Local Saturday - Superbowl Meatballs in Red Pepper Sauce

Tomorrow is Superbowl Sunday in the United States - the last pro football game of the season, for the championship.   It has become a major party night (the game starts at 6:30 pm in our time zone)
for people, who invite family and friends over and eat mostly the most unhealthy food you can think of.

We do it a little differently.  We serve healthy foods such as homemade guacamole and salsa.  

This year, spouse also decided to make healthy meatballs.  This is (sort of) his recipe.

My spouse has been cooking for so many years that he just does things by instinct, so please don't trust these proportions.  Just go with the flow, as we like to say, and it will turn out fine.

I hope.  Herewith, Superbowl Meatballs in Red Pepper Sauce

Ingredients
1 lb mix of ground pork (ours was local) and 94% ground turkey (ours wasn't)
6 stalks green onions
2 large cloves of garlic
1/2 tsp each savory, ground up fennel
scant teaspoon salt
1 tbsp matzoh meal or dried bread crumbs
Cooking spray
One large red bell pepper
Small amount of chicken broth

Here's the savory and fennel, ground in a marble mortar

Method 
Red Pepper Sauce

Char a sweet red bell pepper on gas stove or in the oven under broiler until skin is black all around.

Stick in plastic bag let cool 1/2 hr.  Remove.  The charred skin will come right off.

Cut red pepper in half, seed, put in blender with some chicken stock for thick puree.  Put aside.

Meatballs
Combine all ingredients above, mix thoroughly, about 2 minutes
Make into little balls using about a heaping teaspoon of mixture per meatball
Using only cooking spray, spray a non stick fry pan.

Add meatballs and cook until brown all around.  Then, remove meatballs.

In the pan where the meatballs were cooked, add the red pepper puree and cook on low heat about 15 min.

Scrape the pan to get the fond (aka the yum-yums, it's the part of the meatballs that may have stuck to the pan) off.  If it is too thick, you can add small amt of water or chicken broth.

Add back the meatballs and cook on low heat about 20 minutes.

Happy Super Bowl Sunday!  If you indulge in this celebration, what do you like to serve?

Skywatch Friday - Groundhog Day

Yesterday, Groundhog Day, no groundhog would have seen his or her shadow.

So we can all hope, here in upstate New York, for an early spring.

Yesterday, while the nation's groundhogs were trying to predict if we were going to have six more weeks of winter or an early spring, we had lake effect snow squalls.  Here are a couple of shots.

These squalls, incidentally, come quickly and can sometimes cause near whiteout conditions in mere seconds.   In other parts of upstate New York, they can dump several inches of snow in a matter of inches.

This one was bit more sedate.

During the squall. 

Right after the squall.  Several minutes after this picture, the sky was blue, as if nothing had ever happened.

Please visit #SkywatchFriday for more photos of the sky from all over the world.
You'll be glad you did.

Groundhog Day 2017

Today is Groundhog Day in the United States, where we pull a groundhog out of the ground to predict the weather.   It's purely scientific, of course, and this is how it works:

If the groundhog sees its shadow, we have six more weeks of winter.  If the groundhog doesn't see its shadow, we get an early spring.

The groundhog usually sees his shadow.  As I write this, it is still too soon to tell, but people seem to be having a good time.

In 2015, one of our harshest Northeast winters in many years, the ground hog saw its shadow, despite the fact that it was overcast, and a rain/snow mix was moving in.  Somehow, that ground hog almost always sees its shadow.  In 2013, it didn't see its shadow and we still got six more weeks of winter.

The groundhog almost got the death penalty for that one.

In 2016, it was unseasonably warm for us.  This year?  It got up to 42F (5.5 Celsius) at our house yesterday. This post from 2014 shows a more typical February day.

This morning, I woke up to snow. There's a 90% chance of more snow today.Perhaps February is here, after all.

There are multiple predicting groundhogs in the United States, and they even compete with each other.  Yes, we take our silly customs seriously here in the good ol' U S of A.

For those of my readers who don't live in the United States, here's a history of Groundhog Day, in case you are wondering why people in the United States still depend on a groundhog seeing his shadow (or not) to predict if winter will be over soon.

And here's what happened when a Wisconsin town's groundhog decided that weather predicting wasn't the right career choice for him. 

Remember the movie Groundhog Day?   Could any other country have produced this movie?

Do you celebrate Groundhog Day?  Or do you have another equally silly holiday where you live?

Winter Wonders - A Warmish February?

It's February 1.  It's time for the weather to get serious.

I live in upstate New York, on the edge of what we casually call "The Snowbelt". At our airport, it isn't unusual to get 80 inches or more in a season. (For my metric friends, that is 203 cm of snow).  You can track a friendly competition between five upstate New York cities at the GoldenSnowball website.

Right now we are at nearly 69 inches (175 cm) but the ground seems to have been bare quite enough throughout January. And, as I blog this, it is above freezing, and it is still dark.

For your Wednesday viewing pleasure , here is some snow from yesterday. If you are one of those people who doesn't live where it snows, let me assure you that you are not missing out on anything.  Even if it is pretty from afar.

At my house (notice lighting; sun had just set.)

At the mall.

Rhododendrons.

Evergreens.

Happy February, and wishing ourselves, for once, a nice February.

Six Things I've Learned in Eight Years of Blogging

It is the final day of #blogboost The Ultimate Blog Challenge.  What have I learned during my almost eight years of blogging?  What tips would I give to new bloggers?

First, I would say, APPRECIATE YOUR READERS.  There are millions of blogs out there (I've seen a figure of 152 million).  You've come to my blog.  You've gotten to the second paragraph.  Thank you!

I've published some of these observations before, but good advice never gets old.  Here are six things I learned (expressed as wishes) from all my years of blogging.

 1.  I wish I knew there was such a thing as blogging challenges when I started.  If you want to grow your readership (and who doesn't want followers, for either personal or business reasons?), this is one of the fastest ways to increase your readership.  In turn, by reading the blogs of those in your challenge, you will quickly learn what works - and what doesn't.

I blogged for over two years not knowing about challenges, and I would not be blogging today if I hadn't been told (by a friend who is a writer) about them.

2.  I wish I knew that consistent posting is key.  I highly recommend daily posting, at least for the first month or two of your blog.   Once you establish yourself, what becomes necessary is not daily posting, but, rather, consistent posting.  If you don't want to post daily - and many bloggers don't want to, or can't - then it helps your readers to know that you have a schedule. Then stick to it.

3.  I wish I knew there is no such thing as a perfect blog post.  Perfection is not necessary.  Passion IS necessary.  If you don't like what you write, your readers won't, either.

 If you love something, work that into your blog posts.  If you couldn't care less about that topic, don't bother.  Blog about something you love.  I can't emphasize this enough.  That dislike/boredom/lack of passion will show right through your writing.

4.  But, you must know what your readers want.  A blog is not all about you.  It is about your readers, too. My readers seem to love pictures of snow (in the winter) and flowers (the rest of the year).  I've been a bit distracted recently, but if you stick around until tomorrow, I promise you some snow.

5.  I wish I knew how important blogging comments are.  Those comments are more valuable to a blogger than breakfast, lunch, dinner, or even good chocolate.  For example, a couple of years ago I wrote a post about fall.  Where I live, fall is a big deal - it is our premier season. A couple of my readers gently reminded me that much of the world does not experience quite the same fall as upstate New York (where I live).  My sin?  I had taken my readers for granted.

Even now, when things get busy in my life, I forget to respond to my commenters - not a good practice.

If you do disagree, which is fine, please, please, please, be respectful. There is a person, a living, breathing human being with feelings, on the other end of that blog post you like or dislike. If you lurk, please comment on some other blog posts today!

6. Be real. Be you.  It's not as easy as you think, but it is worth the effort.

Did you enjoy this challenge?  Will you do another one?

Some flowers for you, my readers

Day 31 (the final day!) of the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

Music Monday - Their Generation (And Mine)

This past week has been another week of loss in the rock world.

Allman Brothers founding member and drummer Butch Trucks dead at the age of 69, a result of suicide.  Here, the band performs "Whipping Post" live in 1970.

Geoff Nicholls, formerly of Black Sabbath, dead at 68 from lung cancer.  When I was trying to find clips of Heaven and Hell, an epic album that Geoff Nicholls performed in, I kept seeing tributes to the late Ronnie James Dio, who grew up in Cortland, New York (about 40 miles from where I live).  I will have to leave finding videos of Nicholls playing to more knowledgeable music bloggers.

In pondering these deaths, another thought occurred to me, and I want to share that with you.

Will 2017 be another bad year for music icons?  Based on the aging of rock stars, I think it will be.  It's so easy to think of ourselves as aging, but, at the same time, everyone else is frozen in time. (If you've ever gone to a high school reunion, you know what I mean).  So, we baby boomers may think of the music stars of our youth as still being in their 20's, but, in reality, they've aged along with us.

Here's a sample.
Chuck Berry is 85. 
Little Richard is 79.
Jerry Lee Lewis is 76.
Paul McCartney is 74.
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are both 73.
Pete Townshend is 71.

Yes, it's only a matter of time. As it is for us all.

One more song, with a famous line.

Day 30 of #blogboost The Ultimate Blog Challenge.

Doubleplusungood

In July of 2009 (the first year of my blog) I blogged about an incident where Amazon.com "disappeared" Kindle copies of the book 1984 by George Orwell.  This book, written in 1949 by the late George Orwell, was a warning against totalitarianism and the ability of governments to manipulate information.

In the world of 1984, there was no Internet.  But there were telescreens in each home that had to stay on constantly and they were two way - you watched them but Big Brother (yes, that was where that name came from) watched you, in turn.  There was constant emotional manipulation in a daily ceremony called the Two Minute Hate, where Party members had to watch a film about the Party's enemies and scream out their hate in a period of two minutes.

Constant surveillance.  Information manipulation.  Sound familiar?

Now, 1984 has climbed to the top of the best seller charts once again.  Yes, this has happened before, notably in the early 1980's, and again in 2013.  This isn't a brand new phenomenon.

Think about our modern world for a minute.  Websites and their contents can disappear or change in a minute.   We ponder these questions:  Are our virtual assistants, Siri and Alexa (among others) secretly listening to our conversations?  Recording our questions? (The answer to this last one, incidentally, is "yes" for both Siri and Alexa.)  Is there tracking software that can follow what we say on Facebook or Twitter, ready for the future use of a totalitarian leader?

There was the incident late last year where an Amazon Echo in the state of Arkansas may have been a digital witness to a murder.

What does privacy mean anymore?


Here's my post from 2009:

Doubleplusungood, dudes

This is not new news. For all that I love buying from amazon.com, this gives me a bit of that Big Brother feeling.

For all of you lucky enough to study the book "1984" in high school back in the 1960's, there are certain things in this book that stuck with you forever. The present generation would not be impressed but this book was absolutely chilling in its depiction of a world where a dictatorship totally controlled all sources of information, complete with a Ministry of Truth whose bureaucrats labored to continuously revise all written records to reflect the current Party line. To control thought, a new language called Newspeak was introduced. Words and thought were so short in Newspeak that one could spit sentences out without giving a thought to what one was actually saying.

Of course, nowadays we manipulate photos with ease via programs such as Photoshop and can manipulate electronic records with just as much ease.

And, apparently, we can buy an electronic book and download into our Kindle, and Bi...I mean, Amazon.com, can take it back for whatever reason.

When's the last time your local bookstore knocked down your door to grab back a book you legally paid for?

How ironic (not that this is exactly not my original thought) that the book they "vanished" was....1984. (Along with another Orwell classic, "Animal Farm".)

For the record:
1. This was due to a copyright infringement issue, not censorship and
2. Amazon.com duly refunded monies paid to the customers affected.

However, when they sent emails with the refund notices, some customers claimed Amazon never bothered to explain what was going on. (Disclosure: I do not own a Kindle and was not affected by this.).

But still. This gives me a very big sense of unease especially as I've been thinking about getting a Kindle. Not any more. Who would have thought of a Kindle as a two-way device quite like this? If you buy anything via Kindle, is it really yours? Can amazon.com take stuff back whenever they want? Maybe we should just stick to the old fashioned books that clutter up the house?

If not Big-Brotherish, it is certainly creepy.

Day 29 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

Local Saturday - Loving, Remembering and Escaping

Fake news has struck again.  Or at least, bent-into-a-pretzel news.  Both left and right, I find that I am thinking once again of abandoning Facebook.  But, instead, I thought about what I did know to be true.  I decided to become serious for a few minutes today.

Virginia Welcome Center, I-81

But first, a picture.  Such a simple word.  Too bad it is in such short supply in our world, as we seem to veer closer and closer to war.

Yesterday was Holocaust Remembrance Day.  Our country remembered it by...oh, I am coming too close to becoming a political blog.  But someone on Twitter did not forget. 

What happens when the last of the Holocaust survivors die, I wonder?  

Today is the 31st anniversary of the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.

With two astronauts dying in the last month,  wonder if we in America will ever walk on the Moon, Mars, or anywhere else.  

So, I decided, with news overload to turn to other matters.  Perhaps it was a mistake.

Originally, I was going to blog today about the 81st birthday of actor Alan Alda, who, like me, is from the Bronx.  He is a good topic for a "Local Saturday", just one of many famous people from the Bronx.

M*A*S*H , a TV series Alda starred in, is considered one of the greatest shows of all time.

Here is a list of some of its best episodes.

But it is his after-M*A*S*H work he should be more noted for, and be continued to be noted for.


But then, yesterday, two actors died:  Mike Conners of Mannix fame, which was one of my spouse's favorite shows. 

And, Barbara Hale, perhaps most noted for playing the secretary of attorney Perry Mason, dead at 94. Along with Mary Tyler Moore and Noel Neill, Barbara Hale's Della Street character was a role model for me.

And then, this afternoon, I heard of the death, at age 77, of actor John Hurt.

So there is only one place where I can escape to.  My blog, which, in turn, leads me to a decision.

I am so close to becoming more political.  But I've resisted so far (well, mostly resisted - it gets harder and harder) because these times demand that we all speak out.  So, I may do just that, on one scheduled day of the week (perhaps Sunday).  I haven't made up my mind yet.

But, we also need a place to escape to.  And I believe, for many of my readers, my blog has become a few-minutes-of-the-day refuge.  We need that, too, just as much as we need those who speak out and put themselves on the line.

Which is why I've decided, for now, to keep trying to find the beauty in our world, and (mostly) stay away from politics.  I will try to concentrate on love, hoping that it will, in the end, trump hate.   I hope you will continue to join me, as my blog would not exist without you, my readers.

Thank you, every one.

Day 28 of #blogboost the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

Skywatch Friday - Mountain Clouds

The first part of this week was foggy and then rainy, and I despaired of every seeing blue sky where I was visiting.  But finally, the clouds started to break up.

First, this.

Then, the mountains appeared.

Still later, a golden sunset reflects against a "Gold's Gym".

Finally, Thursday, I said goodbye to Central Virginia and returned to my home in upstate New York.

Back to the gloom.

Thank you to #SkywatchFriday for hosting this weekly meme.  Please visit others posting their pictures of the sky.

Day 27 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge.#Blogboost

We're Going to Make It After All

Since late yesterday afternoon, I've been thinking of this song.

Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it's you girl, and you should know it
With each glance and every little movement you show it

Love is all around, no need to waste it
You can have the town, why don't you take it
You're gonna make it after all...

source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/marytylermooreshowlyrics.html

Mary Tyler Moore is dead at age 80.  I found it interesting that her death was the lead news item on the NBC Nightly News last night (one of our major networks), crowding out the latest activities of our new President.

Mary Tyler Moore started as a dancing elf in a Hotpoint appliance commercial and ended up, as they say, "An American Icon".

She went on to TV fame in several series.  The one I remember the most (because I was already grown) was the Mary Tyler Moore show of the 1970's, a pioneering show where Moore played a young, single career woman trying to make it in Minneapolis.  Moore was an inspiring woman, fighting to be paid equally, and fighting to be treated with equal respect by her male peers.

She was also so funny. Here is a clip from one of the funnier moments of the series.

(If you have the 25 minutes to watch the entire episode, here it is).

Here's an article explaining the importance of The Mary Tyler Moore show.

Mary Tyler Moore took the world on with great courage.  In real life, she suffered most of her life from Type 1 diabetes, and struggled with a drinking problem.  But, despite all that,she made a difference in a lot of lives, inspiring us to bigger and greater things.

Now, it's our turn.  And you know what?  We may just make it after all.

Thank you, Mary Tyler Moore. 

Day 26 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

Winter Wednesday - Majesty

Winter.

Cedar of Lebanon, Montpelier (Virginia) January 2017

What is more majestic than a huge tree on a winter morning.  This historic tree dates from the time of James Madison, possibly dating from the 1820's.

Although we didn't walk through them due to weather, the forests on this property are a National Natural Landmark.

Day 25 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge

Tourist Vs. Resident

I had started to write this blog post last year, so the Carnegie Deli I write about below is strictly a mail order operation now.  But other than that, I totally agree with what I wrote about, and left in my drafts.

I have a sister in law who can not believe that, after growing up in New York City, I would rather not live there.  And, in fact, I haven't lived there in over 42 years.  And I try to explain to her, each time we talk about this, that visiting a place is not the same as living there.  Hence:

The Carnegie Deli, the deli in midtown Manhattan famed for its thick pastrami sandwiches, has announced it will close at the end of the year.  Several of my co-workers, aware that I grew up in New York City, asked how many times I had eaten there.  My answer:  zero times.

You see, there is a big difference between living in a big city and visiting a big city.  If I wanted a pastrami sandwich, I went to the local deli in my Bronx neighborhood.  Why would I travel 40 minutes on the subway just to have a pastrami sandwich?

Similarly, I never went to visit the Empire State Building until I was 16, and that was only because I decided, one day, to be a tourist in my home city.   I might have visited the Statue of Liberty on a school field trip (I know they made me go to the same museum each and every year, and it got boring after a while. 

Yes, boring, in the City of Awesome Museums.  I've never been to Ellis Island, either, although I would love to go.

I only visited the World Trade Center (this was back in 1973, before it officially opened) because the bank near my summer job on West Broadway had a branch in there, and that was back in the days before Direct Deposit was invented.  Imagine that, walking to the bank to deposit your paycheck.  That should be a post for another time.

Macy's in Herald Square was a place where my Dad and I went to people-watch during holiday shopping season.

I think you get the point.

When you live in a city you are commuting back and forth to and from work (or school).  You have to buy food, prepare food, shop, and do all those things that take up time.  Trust me:  most New Yorkers aren't making daily visits to any tourist attraction.

We are just trying to live our lives.

This isn't to say that residents never go to Broadway shows, or visit a museum, or eat in a famous restaurant.  But, even as an adult, if I went to "the City" I was there to visit friends or family.  If I ate out, it was most likely in an affordable restaurant or in a diner.  Or, I ate takeout from the local Chinese restaurant - something I did a lot with my late best friend from childhood and her spouse.

So, if you go to New York City, and I am there, you will sooner see me at the local diner than at the Carnegie Deli.  You'll see me walking on the street and not in a carriage ride near Central Park.

And that is the greatest part of visiting a big city - when you can visit it with the knowledge of someone who lives there, and go to where the locals go. Those are the luckiest tourists of all. 

That beats the biggest pastrami sandwich that a person can build.

Have you ever lived in a place that was a major tourist attraction?  Did you live like a tourist?

Day 24 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

Music Monday - Songs Of a Turbulent Time

Today, a post with some songs for our times.

Respect - Aretha Franklin.   This is something we need a whole lot more of.

This is a song I blogged about last year:  "You Don't Own Me" as sung by Leslie Gore.

Janis Ian "At Seventeen".

And, a song from the 1960's, that in a way, seems just as relevant today.

The more things change....which is why I leave you with this song.  It has lyrics thousands of years old, but, again, is still relevant today.

Day 23 of The Ultimate Blog Challenge.

A Tale of Two Cousins

Today, a tale of two cousins.  Both are teachers and both live in Florida.  One is my first cousin, and the other is my spouse's first cousin.  One is a native of Florida.  One grew up in New Jersey.  One lives in the Orlando area and the other is near Ft. Lauderdale.  One teaches elementary school and the other teaches high school.

One voted for Trump and proudly declared her support of Trump on Inauguration Day.

For the other cousin, she does not declare her political views on Facebook, but made it clear, after Trump's inaugural speech, that she was not pleased at his remarks about children and education.  She is a devoted teacher.  In fact, many, many years ago, when she first started to teach, I helped her set up her classroom one year, during a visit.

Two cousins.

Two backgrounds.

Two opinions.

But there are things these two cousins have in common.  They were able to get an education, and pursue a career.  They were able to choose whether to have children or not have children.  They both had the right to vote (although one of them had to wait until she was 21 to get that right. The other received that right at 18).

The "Lawn" at the University of Virginia, January 2017

Now, consider this.  When the buildings you see in this picture (not the columns in the front, but the buildings you see on either side, designed by founding father Thomas Jefferson) were built, slavery was legal and even the wives of faculty members were barely tolerated.  This university was not fully co educational (i.e. women did not have an equal ability to go to this college) until the year 1970. 

That was also the year I enrolled in a college.  It's sobering.

Back then, women attending college were still called "co-eds".  Now, they are called "people".

It was a way different world back then.  I, personally, do not want to go back, as appealing as nostalgia can sometimes be.

We have a lot of work ahead of us to make sure that never happens.


Day 22 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

Local Saturday - Human Wormholes

The woman pictured below was born five years before women got the right to vote, in 1917.  What better woman to write about, on this special day in the United States?

This post was originally written in 2014.  What I didn't know, at the time, is that someone had written a detailed article about the woman in this picture, who turns 105 this month.

Yes...105.  And her life has been a most fascinating one.

She is also my spouse's aunt.

Many things have changed since my original post.  Later in 2014, after this post was written, this 102 year old woman fell, broke her hip, and underwent a partial hip replacement.  Although she survived the surgery, and she remains mentally sharp, her health never totally recovered.  She rarely leaves the house now.  I wish I could give you, my readers, a happier report but, as they say, "it is what it is".

Won't you comment below, and wish my spouse's aunt a Happy 105th Birthday?

Come, now, to happier days when I blogged about "Human Wormholes".

She is what some call a human wormhole.  And I hope she'll forgive me for saying so, because she knows I love her very much.  It's not the most elegant name, the "human wormhole" but if you think about it a little, the name is a bit catchy.

Yes, I know she looks like a woman of a certain age.  To be exact, she's 102 years old.  But she's so much more.  She's a treasured relative in my spouse's family.

She is a link to the past.  She may be physically frail, but her mind is as sharp as the day she was born. Maybe even sharper.

She's a living link to the past, the past that, for all but a handful of us, exists only in textbooks.  When I touch her, when I talk to her, I am touching history.

She was alive when the Titanic made its maiden voyage (1912).

She was alive when our country enacted a constitutional amendment permitting the income tax (1913).

She was alive during the post World War I flu epidemic (1918-1919) and vaguely remembers wagons traveling from house to house where needed to pick up the dead (what a childhood memory).

We are fascinated by human wormholes.  I've blogged about some of them myself, from the living grandson of a U.S. President who served from 1841 to 1845 to a man who witnessed Lincoln's 1865 assassination and lived to tell the story on a late night game show in 1956.

One story has an interesting twist.  It is said that Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who fought in the Civil War, shook hands with both former President John Quincy Adams (born in 1767) and a young/future President John J Kennedy (whose life was cut short by assassination in 1963).  I can not find any firm evidence for this having actually happened (there is a fascinating discussion online about whether it might have been possible, though). However, Holmes did have a link to more than just the Civil War, where it is said he once saved Lincoln's life.

Holmes, who lived from 1841 to 1937, had fond memories of his grandmother, who could remember red coated English troops marching through the streets of Boston at the beginning of our Revolutionary War. When she was five. In 1776.

If I live long enough, I might be a human wormhole, too.  I don't know if that makes me happy - or scares me a little.

Do you know anyone who would qualify as a human wormhole?

Day 21 of #blogboost The Ultimate Blog Challenge.

Skywatch Friday - Gathering Clouds

Friday, January 13, 2017 in upstate New York.

We are close to sunrise, but the clouds look pretty grim.

It starts to brighten.

Finally, the sun is about to appear, about four miles down the road.

Visit #SkywatchFriday for more pictures of the sky, the sun, and more.

Day 20 #blogboost of the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

The Collective Holding of Breath

"It’s the time to buckle down and work positively as much as you can,” she says. “Just think, ‘All right, there’s nothing I can do about that right now. But I can do my best in my little circle. So if I do that, maybe you’ll do your best and we’ll get through this." Actress Betty White, in an interview with Katy Couric, talking about division in the United States and staying positive. 


There has been so much hate flying around on Facebook this last year or so.  I came so close to blocking people (I did block someone whose posts were non stop hate.  I don't block people just because they don't support my candidate)  I knew for years.  I knew most of the people venting (on both sides) were decent, hardworking people.  I also knew that many of them were scared.  But it just got to be too much for me to read.

A reader of my blog recommended that I just "scroll on by", and that has kept my sanity.

Now, on the eve of the inauguration of the new President, many are pausing to consider what the future may be holding, for better or for worse.   What kind of world?

I don't mean the Trump-Inauguration-As-Twilight Zone-Episode article appearing in a Scottish newspaper.

Or the internet meme started over a comment by Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos in a discussion about if firearms had any place in schools.  

(For the benefit of my readers outside the United States, yes, there are places where students must be protected against wildlife. Grizzlies are no joke.)

No, this world:  A world, for example, where Jewish community centers all over the country are being targeted by bomb scares. 

Or a man accused of harassing a black family is said to have quite an arsenal in his house (and, by the way, his elderly parents were living in that same house.)

Hate crimes in general are on the increase.

But others are happy that their voices are being heard - voices they feel have been ignored by people on both coasts of our country. 

Division, with no unity in sight.


Recently, I have pondered my future actions, and what I will do on January 20, and thereafter. I fear, based on how history has gone before, that the divisions in our country are only going to get worse.  Love will not trump hate.  

Will I be able to work in my own little circle? Will I choose right?  And will it make a difference?

Day 19 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

Winter Wonders - She's Golden

Yesterday, actress Betty White celebrated her 95th birthday - by working.

Yes, she is still actively working on television. She's been working for over 75 years.

Perhaps age is more than a number, but what a number Betty White has.

Three years ago, she did a spoof of a famous music video.

But I remember her from the early 1960's, when she would star on a game show called Password.  She married the host, Allen Ludden, who died in 1981 from cancer.  He was the love of her life (she was married twice before).  Betty White never remarried.

Betty White was on TV long before that - here is a clip from 1953. She acted in this show but she was also a producer - a producer, in the 1950's, when that was almost unheard of for a woman.

And then there was the 1970's, when Betty White played a recurring character on The Mary Tyler Moore show.  Sue Ann Nivens had men very much on her mind and it was so funny.  Be forewarned, a lot of White's humor is not on the clean side. 

Then, in the 1980's (1985 to 1992 to be exact) there was the Golden Girls (shown, here, with the late Bea Arthur).  For a 95th birthday present, Betty White was interviewed, and asked for a reboot of this series.

Nowadays, Betty White appeared on a series called Hot in Cleveland,which left the air in 2015.  This clip is from 2014.  Betty White played a 90 year old woman who had quite the life - an escape from the Nazis in World War II, and, yes, she still went after men.

Perhaps that is the secret of youth - never lose your zest for life.  Stay golden, and be outrageous.

We hope you have many happy (and healthy) birthdays ahead of you, Betty White!

Day 18 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

A Living Mobius Strip

Travel, as they say, is a broadening experience.  And, sometimes, a frustrating one.

In 2010, we found a living Mobius strip.

It is called Asheville, North Carolina.

Asheville is famous for a lot of things, including its"New Age" population.  Some of these people believe that Asheville has special energy fields.  Upon feeling these fields, people have been known to move to Asheville immediately, and never leave.

The really strange thing about visiting Asheville, for my spouse, was that normally he can find his way around nearly anywhere.  He can drive somewhere once and (even years later) can find his way around thereafter. 

Not in Asheville.  He was so scrambled up (and of course wouldn't ask for directions) that he kept getting lost.  And even I felt somewhat disoriented, and I have no sense of direction at all.

Spouse kept saying his ability to tell direction was totally not working, and, for him, it was so frustrating.

At one point, trying to navigate I-40, I-240 and I-26 in a vain attempt to find a Wal-Mart we never did find (confession: yes, we sometimes shop at Wal-Mart), spouse remarked that Asheville was one huge Mobius strip. 

If you don't remember Mobius strips from science class, check them out on the Internet.


We still don't know why that is, but we have never experienced that before.  And maybe never will again.

When we visited Asheville again, in September of 2012, I owned a smartphone.  This time, thanks to Google Maps, we did not get lost, but my spouse continuously argued with the app - although it was right every time.

We kept meeting people from New York State (our native state) in Asheville.  Maybe they were lost, too.  Maybe Asheville is full of lost souls who gave up trying to find their way, and decided to retire there.

So, what is so great about Asheville?  Many things.  Great shops, great food, the greatest Farmers Markets..excuse me, Tailgate Markets ever.

That's what makes a city great.

To me, the coolest thing I saw in downtown Asheville were the Woolworths and the Kress's.  But wait.  Didn't these go out of business years ago?  Well maybe they did worldwide, but not in Asheville.  There is that "other dimension" again for you.

Take a look.  There's a simple reason why downtown Asheville has so many of its historic buildings.  It was simple - in the 1970's, when urban renewal ended up claiming so many historic buildings throughout the United States, Asheville didn't tear theirs down.

They couldn't.

They were bankrupt.  By the time they had dug themselves out, what was old was now desirable.

It still is.

Woolworths and Kress's are fixtures of my childhood, living forever in my memory on Fordham Road in the Bronx.  And now, in Asheville, North Carolina, the buildings remain - although these have been converted to indoor shopping malls.

But it was nice thinking we had gone back in time, if even for a few minutes.

Day 17 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge #blogboost

Last But Not Least

"Don't count yourself out - you never know what fate has in store."  - Eugene Cernan, in 2016.

Eugene Cernan died yesterday, surrounded by his family.   He was 82.

Didn't we just do this in December?

Sometimes, it is important to be last.

Eugene Cernan was the last man to walk on the moon. 

What kind of man was he?  
Eugene Cernan left his daughter's initial in the moon's dust before he climbed on board his ship for the return to Earth.


We study the first words spoken on the moon, by astronaut Neil Armstrong.  But how many of us remember the last words?  Quoting:

"...America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow," Cernan said. "And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus- Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17."

Except that we never did return.  And, of the twelve men who walked on the moon, only six are left now.

Except that both peace and hope seem to be in short supply nowadays.

Except that few of us could dream of what happened to the space program.  Americans can't even get into space on their own anymore.  We have to pay the Russians.

It wasn't supposed to end like this.

The last of the original seven astronauts gone.  Now, the last man to walk on the moon.

RIP.

Day 17 of #blogboost the Ultimate Blog Challenge.