fauxklore

Good news. I got my COVID PCR test result back (yes, earlier than they’d said) and it was negative!

I have a few other things to write about, but, for the moment, let’s have some shameless self-promotion!

Namely, I am part of a huge storytelling blow-out for New Year’s Eve as part of Voices in the Glen. We’re up from 4:00-5:00 pm EST. I’m the fourth of the 5 tellers in that session and will be telling an original fairy tale.

STORY BLOWOUT 2021-2022 will begin on Friday, Dec. 31 at 11 am EST and end at 1 am EST on January 1. The program is FREE, however registration is required:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYpf-6trzsvH939Iec-1lH8RCQKwxJojIuc

This year Artists Standing Strong Together (ASST, pronounced “assist”, www.artistsstandingstrongtogether.net) is hosting this day of story and community along with our partners: Voices-in-the-Glen & Virginia Storytelling Alliance (VASA). The day begins with stories perfect for all ages. There are 2 very special hours sponsored by our partners:

Virginia Storytelling Alliance (VASA) at 2 pm EST with Emcee Paul Armstrong and Featured Storytellers: Les Schaffer, Jane Dorfman, Leslie Oh and Victoria Phelps

Voices-in-the-Glen at 4 pm EST with Emcee Jennifer Hine and Featured Storytellers: Noa Baum, Tim Livengood, Miriam Nadel, Penelope Fleming

Feel free to come and go from the program as you’d like; consider this event like an audio/video podcast to accompany you all day. Throughout the day there will be ASST highlights of 2021, along with a honoring of those who left us in body this past year, but remain in our hearts and ears. Starting at 9 pm more adult-themed stories will be shared. Our night ends with dancing and celebration from 11:55 pm to 1 am EST.
Our storytellers are from across the nation beginning with Donna Washington (co-founder of ASST) at 11 am and ending at 11:30 pm with Anne Rutherford (ASST Board Member), and youth storytellers interspersed throughout the day. Many other storytellers will also regale us with stories from a variety of genres, including, but not limited to: Melissa Hobbs (CA), Carol Birch and Nina Lesiga (both from Connecticut), Andy Offutt Irwin and Gwendolyn Napier (both from Georgia), Nicolette Nordin Heavey (MA), Andrea Young (MD), Lona Bartlett (NC), Mike Agranoff (NJ), Chester Weems (OK), Juliana Person (OR), Oni Lasana (PA), Jess Wills (SC), Elizabeth Ellis and David Thompson (both from Texas), Bonnie Gardner & Jay Johnson (both from Virginia), Susy Irwin (WA), and Katy Daixon Wimer (WI).

Here’s the rest of that song list from yesterday. There is plenty of music I love that just didn’t fit into any of the questions, alas. So no Sondheim, no Gershwin, no Afropop, no Tuvan throat singing, etc.

8. Your favorite song to exercise to: “Desi Girl” from Dostana (Bollywood movie)



9. Your favorite song for a hot summer’s night: “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys. By the way, back in the late 1980’s, there was briefly a place in Venice, California (where I lived at the time) that played beach music for dancing on Sunday afternoons. That concept needs to be revitalized, but closer to where I live now.



10. Your favorite song for a cold winter’s night: “California Dreamin’” by The Mamas and the Papas



11. Your favorite song to sing to a child (not necessarily a kids’ song): “Nobody’s Moggy Now” by Eric Bogle. Er, no, my friends with children won’t let me sing to their kids.



12. A song you associate with a good memory growing up: “Papirosen” by Yanky Lemmer and Nachman Rosen. This is a sad song, but it brings back happy memories of my playing it on the piano to accompany my grandfather singing it.



13. The most embarrassing song that is on your favorites playlist that you don’t want to admit is there: “Ooor Hamlet” by Adam McNaughton



14. A song you use to motivate yourself: “The Mary Ellen Carter” by Stan Rogers

This has been a frustrating day. I did succeed at finding a COVID testing appointment for Wednesday morning, which is better than Friday afternoon, but it took me a couple of hours of searching. The most irritating part of that is that a drugstore very close to my house claimed that they had some appointments available, but there was nothing at all for at least a week. And you can’t find that out until you have entered a whole lot of information. Couple that with searching multiple sites to look for appointments and I was annoyed. It would be much better if they set up a centralized system with the county health department.


Aside from that, I spent pretty much all day on various zoom calls. Part of that was for Yiddish New York, which was mostly enjoyable. I will write more about that when it is over. I also tried to attend a Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington meeting, but had problems with their zoom. When I rebooted my computer and tried to get back in, apparently nobody was monitoring the waiting room, so I gave up. (The other zoom sessions were for my mystery hunt team and for the friends I play board games with.)

Yesterday completely got away from me and I forgot to post this.

Here is a holiday story, which is completely true - and mostly factual - to make up for it.

Long-term readers may know about my fascination with the Hammacher Schlemmer catalogue, purveyors of the ridiculous, useless, and overpriced, along with a handful of things I might actually want (and a smaller handful of which I bought.)


Let’s start with the not actually ridiculous but way overpriced category:

The Professional’s High Potency CBDa Cream: I will admit that I have no idea what CBD cream retails for. And I don’t entirely understand what CBDa is versus the CBD that they sell at, say, convenience stores. Bu I suspect that you can get something just as good for less than $59.95 for a 1 oz jar. Or $99.95 for a 1 oz jar that has not quite twice as much CBDa-rich Chylobinoid (and twice the menthol).

The Heated Sweater Fleece Jacket: This is a jacket with thin heating elements. It’s powered by a rechargeable battery. This is the sort of thing I sort of want, since I am always cold. But, I assume you can’t just throw it in the laundry. And it, apparently, heats your front and back, but they don’t say anything about your arms. At any rate, I could buy several sweaters to layer for the $169.95 this costs.

The Shackelton [sic] Expedition Hero’s Sweater: While we’re on the subject of warm sweaters, this is a reproduction of a sweater worn by Tom Crean, who was part of Shackleton’s expeditions. It sells for $189.95. That isn’t necessarily outrageous for a hand-knit merino sweater, but it seems a bit rich for Crean’s blood, given that he was a ship’s carpenter who eventually went home and opened a pub.

The Child’s Luxury Turkish Robe: In principle, I have nothing against the idea of a child having a nice bathrobe. But it seems to me that spending $69.95 on a garment that will be outgrown in a matter of months is not a good use of money.

The Sanitizing Sleep Cocoon: I can understand being concerned about how sanitary the sheets in your hotel room are. The gimmick here is that this sheep sleeping bag is impregnated with silver chloride to allegedly ward off bacteria and mold. It sells for $99.95. You can buy a normal sheet sleeping bag at REI for about 20 bucks and the difference in price can pay for quite a lot of detergent and bleach.

The Solid Wood Fold and Store Puzzle Table: This is actually something I would like for doing jigsaw puzzles. But not at $249.9.


I am not actually qualified to speak to toys, since I don’t have children. But lack of qualifications doesn’t seem to stop other product reviewers, so here goes:

The Mimicking Slow Talking Sloth: Hammacher Schlemmer loves talking toys. The gimmick here is that this plush sloth repeats anything you say, just slower. And he comes with a hoodie that says “sloth mode.” It seems to me that this would encourage kids to make fun of people with speech deficiencies. (Or, for us fast-talking New Yorkers, to mock Southerners. Oh, wait, I already do that.)

The Kickball Dartboard: This looks like it might actually be fun. There’s an inflatable dartboard and four balls and everything is covered with velcro. So you inflate the whole thing (with the included pump) and kick the balls towards the target dartboard. I imagine you could just throw them, too. But you could buy lots of real sporting equipment for the $179.95 they want for this. And this seems much less dangerous than, say, lawn darts, so probably isn’t as much fun.

The Personalized Engine Lover’s Repair Set: Does your boy aspire to repair the engines of cars, tractors, or caterpillars? (Caterpillars are apparently some sort of machinery. I thought they were larval butterflies, but then I’m a girl. And, yes, I am joking because I am annoyed that they show only a boy in the catalogue picture. If I were a parent, I’d be more concerned that this requires 8 AAA batteries. It also has 58 pieces, which I am sure will easily get lost or swallowed. It costs the same $129.95 whether or not you opt to get it personalized, i.e. makes it harder to resell when the kid decides he wants to be a hairdresser instead of a mechanic.

The Animated Plush Piggy Bank: When you put a coin in the slot, this piggy bank wiggles its ears and sings a song about saving money. That seems more likely to traumatize a child than to encourage them to save money, but what do I know?

The Story Telling Cow and Finger Puppets: When you squeeze the foot of this plush cow, it recites (or sings - they use both terms) the nursery rhyme “Hey Diddle Diddle.” And sways in time with it. The victim, er, child, gets to act things out with the finger puppets, which neglected giving the cat a fiddle. I would suggest just reading nursery rhymes to your children, personally.



I am also unqualified to comment on Christmas decorations, but you didn’t think that was going to stop me, did you?

The Illuminated Holiday Yard Gnomes: There are two of these, one wearing a red polka dot hat and one wearing a green striped hat. The word hideous comes to mind.

The Illuminated Crooning Claus: This is made of iron and pre-lit with 266 LEDs. It plays 4 songs (performed by the original artists) and speaks 5 recorded messages of good cheer. It seems to me guaranteed to irritate your neighbors, though there is a mode that has it performing only when a visitor stops to “admire” it.

The Christmas Cracker Orchestra: These look like normal Christmas crackers, but, instead of a silly hat, some trinket or toy, and a joke, they each have a numbered whistle. That might not be ridiculous, but it seems like it spoils the surprise aspect of opening a Christmas cracker.

The Life-Size Animated Grinch: Why would somebody put up a Christmas decoration that speaks phrases like, “Christmas? Bah humbug!” and the like.



Now, to move to the sublimely ridiculous:

A Piece From Every MLB Ball Park: For a mere $349.95, you can buy samples of dirt from all 30 major league baseball diamonds. That’s certified game-used dirt and it is attractively arranged on a map set in a wood frame covered with plexiglass. They don;t explain what you are supposed to do when another ballpark gets replaced.

The Year of Your Birth Folding Knife: I think I have may have mocked this item before. It’s a picket knife with a Lincoln penny from the year of your birth embedded in it. By the way, if you were born in 1943, you are out of luck. Or in luck, in my opinion.

The Hypnotic Jellyfish Aquarium: I find watching jellyfish quite relaxing, so this should be the sort of thing I’d like. The problem is that it comes with two synthetic jellyfish. You can also buy extra jellyfish, as well as lion fish and sea horses. For $99.95, I want real jellyfish. And somebody to care for them and keep them alive.

This morning I got through a stack of papers, filing some and tossing some. I also changed my bed linens, cleaned the toilet, and went grocery shopping.

I had two odd emails today. The first was from resy cancelling a restaurant reservation which I hadn't cancelled. I called the restaurant and straightened it out, but it was annoying.


The other one was a notice saying my order has been shipped from a company that I never heard of and, therefore, am reasonably sure I have not ordered anything from. I can think of three possibilities, aside from some sort of potential scam. I have more or less dismissed having backed some kickstarter project I forgot about. My leading guess involves knowing two people in the city it is being shipped from, one of whom is likely to have sent me something. The less likely possibility is that something I ordered is being sent from an unexpected location. I'll just have to wait and see.

I had a couple of technical frustrations today.

Well, one of them was actually yesterday. For some reason, the NY Times crossword puzzle wouldn’t work correctly on my phone. (I prefer solving on paper, but I end up solving on my phone a lot because it feeds my obsession with keeping track of my solving time statistics.) This seemed to be only the Thursday puzzle. I finally went and did it on my laptop because I wanted to see if there was a more general problem with that puzzle. It worked fine, though solving on the laptop is annoying because the scrolling is not really well-designed with respect to screen size. Anyway, that problem is resolved.

The other problem, which is resolved only as of about 2 minutes ago, involves trying to “buy” mystery hunt swag. I have a code for the item I want, so I just have to pay the shipping. But their shopify site says that credit and debit card payments are not available right now. But it doesn’t offer me any other way to pay. I finally decided to try it from my phone and that worked fine.

I also had some difficulty attempting to book a trip on-line. In that case, I called up the company involved and it turned out that the cruise I was interested in was sold out for this year. (It’s a once a year thing - a steamboat cruise that includes the Kentucky Derby. You may or may not recall that I had been scheduled to do a Road Scholar trip that included the Kentucky Derby in 2020, which was a casualty of the pandemic.) I went ahead and booked their 2023 cruise, because, well, why not? Both a steamboat cruise and the derby are things I’ve wanted to do for a while and by booking this far in advance I got a break on the price. I am normally not a big fan of telephones, but the booking agent I talked to was very helpful and enthusiastic.

Finally, my nextdoor feed continues to be a source of astonishment. This evening there was a post with the title “Breaking News - Serial Killer in Fairfax County.” It had a link to a news story and admonished people to lock their doors. Apparently the poster had not actually READ the news story, which was about a serial killer being captured. And he had killed women he met on-line who agreed to meet him at a motel. If you are dumb enough to meet a stranger at a motel, admonishments to lock your doors aren’t going to help you. (I don’t mean to write off the seriousness of this case. But they’ve got him locked up and the concern is that he many be linked to more than the 4 murders they know about.)

The Washington Post business section on December 5th had a story about the problems faced by people named Alexa. Many of them have been asked to use a different name to avoid the Amazon software responding when they are called on in meetings. This is, obviously, Amazon’s fault, for using an actual name for their wake-up prompt, though there is, apparently, a way to change that.

People screw up my name frequently. Even when I spell my name, counter clerks at take-out restaurants write down Marian or Mary or other things that sound NOTHING at all like Miriam to people who don’t suffer from what I think of as mid-Western vowel deficiency. Even worse are the people who attempt nicknames. I am not Mimi, damn it. There are a handful of people (mostly members of my family) who are allowed to call me Mir, but nobody ever comes up with that on their own.

I did have one job where a colleague nicknamed me "Doctor Evil," for reasons best lost in the mists of time. That led to several people calling me "Doc," which is the one nickname I've had that I actually liked. (Er, yes, I do have a Ph.D., but it is pretentious to insist on people using the title when speaking. I tend to use it largely when making restaurant reservations, as I find I get better tables that way.)

Having grown up in a small town (population under 5000 on a good day) with an older sibling, it took me a long time to learn that people might have difficulty with my surname. It is astonishing how many ways people can screw up five letters. Here’s a simple tip. If you are not sure how to pronounce someone’s name, just ask them.

Here’s an even simpler tip. Just call people by the name they used when they introduced themselves to you. Even if they are named Alexa.
And, no, Amazon - Do not even think of changing that wake-up word to Miriam.

I’ve been exhausted all day. I had intended to go to bed at 11 last night, but there was somebody making a lot of noise in my complex. After about an hour and a half of not being able to sleep, I got dressed and went to go complain to them. It turned out not to be my next-door neighbors, but the people on the other side of them. And it sounded like they were having a knock-down drag-out fight. I even heard what sounded like glass breaking. I decided it would be too dangerous to confront them, so went back to my place and sent an email to the building manager (who I am sure won’t see it until Monday morning). In retrospect, I should have called the police.

Anyway, it was almost 2 a.m. before it was quiet enough to sleep. I assume these are the same people who were playing music loudly on Friday night (which I only heard when I got up to use the bathroom at about 3 a.m.) Sigh. Normally the only noise I hear comes from birds in the courtyard and cicadas in summer.

I did get up early to run some errands - mailed off my packages (there is a post office a few miles away that is open on Sundays), dropped some cookies off with a friend, put a few books in the Little Free Library down the street from her house, and did my grocery shopping. I had a genealogy-related zoom meeting at noon, so I didn’t really have a chance to take a nap until mid-afternoon.

Hopefully, the neighbors will be quiet tonight.

Last week I spent an hour or so searching for a pair of blue pants I was sure I had taken out of the dryer and thrown on the back of the sofa to fold and put away later. It turned out to be in the mending pile, where it’s been for weeks, because I haven’t felt like trying to find the right color thread to fix a torn seam.

This week, I’ve been making a dent in the stacks of paper around my house. I threw out coupons that expired as far back as 1990. (To be fair, the expiration date was in really small print.) And today, I tossed a copy of the Monaco Times from 2010. I can only wonder what is hidden in the other three boxes of stuff. I would not be surprised to find Jimmy Hoffa's body.