Tag: Quiz-Things

This one‘s pretty quick and easy!

1) Has anyone ever told you “I love you” but you didn’t say it back?

I don’t think so.

2) Do you consider yourself organized?

Hahahaha! No. I try, but I do not think I’ll ever really get there.

3) Where do you look first when you go clothes shopping?

“How well does this go with overalls?” or, “Which pair of overalls would I most likely pair with this?”

Seriously, that’s how I think, and that’s how I think most people should think when they’re shopping for clothes. Figure out how the item fits into what you already have. And if it doesn’t, think about how if you’re really willing to launch a new fashion concept in your wardrobe. (Hey, if you ARE looking for a new concept to freshen things up, awesome! Have fun!)

4) Do you often reflect on your past in terms of eras or milestones (“it’s been 10 years since X happened”)?

Yes, I do, more and more. I try to not do it as much as I’m tempted to do, because as the years pile up, I notice them piling up faster and faster, and the perspective across those years seems different. It’s wild to think about how specific periods of time feel now versus when I was much younger. Take, randomly, “eleven years”. Eleven years ago, we were new to living in this house, we had just adopted our first dog (Hi, Cane! [waves at the Rainbow Bridge]), and more specifically, we were digging out from the biggest snowstorm we had yet experienced. That feels very, very recent, but it’s eleven years ago.

Now, take another eleven-year period from my youth: Superman: The Movie came out in late 1978. Eleven years later, in late 1989, I was in college and I had met (purely as an acquaintance, she was not even remotely on my radar at that time as someone I might want to invite to a movie or something) a girl who would later become The Girlfriend and later on, The Wife.

Two different eleven-year-periods. One feels compressed. The other, even now, feels like an epic journey through time and space. Time is wild.

5) Were you more recently ill or injured (flu vs. twisted ankle)?

Definitely the former, though I’m not even sure when that would have been. It was almost certainly a minor cold, and it’s been a while since I even had one of those. (Oh, I just got my annual flu shot the other day! Next up is my annual COVID booster–that’s “the jab”, for all you weirdos out there who think Ivermectin is a thing–and at some point very soon I have to think about getting my shingles shots. And by “think about”, I mean, I have to get off my ass and get my shingles shots.)

By the way, one very convenient aspect of getting older is that you don’t even have to do anything for injuries to happen! Your back can throw itself out when you’re just standing there, not trying to lift a damned thing! That’s really quite a timesaver, innit?

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Here’s a quiz from Sunday Stealing! I’m doing this because it’s early Saturday morning and I’m sitting here with a mug of tea and I don’t really want to do anything productive quite yet but I need to post something (I’m sitting on a nice little string of consecutive days posting stuff!), so here we go:

What 10 Questions Can Tell You the Most about a Person

1. If you were an animal, what animal would you be?

Well…I’m prone to long periods of inactivity punctuated by short bursts of activity, and I can be motivated by food, so I guess I’d be a greyhound. Huh.

2. Are you generous?

I certainly hope so! I constantly wish I had more resources to support all the things that need supporting. (And people.)

3. Of the following, which consistently gives you the most pleasure: a) music, b) money, c) books, d) science, e) spirituality, f) food and wine, g) movies?

Sheesh, I love all those things! Maybe not spirituality, but I suppose it would depend on how we define that. I certainly enjoy the sense of community and participation in humanity that all the other things bring. And money isn’t something I love, but I sure love that having it brings the ability to pursue all the other things. Oh, and I’d add photography and other visual arts, too.

(By the way, maybe this belongs in a longer essay, but “Money can’t buy happiness!” is complete and utter bullshit and anyone saying it should be laughed out of the room.)

4. Describe your dancing ability.

I don’t have any. I probably could, as I have a fine sense of rhythm, but I have never danced much. Now, if I was to ever take an actual class in dance, I suspect I’d be OK at it. At least, not “Elaine Benes” bad.

5. What do you think your worst enemy really thinks of you?

“That guy is a liberal pinko weirdo with no fashion sense and isn’t manly enough.” (Now, I have no idea who is thinking this, but if I had a “worst enemy”, this is probably at least part of their thought process.)

6. Can you tell when someone is lying to you?

Depends on the person and the lie, doesn’t it?

7. Describe how it feels to fall in love.

Well, your brain kind of goes all foggy and your thoughts go all “What if I did this weird thing I would never otherwise do? Would that impress that person?” and people are often doing the snapping-fingers-in-your-face thing to get your attention because once again you’re thinking about the oh-so-cute thing that person did the other day and how you really want to revisit the lovely conversation you had with them that time so you cook up all manner of weird conversational gambits to get that topic back again. Oh, and there can be uncomfortable bloating, too. Be careful. A thing of Tums helps.

8. In deadly peril, what three people would you want in a foxhole with you?

Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain America.

9. What is your greatest weakness?

Well, my sweet tooth doesn’t do me any favors. And I’m likely to pay a lot less heed to your character flaws if you look good in a pair of overalls.

10. If you were to live out the rest of your life as your favorite fictional character, which would you choose?

I could cheerfully live as Bilbo Baggins, in all honesty. Books and food and warm fires? And some of the hobbits wear something similar to overalls!

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Ooooh, I haven’t done one of these in a while, let’s get on it! This one‘s pretty easy:

Four 5’s

FIVE things on my to-do list:

1. Set up an Etsy store for books and photography

2. Marinate chicken for tonight’s dinner

3. Order a planner for next year

4. Study art history and read photography books

5. Organize the overalls collection

 

FIVE snacks I enjoy:

1. Cheese Balls (Planters or not)

2. Peanut-butter filled pretzels

3. Stroopwafels

4. Popcorn

5. Apples and peanut butter (this is also a solid breakfast)

 

FIVE places I have lived:

1. Cranberry Township, PA (where I first lived!)

2. Hillsboro, OR (we lived there three times, long story)

3. Olean, NY

4. Baldwinsville, NY

5. Orchard Park, NY (this list is not exhaustive, I’ve lived in a lot of places)

 

FIVE jobs I have held:

1. Technical services, St. Bonaventure University library

2. Shift Manager, Pizza Hut

3. Assistant Manager, Bob Evans Restaurants

4. Telesales, Parmed Pharmaceuticals (they fired me because they thought I sucked. In their defense, I did suck. Taking that job was probably an error on my part.)

5. Facilities Technician, The Store (I don’t like mentioning my current company by name on here because I don’t want to give any hint that I’m speaking for the company on this space, even if it is pretty easy to figure out who I work for.)

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Another week, another quiz! Let’s see how this goes:

The 2×4 Meme

TWO foods you can’t stand

1. Broccoli! I’ve written before of my hatred for broccoli.

2. I love potatoes in just about every form in which they can be served…except mashed. I do not like mashed potatoes. And I always think I should! Every time I see a nice serving of mashed potatoes with delicious gravy, I think, “Ooh, that’s gotta be good….” And yet…no dice. I cannot get myself to love mashed potatoes.

FOUR foods you love

1. Blueberries. They’re heavenly. One of my favorite breakfasts is a cup or so of cottage cheese with a cup or so of blueberries on top.

2. Eggs. Eggs always make me happy. And they’re so versatile!

3. Bread. I don’t think there’s a bread I don’t like, and that can be a problem, I must admit.

4. Mustard. Spicy, brown, yellow, yellow with horseradish, dijon, honey, the stuff with the big seeds in it that you dip pretzels into, the spicy stuff in the little packet that I must have with my egg roll when order from Asian Star…yeah. Mustard!

TWO places you never want to see again 

1. Las Vegas. Now, given that when I saw Vegas I was 7 years old as we drove through it while moving from West Virginia to Hillsboro, OR, in 1979, a case can be made that I really haven’t seen Vegas, at least, not what it’s become. The Vegas I saw bears little resemblance to what’s there now. But still! No desire to go there whatsoever. I am not interested. I don’t gamble, and Vegas is an entirely artificial place that got plunked there for gambling. There is no natural geographic reason for there to be a city there. You can see this from aerial photos where the city doesn’t dwindle from urban core to suburbs to rural the way cities are supposed to; Vegas just stops. Now, a Vegas episode from the last season of Somebody Feed Phil did the best job I’ve seen yet of making Vegas look like a place I might like, but…no. Would I turn down a free, all-expenses-paid trip there? No! But do I have any intention of devoting any of my travel time or resources to going there? Also no. (Mark Evanier writes about Vegas. He likes it much more than I do, and his opinion has the virtue of him actually having been there since 1979.)

2. For the foreseeable future? Florida.

FOUR places you’d like to revisit

1. Hawaii!

2. New York City!

3. Chicago!

4. Seattle! (These aren’t arranged in preference, but by how long it’s been since I’ve been to any of them. It’s been 4 years since Hawaii, this December; 10 years this November since NYC; 24 or so since Chicago (and that was a drive-by); 43 or so since the last time I saw Seattle.

TWO musical artists who make you want to change the station 

1. Toby Keith. I’m told his early stuff was quite good before he went all “Lee Greenwood’s Republican Country heir-apparent”, but I’ll never know.

2. It depends on the song, but sometimes Rush bugs me. “Tom Sawyer” is a frankly unpleasant thing to listen to.

FOUR musical artists you love to listen to

1. The Beatles! Longtime readers will know that I was not always a Beatles fan, but I came around quickly when I started listening to them with new ears after watching the movie Across the Universe.

2. The Killers. I missed them when they were first getting big (in the 2000s), but I’ve been listening to them quite a bit the last couple of years, particularly their live album taken from a concert they did at the Royal Albert Hall in London. I love their sound and their combination of tech-dance, pop, and even yacht rock with saxophone styles.

3. Glen Campbell. He’s a part of the soundtrack of my life.

4. Annie Lennox. Her voice is a miracle. She could turn the Alphabet Song into a work of art. She probably has!

TWO moments you’d like to erase

1. The 2016 and 2024 elections. Yeah, a two-fer, but seriously: when they write the story of how America might have done herself in and done so voluntarily, those are going to be the moments she did it.

2. I don’t want to write about the details–not now, maybe not ever–but my mother did not deserve for her last year to unfold the way it did. At all. (Though honestly, seeing the 2024 election turn out the way it did would not have done her any favors.)

FOUR moments you’d like to relive

1. 2008’s election…but honestly, with a lot stronger sense of keeping the foot on the gas. America’s progressives had a serious chance there to change things for good and for better…but they just said “Mission accomplished!” after that election and retreated to their napping chambers, allowing the Tea Party to rise up and set the stage for the transition to MAGA.

2. I’d like to have been able to see Avengers: Endgame in theaters in that first weekend. I don’t recall what was going on, but I couldn’t make screenings any of those first three weeks. It vexes me to this day.

3. OK, I’m taking these not so much as reliving the exact moments but somehow recapturing their energy and their feeling, right? There was a night some years ago, when The Wife was still working nights at the restaurant she managed, and I was home by myself (The Kid was here but playing games and whatnot), and I started watching a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 on YouTube while I ate the pizza I had bought for dinner. I’ve known that piece for years, since I was first learning classical music in my teen years, but something about that symphony just clicked in my head and in my heart that night. That happens with art: you can know a work and be familiar with it and somehow your love of it, your appreciation of it…its grip on you…just goes to a next level at some point, and you don’t see it coming. (The performance was Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Simon Bolivar Orchestra of Venezuela at the BBC Proms. You can watch the performance here…unfortunately the HD versions are no longer on YouTube, so far as I know, which is a pity. The performance is raw and imperfect–the Bolivar Orchestra was originally a youth orchestra–but the music-making is utterly superlative. Sometimes the energy of a good youth orchestra outstrips that of a seasoned professional ensemble.)

4. Finally? It’s silly and weird, but the best things are silly and weird, right? I’d love to relive the first time The Wife hit me in the face with a pie. It’s strange how often the key moments in our lives are ones we really can’t explain very well, isn’t it?

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Oh, let’s see what the weekly quiz has to offer, I haven’t done one of these in a bit:

1. If money wasn’t an issue, would you move to a new home?

No. Easy!

Well, fleshing out a bit, I suppose it depends on what is meant by “money isn’t an issue”. We can afford a mortgage someplace and it’s all fine, but we still have to work where we are? Then, again, no. I like the house we’re in.

Now, if we’re saying “You are now rich as shit and you don’t have to work and hell, you can probably afford two houses”, then my desire would be to split time between a cottage in the Finger Lakes and a penthouse in downtown Buffalo. Of course, The Wife would get a vote. She might not want the downtown penthouse…and come to that, with dogs, that might not be a great idea.

2. Do you listen to different music when you’re happy than when you’re sad?

I’m not really sure, to be honest. I have been digging more into classical and classic rock of late, because I need to constantly remind myself when things are going very badly and they’re going badly because apparently many of us want things to be going very badly, that humans are still capable of doing amazing things. But I don’t stop listening to new stuff, either.

3. What’s your favorite way to unwind after a tough day?

I always shower when I get home from work. It’s a physical and metaphorical rinsing of the day’s detritus from me. When it’s less hot, I’ll participate in a quick dog walk first.

4. What’s the first book you remember from childhood?

I remember a storybook full of old fairy tales. I have no idea which volume of that type it was, and my memories of it are very vague. I do look at such things when I see them at used bookstores and library book sales and antiquarian places, but I do not know that I would remember my specific book were I to see it again, either.

5. What made you smile today?

Apparently dogs of the pittie/staffie variety like to bake themselves in the sun. Today it’s very hot in Buffalo Niagara, and we try to keep an eye on Carla when she’s outside. At one point she had a ten-minutes-in, ten-minutes-outside thing going on. After the last time she came in, this is what she did:

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Here are questions from this week’s Sunday Stealing! Which are a day late. Oh well.

1. What’s your life’s motto?

Life’s too short to not wear what you want. (I just made that up, to be honest.)

2. Where were you living 13 years ago?

Same town, but in an apartment just a few miles away from where we are now! At that point we were already looking into the house idea. My mother wanted to move with my father up to Buffalo from the Southern Tier, and live in a duplex with us on the other side so they’d have a support system. That’s how it played out.

3. Is anyone jealous of you?

There’d better be! I don’t manifest this much weirdness to not have someone out there envying me.

4. Where were you when you heard about the 9/11 terror attacks?

In my car on the way to work. I was at the shitty telesales job at that point. (In fairness, I sucked at that job.) At that point, it wasn’t even clear what kind of plane it was. I was picturing some doofus in a Cessna.

5. Do you consider yourself kind?

I try to be. I fall short at times.

6. Can you change your car’s oil?

Yes. I don’t, though. I like having skills, but I don’t worship at the altar of DIY.

7. What’s the last thing you heard about your first love?

Sheesh, who even is my “first love”? I suppose the one I’d have to consider shared something on Facebook. (Yes, we’re friends. She lives in Florida now. Terrific person, there’s a reason I crushed on her hard. A while back her sister was cleaning out the family house and found my confessional note that I wrote way back in, I dunno, eighth grade? Yikes!)

8. Have you ever been burned by love?

Oh, yes. Luckily, it’s been many years. I still remember 18-year-old me, swearing off the whole damnable business, just thinking, “I’m just gonna have fun for a while and stop looking for love because it’s never gonna show up….” (yes, I was a dramatic weirdo, whaddaya want from me), and then my roommate’s birthday celebration was joined by, among other folks, a cute oboe player I didn’t know very well….

9. What was the last thing you paid for with cash?

Popcorn and asparagus at the Farmers Market the other day.

10. Do you hug your friends?

Not usually, though I’m not unwilling.

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Sunday Stealing is all about your bed! By the way, did you know that there’s a low-budget horror movie from 1977 that’s become a cult classic, and its title is Death Bed: The Bed That Eats? It’s about a bed that has been possessed by a demon and thus it literally eats people who sleep on it. So that’s fun! (You can watch it on YouTube, if you insist.)

Anyway, onto the questions, about bed stuff (it’s all G-rated, folks):

1. Let’s say your alarm wakes you up with music. What would be the worst song to hear first thing in the morning?

Honestly, I’m not sure. Sometimes the song has been something quiet and peaceful, which doesn’t really help. And I wouldn’t want to wake up to Toby Keith, for example…but there’s zero chance of that.

We did used to have the clock radio set to WNED, the local classical station, and WNED used to run the BBC’s news update at the top of every hour. So there were a few times we were awakened, if the alarm was set for 6am or some such thing, to a British person calmly reading news copy like “Authorities are still working to collect the bodies.”

2. How many pillows do you sleep with?

I use two while sleeping, and sometimes my head goes under the top one. I use a third, smaller pillow to prop my head for reading, but when I put the book side, off goes that pillow.

3. What size mattress do you sleep on?

Queen at home. When we’re staying in a hotel we try to get a King.

4. Do you always sleep on the same side of the bed?

Generally, yes…as you’re in the bed, I’m usually on the right side. We recently spent a weekend in Toronto and we had to flip, though, because the hotel room’s AC unit was blowing directly on The Wife, and she didn’t like that.

5. Do you make your bed every day?

I wouldn’t say we “make” the bed, but we do tidy it up a bit.

6. Do you keep water on your bedside table?

Yes, though I rarely actually drink out of it.

7. How often do you change your sheets?

Weekly? Biweekly? Honestly, I’m not sure.

8. What’s under your bed?

Stuff, dust, and cats.

9. Do you sleep in total darkness or do you like to have a light on?

I need light, but not much. A light in the hallway is fine, or the soft light from the humidifier. Total darkness freaks me out. I hate not being able to see anything. When we’re in hotels, I’ll leave enough of a gap between the thicker curtains to allow some light in, maybe just an inch-wide gap of light, during the night and in the morning.

10. What do you remember about your childhood bedroom?

Which one? We moved a lot…but when we settled in WNY, I had the upper part of a bunk bed, which gave me extra room down below. That was fun.

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