Not Quite Sunday Stealing

Today is supposed to be the day for Sunday Stealing, but the questions this week are either questions I've answered a lot of times before ("where did you grow up?" "where do you live now?") or questions that you really need to be working to answer  So I'll answer the "new" questions and then I have a whole bunch of memes that I copied years ago and I'll do one of them instead.

1. What do you think about religion?It is a shame that the people who were inspiration for most of the world's religions were people of peace and that religion has been the cause of so much hatred and killing.  I think none of them would recognize their religions now.  I am a "recovering catholic," having left the Catholic church over its attitude toward homosexuality and the priest sex scandal, and some very upsetting things that happened in our local church.  I miss the social aspect of it, but I just can't support the organized religion.

2. When did you start using online social media?

In the late 1980s, with my first modem when I didn't have a clue what I would use it for. The first 1500 people in this town to sign up got free internet access for a year and I explored AOL and then settled on Compuserve for many years.  When I joined Facebook (I don't remember when) I joined a group called "Am I the oldest person on Facebook...and I was!  But as social media has grown I have less and less use for it.  I have a Twitter account, but rarely check it.  i don'tdo any of the other social media things except rarely Instagram.

3. You are walking down the road and you look down. There is a bug. Do you step on it?
No.  If I don't bother it, it won't bother me.  Of course if it is a BIG bug and it is crawling on me, I may give a different answer.

4. What is one fantasy that you want to come true more than any other?
Trump will not be elected president.  Please, please, please, please.....

5. Someone knocks on your door. Do you look out the window to see who it is before you open it? Do you open it regardless of who it is?
Years ago I realized that I did not have to be a prisoner in my own house.  This was when two sweet LDS ladies came to our door once a week and I just hated having to stand there and listen to them, so I had Walt drill a peep hole in the door.  It's too tall for me and I have to stretch to look out it, but if I don't recognize the person, especially if  they are holding a clip board, I just ignore it.  (At least I haven't gotten as bad as my father, who hung a sign on his door that read "If you have not been invited here, you are trespassing.  Please leave."

6. Have you ever eaten Play Doh?
No.  I was an adult before Play Doh was invented, so I never had that experience.

7. What was your favorite Saturday morning cartoon as a child and why?
I don't remember having Saturday morning cartoons.  I remember afternoon cartoons and I loved Beany and Cecil.

8. Are you a "people watcher"?
Oh my yes,  If I don't have a book, it's my favorite activity.  I hate people watching with my mother, though, because she says aloud the things I might be thinking and that's terribly embarrassing.

8. I have a bowl of fruit. There are apples, oranges & pears. You help yourself to one - which one do you choose?
No bananas?  OK, then I choose orange.  I love pears, but I think pears reach the state of ripeness that I like for about half an hour and before they are too crispy and after they are too mushy.  Oranges, though are fairly predictable. As for the apple, I like my apples cold, so if it's room temperature, I would not be likely to choose it.

9. What is your biggest pet peeve in the blogging world?
In all honesty, it's people whose blogs I read and try to comment on who never comment on mine.  It's so depressing to see folks with dozens of comments when I'm lucky to get one or two.  Mostly it's none. I chalk it up to age, since I'm older than most bloggers.  Also, even I would get bored reading day after day of stories of my frustration with my mother...but I do do interesting things sometimes!  There are times when I wonder why I continue doing this and then I remember I'm doing it for ME, not for anybody else.

10. What is one religion that you could just never see yourself joining?
Mormons.  I remember when I was doing La Leche League in Oakland and it seemed that every woman I met who I really liked a lot and thought was a beautiful person ended up being a Mormon, so I think that Mormons can be lovely people, but I have read too much about the religion, and especially women's place in it, to ever even consider investigating further.

11. What word do you use far too often?
Well, excluding curse words (which would be a toss up between F** and S**), I think it's "delightful."  As a critic, I have had to check the thesaurus every time I'm tempted to say a show was "delightful" because I realized I was using it on nearly every good production.  Now I have alternatives.

12. How long do you spend in the shower?
Less than 5 minutes

13. Your favorite flavor of soup is….?
I haven't made it in years but the recipe is called Lamb Soup of the Middle East.  I also had some exceptional soups on our river cruises.  I remember a mushroom soup that was to die for...but I don't have the recipe.

14. You are sitting on a bench in the park and a bug walks in front of your feet…. do you squash him?
Nah.  Live and let live.  Maybe someday he'll take a thorn out of my toe.

15. What type of dwelling was your first home away from the parents? An apartment, house, condo, duplex, etc.
The very first was a dorm at UC Berkeley, but then I moved into my own apartment, where I lived until I ran up a huge bill and had to move in with Char and Mike to save money to pay it off.

16. What are the three most important things to have when first starting out on your own...other than money. Why?
Assuming the place is furnished, I'd need a coffee pot, an all purpose pot that can I can cook many things in, and, being be, a TV.

17. What was the reason you left your home with your parents?
I moved away to go to college.  I never moved back.

18. What is your fondest memories of your first home?
I can't think of fond memories of my first apartments, but I loved the first house we bought.  We had friendly neighbors and a sense of "neighborhood."  The house had this marvelous porch where you could sit and chat with people passing by (one reason why there was a great sense of "neighborhood).  The kitchen had a huge counter and a stove with a built-in stock pot where I could have soup ingredients simmering all the time. And there was a huge Meyer lemon tree in the back yard. I still miss that house.