Category Archives: Blogging Community

I Wasn’t Invited to the Ball

I don’t know what happened. I expected to get it in the mail. Where is my invitation to the ball? I get one every year. What has changed? I know I am no longer the ingénue or the belle. Those years are long gone. But I still love to dance and am very skilled in all the steps. I am good at making witty repartee. I would not be a dull partner. Where is my invitation? I noticed that my gentleman neighbor received his invitation and told me he is getting his evening attire out of storage. He doesn’t even know all the dances that I do but it seems he is a more desirable partner. I asked my older woman friend if she got her invitation yet. She told me in a whisper that I should be aware that women of a certain age are invisible to society and must exit the social scene quietly. For heaven sake, don’t make a fuss. Accept the fate assigned to you. Don’t rock the boat. Take up feeding the birds or gardening.

If your over 5o and even starting as early as 35 your prospects of finding a job diminish as you get older. Think this is a fairytale? Watch the PBS video below. Ageism is alive and well. Especially for women. I know it happened to me. From Harvard Business Review, Older Women are Being Forced Out of the Workforce.

This post is my contribution to Stream Of Consciousness Saturday hosted by Linda G Hill. Featured image “Too Early” by James Tissot.

A Bit of This and That and Nothing in Particular

15 Replies

This is a bit of this and that for Stream of Consciousness Saturday. I love words and like to dabble lightly in etymology. When I am writing I will sometimes look for new words and synonyms on Dictionary.com. I went there for this piece and got carried away with The Word of the Day Word List. I love these zany words and their meanings. Feel free to add them to your vocabulary. They may come in handy this election season. So hear goes:

bafflegab: slang, confusing or generally unintelligible jargon; gobbledegook.

This sounds like it could describe my writing sometimes. Bafflegab is a “portmanteau” word, a combining of two words, baffle and gab. I like gobbledegook too.

bissextus: no it is not referring to sexual orientation. This word refers to February 29th, the extra day added every 4th year to compensate for the 6 hours that our 365 day year falls short of the solar year.

cachinnate: to laugh loudly or immoderately

This sounds like a good idea, anything in immoderation especially laughing.

flumadiddle: utter nonsense, worthless frills. An Americanism, ( yay! This means we Americans made this up), combining flummery and diddle.

Sounds very sensible to me.

frabjous: informal, wonderful, elegant, superb. Coined by Lewis Carrol in Through the Looking Glass. ” O frabjous day! Callooh / Callay! / He chortled in his joy.

And last but not least, ( drum roll) :

quidnunc: a person who is eager to know the latest news and gossip; a gossip or busybody.

I have know a few quidnuncs in my day.

The Quidnunc Comes to Visit

Last week an acquaintance dropped by and I asked her, “Do you have any plans for Bissextus?”

“I am not bissextus”, she replied, looking suspicious.

“Bissextus is a word for February 29th. It is a Latin word,” I said.

“Why can’t you just speak English like everyone else?” she said.

” That reminds me, did you watch the Republican debates?” she went on.

” Yes I watched something but I don’t know if I would call it a debate,” I answered.

“What did you think of it?” she continued.

“I thought it was too much bafflegab, and flumadiddle,” I exclaimed.

She looked befuddled and said, “Can you repeat that? I think I did not hear you correctly.”

I said, ” Bafflegab, and flumadiddle.”

“Oh well now I see,” she said but she didn’t, looking wide eyed at me.

I began to cachinnate and fell on the floor as she scurried out the door.

After I caught my breath, I said, “Oh frabjous day! The quidnunc went away!

That is all I have to say on this.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is hosted by Linda G Hill. Words and definitions are from Dictionary.com. Featured image of Alice Through the Looking Glass is by sammydavisdog on Flickr.

Imaginary Destination

27 Replies

I wrote about this imaginary place previously for my post “Spectacular Settings.” This really captures my imagination. I am reposting a part of it. It is the setting from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Mrs. Medlock, the housekeeper, describes the setting ( Misselthwaite Manor) to the main character Mary: “Not but that it’s a grand big place in a gloomy way, and Mr. Craven’s proud of it in his way—and that’s gloomy enough, too. The house is six hundred years old and it’s on the edge of the moor, and there’s near a hundred rooms in it, though most of them’s shut up and locked. And there’s pictures and fine old furniture and things that’s been there for ages, and there’s a big park round it and gardens and trees with branches trailing to the ground—some of them.” She paused suddenly and took another breath. “But there’s nothing else,” she ended suddenly.

Why I like this setting:

I love mysteries and this setting is very mysterious. A six hundred year old mansion on the edge of the moor with a hundred rooms, and most of the rooms closed off. A secret garden, a sad reclusive uncle, and a child heard crying at night. I love when Mary starts to explore the gardens and then one day, when it rains and she can’t go outside, she decides to explore the house. What will she find down all those dark corridors and behind those closed doors?

I would love to go to a place like Misselthwaite Manor and roam around the inside and outside. To find secret rooms and secret gardens. ❤

This post is for Love Is In Da Blog hosted by Bee Halton, prompt 25 February “fantastical destinations.” Book cover image from Houghton Library at Harvard University.

Ain’t I a Woman?

6 Replies

Ain’t I a Woman?, is the title of a speech given by the African American suffragette and abolitionist who called herself Sojourner Truth. I first read this speech when I was studying Women’s history in my American History course in college. I loved the speech from the first time I read it. We do not have an exact version of the speech which was given on May 29, 1851 at the Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio because it was not recorded word for word but have a version by Frances Gage who was present at the time. In the speech Sojourner says she has never been given any special treatment like some others claim are due to women. And she asks, “Ain’t I a Woman? ”

A text of the speech and some history.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is hosted by Linda G Hill. The Prompt for today was to use a contraction at the beginning and end of our posts.

Five things to know about #HarperLee

8 Replies

via Five things to know about #HarperLee.

Harper Lee died Thursday February 18, 2016. Sad news. Here’s a post from Smithsonian with a few interesting facts about the author. I can never forget “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

The Old Tire Swing

37 Replies

The first house I can remember was up in Clear Lake. I don’t remember very much just a few snippets of my life then. I do remember the tire swing that was tied to tall tree at the front of the house by long ropes. It wasn’t just an old hard rubber circle but the rubber had been cut from a large balloon tire. The swing was more like a bucket style. I have a memory of my older brother pushing me in that swing higher and higher and up over the roof of the house. My parents were upset to see through the back picture window my feet popping out over the roof.

I get tired of all the hyperbole and contention when we have a presidential election year in this country. The debates, debates and more debates. I know it is important for our democracy to have an exchange of ideas but my make up is such that I do not like arguments and confrontation. It’s not that I can’t get on my own soapbox but these debates are uncomfortable to watch with all the gotcha stuff from the candidates and the press. I am not convinced debates helps us really know what the candidates are about. They just show us who can score more points in a debate by embarrassing his/her opponent.

During the Dust Bowl days and the great migration of the people from the dust bowl states to California there were many people from Oklahoma coming to our state of California. They were called Okies by many people here. The Grapes of Wrath describes what it was like for people then. I have an early memory of these country people living up the road from us in Clear Lake. I went up to their house with my mother and all these men were sitting on the front porch, dressed in black suits with somber looks. Holding shotguns with blood hounds laying at their feet. I remember feeling a bit frightened of them as we stepped up on the porch to visit the woman of the house. I don’t know why we went there that day. Maybe to say hello or bring her something. Sometimes the woman would visit my mother. My mother said the woman would say she had to get home to make dinner. My mother said she knew she was just going home to make potatoes.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is hosted by Linda G Hill. Our word for today is “tire.” Featured Image is “End of the Road” by Don Graham on Flickr. I want to include his caption here:

“One of the remaining stretches of Old Route 66 runs from Kingman, AZ to Wiliams, AZ. About midway between is the almost gone town of Hackberry. Just outside of town, a man in restoring what used to be a popular stop along the route. There is a gas station and general store. Nearby lies a broken down ruin of an old travel court. Often, when the Okies were following the Mother Road to their promised land in California, their old car would break down. Not having the money to fix it, they would park it and trade the gas station owner for a few nights in a cabin. That is what this scene reminds me of.” (Don Graham)

I want to participate in Love Is In Da Blog Stream of Consciousness as well and contribute my post to Bee Halton’s site Just Fooling Around With Bee. I want you all to know that I do LOVE stream of consciousness writing. I find it does free up my creativity and I can take it where it wants to go. And you never know where you will end up. I am often pleasantly surprised and I hope you are too.

A Murmuration of Starlings

14 Replies

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The unique patterns that the birds form as they flock together is called a murmuration. Isn’t that a wonderful sounding word? I was inspired to write this post after seeing a photo story in the LA Times. I had never heard of a murmuration. Is it because it is like a soft whisper that can be lost in all the daily noise?

Sharing this with all my readers and Love Is In Da Blog hosted by Just Fooling Around with Bee

WP_20150130_009

I’m All Thumbs (and fingers)

13 Replies

“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”

The Santa Anna winds are blowing and are forecast for next week in the LA area. We are also having high temperatures into the 80s by Monday. We don’t believe in Winter in LA. I do not like the Santa Annas. They are dry, hot winds that make me edgy and itchy. They can promote wild fires.

Is a thumb a finger? A thumb is one of our five digits but we call it a thumb and not a finger. It is good we have thumbs because they enable us to do many things but if we had all thumbs we would be clumsy. Thus the expression “I’m all thumbs! ”

Fingers and thumbs are called digits. I wish I could perform some prestidigitation and make the Santa Annas disappear. ALAKAZAM!

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is hosted by Linda G Hill. Image by Pixabay.com

An is for Anacapa

6 Replies

Anacapa Island is part of the Channel Island chain off the coast of Southern California. On a fairly clear day you can see the Channel Islands from the coast. They are not far yet are a world away from the mainland in their environment. I have heard their names, Anacapa, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, San Miguel, and Santa Rosa , but have never visited them. Anacapa’s name comes from a Chumash Native American Indian name for the island, Anypakh. The Chumash lived on these islands in olden times. Reading a bit about these islands from the National Park Service website, I would like to see about planning a trip there one day. There are animals and plants located on these islands that can’t be found anywhere else. Anacapa is home for seabirds, like the California Brown Pelican and Western Gull, sea lions and harbor seals. There is interesting history to be learned about the human inhabitants as well. Like Frenchy LeDreau who lived on Anacapa from the 1920s to the mid 1950s alone in a cabin with his cats. He lived off fishing and sold lobsters to get supplies and liquor. Frenchy’s Cove is named after him. The lighthouse on this island was a welcome beacon for ships navigating the Santa Barbara Channel. Reading about Anacapa makes me think about what a wonderful gift our National Parks are to all of us.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is hosted by Linda G Hill. Images in slideshow provided by NPS website and/or Wikimedia.

Odd and Even Patterns

20 Replies

This is Stream of Consciousness Saturday (try typing that real fast) and today our prompt is/are the words “odd and/or even”. Don’t ask me why but this made me think of the fact that if you add two odd numbers together you get an even number for the answer, always. Then I remembered an exercise we did in the Teaching program I was in back in 2009 or so. It was the Math Class for teachers on ways to teach math concepts to Elementary and Middle School students. I am sure many people are aware that there are all these new ways of teaching Math that are different from the ways we learned. One thing that was fascinating to me was this little exercise we did on patterns. When I told my instructor about how fascinating it was to me, she told me that some Mathematicians spend their time just studying patterns. It is kind of like this mysterious, mystical, metaphysical thing. Like “Suitcase” would say in the Jessie Stone series, “The information is out there.”

Part of the exercise from the Math book was start with the number 3 then jump by 5s and write down the numbers until about 130. I did it this morning until 133. Then it says notice as many patterns as you can. I noticed that 3 and 8 keep alternating as the last digit. Now if you add the double and triple digits of the numbers and write your answer over the number you will notice another pattern, (start with 3 again)….3, 8, 4, 9, 5, 10, 6, 11, 7, 12, 8, 13, 9, 14, 10, 15…and so on. Every other number increases by one. AAAAhhh! Just kidding, I think. I did another one starting at 1 and jumping by 3s. I noted that the pattern of second digit repeating does not begin until you reach 31. I could probably experiment with these patterns all day.

Maybe I will just count by 2s and say we are even. 🙂

Ulam’s Spiral via Wikipedia

While looking for a number chart I found Ulam’s Spiral. If you read about Ulam’s Spiral it is kind of spooky. Maybe he was abducted by aliens. He doodled this and found out the prime numbers fall on diagonals. Then some mathematicians came up with a formula for it.

Steam of Consciousness Saturday is hosted by Linda G Hill.