EARWORMS FROM MY CHILDHOOD

                

It seems as though I’ve always got an earworm going ‘round in my head. I blogged about them in February of 2015. I’ve had dozens of them since then. Before my current musical number, it was a song from Funny Girl. This week it’s a ditty from my childhood: “The Animal Fair.”

I went to the animal fair.

The birds and the bees were there.

The old baboon, by the light of the moon,

Was combing his auburn hair.

The monkey he got drunk and

Stepped on the elephant’s trunk.

The elephant sneezed

And fell on his knees, and

That was the end of the monk – poor monk!

   And that was the end of the monk.

There may be different words, but that’s how I remember it. I wonder what ditties my grandchildren will remember and have as ear worms in their heads. Sometimes I’ll sing a silly one to them, or recite a nonsense verse, and they just look at me as though I’ve gone starkers.

Eenie meenie – titsie teenie

Ooo – gah – gahgoleenie

Achey, pachey, googa-lachey

Out goes Y-O-U!

And what ever happened to Mairzy Doats?

MAKING A LIST - CHECKING IT TWICE

This morning's news brought dozens of pictures of the world's New Year celebrations.
My favorite is this one of the London Eye. Wow!
  They guy who orchestrated all this is a bloody genius.

Happy New Year to all of you. This holiday season has been a happy, busy one for me. More so than in recent years, I've had a bit more of the holiday spirit - and yesterday I got into the spirit of the new year and a new plan. 

I just read an article about why it's so hard for women over 50 to lose weight - I've been struggling with my weight for eons, and what I read in the article was quite familiar to me: count the calories, exercise more, get better sleep. Yeah, I hear you. So in this time of resolutions - re-solutions - and starting over, I am going to give self-improvement another try. Come to think of it, I've never before used the turn over of the year as a starting point. We'll have to see how it works for me. 

So - first things first - I started two lists. One list is for several of the little nit-picky jobs that need to be done around here. Home Improvement.  For example, I've got to vacuum out every drawer in the kitchen - not to organize then and discard the useless stuff, I keep them fairly neat and tidy, but to clear out all the crumbs and other detritus (I love that word!) that have fallen in there. You could bread a piece of chicken with all those crumbs.

The other list is to keep me on track for my own better health. Self Improvement.  On Boxing Day, my three youngest granddaughters  were weighing themselves on my scale. Jillian, 8, weighs 40; Jenna, 10, weighs 60; Jordan, 12, weighs 106 pounds. I weigh much, much more than their weights combined. I made a quick poster of their weights to put on my refrigerator to remind me of that. I have got to, got to, get some of this weight off. I absolutely know I'd feel better. 

LOL - the other thing I did for me was to throw out the half-used, largest size, jar of peanut butter. PB&J sandwiches are my indulgence, my "what the heck, I'm going to have a PB&J even though I realize it's bad for me but I want one" indulgence. When I get a bit of the "why me's" I'll even go in and scoop out a big dollop to savor. No more dollops, no more snacks. 

As I said, we'll see. 

2018 was a very interesting year - 2019 promises to be the same. Elizabeth Warren (she has my vote) has already announced her candidacy, many (maybe too many) will follow soon. Did you realize that the debates for the 2020 elections begin this June? Yes, it will be an interesting year. Meanwhile, I hope it is a happy, healthy, busy year for all my followers. 

REOPEN YOUR TREASURE BOX

And Friday rolls round again. As I get older (and even older!) Friday seems to roll around more than once a week. It's been a crazy, busy week, what with family get togethers on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and even Boxing Day. On Thursday I stayed in, and here it is Friday. This morning I've got a meeting for which I had lots of emailing back and forth yesterday - we got it all squared away, Meetings during the holidays are a beast. So - all this is a preface to today's post - a repost from March 2011. I think it's time to trot it out again. And it's probably a good time to reopen your own treasure box.

You know those zany ads that ask “What’s in your wallet?” What I want to know is “What’s in your treasure box?” You do have a treasure box, don’t you? Of course you do. Is it an old cigar box, a cookie tin, or an old hat box? Is it a special box that someone made for you? Why do we save the things we do like ticket stubs and dried corsages, or matchbook covers?  One man’s trash is another man’s treasure? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder? “One never knows, do one?”

Both my husband and I have treasure boxes of our own. My husband’s, an elegant brass box with the Tokugawa crest on the lid, contains, among other things, a Swan Vesta match box filled with stones he polished, a Cattaraugus pocket knife given to him by a dear friend, his dog tags, a blue-ribboned Boy Scout medal, a few hand-forged cut nails, a Kennedy half dollar, and an ancient pack of Gillette Blue Blades. “Do you have plenty?” No, there are only two blades left from the pack of five.

Mine, a wooden box topped with a cross stitched piece done by my daughter-in-law, holds several different whistles, including one from Oscar Mayer Wieners, a sandalwood fan, a boot-shape piece of rock from Les Baux-de-Provence, a red, white, and blue ribbon rosette given to me in Oslo to wear to celebrate Norwegian Independence Day one May, and a palm-size, bird-shape pillow made of green felt. This was my oldest granddaughter’s first sewing project.

Many parents keep boxes of their children’s things: hospital I.D. bracelets, baby booties, a tress from a child’s first haircut, first drawings, report cards. These things mean a lot to a parent, but little, until later years, to a child. Treasure boxes are a great gift for children aged about four or older. Children love little drawers and compartments. A single-layer tackle box is a great starter box for a kid. The partitions can be moved around to suit their whims, and the boxes are practically indestructible. They can fill the little spaces with all sorts of utterly useless things that they just have to keep.

Children take great pleasure in showing off their treasures to any interested grownup, and they like to have grownups return the favor. We keep some neat stuff in what we call the Nature Box. It too is a tackle box, full of shells, rocks, nuts and seeds, pretty feathers, stones, found pottery shards, an arrowhead or two, shed snake skins, plus a few dried insects like a big cicada and some little, emerald-green flies. These never cease to fascinate our younger grandchildren.

I get a bit nostalgic when think about the recording Loretta Young made of the story of The Littlest Angel. Now, along with many an old radio show, it can be found online. The end to the charming tale of the Littlest Angel is that his gift, a humble treasure box, containing a butterfly with golden wings, a sky blue bird’s egg, two white stones, and his beloved dog’s collar, became the shining star of Bethlehem.

MERRY, MERRY

I'm wishing all of my readers a very Merry Christmas, one full of love and laughter and light.

 Zen Hugs y'all.

...and a special Happy Birthday to Brenda.

THINKING OF WALKING IN THEIR SHOES

I'm late posting my blog entry today. It's been a busy day - a made a big pot of beef bourguignon, some to freeze, some for super tonight. Then made a batch of spritz cookies (won't say how many I tested - they need to be tested, you know.) Then I sat! It's crazy trying to keep track of all that needs to be done and where I have to be in these days before Christmas. I've had three meetings this week, and I'm looking forward to just one next week, and then none until January 8th. Bliss!

But I digress...    ... here's a strange bit I thought I thought I'd write for you:

Catherine Parr
In those times, the clothing of royalty was just sumptuous. 

Some nights I have trouble falling asleep. A while ago, getting to bed after reading a mystery set in Tudor times, I began to think what it would have been like to be a woman in those mid-1500s, and to have been one of the historical characters in the book, Henry VII’s last wife, Catherine Parr.

Imagine being a comely woman and catching the eye of old Henry – and old and diseased he was. She’d know about the fate of her five predecessors: divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, and beheaded. What did that bode for her? She did marry him and, fortunately for her, survived.

The point of all this is that lying there in the dark, thinking about someone else’s life, was both interesting – to a point – and soporific. Fleeting thoughts and impressions came and went. I got to sleep fairly quickly. I’ve tried that trick again since then. I’ve thought about being my mother, living in the Depression and through WWII, and the things she encountered and had to deal with. Thinking of her mode of dress, her marriage, and of the differences in lifestyles – all fleeting impressions. I’ve thought about being a movie star and what her life would be like. I thought about and put myself in the lives of a few others.

  

My parents on their wedding day

I’ve got a mental, short list of other lives to explore in my mind. It does work: puts me to sleep, and then gives me food for thought the next day – and to this day.

KEEP THE GOOD STUFF

My favorite Meissen figure - I thought to pass it down, but I'm keeping it for now.

If you’ve read any of my blogs on getting rid of stuff, you’ll recognize that, at heart, I am a minimalist. I have the empty drawers and shelves, and plenty of space in the closets to prove it.

Over the years, especially when we moved south, we gave away, passed down, or donated all sorts of things. I miss very, very few of them. I did do that picture thing: take pictures of the favorite items you’re giving away so that you can have the “evidence,” and your kids won’t have to deal with the stuff later. Eh! 

Now I say, if you have the room, keep the sentimental items. Keep that macramé shawl you bought way back in the 60’s, keep the little pitcher you bought in that wonderful town in France, keep the little figurine you bought with your first babysitting money. If you have the room, and the inclination, keep the treasures handed down to you by your parents. You love them and you love having them. Most of these things deserve the space you give them.

Don’t be too quick to pass them on now. Yes - do let your kids decide to what to do with them once you’re gone. It'll keep them busy.

FAILING FREEDOM

Every morning, I check out the news on MSN, the Microsoft network.  Some of the news is the same as from other sources, but they do come up with some offbeat articles. I bypass many – I really don’t need to waste time finding out the favorite snack in each state, or the best places to retire. (I already live there.) Today they came up with a very intriguing topic: The 27 countries in the world with the most freedom.

So there I went, through the slides, waiting for “us” to come up. Guess what – we no longer make the cut.  At the top with a score of 100 each, Sweden, Finland, and, of course, Norway. 

Not even on the list at a score of a measly 89, we’re not doing to well. As a friend of mine says “it’s pitiful.” You can read more at Freedom House.

CHRISTMAS IS NEAR

I heard my first Christmas music on the car radio on Monday afternoon on the way home from a meeting. Christmas is back on my favorite classical music station. This is Christmas music my style – no “I saw Mommy kissing Santa Clause,” just the good, traditional stuff. Once December is here, I can enjoy Christmas music.  I even found an article that said that listening to Christmas music too early is bad for your health. I believe it! Before December 1^st I’m an old Scrooge.  

Right now, I’m delighted it’s December 7^th. It’s the last day we’ll have to endure the tidal wave of TV ads for seniors to switch or sign up for Medicare supplement plans. I wish Medicre.gov had chimed in sooner with their ads. That’s the one place anyone shopping for coverage should go to get unbiased, unpaid information.

Ha, the sneaks, there’s even a Medicare.com. They do say, at the end, that they’re not affiliated with the government. Somehow, I don’t trust website like these that promise to refer you to the best of any type of service, from finding a doctor, to a realtor, to a house painter. I suppose the recommended don’t mind paying for referrals through a recommender, it’s a part of the new costs of doing business, but it smacks of extortion.

Cute, but I'll pass on this.

But I’ve digressed. No matter the day on the calendar, you know Christmas is near when they begin to trot out the old TV ads for fancy watches, Norelco shavers, the Clapper, and, good grief, Chia Pets. Now they’ve gone beyond the sheep and other animals and made one like Bob Ross’s fuzzy head, one like our POTUS, and several other equally ugly versions. I’ve never given or received a Chia Pet – I hope things stay this way.

  

That little red one is mine!

Any time they’re on, though, I will always stop to look at the Christmas ads for Mercedes Benz. They are very clever.  I like the one where Santa does a switcheroo and swaps the red sleigh for a gorgeous red Mercedes. Or the one here his red Mercedes is “pulled” by eight white ones. And another where the huge car hauler on the left is carrying “Naughty” red Mercedes models, and the hauler on the right is carrying white “Nice” ones. Yes, clever.

Choices! Choices!

BETTER THAN THE GOOD OLD DAYS

I recently read that the French company MDI – Motor Development International - is developing a small car that will run air – compressed air. I do hope they are successful. It would be a step in the right direction for car owners, and for the health of our world.

We’ve a lot of people working to improve our world – everything from reducing the methane cows produce in abundance, to improving our health and life spans.

I really don’t know if I’ll be around when these improvements come into fruition, but I’d surely like to be. I live in a world so very much better than that of my parents, and I’d love to be around to see the world inherited by my grandchildren.

SUNSHINE

Oh, I feel like such a grump, such a contrarian. Tongue in Cheek is one of my favorite blogs. Corey Amaro is the only one left on my “must read” list who posts every single day, rain or shine, sickness and health, even the day of her daughter’s wedding. She’s an American married to a Frenchman – that in itself is a story sometimes hilarious, sometime sentimental, always interesting, always loving. This recent post was a thoughtful one:

   The sun sends forth the last rays of light, as it pours through my kitchen window spreading across the kitchen table, the gift of light: The sun gives whether there are clouds, rain, or things in the way, then repeats the same gift the next day. Steadfast. Light for everyone and thing regardless who or where or what they are.

And, having had plenty of sunshine pour through my kitchen window, I thought to myself, ­“The sun sends forth the last rays of light, as it pours through my kitchen window… …and I wince and groan as I see the fingerprints and smears on the cabinet fronts.”  An alternate thought was about the dust in the corner, but …

I love a sunshiny day – who doesn’t?  I hate a sunshiny day, especially at this time of year when the sun is just at that precise angle to call attention to my less than white-glove housekeeping. Then I remember the plaque my sister had hanging in her kitchen. It said “My house is clean enough to be healthy, and dirty enough to be happy.”  This is a happy household.

POTUS AND MILD SENILE DEMENTIA

I sincerely believe that our president is suffering from mild senile dementia. I say this because his habit of making statements based on an incomplete base of knowledge is similar to that of my husband’s.

These days, my husband is prone to making wild statements similar to this: “Jenny’s going to the store to buy bread.” He says that when he sees her pulling out of her garage. He’ll see a repair truck in someone’s driveway, and he knows what they’re there to fix. Not “I wonder what they’re here for,” but “They’re here to fix the dish washer.” His thought processes have short-circuited. You know he has no way of knowing what’s going on, but he’s sure of his conclusion.

My husband’s mild senile dementia is the result of two mild "watershed” strokes. As with our president, he doesn’t show the usual physical symptoms of senility, but they do share some of the mental symptoms. The website of the Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation lists them as “impaired judgement, loss of memory, and sometimes childish behavior.” 

Think about some of the recent statements made by the president in speeches, press conferences, or in tweets, and you’ll realize that he’s suffering from all three symptoms.

SNICKERDOODLES

I've made some wonderful friends through my blog, and some of my wonderful friends have become my blog readers too. One special gal in our community is Paula Giles. Among her other wonderful qualities, she is so very thoughtful.

At a community meeting this morning, she handed me a little paper bag. In it were some marvelous snickerdoodles and her recipe for them. She baked them for me because she'd read in a recent posting of mine that I'd never tasted a snickerdoodle. Now I have, and they are delicious! (and they are all gone - one for a friend, one for my husband, the rest for me as lunch. The recipe will become part of my cookie repertoire. I'm still not sure I want my ice cream to taste like chocolate chip cookies and snickerdoodles - there's nothing like the real thing - I've got to have that crunch.

Thank you Paula. Like the turquoise you love, you are a gem!

McLaren

I was so rapt by the sight that I didn’t even pull all the way into the parking slot. Dear heavens it’s a beautiful car. Black, all black, with a black interior. Low, sleek, eye candy.

With not a trace of chrome to mar its beauty.

It isn’t too often that a car aficionado like me gets to set her eyes on a truly magnificent car in an everyday setting, but yesterday afternoon I was treated to parking next to a fabulous McLaren 650S coupe – at the liquor store. I know the man wasn’t in there buying a gallon of Thunderbird. (Do they still make Thunderbird?) No, you know how everyone passing would have a comment about the car, and one guy leaving the store said the owner was inside in the wine room. Figures.

The McLaren brakes look like they'd stop a speeding train on a dime.

The car just whispers “speed.” One neat thing about this car was that it didn’t have the regular, rectangular McLaren plate on the hood. No, it had the McLaren “flip” speedmark logo there. Nice.

Having only the photo capability of my staid flip phone, I didn’t take any pictures, but I found one or two on the internet. I’m still appreciating the sight.

CHRISTMAS COOKIES

Ah! You read that title, and thought I was going to do a post about baking Christmas cookies. Wrong again! The old Curmudgeon is back with another episode of “Whywouldya?”  Blue Bell Ice Cream has announced that their “Christmas Cookie” flavor is now back in the stores. It is a combination of, and I quote, “chocolate chip, snickerdoodle and sugar – in a tasty sugar cookie ice cream with red sprinkles and a green icing swirl throughout.”  Just the description set my teeth on edge. I like sweet things, but that is sugar overload.

I know there were, and maybe still are, chefs who could taste a dish and tell you exactly the spices, herbs, and other ingredients in it. With all that sweetness, could you really distinguish the chocolate chip from the snickerdoodle? I wouldn’t know – to my knowledge I’ve never had a snickerdoodle.

And, on another Christmassy/Whywouldya note, there are now available clam-flavoured candy canes. Excuse me, it's “Clamdy Canes.” They say “Clams and Christmas together at last. Your whole family will clamor for them.”  Not mine.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Happy Halloween one and all - go easy on the candy corn!

(I've already been through two bags of them this year. Bruuup!)

This spooky asterism is Arp 272, colliding galaxies 450 million light year away. Even that fact is spooky. I like to collect some of the more spectacular pictures that come from NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day   This one is from September 11, 2011.  The one below is from September 11, 2018. If you're like me and really don't love unenclosed heights, this picture is scary too.

The Troll's Tongue - where else but Norway.

And just think, you too can go there if you care to hike for ten or eleven hours. It's become a popular place for pictures. It gets so crowded there that the Norwegian government is thinking of controlling access. It's uncanny, the lengths folks will go to for a selfie.

STAYIN' CLOSE TO HOME

This past week we watched a rerun of the PBS show This Week in South Carolina. It was a show from this past January, telling about the state’s new driver’s license that is a “Real ID.” Evidently, South Carolina was one of the states that was not as thorough as the others in vetting the people to whom it gave a driver’s license. The national security powers decided that as of a certain date, those licenses couldn’t be used as personal identification to board a plane or even to get into many Federal buildings.

Lucky for me, I can still go to the post office. I am not going to bother to collect all the necessary documentation, and I “quote” -

To be eligible to purchase a REAL ID, the SCDMV must have on file all of the following:

·         Proof of Identity (Government-issued birth certificate or valid US Passport)

·         Proof of Social Security Number.

·         Two Proofs of Current, Physical SC Address.

·         Proof of All Legal Name Changes.

And why do I care not? Because I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying home.

Home, as in no more flying or long drives. I’ve always been “attached” to home. It wasn’t ever bad when we drove throughout the country, but just ask the people with whom I’ve flown. Once I’m at our destination, I’m absolutely fine, but going and coming I am a nervous wreck. Not because I hate the flying, because I don’t. (Though these days with all the rigmarole attached to the security end of it, I’m not much pf a fan.)  I just don’t want any glitches to keep me from getting there and getting home. As I’ve gotten older, say in the last thirty years or so, I just want to stay close to home. I don’t want to go so far away that I couldn’t walk home if I had to.

That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.

THE CURMUDGEON IS LOOSE AGAIN

I am sometimes very glad that we’ve not got the power to read each other’s minds.  Surely I wouldn’t be thinking this way if we did have the power, but there are so many times that I want to shout at people, tell them off, tell them what I think of their conduct or attitudes.  Not nice, not nice, I know. 

I am invariably polite.  You’ll rarely hear me say, for instance “I like that dress,” or “I like that haircut.”  What I’ll say will be something like “What a dress!” or “That haircut is you!”  There’s a subtle difference there, and there’s no point in antagonizing some poor being who’s probably trying her best. I do try my own best, and it may not suit everyone else.

There’s a lovely saying, attributed to Elsie de Wolfe: “Be pretty if you can, be witty if you must, but be gracious if it kills you.”  Sometimes I’ve had to be gracious until my teeth hurt!

I knew a gal once, a friend of a friend, and she and I got talking about people we have no use for.  She said she wished she had a magic finger that she could point, just like a kid uses his forefinger and points it like a gun, and just cock the thumb trigger, and ‘poof’, they’d be gone. I’ve been mulling over the idea ever since we had that conversation.

Most of the rest of this was posted on my blog back in January of 2013. I apologize to any of my readers who are enamored of our current President, but sometimes I really wish I could use the magic finger on him. There must be times when even his loyal troops cringe at the things he says, especially, as he’s done lately, when he labels as “evil” any one opposed to his thinking.

It’s probably the same for most people, but there are several prominent people, entertainers and politicians among them, that I just don’t care for on looks alone. With our current POTUS, it’s looks and everything else about him.  

I suppose it’s good we don’t have this magic finger. It’s a simplistic solution - and just think of the possible ramifications - but don’t you too sometimes wish you had a magic finger like that? (other than that finger?) 

But then, I wonder who might use that magic finger on me?  I’d better watch my p’s and q’s.

REUBEN, REUBEN. I'VE BEEN THINKING...

…what a strange world this is right now.

Last Tuesday, I got an email from our son. He on a fishing trip down in Florida. There was no message, no attachment, but the subject was “Lobster Reuben.” Was he kidding me? He knows I’m a Reuben fanatic. Nope! I googled it, and there it was: Lobster Reuben - a Florida Keys specialty. Some people must love ‘em, otherwise why would they sell ‘em. I love lobster, I love sauerkraut, but lobster with sauerkraut ain’t gonna pass my lips.

I am getting a little peeved with all the sandwiches mislabeled as Reubens. The worst menu listing I’ve seen lists a Reuben as “Turkey or corned beef, 1000 Island Dressing, slaw or kraut, with Swiss cheese on rye toast.” Turkey? Slaw? 

That’s like mixing rye and vermouth and calling it a martini.

p.s. The very, very best Reuben I ever had was served at the now defunct D & H Restaurant in Pittsburgh, New York. Why was it so good? The owner-chef made the sauerkraut from scratch. I’ve had some pretty good Reubens since then, but that one was memorable.

MICHAEL

Hurricane Michael has left a huge mess down in Florida, and has come  barreling north-east. Above is a screenshot of the predicted storm path over us here in a few hours.  As with the late, unlamented Florence, we're ready as we can be. And as with the late, unlamented Florence, I doubt we'll experience much more than wind and rain. At least we had some practice in getting ready for the storm.
I can't begin to comprehend how people handle the total destruction of their homes and livelihoods by wind and water. I think it's time for coastal civilizations to move inland or underground. I can't begin to comprehend that either.

Meanwhile - Michael will head out, jet-propelled, and bother the folks in Europe early next week. I hope he's quieted down by the time he gets there.

INDULGING OURSELVES

Frank and I are getting choosy in our old age. We’ve decided that we’d like to have the best. We’ve always loved dining out. Where we lived in upstate New York, though we were in a rural area, we were extremely fortunate to live relatively near some very good restaurants. We had standing reservations at a fine, award-winning restaurant, and regularly visited the others. We’d have appetizers or soup, main course, dessert and coffee. And drinks and wine, of course. When we moved south, we had to trek north into Charlotte to find anything similar, and we got out of the custom of dining out at least once a month.

Over the years, more good restaurants have opened closer to home. The problem for us now is that we don’t eat very much for dinner these days. We might go to an inexpensive or chain restaurant and have just an entrée. On state occasions, we’re going to a French restaurant that opened recently. We don’t have just an entrée there. Oooola la, that is indulgence at its finest.

But, I digress. We both love filet mignon. We’ve found some very tasty filets mignons in local restaurants. The problem now is that because we’re having just an entrée, paying for a filet mignon – anywhere from $29 to $40 or more per person - is just absurd. We can afford it, but why would we? I can do up filets mignons for two for less than half the price of one eaten out. Ah yes, the experience is supposed to count for the price. Well, we’ve experienced the best – now we just please our taste buds at home.  

All this is by way of telling you that last night, as I've been doing for a few months now, I did up two absolutely delicious filets mignons. A bit of adobo seasoning, done in butter, done to a turn: medium. No sauces, no extras, just delicious. Of all things, Frank’s choice for potato was potato salad. Filet mignon and potato salad. My mouth had a party.