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 SwapBot

1) What is your favorite way to spend a lazy day?
Watching TV, reading, or playing around on the Internet.

2) What do you look forward to every week?
Well, since Season 7 starts tonight, I'd say watching the new season of Outlander each Saturday.

3) Name three pet peeves you currently have
I'd say anything that has the name of our 45th president in it, but that goes WAY beyond "peeve."  So here are 3 pet peeves:
- The things that get printed on the bottom of a TV screen while you are watching TV, covering up what you are watching.
- The blue jays who steal the nuts I put out to feed the squirrels
- All the email I get...and no personal emails at all.

4) If you were to win an all expense paid vacation for two weeks to anywhere in the world, where would you choose to go? What are some of the things you would like to experience while you were there?
I'd love to go to some African country where I could spend time seeing the animals in the wild and living in a fancy hotel (like the one where the elephants march through the lobby each day or the giraffes poke their heads in to watch people eat a meal.

5) What was one of your favorite toys as a kid? Did you save any special things from your childhood that you still have today?
Thinking back, I can't think of a TOY...more games, puzzles and books.  I have nothing from my childhood because my mother was a Virgo and when I moved out of the house she assumed I didn't want anything, so threw it all away.  (How I wish she hadn't thrown away my diary!)

6) What is your favorite holiday? What is your least favorite holiday?
Favorite?  Thanksgiving.  Least favorite?  Halloween (I always hated the whole candy thing...how much to let the kids eat, etc.)

7) Have you ever met anyone famous? What concerts have you attended?
I've met many famous people, perhaps the two most famous would be Judy Garland and Carol Channing.  My first concert was Judy Garland and the only "current" concerts would be the ones that Lawsuit, our kids' band, gave over 10 years.

8) Are there any expressions that people use that really annoy you? If so, what are they?
Any expression which indicates that the speaker believes #45 is an honest person who should be president....or that yeah, he's a dishonest person but he still should be president.

9) Do you like your name? Are you named after anyone? Is there a story how you got your name? Would you change it if you could? If so, what name would you give yourself?
My parents were going to name me Barbara after my aunt, but decided they didn't want two Barbaras in the family so they gave me her middle name, Beverly.  Ironically, when people can't remember my name, they usually call me Barbara.  I'm happy with my name...or Barbara!

10) It is said that it's the little things that make life worth living. Name five of those little things in your life
- the squirrels that beg at our back door
- snail mail from pen pals
- Monk marathons
- My "Yes I'm Cold" shirt, which makes me so comfortable, I fall asleep easily
- All the stickers I have collected this year.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

My father

                                                                                                                                                          

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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: Beautiful Boy (1980)

This song was chosen in honor of Father's Day. Hear it here.

1) Paul McCartney has said that "Beautiful Boy" is one of his favorite John Lennon solo songs. What's yours? (This link will take you to his greatest hits.)
Not a big Beatles fan, but I do like "Imagine."

2) Lennon wrote this for his son, Sean. Father and son share an October 9 birthday. Does anyone in your life share your birthday?

This is one of my Compassion kids, from Rwanda.  She shares my birthdate
.

3) John asks Sean to take his hand before they cross the street. Name another song that references holding hands.
"I want to hold your hand."

4) Today Sean Lennon is in his late 40s. He lives in Greenwich Village, creating art and music from his elaborate home-based music and film studio. Are you into the latest in electronics?
Not at all.  I'm too old for new electronics.

5) In Thailand, Father's Day is observed on the birthday of the current King. Are you celebrating any birthdays this month?
No birthdays in June, except for my sister, whose birthday was June 21.  But she's been gone since 1971.

6) Crazy Sam vividly remembers her long-ago high school days when her father gave her driving lessons. Do you consider yourself a good driver?
Not any more.  Ned feels I'm no longer a safe driver, so I didn't have my license renewed when it expired this year.

7) Sam's dad is a stickler about car maintenance and reminds Sam to change her air filter regularly so her a/c and heater can run efficiently. Share a car maintenance tip.
Can't think of one. 

8) When he fills up the car, Sam's father also stocks up on his favorite candy: Life Savers. He always has a bag in the glove compartment. What's something you don't leave home without?
My glasses, my walker

9) Random Question: How long can you go without checking your phone?
Since almost nobody calls me, I can go a whole day without checking the phone, but I use it for Facebook, e-mail, Kindle books, etc. and check it several times a day when I'm sitting and watching TV.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

My friend Gerrit's photo

                                                                                                                                                          

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Lunch out!

I had lunch out with a friend today.

I haven't had lunch out with a friend in maybe a year?  More than a year?  My friend Kathleen and I used to have lunch once a month.  she lives in Sacramento so for many years, I drove to Sacramento to meet her, but once she retired, she drove here to Davis for lunch.  We have made a couple of dates to go to lunch, but either she or I have to change and somehow we never do get a replacement date.  I think it was 2 months ago when she had to cancel our date and I told her that I was busy that weekend and the 4th of July week, but other than that, I had no dates until Thanksgiving.  I haven't heard back from her.

BUT yesterday my friend Cindy called.  Cindy was my friend through the typing service I worked for.  She w as also a dentist and she typed while she was getting her practice established.  Once she had an established dental practice, she moved to her own office and stopped working for the secretarial service. . But we all, who typed for that service, were good friends (all these entries where I say I have no friends living in Davis...I forgot about Cindy!  I always saw her as my dentist and we had our visits during her work on my teeth, but she retired in February, so I haven't seen her since then.

But she suggested we go to lunch.  I chose Tres Hermanas Mexican restaurant.

The weather was perfect for having lunch on the patio and I loved my chile rellenos.  We sat there for another half hour or so after we finished eating, just getting caught up and remembering our history.

She also told me that her husband takes fabulous photos of birds, which he posts on Instagram. I had no idea there were so many unusual birds in the Davis-Sacramento area.

If you are on Instagram, I recommend checking his site for some really great bird photos!

It was such a nice lunch and we decided we'll do it again some day.  

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

finished!

                                                                                                                                                          

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The Indictment

 So today is the day when the first president in the history of  the country is going to be federally indicted on 37 counts of espionage.  Needless to say, I am spending the day on the the TV trying to figure out what is going on, though there is no photography or video of the proceedings and they are not allowing any electronic devices in the courtroom, so not much chance of finding out what is going on until it's over.

I got up at 3 to watch Morning Joe to find out what the latest was.  I watched for an hour and then went back to sleep for another couple of hours.  The problem with 24/7 news broadcasting is that when something like this comes along you have all these people sitting around speculating.  For hours.

I guess one thing that this whole top secret thing has added to my life is that I have a better knowledge of what it is like at Mar-a-Lago.  I just saw an overhead picture which shows that there are several large buildings more or less connected to the main building.

But showing rooms where the documents have been stored makes it seem as disorganized as my house.

Nice to know there is something to read while you're going to the bathroom.

Oh lord...so much to say.  Lindsay Graham says it's a political event because why haven't they done anything about Hillary Clinton?  He seems to think that the four years that #45 did nothing about Hillary Clinton wasn't important.  Or that all of the trials she has had that have all proven her innocent weren't important.

#45 has said that Biden has 85,000 boxes of secret documents hidden away in Chinatown.  I have heard several other Republicans making this statement, but haven't heard a single thing about proving it.  I remember hearing that Hillary supposedly had a child pornography ring working out of a basement in a pizza parlor...a pizza parlor that had no basement.  #45 seems to toss out these crazy accusations without any proof whatsoever, and everyone believes him and repeats them.

At least there are finally Republicans who are admitting that this is all very serious. Even former Attorney General Bill Barr said, "if even half of what is alleged in the 49-page, 37-count document is true, then the former president is “toast”.  (Trump called him a "gutless pig.")

But the cult is still supporting him.  Heck, he could be reelected and have to govern from jail.  It's hard to believe that with all the VIDEO and RECORDINGS that they have of #45 himself admitting what he's done and laughing about it that there is anyway he could not be found guilty.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

                                                                                                                                                          

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Father's Day

 Father's Day is next weekend, but Marta's niece is graduating from San Luis Obispo and she and Ned are going to the graduation, along with Marta's parents, so Walt will be the only father in town.  So they decided to celebrate a week early.

We went to Marta's parents house for dinner and sat around visiting with her father.

Marta's stepmother made ribs which were incredibly delicious.  I've always loved ribs, but could never make them the way I like them.  (It's like my mother's cooking.  She made simple  things that I could never duplicate.  I always had to make things more fancy)  There were so many ribs left over, Ned was able to snag enough for us to have for dinner tonight.

It was a quiet evening and we left soon after dinner because Marta had been in Colorado visiting her mother for the week and flew in the night before, arriving after midnight  (hold over in Houston) so she was exhausted.

So for Father's day, it will just be me and Walt.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

Marta's stepmother's Corgi

                                                                                                                                                           

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"they"

 I have finally reached the age when I just don't understand new things that everybody else younger seems to have no problem with.

I have spent my entire life knowing that "woke" was the past tense of "wake."  But now it's not.  I hear everybody talking about how this or that person is "woke" and even given the definition ("alert to injustice and discrimination in society, especially racism") I can't quite get it into my head when it's being used in conversation.

And then there are gender situations.  I grew up with gay people in my life.  My grandparents had a gay couple who were good friends of theirs and so I never had any strange feeling about gay people.  Even trans people became normal after Christine Jorgensen her her sex change operation in the late 1950s.  
But I'm having difficultly with "non binary" people.  It's not that I don't accept them, it's just that I have a difficult time around having to use the pronoun "they" instead of "he" or "she."  I was thinking about this last night watching the Tony awards.

I was surprised when Alex Newell won an award for best actor and came to the stage to accept the award.

Newell was the first non-binary person to win a Tony and I learned that the pronoun to use is "they," not "he" or "she." In making thank you comments, they said, "For every trans, nonbinary, gender non-conforming human — whoever was told they couldn’t be, couldn’t be seen, this is for you…" Newell, wikipedia tells me, identifies as both non-binary and gender fluid."  I can't wrap my head around that! Not sure what that all means.

While I was working on Newell, J. Harrison Ghee won an actor award for Some Like It Hot.

Ghee played the Jack Lemmon role. Ghee also uses the pronoun "they" I have to shake my head when I read this in Wikipedia.  Ghee grew up the child of a Southern Baptist pastor and an educator in Fayetteville, North Carolina. They began playing cello in elementary school, later switching to play the bass. Ghee then learned to play trombone, so that they could be in the E. E. Smith High School marching band. After graduating high school in 2007, Ghee attended the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. Ghee first tried drag in college when they played a female wrestler.

I have a friend who has a child who identified as binary and used the term "they" until she fell in love with a guy and decided to have a child and then went back  to using the female pronoun.

I guess at 80, I'm just not able to fully understand all of these new gender identifications or to use what I consider plural pronouns to refer to a single person.  Not that I don't accept them.  I just have a difficult time understanding them.

But I had no problem with the win of Bonnie Milligan for featured actress.  Milligan is not svelt and sexy and had this to say:

“I want to tell everybody that doesn’t maybe look like what the world is telling you you should look like, whether you’re not pretty enough, you’re not fit enough, your identity is not right, who you love isn’t right — that doesn’t matter, because guess what?” she said. “It’s right, and you belong somewhere.” 

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

Bonnie Milligan

                                                                                                                                                           

8319d

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 SwapBot

*Have you tried anything new this year?

I discovered cheap stickers at Temu this year and have purchased a lot of them and am learning how to use them to 

decorate letters, envelopes and journals.

*What would you do if you don’t have wifi for a week?

I could live without wifi for a week.  There is TV and there are books.

*Do you like summer, why or why not?

The nice thing about summer is there are fewer students, so the town is quieter.  The thing I hate about summer 

is the heat.  I am not a heat person.

*What’s one restaurant that you like in your city? what food do they sell?

Probably my favorite restaurant is a sushi place that makes great sushi rolls.  There is a place called The Dead

Fish that serves wonderful Dungeness crab, but it's about 50 miles away.

*Do you prefer digital book or real paper book?

I like real books, but the typeface is often too small, so I read most things on Kindle.

*What’s one thing that you are interested to buy, but it’s a bit expensive, so you haven’t bought yet?

Can't think of anything

*What tea brands do you like?

I am not a tea drinker.

*What’s one food that you can binge eating a lot?

Oh so many things, like donuts (which I never get!).  I binge a lot of fruit.  And if we had it in the house I would binge

a lot of breakfast pastries.

*Write one random thing that happened to you this month.

We went to a special picnic.  Our son Paul's best friend hosted a picnic in his memory the year after he died and

invited all his close friends.  It was such fun it became an annual event. Since there are so many musicians

in the group, there is usually a lot of music.

*How many long-term pen pals do you have right now? (people who pen pal with you for more than 3 years)

I started pen pal-ing a couple of years ago, so I have lots of pen pals but none for more than 3 years. 

*If you own a small food trailer, what food do you want to sell?

I can't think of anything I'd like to sell from a food trailer. I'll buy from a food trailer...

*What’s one handmade gift that you received and really liked ?

Jeri has made a lot of handmade gifts. One special thing she did when she was a kid  was to decorate a dozen 

egg shells as Gilbert & Sullivan characters.

*What’s your ideal Saturday like?

Pretty much the same as every other day.

*What things do you like to buy on Etsy?

I don't buy a lot on Etsy, but I've bought some washi take and stickers recently

*What kind Asian food do you like?

I pretty much like most Chinese, Japanese and Thai food.  I like Walnut Shrimp, sushi rolls, and Pad Thai

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

                                                                                                                                                           

8318do you like?