What do you say to a dying man?

In my 15-1/2 years as a theater critic, I've had a chance to interview several people and it has almost always been fun, though I always go into the interviews with trepidation hoping not to screw it up.

My first big interview was with Emmy award winning scenic designer John Iacovelli, who is on the faculty at UC Davis.  John seems to be in the credits of just about every movie I've ever seen, or TV special I've watched. Despite having a daughter with a masters degree in scenic design and having gone to theater all of my life, I didn't have a clue what we would talk about and hoped I wouldn't sound like an idiot.

He was on the phone when I got to his office, so he motioned me to sit down, which I did, and while he talked, I looked at the books on his bookshelf.  I saw one by photographer Ruth Bernhard, famous for her "nudes in a box" photos.  I had met Bernhard at a party given by guys who lived across the street from her.  It wasn't until a long time after the party that I discovered this fascinating old woman was actually famous. When John got off the phone, I started talking about having met Bernhard and things just went on from there.  

It was from him that I learned that in most interviews if you say something akin to "tell me all about yourself" they will and, a question inserted here and there based on what you have heard, is all that is necessary to keep the interview going.

Shortly after that interview, I interviewed a "living legend," Yvonne Brewster, a Jamaica-born teacher and writer who co-founded The Barn in Kingston, Jamaica, the first professional theater company in that country. She was given the "living legend award" sometime in the 1990s by the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  She was about to direct A Streetcar Named Desire at the University.  The first thing I told her when we met was that I had never met a living legend before.  She laughed and it set the tone for our friendly interview. It remains today one of my favorite interviews.  What fun she was!

I once interviewed a really neat kid who is a master of origami and has been able to travel around the world on money paid to him to give demonstrations in places like Japan. (I attended a class he was helping with and to this day can't even make the crane that everybody starts with!)

I've interviewed a clown, a guy who once performed with Katharine Hepburn, my daughter, a woman who does signing for the deaf in theatrical productions, and a few personal friends who had written books.  I even interviewed a couple of naked actors who were about to appear in a show called The Undressed Project.

But I'd never interviewed a dying man before today.  Playwright Rob Lautz is about to see the premiere of his second play, The Third Date, written based on his experiences with prostate cancer.  He's terminal, he tells me, and though you would not know it to look at him, he feels "rotten," he says with a smile on his face. The good news, if there is any, is that prostate cancer is slow moving and so while there is nothing more they can do to cure him, he's not likely to die in the near future.

In spite of the subject matter it was really a fun interview.  He told me that I reviewed his first play, back in 2012.  He said I didn't give him a bad review, but I didn't give him a good review either.   I went back and looked it up and I ended the review by saying “The Meaning of It All is a promising start. I hope it’s not another five years before we see more from Lautz."  He said that encouragement was part of his decision to write this play.

We will see the one man play tomorrow, but he says it's funny and poignant and raw and he pulls no punches describing his experiences going through what he has been through. He points out that this is a cancer that is rarely talked about and he hopes to raise awareness and remove the stigma from all those macho men who don't want to admit that there is a problem "down there."

It sounds like it's going to be quite an experience.  I hope this time I can give him a better review!

Today at Logos

This is journal entry number 5,555, if anybody but I care!

I stand corrected.  Judging by the response to yesterday's entry about drive-in theaters it appears they are still alive and thriving in parts of this country.

Sandy's granddaughter was with her again when I arrived at Logos and they were headed off for more yogurt, so we didn't chat, but there were several customers (maybe 5 or 6) in the store when she left.  She said she had a busy morning.  A mom and a girl of about 11 or 12 between them chose $28 worth of books, including two young people's pirate books.  While I was ringing up their sale, everyone else left the store -- turns out they had been there as a group, I guess.  Nobody bought anything.

I went looking for something to read, deciding I wanted to read something other than a mystery today.  I started out with Judith Viorst's book, "I'm Too Old to Be 70," even though I'm too old to read it.  :)

A middle-aged man with curly grey-white hair bought a contemporary fiction book about several generations of women in China.

A girl came in with about 2" thick pages from a genetic text that she had taken out of a binder and asked if we wanted it.  I told her I'd take it, but we would probably just throw it away--she didn't care.  she just wanted to get rid of it.

A guy with Rastafarian hair spent some time checking cookbooks, and then started to walk out. turned and thanked me, waved, and left.

An older guy came with a book on birds to buy and commented on the book I was reading, saying he was feeling like that these days too.

Next was a fresh-faced young man, cleanly dressed in blue shorts and a blue checked shirt, tan sneakers with black anklets just barely visible over the top of them, and carrying a bike messenger bag.  I later realized he was with a young woman in jeans and blue t-shirt with a long pony tail hanging down her back.  They stayed at the humor section for awhile, he on the floor handing books up to her, and the two of them laughing.  She eventually left and after checking the kids' section, he ended up buying a Mark Twain, 4 sci fi books, and the cliff notes for a book about mythology.

Bruce walked in.  His hat this time was more like a visor, without the top part, just a band around his head holding the front part of the visor on.  He looked around a bit, but didn't make eye contact or say anything and left without buying anything.

A guy with a graphic of a native American in full feathered headdress on a black shirt was looking for Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," but left when he couldn't find it.

A couple came in looking for military books and likewise left when they didn't find what they were looking for.  They were followed by two teen aged girls who popped in and out so quickly they hardly got 2 feet from the front door.

A woman in black with purple accents in the strings off her backpack. her flip flops, her water bottle, and the accent color barely visible in the weave of her shirt bought two books of poetry, one of which was wedding poems.

A very tall, barrel-chested man wearing a leather hat with a wide brim started by checking the self improvement books and ended up buying a book on the Louvre, which was so thick and heavy it surely must have contained photos of every piece in that museum!

I had finished my Viorst book by this time (which I enjoyed so much I actually bought it) and decided to start re-reading Bill Bryson's "The Mother Tongue," one of my favorite books.  I knew I had two copies of the book at home, so there was little risk of my deciding to buy it from Logos.

An older woman came in with her son, who was carrying three very large old books.  She had apparently called the day before about donating them.  They were a book of biblical illustrations, a book of Dante's "Inferno" with wonderful etchings, and a book about old buildings in Edinburgh.  When we talked about Logos (which she had never been in before) and its philosophy of donating proceeds  to charity (I read that it has donated >$200,000 since it opened 6 years ago), she sent her son out to get another box of books which she had intended to donate to the Yolo County Library.

A woman and a boy of about 8 went into the kids' room.  I thought she was his mother, but later on looking at her, she may have been his babysitter.  He wanted a book about the human body and how it develops. All I could find for him was "Our Bodies Ourselves," which I decided was probably not what he was looking for!  They bought 3 kids books, Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree," a book on volcanoes and another on the Titanic.

And old man shuffled in from the bargain carts outside.  He was massaging the skin of his stomach through the gap in his shirt.  He had on a tan sun hat with the flap that comes down in the back to cover your neck.  He was thrilled to have found a book by Winston Churchill for only $1.

My friend arrived at 4:20 and we talked about Bryson's book, which I was reading, but he didn't find anything he wanted to buy today.

Sandy returned, after her time in town with her granddaughter and her daughter.  She had lost the keys to her bike lock and hoped she had left them here, but alas no.  She borrowed my phone to call her wife to bring down a duplicate set of keys, then trudged off, not looking forward to the long ride home in the oppressive heat.  (The a/c in the store was so wonderful I had no idea how hot it really was outside until Walt came to get me and I had to go outside!)

An old-ish man looking like a professor on his day off, with an aloha shirt, shorts and very scuffed black shoes bought a novel, "Winter in Madrid."

A striking woman looking like America Ferrera was wearing a long brown dress with a red floral print and spaghetti straps covered with a light weight bolero type sweater in a pale pink.  She was checking the literature section.  At the same time a youngish women dressed all in white was checking the other side of the same bookcase and when each of them hunkered down to check the bottom shelves, they looked like the famous Lucille Ball-Harpo Marx mirror scene. The Ferrera doppelganger left without buying anything but the woman in white made a $13 purchase and paid with a $100 bill, which she said was her graduation present.  I checked it for forgery before giving her her change, since there have been reports of forged $100 bills and $20 bills lately.

The last customer bought a book of Shaw plays, which I rang up while chatting with Susan, who had arrived to relieve me, about her European vacation.

Potpourri

 I thought about this sign I saw this morning as I was sitting in my recliner, on a lump of a towel Polly had tried to shape into a nest, with cramps in my toes and a bit of restless leg syndrome. I was also very thirsty. I desperately wanted to get up.  But Polly was sleeping so soundly and she hadn't slept in my lap like that in quite awhile -- not sure why not.  I hated to disturb her.

It reminded me of this morning when I was wide awake and needed to get up and come into the family room to change positions before going back to sleep, but Polly was curled up on my back and Sheila was stretched out in front of the couch blocking the place where my feet needed to go in order to stand up.  But she was so comfortable....

I have turned into my mother.  Her dachshund, Max, was the most spoiled dog in the world.  In fact, in those meme questions that ask if you could come back as an animal, what would you come back as, I usually answered "my mother's dog."  Remaining in an uncomfortable position in order to let Max remain sleeping is something I can see her doing many times!

Speaking of my mother, as unpleasant and frustrating as Atria was yesterday, it was a 180 degree change today.  I dragged my feet getting there, dreading a repeat of the day before, but knew I had to get there because she needed her next set of pills.  But we actually had a good visit, this time mostly concentrating on her family, how much she misses her sister Marge (Peach's mother) and how lately she's been dreaming about her mother having very real conversations with her, and waking up convinced that she was still somewhere in the room.  She seems happy to be having those dreams, and just sad to wake up.  I hope that some day she'll just decide to take her mother's hand and go off with her to find Marge and the rest of her siblings.

I came across an article today that said that the very first drive-in theater was built in Camden, New Jersey in 1933.  The innovative idea turned 82 earlier this month (June  6).

How many of you remember going to the drive in as a kid...or with your kids?

I don't know how often my family went to the drive in, but often enough. We would bring stuff to eat, Karen and I would dress in our nightclothes and we would have blankets to wrap up in when we inevitably fell asleep.  Seems to me we felt naughty going to the snack bar ('cause you always had to go to the snack bar) in our jammies to get popcorn and a soft drink.  Some of the theaters had playgrounds where the little kids could play until it got dark enough to start the movie.

The sound was always awful, I remember.

Those speakers that you hung on your rear view mirror or on the inside of the front window always had static and sometimes didn't work at all...then you had to drive to another station and try again.  Apparently at some point they found a way to connect the speakers to your car's radio, but that was after we stopped going.

I went a few times as a teenager, and was one of those "good girls' who went to see the movie, with maybe a little chaste necking thrown in for fun, but you never saw the car I was in steamed up.  I was there to see the movie.

We took our kids to the drive in a few times, I remember.  It was a way for the whole family to see a movie at less than theater prices (and bring the baby without disturbing other patrons), but they were pretty much waning by the time our kids came along, though it was always fun to catch a snippet of the current movie as you drove past one on the highway at night.  

I wonder if Jeri, Ned or Tom remember being in a drive in with us.  The very last time I was in a drive in, I wasn't exactly in a drive in.  There was one drive in left in this area, a XXX porn film drive in.  No catching snippets from the freeway because the screen was turned to face the cars and the empty field behind them.  But Walt and I had gone out to dinner with our friends and Dave decided we should see if we could see something by driving down the road alongside the theater.  We could, but we didn't stay long.  That ended our drive in movie going history.

But it was fun to have that memory of being a part of this icon of American culture.  At its peak, there were 5000 theaters across the country (which seems a remarkably low number to me) and today there are fewer than 500 (which seems a remarkably HIGH number to me!)

Wouldn't It Be Loverly?

Hard to believe that if she were alive today, Judy Garland would be 93, or in other words "almost hunnert."  She was 47 when she died, an age that seemed so old to me in 1969 but today seems so young, since two of my children are older than that!  Proves that age is all relative.

Speaking of being "almost hunnert" (did you know my mother is almost hunnert?).  I came away from Atria today, after four hours with my mother, with such an incredible admiration (as well as sympathy) for caregivers who take care of loved ones on a 24/7 basis.  My mother has good days and bad days and I always arrive hoping this will be one of her good days.

It was one of her less good days, when she seemed just very tired and unable to concentrate on anything.  I've started trying to bring her news of all the "exciting" things I've been doing since I last saw her (2 days ago), since that's usually the first thing she asks me.  "Exciting" in my life is relative, but I did tell her how surprised I was yesterday when I could not remember the name of one of my friends' children (whom I have known all of her life) but could remember the name of my godmother's boss, whom I never met or even saw a picture of but remember his being talked about a few times...and remember, she died when I was 10!)

Her comment when I finished:  "Well, life goes on, I guess."  This is one of her go-to phrases when she hasn't followed or understood what you said, but thinks that a response from her is necessary.  It also effectively ends that discussion and usually precedes "I'm old, Bev."

She probably asked me 20 times what I was doing for the rest of the day (taking her to the hairdresser and when the hairdresser was finished, taking her back home again and then going to Sacramento to review My Fair Lady).  Each time I told her that she had a different response -- do I have to write a "report" about it?  How did I happen to get tickets for that show? Have I seen that show before?  Will I get paid to write about it?  Is Walt going with me?  Where will my review be printed? When I finish answering her questions she then says "so what are you doing for the rest of the afternoon?" and we start all over again.

A new wrinkle, though, is that she thinks never sees enough of me.  I haven't been there in a long time (2 days) and she misses me and when will I come back again (tomorrow).

About the 20th time she said "I'm old, Bev--do you think I'll live to hunnert?" I decided it was time to go.  I could either walk calmly out to the car, or stay behind and start screaming.  If I were her 24/7 caregiver, I would not have that luxury and that, I admit, makes me a tad guilty, but not really, because I know that she has the best possible arrangement right now and, whether she realizes it or not, I'm there almost all the time.

But maybe next time will be one of her better days, and I really enjoy them.  Wouldn't it be loverly...?

I've decided I really do not like her hairdresser at all.  She was fine up until she did my mother's hair last time, when she came out looking like she had stuck her finger in a light socket. I figured it was because she had been given a permanent. Fortunately it loosened up over the next few days, but the "look" was just horrible.  Today she was just having her hair cut, washed and set and it still looked like she stuck her finger in the light socket again.  We are scheduled to go to lunch with her friends on Monday and I'm hoping by then the tight curls will have relaxed and she will look more like her old self.

I did go home and we did go to see My Fair Lady, which opens the Music Circus season (there will be one major musical every 2 weeks for the next five weeks).  I have reviewed two previous Music Circus productions of this musical, one in 2001 and one in 2008 and, according to my reviews, this was probably as good as the 2001 production (which I liked) but not as good as the 2008 production (which I loved),

I was amused, however, to find out that there was a "Content Guide" printed for parents unsure about whether this is suitable for children to see.  It reads:  "With themes that include the importance of self-worth, the need to respect others and the value of education, it will likely appeal to a wide range of patrons, although younger children may not grasp some of the concepts or plot elements. It includes no violence or sexual situations. It does include references to excessive alcohol consumption and antiquated views on women’s rights and roles, and some of the plot elements focus on relationships."  I'm just kind of speechless that anyone would think such a content guide for such an old chestnut was even necessary.

But then we have become a country where your children can be taken away from you if you let them walk home alone from the playground 3 blocks away, something I did when I was in grammar school.  And Miss Hunnert walked 3 miles (I clocked it--it was 3 miles) to and from school from the time she was in kindergarten!  Today's children are going to grow up with no survival skills whatsoever.

My 10th Year

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....

I've been thinking a lot about my 10th year lately.  It seems to have been my seminal year.

 strongly influencing later developments.
          "his seminal work on chaos theory"
 synonyms: influential, formative, groundbreaking, pioneering, original, innovative'

The thing is, I'm not sure if everything  remember happening in my 10th year actually happened in that year, but there are just a lot of things that I have strong memories of happening when I was 10.

My mother took instructions and was baptized a Catholic when I was 10.  I remember sitting in the park across the street from Old St. Mary's church in San Francisco with my father and sister while my mother was in classes.  After she was baptized, my godmother, Babe Fourtner held a formal dinner for her.  She was a very religious woman and a very proper woman and was shocked when Father Joe, who baptized my mother, sat at this beautiful table, (the sort with linen table cloth and napkins, candles and flowers in the center of the table, lots of forks and lots of glasses for different courses), and spent the evening putting pitted olives on his fingers with my sister, the two of them laughing.  (Fortunately, he kept his Roman collar on during dinner, but as soon as he left the apartment it came off, revealing the plaid shirt underneath!)

I remember that Babe died when I was 10, though now I wonder if that was the same year my other was baptized.  She had cervical cancer and I remember when my mother told me that she thought I was old enough to know that she was dying.  Such a lovely lady.  She had snow white hair from her 20s and a unique laugh that I can still hear in my head today.  I never met her husband, my grandmother's cousin, who was district attorney for San Francisco.  He died before I was born.  

I saw A Star Is Born for the first time when I was 10 and fell in love with Judy Garland, an attraction that lasted for decades.  Truth to tell, today it's not like it was before, but it sure lasted a long time.

I first read "The Black Stallion" when I was 10.  My friend Stephen loaned me his copy and I loved the book so much that I devoured all of the rest of Walter Farley's books that I could find in the library. It started my love of books about animals, particularly about horses.

I was 10 when we first got a television.  And the rest is history.

It is my memory that I was 10 years old when the Saulk vaccine became available.  After years of being terrified that I would get polio, I didn't mind at all getting the injection because I knew it would prevent me from getting polio.  Wikipedia says they actually did start testing the vaccine in 1953 and 54, but I suspect I might have been 11 or 12 before actually getting it since it was 1955 before they started widespread vaccinations.  But in my mind, I have always remembered that I was 10.

I was 10 the first time a death hit me.  It was Angelina, the wife of Angelo, the Greek grocer who owned the store near our house (he would let me buy cigarettes and bourbon for my father!). We were coming home from church when we saw a black wreath on the door of the grocery store.  In my head, I heard an ominous chord, like you would hear in a movie.  Was I really 10 when that happened?  I don't know, but in my mind I was.

I was put on my first diet when I was 10.  It was the last time I ever drank whole milk.  For the weeks of my diet, I missed whole milk most of all, while I gagged down the skim milk but when I had lost all the weight, I discovered that whole milk now tasted too rich for me.  I always drank skim milk after that.  I remember feeling ashamed at being told by the doctor that I was fat and having to go on a diet.  I remember the teasing by classmates, being told by my mother I was too fat to take ballet lessons.  But really, how does a 10 year old get fat?  Dessert was always a part of dinner (and woe to you if you decided you didn't want any because my father would be angry).  The cookie jar was always full.  We frequently had pancakes and hockies (fried bread dough) with butter for breakfast and, in season, corn on the cob dripping with butter along with our fried chicken with that crispy crust I loved so much.  I had learned bad eating habits that have followed me all of my life by the time I was 10 years old.

I was 10 when they diagnosed my amblyopia (lazy eye blindness).  I was too old to correct it.  I have since read that if it is caught before the age of 10, there is a chance of correcting it, but it never occurred to me that anything was wrong.  I just assumed that everybody had one good eye and one bad eye.  I used to have to wear an eye patch in the evening over my good eye, hoping to strengthen the bad eye, but it never did any good and I have never had usable vision in my bad eye.

I was angrily accused of being a hypocrite when I was 10.  I attended Mass every morning before school during Lent, but left after communion in order to get to school in time to have a donut and hot chocolate for breakfast before class.  When my teacher discovered that I hadn't attended the FULL Mass, she called me a hypocrite in front of the whole class.

In my mind Age 10 seems to be the year when everything happened and, when I read back on the main things I remember, it seems that each of those things were things that had a major impact on the person I have become. It truly was a seminal year!

Why Do I Do It?

Every year as the hype to the Tonys starts to build, I wonder why it is that I watch the show every year.  I haven't seen any of the nominated shows and am unlikely to until they start to tour, years from now. I don't know half (or more) of the big name Broadway stars.  So why do I watch, other than that it is usually the best/most professional of the award shows.  And I'm an award show junkie.

Usually, I am at least slightly familiar with the Big Shows thanks to Theater Talk, that wonderful weekly 30 minute show produced by Cluny-TV which our local PBS station used to run at midnight on Saturday or some ungodly hour like that (but which I dutifully recorded so Walt and I could watch it the next day, because he likes it too).  But it has disappeared from the programming schedule.

So since I'm missing Theater Talk I checked out their web site and found all the recent shows, many of which feature plays or musicals nominated for Tonys, so I watched a few of them.  My very favorite shows that Theater Talk does involves chit chatting with other critics.  This time it was Jesse Green of New York magazine, Michael Musto of “Musto! The Musical!” at Out.com, Patrick Pacheco of ArtInfo.com and Elisabeth Vincentelli of the New York Post chatting with hosts Michael Riedel of the New York Post and producer Susan Haskins.

Having now seen the Tonys, I think they were about 50% right on their predictions (just shows you what critics know!), but it's always fun to hear them dishing about the good and bad of each.

I also watched the interview with librettist/lyricist Lisa Kron and composer Jeanine Tesori, who wrote Fun Home, a musical I had never heard of.  Fascinating interview.  The show is a heart-breaking musical based on the memoir/graphic novel by Alison Bechdel about growing up in a troubled family and her relationship with her father prior to his suicide.  It ended up winning best musical.  (I was sorry, though that 11 year old Sydney Lucas, nominated for Best Featured Actress in a musical for the show did not win...she performed the featured song and was wonderful.)

But anyway, the Tony show was a success and though I saw a Facebook post that someone missed Neil Patrick Harris as host, I thought Kristin Chenoweth and Alan Cumming were very funny and kept things moving along and entertaining.  Chenoweth must have worn every gown in her closet during the 3 hour show and when she ran out of gowns she improvised.

I have to admit, though, that her finest moment was one that I don't know if people noticed.  They were introducing Tommy Tune, who is about 8' tall to Chenoweth's 4'11".  She went to give him a big hug around his waist and then realized that she was actually hugging his genitals and repositioned herself quickly.

My own personal prediction for the show to sweep the Tonys wasn't even nominated.  It was the only one I'd seen and we had seen it in previews in Cambridge when we were visiting Jeri and Phil.  It's Finding Neverland, the musical version of the movie about the writing of "Peter Pan" and I absolutely loved it.  But the critics have not been kind and my cackle of critics (I don't know that the group name is for critics, but "cackle" seems fitting!) have always made fun of it. Again, what do critics know? But still, I was happy to see that they did a number from the show during the Tony broadcast anyway.

That's Glee's Matthew Morrison as J.M. Barrie and Kelsey Grammer as Captain Hook.  It doesn't show very well, but the projection of waves in the back was amazing.

Of course there was the usual Memorial section toward the end, paying tribute to those who have left us during the year.  Josh Groban sang "You'll Never Walk Alone" and I'm sure there were lots of tears in the audience, but I was giggling when midway through the song, a platform in back of the stage raised up from beneath the stage.  It held everyone in the show, all singing backup chorus for him.  

But it reminded me of something Judy Garland says to James Mason in A Star Is Born when describing a particularly ornate dance number she has just filmed at the studio and that was the visual I had in my mind in this otherwise somber moment.

And now another Tony show is over and I can look forward to Outlander being snubbed by the Emmys (because I love it, so obviously it's not going to get any nominations), and the Oscars, which will be a rerun of the Tonys because I wont know anybody nominated and will have seen none of the nominated films. It was so much easier when I followed Hollywood and went to the movies regularly!

Sunday Stealling

The "Would You Rather" Meme

Would you rather go into the past and meet your ancestors or go into the future and meet your great-great grandchildren?
I would prefer to go into the past.  There are questions I've always wanted to know the answers to and it would be fun to be able to discuss some things with my ancestors.

Would you rather have more time or more money?
I have all the time in the world.  I'd rather have the money.

Would you rather have a rewind button or a pause button on your life?
Rewind.  I can think of many incidents I'd like to rewind and hope to fix.

Would you rather be able to talk with the animals or speak all foreign languages?
Oh how much fun it would be to be able to understand and speak with animals!

Would you rather win the lottery or live twice as long?
Neither, actually, but if forced to make a choice, I would choose the lottery.  I've lived long enough as it is!

Would you feel worse if no one showed up to your wedding or to your funeral?
Well, it's too late to worry about my wedding and I won't be around for my funeral, so I don't care either way.

Would you rather be without internet for a week, or without your phone?
Definitely without my phone.  99% of the calls I get are calls I don't want.

Would you rather meet George Washington, or the current President?
I would love to meet Obama, pat him on the back and tell him that no matter what the critics say, I have been proud to have him as the leader of our country.

Would you rather lose your vision or your hearing?
I've thought about this a lot and I would much rather lose my vision.  I am such a TV and book person that it would be difficult if I couldn't at least hear the TV or audio books.

Would you rather work more hours per day, but fewer days or work fewer hours per day, but more days?
Since I'm retired, I don't care either way.

Would you rather listen to music from the 70’s or music from today?
I don't know either.  Can I choose the 50s and 60s?

Would you rather become someone else or just stay you?
I have 72 years of being "me"...I'd hate to have to start all over again as someone else.

Would you rather be Batman or Spiderman?
Always with the wrong choices.  I'd rather be Superman, but given the choice of Bat or Spider, I'd have to go with Batman, since my friend Lynn is terrified of spiders. But since I'm a girl, I'd really rather be Xena, Warrior Princess.

Would you rather be stuck on a broken ski lift or in a broken elevator?
I'd rather not get on either, thank you.  (Shudder)

For your birthday, would you rather receive cash or gifts?
A gift, no matter how much you do or don't like it, is a sign that someone cared enough to buy or make something for you.  I'd rather have the gift