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November 2023 Prompts - Part 1
1 – Extra Mile Day: When was the last time you went the extra mile for someone, or someone went the extra mile for you? Tell us about it. I think this is mostly a matter of being willing to provide a listening ear (and, in some cases, travel-related advice) to friends.
2 – Stress Awareness Day: How stressful is your everyday life? How well do you deal with stress? Do you have any tried-and-true strategies for handling stress? Normally, my life isn’t particularly stressful, but the past couple of months were bad with dealing with the whole Medicare kerfuffle, which was caused by one person not doing her job and another person being too lazy to figure that out. I don’t really handle stress all that well. Mostly I try to distract myself by listening to music or hanging out with friends (either in person or on-line). But I also tend to overeat and sleep too much. Getting out for long walks is far more effective.
3 – Sandwich Day: Do you like sandwiches? What's your favourite sandwich filling? I do like sandwiches, since they are convenient and don’t create a lot of dishes to wash. A few of my favorites are hummus with roasted red peppers on whole wheat bread topped with sliced cucumbers, sliced tongue on deli rye with brown mustard, and a tuna salad sub with onions, pickles, and banana peppers.
4 – Candy Day: Do you have a sweet tooth? What's your favourite candy? I have more of a sweet tooth than is good for me. I like most chocolate, with my favorite chocolate bar being the 5 Star Hazelnut Bar from Lake Champlain Chocolate. But my very favorite candy doesn’t involve chocolate at all. It’s honey sesame crunch bars that you can get at nut stores, usually in small individually wrapped bars.
5 – Zero Tasking Day: The extra hour we get when daylight savings times change is often heralded as an opportunity for extra productivity, activity and ‘doing’. However, given that we’re all already ‘owed’ an hour every other time it changes, it seems a little unfair to expect us to work through it – as such, Zero Tasking Day is designed to dedicate this hour to ‘me time’, encouraging rest, relaxation and a distinct lack of work. How will you spend (or did you spend if you changed your clocks before this weekend), your extra hour? If you live somewhere that doesn't observe daylight savings time, what would you do if you had an extra hour of 'me time’? The time change is more or less irrelevant to me since I’m retired. And, since it happens on a weekend, it is particularly irrelevant. I just sleep more and read more and the like.
6 – Job Action Day: It is often suggested that people should focus on finding a job that they love. Today it is suggested that you should take your passions and bring them to the job you have, i.e. find a way to instill your love and passion for a particular career into any work you come into. Do you think this is good advice? The best job advice I ever got was to bear in mind that every job has some level of routine tasks associated with it, so you should find something to do where you don’t mind those routine activities. For example, when I was working, I really enjoyed opportunities for troubleshooting or for figuring out how to approach some major new issue, but I had to deal with writing a lot of reports. The routine reporting was annoying, but tolerable, so I was mostly satisfied.
7 – Hug a Bear Day: How do you feel about stuffed toys? Did you have a favourite teddy bear or other stuffed toy as a child? Do you have one now? I love stuffed animals. When I was a child, my brother and I were generally given his and hers plushies. For example, we had stuffed bunnies named Jack and Jackie (as in Kennedy.) Anyway, I have a couple of teddy bears. My favorite, who is actually a successor to a childhood bear, is Theodora, who I have been known to sleep with and hug at times. (I also have Edgar, who only becomes chief bed bear when I am planning travel to extreme northern places.)
8 – Eating Healthy Day: How do you define eating healthily? Do you consider your diet to be healthy? In general, eating healthy means eating foods that are found in nature, without additives and excessive processing. I go through phases as to how good I am at that. When I’m very busy and/or depressed, I eat too many refined foods.
9 – British Pudding Day: Have you ever had British pudding? What is your favourite type of pudding? My understanding is that British puddings are generally steamed or boiled. But they also use the term “pudding” to refer to any dessert. And then there is stuff like Yorkshire pudding, which is, essentially, what Americans call popovers. I’ve eaten some of those things. I also like the sort of baked puddings that Americans also eat, e.g. bread pudding or rice pudding. I think that grape nut pudding and hasty pudding (made with cornmeal and also called Indian pudding) are uniquely American, especially since I think most Indian pudding is sweetened with maple syrup. And then there is kugel, the Jewish variant made in both sweet and savory versions. (Usually potato kugel is savory, but noodle kugel could be either. Typically the dairy version, which adds cottage cheese and sour cream is sweet, while there are savory versions with onions and mushrooms.)
10 – November is National Novel Writing Month: Have you ever taken part in National Novel Writing Month? How did it go? I’ve ignored NaNoWriMo, because I know my obsessive tendencies and I’d never get anything else done if I attempted it.
11 – Origami Day: Have you ever done origami? I’ve done a little bit of origami. I know how to turn old business cards into jumping frogs, for example.
12 – International Tongue Twister Day: Are you good at tongue twisters? What's your favourite tongue twister? And to take a different meaning of tongue twister, can you literally twist or crinkle the edge your tongue? I am reasonably good at tongue twisters and even tell one that is over 200 words long. My favorite, however, is only three words - “unique New York.” As for being able to twist or curl the edge of my tongue, I think I can to some extent, but not as much as some people can.
13 – World Kindness Day: What was the last kind thing someone did for you? What was the last kind thing you did for someone else? I can’t think of anything specific. It’s more or less along the lines of question 1 - listening to what I had to say or my listening to them.
14 – Loosen Up Lighten Up Day: Do you need to loosen up or lighten up? I think I could stand to loosen up my neck and shoulders. And I could stand to lose about 40 pounds. Metaphorically, I’m good.
15 – Recycling Day: Do you recycle? I put appropriate things (bottles, cans, paper) in our recycling bins.
16 – Button Day: Do you have a stash of buttons? Does or did someone in your family have such a collection? I think I have a ziplock bag of buttons in the lower drawer of my sewing box, but I’m too lazy to get it out to check.
17 – Take a Hike Day: When was the last time you took a hike? I’m not sure how to distinguish between a hike and just a walk. I think I can count a walk along a trail, even in a nearby park, as a hike, in which case the answer is probably a couple of weeks ago.
18 – Princess Day: What is your opinion of Disney princesses? How do you feel about real life princesses? I am not a big fan of Disney and, in particular, I dislike that Disney princesses are primarily all about finding their prince. To be fair, I’ve heard that some of the more recent Disney movies aren’t like that, but I tend to watch edgier movies so I don’t really know. I can’t say I know much about real life princesses either, though the media coverage still basically treats them as brood mares and charity shills.
19 – Play Monopoly Day: Have you ever played Monopoly? Did you enjoy it? My family played board games, including Monopoly, a lot when I was growing up. I also played Monopoly with my suitemates in college. In particular, I remember our playing many many hours of it during the Blizzard of ’78. We also had a custom-made version at one of my jobs, in which the squares related to different tasks we had to do and different offices we had to interact with.
20 – Name Your PC Day: Does your PC (or laptop) have a name? I’ve never named my computer(s). I’m fairly sure that the only inanimate objects I’ve named have been vehicles, i.e. cars and bicycles.
21 – World Television Day: Did you watch TV as a child? Do you still watch TV? How much TV do you watch per week on average? I watched a lot of television as a child. Things I remember in particular were variety shows (starting with Ed Sullivan and, oh, the privilege of getting to stay up if he was going to have Topo Gigio on), various sitcoms (from things like The Munsters and The Addams Family to All in the Family and M*A*S*H), Dark Shadows (the only soap opera I ever got into) and, of course, baseball. I didn’t have a TV as an undergraduate, but my parents bought me one when I was in grad school and I watched stuff like Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, and Remington Steele. I watch very little TV now, limited to what is available on streaming services. Most recently I watched Schmicago, which was the second season of Schmigadoon - and, at least as entertaining. I also really liked Better Off Ted, which sadly only lasted two seasons. But, in general, I’m too busy with live entertainment to watch TV.
22 – Go For a Ride Day: Do you ride anything? e.g. horse, motorcycle, sled, etc. When was the last time you rode? I used to ride a bike a lot. But I’m intimidated by urban bicycling so it’s been some time.
23 – Espresso Day: Do you drink coffee? How do you drink your coffee? I drink one cup of coffee most mornings. I grind the beans myself, use a Melitta filter, i.e. a cone pourover, system most of the time. Ssometimes, I use a Vietnamese drip filter which I bought for a quarter in the market in Saigon several years ago, but that takes more effort to clean. I drink it black. If coffee were meant to have cream and sugar, the beans would grow that way. On the rare occasions when I drink Turkish coffee (and, yes, I know how to use an ibrik to make it) I may add cardamom.
24 – Flossing Day: Do you floss regularly? I try to floss daily.
25 – Shopping Reminder Day: Shopping Reminder Day falls roughly a month before Christmas, and as such it’s the perfect reminder to go ahead and get started on all of your holiday shopping. How do you feel about holiday shopping? Do you need a reminder to go shopping for holiday gifts? Holiday shopping is pretty much irrelevant to me.
26 – Cake Day: Cake or pie? Or something else? It depends on the sort of cake or pie. In general, I favor cream pies (e.g. chocolate cream pie, coconut cream pie, or lemon meringue pie), which probably reflects a preference for custards and puddings over other desserts.
27 – Pins and Needles Day: Can you sew, either by hand or by machine? What was the last thing you sewed? I know how to sew both by hand and by machine. But, aside from minor mending, like sewing on a button or fixing a seam or hem, I haven’t sewn anything in years.
28 – French Toast Day: Do you like French toast? I do, but I can’t remember the last time I made it.
29 – Throw Out Your Leftovers Day: How do you feel about leftovers? Are you happy to eat the same food more than once in a row, or do you crave variety in your diet? Do you take leftovers home from a restaurant when/if you eat out? Since I live alone, I often make enough food at a time for multiple meals and freeze individual portions. The last couple of times I ate out, I did take about half my food home because I wasn’t hungry enough to finish it and didn’t want to waste it. If I’d been eating in the city, I might have followed the lead of one of my friends and given the leftovers to a homeless person, but there aren’t many homeless people out here in suburbia.
30 – Stay Home Because You’re Well Day: Have you ever taken a mental health day from your job, or just decided not to go to work even though you weren't sick, because you felt like staying home or for some other reason? I had enough schedule flexibility when I was working that I didn’t really need to do that.
2 – Stress Awareness Day: How stressful is your everyday life? How well do you deal with stress? Do you have any tried-and-true strategies for handling stress? Normally, my life isn’t particularly stressful, but the past couple of months were bad with dealing with the whole Medicare kerfuffle, which was caused by one person not doing her job and another person being too lazy to figure that out. I don’t really handle stress all that well. Mostly I try to distract myself by listening to music or hanging out with friends (either in person or on-line). But I also tend to overeat and sleep too much. Getting out for long walks is far more effective.
3 – Sandwich Day: Do you like sandwiches? What's your favourite sandwich filling? I do like sandwiches, since they are convenient and don’t create a lot of dishes to wash. A few of my favorites are hummus with roasted red peppers on whole wheat bread topped with sliced cucumbers, sliced tongue on deli rye with brown mustard, and a tuna salad sub with onions, pickles, and banana peppers.
4 – Candy Day: Do you have a sweet tooth? What's your favourite candy? I have more of a sweet tooth than is good for me. I like most chocolate, with my favorite chocolate bar being the 5 Star Hazelnut Bar from Lake Champlain Chocolate. But my very favorite candy doesn’t involve chocolate at all. It’s honey sesame crunch bars that you can get at nut stores, usually in small individually wrapped bars.
5 – Zero Tasking Day: The extra hour we get when daylight savings times change is often heralded as an opportunity for extra productivity, activity and ‘doing’. However, given that we’re all already ‘owed’ an hour every other time it changes, it seems a little unfair to expect us to work through it – as such, Zero Tasking Day is designed to dedicate this hour to ‘me time’, encouraging rest, relaxation and a distinct lack of work. How will you spend (or did you spend if you changed your clocks before this weekend), your extra hour? If you live somewhere that doesn't observe daylight savings time, what would you do if you had an extra hour of 'me time’? The time change is more or less irrelevant to me since I’m retired. And, since it happens on a weekend, it is particularly irrelevant. I just sleep more and read more and the like.
6 – Job Action Day: It is often suggested that people should focus on finding a job that they love. Today it is suggested that you should take your passions and bring them to the job you have, i.e. find a way to instill your love and passion for a particular career into any work you come into. Do you think this is good advice? The best job advice I ever got was to bear in mind that every job has some level of routine tasks associated with it, so you should find something to do where you don’t mind those routine activities. For example, when I was working, I really enjoyed opportunities for troubleshooting or for figuring out how to approach some major new issue, but I had to deal with writing a lot of reports. The routine reporting was annoying, but tolerable, so I was mostly satisfied.
7 – Hug a Bear Day: How do you feel about stuffed toys? Did you have a favourite teddy bear or other stuffed toy as a child? Do you have one now? I love stuffed animals. When I was a child, my brother and I were generally given his and hers plushies. For example, we had stuffed bunnies named Jack and Jackie (as in Kennedy.) Anyway, I have a couple of teddy bears. My favorite, who is actually a successor to a childhood bear, is Theodora, who I have been known to sleep with and hug at times. (I also have Edgar, who only becomes chief bed bear when I am planning travel to extreme northern places.)
8 – Eating Healthy Day: How do you define eating healthily? Do you consider your diet to be healthy? In general, eating healthy means eating foods that are found in nature, without additives and excessive processing. I go through phases as to how good I am at that. When I’m very busy and/or depressed, I eat too many refined foods.
9 – British Pudding Day: Have you ever had British pudding? What is your favourite type of pudding? My understanding is that British puddings are generally steamed or boiled. But they also use the term “pudding” to refer to any dessert. And then there is stuff like Yorkshire pudding, which is, essentially, what Americans call popovers. I’ve eaten some of those things. I also like the sort of baked puddings that Americans also eat, e.g. bread pudding or rice pudding. I think that grape nut pudding and hasty pudding (made with cornmeal and also called Indian pudding) are uniquely American, especially since I think most Indian pudding is sweetened with maple syrup. And then there is kugel, the Jewish variant made in both sweet and savory versions. (Usually potato kugel is savory, but noodle kugel could be either. Typically the dairy version, which adds cottage cheese and sour cream is sweet, while there are savory versions with onions and mushrooms.)
10 – November is National Novel Writing Month: Have you ever taken part in National Novel Writing Month? How did it go? I’ve ignored NaNoWriMo, because I know my obsessive tendencies and I’d never get anything else done if I attempted it.
11 – Origami Day: Have you ever done origami? I’ve done a little bit of origami. I know how to turn old business cards into jumping frogs, for example.
12 – International Tongue Twister Day: Are you good at tongue twisters? What's your favourite tongue twister? And to take a different meaning of tongue twister, can you literally twist or crinkle the edge your tongue? I am reasonably good at tongue twisters and even tell one that is over 200 words long. My favorite, however, is only three words - “unique New York.” As for being able to twist or curl the edge of my tongue, I think I can to some extent, but not as much as some people can.
13 – World Kindness Day: What was the last kind thing someone did for you? What was the last kind thing you did for someone else? I can’t think of anything specific. It’s more or less along the lines of question 1 - listening to what I had to say or my listening to them.
14 – Loosen Up Lighten Up Day: Do you need to loosen up or lighten up? I think I could stand to loosen up my neck and shoulders. And I could stand to lose about 40 pounds. Metaphorically, I’m good.
15 – Recycling Day: Do you recycle? I put appropriate things (bottles, cans, paper) in our recycling bins.
16 – Button Day: Do you have a stash of buttons? Does or did someone in your family have such a collection? I think I have a ziplock bag of buttons in the lower drawer of my sewing box, but I’m too lazy to get it out to check.
17 – Take a Hike Day: When was the last time you took a hike? I’m not sure how to distinguish between a hike and just a walk. I think I can count a walk along a trail, even in a nearby park, as a hike, in which case the answer is probably a couple of weeks ago.
18 – Princess Day: What is your opinion of Disney princesses? How do you feel about real life princesses? I am not a big fan of Disney and, in particular, I dislike that Disney princesses are primarily all about finding their prince. To be fair, I’ve heard that some of the more recent Disney movies aren’t like that, but I tend to watch edgier movies so I don’t really know. I can’t say I know much about real life princesses either, though the media coverage still basically treats them as brood mares and charity shills.
19 – Play Monopoly Day: Have you ever played Monopoly? Did you enjoy it? My family played board games, including Monopoly, a lot when I was growing up. I also played Monopoly with my suitemates in college. In particular, I remember our playing many many hours of it during the Blizzard of ’78. We also had a custom-made version at one of my jobs, in which the squares related to different tasks we had to do and different offices we had to interact with.
20 – Name Your PC Day: Does your PC (or laptop) have a name? I’ve never named my computer(s). I’m fairly sure that the only inanimate objects I’ve named have been vehicles, i.e. cars and bicycles.
21 – World Television Day: Did you watch TV as a child? Do you still watch TV? How much TV do you watch per week on average? I watched a lot of television as a child. Things I remember in particular were variety shows (starting with Ed Sullivan and, oh, the privilege of getting to stay up if he was going to have Topo Gigio on), various sitcoms (from things like The Munsters and The Addams Family to All in the Family and M*A*S*H), Dark Shadows (the only soap opera I ever got into) and, of course, baseball. I didn’t have a TV as an undergraduate, but my parents bought me one when I was in grad school and I watched stuff like Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, and Remington Steele. I watch very little TV now, limited to what is available on streaming services. Most recently I watched Schmicago, which was the second season of Schmigadoon - and, at least as entertaining. I also really liked Better Off Ted, which sadly only lasted two seasons. But, in general, I’m too busy with live entertainment to watch TV.
22 – Go For a Ride Day: Do you ride anything? e.g. horse, motorcycle, sled, etc. When was the last time you rode? I used to ride a bike a lot. But I’m intimidated by urban bicycling so it’s been some time.
23 – Espresso Day: Do you drink coffee? How do you drink your coffee? I drink one cup of coffee most mornings. I grind the beans myself, use a Melitta filter, i.e. a cone pourover, system most of the time. Ssometimes, I use a Vietnamese drip filter which I bought for a quarter in the market in Saigon several years ago, but that takes more effort to clean. I drink it black. If coffee were meant to have cream and sugar, the beans would grow that way. On the rare occasions when I drink Turkish coffee (and, yes, I know how to use an ibrik to make it) I may add cardamom.
24 – Flossing Day: Do you floss regularly? I try to floss daily.
25 – Shopping Reminder Day: Shopping Reminder Day falls roughly a month before Christmas, and as such it’s the perfect reminder to go ahead and get started on all of your holiday shopping. How do you feel about holiday shopping? Do you need a reminder to go shopping for holiday gifts? Holiday shopping is pretty much irrelevant to me.
26 – Cake Day: Cake or pie? Or something else? It depends on the sort of cake or pie. In general, I favor cream pies (e.g. chocolate cream pie, coconut cream pie, or lemon meringue pie), which probably reflects a preference for custards and puddings over other desserts.
27 – Pins and Needles Day: Can you sew, either by hand or by machine? What was the last thing you sewed? I know how to sew both by hand and by machine. But, aside from minor mending, like sewing on a button or fixing a seam or hem, I haven’t sewn anything in years.
28 – French Toast Day: Do you like French toast? I do, but I can’t remember the last time I made it.
29 – Throw Out Your Leftovers Day: How do you feel about leftovers? Are you happy to eat the same food more than once in a row, or do you crave variety in your diet? Do you take leftovers home from a restaurant when/if you eat out? Since I live alone, I often make enough food at a time for multiple meals and freeze individual portions. The last couple of times I ate out, I did take about half my food home because I wasn’t hungry enough to finish it and didn’t want to waste it. If I’d been eating in the city, I might have followed the lead of one of my friends and given the leftovers to a homeless person, but there aren’t many homeless people out here in suburbia.
30 – Stay Home Because You’re Well Day: Have you ever taken a mental health day from your job, or just decided not to go to work even though you weren't sick, because you felt like staying home or for some other reason? I had enough schedule flexibility when I was working that I didn’t really need to do that.