Reviewing the resolutions

It's the last day of 2014, and a good time to review how I did with this year's resolutions:

• Each month I will try doing one new thing.  And it cannot be a variation on something I have done before - snorkeling in new waters, or going for brunch to a restaurant where I've been only for supper, or sorting food donations at the food pantry at whose mobile distribution trucks I've volunteered for several years.  This might take some real thought.
• I will try to keep this blog more up-to-date, hopefully blogging at least once per month.
• I am going to update either my kitchen or my upstairs bathroom.

In order:

• Kinda OK.  Look at the blog posts through August as I kept track, somewhat.  I think I fell off in the later parts of the year, for the same reason as:
• OK until August, and then crickets.  I know what stalled me: I needed to organize the pictures for the last post.  And life got busy - I stage-managed a local community theatre's production of "The Producers", and traveled, and got involved with fiber things, and traveled, and was busier at MakeHartford, and ......  You get the idea.
• Nope.  Got busy.  And decided to spend money on a certification course for information security systems professional, which my job promised to pay me back for and then didn't.  So I am saving up the money again.  And this summer, when it would have made sense to do painting because I could leave the windows open - I was outside.  A lot.  Hiking some, riding a bike some, enjoying a good summer.

So I will probably re-run at least one of the above for 2015.  I could probably re-run all of them and see how I do in the new year, but it's more fun to mix things up, at least officially.  I'll think while I am working at First Night Hartford (Wadsworth Atheneum, and then I think City Hall unless I am needed elsewhere) and then friends' party (parties?) and so on which one will be the choice to officially repeat, and which other things I might do in 2015.

How did your year end?

Music in My Life (an essay)

I have stage fright.  It's part of the reason I am much happier being backstage in the theatre world.  It's also something I want to overcome, at least to some extent, so I have started telling stories.  This involves standing up in front of people, mostly strangers, and talking and not fainting.  There are a lot of storytelling events in the Hartford area - Other People's Stories, The MOuTH, Speak Up, and Syllable Series, where I read the following essay.  The theme for July was "Music" and featured a mini-concert by Bandshes.

Music in My Life

© 2014 Margo Lynn Hablutzel

Music has always been a part of my life, although I am incapable (despite lessons in the standard instruments - piano, flute, violin, and guitar – and some less-standard ones like recorder) to create any myself.  I don’t sing well, and appreciate the fact that when there are a lot of us making “a joyful noise unto the Lord” She doesn’t seem to hear the off notes.  There are times when I can’t even follow a clapping pattern that the rest of the audience seems to reproduce as easily as breathing.  But I enjoy music, have found myself singing in the shower or when alone, and can’t imagine life without my own personal soundtrack.

Most of the rest of my family plays music – classical, jazz, ragtime, Christmas carols which we learn to sing (or approximately so) in languages ranging from English and Spanish to German and Latin and Hawai’ian.  As a child I went to local pubs to hear folksingers and Irish musicians, enjoying a bowl of stew or pint of rootbeer and feeling very grown up because my rootbeer came in a real pint mug, until the owner announced that family hours were over and all underaged persons had to go home.  My brother’s first photography jobs, when he was in junior high, were in those pubs, taking publicity photos of the performers.

My mother also raised us with musical theatre.  A performer from a young age, she could sing and even when I didn’t know the musical itself, I knew the songs, even lesser ones such as “Buckle Down, Winsocki” which I thought was our local NFL team’s other theme song.  As I grew into a theatre rat on my own terms, safely backstage where I didn’t have to remember lines or wear makeup, directors found it odd that I knew the score to musicals but not the book, or script.  Scripts are not on the cast recordings.

I learned about pop in high school and about rock in college.  My mother hated that, calling rock music “noise” and “unmelodic” as if we were twenty years in the past.  I was surprised to find out recently that she liked the Beatles and ABBA.  OK, I’m also a little embarrassed about the ABBA part.  I inherited most of my father’s record collection – although I’m not sure he knows about it – which includes The Rolling Stones and the Who and Lynyrd Skynrd and sometimes I wonder if my mother would enjoy the folkie sounds of The Band.

I’ve sampled most other genres.  There are those with little more than a beat you can dance to; those you can whistle while you work; and the ones that require you to roll down the windows and crank the car stereo and peel out of the parking lot and hope for a long stretch of highway ahead.  I learned that sea shanties are perfect for calming a fussy baby, who luckily doesn’t care how badly you sing as long as you don’t hit too many clinkers.  I’ve looked at how music and art intersect, and music and science, and how people make music out of everything from volcanic eruption patterns to birds sitting on overhead wires.  Music took me abroad, as I accompanied a choir (my Spanish language and herding skills more valued than anything musical) to Argentina and New Zealand.

One of my friends, who is a movie reviewer, jokes about pocket orchestras that are responsible for music in movies when there is no other obvious source, especially when a character seems to have a leit motif.  If you know Anna Russell’s summary of theRing Cycle, she translates that as “signature tune.”  I sometimes wish I had a pocket orchestra, so I don’t have to change a CD, jump over a track, or change radio stations when ads come on.  My pocket orchestra would know my moods and when to change from one genre to another, or would surprise me by following Chumbawumba and Bruce Springsteen with Ravel or Scott Joplin as my brain sometimes does when I am roller skating as a way of blowing some carbon off the plugs when my brain needs a rest.  Music rests my brain.  And music charges my heart, giving me energy, hope, joy.  “Pictures at an Exhibition,” “Yfory”, “Oye Como Va,” “Kiss Me Deadly”, “Young”.  I can’t play a Chopin etude, but I can make one my ringtone.

Some of my family members play or sing professionally, others only for the pleasure of family and friends.  I will always appreciate my aunt, who performed with symphonies and opera house orchestras around the world, assuring me many years ago that audience members are essential to the musicians’ life and my inability to create music of my own was no mar on my personality.  So I’ll happily stay in the audience, appreciate the music, buy CDs, support the musicians, and try to keep my volume down when I cannot help singing along.

Testing - testing - checking in

So much for my resolution to keep up the blog!  I kept thinking that I needed to write up what I was doing in June, and then I got busy doing it, or something else, and never got around to writeups.  Now it's the second half of July, and it's been two months since I wrote.  I'll try to do a bit of catching-up.

I've been a bit better about doing new things, though.  I cannot talk about the May one as it's in progress and not ready for public consumption.  June was a mixture and more of taking things I had done in the past into new directions.  My favourite thing in June was a road trip I took to Dallas, Missouri, and Kansas.  Well, I flew to Dallas, then between Dallas and Kansas City, but I put a lot of mileage onto rental cars in between.

My new July thing would be a bad fall off a bike, but I recovered (still a bit scabby) and went on the Real Ride, which was my first long bike ride that I can remember.  I did not do particularly well, definitely at the end of the pack most of the time, but I had fun and did not fail.  I walked in a few places, but rode at the end, completing the whole course.  And I turned out to be a photo op because to joke at myself and the fall I had taken, I built a costume of pool inflatables and pool noodles (complete with roll bars) and had a light-up warning sign on the back:

As you can see, I became a photo opportunity.

It was too awkward to ride in the costume, but I took the sign and attached it to my backpack so I could wear it, especially as the bike had no lights.  After the ride I promptly donated the bike I was using to a local Free Bike project, where they will work on the bike to make it more rideable (it was secondhand and not in as great shape as I'd been assured at the bike shop), and they said they would give me a credit against a bike that comes in and doesn't meet their standards for the ones in their system.  The organizers try to keep a certain type of bike on the road, but they accept almost anything and trade or sell the others.

Since then I've been on a ride around Hartford as part of the Colt 200 activities, and that was a lot of fun. By that time I was on a Schwinn, and even though it's a bit small I've decided I love Schwinns.  Well, I've always loved Schwinns.  Maybe it's a mental thing, but when I decided I needed to get a bike, a friend let me ride on a Schwinn Hollywood and I fell in love.  I wasn't sure about buying it, and then he sold it to someone else.  [Insert sad face here.]  I fell off a Raleigh that I had on loan, and the secondhand one is a Jamis, and a bike shop tried to get me to buy a Trek that just felt uncomfortably big to me (I think it has to do with the handlebars), and the one I have now is another Schwinn and despite the size (20") I am happy again.

Another new thing for July - going up into the cupola of the Colt Armory, on one of the Colt 200 tours:

I was on the tour with my friend Rayah and her friends the Berriens.
You can see what the armory looks like in this area - dicey.

Because it is in one of the less-well-kept areas of the complex, you can't just wander in, and tours are rare.




Views up there are great.  That's the Connecticut River behind me.  In 1854 it flooded, including the then-present factory, so Sam Colt built a series of dikes to hold back the water in the future to protect his equipment.  You can see a panorama of the flood at the Wadsworth Atheneum, and the panel with the Colt factory includes a tiny rowboat with people in it who are factory workers being rescued.

Ten on Tuesday - Things I Like To Do Outside

My friend Mary Kay periodically posts her lists, and every so often I am inclined to as well.  This is actually from last week, but I didn't see it then and last week wasn't very good for outdoors (due to us getting a snowstorm, yes, in mid-April), so since Carole is on vacation this week thus did not post a new list, I think it is OK for me to use this theme.  My blog, my rules.

Ten Things I Like To Do Outside

1. Hike
2. Concerts
3. Sailing, canoeing, and other boating
4. Reading
5. Movies (drive-ins, in the park, someone's back yard)
6. Baseball
7. Fair rides (essential part of going to a fair, like fried food)
8. Ziplines and flying squirrels
9. Picnics and cookouts
10. Knitting, crocheting, and suchlike

OK, some of these are things you can ONLY do outside.  And you can add to that list things like flying kites (I am thinking of running some workshops and possibly hosting a kite-flying contest at the Hartford Makerspace this summer), riding horses, climbing trees, and so forth.  There are other things, like swimming, that I couldn't figure out how to fit onto the list but I'll do them inside or outside - like reading, knitting, crocheting, concerts, .....

Some of these I have not done in much too long.  I think I'll be glad I am not stage managing a show this summer!

I'll add another photo from Sunday's hike, just because I can:

Giving it up for Easter & Passover

I don't make a big deal of religion.  I think it is a personal decision for each person, no matter how you are raised, and in some ways I consider what people call "spirituality" to be more important than formal religion.  To quote Abraham Lincoln:  "When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That is my religion."

That said, organized religion can provide one with a community and support group, which I have found important when moving to places where I know nobody, or almost nobody.  It's the main reason I joined congregations when I moved to the Dallas area and then to Hartford.  However, while most people identify me as Jewish, I don't exclusively follow that religion, and when in Dallas I ended up spending more time at a friend's church - which has a stronger social justice streak then the synagogue I joined, and those who know me know how important that is to me - plus interesting adult learning and a really nice pastor.  I haven't found a church I like as well here, so I just participate in the Jewish community, at both the Reform congregation I consider my main home, and a friend's Orthodox congregation, as well as organizer of some of our community events.

It might inform you to know that in addition to being raised with Christian influences (my mother went to Jewish Sunday school, Catholic mass, and a Chicago Bears game every Sunday during the season, so those are the three religions primarily acknowledged in my family) including the Jesuits from whom my mother received one of her degrees and among whom she taught for a couple decades, I had three sets of godparents, none of whom are Jewish - one each of Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, and Methodist.  My parents chose based upon who would raise us the way they would want us to be raised, which included continuing education and to be good people.  My parents don't see this being limited to one religion.

This explanation is important because every year I give up something for Lent.  I try to make it different every year.  One year it was cookies, which is tough because this is Girl Scout Cooky season.  Another year it was candy, tough because I tend to have some always at hand as a nervous thing (I substituted almonds); another year, it was crackers that I have in my desk for a similar purpose.  And so forth.

This year, I couldn't think of what to give up, and then realized I was almost out of bread, so I decided to give up that.  Also no related baked goods.  This makes it tough at my weekly morning bible study, which usually offers bagels or bread of some kind, with spreads.  (I always take the Passover date, and bring in a noodle kugel made with Passover noodles, which people seem to love because it's not the expected matzoh with spreads.)  It's harder for me because so often when busy I grab a sandwich, and this year I have been quite busy with a play and other activities.  I've eaten a lot of nut/fruit bars and yoghurt!

I did get asked by someone why I gave up bread when you're supposed to give up meat. Part of the reason is that I don't eat a lot of meat on a day-to-day basis, so it wouldn't be a real sacrifice to me.  The reason I do this is almost as a test of myself, to see if I can follow through for the full forty days.  I know some people who take the money they would spend on whatever they give up and give it to charity, and I don't do that (I did give all my Girl Scout Cookies to the troops that year, instead of buying any for myself - usually I do that for most of my order and just get a couple boxes for me), but I do like the mindfulness of having to remember "no, I don't; no, I can't."  It also helps to think about people who have to avoid certain foods all the time, or who don't have certain foods available to them for various reasons.

Now it is Passover, on top of Lent.  This means, if you want to be really observant in the Ashkenazic (Eastern European Jewish) sense, no beans or rice or other whole grains. (Sephardic Jews, from the Mediterranean, can eat them because it's the majority of their diet and their rabbis said it's OK.)  I've heard two reasons for this:  One, that because they swell when cooking, they look leavened, which is forbidden at Passover; and two, because they might have been stored in a warehouse with forbidden items and gotten contaminated. I think the latter is the reason that some won't eat peanut butter - the peanuts might have been in a warehouse with flour.  Since peanut butter didn't exist in 19th-Century Easter Europe, maybe it's just too foreign to their way of observance?

I had a friend who, when I mentioned giving up bread for Lent, asked how I expect to perform the required Passover Seder observances with matzoh?  I said that the small amount required for the ceremonials would be OK to me (to borrow from George Carlin, "my observance, my rules") but I wouldn't eat matzoh otherwise until Easter.  I've done something similar a few years ago, when I had an abscess in my jaw and major surgery with bone grafting just before Passover, and wasn't allowed anything crunchy or crumby.  There are a LOT of ways to cook potatoes, believe me!

These few overlapping days will be tough because often I would eat matzoh for meals when I would usually have rice, or pasta, or cereal.  Not possible until Sunday.  My diet is more limited, but in a way this frees me to be creative with what I do allow myself.  And those who know me know how much I love a cooking challenge!  Luckily I also love fruits and veggies, and I am not obsessive about eating only kosher-for-Passover items.  As long as it doesn't contain the forbidden items - grains, beans, rice - and nothing treyf (pork, shellfish, meat with dairy - I'll eat them the rest of the year, but not during Passover or the High Holy Days) I'm OK to eat it.  My meals may include some less-standard items, such as roasted squash (olive oil, slivered onion, and sage) for breakfast, but there's nothing wrong with that.  Think outside the cereal box.

I've dealt with this conjunction many times in the past.  The most interesting was the time I was asked to cook a meal for a group in Oklahoma, about 100 persons, with a medieval theme.  I knew that even if there were not observant Catholics in the group, some would be very observant as part of the character they played.  So I developed a multi-course meal that included Lent-appropriate vegetarian and vegan items; plenty of meat; and not many baked goods.  We ended up with very little leftover, other than the chicken liver pate that was on the first course platters (silly people!), salad (although all the rainbow assortment of Peeps® bunnies and chicks I'd used to decorate it did manage to vanish), and some of the lamb stew that was the third course.  I actually heard that people were surprised to see multiple meat courses come out given the ticket price, meaning they had not read the menus I'd placed at the tables.  I shopped well and can plan well, which is why the lamb was the third course instead of appearing earlier, so that people were stuffed with chicken cooked with grapes and herbs, and beef brisket with dried fruit and root vegetables, and didn't need to eat as much of it.  Dessert was strawberries with optional almond cream - edible by everybody except those with nut allergies, who had to make do with plain strawberries.  Awww.

I just saw strawberries on sale at the grocery, come to think of it.  As is asparagus, so there will definitely be an omelet or souffle on my menu this week, possibly on Saturday.  Yum!

Hau'oli Makahiki Hou, Y'all!

Hello from a chilly New England at the start of 2014.

I spent last night working at our First Night Hartford celebration.  Every year I've been working at the Wadsworth Atheneum for their mask-making activity, then help clean up and go to FNHHQ for my evening assignment.  This year it was selling wristbands at one of the outdoor locations; past years I have checked for wristbands at venues or sold them at City Hall.  Another woman named Megan was all event in the little shack outside the Bushnell Park Carousel, I took over from a man named Frank at 6:00pm and was there until we were told to close up about 10:30pm.  Although the event continued, people would not need wristbands after then.  It was a COLD night but we both had bundled up in layers and Megan brought a small portable heater.

Today is a beautiful brilliant blue sky and sunny, very optimistic start to the new year.  And COLD, so I am putting the microfleece sheets on my bed.  Also mostly doing "house-elf" stuff, and might get together with one of my knitting groups later.  We're still deciding.

In the interest of tradition, I left a crockpot with black-eyed peas bubbling, and ate a bowl for breakfast (I was too full of tamales, veggie wraps, and chips to eat when I got home from First Night) which may not be traditional but was tasty on a chilly morning.

Also in the interest of tradition, I made some resolutions, which I hereby announce so we can keep track of how well I do this year:

• Each month I will try doing one new thing.  And it cannot be a variation on something I have done before - snorkeling in new waters, or going for brunch to a restaurant where I've been only for supper, or sorting food donations at the food pantry at whose mobile distribution trucks I've volunteered for several years.  This might take some real thought.
• I will try to keep this blog more up-to-date, hopefully blogging at least once per month.
• I am going to update either my kitchen or my upstairs bathroom.

So keep your eye on the blog to see how I do over the course of 2014.

Picking the Winners, Inimitably Randomly

As I posted the other day, my friend Jim asked me to draw the winners for a contest he was holding.  All you had to do was post a review of his book on Amazon, and link back to it in a comment to the intro post for the contest.
 
The cutoff was "midnight Sunday" which I read as the one between Sunday and Monday, and Jim meant as the one between Saturday and Sunday.  No great trauma, except that there was a list of persons who wanted to find out if they had won or not.  And I ended up spending much of Monday helping a friend with a massive baking exercise and got home too tired to look at the names.  Had I thought about it in advance, I would have printed the list onto slips of paper and had one of my friend's children (conveniently she has only two) pick each of the winners.
 
Failing that, this is the method I used:

• There are ten persons who met the criteria for the drawing.
• My favourite numbers between one and ten are three and nine.
• I decided that the winners would be at positions three and nine on the list.
• I decided that since the list could be different if done chronologically or alphabetically, I'd look at both versions and see if there were any overlaps.
• Jim ran the lists for me, partly as a reminder that I needed to get the drawings done.
• One of the positions had the same person on both lists, so I decided that position would get the leatherbound version = TanteLiz at number nine.
• Since position number three had different persons, I thought that if one is already getting a book, I would designate the other as the winner of the cloth-covered edition.
• Jim told me that neither of these reviewers is getting a book.
• I flipped a coin (specifically, a ten-cent coin from New Zealand), and CJ wins.

 

In case someone wonders, heads=CJ and tails=Lloyd, based upon earlier-in-the-alphabet associating.  Since the New Zealand 10-Cent coin could be seen to have a head on both sides, the obverse (with Queen Elizabeth) was deemed "heads" and the reverse (with a mask) was deemed "tails".

I tried to take a picture of the coin after flipping, but my camera washed it out.

Why use that coin specifically?  It's in my coinpurse as a memento of a trip to New Zealand that Jim and I (and a busload of choiristers and family) were on a couple of years ago, so it seemed appropriate to use that one.

Why such a complicated process?  Well, because I'm me.  To me, this is a fun sort of randomization that is harder to challenge (in my mind) than picking a slip of paper out of a hat, because there are so many elements that add to the randomness.  What if there wasn't a name at the same position on both lists? Or if there was the same name in both places?  Or the same names exchanging places depending upon how the list sorted?   What if I didn't have two favourite numbers between one and ten?  And so forth.

Probably part of this is because I am a STEM person = Science Technology Engineering & Math.  My skills are being organized, logical, and so forth.  So what looks like a Rube Goldberg way to accomplish the simple selection of a winner from a list, makes perfect sense to me.

Those 10 Questions

In recognition of tonight's 250th episode of "Inside the Actor's Studio", I am providing my own answers to the Pivot Questionnaire* asked at the end of each show:

1. What is your favorite word?    Serendipity
2. What is your least favorite word?    Can't - whether used as an order, instruction, or defeatist statement.  It's a challenge, either for the person who says they can't do something (especially if they do not try), or the person who says that I (or someone else) can't.
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?  Sunshine, sunlight.  And really clear, crisp night skies when it is so dark all you see are the stars.
4. What turns you off?  Closed-mindedness and small-mindedness.
5. What is your favorite curse word?   Oh!  I don't really curse.  I tend to use made-up things like "Jiminy Christmas!" and "Holy Moses" and "Poot" and stuff like that.  Or I do the Shakespearean Insult sort of thing, sometimes in non-English langauges.
6. What sound or noise do you love?   Laughter, especially of children.
7. What sound or noise do you hate?   The screech-BANG! of a car accident.
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?   Astronaut.
9. What profession would you not like to do?   Oh, lots.  Pediatric oncology would be a really, really tough one.
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?  Heaven is not a concept my religion has.  But I think I would like to hear "sorry, we made a mistake and are sending you back - you have more things to do." 

How would you answer these questions?


* Created by Bernard Pivot, based upon the Proust Questionnaire.



PS:  Today is the 60th Anniversary of the date on which Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbed to the top of the world and touched the sky.

A month of being thankful

There was a meme on Facebook to post something each day about which to be thankful.  My final post got a bit large and FB kept freezing, so I decided to move the whole list here.

1) Coming through safely the storm, and also my loved ones and friends losing no more than some fences and trees at most. We were very lucky.

2) That I can work as a volunteer at the Mobile Foodshare truck today instead of being a customer - and that I can help the people who do need food distributions.

3) I am thankful today for all the people who helped make breakfast and lunch a success - we fed two crowds! Five people helped cook and serve, plus to husband of one for dishing "Gypsy Soup" (that his wife made - vegan and everybody RAVED about it, we served many second portions) and helping some people carry their lunches to their seats.

4) Today I am going to be thankful that someone else is cooking breakfast - and lunch too, if I am lucky!

5) Thankful that there is just one more day of insanity before the election!

6) Thankful to be in a country where I can vote, where I will not get shot for voting, and where almost anybody of any colour, creed, gender, or economic status has the ability to vote.

7) Today I am thankful that I am working out of a home office and did not have to try to drive home in this weather.

8) I am thankful the temperature warmed and the snow melted and I could get my car out of the snow with no trouble.

9) I am thankful to be having supper with a bunch of "Chaotic Peasants" tonight.

10) Thankful to have spent an evening with good friends at an interesting and to get a blue-frosted cupcake with a Cyclops (X-Men, for the uninformed) pick at the concession stand.

11) Today I am thankful for our VETERANS.

12) Since my thankful yesterday was for our veterans, my thankful today is for those serving in our military, because they will become our veterans.

13) Thankful for our cast and crew, pulling together to solve problems and make the show run smoothly. And especially for people like Greg, who is basically rebuilding a major set piece overnight (with some help from Adam and Paul), and Barbara who is coming in to finish all the painting the set designer/builder couldn't get around to doing.

14) Thankful that we have a day off from rehearsals tomorrow.

15) Thankful it was the last CSA delivery of the year. We got some great stuff (including romanesco, which I am very happy my share partner let me take from our share, and apple jam and kimchi in the last salty/sweet share) but it’s getting pretty cold to be outside at the distribution site for 2-3 hours.

16)  Thankful that tonight is OPENING NIGHT for West Hartford CommunityTheater’s “My Fair Lady” and we can get that show on the boards!16) Thankful that tonight is OPENING NIGHT for West Hartford Community Theater's "My Fair Lady" and we can get that show on the boards!ple jam and kimchi in the last salty/sweet share) but it's getting pretty cold to be outside at the distribution site for 2-3 hours.
16) Thankful that tonight is OPENING NIGHT for West Hartford Community Theater's "My Fair Lady" and we can get that show on the boards!

 17) Thankful for the cast and crew who made today's doubleheader (matinee and evening show) not just possible but fun and terrific.   (Although I have to admit, ditching the cast party for a cast nap instead does seem like a good idea...........)  Also thankful to the director for treating the backstage crew to supper from Noodles & Co. tonight (Japanese udon with tofu for me).

18) Thankful for my Jacuzzi tub.  (Posted after strike of a show with four performances in three days.)

19) Thankful for insurance, and how much of prescriptions it covers.

20) Thankful for understanding and supportive boss, boss-of-boss, and matrix boss.

21) Thankful for my family, in so very many ways.
(Except maybe the teeth-of-chalk, wide feet, and bad eyes. And my dad's sense of humour about half the time.)  (OK, also not so fond of the fact that my nieces are both my height or taller. SHEESH!!!!)

22) Thankful that we live in a country where people can write, sing, and enjoy a song like this. And so many others.

23) Today I am thankful for my baby brother, born on this date a bunch of years ago. While there were times when we were kids that I would gladly have sold or traded him to gypsies, pixies, or anybody who would take him, since I was almost three he has been a constant in my life - companion, confidant, conspirator. He is also a great father (even if my nieces are already taller than I - he should have worked that out a BIT better, maybe not until they are fifteen or so?), a great husband (so says SIL), has his name on a patent, an MBA (gotten while a father AND traveling a lot for work – I am very impressed), published photography, and mad chef skills.  Which we are giving him a break on for his birthday with takeout from Outback and dessert from Kilwin’s or Carvel.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BOB!!!

24) Thankful to have spent money locally today - local merchants, local restaurant. Couldn't do anything about the cinema but I do recommend "Lincoln" - there was hardly an empty seat and the audience reacted as if it were a play, laughing, cheering, and applauding at various points. When they did the roll call, you could hardly hear breathing!

25) Thankful for a weekend with the family (and random gekkos), full of laughter, music. food, games, swimming, and ice-cream. Also thankful that SouthwestAirlines got us all there and back with our luggage - and letting us take luggage at no additional charge so that we could do our usual Christmas-at-Thanksgiving swaps.

26) Thankful for a good Monday.  Work done (and I didn't forget my passcodes after the long weekend of food-coma!), errands run, boxes moved into livingroom in prep for sorting exercise. And speaking of exercise - new elliptical is set up and working. I just have to figure out the display stuff..........

27) Thankful that I have a warm, secure house with enough food and warm clothing. On "Giving Tuesday," what did you do to help those who don't?

28) Thankful for my bestie Judy and fellow Texan Laura, who drove me to and from surgery, today!  Also to the Brenners for keeping me overnight, just in case.

29) Thankful to be home again after a successful Surgery Part 1, hoping for a rapid adjustment. Now that I know what to expect, I'm looking forward to Part 2.

30)  Looking back on the month of thankfuls, I see that I have a really good life and a lot of things for which to be thankful – and yet so many other things that I could include:

·         Art museums and galleries, and the artists who fill them.  And the fact that you can experience them by more than just walking around, through things like Second Saturdays forFamilies and the living Clue games and other activities.

·         Theatres, and not just because I like to play in them.  Places that transport us, entertain us, enthrall us, and sometimes challenge us.

·         Cinema, because there are some things that don’t fit into theatres (and it’s cheaper).

·         Travel, because I like to do it and can afford it and get to visit some of the above and other places and experiences all over the world, from the Mariinsky Ballet to The Reclining Buddha to the Grand Canyon to almost touching the sky in New Zealand.

·         Music.

·         Public television and radio, without which I could not enjoy some of my favourite shows and without which I would not have learned a lot as a child and teen.

·         Having really good doctors and access to medical care, which has saved my life a couple of times and is now restoring my sight to a level I cannot remember having.

·         First responders, who protect and serve.  Policemen and firemen and paramedics and all the others who are there when we need them and do things that others wouldn’t dare.

·         Having a warm house and enough clothing and food and things, and being able to help those who don’t.  I know I said this earlier in the month, but I’m still thankful as I read about people who don’t.

·         That there are good people in the world who DO try to help others, and make the world safe for them and the next generation.

·         Speaking of the next generation – baby giggles.

·         Being able to experience the world with children and learn from my elders.

·         Ice cream.  And naps.  Had both today.

·         Friends, and not just the ones I have on Facebook.  People with whom I can be myself and be silly, and discuss things for hours or sit quietly and enjoy each other’s presence, do “what can possibly go wrong?” and have stories to tell on the other side, who I can rely upon even if we don’t see each other very often anymore.

·         Family.  Because according to a lot of people I have a good one – and I agree.

·         For living in a country where, whatever you may think of it and its leaders, we have a lot of freedoms and opportunities that you might not get elsewhere.  My forebears came here because of that, and I see it today, especially with all the griping that people are able to do about the government “of the people, by the people, for the people.”  I have been in places where this freedom doesn’t exist, or didn’t so recently that people still whisper.  Having the freedom to speak out, the ability to make changes, and just plain being able to vote, is a real treasure that we should cherish and respect.

·         Freedom of religion, and freedom from religion.

·         Creativity.  I may or may not have it, but I can enjoy it from others.

·        Books.  And public libraries.  The former can take you anywhere, anytime, suck you away better than time machines and magic carpets.  The latter make them accessible to all.

SPLASH!!

For quite some while, people have asked if I have a blog. People have suggested that I should have a blog. And for about as long, I haven't been interested in blogging, because I feel it's an obligation to talk to the greater world and I don't think I'm up to the challenge. Not that I'm all that unsociable, although I have my moments, but because I didn't think I had much to say that anybody would want to read.

Meanwhile, I also hear from people that they enjoy my posts on Facebook, although I really don't think I post that much, and joined mostly so I could see the pictures that friends post there. I certainly am not as eloquent as some people I know. Then I thought about the times when I couldn't contain everything I wanted to say in 400 characters or whatever is the current limit. And so, after much thought and practice through posting on other blogs and commenting on still other blogs, I decided to give it a go.

So here I am.

My guess is that in the beginning, the readers will mostly be friends, so I was just going to post that I have a blog and see what happens. No guarantees about how often I will post or what I will say. Then I thought that people who don't know me well might take a look and would want to know more, and the "About Me" box at the right is really small, so I composed this:

Right. Well, online I am 5'7" tall with auburn hair and hazel-green eyes. In reality I am 5'notmuch" with dark brown hair and brown eyes with a tendency to hazel. I have lived in several countries and regions of the USA, currently in New England after a decade in North Texas. I am still adjusting to hills and other verticals (lots), greenery (LOTS), and the fact that distances mean very different things than they did in Texas. Everything seems to be both closer and further away, which boggles my metaphysics.

I have no pets and many hobbies. I seem to collect both books and hobbies at a frightening rate. Especially when the hobbies are the kinds that require stuff to accomplish. I am trying to do something about this, but the inanimate objects seem to be winning. I also collect art, which doesn't help. And I do yoga to Pink Floyd.

People have said that I am an interesting writer and I should have a blog so that there is one place for my writing and project reports. [Speaking of which - the profiles pic is an oddballs blanket I did based loosely upon the Moderne Baby Blanket in the first Mason-Dixon Knitting book with a centre of Noro Kochoran and the rest all kinds of wool and animal fibre blends.] I think it's a bit lazy of people to ask me to blog just so they have something to read, but here goes.

Actually, I composed it a while ago. I thought about the blog, and whether to do it, and when to start it, and revised the "About Me," and read other people's blogs that seem much more interesting than I could write (LOTS), and debated about the background, and got really busy at work (multiple times), and wondered if I should do it on a key date like 10/10/10 or the 7th of November (both of which I missed) or waiting until Pi Day. Then I thought that this would be a reasonably auspicious date, and sometimes you just have to hold your nose, close your eyes, and jump into the deep end.

Here I go!