Thursday Thirteen

I discovered something wonderful this morning.  On the kitchen table, hidden among all the other bottles of pills and potions that my doctor thinks I need to keep me alive, was a bottle which said something about "coughs and congestion."  I hadn't though of actual medication to deal with the symptoms of this cold but, by golly, an hour after I took a dose, I had stopped coughing.  I haven't had a coughing fit since.  The miracle of modern medicine!

So going along with the theme of the day, I thought I would write a "Thursday Thirteen" about things that I think about when I have a cold.  All things considered, I am very fortunate that I have so few things wrong with me.  I may get a cold, like the one I've been dealing with for the past 3 days, once or twice a year--or maybe only once every other year, but basically I have nothing serious to deal with, so I can be fairly cavalier about sick thoughts.

1.  Even though I'm 75 years old, every single time I get sick, I always think back to the first time I realized I was an adult.  I was living in an apartment with a fold down bed that took up the entire living room when I opened it.  I don't remember if it was a cold or the flu, but I was in bed and realized that I was...alone.  Nobody was going to make the bed for me, pin a bag to the side of the bed for my used tissues, bring me chicken noodle soup, soothe my fevered brow or run to the library to get books for me to read.  It was just me. I must really have enjoyed being sick as a kid because all these 60+ years later, that is STILL my first thought.

2.  All these years later, silly though it may be, I feel guilty for never reading Rudyard Kipling's "Kim," which was my mother's favorite book and which she was so excited to bring to me when I was sick.  I never could get into it.  Very strange that I still feel guilty about that.

3.  Being sick is a legitimate excuse to snuggle down in my recliner and watch TV all day.  And if, like yesterday, it is an NCIS marathon day, I've hit the jackpot.  The nice thing about being sick with NCIS is that I know every episode well, so if I fall asleep during one episode and wake up during another, I haven't missed anything and can catch up easily.

4.  And if there is no NCIS or Criminal Minds marathon, it's a great excuse to catch up on all those things you've recorded to watch "sometime."

5.  Polly's very favorite snack is used Kleenex.  Whether something has fallen off the top of the pile or she climbs up in the other chair to sneak one  (I need that bag pinned to the side of my chair!), she make short work of the tissue in no time and it often looks like walking through a snowstorm here.

6.  Orange juice never tastes as good as it does when you have a cold.

7.  When you lose your taste buds, nothing is appealing to you.  I lost 7 lbs this week.  I know I will gain them all back soon enough, but things don't have any taste for me right now and normally I can eat anytime, even if I'm nauseated, but not this week.

8.  Naps are a wonderful thing.  Lately I seem to nap a lot but when you're sick it's expected of you...again, no guilt.

9.  Nobody has to remind you to drink water.  Water is the elixir of everything -- the first thing that happened after they hoisted me to my feet after my fall on Sunday was that someone brought me a bottle of water.  When I'm sick, I seem to crave water.

10.  I feel guilty saying this, but I have a legitimate excuse not to go to Atria.  No need to spread germs.  And they don't want me there anyway!

11.  It's a time to feel grateful that you aren't really sick with something more serous than a cold and realize that you'll be over it in a couple of days and for so many others, sickness is a lifelong companion.

12.  A quilt and a fluffy pillow.  Was there ever a more inviting combination?

13.  If you are lucky and your cold involves a fever, you can enjoy wallowing in fevered fantasies of what you would do to #45 if you had the opportunity.

I think I have taken advantage of most of these  things and realize that thanks to the "cold/congestion" bottle I found, I am crawling out from beneath the mantle of sickness, but it was as enjoyable as possible, while it lasted.

Thursday Thirteen

I watched The Great American Read last night, a PBS show hosted by Meredith Vierra designed to get Americans to read more.  The two-hour show went through 100 books that had been collected by various suggestions from the public as the most favorite book of all.  The show presented each of the 100 books, had some interviews with authors and I guess between now and the fall, people can go to the web site and vote for their favorite(s) and votes will be tallied and determine which is the favorite book of all.  You can vote once a day and can vote for more than one book at a time.

I have read over half of the books on the list and thought I would pick thirteen to talk about here.  These aren't necessarily my favorite books but books that have made an impact on me for one reason or another.

1.  I'm certain that when all the votes are tallied To Kill a Mockingbird will end up being #1.  It is on everyone's list and who doesn't love this book?  I'm glad that I never saw Harper Lee's first book, which was kind of a prequel to Mockingbird and which was not published until after her death.  Apparently people encouraged her to publish the other book first and it was the only book published in her lifetime.  Apparently in the prequel Atticus Finch wasn't such a good, noble guy and I would hate to think of anything other than a Gregory Peck-ish Atticus Finch.

2.  The list combines series books into one book, so choosing Outlander is actually choosing all 8 of Diana Gabaldon's books.  It may not be my favorite book but is close to the top.  I am not as slavishly dedicated to the series as many, many others are, but I do love it, especially the audio books, because of the wonderful narration by Davina Porter.

3.  Catch-22 might not be on my all time favorite book list, but we all read Joseph Heller's farcical novel in college and bits and pieces of it stick with us today.  And who can hate a book with a character named Major Major Major Major?

4.  Where the Red Fern Grows is a multi-tissue book that I loved and gave to Brianna for Christmas.  I don't know if she has read it, or will read it, but I wanted to share that book with her.  It is one of my favorite dog books.

5.  I wonder if I would love Jane Eyre as much now as I did as an adolescent.  I read it several times, along with Wuthering Heights, so the Bronte sisters were some of my favorites.  The language might make it a slog to get through now.

6.  Of course Gone with the Wind has to be on my list.  I tried reading it twice and gave up and when I finally gave it the ol' college try on the third reading, I got immersed in it and read it one or two times after that.  It's one book that I don't think the movie spoiled for me.

7.  I stopped reading the latest books in the Clan of the Cave Bear series, but at the time when I was reading Jean Auel's epic quasi historical novel, I was really taken with it.  The heroine is Ayla, a young Cro-Magnin girl who grows to adulthood during the course of the books.  You have to hand it to Ayla because according to Auel she is responsible for everything good in life--the wheel, spoken language, domesticating animals, cooking food, and even discovering orgasm.  A prehistoric Superwoman.  (It all got too fantastical for me and I stopped reading)

8.  I did go through a lot of b-i-g books at a certain point in my life and Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet was one of them.  I had read many of Follet's thriller-type books and this, which tells the story of the building of a cathedral in the fictional town of Knightsbridge (I think it was based on the cathedral in Salisbury). It covers the years from 1123 to 1174.  I was very glad I had read that book when we were at Salisbury Cathedral many years ago and perhaps had a greater appreciation for the work that went into the building of it (though I have not read the two subsequent books which take the cathedral through to its completion.

9. I was pleased to see Armistad Maupin's Tales of the City on the list.  I first read the book, as everyone did, in serial form in the San Francisco Chronicle.  The first three (I think) were serials and eventually they all made it to book form.  I loved those books, which were set half a block from where I grew up.

10.  Chronicles of Narnia is on the list.  While  these books aren't favorites, they have made a big impact on me because of Brianna's book club where she leads a discussion among several adults, which is one of the "funn-est" things that has happened in the last couple of years.

11.  I'd put Grapes of Wrath on my list, though I really like Steinbeck's East of Eden better.  I went through a huge Steinbeck period, where I read almost all of his books, back to back.  I found that my writing improved whenever I was reading Steinbeck.

12.  I will guiltily admit to reading Book 1 of both the Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey sagas.  Both were a waste of time and I hated the heroines of both books, though curiosity about what was going to happen kept me reading.  However, finishing Book 1 I had absolutely NO desire to continue the Grey series.

13.  From time to time I think about George Orwell's 1984 and wonder which of my favorite books I would choose to memorize and pass along to a younger person, if all the books were to be destroyed.  Of course it's all moot at this point anyway because I couldn't remember diddily squat now.

The list does not include Herman Wouk's Marjorie Morningstar, which was one of my adolescent favorites which I read at least once a year for several years.  The movie totally destroyed it for me, it ruined it so badly.  Likewise Pat Conroy's Prince of Tides, which was one of the best written books I'd read in a long time, didn't make the list.  It too was destroyed by the movie (I have a hard time forgiving Barbra Streisand for what she did to it!)

I will be continuing to cast my vote(s) over the coming weeks and will be curious to see if my prediction about To Kill a Mockingbird ends up being true

Thursday Thirteen

Reasons I’m stopping Thursday 13s
1. I’ve run out of things to count
2. The end of a year is a good time to end things.
3. I’ve enjoyed it, but it’s time to quit.
4. I have lots of not quite finished lists and can’t find things to finish them with
5. After 117 weeks, I can’t take the pressure any more.
6. I might do this again sometime, but not in the foreseeable future.
7. I’ve started repeating myself
8. I can’t keep track of what I’ve already written
9. It’s time for others to keep the idea going
10. There are things I’m tempted to list, but I don’t want to go public
11. ...and if I did another list, I might slip and do it anyway.
12. I think I’ve accomplished something here.
13. I can count on the fingers of one hand the comments I’ve had on these 117 entries.

Thursday Thirteen

My biggest loss this year was the loss of my friend Peggy, who stopped writing to me for reasons I will probably never know....email from mutual friends assure me that there is nothing physically wrong with her...but they don't know why she has cut me off either. We have been friends for about 13 years and I wrote to her every day. She knows me better than anybody else in my life. These are the things that I miss about Peggy...

1. The cheery “'allo!” with that wonderful Australian accent, on the telephone
2. hearing stories of the roos she fosters
3. having someone who knows me so well I can tell her anything
4. telling her everything
5. seeing photos she has taken
6. being her go-between for orders from the US
7. John Denver
8. Sharing stories of the elephant orphan she sponsors in Africa
9. Getting help with my computer, from 9000 miles away.
10. My subscription to the magazine Digital Photography
11. recording Celine Dion concerts for her
12. Remembering the Blue Angels
13. “For Good,” from Wicked

Thursday Thirteen

Movies featuring drinking

1. The Lost Weekend
2. The Days of Wine and Roses
3. I Want to Live
4. Leaving Las Vegas
5. Arthur
6. Bill W
7. My Favorite Year
8. A Star Is Born
9. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?
10. Bad Santa
11. Sideways
12. Harvey
13. The Hangover

Thursday Thirteen

Happy Places

1. Sitting at a window table at Green’s Restaurant in San Francisco, looking at the Golden Gate Bridge.
2. leaning over a wall at Hillary’s Marina in Perth, with the wind blowing my face, watching the gulls fly over the aqua-colored Indian Ocean.
3. In my recliner, with Polly curled up under my arm, her head on my chest.
4. In the pre-dawn hours in the bush, listening to the gallahs in the gum trees and watching Peggy’s dogs chase kangaroos and rabbits.
5. Anyplace in the fog (if it’s too thick, preferably not driving!)
6. The York Minster in York, England, at night, when the choir is rehearsing
7. Wandering through the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History
8. In front of a computer
9. The Hotel Calendal in Arles, France
10. Any place where I can watch the sea
11. On the deck of a Viking Ship watching different countries pass by
12. At a movie house watching a good movie, knowing that I don’t review movies.
13. Charring Cross Rd. in London

Thursday Thirteen

Places I have no desire to visit

1. Iran
2. Iraq
3. Afghanistan
4. Japan (I don’t know why, but I have never wanted to visit Japan, even BEFORE the earthquake)
5. India (I got enough crowds in China!)
6. Haiti
7. Topeka, Kansas (home of Fred Phelps)
8. Siberia
9. Egypt (at least not now)
10. Tijuana (once was enough)
11. Greece
12. Nepal
13. Pakistan

Thursday Thirteen

Things I am tired of

1. Barking dogs (especially my own)
2. Politics in general
3. Republicans specifically
4. Violent women on TV (good or bad)
5. Annie
6. War
7. Cooking
8. Being Depressed
9. Commercials
10. 2 year election campaigns
11. My numb finger
12. Junk mail
13. Oprah

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Diets

1. I went on my first diet at age 10. I’ve been dieting, off and on, ever since. Here are some diets I’ve tried (and a couple I haven’t)

2. Starvation
3. Atkins
4. Weight Watchers (several times)
5. Slim Fast
6. Grapefruit diet
7. Pritikin Diet
8. South Beach Diet
9. T.O.P.S.
10. Jenny Craig
11. NutriSystem
12. Special K Challenge
13. Grapefruit Diet

(So why am I still fat?)

Thursday Thirteen

Yellow Things

1. Roses
2. Bees
3. lemons
4. egg yolks
5. The sun
6. A coward’s spine
7. urine
8. champagne
9. baby chicks
10. someone with jaundice
11. sunflowers
12. corn
13. the brick road in Oz

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen hobbies I’ve had in my life

1. Stamp collecting
2. Scrapbooking
3. Penpals
4. Collecting spoons
5. Photography
6. PhotoShop
7. Candle making
8. Bread baking
9. Envelope making
10. Collecting magnets
11. Journaling
12. Paint-by-Numbers
13. Cake Decorating

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Holidays

1. New Year’s Day
2. Boxing Day
3. Valentine’s Day
4. Chinese New Year
5. Mother’s Day
6. Father’s Day
7. 4th of July
8. Bastille Day
9. Thanksgiving
10. Christmas
11. Australia Day
12. Columbus Day
13.Cinco de Mayo

Thirteen Things`

Thirteen things beginning with “C”

1. Corn
2. Cars
3. Cauliflower
4. Crickets
5. Collies
6. Clams
7. Commas
8. Cameras
9. Cards
10. Chips
11. Clippers
12. Caller ID
13. Clocks

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen songs on iPod shuffle

1. O Come, O Come Emmanuel
2. Pesky Angels (Righteous Mothers)
3. You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun (Betty Hutton)
4. The Syncopated Clock (Leroy Anderson)
5. Juanita’s Recitative (“The Musical of Musicals”)
6. Homes Stretch (Leonard Slatkin, LA Symphony)
7. Coventry Carol
8. Stouthearted Men (SF Gay Men’s Chorus)
9. One More Time (“A Mighty Wind”)
10. Please, Daddy, Don’t get Drunk this Christmas (John Denver)
11. The Music Box (Trans Siberian Orchestra)
12. I enter this battle gravely (Steve Schalchlin)
13. One of these Days (Joshua Radin)

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen pairs of pattered socks

1. I LOVE my Jelly Belly sox
2. Matryushka doll sox
3. Red and White striped sox (makes me look like the Wicked Witch of the East)
4. Generic Dog sox
5. NYC sox
6. Black, red and green sparkly Christmas sox
7. Crabby sox (covered with crabs)
8. Rainbow smiley face sox
9. Chartreuse sox
10. “I love NY theater” sox
11. black sox with cardinals
12. Chihuahua sox
13. Red, white, and blue patriotic Santa sox

Thursday Thirteen

Families in Movies

1. The Corleones (TheGodfather)
2. The von Trapp Family (Sound of Music)
3. The Griswolds (Vacation, etc.)
4. The Hardy family (any of the Andy Hardy movies)
5. The Smith family (Meet Me In St. Louis)
6. The Fockers & the Burns (Meet the Parents)
7. The Meecham family (The Great Santini)
8. The Brown family (National Velvet)
9. The Simpsons
10. The Banks family (Father of the Bride and Mary Poppins)
11. The March family (Little Women)
12. The Spencer family (Spencer’s Mountain – later became The Waltons)
13. The Gilbreth Family (Cheaper by the Dozen)

Thursday Thirteen

A few of my favorite things (in no special order)

1. Stacks of books, each one more inviting than the next
2. The smell of a freshly opened book (so why am I reading on a Kindle?)
3. Warm donuts
4. Polly snuggled in my armpit
5. Riding alone in the car with a good audio book
6. An NCIS marathon
7. The power of the ocean–the smell, the sound
8. Sea lions at Fisherman’s Wharf
9. San Francisco on a crystal clear day
10. A good mail day
11. Coffee with a friend
12. Heartfelt chats
13. Writing a good journal entry

Thursday Thirteen

Things about Autumn

1. The temperatures are finally cooler
2. Color. We don’t get the display of a lot of places, but we have enough to satisfy the eye
3. falling leaves
4. crunching leaves underfoot
5. raking leaves (ok–that’s not a GOOD part)
6. Pumpkin patches
7. Pumpkin pies
8. Thanksgiving
9. Some day I’m really going to go to Apple hill again
10. Wild turkeys parading down Pole Line Rd.
11. Shorter days
12. Little kids in funny costumes
13. Football (not that I pay much attention)

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen stage shows I have seen in 2011

1. Miss Saigon
2. I Do! I Do!
3. The Producers
5. Camelot
6. Annie Get Your Gun
7. Tales of the City
8. Anything Goes
9. Oliver!
10. Peter Pan
11. Mary Poppins
12. Sherlock Holmes: the Final Adventure
13. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

(and many more!)

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Childhood Memories

1. Eating the crusts from a chocolate cream roll
2. Hockies (fried bread dough dripping with real butter)
3. working puzzles
4. playing baseball in Stephen’s tiny yard
5. My father's potato salad
6. Monopoly
7. Reading in the big maroon chair with the broken seat springs
8. The year my mother read us “A Christmas Carol”
9. Gathered around the radio with my mother and sister listening to "One Man's Family."
10. My father playing the piano – perhaps the only time he was ever really happy
11. Roller skating and longing to be able to afford shoe skates
12. Bringing home 6 books a week from the library
13. My mother sitting at the kitchen table peeling apples for apple pie.