Tag: Sunday Stealing

Sunday Stealing — Stolen by Christina

eight teachers in four years

Welcome to Sunday Stealing

“This week we’re stealing from Christina at Call Me Patsy. Back in 2008, she admitted she stole these questions from a blogging buddy named Liz. Here we don’t judge. We celebrate such theft.”

Questions Christina Stole from Liz

1. What bill do you hate paying the most?

The cable/Internet/telephone bill keeps going up. We’ve considered  “cutting the cord,” but then I have to figure out how we’re going to get Internet and phone service. I’ve priced it out, and it seems like the savings are minimal.

2. Which restaurant would you recommend for a romantic dinner?

This past week, we went to Yono’s for our late anniversary meal.

3. Who was your first grade teacher?

At my elementary school, Daniel Dickinson in Binghamton NY, we used to have the semester starting either in September or in February. I was one of the February kids, the result of which we had eight different teachers between 1st and 4th grade. One of our first-grade teachers was Mrs. Goodrich. I think she and my other first-semester elementary teachers got pregnant, and so we had new teachers in September.

4. What should you be doing right now?

I’m doing exactly what I should be doing right now, getting this written before Sunday morning. What else would I be doing? Emptying the dishwasher? That does need to be done.

Peter Pan

5. What did you want to be when you were growing up?

I think most people thought that I would become a minister. That was probably what I assumed I was gonna do from the time I was about 10 to 16. Then I thought I might be a lawyer, but after taking a pre-law course in college, I performed poorly. That’s when my plans went adrift.

6. How did you choose the shirt you’re wearing right now?

I reached into the drawer, and that’s what came out.

7. Gas prices! What’s your first thought?

They’re going down in the United States, and that means more people are driving. This means that we’ll probably have more pollution.

8. Do you have a teddy bear?

No, I have at least half a dozen teddy bears. I have Minnie and Paula, who are named after the Twin Cities, because my father-in-law loved the Minnesota Twins. I have Blanca and Gunther. The largest is Mr. Applause, whom my sister Leslie (I think) gave me for Christmas in the 1990s. That doesn’t count the bears I got for my wife when Genny (for Genesis) got lost somewhere in North Carolina, and I bought her three different replacements.

9. Do you own the last book you read, or did you get it from the library?

I buy a lot of books, a lot more than I read. It has been a long time since I went to the library to read a book. It might have been 1963; I mean the book, not the year

10. Did you more recently send a text or write a Post It?

Text for sure

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.

 

Sunday Stealing — 8 Things about YOU

possum

weight
http://www.weblogcartoons.com/2006/06/27/weight-of-the-world/

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. “These questions were inspired by a blogger named Becca. Back in 2007, Becca was asked to reveal eight interesting things about herself. We’re turning her answers into questions to learn a little more about YOU.”

8 Questions

1. What habit do you wish you could break?

Procrastination. I’m not talking about taking a break – for me, it might be playing pinochle or spades on my phone – but doing that in lieu of what I must do.

On Tuesday, a dead possum lay next to our back porch. It was the size of a large house cat, with a tail that reminded me a little of an armadillo. I called the state Department of Environmental Conservation to see if they would take it away for me; alas, no. I was told there were too many dead critters. So I played some cards.

Now, I MUST remove the animal before I take two buses to my dentist, and then go to the library for a book talk. I decided to put it in an empty box from a recent delivery. The spade shovel from the shed didn’t have enough surface area, so I had to retrieve a snow shovel. Getting the tail in was the most challenging part. Then  I put it in the trash, but I decided I didn’t want the box to open, freaking out the trash folks, so I put the box in a bag. 

I barely got to the dentist on time.

2. Where is your favorite vacation spot?

IDK, but I enjoyed going to Washington, DC with my family last year. 

I do need some education

3. How many years of formal education have you completed?

My Master’s degree is two years of schooling beyond my Bachelor of Arts.

4. Have you ever had a job that required you be certified or licensed?

I needed a Master’s of Library Science to work as a librarian for 26 years. 

5. Do you enjoy camping?

Categorically, no. Sleeping on the ground? Bugs?

6. Tell us about a time you got away with something.

Even though the statute of limitations has run out, I think not. 

7. Where have you lived the longest, and what do/did you like best about it?

The house I live in now has built-in bookcases. It’s close to four bus lines.

8. When you were a kid, were more of your playmates boys or girls?

I remember being on the playground at Daniel S. Dickinson School when I was in fifth grade and realizing that girls were more interesting people than boys. This had nothing to do with romance or the like. It’s only been since I’ve been attending my current church and joined the Bible Guys and a dad’s group that the number of my male friends is even half that of my female friends.  

Sunday Stealing — Back to Bed

sarcophagus

Man with sleeping mask and earplugs in bed

Welcome to Sunday Stealing, Back to Bed.

“Last week, we shared questions about your bathroom. This week, with questions stolen from Manic Monday, we’re moving to the bedroom.”

1. Let’s say your alarm wakes you up with music. What would be the worst song to hear first thing in the morning?

It doesn’t matter. Any song with words is irritating to wake up to, even songs I like. 

2. How many pillows do you sleep with?

Two. One doesn’t cut it at all.

3. What size mattress do you sleep on?

I share a queen with my wife. 

4. Do you always sleep on the same side of the bed?

Yes, to my wife’s left, near my dresser. 

5. Do you make your bed every day?

No. My wife often does. Back in the 1980s, I visited my sister in California. After I didn’t make the bed for a couple of days, she made it and said, “Won’t that feel better?” NO! Being in a well-made bed is like being in a sarcophagus. I’ll kick out a hospital corner in minutes.  

6. Do you keep water on your bedside table?

No, I’d almost certainly knock it over.

7. How often do you change your sheets?

Once a week.

8. What’s under your bed?

A couple of bins of clothes, I think.

9. Do you sleep in total darkness or like to have a light on?

It’s mostly darkness. There’s a night light on the baseboard in the hallway, so I can see if I wake up in the middle of the night, which happens about two-thirds of the time. 

My childhood room

10. What do you remember about your childhood bedroom?

Growing up, we lived on the first floor of a small two-story house owned by my maternal grandmother. I probably slept in the same room as my sister Leslie until my sister Marcia arrived. 

There was no other room as such. In the middle room, my father built a wall that ran from the kitchen entrance about 2/3 of the way into the room, then another wall at a 90-degree angle from the first, leaving about an entrance to my room the size of a standard door, though I did not HAVE a door. Then he built a solid piece of wood – one large shelf – held up by the two new walls and the existing wall to serve as the frame for my “bed”. On top of that was a foam mattress.

I did have room for my stuff under the bed, including a very low dresser. Around the corner was my bookcase, filled with my Golden Book Encyclopedias, World Almanac, and other books.

One of those books described the solar system and gave the relative sizes of the sun and the planets. So my father painted the solar system on the ceiling in my room—a giant sun and the various planets, including their known moons at the time. I remember that according to the book, Jupiter had 12, Saturn 9, Neptune 5, Uranus and Mars 2 apiece, and Earth and Pluto 1 each.

Since the walls my father built didn’t reach the ceiling, a single ceiling light illuminated the middle room/my room. Anyone coming to visit us who went into the kitchen or bathroom was likely to see at least this massive star on the ceiling.

The Bed from the Broadway musical HAIR

Sunday Stealing — Bathroom Break

Can This Marriage Be Saved?

The Bathroom Break meme of Sunday Stealing is unusual. “First, we’re stealing from a blogging couple: Jeff and Charli Lee. You don’t see married boggers every day. Second, they appear to have come up with this idea themselves. No theft involved! Let’s see how it goes.”

The Bathroom Meme

1. Do you shampoo once or lather, rinse, and repeat?

Once. There just isn’t that much hair to shampoo. 

2. Do you use conditioner a) daily, b) when you need it, c) never?

When I think of it, which is about once a month, if it happens to be in the shower.

3. What’s your shaving cream preference: foam or gel? 

Neither. I haven’t shaved in decades, and back then, I don’t recall anything except foam. I initially grew a beard out of preference and the pain of ingrown facial hairs. It’s also because my vitiligo is strong on my lower face. 

4. Is your toothbrush manual or electric?

Electric. Apparently, I don’t do it well enough for the manual brush, according to my dental hygienist.

5. Dental floss, soft picks, neither, or both? 

Soft picks.

6. Do you use mouthwash a) daily, b) when you need it, c) never?

Roughly daily.

Bathroom mags

7. Are there magazines in your bathroom?

Yes, but there would be more if it didn’t irritate my wife. I grew up reading magazines in the bathroom, mostly Reader’s Digest and The Ladies Home Journal, specifically the Can This Marriage Be Saved column.  Here’s a 2014 piece from Huff Post berating said column. 

8. Is there bar soap or liquid soap on your bathroom sink? 

Liquid and bar. I use the former.

9. What kind of soap is in your shower?

Liquid and bar. I use the latter, but I like that hotels use refillable body wash dispensers.

10. Now for the most important question: Does the toilet paper drape over or under?

As the Dave Clark Five sang, Over and Over.

Incidentally, the picture above is from our 2015 bathroom renovation, which I wrote about here.

Sunday Stealing — Time Travel

COVID phone calls

from the Oddity Mall

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. “Here, we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. “Here’s Time Travel.

“I can’t trace back where these were stolen from. So sue me.”

 What were you doing …

1. Twenty years ago? This is shockingly easy because I just wrote about starting my blog two decades ago. I was still figuring out what the heck I was going to discuss. At my job at the NY SBDC, we will start a blog later in the month. I think I was working at 41 State St. That 7th-floor suite was the best office I’ve ever worked in. I loved that I had a door, yet I also had a window to look out onto the main space.

2. Ten years ago? I was involved in the ABC Wednesday meme, possibly running it, or being Mrs. Nesbitt’s lieutenant. The SBDC was in Corporate (frickin’) Woods, which I hated. I was getting allergy shots regularly. My daughter was opting out of the core curriculum test; her choice.

2020

3. Five years ago? This was the early days of COVID. My church, specifically my wife, the membership chair at the time, worked on this project where members would call other people from the church, letting them know we were thinking about them. I took the premise and started calling different people, some of whom I used to see and others I hadn’t talked to in several years. It was an exciting experience. “Roger called me out of the blue!”  I started watching a few things online; it’s not my favorite way to see movies, but that was what was available. I applied to work on the 2020 census, which I would do in July through September.

4. One year ago? Nothing unusual. Find speakers for the Friends and Foundation of the Albany Public Library talks on Tuesdays, and sing in the choir.

5. Yesterday?  I went to Earthworld for Free Comic Book Day. The choir sang at the very emotional funeral of Christy Harris D’Ambrosio, then went to the gathering afterwards. I watched the replay of the Kentucky Derby.

Bonus! What will you do tomorrow? I’m going to find out whether I strained my left Achilles tendon or tore it.

Ramblin' with Roger
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