The Saturday Six

http://journals.aol.com/pattboy92/PatricksPlace/

1. What was your favorite Halloween candy to receive as a child?

Mounds was my favorite candy bar (still is) and I always loved the look and taste of candy corn.

2. Of cities you've visited (that you don't live in), which is your favorite and why?

San Francisco is my favorite city.  It's a beautiful, walkable, fun city with much to see and do.  I must confess I did live there for about 3 years about 28 years ago.

3. What is the oldest appliance in your kitchen (and how old is it)?

That distinction goes to my Oster blender which is somewhere around 50 years old; for my needs, it works just fine.

4. How many broken bones have you suffered in your life time, and when was the most recent?

None so far...touch wood.

5. Check your caller ID:  who is the last person to have called you?

My son

6. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #26 from Nettie: What would you say is your biggest "character flaw?"

I think my biggest character flaw is my lack of ambition.

A Necessary Evil

Do you have a favorite pair of shoes? A pair that you wish you could wear for everything because you like how they look or you like how your feet feel inside them? They can be a pair you have now or had when. Tell us why they were so special.

Extra credit:  A picture of them!

Let me start out by stating that shoes are probably my least favorite articles of apparel.  If I had my way, I'd remain in sandals in the warmer weather and cozy slippers in the cooler temperatures all the livelong day.

I do, however, own a pair of shoes of which I'm particularly fond.  These are a pair of high heels I bought when out shopping with my husbnad in preparation for our 25th wedding anniversary trip to Jamaica.  They are open-toed, gold/clear colored with ankle straps and 3-inch heels.  They make me feel like a vamp, a scamp and a bit of a tramp (remember that Cher ditty?) and I like that!

If I'm lucky, I get to put on these beautiful shoes once or twice a year.  My feet have long since rebelled against wearing high heels for any length of time past an hour or two.  Mine is a job that keeps me on my feet and on the go all day long and comfortable shoes that offer some suggestion of support are necessary.  Most of my shoes for work come from Payless Shoe Source.  My shoes tend to get pretty wet when I give showers to my senior residents.  It's not worth paying the big bucks for shoes that meet this soggy end.  I would like to personally thank the person(s) responsible for making this venue possible.  I've always found shoe salespeople carting boxes of shoes hither and thither and fiddling with my feet in the interim incredibly annoying.

I wish I had a scanner (and instructions on how to operate) to share this pair or shoes with you.  Trust me, they're pretty darn cool! 

And So It Begins...

http://clip-art-pictures.com/

Have you ever noticed that once the calendar page flips to October, the remainder of the year seems to zip by faster than the past nine months?  There's so much going on that gets crammed into a relatively short span of time.  Every year, I make a solemn vow to myself that I won't be caught unprepared for what's ahead and every year I manage to break that vow.  Coming in second to my serious case of pragmatism is a bad case of procrastinationitus.  The good news is that each year, I get yet another chance to redeem myself.

Five coming events loom heavy on my mind from now until the end of the year.  They are, in sequential order, a) Halloween, b) paying the annual property taxes, c) Thanksgiving, d) Christmas and e) my husband's birthday.  Over the years I've tried to take these events in stride.  At times it's not easy. 

I don't like Halloween very much.  Over the years I've been trying to wean myself away from using the word "hate".  Hate is such a strong word that carries a great deal of negative passion and wasted energy.  Who needs this?  Certainly not I.  Closer to the truth would be to say I dislike what Halloween has become over the years.  The very idea that parents have to check the contents of their childrens' bags of loot for hazardous items such as razor blades or homemade treats laced with a harmful substance is so sad.

I've become afraid to open the door on Halloween night in these times in which we live.  Anyone could be on the other side of the door concealed by a mask.  Once the door is open, it could be too late.  When my children were of the trick-or-treating age, I always opted to take them around town, leaving my husband home to answer the constant summoning of the doorbell.  The fact that I feel this way is a grim reflection of our current society.  I spend all of Halloween waiting for it to be over and breathe a welcome sigh of relief when All Saint's Day arrives and we made it through another year.  It distresses me to feel this way and makes me feel not just a little guilty.  When I was a child, going out to trick-or-treat on Halloween was right up there with birthdays and Christmas as one of the best days of the year.  I'm so sorry such a fun, child-oriented holiday has become an opportunity for some misguided wretch to turn it into a possible nightmare. 

A Play Date

Weekend Assignment #28: The United States Congress (or appropriate legislative body in the country in which you live) has vested in you the power create exactly one National Holiday, celebrating anyone or anything you want, no questions asked. What is the name of your holiday, what does it celebrate, and how should we celebrate it?

Extra credit: Name the holiday that already exists that you'd like to see have a higher profile.

Here's an old saw:  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  I heartily agree.  My suggestion for a newly instated national holiday is an official Play Day to be observed by people of all ages.  Imagine!  A holiday free from the usual trappings of gifts to buy, feasts to prepare, cards to send.  Plenty of retailers across the country wouldn't want to support this day because there'd be no monetary gain for them.  That's okay, they'd be playing too.

This would be a free day for children and adults.  It would give freedom from school, homework, chores, work and all responsibilities save the safety and welfare of yourself and loved ones for one entire day.  Some people play too much and some not at all.  This day would allow everyone the opportunity to have a guilt-free day to spend however they wished.

I think a lot of adults have forgotten how to play and in my business I see the end result of this departure from some kind of frivolity and it makes for a grim picture.  Kick up your heels a little while you still can.  All too quickly, you'll no longer have the physical ability to do so.  You might want some memories of play that don't stretch back as far as childhood.  This day could help provide some of them.

A holiday I'd like to see get more recognition is Earth Day which is celebrated on April 22nd.  Yet, I wouldn't want it to turn into another commercial opportunity which seems to overtake most of our holidays to the point where the original purpose of the holiday gets lost.  Also, considering one of the many reasons for observing this special day; i.e. concern for the environment, it would be counter productive to destroy even more of our beautiful planet creating more cards, wrapping paper, gift tags, etc. to further celebrate this day which you know would happen.  On second thought, better to keep the existing low profile on this "holiday" and just continue doing whatever each of us can to help our planet.

 

 

The Saturday Six

Saturday once more and here we go:

1. What is your favorite cartoon show?

I have to agree with Patrick here.  The Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Show (or any other show featuring Daffy, Bugs, Yosemite Sam, Pepe and the rest of the gang) is my favorite also.  It truly doesn't get any better than this!

2. I found this on Wil's journal:  Take the quiz...What natural disaster are you?

3. What was the design of the last postage stamp you used?

The American flag

4. What was the last pill you took?

Lovastatin

5. It's your ultimate breakfast:  what's on the plate?

Ah, breakfast.  My favorite meal.  If I were to throw all health and caloric caution to the wind, I'd have a cheese and mushroom omelet, sausage links, an english muffin, cranberry juice and coffee with real sugar and half and half.

6. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #26 from SpringsNymph and Neil:
a) When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
b) Are you anywhere close to that dream now?
c) Now that you're in the "real world," is your current job now really what you want to do for a living?
d) If not, what would you ultimately like to do?

All I ever wanted to be was a homemaker with a devoted husband and family of my own.  I realized that goal quite nicely, I think, and had the wonderful opportunity to be a stay-at-home mother for almost 12 years.

I never wanted any kind of job or career at all and I certainly never gave a thought to doing what I have been doing for the past 14 and a half years.  I take care of the elderly having discovered, much to my amazement, that I have a real knack for it.  My job is certainly not one of those jobs that people dream about when they say, "when I grow up, I want to be......."

I would love to sing for a living; specifically in a nightclub or lounge, wearing beautiful flowing gowns, singing classic torch songs.  The option to drape myself over the piano at will would be written into my contract.  Also, I would love to have some sort of writing job. 

My talents are minimal in both areas and I lack that very important drive of ambition.  Therefore, I don't foresee a career doing either of these things.  It's pleasant to daydream about sometimes though so I'll just keep singing for myself and regaling you all with my assorted journal entries.  That will have to suffice.

 

A-Ranting I Will Go

It's time for a mild rant which is something in which I rarely indulge myself.  When was it, exactly, that drivers stopped using their turn signals?  When did it become too difficult or too much of a chore to flick a lever to indicate which direction their car was about to turn?  Did I miss a nationwide mass implantation of  nifty new psychic microchips that alert us automatically as to which way a driver plans to go?  Does anyone else wonder about this?

These are rhetorical questions, of course; except for the last.  Over the past several months I've noticed that more and more drivers have all but stopped using their turn signals.  It's maddening, rude and more importantly, dangerous.  One would think that these people have to actually roll down their window and use hand signals.

I'd also like to know why on earth folks are so reluctant to turn their headlights on when traveling during early morning hours when it's dark, foggy or rainy or all three?  I leave for work early every day and I am amazed--and annoyed--by the number of cars with no lights on whatsoever.  It's important to have them on so that other drivers can see them.  They're necessary to make one's car more visable.  What do people think they're saving by not using their cars' headlights?  What they need to think about is saving lives from a potential accident by turning those headlights on!  It also astounds me how many drivers think it's perfectly legal to drive with only parking lights on.  It isn't.

If anyone recognizes themselves here, I hope I've given them a little food for thought.  If anyone can shed some light on why signalling and using common sense when driving in the dark have disappeared, please do so.  Shine some light on something!  Just call me amazed, annoyed and astounded.

Animation Rumination

Animation is one of the interests I chose to include in my AOL profile yet it's a subject I haven't touched upon to date.  With this entry I wish to try to convey my love for animation.

Many of my childhood memories coincide with the early years of television.  I grew up watching cartoons; some were awful, many were mediocre and a great deal were outstanding.  One of the reasons I love animation is because anything is possible and the most ridiculous scenarios are accepted without question because these are drawings and, obviously, not real.  I remember the awe and admiration I felt when I discovered just how many drawings were necessary to create even the smallest action of a character.

Attention to detail and well drawn characters and backgrounds are very important to me.  Some of the animation to be found on television today is so badly drawn and ugly that I cringe when I happen to get a glimpse of it.  I'm probably spoiled because, of course, I have seen almost all the animated Disney features and love many of them.  I've always been partial to the works of Max and Dave Fleisher, too.  I loved watching their version of "Gulliver's Travels".  For me, the creme de la creme of cartoons has always been the efforts from Warner Brothers.  Looney Tunes.  Merrie Melodies.  These represent a marvelous cast of characters invented and brought to life by so many talented artists.  These cartoons are funny, some hysterically so.

My animated hero is Daffy Duck.  I adore Daffy.  He's often depicted as an irascible, selfish, greedy little miser but in earlier cartoons this was not always the case.  It isn't these qualities about Daffy that endear him to me; he just makes me laugh.  In some of the cartoons from the late 1940s through the '50s, he was the leading character and carried himself quite nicely:

Yes, I'm a devoted fan...and just a leetle bit crazy.  I also think one of the choices in the drop-down menu of moods offered in the "Add an Entry" to Journals format should include "daffy" or at the very least, "daft".

As I got older, I was thrilled to discover that there were animated films for adults as well.  So many people automatically equate animation with entertainment for children.  Mention animation and the instant reaction is, oh yeah, Saturday morning kiddie cartoons.  This is far from the truth.  I remember when "The Flintstones" was about to debut on the new fall season lineup.  I recall one of my sisters making it very clear to me that this was to be a show for adults, not children.  It came on around or after my bedtime for heaven's sake.  Can you believe this?  It was years before I realized that "The Flintstones" was merely a redo of "The Honeymooners".

I often think animation is an under-appreciated art form.  It amazes me that I can be reduced to tears of empathy and sympathy over a bunch of drawings.  That is quite an achievement for an animated production.  Several films I've experienced and enjoyed over the years come to mind.  My first taste of adult animation was "Heavy Traffic" by Ralph Bakshi.http://www.sundancechannel.com/popup/index.php?ixFilmID=2388.  I found this to be simultaneously shocking and sometimes amusing.  An entertaining, beautifully drawn film is "Fire and Ice" featuring much of Frank Frazetta's art (his work is fantastic).http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1007350-fire_and_ice/.  Check out "Heavy Metal" for good old seventies rock classics and a vignette of stories threaded together with the time-honored plot of good versus evil.http:/http://www.dvdcc.com/review.php?heavymetal.

I'm sure just about everyone is familiar with "Fantasia" (of course, it's Disney).  "Fantasia 2000" is worth looking at also.  The "Rhapsody in Blue" segment is outstanding.  Much as I love these films, my personal favorite is a little gem called "Allegro Non Troppo".http://www.bozzetto.com/features/Allegro/allegronontroppo2.htm

It's an Italian parody of "Fantasia" but so much more.  If you love animation and classical music, this is a film worthy for fans of both.