Almost 20 years ago, living in an entirely different state, living in an entirely different house, we purchased a really swanky, top-of-the-line (for the time) TV and sound system. And up until yesterday, we still watched that big, old TV mostly because my husband and I are equally as stubborn, and we are both ones to hold on to our “big purchase” items like cars and furniture and electronics and favorite shoes, until they are almost not useable, not just out of thrift and/or laziness, but more so out of deep attachment and sentimentality. Our middle son is staying with us this month and being a tech-y kind of guy, he has always been the ringleader of his siblings, leading all of them to tease us about our ridiculously out-of-date TV with pixels that you still can see with the naked eye. Imagine!
So when agreeing to come shop with us at Costco over the weekend, our son finally got us over our hump. We broke down and we bought a brand new, up-to-date, way skinnier, no pixels on the screen TV (with all those other tech-y features that our son insisted that we just MUST have). And I think that the new TV is so big and bright, it hurts my eyes. But it is beautiful, and it is a great upgrade, and our son was a wonderful help, getting it all set up for us. Most importantly, I think that we’ll enjoy watching the new TV, very much, for the next 20 years.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
691. What is the last picture taken on your phone’s camera?
+ From 2009-2018, the United States had 288 school shootings. Mexico, the next country in line for most school shootings during that time period, had 8. (CNN) Since Columbine, the United States has had 416 school shootings (Washington Post). Let me state the obvious: currently, whatever we are, or we aren’t doing, to address this problem IS NOT WORKING. What are our priorities?
+ Speaking about priorities, I was listening to a podcast yesterday and the podcaster (Jessica Lanyadoo) made an interesting analogy. She said that our ideals are the starry skies, but our values are the street lamps that light the way. Our ideals are the utopian vision of the world we would like to see. We don’t have enough power or control to turn the whole world into our ideal utopia, but we can change the light bulbs on “our street lamps.” We can make sure that we are spending our time and our energy on what we most value. When we do this, we have created a lighted path that leads the way to making footprints towards the starry skies of our ideal world.
+ There is common terminology used to describe penises: “showers or growers.” (I’ll let you google that for the more detailed explanation.) Recently, though, I heard the terminology used to describe people. “Showers” (not like rain “shower”, more like going to a broadway “show”) are the people who razzle and dazzle you from the get go. They are entrancing, charming, interesting people whom you almost instantly like, and whom you feel attracted to from the start. On the other hand, the “growers” are people who “grow on you.” The “growers” are people whom you aren’t sure how you feel about them, but if you give them a few more chances to get to know them, you start to discover their wonderful intrinsic qualities. They are like mystery packages that when you start unpacking them, they reveal really nice surprises. Showers put it all out there instantly. Showers are flowers in full bloom. Growers are flower buds. We need both kinds of people in our lives. However, in my personal experience, it’s often the “growers” who have turned out to be the steadiest, most impactful relationships in my life. Showers sometimes have the tendency to burn out fast. Showers sometimes turn out to be fake flowers.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
2020. Do you like photography or videography better?
This Monday actually is a fun day for a lot of us, isn’t it? Happy Labor Day!
Epiphany I had recently when I was out with friends:
On Friday, we were out to dinner with dear friends whom we have been friends with since college, and I was saying something about us being middle-aged. “Are we still middle-aged?” my friend asked. “Of course we are!” I barked furiously, but the truth is, I really didn’t know. It was the first time that I had dared to ask myself if I had gone past middle age. So, the next morning I googled it, and it seems that most officials consider middle age to be 40-60. We are in our mid-fifties, “So yes, Virginia, we are still middle-aged.” We are upper-middle-aged, but we are middle-aged.
Epiphany I had when talking to my aunt:
Also on Friday, I had a nice catch-up call with one of my aunts, and we were reminiscing about her aunt (my great-aunt). Aunt/Great-Aunt was quite the character. She lived her life exactly how she saw fit, and she made no apologies about it. She was colorful, artistic, and had interesting, unusual opinions about everything. We all adored her and we often talk about her still, even though she is long past. One could write a book about her, but to give you an idea, Aunt/Great-Aunt had a parakeet that she taught to say “The Gettysburg Address.” Anyway, my aunt was saying that Aunt/Great-Aunt and her husband were definitely “eccentric.” I agreed. My aunt suggested that perhaps she and I had also inherited a little bit of the “eccentric” gene. I agreed. My aunt then said that her friend always says that “eccentric” is just a nice word for “crazy.” We laughed, but I thought to myself, “Call me “Eccentric” or “Crazy”, it doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Epiphany I had this morning:
At the end of my life, I want to be having such a good time with living, that I want to be like an over-excited kid on a playground or at the community pool, having an absolutely fabulous time, and thus becoming instantly furious and devastated that I am being called to go home, even though in my played-out exhaustion, going Home is probably exactly what I need.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
973. Do you prefer movies with-or without- special effects?
Happy Friday!!! Happy Holiday Weekend!! I love Fridays. Friday is my favorite day of the week. Fridays are for my favorites on the blog and today’s favorite is one of my absolute favorite rabbit holes that I followed down this week. (The internet was definitely created by and for, really insatiably curious, distractible people such as myself) So this week on social media, I saw the hilarious post above, of quite the unusual obituary. It made me giggle. I like original, unusual people who can make fun of themselves, and who can laugh in the face of death (and who are animal lovers).
Of course, I wanted to see if this was a real obituary (and so did many others, it seems). It is a real obituary. Holly McCray Blair was a real person. She is still getting all sorts of messages posted on her memorial wall, to this day, 4 years after her death, by people who didn’t even personally know her, because her obituary has gone viral on social media. Interestingly, a lot of people wrote “GNU Holly Blair” on the page. Hmmmm. What does GNU stand for? Is it relating to the animal? Is it an acronym? “Good night, Universe” “Good kNowing U” Those were my guesses and they were wrong. My rabbit hole continued on to this carrot of information:
“Sir Terry Pratchett, an English author and humorist, invented in his Discworld comic fantasy book series (a fictional computer code):
G: send the message on
N: do not log the message
U: turn the message around at the end of the line and send it back again
so that the book character’s son’s name John Dearheart is memorialized forever as long as the “clacks towers” (a telegraphic device) is still in use. Chapter 4 prologue of Going Postal (a book in the series) says:
“A man is not dead while his name is still spoken.”
Terry Pratchett (the guy who Holly Blair wanted to drink beer with, after she died) died, himself, in 2015.
What better way to remember the beloved inventor of this fictional system, then, than “GNU Terry Pratchett”?”
(the above information about Terry Pratchett was taken mostly verbatim from a Reddit article)
Do you have anyone who needs to be GNU-ed? Speak their names this weekend. Keep them alive.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
2841. Is there anything you are really stingy with?
Hi friends. Sorry to be MIA this weekend. I find myself distracted with researching a new project. I’ll be back in full form tomorrow. Perhaps on this Sunday (Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog) we should play around with haikus. Haikus are three-line poems with one line of five syllables, the next line having seven syllables and the final line having five syllables. Here is a good one:
I am distracted
Writing is good for my soul
So I will be back
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
I am having one of those delicious weeks when there have been a few delightful surprises. On Sunday, we were originally supposed to pick up our daughter at around 10 pm from her flight coming in from London, at an airport two hours away. (She was flying with a friend from that town.) She had to drive back to college Monday morning, so I was dreading this late night situation for all of us. Thankfully and serendipitously, through no effort of their own, the girls were put on a different flight that got in at 7:30 pm, instead. It all came together in the best way possible.
This morning, I was reading an article about the best paper planners to purchase. From 2008-2022, I faithfully and lovingly used and adored my 8.5″ x 11″, Barnes and Noble hardcover desk diary, and then every year, I put each of their handsome black leather volumes on my shelf, to save for posterity. Then in 2023, the Barnes and Noble hardcover desk diary seemed to have disappeared. It appeared to have become a discontinued product. Much to my dismay, I couldn’t find one anywhere, in the stores or online, despite desperate attempts, on my part. (When I really want something, I’m like a dog on a bone, or even more like a wolf, or a lion on a bone.) This was the same for 2024. I have experienced two years of crappy, disappointing paper planners (despite spending hours trying to find a suitable replacement). So, as I was reading the article about planners this morning, I thought to myself, it wouldn’t hurt to look on Barnes and Noble’s website to see, if by any lucky chance, the hardcover desk diary was available for 2025. And you guessed it, it is available! And I put my order in, right away, with an enormous smile on my face! (This is huge for me. I love paper planners, like I love pens and perfume. Obsessions.)
Whenever any of my family members are worried or upset about something, I try to put on my best laid back, relaxed smile, and I breezily tell them to sit back and “Let Life love you.” (They mock me for this advice, in their best whiny mommy voices.) I remind them how things always seem to work out just fine. This is advice that is easier said than done. This is a time when I think, “Do as I say, not as I do.” In astrology, we are currently going through Mercury Retrograde for most of August. It is a time that you are said to expect snafus and last minute plan changes, and things from your past life, coming back for review. Like many people, when I get warnings like this, I immediately go to the negative. I think to myself, if there is any truth to astrology, then I am doomed. Doomed. I start gritting my teeth and bearing things, before they even happen. I am ashamed to admit that I rarely assume the positive. Maybe plans can change for the better? Maybe beloved discontinued products can come back for another round? Maybe Life is really rigged to love us, if only we let it do so . . . . .
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
1204. What do you find ethereal? (Hint, the Cambridge dictionary says that ethereal means “very light and delicate, especially in a way that does not seem to come from the real, physical world“)
The Olympics closing ceremony was yesterday. Weren’t the Olympics great this year? The little ones start back to school today, in our neck of the woods. I heard the school busses making their rounds. We picked up our daughter at the airport last night, who flew in after her study abroad experience that she had this summer in Europe, and she already headed back to her university this morning, for sorority rush events. Our visiting adult kids left yesterday to go back to their own lives and schedules and I . . . . am exhaling.
Despite knowing that we have at least a couple more months of hot and sticky summer weather to endure, from a lifetime of living by the rhythm of school schedules, it definitely feels like I have yet another summer underneath my belt. I have experienced 53 summers in my lifetime. You enter into every summer with excitement and anticipation for plans of fun and leisure and relaxation and reunions and vacations and casual celebrations, and then it kind of takes you by surprise when seemingly all of the sudden, summer’s over. We had been planning my daughter’s summer in London for a long time. Everything went without a hitch. I am so grateful. I’m so relieved. And I am so happy to have her back in our country. And I honestly can’t believe that this long anticipated experience is now just a lovely memory in the past.
Someone once told me that aging is like a toilet roll. “The closer you get to the end,” he chuckled, “the faster it goes.” I thought that this was hilarious when I first heard it (when I was a bit younger). Now, I’m just aghast at the truth of it.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
“Fuggy” is a word. Look it up. Fuggy is just like muggy, but with an “F”. I just learned the word “fuggy”, myself, a few moments ago, when I looked up synonyms for “humid.” Above is one of my favorite people whom I follow on X. He is a comedian named “OMGITSWICKS” and he makes fun of Florida, like only a true, “born and raised” Floridian can do. He recently said that we Floridians consider tropical storms to be just “rain with a name.” And, he’s right.
Before I get to my main favorite for today on, Favorite Things Friday, I want to write down what I have been pondering lately. If you look at any of my all-over-the-map musical playlists, the accounts which I follow on X (people on the left, people on the right, witches, artists, buddhists, Christians, therapists, actors, mystics and a gay furry) and my eclectic array of unusual collections all over my house and yard, you might question my sanity. For those of you who follow astrology, I am a Sagittarius sun sign, with Gemini rising. That helps to make sense of me, right? I’m an adventurer. I’m insanely curious. I love anyone who makes me laugh. I’m open-minded, and I am open to changing my mind. I believe that I have my own personal politics, and my own personal religion (more like spirituality.) I am hopeful and optimistic. I love to read and to learn. To me there is nothing better on this earth (besides my family) than animals and nature. I have friends in every category imaginable. I abhor snobbery. I think that it’s incredibly limiting. I am willing to make an effort to like anyone until I see them treat others badly. If you are manipulative, disdainful, deceitful, mean, cruel, disrespectful, bullying etc. to others, that’s when my walls go way, way up. Otherwise, your beliefs are your beliefs. I respect your right to your beliefs, to your interests, to your passions, to living your life as you see fit, as long as you do not cause pain to others. And all that I expect from you, is that you extend that same respect for me. (my sister-in-law used to say that you can generate the Ten Commandments all down to one commandment: “Don’t be a dick.”) Why have I been pondering this? I think that it’s because with all of the divisive politics and horrible wars going on, and the cancel culture running rampant, and things going on with some personal relationships in my life, I needed to ask myself, “What do I stand for?” And the conclusion that I came up with is that ultimately, I stand for kindness, and I stand for freedom. I stand for the golden rule. And in my life, I have witnessed so many different people, from so many different backgrounds, races, religions, sexual preferences, political parties, etc., ultimately stand for the same things. Kindness. Freedom. These people do unto others as they would have done to them. I suppose, ultimately and optimistically and hopefully, I believe that most of us strive for, and stand for “Love” in its highest, most unconditional form.
Okay, off of my soapbox: Here’s today’s favorite: Invisible Glass Glass Cleaner The back of our house is almost entirely sliding glass doors and we have three dogs. Nose prints. Nose prints. Nose prints. Cleaning glass is the bane of my existence. This is the first glass cleaner that has “streak-free” written on it’s can, and actually is streak-free. I purchased this recently on Amazon and it has quickly become my new holy grail of glass cleaners.
Have a great weekend, friends. Thanks for taking a little trip inside of my head. I think that’s really what this blog is for me, “a head trip” and mostly, “a heart trip.”
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
I feel so highly distractible these days. I’m late with my blog post again, because someone asked me (specifically) to answer a question on Quora. I don’t know if I am going to answer the question. It’s a tough question and I don’t really write on Quora any longer. (I mostly answered questions there on that site, from 2016-2018) But what happened from this question, which I opened in my email this morning, is that I logged on to Quora, and for the first time in a long, long time, I started going down the rabbit hole of reading my answers to questions which I had written on Quora many years ago. And it was fascinating for me to see where my mindset was in my late forties, and what has stayed the same, and what has changed.
I have kept a daily journal since 2013. I have written on this blog almost daily since 2018. I wish I had started sooner. Friends, if you have never journaled before, do itnow. It is so therapeutic and helpful in becoming more self-aware, and more compassionate to yourself when you realize how much you have experienced in your own one life. Some people use Facebook or Instagram as a daily journal and that works, too (although sometimes we don’t allow ourselves to be as honest and vulnerable on those venues as we would be in a private journal). Just do something that allows you to reflect on the “you”, who you authentically are, the “you” who you were, and the “you” who you are becoming. It’s important. You are important. Your life matters. You are your only project. Use tools that help you to reflect on and guide you, and also to compassionately (and passionately) love the greatest project of your life. You.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
2877. Do you think childhood or adulthood is harder, and in a few words, why?
“whenever a car waits for me to cross the street, I wave and mouth ‘thank you’ and rush across as fast as I can because I need them to think, wow what an 11/10 pedestrian” – Sarah J. Hass, X
This tweet just tickled me. I have been that pedestrian. And then I have admonished myself for being that overly grateful, slightly pathetic pedestrian. (Pedestrians have the right-of-way in Florida. Shouldn’t I walk confidently and stridently, at a normal pace, with my head held high?) I have also cursed under my breath, the 2/10 passive-aggressive, control freak pedestrian who meanders slowly across the walkway, phone in front of face, taking time to the smell the roses, while stealing a look over at me with a mean little smirk, seemingly delighting in my frustration.
I’ve honestly trained myself to be patient with all kinds of pedestrians, and even with all kinds of drivers, too. I’ve unintentionally run the whole gamut from 1-10 in both categories. And so I like to think that the person who I am annoyed with at that moment, is typically an 8/10 driver and/or an 8/10 pedestrian and just happens to be having an off-day. We all have them.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
2883. What was the hardest thing about being a kid for you?
