You can have an unlimited supply of one thing for the rest of your life, what is it? Sushi? Scotch Tape?
I’ll go with money on this one. Unlimited money would buy me a lot of sushi or sticky tape.
Teleportation or flying?
Teleportation if available. Small, non-commercial aircraft otherwise.
Would you rather live where it only snows or the temperature never falls below 100 degrees?
Snow. I don’t like snow, but I’d melt in that kind of heat. Not to mention that I have lived in that kind of heat and it was all the time. Winter in the middle east is not bad. A lot of rain, but between the rains, it can be quite lovely.
One hundred degrees all the time? No thanks. In that kind of heat, I’d never leave the house at all.
What did you appreciate or what made you smile this past week?
Not a smiley week. I discovered there was another $4500 in what is now being called “identity theft.” It has all been covered by the credit card companies, but now I know the names of all the cops. I can even spell their last names.
When I first started blogging on WordPress more than six years ago, I was still very into the book I wrote, so I took as my online address part of the name of my book and I called myself “Teepee 12” because the book is called “The 12-foot Teepee.”
A couple of years down the road of blogging, after I’d broken through and had an audience and all that, one day I realized no one knew my name. Everyone called me “Teepee.” I had never intended to be anonymous. I’d been writing publicly since I was a very young woman, so my name was published in a lot of places. If I’d sought anonymity, I should have done it a lot sooner.
Through the tepee door …
So way back then, I switched and started using my own name. Why? Because I got really tired of being called Teepee. The book became old news and I seriously wish I’d taken Serendipity as the address for this blog because it would have saved me from WordPress’s shenanigans when a couple of months ago they decided to not bother to protect site names anymore. I’ve had to dig myself out of that hole. If my address had matched my site name, it wouldn’t have been an issue, but they were different and Serendipity was no longer an option.
So I had a secret identity entirely accidentally. Which was silly because I was at that point still a published writer under my own name, so having a secret name as a blogger while publishing as myself in magazines seemed a bit peculiar.
Thus I became me. A lot of people decloaked and became themselves at that point. It turned out that being yourself made you no more of a target than not being yourself because any hacker who wants to really know who you are will find out quickly enough. I could do it, but I don’t want to bother.
Hacking is like, you know, WORK. And as Maynard G. Krebbs used to say: “Work is a 4-letter word.”
If you were to pack a basket for picnic lunch, what would be in your basket?
First of all, I’m not an enthusiastic outside eater, not matter how nice the weather is. At the beach, there is sand and everywhere else there are ants and flies. We used to cook on the back deck at the Vineyard. One day, a seagull swooped down and stole the steak directly from the grill. Hot coals and all. Now that is definitely chutzpah.
Photo: Garry Armstrong
Did I mention the wind? On a perfect day without a trace of wind, the moment you put down that paper table-cloth, there will be a wind and the rest of the meal will be trying to keep the paper plates, cloth, even your plastic forks and spoons in place.
Georges Seurat
I love old paintings of elegant picnics, but the picnics in my life have not been elegant. Mostly, they have involved swatting bugs, finding stones to put on everything to keep it on the table — if you have a table — and generally eating as fast as possible to get it over with. Maybe there were fewer insects in The Old Days? Or maybe … they just ate the bugs.
Please enjoy your picnic. Take pictures, too. I’ll love the photographs, I promise.
On a vacation what you would require in any place that you sleep?
Cleanliness. Working bathrooms. A non-sagging bed with a mattress that was replaced this decade.
And a convenient place to park so we don’t have to haul all our stuff up stairs and elevators while walking to a third story unit.
There are many motels that do not “get” the whole “handicapped” thing.
If you were to buy a new house/apartment what is the top three items on your wish list?
No stairs. A flat backyard. Easy to clean. Two garages — one for the car, the other for everything else. And lots of really BIG closets. Oh, did I mention an eat-in kitchen?
What did you appreciate or what made you smile this past week?
This was one hell of a week. I’m really glad that Garry will get his ear fixed and give him hearing for the first time in his life. I hated getting hacked and have spent the rest of the week replacing everything on my computer. So there was the good part — Garry will hear! And the not so good part — I have had to completely rebuild my computer.
Long term, Garry’s hearing is definitely the better part! By next week, I’ll have beaten back the last of the hacking, but once repaired, Garry will hear forever.
To be brought up Jewish is to be brought up guilty. I think Catholics have a similar problem. We are guilty of different things, however. Catholics have the whole “sin” thing to deal with. Jews get to be guilty about all of Our People who were slaughtered in various parts of the world because they were Jews in the wrong country at the wrong political period.
Hofstra University 2014
Often, for us, there was no right period. Until relatively modern times — minus Nazi Germany, of course — Jews were anathema to most Christian monarchies.
And all the countries were monarchies. We did our best for the long years under Islāmic rule. They were fine with Jews as long as we didn’t tread on their religious sensibilities and tiptoeing through other religious ideologies is a very Jewish thing. We got lots of practice.
When I married my first husband, he had no religion. I mean literally none. They didn’t attend any church and I doubt anyone had ever been baptized. Jeff thought he might be a Druid and planned to return as an oak tree. I was a non-practicing Jew. So we got married by a minister that his mother remembered had buried some family member.
We didn’t have a real wedding. No church or synagogue. No wedding gown. Just a little get together with a minister (Methodist, I think) and a few friends. A couple of weeks later, my mother had a reception at their house, which was nice because it was casual. We didn’t need fancy invitations. After which, we got on with the business of being married.
Our house in Baka, in Jerusalem
So, when Owen was about to be born, we had to figure out what to do about religion. We didn’t have any and neither of us were believers in dogma. I had a friend who was also a rabbi and he said he was not a believer in pediatric Judaism.
Neither were we, so we just didn’t do anything … except we had Owen circumcised which gave him a whole set of Jewish godparents … then we had him Baptized and Garry became his godfather. And that is why Owen’s middle name is Garry.
The Dead Sea
When Jeff and I divorced and I took Owen to Israel, it seemed a good time for him to be Jewish, so he had a Bar Mitzvah there, at the only Reform synagogue in Jerusalem.
He got a 6-year dose of Jewish guilt, but then he went back to the U.S. and forgot all about religion.
I got to keep the guilt. He got to be American.
Summer afternoon on the Mumford
Guilt can be a mother’s best weapon to manage recalcitrant children, by the way. Owen may not remember much Judaism, but he sure does remember guilt. Not bad at using it himself, now that I think of it.
Time is really whizzing along these weeks. Whoosh and another week is gone. Slow down, please. I can’t keep up with everything.
Complete this sentence: This sandwich could really use some …
Mayonnaise.
What is your least favorite candy?
I don’t like most hard candy. It sticks to my teeth.
What sign are you? Do you believe in astrology?
I’m a Pisces. Don’t judge.
Do I believe in astrology? Yes and no. I have learned much from astrology, but I do not believe it really offers us a “path” to life. All it does it suggest options, likelihood, possibilities.
Much will happen whether we choose it or not and the rest will probably happen too, but maybe we have some way to “push” the process one way or the other. Not change it, exactly … just move it to a different rail … with the ultimate destination always the same.
What did you appreciate or what made you smile this past week?
Garry was a very good speaker at Charlie Austin’s Memorial Service. I was proud of him. He is usually a very good extemporaneous speaking anyway, but he was very much on target this time.
It was a special time and he was a special speaker.
Let’s face it, there are a lot of annoying things about social media. Even worse than the fake news and memes being spread, making us dumber by the day, is the proliferation of new games, rituals, groups, pages, chats, instasomethings, broadcast thyself and say nothing.
You Tube channels (I have 2), Google +, Twitter and twitpic and tweetchat, YouNow, Ustream and the list for You is growing. You can write it, sing it, chat it, pin it, post it, paste it, repost and reblog it. The glut of personal pages and activities is beyond gluttonous.
Among the millions of pages and posts lies some golden moments if only you can find them. Sometimes it is like finding a needle in a haystack, but sometimes a needle is found. Perhaps you put the golden needle there yourself, hoping others will find it. If you look hard enough, you may find gold too.
I have used Facebook, WordPress and YouTube to uncover new (or not so new) and interesting talent. In some ways, it has replaced some of my television watching, although I have uncovered more crap online than can ever make it through to broadcast television.
If you have been following along on Sundays, you will notice that I have pointed out some of the good young talent online. There are some young people doing good as I pointed out when I asked if it was A Screwed Up World? I also mentioned up and coming talent here and on Sunday Night Blog. Recently, I profiled Tom Law in Laying Down The Musical Law, Steve Grand in All-American Boy and my You Tube favorites in Singers on Demand So you can tell I am not completely down on the social media world.
One practice that has grown up on several social sites in recent years did not interest me at first. In fact, I thought it a rather self-indulgent way of posting your old photos for people who really did not care on a medium that is so overburden with posts few would notice anyway. This now common activity is called Throwback Thursday. Have you taken part?
The idea behind Throwback Thursday is that you post an old photo, video, or article from the past, and tag it with #tbt. Thus you will have made some sort of contribution to remembering something important or historical. It’s an interesting idea that has, of course, produced a lot of junk. Seriously, I do not need to see your video of you and your precious cat from 2003. It may bring tears to your eyes, but that doesn’t make it an historic document.
After this practice had gone by for a few years, I began to see the worth hidden in hashtag TBT. Items of merit were coming to light of social, historical and even personal value. Now I gladly participate.
I still love cake
My personal photos of my charming self at a young age may be of no value in the social media world, but I have many friends and relatives on Facebook. I don’t see them often, so they may be of interest to those who knew me at nine.
We are sharing old memories through weekly postings. I’ve been amazed by the relics some folks have uncovered. Perhaps you’ve been lucky enough to see old photos and videos that bring a smile to your face.
The Pajama Game is the game we’re in!
A few years ago I started a Facebook group for former students of Mrs. Laurette Kittler. She is a retired high school drama teacher whose instruction and guidance touched the lives of generations of students. I was proud to include myself in those who could celebrate this teacher’s work. I thought maybe, over time, I would find 100 students.
The group has close to 340 members, some of whom have been posting pictures and bringing smiles to everyone. While many members of the group haven’t seen each other for decades, they’ve been putting up pictures others may have not seen since the 60’s, 70’s or 80’s. Maybe they never saw them at all. Now there are thousands of pictures.
When the formation of this group led to a “dinner and drinks” outing, I casually mentioned that among the many pictures I have and I have seen, I have no pictures from my Senior Class play. I could have purchased them from the high school at the time, but I let it pass. It was my big regret.
During the week that followed, pictures showed up on Facebook, including one of me front and just left of center in a picture I do not think I ever saw.
Throwback Thursday has become a favorite activity. Sometimes I post a picture then look for items from others which will remind me of my high school days, my family and my youth. Nothing brings the past to life like seeing it. This is the value of #tbt.
My departed mother took a camera to many events in her life. In the 70’s and 80’s there is no telling how many rolls of 110 and 126 film she went through. Some months after she was gone, I sent many hundreds of pictures to my brother. I have thousands remaining.
Nowadays, I have a use for these photographs, on #tbt.
Do you use paper money? If so is your money organized sequentially according to denomination?
Basically, no. I never have any paper money. It’s common for me to not have a single piece of folding money in my wallet. Maybe a few odd coins, but that’s it.
Everything costs so much, there’s no point in trying to keep enough cash for daily use. You take out $20. Remember when $20 was a week of money for everything including coffee and lunch?
You go to the grocery. Buy a newspaper and a jug of lemonade and you’ve got $3 and some change left. The amount of money I’d have to carry around would be ridiculous.
Now … the real question … are your credit cards in order? The answer is that the things I need all the time – driver’s licence, bank card, Medicare, Blue Cross, Social Security, and all those cute little cards that have the serial number of my various spare parts … those are in one small section of my wallet. Everything else is wherever it landed.
You are comfortable doing nothing? For long stretches of time?
Does nothing include using the computer?
If yes, then absolutely. If not, absolutely not.
What is your greatest strength?
I can think problems through and usually figure a way out. Next, if I can’t find a way out, I am pretty good at shrugging and saying “Oh well, something will happen … ” and usually, it does.
Third? I know when to apologize. If I’m wrong, I say so quickly and emphatically. There is nothing to be gained by letting bad vibes accumulate.
What did you appreciate or what made you smile this past week?
I loved getting the roses pruned. One more nice day would have really helped, though. I thought we’d get at least two days. Now we are awaiting another nice one. The princes of meteorology make promises, but I’m beginning to not trust them.
To participate in the Ragtag Daily Prompt, create a Pingback to your post, or copy and paste the link to your post into the comments. And while you’re there, why not check out some of the other posts too!
I’ll go with money on this one. Unlimited money would buy me a lot of sushi or sticky tape.
One hundred degrees all the time? No thanks. In that kind of heat, I’d never leave the house at all.
