Saturday 9

 

Welcome to Saturday: 9. What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love memes, however, and here is today's meme!

Saturday 9: Over There (1942)

... because it's 4th of July 

Unfamiliar with this rendition? Hear it here.

1) George M. Cohan wrote this song in 1917, inspired by our country's entry into WWI. It was not only popular with the young men who enlisted, it was reassuring to their families. Tell us about a time when music was a comfort to you.
Music is always comforting, especially Lawsuit music when I'm missing Paul.

2) "Over There" was revived at the start of WWII, and President Franklin Roosevelt cited this song specifically when he awarded Cohan with the Congressional Gold Medal. What's your favorite patriotic song?
Probably "Stars and Stripes Forever."

3) This rendition of the song is from the 1942 film, Yankee Doodle Dandy. James Cagney won an Oscar for his performance as George M. Cohan. Also nominated that year was Gary Cooper, who portrayed a different Yankee, Lou Gehrig, in Pride of the Yankees. Tell us about a movie biography you have enjoyed.
I have seen a lot of biographies I have loved, like Calamity Jane, Houdini, Interrupted Melody (story of opera singer Marjorie Lawrence), The King and I, Sound of Music, The Miracle Worker and a whole bunch more.

4) Cagney had a rebellious streak. His boss, studio head Jack Warner, nicknamed Cagney, "The Professional Againster." Cagney joked that he was proud of the title. How about you? Are you rebellious?
Good lord, no.

5) In the clip linked above, a woman sings with Cagney. Her name was Frances Langford, nicknamed the "GI Nightingale" because during WWII she performed for the troops at bases throughout Europe, North Africa and the South Pacific. Do you have any nicknames?
No.  Just Bev or Mom.

6) In 1942, when audiences were enjoying this performance of "Over There" in movie theaters, the fashion trend was for mothers and their young daughters to wear identical dresses. Moms would buy lots of fabric and patterns for the same casual day dress in both their own sizes and their little girls'. Can you sew?
Walt has had to throw away shirts that needed buttons sewed on them.  My mother was a terrific seamstress, a talent she did not pass along to her daughter!

7) The Fourth of July means we're in the middle of summer. Are you careful about applying sunscreen?
I'm terrible about applying sunscreen.  I go out in the sun so seldom that it never occurs to me.  When we are out in sun with people who care, they are very good about reminding me to put sunscreen on. That's something we did not grow up with so I never got into the habit.

8) Mosquito bites an be a major summer annoyance. Are you scratching any itches right now?
Oh Lord, I have itches in so many places all the time.

9) Celebrity chef Rachael Ray says she considers mini-hamburgers, or "sliders," the All-American food. What will you be eating this 4th of July? 
Well, I don't know what we will be eating on the 4th but Tom's BBQ is essentially a 4th of July BBQ even though it will be a couple of days before the 4th.  He will be barbequing tons of beef, chicken, salmon, and veggies on the beach in Santa Barbara and inviting everybody he knows to come and bring side dishes.  He usually gets some 50-70 people to show up.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

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Ned's Garden

 

Ned's garden this week, before he harvested
basil to make pesto for dinner

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Gettin' close

Well, we are going to see Indiana Jones on Sunday.  The Santa Barbara people got together and managed to get 12 reservations for us. 

Ned is doing all he can to get us ready to leave.  He has cleaned the house from top to bottom, washed floors, cleaned the kitchen, gotten our suitcases down so we can pack and that we will be able to leave here is entirely due to him.  Plus he is working on the puzzle, which won't be finished before we leave, but maybe Haley will work on it while she's house sitting.

I always look forward to going to Santa Barbara and being with the family (especially since Jeri has flown out from Boston to be here too) but I always hate the thought of trying to sleep.  At least this time I will have podcasts that I can listen to with my hearing aids, so nobody can be bothered by the sound.  That might actually put me to sleep for a few hours.  Or a couple of hours.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

Jeri has arrived in Santa Barbara!

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Making Plans

So we're making plans to go to Santa Barbara for Tom's 53rd birthday.  We haven't been there in a year...I know, because we went just after we got Bubba and we've had him for just about a year.  When we were last in Santa Barbara, we brought Bubba with us.  He behaved very well, but did not get along with Tom's 2 dogs, so he had to be in someone's lap at all times, so we decided not to bring him with us this time.

But we also could not put him in a kennel.  He's such a lap dog that it would kill him to be locked in a kennel for so many days.  We've always had Ashley from the SPCA house sit for us, but we have not needed to do that in a long time in in the interim, she has married and her son is 3 or 4 now and so she is not in a position to house sit.

Ned put a notice on Facebook that we were looking for someone and Char suggested we try her granddaughter, who is going to UC Davis and living in Davis.  We checked with her and she is able to move into our house while we are gone.  It seems strange...I remember when her mother was born and now Haley is going to be taking care of our house.  Char wrote "The world moves on as the next generation takes over."

Haley came over to get the lay of the land this afternoon.  What a delightful person she is.  Bubba was a little intimidated and did some growling when she tried to pet him, but by the time she left, he seemed to have accepted her.  

It will be great to have her here because she can take care of the "garden" (as I call Ned's 3 plants), which is starting to show signs of growth.

I've been watching Indiana Jones movies because we want to have a family movie night while we are in Santa Barbara.  There will be 12 of us going to see the new movie.  You have to make reservations and you can only reserve 6 seats, so Ned and Marta will each reserve seats.  The last movie I saw was so complicated all I could think of was that I really wanted to be in the room when they were writing the script and planning the filming.  What drugs were they all taking???

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

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Strange Day

 Ned came into my office to let me know that dinner was ready.  I couldn't believe it was 6 p.m. already. I had been working so hard all day, except for a break for my afternoon nap.  And I hadn't answered a single one of the pile of letters I have received in the past couple of days.

What was I doing?  It's hard to say.  I was in two swaps on SwapBot, a "blue letter" and a "pink letter."  Each letter needed to have that color predominate and then a 2 page letters talking about yourself.  I had blue paper and pink paper and  tons of blue and pink stickers so I got both letters written and decorated and the envelopes decorated, but each took a long time.

My friend Steve Schalchlin was interviewed on his brother's podcast, so I went and found the podcast and then listened to the interview, which was such fun.

I also was supposed to write a letter about desserts for a swap from the League of Extraordinary Pen Pals.  That was fun to write and took time because I decorated the letters and the envelope with stickers of sweets.  The topic reminded me of what my all time favorite dessert was, which was a chocolate cream roll that my mother used to make. 

It was a chocolate sheet cake that my mother baked.  Then she cut off the hard edges, which she gave to my sister and me to eat.  She rolled the cake up in a towel and waited for it to cool.  When it was cool, she unrolled it and filled it with whipped cream.  I've seen recipes for this before and they seem to use some sort of custard, but my other used whipped cream.  Then she frosted it with a bittersweet chocolate frosting, another recipe I've never been able to duplicate.  Anyway, that was my all time favorite dessert. 

I also told the pumpkin pie story, which makes pumpkin pie a favorite too.

After my nap, I listened to Ned's show, which I always do on Tuesdays.

One of the pieces of mail I received today had a small note on it with a graphic I loved.

I decided I wanted to make return address labels using it, but it involved editing.  That would have taken no time at all with PhotoShop, which I no longer have.  I was able to edit it using Photopea, which is a photo image software I'm using, but there seems to be NO WAY I can save the edited photo so I had to find a way to copy it and then send it to myself so I could use it.  Took a ridiculous amount of time, but I ultimately got a sheet of return address labels printed.

And then I got a bunch of mail to go through.  That envelope I printed as Photo of the Day was filled with wonderful things that I can use for journals.

I also got two Compassion letters.  Most Compassion letters are short and really don't say much, but both of these were from kids who write in English and write long letters and talk about their lives. Both kids are in Kenya and it was such fun to read their letters and then answer them.

Just so many little things happening.  I thought I would be sleepy and go right to sleep.  I've been sleeping great, getting 6-8 hours of sleep for the last several days, but I had too much jumping around in my brain to get to sleep at 10, which is when I have started going to sleep, so I got up to check email and Facebook and write this entry.  Now it's after midnight, I can post my 1SE video and solve today's Wordle and then try sleeping again.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

This is an amazing envelope I received today.

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Our Wedding

 I found the 1965 letters I was looking for, so here is the story of our wedding.  I've put today's explanations in italics

To shorten 3 long paragraphs, I'll say that the afternoon before the wedding, I had a hair appointment in San Francisco, but nearly didn't make it because the traffic had been stopped because President Johnson was in town for the UN Anniversary celebration. But I did finally get to the beauty parlor where they did my hair and I had the first manicure I'd ever had...and the last I had until Walt's sister's wedding a few years ago.

We had dinner at my parents' house and then to Berkeley to the Newman Center for rehearsal.  "No one told me that the bride was to be director of the rehearsal.  But it was Tim's first rehearsal (new priest, our friend Tim Toohig, who had just been ordained the week before).  Things got pretty bad.  There were kids and people running all over the place, instruments rehearsing (the Newman hall choir did a Mozart mass as a gift for me, since I was a member of the choir) and all was utter confusion.  Somehow we did get through the rehearsal, but I had very little confidence in the outcome of the wedding afterwards!

Our dinner was at Wilkinson's, marred only by the absence of Gladys, but was otherwise fun.  (This was just a coffee shop where we had breakfast every Sunday and we decided that would be the most "meaningful" place to have the dinner...but our favorite waitress, Gladys, wasn't there, which was a disappointment).

Then we went to our respective homes to try to sleep.  Joyce brought a bottle of champagne and she, Karen and I drank that before going to bed.  We had a long conversation and I really took gas for packing a book to bring with me (I finished it too!)  I managed to sleep until 2 a.m. at which time I wandered around the apartment until about 4 and at last was able to get a bit more sleep.

The morning of the wedding, I was surprisingly calm.  Everything at the apartment seemed to go off all right.  The cameras worked, Mischa (the flower girl) looked darling, the dresses matched, the bridesmaids were fairly well behaved, the flowers looked good, and the photographer arrived on schedule.

When we left our apartment, my father got to talking to the firemen across the street and talked them into wheeling the engine out for us to pose on.  That picture appeared in the SF News-Call Bulletin.

Then to the church, where I started to get butterfly-e, but people started arriving and greeting me and they started to go away.  I felt just great. . The highest compliment I received was from my sister, who is not prone to compliment me.  We were in line ready to go in and she turned around and told me that I looked beautiful.  It was the only time I got tears in my eyes.  When the music started, I was too worried about making sure my father didn't cry to be nervous.  Before I knew it, Walt was saying "good morrow, good lover" and we were on our way to the altar and Tim.

Tim did a marvelous job.  His voice is not that of Mario Lanza, but it was passing-good.  As it was his first wedding, the pre-ceremony instructions that he read sounded more like he meant what he was saying than it usually does when read by some veteran priest.

We had a beautiful day for the wedding, which I consider a special smile of God.  The whole thing from the wedding down to the end of the honeymoon seems to be a God-given gift.  The Brazilian room (where the reception was held) looked gorgeous, the cake was beautiful, and the food was delicious.  I tend to run to superlatives when describing our wedding, but everything was so unexpectedly perfect that I can't help it!

At cake-feeding time the photographer said that we did the best job of stuffing he had ever seen

We left the reception in the Rambler, which was tastefully decorated with shaving cream, ribbons, lipstick, and the usual festoonings.  They blocked the wheels with rocks but the Rambler mounted the obstacle and we went roaring off into the Berkeley hills.  When we got to the Tempest, we remembered that I left my overnight case at the hall, so Jeri and Bill were dispatched to the Brazilian room to pick it up.  Walt and I drove out to the cemetery to leave my corsage at his father's crypt.

(I was a little disappointed when we got home from our honeymoon to find the corsage in our refrigerator.  Apparently Walt's mother had also gone out to the mausoleum and decided I probably would like to keep the corsage.)

Our wedding night supper consisted of food left over from the reception.   They packed a nice little supper of potato salad, gooey cake, ham slices, etc. and the guys from the Physics Department made styrofoam container for a bottle of champagne, to keep it cold.

Our ultimate destination was Canada, of which I said, "We entered Canada around 9 in the morning, encountering no trouble with customs and seemingly entered another world.  British Columbia was so green.  It was filled with fields of wild daisies and countless streams, brooks, rivers and tributaries of rivers.  At every turn in the road we were hit with more beauty and it got to be frustrating because just as you were sure that there could be no more perfect scene, the road would turn and you would be faced with a different landscape, more beautiful than the last.  The lakes we passed were just like glass, and the sky was full of fluffy white clouds during our whole stay in Canada.

Just outside Cransbrook, B.C. we caught our first glimpse of the Rockies...and a better glimpse you couldn't ask for.  The sky looked like it was full of these beautiful clouds until you looked hard enough at it and realized that some of the "clouds" were the peaks of the Rockies, which were shrouded in the clouds.  This too was "breathtaking."  And it began my romance with the Rockies.

After this first glimpse, the range just kept unfolding before our eyes.  Mountain after majestic mountain, getting more snow-covered the farther north we moved.

And so it continued.  Everything was perfect.  We made the acquaintance of several bears, three moose, numerous deer, and even a wolf and a couple of mountain goats.  These are the things that you see pictured in travel brochures, but they never really happen to you...they did happen to us, but I'm sure only because we were on our honeymoon--the whole world seemed to love us.

* * * *

58 years

 

Today Walt and I are celebrating our 58th anniversary.

We were married in the Newman Hall chapel in Berkeley, which was a beautiful building that I hated to see torn down so UC Berkeley could make a parking structure.

My apartment was across the street from a fire department and my father got them to pull the fire engine out so we could take a picture for the local newspaper.

Our reception was at the Brazilian Room in Tilden Park...

...ironic since many years later, Brasil would become such an important part of our lives, with so many Brasilians living with us and Ned spending a year in Rio de Janeiro.

We're going out to dinner tonight.  Walt suggested we go to Red Lobster, which is in the middle of its Crabfest.  Sounds absolutely perfect!

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

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Tidbits

 I found these pieces of trivia today on Letters Against Isolation

• There are over 200 million insects for each human currently alive on the planet!

• Cows have best friends and they get stressed when they are separated.

• The time between Cleopatra's birth and the invention of the iPhone is less than the time between Cleopatra's birth and when the Great Pyramids were built.

• If you folded a piece of paper in half 42 times, it would reach the moon! (Challenge a senior to see how many times they can fold a paper - I got to 6!).

• Sharks existed on Earth before trees.

• A blue whale's heart is the size of a Volkswagen Beetle!

• Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

• The Atlantic Ocean is saltier than the Pacific Ocean.

• Penguins can convert salt water into fresh water!

• Tomatoes originated in South America. The Italians didn't have pizza until the 18th century!

I don't think these are questions on Jeopardy.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

six months of television

 

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Sunday Stealing

 

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. This feature originated and published on WTIT: The Blog. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves.

Stolen from Sign Up Genius

1. Would you rather ride a bike, ride a horse, or drive a car?
If I hadn't not renewed my license when I turned 80, I'd say "drive a car."

2. Who is your favorite author?
Two.  For "classical authors" it would be John Steinbeck.  For more contemporary books, it would be Harlan Coben.

3. Would you rather vacation in Hawaii or Alaska, and why?

I've been to both places.  I think Hawaii might be my preference for a vacation, though I thoroughly enjoyed Alaska and would like to go back for the county fair, which we attended when we were last there.

4. If you could go back in time, what year would you travel to?

For me personally, 1985 was a good year.  I'd like to repeat that year.  If I were to go back in time to some other year, perhaps briefly 1906 in San Francisco after the earthquake and fire.  I'd like to see how my grandmother grew up, living in a tent in Golden Gate Park.

5.  What's your favorite zoo animal?
The elephant, though I'd rather not see an elephant in the zoo because they need to be in families in the wild.  If I see an elephant in the zoo, I feel the need to apologize to her.

6.  What's the tallest building you've been to the top of?
The World Trade Center a few years before 9/11

7. How often do you buy clothes?
Almost never.  I'm so difficult to fit and have few places I need to "dress up" for.  I only buy clothes when the ones I have are worn out.  Walt and I never have arguments about how much money I spend on clothes! Or make-up.  Or face creams.  Or shoes.

8. What was the last thing you recorded on TV?
Hard to say.  We have a DVR and record most things we like and erase after watching.  This being Friday (when I'm writing this), what I'll be recording is the latest episode of Outlander.

9.  What was the last book you read?

"I Will Find You" by Harlan Coben

10. What's your favorite type of foreign food?

It's a toss-up between Chinese and Mexican.  I love both, but sometimes I get the feeling I also need some sushi.

11. What kitchen appliance do you use every day?

The coffee pot

12. How old were you when you learned Santa wasn't real? How did you find out?

I'm not sure how old I was...maybe 6?  And I was shocked.  We were looking for Easter eggs hidden in the living room (because we had no back yard) and I noticed that my parents were giving us hints and I realized that my parents had hidden them.  I whispered "thank you" and my father said "Now that you know there is no Easter Bunny and no Santa don't spoil it for your sister."  I was shocked.  I had no idea there was no Santa.

13.  What was your favorite subject in school?

English and French

14. What's the most unusual thing you've ever eaten?

Durian.  Yuck!

15. What's your favorite family recipe?

My mother made great enchiladas, which she learned from a Mexican neighbor. She was a plain cook, but everything was great.  I remember fondly her pot roast and her meatloaf, neither of which I can duplicate.  My father made the very best potato salad and I've never had another one like it.  As for what I cook, I don't know that I have a favorite or that my kids have a favorite dish that I cook.  When I cooked, I made Joe Special a lot.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

Looking at the squirrel

 

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Saturday 9

 

Welcome to Saturday 9. What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love memes, however, and here is today's meme!

Saturday 9: It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over (1991)

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

1) In this song, Lenny Kravitz sings about all the tears he's cried over this relationship. Scientists theorize that human tears fall into two categories: emotional and irritant. "Emotional tears" are most often shed over physical pain, empathy, compassion, depression, and anger/frustration. Think about the last time you cried. What triggered your tears?
I cry at everything.  The last time I cried real tears running down my cheeks was at something emotional on America's Got Talent.

2) We also cry "irritant tears," which means we well up when a foreign particle gets in our eye. Over-the-counter drops can help. What's the last thing you bought at the drugstore? Was it a medication (OTC or prescription) or something else entirely?
I can't remember the last time I was at a drug store.  But since I get my prescriptions through Kaiser, it would have been "something else entirely."

3) TV actresses have played a big part in Lenny Kravitz' life. His mother was Roxie Roker, who played the neighbor Helen on The Jeffersons. His wife (and the inspiration for this song) was Lisa Bonet, who played one of the daughters on The Cosby Show. Their daughter, Zoe Kravitz, appeared in the HBO series Big Little Lies. What TV series do you never tire of, and could watch again and again? 
Criminal Minds, NCIS, Monk.  I watch these all the time since they are all on marathons.

4) Thinking of Big Little Lies ... Zoe Kravitz co-starred with Nicole Kidman. Shortly after Kidman divorced Tom Cruise, she dated Lenny Kravitz. Have you ever been curious about a partner's past love?
No.

5) Lenny Kravitz and Today Show weatherman Al Roker are second cousins (their grandfathers were brothers). Do you turn to a TV weatherman for the forecast? Or do you check a website or app?
Both, actually.  I pay attention to the TV weather, but I also check the weather app on my phone when I want to find out the temperature outside (since I'm in the house and there is air conditioning here)

6) Also a talented photographer, Lenny's work has been displayed at the Leica Gallery in Wetzlar, Germany. What's the most recent photo you took? 

A page I just decorated for
the journal I'm making

7) In 1991, when this song was popular, Murray Bicycles were the top seller among younger set. Popularity is fleeting, though. By 2004, the company filed for bankruptcy and no longer produces bicycles. Was your bike a big part of your summer when you were a kid?
In San Francisco, biking was often difficult because of the hills, but we rented bikes to ride through Golden Gate Park.  I also rode bikes to the playground because it wasn't too hilly.

8) Also in 1991, Gene Roddenberry died. Mr. Roddenberry is best known as the creator of Star Trek. Who's your favorite Star Trek character?
Spock!

9) Random Question: How do you think your high school classmates remember you?
They probably remember that I was the yearbook editor and that the yearbooks didn't arrive until after graduation!

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

This red thing gets filled with treats.
Bubba carries it around everywhere.   

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Oh My Word!

It was a shock  to turn on the TV this morning and listen to the news from across the country.

First, the sub that was lost looking for the Titanic is still lost and will be out of oxygen some time this morning.

Concert goers in Denver were pelted with huge hail stones

Then, a town in Texas was completely destroyed by a tornado.

Third, officials in South Florida have placed a portion of Broward County under quarantine in response to the recent sighting of a giant African land snail in the area. The giant African land snail eats vegetation and can consume at least 500 different types of plants, as well as paint and stucco.  It is unusually large, growing to be as long as 8 inches as an adult, and can procreate in enormous quantities, laying thousands of eggs at a time. Additionally, the snail carries a parasite called rat lungworm that can cause meningitis making it a serious health risk for humans.

In addition to snails is Florida, there is an invasion of tens of thousands of Mormon crickets swarming towns in the West—causing traffic hazards, emitting a horrible stench, and making people's skin crawl. Thousands are blanketing roads at a time, resulting in slippery driving conditions when squished by car tires. They've gotten so severe in some areas that the Nevada Department of Transportation have begun to use snowplows to rid the highways and streets of the slimy remains, warning drivers on Twitter to beware of conditions. In addition to their disagreeable viscosity, Mormon crickets can wreak havoc on crops and contribute to soil erosion, and their crushed ruins smell awful.

I can't find where it is right now but somewhere on the east part of the country there is an invasion of flies.

There is also an extraordinary heat wave across the southern part of the country, with temperatures up to 108-110 and no electricity, temperatures which are expected to continue for the week.

It feels like reading about the end of the world!

We are lucky to live in California, where the temperature today is in the low 80s and we have no invasion by any creatures other than a couple of squirrels hungry for walnuts.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

Walt's sister and her husband came across this guy

while out for a stroll.   

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Any mail?

Our mail carrier delivers around noontime.  But somewhere around 8 a.m., we get email from something called USPS Informed delivery, which shows you photographs of the mail that will be delivered that day.  I always look for the USPS email to find out if I'm going to get a letter or not, especially on days like today when I have answered all of my mail and am looking for a new letter to answer.

I was disappointed this morning to check USPS.  I could see that we were getting the daily brochures from Viking cruises (seriously--we get one or two brochures every day...talk about a waste of paper!) and 3 postcards, but no letters.  Not even a letter from one of my Compassion kids.  Owell.  Maybe a letter will come tomorrow.

I was surprised when the mail was delivered and it took Walt a long time to bring me my mail.  I assumed he was reading my 3 post cards before bringing them to me.  And I was completely shocked when he arrived with a PILE of mail for me.

That's eleven post cards, three letters and a report about one of the Compassion kids -- as well as two brochures from Viking and one from another cruises line...and the latest issue of The Pioneer Woman magazine.

I can't remember the last time ... if ever ... that I have received so much mail.  And the letters were all from people with whom I have exchanged letters for several years, which was nice.  It  took me at least an hour to read everything, and it will take me more time to record all of the postcards on SwapBot and then be able to start answering the letters.

Wow...do I love a day like this!

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

The cover of this week's The Week magazine     

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Monday

Getting closer to having all my health issues dealt with for the year.  Today I went back to the eye clinic to have the earpieces on my new glasses adjusted.  Oh man, does it make a difference!  they have been digging into my head ever since I got them.  Love the glasses;  Didn't love how they felt.  But now they feel great.

I still have to make an appointment with a podiatrist, but that is the last "annual" thing that needs to be done.  I need more lab work done to check my iron levels, now that I'm taking iron pills, but don't have to see a doctor again for a year.  I hope.

Ned and Marta got home in time for us to all have Fathers Day dinner together.  I had bought a lemon chicken at Trader Joe's and cooked that so Ned didn't have to cook.

Did you see what I wrote in that paragraph?  I bought a lemon chicken at Trader Joe's.  That means I went out to a store and went shopping!  When was the last time I did that???  Several months ago, I went with Ned to the big supermarket and found that I could only make it through about half of it before I was getting very tired.  But Trader Joe's is the perfect size and I had such a great time looking at all the new stuff.

When we were at Marta's family's house for dinner a week ago, they served Brasilian cheese balls.  I used to make those and loved them and was thrilled  to discover you could now buy them frozen.  They are the weirdest thing to make that I've ever made.  They use casava flour that is so strange that every single time I've made them I get halfway through and am convinced that I've done something wrong because what I have is something the looks grey and feels weird.  But when it's cooked, it's delicious.  Now I don't have to ever make them again because I can just get them at Trader Joe's.

I am thrilled that the new season of Outlander has started.  The quality of episode 1 is so good it promises to be a good season.  STARZ is running it several times a day so I've seen it 3 times now.  I look forward to Friday when episode 2 will be on.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

Bubba enjoying the sun     

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Fathers Day

It's a quiet Fathers Day. Ned and Marta are not here (they've gone to her niece's graduation) and, with no  driver, I was unable to go out and get cards from me and from Bubba, so I made this card from him and from the squirrel

I have a stamp with dog prints on it and I found a graphic of squirrel prints, so I added those as "signature" from the two of them.  I don't know if Ned and Marta will get home in time for dinner, but I went to Trader Joe's yesterday (!!!!) and got a chicken to roast for dinner, so there will be enough if they are here, and leftovers if they are not.  We did celebrate Fathers Day last week end, with Marta's dad.

I'm thinking back on Fathers Day with my own father.  It was always a difficult day for me.  Looking for cards, there were all of these "I love you" and "you're the greatest dad" cards that didn't feel right for me.  He wasn't the greatest Dad and I didn't feel love for him.  I usually got him something with beer on it.

But my memories of my father aren't all unpleasant. I was looking through questions for StoryWorth t his morning and one of them concerned your favorite memories as a child.  Whenever I see that question, I always remember one thing.  I don't know how old I was -- probably before I started kindergarten.  My father and I went up to a little hill nearby and there was something like a playhouse there.  I went in and he followed me and we pretended to be a couple.  It was very short and I don't remember it all, but it always comes up as my very first "favorite memory" of childhood.

I also remember going down to the basement of our flat and wrapping gifts for my mother for him.  He didn't know how to wrap packages and I had gotten very good at it (especially making special bows).  In the area where I would wrap packages he had big boxes of Life magazines that he'd saved all through the war.  I went through them one day and discovered there were pictures of Judy Garland in some of them and cut them out.  He was so angry with me for ruining his magazines...and then the basement flooded and the magazines were all ruined anyway!

I remember when he played the piano, probably the happiest times for him.  I remember him taking a bath and when he finished coming out and telling me he'd written a song about my mother.  He asked me to help him write the lyrics and we did.  It was so special to be working on a project with him that he was so happy about.

He had a great sense of humor, which I feel I inherited, but his humor was often ruined by his anger (which didn't inherit, thank goodness).  But when he was being funny he was great fun to be around.

After Gilbert died, he gave me a quote which was so perfect, I used it in the book I wrote about The Lamplighters, "...no friendship can ever cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark upon it forever..."  But when the book was finished and I brought a copy of it to him, he told me I might as well take it home again because he'd never look at it.   Sigh.

I guess all dads are complicated.  Mine may be more complicated than some.  If he were alive today he'd be diagnosed bipolar, but I don't think that diagnosis was relevant in the years I was growing up.

So,... happy fathers day, Daddy, wherever you are.  I hope you are finally happy.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

My father

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