fauxklore

I first became aware of the Balkan Heritage Society and their archaeological field schools several years ago, when I was browsing various listings of volunteer and field school opportunities on-line and saw a workshop they were offering on photographing Roman mosaics. I didn’t do anything about it at the time since I couldn’t have made it fit my schedule. But I would continue to browse their offerings every few years.

Being retired helps a lot with schedule flexibility and this time I saw they were offering a workshop on textile conservation, which would fit in nicely with my crafts interests. I was all set to register for that, but then I got invited to do my travel talk at my MIT reunion and - poof! My life is a schedule conflict! But I noticed that there was also a workshop on paper conservation that was a couple of weeks later. Since: a) that would fit my schedule and b) I do play with paper crafts (particularly bookbinding, but I’ve also made paper and done plenty of surface design, e.g. marbling, over the years), I thought that would be worth doing. So I signed up, and began devoting some time to figuring out how to get to Zakynthos, Greece, where the workshop would be held. I also tried to make a dent in the somewhat intimidating reading list they provided.

For those who don’t know (which is the vast majority of Americans), Zakynthos is in the Ionian Islands, off the west coast of Greece. There are flights there from a number of European cities and the least expensive route I could find involved flying to Athens and then going there by bus / ferry. Since I’d been to Athens before (way back in 2004, for the Olympics), I just spent a night there. I flew over via FRA, which is one of my least favorite airports, but it worked okay. I spent one night at the Hotel Mirabello, which is conveniently located near Omonia Square. The staff was friendly and helpful and there were plenty of reasonably priced restaurants nearby. I didn’t write down the name of the place I ate at, but I had a reasonably good moussaka. In the morning, the hotel had a particularly good breakfast buffet, by the way, with hot options that even included spanakopita. I would consider staying there again if I had some reason to be in Athens.

In the morning, I took a taxi to the Kifissos bus station, which is large and chaotic. By the way, buying my ticket on-line had been a bit stressful, because KTEL (the major bus company) apparently sells tickets on the route I needed only a couple of weeks in advance. Still, I had been able to get a ticket to Nea Manolada, which proved to take about an hour longer than Rome 2 Rio had claimed it would. It turned out that this was just a stop on the side of a road, not an actual bus terminal. There was a South African woman who was also heading to Kyllini Port for a ferry (in her case, to Kefalinia, which is the next island north) and we walked across the street to a kiosk where the proprietor called us a cab. I stayed overnight at the Glarentza Hotel, which was a short walk to the port and was reasonably nice. I had time to walk around the port a bit both that afternoon and the next morning, before boarding the 1 p.m. ferry to Zakynthos.

Our accommodations were at the Hotel Yria, which is decently central. However, the rooms are on the small side and the breakfast is just adequate. I was sharing a room with a young woman from France, by the way. This is probably a good place to note that most of the group were 20ish, i.e. young enough to be my grandchildren. Only four of us where there just for the paper conservation program, while the majority had been doing a three week program that included one week each of textiles, metal, and paper. Despite the age gap, I found them generally thoughtful and interesting people. (There were a couple of other older people, but I’m reasonably sure I was the oldest. Well, someone has to be.)

Anyway, the program started on a Monday morning and I’d arrived on Sunday. That evening I went with a couple of the other people to Solomos Square (the central square of Zante Town) to see an event called Giostra of Zakynthos, which was a sort of medieval parade, followed by a jousting tournament. It was colorful and interesting, but uncomfortably crowded. Note that there were groups from several countries - including Scotland!









I wasn’t able to get close enough to the jousting to get any pictures worth sharing of the horses and the riders, who included a young boy. Eventually, I decided I should go find something to eat. There is no shortage of restaurants in the area and I got a tasty supper before returning to the hotel and going to bed.

The workshop itself began on Monday after breakfast. We met our instructor, Dr. Nikolas Sarris (and his dog, Jimmy) and were transported in a minibus to Ionian University. The first day started with a couple of lectures (history of paper, causes of deterioration of paper) and a presentation about documentation of paper objects, before we set out to document the paper objects that had been distributed for us to work on. I had a 12-page set of what were essentially census records from 1959. There were extensive tears and cuts on the front cover, and folded edges and stains on every page, as well as rusted staples (which later on proved to be small nails / pins, not staples) and writing on the front and back covers.

We started out with a few conservation treatments and I brushed and vacuumed it. Later on, I would spend time cleaning with various tools, e.g. vulcanized latex sponges and patching with hollytex, which is a sort of paper made of non woven polyester. One of the other people in the workshop referred to it as “magic paper.” Here is a picture of the document with the pins removed and some cleaning done.



The edges of the front cover were patched but you can still see a lot of writing and stains.



Anyway, we continued to work on our documents during the subsequent days. There were some other types of (mostly Japanese) paper used in patching paper. We also spent time on humidifying and flattening paper. Our lab work was mixed in with lectures. We did have morning and afternoon coffee breaks and a lunch hour, where we ate at the student canteen, which was okay. I’d estimate that we were doing lab work maybe 6 hours a day. By the way, we had been told to bring lab coats, which gave me an excuse to dig out this personalized one, which I’d been given several years ago when I went to an event at the United Airlines catering facility in Denver.



On Thursday morning we had a field trip to the General Archives and the Historic Public Library of Zakynthos. There were lots of historic photos, many of them related to the 1953 magnitude 7.2 earthquake, which caused extensive damage throughout the southern Ionian islands. (By the way, there were a couple of smaller earthquakes at the end of my time on Zakynthos, the larger of which was magnitude 4.1. Having lived in California for 22 years, that didn’t even wake me up.)



There were also a couple of cases of dolls.



And, of course, there were shelves and shelves of books, many of which had significant damage, including tunnels from being insect eaten. Nikolas also talked about storage of books / documents. The next day, we made the most basic storage enclosures, essentially just folders.



Friday night, most of us went out to a fancy dinner at a restaurant called Manoo. You can get surprisingly good sushi in Greece (and, less surprisingly, a good gin and tonic). We bade goodbye to the people who were leaving on Saturday. The four of us who were left had the weekend free. I was fairly lazy, with some reading and puzzles to catch up on, but I did spend some time at the Byzantine Museum, which has a lovely collection. Here are a few examples.











On Monday, we were back to lectures and workshops. By the way, since we were down to 4 people, we went to and from the University in Nikolas’s car. We started learning about wet cleaning techniques and stain removal, including the use of suction tables. The rest of the week continued with paper deacification, paper sizing, removal of adhesive tape, and more advanced paper repair techniques. I’ll spare you the pictures of paper immersed in various chemical solutions. A local man had heard that there was a book conservator teaching our class and brought Nikolas some documents to look at and he had us work on them, too. I spent a fair amount of time cleaning and repairing this, for example.



On Thursday morning we went to see the Church of Agios Dionysios, followed by the Ecclesiastical Museum of the Holy Monastery of St. Dionysios. The church was elaborately decorated outside.



Inside, the architecture felt typical of Orthodox Christian churches I’ve seen, with an ornate iconostasis.



The museum had a lot of books on display, including some very old ones.



The workshop finished on Friday, which we spent making boxes to protect books. We also visited another room at the University, which had a nitrogen hypoxia chamber for killing insects. We also got our certificates for completing the course.

While I’d taken bus and ferry to Zakynthos from mainland Greece, I had opted to fly back to Athens. Sky Express was a new airline for me and I found their service reasonably good. Here’s an aerial photo of Zakynthos.




I stayed at the convenient but very pricy Sofitel Athens Airport overnight before my flights home on Swiss (via Zurich), which went smoothly. Airport hotels are always a good idea when you have an early morning (6:55 a.m.) flight.


Overall, I think the workshop was interesting and worth my time. I don’t expect to do much with what I learned, though you never know what may come in handy. I also enjoyed getting to know the other students, who generally made me feel more optimistic about young people nowadays. What more could I ask for?

1. Have you ever made a huge change to your hair - cut or colour? I have dyed my hair various times. The most interesting is probably the time I got magenta cellophane immediately before having new passport photos taken. Australian immigration looked at me a bit strangely a few weeks later.

2. What is one thing that happened today that you really want to remember 10 years from now? I’ve really just spent the day mostly on errandy stuff, e.g. laundry and sorting through receipts, none of which is memorable. The news is full of one Trumpist outrage after another and I’d like to think that will all be over long before 10 years from now. So, frankly, I got nothing.

3. Are you happy with my job, life, and situation? What parts are good? What parts are bad? What a badly phrased question. I’m reasonably happy with my life, but know nothing about yours. The major thing I need to work on is decluttering my living room.

4. Where would you go to relax and why? I’d love to spend a week or so at the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport, Oregon. I’d probably choose the Agatha Christie room.

5. What trait did you admire in a relative, friend, classmate, or coworker today? I’m proud of one of my friends for writing honestly about her mental health struggles and what she’s been doing to address them.

6. What is the weather like today? How do you feel about it? I think the weather in June was hot and muggy. But the weather right now is quite pleasant, sunny with a high in the mid-70’s Fahrenheit.

7. What's the most difficult part about being you? I have high standards that I can’t always live up to.

8. Good or bad, what is your hometown best known for? Uh, there were a few couple of famous mafiosi who lived there. And also one former U.S. Senator.

9. Describe an incident at a beauty or barber shop. Does getting a chocolate pedicure at the spa at the Hotel Hershey count? Or, even better, the fish pedicure I once got?

10. What musical instrument(s) do you play or wish you could play? I took several years of piano lessons off and on. I also did two years of viola in elementary school. I’ve fooled around with various other instruments, ranging from the accordion to the tin whistle to the bowed psaltery over the years. But (to steal a joke from my Dad) my best instrument is the stereo system. I wish I could play the didgeridoo, but I've never been able to make sense of circular breathing.

11. Tell about one of your first away-from-home experiences. I went to three different summer camps. Two of them were relatively normal. The one that I went to for two summers in a row is the source of some of my best stories, since it was run by a socialist zionist organization and we had events like Capitalist Day.

12. What makes you feel safe? I guess I feel safest in familiar environments, but that includes places like home (duh!) and comfortable hotels and many major cities. Frankly, I rarely feel unsafe.

13. Have you ever been to a surprise party? Was it for you or someone else? Was it a good surprise? I don’t remember anyone ever throwing a surprise party for me, but I did go to a few surprise parties for other people when I was a teenager. The best one was for two people whose birthdays were close in time. (Their birthdays may have been the same day, but I don’t remember.) At any rate, the host told Marc it was a surprise party for Vicki and told Vicki it was a surprise party for Marc and gave them arrival times about 15 minutes apart.

14. What does abundance mean to you? Abundance is just a step beyond enough. There is a step beyond abundance that is really too much, e.g. the quantities of books and of yarn in my house.

15. Name 3 friends that shaped your childhood. My best friend for several years was Kathy, who lived down the street from me and who I spent part of nearly every day with. We spent our time listening to music, playing hopscotch, hanging out in our secret place (a clearing in the middle of an empty lot, which later became a shopping center), and memorizing things like “Jabberwocky.” I was also very close to Norman, who I shared a crayon box with in elementary school. I remember being the only girl at his birthday party one year in elementary school. And, hmm, Carol was one of the two other girls in my Hebrew school class and was the first peer who told me what getting a period was like. Her exact comment was “it’s literally a pain in the ass.”

16. If you suddenly had an extra room in your house, what would you do with it? I’d like it to be an art and music room, with a piano and shelves for my yarn stash.


17. What needs to be true for you to feel empowered to speak up in a group? I really don’t have any hesitation in speaking up in a group.

18. Describe your ideal book club. My long-standing book club works for me because: 1) we read a wide variety of books, 2) everybody actually reads the book, and 3) we talk about the book instead of just general chitchat,

19. What’s your favourite animated movie? I have a long-standing fondness for Fantasia, which I think was one of the first movies I ever saw. But I also have a soft spot in my heart for The Aristocats.

20. What’s the biggest life decision you’ve ever made? How did it affect you? Choosing to go to MIT opened up a lot of opportunities for me. I made that decision because I knew so many people who had decided to change their majors from what they originally planned and I was reasonably sure anything I chose to do would be in the math / science realm. (I’ve often joked that my brother holds the Michigan State record for changing majors.) This worked well since I had originally planned to major in chemistry and ended up in mechanical engineering. And, while I found Dartmouth very attractive, I felt that I wanted to live in a city, rather than a rural area.

21. What is your favourite vegetable? There are many vegetables I like, but I think I’ll opt for carrots, due to their versatility. I particularly like roasted carrots with a tahini glaze. But I also use carrots in stir fries and make carrot-ginger soup.

22. Which disease known to humankind do you hate the most? Explain why. I’ve lost too many people I cared about to various forms of cancer.

23. What would be your ideal birthday present, and why? I am much more about experiences than about things, so I’d suggest theatre or concert tickets.

24. This morning, when you got out of bed, you ….. Before bed tonight, you will…. These are pretty much the same every day. When I get out of bed, I do my various daily puzzles, starting with the New York Times crossword. Before I go to bed, I read for at least half an hour.

25. Who would you most like to be like if you could change your personality? Maybe Mallory Lewis, the daughter of Shari Lewis. She puppets Lamb Chop, so has a fun sassy alter ego.

26. What are some colors you see the most in your every day life? I’ve been using blue bed linens lately, so that should be right up there. I tend to wear a lot of black and red, so those should also be on the list. And my furniture is mostly wood, so you can throw in brown, which is a color I rarely wear.

27. What is your most prized possession? I have a necklace that my great-grandmother allegedly bought in Shanghai. I am skeptical of that story, but it’s still a necklace I like a lot.

28. What animals frighten you and why? Having grown up on Long Island, sharks are at the top of my scary list, followed by polar bears. I also tend to be leery of certain breeds of large dogs, though I’m fine with others. I suspect that dates back to a neighbor who was attacked as a child and had an ear bitten off.

29. What kind of fairytale creature would you be? I think I am well-suited to be either a fairy godmother or the wise woman who lives at the edge of the forest.

30. What is an exciting or crazy trip you have taken? Before my 40th birthday, I took a leave of absence from work and spent 6 months traveling on overland trucks through Africa, followed by taking the Saint Helena mail ship from Cape Town to the U.K.

The last weekend of May was my 45th MIT Reunion. I flew up to Boston on Thursday. Checking in was quick. I was staying at New Vassar, which is a dorm that didn’t exist back in my day. There was a problem with my room. Namely, the bed had been raised so that the dresser went under it. But the ladder up to the actual bed was placed in a way that was way too hard for me to negotiate. The dorm staff was able to lower the bed, but it took some time. (Staying in a hotel, rather than a dorm on campus would be nicer, of course, but they sell out quickly. And they cost a lot more.)

Anyway, the first event I went to was the Class of 1980 Gathering at State Park Bar in Kendall Square. We had a private room for us, with drinks and heavy appetizers. We also got MIT Class of 1980 baseball caps (in a choice of red or pink). It was a nice opportunity to mingle and chat.

I spent Friday going to various receptions. The Hillel reception had good bagels (and other food), but was notable for my getting to see a couple of people (not in my class) who I hadn’t seen in a lot of years. One of them had been a grad student when I was an undergrad and I’d last seen him when he was passing through Los Angeles and we had lunch at a Yemenite restaurant in Pico-Robertson. The other was someone who I knew from my days in Berkeley. There was also, alas, a lot of discussion of the incident at commencement in which a graduation speaker delivered a pro-Palestine speech. The thing that didn’t get discussed enough in the news stories I saw was that she had submitted an entirely different speech for approval beforehand. I was not at commencement to see this, but the buzz in the room was that the Institute did not handle the situation well.

Conversation at the other two receptions I went to was considerably tamer. The Mechanical Engineering reception was in too small a space, but did provide an opportunity to reminisce a bit about some projects from back in my day. However, none of the professors I'd have liked to see were there. Instead, I did have a couple of conversations about theatre. The reception at McCormick Hall (the all women dorm I lived in while I was at MIT) was entirely unmemorable, though I do remember talking to the former dorm headmaster who ran the Washington summer program back in the days when I tried to find minions, er, I mean summer interns.

After that was the Tech Reunions Welcome Reception, which had some confusion about which tables our class was supposed to be at. Here’s a photo of me (in the red dress) with my friend, Robert, and his wife, Merlie.




Then we got on the buses to Symphony Hall for Tech Night at the Pops. Some friends and I had requested seating together, but were given tickets at three separate tables. We did sort that out ourselves, but it was annoying. The concert had a good mix of material, with a highlight being a sing-along to 1980’s music. There was also a version of “America the Beautiful” which included an MIT chorus. I mention that because, as we were leaving to go back to the buses, someone I know from the puzzle world called out to me. It wasn’t her reunion year, but she had been part of that chorus! Overall, it was a nice event.

Saturday is always Technology Day, which features talks about MIT research. The theme this year was From Lab to Life: How MIT is Advancing Health and Humanity. and addressed two new initiatives. The first part was on the MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative and the speakers were Angela M. Belcher on Changing the Optics on Ovarian Cancer Detection and Prevention, Jonathan Gruber on Paying for Health: Insurance and the Life Sciences, Hugh Herr with On Being Bionic, and Bryan Bryson on Breakthrough Solutions for (and from) an Ancient Disease. That last one had to do with tuberculosis, which (as you may know) has made something of a resurgence. The definite highlight of that session was Hugh Herr. I had read about him some time ago and his story is very compelling. In short, he had both of his legs amputated below the knee after a mountain climbing accident when he was 17. He designed improved prosthetics, which there is no word for other than amazing. He can extend the length of his prosthetic legs, for example, enabling him to climb things that nobody else can. Just watching him walking around on the stage, you would never think of him as being at all disabled. He also showed a short film with a woman trying out new prosthetic legs and not needing any time to adjust to them. I swear every jaw in the room dropped during his talk. (I should probably note that learning about the Boston arm, which was one of the first prosthetic devices to connect to the body’s nervous system, was one of the things that drew me into majoring in mechanical engineering in the first place. But other people without that background were also talking about how amazing his talk was.)

The second part was on the MIT Human Insight Collaborative. The speakers were Lily L. Tsai on A Compass for the Digital Age, Caspar Hare on Machines That Want What We Want, David Rand on During Reducing Conspiracy Beliefs Using Human-AI Dialogues, and Eran Egozy on Good Vibrations: The Technology behind Musical Instruments and the Human Connection. I was unconvinced by Rand’s talk. Egozy’s talk was on a subject that is right up my alley, but I hadn’t gotten enough sleep on Friday night so I can’t say that I absorbed much of it. After all of that, there was a fireside chat with MIT President Sally Kornbluth. She touched on the commencement kerfuffle and sounded reasonable about how it was handled. She also talked more generally about life at MIT.

Next up was lunch and the Tech Challenge Games, which we had too small a group for. I did submit a couple of haikus, but neither of them got read out loud. The event I was most looking forward to was the Class of 1980 TIM Talks. (TIM the Beaver is the MIT mascot. He did not actually have a name back in my undergrad days, but it’s cute. Anyway, that’s why we have TIM Talks instead of TED Talks.) One of my friends was on the program committee and asked me to give a talk on travel which is, as many of you know, one of my favorite subjects. The other two speakers were Tomas A. Gonzalez on Remanufacturing and Circular Economy and David Alexander on Making Infinite Connections. I particularly liked David’s talk because he referenced the book Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam, which has been a big influence on my life. It has to do with the decline of social capital in our times and the need to reconnect with other people. David’s examples included things like his involvement with his church, with Toastmasters, and with a book club that reads only one book - James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake.

My talk was titled Reel to Real Travels. The title, which was provided by my friend, Teri, refers to my being inspired to travel by ViewMaster reels I had as a child.



Basically, I talked about overcoming lack of opportunity to travel (time and money), people who offered helpful advice, my mid-life crisis trip , and what makes me choose specific places to go to. My biggest take-aways were that: 1) famous places are usually famous for good reasons and 2) it’s not a competition though some people treat it as one. I thought it went well. I got some good questions and had some nice conversations at the dinner that followed the TIM Talks.

On Sunday morning, there was a brunch at McCormick Hall. I went back to the dorm to collect my bag and then set off to the airport. Getting home went smoothly. And then I was all ready to unpack - and pack for a trip later in the week.

I had the usual routine meetings and such in May, e.g. both book clubs and my Litvak genealogy mentoring session, which also included a talk by Nina on how to work with a translator. I did also make a used bookstore run, in which I got rid of 17 books and came home with 13 new to me books.

Better Said Than Done had a Mother’s Day show on the 10th in Ellicott City (essentially, Baltimore). The traffic getting there was dreadful, mostly due to construction. Let’s just say it took me almost an hour just to get past Tyson’s Corner, which should be about 10 - 15 minutes. Fortunately, everyone did make it there and the show went well, with a wide mix of stories. I told a story about my mother’s bargain hunting / hoarding tendencies, which includes the time she bought 12 cases of bottled borscht (24 bottles per case) at our public television station’s auction.

I also had three trips out of town in May. The first one was the first weekend in May, when I went to Kansas City for the Flyertalk BBQ Do. Basically, frequent flyers got together to eat barbecue and talk about points and miles (and, in some cases, drink, but that’s not my thing). Most of us stayed at the Westin Crown Center Hotel, which I think I had been at on my first trip to Kansas City back in the mid-1980’s, when I took Amtrak’s Southwest Chief from Los Angeles to the Grand Canyon to Santa Fe to Kansas City.

Friday night’s get-together was at Jack Stack. The Freight House location was a short walk from the hotel. Beer goes well with barbecue so I got a Boulevard Space Camper IPA, which was tasty. Unfortunately, the service was terrible and it took ages before I actually got my beer. The food service was also very slow. I got the Stack sandwich, which was okay, though the honey-chipotle barbecue sauce was not particularly exciting and the cole slaw was more creamy than the vinegary type I prefer. Overall, I wasn’t particularly impressed.

I thought the food and service at Wolf Pack BBQ, where we went for lunch on Saturday, were better. I got a combo plate which had turkey breast, beans, and potato salad. The latter was just okay, but the turkey and beans were very tasty.

After lunch, I got a ride to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and the American Jazz Museum which are in the same building. The baseball museum was excellent and included some things I had been completely unaware of, such as the role of women (including as team owners) and how a reporter from a communist newspaper helped the push for integration.



Satchel Paige has always been one of my favorites.









Overall, this was worth about an hour and a half. The American Jazz Museum was not as good and I only spent about 45 minutes there. While it has some cool exhibits, e.g. listening stations which let you hear performances by musicians like Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker, I wish the museum had had things like chronological info about the development of different subgenres and more info on less familiar performers. There was a pretty good temporary exhibit about Louis Prima.



Also, the sidewalk outside the building had medallions for the Jazz Hall of Fame with performers such as Harry Belafonte, Al Jarred, and Ella Fitzgerald.


On Sunday I walked over to the World War I Museum, which is definitely worth half a day.



The major part of the museum consists of year by year chronological exhibits about the events of the war. Those are mixed in with displays of weapons and protective equipment and so on, such as this gas mask.



One display I found particularly moving had to do with trench warfare and included this powerful poem.



There were also a few interesting special exhibits. One had to do with military chaplains.



This panorama is on one of the upper levels of the building.



And the downstairs level had a display of letters sent to a soldier by his artist father.



I finished off the day by walking over to the Crown Center and checking out a temporary display (which was closing that day) on Snoopy and the Red Baron.



Overall, this was an excellent weekend and definitely worth the trip.

Continuing catching up on celebrity death watch. I’ll probably take a break to write about some other things after finishing up 2024, but will try to get up to date on this soon.

Celebrity Death Watch - October 2024: David Turnham was a New York Times journalist who wrote about police corruption. Susie Bering was a golf champion. SuEllen Fried was an anti-bullying activist. Luis Tiant pitched for the Boston Red Sox in the 1970’s. Ethel Kennedy was the widow of Robert F. Kennedy and a human rights advocate in her own right. Lily Ledbetter was an activist for equal-pay. Richard Secord was an Air Force major general who conducted covert operations in Laos and led the only successful rescue of American POWs during the Vietnam war. Liam Payne was a member of the boy band One Direction. Mitzi Gaynor was an actress, notable for playing Nellie Forbush in the film version of South Pacific. Phil Lesh was the bassist for and a founding member of the Grateful Dead.

Teri Garr was a comedic actress, who appeared in such films as Tootsie and Young Frankenstein.

Celebrity Death Watch - November 2024: Jonathan Haze was an actor who played Seymour Krelboined in the original (1960 non-musical) Little Shop of Horrors movie. Jim Hoagland was a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist for the Washington Post. Bernard Marcus was the cofounder of Home Depot. Dorothy Allison was a feminist writer, most famous for Bastard Out of Carolina. Elizabeth Nunez was a novelist whose books include Anna In-Between. Ella Jenkins wrote and performed music for children. Sandra Gilbert was a feminist literary critic, best known for writing The Madwoman in the Attic. Tim Sullivan was a science fiction writer. Thomas E. Kurtz co-developed the BASIC programming language. Shel Talmy was a record producer who worked with the Who, the Kinks, David Bowie, and many others. Andy Paley was a musician who performed with The Modern Lovers and composed music for SpongeBob SquarePants. Mike Pinera played guitar for Iron Butterfly and wrote the song Ride Captain Ride. Alice Brock inspired the song Alice’s Restaurant. Cyndy Szekeres wrote and illustrated children’s books. Barbara Taylor Bradford was a prolific novelist. Bob Bryar was the drummer for My Chemical Romance from 2004 - 2010. Helen Gallagher was a Tony award winning actress. Hal Lindsay was a doomsday preacher who wrote The Late Great Planet Earth. Gabriel Escaper founded Melia Hotels. Shalom Nagar executed Adolf Eichmann.

Quincy Jones was a record producer, composer, and arranger, who won 28 Grammy awards.

Bela Karolyi was a gymnastics coach, best known for training Nadia Comaneci, Mary Lou Retton, and Kerri Strug. Some of his proteges called his coaching style abusive. In addition, Larry Nasser’s sexual abuse of young female gymnasts happened at the Karolyi Ranch.

Arthur Frommer wrote travel books. During my first trip to Europe (my college graduation present), I relied heavily on Frommer’s Europe on 25 Dollars a Day. I have used several other Frommer guidebooks over the years and found them reasonably reliable.

Chuck Woolery hosted the original daytime version of Wheel of Fortune, as well as other game shows, including Love Connection and Scrabble. He was also a musician and wrote advertising jingles.

Celebrity Death Watch - December 2024: Marvin Laird co-created the musical Ruthless! Nikki Giovanni was a poet. Donald Blitzer co-invented the plasma display. Michael Cole was an actor, best known for his role on The Mod Squad. Diane Delano was an actress who played the police sergeant on Northern Exposure. Dick van Arsdale played basketball for the New York Knicks and the Phoenix Suns. Mike Brewer (of Brewer & Shipley) wrote the song One Toke Over the Line. David Mallett wrote the Garden Song. Arlene Agus co-founded Ezrat Nashim, the first American Jewish feminist organization, and popularized the observance of Rosh Hodesh (the new month) as a women’s holiday. Richard Perry was a record producer who worked with artists ranging from Barbra Streisand to Julio Iglesias to Carly Simon. Olivia Hussey was an actress, best known for playing Juliet in the 1968 movie of Romeo and Juliet.


The Amazing Kreskin was a mentalist who appeared frequently on late night television. In other words, he was a con man.

Anita Bryant was a singer, anti-gay activist, and shill for orange juice.

Berrien Moore III studied complex systems and was the founding director of Climate Central. I knew him when I worked on the Closed Environmental Life Support System (CELSS) project at NASA Ames as a grad student.

Rickey Henderson played baseball, primarily for the Oakland A’s. He holds records for career stolen bases (leading to the moniker “Man of Steal”), runs, unintentional walks, and leadoff home runs.

Jimmy Carter was the president of the U.S. from 1977-1981. He was more successful as an ex-president, particularly noted for his work with Habitat for Humanity and working to eliminate dracuculiasis (Guinea worm disease). He also failed to understand anything at all about the Middle East.

Linda Lavin was an actress who was probably best known for the TV sitcom Alice. More significantly, she sang “You’ve Got Possibilities” in Its a Bird … It’s a Plane … It’s Superman and “The Boy From …” in The Mad Show on Broadway.

I’ll get back to the catch-up soon, but quarterly posts should be more timely, so here goes one.

Books:

Only 7 books this quarter, alas.

1. Agatha Christie, The Man in the Brown Suit. I’d read this long ago but reread it for my travel book club. The plot involves a young woman who sets out to solve a mystery that starts in London and takes her to Southern Africa. It’s as much a romance as a mystery and does have a bit more “had I but known …” than I’d prefer, but it was still entertaining. It’s also the first appearance of one of Christie’s lesser known recurring characters, Colonel Race.
   
   
2. Jasper Fforde, Early Riser. Set in a future where people hibernate through the winter (so, sort of like my condo), a young man is recruited to be a Winter Consul, watching over the sleepers. He is specifically charged with investigating an outbreak of viral dreams involving a blue Buick, but there are other nefarious goings on. I wanted to like this book but it didn’t quite work for me. I think the problem was that there were a lot of cultural references, mostly to Welsh things, that I missed. I did, however, really like some of the folklore Fforde created for this. For example, there’s a creature called the Gronk who likes to fold clothes and listen to Rodgers and Hammerstein songs.
   
   
3. Talia Carner, The Third Daughter. I read this for my long-running book club. The story involves a teenage girl who is trafficked to Buenos Aires under the guise of marrying a wealthy Jewish man. Instead, she spends five years in a brothel, where she learns about Tzvi Migdal, the pimps’ union, and gets involved in Baron de Hirsh’s organization which is trying to bring them down. It’s clear that Carner did a lot of research and the result is a satisfying (but disturbing) story.
   
   
4. Marcia Cohen Ferris, Matzoh Ball Gumbo. This book covers the history of Jewish life in Charleston / Savannah, New Orleans, Atlanta, the Mississippi Delta, and Memphis, with an emphasis on food. That includes a lot of non-kosher food, though there are discussions of kosher shops and delis and caterers. There’s also a lot of interesting material about the relationships between African-American cooks and the Jewish families they worked for. I had no desire to make any of the recipes included, but the book was worth a read, particularly for people who (like me) have a lot of Southern Jews in their family trees.
   
   
5. Giles Milton, Nathaniel’s Nutmeg. This is an interesting account of the economic battle between the Dutch East India Company and the Brtish crown over the island of Run. Nathaniel Courthope played only a minor role in this, but I guess alliteration helps marketability. The end result of the spice wars was Holland getting Run, essentially leading to controlling the Spice Islands, and the British getting an insignificant island named Manhattan in exchange. I thought this was a really interesting book and I think the members of my travel book club enjoyed discussing it.
   
   
6. Bill Bryson, The Road to Little Dribbling. Written in 2015, Bryson set out to revisit some places he had written about in Notes from a Small Island, as well as explore other parts of Great Britain. It’s very funny much of the time and often enlightening as Bryson records trivia about the some of the places he visits. Thoroughly delightful.
   
   
7. Sam Haines, 100 Curses on Trump and Musk. Sam Haines is a pseudonym used by Martin Berman-Gorvine for his humorous writing. This is a collection of Jewish curses (all in English, with many translated into Yiddish.) Many of them are just adaptations of familiar curses, e.g. “He should turn into a chandelier, to hang all day and burn all night.” My favorite was “May he turn into a centipede with ingrown toenails.” Mildly humorous, but overall this should have been much funnier.
   
   

Movies:

I saw two movies in theatres and 3 on airplanes this quarter.

1. The Penguin Lessons: This movie is based on Tom Michell’s member about his experiences teaching in Argentina during the 1976 coup. He rescued a penguin from an oil slick in Uruguay and brought it back to the school, where it helped Michell overcome his disillusionment with the school. There’s also the political situation in Argentina at the time to deal with. While it was advertised as a comedy, it won’t feel like one to anyone who knows anything about the history of Argentina. I recommend it, but bring plenty of tissues.
   
   
2. Eephus: I admit to being shallow. I went to see this movie entirely because of my boundless love for Bill “Spaceman” Lee, whose participation in it was heavily advertised. The expectations that were raised were, alas, unmet. In short, they gave the Spaceman pretty much nothing to do. He shows up mysteriously, pitches one inning, and disappears just as mysteriously. The movie is really about the friendships between men as seen in a final game before a ballpark in a small New England town is going to be demolished to make room for a new school. If you go in with that in mind, the movie isn’t terrible. But I was there for the Spaceman and I wanted more than 3 minutes of him.
   
   
3. A Complete Unknown: I had intended to see this in a movie theatre but never got around to it. So it was a natural choice to watch on my flight to Athens in June. It was reasonably interesting, but, sheesh, I didn’t realize Bob Dylan was such an asshole.
   
   
4. Conclave: I watched this on my flight back from Greece and found it very interesting. It was, of course, timely given the recent papal conclave. I found the political aspects very interesting. I also thought it was particularly well acted, which is hardly surprising with Ralph Fiennes in one of the starring roles. I did, however, find one aspect of the ending pretty unconvincing.
   
   
5. The Persian Version: I had some more time on my flight back from Greece and was getting a bit tired of reading. I’m not entirely sure why I chose to watch this semi-autobiographical film by Maryam Keshavaraz. It’s pretty weird. The main character, Leila, is a lesbian who ended up getting pregnant from a one night stand with her gay male friend. This leads her to try to reconcile with her mother and along the way she learns her mother’s story. There’s a lot going on and it’s sometimes hard to follow, but it does have funny moments and I liked the music, which includes a Persian version of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”
   

Goals:

My plans for a westward circumnavigation are progressing, but I haven’t booked anything yet.

I have tickets for 2 minor league baseball games.

I am about 2/3 of the way along on one crafts project.

I’ve read 18 books, so I am behind on my attempt to get to 80.

I still need to find the box with my parents’ slides.

I did find the last version of my life list so I should be able to update it soon.

My efforts to learn to read Hangul are progressing very slowly.

I’ve not really made any progress on organizing my genealogy files. Nor have I really done anything about going to any national parks. I had good intentions regarding cassette tapes but didn’t get further than taking out two to listen to before deciding on their fate.

In short, I’m behind, but, hey, I’ve been busy.

1. Do you have any piercings? When did you get them? I have no piercings. Nor do I have any interest in getting any.

2. What is the longest you've had a "borrowed" item but not been able to return it? Why not? No idea. I may have kept some item of jewelry I borrowed from my mother until after her death.

3. Consider some of the parents others had growing up. What type of person would you be if you had those situations? I think my parents were, in general, less strict than many of the other adults in our neighborhood. I think if I’d had some of our neighbors as parents, I wouldn’t have been able to go into the city alone as a teenager, for example. And I suspect I wouldn’t have been able to read some of the books that my parents had out openly on their shelves.

4. What about a goal makes you most likely to procrastinate? I’m most likely to procrastinate on things I’m not sure I can actually accomplish. There’s a thin line between fear of failure and fear or success.

5. What tempted me today? I don’t know what tempted you. But I was tempted to go back to sleep.

6. If you could learn any new language, which one would you choose and why? I’ve started doing Korean on Duolingo, with the aim of being able to read local signs in Hangul. Korean syntax is very confusing to me.

7. What’s one place that you would like to visit but never will? Why will you never go there? I wouldn’t say never, but I think it’s unlikely that I will ever make it to North Korea.

8. If you could be a color what would it be? Why? I am rather partial to teal.

9. Describe a babysitting experience you have had. I didn’t babysit frequently. There was one boy on our block who pretty much every girl babysat for once. Exactly once, because he was a total brat.

10. Have you actively changed your habits and behaviors to help the environment? What kinds of things do you do? The most obvious thing here is that I’ve gotten quite good about bringing my own bags when I go grocery shopping.

11. Who is a friend you haven't seen for a long time but would like to see. I just mentioned to another friend recently that it’s been ages since I’ve seen Frances.

12. What is your favorite month? Why? September, because that’s when my birthday is. And the weather is usually nice in most places.

13. What would happen if animals could talk? What are some of the questions you would like to ask animals? It depends on what kind of animal we’re considering. Cats are intelligent, but I doubt they’d converse about much other than food. I think that bears might have deep thoughts. The most tedious animals to talk with would obviously be elephants.

14. What does self-care mean to you? What are you fav ways to practice self care? How are these activities fulfilling to you? How can you prioritize self care more? Self-care means finding ways to find soothing and satisfaction without depending on other people for those. Reading and listening to music are high up on my self-care activities.

15. Do you have any food intolerances or allergies? I’m lactose intolerance, but not severely and, with the help of lact-aid, can handle reasonable amounts of gelato.

16. What in life gets you really excited? Traveling and crafts projects.

17. How would things change if you were okay disappointing others? I generally don’t really worry about disappointing other people. However, I try to avoid disappointing myself.

18. Whenever you order from a certain restaurant, do you have a specific thing you order each time? Do you always order something new? It’s somewhere in between. There’s a Thai restaurant I go to somewhat regularly and I tend to get the same appetizer all the time, but order different entrees.

19. What age would you consider the prime of life? Why? I have particularly good memories of my early 40’s.

20. Something new you’d like to try? I’ve seen a couple of interesting crochet stitches I’d like to try, e.g. cat stitch.

21. Milk chocolate or dark chocolate? Dark chocolate is my usual preference.

22. Have you ever played ice hockey? Do you know how to ice skate? I have no interest in playing ice hockey. Having had to play field hockey in elementary school was bad enough. I went ice skating a few times in elementary school, but I was never any good at it.

23. How did you meet your first boyfriend or girlfriend? It depends on how you define “first boyfriend.” The first boy who kissed me was someone I met at summer camp. But the person I consider my first real boyfriend, a categorization based largely on our level of sexual experimentation, I met as a teenager (10th grade if I recall correctly) at the Saturday science program I went to at Columbia University.

24. If you could build a car customized just for you, what would it contain? I am really boring when it comes to cars. I do admit that I like the idea of heated seats in the winter.

25. What was the first thing that you did when you got your driver's license? Rent a car on a trip to Los Angeles.

26. What is your strongest memory, as a child, of your parents and what were you all doing at the time? There are a lot of things I could choose, but I think the most interesting one was the family music nights we used to have. We’d all gather around Dad’s reel-to-reel tape recorder and sing and play instruments. Both my brother and I played the piano and I was the designated accompanist for my grandfather when he sang Yiddish songs. My mother was learning to play folk guitar from a program on PBS and we all sang along with her. Dad used to say that we had a very musical family and what he played was the hi-fi. Sadly, those old tapes were lost to eternity many years ago.

27. What music makes you want to get up and dance? Ther’s lots of music that falls into this category, but no single song encapsulates it as much as “Johnie Can’t Dance” by Wayne Toups and Zydecajun. Other possibilities include “L’Oranguta” by Pepe and the Bottle Blondes, “”Desi Girl” (from the Bollywood movie “Dostana,”), "La Bamba" by Richie Valens, and “I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar” by Jonathan Richman. Oh, and let’s not forget “Rock Lobster” by the B-52’s.

28. How has your upbringing, education, and environment affected your beliefs about money and wealth? I always understood that what is important is how you use your money to support what is most important to you. For example, my father sat down with me to help me make a budget when I started college.

29. What gives you confidence and why? It’s hard to say this without sounding arrogant, but I love getting positive feedback. There’s nothing quite like being told I’m really good at something.

30. Tell about a cultural clash/experience you have had with a culture other than your own. There are a lot of these since I’m part of a minority culture. One recent example that comes to mind is that I had a discussion with somebody who was complaining about not having been invited to a wedding rehearsal, which is something completely alien to me because it isn’t something Jewish people do.

I’m finally home for long enough to do some catching up here. Let’s fire up the wayback machine to March and the Women’s Storytelling Festival.


The 2025 Women’s Storytelling Festival was held March 20th through 23rd. Thursday the 20th was the virtual showcase, emceed by Bonnie Gardner, which I didn’t watch until a few days after the festival. First up in that showcase was Shani Womack, whose story had to do with the importance of community and interconnections, including members of her family. She was followed by Sarah Brady telling the story of Cassandra who had been given the gift of prophecy from Apollo but cursed not to be believed when she refused him. Janel Woodland focused on mother-daughter relationships as she, who had never wanted children, married a man with three children from a previous marriage. Her story involved a mall trip with her step-daughter and her mother and a funny prank. Sarah Beth Nelson brought us back to mythology with the legend of Medea. Finally, Karin Amano talked about difficulties with pregnancy and seeing an infertility specialist after losing a baby at 30 weeks.

The in-person show(s) started Friday night. Laura Packer started things off with a story about telling at a venue with an unusual dress code. She was followed by Toby Ishii Anderson with a story about her family’s experience with a Japanese internment camp. Andrea Kamens was next with a Chassidic story about how a rebbetzin brought light to a man who had been called "good-for-nothing." Then, Ingrid Nixon told her version of Hansel and Gretel, followed by a personal story about the secret to being a perfect daughter. Linda Gorham had a very funny story about the chocolate-loving Behr (not bear!) family. Jessica Piscitelli Robinson’s story was about telling at the Exchange Place at the National Storytelling Festival. Laura Deal closed the evening with a story about family health struggles. She also threw in a little bit of laughing yoga. All of this was was ably emceed by Kristin Pedemonti.

Saturday started off with a showcase featuring Carol Moore and Ingrid Nixon, with emcee Jeanna Lee. Carol talked about four women who influenced her - her mother, her boxing coach,her life coach,and her (paternal) grandmother. Ingrid started with a story about wanting to be Daniel Boone as a child, including having a buckskin jacket. Next she told the Grimm story about Godmother Death, which is one of my personal favorites. Then she told about being on a Russian icebreaker in the Arctic and seeing a polar bear, which she combined with an Inuit story about an old woman who adopts a polar bear cub as her son. She finished with a short piece about shopping for a gift for her mother in a five and dime.

The first Saturday afternoon showcase, emceed by Jenn White, started with Laura Deal, who told two stories - one about her ability to find things in her childhood home, including a pet turtle with an affection for an old pump organ - and one about a missing wedding ring. Aimee Snow had a story about her dream role in a show, playing opposite a guy she had a crush on. Laura Packer told a lovely and complex story involving her recurring characters, Crazy Jane and Red-Haired Annie. Then came Andrea Kamens with a story about her aunts, with a fairy tale twist. Finally, Sarah Snyder told a story about her mother’s death.

By the way, I was originally supposed to be in that session, but things were behind schedule so Jessica asked me to start off the next session instead, which was emceed by Fairfax mayor Catherine Read. I told my story “Berel the Baker,” which blends a Chelm story with a story about taking my mother to Poland to see the towns her parents were from. Next up was Linda Gorham, with a story about the music she grew up with and her struggles with singing in public, which led into a version of Rumpelstiltskin using Beatles songs. Toby Ishii Anderson continued with two stories about water - one about fly fishing and one about a tsunami. Ingrid Nixon finished off the session with a story about moving from Alaska to a small town in Washington state and having to cope with having to mow a lawn.

Saturday night’s session was emceed by Lauren Stephens. It started with Carol Moore whose story had to do with learning about menopause. Next up was Andrea Kamens with a twist on Little Red Riding Hood, from the perspective of the wolf. She was followed by Swapna Deshpande with a story about getting a pet snail to alleviate her melancholy as an empty nester. Then came Jennifer Hillery with a story about dealing with her father’s health issues. She was followed by Amanda Lawrence with a story about her son’s premature birth.

I was very tired at that point so I went home. I watched the end of the Saturday night show on-line a couple of weeks later. Laura Packer had a short and relatable piece about what she wanted to do when she grew up, which included paleontologist, a fireman, and the President. Jessica Robinson closed out the evening with an original folktale about gender roles.

Sunday’s program started with the story swap, where I fulfilled my traditional role as M.C. (which, in case you didn’t know, stands for “Miriam of Ceremonies.”) We had a wide mix of stories and I didn’t have to drag anyone off the stage, which is pretty much how I count success on this.

After the lunch break, Sherry Grimes emceed a showcase which started with Laura Packer telling a complex story about her aunt and Baba Yaga and encounters in the woods. She was followed by Ingrid Nixon with a story about a 13 year old girl who was rescued from a shipwreck in the Torres Strait and had to choose which life to live several years later. Linda Gorham closed out that session with a story about her grandparents and all the plastic in their house, with details related to her father’s deployment to Vietnam. She also told a short poem about waiting at red lights.

The finale showcase of the festival was emceed by Jamie McElhatton. First up was Linda Gorham with the Greek myth of Atalanta, which she likes to tell to middle school children. She finished off with a folk tale from Eastern Africa about a king who struggled to make a happy marriage. Then came Andrea Kamens with a story about a princess who refused to become queen until she was cured of being lame in one leg. Tobey Ishii Anderson was next with a story about making chains out of gum wrappers - and what happened to the chewed up gum. Then came Jessica Robinson, with a political metaphor about what happens when people don’t listen to the storytellers in their midst. Carol Moore’s story had to do with a training in the corporate world, which leads her to learning about sign language interpreting and the deaf community. Ingrid Nixon was the final teller for the festival, with a story about her father’s voice on a cassette tape.

I couldn’t really capture what the festival was like in person. Just trust me that there was a mix of traditional and modern, every possible mood, told by a wide range of women. And the best part of all is that we’re doing it again next year. We’d love to see you in March 2026 in Fairfax, Virginia. Or on-line if you can’t make it in person.

I started off 2025 with a lot of routine activities, e.g. playing Code Names (our favorite board game) over zoom with friends, the Grimm folktales discussion group, and my needlework group.

There was a Travelers’ Century Club meeting in early January, at which I happened to be sitting next to someone who was from the town where I went to high school (My home town still doesn’t have its own high school.) In February, there was an excellent Virtual Explorations presentation on Cybersecurity for Travelers, preceded by the Book Club discussion on A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks.

I was only able to go to part of Paul Joskow’s talk on Climate Change Policy in MIT Hillel’s Leading Jewish Minds series. The talks are recorded, but it is hard finding time to go back and watch recordings.

I made it to the February Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington meeting (over zoom), which focused on the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This was basically preparation for the upcoming IAJGS conference in Fort Wayne in August.

American Opera Initiative: My first excursion to the Kennedy Center this year was to see the annual American Opera Initiative, which consists of three 20-minute operas. The first one was Tati by composer Kyle Brenn and Librettist Lex Brown. The plot had to do with three people - an activist running from a criminal charge, a pregnant marine biologist who is the activist’s partner, and the investor who was responsible for the bioengineered blue whale the three of them are living in. The problem is that the whale is dying. The premise kept my interest and the music seemed to fit the theme well, so I thought this was fairly successful.

The second opera was Cry, Wolf by composer JL Marlor and librettist Clare Fuyuko Bierman. The plot had to do with a college student who wants a girlfriend. His brother is visiting and the two of them are influenced by an incel to be lone wolves. This was effectively creepy, particularly when they ended with a chorus of howling.

The final opera was Mud Girl by composer Omar Jajimi and librettist Christine Evans. The story has to do with two homeless women - one middle-aged (Maude) and one much younger (River) - who live under a bridge in a post-apocalyptic world. River creates an AI creature (named Poly) out of plastic trash. The gimmick was that Poly was played by 2 singers. This got the best reviews of the three, but I liked it the least. All three of the operas were dystopian, but this one had the least subtlety to it.

Stupid Accident: Early in February, I was meeting a friend who was visiting from out of town. We were going to have lunch at Immigrant Foods and go to Planet Word, which is an excellent museum about language. On the way there, after a detour because I was wrong about what street the museum is on, I face planted after tripping on a curb. I wasn’t seriously injured, but I sure looked beaten up. We did have a nice lunch and an even nicer chat, but I skipped the museum part.

Schmigadoon: In February, the Kennedy Center had a live version of Schmigadoon, which had been a 6 part series on Apple TV+. Since I am a hopeless musical theatre geek, of course I loved the series. Which meant that I had to see this on stage. Overall, it was reasonably true to the TV series, although Josh was played by Alex Brightman who, unlike Keegan-Michael Key who played the part on TV, is white. That meant that the interracial aspect of Josh’s relationship with Melissa (played by Sara Chase) was missing. There were also a few added songs. There are inherent differences between watching the show all in one piece versus over several weeks, so it felt a bit exhausting. But it was still a fun evening.

Continuing my catching up, let me do a couple of entries answering prompts before I get to things I've actually done.

1.What is your interpretation of one of your recent dreams? Unless I write it down right when I get up, I rarely remember a dream. I know I had a dream not too long ago that involved not being sure how I ended up where I was, but, given my notoriously terrible sense of direction, I don’t think that needs a lot of interpretation.

2.Do you still listen to CDs or cassette tapes? Yes, but not as much as I used to. And going through the cassette tapes is one of my goals for this year.

3.What is the earliest memory you have of a sibling? Since my only sibling is older than I am, he was always there to make my life miserable. Later on, I had hopes of having a younger sibling to torture the way my brother tortured me, but Mom had a miscarriage, so it was not to be.

4. Who is the one relative that you miss the most? There is so much I wish I’d been able to ask my father about.

5. If you could change one thing about my spouse/lover, what would you change? The top thing I’d change about the gentleman with whom I’m conducting the world’s longest running brief meaningless fling is getting him to actually use his hearing aids. I’ve given up on trying to get him to enjoy doing things he isn’t necessarily brilliant at.

6. Who has more power the government or the people? Theoretically, the people have more power since they elect the government. But we are in weird times right now.

7. How do you feel when you stare at the stars? I feel small, knowing I'm a minuscule part of the universe.

8. Has a friend ever broken something or yours? How did you react? I’m sure somebody must have broken something, most likely accidentally, but I can’t think of anything specific.

9. If you don't believe in reincarnation, forget about that for a minute. What would you like to be reincarnated as? What do you think you WOULD be reincarnated as, if karma had its way with you? I’d like to be reincarnated as a spoiled housecat. I have no idea what karma would have to say about it.

10. What's your favorite part of being you? My sense of humor.

11. How would you be different if you had never watched television? I’d miss even more popular cultural references than I already do. (I don’t watch a lot of television and there are many popular shows I know nothing about.)

12. Who do you trust the most and why? My friend, Kim, because she is level-headed and knows me well.

13. Do you belong/have you belonged to a club or an organization? I belong to several organizations, primarily associated with storytelling and with genealogy.

14. Tell about a time you slept outdoors. When I went to summer camp in the early 1970’s, we had a couple of overnight trips where we slept outside. But the more significant experience was the big overland trip in Africa I took in 1998. I’d never slept in a tent before, since at summer camp the overnights always got canceled if there was any chance of rain. But that doesn’t work if you are traveling for several weeks. I actually came to quite like the experience, though I have to admit to not being crazy about setting up and taking down a tent in the rain.

15. Tell about a habit that you picked up from a family member or friend. I think my bad habit of stacking mail on my kitchen table and not looking at it for weeks was inherited from my mother.

16. What was your favorite family dinner as a child? My mother was one of the world’s greatest bargain hunters and she once bought 12 cases of borscht (24 bottles per case) at a public television auction. There is no better meal in the summer than borscht with sour cream and potatoes. Mom usually also served tuna croquettes with this, but I think it is sufficient on its own.

17. Do you have a favorite time of day? Why? I have odd sleep habits and I really enjoy the early morning (say, about 3 a.m.) when I get up for a few hours and do puzzles and read before having breakfast and going back to sleep.

18. What is the worst thing parents can do to their children? Tell them what to do without really trying to understand what their interests are. I was a rebellious enough child not to be really hurt by this, but I think my brother suffered a lot from my parents pushing him towards certain college majors and not letting him take a semester off, which led to him just not going to classes and failing everything that term.

19. What makes you laugh? I love atrocious puns.

20. If you were lost in the woods and it got dark, what would you do? Try to find a reasonably protected place to spend the night.

21. How do you manage your tasks each day? I make lists of things I need to do. I then go and ignore much of what is on those lists, alas, and waste time on-line.

22. Do you feel obligated to reciprocate when someone gives you a gift or offers you a nice gesture? Why or why not? It depends on the circumstances. I do try to reciprocate when friends offer me things for particular occasions, but I also sometimes buy something for someone just because it made me think of them and I don’t expect reciprocation for that.

23. Do you like leftovers? It depends on what they are. In general, I feel obliged to use up leftovers unless they were terrible.

24. What does financial freedom mean to you? It mostly means not having to watch every penny, but still making sure I can comfortably live within my means.

25. How did you feel when you woke up this morning? A bit stressed about how many things I wanted to get done today.

26. If something is forbidden, do you want it less, or more? It really depends on what it is. There are some places I’d really like to go to but don’t feel I can for various reasons (either legal or safety), so that is something I may want more. But I also pride myself on being law-abiding, so that makes me want some things less.

27. What is one thing you would like to implement in your life? Why haven’t you done it yet? I’d like to have a more regular schedule, but the amount of time I spend traveling makes that challenging.

28. What major "plot twist" moment have you had in your life? I suppose that the world’s longest running brief meaningless fling is a good example of a plot twist. In my twenties, I expected I would live a more typical life of marriage and children and suburbia. Well, I do live in (inner) suburbia.

29. Do you believe in fate? Do you believe you’ve ever experienced fate? Do you think you have a destiny? I think we create our own fate to a large extent.

30. What do you do to stay focused? Staying focused is definitely not one of my strong points.

31. What are your 5 bucket list items? Just five? I have a life list of about 100 items (plus ones I have already achieved). Many of them involve travel to specific places. I really need to update the list and that’s one of my goals for this year.