Never Say Never

When we returned home from Istanbul last year, I said that was it.   I was happy.  I'd seen a lot of the world and if we didn't go on another cruise, I ws perfectly happy.  Walt wondered if we had enough money to continue cruising.

I've been telling everyone that we aren't going anywhere in 2014.

Silly me.  Char calls and we, her humble servants, obey.

We aren't going the whole way with Char and Mike.  She offered me the choice of the "Elegant Elbe" or "Portraits of Southern France."  Or both.  Both (which she and Mike are doing) was more than we could pay, and longer than we wanted to stay (if you do both and take extensions to Berlin and Paris, you would be gone almost a month).  

But each time we plan one of these trips, I put in my oar for France and get overruled.  I've loved the place we have visited, but I really would like to take a tour of France, to revisit the places I saw with Jeri and Char (and others) in 2009 and for Walt, who wasn't on that trip, to see the places I loved at that time.

So we fly into Paris in October, spend 3 days, fly to Lyon (or take the train--I remember it's not a very long ride from Paris to Lyon, I don't think) and board our ship and then cruise on down the river to Avignon, from where we go to the Marseilles airport and home.  Not quite two weeks.  Perfect.  And October, my request, so we miss the summer heat.  I don't care if it rains.  I just am tired of sweating all the time.

All of our previous trips have been to countries where I don't speak the language.  I don't speak French either, but as a French major several eons ago, I have a slight knowledge of the language.  Susan, who owns Logos, was an ESL teacher and speaks several languages.  Logos has a monthly French conversation meeting for "advanced non-native speakers of the language."  I am by no means "advanced," but I told her I want to come to the meetings.  Now she only writes to me in French.  Once a teacher, always a teacher.  I can't make the first meeting, but she tells me I should read the discussion articles anyway, so I'm plunged immediately into brushing up my once serviceable, if not exactly fluent French.

I checked out resources on the internet, for helping speak french.   I found this one video for conversational French and as the actors speak, the words appear on the bottom of the screen--in French (you guess the meanting from context).   It was a few seconds into the video, which I had been reading with no problem, when I suddenly realized it was not subtitles, but French words, which I understood with no problem.  Had to laugh at that.

I'm also thinking of all the things I left France sorry I had not done and wondering if I can fit them in.  I really regretted not going to the Louvre, but the day the group went there, I wanted to see the Paris Opera House, setting for The Phantom of the Opera and realized that if I went to the Louvre, I would not have enough energy left to also do the opera house. I loved exploring the opera house, but wish I had also seen the Louvre.

Walt and I went up in the Eiffel Tower several years ago, so with only 3 days, we probably don't need to do that again, but I never went to the Champs Elysées (though our bus was there) and would like to go back and visit a macaron shop that our tour guide waxed eloquent about.

I am thrilled to be returning to Arles, my favorite stop in 2009.   This time I want to take the Van Gogh walk, which leads to many places where he painted some of his more famous works.  I also want to go to the Van Gogh tribute museum, which I was too late to visit last time.  It contains works by all sorts of artists, tributes to Van Gogh himself.

And while I have been in Avignon before, we didn't have time to take the tour of the Palace of Popes, which is included on this  tour.  We also have an optional tour (which we will, of course, take) to Châteauneuf-du-Pape, perhaps our only chance to taste some of those wines.

So I'm excited about this trip, perhaps more excited than I have been about the last several trips.  Looking forward to preparing for it!

Sunday Stealling

Well, I spent thirteen hours at Downton Abbey today, catching a local PBS station marathon of Season 3, so that when Season 4 started, I was already immersed into that world again.  Of course, that meant that I did nothing today, but sit on my rather larger butt and pretend I was an anorexic 1920s socialite.   As Episode 1 of Season 4 was ending I wondered what in the world I was going to write tonight, but then I remembered it was SUNDAY.  Saved by Sunday Stealing yet again, though I have the feeling I may have done this one, or one very similar to it, before.

The Generic Meme

From Remember the Stars

1. What did you want to be when you were little?
When I was very little I wanted to be a mother, then in grammar school, I wanted to be a nurse (until I realized that it came with smells and icky stuff), then I wanted to be a nun (and very nearly became one), then my father told me I wanted to be a teacher because it was a cushy job--high pay, you only work until 3 and you have 3 months off.   (All you teachers feel free to laugh now).  But I knew I didn't want to teach, so solved that problem by flunking out of UC Berkeley.  All I really wanted to do, for pay, from some point, was to be a secretary, and I was that in various forms for most of my working life.  But I was also a mother, my very first "want" and that is the job that made me the happiest.

2. Would you prefer to have a large group of friends, or a small group of friends? Why?
Small group of friends, because I'm shy and don't do well in large groups.   

3. What is your fashion “style”? Or what type of clothes do you wear on a daily basis?
I usually wear sweat pants and a t-shirt. I wouldn't know "fashion style" if it bit me on the nose.  I was looking at Ralph Lauren commercials between Downton episodes today and thought--yeah, it's easy to design beautiful clothes if you have beautiful models with perfect figures.  I wonder what ol' Ralph could do for women like ME.

4. If you could live anywhere where would you live?
I'm happy living here.  Relatively close to two of the kids and the grandkids.   If I had to live somewhere else, and there were no kids to consider, I could happily live in London, where I feel comfortable.  I also feel like I've come "home" whenever I get to Ireland.

5. What is your biggest hope for the next year?
Assuming this is for 2014.  I hope Lady Mary finds happiness again and saves Downton from financial ruin, I hope Anna and Bates live happily ever after, and I hope that evil Barrow gets what's coming to him.  Oh.  ME?  Well, we are working on a possible cruise to France and I hope we can book it for when is a good time for all of us.  I'll know more tomorrow.

6. When you pass by reflective surfaces do you check yourself out?
Heavens, no.

7. Favorite genre of movie as well as TV show?
Drama, crime drama, and, based on today, whatever genre Downton Abbey is!

8. Top favorite books? (limit of 5)
* The Mother Tongue (by Bill Bryson)
* Prince of Tides (by Pat Conroy)
* East of Eden (by John Steinbeck)
* Journal of a Novel (letters written by Steinbeck while writing East of Eden)
* Marjorie Morningstar (by Herman Wouk)...at least that was my favorite book for many, many years.

9. Have you ever taken a cooking class?
In addition to cake decorating classes, I took two series of classes in Chinese cooking given by Martin Yan before he became the famous TV chef.  He gave classes at the University for big bucks, but taught the same class at the community night school. At one time I was a pretty good Chinese cook and still have the big cleaver that I bought from him.

10. What three words would you use to describe yourself?
Fat, funny, sensitive

11. Favorite animal?
Wild animal - the elephant
Tame animal - (no surprise), the dog

12. What is your dream job?
The one I have now:  retired.  Doesn't pay much, but the hours are great.

13. If you could go back in history to any moment that you did not live, what would it be and why?
I thought about this when we were in Ukraine recently.  I want to be with whoever invented cyrillic script and find out why they thought a new language based on alphabets from several different languages was a good idea!! This was 9th century "Esperanto" which, unlike Esperanto itself, actually caught on.

14. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? Why?
I want to, like Superman, zip across the globe in seconds and I want to be invisible so I could spy on anybody I wanted to.

15. What is your favorite movie?
All together now, regular readers of Funny the World ... "A Star is Born," the Judy Garland version

16. What is your best childhood memory?
Any time I spent in libraries. Also the hours I spent sitting in a big tree with my cousin Peach, eating green apples and talking about the world.

17. What is your favorite part about blogging?
I love the discipline of creating an entry a day.  I love having now 13 years of my history to look back on.  I love the people I have met through writing my journal and reading theirs.  I can't think of anything about blogging (or journaling) that I don't like (especially when there is Sunday Stealing to write on days when I have nothing to talk about!)

18. What is your favorite quote?
I have several, but here's a short one:  Memories are the treasures that we keep locked deep within the storehouse of our souls, to keep our hearts warm when we are lonely. ~Becky Aligada

19. What song do you feel like describes your life the best? Why?
Oh lord...so many songs, so little space.  My current favorite, which describes my relationship with several people, is "For Good" from Wicked.

20. Would you describe yourself as shy or outgoing?
Definitely shy.  People find that difficult to believe, reading all the things I write on line, but those are written sitting in a tiny office in front of a computer screen.  Get me out in a large group and watch me hide behind the potted palm (right, Ron?)

Playing Hookie

Today was my 4th meeting as an official member of the Woodland Shakespeare Book Club.  It has not been a stellar membership thusfar.  I missed the first meeting because I was doing something with my mother.  The rules are that you must attend every meeting unless you contact the president and let her know you won't be coming.  That means that generally at least 40 and perhaps more women will be at every meeting. (Today people could bring guests so nearly 80 people were there)

The second meeting was a discussion of the book "Ramona," which I did a marathon reading on, finishing at about 6 a.m. the morning of the meeting.   But I enjoyed it and was disappointed that there wasn't more actual group discussion of the book.

Last month we read Jack London's "Valley of the Moon," which I simply could not get into.  By the time of the meeting I had read only about 1/4 of it, but that was OK because there was no discussion of the book by the membership in general, just by the four women who were doing a presentation about the book.

The club really needs Ned's friend Greg, and I'm surprised his good friend, who got me into the club, hasn't talked to him.  The room where we meet is so big, and the women who "present" each month are not trained actors, so they must use a microphone, but the sound system is so crappy it's often impossible to hear them over the distortion of the mics (combined with their unfamiliarity with how to use a mic).   But I strain and I do hear some of what is being said and it is usually quite interesting.

The book for this month was "The Geography of Home," which I gather is an anthology of poems about California.  I ordered it at the start of December and what with all the busy-ness of the month of December, it was only last week when I realized it had never come.  I contacted Amazon, which contacted the book store that was going to sell it to me, and I got the order canceled and my money refunded.   So I was going to the meeting without having even seen the book, much less read any of it.

Before the actual program started, we were given homework to do...actually work to do while there.  We were supposed to write two poems, following the directions given.  For the first one, you were to write down the name of a place where you live or have lived.

- On the second line, write two adjectives which describe the place
- On the third line, write three verbs which signify some sort of action in that place
- On the fourth line, create a phrase that gives more identity to the place.
- On the fifth line, either rewrite the name in the first line or create another descriptive sentence.

The example given was:

First Avenue, Crockett
Changed, decayed
hilly, small, empty
Gone are the families and merchants I knew
The generations of my Irish family lived there for over 140 years

If you check the third line, you'll see that "hilly, small, empty" are NOT verbs, and the English teacher who wrote the assignment apologized for writing adverbs instead of verbs and told us to use verbs.  But...uh...I think "hilly, small, and empty" are adjectives, not adverbs!

I did my best, while others around me stared off into space making no attempt to write anything.  I guess we were going to share at the end of the meeting.

The presentation was again by four women, each of whom chose 3 poems to read and to tell a little about the author.  They gave the page number of each poem so you could follow along but, of course, I didn't have the book so could not. The sound system was particularly bad today and one woman chose to read a poem by a Japanese author and could not pronounce any of the Japanese words included in either the bio or the poem.

We broke for "tea" after the first three presentations.   There were egg salad sandwiches and lots and lots of cucumber sandwiches, as well as a nice selection of desserts.

I had decided I was going to leave early because, in all honesty, I couldn't take another minute of inaudible poetry and mentioned as much to my friend, sitting next to me.  She said she also had to leave early and suggested we leave right then, and so we did, sneaking out through the kitchen.  So I don't know how the meeting ended.  But I have ordered next month's book, "Day of the Locust" and fully intend toread it! before the first Saturday in February, so I can feel like I'm participating.  But I did feel like a kid sneaking out of class when I left the hall.

I think this club isn't exactly what I'd been looking for.  It's less my idea of a book club and more my idea of a master class in a certain book.  I was thinking of plush couches and wine and snacks and lots of giggling and sharing secrets and all that sort of thing.  But as a class I am enjoying it and intend to stick with it, but I have also found a small book club that meets in Davis and looks, from the photos, to be more what I had in mind (though they have not met for several months, so they have to gear up again before I can check them out!)

Oh Well...

I had a great idea today.  I've been waiting for Judi Dench's new movie, Philomena, to come out so I could take my mother.  She has been telling me for years how much she loves Judi Dench.  She's seen every episode of As Time Goes By so many times she knew them by heart.  Of course, now I don't know if she remembers that, but she did show some sign of recognition when I told her I wanted to take her to the new Judi Dench movie when it came out.

December has been good for her.  At least the last part of it.   She has been more "with it" than she has in a long time, I'm sure due in great part to all the stimulation she's had.  It's not perfect.  I've found gifts from her in the apartment twice and when I asked her who they were fromshe answers "I don't know.  I don't know who has a key to my apartment.  They just appear.  I don't have a clue who leaves them."  (So if you brought her candy or a nice bottle of Claret, let me know!)

But she has remembered upcoming events.  She remembered when the house cleaners were not going to clean the house.  After a month of talking about it and wondering about it, by the time Jeri was due, she remembered she was coming.   She was able to hold her own in conversation, most of the time.  I was very pleased.

I was also very pleased when I called her two days ago and told her I would pick her up today and we would go see the Judi Dench movie...and she remembered it two days later.  Be still my heart.

Before I left home, we had a text from Jeri saying that, miraculously, she had landed safely in Boston.  Looking at the weather reports which predicted blizzard today, I thought she would be trapped here for another day, but no...she is home safe and sound and I'm sure Phil and Lester are very happy to see her.

So I picked my mother up at 1.  I knew that parking might be tricky and I wanted to allow time to find a parking place and to let her walk slowly to the theater.  I thought we might get a nice gelato at the little stand attached to the theater while we waited.

We got to the parking lot well in advance of the start time for any of the movies.  And the parking lot was full.  Both levels.  Full.   You can't park on the street and go to a movie because street parking is only 2 hours and movies are generally over 2 hours long.  I drove around and around.   There is a parking lot several blocks away where you can usually find parking, but there was no way she would be able to walk the distsance from there to the movie theater that was showing Philomena.  I kicked myself for not having Walt drive us down and pick us up afterwards.

Parking in Davis has become a nightmare, and the city only makes it more difficult.  No three hour on-street parking (you're supposed to ride your bike, of course, but not if you're 94 and if you have bad knees at 70!). And even the 2 hour on-street parking is a pain because if it is two hours, you have to move your car, but you can't move your car to just anywhere.  You have to be at least a block away fromwhere you originally parked.  So if I'm at one corner and there is an open space at the other corner, I will get a ticket if I take it.  i have to go farther.

This completely eliminates the possibility of having lunch and going shopping, "patronizing downtown Davis" like they always tell you to do.   It's the reason why I rarely go downtown for more than quick stop somewhere.

So it was a bust.  No place to park.  We just turned around and drove home.  I was disappointed because I can't take her tomorrow.  I'm hoping I'll be able to take her on Sunday, only this time I think I'll have Walt chauffeur us just to be certain.

And before you let me know how convenient it would be if I had a handicap placard, I suspect she would rather die first than accept something that says she is "handicapped"...but it also requires a note from her doctor, whom she had not met (the doctor she saw in May was a bus) and whom she is not interested in seeing unless "she has something wrong with her."

But I had the afternoon unexpectedly free so managed to combine both a 2-hour special Grimm episode with a nap (napped through the middle of it and then backed up to finish watching).  

After dinner, we went to a production of a show called The K of D (kiss of death), which is a strange show which I have discovered is often done as a one-woman show, but which was done with a full cast tonight.  I was going to write the review tonight, but need to talk with the director about why she decided to do this play, and why use a full cast.

2013 in Books

This is something else I did last year that I'd like to do again this year.  I made a record of the reading I'd done in the year.  My goal for 2011 was to read more books than I had the previous year and I succeeded beyond my wildest expectations.  In 2011 I read 41 books, 14,071 pages.  In 2012 I read 78 books, 24,837 pages.

I did not have a goal in 2013 and was back to 2011 levels, with only 39 boooks, but 14,940 pages (thicker books!)

The difference between 2012 and 2013 was twofold.  First, in 2012, I had just started at Logos and made it my goal to read a book a day -- and did.   This meant I was reading lots of books of 200 pages or less.  This year I've still been reading Logos books, but chose books that I wanted to read and if they were long, I either left them on the shelf to finish the next week, or brought home to finish at home.  Also, with my mother moving to Davis, I lost all those hours and hours and hours on the road listening to audio books.  But still, I think 39 books is a respectable number.

Of the books I read,

- 14 were "real books" that I read at Logos
- Only 3 were "real books" that were NOT Logos books
- 15 were Kindle books
- 7 were audio books

Using the classifications I use on my Kindle these are the genres that I read

- 12 were crime drama books and I discovered author Vince Flynn this year, which was a good find.
- 7 were "contemporary fiction" (fiction books not considered "classic" by Logos!)
- 8 were non-fiction books
- 1 was a travel book
- 6 were classics (book club selections, and books I finally read, like "A Town Like Alice")
- 4 were history
- In my database, I have two "self help" books, on dealing with dementia, but I have missed some because I know I read at least 4 books on dementia.
- 2 were humor books (by Garrison Keilor and Dave Barry)
- 2 were books about animals (Most recently "Saving Baby" about the horseracing "industry")

Some of the books overlapped two categories, and I think there is another travel book in there that I forgot to record, but this is the jist of it.

I need to look at the list and choose the "best" of 2013.  I choose three.  

Probably at the top of the list is not a very pleasant read, "Babi Yar" by A. Anatoli (Kuznetzov).  We had just returned from Ukraine, where we had visited Kiev and stood at the edge of what remains of Babi Yar, where the Nazis slaughtered 33,771 Jews over a weekend and, before they left Kiev, it is estimated that they murdered over 100,000 people, Jews and non-Jews.  The author was 13 when the Nazis entered.   As a non-Jew he was not in immediate danger, but as the killings went on, he had to resort to more and more subterfuge to stay alive and he was determined to record it for posterity.  As I said, it is not a pleasant read, but I feel important to know what happened not only in Kiev, but all over that part of the world that was subject to Nazi domination.

The second is a more pleasant read and was recommended to me by Char.  It was "The Chaperone" by Laura Moriarty.  Not the sort of book I would ordinarily pick up (nor Char either, but she read it for her book club).  It's the story of a young married woman at the turn of the 19th century, whose two sons are old enough to be away at summer jobs, who agrees to accompany a young girl on a month long trip to New York, so the girl can dance with a famous dance company there.  The chaperone has her own reasons for wanting to go to New York and ultimately the trip will significantly change both women forever.  Definitely a page turner, and have tissues handy as you reach the end.

The third book is the travel book I just finished, "Fried Eggs with Chopsticks."  Polly Evans spent a month traveling around China, visiting many of the places we visited, but under much more primitive conditions.  I found it fascinating, especially the parts I could visualize from our own travels.

If I want to pick the very bottom of the list, as far as "quality" is concerned, it would be "Heaven is for Real," supposedly the memories of a young boy of his time in heaven during a surgical procedure in which he nearly died, which is all the rage in some circles.  I'm not sure why I read it.  I guess because I'm fascinated with stories of what is out there after we die.  I believe in near death experiences, and I believe that this kid may have had some that are real, but the book gets so deeply into things that are outright blatant propaganda and pose obvious questions like why does God need to be surrounded by gold and jewels and why are there only Christians in Heaven?  I think this boy's minister father went a bit too far in describing the things his son supposedly remembered 5 years past his near death experience.

A weird, but quick, fun book to read was "Weird Things People Say in Bookstores," compiled by Jen Campbell.  I actually bought this for Logos but delayed so long giving it to Susan and Peter that someone else found it and gave it to them.

And other than "Babi Yar," the book that disturbed me most was "Saving Baby," the story of JoAnne Normile and her crusade to find more humane ways of disposing of unwanted thoroughbreds.  It tells a black story of the untold story of thoroughbred racing (I was duped by Walter Farley, the author of all those Black Stallion books!!) and a semi-triumph in how Normile's work has changed things, not completely, but significantly.  Can't rest until the change is complete and no more horses need to suffer through trips to the slaughterhouse.

I have no goals for 2014, but just plan to keep on reading and recording what I read.  I have been a big reader all of my life and can't imagine a life without books.

2013 Wrap-Up

I've done this the last couple of years, on January 1.  It's kind of depressing, the similarity from year to year! [This is a good meme to do today because I have literally spent the entire day sleeping.  A nap...wake up...eat...another nap...more food...another nap.]

1. Was 2013 a good year for you?
On the whole, yes.  No major tragedies.

2. What was your favorite moment(s) of the year?
Having the tea party I'd wanted to have with Jeri for 45 years...and including the kids as well.

3. What was your least favorite moment(s) of the year?
Any of the arguments I've had with my mother, where she got frustrated and hung up on me.

4. What did you do in 2013 that you'd never done before?
Joined a support group for people dealing with loved ones with dementia.

5. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I stopped making resolutions long ago; I never keep them

6. Where were you when 2013 began?
For the past several years we have gone to a small party attended by members of the former Davis Comic Opera Company. It's low key. We have home made soup, home made bread, fabulous desserts, great conversation, and are home in bed by 12:30 a.m. because we're all getting so old.

7. Who were you with?
About a dozen (or less) people from the Davis Comic Opera Company.

8. Where will you be when 2013 ends?
We thought we would be at the same party, but Walt was sick and I was feeling "questionable" so we stayed home and were in bed before midnight.

9. Who will you be with when 2013 ends?
Walt and the dogs

10. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not close to me, but Ned's step-sister-in-law just gave birth to Olivia Zane a couple of weeks ago and my friend from the SPCA and Facebook, Jennifer, and her wife Tana celebrated the birth of AnnaGrace.

11. Did you lose anybody close to you in 2013?
Five people we knew died last year, none of them "close," but all missed nonetheless.

12. Who did you miss?
The same folks as previous years:  David, Paul, Gilbert and Peggy

13. Who was the best new person you met in 2013?
We really enjoyed spending time with Bob and Linda on the Ukraine/Istanbul tour.

14. What was your favorite month of 2013?
December--look how often family (in some group or other) was together, and I include in that "Pinata family" too.

15. Did you travel outside of the US in 2013?
Only to Ukraine and Turkey.  :)  Probably no big international travel for us in 2014

16. How many different states did you travel to in 2013?
I don't think we went to any other states this year.  Even Walt didn't get his annual trip to Boston in 2013. And we missed the big family wedding in D.C. because we were in Istanbul at the time.

17. What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?
A functional Congress that actually accomplishes something.  What an oddity that would be.

18. What date from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
November 8, the day that Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines.  It was several weeks before I was able to learn that my sponsored child, Fred, his family and their house were all OK.

19. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting my mother moved into Independent Living here in Davis

20. What was your biggest failure?
The same one it always is...inability to stick with (or even start) a healthy diet.

21. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I am very fortunate, no.

22. What was the best thing you bought?
I decided I could afford to add one more child to my list of sponsored children, and selected Navya through World Vision.

23. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Malala Yousafzi, the Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban for promoting education for girls.  I have seen her several times this year in interviews and her speech to the United Nations and each time I marvel at her poise, her dedication, and her selflessness.

24. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
How much time do you have?  The nutcases that are holding Congress hostage, and the religious right that are still fighting gay marriage, gay equality, and, in some cases, even recommending death of anybody gay. The ones who refuse to give up the fight to defeat the Affordable Care Act, and especially the idiots, all these years later, who refuse to believe Obama was born in Hawaii.  It's all noise and distraction that keeps up from actually accomplishing positive things in this country.

25. Where did most of your money go?
Like last year, to books.  New books, used books, Kindle books, audio books.

26. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Walt telling me he was getting tickets for us to see Book of Mormon.

27. Did you drink a lot of alcohol in 2013?
Very little, though there was that last cousins day....  I probably drank more that night than the rest of the year combined (which isn't saying much)

28. Did you do a lot of drugs in 2013?
Do aspirin and Aleve count?  Even counting them, almost none.   Definitely nothing not prescribed or available over the counter.

29. Did you treat somebody badly in 2013?
I hope not.

30. Did somebody treat you badly in 2013?
If anybody did, I can't remember it, so it must not have been very badly!

32. What do you wish you'd done more of in 2013?
Travel to Santa Barbara to spend time with the grandkids.  We are there so seldom that each time it takes a couple of days for Brianna to warm up to me.   Fortunately, I don't have that problem with Lacie.

33. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Spent sleepless nights worrying about things over which I have no control.

35. What was your favorite TV program(s)?
NCIS, Scandal, Criminal Minds, Big Bang Theory, Jeopardy, The Daily Show

36. What song will always remind you of 2013?
"What Does the Fox Say?"

37. How many stage shows did you see in 2013?
About 50.  I reviewed 48 of them and saw a few others that I didn't have to review.

38. Did you have a favorite stage show in 2013?
In musicals, it would have to be Billy Elliot, which I'd wanted to see ever since it first opened on Broadway.  It did not disappoint. In straight plays, I think The North Plan, a comedy at Capital Stage which featured Marta's friend, the wonderful actress/comedienne Katie Rubin.

39. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I don't make musical discoveries--I don't listen to current music enough!

40. What was the best book you read?
I don't know if it was the best book, but the one that definitely had the biggest impact on me was "Babi Yar" by A. Anatoli (Kuznetsov), the story of the occupation of Kiev, told from the perspective of a 13 year old non-Jewish boy who witnessed (and lived through) it. Having just been to Kiev and stood at Babi Yar, this book really grabbed me.

41. What was your favorite film of this year?
I only saw six movies this year, and probably my favorite was Last Vegas, which we took my mother to.

42. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 70 and the family had a big party for me at a local brewpub.  Such fun!   The party was for me, turning 70, for Tavie, the oldest of the Pinata kids, turning 50 and for Rich, a Pinata Dad, turning 75.

43. What did you want and get?
Tickets to Book of Morman (Christmas gift; we will see it this month!)

44. What did you want and not get?
World peace

45. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
A phone call from Peggy with an explanation.  I'm over it--but I still will never stop wanting to find out what happened.

46. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?
Thick fuzzy sox

47. What kept you sane?
Writing my journal, I guess.  NCIS marathons are good too.

48. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I'm too old to "fancy" celebrities, but I do enjoy watching Mark Harmon perform.  As for public figures, I am often in awe of Rachel Maddow.  (I'm consistent--those were my two choices last year too!) And Jon Stewart crosses both lines.

49. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013.
Life is change, unfortunately.

50. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
"Thank God, Thank God you're doing fine (x3)
Thank God you're doing fine
Thank God you're doing fine"

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

Well, it was a great visit, but Jeri is on the first leg of her ultimate return trip to Boston.  We had a lot more time with her this time around than we usually do, and I'm very grateful for that.  

It was a full day this morning.  She came downstairs first thing this morning, leash in hand, to take Sheila for a walk.  Sheila is the easiest to walk, more Lester size, and deserves it more!  So off they went...only she hadn't mastered the "dogs at the front door" movements yet and both Lizzie and Polly escaped.  They went racing off up the street.  Jeri handed me Sheila's leash and went after them, but Lizzie wouldn't let her get near her, and catching Polly is impossible.  I was in my nice fuzzy sox, no shoes, and trying to catch up with Jeri.   

I told her she would probably have better luck if she had Sheila with her, so she came back and got Sheila and started after the runaways again.  Lizzie was interested in sniffing Sheila, but no way was she letting Jeri touch her.   Suddenly Lizzie saw me down the street and started racing toward me, full tilt, a big grin on her face.  I kept telling her what a good girl she was (though she really wasn't!) and before long she was leaping on me and I had grabbed her.

Polly, in the meantime, followed Lizzie and, when I picked Lizzie up to carry her, Polly was much more concerned about Lizzie than about going anywhere outside.  Jeri ultimately took Lizzie from me, which made Polly follow her and in no time all were back in the house, while Jeri and Sheila continued on their walk.

We had decided to take my mother out for lunch.  I always try to think of a place where there is easy parking and not far to walk, and Ding How, right in the neighborhood, seemed to be a good place.  Besides, it's Chinese food and though the food at Atria is good, they never serve Chinese food, which my mother likes.

Walt decided to come with us.  He has been sick for a couple of days with some respiratory thing, including slight fever and gut-wracking coughing.   He didn't come with us to the Blackfords' last night because he thought he should stay in bed.

He was hoping to feel well enough to go to a New Year's Eve party tonight and was going to stay in bed today too, but he couldn't pass up the chance to have one last lunch with Jeri.  Besides, he figured he could order himself a big bowl of hot and sour soup (which I am calling Chinese penicillin!) and it might help him.  He didn't expect the bowl to be so big, though, but he ate over half of it and had the other half to bring home for dinner.

The rest of us ordered a nice few plates to share.

I was thrilled that my mother's first reaction wasn't to be appalled by how much food there was, not to complain that she had too much on her plate, and, miraculously, to go back for seconds!!!  A very good lunch.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle when she couldn't find her keys.   Jeri assured her that she had them, but they were nowhere.  She said maybe they were in her purse, but we told her she had not brought her purse.  I finally gave her MY keys and figured we'd sort it out later.  We returned to the restaurant and not only had she left her keys there, they were in the purse that nobody saw her bring!  Problem solved.  She was apparently more with it than any of the rest of us!

Jeri had errands to run in the afternoon and Walt and I both took naps.  Walt was hoping he'd feel better when he woke, and I was starting to feel some sympathy pains, or maybe pre-cold symptoms too.  When Walt woke up, he admitted he really didn't think he should go to the party.  I could have gone without him, but this thing, whatever it is, appears to be very contagious (from Jeri to Alice Nan to Walt and maybe to me) and I didn't want to go to a gathering of people, many of whom sing or play musical instruments, and distribute these germs, so we sadly called our hosts and explained why we would not be there.

Then came the inevitable.  Time to take Jeri down to the train station.  She was going to Oakland to spend a couple of days with friends, and will be at a New Year's Eve party there tonight.

It's been a really fun visit.  I'm glad she'll be home with Phil and Lester soon, but we will miss her until her next trip out here.

Walt and I came home, collapsed in the recliners and watched 3 pre-recorded episodes of Jeopardy.  He finished his hot and sour soup and I had some of the leftover lunch and we will probably be asleep before midnight.