after.

In 1968 I suppose there were car seats, but we didn't use them. I don't think we used seat belts either, for that matter. Yes, I am of the generation that rode in the bed of the pickup truck, drank from water hoses, and lived to tell about it.

After my father hopped out of the car, my brother climbed into the driver's seat so he could pretend to be driving. I don't remember if the car was running, but I'm guessing my father left it in neutral and put on the parking brake. I think the parking brake was located where today most people would find a cup holder and a console.

Somehow my brother disengaged something, and the car started rolling backwards.

As in, out of a small parking lot and into a busy highway.

My brother seemed oblivious to what he'd done, but as soon as I realized the car was moving, I started to scream. That made him cry. I remember feeling terrified because while I didn't know how to stop the car, I knew we were in trouble and that if the car went into traffic, we would be hurt. I was screaming and crying and trying to get my brother out of the driver's seat while at the same time looking at the store where my father was. 

"Daddy, Daddy!" I screamed, all the while trying to tug my sobbing brother away from the steering wheel. Somehow, I managed to hit the car horn.

I don't know if he heard me, but I saw Dad look up and realize what was happening. He dropped whatever he had in his hands on the store counter and ran toward the car. I was still screaming when my father wrenched the door open and stuck his foot inside and on the brake. I was able to grab my brother then and pull him over to me in the front side passenger's seat.

It was a close call.

My father yelled at me for not stopping the car (like a 5-year-old is going to be anything other than scared to death in this scenario) as he got in the driver's seat, pulled the car back up, put it in park, and went back in to pay for his stuff. I imagine it shook him up a little, we were so close to rolling out into the road.

I'm also pretty sure he told us not to tell our mother what happened. I don't remember if I ever did.

Mostly I remember feeling so angry that he blamed me for something my brother did that the fear went away, to be replaced with a seething darkness. I couldn't tell him how unfair he was being - I did not have those kinds of words yet, or that kind of courage - nor could I take it out on anybody (except maybe my brother, but I was a good girl). Maybe I went home and beat up a Barbie doll. I don't recall. But this incident has always stood out in my mind as a fine example of unfairness tinged with total terror, and it comes back to me when I have the feeling that I'm going backwards in life instead of moving ahead.

I'm not really going backwards. Being sick for a month has set me back. I was doing more physically before I caught this respiratory thing, and now I'm going to have to work to build up my stamina again. I went to Food Lion today and it wiped me out. 

For some reason, though, my life does feel like I'm trapped in an uncontrolled vehicle slowing heading into traffic, with no idea how to hit the gas or the brake pedal because my legs aren't long enough.

Sunday Stealing

 

Name a song that . . .

1. You enjoy, in another language.

A. There isn't one.

2. Recently introduced you to a new singer.

A. How about a show instead? We watch The Voice to see new singers.

3. You listen to in order to feel energized.

A. Anything from the 1970s, but especially disco. Yes, I like disco.

4. Is your favorite song from a musical.

A. It's a tie between "Do Re Me" and "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious."

5. Reminds you of an old love.

A. I don't have an old love, I have the same old love from 40 years ago. But how about "How Deep Is Your Love?" by the Bee Gees.

6. Make you think of one of your children.

A. I don't have children. I guess I could say "Old McDonald Had a Farm" for the cows.

7. Makes you smile when you hear it.

A. "Band on the Run," by Paul McCartney & Wings

8. You love but is quite unknown.

A. "Shattered" by Linda Ronstadt.

9. That annoys you.

A. "Don't Go Chasin' Waterfalls," by TLC. I like the song but when I hear it, it becomes an earworm.

10. That your parents used to listen to.

A. Anything by Merle Haggard. 

11. From your early years of childhood.

A. "Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast," by Wayne Newton.

12. That has a color in the title.

A. "Blue Suede Shoes," by Elvis Presley

13. That needs to be played loud.

A. "Start Me Up," by the Rolling Stones

14. That is perfect for a road trip.

A. "Stairway to Heaven," by Led Zepplin or "Innagodavida" by Iron Butterfly, depending on what you're smoking on said road trip. 

15. That reminds you of yourself.

A. "Hell Is for Children," by Pat Benetar.

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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: Paper Doll

Saturday 9: Paper Doll (1943)

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

1) The song is about a fellow who is exasperated by men flirting with his girl. Do you have a jealous streak?

A. Not really, no. I don't think I've ever been jealous over a person, but I have envied the work of others (as in a good book that I wish I'd written).

2) He's blue after a quarrel with Sue. Did you exchange harsh words with anyone recently?

A. My husband and I occasionally snap at one another, but we don't fight.

3) "Paper Doll" was #1 for 12 weeks in 1943-44, sold 11 million copies and remains one of the best-selling singles of all time. Had you heard it before today?

A. I don't recall ever hearing this song before. But I wasn't even a twinkle in my father's eye in the 1940s. Or my grandfather's eye, for that matter.

4) As kids, the Mills Brothers worked on their harmonies in front of their father's Piqua, OH, barbershop, much to the delight of passersby. Do you often encounter street musicians in your neighborhood?

A. I live in a rural area. We do not have street musicians here. However, there's a rooftop restaurant in Fincastle, and I once thought about taking an amp and my guitar and setting up and playing on the corner until someone paid me to go away.

5) The Mills Brothers were a long way from that street corner when, in 1936, they became the first African Americans to perform for the British Royal Family. It's about 4,000 miles from Piqua to London. What's the farthest you've ever been from home?

A. France, which is 4,015 miles away, according to Alexa.

6) In the early 1930s, the Mills Brothers not only performed songs on radio, they sang jingles for Standard Oil and Crisco. What commercial can you recall having seen (or heard) lately?

A. The new Kia commercial that premiered during the Super Bowl. It was the only one I really felt tugged at the heart strings (the Budweiser commercial was a bust). I saw it last while we were watching Big Bang reruns. The commercial shows a young girl ice skating, and she's disappointed when she sees an empty chair beside her father. Then she goes to an outside homemade rink and skates for her disabled grandfather.

7) In 1943, when "Paper Doll" was popular, WWII was raging and the US Mint began producing steel pennies because copper was needed for ammunition. Do you have any pennies in your pocket or wallet right now?

A. I have pennies in the tray in my car. Does that count? That's a cool factoid about the pennies; I didn't know that.

 

8) Also in 1943, a bottle of Coke was a nickel. When did you most recently have a soft drink? What was it?

A. I haven't had a soft drink since October 2020, and it was a ginger ale.

9) Random question: Have you learned more from your successes, or your failures?

A. My successes gave me some confidence, which I have always lacked. Failures show me what I need to change, though, so I have learned from them as well. I think it's a toss-up.

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

Thursday Thirteen

1. It's another free-for-all Thirteen, and a late one at that. What if I'd gone 846 Thursday Thirteen in a row and then missed one!? My goodness.

2. The chronic laryngitis/sinus issue from hell continues. It's been over a month now since I've been able to sing or carry on a conversation without sounding like Jeramiah the Bullfrog. I do try to be a good friend . . .

3. The other day I thought a cow was calving in front of the house, but when I looked again she was gone so I thought maybe I was wrong. A bit later, though, my husband looked out and the vultures were around the area where I'd seen the cow. He went out to check on things and sure enough, she'd had a calf and quickly moved it under the trees where the evil vultures couldn't get to it. They enjoyed the afterbirth, though.

4. We received our tax assessments for real estate taxes in the mail this week, and my Facebook feed looks like a bunch of people who have no clue how things actually work are posting inane comments and baseless conspiracy theories. Oh, wait, that's exactly who is posting. People who have no clue how things actually work.

5. It isn't hard to understand how government works, but (a) you have to want to understand and (b) you have to be open to how it actually works. If someone has already decided the politicians are crooked, on the take, and out to do bad things, then they're never going to understand what is going on.

6. I'm looking around my office to see if there's something here that catches my eye so I can write about it. I have a book on a shelf called The Writer's I-Ching. I've never opened it and I'm not sure where it came from. But it reminds me that one time, a very long time ago, I wrote an article about a guy who lived in an abandoned church who had created a deck of new age cards, sort of like Tarot but not. He planned to sell them and become famous. I wonder what happened to him and his cards.

7. The I-Ching book is squeezed in between a book that identifies trees and another that is my favorite book on writing, Phyllis Whitney's Guide to Fiction Writing. This book was published in 1982 and is no longer in print. I'd buy another copy if it was. I'd even buy a Kindle copy.

8. The other books on the shelf include a guide to local mammals, several different thesauruses, a couple of dictionaries, an out-of-date AP Stylebook, the Chicago Manual of Style (also out of date), and books about writing memoir.

9. I need to dust.

10. Earlier, I saw a deer eating alongside the cows. They don't usually socialize.

11. Two of my three clocks in my office are not running. They need new batteries. Batteries are expensive now, and I only need one clock. So it's always 10:55 on one clock and 5:25 on another, now.

12. I wonder what time it is in Thailand. I ask Alexa, she says it is 2:25 a.m. there. It's 2:25 p.m. here. A 12-hour time difference. I learned something!

13. The other things on my desk include Chloraseptic sore throat lozenges, Halls cough drops, and nasal spray.  Which takes me back to the beginning, I suppose, in a roundabout way.

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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 847th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

La Brea (The TV Show)

Natalie Zea in La Brea

Last night was the final episode of La Brea, a science fiction family affair that ran for thirty episodes. The last six of those episodes just finished up.

Spoilers ahead, if you care.

The show features the Harris family, and in the beginning centered on Eve Harris, played by Natalie Zea. She is a tough mom who drops herself into a big hole that opens up near the La Brea Tar Pits in California because it swallowed her son, Josh. She left behind her husband, Gavin, and daughter, Izzy.

It was a big hole, so Eve finds her son and she and at least 30 other people set up a camp of sorts using automobiles and parts of buildings that the hole also swallowed up. 

They have landed in 10,000 BC.

The early shows indicated some kind of weird time warp overlap, as one of the survivors found a cache of coins from the War Between the States. In later episodes, there were tribes of ancient people who looked more like modern-day Native Americans, and strange men who kidnapped people who fell from the sky to work in mines.

This was never fully explored, and frankly the show lost the entire plot of the time travel thing somewhere along the way. The audience was supposed to accept that there was weird time travel stuff going on even though in theory it shouldn't have worked that way.

The show focused mostly on relationships that grew out of the survivors. Along the way, we learned about Eve's relationship with her husband and a lover, Levi, who was also her husband's closest friend.

I watched the show because I initially liked the premise, but as it progressed, I liked it less. I didn't mind the focus on emotions and character growth - that's necessary - but the plot around the time travel switched around from unbelievable to simply outlandish and back again.

Initially the time holes were being made by Gavin's father, who was from the future where time travel was developed. He brought Gavin and his family down with him to this upside-down earth and built a dome where he could work on his time experiments. His wife, though, left to live in another time (1988 or something), taking Gavin with her, and she gave him away to a foster family so she could focus on stopping her husband.

Gavin and family eventually found their way to his mother's time, and Levi chose to stay there instead of going back to 10,000 BC to try to stop the father from making more time portals or holes. Then Levi turned back up in 10,000 BC, older now, having lost his wife and a child to something to do with the Army.

Then suddenly, in these last few episodes, we learn that Gavin has been secretly flying in time ships for over a year before the hole opened up and took his wife, and a rogue army/government/something woman was working to sell time travel to the highest bidder. This also had something to do with 1965, although that was never explained to my satisfaction.

None of the last six episodes have Eve in them, as she'd been taken to a different time at the end of Season 2 and no one knew where she'd gone. So we only saw her in the final episode when there was a family reunion in 2021 (which was the present day) as she found her way back to them. Since she was the character I was most interested in, the last "season" didn't do much for me.

Because I have read so much science fiction and have a vague and tortured understanding of time travel, the inconsistencies in the time anomalies in this show frustrated me. The whole Gavin-is-from-the-future and his-dad-invented-time-travel thing that zig-zagged into it being a secret government plot that he was involved in before the hole opened up was completely chaotic as far as plotting goes. 

While some of the effects were cool and the idea of falling into a hole to end up in another world is certainly not new, I liked the initial premise of this show. I liked the characters, mostly. I just wish it hadn't gone so far off the rails in its efforts to contort the plot to meet someone's agenda, or whatever it was.

Here's a director's response to questions about the show. He seems happy with it.

Madison & Monroe

When I die, I expect whoever ends up clearing out my stuff to simply chuck it, which would be a shame because I have a lot of photos and documentation that historians would kill for.

Take these photos that I ran across today while I was looking for something else. I had forgotten I had these. While not the best shots - obviously wherever I was there was a glare - these are historic documents with the signatures of James Madison and James Monroe. They were owned by a resident of the town of Fincastle when I took these photos. I have no clue where the originals might be now. Somewhere there's an article that accompanied these -