Tag: Quiz-Things

Looking over this week’s quiz, I think I can answer some of these. Let’s give it a shot!

   What was the last song you listened to?

Yesterday I started listening to Wagner’s Das Rheingold, leaving off somewhere in Act I.

    What is your favorite thing about the place you live?

There’s a wonderful blend of nature and urban here. Plus proximity to water. I do not know how people live in waterless places.

    What is your earliest childhood memory?

“Just images, really. Feelings.” –Princess Leia

And that’s really about it: no specific memories, just images of things and places. A toy airplane that I loved. A park I enjoyed going to. 

     If you could be any animal, what would you be?

Probably some kind of cat.

    Who do you trust the most in your life?

The Wife.

    How many languages can you say “hello” in?

Let’s see: English, German, French, Spanish, Elvish, and…that’s about it.

    What is your favorite kind of weather?

Cool, and little wind. For photography currently I need no precipitation, as Miranda is not weather-sealed.

    How did you discover that Santa wasn’t real and how old were you?

In 2nd Grade we spent Christmas on vacation in Florida, going to Disney World and other locations. I bought the idea of Santa finding us in our camper in whatever campground we were in on Christmas night. But also at that point I was losing teeth occasionally, so there was the tooth fairy to contend with. One day I lost a tooth and dutifully stuck it under my pillow…without telling my parents. I just assumed. Next morning the tooth was still there. Some time later, after I mulled this over, I asked my mother point-blank if there was a Santa Claus. She shook her head, maybe a little sadly.

    What is the best feeling in the world?

Laughter that’s not born of meanness or spite. Having a dog curl up with you. Smelling the morning coffee on a day when you’re not going to work. And the sound of people laughing at you when you’ve been hit in the face with a pie. I doubt that one’s terribly relatable, but there it is.

    What is your favorite color?

Blue! And red. And green. And yellow, and purple, and pink, and gray, and brown, and black, and white. Oh yeah, orange.

    Is there a language you would love to learn?

I wish I would have kept up with my high-school French. Spanish, too. 

    How do you feel about reality TV?

Which kind? Cooking shows usually make me happy. I enjoyed the first few seasons of The Real World way-back-when. But reality teevee also normalized a certain businessman-turned-politician-turned-would-be-dictator, so there’s that.

    Did you ever skip school when you were a kid?

Sure, didn’t everybody? Not very much, though. Maybe only once.

    What is your least favorite food?

If I was James Bond and I was up against a super-villain whose scheme was to rid the world of broccoli, I’d stand down and let them have at it.

    Do you have a good luck charm?

Nah, I don’t believe in good luck charms…but maybe there’s a kind of minor superstition to wearing overalls each and every day? Hmmmmm. And I also feel like myself more when I have a camera in my hand….

 

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From SundayStealing we get these questions:

When do I feel most authentically myself:

When I’m writing or taking photos. 

What I’m thankful for today

Ooof. I’m not gonna lie here: Thankfulness has not had a good run of late.

A memory I hope I never forget

So many! But I’ll go with looking at the girl I was sitting next to at the local college bar, where we were celebrating a mutual’s birthday, and wondering why I hadn’t noticed how pretty she was. Later, we married.

Other ways I connect with long distant friends

Mostly social media these days.

How I reconnect with myself when I feel lost

I read and I listen to beloved music and I go to the woods or to the water.

What would be my signature drink if I owned a café

We’ll assume that by “Cafe” we mean “bar”, in which case I make some terrific Mojitos, if I do say so myself.

Something I’ve let go of, as I’ve grown older

The feeling that I need to treat American conservatives as though they have real and genuine insights about things that are based on facts about the world.

The things I’m most likely to lie about

Hmmmm. This one’s kind of interesting, innit…I find myself trending more toward blunt honesty as I get older, but what would I lie about? Probably something mainly harmless, like “Did I like the cake you made,” when in fact I wasn’t in love with it.

What’s something I wish I had more time to learn

Photography! And I think I’m doing fine. I just wish I’d decided to approach it more seriously years ago. I had no idea, folks!

Social media trends that puzzle me

Endless political content. You see this on Tiktok a lot: people who just make video after video after video responding to the latest talking points on the other side. Even I, who am firmly on the left side of things, wonder if it all feels pointless after a while.

Local phrases and terms I use often

“Go Bills!” Also, “wings” refers to Buffalo-style chicken wings, and nothing else. Zubaz is a pattern, not a specific brand of clothing. I also expect not too many other places refer to “Lake effect” this or that (mostly snow).

If I could only wear only three colors, I’d pick these…

Blue, white, and brown–thus preserving my ability to wear most of my overalls. (The black ones would, sadly, be ruled out…unless black is stipulated as being available because everybody needs something in black, right?)

Favorite books, music, tv, movies, and media this month

Well, The Great British Baking Show is winding down, so that’s a bummer. We’ve started a re-watch of Scrubs from the beginning, because after the latest instance of watching a Netflix series that only had ten episodes, The Wife expressed a bit of annoyance. (That was Nobody Wants This, in which a podcaster who focuses on stories about the dating life finds herself involved with a Rabbi. Recommended, by the way.)

Music? There’s an album out called John Williams Reimagined, in which a bunch of Williams themes are re-arranged for a piano, flute, and cello. The recasting of dramatic music as chamber music is fascinating.

Books: I’ve started Bystander, which is a history of street photography, and Ian Fleming: The Complete Man. 

Movies…last night we watched Salt, a thriller from 2010 featuring Angelina Jolie is an FBI agent who might turn out to have a secret past she doesn’t know about. Very entertaining.

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Gramps turned eighty the other day,
and everybody was there.
He was dressed up in a brand new suit,
sittin’ in his big arm chair.

Then a beautiful, young, naked woman
stood up in front of the group.
She offered gramps some super sex,
So he said, “I’ll take the soup!”

–“Bad Jokes“, Prairie Home Companion

So I have a big pot of soup on: the first cauldron of Buffalo Chicken Soup of the 2024-2025 Soup Season! Now, I tend to limit my soup consumption to the colder months, so for me, Soup Season usually starts in October and winds up, oh, March or April, depending on how grim that particular spring happens to be. This annoys my family members, who believe that there’s no such thing as Soup Season and who would cheerfully eat delicious soup even when it’s 85 out in July. What do you all think? Is all year Soup Season?

(Oh, and I made a couple of small alterations to my recipe this time around, and if I like the way it turns out, I may update my Official Buffalo Chicken Soup recipe on this site! Exciting! Stay tuned!

Moving on, we have this week’s Sunday Stealing quiz. The numbering is again wonky, so we’re not numbering these. And these questions lend themselves to short, pithy answers, which is always fun!

What’s your guilty pleasure? 

I don’t really believe in “guilty pleasures”. If I like something, I like it. There’s more than enough opportunity for guilt in this world.

Which meal is your favorite: breakfast, lunch, or dinner?

Yes.

I mean, I like them all…and it’s also fun to have meals at each that is traditionally served at another meal! Waffles for dinner! Pizza for breakfast! Burgers for lunch–oh wait–

What do you do when you want to chill out after a long day?

Change into comfy clothes (almost always involving overalls), read a bit, watch something on the teevee later on. Maybe an adult beverage, but lately, we only indulge those if we don’t have to work the next day. This is probably best in terms of health and expense.

How would you spend your ideal weekend?

That depends! Maybe road-tripping, or relaxing at home, or going somewhere local and doing photography. Always a bit of time reading and writing, too.

Do you listen to podcasts, or mostly just music? What’s your favorite podcast?

I do listen to podcasts, though not many; I listen to music more than that. Some podcasts I like are: James Bonding (guess what that one’s about!), Functional Nerds (interviews with geeky writers), Noble Blood (somewhat gory tales from history), and The Open Ears Project (in which notable people discuss a particularly meaningful piece of music).

Do you prefer to go to the movies or watch movies at home?

Ooof, this can get contentious on social media. I love going to the movies and yes, the actual act of movie viewing is better in a theater than at home…but everything else about going to the movies has become sufficiently a hassle that we just stay at home. The expense and the time costs just aren’t worth it anymore, except in very special circumstances.

What was your favorite TV show growing up?

It probably depends on when “growing up” can be said to have happened…but through it all, there was Star Trek, so…Star Trek.

What’s your favorite TV show now?

The Repair Shop (which is going through a bit of thing because its host got into legal trouble). For non-“reality” shows, I’m thrilled that Ghosts has returned. It’s interesting to me that I have now had two beloved shows whose premise was “Couple ends up running an inn in a rural location where they have to contend with a very quirky population, and by the way, she really looks great in sweaters.” (The first was Newhart.)

How would you spend your birthday if money was no object? 

A week somewhere in the Finger Lakes, including the Ithaca Apple Festival, and I’d take a thousand photos.

What’s your favorite season? What do you love most about it?

Fall. I love the relief of breaking temperatures, I love the color, I love the food. All of it.

Do you prefer camping or going to the beach? 

I haven’t been camping since I was a kid and I’m not sure I really have a hankering to do it again at all (though I’m intrigued by “glamping”), so…the beach. Especially if it’s Waikiki.

Which phone app do you think you use the most?

Chrome or Gmail. Or my phone’s camera app. Also Snapseed and Lightroom.

Would you instead cook, order delivery, or go out to eat? 

Cook first, go out second. We never order delivery.

How do you drink your coffee?

From a mug. (OK, fine: mostly with cream. Sometimes black. Never sugar.)

If you could have any animal as a pet, what would you choose? 

I dunno, let me ask our cats and dogs!

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OK, I’m up early on a Sunday drinking coffee and we’re hoping to get to Letchworth today, but I’ll just toss off a quick quiz-thing! And I’m doing this one before I read Roger‘s answers!

1. What’s the best birthday party you’ve ever had?

I never had a birthday party. Next! (When I turned ten we had a family dinner at the Big Restaurant in Olean, as we had just moved there. The place was called The Castle, and it was part of a resort-hotel thing that was quite the going concern back in the day. Nothing of The Castle remains. It fell on hard times and different fashions, the idea of vacationing in a place just for the resort and not much else kind of fell by the wayside, and The Castle gradually rotted and now is gone.)

1. Where is your favorite place you’ve ever visited?

I love too many places to name a favorite, I think, but of all the places I have gone, I could see myself living in Ithaca, or Geneva (NY), in the Finger Lakes region.

1. How do you like to spend your free time? 

Reading, writing, photography, listening to music. (OK, sorry about the weird numbering here. As I start a new paragraph to answer each of these the WordPress list thing is renumbering as best it can, so each question is ending up Number One, and I’m not going to bother changing it.)

1. What’s one of your favorite bands?

Just one? Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors.

1. What is the cutest animal you’ve ever seen in person?

Excluding our own pets? I’ll go with the otters I saw at the New England Aquarium with my mother back in the 80s.

1. How would you describe your style?

Cottagecore, with overalls.

1. If your wardrobe could only be one color, what would it be? 

Blue, I guess. Because of all the denim!

1. What was the first concert you ever went to?

A concert band at the University of Wisconsin in LaCrosse. I was in kindergarten. If we’re talking rock or other pop music? That would be the first time we saw the Trans Siberian Orchestra.

1. What is the best book you’ve ever read?

The Lord of the Rings. (BTW, I include The Hobbit in there.)

1. What’s your favorite movie of all time? 

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

1. What’s the stupidest movie or TV show you’ve ever seen?

Hudson Hawk. (Which actually has some kind of weird charm to it, believe it or not. It’s best known for being a colossal flop, but it has some real gonzo goofiness going in there.)

1. If you could only have one food for the rest of your life, what would you choose?

OK, this particular quiz is really old-school, isn’t it? This feels like first-generation blog quizzes from back in 2003. Anyway, for purposes of this thing, I’d say…pizza? It has so many variations. But even that would get boring very quickly.

1. What are your biggest pet peeves?

I’m reminded of George Carlin’s quote: “I don’t have pet peeves, I have major psychotic f*ckin’ hatreds!” I’m not sure what my biggest ones are, but fresh on my mind are dudes who have to voice every disagreement they have with any opinion they see, guys on crotch-rockets who are obviously riding that thing for Adventure (I use “crotch-rocket” to refer to a specific item; it does not mean a generic motorcycle), people who will run into someone they know someplace and then stand right there to catch up without ever once looking around to see if they are blocking traffic in some way (because they always are), and overalls worn with one strap unfastened (don’t ask me why, I just don’t like the look).

1. Are you more into brains or looks?

If I have to interact with you, I hope there’s a brain in there.

1. Do you celebrate any holidays? What’s your favorite?

In order: Christmas, New Years, Thanksgiving. Halloween always feels like it should be more of a thing in our household, but it usually isn’t. I still have a weird thing about Valentines Day, even though I’ve been married for 27 years to a woman I started dating when I was 19. The last few years it’s been very hard to get excited for Independence Day, but here’s hoping we can get that mojo back.

Oh, and I don’t care what anybody says, “Sweetest Day” is not a thing.

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Interesting format for this week’s Sunday Stealing: instead of a selection of questions, it’s a series of prompts. I’m going to try to do these in one sentence each. Let’s see how that works out, shall we?

Reveal yourself in 24 easy steps

I am not: the least bit interested in pulling the weeds out back that I’ve been neglecting for a while now, and I am really going to regret not doing it sooner.

I hurt: at really random times these days, which I suppose goes with being 53 and well into the time of life when the body just hurts sometimes, regardless of whether or not you actually did anything that could cause an injury.

I love: photography.

I hate: missing the shot entirely because I dilly-dallied and didn’t even get the camera up. An attempt that misfires is one thing, but not even attempting is just duh. (Well, my “one sentence per reply” thing didn’t last long, but hey, did anybody reading this think it would?)

I fear: the prospect of enough Americans rising up to defeat the current possibility for the country shooting itself in the foot, but those Americans not being geographically distributed in a way that allows them to win.

I hope: for a gigantic rejection of American conservatism in November.

I regret: the shot I missed last Tuesday. 

I cry: every time that goofball cropduster guy realizes he has to sacrifice himself to save the world in Independence Day. (Sheesh!)

I care: about the unfair nature of breed-specific dog legislation.

I always: fasten both straps on my overalls. The one-strap thing always feels weird on me, like there’s all this strange tugging and pulling when overalls shouldn’t do that, and I dunno, it feels kind of unfair to put all that responsibility for the structural integrity of one’s pants on a single shoulder strap and buckle-hook.

I long: to go back to Hawaii.

I listen: to The Wife. Or I try to. Not always successful, and this always gets pointed out when it happens.

I hide: the keys for my tool cabinet at work. I just have to.

I write: less than I used to, which is a little bit of a problem! I need to find the balance between the writing and the photography.

I miss: that one coworker who brought all kinds of weird joy to the party. I’m still in contact, but she left The Store several years ago.

I search: for good deals on vintage overalls and cool tops on a daily basis. I don’t buy much these days, but you never know!

I learn: by doing. I learn more from doing something once or twice than by watching it a hundred times.

I feel: like the world is trying to turn better? Like a series of better choices might be in the offing?

I know: way too much odd minutiae about Star Wars.

I want: a full-frame mirrorless camera with three or four lenses to use with it, and a week in Toronto or Honolulu to put it through its paces.

I worry: about what if the world isn’t trying to turn better.

I wish: for more wishes. Duh!

I have: a little black book with my poems in….

I give: zero shits about how good it is for me, I am not eating broccoli!

I wait: for a better day.

I need: more money, a house with a big enough room with bookshelves to allow single shelving of my books, a dozen pitties and maybe a few greyhounds too, and as it’s been a while, I probably need a pie in the face.

And that’s it!

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I’m actually on vacation and the days have been packed, which is why I haven’t posted a whole lot the last few days. My current vacation doesn’t end until Thursday morning, when I go back to work, so who knows if I’ll post much between now and then…and while I’ve been taking a lot of photos, that means I have a lot of culling and editing to do!

But meanwhile, I can do a quiz, can’t I? Sure! As I write this, dinner is in the oven, so I have some time. (It’s a cool, low-humidity day here, otherwise I’d be avoiding the oven. Also the weather forecast originally had it being rainy around dinnertime, so I ruled out grilling. So…guess what the weather is right now. You don’t even need three guesses. Harumph!)

1. I am looking forward to …

My next vacation! Seriously, my next one is our annual Fall getaway to Ithaca and the Apple Harvest Festival. I love that trip. I’m also looking forward to getting through the next six weeks or so at work; we have a couple of special events in that time that are making my life abnormally busy.

2. Least favorite words

“Moist” should only be used in the context of describing a cake or other baked good. Other than that, I don’t really dislike specific words. Now, “least favorite phrases” is something I could go on at length about.

Oh wait, I remember 1999 or so that everybody was suddenly using “copacetic” a lot. That word was suddenly everywhere, and it went away equally quickly. I never really understood that.

3. If I ruled the world

Let’s stipulate no war and stuff. I’d mandate tons of high-speed rail all over America, universal healthcare, and I’d make overalls the Official Pants of Humanity. (I wouldn’t require everybody to wear them, I’d just give them the title.)

4. Favorite websites and blogs

This one! And Roger, and Sheila, and Mr. Evanier, and a few others. I keep waiting for people to get frustrated with social media and its incessant mechanized moderating and return to blogging, but maybe that’s not happening.

5. Things I do for myself

Not sure I get this one…I get dressed, so, yay! I also make my own coffee, for the most part. I can cook pretty well. 

6. Weekly rituals

Nature walk on Sunday morning; cooking dinner for The Wife and I on Fridays and making cheese plates on Saturday and cooking for the entire family on Sunday. 

7. DIYs I want to try

I don’t know if I’ll ever bother, because when I get home the last thing I want to do is DIY stuff, but I did see some ideas for home-made planting systems while at the County Fair the other day.

8. On my shopping list

An interchangeable lens camera! Not sure if I want full-frame or Micro Two-thirds, but we’ll see. I’m not actually expecting to enter that market again for at least two years, but we’ll see.

9. Places to see in your town

We just got back from the Buffalo AKG Art Museum! The museum was wonderful when it was known as the Albright Knox and was a lot smaller, but then a man named Gundlach gave the museum a huge amount of money, and they built an expansion that almost (or did outright) doubled the amount of exhibit space in the museum. It’s an amazing facility that really makes you feel like Buffalo is a world-class place.

10.Road trip must-haves

Water, snacks, camera and phone, stuff to read. Obviously clothes.

11. Guilty pleasures

I don’t really believe in guilty pleasures.

12. Things I’d rather be doing right now

Street photography in Toronto, NYC, or Honolulu.

13. Books I’d like to read this year

Hmmm. I actually have a reading list written down in my yearly journal, but that’s upstairs and I’m too lazy to go get it. I hope to finish NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth series soon, though. I only have the last book to go.

14. Lessons learned

Patience is good. Taking a deep breath and counting is preferable to jumping off half-cocked. Always keep your dogs on leash. Check your camera settings a lot while you’re out-and-about shooting, as it’s super easy to screw up and leave it set incorrectly for the next shot. And overalls are cooler (temperature-wise) than shorts with a belt. It’s an airflow thing!

15. Vacations to take

Hawaii again, obviously. Toronto and NYC, always. I’d like to take a week and roam around the Finger Lakes…and honestly, taking a week and not going anywhere is lovely.

Extra question:   Olympic events I like to watch or follow

I’ve lost track of figure skating over the last bunch of years, but with Mom gone, I’m thinking about following it again. Hockey, too. Most of my favorite events are Winter events; somebody once said that the problem with the Summer Games is that it reminds us too much of gym class. I can relate. The gymnastics is amazing to watch, precisely because it doesn’t make me think about the years of getting picked last for softball.

It also seems to me that Olympic pie-throwing should be a thing….

 

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I actually had a different post in mind for today, but current events have made me not want to write about that particular topic just now. Instead, let’s do the Sunday Stealing, which this week is about summertime stuff. (Roger did this one too, as always, but I’m actually not going to read his answers until I’ve written mine!)

1. What is the hottest temperature you’ve seen this summer so far? 

We were in the 90s for a few days last month. That was enough to make me wilt! If you don’t like your summers super hot, Buffalo’s a good place to live. We have never once hit 100 degrees since they started keep those records, back whenever it was that they started recording that stuff. With climate change ongoing I don’t know how realistic it is to think that record is going to stand, but there it is. The same breezes off Lake Erie that can make the snow really brutal in the cold months also keeps it from hitting the century mark, so there’s that. I’ve also availed myself of the lake breezes by going to the Buffalo Outer Harbor much more often this year for my photography walks.

I am actually better at coping with heat than I used to be, which I find very interesting. The Wife used to be the one who did well in heat where I started getting salty anytime it went above 78 degrees, and I used to basically retire overalls from June through mid-September. Now, I find I can be outside relatively comfortably well into the 80s (especially if there’s a breeze), and I am still wearing overalls constantly. In fact, I find that the lack of a tight waistband on overalls makes them in fact cooler.

Here I am, by the way, at Knox Farm State Park earlier this very day! It’s mid-80s today, so…yeah.

2. What is your favorite summer beverage?

Non-alcoholically, I have become a huge fan of sparkling water in recent years, and I drink tons of the stuff. It keeps me hydrated and helps satisfy my urge for something fizzy (I love fizz). There are more and more flavors coming out now, which is lovely. I have recently discovered that a half-lemonade, half-lemon sparkling water mix approximates sparkling lemonade, so that gives me a cheaper option for something I like a great deal.

In terms of booze and beer, I love the shandy beers that are popular now; Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy (beer with lemonade) is the heavy hitter on the market, but I’ve been mad at Leinenkugel for a while now, so I’ve switched to Narragansett’s version.

(Why was I mad at Leinenkugel? Because they discontinued my favorite product of theirs, Sunset Wheat, and refused to bring it back…but I’ve just Googled it and apparently they did bring it back? Hmmmm. I’ll have to go have a look next time I’m at Consumer’s Beverages.)

3. Have you seen any fireflies/lightning bugs yet? Cicadas?

I haven’t seen cicadas, but I’ve sure heard them! I’ve seen fireflies, though. They live in the woods out back and they are magical.

4. What are the last 3 things you bought online?

OK, that doesn’t have anything to do with summer! But, I bought two pairs of vintage overalls recently (they’re still in shipment) and a purple mandarin-collar dress shirt to go with the yellow and pink ones that I already own.

5. Where do locals go to cool off?

Probably the beaches of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, local streams and lakes for various frolicking, and onto the waters themselves–lots of boats around here! 

6. Where did you buy your last postcard and what was on the pc?

I have no earthly idea. 

7. What’s your favorite summertime scent?

The aroma of the corn on the cob when you open the wax paper after cooking. The charcoal and the meat on it. Freshly-mown grass is always a lovely scent. We have milkweed growing out front that we refuse to remove because it’s good for caterpillars; that stuff smells wonderful when it’s flowering. And in the very early summer–actually, it’s late spring–the blooming lilacs.

Late summer is when the scents of harvest start to take over….

8. What kind of a/c do you have – central, room, fans only, chillers, none and what temperature do you set it to?

We have central air, and honestly, I can’t function without it. What I said above about me being able to deal with higher temps than I used to doesn’t mean that I want to deal with higher temps. I need the inside of the house to be a refuge from intense heat. We set it to 68 overnight and 72 during the day. Sometimes, when it’s really hot and the AC runs more than it normally does, the coil will actually ice up. I notice that when I think, “Huh, the AC’s running but it sure seems warm in here,” and when I check the vents, nothing is coming out. When that happens I switch the fans from “Auto” to “Run” and then turn off the AC, so the fans can blow air across the iced-up coil and melt away the ice; then, when I can feel air issuing forth from the ducts again, I turn the AC back on.

We also have fans to assist with the air circulation, and I run one aimed at me overnight. I like the white noise, and it helps keep me cool overnight.

9. Do you have a summer vacation planned and if so, where are you really going??

Yes, and nowhere.

This has been a rough year for vacations. All the health problems with my parents last year, that led to mom’s passing and some ongoing stuff with Dad that I haven’t written about yet (and I’m not sure if or when I plan to do so), meant that I hit January with three vacation days left to use before my next renewal.

My vacation time renews on July 30.

So, yeah: I’ve basically had to go a full seven months without an actual vacation. That has been really tough. (And no, I do not for one second hold this against my employer in any way. It was just the unfortunate way that particular cookie happened to crumble this year.) So, I promise you, I have a full eight-day vacation scheduled to start almost immediately upon the arrival of August. I don’t usually take vacations that long, but this time I’m going to, because my brain is just increasingly mush. We’ll probably go to the County Fair a time or two, and I’m hoping to schedule a full day of street and architecture photography in the City of Buffalo, but no trips planned at this point.

10. What are your favorite summer activities?

I don’t know that I have any activities that are specifically summer activities! I love hiking year-round, and cooking year-round, and all the rest of it. Locations can be summer only: Buffalo’s Outer Harbor, for instance, is a lot less interesting when the boats aren’t there…but I’m not even sure I’m right about that. Various festivals, though–the Sterling Renaissance Festival, the Erie County Fair–are summertime staples.

11.  What’s your favorite summertime food?

Peaches, fresh tomatoes. We’re coming up on the season for our actual favorite summer-time meal: BLTs and corn on the cob. Corn used to be a butter-and-salt-always affair, but the last few years we’ve discovered Mexican Street Corn, which is amazing stuff. A bit filling and rich, though! Fresh fruit salads are always wonderful.

Oh, and the local black raspberries. I need to figure out how to get a bush of those going. That’s the flavor of childhood, for me. In the house I mainly grew up in, there was a hedgerow along the property, and in that hedgerow were several bushes of these things. Picking them and eating them right off the bush? That’s where I’m transported when I get to eat these. I found a vendor selling them at the Farmers Market yesterday, and tonight I’ll be enjoying them with some vanilla ice cream. A lovely way to serve them, but…it’s not quite picking them and consuming them right off the bush.

12. Did you ever go to summer school?

Nope!

13. What’s your favorite summertime memory?

Hooo boy, that’s a tough one. I’m honestly not sure I have one. Lots of competition for that title, I must say.

14. Do you like fireworks?

Meh. I do like the way professional fireworks look, but the noise and smoke is awful and it does not make for a happy evening with the dogs. (Currently Carla is the one really affected by them; Hobbes doesn’t seem to react much, but he’s young. Cane got worse and worse with fireworks as he aged.)

15. How do you feel about the longer days of summer?

Heh! I’ve ranted many a time about this very subject on various social media platforms. The longer days themselves are fine, and they come naturally. What I seriously dislike is our artificial pushing of that natural development through Daylight Saving Time. The switch from one clock setting to the next always screws me up for a week, and the Spring Forward one is always brutal. Also, we’ve pushed the Fall Back one so far back that now it seems like we just leap into the darkest time of year in one fell swoop. I do not like this. I also do not like it being light enough outside to read at 9:30pm still; believe it or not, I actually like circadian rhythms and I like darkness when it’s supposed to come. So, the longer days? Great! Helping them along with a dumb policy that is of no actual benefit to anyone? Ugh!

OK, those are my answers. Time to go read Roger’s!

 

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Another week for Sunday Stealing, this time with the questions being about travel. I’ve had travel on the mind for several years now, partly from watching the wonderful shows of Anthony Bourdain and then Phil Rosenthal’s Somebody Feed Phil, and partly from studying photography and seeing the dispatches sent back by the pro photographers. And, yes, from a few small travels of my own. Let’s get to it!

1. Have you traveled abroad? Where have you been? If you haven’t been overseas, which country would you most like to visit?

No, I have not. Places I’d like to see or go? Great Britain, for one. Vienna. Maybe Paris, but I’m not totally sure on that one. Japan…I’ve heard things about Kyoto that sound life-changing.

2. Where did you go on your last trip? Talk about where you went and what you did.

Defining “trip” as “any jaunt out of town that involves a hotel stay of any duration”, it would have been our annual trip to Ithaca last year. When we can we prefer to make a two-night stay out of this journey, but that didn’t work out last year. But basically the usual itinerary is kind of the same: lunch locally on Friday, then we road-trip to Rochester where we stay and have dinner. Then the next day we travel to Ithaca, stopping along the way at a winery and to see some sights in the Finger Lakes before we attend Ithaca’s Apple Harvest Festival. That’s a lot of driving for one day, which is why we prefer to have a two-night stay in Rochester (from home to Ithaca is about three hours). I would just link the post where I talked about that trip and shared a bunch of photos I took from it, but…it appears that I never actually wrote such a post about last year’s Ithaca trip. I chalk this up to the fact that starting in mid-August, and not really ending until just this past January, was a cataclysmically awful time in my life.

Prior to that, we had a long weekend in Toronto last spring, and prior to that was Ithaca again.

3. What is the best place for a vacation in your country? Why is it good?

It depends on what you want, really. If you want a hot city or a cold nature place, or a cold city and a hot nature place…or if you want mountains or seaside, forests or deserts…quiet or crowd energy…I couldn’t begin to say what’s best. I can say why I’ve loved places I’ve gone to, though.

4. What is the longest time you have been away from home? Did you feel homesick?

We were in Hawaii for eleven days. It was not enough. (Though I did miss our dogs terribly. And our cats a little.)

5. How long should a vacation be? How long does it take you to really relax?

Now, a vacation isn’t quite the same as a trip, is it? I think a vacation should be long enough to allow one to fully get one’s mind off work, and there’s no real one-size-fits-all for everybody on that. For me to really be a vacation it needs to be at least five days; anything shorter than that is a long weekend. (And those are lovely, truly! I’ve got one coming up, and I desperately need it!)

I think I read somewhere recently that the optimal length of a vacation is eight days; anything more than that and while you might have continued fun, your mind won’t benefit any more for having not been at work. I don’t know about that, but I do know that for many Americans, including myself, an eight-day vacation is kind of a luxury.

6. What forms of transportation do you prefer to use when you travel?

If I could take a train everywhere, I would. I dislike flying because the airlines have made it unpleasant, though I don’t find it hellish. (Oddly, I love airports! I find them incredibly fascinating places.) Unfortunately, trains are not much of an option these days, so it’s mostly driving.

During our Toronto trip, we stayed in the outskirts of Mississauga, ON, and relied on the GO Train system to actually get into the city. Good public transportation is a wonderful thing.

7. How do you choose where to go? Are you inspired by other people’s travel stories? Or photos? Or advertising?

I love reading travel writing, and watching travel documentaries! We don’t get to travel far-and-wide enough to have to make decisions on where we go, though. That’s the thing about travel: it’s really a matter of privilege, isn’t it? Which I think is a big part of why so many people have annual trips that they take to the same place: when you’re laying out big money for travel, you don’t want to risk it not going well.

8. What’s more important to you when you travel – comfort and relaxation, or stimulating new experiences?

Some of each. I don’t like “on-the-go, all-the-time”, but just sitting in the hotel or lazing by the pool all day for the duration? No!

However, I do also think that traveling to beloved places because you want to do beloved things again and see beloved things again doesn’t get celebrated enough.

9. Do you like to try local foods when you go somewhere? Have you ever had something really delicious?

Always! Part of the whole reason for travel is food! I’m always flabbergasted that people travel to places far away from their homes and then eat at the same chain places. I do not understand that, ever.

Hawaii, just to name one example, was an amazing food experience. Just the garlic shrimp from the shrimp trucks blew our minds.

10. Things can go wrong when you travel. Have you had any bad travel experiences?

We had set up our Toronto trip before it emerged that The Wife was having mobility issues, so that made for some challenges, especially when one restaurant we wanted to go to was seven or eight whole blocks from the nearest subway station…and then it turned out that the trains weren’t even running that far because of construction, so we had to transfer to buses and then still walk the eight blocks there…and then back again. And this was after we’d managed to get lost in Toronto’s Underground City thing. That day as a challenge.

Oh, and the flight back from Hawaii was…an adventure.

11. Do you take a lot with you when you travel? Or do you try to pack light?

I probably pack heavier than I should. I don’t admit to many downsides of overalls, but they take up more room in the suitcase than normal pants. The Wife always makes fun of me for packing tons of clothes, but I’m always like, “I have an outfit for each day, plus one ‘lazy in the hotel room’ outfit!” And when we went to Hawaii, I did not pack an outfit for each day! That would have been absurd. Our suite had a washing machine, which made things easy. Plus I knew I’d end up buying a new shirt or two.

12. Which places in the world do you think are too dangerous to visit? Why are they dangerous?

Honestly, I don’t think I’m educated enough on the world right now to really assess this. Bad things can happen anywhere, and they do.

13. What is the best age to travel? Can children appreciate the experience?

They can, but then you have to tailor a lot of the experience to them. Nothing’s worse than being dragged somewhere with your parents, away from your friends, and having nothing to do.

14. What are the advantages and disadvantages of traveling alone?

No idea! I’ve never traveled alone, except for a training trip for a job I had years ago, and that doesn’t count. I suppose it’s easier to keep track of yourself.

I’ve thought about going on writing retreats in the past, or maybe a photography trip now, but I haven’t pulled the trigger.

15. What kind of accommodation do you like to stay in when you travel?

Hotels, mostly. I really don’t think I’d like the vibe of an Air B&B or an actual B&B. I’m not super-demanding; clean and cool rooms, a decent selection of channels on the teevee, Wi-fi, and near to decent restaurants, and I’m good. The place we stayed in Hawaii was luxurious, and I’m going to have a hard time with not staying there if/when we go back. And we rented a wonderful cottage on Seneca Lake for our 25th anniversary; that was an absolute delight!

16. Do you like to talk to the local people when you travel? Why or why not?

We do, in the course of just being there and interacting.

17. Would you like to go to a big international event, such as the Olympics or an international film festival? What would be good or bad about attending such an event?

I honestly don’t think that would be pleasant at all…but then, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade was an absolute joy to attend, so…maybe?

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I took a couple days off from posting here, so let’s get back in the swing with a Sunday Stealing quiz! This one looks pretty benign:

1. Are you double jointed?

Nope!

2. Are you ticklish?

I know I used to be, I don’t know if I still am. Honestly, you reach a point in life where tickling isn’t a thing anymore, and looking back on all the tickling that went on in college, I’m wondering if that maybe shouldn’t have been a thing at all.

3. Cookies, cakes, or donuts?

Yes.

Honestly, the biggest impediment to my health right now is my undefeatable sweet tooth. The only area of life where I’ve really been able to conquer it is coffee: for years I took it with a lot of sugar, but now, I can’t abide sugar in my coffee. But other than that, I love sweet stuff and I have very low resistance to it. Not great. I’m better than I used to be, but I’m nowhere near as good as I should be about it.

Oh, and Roger‘s right about how wonderful pie is! I am always ready to second someone else’s endorsement of pie. And that’s not even referring to pie as facial accessory.

4. Did you go to prom? 

No, and I have never once regretted not going, either. I didn’t understand the fuss then and I still don’t get it. I wasn’t one who detested my high school years, but I didn’t see them as a font of Wonderful Lifelong Memories, either, and I was realistic enough to know then that I was unlikely to ever see any of those people much again once high school was over, so…why bother with a dance?

(One thing that I’ve noticed people making a big deal of is “seeing their kids off to Prom”. I don’t really get this, either. I don’t judge it, but I don’t get it.)

(Another thought: when I was a kid, Prom was all about couples, or one boy and one girl going together, even if they weren’t a “couple”, strictly speaking. I know now that Proms can be more about going as a group of friends, without the whole “couple” thing at all if you don’t want it, and if that had been the vibe, then maybe I would have gone.)

(Ultimately, though, not going to Prom felt like an act of rebellion against all the “High school is the best time of your life!” crap that I was hearing constantly back then. I believed even then that if you can honestly look back decades later and conclude that you really did peak in high school, you have made a colossal error or a sequence of errors at some point.)

5. Do you bite your nails?

No. I did as a kid, but that habit went away also when I was a kid. Playing trumpet and piano, as well as typing a lot, always gave me incentive to just keep them trimmed, and as nervous habits go, nail-biting was never one of mine.

6. Do you enjoy dancing?

No, but I think that’s because I’ve never done it enough to get beyond the point that I feel really weird when I do it. Maybe if dancing had been a thing in gym class when I was a kid…well, actually it was, briefly, when I was in third and fourth grade, and we did square dancing. (Years later, I learned that there might have been some less-than-great reasons for square dancing in schools.) But once I got to ultra-conservative small-town Southern Tier New York? Dancing in gym class? You must be joking! Get in there and wrestle, kids!

Now, watching dancing is an absolute joy.

7. Do you forgive easily?

Not super easily, no…it usually takes me a bit of time and distance to get there. I usually do, though.

I don’t forget super-easily, though, and if something happens that requires forgiveness, then once I’ve done the forgiving, I’m still likely to incorporate some extra distance into the relationship.

8. Do you prefer to bathe or shower? 

Shower.

9. Does your name have any special meaning? 

Not that I am aware of. And now, well, if there was, I’m never going to know it. But I’m sure the subject would have come up at some point. (In fact, it probably did and I just never bothered retaining the information.)

10. Have you ever gone camping? 

Yes, when I was a kid. It was our standard means of lodging when we were oot-and-aboot. My parents always owned a camper, and in fact they owned one up until they started downsizing their “estate” in the early 2010s in anticipation of moving to the Buffalo area to be nearer us.

11. Have you ever won something?

Yes, here and there! Winning stuff is nice. The best thing I won is probably the Short Fiction Contest that the Buffalo News used to run every year. In 2007 the subject was the assassination of President William McKinley (which happened in Buffalo), and my story won. You can read my winning entry here!

12. What did you last eat?

A chocolate chip cookie from our favorite local bakery that we visit each Saturday morning. My last meal was the Baja Chicken Penne that I got from Poppyseed, a local restaurant that’s been around forever and there’s a reason for that.

13. What’s your longest relationship so far? 

Excluding my father and my sister, obviously, I’m still connected (via Facebook) with people from grade school, including one girl I knew way back in Second Grade when we lived for one year in Elkins, WV.

14. Have you ever been on a diet? 

Yes, and I don’t bother with that anymore. It’s a waste of time and energy and they always eventually fail. I do find myself needing to recalibrate my daily eating toward healthier options and mixes once in a while, but I don’t go on “diets” in the sense of “I’m not eating any of that” or “I’m only eating this.” 

My favorite dietary advice came from a chiropractor we saw for a while, back in the 2000s. He was anti-diet for the reasons I state above, and what was more, he advised indulgence on small levels. He said to me something along these lines: “If you have to eat chocolate every day, fine! But don’t make it a full-sized mass-produced Snickers bar. Eat one smaller portion of very high quality chocolate. Compensate for the small serving by making the quality outstanding.” I like that advice a lot.

By the way, I have recently decided to restrict my alcohol consumption to only nights where I do not have to work the next day. I never indulge enough to the point of a hangover, so that’s not the issue. But it’s almost certainly healthier–and absolutely less expensive–to cut that aspect of my weekly consumptions down a lot.

I end this topic with a quote from James Bond, in the novel Casino Royale:

“I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad.”

15. Do you enjoy DIY or crafts?

Meh, not really. I admire everything I see that’s along that line, but never enough to want to take any of it up myself. DIY, in terms of house maintenance, just makes me feel like I’m working because my day job at The Store involves a lot of that kind of thing, so if I’m getting out my tools and stuff at home, I feel like I’m just working more, and nobody wants that. And crafting is a great creative outlet, but for me, writing and photography are always filling my creative outlet needs, so I’m good. I’ll leave the painting and the wood carving and the pottery to others. Give me a pen and a camera!

And that’s the last question. Here endeth the lesson!

 

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