Tag: Sunday Stealing

Sunday Stealing looks back at 2023

not for the last time

This Sunday Stealing looks back at 2023. But it has very little overlap with my annual reflection which I stole from Kelly.

1. Who did you spend time with this year?
In sheer number of hours: my wife, my church choir, my daughter.
2. Anything change with the pets in your life?
Midnight went to the vet for the first time in nine years. After his previous visit, the old vet refused to see him again. The new vet was convinced that the office could examine him by combining a mild tranquilizer in the cat’s food and a better-trained staff. This proved not to be the case. the new vet concluded, “Your cat is crazy!” We knew that.
3. What was your job like this year? What do you do? Did any roles or assignments change? If you aren’t employed, base this question on your work at home or volunteering
For more than a decade, I was in charge of the Black History Month activities at my church, save for the luncheon. The February 2023 season was particularly difficult to book for various reasons., though it took place. The Anti-Racism Task Force at my church became a continuing committee and will be taking over the event, much to my delight.
4. What was the best book you read this year?  How many did you read?
Not many. I really liked The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green
How terribly strange
5. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? Did you feel differently? 
I was 70. Three score and ten. Yeah, it was a big deal.
6. What political or social issue stirred you the most? 
The risk of the end of democracy in America. 
7. Who was the most interesting new person you met?
They know who they are.
8. What changed in your home? 
The nob to the basement came off. A whole bunch of little things need to be fixed in our old house.
9. What have you learned throughout the year? (Other than crafts)  Can be a new skill or a life lesson.
How did I ever work for a living? I STILL don’t have enough hours in the day!
10. What was your favourite outfit for warm weather? Cooler weather? What do you wear when you dress up? Any new clothes or accessories you really love?
Clothes don’t tend to make a marked difference for me. The only clothes I bought were three DFTBA T-shirts during Pizzamas. No, I’m not going to explain that.
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
11. Did you make or give up on any efforts to be healthier? Diet, water, exercise etc?
In the main, no. Pretty status quo, except in December, when my wife makes Christmas cookies.
12. Fave meals, snacks, desserts, restaurants etc? Eat out or eat in?
Early on, my wife and I used to have lunaversary dinners. Then, it went by the wayside. We have attempted to reinstate it. When we do takeout, it’s usually one of the places on the last block of Madison Avenue: Junior’s (bar food), the Curry House (Indian food), and the new pizzeria, the Pizza Lab, which has other foods as well.
13. Did you learn any new crafts or techniques? What was your favourite thing you made? 
Nope.
14. What are your hopes and dreams for the new year?  (Some suggestions-family, travel, work, lifestyle, hobbies, pets, appearance)
More genealogy. I have plenty of leads I need to follow up on.
15. What was the best new/new-to-you thing you a) bought b) made c) acquired in some other way?
The Reacher Grabber Tool, 32″ Grabbers for Elderly, Lightweight Extra Long Handy Trash Claw Grabber, Mobility Aid Reaching Assist Tool for Trash Pick Up, Nabber, Litter Picker, Arm Extension. It’s great for getting that spice jar that falls between the stove and the kitchen counter. We had one before, but it broke from overuse.

Sunday Stealing: it’s almost Christmas

Billboard

waiting.christmasThe topic for Sunday Stealing is the December 25 holiday, probably because it’s almost Christmas. I note there are 12 questions, one for the drummers, one for the pipers…

1. What is the best Christmas gift you’ve ever received?
It might have been a subscription to Billboard magazine that my then-girlfriend, now late friend, bought for me in the 1980s. It was rather pricey, and it was not really of great interest to her, but she loved me. When I was in high school, I was a  library page. I read the magazine before putting it away in the basement.

Or maybe it was the first Hess truck that my wife bought for me in the early 2000s and every year since. I am almost encircled by them right now.

 

2. What is the worst Christmas gift you’ve ever received?

At work, we had a gift exchange. One bozo filled up a container with random screws and nails.

 

3. Do you have a favorite Christmas song?

I have LOTS of favorite Christmas songs. Check my upcoming posts and yesterday’s. I’ll pick What Christmas Means To Me by Stevie Wonder or Coventry Carol by Alison Moyet. But I have many holiday albums, religious and secular.

 

4. Does your family have any favorite holiday traditions?

It has morphed over time. We used to go to my in-laws. It seems recently, and certainly since COVID, it’s been rather haphazard. This is also true, BTW, of Thanksgiving.

 

5. What is your favorite Christmas snack?

Eggnog and amaretto.

 

6. Did you believe in Santa growing up?

I believe in Santa now, more than ever.

 

7. How early do you start decorating?

Once again, it is haphazard. It can be from early December to a day or two before Christmas Eve.

 

8. Are you an early or last-minute shopper?

In years past, I was ahead of the curve. There was a medieval faire in October, and I always bought something for my wife, but it’s defunct. So, this year, WAY behind.

 

9. Would you rather give or receive gifts?
With that duality, then receive because I tend to agonize over the correct gift to give. That said, this is a lovely story of giving. There was also a local item about a guy paying for the $2,000 for the Toys for Tots that a local charity had been collecting.
Cinema
10. What’s your favorite Christmas movie?

I’m not sure I have one. It’s A Wonderful Life is a lot better than I thought it would be. Scrooged was interesting in parts. I’ve recorded Elf because I’ve never seen it. Rotten Tomatoes has made a list of the best movies, and they have The Holdovers on it. I’ll say that. Of the old-time ones, possibly Miracle on 34th Street, because I’m a sucker for a courtroom drama.

 

11. What is one of your Christmas memories?

I wrote about a few of them here. 1966: Christmas was on a Sunday. I delivered the paper six evenings a week, back in the olden days when there WERE afternoon papers, and then on Sunday morning, back in Binghamton, NY. My father, who NEVER helped me with my route because it was MY job, not his – not that I ever asked him – got up (or maybe stayed up) to help me deliver that thick newspaper to my customers on Clinton Street, Front Street, and McDonald Avenue. That meant a lot to me, but I doubt I ever said so.

12. Do you open any presents on Christmas Eve?
Sometimes.

Sunday Stealing: Pink

cannot draw a circle

This week’s Sunday Stealing is called Pink. I assumed it meant something else. Instead, the progenitor of the post is something called Fickle in Pink.
Ah, what the heck:
The Pink Panther theme
Trustfall– Pink
Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd

Barbie World by Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice, with Aqua

 

1. Do you tend to have a guilty conscience?

No, and yes. On one level, what is done is done. Still, at unexpected times, I ruminate on how I could have done something better, especially this year.

 

2. Do you still have your wisdom teeth?

Nope, all gone, two at a time, before I was 30.

 

3. Peanut Butter – creamy or crunchy?

I don’t eat peanut butter because I don’t like it. When I was three or four, I ate it a lot, Jif brand. I wondered if I had overdosed on it. The valuable aspect of this is that when I’m eating unlabeled cookies, I can take one bite and suss out the PB ones. This was important because my daughter is allergic to peanuts and most tree nuts.

 

4. Get up off your butt. Take 5 steps. Which leg did you start out on?

My right one always, because it’s in less pain than my left. When I walk up or  down the stairs, it’s also the right.

 

5. What color is your favorite kitchen utensil?

Turquoise spatula.

 

6. Did you watch the Michael Jackson memorial/funeral?

No, and I had no interest in doing so. Yet I wrote about remembering where I was when I heard he died.

 

7. Do you know anyone who graduated from high school this year? Were you invited to their graduation party? Did you go?

Yes, some kids from church. We went to two different events. At some point, it rained, but neither party was a washout.

 

8. White with black stripes or black with white stripes?
Surprise me.
Paul Peca
9. If we were to call your 6th-grade teacher, what would they say about you?

I hope nothing unless you have been conducting a seance since he died in 2011. But Mr. Peca would be pleased because I’m a thinking, opinioned sort. I remember distinctly that he supported Barry Goldwater for President in 1964 when most of the class backed Lyndon Johnson. But he liked the back-and-forth.

 

10. Can you draw a perfect circle?

Goodness no. I have to draw a clockface for those cognitive tests they give old people.  It’s an oval, at best.

 

11. What was your favorite scratch-and-sniff sticker scent?

I’m not a fan. It makes me slightly nauseous.

 

12. How many light switches and electrical outlets are in the room that you are in right now?

There are two outlets. The one with a power strip allows me to use my laptop, printer, CD boom box, light fixture, and phone charger.

 

13. Do you know sign language?

No. I tried a little, but I was not a quick learner.

 

14. Do you step on cracks in the sidewalk?

I make a point of it. When I try to increase my pace, I try to take fewer sidewalk panels, two instead of three, e.g.

 

15. And the sheets on your bed look like….?

I don’t know. I usually go to bed after my wife does and in the dark. Currently,  they are blue flannel.

 

The picture above is of our former bathroom sink during the deconstruction before the reconstruction.

Sunday Stealing – Identity

hot under the collar

mytrueidentityThe Sunday Stealing this week is about identity, an intriguing topic.

1. if someone wanted to really understand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to?
Read: see #8 below
Watch TV- JEOPARDY, 60 Minutes, CBS Sunday Morning, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Twilight Zone, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Mission: Impossible until Landau and Bain left. See movies: Young Frankenstein, Annie Hall, Casablanca, West Side Story, 13th.
Listen to: see #4 below

2. have you ever found a writer who thinks just like you? if so, who?
He is not exactly like me – he is far more technologically knowledgeable, e.g. But Arthur is a political science guy, sometimes activist, and is open to stealing ideas from me. In fact, he’s doing his Ask Arthur Anything event, which he admittedly purloined from me.

3. do you care about your ethnicity?
Yes, and yes. Yes, it still seems to matter to others; we aren’t in that post-racial society yet. And yes, because it’s interesting to me. Ancestry occasionally recalibrates my DNA percentages. Presently:
Mister Music
4. what musical artists have you most felt connected to over your lifetime?
In response to blog posts J. Eric Smith shared, I wrote a series of pieces that featured Prince, the Temptations, Jethro Tull, Steppenwolf, Johnny Cash, Steely Dan, Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, Harry Belafonte, plus a bunch of people also mentioned in the previous links. If I HAD to pick three, it’d be The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, and Paul Simon.

5. are you an artist?
Suppose art is drawing, painting, or sculpting; then absolutely not. If art includes singing, then arguably yes.

6. dog person or cat person?
I had cats from when I grew up until 40 years ago. Then, a decade ago, there were two cats, one of whom was certified demented by his vet. The one dog we had when I was a kid bit me; we got rid of that dog when he also bit the minister’s daughters. There are a handful of dogs I’ve liked, especially Random.

7. inside or outdoors?
I like the outdoors when it’s temperate. I like April, May, and September. But I hate heat and fear burning. My tolerance for the cold has diminished with age.
Literature
8. five most influential books over your lifetime
I dunno. How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi regarding how I see inequity. Life Itself by Roger Ebert is about how I see movies. The Sweeter The Juice by Shirlee Taylor Haizlip is about how we’re the same. The Good Book by Peter J. Gomes is a philosophical treatise. One of those Joel Whitburn books about music – Top Pop Singles – is about how music rules.

.
9. would you rather be in Middle Earth, Narnia, Hogwarts, or somewhere else?
By default, Hogwarts. I’ve never read any of the books, but I’ve seen all the movies.

10. list the top five things you spend the most time doing, in order.
Sleeping, reading, sorting through stuff, blogging, eating (including food prep or purchase)

11. have you ever felt like you had a “mind-meld” with someone?
Yes, at random times. A few times on the Amtrak.

12. could you live as a hermit?
That’s what COVID felt like. If I had a phone, Internet, a source of food delivery, maybe for a year before I started going bonkers.

13. do you feel like your outside appearance is a fair representation of the “real you”?
Most people who know me well recognize that my outside appearance is not particularly a high priority for me. So I haven’t a clue.

14. three songs that you connect with right now.
Here are songs by artists who have birthdays in December: Nothing Compares 2 U – Sinéad O’Connor, who died in July 2023;  Something So Right– Annie Lennox from her all-covers album, where she reorders the Paul Simon lyrics;  Love and Affection– Joan Armatrading, which has one of my favorite first lines:  “I am not in love. But I’m open to persuasion.”
made into a PBS series
15. pick one of your favorite quotes.
When I get this question, I pull a book off the shelf and randomly pick something. From The Story of English by McCrum, Cran, and MacNeil: “Phrases like hot under the collar and bite the dust are an everyday reminder of the powerful influence the cowboy has had on the English language. Perhaps this is because, of all of the frontier heroes, the cowboy was the beneficiary of nineteenth-century technology. The camera and the railroad exported the cowboy lifestyle and language back to the east so vividly that a New York dentist, Zane Gray, who was virtually ignorant of the real West, could create a believable picture of cowboy society from the information available to him in New York, thousands of miles from the range.”

Sunday Stealing – Surveys

L.L. Bean

This week’s Sunday Stealing is Surveys. But isn’t it Saturday? Why yes it is.

Before that, I want to do some light kvetching. There’s a walkway between our house and the neighbor’s. Two Wednesdays ago, there was a bunch of trash on the ground. I figured it might have blown over – it has been occasionally windy – and it would be picked up by Thursday night with the city garbage pickup on Friday morning.

But it was still there Friday afternoon when I took this picture. Fortunately, it was disposed of by Saturday morning, but now there are TWO shopping carts, one from Whole Foods, the nearest one of which is four miles away. Since there are at least four apartments  in the building, I don’t know who to ask, and there’s enough turnover there that I don’t know anyone there presently.

I can’t talk to the absentee landlord because he is a piece of work.  He scraped my wife’s vehicle with his rusty pickup truck last month, white paint from our car on his rust bucket. Moreover, there are two witnesses to this. 

Where were we?
  1. . How long was your last phone conversation?
About a half hour, with my baby sister.

2. Have you ever dyed your hair?
Not ever.

3. What do you have on your feet?
Slippers. It’s always slippers if I’m at home. Maybe socks if I’ve been out covered by slippers.

4. Do people ever mispronounce your name?
It’s a pretty easy name.  Still I’ve been called Robert and, most often George; I think it’s the consonant thing. When I was waiting to read at the Ironweed marathon reading, I heard the announcer say, Next up:, Roger Breen” or something that wasn’t my name.

5. Where did you get the shirt you are wearing?
My wife bought it from L.L. Bean, which was the Final JEOPARDY response in the game I lost; I was the only one to get it right, taking me from third to second place.

6. Does any part of your body hurt right now?
My feet. My knees, which are bone-on-bone. The left one is particularly exhausting.

7. Do you drink hard liquor?
Very seldom. But I have a LOT in my house for guests. But we don’t havce a lot of guests, mostly because we have a demented cat.

8. Have you ever read a book in one sitting?
Other than children’s books, perhaps many years ago. 
Felines
9. Do you like cats?  Why or why not?
As noted, our male cat is demented. The female cat is skittish but nice. I tend to be pleasant to the neighbor cats. There was a calico cat on the front porch this week and I talked nicely to it. Related: there was a dead mouse on the walkway to our sidewalk this Wednesday; I kicked it onto our lawn, intending to pick it up on Thursday night for trash night, but it was gone. Friday morning, there was that dead creatrure on our front porch and ANOTHER dead mouse on the back porch,  presents, I believe, from the calico cat, who was in our backyard. Oh, cat, you SHOULDN’T have – really, you shouldn’t.

10. Do you like the ocean?
Sure. Looking out from the San Diego area is particularly lovely.

11. Ever think you might have seen a UFO?
Perhaps.

12. Do you type fast?
Not at all.

13. How long are you usually in the shower for?
Ten minutes, maximum.

14. Chinese food or Mexican food?
Yes. But I’ve had Mexican food recently, whereas it’s been possibly pre-COVID since I had Chinese food.

15. Do you read and believe your horoscope?
A friend of mine got me a very detailed horoscope probably four decades ago or more. It took into account my time of birth, the location, etc. It seemed pretty accurate It’s around here SOMEWHERE, but it certainly has not informed the way I lived my life 
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