fauxklore

1. What Words or Phrases Do You Think Are Overused? Baby boomer, living your best life

2. What Family Traditions Do You Want to Carry On When You Get Older? Most things I can think of are irrelevant, since I don’t have children. For example, we always got our age in dollars for a birthday present. I do still do the post-Thanksgiving dinner jigsaw puzzle, which was really a trick on my mother’s part to get us to clear off the table.

3. Have Your Ever Taken Part in a Protest? Yes. In high school I went to several marches in support of Soviet Jews. Much more recently, I went to the Jewish rally for abortion rights.

4. Are You a Nerd or a Geek? A bit of each, depending on the subject. I’m definitely a musical theatre geek, while I’d say I’m more of a folklore nerd.

5. Did You Want to Go to College? Where Did You Want To Go? Did You Get To Go There? I definitely wanted to go to college. In elementary school, I wanted to go to Vassar because it was the alma mater of the astronomer Maria Mitchell, who I’d read a biography of. Later on, I wanted to go to Oxford, except I was somewhat concerned about how many (fictional) mysteries are set there. More realistically, in high school, my friends and I pored over those big thick guides to various colleges. I was attracted to Dartmouth, but was concerned about the limited Jewish life there. I ended up at MIT, largely because: a) the Boston area was appealing, and b) while I wanted to be a chemist, I also realized there was a good chance I might change my mind but I was sure it would still be in the math / science realm. In the end, I got my degrees in mechanical engineering.

6. What Are the Sounds That Make Up the Background Noise in Your Life? My upstairs neighbor tromping around loudly. Lots of birds.

7. Why Do We Like Reality Shows So Much? I don’t watch reality shows, so I can only speculate it’s because they give us people to feel superior to.

8. What New Technologies or Tech Toys Are You Most Excited About? I can’t really think of any.

9. Are You Afraid of Math? No

10. Do You Find It Easier to Make New Friends Online or In Person? Probably on-line, since it’s easier to focus on one person at a time than it is at, say, a party.

11. Do You Have Good Manners? I try to.

12. What Is Your Favorite Place? There are several cities I love, e.g. Boston, New York, London, Venice. And there are beautiful beaches in many parts of the world.

13. How Careful Are You Online? I try to remind myself that there’s no real privacy on-line, so try to avoid posting anything that is too personal.

14. Have You Ever Reinvented Yourself? Sort of. I’ve used various times I’ve moved to reassess how I wanted to be spending my time.

15. Which Is More Important: Talent or Hard Work? Hard work is more important, but talent still helps.

16. What Do You Want More From a Career: Happiness or Wealth? I definitely favor happiness, but it is easier to be happywhen you have sufficient money.

17. Have You Ever Had to Make a Sacrifice to Help Someone You Care About? I’ve had to rearrange my time to help friends. (And my mother when she was alive.)

18. How Well Do You Perform Under Pressure? I like to think I do well under pressure. Deadlines force me to focus.

19. What Do You Want Your Obituary to Say? I’d want people to know the basics of what I did with my life. It would be nice for whoever writes my obit to throw in at least a few atrocious puns. Actually, let's make that a 21-pun salute.

20. How Often Did/Do You Fight With Your Parents? I had a pretty turbulent relationship with my father, but I did respect him. My mother was often more challenging, because she was more different from me.

21. What Qualities Would You Look For in a Housemate? Willingness to take care of all the home maintenance. And, most importantly, respecting my privacy.

22. Have You Ever ‘Paid It Forward’? I’ve certainly given friends help with things without expecting anything back. I’m also generally willing to give strangers help at things like finding their way somewhere.

23. What Have Been Your Experiences With Catcalling or Other Kinds of Street Harassment? I had always assumed that would stop as I got older, but it still happens way too often. The most annoying thing I get is strangers touching my hair. Ugh.

24. How Do You Feel About Proms? I’m well past prom age, but I do like having excuses to get absurdly dressed up.

25. What Do You Want to Be Doing When You’re 80? Breathing?

26. How Often Do You Cry? Not as often as I used to, but I fear that I’ve replaced crying with cussing.

27. How Do You Express Yourself Creatively? I tell stories. Sometimes I write stuff. And I do various crafts, mostly involving yarn and paper.

28. Is It O.K. to Use Family Connections to Get a Job? I think it’s okay to use family connections to get a foot in the door, but not to avoid actually doing the work.

29. Is It Easy For You to Say ‘I’m Sorry?’ It depends on who I’m expected to apologize to.

30. What Would Your Dream Home Be Like? I want a two-room thatched roof cottage, surrounded by thorn bushes, but across the street from public transit.

31. How Do You Get Your News? Mostly on-line.

1. What Is Your Favorite Type of Art? I like a lot of different types of art, so it’s hard to choose one. If I’m really pressed, I supposed I’d have to say fiber art. I also care a lot about how color is used, which is why I love both Van Gogh and Caravaggio, who are otherwise quite different.

2. What Skill Could You Teach in Two Minutes? I could teach somebody to make an origami frog (out of a business card).

3. What Was Your Most Precious Childhood Possession? Probably my Nancy Drew books, though my mother gave them to my cousin.

4. How Much Slang Do You Use? What Are Your Favorite Words? I don’t think I use much slang, other than in specific contexts, e.g, before I retired, I used to joke about being fluent in Pentagon asa Second Language. My favorite slang term, which has nothing to do with that context, is the South African phrase “Henry the Fourth” for HIV.

5. What Was Your Favorite Field Trip? I think I was in junior high when we took a tour of the New York Times. I remember that everyone got a little piece of discarded type to bring home. I may still have this somewhere.

6. Are You Hopeful About the Future? I try to be, but the state of the world right now is scary and depressing.

7. Does It Matter Where You Go to College? Having gone to MIT opened a lot of doors for me which would not have been feasible at other places.

8. What Is Your Earliest Memory? I have a very vague memory of being chased by a cow while visiting my grandparents at their bungalow in the Catskills. But I can never really be sure if that’s a real memory or something my parents told me about. I have a more definite memory of a major storm (which I think of as a hurricane, but was more likely a nor’easter) right after we moved into our house. I was not reassured by my father saying to my mother, “well, Bea, if the house stands through this, I’ll know we made a good purchase.”

9. Do You Believe in Astrology? Like most Virgos, no.

10. How Much Do You Gossip? More than I’d like to.

11. Have You Ever Felt Embarrassed by Things You Used to Like? Sort of, but mostly I think my tastes have evolved so (for example) whatever stupid celebrity crushes I may have had in my youth were just a normal stage.

12. How Often Do You Talk to Yourself? Constantly.

13. What Would You Choose to Do If You Had Unlimited Free Time and No Restrictions? Assuming no restrictions means unlimited money, more travel.

14. Is Struggle Essential to Happiness? Some level of struggle may help you appreciate what you have, but I think you can be happy regardless.

15. What Kinds of Games and Puzzles Do You Like? I do a number of puzzles every day, mostly word puzzles (e.g. crosswords). I particularly like cryptic crosswords. As for games, I probably play Code Names the most often.

16. What Would You Like to Learn to Make by Hand? I really should devote some time to mastering sock knitting. I’m good with other knitting, but I’ve failed at socks a few times.

17. When and For What Reasons Do You Seek Silence? I meed silence to concentrate on tricky problems and planning.

18. What Role Did School Clubs and Teams Play in Your Life? Extracurricular activities were a big part of my life. In elementary school, I went to Hebrew school, took ballet lessons, and took piano lessons. I was also in chorus and played viola for a couple of years. In junior high, I edited the school newspaper. In high school, I did a number of intramural sports (tennis, badminton, archery, modern dance club), was in math club, and was involved in drama club and student council / grade council. In college, I was very active in Hillel and in folk dance club and took other dance classes. I continued to do a lot of dancing of various sorts for most of my life. I discovered storytelling later on and that still plays a major part in my life.

19. Which Photograph Stays In Your Memory? I’m rather partial to a photo from Black Tie Miniature Golf, somewhere in the late 1980’s.

20. How Much Control Do You Think You Have Over Your Fate? There are things you don’t have direct control over, but you do have control over how you react to them and handle the consequences.

21. How Do You Try to Reduce Your Impact on the Environment? I recycle. And I use reusable shopping bags. And I use public transportation whenever possible.

22. How Do You Celebrate Earth Day? I don’t think I really do anything in particular for Earth Day.

23. Did Your School Have A Dress Code? Are School Dress Codes a Good Idea? I am fairly sure that in elementary school we had a dress code, but it wasn’t necessarily written. Back in those days, girls had to wear skirts or dresses to school, for example. That changed in junior high, but we still wouldn’t have been allowed to wear shorts or tank tops.

24. What Have Your Parents Taught You About Money? Mostly about the importance of living within our means. I remember when I started college, Dad helped me draw up a monthly budget, which was just barely enough money to get by on.

25. Are You a Good Driver? I’m an okay driver, but I have to force myself to be attentive.

26. Have You Ever Been Told You Couldn’t Do Something Because of Your Gender? That was pretty much a constant when I was a child. I wanted to be an astronaut, a race car driver, and the first woman to pitch for the New York Mets. At least when I decided to be a chemist, I could point to Marie Curie when people told me that girls couldn’t do that.

27. Do You Have a Best Friend? I have a few very close friends, but I don’t think it’s quite the same as, say, high school, when I’d spend all day at school with my best friend and then go home and talk with her on the phone for hours.

28. Should What You Say on Facebook Be Grounds for Getting Fired? It depends on the context. If you are violating confidentiality associated with your job, for example, that’s something I could justify your being fired for. Similarly for hate speech. In general, it’s a good idea to assume that nothing you say anywhere on-line is actually private.

29. Have You Ever Lost (or Found) Something Valuable? I have lost a couple of pieces of jewelry over the years. One of those was a ring my grandfather gave me when I was maybe 7 or 8 years old. But, since it vanished a good 30 or more years ago, it’s unlikely to ever turn up.

30. Do You Like Being Alone? I am fine with my own company. I’m good at keeping myself entertained.

I will get to things I’ve been doing real soon now, but first, here’s the first set of blog prompts from March.

1. Can You Separate Art From the Artist? I wrestle with this. There are definitely people with repugnant ideas who have produced great art. Some of those I can write off as products of their times. So, I guess the answer is mostly a yes.

2. How Do You Know if What You Read Online Is True? I trust certain sources more than others. In general, I have a reasonable idea of what the slant different news sources take tends to be and react accordingly.

3. Do You Always Have Your Phone or Tablet at Your Side? Not always, but often.

4. Is Student Debt Worth It? It depends. I had some smallish student loans, which I needed for survival towards the end of grad school and was able to pay off reasonably quickly. I think the bigger problem is that there are many people who are encouraged to take out loans without a clear understanding of what it would take to pay them off.

5. Are Parents Violating Their Children’s Privacy When They Share Photos and Videos of Them Online? I’m decidedly uncomfortable with how much some parents post about their children’s lives. At the very least, once children are school age, I think parents should ask them for permission.

6. How Important Is It to Have a Driver’s License? It depends on where you live. I also recognize that there are many people who cannot drive for various reasons (including health conditions and the financial impacts of car ownership).

7. How Did You Get To School? From kindergarten through 8th grade, I walked, which was just under a half mile. I took a school bus to high school, which was about 7 miles.

8. How Much Did Your Parents Help With Your Homework? Not very much. The only exception I can think of was some family history sort of assignment.

9. Are You An Optimist? How Full Is Your Glass? I’d say I’m generally optimistic. My cup runneth over.

10. Would Life Be Better Without Time Zones? Life without any time zones would be too confusing. For the most part, I want the sun to rise at about 7 a.m. and set at about 7 p.m.

11. Do You Like Horror Movies? Most horror movies are too gory for my tastes. I can find psychological terror interesting, but, for the most part, I prefer my movies reasonably gore-free.

12. If You Could Time-Travel, Where Would You Go? I think I’d be more inclined to visit the future, rather than the past.

13. What Jobs Are You Most Curious About? I’m curious about how people manage the business aspects of freelancing.

14. What Are Your Favorite Movies Ever? My all time favorite movie is Local Hero for its character-based humor. (Well, okay, also my crush on Peter Riegert.) Some other movies I love are The Visitor, The Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and Vampire’s Kiss.

15. Do You Cook? Yes, though not as much as I used to. Mostly I make big pots of soup and freeze individual portions. Or experiment with various pasta and vegetable dishes.

16. Is ‘Doing Nothing’ a Good Use of Your Time? It can be. Sometimes, I just need some down time. But I end up “doing nothing” because I feel overwhelmed by how much I have to do, and that’s more negative.

17. How Much Self-Control Do You Have? I am reasonably good at not saying things I’m thinking which I know could hurt the person I’m talking to. I’m not always as good at self control when it comes to forcing myself to do certain types of chores.

18. What Is The Most Odd Thing You Have Done to Earn Money? As an undergraduate, I used to make money by reading sentences into a tape recorder for people who were studying natural language processing.

19. What Hobbies Have Been Passed Down in Your Family? My parents were collectors. I never collected stamps (which both of my parents did) but I did collect coins for a while. I also collected dolls and, especially, paper dolls (which I still do.) Aside from that, both of my parents wrote. And my mother taught me to knit. And then there was reading. My father was particularly fond of mysteries.

20. How Comfortable Are You With Lying? I’m not.

21. How Do You Celebrate Spring? Well, there are Jewish holidays associated with springtime (Purim and Pesach, for example). Beyond that, springtime is a good opportunity to indulge in various fresh fruits and vegetables.

22. Are We Being Bad Citizens If We Don’t Keep Up With the News? Nobody can keep up with all the news nowadays, but I think it’s important to keep up with the major national - and local - issues.

23. What Possessions Does Your Family Treasure? I have a few pieces of jewelry that I consider family heirlooms. In particular, I love a necklace that my great-grandmother allegedly bought in China, though I have no evidence that, despite family lore, she actually ever went to Shanghai.

24. Do Your Friends on Social Media All Have the Same Political Opinions You Do? I have some Facebook friends who have opinions that are extremely different from mine. A few of them are (somewhat distant) relatives, while others are people I grew up with. I mostly try to avoid responding to them.

25. Are Paper Books Better Than E-Books? I prefer paper books, but I understand why people who prefer e-books do so.

26. What Makes You Happy? Being around interesting people, listening to good music, going to live entertainment (storytelling, theatre, concerts), walking, traveling,

27. Is Childhood Today Too Risk-Free? I think children live more structured and organized lives than we did back in my day, but I think it’s more a question of there being different risks now than there were umpty-ump years ago.

28. What Do You Know About Your Family’s History? Since I’m a genealogist, I know a fair amount about my family’s history. But I still have plenty of unanswered questions and some significant brick walls. It’s still exciting when I find new pieces of evidence - and when I meet previously unknown relatives.

29. What Kind of Tourist Are You? I like to try to understand cultures different from my own. Typically, when I go somewhere new to me, I try to see what are considered the major attractions, but I also seek out lesser known places. If I hear about a local festival, I am likely to try to go to it. I’m reasonably flexible about food and can handle some less comfortable transportation options and/or accommodations if necessary.

30. What Foods Bring Up Special Memories for You? My family always went out for birthdays and the person whose birthday it was got to choose where we’d go. I particularly liked going to Palace of Wong, a Chinee restaurant a few towns away from where we lived. Other food memories are some of the traditional Passover seder foods, e.g. matzoh ball soup and chopped liver, falafel for Shabbat lunch at summer camp, and chocolate cream pie from Custom Bakers.

31. What Is the Role of Religion or Spirituality in Your Life? This is somewhat complicated. In short, I like feeling connected to the past generations of my family. And that’s a bit tricky given the synagogues near where I live.

I’ve been busy with several things worth writing about, but first let’s look at the first group of last month’s questions.

1. Are We Becoming ‘Numb’ to School Shootings? I’m afraid it looks that way. There’s no longer the same level of news coverage and associated shock. I’m not sure I’d limit that to school shootings, however. I think the American public has become numb to mass shootings in general.

2. What Words Do You Hate? I’m not, in general, a big fan of casual cussing. That doesn’t mean I never use strong language, but I like people to know I really mean it.

3. What Recent Events Will Most Likely Be Featured in History Museums Someday? The Hamas massacre of Jews on October 7th. The MAGA Insurrection of January 6th. The Russian war on Ukraine. The collapse of the Haitian government.

4. When Do You Choose Making a Phone Call Over Sending a Text? It really depends who I’m talking to and what the context is. My brother doesn’t really text, nor does the Gentleman With Whom I’m Conducting the World’s Longest Running Brief Meaningless Fling. A couple of my friends are, however, text-a-holics.

5. What Temperature Do You Set the A/C or Heat To Be Comfortable? I set the heat to about 73 Fahrenheit in Winter and about 80 Fahrenheit in Summer.

6. What Are Your Favorite Works of Art? There’s really too many to list. But to name just a few, Van Gogh’s Starry Night has been high on my list since I first saw it as a child when my father took me to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase is the piece that revolutionized the way I think about modern art, because the verb “descending” is the key to understanding it. The Gobelin tapestries in the Grandmaster’s Palace in Valetta, Malta are simply beautiful, and while I’m in that city, I’ll also mention Caravaggio because there are a couple of his paintings in St. John’s Co-Catherdral that are masterpieces of realism. Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party is a great example of political art.

7. How Do You Remember What You Need to Remember? I write lots of things on lots of scraps of paper.

8. Have You Ever Stumbled Upon a Cool Public Performance? It depends on how you define “public.” I’ve sometimes heard something really interesting as part of free art show or street festival, for example, but I’m not sure if that counts. One example of that was my first introduction to The Bobs, who were performing at the KPFA arts fair in Berkeley umpty-ump years ago. I’ve also heard some interesting street musicians / buskers, e.g. After the Storm.

9. What Are the Animals in Your Life? I travel too much to have any animals. I have a few friends who do have very sweet cats, however.

10. What Did/Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up? Mostly, I wanted to be an astronaut or a chemist. But other careers that interested me were acting, driving race cars (specifically, I wanted to be the first woman to win the Indianapolis 500), or pitching for the Mets.

11. What Are Your Favorite Viral Videos? I’m a big fan of The Kifness. And of the Try Channel.

12. Should a College Education be Free? In general, I don’t think people really value things they get for free. There are plenty of ways for talented students to get their education paid for and what we really need is better guidance on identifying those for particular students.

13. When Did You Last Have a Great Conversation? I play board games with two particular groups of friends (some from the Loser Community and some from the Puzzle Community) and both entail great conversations along the way.

14. How Do You Feel About Valentine’s Day? I have no particular feelings one way or the other about it. It’s nice to get recognition from someone you’re in a relationship with, but getting small acts of attention at random times is more important.

15. Is Shakespeare Too Hard? Not really. One does have to get used to some of the language, but the gist of the stories is actually pretty accessible.

16. Are You the Same Person on Social Media as You Are in Real Life? I think so.

17. Does Punctuation in Text Messages Matter? It can be helpful. I am part of the cult of the Oxford Comma, for example.

18. Where Do You See Yourself in 10 Years? At my age, I just hope I am still above ground and able to go places.

19. Do You Speak a Second, or Third, Language? I speak a little bit of a lot of languages, but I don’t speak anything other than English fluently. Fortunately, the words for “chocolate” and “coffee” are similar in almost every language, so I can get my most basic needs met.

20. Did You Like School? For the most part I did, though there were particular classes and/or teachers I disliked.

21. Is It Harder to Grow Up in the 21st Century Than It Was in the Past? I think every era has its own challenges.

22. Have You Ever Performed for an Audience or Shared Creative Work With Others? In elementary school, I was in choir and in orchestra and string quartet (playing viola). I was in the chorus for at least one summer camp show. I had minor roles in a couple of community theatre plays in my teens. Nowadays, I tell stories, which suits my talents much better.

23. Should Terminally Ill Patients Be Allowed to Die on Their Own Terms? Mostly yes, but with the caveat that my biggest concern is making sure it really is their own choice and they aren’t being coerced.

24. How, and by Whom, Should Children Be Taught Appropriate Behavior? Ideally by their families. In particular settings, any adult leading the children in that setting should demonstrate what is appropriate. For example, in school, children need to learn how to behave towards other members of their class. In religious settings, they should learn whatever is customary in that religion.

25. Do You Like to Exercise? I like certain types of exercise. I enjoy walking, for example. I love many types of dancing.

26. What Places Do You Remember Fondly From Childhood? The first one that comes to mind is the secret place my brother and I and one of my friends had, which was just a clearing deep in a whole block of empty lots in my neighborhood. The other two I thought of right away were the factory blocks that were right behind the street my house was on and a place called Wayside Chinchilla Ranch that was a candy store which also sold stuff like model airplane kits. Oh, and I can’t forget the seaplane port at the edge of town, which I went to after school almost every day.

27. Can Graffiti Ever Be Considered Art? I think it can, as long as it is done with the permission of a property owner.

28. Do You Believe in Ghosts? No.

29. Are Digital Photographs Too Plentiful to Be Meaningful? It’s handy to be able to take a photo whenever you happen to see anything you think is photo worthy and I see no reason why any particular means of doing so should be considered less meaningful.

It continues to be easier for me to answer blog prompts monthly than it would be to write every day. This set of questions is from Spiffikins. I am just OCD-ish enough to fix the capitalization. By the way, I have another set of 2024 questions, which I will do soon.


1. What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever seen in nature? I have lots of candidates here - polar bears, waterfalls (especially Iguacu), the sand dunes at Sosusvlei in Namibia. And, of course, I’ve seen 5 total solar eclipses and two annular eclipses. But I think I have to put the aurora borealis at the top of my list.

2. Could you stop shopping for an entire year? I need to buy a certain amount of perishable food, so not really.

3. What national or international events that you lived through do you remember best? Some things which came to my mind are John Glenn orbitng the earth, JFK’s assassination, the moon landing, the American bicentennial, and 9/11.

4. Are your eating habits healthy? I try, but I don’t always do well. I get lazy about cooking and it’s too easy for me to go several days eating mostly things like cereal and quesadillas.

5. How do you fight the winter blues? Traveling to the Southern Hemisphere is the ideal way. Otherwise, I wallow in misery and hole up at home reading trashy novels.

6. Does technology make us more Alone? It can, but it can also bring us together. I know some great people who I first met on-line. And there are people I’ve known for years who have scattered to far-flung places and technology helps us stay in touch.

7. What are the most important changes, in your life and in the world, in the last decade? The COVID pandemic led to a lot of changes, both good and bad. I lost a few friends to the plague, for one thing. The rise of zoom has been a blessing in many ways.

8. How do you greet your friends and family? I tend to say, “hey, so-and-so,: where so-and-so is replaced by the person's name

9. Would you want to be a space tourist? There’s a part of me that would, but I also understand the risks. So I’d want to wait until I was old enough that I wouldn’t mind dying.

10. Do you trust your government? I trust the basic structure of our government but not all of the people in various positions of power.

11. How much do you think about your weight? Way too much for my mental health. My primary issue is that people treat weight as if it’s a moral issue, despite everything we know about how little control we actually have over it.

12. How much do you trust online reviews? I don’t trust anonymous reviews in general. However, it can be helpful to look at reviews and get an idea of how much consensus there is about them. I use, say, trip advisor that way, i.e. I care less about the actual review but about how consistent the comments various people make are.

13. How do you feel about zoos? I have mixed feelings. Some zoos have done excellent work at conservation for endangered species. But it still bothers me seeing animals in unnatural environments.

14. What could you not live without? What could you live without? I couldn’t live without oxygen, water, and at least some amount of control over the temperature of my environment. I could theoretically live without coffee, chocolate, books, and music, but I wouldn’t want to.

15. What are your experiences with severe weather? Shortly after we moved into the house I grew up in, there was a huge storm. For years I thought it had been a hurricane, but I now believe it was a nor’easter. As a three year old, I was not reassured when my father said to my mother, “If the house stands through this, Bea, I’ll know we made a good purchase.” I’ve lived through a handful of hurricanes and blizzards since then, with the blizzard of ’78 in Boston being particularly memorable. I also had the roof of a makeshift shelter fall on me during a cyclone when I was volunteering on an archaeological dig in Fiji in 2008.

16. How close are/were you to your parents? I got along okay with my parents (well, after my teenager years) but I didn’t spend a lot of time with them. I think that is partly because they encouraged my independence. In her later years, long after my father had died, I called my mother once a week to check up on her, but I only visited about once a year.

17. What are your favorite commercials? There was an Israeli GPS commercial a while back that involved Moses and the Israelites wandering in the desert until the burning bush gave him a GPS receiver. (I may not remember the details exactly, but that’s the gist of it.)

18. How well do you sleep? I usually fall asleep fairly easily, but I don’t stay asleep for more than four or five hours. If I go right back to sleep, I’ll be fine, but I can almost never resist just going and checking my email or doing a crossword or something else. And then I’m up for three or more hours before going back to sleep for a few hours.

19. What would you create if you had funding? Time is much more of an obstacle than money when it comes to my creative endeavors. However, there is a part of me that would still like to have the perfect house built. I went through a period in my early teens when I drew blueprints of houses a lot. This was sort of tied to an art class project we had in junior high, if I recall correctly.

20. What movies, shows or books do you wish had Sequels, spinoffs or new episodes? Less than a week ago, I would have mentioned my desire fsr a sequel to Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde. But there is one coming out in May!

21. Do you like scary movies and books? I can handle them, but I can only think of one book I found so frightening that it disturbed me for a significant amount of time. That was Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon. I do like several of Stephen King’s books, however, but they aren't the same level of psychological terror to me.

22. What are the best things you’ve acquired secondhand? I suppose things I’ve inherited don’t count. I’ve gotten a few things I like a lot at thrift shops, e.g. a straw handbag. And, of course, I have bought many books secondhand. Oh, I know! I have a lipstick holder in the shape of a doll that I found at a rummage sale when I was a teenager.

23. Do you believe that everything happens for a reason? Sort of. It’s just that sometimes the reason is that you’re an idiot.

24. Do you believe in intelligent alien ife? I know most people will disagree with me on this, but I believe the probability of life arising is so low that we are alone in the universe.

25. Have you ever felt pressured by family or others in making an important decision about your future? My parents sort of tried to pressure me at times, but I was good at smiling and nodding and then doing whatever the hell I pleased. Specifically, my mother wanted me to become a medical doctor.

26. Would you like to ride in a car that drives itself? I’m not confident enough in the technology yet to do that on city streets, but it might be fun in a controlled environment.

27. Do your television viewing habits include ‘binge-watching’? Yes. I don’t watch much television. But sometimes I do go through some series that is streaming somewhere and then I do tend to binge watch. I did that with Schmigadoon and Schmicago for example. And, going back bit further, I think I watched both seasons of Better Off Ted in just about a week. (If you have never seen it, it is the funniest show about corporate America ever.)

28. What’s Your Sunday routine? It depends on whether or not there is anything on my calendar as I sometimes have events (get-togethers with friends or theatre tickets or genealogy society meetings or one of my knitting groups) to go to on Sundays. Whether or not that’s the case, I normally start the day with breakfast and coffee and do my daily puzzles, with the addition of the Washington Post Sunday crossword. I actually think I could use more routine in my life and you may expect to read some of my thoughts about that in the future.

29. Have you ever interacted with the police? When I was growing up, one of our next door neighbors was a policeman. And I have a friend who is a cop, though not near me. But to answer what the question is really asking, I got pulled over for speeding once in Hawaii, though the cop let me off with a warning. And I once had a policeman knock on my door asking if I’d heard a gunshot.

30. Should prostitution be legal? I think sex work should be decriminalized but there have to be some protective regulations. At least a minimum age needs to be part of the picture. I’d add some sort of periodic health check requirement, too.

31. Do you worry a lot about germs? I worry some but not obsessively. Mostly, I try to take reasonable precautions, such as vaccinations, hand washing, masking, etc.

I got home Friday morning and I am only just now really starting to get caught up on anything. I have at least 5 entries to write here, so I am just going to start with a few easier ones, then write about my trip and get around to the 2023 year in review after all that.


1 – Cookie Cutter Day: Do you own any cookie cutters? Any unusual ones? Tell us about them. I own a lot of cookie cutters. They range from normal things like stars and hearts and circles to various sorts of animals. I have ones shaped like teapots that I like for thin lemony cookies that I think go well with tea. I also do gingerbread men and women and bears.

2 – Play Basketball Day: Have you ever played basketball? We played basketball in gym class in elementary school, junior high, and the first couple of years of high school. (After that we chose elective sports and I favored racket sports and dancing.) The summer I spent at a biochemistry program at a private school (a National Science Foundation program), the different project groups played basketball against one another. There was one girl in my group who refused to play for some reason, so I played more than I might have otherwise done.

3 – Make a Gift Day: Do you make gifts for anybody? How about cards? I’ve been known to knit or crochet gifts for friends. I used to make cards a lot, but haven’t in several years.

4 – Wear Brown Shoes Day: Do you own any brown shoes? I own one pair of plain brown slip-ons that I don’t wear often since I rarely wear brown, though they go well with one plaid dress I own. I also have a pair of mostly brown shoes with fancy ties that one of my friends calls my flibbertigibbet shoes.

5 – National Repeal Day: December 5th marks the end of prohibition in the United States (back in 1933). If you're not American, did your country ever prohibit the sale of alcohol (or maybe it still does)? Does it make sense that alcohol is legal, but other substances aren’t? I’m American. We figured out that prohibition didn’t work. Not that prohibiting many other drugs works, either.

6 – Put on Your Own Shoes Day: How old were you when you learned to put on your own shoes? How about when you learned to tie your own shoelaces? Does anybody actually know the answer to this?

7 – Cotton Candy Day: Do you like cotton candy? (Also known as Fairy Floss.) I detest cotton candy. It has no flavor other than sweet and stains your hands annoying colors.

8 – Lost and Found Day: Have you ever lost something important to you and thought you would never get it back, but then you found it or someone returned it to you? The only thing important to me that I lost was a ring that, alas, I never found.

9 – Christmas Card Day: Do you send Christmas/holiday cards? How many do you send? Do you receive many cards? I normally do send holiday cards. I probably send 20-30 or so. This year, I only got halfway through my list because I was in a mad rush to pack and leave on vacation and hadn’t started soon enough. Finishing writing to people is one of the many things on my to-do list.

10 – World Choral Day: Have you ever sung in a choir? I was in chorus from 4th through 6th grade in school. I think I was also in chorus at one summer camp I went to, but the memory is vaguer.

11 – Stretching Day: How flexible are you? Do you do any stretching or flexibility exercises regularly? I’m not as flexible as I used to be back when I took a lot of dance classes. I really need to make more of a point of doing stretching exercises again.

12 – Gingerbread House Day: Have you ever made a gingerbread house? How did it turn out? I’ve never made a gingerbread house. They intrigue me, but they’re not really part of my culture.

13 – Day of the Horse: Have you ever been horseback riding? Have you read any of the classic horse books, e.g. Black Beauty, the Misty of Chincoteague books, the Black Stallion books, the Silver Brumby books? Are you a fan of any horse-related sports, e.g. racing or show jumping? I went horseback riding at one summer camp I went to, but only a few times. I read Black Beauty, but not any other horse books. I went to the equestrian events at the Athens Olympics and I went to the Kentucky Derby in 2023.

14 – Roast Chestnuts Day: Have you ever made or eaten roast chestnuts? I think I ate some (bought from a street vendor) when I was in high school, but it was a long long time ago.

15 – Cat Herders' Day: Have you ever had to do anything where it felt like you were trying to herd cats? I have organized events, so, yes.

16 – Chocolate-Covered Anything Day: Is there anything that would not be improved by being covered in chocolate? What is your favourite chocolate-covered food? In general, there are two categories of food - those improved by the addition of chocolate and those improved by the addition of garlic. On those grounds, mole is the perfect food. I will admit, however, that even though I love ginger, I am not crazy about chocolate covered ginger. In general, I favor chocolate with nuts, especially hazelnuts.

17 – Wright Brothers Day: How do you feel about plane travel? I understand its environmental impact, but it is the most efficient way of traveling long distances. You really don’t want to know how many frequent flyer miles I have.

18 – International Migrants Day: International Migrants Day emphasizes the protection of migrants’ human rights. The day also recognizes the contributions and efforts of migrants around the world. Has anyone in your family ever migrated from one country to another? What would your country be like without migrants? Many members of my family spent a lot of time fleeing from the Tsar’s Army. A lot of relatives went to various parts of Latin America (Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Cuba) and to South Africa, due to restrictive immigration quotas for the U.S. Others went to Israel later on.

19 – Look for an Evergreen Day: Are there many species of evergreens where you live? The Commonwealth of Virginia is the largest producer of Christmas trees in the United States, with the Virginia pine the most commonly grown. We also have southern magnolia, Japanese cedar, common yew, something called Golden Dwarf Hinoki Cypress, American holly, Eastern red cedar (aka Virgnia Juniper), Canadian hemlock, Eastern white pine, Green giant arborvitae (you can identify it because its leaves call out “ho ho ho” to you), Leyland cypress, Concolor fir, Eastern white pine, and Mountain laurel. That is based on 30 seconds of google. I pretty much call most of them just pine trees, though I know that cedars and arborvitae are skinnier.


20 – Go Caroling Day: Have you ever been caroling? Are there any groups in your neighbourhood who go caroling at this time of year? I don’t think I’ve ever been caroling. Not really part of my culture.

21 – Don't Make Your Bed Day: Were you brought up to make your bed every day? Do you make your bed every day? In theory, I make my bed every day. In practice, I do sometimes get lazy.

22 – Mathematics Day: Were you good at mathematics in school? How much of the math/s you learned in school do you use in your everyday life now? I was very good at math in school. In my academic life, I used a lot of linear algebra, but it has been years. In grad school, I took a few classes that I would describe as “topics in applied math that the professor thinks are interesting.” I have forgotten anything I ever knew about the spherical theta function.

23 – Roots Day: How much do you know about your own family history? Do you know the names of your great grandparents? Have any of your ancestors been a part of any significant historical events? I know the names of all of my great grandparents. Many of my ancestors were part of the Shoah, as victims, alas.

24 – Christmas Eve: Christmas Eve is filled with both religious and nonreligious traditions and a variety of foods. What are some of your holiday traditions? How did they begin? We always lit Chanukah menorahs and ate potato latkes.

25 – Pumpkin Pie Day: Pumpkin pie, yes or no? It’s okay, but there are other sorts of pie that I like better.

26 – Whiner's Day: National Whiner’s Day is here to encourage people to appreciate what they have instead of complaining about what they don’t! What do you have to be thankful for today? I’m thankful not to be around whiners.

27 – Make Cut-out Snowflake Day: Have you ever made cut-out snowflakes? How about a string of cut-out paper dolls? I’m pretty sure I made cut-out snowflakes, to be used in making home-made cards. I have no specific memory re: strings of paper dolls.

28 – Card Playing Day: Do you play card games? I play all sorts of games, including board games and card games. When I was growing up my family played several card games, with our favorites being gin rummy and casino.

29 – Tick Tock Day: Tick Tock Day reminds you that the year is almost at an end, and there are things still left to be doing, and in fact, only two days left to do them in. What do you need to get done so that you don't let the year end with regret? I got home on the 29th. All I wanted to do was sleep.

30 – Bicarbonate of Soda Day. How many uses do you know of for bicarbonate of soda? It’s used in baking, as well as to absorb odors and in cleaning (often mixed with vinegar).

31 – Make Up Your Mind Day: How decisive are you? What is likely to make it hard for you to make a decision? I can be very decisive, but I do sometimes get stuck when I feel like I have too many options.

1 – Extra Mile Day: When was the last time you went the extra mile for someone, or someone went the extra mile for you? Tell us about it. I think this is mostly a matter of being willing to provide a listening ear (and, in some cases, travel-related advice) to friends.

2 – Stress Awareness Day: How stressful is your everyday life? How well do you deal with stress? Do you have any tried-and-true strategies for handling stress? Normally, my life isn’t particularly stressful, but the past couple of months were bad with dealing with the whole Medicare kerfuffle, which was caused by one person not doing her job and another person being too lazy to figure that out. I don’t really handle stress all that well. Mostly I try to distract myself by listening to music or hanging out with friends (either in person or on-line). But I also tend to overeat and sleep too much. Getting out for long walks is far more effective.

3 – Sandwich Day: Do you like sandwiches? What's your favourite sandwich filling? I do like sandwiches, since they are convenient and don’t create a lot of dishes to wash. A few of my favorites are hummus with roasted red peppers on whole wheat bread topped with sliced cucumbers, sliced tongue on deli rye with brown mustard, and a tuna salad sub with onions, pickles, and banana peppers.

4 – Candy Day: Do you have a sweet tooth? What's your favourite candy? I have more of a sweet tooth than is good for me. I like most chocolate, with my favorite chocolate bar being the 5 Star Hazelnut Bar from Lake Champlain Chocolate. But my very favorite candy doesn’t involve chocolate at all. It’s honey sesame crunch bars that you can get at nut stores, usually in small individually wrapped bars.

5 – Zero Tasking Day: The extra hour we get when daylight savings times change is often heralded as an opportunity for extra productivity, activity and ‘doing’. However, given that we’re all already ‘owed’ an hour every other time it changes, it seems a little unfair to expect us to work through it – as such, Zero Tasking Day is designed to dedicate this hour to ‘me time’, encouraging rest, relaxation and a distinct lack of work. How will you spend (or did you spend if you changed your clocks before this weekend), your extra hour? If you live somewhere that doesn't observe daylight savings time, what would you do if you had an extra hour of 'me time’? The time change is more or less irrelevant to me since I’m retired. And, since it happens on a weekend, it is particularly irrelevant. I just sleep more and read more and the like.

6 – Job Action Day: It is often suggested that people should focus on finding a job that they love. Today it is suggested that you should take your passions and bring them to the job you have, i.e. find a way to instill your love and passion for a particular career into any work you come into. Do you think this is good advice? The best job advice I ever got was to bear in mind that every job has some level of routine tasks associated with it, so you should find something to do where you don’t mind those routine activities. For example, when I was working, I really enjoyed opportunities for troubleshooting or for figuring out how to approach some major new issue, but I had to deal with writing a lot of reports. The routine reporting was annoying, but tolerable, so I was mostly satisfied.

7 – Hug a Bear Day: How do you feel about stuffed toys? Did you have a favourite teddy bear or other stuffed toy as a child? Do you have one now? I love stuffed animals. When I was a child, my brother and I were generally given his and hers plushies. For example, we had stuffed bunnies named Jack and Jackie (as in Kennedy.) Anyway, I have a couple of teddy bears. My favorite, who is actually a successor to a childhood bear, is Theodora, who I have been known to sleep with and hug at times. (I also have Edgar, who only becomes chief bed bear when I am planning travel to extreme northern places.)

8 – Eating Healthy Day: How do you define eating healthily? Do you consider your diet to be healthy? In general, eating healthy means eating foods that are found in nature, without additives and excessive processing. I go through phases as to how good I am at that. When I’m very busy and/or depressed, I eat too many refined foods.

9 – British Pudding Day: Have you ever had British pudding? What is your favourite type of pudding? My understanding is that British puddings are generally steamed or boiled. But they also use the term “pudding” to refer to any dessert. And then there is stuff like Yorkshire pudding, which is, essentially, what Americans call popovers. I’ve eaten some of those things. I also like the sort of baked puddings that Americans also eat, e.g. bread pudding or rice pudding. I think that grape nut pudding and hasty pudding (made with cornmeal and also called Indian pudding) are uniquely American, especially since I think most Indian pudding is sweetened with maple syrup. And then there is kugel, the Jewish variant made in both sweet and savory versions. (Usually potato kugel is savory, but noodle kugel could be either. Typically the dairy version, which adds cottage cheese and sour cream is sweet, while there are savory versions with onions and mushrooms.)

10 – November is National Novel Writing Month: Have you ever taken part in National Novel Writing Month? How did it go? I’ve ignored NaNoWriMo, because I know my obsessive tendencies and I’d never get anything else done if I attempted it.

11 – Origami Day: Have you ever done origami? I’ve done a little bit of origami. I know how to turn old business cards into jumping frogs, for example.

12 – International Tongue Twister Day: Are you good at tongue twisters? What's your favourite tongue twister? And to take a different meaning of tongue twister, can you literally twist or crinkle the edge your tongue? I am reasonably good at tongue twisters and even tell one that is over 200 words long. My favorite, however, is only three words - “unique New York.” As for being able to twist or curl the edge of my tongue, I think I can to some extent, but not as much as some people can.

13 – World Kindness Day: What was the last kind thing someone did for you? What was the last kind thing you did for someone else? I can’t think of anything specific. It’s more or less along the lines of question 1 - listening to what I had to say or my listening to them.

14 – Loosen Up Lighten Up Day: Do you need to loosen up or lighten up? I think I could stand to loosen up my neck and shoulders. And I could stand to lose about 40 pounds. Metaphorically, I’m good.

15 – Recycling Day: Do you recycle? I put appropriate things (bottles, cans, paper) in our recycling bins.

16 – Button Day: Do you have a stash of buttons? Does or did someone in your family have such a collection? I think I have a ziplock bag of buttons in the lower drawer of my sewing box, but I’m too lazy to get it out to check.

17 – Take a Hike Day: When was the last time you took a hike? I’m not sure how to distinguish between a hike and just a walk. I think I can count a walk along a trail, even in a nearby park, as a hike, in which case the answer is probably a couple of weeks ago.

18 – Princess Day: What is your opinion of Disney princesses? How do you feel about real life princesses? I am not a big fan of Disney and, in particular, I dislike that Disney princesses are primarily all about finding their prince. To be fair, I’ve heard that some of the more recent Disney movies aren’t like that, but I tend to watch edgier movies so I don’t really know. I can’t say I know much about real life princesses either, though the media coverage still basically treats them as brood mares and charity shills.

19 – Play Monopoly Day: Have you ever played Monopoly? Did you enjoy it? My family played board games, including Monopoly, a lot when I was growing up. I also played Monopoly with my suitemates in college. In particular, I remember our playing many many hours of it during the Blizzard of ’78. We also had a custom-made version at one of my jobs, in which the squares related to different tasks we had to do and different offices we had to interact with.

20 – Name Your PC Day: Does your PC (or laptop) have a name? I’ve never named my computer(s). I’m fairly sure that the only inanimate objects I’ve named have been vehicles, i.e. cars and bicycles.

21 – World Television Day: Did you watch TV as a child? Do you still watch TV? How much TV do you watch per week on average? I watched a lot of television as a child. Things I remember in particular were variety shows (starting with Ed Sullivan and, oh, the privilege of getting to stay up if he was going to have Topo Gigio on), various sitcoms (from things like The Munsters and The Addams Family to All in the Family and M*A*S*H), Dark Shadows (the only soap opera I ever got into) and, of course, baseball. I didn’t have a TV as an undergraduate, but my parents bought me one when I was in grad school and I watched stuff like Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, and Remington Steele. I watch very little TV now, limited to what is available on streaming services. Most recently I watched Schmicago, which was the second season of Schmigadoon - and, at least as entertaining. I also really liked Better Off Ted, which sadly only lasted two seasons. But, in general, I’m too busy with live entertainment to watch TV.

22 – Go For a Ride Day: Do you ride anything? e.g. horse, motorcycle, sled, etc. When was the last time you rode? I used to ride a bike a lot. But I’m intimidated by urban bicycling so it’s been some time.

23 – Espresso Day: Do you drink coffee? How do you drink your coffee? I drink one cup of coffee most mornings. I grind the beans myself, use a Melitta filter, i.e. a cone pourover, system most of the time. Ssometimes, I use a Vietnamese drip filter which I bought for a quarter in the market in Saigon several years ago, but that takes more effort to clean. I drink it black. If coffee were meant to have cream and sugar, the beans would grow that way. On the rare occasions when I drink Turkish coffee (and, yes, I know how to use an ibrik to make it) I may add cardamom.

24 – Flossing Day: Do you floss regularly? I try to floss daily.

25 – Shopping Reminder Day: Shopping Reminder Day falls roughly a month before Christmas, and as such it’s the perfect reminder to go ahead and get started on all of your holiday shopping. How do you feel about holiday shopping? Do you need a reminder to go shopping for holiday gifts? Holiday shopping is pretty much irrelevant to me.

26 – Cake Day: Cake or pie? Or something else? It depends on the sort of cake or pie. In general, I favor cream pies (e.g. chocolate cream pie, coconut cream pie, or lemon meringue pie), which probably reflects a preference for custards and puddings over other desserts.

27 – Pins and Needles Day: Can you sew, either by hand or by machine? What was the last thing you sewed? I know how to sew both by hand and by machine. But, aside from minor mending, like sewing on a button or fixing a seam or hem, I haven’t sewn anything in years.

28 – French Toast Day: Do you like French toast? I do, but I can’t remember the last time I made it.

29 – Throw Out Your Leftovers Day: How do you feel about leftovers? Are you happy to eat the same food more than once in a row, or do you crave variety in your diet? Do you take leftovers home from a restaurant when/if you eat out? Since I live alone, I often make enough food at a time for multiple meals and freeze individual portions. The last couple of times I ate out, I did take about half my food home because I wasn’t hungry enough to finish it and didn’t want to waste it. If I’d been eating in the city, I might have followed the lead of one of my friends and given the leftovers to a homeless person, but there aren’t many homeless people out here in suburbia.

30 – Stay Home Because You’re Well Day: Have you ever taken a mental health day from your job, or just decided not to go to work even though you weren't sick, because you felt like staying home or for some other reason? I had enough schedule flexibility when I was working that I didn’t really need to do that.

1 – International Day of Older Persons: David Bowie once said that ageing is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been. Do you agree? I think that’s partly true, but I also think all of life is a process of figuring out who we are and what we want.

2 – World Architecture Day: Are you a keen observer of architecture, or do you mostly notice it when you see architectural oddities, e.g. a particularly ugly building, or a very unusual house design — that sort of thing? I’m very interested in architecture. I have definite preferences, e.g. I love the Federal style architecture in the Washington, D.C. area. And I am a huge fan of art deco, as anybody who has ever heard me extol the beauty of the Chrysler Building in New York can testify to. I also like Islamic architecture and some of the neo-moorish designs. The gentleman with whom I am conducting the world’s longest running brief meaningless fling and I have a running discussion about church architecture and, specifically, about spires versus domes. In short, we can never agree about whether men or women are more likely to prefer either style.

3 – Virus Appreciation Day: OK, so it's been almost three years since Covid rocked the world. Is there ANYTHING you appreciate about that particular virus — well, maybe not the virus itself, but the impact it had on workplace arrangements, or social norms, etc.? I do like the rise of zoom, which has enabled me to attend storytelling and other entertainment events (and to play board games) with people who don’t live near me.

4 – Improve Your Office Day: Whether it's your home office or your at-the-office office, what changes would improve your office experience? I need to get better lighting and get rid of a lot of clutter.

5 – Global James Bond Day: Are you a Bond fan (either books or films or both)? Who is your favourite Bond actor? Do you have a favourite Bond theme song? Most of the Bond movies I’ve seen blend together. The exception is Octopussy because it is set in Udaipur, India. Restaurants there show it nightly to bring in customers, so I saw it a few times, until I found the one place that figured out that people would like variety and started showing the Discovery channel instead. There’s also a amusing broadside with the chorus “Oh, 0h-0h-seven, will you kindly stop dispatching girls to heaven.” As for favorite Bond actor, I’ll have to go with Sean Connery. And for a song, the first one that comes to mind is “Skyfall,” though I absolutely loathed that movie.

6 – Mad Hatter Day: Mad Hatter Day celebrates the Mad Hatter, from Alice In Wonderland and is the perfect opportunity for you to bring out your daft side. Do you have a silly side? Is there anything or anyone who always manages to get you acting silly? My major manifestation of silliness is in my penchant for ridiculous puns. And probably my fondness for tacky tourist attractions. For example, I once drove about an hour out of my way to take a picture of the water tower in the town of Joe, Montana.

7 – World Space Week: October 4-10 is World Space Week. How does the exploration of space benefit society? Do you think the money spent on space exploration could be better spent on the myriad problems here on Earth? Space exploration helps us understand a lot of scientific issues. Satellite sensing makes key contributions to our understanding of the earth, including problems like climate change.

8 – International Podiatry Day: Do you try to reguarly take care of your feet, or do you tend to neglect them until something crops up -- dry, cracked heels, ingrown toenails, blisters, corns, etc.? Have you ever been to a podiatrist (or chiropodist depending on where you live)? Do you get pedicures regularly? I went to a podiatrist once for a foot pain issue and didn’t find her very helpful. I do get pedicures every now and then, which are a very pleasant luxury. I even did a fish pedicure once.

9 – Canadian Thanksgiving Day: Canadian Thanksgiving is associated with the European tradition of harvest festivals. Does your country celebrate the yearly harvest with a festival or other form of commemoration? We have Thanksgiving in the United States, too, though we do it in November. And, of course, the Jewish holiday of Sukkot is a harvest festival.

10 – Shift10 Day: SHIFT10 Day was created to encourage shoppers to shift 10% of their spending into their local economies to support local businesses, farmers' markets, and other alternatives to big box stores. Do you try to shop locally as much as possible or do the ease and convenience of big box stores and online juggernauts like Amazon win out more often than not? I try to use local businesses when possible. The ones I use include a coffee roaster, a couple of local bookshops, an excellent chocolate store, and a couple of yarn stores. I also see movies frequently at the Cinema Arts Theatre, an independent theatre a few miles from my place.

11 – International Post Card Week: Did you ever trade or collect postcards? When was the last time you received one? When was the last time you sent a post card to someone? I did collect post cards for many years, including some that I sent to myself. The one I’ve gotten most recently was from a friend who sent it from Montana, if I recall correctly. As for sending them, I sometimes buy funny ones and use them to write a quick note to somebody.

12 – World Sight Day: How good is your eyesight? When did you last have an eye exam? Would you ever consider lasik surgery to improve your vision? My eyesight is terrible without glasses. I had an eye exam i August and now I am looking forward to getting cataract surgery, in fact, which will make a huge difference. First, I have to get the whole medicare kerfuffle finished with.

13 – Train Your Brain Day: Do you do any exercises aimed at (or claiming to) help keep your brain sharp and improve your memory? I don’t specifically do exercises to keep my brain sharp and improve my memory, but I do a lot of things that are said to have that effect, particularly puzzles and language study.

14 – Dessert Day! Who doesn't love dessert? Is a dessert a regular part of your evening meal, or more of a special occasion sort of thing? Or do you mostly indulge in dessert when you eat out? Do you have a favourite dessert to make? Do you have a favourite dessert to order when eating out? When I was growing up, we almost always had fruit for dessert and I do that a lot still. When I eat out, I tend to order things like creme brûlée. I also love gelato. In terms of making desserts, I make an amazing chocolate rum cheesecake. I also love to slice apricots, combine with blueberries, and marinate in apricot brandy. You can serve this on its own or serve it over ice cream or pound cake.

15 – Mushroom Day: Do you like mushrooms? Do you have a favourite type of mushroom? In what dishes are you most likely to use mushrooms? I love mushrooms, particularly chanterelles and morels. I didn’t eat them when I was growing up because my mother used awful slimy canned mushrooms. I use mushrooms in stir fries a lot. And I like them in pasta and on pizza. Or, just sautéed in butter with a little bit of garlic, cream and sherry.

16 – Liqueur Day: Amaretto! Grand Marnier! Kahlua! Creme de Menthe! A liqueur is an alcoholic beverage made from a distilled spirit. Distillers flavor the spirit with fruit, cream, herbs, spices, flowers, or nuts. They may have fallen out of favour due to the increasingly broad selection of spirits available in seasonal, fragrant, and often curious flavors (vodkas and rums in particular), but they haven't disappeared. Have you ever had a liqueur? Do you have a favourite? I like many liqueurs. My favorites include Grand Marnier, Frangelico, and especially amarula. The latter is a South African cream liqueur derived from the marula fruit, which elephants like to get drunk on when it ferments.

17 – Mulligan Day: Commonly used in games such as golf, the term ‘mulligan’ derives from the 1920s when Canadian golfer David Mulligan made a mistake during a game and retook his shot. Since then, to ‘call a mulligan’ means the chance to try again. Is there anything in your life you'd like a second chance at? There are many things I wish I’d done differently, but I made the best decisions I could at the time knowing what I knew then. So, no, there really isn’t anything I’d like a second chance at.

18 – International Legging Day: Do you wear leggings? If yes, do you wear them mostly when exercising, or do you wear them outside of the gym? I do wear leggings, primarily for dancing.

19 – Free Speech Week: There is a lot of talk about the so-called "cancelling" of individuals who are known for espousing controversial views. Would a better way of framing it be "accountability" rather than "cancelling", with the emphasis being on the reality that free speech isn't consequence-free? I think the key thing to keep in mind is that free speech depends on the context. There’s no requirement to give someone a forum for espousing views you find distasteful.

20 – Information Overload Day: We've all likely suffered from this at some point in time, if not almost daily. What do you do to limit the flow of information coming to you? Do you put your phone on "Do Not Disturb"? Log out of your email client? Avoid social media? Read a book or go for a walk instead of watching the news? I find that traveling in places with a lot to do helps a lot. When I go on vacation, I check my email quickly morning and evening, but otherwise limit my internet use to a few puzzles and keeping up my Duolingo streak.

21 – International Walk to School Month: Did you walk to school as a child? Are parents today too over-protective to let their children walk to school? I walked to school through 8th grade. It was a little under half a mile. My home town doesn’t have a high school. We went to a school about 7 miles away, so I took a bus.

22 – Colour Day: National Colour Day focuses on the impact colour has on each of us. Beyond having a favourite colour, are there colours that evoke specific feelings or memories in you? Colours you avoid or dislike because they remind you of something you'd rather forget, or give off "bad vibes"? Is there a colour that immediately brightens your mood, or calms you? Do you decorate your home with lots of bright colours? How important is colour in your life? Color (note improved American spelling) is very important to me. In general, I prefer bright colors and dislike pastels. I particularly dislike pink. I tend to be attracted to ocean colors - blues, greens, teals. I also like a lot of purples. I do like some muted colors, however. My den (aka the Black Hole of Vienna) is painted sage green. In an ideal world, that would go with a dark red carpet.

23 – iPod Day: Have you ever owned an iPod (or other portable media player)? Do you remember those first songs? Do you still listen to them? What have you become in the days that have past, and do you smile with nostalgia or cringe with embarrassment as you remember your favorites from ages gone by? I had a portable tape player if that counts. For his 50th birthday, I gave the gentleman with whom I’m conducting the world’s longest running brief meaningless fling an iPod with 50 songs on it. It was a lot of fun selecting songs I thought he would like. There was lots of 60’s nostalgia and several jazz / Great American Songbook classics.

24 – United Nations Day: Is the UN still an important international player? Do you think the UN Security Council membership should be expanded? I think the UN has been completely ineffective for many years. The membership of the UN Human Rights Council, for example, includes several countries that are enemies of women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, religious freedom, and freedom of the press, e.g. Venezuela and Russia.

25 – International Artist Day: do you have any art in your home -- paintings, sculptures, etc.? Do you ever visit art galleries? Do you dabble in any type of art yourself? I have lots of artwork. I have a lithograph by Susan Rios that I bought as a 30th birthday present to myself, for example. I had a few cousins who were well-known artists in Lithuania and I have a painting by one of them. And I have various other pieces I’ve bought in odd corners of the world.

26 – Mincemeat Day: Have you ever tried mincemeat (pie, or tarts)? Do you like it? Do you have an old family mincemeat recipe that gets dragged out in time for the holidays season? I have never eaten mincemeat and I am not planning to start. I dislike most dried fruit and mixing it with meat and spices isn’t going to help.

27 – Cranky Co-Workers Day: Do you have (or did you have if no longer working) any chronically cranky co-workers? Or maybe you were the cranky co-worker? When was the last thing you let yourself be cranky, and to voice your thoughts about something that annoyed you? I had some cranky coworkers, but I also had some who were terminally cheerful. In general, I think a key distinction is whether people were annoyed about things relating to projects we were involved with or whether they were cranky about bureaucratic issues. Much of my kvetching had to do with our corporate travel practices, for example.

28 – International Animation Day: What is your favourite animated film or TV series? I’ve always liked Rocky and Bullwinkle (and some of the other episodes included in it, like Fractured Fairy Tales). As for movies, I have to go for the classics, like Fantasia and The Aristocats.

29 – Internet Day and Cyber-security Awareness Month: Today is both national Internet day and Cyber-security Awareness Month. Are you, or do you try to be, fairly vigilant about how you use the internet, and keeping yourself safe online? Do you tend to use the same password across most sites? Have you ever suffered a malware infection? I try to keep in mind that anything I put on line can be found by somebody, so I don’t write about certain subjects. I also am careful about what sites I use. I don’t, generally, reuse passwords, though I do use a pattern with a base phrase (that I may reuse) plus an add-on for the specific site. So something like This%is%an%Example%LJDW.

30 – Haunted Refrigerator Night: Sometimes you forget about certain things that are in your fridge. And while you may have forgotten about them, they certainly haven't forgotten about you. Instead, they sit lurking in the back of the refrigerator waiting for you to delve into its darkest corners and unleash the disgusting rotten mess that lurks within those Tupperware sarcophagi. Is there anything lurking in the deepest recesses of your fridge that you're afraid to look at or deal with? I’m pretty sure there isn’t. I tend to buy perishables in small quantities. The thing I find most likely to go bad is cheese, because I don’t use a lot of it and it may get moldy before I can finish it.

31 – Magic Day: Have you ever seen magic performed live? Have you ever tried to learn a few tricks yourself? I think I saw a magic show or two as a child. It was the sort of thing that we would have had at a school assembly. More recently, I went with friends to see The Enigmatist which is David Kwong’s show, mixing magic with puzzles. That was very entertaining and even my friends who weren’t really into puzzles enjoyed it. I tried to learn a few card tricks as a child, but didn’t go very far with them.

1. Do you have a favorite memory from this summer? I did a lot of great travel this summer, so it’s hard to pick just one memory. Let’s go with going to the South Pole Inn in Anascaul, Ireland.

2. If you could spend three weeks traveling what would your ideal trip be? Three weeks isn’t really all that long. It would be sufficient for going to Indonesia, including Komodo Island.

3. What were some other names your parents were considering when they had you? My mother wanted “Margot” but my father, who was born in Germany and grew up in Lithuania, thought it was too common. They also talked about giving me the middle name “Honora,” but my mother worried that it was too likely that people would call me “Honey.” (My folks were pretty much anti-nickname.)

4. Where was the most remote location you've ever been to? I’ve been to a lot of remote places, including Svalbard, Saint Helena, and Timbuktu.

5. Have you given up on anything lately? I’ve admitted that I am not going to take up painting and given away some blank canvases.

6. Are there any childhood possessions you lost that you'd love to see again? My grandfather gave me a birthstone ring when I was about 8 or 9 years old. I somehow or other lost it when I was in my late 20’s.

7. Is there a piece of jewelry that holds any sentimental value to you? I have a necklace that my great-grandmother allegedly bought in Shanghai in the early 1900’s. And, yes, I do wear it from time to time.

8. If you were given the chance to be immortal, would you take it? Probably not. I’ve read too much fiction in which someone is given immortality but continues to age. Or does something that gets them a life sentence in prison.

9. Are there any colors you won’t wear? I’m not very big on pastels in general. And I particularly don’t do pink.

10. What is a risk you'd take if you knew you wouldn't fail? Writing a book and submitting it for publication.

11. What is something that's bothering you right now? There are a couple of things I’m looking for in my house and can’t find.

12. What was the last sporting event you attended? The baseball game at Globe Life Field I went to in mid-September.

13. Do you enjoy staying at hotels? It depends on the hotel. I’ve stayed at plenty of mediocre hotels, but I’ve also stayed at some fantastic ones.

14. What was in the last package you got? A book a friend sent.

15. Who is/was your favorite animated character? I probably relate the most to Lisa Simpson.

16. If you could move out of your home country permanently, would you? I could move to either Israel or Uruguay. Maybe England.

17. Do you play the lottery? I buy scratch-off tickets more or less monthly. I’ll buy a powerball ticket when the prizes get high enough. While the odds are about the same whether or not you play, they’re zero if you don’t have a ticket and I can afford the two bucks.

18. Do you shut off the water while you brush your teeth? I should, but I don’t always.

19. What was the last good news you received? That my relatives in Israel are okay.

20. Are there any projects or goals you’ve recently abandoned? See question #5. I decided not to take up painting.

21. What are your top five books? Choosing 5 is somewhat ridiculous, but let’s see. Alice’s Adventures Under Ground and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. Dracula by Bram Stoker. Endurance by Alfred Lansing. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. Moby Dick by Herman Melville.

22. Would you ever sky dive? I don’t think so.

23. If you could "install" three complete languages in your brain what would you choose? Spanish, for practical reasons. Hebrew for religious reasons. And maybe Russian for genealogical reasons, though that would also have to include the ability to read old handwriting.

24. What holiday is your birthday closest to? Labor Day. Also, some years, Rosh Hashanah.

25. Do you use a wall calendar? I used to, but haven’t since I retired.

26. First foreign vacation? We went to Expo 67 in Montreal, Canada. The first one that involved flying was a trip to Israel in December 1973.

27. Do you watch any anime? I have watched some, though not often. Friends I used to play board games with introduced me to All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku, which is the tender tale of a boy, his cat, and a major weapons manufacturer.

28. Do you prefer to keep a clean workspace or are you somewhat messy? I generally have things spread all over my desk.

29. What portion of your day is typically spent outdoors? Way too little. In an ideal world, I’d get out for at least an hour walk every day, but the weather here, combined with my fundamental laziness, gets in the way.

30. Did you get an allowance as a child? Yes. How much and what it was for varied over the years. In elementary school, it was about 25 cents. By the time I was in high school, it had to cover my weekly train fare (LIRR and subway) for a Saturday science program I went to at Columbia University, as well as clothing, so was several dollars. Ten bucks if I remember correctly, but it might have been even more.

This has been making the rounds.

A is for Argument: Who is the last person you argued with and what was it about? I play Codenames with a group of friends a few times a week. We have plenty of silly arguments about what clues people give or what our teammates guess in response to clues. At least, I’ve finally taught people that trolls are huge.

B is for Breakfast: Do you eat breakfast? What do you usually have? I have to eat something for breakfast. Sometimes, it’s a bowl of cereal. Sometimes it is pancakes. Sometimes it is fruit and yogurt. Sometimes it’s noodle soup, i.e. why I like traveling in Asia.

C is for Car: Do you have one? What kind? If not, how do you usually travel? Yes. My car, Twain, is a Hyundai Accent.

D is for Dinner: What's on the menu tonight? Just salad, because I’d had a large lunch of Thai food.

E is for Excellence: Name one thing you think you're really good at: I’m really good at coming up with ridiculous puns.

F is for Friends: Tell us something you like about the last friend you spoke to: Cindy comes up with good suggestions of places to go to.

G is for Games: What's the last game you played (computer or board game)? I play board games, primarily Code Names, with friends a few times a week, most recently Sunday night. I play Bejeweled Blitz on my phone pretty much daily.

H is for Home: Where do you consider to be your "hometown"? Is it where you live now? I consider Island Park, NY to be my home town. We moved there when I was about 3 years old and I lived there until college. More significantly, my mother lived there until her death, in 2014, so I went there to visit her regularly after I moved away.

I is for Internet: What websites do you look at every day? I check my email, Facebook, obituaries (mostly the NY Times), and do a quick browse of the news every morning. I also do several puzzles every morning, as well as Duolingo. I look at my reading page on Dreamwidth and friends page on Livejournal most days, but might skip a day or two if I’m busy.

J is for Job: What did you want to be when you grew up? Are you doing that now? I wanted to be a lot of different things - an astronaut, the first woman to pitch for the New York Mets, a writer, a detective, a chemist, the first woman to win the Indianapolis 500. I’d pretty much settled on biochemist by the time I was in high school. I was open to other possibilities and got my degrees in mechanical engineering, specializing in control systems. I worked in the satellite business for my entire career.

K is for Kitchen: Are you a good cook? What's your go-to dish? I’m a reasonably good cook. My go-to dishes are probably lentil soup and tahini-glazed carrots. I also bake good bread and quick breads like muffins.

L is for Learning: Are you studying or learning anything new right now? I’m working on learning Spanish (via Duolingo.)

M is for Movies: What's the last one you watched and did you like it? The last one I watched was El Método Tangalanga, which I watched on an airplane. I liked it for the most part.

N is for Nightmares: Do you have bad dreams? Any recurring themes? I have nightmares now and then. Mostly they involve either the classic final exam for a class I’ve never been to one or the dressed inappropriately (or not at all) for an event one.

O is for Orders: What's the last thing you bought online? A couple of book club books.

P is for Pop Culture: Do you follow the world of celebrity and know what the hottest new music, movies and trends are? I am, generally, pop culture illiterate.

Q is for Quiet: If you're home alone, do you like silence or background noise like music or the TV? It depends on what I'm doing. I like music for doing household organizing to, but silence for things like reading.

R is for Reading: What's your go-to genre? Mysteries and travel memoirs.

S is for Sweets: What's your favourite dessert or sweet treat? I’m very fond of gelato. I also tend to like creamy desserts, like rice pudding or creme brûlée. But the absolute best dessert ever is berries marinated in Grand Marnier. (I also do apricots and blueberries marinated in apricot brandy. You can even serve that over ice cream or pound cake.)

T is for Travel: Where did you last take a trip? I went to Philadelphia for a few days for Loserfest in September.

U is for Useless: Name something you're just really bad at: I have a horrible sense of direction. The classic example was the time I had to drive to the terminal and follow an Avis van in order to find the rental car return lot at LaGuardia Airport.

V is for Vision: Do you wear glasses or contact lenses? I’ve worn glasses since I was in about 3rd grade.

W is for Weather: What's your perfect day, weather-wise? Low around mid-50’s, high around 72 (those are Fahrenheit, obviously), slightly cloudy, with a light breeze.

X is for X-Men: If you could have a superpower, what would it be? I’d like the ability to instantly be able to speak and understand every language.

Y is for Yesteryear: What period of history is most interesting to you? This is a tough one. I like a lot of music and art from the Baroque period, so let’s go with that. But there are also some general historical topics that interest me, including social history (especially in the context of women and housework) and exploration (particularly polar exploration).

Z is for Zero: what popular activity do you have zero interest in doing? I have pretty much no interest in spectator sports other than baseball.