fauxklore

The last major thing I did in July was go to the National Storytelling Network (NSN) Conference, which was held at West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas, near Amarillo. That’s a somewhat irritating place to get to, since there are non-stop flights from only a few places. I coordinated travel with my friend, Tim, which meant taking a flight from DCA to IAH at oh-dark-30. The flight was on-time and I managed to get in a too short nap and watch the first episode of The 99 Year Old Man, an HBO documentary about Mel Brooks. While it is a long ways from Terminal C (where my flight arrived) to Terminal B (where the regional puddle hoppers depart from), the train system at IAH worked well. Tim arrived from BWI and we were also joined by Les, who arrived from RIC. We got in on time and discovered that the directions to get to the campus were, let’s just say, incomplete. We did eventually figure out how to get where we needed to go. We had plenty of time, so we got mediocre pseudo-Mexican fast food for lunch.

We checked in for the conference and my annoyance grew as I discovered that my name was misspelled on my badge. An obviously completely accurate web site claims that there are 116,900 women in the United States who share the name Miriam with me. By comparison, there are 17,694 women in the U.S. named Mariam. There is NO excuse for screwing up my name. I should note that there was also plenty of sloppiness in other things throughout the conference. For example, there was a table in the front of the conference booklet (“the green page”) that showed all of the events and where they were, but it didn’t match the detailed program (“the brown pages”) later in the booklet. This created chaos and late starts to some events as people went to the wrong rooms. Proofreading is still important.

While I am on reasons to be grumpy, the dorm accommodations were marginally adequate. We had had to purchase our linens (which were being donated after the conference), but we had not been warned that we needed to bring our own soap. (Tim walked to a supermarket and bought supplies.) When we first arrived, there was no toilet paper in either of the two bathrooms in the suite I was in, though that was quickly remedied. There were also no wastepaper baskets and most of us just used the boxes the linens had come in. The only electrical outlet in my room was not next to any of the furniture. There might have been another outlet, but, if so, it was unreachably blocked by heavy furniture. And, then, there was the food, which was monotonous and mediocre. On the plus side, it being Texas, they did have Diet Dr. Pepper on tap. Also, it was over 100 Fahrenheit outside, but everywhere inside was completely frigid.

But I was there for storytelling, not for luxury. I did give myself a little time to decompress, so came in just at the end of the opening mixer. I did hear the welcome talk by the NSN president. I’m still impressed with how well Rishi Nixon, who is still a teenager, has handled that role. (I’ve known him since he was about 8 or 9 years old, since he was one of the youth tellers who was part of the Twinbrook Tellers and associated with our local guild, Voices in the Glen.) He talked a little about networks and posed the question of how we should think about networking. He was followed by an opportunity to talk with the NSN board members. The key question (which barely got talked about in my opinion) was how to couch NSN’s 50th year. Note that that includes all of the organization’s previous names. I’ve been around long enough to remember all the way back to the National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytellers (NAPPS) and, in my heart of hearts I still think it was the best name, but I understand that most people don't share my love for long words.

After dinner, there was a concert by featured Regional Tellers. The highlight of that was Fran Stallings, telling an excellent gender-swapped Cinderella story which featured a Prairie Godfather. That was followed by what they called a “Texas campfire,” which was indoors, had no physical fire, and had sweet snacks and lemonade. Apparently people in West Texas have never heard of drinking hot beverages after maybe 10 a.m. I would have liked to go to one of the Fringe shows but I was already sleep deprived so thought better of it. Being a responsible adult? Who'da thunk it?

Moving on to Friday, they did have coffee available at breakfast and, at that time of day, I consider it strictly medicinal so don’t require my normal coffee snobbishness. (Hey, I come by it honestly. I am descended from a coffee merchant from Poland! Yes, really.) I inevitably had a hard time choosing which morning workshop to go to and settled on Funlocking Your Hero’s Journey by Charlie McCoin. His goal was focused on having everyone reflect on personal experience through narrative. He emphasized that meaning is not the same as understanding. Then we got in small groups and each person talked about a time that changed them.

We reconvened and he talked some about Joseph Campbell’s framework for the hero’s journey, which consists of:

1. Separation (or leaving)
   
2. Initiation (or struggling)
   
3. Return (or becoming)
   

Unfortunately, he got a little confused about which order the first two of those steps should go in, which made things harder to follow. We did do an exercise in which he posed scenarios and asked us which of those steps they belonged to. It was interesting to see that people came up with different answers for many of the scenarios. Overall, I enjoyed this workshop, but I’m reasonably familiar with Joseph Campbell so there wasn’t much that was new to me.

Not at all relevant to this, but how many of you know that Joseph Campbell’s wife was Jean Edman, one of the most influential forces in modern dance? She researched international dance traditions and worked with many of the important figures of modern dance, including Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham.

The morning workshops were followed by a production of Texas: The Musical, which is apparently a major open-air production that people actually pay to go to. I found it hokey, but entertaining. However, as I said on Facebook, should I ever be caught saying “yippee kay yi,” please have me institutionalized.

There were two workshops after lunch. The first one I went to was Marilyn McPhie’s on AI Tools For Storytellers. I am, in general, skeptical about AI, though I do admit that AI meeting summaries are sometimes useful when I am writing up meeting minutes. (For those who don’t know, I suffer from a genetic disease that causes members of my family to volunteer as board secretaries and newsletter editors.) Marilyn discussed various other ways that AI can be useful for storytellers, starting with administrative tasks. I can buy some utility for things like writing publicity and press releases, reviewing documents, preparing grant proposals, and (especially) creating lists of notes and sources for research. However, you do have to be careful about the use of quotes. She did give a couple of amusing examples of creating stories with AI, but I can’t really see myself pursuing that.

The other afternoon workshop I went to was Anne Rutherford’s on Create Your Historical Alter-Ego. For those who are not familiar with Anne, she tells some of her stories using the persona of Clementine Ryder, a Wild West heroine. She had us fill in forms with a number of traits for our characters, e.g. descriptions of when and where they lived, who their friends and families were, what their dreams were, etc. We then did small group exercises to help flesh these out. I had fun and thought that the small group I was in meshed well.

There was a room where people were being interviewed about some aspects of NSN history and I had volunteered to do a video interview, mostly because I remembered a couple of details about the name switch from the National Storytelling Association to the National Storytelling Network. I was fairly active on the stortell listserv and was on a technology committee around that time. I also had some relevant experience as a state liaison. I thought the interview went okay.

I skipped the story slam because I needed to spend some time tweaking my story for the showcase I was part of on Saturday. After dinner, there was a concert with featured national tellers. All of them were good, but I want to particularly note two of them. Adam Mellena had an incredible take on Red Riding Hood, involving a tour de force of physical comedy. And Pippa White had a very interesting piece about Nebraska, largely in verse. It reminded me of Ernest Hemingway’s somewhat obscure parody of Joyce Kilmer that starts out “I think that I have never trod / on anything so swell as sod” and ends with “Trees are made by fools like G-d / who pushes them up through the sod.”

Someone had recommended one of the flavored popcorn mixes (with chocolate!) at the Texas campfire, so I gave it a try. It was, indeed, tasty. Once again, I’d have liked to go to one of the fringe shows, but I was still trying to tweak a couple of things in my story for Saturday, so opted to go back to my room and spend an hour or so checking that the timing would work. In the end, I took out a couple of lines that I decided were not worth an extra minute or so.

I had signed up for a tour to Palo Duro Canyon on Saturday morning, but decided that I would rather go to a workshop and a story swap than be outside in the heat. I can afford to lose the 8 bucks I had paid.

There were a few workshops I was interested in and I settled on one by Paul Strickland titled Re-upholstering Folk Tales: Honoring Old Stories, Inspiring New Audiences. The key point was how to reach people who may not realize that folk tales are for them. He used the metaphor of a chair in a museum that you’re not allowed to sit in and noted you have two options - either reinforce it or reupholster it. He also stated that “just because something is old, doesn’t mean it is interesting.” I will admit that I didn’t love the chair metaphor because I firmly believe that furniture only becomes an antique because it is too uncomfortable to use, while the comfortable furniture gets worn out. But I thought his essential questions were useful. To wit: 1) why should I tell the story? 2) why this story? 3) why now? 4) why to these people? He went on to talk about people entering the story when they recognize themselves, in terms of someone they love, something they fear, someone or something they work for, or a version of themselves they prefer not to discuss. He recommended that you first situate your audience (i.e. find a way in, and then intrigue your audience by creating a question in the listener’s mind that they need you to answer. But you have to keep in mind that confused and curious are not the same thing. (I like the example he used, which referred to “the foundation for unadopted highways.)

Then we did an exercise in groups, in which we discussed where we might take a sentence he gave us. My group had “The queen ordered the girl to separate a room full of mixed grain before sunrise.” We took this in what proved to be an unexpected direction, where the queen is actually trying to help the girl. I can do something with this. His final step had to do with transformation. He talked about having: 1) one moment, 2) one clear job, and 3) one tool, with several examples, especially for what that tool can be. The example he used started with “The old woman warned the boy not to follow the light into the marsh.” This amused me, largely because, as a child, I firmly believed that Martians lived in the marshes. Overall, I thought this workshop was a lot of fun and wished it had been longer.

I had a hard time deciding which story swap to go to, but settled on Fairy Tales. It took a long time to get started, mostly due to confusion about what room the swap was in. The first person to tell asked for feedback, which is fine, but should have been limited to less time to allow more people to tell. I told my original fairy tale, The Three Sisters which got a good reaction. (I am reasonably sure this is the first story I ever told in public, by the way.) Two other people told and I felt sorry for the last of them, who was forced to rush through her story. Overall, it was fun, but could have been organized better.

I skipped out on the SIG meetings to run through my story a couple of more times, After lunch, I changed clothes and went over to the general membership meeting but I didn’t take any notes at it. After that, it was time for the heritage showcase (a panel put on by the Producers and Organizers SIG) titled Find and Tell the Story of You, which had 4 tellers (of which I was one) telling stories about their heritage. I told a story about my love for puzzles leading me to genealogy research, which resulted in learning about my maternal grandfather’s sister, Mariasha Chlebiocka (later Mary Lehman), who had some legal issues (a criminal record makes research much easier) and died in the wreck of the Congressional Limited train in 1943. Lynette Ford had a story she recently learned about one of her ancestors. Jessica Piscitelli Robinson talked about interviewing her father and learning how to make family recipes. Alton Chung closed out the session with a story about his grandfather, which included being given a new “American” name at school and participating in a rubber band war. There was a Q&A afterwards. Overall, I thought it went well. It was streamed and recorded and I got positive feedback from a couple of people who watched it on-line. Here’s a picture of the four of us (from left to right: Jessica, me, Lynette, Alton).



Saturday night was the Oracle Awards. The mid-Atlantic region was well represented, with Tim Livengood receiving a Service and Leadership award, largely for his involvement with organizing The Grapevine storytelling series. And Jessica Piscitelli Robinson won a Distinguished National Service award, largely for founding and leading the Women’s Storytelling Festival. (She had received a Service and Leadership award previously, for her work with Better Said Then Done).

The conference concluded Sunday morning with a discussion on the future of NSN. I think a lot of this missed the mark, because there is an inherent problem with talking to the people who are present at a conference and not thinking about the people who aren’t present and finding out why they aren’t present. For example, I hadn’t been at the previous two conferences because Juy is pretty much always a hectic month for me. (As you already know, my life is a schedule conflict.) I can imagine that a lot of people missed this conference because the location was not very transit accessible and many people have concerns about their safety in Texas given the political environment there. Money can also be a significant factor for attendance. But you don’t learn those things if you don’t ask.

Anyway, after the conference was over, we had some time and Tim, Les, and I had lunch at a Mexican restaurant in downtown Amarillo before going to the airport. There was quite a crowd of storytellers there, pretty evenly divided between three flights. I had no issues with the train between terminals at DFW. I’d deliberately chosen the later of two flights from DFW to DCA, so I didn’t get to DCA until well after midnight. It took a while to walk over to the rideshare pick-up area. I got a Lyft driver who used a very weird route (probably only about 3 miles further than what any sane person would do but I am fairly sure it was slower) and it was about 1:30 a.m. by the time I got home. Frankly, I could have just as well skipped the Sunday sessions, but so it goes.

Overall, the conference was worth going to, largely because of getting to hang out with people I see all too infrequently. There are several folks I wish I’d had more time to spend with. I've got a few ideas I want to follow up on, though I have no idea where I'll find the time to. And I hope to be able to make it to next year’s conference in Minneapolis.

I’ve been rather swamped, trying to get some things organized at home (with little progress, alas) and doing a lot of work for the Women’s Storytelling Festival which is less than 2 weeks away. You can still get tickets here, either in-person or virtual. And you get access to the recordings for an entire month.

Theatre Going: After my trip to New York in early February (which I already wrote about here), I saw a couple of shows locally. I went with my friend, Cindy, to the Taffety Punk Theatre Company production of Beowulf at the Capital Hill Arts Workshop was wonderful. Storyteller Marcus Kyd mixed the story of Beowulf with other stories about heroes - Eddie Aikau, John Henry, and the Oversteegen sisters. He was a very engaging performer and managed to get a whole bar full of people singing Hrothgar’s genealogy to the tune of “This Land is My Land.”

At the end of the month, I went to see The World to Come at Woolly Mammoth. Pretty much everything I’ve ever seen there was pretty strange and this was no exception. The plot involves a group of four people (three women and a man) at a Jewish home for the elderly. The world has started crumbling and everybody over the age of 75 has been forced to move into a retirement community, where they’ve slowly been cut off from the rest of the world, being deprived of television, mail, and visitors. And then the flesh-eating ostriches show up ...

Storytelling: I also went to three story swaps. One was at the Quince Orchard Library in Gaithersburg. It had multiple themes - love (for Valentine’s Day), Asia (for the Asian New Year), and Horses (specifically, for the year of the Fire Horse). I combined all three to tell a Mongolian story about a wife taking revenge on an abusive husband. The next one was the monthly Voices in the Glen swap on-line and I recited a poem I wrote about looking for my muse. I recited the same poem the next day at the Community Storytellers on-line story swap.

Poems: Speaking of poems, I am still keeping up with the Stafford Challenge. Here are the titles of my poems for two more weeks.

Week 6:

21 February 2026 - Soup

22 February 2026 - People of the Notebook

23 February 2026 - Novocaine

24 February 2026 - Game Night Haiku

25 February 2026 - Holiday Edition

26 February 2026 - Levi Strauss

27 February 2026 - The End of the World

Week 7:

28 February 2026 - Silly

1 March 2026 - Measuring Time

2 March 2026 - Hospital Waiting Room

3 March 2026 - Poe-try

4 March 2026 - Midweek Meditation

5 March 2026 - Whelmed

6 March 2026 - The World’s Longest Running Brief Meaningless Fling


A Few Medical Things: I had an annoying periodontist appointment, involving deep scaling of one quarter of my mouth. I hate waiting for novocaine to wear off. And I hate the noises involved.

I also had my mammogram. Taking flat pictures of round objects is painful. At least nowadays, you get the results back in under an hour. And all is well.

I still need to do some bloodwork and my annual physical.

Moving on to March, I took Cindy to the hospital for outpatient surgery. I am not good at sitting still, so waiting for four hours was hard on me, even though I had a good supply of books and puzzles with me. Still, us older women need to support one another.

Celebrity Death Watch - December 2025: Robert Lindsay wrote The Falcon ad the Snowman. Perry Bamonte played guitar for The Cure. David Rosen cofounded Sega. Lou Gerstner was the CEO of IBM from 1993 through 2002. Jeffrey R. Holland was the president of the LDS Church. Thomas J. Fogarty invented the balloon catheter, used for treating blood clots. Julius Berman was a lawyer and Orthodox rabbi who served in leadership positions in several Jewish organizations, including the Orthodox Union. Tatiana Schlossberg was an environmental journalist and the daughter of Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg. Dick Zimmer was a congressman from New Jersey (and the father of my friend, Ben).

Brigitte Bardot was an actress. She cared more about animal rights than about human rights and was fined several times for inciting racial hatred.

Ben Nighthorse Campbell served in both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. During his term in office, he was the only Native American serving in Congress. He had earlier become the first Native American on the U.S. Olympic judo team. He switched from the Democratic to the Republican party in 1995, largely due to a dispute with the Colorado Democratic Party over the balanced-budget amendment.

Celebrity Death Watch - January 2026: Brian Doyle was a Canadian writer, primarily of children’s books. Diane Crump was the first woman to ride in a parimutuel race in the United States. Johnny Legend was a rockabilly musician. Aldrich Ames was a spy, who compromised more CIA assets than any other intelligence officer at the time of his arrest. Philippe Junot was the first husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco. Bob Weir was a founding member of The Grateful Dead. Louis E. Burs won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for co-discovering quantum dots. Kenny Morris played drums for Siouxsie and the Banshees. Gladys West was a mathematician who worked primarily on developing satellite geodesy models. Valentino was a fashion designer. Hudson Talbott wrote and illustrated children’s books and collaborated with Stephen Sondheim on a book version of Into the Woods. Roland Huntford wrote several books about polar exploration, notably The Last Place on Earth about the race between Scott and Amundsen to the South Pole. Bryan Loren wrote the satirical song “Do the Bartman.” Demond Wilson played Lamont on Sanford and Son. Catherine O’Hara was a comic actress known for appearing in Home Alone, Beetlejuice, and Schitt’s Creek. Billy Bass Nelson played bass guitar for Parliament-Funkadelic. Mingo Lewis was a percussionist for Santana and Al Di Meola.

Scott Adams was responsible for the comic strip, Dilbert, which adorned office doors throughout the United States. He fostered a negative view of the corporate world and wasn’t any nicer in the rest of his life. He took to political commentary and was eventually brought down by persistent racism. (I knew someone who had worked with him at Pacific Bell and she said he was, in general, an asshole.) By the way, a colleague and I once bought our boss a pointy-haired boss wig and he wore it while doing our performance reviews. He was on my ghoul pool list and earned me 19 points.

X. J. Kennedy was a phenomenal poet. He began his career writing science fiction stories for pulp magazine (mostly under the name Joe Kennedy) and had his first book of poetry, Nude Descending a Staircase: Poems, Songs, A Ballad in 1961. He wrote a lot of poetry for children, as well as for adults, and was the poetry editor for The Paris Review. He also taught writing at several universities (notably at Tufts for 15 years) and wrote textbooks. If you like light verse at all, you owe it to yourself to read his work. He was on my ghoul pool list and earned me 24 points (including a 12 point bonus for uniqueness.) I wrote the following, loosely based on his poem “In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus,” which was the first of his poems I ever read. (This is a revised version after one of my friends objected to an imperfect rhyme on my first attempt.)

A Eulogy for X.J. Kennedy

In a small living room on Long Island one day
I first read the works of the poet, X. J.
Joseph Charles Kennedy was his name at his birth
His poems were amusing, they sparkled with mirth.

He wrote about children, he wrote about art
He wrote with sharp humor, but also with heart.
His verses showed off his supreme savoir faire
He loved rhyme and meter, and used them with flair.

He translated works, from French and from Greek
He won many prizes - at least one each week
And now in his nineties, death’s pulled him away
but I’ll always remember the poet, X.J.


Convergence - Lullabies and Anthems: The final session of Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell’s class was Tuesday of last week. He had two subjects to talk about. Re: lullabies, he asked us which ones we knew. The most familiar one to me was the Yiddish song “Rozhinkes Mit Mandlen” which has a widow sitting in the corner of the synagogue singing to her son about his future. He discussed another Yiddish lullaby and the song “All the Pretty Little Horses,” which he explained as an enslaved man singing to his son, after her mother had probably been sold down the river. He focused on the theme connecting these being the absent parent. I didn’t think of it at the time, but now I’ve been wondering about the level of violence in lullabies, e.g. “Rock-a-bye Baby” (in which “down will come cradle, baby and all”).

As for anthems, most of us knew “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Hatikvah” (the Israeli national anthem, whose title means “The Hope”) but he also wanted us to discuss things other than national anthems, e.g. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (which is sometimes called the Black National Anthem) or even “I Am Woman.” He closed by posing the question, “What does victory look like for us?” It’s a good question to ask in troubled times.

Overall, I thought the class was worth my time. I’ll look for other offerings from New Lehrhaus, though it is always hard to clear my schedule for things like this.

Stafford Challenge - Week 2: I managed to write a poem every day again for the second week. I will, in general, include just the titles here.

24 January - Winter Storm

25 January - Do You Know Who I Am?

26 January - Ink

27 January - The Bordens

28 January - Irony

29 January - LIRR 1

30 January - LIRR 2

I’ve noticed two things. First, I can’t write just about things associated with the wreck of the Congressional Limited, because other topics distract me. I have plenty of things to say about trains in general (including my habit of writing haikus when I am frustrated with the Metro). But other topics inevitably creep into my head. And, secondly, the best advice I’ve gotten for doing this challenge (and for writing in general) is that when you feel blocked, you just have to lower your standards.

Projects: My Tunisian crochet afghan is crawling along. The biggest problem is that I really only work at it during crafts group. I probably need to watch more television.

I finally wrote the first part of my guide to Lithuanian Jewish names. This part covers given names. I still want to write about surnames, but I am not sure where I put my notes for that.

I also have a bunch of things to do for the Women’s Storytelling Festival. I’ve got two major tasks and need to get a good start on them this week.

Snowcrete: We had about 6 inches of snow a little over a week ago. The problem is that we got 3 inches of sleet on top of it, resulting in an annoyingly hard layer of ice which was too difficult for most people to clear. My condo complex does an okay job of clearing the sidewalk, but a lot of people don’t bother. (Or, physically can’t.) And it’s been too cold for ice melt to be effective. Can we please fast forward to springtime?

Both Sides Now: I went to a concert Saturday night at Sixth and I on Saturday night. It was titled Both Sides Now: The Music and Lives of Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. It was performed by Robbie Schaefer, who I’ve liked since the days of Eddie from Ohio, and Danielle Wertz, who I hadn’t heard of before. It was generally enjoyable, though I had qualms about a few of the arrangements. In particular, I thought the arrangement of “Big Yellow Taxi” was slowed down too much. But, overall, I thought it was a success. And the audience was engaged and responsive and well-behaved. At the end, everybody sang along to “The Circle Game, which felt like the right closing. I'm glad I braved the frigid evening to go.

At least this time, I am starting my year in review while it is still January. I have an established format for that so here it goes.

I didn’t have any major household crises. I did have knee issues slowing me down much of the year, but I finally got to physical therapy which helped a lot. Overall, my life remains a schedule conflict.

Books: I read 47 books in 2025. That was 19 non-fiction and 28 fiction books, including 2 graphic books (one each of fiction and non-fiction). Also, two of the fiction books were anthologies. Favorites were The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde, David Lagercrantz’s three sequels to Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series, Alive by Piers Paul Read, The Third Daughter by Talia Carner, The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson, The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams, The Women by Kristen Hannah, and The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. I reread To Kill a Mockingbird and, with all due apologies to its fans, I still detest it. I think the worst book I read in 2025, however, was Dead on Target by M.C. Beaton with R.W. Green.

I made one used bookstore run, getting rid of 16 books. I also gave away 5 books (3 to friends and 2 to members of my neighborhood book exchange) and threw one out because it was falling apart. I have at least another 56 ready to go out.

As far as book clubs, my long-standing one is falling apart, but the one that had disbanded is trying to start up again. The Travelers’ Century Club Book Club is going strong and I have become co-coordinator of that.

Ghoul Pool: I finished 7th out of 14 players with 115 points. People I scored on were Agnes Keleti, Pope Francis, William H. Webster, Sister Jean (unique), Sophie Kinsela, Sam Nujoma (unique), June Lockhart, and Tom Lehrer.

Travel: I did two international trips in 2025. I spent a little over half of June in Greece, most of it on the island of Zakynthos in the Ionian island group for a paper conservation class. And I did an around the world trip, with time spent in Taiwan (mostly Taipei) and Germany (mostly Hamburg) before taking the Queen Mary 2 to New York.

As for domestic travel, I went to Las Vegas in March for my brother’s wedding. Closer to home, I drove down to Williamsburg, Virginia for the VASA gathering in April. I met up with Flyertalk friends in Kansas City in May to eat barbecue and see a few museums. Later in May, I drove to Baltimore for Balticon (a science fiction convention). Then I flew up to Boston (well, Cambridge) for my 45th college reunion, which included my giving a TIM Talk about my travels. In July I went to Minneapolis / St. Paul for the National Puzzlers’ League con. At the beginning of August, I went to the Denver area for Geostock, which is an annual party my friends in Superior host. Later in August, I went to Fort Wayne, Indiana for an annual Jewish genealogy conference, followed by a weekend in Chicago for Sporclecon (a trivia event). Loserfest (related to the Style Invitational humor contest) was in September in the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina area. I also took a trip up to New York in September. And I spent a little more time in New York after my transatlantic crossing in November.

And I went to the Travel show in D.C. in March.

Genealogy: I didn’t have any particularly notable genealogical breakthroughs this year. I did, however, continue to be the Litvak subject matter expert for the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Washington and put together a guide to using Facebook for Jewish genealogy for that group. And, as mentioned above, I went to the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies annual conference (in Fort Wayne, Indiana) in August where I: a) gave a brief presentation about how my maternal grandparents met and married and b) had time to sit down with one of my Schwartzbard cousins. I also spent some time at the very impressive Allen County Library, which has a huge genealogy collection.

Baseball: I went to see my Red Sox beat up on the Nationals on the Fourth of July, which was very enjoyable though somewhat too hot out. I also went to two minor league baseball games - the Saint Paul Saints (who lost to the Worcester Red Sox, aka WooSox) and the Fort Wayne (Indiana) Tin Caps (who beat the West Michigan White Caps). While I was in the Minneapolis area, I also saw the home plate from Metropolitan Stadium in Minneapolis and the red chair bolted to the wall that marks the longest home run (hit by Harmon Killebrew) at that ballpark. (Both of those are at the Mall of America.)

Also, I went to a Profs and Pints talk about The Physics of Baseball, which was both interesting and enlightening. And, as noted below, I went to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City in May.

Culture: I went to 9 musicals over the year. I also saw the Dolly Parton retrospective at the Kennedy Center, which I’m not sure how to count. Nor do I know how to count the shows I saw on the Queen Mary 2, which also included one non-musical play. My favorites were Schmigadoon (which was part of the Broadway Center Stage series at the Kennedy Center), The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical at Signature Theatre, Damn Yankees at Arena Stage, Guys and Dolls at the Shakespeare Theatre, and Maybe Happy Ending on Broadway. I also went to two operas.

If I counted correctly, I saw 9 movies on airplanes and 7 in theaters this year. Favorites were The Penguin Lessons, Conclave, Coco, Rental Family, and Song Sung Blue.

Storytelling: The biggest storytelling event of the year for me was the Women’s Storytelling Festival in March, at which I both told a story and emceed the Story Swap. (Note that the 2026 WSF is coming up March 19 through 22nd and tickets are on sale now.)

Other storytelling shows I was part of were a Better Said Than Done Mother’s Day show in Elliott City, Maryland, the Washington Folk Festival (in October) and the Artists Standing Strong Together New Year’s Eve Blowout. I also went to several story swaps (both with Voices in the Glen and with Community Storytellers in Los Angeles. And I went to a Spooky Stories swap at a library in Maryland.

In April, I not only went to the Virginia Storytelling Association (VASA) gathering in Williamsburg but presented a workshop on Storytelling Ethics there.

I continued to participate in a discussion group centered on the Grimm fairy tales. However, this has ended, due to other commitments on the part of the organizer.

Museums and Art: During my trip to Kansas City, I went to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, the American Jazz Museum, the World War I Museum and an exhibit about Snoopy and the Red Baron at the Crown Center.

I’m not sure whether or not to count it, but I did go to some exhibits about the Mechanical Engineering Department when I was at my M.I.T. Reunion in June.

Also, in June, while in Zakynthos, I went to the General Archives and Historical Library of Zakynthos, the Byzantine Museum, and the Ecclesiastical Museum of the Holy Monastery of St. Dionysius.

In July, I went to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

During my September trip to the Myrtle Beach area for Loserfest, I went to Brookgreen Gardens (which has a lot of sculptures and some indoor exhibits). I also visited Atalaya Castle, the Myrtle Beach Pinball Museum, Ripley’s Aquarium, and the surprisingly impressive (albeit small) Myrtle Beach Art Museum.

Later in September, I saw some exhibits at YIVO in New York but, more significantly, went to the Frick Collection.

In October, I saw a couple of art exhibits at Glen Echo Park in Maryland.

During my trip in November, I visited the National Palace Museum in Taipei, as well as the Observation Deck at Taipei 101, and the various exhibits at the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. I also went to X-Park, a large aquarium in Taiyuan. Then, in Hamburg, Germany, I visited the German Emigration Museum, the excellent Achilles-Stiftung Glass Museum, an exhibit about the fall of Communism in one of the modern art museums, and a little over half of the museums in the Composers’ Quarter.

Other Stuff:
I went to a couple of MIT Hillel’s Leading Jewish Minds talks (held on-line).

I went to Balticon (a science fiction convention) over Memorial Day weekend. I could have put this under Books, but it’s somewhat broader than that.

As usual, I spent a lot of time doing puzzles and reading.

I played board games with two different groups of friends on-line, though not as often as I’d have liked to. Some day I may have my condo presentable enough to actually have people over for a games day.

I made a fair amount of progress on my Tunisian crochet afghan (mostly during my every other Thursday , but it is still not done, alas.

I have reached the point in my life where I go to way too many memorial services / funerals.


Goals: So, how did I do on my 2025 goals? I did do a westward circumnavigation of the world, so I get 100% on that goal. I got to 2 minor league baseball games (out of a goal of 4), so I get 50% for that. I had a goal of finishing 4 crafts projects and, while I didn’t finish any, I made enough progress on the Tunisian crochet afghan that I’ll give myself 20%. I read 47 books (out of a goal of 80) so I’ll give myself 59%. This is more subjective, but I’ll give myself a 50% on learning to read Hangul. And I did revisit my life list, with some updates. That deserves an entire post of its own. Again, this is subjective, but I’ll give myself a 60%. I made no progress on my parents’ photographs and slides, organizing genealogy files or sorting through cassette tapes. And did not go to any National Parks, so I get 0% on those 4 goals. Averaging things out, I’ll give myself a 34% for the year.

Looking over the past several years, that’s significantly better than the previous year, but is still on the low side.

2025 - 35%
2024 - 23%
2023 - 62%
2022 - 41%
2021 - 48%
2020 - 52%
2019 - 30%
2018 - 40%
2017 - 25-30%
2016 - 25%
2015 - 26%
2014 - 50%
2013 - 60%
2012 - 30%


Which brings me to goals for 2026:

• Take at least 2 long distance train trips
  
• Go to at least 4 minor league baseball games
  
• Go to at least 3 new to me TCC countries/territories
  
• Go to at least 3 National Parks
  
• Become comfortable with reading Hangul (Korean writing system)
  
• File or shred all household paperwork
  
• Read at least 80 books, with a stretch goal of 100
  
• Complete at least 4 crafts projects
  
• Get rid of at least 10 LP records
  
• Successfully complete the Stafford Challenge by writing a poem every day (Note: the 2026 challenge started on January 17th)
  

Back in 1990, I discovered storytelling more or less by accident. I lived in Los Angeles and I got the regular course / event catalogues from the University of Judaism. One catalog listed a full day Jewish storytelling event, a mixture of workshops and performances. I decided to go, largely because I’d had a conversation several months before (at a wedding, if I recall correctly) in which somebody had mentioned storytelling to me.

Aside from the official learning activities, I heard stories from all of the people leading the event. One of those people was Doug Lipman, who told a Jewish story called “The Sword of Wood,” which made a big impression on me. I also met a lot of people and learned that there were storytelling groups throughout the L.A. area, including one that met quite near where I lived. I took flyers about those groups. I also took a flyer about a weekend workshop Doug and Jay O’Callahan were doing a few months later somewhere in the Inland Empire and decided to sign up for it.

Not long after, I gathered my courage and went to Community Storytellers. I don’t remember if I told a story that first time there, but I know I did fairly soon and before long Community Storytellers was on my monthly calendar of things to do. I met great people there and I remember feeling relieved when I went to Doug and Jay's workshop and one of those people was also there.

The stories I had been telling up to then were largely original fairy tales and my takes on folklore. But the workshop emphasis was on personal stories. At any rate, there was one exercise that had to do with a memory about a place. And a place that I had not thought about in 20 some odd years immediately popped into my head, in amazing detail. It’s the basis for the story I’m telling in the upcoming New Year’s Eve event.

I ended up signing up for another workshop (and another and another) with Doug. His coaching style, which started out with appreciation for the teller, was very effective. And his reactions were full of unrestrained joy. His spontaneity was also a delight. When he led workshops at Wanna’s house in Pasadena, we’d all go out to lunch at Souplantation (a soup and salad bar restaurant) and he wrote a song that included lyrics about “working hard at the soup plantation.” I also remember driving home from his workshops so full of what I'd learned that I missed my exit on the freeway two nights in a row.

Overall, Doug was someone who had a huge influence on my storytelling - and my life. And I can’t count how many other storytellers I’ve met who have said the same thing. He was a special person and I will always be grateful to have known him. He died today but he will always be a part of so many of us.

I had intended to go to the crafts fair at the Dulles Expo Center yesterday or today but was too busy trying to do things at home to manage that. And I have a commitment tomorrow, so no crafts fair for me this year. The Dulles Expo Center is closing so no more for that venue for me. (In case anybody wondered, it’s being replaced by an Ikea.) It’s not like I really need more jewelry and I’m well stocked up on local honey.

I did make it down to my condo complex holiday party tonight for a little while. They had the usual heavy hors d’oeuvres, which were okay. The best things they had were a decent malbec and lots of chocolate covered strawberries. It seemed less crowded than usual, but I had gone right at the beginning and didn’t stay long because i had a story swap to go to over zoom.

I told a brief Chanukah in Chelm story. Jane told “Prince Rooster,” which is a story I also tell. John told a story in India involving a young girl and a tiger. The highlight was (as usual for this time of year) Margaret telling “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” by Dylan Thomas.

Birthday:Moving on to what I did in September and so far in October. First of all was my birthday. I’m now 67.

A Few Things I Did in September: I took two trips which will get their own blog posts. Alas, my needlework group conflicted with one of those trips and with Yom Kippur, so I only made it to one meeting. I saw the movie Guns and Moses (which I already wrote about in my quarterly update on books, movies, and goals) at Tyson’s Corner and browsed an Indian clothing store while I was there.

Dinner With Friends: I went to dinner with friends from Flyertalk at the end of the month. Note to self: the pizza at Fireworks in Clarendon is better than their other menu offerings. The fish sandwich was okay, but fish sandwiches should really come with cole slaw, not potato chips.

High Holidays: I went to High Holiday on-line services at Fabrengen, mostly to save the hassle of dealing with things in the city. I generally try to find some interesting take away every year, particularly for Yom Kippur. This year, my takeaway was this quote from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel at the August 1969 Liturgical Conference in Milwaukee, which was in a footnote in the machzor (prayer book):

Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods. The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision.”

Damn Yankees: I did a bunch of theatre going on one of my trips, but still saw two musicals when I was home. The first of those was Damn Yankees at Arena Stage. I’d talked my friend, Cindy, who was entirely unfamiliar with it, into coming along. While I’d seen the movie version and listened to the original cast recording a gazillion times, I hadn’t seen a live performance of it before. Anyone who knows me at all knows how I feel about a certain pinstriped baseball team (who I was very happy to see lose to Toronto after beating up on my Bosox, but I digress), so it’s no surprise that I love this show. This version was updated, to the early 2000’s and the Source of All Evil in the Universe was playing against Baltimore, not Washington, presumably to make it feasible for the two teams to face each other in the World Series. Anyway, the score has some iconic songs - especially Heart and Whatever Lola Wants, but I think the real highlights of this production were Near to You and A Man Doesn’t Know, both of which I found very moving. I can’t ignore the choreography which was excellent, though I still think the song Who’s Got the Pain? is useless filler. All of the performers were excellent, and I want to particularly note the singing of Quentin Earl Darrington, who plays the aging Joe Boyd, and the dancing of Ana Villafañe as Lola. I should also mention that they had the Orioles mascot come out and lead everyone in Take Me Out to the Ball Game after intermission. But the Orioles don’t actually do that. For some ungodly reason, they sing Thank G-d I’m a Country Boy instead, which is just wrong. Anyway, the show runs through November 9th and you should go see it if you possibly can.

By the way, we had dinner after the show at 54 Noodles Bar, a new Vietnamese restaurant near the Waterfront metro station. The spring rolls and pho were both very good and the service was efficient enough. I’m likely to eat there again in the future.

The Turn of the Screw: The other musical I saw locally was The Turn of the Screw at Creative Cauldron, which has moved to a new location, still in Falls Church. I read the novella it’s based on long ago and remembered it being creepy, but unsatisfying, with the key issue being that there is no resolution as to whether there are actual ghosts or the governess is losing her mind (with the children possibly manipulating her). This version added another twist, as it implies that the boy may have been sexually molested by the valet. (I should note that Cindy did not interpret things that way at all.) I was also unimpressed with the acoustics of the new space. On the plus side, the uncle (whose song I’d Rather Not Know was the best of the evening) was played by local favorite Bobby Smith and it is good to see him back on stage after several months recuperating from a terrible car accident.

October So Far: My book club met this past Wednesday night and talked about The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams. I loved this book, as did most of the other people in the book club, though one person couldn’t get through it. I posed a question that I thought would make for good discussion, namely what books you would put on a list that you think everyone should read. Unfortunately, nobody else took the bait. (For what it’s worth, my top choice would be Alice in Wonderland, which is the best book ever written about pretty much everything.)

Story Swap: The monthly Voices in the Glen story swap was held over zoom tonight. I ran through a story I am planning on telling next weekend at the Washington Folk Festival. The highlight of the evening (in my opinion) was Margaret’s recitation of Christina Rosetti’s Goblin Market.

Shameless Self Promotion: The Washington Folk Festival is next Sunday, October 19th at Glen Echo Park. I’ll be on the Storytelling stage from 3:30 to 4 in the afternoon. My blurb is “Spare Change - Join Miriam Nadel for tales of transformation and metamorphosis from around the world and across time.” There’s also plenty of music and dance. It’s always a good time.

Celebrity Death Watch: BeBe Shopp won the 1948 Miss America pageant. Joan Bennett Kennedy was the first wife of senator Ted Kennedy. Mike Greenwell played left field for the Red Sox from 1985-1996. Tommy Price was the drummer for Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. John Lodge performed with The Moody Blues and wrote the song I’m Just a Singer in a Rock ad Roll Band. Diane Keaton was an actress whose film roles included Annie Hall. Tony Fitzpatrick was a collage artist. Sandy Alomar Sr. played second base, primarily for the California Angels. He also had two sons who were successful baseball players - Sandy Alomar Jr. and Roberto Alomar. D’Angelo was a neo-soul singer-songwriter.

Mel Taub created the Puns and Anagrams puzzle in The New York Times. This is not quite as complex as a typical cryptic crossword is. But, as a person who loves puns (and, as far as I am concerned, the more atrocious the better), they were always fun to solve.

Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt was the chaplain for the basketball team at Loyola University in Chicago. She was the subject of numerous newspaper articles about being a superfan and even became the subject of a bobblehead. She was on my ghoul pool list and earned me 24 points, which includes the 12 point uniqueness bonus. I was, frankly, surprised that nobody else had her on their list, since she was 106 years old.

Moving on to April in my catch-up, let' start with the first weekend of the month.

I drove down to Williamsburg the first weekend in April for the Virginia Storytelling Alliance (VASA)annual gathering. The drive down was about what I expected for a Friday afternoon, with a few areas of heavy traffic (inevitably around Quantico and around Fredericksburg), but I didn’t have any trouble getting to the hotel where the event was being held. I had plenty of time to get dinner at a nearby Mexican restaurant before the informal story swap that kicked off the Gathering. Since this was just before Passover, I told a story that essentially combines two of my father’s jokes about the crossing of the Red Sea.

Saturday was a very full day. The first event was a workshop by Jeanna Lee on Persuasive Storytelling. She focused on the rhetorical triangle, which includes ethos (appeal to credibility and authority), logos (appeal to logic and reasoning), and pathos (appeal to emotion). The handout talked about these in terms of neurotransmitters. But the real tie-in to storytelling was an exercise where we were divided into groups and each got one of these approaches to use in telling the story of the three little pigs. I was in the logos group and we pointed out to the big bad wolf that he was supposed to be avoiding high cholesterol foods like pork. And then there was the matter of his criminal record … Overall, we had a lot of fun with this.

After an intermission, Gwendolyn Poole presented a workshop title Attention Please which had to do with practical tools for capturing the audience’s attention. This included voice inflection, call and response, and physical movement. That was followed by the first of two story swaps with feedbacks.

Then came lunch, which also included the annual VASA business meeting. That includes the financial report, membership report, and board of directors (including filling any vacant positions). I served on the board for several years a while back, but I’m committed to too many other things now to consider doing it again.

Next up was a workshop on Storytelling Ethics, led by yours truly. This is a topic that I’m passionate about. My handouts covered how to define ethics, basics of copyright protection, and several case studies. For example, what is appropriate to tell for a given audience? Can you tell a story from a culture other than your own? How should you deal with organizers of storytelling programs, including financial considerations? The discussion was lively and I think it went very well.

The second story swap with feedback followed that. The day ended with filling out evaluations and some closing remarks.

I could have driven home that evening, but I had decided it would be more relaxing to stay another night. That was, indeed, a good decision. I got dinner at a barbecue place that had been recommended to me and my drive home on Sunday was noticeably faster than the drive down had been. All in all, I’d say it was a successful event, though the attendance was on the low side.

I am fairly sure this is the latest I have ever done a year in review. Let’s just say that I’ve been crazy busy. Anyway, here we go in the same format I’ve used for several years now.

The worst thing that happened in 2024 was the whole fiasco with the HVAC leak in late June / early July. Which turned out to be due to a blockage from a line in a unit above mine, so didn’t involve as much money as it might have, but it was still very stressful.

Beyond that, there was also some medical stuff. Having cataract surgery was actually a really good thing. It was quite miraculous the morning after the first eye was done when I could read titles of books across the bedroom without putting on my glasses. (The second eye also went well, but that was a less dramatic change.) The knee issues that I had later in the year were also a big deal. Let’s just say I have good days and I have bad days. Getting old sucks.


Books: I read only 36 books in 2024, which is pathetically few for me. That was 14 non-fiction books and 22 fiction books. Favorites were Sleeping With the Fishes by Mary Janice Davidson, Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, Sounds Like Titanic by Jessica Chiccehotto Hindman, Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, and a couple of Dick Francis mysteries. The worst book I read during the year was The Naked Face by Sidney Sheldon, a suspense novel full of racism and homophobia.

I didn’t manage any used bookstore runs over the year, though I did give away 4 books. I have at least 60 waiting to go out.

I belonged to three book clubs, one of which has disbanded.

As for book-related events, I went to the Moby Dick Marathon in San Francisco in October and even read one chapter (Chapter 8, The Pulpit).

Ghoul Pool: I finished 6th out of 14 players with a final score of 117 points. People I scored on were Jimmy Carter, Daniel J. Evans (unique), Shannon Doherty, Janis Paige, Jean Malaurie (unique), Bud Harrelson (unique), and Faith Ringgold (unique).

Travel: My only international trip of the year was to Portugal (Porto and Lisbon) and the Azores in May / June. But I had plenty of domestic travel. I went to New York City in late January / early February. Then to Salt Lake City in late February / early March for Roots Tech. The total solar eclipse took me to Bruceville, Texas (near Dallas) in April, including an Israeli dance camp. Also in April, I had an overnight trip to Richmond for the Virginia Storytelling Alliance gathering. In May I went to Colorado for RhinoStock (a memorial for a friend) and also had a quick trip to Indianapolis to go to a baseball game, which unfortunately got rained out. I flew back to Dallas in July for the National Puzzlers League con, adding on a train trip to Oklahoma City to go to a baseball game. In August, I went to a Jewish genealogy convention in Philadelphia, and added in a couple of days in New York City for Lollapuzzoola (and theatre going, of course). And in October, I made a quick trip to San Francisco for their Moby Dick Marathon.

Genealogy: I’ve continued mentoring members of my local Jewish genealogy society on Lithuanian Jewish genealogy. As I’ve probably mentioned before, when I was starting to do genealogy research, other people helped me, so I feel happy to be able to help other people.

In February, I went to Roots Tech, which is a large genealogy conference held annually in Salt Lake City. The most interesting thing there was the presentation on using DNA from an old envelope - amazing, but not ready for the general public yet. I also went to the IAJGS convention in Philadelphia in August, at which I finally got to meet a cousin in person, as well as doing some volunteering.

Baseball: As I mentioned above, I had a failed attempt to go to a minor league game in Indianapolis (damn rain!) but a more successful game experience in Oklahoma City in July.

Culture: I went to 10 musicals and one non-musical play. My favorites for the year were Tick … Tick .. Boom at the Kennedy Center, Harmony on Broadway, Soft Power at Signature Theatre, and Suffs on Broadway.

I saw 7 movies in theaters and two on airplanes. Favorites were Next Goal Wins, Shari and Lamb Chop, and My Penguin Friend.

Storytelling: I performed in a Better Said Than Done show in February and emceed at the Women’s Storytelling Festival in March. I told a story at the Artists Standing Strong Together New Year’s Eve storytelling show. I went to several local story swaps (some in person, some over zoom), as well as zoom story swaps in Los Angeles and in Ottawa, Canada. I saw a friend’s storytelling show as part of Artomatic. And I participated in several discussions of Grimm fairy tales.

Museums and Art: I went to an exhibit of Dorothea Lange’s photos at the National Gallery of Art with a friend (and looked at some other art in the museum afterwards). I saw a Judy Chicago retrospective at the New Museum in New York City. I went to much of Artomatic. And I went to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas and the American Banjo Museum in Oklahoma City.

During my trip to Portugal, I went to a stained glass museum in Porto, the Museo Nacional de Azulejo (National Tile Museum) and Oceanario (aquarium) in Lisbon, and the Museum of Myths and Legends in Sintra.

Other Stuff:

I participated in Lollapuzzoola (a crossword contest) in August. I played board games, sometimes with the National Puzzlers’ League, sometimes with people I know from the loser community. I also went to other loser events, including a few parties and a couple of brunches.

I went to Kochavim, an Israeli folk dance weekend (in association with the eclipse).

I did a tour of M&S Schmalburg’s fabric flower factory (via the New York Adventure Club).

I attended a few lectures in the Leading Jewish Minds at MIT series (over zoom). And I went to a reception for MIT president Sally Kornbluth.

I’ve probably forgotten something or other among this, but it was a weird and stressful year. And I think that compared to normal people, I still did a lot of things.

Goals: So how did I do on my 2024 goals? Frankly, not very well. I did not circumnavigate the globe going westward, though I did map out about half of a general plan for doing it, so I’ll give myself a 5% on that goal. I didn’t make it to any national parks. I also did nothing about cleaning out my saved files of genealogy emails. I read 37 books out of my goal of 80, so I get only 45% there. I did make some progress on organizing my bedroom, but I don’t have a good metric for that. I’ll estimate that I accomplished about 50%. I finished just about 2/3 of one afghan (out of a goal to finish 3 afghans) so I’ll give myself 22% on that goal. I still haven’t found my parents’ slides. I made it to one AAA ballpark (Oklahoma City), and had an attempt at going to a game in Indianapolis, which got rained out. So I’lll get 25% on my goal of 4 AAA ballparks. I did fairly well on exercise the first part of the year, but my knee injury meant that I did very little from August on, so I’ll give myself a 60%.

So, overall, I’ll give myself a rather pathetic 23% for the year.

Which brings me to goals for 2025:

• Circumnavigate the globe going westward. I think I have a plan for somewhere in the October / November time frame.
  
  
• Go to at least 4 minor league baseball games.
  
  
• Finish 4 crafts projects.
  
  
• Read 80 books, with a stretch goal of 100.
  
  
• Finish going through my parents’ photographs and slides.
  
  
• Revisit / update my life list.
  
  
• Organize genealogy files.
  
  
• Go to at least 3 national parks.
  
  
• Learn to read Hangul (Korean writing system).
  
  
• Sort through cassette tapes.
  
  

My post-Portugal life has been busy and a bit stressful.

Bionic Miriam, Phase 1: I had cataract surgery on my right eye about two weeks after I got home. My friend, Kathleen, drove me to and from the ambulatory surgery center. I had a bit of a wait while they asked me a lot of questions, often more than once (by different people). I know I was awake, but the only thing I really remember was that I saw Escher-like tessellations against a background of changing colors as the surgeon was using the laser to destroy the cataract. I didn’t feel any significant pain, just a little bit of scratchiness. I spent most of the afternoon and evening sleeping on and off. In the morning, when I took off the eye shield, I was astonished to see clearly out of the operated eye. That is, I could read the titles of books on the top of the stacks on the floor without putting my glasses on. Anyway, the surgeon had left me a voicemail that everything went well and that was confirmed at my follow-up appointment the morning after the surgery.

In the meantime, there are lots of eyedrops and I’m still under restrictions about not lifting anything over 30 lb and not bending over. Fortunately, my friend Kim came over to help me with the laundry, since I wouldn’t have been able to get it from washer to dryer and from dryer to the back of the sofa without bending.

Other Stuff I’ve Done: I had my usual meetings - the monthly Litvak genealogy mentoring session, two Needles and Crafts zoom get-togethers (which includes people working on their projects and book discussions), a Better Said Than Done board meeting to work on casting for next year’s Women’s Storytelling Festival, the monthly Voices in the Glen story swap (at which I told “Ida Black,” a ghost story involving an actual tombstone that I photographed in Maine some years ago), a Grimm Keepers discussion of “One Eye, Two Eyes, and Three Eyes,” and a Loser Brunch at a Mexican restaurant in D.C. Re: the latter, I should note that my preferences for variations of that cuisine in the U.S. is New Mexican (e.g. Santa Fe), California second, and Tex-Mex third, with the mid-Atlantic region about 199th, just above New England. I missed a second Grimm Keepers meeting (re: Snow White) because I badly needed a nap. Oh, there was also a JGSGW meeting with a talk about some complicated immigration situations in the post-World War I era.

I also had a couple of book club meetings. Crones and Tomes discussed Remarkably Bright Creatures which was enjoyable. And the TCC Book Club discussed Blood River: the Terrifying Journey Through the World’s Most Dangerous Country . I’ll write about both of these (and other books in my quarterly update, which should get done in a little over a week.

I had a routine dentist appointment. My dentist retired (largely because of her back problems) and I’m not sure how I feel about her replacement.

Finally, I played board games over zoom at least 4 times. (I might have missed writing one down on my calendar.) Er, yes, I do keep busy.

Still to Write About: Home annoyingness. Travel planning. Why is decluttering so bloody hard? A couple of sets of blog prompts. The quarterly update.