fauxklore

Why, yes, I am still having trouble with my attention span.

I must have done something in October, but most of it was not particularly memorable. There were the usual meetings involving storytelling and crafts and board games and such. And, of course, the Jewish holidays took up a lot of time. I think I saw the movie Small Things Like These, which Cindy was interested in because of her childhood Catholic school trauma. We might have seen it in November. Anyway, the movie is about the Magdalene Laundries and the control exerted by the nuns in a small town. It was well-acted, but depressing.

The biggest thing I did in October was take a quick trip to San Francisco to go to the Moby Dick Marathon at the Maritime Museum there. You may recall I had been to the New Bedford, Massachusetts Moby Dick Marathon previously. This is a much smaller event, but was still fun. It was reasonably well-organized, as they had people sign up for specific chapters in advance. (I chose Chapter 8, The Pulpit.) I would go to this again. (I’d also go to New Bedford again. And there is a Moby Dick Marathon in Mystic, Connecticut, too. And possibly one in Sag Harbor, New York. It’s a book well suited to marathon reading and not only because of its length.) If I do go again, I'll be able to plan better and spend more time actually exploring the museum.

The major problem I had was that my knee, which had been doing better, had started hurting badly again, probably because of the long walk through IAD. That also led to my sleeping badly, so I only lasted until about 6:30 at night, which was disappointing. But so it goes.

1 SEPT: World Letter Writing Day: When’s the last time you wrote a letter? Most years, I do letter writing month in February. I don’t think I managed it this year, however, because it was a particularly busy month.

2 SEPT: World Coconut Day. Coconut. Yay or nay? It depends. I like coconut cream pie, for example. And I like coconut in some vegetable curries. But there are other flavors I like better.

3 SEPT: Cinema Day: What are the benefits and drawbacks of watching movies in a movie theatre? I have an excellent movie theatre close to where I live, which shows a mixture of mainstream and independent movies. I see a lot of movies there that wouldn’t really be available to me in other venues.

4 SEPT: Spice Blend Day: What’s your favorite curry? I am not really sure how to define curry for these purposes. In general, I like medium heat and like both Thai and Indian flavors. In terms of things I am likely to make, aloo gobi is one of my mainstays.

5 SEPT: Be Late for Something Day: Are you a punctual person? I try to be, mostly because I think it’s rude to keep other people waiting.

6 SEPT: Dog Walker Appreciation Day: Would you like to be a professional dog walker? Definitely not. I am not crazy about most dogs to begin with and cleaning up after them is not my idea of a good time.

7 SEPT: World Beard Day: What’s the most famous beard you can think of? The first thing that came to mind was the brothers on the Luden’s cough drop box. If I remember correctly, we believed that their names were Trade” and “Mark.”

8 SEPT: Iguana Awareness Day: Would you ever keep an iguana as a pet? I don’t really know anything about how to care for iguanas.

9 SEPT: Wonderful Weirdos Day: Who is the most wonderful weirdo you know? Oh, so many people to choose from. I could write a whole treatise on Loserdom, for example.

10 SEPT: Swap Ideas Day: Do you have someone you swap ideas with? Not on a regular basis, alas. I have a couple of friends I can exchange some ideas with, but not it’s more on a now and then basis.

11 SEPT: Libraries Remember Day: Do you have a favorite library? My local library is just okay. But it is conveniently located.

12 SEPT: School Picture Day: Do you have a favorite school picture (yours or someone else’s)? I probably have one somewhere, but not easily findable right now.

13 SEPT: Bald is Beautiful Day: Is bald beautiful? Bald heads look good on some people, but wouldn’t suit me at all.

14 SEPT: Fall Astronomy Day: Do you have a favorite planet or constellation? I’ve always rather liked Saturn. The rings are so pretty.

15 SEPT: Cheese Toast Day: Have you ever had cheese toast? I’m not sure what that means. Is it what I would call “grilled cheese”? I am not, in general, much of a cheese eater.

16 SEPT: Guacamole Day: Do you have a favorite way to eat guacamole or a favorite recipe? I’m not really crazy about guacamole. I don’t like mushy foods, in general.

17 SEPT: Voter Registration Day: Do you vote? I have voted in every election for which I was eligible to vote.

18 SEPT: Cheeseburger Day: Would cheeseburgers be served in your version of paradise? Again, my body doesn’t handle cheese well, so no.

19 SEPT: Talk like a Pirate Day: What would you do if you were a pirate? Learn to speak Somali? (And, yes, I’ve made that joke before.)

20 SEPT: International Day of University Sport: Do you follow a college team? Did you play sports in college? I don’t pay attention to college sports at all. I played casual intramural sports, but nothing serious. I was more into dancing.

21 SEPT: Gymnastics Day: Can you or could you ever do a cartwheel? I never succeeded at doing anything gymnastic, least of all cartwheels.

22 SEPT: Hobbit Day: What’s your favorite Hobbit? I suppose Samwise Gamgee, for his loyalty to Frodo.

23 SEPT: Pot Pie Day: Do you like meat pies? Pot pies are something I like once in a while.

24 SEPT: Punctuation Day: What’s your favorite punctuation mark? I probably overuse semicolons. I also like the interrobang, but admit I have never found a good reason to actually use one.

25 SEPT: World Pharmacists Day: Do you know your pharmacist? I handle prescriptions via mail order so I pretty much never see a pharmacist.

26 SEPT: Johnny Appleseed Day: What’s your favorite type of apple? It depends. For just eating, I will go with honey crisp. But for baking I like tarter flavors, so would go with granny smith or maybe even a more classic older variety like Cortland or Winesap.

27 SEPT: Bakery Day: Do you have a favorite local bakery? It’s a very occasional thing, but there’s a very good pie bakery (called Pie Gourmet) in my neighborhood).

28 SEPT: Good Neighbor Day: Are you a good neighbor? I try to be.

29 SEPT: Coffee Day: What’s your favorite coffee drink? I stick to a medium roast pour over, for the most part.

30 SEPT: Orange Shirt Day: Do you own an orange shirt? I don’t think so.

1. How Often Does Your Family Eat Together? Given that both or my parents are long gone and my brother lives at the other end of the country, it’s pretty rare.

2. Is ‘Be Yourself’ Bad Advice? It’s sometimes okay advice, but not always a good idea since I can be pretty bitchy at times.

3. What’s Your Comfort Food? A large bowl of blueberries or strawberries with sour cream.

4. How Good a Friend Are You? I try to support my friends to the extent that I can.

5. Do You Think You’ve Forged Your Lifelong Taste in Music? Most people who know me well, know my tastes. But I am always willing to discover music I wasn’t familiar with before.

6. How Well Do You Take Criticism? It depends on what I’m being criticized about. But, in general, I know what my flaws are.

7. What City or Town Most Captures Your Imagination? This is tricky. There are some cities that will never wear out their welcome in my heart, ranging from Bruges to Bologna to Boston. And there are many cities that invite me to sit on a park bench drawing little sketches and just wandering and watching people.

8. Is It Possible to Start Out Poor in Your Country, Work Hard and Become Well-Off? It used to be. My father survived the Kaunas Ghetto and Dachau and was eventually able to come to the U.S. and go to City College of New York (known in our house as “the Harvard of the Proletariat”). I hope I’ve fulfilled part of what he hoped for.

9. What Food Would You Like to Judge in a Taste-Off? Sorbet.

10. Has Anyone Ever Said That You Look Like Someone Famous? Do You Resemble Your Parents? I have my mother’s coloring and (alas) my father’s hair.

11. What Are Some Recent Moments of Happiness in Your Life? This is pretty lame, but I did get new flannel sheets. Also, I had a very nice dinner at a Nepali restaurant in my neighborhood that I hadn’t been to before.

12. Do You Pay Attention to Nutrition Labels on Food? I do to some extent, but I make exceptions for things like really good chocolate.

13. Are You a Saver or a Tosser? I am descended from generations of hoarders.

14. Does What You Wear Say Anything About You as a Person? I have a bit of a split personality as far as my wardrobe goes. I enjoy playing dress-up, but I also often just throw on whatever is handy if I’m not going out anywhere in particular.

15. What Are You Good At? I’m a good storyteller and a good craftswoman.

16. How Closely Do You Listen to Lyrics? I try to listen closely to lyrics, depending somewhat on whose lyrics they are. When I was growing up, we used to get magazines of song lyrics and I memorized lots of them.

17. Do You Root For Any Sports Teams? Anyone who knows me at all, knows of my undying love for the Red Sox.

18. What Era Do You Wish You Had Lived In? This is tricky. I think we’ve only had a few brief periods that didn’t completely suck. For example, the 1920’s sounds entertaining in many ways, but prohibition couldn’t have been any fun and women were still struggling to get basic rights and, of course, the depression ensued. The 1950’s had some hope, but was accompanied by the threat of nuclear annihilation. There were good years, maybe even a good decade or too here and there, but, oh, come on, you know what disastrous governments we’ve had to face. About all I can hope for is that things get better in the future.

19. How Do You Cope With Grief? There’s really not much you can do but just power through grief. You do what you have to and realize that eventually you will get where you need to be.

20. What Are You Listening To? I’m not listening to anything in particular right now. I have a grand plan for going through various music recordings and sorting out ones to get rid of, but I’ve made no progress on that.

21. How Impulsive Are You? I tend to be more of a planner, for the most part. I will do short term things (e.g. buying tickets to a show) on the spur of the moment, but I generally prefer having more structure.

22. What Was Your Favourite Fairy Tale or Nursery Rhyme? It’s really hard to choose one. As a child, I was rather partial to Norse mythology, though I don’t really have a good reason for that. I’m also very fond of stories involving fools, many of whom are, of course, far from foolish.

23. What Is Your Fantasy Vacation? Do I get to control the weather for this vacation? Seriously, I’m always happy to go somewhere I’ve never been before. Ideally, somewhere with some interesting architecture, pleasant walking paths, friendly locals, and good coffee.

24. How Much Do You Curse? Too much, actually.

25. What Buildings Do You Love? What Buildings Do You Hate? I hate brutalist architecture. As for buildings I love, the Chrysler Building is the most beautiful skyscraper in the world. I should probably note that I love art deco in general and I’ve been privileged to go to a number of cities with excellent collections of art deco buildings, e.g. Riga (Latvia), and Alesund (Norway).

26. Given Unlimited Resources, What Scientific or Medical Problem Would You Investigate? Probably something having to do with aging.

27. Have You Ever Felt Pressured to Betray Your Beliefs? Not really, though I’ve sometimes felt uncomfortable talking about my beliefs.

28. What Famous Landmarks Have You Visited? Lots of them, including Stonehenge, the Taj Mahal, Machu Picchu, Eater Island, the Western Wall, Venice, etc.

29. What Are Your Healthy Habits? I try t get out and walk every day, though I don’t always succeed.

30. Tell Me Three Good Things That Happened This Week 1) I got a few things cleared off my desk, 2) I got somewhat caught up on sleep, 3) I started getting caught up on writing here.

I've been trying to get caught up on writing here, but I seem to have misplaced my attention span. I finally decided it was best to just write what I could and if that means a slow and not terribly interesting catch-up, so be it.

I played board games (over zoom) with friends at least once. Probably more than once, but I lost track of things.My other standing meetings include my needlework group (over zoom, every other week), my monthly Lithuanian Jewish genealogy mentoring meeting, my Crones and Tomes book club, some planning activities for the Women’s Storytelling Festival, and my Brothers Grimm discussion group, which can mostly be summed up “what a weird story.”

Because our birthdays are only a few days apart (and a few years), Cindy and I have gotten into the habit of going out to dinner to celebrate them. We’ve pretty much settled on going to Elephant Jumps, which is a very good Thai restaurant in Falls Church. There’s some value in having our rituals.

As far as entertainment goes, I already mentioned the movie My Penguin Friend. I also went to Signature Theatre to see the musical Soft Power. This is a very complex show, which is based on a real incident in which David Henry Hwang was attacked on the street. It also goes into Hillary Clinton’s electoral loss and U.S. relations with China more broadly. It was both funny and provocative and definitely worth seeing.

And that's pretty much all I did in September.

Continuing the slow catch-up, here’s the 3rd quarter 2024 update.

Books:

Only 7 books this quarter.

Jodi Picot and Jennifer Finnry Moylan, Mad Honey. I read this book for my primary book club and found it both interesting and provocative. Asher is the son of Olivia, a woman who left her husband, an abusive high powered cardiac surgeon. He gets involved with Lily, whose mother, Ava, has moved them to New Hampshire to protect her from an abusive father. When Lily is found dead, Asher is accused of her murder. But things turn out to be more complicated and the story takes a major twist which I won’t go into details about because it works best if it comes as a surprise. There are lots of complex issues, which I thought were handled well. Absorbing and worth reading.
Harry Mitsudis, The Curious Case of William Baekeland. William Baekeland is a young man who seems to have the family connections that allow him to arrange extreme travel. Not all of it goes well, but he appears able to gain the trust of travelers, some of whom he bilks for thousands of dollars at a time on trips that never happen. The basic rule of this sort of traveling is that if things seem to be too good to be true, they probably are. It’s an interesting book, but not particularly well written.
Manning Coles, A Toast to Tomorrow. Tony Hambledon is a British intelligence agent who is presumed drowned after World War I. But he really has amnesia and believes himself to be a German. He eventually becomes the Nazi Chief of Police. When, after 15 years, his memory returns, he manages to send encoded messages to London and help some people get out of Germany. It’s an interesting book, but it requires a huge dose of suspended disbelief.
Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead. I read this for the Crones and Tomes book club. It’s a pastiche of David Copperfield (which I’ve never read) set in present-day Appalachia where foster children are exploited for profit and drug abuse is rampant. Football may get a boy somewhere - at least until he’s injured. While there are a few people who try to help Demon, it’s a tough road before he eventually does get set on a path to success. Unfortunately realistic and depressing, but a good read.
Sidney Sheldon, The Naked Face. A psychoanalyst is confronted with a murder in his office and a pair of policemen who believe he must be involved. Then his receptionist, who he had saved from a life of prostitution gets killed and someone seems to be after him. There is a lot of prejudice regarding homosexuality and bad guesses about motives before a Mafia-related plot ties things together and we find out who the real bad guys are. Absolutely terrible.
Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies. Another Crones and Tomes selection, this is a collection of short stories, some set in India and some in the United States. One of the recurring themes involves couples revealing themselves to one another. My favorite story was the final one, in which a man who has come to the U.S. to study rents a room from a Victorian woman and grows into his arranged marriage. I also liked a story about a wife who keeps finding Christian objects in their house. However, I found the stories set in India to be more depressing for the most part.
Irving Wallace, The Square Pegs. This is a collection of essays about American eccentrics. Some of the subjects are quite well-known, e.g. Victoria Woodhull, a free-love advocate who ran for president, and Emperor Norton, who declared himself emperor of San Francisco. Others are more obscure, e.g. Delia Bacon, who popularized the idea that Shakespeare didn’t write his own plays. They can be mildly entertaining, but the writing is weak and not as much fun as I’d hoped for.

Movies:
I only saw one movie this quarter.

My Penguin Friend: My friend, Kim, and I went to the Cinema Arts Theatre (an excellent independent movie theatre near me) to see this movie, which had been recommended by a couple of people. It’s based on a true story, which has to do with a man whose young son is killed in a storm. One day, a starving, oil-soaked penguin shows up and he takes it under his wing, so to speak, cleaning it up and feeding it. To everyone’s surprise, the penguin comes back year after year, as part of its migration, and he comes to see it as a close friend and the other people in his small village also develop a relationship with it. A team of scientists who tag and study penguins discover that this penguin has been migrating from Patagonia to the Rio de Janeiro area, roughly 5000 miles, every year. It’s a sweet tear jerker and I thought it was worth seeing.

Goals:

I have pretty much figured out what I want to do re: circumnavigating the globe going westward, but my planning is on hold due to a combination of other people having things for me to do, as well as dealing with a couple of injuries. Sigh.
I hasn’t made it to any actual national parks this year, though I have been to a national park system related site. For example, last weekend I was at the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park. But for goal counting purpose only full-on national parks count.
I have done nothing about cleaning out my saved files of genealogy related emails.
I’ve also done next to nothing about organizing my bedroom.
I’ve read 32 books, out of my goal of 80.
I am about 2/3 done with one afghan (out of a goal of 3). I also have parts of a few others done.
I have not made any progress on finding my parents’ slides.
I went to one game at a AAA ballpark. I had solid plans for another, but it got rained out.
I have been getting almost no exercise from around the end of August until now, again due to injuries.

I’m going to try to get through what I did during September at least during the next few days.

I can’t seem to focus enough to write. But I keep trying.

1 AUG: Girlfriend’s Day: What are the ideal qualities in a girlfriend? My closest friends are the ones who help me when I really need help (e.g. driving me to medical appointments), suggest interesting things to do, and are always willing to listen to me kvetching.

2 AUG: Coloring Book Day: Do you color as an adult? I color once in a while. But mostly I use coloring books as a source for creating needlepoint patterns.

3 AUG: Friendship Day: What’s the key to a lasting friendship? Listening to one another.

4 AUG: Coast Guard Day: Ever had to be rescued? Not really.

5 AUG: Underwear Day: What color(s) are your underwear? At the moment, I am wearing black undies. I almost always wear either solid colors or some sort of interesting pattern. This goes back to my teenage years when I figured out that avoiding white underwear (which is what my mother always wore) made it faster to sort the clean laundry.

6 AUG: Fresh Breath Day: How uncomfortable is having bad breath or being near someone with bad breath? Having bad breath is extremely uncomfortable. And morning dragon breath on the part of someone you’re close to is at least as bad.

7 AUG: Particularly Preposterous Packaging Day: What’s the most unnecessary packaging you’ve ever seen? I hate it that scissors get packaged in hard plastic that you can’t open without using scissors to cut it open.

8 AUG: Pickleball Day: Do you play pickleball? No.

9 AUG: Book Lovers Day: What was one of your favorite books as a child that you haven’t re-read in a long time? Since I mentioned it recently, I loved The Outsiders. I also read The Catcher in the Rye a bunch of times because it’s one of the most New York books ever.

10 AUG: S’mores Day: Have you ever eaten s’mores? Yes, but not in a long time. Every now and then I get a craving for toasted marshmallows, but I usually just roast them in the flame of my gas stove.

11 AUG: Popsicle Day: What’s your favorite flavor of popsicle? I’m partial to citrus flavors - lemon or orange. Grape is okay. I have also been known to buy fudgesicles.

12 AUG: World Elephant Day: If given the chance to ride an elephant, would you? I may have ridden an elephant at the zoo when I was a little kid. I have no interest in riding an elephant nowadays.

13 AUG: Prosecco Day: What’s your favorite celebratory beverage? I like bubbly, e.g. champagne or prosecco or cava.

14 AUG: World Calligraphy Day: What kind of calligraphy do you admire? I never really got much beyond some simple classic styles, like roundhand.

15 AUG: Leathercraft Day: Do you own an item of leather you especially like? I have a small handbag that my grandfather (who was also a shoemaker) made for me out of scraps of leather.

16 AUG: Men’s Grooming Day: Beards, moustaches, and sideburns. Yay or nay? I like mustaches and neatly trimmed (i.e. non-shaggy) beards.

17 AUG: Black Cat Appreciation Day: Do you like black cats? Do you see any animal as inherently ‘bad luck’? Black cats are okay, but I have a particular fondness for orange cats.

18 AUG: World Helicopter Day: Have you ever ridden in a helicopter? I’ve done some flightseeing in helicopters. The most memorable were flying over Victoria Falls and watching polar bears at Hudson Bay in Churchill, Manitoba. I also took one intro flying lesson.

19 AUG: International Orangutan Day: What animal is most likely to commit a murder? Humans, duh.

20 AUG: World Mosquito Day: What’s the best way to deter mosquitos? Hang out with somebody who the mosquitos like better than they like you. The best repellent I’ve found is something I once bought in the Johannesburg airport. Treating your clothes (and bedding) with permethrin also works well.

21 AUG: Senior Citizen’s Day: What’s the best thing about being a senior citizen? I like being retired. And, of course, senior discounts are nice.

22 AUG: World Plant Milk Day: What’s your favorite kind of plant milk? Being lactose intolerant,I have spent a lot of time experimenting with this and I find that almond milk is the best option for me.

23 AUG: Find Your Inner Nerd Day: What are you most nerdy about? Probably alphabets. I can sound out words in the Roman (English) alphabet, a couple of variants of cyrillic (e.g. Belarusian has an extra letter, which is pronounced “wah,”), Hebrew and Yiddish, and Greek without thinking very hard.

24 AUG: Pluto Demoted Day: Is Pluto a planet or not? Officially it is a dwarf planet, but I think the astronomical community gave it a raw deal.

25 AUG: Second-hand Wardrobe Day: What’s your favorite piece of clothing which originally belonged to someone else or bought at a thrift store? I have a bright blue button down shirt that I bought at a thrift shop and like a lot.

26 AUG: Women’s Equality Day: What’s most needed in the world regarding women’s equality? Sad to say, I think the biggest issue these days is reproductive rights. If we don’t control our bodies, we don’t control anything.

27 AUG: Cinema Day: When is the last time you were in a movie theatre? I saw one movie in a movie theatre in early September.

28 AUG: Crackers Over the Keyboard Day: Do you eat at your computer? In general, I try to avoid doing that.

29 AUG: More Herbs, Less Salt Day: What’s your favorite cooking herb? I am somewhat fanatical about ginger.

30 AUG: Beach Day: What’s your favorite beach? I haven’t been to every beach in the world, but of those I have been to, I think the most beautiful ones are on the west coast of Madagascar. More practically, I have a lasting fondness for some of the beaches on the south shore of Long Island (where I grew up), especially Lido Beach and Point Lookout.

31 AUG: International Bacon Day: Bacon. Yay or nay? I don’t eat pork products for religious reasons.

1. What Do You Gain From Pursuing Something You Do Really, Really Badly? I think it’s always good to pursue goals, as long as they’re achievable goals. But pursuing goals that are unrealistic is only likely to be frustrating.

2. What Would You Be Willing to Wait in a Really Long Line For? My favorite example of this was at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The Canadian Mint had set up an opportunity to hold Olympic medals. You put on a white glove and they took photos of you holding three medals. I waited in line for five hours to hold medals for a couple of minutes. I know that sounds absurd, but I thought it was cool enough t be worth it.

3. Do You Wish You Could Return to Moments From Your Past? There are some moments from my past I’d love to revisit and others I hope never to think of again.

4. What Pranks, Jokes, Hoaxes or Tricks Have You Ever Fallen For or Perpetrated? In college, one of my suite mates and I wound a long piece of yarn through all the clothes in another suite mate’s closet.

5. What Are Your Personal Superstitions? It is incredibly bad luck to put a hat on a bed.

6. Do You Spend Enough Time With Other People? Probably not, though sometimes I spend too much time with other people.

7. How Well Do You Know Your Neighbors? Not well at all. I had a next door neighbor for a while who I used to see and chat with, but she moved out years ago. There are a couple of neighbors I know well enough to say hello to, but that’s about it.

8. How Much Time Do You Spend in Nature? I should get out to the park up the street from my condo complex more often, but the weather here doesn’t always cooperate.

9. What Are Your Favorite TV Shows? I’m not really much if a TV watcher. There have been shows here and there which I’ve binge watched, e.g. Better Off Ted and Schmigadoon but most of what little TV I watch consists of baseball games.

10. When Have You Ever Succeeded When You Thought You Might Fail? I managed to get through my Ph.D. program, which meant overcoming a lot of self-doubt and laziness.

11. How Productive and Organized Are You? I am capable of being productive, but most of the time I don’t want to. Similarly for being organized.

12. How Do You Deal With Boredom? I’m rarely bored. If I do get bored, I read or do crafts or talk on the phone with friends.

13. Should Couples Live Together Before Marriage? Living together would help people find the things that drive them nuts about one another.

14. What Assumptions Do People Make About You? I think other people often think I’m more sociable than I am. I do a lot of things, but I also need time to recharge my batteries on my own. People don’t see me during that introvert time, so they don’t realize my need for it.

15. Can Money Buy You Happiness? No, but it can buy you a lot of ways to distract yourself when you’re not happy.

16. What’s Your Favorite Candy? I don’t actually know what they’re called, but I absolutely love those little sesame brittle candies. I also like certain chocolates and, in particular, the Five Star Hazelnut Bar from Lake Champlain Chocolates.

17. How Do You React When Provoked? Sometimes, I run and hide. Sometimes, I just growl and kvetch.

18. What is Your Favorite Place in Your House? I’d like it to be my rocking chair, but I need to do something about the lighting in my living room for that to work.

19. What’s the Best Way to Heal a Broken Heart? Distract myself with trashy novels.

20. Are You a Hoarder or a Minimalist? A hoarder, alas, mostly of books and craft supplies.

21. What Would You Outsource if You Could? What I probably need most is a regular house cleaner.

22. What Fantasy Invention Would You Want to Exist in Reality? This is the 21t century. I am sure I was promised teleportation by now.

23. What Old, Worn Out Thing Can You Just Not Part With? I have a long sleeve t-short from the 2017 March for Science that is getting rather tattered, but it’s too comfortable to abandon yet.

24. Do You Want to Live to 100? Yes, but only if I can do so in reasonable health.

25. How Good Is Your Sense of Direction? I can hear everyone who knows me laughing out loud at that. I have a notoriously terrible sense of direction. I am the person who once had to drive to an airport terminal and follow an Avis van in order to find the rental car return. And then there’s the problem of maps that are two-dimensional but claim to portray three-dimensional cities. (Yes, Edinburgh, it is possible to put up signs for all those staircases and ramps.)

26. Do You Write in Cursive? Yes. Now, writing legibly might be a different matter.

27. What Are Your Earliest Memories of Music? I don’t really remember any time in my life without music. My father brought home records (mostly Broadway cast albums) pretty much every week. And, of course, we also sang along with Mitch. (Do younger people know what I’m talking about?)

28. What Would You Grab in a Fire? I have a metal box that I keep important documents like my passport and the like in.

29. Do You Have Any Tattoos? If Not, Would You Ever Consider Getting a Tattoo? I do not have any tattoos and will not be getting any.

30. Does Buying and Accumulating More and More Stuff Make Us Happier? Definitely not. Experiences are infinitely more satisfying than possessions. I need to get rid of stuff, not accumulate more.

31. When Do You Become an Adult? I’m 66 years old and I’m still waiting.

The genealogy conference schedule had turned out to be very convenient for me, since a crossword tournament I like a lot was conveniently in New York on the weekend after the conference in Philadelphia. So I had arranged to go to Lollapuzzoola on Saturday and throw in some theatre going on both Friday and Saturday nights.

The Outsiders: I’d gotten an okay price on a room at the Algonquin, which I like because I always feel wittier when I stay there. (It is also quite convenient for theatre going.) I had time for a nap before getting dinner on Friday night and wandering a few blocks west to see The Outsiders. I’d wanted to see this largely because the book it was based on had been one of my favorite books when I was in junior high. I don’t know how many times I read it, but it was a lot and I sobbed my way through it every time. The musical was reasonably true to the story (or, at least, as much of it as I remembered after some 50+ years). Unfortunately, the music did not work for me. And the choreography seemed very much out of place for 1967. The story is still a great one and I liked that a lot of the cast were new to Broadway. I just wished the music had grabbed me.

Lollapuzzoola 17: Lollapuzzoola is an annual crossword tournament, held every year on a Saturday in August in New York. The puzzles tend to be, let’s say, challenging, especially as I was definitely not at my best. I apparently made one mistake on the first puzzle, but, oh well, that happens. I solved cleanly on the second puzzle, which was (for various reasons) completely in my bailiwick. Alas, I was too slow to finish any of the other three puzzles, though I did come close. On puzzle 3, I got the theme for the most part, but just wasn’t fast enough. However, I was completely lost on puzzle 4 and somewhat lost on puzzle 5. So I finished embarrassingly badly for the day. I did, however, get to see several friends, which is really the point of the event.

Suffs: I wasn’t really sure how interested I was in this musical about the struggle for women’s suffrage, but I decided to take a chance on it because the subject is one I’m interested in. This turned out to be an excellent decision. The music was enjoyable - lively, suitable for the era, and entertaining. The characters were fleshed out reasonably well and the issues about divisions between the groups of women (based on political divisions and on race) felt realistic. I was only familiar with a few of the performers - Emily Skinner, Jenn Colella,and Hannah Cruz, for three. But the cast worked well overall as an ensemble. There was one casting note that nagged at me a bit. Namely, there are times when color-blind casting gets confusing and I kept being jarred by Dudley Malone being played by a black woman. My issue was that Woodrow Wilson was notorious for his racism so I couldn’t buy Wilson being willing to have a black person in various prominent positions. (In real life, Malone was white.) I just wish there had been a way to handle that more smoothly. By the way, I saw the show on August 24th, which was the 104th anniversary of the 19th Amendment and they had a “roll call” presentation at the end, highlighting each of the states that had voted for the amendment. Overall, I enjoyed this show and was glad I saw it.

And home: Back pain, alternating with knee pain, continues. I really need to make a doctor appointment.

Errands: I have been been absurdly distracted on all attempts to get caught up on things here. The first half of August was just errands, with dealing with things like updating insurance (because the company I had used for years decided to pull out of Virginia) and trying to make some plans for where to focus some decluttering efforts. It doesn’t help that a couple of friends call me to chat when they are trying to procrastinate on doing their housework.

Local Theatre Going - Nine: The only halfway interesting thing I accomplished in the first half of August was seeing Nine (the Maury Yeston musical) at the Kennedy Center as part of the Broadway Center Stage series, which is a scaled down minimally staged series. I like the score for the most part, though there are some songs that annoy me. (Fortunately, one of the ones I really dislike, “The Germans at the Spa,” was omitted altogether. And my favorite song from the show, “My Husband Makes Movies,” was done well.) The two most interesting things to note were that: 1) nearly every time I go to the Kennedy Center, I run into somebody I know. In this case, there were 5 women from my Chavurah there. And, 2: I had decided to go last minute and got a rush ticket at the box office for $38.50 for a center orchestra seat, which was a great deal given that the list price was over $100.

Book Club: Oh, wait, I did also have a Crones & Tomes book club meeting. We discussed Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. I think I had an advantage reading it since I’m familiar with Appalachian Virginia and a late friend was Melungeon so I felt like I knew more about the cultural milieu than some of the other people in the group. On the other hand, I’ve never read David Copperfield (and I am not really big on Dickens.) Overall, I found it interesting, but it was too long and my wrists hurt getting through it.

IAJGS Conference: Later in August, I took the train up to Philadelphia to go to the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies conference. This was supposed to start with going to a baseball game (Phillies vs. Nationals) but I had a stupid accident. The conference was at the Sheraton, but I had decided to spend Saturday night at the Marriott, which was a bit cheaper. I got out of a taxi, grabbed my backpack and was putting it on, when I somehow stepped backwards onto the curb and tripped and fell, injuring my back. This was very painful. It was also not helped by an alarm going off at the hotel at 12:30 a.m., though that proved to be nothing major (aside from sleep deprivation). Anyway, I moved to the Sheraton in the morning, which was more convenient for the actual conference sessions. I didn’t think
I was badly injured, so I managed to limp through the conference.

As for the conference itself, here’s a brief list of presentations I went to:

Monday

The Mess of New York City Vital Records - I was already pretty familiar with the work that Reclaim the Records has been doing, but this was interesting.
Researching Small Landsmanshaftn Synagogues - this should have been interesting, but there wasn’t really enough detail.
JRI-Poland Luncheon / JRI-Poland Annual Meeting. The luncheon talk by Andrew Carroll about his activities collecting war letters was particularly intriguing, though not especially relevant for me. I also liked that they’d seated people by what part of Poland their families were from, so I could chat with other people who had roots in Lomza Guberniya.
BOF: Vinius District Research Group - good general discussion
Landscape of Dreams: Jewish Genealogy in Canada - I’m still trying to figure out some details on how my great-uncle got to Canada (and then on to crossing the border to Buffalo).
JewishGen Annual Meeting - mostly various awards. I was pleased to see that they named a new award series after Dick Plotz (who was a friend from both the puzzle world and the genealogy world).
The Ron Arons Game Show Night - Jewpardy! is always a fun activity, but I was exhausted halfway through.

Tuesday

The Importance of Memory in Building a Jewish future - Mostly an overview of the holdings at YIVO
Litvak SIG Meeting - the annual catch-up of what is new.
Holocaust Compensation and the United Restitution Organization - Since I am fairly sure both my father and grandfather got reparations money, I need to spend some time delving into these records
Genealogy Death Match - This is another game show, featuring two people competing over whose records go further back. Old people like me are at an obvious disadvantage.

Wednesday

Entering Eretz Israel: Getting Around Government Limitations - This covered legal possibilities during both the Ottoman Empire and the Britihs Mandate. I was particularly interested in learning about religious grounds for immigration, since I’ve been told my maternal grandfather studied at a yeshiva in Petah Tikva.
When Traditional Genealogy and Genetic Genealogy Collide - I think everyone gets frustrated over people who expect either one path or the other to “cousin hunting” to be the be all and end all to solving genealogy mysteries. Unfortunately, this talk didn’t really come to an answer.
BOF: Tracing the Tribe - Tracing the Tribe is definitely one of the better Jewish Genealogy groups on Facebook. This was an interesting and amusing talk by one of the moderators of it.
Jewish American Life Beyond New York: The Industrial Removal Office, 1901-1917 - Most of this was focused on the East Coast, Midwest, and Great Plains, so was not particularly relevant for me, though there was some discussion of cities like Atlanta (where a large branch of my father’s family settled). There was, alas, not really any discussion of the Pacific Northwest, where my earliest immigrants from Lithuania to America went. Still, there are some sources I should check out.
Gala Banquet - Arthur Kurzweil was the banquet speaker. He spoke well enough but didn’t really say anything I didn’t already know.

Thursday

Letters Have Wings: Digitizing, Annotating, and Exhibiting Family Letters - I was volunteering as a session manager for this session. This had some good material about how to preserve and document family letters.
Jewish Gen Belarus Research Division Meeting / Jewish Gen Belarus Research Division Luncheon - There was some material about the history of Belarus in light of the 1905 Russian revolution, but not a lot on good resources.
Mentoring - I spent a couple of hours helping people find some Lithuanian data. I always enjoy doing this, since I benefited a lot from other people helping me when I first started doing genealogy.

Overall, the conference was reasonably useful though being injured was annoying. I traveled onward to New York on Friday. I will write about that in the next entry.

1 JULY: Second Half of the Year Day: How has the first half of 2024 been for you? It was rather a mixed bag. I had aa good trip to Portugal and the Azures. I enjoyed assorted theatre going and various events with friends. I went to some interesting genealogy talks, but am still way behind in research. I went to several fun storytelling events. But I also had to deal with some household crap.

2 JULY: World UFO Day: Do you believe in UFOs? I think that there are unidentified flying objects out there, but that doesn’t mean that those objects are extraterrestrial in origin.

3 JULY: International Plastic Bag Free Day: How often do you use cloth or non-plastic bags? I use cloth tote bags most of the time.

4 JULY: Fourth of July: Fireworks. Yay or nay? I like watching fireworks better from indoors where the weather isn’t so icky.

5 JULY: Bikini Day: When is the last time you wore a bathing suit? I swam in a swimming pool in Lisbon.

6 JULY: Play Outside Day: What’s your favorite outside game? I can’t think of anything. Bt when I was growing up I played tennis a lot, as well as softball and basketball around our neighborhood.

7 JULY: Chocolate Day: What’s your favorite way to eat chocolate? Snap off a piecee of chocolate. Eat slowly.

8 JULY: Coca-Cola Day: Coca-cola. Yay or nay? I sometimes drink Coze Zero, but there are other soft drinks I prefer.

9 JULY: Dimples Day: Do you have dimples? Do you find them attractive? I don’t think I have dimples and I never really notice them on other people.

10 JULY: Kitten Day: Would you ever take care of a kitten? Yes,but there is still the fundamental problem that kittens have this annoying tendency to turn into cats.

11 JULY: Cheer up the Lonely Day: What’s the best way to cheer up the lonely? If someone complains to you about being lonely, you can suggest things you might do together. Or you can tell them that it’s okay to do things alone if they want to. In other words, let them lead the way.

12 JULY: Motorcycle Day: Have you ever driven a motorcycle or ridden on the back of one? No, and I have no desire to.

13 JULY: International Skinny Dipping Day: Have you ever been skinny dipping? Yes, but it’s been a long time.

14 JULY: Bastille Day: Is there any place you’d like to storm? Hmmm, if I could storm a site where hostages are being held with some reasonable chance of surviving, sure.

15 JULY: Gummi Worm Day: Have you ever eaten a gummi worm? No. I hate the texture of gummy candies.

16 JULY: World Snake Day: What would you do if you could shed your skin? Maybe have the best pedicure ever.

17 JULY: World Emoji Day: What emoji do you use most? I use smileys a fair amount.

18 JULY: Nelson Mandela Day: Who is your hero? This is tough. Probably Sophie Germaine, who was the first woman honored by the French Academy of Sciences.

19 JULY: Celebration of the Horse Day: Have you ridden any animal other than a horse? Only on carousels.

20 JULY: World Chess Day: Do you know how to play chess? I do, but I haven’t played since about 9th grade. My cousin, Maria Rivka Chwoles-Lichtenfeld, was the Lithuanian Women’s Chess Champion in 1954 and 1955 and won the Israeli Women’s Chess Championship in 1957.

21 JULY: Legal Drinking Age: When did you take your first sip of liquor? I’m not sure, but it was probably in my early teens. Or possibly earlier if you count a shot of schnapps my parents gave me on New Year’s Eve.

22 JULY: Mango Day. Mangos. Yay or nay? They’re okay but not my favorite.

23 JULY: Math Week: Do you like math? I like math, but I always preferred science to pure math. Linear algebra was much better than working on proofs.

24 JULY: International Self Care Day: What do you do for self care? I find it helpful to try to get enough sleep and exercise and eating sanely and such.

25 JULY: World Drowning Prevention Day: Do you know how to swim? Yes, but I don’t think I’m a particularly good swimmer.

26 JULY: FBI Day: What’s your favorite FBI agent (real or ficitional)? The only one I can think of is Elliot Ness.

27 JULY: Love is Kind Day: What’s the last act of kindness you performed? Mostly listening to various friends in distress.

28 JULY: Buffalo Soldiers Day: Do you like reggae music? Yes, I do, but I like ska even more. Madness, The Specials, The English Beat, Mighty Mighty Bosstones are a few bands to start with.

29 JULY: Rain Day: Do you like rain? I like light rain if I have to be out in it. I hate drenching thunderstorms, however.

30 JULY: Cheesecake Day: What’s your favorite flavor of cheesecake? Cheesecake is a flavor and should not come in flavors. Though, to be fair, my all time most popular recipe is for chocolate-rum cheesecake.

31 JULY: Avocado Day: Do you like avocados? Not particularly, since I am not fond of mushy foods.

I have a lot of stuff to catch up on. But I am home and working on it.

1. How Easy — or Hard — Is It for You to Say No When You Want To? It depends on how much I really do or don’t want to do something. There are many things I have mixed feelings about and sometimes I want to do something mostly to see friends rather than for the thing itself. In that case, I am good with finding excuses to skip out.

2. How Good Are You at Time Management? Let’s just say that I am an expert at procrastination.

3. Have You Ever Been in Love? Yes, though I have also often been in like or lust.

4. What Nicknames Have You Ever Gotten or Given? I refer to the gentleman with whom I am conducting the world’s longest brief meaningless fling by the initial of his last name. My family tends to refer to me as “Mir” or “Miri.” A group of people I used to work with called me “Doctor Evil” or “Dr. E” or (less often) “Doc.”

5. Do You Have Siblings? How Well Do/Did You Get Along With Them? I have one (older) brother. We are, in general, not on the same wavelength.

6. Do You See Great Disparities of Wealth in Your Community? I don’t know about great disparities in my community, but there are certainly class differences.

7. What Are Your Best Sleepover Memories? My best friend and I around late elementary school did sleepovers, which often included playing various 45 rpm records.

8. What Childhood Rules Did You Break? I was an expert in sneaking out the back door and ignoring curfews. The trickiest thing was how loud to play music downstairs so that my parents wouldn’t come downstairs to look for me. I sometimes claim that I am probably still supposed to be grounded.

9. What Is Your Racial and Ethnic Identity? I’m an Ashkenazi Jew.

10. What Have You Made Yourself? I became a successful aerospace engineer. Or, reinterpreting the question to address grammatical ambiguity, I have done various crafts projects for myself.

11. Have You Ever Experienced Food Insecurity? The end of the semester in grad school often had me down to living on bread and cheese.

12. Do/Did You Collect Anything? My mother insisted my brother and I should collect coins. I also collected dolls, though more recent years have limited that to paper dolls.

13. Who in Your Life Introduces You to New Music? Several people do point out music to me that they think I’d like. My friend, Gary, dips into "that part of the internet" often.

14. Are You a Saver or a Spender? I tend to be more of a saver.

15. How Careful Are You in the Sun? I am very careful about the sun. I can burn easily and I hate the pain of sunburns.

16. What Local ‘Microadventures’ Would You Like to Go On? There are lots of local hiking trails I have never gone on.

17. Would You Consider Moving Overseas for a Job? I would have when I was younger, but it’s really no longer relevant.

18. Do You Ever Feel Overlooked and Underappreciated? I’ve sometimes felt underappeciated, but not in several years.

19. What Were Your Favorite Picture Books When You Were Little? I remember a book called “You Will Go to the Moon.” Beyond that, I know I had “Charlotte’s Web.” And my Mom pushed all the Beatrix Potter books on us.

20. How Much Information Is ‘Too Much Information’? It depends on why I asked about something. If I was just curious about something, a little is fine, but, in general, I’d rather know more.

21. Would You Most Want to Live in a City, a Suburb or the Country? I like the concept of an inner suburb. That is places that are just outside the city, but within easy distance to it, particularly if transit friendly.

22. What Life Lessons Has Adversity Taught You? I can’t say that I’ve experienced true adversity. And I really don’t want to.

23. Have You Ever Been Scammed? I’ve experienced a few financial scams, but was able to get them resolved.

24. Can Creativity Be Scheduled? I think it can, to some extent. At the very least, there are ways to schedule practice at trying to do creative work.

25. What’s Your Favorite Sandwich? The heart of what I refer to as “Purina Miriam Chow” is a tuna fish sandwich on crunchy whole grain bread with lettuce, onions, pickles, and banana peppers. Once in a whole, I go to a kosher deli and get a tongue sandwich on rye bread, with full sour pickles and cole slaw.

26. What Would Your Personal Mascot Be? Not at all practical, but I am quite fond of bears, especially polar bears.

27. How Did Your Parents Teach You to Behave? They were prone to lecturing me on things I’d done wrong. Hence, I was subject to the “We’re so disappointed in you” lectures rather than physical punishment.

28. Are You a Perfectionist? Somewhat, but I’ve learned over the years that some things are worth doing a mediocre job at.

29. Should People Give Money to Panhandlers? Yes, but it is better to find ways to enable people to learn survival skills when possible.

30. What Would You Put in Your Emergency ‘Go-Bag’? I keep my passport, other major papers, etc. in a safe box.

31. How Much Do You Know About History? I know a fair amount about American history and Western history. I know less than I think I should about local history. I’d like to know more about Asian history. In general, I am interested in social history more than I am in the sort of history that amounts to “what dead white men did from nine to five.”

I had no problem checking into the Adolphus, which is an old hotel (opened in 1912) in the heart of downtown Dallas. I said hello to a few people and I apologize for boring them with my tales of HVAC woe. I unpacked and took a short nap, before calling into my book club meeting. (To my surprise, everyone liked Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan). I went down to the major ballroom we were using and was able to get a little bit of the food from the picnic, which was not particularly exciting. I should note that I will continue my practice of referring to members of the National Puzzlers League by their noms, rather than their actual names. I joined Xemu and a couple of members of his family to play War(ped) Games by WXYZ and Whimsey. This was a Mini Extravaganza, loosely based on the movie War Games. It was enjoyable and the solution was satisfying. After that I played Last Minute Jeopardy VI by Saxifrage and Cazique. That was fun, with the most memorable part being a clue that was what I lost final Jeopardy (and, hence, the game) with when I was on, back in 1989. I am fairly sure I played something else, probably up in the hospitality suite, but my mind is blank.

Thursday was a good day for sightseeing. I started out getting breakfast at Starship Bagels which was quite good, though not as good as the best of New York. (Alas, many bagel shops in New York are not all that good, but there are a few that are extraordinary.) It was also conveniently located quite close to the hotel and, more significantly, across an alleyway from The Eye.

I did a little research after seeing and photographing it and it turns out to have been created by a Chicago-based artist named Tony Tasset in 2007 and is modeled after his own eyeball. Originally the site it is on was the home of the Praetorian Building, a 15-story skyscraper built in 1909. The legend is that the eventual owner of that property proposed building a parking garage there and that local people complained that would be an eyesore. The Praetorian Building was torn down in 2012 and the Eye moved to its site in 2013. It’s a must-see for people who are fans of , say, Claes Oldenburg.

I continued westward, with the goal of seeing the 6th Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. Senior tickets are $20 and I thought there was enough to see to justify the price.

JFK’s assassination was one of my earliest memories, so my memories of it are really just a few images. The museum has extensive background information and lots of news footage and oral history recordings, so it helped fill in the blanks for me. A lot of the emphasis is on what the investigators did and didn’t discover in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. You can also see where Lee Harvey Oswald apparently hid among the boxes of books. And, of course, there was plenty of material about Jsck Ruby and info on the conspiracy theories, including scientific evidence for and against the lone shooter theory. The bottom line is that it was interesting and worth a couple of hours.

After I left the museum, I walked around downtown more, though I needed to stop to sit down and gulp down water in the Texas heat. The only other notable thing I photographed was the “whaling wall.” This is #82 of the 101 walls of painted sea life that the artist, Wyland, painted all over the world between 1981 and 2019. It was painted in 1999 but covered over by advertising around 2015. The pandemic led to a decline in large-scale advertising and the ads were removed in 2020.

I did some more meandering around downtown, but there wasn’t anything in particular that I remembered. There’s a long tradition of foodies getting together for dinner on Thursday night. Necromancer organizes this and has people check off which places they’re interested in and puts together the groups. I ended up with Fritz, Tyger, Femur, and Silk at Musume, a Japanese restaurant in the Arts District. I had a cocktail called “ballet slipper” which had (if I recall correctly) Hangar One rose vodka, strawberry, lemon, and basil. To eat, I got asparagus tempura and some sushi special with hamachi. (There were also a couple of amuse bouche, but I don’t remember exactly what.) Everything was very tasty.

We went back to the hotel for the opening of the official program. If anyone doesn’t know, Willz (probably known to you as Will Shortz of NPR fame) had a stroke in February, and it was a little distressing to see him using a wheelchair and having some speech difficulties which, admittedly, were not helped by the less than optimal sound system in the ballroom. After first-time attendees introduced themselves, there were three games for the evening. The first one was Common Sense in which of teams of 4 tried to identify items leading to clues for each of the five senses. I think everyone on the team I was on found at least part of this to be quite difficult, but it was interesting. Threecycling by T McAy (who had COVID, so was represented by Murdoch) involved several groups of four 6 letter words, each of which shared a trigram (i.e. a set of three letters in order). The trick was that only one clue was revealed at a time and the score depended on which clue you solved them on. I was paired with Bluff for this and we did reasonably well with it. More importantly, I thought it was fun. The final official game that night was Pears Trivia by Kryptogram. This involved trivia questions and deducing a category for the answers out of homonyms for the answers. Most of this was fine, but there was a significant accent issue with with one of the answers. The name “Maude” does not sound anything like the word “mode” to those of us who don’t suffer from midwestern vowel deficiency. “Candide” and “candid” were also a problematic pair, since they have different syllables stressed. What would Henry Higgins say?

They also gave out the con cryptics, which are solved in pairs over the weekend. I did Bank and Unbank by Auro with Jeffurry and we got through it reasonably easily. (Later on I did Four-Part Harmony by Thingummy with Sue++. We did fine up until we got a bit stuck on the extraction to get to the final answer, where we needed a little help.)

There were still unofficial events to go. I know I played Noam’s Silver Anniversary Jeopardy. He always does good trivia games and it was fun, even though I didn’t do very well on it. I think that after that I played a word game with some other people, including Paws, EyeAn, KangaBlue and a couple of others.

I don’t remember at all what I did on Friday during the day other than not quite accomplishing a couple of errands. I am fairly sure I had lunch at the Exchange, a food court place across from the hotel and that I ate a tasty vegan Vietnamese bowl. I’d had the vague intention of going to the George W. Bush Presidential Library and/or the Dallas Museum of Art but, well, it was awfully hot out. At some point I played Slikardy 3: Mission Impuzzible, a mostly cooperative Jeopardy game by Slik. It was a bit heavy on pop culture, but was still entertaining.

The official program had three games/puzzles on Friday night. Spotlight Trivia by Beyond was a really fun trivia game. Everybody stood up and answered sets of true / false questions. The first statement in each set was always true and you had to guess on the second one. If you were wrong, you sat down. My favorite one had to do with whether or not Barry Manilow actually wrote the song “I Write the Songs.” The next game was One to Build On by WXYZ and I’m sorry to admit I don’t remember anything about this one. Finally, there was Consonant Conundrum by Bluff, which had to do with identifying words within a category (e.g. car rental companies) and you had to try to avoid the most common consonant in the potential answers. This was entertaining, albeit complicated, and we did fairly well at it.

I’m sue I did something unofficial after that, possibly one of Murdoch’s games, but my memory is imperfect.

Saturday started with the annual business meeting. There had been previous discussion about how to handle remote voting and there was a report from the committee working on that. There was also an announcement from Jeffurry that he was not going to run for reelection as President, since 6 years is plenty of time to serve. Of course, the biggest topic is always the site for future cons. We already knew that next year will be in Minneapolis from July 17 through 20th. There were bids for 2026 from Bloomington, Indiana and from Philadelphia. Bloomington won, largely because of access to the Slocum Puzzle Collection at the Lilly Library.

After the business meeting, there was lunch, followed by pencil and paper competitions. Manx had an Olympics themed puzzle involving dropping a letter from a word or phrase and anagramming it to get the name of an Olympic sport or host city.Then Willz had 7 wordplay challenges, which I didn’t quite manage to get through. I knew I didn’t have the energy left to do the flats competition. (Flats are a particular type of NPL puzzle. I really only understand a few types of them.) After that Sue++ and I worked on Thingummy’s cryptic and got through filling in the grid, but were stuck for a while on the extraction. (We did eventually get a hint that led us to it.) Then came dinner and the Golden Sphinx Awards, which mostly have to do with contributions to the Enigma, which is the monthly NPL newsletter, aka more puzzles than I will ever have time to do.

The final event was the Extravaganza, which was called Fair Play and written by Fraz, Rasa, and Thingummy and had a theme roughly associated with the Texas State Fair. You can play as either a runner or a stroller, which determines if you are just trying to get through the suite of puzzles quickly or take a more leisurely approach, with slightly different rules for each type of team. I’ve always played as a stroller before, but decided to give it a go as a Runner this year. Let’s just say that I wasn’t completely useless, but I was slower than I’d like. I was particularly proud of myself for figuring out what was going on in a Dr. Who themed puzzle. (Note: I have never seen a single episode of Dr. Who.) Overall, I had fun, which is always the important thing.

I know I played one of Murdoch’s games after that. And I didn’t stay up too ungodly late.

On Sunday, I ate breakfast, packed, and went to the awards ceremony. The winners for the cryptics are chosen randomly from the answers submitted and Sue++ and I won an award. Basically, you can choose a puzzle book, as if I didn’t own enough of those. Apparently, a lot of people had trouble with their flights, but (miraculously) American Airlines failed to treat me with their usual disdain and I had no issues getting from DFW to DCA. And I got home to find that my AC system had been repaired and was functioning!

I have several other things to write about, but I am tied up for the next week or so. I’ll get back to normal life eventually. Oh, wait, being too busy is normal life for me.

Big-D Con was this year’s National Puzzlers’ league Convention, held in Dallas. Since I generally try to leverage off things I’m already planning to do to add on other odds and ends I want to do, I decided to take an excursion to Oklahoma City before the con to check off anotherAAA ballpark. So I flew into Dallas late on Sunday (after The Flushies) and stayed overnight in Fort Worth. A flight delay led to me taking an expensive Lyft from the airport because I didn’t want to wait for the train from the airport which only runs once an hour. Then the hotel (a Hampton Inn in downtown Fort Worth) had some computer system slowdown and it took nearly half an hour to check in. If someone suggests I should have checked in on-line earlier, that wouldn’t have helped since there was someone waiting at the desk who’d done that, and he had a longer wait than I did.

On Monday, I had breakfast, read for a while, had a phone meeting, and then took a walk around the area. It was just a short walk since I’ve been to Fort Worth before. And, as is typical, not a lot of things were open on a Monday. I meandered over to JFK plaza, which has a lot of photos and a statue.

Eventually, I made my way over to the train station. This has some local train services (TEXRail and Trinity Railway Express), Greyhound buses, and a local bus system. More importantly for my purposes, it also has two Amtrak lines. I was there specifically to take the Hearland Flyer, which runs between Fort Worth and Oklahoma City.

This isn’t exactly one of the great train stations of the world. But it does have a Subway and some vending machines so you can get a snack if you need one. And you can sit and read while you wait for the train. So it served its purpose.

Most of the seating is on the upper level of a few metroliner cars, so pretty basic but adequate. The trip is about 4 hours and is reasonably scenic, so what more do I need? An actual dining car (like they have on real long-distance trains) might have been nice, but I can survive on Kind Bars for surprisingly long.

So what does Oklahoma look like? From a moving train, it's a bit blurry. Also, there were plants getting in my way a lot.

I will leave my mental soundtrack during the trip to your imagination. The Oklahoma City station is right at the entrance to Bricktown, which is the touristy entertainment part of the city. Lots of hotels, restaurants, bars - and the ballpark. There’s also a trolley that can take you around most of downtown Oklahoma City.

I should note that I’d been to Oklahoma City before and seen a fair amount then. So I chose a somewhat more eccentric site as my major daytime tourist activity. Namely, the American Banjo Museum.

Some of the more interesting displays included banjoes belonging to famous people.

Beyond that, there were displays on the history (and evolution) of the banjo, on various banjo manufacturers, on clothing worn by banjo players, etc. etc. Whenever I started wondering about something, there would be a display about it. For example, I noticed a dearth of female banjo players and - poof! - there was a whole section about women and banjoes. I had only recently learned of the existence of an instrument called the banjolele (a cross between a banjo and an ukulele and no, I don’t know why, but banjoes appear to breed rather prolifically with other stringed instruments) and there was a whole section about these banjo hybrids. However, while they had a gift shop with banjo recordings and banjo sheet music, and various other odds and ends, they did not appear to sell actual banjos.

As I said before, the main reason for the trip was to go to another AAA ballpark. There is some actual baseball history in Oklahoma City, which is reflected in statues (and placard displays inside the ballpark) of Jim Thorpe, Mickey Mantle, and Johmmy Bench. More recent players included in their hall of fame include Dave Roberts, Ryne Sandberg, Rusty Staub, and Jerry Grote.

The Oklahoma City Baseball Club is between cute names, so that’s the name you get. They were playing the El Paso Chihuahuas. For some ungodly reason they had their normal mascots dressed in chihuahua costumes. At least they kept the little games and such between innings short.

My summary of the ballpark is that it is nice enough but the attendance was poor, possibly because it was a weeknight. The concessions were uninteresting, with pizza the only vegetarian option and very little variety. And dammit, dipping dots are not ice cream. The lack of fan enthusiasm extended to the failure of almost all of the attendees to stand up for the 7th inning stretch. They played “Oklahoma” after “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” which should also have garnered some enthusiasm - but didn’t. When I rule the world, failure to sing along will be punishable by installation of brain implants that play “We Will Rock You” (my least favorite song of all time) 24/7. Maybe mixed in with the score of Spring Awakening.

By the way, the home team lost, which didn't exactly improve the spirit of the fans. (There was a group of about 8 Chihuahuas fans sitting near me. I'm not sure whether they were cheering their team or all the beer they consumed,)

Anyway, here are a couple of ballpark photos.

In the morning, I walked back to the train station and returned to Fort Worth. On arrival, I had a quick lunch, then took the Trinity Railway Express train to the Victory Station, where I transferred to the DART Orange Line tram to downtown Dallas. It was a short walk to the Adolphus Hotel, where the NPL Con was being held. Details in the next post.

Thus finishes the June part of the catch-up.

1 JUNE: Go Barefoot Day: Do you like going barefoot? I like to go barefoot in certain places. e.g. the beach. But not on city pavement.

2 JUNE: Rotisserie Chicken Day: When’s the last time you ate anything cooked on a spit or a grill? Hmm, I really can’t remember. Probably at some buffet when I was on vacation in May.

3 JUNE: Egg Day: What’s the best way to prepare eggs? I like an omelette with onions, cheese, and salsa, and maybe black olives.

4 JUNE: Trails Day: Do you have a favorite hiking trail? Normally, I walk on the trails in the park just up the street from where I live. I also walk on the W&OD Trail a lot.

5 JUNE: Hot Air Balloon Day: Have you ever been up in a hot air balloon? If not, would you like to? I was supposed to go up in a hot air balloon in Cappadocia (in Turkey) but the weather didn’t cooperate.

6 JUNE: Eyewear Day: Would you ever wear pince-nez or a monocle? Neither of those look comfortable.

7 JUNE: Headache Awareness Week: What’s the best treatment for a headache? I rarely get headaches. When I do get one, I usually just try to sleep it off.

8 JUNE: World Oceans Day: Do you get seasick? Rarely. I find that acupressure bands work well as a preventative.

9 JUNE: Corn on the Cob Day: Corn on the cob. Yay or nay? I love corn on the cob. Usually, I microwave the corn in its husk for about 4 minutes.

10 JUNE: Ball Point Pen Day: What is your favorite writing instrument and why? I like fountain pens. But they can be hard to travel with since the ink can leak under low pressure on airplanes. Rollerball pens, e.g. the Pilot Precise, are also good to write with, since the liquid ink flows smoothly.

11 JUNE: Making Life Beautiful Day: How you make another person’s life beautiful? I believe that my mere existence in someone’s life should make it more beautiful.

12 JUNE: Mechanics Day: Do you trust your auto mechanic? For the most part, yes.

13 JUNE: Roller Coaster Day: Do you (or did you ever) enjoy riding roller coasters? No, since I’m scared of heights.

14 JUNE: International Bath Day: Do you like baths? I love a nice deep bath with either bath salts or bubbles. I’ve also done some aromatherapy baths at spas, which can be really pleasant.

15 JUNE: Prune Day: Prunes. Yay or nay? I am fairly sure I have never eaten a prune. I associate them with grandparents' generation.

16 JUNE: World Sea Turtle Day: What’s your favorite ocean creature? I am very partial to the leafy sea dragon.

17 JUNE: World Crocodile Day: Have you ever seen a dangerous animal in the wild?> Other than humans, you mean? I’ve seen bears (including polar bears) and lions and mosquitos.

18 JUNE: Wanna Get Away Day: Do you wanna get away? I always want to get away, except when I am away.

19 JUNE: Watch Day: Do you wear a watch? My grandfather was a watchmaker. Of course, I wear a watch.

20 JUNE: Summer Solstice: What’s the best part of summer? Long days with late sunsets.

21 JUNE: Selfie Day: Do you take selfies? Very rarely. I get other people to take photos of me.

22 JUNE: Worldwide VW Beetle Day: Do you like VW Beetles? I think they’re cute, but they aren't particularly good cars from a mechanical perspective.

23 JUNE: Typing Day: How well do you type? I blame autocorrect for all my mistakes.

24 JUNE: International Fairy Day: Do you believe in fairies? I believe in all sorts of magical beings.

25 JUNE: Day of the Seafarer: Have you (or would you) ever go on a sea voyage? I’ve been on a number of small ship cruises. I have no interest in the giant floating hotels that people travel on nowadays.

26 JUNE: Canoe Day: When’s the last time you were in a canoe? We went out on outrigger canoes when I was in Costa Rica a couple of years ago.

27 JUNE: Onion Day: Onions. Yay or nay? Definitely yay.

28 JUNE: International Lightning Safety Day: Have you ever seen something struck by lightning? I don’t think so, or, at least, not while it was happening.

29 JUNE: World Camera Day: Do you own a camera (besides your phone)? I do, though I’m not sure where it is right now.

30 JUNE: Social Media Day: What are the best and worst parts of social media? The best is being able to keep in touch with people who I don’t see often. Also, I have a lot of witty and interesting friends. The worst is people who are incredibly gullible and don’t check with Snopes or the equivalent before reposting idiocy.

Why, yes, I am trying to catch up.

1. When Was the Last Time You Did Something That Scared or Challenged You? I was really nervous about my cataract surgeries in June and July.

2. Do You Ever Talk About Issues of Race and Class With Your Friends? I talk about those issues with some of my friends, but not others. I also talk about antisemitism and gender issues.

3. Is College Overrated? It depends on the college and the student. I definitely benefited greatly from my time at MIT,, but I also knew people who went to college largely because they were expected to and weren’t really sure what they were looking for.

4. Do You Set Rules for Yourself About How You Use Your Time? I try to set rules for myself, e.g. a requirement to do a certain amount of housework each day. But I’m not very good at actually following these rules.

5. Can You Be Good Without God? This depends on definitions. My personal definition of G-d is a compilation of the forces for good in the world, so that would inherently make the answer to this question a “no.” But if you believe in more convention concepts of the divine, it would be a yes.

6. How Are You and Your Parents Alike and Different? For one thing, I’m alive and they aren’t. On a less snarky note, I came to appreciate literature and music and art from my parents, as we’ll as developing a strong desire for independence. I was never nearly as driven as my father was and rarely as lazy as my mother was.

7. What Did You Once Hate but Now Like? Certain foods come to mind. For example,as a child, I wouldn’t eat mushrooms, but I love them now. More recently, I developed a liking for olives and much more recently brussels sprouts.

8. If You Were a Super Rich Philanthropist, What Causes Would You Support? Literacy is at the top of my list, with more general education (especially for women) close behind. Supporting both libraries and various arts organizations comes close behind.

9. At What Age Should Children Be Allowed to Go Places Without Adult Supervision? What Age Were You When You Were Going Places By Yourself? It really depends on the individual child and what places we;’re talking about. I grew up in a really small town and went all over town alone (at least during the day) by the time I was about 8 years old. Or maybe even earlier, since I walked to and from school by myself. And it was normal for my brother and me to run errands for my parents, either on foot or bicycle. Certainly, in high school, I went pretty much anywhere on my own. Starting in 10th grade, I went to a Saturday morning science program at Columbia University and took the train into the city alone for that.

10. Does Your Life Leave You Enough Time to Relax? Theoretically it does, since I’m retired. But, in fact, I tend to over schedule myself, so I have to specifically set aside time for things like napping and reading.

11. Did You Take a Gap Year After High School? The whole idea of a gap year didn’t really exist back in 1976.

12. Do You Need to De-Clutter Your Life? That’s a constant struggle for me, frankly.

13. Would You Rather Work From Home or in an Office? For the most part, in an office. At home, I get distracted by how much tuff I should be doing, as well as by the level of household clutter. The office also had the advantage of having the people around to bounce ideas off of - and to hear corporate news from.

14. Do You Have a Dream Car? I drive a really basic econobox and I’m perfectly happy with that. I’d actually love to live somewhere where I can be completely car free.

15. What’s the Story Behind Your Name? My Hebrew name is after both of my grandmother’s mothers. Around the time I was born, it was typical for Jewish families to give children American names that started with the first letter of their Hebrew name and “Miriam” was the only name starting with “M” that both of my parents liked.

16. What’s the Best Party You’ve Ever Been To? This is tough. I’ll have to say any of the parties mu friend Leonard threw back when I lived in Los Angeles. He knows a lot of very creative people and his parties always included people telling stories, singing and playing various musical instruments, and talking about pretty much anything you can imagine.

17. What Are Your Favorite Board Games? I grew up in a game-playing household and some of our favorites back then included Careers, Rummikub, Scrabble, and Backgammon. Friends in Los Angeles did game nights and I liked things like Settlers of Cataan, Nuclear War (aka “the game where you get change back for your people”), Arkham Horror, and a lot of the Steve Jackson Games, like Hacker and Illuminati. Nowadays, I most often play Code Names (which is very playable on-line). I also like some cooperative games, like Pandemic. I’m sure there is other stuff I should list but I can’t think of right now.

18. Are You an Introvert or an Extrovert? I consider myself an ambivert. This is, I can be either an introvert or an extrovert, depending on the circumstances.

19. Where Do You Want to Travel? Um, everywhere? A few of the places on the top of my list right now include Greenland (and the Northwest Passage), the Uyuni Salt Flats of Bolivia, and Algeria.

20. What Are You Looking Forward to This Summer? Well, the summer is half over. What’s left to look forward to includes the Jewish Genealogy conference in Philadelphia, Lollapuzzola, and some New York theatre going.

21. What’s Your Favorite Summer Food? Hmm, for savory foods, borscht with sour cream and hot potatoes is my summer go-to. For sweeter foods, I can never get enough strawberries.

22. Did You Ever Have a Summer Job? Probably the most typical summer job I had was as a camp counselor.

23. What Are the Best Souvenirs You’ve Ever Collected While Traveling? If you buy yarn in another country, it is souvenir, not stash.

24. What Are Your Favorite Names? For characteristically female names, I like Lillian and Cecilia. For characteristically male names I like Simon and Alexander.

25. Do People Complain Too Much? Other people complain too much. I don’t complain enough.

26. What Were Your Favorite Childhood Shows and Characters? For shows, you can't beat Rocky and Bullwinkle. As for characters, you can’t underestimate Alice (as in Wonderland). I also liked a lot of Norse gods. And I wanted to be Nancy Drew.

27. What Role Does Stress Play in Your Life? Stress is a constant background feeling, but I usually manage it well.

28. What Are Your Favorite Junk Foods? I like barbecue potato chips and various types of corn chips. As for sweet junk foods, I love chocolate and various types of ice cream, particularly coffee ice cream.

29. Do You Have Childhood Memories of Being Read Aloud To? I’ve been told, but don’t really remember, that my father used to read to me from his textbooks. I have vague memories of both Dad ad Grandpa reading to me from newspapers. I assume my mother must have read to me, but I really remember more her handing me books to read.

30. Are You Now, or Have You Ever Been, a Picky Eater? I’m usually somewhat adventurous about trying foods, but there are also several things I don’t eat for various reasons. I have a long standing aversion to mushy foods, so I don’t eat bananas or things like grits or cream of wheat. I can only tolerate eggs if they’re scrambled (and overcooked a bit) or in the form of omelets. And I can’t imagine why anyone would voluntarily eat mollusks, especially oysters.

I also did some things in July. I will spare you details about home repairs and household paperwork.

Fourth of July: Aside from dealing with condo woes, described in a locked entry, I went to a friend’s house for holiday socializing. That incl I uded dinner - and the inevitable smoke alarm going off as the steaks were grilled - and lots of good conversation, as well as sitting out on her balcony to watch fireworks. Lots of fireworks, since Kathleen lives in Crystal City part time for now, though she’s giving up her apartment in October to live full time in her house in South Carolina. You can’t see the DC mall fireworks from her apartment, because part of the building is in the way, but there are a lot of fireworks in Maryland (and some in southern DC) which you can watch. And, of course, there are lots of planes taking off and landing at DCA also. Overall, it was a nice evening, despite my being stressed out over my AC woes.

The Flushies: A few days later was The Flushies, one of the two big Loser parties of the year. (The other is the post-holiday party in January.) There was the typical potluck array, to which my contribution was cheese and crackers (and some leftover hummus) because I was going away right after the party. There was plenty of good conversation, followed by the awards to various people for their accomplishments. Judy Freed won Loser of the Year. Her inkblots included this particularly brilliant take on a bad idea with the book title Self Esteem for Dummies.

Big-D Con: This year’s NPL con was in Dallas. It is worth its own entry, which I will try not to be so bloody slow in writing.

Book Clubs” R.E.A.D. discussed Mad Honey by Jodi Picot and Jennifer Finley Boylan. It was an interesting book with great pacing and, surprisingly, everyone liked it. The Travelers’ Century Club read The Curious Case of William Baekeland by Harry Mitsidis, which has to do with a con man who ripped off a lot of extreme travelers, including TCC members. It was an interesting book, but not particularly well-written, in my opinion.

Speaking of TCC: The book club meeting ended a while before the monthly virtual exploration, which had to do with Fernando de Noronha and the Falklands. I’ve done a fair amount of reading on the latter, but I really knew nothing about the former except for its existence. Bottom line is that it looks very appealing, though it is also expensive and possibly a bit too resorty for my tastes, since I’m not a lie on the beach and do nothing sort of person.

This past weekend was our chapter’s regular lunch meeting. There was plenty of wide-ranging travel conversation. I particularly enjoyed talking with one of the new people, who appears to have similar tastes to mine.

Bad News: My brother had a heart attack. Apparently one artery was 100% blocked, while the other two were 60% blocked. They put in a stent in the blocked one and he goes back to the doctor this week to learn about the way ahead. He said he feels okay and he is home and resting.

Good News: I got some resolution on the household crisis. It turns out that there was a clog in the main drain clog, so it is the condo association’s responsibility to pay for repairs related to it.

Eye Have Really Good News: I had my second cataract surgery last week. It went well. My vision was still blurry the next day when I went in for my follow-up appointment, but cleared up by the next day. Really, these intraocular lenses are quite miraculous. As for the surgery, I remember being more conscious than I was for the first eye, but the only specific thing I remember them doing was cleaning my eyelashes. And there were some purple, green, and yellow blobs, presumably due to the laser dissolving the cataract.

Um, I fell behind on this.

Celebrity Death Watch - April/May 2024: Duane Eddy was a rockabilly guitarist. Richard Tandy played keyboards for Electric Light Orchestra. Susan Buckner was an actress, best known for playing Patty in the movie version of Grease. Frank Shrontz was the CEO of Boeing from 1986-1996. Frank Stella was a painter, sculptor, and printmaker. Wayland Holyfield was a country music songwriter. John Barbata was a drummer for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Turtles, Jefferson Airplane, and several other bands. Dame Shirley Conrad was designer along with her husband, Terry, and became a journalist and novelist later on. Bette Nash worked as a flight attendant for over 65 years, primarily on the east coast shuttle flights run by Eastern Airlines, US Air, and American. Ivan Bosky was an insider trader. Caleb Carr was a novelist and military historian, best known for The Alienist. Morgan Spurlock was a film director, best known for Super Size Me. Doug Ingle founded the band Iron Butterfly and wrote their hit song In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Bill Walton was a basketball player, whose career included stints with the Portland Trailblazers and the Boston Celtics. Jack Clemons led the development of the Apollo space program and the space shuttle.

William Calley was an Army Lieutenant who was blamed for the My Lai massacre. His original sentence was life imprisonment with hard labor, which was first commuted to 20 years imparisonment, then 10 years, and eventually by President Nixon to 3 years of house imprisonment. A lot of the controversy had to do with his being given complete blame for the massacre, while 25 other officers and soldiers involved were acquitted. I have particularly strong memories of the spoken word song “Battle Hymn of Lt Calley” by C Company featuring Terry Nelson. I also probably still have an editorial cartoon showing blood dripping off his hands. By the way, he died in late April, but his death was not announced until July 20th.

Dick Rutan co-piloted the Voyager aircraft on the first non-stop non-refueled around-the world flight, along with Jeana Yeager.

Pete McCloskey was served as a member of Congress from California from 1967-1983. He co-authored the Endangered Species Act in 1973 and was the first member of Congress to call for Richard Nixon’s resignation. The most interesting part of that is that he was a Republican at the time. (He later changed to the Democratic Party in 2007.)

Roger Corman directed a lot of pop culture films, notably Little Shop of Horrors (the 1960 non-musical version.

Alice Munro was a Canadian short story writer, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. She also won the Man Booker prize in 2009. There was a major scandal over her having returned to her second husband, who had molested her youngest daughter.

Dabney Coleman was an actor, who was mostly known for playing acerbic characters. He appeared in such movies as 9 to 5,Tootsie,and You’ve Got Mail as well as television shows including Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and Buffalo Bill.

Gordon Bell designed several computers for DEC, including several of the PDP machines, as well as overseeing development of the VAX computer systems.

Richard M. Sherman wrote a lot of the scores for Disney movie musicals, along with his brother, Robert. Their movies included Mary Poppins, Chitty Chity Bang Bang, and Bedknobs and Broomsticks. They also wrote the most annoying earworm of all time, “It’s a Small World.”

Celebrity Death Watch - June 2024: Uzi Gelled was an Israeli chess champion. Michael J. Karels designed BSD/OS, an early UNX version for he Intel platform. Parnelli Jones was a race car driver, who won the 1963 Indianapolis 500. Mark James was a songwriter whose hits for such artists as Anne Murray, Elvis Presley, and B.J. Thomas included “Hooked on a Feeling,” “Where Do We Go From Here,” and “Always on My Mind.” Edward C. Stone directed JPL from 1991 through 2001. Tony Mordent was an actor and choreographer who appeared in West Side Story on Broadway and was married to Chita Rivera from 1957 to 1966. Mike Downy was a long time columnist for The Chicago Tribune. Jerry West played basketball for the LA Lakers. Bruce Bastian cofounded WordPerfect. Buzz Carson wrote the song “Everlasting Love.” Peter Theisinger directed the Engineering and Science Directorate at JPL and was the project manager for the NASA Mars Exploration Rover mission. Martin Mull was an actor, best known for Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, as well as satirical songs. Orlando Cepeda played first base, primarily for the San Francisco Giants.

Janice Paige was an actress, who played Babe in The Pajama Game on Broadway and was the first replacement for Angela Lansbury in Mame. She also appeared in the film version of Please Don’t Eat the Daisies. She earned me 10 ghoul pool points.

William Anders was the Apollo 8 astronaut who took the famous photograph, Earthrise. He later held a held major positions with the Atomic Energy Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, before becoming the U.S. Ambassador to Norway from 1976 to 1977. He followed that with a career in industry, eventually retiring as the CEO of General Dynamics.

Willie Mays was a true giant of the baseball world. In fact, he played for the Giants, both in New York and San Francisco, though he did finish off his career with a year (1972-1973)playing for the Mets and continued on their staff until 1979. I don’t have the room here to list all of his accomplishments. But do look up his biography, which is truly impressive. Say hey!

Narsai David was a food writer and restaurateur in the Bay Area. I have vague memories of his namesake restaurant in Kensington (part of Berkeley) but I doubt that I ever actually ate there. Maybe there was a shop selling some of his products in I. Magnin in San Francisco?

Donald Sutherland was a Canadian actor who appeared in numerous movies. He was particularly memorable for playing Hawkeye Pierce in the movie version of M*A*S*H. He had a lengthy career, with a wide range of roles, which is about as much as an actor can hope for.

Kinky Friedman was a musician and writer and politician. I was privileged to see him perform at the Washington Jewish Music Festival a few years ago. You have to be able to handle deliberately offensive lyrics, but he was genuinely funny. That was also reflected in his books (which include a series of mysteries) and in his run for governor of Texas. A unique character, who will be sorely missed.

Celebrity Death Watch - July 2024: Joe Egan was one of the two main members of Steelers Wheel and co-wrote their song “Stuck in the Middle With You.” Marina Kondratyeva was a ballerina with the Bolshoi. Joe Bonsail sang with The Oak Ridge Boys. Dave Loggins was a singer and songwriter, best known for the song “Please Come to Boston.” Joe Engel was a shuttle astronaut. Thomas Neff was a physicist who was involved with the dismantlement of thousands of nuclear warheads. Shelly Duvall was an actress who worked a lot with Robert Altman. Bill Viola was a video artist. Bob Booker produced the comedy record The First Family which stared Vaughn Meader and parodied the Kennedy family. James Sikking was an actor who its best known for having played Lt. Howard Hunter on Hill Street Blue. Benice Johnson Reagan was a founding member of The Freedom Singers and of Sweet Honey in the Rock. Jerry Fuller was a songwriter, whose work included a number of songs written for Ricky Nelson, including “Travelin’ Man.” He also wrote and produced songs for Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, including “Young Girl” and “Lady Willpower.” Lou Dobbs was a right wing political commentator, who promoted birtherism, as well as opposing left-wing positions on environmentalism, and immigration, and promoting assorted conspiracy theories. I know very little about anthropologist James C. Scott, but the titles of some of his books sound interesting, e.g. The Art of Not Being Governed. Sheila Jackson Lee was a long-standing member of Congress from Houston. Jerry Miller was a guitarist and a founding member of Moby Grape. John Mayall was an English blues and rock musician. Duke Fakir sang with The Four Tops. Lewis Lapham was a writer and long-time editor of Harpers Magazine. George B. Crist was a Marine general and commanded U.S. Central Command. Francine Pascal wrote the Sweet Valley High book series. Robert Banas was an actor and dancer and the first husband of Chita Rivera.

Jim Inhofe was the longest serving U.S. Senator from Oklahoma. He had previously served as mayor of Tulsa and as a U.S. representative. In general, his political positions were extremely conservative and he was particularly hostile to the EPA and to the Kyoto Protocol. He was also opposed to gun regulation, LGBT rights, and federal disaster relief.

Dr. Ruth Westheimer was a sex therapist and well known for her radio show. I really enjoyed the one-woman biographical play Becoming Dr. Ruth and recommend seeing it if you ever get the opportunity. It includes her experience with the Kindertransport and as a sniper for the Haganah, as well as her famous radio and television career.

Richard Simmons was an exercise instructor. I have to admit to owning a few of his Sweating to the Oldies videotapes, which did provide a decent dance workout, if you could get past his sheer weirdness and focus on weight loss vs. fitness for its own sake.

Shannen Doherty was an actress whose career include Beverly Hills 90210 and the movie Heathers. Her struggle with breast cancer was well publicized. She earned me 11 ghoul pool points.

Bob Newhart was a comedian and actor. His deadpan style was spot on and I remember both his television shows and his comedy recordings. His driving instructor routine was particularly funny.

I've just been: a)stressed and overwhelmed, b)out of town, c) back to overwhelmed, though coping better.

I have lots of catching up to do.

Errata: I made a correction to my last entry, to add in a movie I had forgotten to include. Short version is that I liked Next Goal Wins, Taika Waititi’s movie about the American Samoa football (I.e.) soccer team.

Annoying meme: I have several friends who post cute pictures of cats surrounded by flowers, with the caption “beautiful plants bloom in my garden.” Come on. We all know that, no matter how adorable the cats may be, they will really be spending their time in the garden digging up the plants and eating things that are likely to result in vet visits.

Still to Come:

I'm trying to get caught up in the next few days. Here's what you have to look forward to.

I had more condo trauma, which I will put in a separate (locked) entry.
I have a couple of sets of monthly prompts to write up.
A few social events
The National Puzzlers’ League Convention in Dallas, plus an add-on trip before con.
Decluttering and a potential long term plan
Planning for IAJGS conference

Books: I only made it through 9 books this quarter. Sigh.

Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing. I had seen the movie, but hadn’t read the book before. The story has to do with a girl who is basically left on her own to grow up in a shack deep in a North Carolina marsh and spends her time exploring the marsh animals and plants. She meets a boy who teaches her to read and, after their relationship falls apart when he goes to college, gets involved with another local boy, who is a rich socially connected type. When he is found dead, she’s the chief suspect and much of the book concerns her trial for his murder. I thought the book was interesting and raised interesting questions about the divisions between the local people. But it was hard to like a lot of the characters.
Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman, Sounds Like Titanic. This is a memoir about the author’s time as a fake violinist, playing to a dead mike while CDs of the composer’s music play in the background. There’s a lot of humor, though the effect of the deception on her mental health also plays a significant role. Can you suffer from imposter syndrome when you’re making good money being an imposter? Recommended.
Susan Branch, Girlfriends Forever. For those who are not familiar with her, Branch writes silly books that are little more than the sort of tripe women’s magazines publish, full of “oh, how wonderful my girlfriends are” and “here are recipes for healthy meals mixed with ooey gooey desserts.” What’s even worse is that she uses fonts that are supposed to look like handwriting, making it hard to read. Don’t waste your time.
Andrew D. Blechman, Leisureville. What is life like in senior communities like The Villages in Florida and the Del Webb communities in Arizona? Apparently, there’s lots of golf, lots of sex (The Villages has the highest rate of STDs in the U.S.), and an insular group of residents who don’t care that the communities are completely under the control of the owners. Overall, interesting, but depressing.
Michelle Zauner, Crying in H-Mart. Zauner uses food (primarily Korean food) to structure her memoir about her mother’s death from cancer - and, of course, what life with her parents was like before that. The challenges of being a mixed-race girl in Oregon, combined with regular trips to Korea, were interesting. It wasn’t entirely relatable for me, since my mother would have been content to eat bland boiled chicken every day of her life. But I did relate to the intergenerational cultural struggle. I thought this was worth reading - and following with an excursion to my local H-Mart.
Alfred Lansing,Endurance. I’d read this book about Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance expedition at least twice before and it’s still just as good a read the third time around. The crew’s struggle to survive is terrifying and inspiring. Not everyone is cooperative all the time and Shackleton’s leadership skills are tested throughout the ordeal. And, while “the boss” gets a lot of the credit, I’m also thoroughly impressed with Frank Worsley. If you have any interest in exploration / adventure, this is a must read.
Shelby Van Pelt, Remarkably Bright Creatures. This is a thoroughly charming novel about the relationship between an elderly woman and the octopus at the aquarium where she works. The chapters told by the octopus are particularly entertaining. The backstory is that Tova lost her son when he was 18 years old. After her husband died of cancer, she is somewhat at loose ends. There’s also a young man searching for his father and a complicated series of events that lead to him finding connections, including one with Tova. It’s pretty implausible and the ending felt sudden, but it was enjoyable enough for me to overlook those flaws. Recommended.
Tim Butcher, Blood River: A Journey Into Africa’s Broken Heart. Butcher set out to recreate H.M. Stanley’s journey down the Congo River, starting in 2004. He gets motorcycle rides (and, later on, boat rides) from aid workers, U.N. staff, and missionaries. Somehow, he manages not to get killed along the way. He does, however, end up sick - probably with malaria. So he “cheats” a bit with a helicopter ride for one leg. Usually travel books make me want to go to a place, but not this one. An interesting read, yes, but beyond anything I’d want to risk.
Matthew Desmond, Evicted. My primary book club had selected this book, but the two leaders decided it was too hard to read and abandoned it. That’s really a pity because I found it pretty interesting. Desmond looks not only at the people living in low-income housing (and being forced out of it) but also the landlords and the people working for them. Joblessness, drug use, and single parenthood all play roles, but Desmond also addresses policy issues that exacerbate the instability of the lives of his subjects and suggests solutions. His research was primarily in Milwaukee, by the way, though he does give examples from other cities. There were some times I’d have liked more back story about some of the people. At any rate, I found it an interesting read, probably because my father worked on development for the New York City Housing Authority.

Movies: I saw two movies as part of the Washington Jewish Film Festival and two on an airplanes.

Next Goal Wins. I watched this on a plane because of my boundless love for Taika Waititi. It had gotten mediocre reviews, but I liked it quite a lot. The story (based on actual events) has to do with the American Samoa football (i.e. soccer) team, which had suffered a particularly embarrassing defeat against Australia ten years earlier. Thomas Rongen is the American coach who is hired to turn things around and he immediately gets into a conflict with Jaliyah, a transgender player. I was intrigued by the acceptance of a third gender (fa’afafine) in Samoan culture, something I was only vaguely aware of before seeing this. We also eventually see Rogen’s transformation - and get a satisfying ending, which goes beyond the sports aspect. Recommended.
The Catskills: This documentary was really sweet. There were segments about some of the more famous Catskill resorts, e.g. Grossinger’s, but also about the bungalow colonies. And let’s not forget the food! And the entertainment! (We had a neighbor who was a comedian on the Borscht Belt circuit. It was a great thrill to see his show, though I can’t remember if we saw him at the Homowack or the Concord or the Nevele.) My favorite parts of the (relatively few) weekends we spent at those hotels were rowing on the lake at the Homowack and playing miniature golf and pinball with the other kids my age, and those parts didn’t really get talked about. Basically, if you liked movies like Dirty Dancing or Sweet Lorraine, you’ll like this.
Shari and Lamb Chop: I had a Lamb Chop puppet when I was little, though I never really mastered ventriloquism. I have a running joke about my annual Shari Lewis Memorial Lamb Chop dinner for National Ventriloquism Week. (Scheduled for July 17th this year, by the way.) I’m sure Charlie Horse and other puppets had their fans, but Lamb Chop was the best. And this film was a lovely tribute to her and her puppeteer. I also learned lots of things about Shari Lewis that I’d never known, e.g. that her father was the official magician of New York City, using the name Peter Pan the Magic Man. And did you know that Lamb Chop is an honorary three-star general in the Marines? Anyone in my age group is sure to laugh and cry throughout this thoroughly charming movie.
Oppenheimer: The flight from Lisbon to Washington, D.C. is the perfect length for watching a long movie and still being able to get in a nap. While it was an interesting movie, I found it somewhat hard to keep track of all the characters. I also found the nonlinear chronology hard to follow at times. I suspect that was because an airplane was actually not the ideal place to watch a movie like this. Overall, it was interesting enough, but I’d liked Barbie better.

Goals: Sometimes the only way I know that I am making progress is that I know I’m not going backwards.

I have a tentative plan for a westward circumnavigation, though I haven’t booked anything yet. I’m looking at Novemberish.
I haven’t been to any new national parks yet this year.
I haven’t made any progress on going through genealogy-related email.
I’ve read 24 books, out of my goal of 80. I need to read shorter books.
I’ve gotten a little further on organizing my bedroom, but still have a long ways to go.
I’ve made a little more progress on one afghan.
I still haven’t found my parents’ slides.
I’d attempted to go to one AAA game, but it got rained out. I have another coming up and am hoping for the weather to cooperate. And I have an idea for a trip to go to 2 more.
It’s been too miserable out to exercise.

1 MAY: Beltane: What are your favorite spring flowers? I’m rather partial to irises.

2 MAY: International Harry Potter Day: What’s your favorite Harry Potter character? I’m not really a Harry Potter fan. I suppose I’d go with Hermione.

3 MAY: Paranormal Day: Do you believe in the paranormal or supernatural? Ever had any experience with it? I don’t believe in the paranormal.

4 MAY: Kentucky Derby: Have you ever ridden a horse? My grandfather used to take us on the pony rides at the Bronx Zoo. More significantly, we had horseback riding at one of the summer camps I went to.

5 MAY: International Roller Derby Day: Have you ever worn roller skates? I had the sort of roller skates you put on with a skate key when I was a kid. I was never really any good at skating, however.

6 MAY: Nurses Day: When’s the last time you took care of someone who was sick? Probably somewhere in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s when I had roommates who got drunk from time to time.

7 MAY: Cosmopolitan Day: What’s your favorite cocktail? Gin and tonic. I always want to like those froufrou cocktails with umbrellas in them, but I generally find them disappointing.

8 MAY: No Socks Day: How often do you not wear socks? Only if I’m wearing sandals.

9 MAY: Sleepover Day: Did you go to or host sleepovers as a child? Hmm, does it count if it was just sleeping over at my best friend’s house or her sleeping over at mine?

10 MAY: Clean Your Room Day: What’s the best part of cleaning a room? Being able to find things. But the best way of getting there is having someone else do the cleaning.

11 MAY: Train Day: Do you like traveling by train? I love traveling by train. I’ve taken trains on 6 continents. (There aren’t any on Antarctica.) Some of my favorite travel experiences have been parts of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, the overnight train between Victoria Falls and Bulawayo in Zimbabwe, and the Indian Pacific from Perth to Adelaide in Australia.

12 MAY: Limerick Day: Do you know any funny poems? Lots of them. Not a limerick, but here’s a silly bit of light verse I wrote 40 odd years ago, titled “If Dorothy Parker Had Loved an Engineer:”

Sing not to me of silicon chips -
the chocolate kind are sweeter
But sweeter still would be your lips
Put down that voltage meter!

A glass of wine, viscosity eight
Some bread, Young’s Modulus seven
But I cannot be quantified
Oh glory be to heaven.

13 MAY: Hummus Day: What’s the best way to eat hummus? I favor hummus with roasted red peppers. I eat it as a sandwich, on whole wheat bread, with sliced cucumbers on top.

14 MAY: Cannes Film Festival: What’s your favorite international film? That’s a really tough choice, but let’s go with Departures, a lovely Japanese film about a man who loses his job as a cellist in an orchestra and goes to work in a funeral parlor.

15 MAY: Chocolate Chip Day: What’s the best recipe you know of with chocolate chips? Good old Toll House Cookies suit me just fine.

16 MAY: BBQ Day: What’s the best kind of barbeque? Pulled chicken with a fairly spicy, vinegary barbecue sauce. For sides, I favor cole slaw and beans.

17 MAY: World Hypertension Day: What gets your blood pressure up? Dealing with household repairs.

18 MAY: International Museum Day: What’s your favorite museum? That’s really hard to choose. I guess I’ll go with the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

19 MAY: Take your Parents to the Playground Day: When’s the last time you and your parents (or you and your children or both) were at a playground? I don’t have children, so I have to go with my parents. And that would probably be some excursion to either Oceanside Park or to Point Lookout when I was in elementary school.

20 MAY: World Bee Day: Have you ever been stung by a bee? No, and I prefer to keep it that way.

21 MAY: International Tea Day: What’s your favorite kind of tea and your favorite thing to eat with tea? It depends on my mood. In general, if we’re just talking tea that’s not part of a meal, I favor lapsang souchong. As for something to eat with tea, you can’t really go wrong with little sandwiches with something like smoked salmon. Or some sort of lemon pastries, which tend to go well with English breakfast tea.

22 MAY: Maritime Day: When’s the last time you were on a boat or ship? Hmm, probably it was December, when I took a cruise on the Aranui around the Marquesas.

23 MAY: Eat More Fruits & Vegetables Day: How do you try to eat more vegetables? I’m most likely to eat more vegetables if I can get to the farmers’ market and get a more interesting supply of them.

24 MAY: Scavenger Hunt and Treasure Hunt Day: When’s the last time you did a scavenger hunt? What’s your favorite treasure hunt story? I’m sure I’ve done a few as part of National Puzzlers’ League conference events. But, aside from that, I don’t think I’ve done any in decades, unless you count an escape room here and there.

25 MAY: Learn to Swim Day: How old were you when you learned to swim? My mother taught me how to swim when I was about 8 or 9 years old. We also had swimming lessons at summer camps.

26 MAY: Paper Airplane Day: When’s the last time you folded a paper airplane? There’s usually a paper airplane competition at MIT reunions. Due to COVID, the last reunion I was at was in 2015, so it’s been a while.

27 MAY: Memorial Day: What in your life deserves a monument? Hmm, maybe my yarn stash, which I often claim contains yarn made from pretty much every possible animal, vegetable, and mineral.

28 MAY: Hamburger Day: What’s the best topping for a hamburger? I like to keep it simple, with a little ketchup (or barbecue sauce) and onions (either raw or sautéed).

29 MAY: Learn about Composting Day: Do you compost? I don’t really have anywhere I could have a compost heap.

30 MAY: Creativity Day: What nurtures your creativity? My knitting group (which I don’t make it to often enough) and my on-line crafting group are good for seeing what other people are doing and getting ideas.

31 MAY: Smile Day: Do you like your smile? Not really. There is a long story involving a front tooth which didn’t come in and incompetent orthodontia. Despite which, I do smile a lot.

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