Month: July 2021

Lydster: Boggling Boggle play

competitive

BoggleOn our recent vacation in the Berkshires, we brought along the word game Boggle. I described it four years ago here.

We played twice in three days. The first time my wife won. She ALWAYS wins. It’s not that she knows more words as much as she can SEE more combinations. I’ve told her for years that, if luck allowed, she’d kill me on the TV game show Wheel of Fortune.

As I noted, a few years ago, we used to give our daughter an advantage. The parents wouldn’t count any of the three-letter words we found, only the longer ones. We have revoked that accommodation.

And still, she’d regularly beat me, coming in second to her mother. After coming second last time, she started studying the letters. I don’t know how this would help her, since the dice land randomly.

Yet, in the next game, she started with more than a 10-point lead, finding words that were obvious in retrospect, but which her parents just didn’t see. And ultimately, she won the game.

She’s Got Game

I’ve always tried to play games with her competitively at the point when she had a fair chance of beating me. Whether it be Connect Four or another game, she plays to win.

When we play the board/card game Sorry, her strategy hanging around the starting point, hoping for a back 4, and or two 10s that she could use as back 1s, has occasionally been adopted by her parents.

No hearts

But I’ve not yet gotten her to regularly play any of the card games I know. Sure, hearts, spades, pinochle, and the like require more than two players. But I still haven’t shown her the joy of cribbage.

I may try to teach her backgammon this summer. Since I’ve retired, I’ve become rusty, and playing on the tablet is not an adequate substitute.

It’s also true that if/when she goes off to college, this might put her in good stead. Do college kids still play board games and cards? How about Yahtzee online?

 

Some substitutes for title songs #5

Emmylou Harris, Heaven 17, and especially Amy Grant

peter gabriel.soThese are more substitutes for title songs. The album name appears as a lyric, but it’s not the title song. There is no actual title song, but these can be substituted. I’ve provided links when I could easily find them on YouTube.

Allelujah – Fairground Attraction. Album: The First of a Million Kisses Lyric: “And we’ll kiss the first of a million kisses.”

Emerald Eyes – Fleetwood Mac. Album: Mystery To Me. Lyric: “She’s still a mystery to me.”

Battle of Who Could Care Less – Ben Folds Five. Album: Whatever and Ever Amen. Lyrics: “General apathy and major boredom singing Whatever and ever Amen.”

Home – Foo Fighters. Album: Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace, Lyrics: The echoes and silence, patience and grace All of these moments I’ll never replace.”
All My Life -Foo Fighters. Album: One By One. Lyrics: “All my life, I’ve been searching for something.”

Into the Sun – Roddy Frame. Album: Seven Dials. Lyrics: “So bury me at Seven Dials So my soul can never find its way back to where I kissed you.”

Good Grief – Frazier Chorus. EP: Monkey Spunk

Death Dream – Frightened Rabbit. Album: Painting of a Panic Attack. Lyrics: “A still life is the last I will see of you. A painting of a panic attack.”

Gee

Red Rain, Don’t Give Up, That Voice Again, In Your Eyes, Mercy Street, Big Time -Peter Gabriel. Album: So.  Lyrics.

Even Though Our Love Is Doomed – Garbage. Album – Strange Little Birds. Lyrics: “Such strange little birds devoured by our obsessions.”

Too Many Lovers – Crystal Gayle. Album: These Days. Lyrics: “These days too many lovers. These days not enough love.”

Dancing With The Moonlit Knight – Genesis. Album: Selling England By the Pound. Lyrics: “It seems he’s drowned; selling England by the pound.”

Vanilla Queen – Golden Earring. Album: Moontan. Lyrics: The secret of your beauty was your moontan and your fear.”

Radio King – Golden Smog. Album: Down By the Old Mainstream. Lyrics: Let’s go down together Down by the old mainstream.”

El Shaddai  – Amy Grant. Album: Age to Age. Lyrics: “Age to age you’re still the same.”
Fight – Amy Grant. Album: Unguarded. Lyrics: “I’ve made up my mind now, I don’t want to lose out (Unguarded)”
Baby, Baby  – Amy Grant. Album: Heart in Motion. Lyrics: “And ever since the day you put my heart in motion.”
Turn This World Around – Amy Grant. Album: Behind The Eyes. Lyrics: “We are all the same it seems Behind the eyes”

Here Comes Sunshine – Grateful Dead. Album: Wake of the Flood. Lyrics: “Wake of the flood, laughing water, forty-nine.”

Locomotive – Guns n’ Roses. Album: Use Your Illusion II. Lyrics: “You can use your illusion- Let it take you where it may.”

Aitch

Trans Am (Highway Wonderland) – Sammy Hagar. Album: Street Machine. Lyrics: “Red on black, she’s a street machine.”

Before Believing – Emmylou Harris. Album: Pieces Of The Sky. Lyrics: “Pieces of the sky were falling in your neighbors’ yard”
Easy From Now On – Emmylou Harris. Album: Quarter Moon In A Ten Cent Town. Lyrics: “It’s a quarter moon in a ten-cent town.”

Radio Silence – Harvey Danger. Album: Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone.

Community of Hope  – PJ Harvey. Album: The Hope Six Demolition Project. Lyrics: “Here’s the Hope Six Demolition Project switching down the Benning Road.” This is a fascinating story.

How Wonderful You Are – Gordon Haskell. Album: Harry’s Bar. Lyrics: “Listen to the jazz in Harry’s bar.”

Vainglorious -Heart. Album: Jupiter’s Darling. Lyrics: “Jupiter’s darling standing in the ring.”

Key To The World – Heaven 17. Album: The Luxury Gap. Lyrics: “But trying to fill the luxury gap has pushed me to the brink.”
Five Minutes To Midnight – Heaven 17. Album: How Men Are. Lyrics: “You know how men are.”

Izabella– Jimi Hendrix. Album: First Rays of the New Rising Sun. Lyrics: “Girl, here comes the rays of the rising sun.” Live track substitute.

Hi

Adios to California – John Hiatt. Album: Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns. Lyrics: “Dirty jeans and mudslide hymns that all began with soon.”

Listening to the Higsons – Robyn Hitchcock. Album: Gotta Let This Hen Out. Lyrics: “Said “‘ gotta let this hen out And give this hen some eyeballs.'”

Boys Keep Swingin’  – Susanna Hoffs. Album: When You’re a Boy. Lyrics (first of many in the David Bowie cover) “Nothing stands in your way When you’re a boy.”

Stuck Between Stations and First Night – The Hold Steady. Album: Boys and Girls in America. Lyrics to the first: “Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together.”

Hello To Romance – The Hollies. Album: A Crazy Steal. Lyrics: “Such a crazy steal.”

Preacher In The Ring, Pt. 1 – Bruce Hornsby. Album: Spirit Trail. Lyrics: “Believers out shakin’ on the spirit trail.”

Wheels – Hunters and Collectors. Album: Jaws of Life. Lyrics: “Hadda spit the dummy do a Jaws of Life job.”

Performer Lynda Carter turns 70

back to singing

Lynda Carter
Breakfast – from lyndacarter.com

If I ever watched the TV show Wonder Woman, it was by chance. Yet, it was nigh unto impossible for me to have not seen Lynda Carter in that spangled costume in ads, on notebooks, in magazines, usually in her superhero pose.

So I recognized her instantly when I recently saw her in episodes from 2005 of Law and Order, and its spinoff, Special Victims Unit. Her character was NOT heroic. She’s been a working performer for a lot of years.

From Biography: “The youngest of four siblings raised in Arizona, Carter studied performing and by her mid-teens was fronting bands as lead vocalist. Although she qualified for an academic scholarship to attend Arizona State University, Carter opted for a life on the road, touring and performing in venues from the Catskills to Las Vegas.”

She segued into modeling. “Participating in beauty pageants brought the titles of Miss Arizona and then Miss World U.S.A… The pageant titles helped land acting auditions and in 1975 she burst onto television screens as Wonder Woman, and with the role came fame on a global level.”

She married “Hollywood producer and manager Ron Samuels in 1977,” which she describes as “an unfortunate chapter.” They divorced in 1982.

True love

She met attorney Robert Altman – not to be confused with the film director – and married him in 1984. They built a house in Potomac, MD, just outside D.C. They raised their children James (b. 1988) and daughter Jessica (b. 1990) there. Lynda was also “a fundraiser and advocate for causes important to her such as Pro-Choice rights for women, equality for the LGBTQ population and Susan G. Komen for the Cure.”

Unfortunately, Robert Altman died in February 2021 at the age of 73 from complications from a medical procedure.

She wrote on her website: “Robert is the love of my life and he always will be. Our 37 years of marriage were an extraordinary gift. We shared the passion I hope everyone is lucky enough to experience in their lifetime. We protected each other and were each other’s champions always.”

She had battled alcoholism in her past. But she’s been sober since 1998.

Like a good mom, she’s using her site to plug her daughter’s 2020 EP No Rules. It includes at least two covers, Spooky (Classics IV) and Sunny Afternoon (The Kinks). Lynda has rekindled her own love of music, and the two women have performed together.

In June 2021, Lynda bought a Florida condo for $15 million

A few months ago, Chuck Miller went gaga over an encounter with the performer.

Here’s to a Wonderful day for Lynda Carter as she turns 70 today.

Sister Leslie as emcee/hostess

pancakes!

Rebecca Jade, Leslie Green - May 2018
Rebecca Jade, Leslie Green – May 2018

As noted, my sisters and I have been talking on ZOOM almost every week for… what, maybe a year? You would think we would run out of topics to talk about. You’d be wrong.

It’s an odd thing. We’re still hashing out the weird stuff about our parents. The fact that they died in 2000 (Dad) and 2011 (Mom) hasn’t buried the issues. If anything, their passing has given us permission to address the stuff we wouldn’t have dared discuss with them or even fully acknowledge the issues.

In some ways, the three of us had very different lanes growing up. Marcia, as the youngest, was the rebellious “don’t BS me” child who Leslie and I couldn’t imagine being. I was the bookish, somewhat insular one.

Leslie, by contrast, was the child most likely to try to please others. When visitors, friends of my parents, came over to see my parents, Marcia could bail as the youngest. I would come out of my room to say hello then go back to my books/baseball cards/music, which was more interesting to me than people who didn’t ostensibly come to see me anyway.

Leslie was wired differently. She would talk to my parents’ friends a lot more than I did. It seemed that she was like an emcee. This made adults like her more, which was not MY concern.

In some ways, it served her in good stead. She was a very personable performer. Her first job, while in high school, was to be a hostess at the Perkins Pancake House on Main Street, near Glenwood Avenue, in Binghamton. She worked in the hotel industry in a function, not unlike a concierge. And even her other jobs involve communicating well with others.

Recovering

Three years ago, as I noted more than once, Leslie was in a bicycle accident and almost died. She’s a lot better, though not 100%. There are still some issues with her eyes, her mouth, and a few other aspects. But she’s mostly OK.

I noted that I had seen the movie Summer of Soul recently. It reminded me that three years ago, less than a month before the accident, she was singing duets on a cruise ship with Larry Graham, the bass player for Sly and the Family Stone. Now that’s the kind of situation that being a talented and personable type will gain you.

Happy birthday, Leslie.

 

Museum of Natural History

day trip to NYC

Natural history MuseumMy daughter wanted to visit the Museum of Natural History before she started her summer job. So we, including my wife, did.

I’m not crazy about day trips to New York City, which is too much a compression of time. But what tipped the scales for me to go is that my daughter’s beau, Tee, had never been on a train. In fact, he’d never been to The Big Apple, only 150 miles away.

I tied ordering the tickets online. But the Amtrak site, which I’ve successfully navigated several times before was cranky. So I ordered by phone, which involved leaving my phone number until I got an automated call 90 minutes later. I was able to finish the transaction EXCEPT that they were to call me back in “15 minutes” to get my email. They needed to send me not just the tickets but information about COVID protocols, such as wearing a mask in the station and on the train.

OK. This trip meant getting up at 5 a.m. That’s five in the morning, not my natural habitat. Check my blood pressure, then feed the cats earlier than they were expecting; felines, it’d better last you for a while. Pick up Tee, go to the train station, which is not in Albany, but in Rensselaer, just across the river.

The train station is decent, WAY better than the hovel that existed on the site little over a decade ago. As for the trip between Rensselaer and NYC, this article, which I happened to get in my email after the trip. “Winding its way along the pretty Hudson Valley, you’ll appreciate why so many people choose to commute to Manhattan rather than live in the city.” It is a lovely trip, the only civilized way to go to Manhattan.

Oh, the OTHER station

We arrived at Penn Station. Apparently, the brand-new Moynihan Train Hall was across the street, but we never saw it on this trip. For sure next time.

Walking up to Times Square, some vendor guy, unsolicited, put a bracelet on my daughter’s wrist, then wanted her to give him $5 for it. This was a good lesson in negotiating the fact that she did NOT have to buy something just because a stranger foisted on her. A few minutes later, she and Tee were talking at the location where we believe the ball drops on New Year’s Eve.

We take the B train to the Museum of Natural History, west of Central Park. I’m quite good at the subway, even though I use it infrequently. My wife had made a reservation for a noon entry, and we got there at 11:30. It was already a long line when many of us were directed to an alternate entrance because that line was “full.”

We’re in line for nearly an hour, wearing masks. Those zigzag lines give one the false impression that you’re closer than you are. Here’s the really weird thing, though: even people with both a reservation and paid-for tickets STILL had to stand in this interminable line to get a physical ticket.

There were lots of cool displays, though some required an additional fee. We did see the North American mammals, dinosaur fossils, and the forests. The Teddy Roosevelt display is recontextualizing the role the 26th President played in the environment and the culture.

The large whale had a band-aid, maybe a reflection of the COVID vaccine campaign taking place while we were there.

Le deluge

The others in my party decided to return to Times Square. But I headed directly to 34th Street to get back to Penn Station. I’m only two avenue blocks away when I got caught in the pouring rain. The umbrella I had kept in my backpack was of little use. Then the lightning started.

Fortunately, at 34th and 7th, I could go into the entrance for the LIRR, Long Island Railroad. The walk is just as long, but it’s drier. Eventually, I meet up with the others, and we returned home.

The trip back took longer because Amtrak has to share tracks with Metro-North (train from Poughkeepsie to NYC, among other routes) as well as freight lines. Having finished my reading, I pulled out my laptop and checked my massive amount of email. The Wifi was occasionally spotty but generally usable.

After dropping off Tee, we went home after a very long day. I’m glad we went, but I hope not to take another day trip again for a while. And even more happy that we left when we did, for the subway system flooded later that afternoon. 

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