Month: September 2022

Am I blue…

Published on by Grace8 Comments

My husband switched out his dark green house hoodie for a navy blue one and I noticed that he looks very good in navy blue. Last year when I bought him new Winter and Summer t-shirts (LL Bean – marvelous quality) I bought him navy blue. He prefers light grey – too bad.

Then I thought – “Why do most men, when asked their favorite color say ‘blue?” Maybe that old blue for boys, pink for girls thing has an innate aspect to it.

Tho I, being a girl, HATE pink. Always have. I think it is a weak wussy color.  From the time I could distinguish color and voice an opinion red was my color. Did I ever tell you the story about my throwing a tantrum over a red snowsuit? I do not remember this, but the story as told to me goes like this –

I must have been two or three and my mother and father and I were in a store buying me a snowsuit.  A snowsuit of some color or other was put on me and I threw an epic temper tantrum. I guess I had indicated I wanted a red one but I was ignored.  The saleslady said “I wouldn’t let my kid get away with that” My father said “Well she’s not your kid, get that off of her and give her the red one”  Go Dad!

When I was 50-ish I developed an antipathy towards the color red and proceeded to purge it from my wardrobe and home decor, which was quite an undertaking I assure you. Nowadays I absolutely cannot abide the color red and won’t have it around me.

I think this post was just an excuse to share this song which has been playing in my head for the past several days –

But if there must be pink then let it be this Pink (watch the performance to the end, I saw this live on tv and it has stuck in my memory…brilliant)

Miscellaneous Mishegoss

Published on by Grace14 Comments

❣ I actually went for a walk – outside  – today.  I meant to turn up Henderson but I turned up Pershing instead which made for a shorter walk.  After 10 years of walking around this neighborhood there’s nothing much to see. The apartment complexes haven’t done any Fall gardening and the single family houses haven’t done any Halloween decorating. It’s kinda blah.

At the rear entrance of my building there are four huge planters that are re-planted several times a year – right now they look like this –

And all that lush greenery will soon be removed and thrown away and something else will be planted. I always think it’s such a waste to throw away healthy plants.

All the apartment complexes around here use the same landscaping service and they all go through this same “throw out healthy plants and put in something new” (and, supposedly, seasonal.)

It does make for pretty looking properties but still – the waste. I feel bad for the plants.

❣ I bought another book! I mean a real, printed, hold in your hands book. I’m supposed to be getting rid of books not acquiring more.

I was a bit disappointed because I thought it would be an updated edition and it’s not. Pooh! The book is “A Small Fiction” and it has a FB page and IG and Twitter accounts.  The only thing on my FB page is excerpts that were posted on their social media but aren’t in the book.  Some of them are really funny, some thoughtful and some make no sense at all. This is my favorite…

Speaking of books – the book I talked about last week, the one I sent to a few friends? They all loved it! Which was a great relief to me, sending a gift a person doesn’t like – that would make me sad.  The book is “All the Colors of Life” by Lisa Aisato.  Here is a short Youtube   video about the book…just a minute and 24 seconds but it will give you an idea of the book and it’s beauty and charm.

❣ The video I posted yesterday – such a beautiful, sad and sweet story. I’ve had it in my Youtube favorites for years and yesterday while I was looking for a song I could have sworn I’d saved, I watched it again and plunked it here because yesterday was a sad day; a weird day, at the end of which I started deleting myself off the interwebz.

I get like that sometimes. I want to erase myself. But this morning I put myself back. Unerased myself.

But today was a good day, as much as any day is a good day.

Pinball Brain

Published on by Grace8 Comments

First – the weather report. At 11am it is bright and sunshiny, blue cloudless sky and 63º. I have a window open in every room and my husband and I are wearing hoodies.

I compose these posts mentally and then basically “transcribe” them and then edit, add to, research etc. I write everything mentally first then put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. I assume everyone does the same.

Transcription follows.

I get annoyed when people say that they lose socks in the laundry. No you don’t. You’re just careless.

This morning was a laundry day and I was folding the laundry (which I do in the laundry room because there is a big table there). I have a particular way of taking clothes out of the dryer and folding them. This morning the last thing I fetched out of the dryer was a sock but the other sock was nowhere to be seen. I figured it was just stuck in something else and I would go through everything when I got back in the apartment. (And indeed I found it.)

Losing something is usually just carelessness. Whenever I hear a person say that they lost someone, meaning the person died, I think “Careless of you”. In a book I read recently one of the characters mused about that usage. Why are we so precious about saying that someone died? Then again when you say “I lost someone” meaning they died you are talking about yourself not the dead person. Your status, not theirs.

We also say passed on, passed away, even crossed over– and I suppose if you believe that a soul continues after a body dies, that could make some sense, have some validity.

But what about ‘evicted from life’? Some people are, aren’t they? Some people die quietly at peace, and some die kicking and screaming. How did someone die? They were evicted from life. Evicted from life – I like that.

Then I was back to thinking about laundry again and expanding on how you could possibly lose something in the washer. And that had me wondering…

We say a pair of underwear, or panties or pants when we are referring to just one item. Why? Because there are 2 leg holes? Is that the criteria for calling something a pair?  If there are 2 matching items used together, like shoes, then pair works.

An item of clothing that we put our arms into isn’t called a pair but it has two openings/holes for limbs (legs and arms are limbs) but we don’t say a pair of shirts.

(Stopping typing here to do the research. The answer is HERE.)

And that’s it for today.

It’s a stunningly beautiful day

Published on by Grace20 Comments

and I shan’t whine about not being able to be out and about.  It’s 85º with 46% humidity, not a cloud in blue skies. Yet my feet are like ice cubes. I actually put socks on when I got dressed this morning and y’all know how much I hate socks!

I have an interesting dilemma. There is an artist I follow on social media. She describes herself as an illustrator; I describe her as a fabulous artist. She happens to be Norwegian and she has just recently had two of her books translated into English and published in the United States. One of the books is a children’s book which I have sent to my granddaughters and one is a picture book for adults which I bought for myself.

I can’t afford her original artwork but I can afford her books.

It’s sitting next to me and that wonderful new book smell is wafting my way. I don’t know what I expected but the book is large (think coffee table book large) and weighs 3.5 pounds! But to appreciate her art indeed it must be this big. There is text – one sentence for each picture – telling the story of life. The art, the story – just overwhelms me. (Ok, maybe I’m easily overwhelmed by beauty.)

I love this book – it is so beautiful. I immediately wanted to send copies to several of my dearest friends. Then I thought “What if they don’t like her art? What if this book is just a another ‘thing’ to clutter up their homes? What if they don’t love this book with it’s simple story as much as I do?”

So that’s my dilemma – send the book because I love it, not taking into consideration what their taste might be, or throw caution to the wind, send the book and they can either curse me or thank me.

I’m pretty sure y’all know what I’m going to do, don’tcha?

I was just thinking…

Published on by Grace5 Comments

I usually do one big household chore a day, that’s all I can manage. Gone are the days when I would do a once-a-week clean sweep, it was usually Sunday because my husband and I worked the ole Monday-Friday, 9 to 5 grind and Sunday was it for cleaning and laundry.

Today my husband decided he felt well enough to vacuum. I had already done the dusting and wiping down 2 days ago and bathrooms 3 days ago so my only chore would be to wash the floors after he vacuumed.

While I was mopping I was thinking “What I need is a little old Sicilian woman to do my cleaning” Then I thought “Wait, I AM a little old Sicilian woman and I’m too old for this. I need a middle-aged Sicilian woman.”

I was telling my husband this and he said “I’m all for paying someone to clean. Why don’t you advertise for a middle-aged Sicilian woman?” I had to laugh at that and explain to him I couldn’t do that – very un-PC.  Besides – this isn’t South Philly.

Why do I want a Sicilian? Because those people are crazy clean freaks. (My husband said “Not all of them…?” “No” I said “obviously not but that’s their reputation.)

I grew up in a household where Sicilian mother was a crazy clean freak and Neapolitan father was a crazy neat freak. The arguments were priceless…

Father: Why is there a hair brush on top of the refrigerator?
Mother: They’re clean!
Father: But a hair brush doesn’t belong on the top of the refrigerator!
Mother: So what – I cleaned them!

I suppose as arguments go that is fairly benign (especially in our house) but it was loud and repeated often, only the specific items changing.

Now that I think of it – hair brushes were often found on top of the fridge. Considering my mother needed a step stool to reach the top of the fridge I wonder how they always wound up there – and why?

Now I have to go find my general purpose cleaning toothbrush. I noticed that the light switch thingy is really dirty.

Sometimes a product can be too good…

Published on by Grace2 Comments

Remember how I said I was going to color my hair blue? Well the hair color came this morning and I colored my hair this afternoon and it didn’t come out the way I was expecting.

I only use Garnier Nutrisse products and on their web site you can ‘try on’ a color. According to the shade selector my hair should have come out looking like this – (and yes, I pixelated my face)

Computer generated version of what the color was SUPPOSED to look like

Which would have been wonderful – just what I wanted but Noooo. The product is so good that all the silver is colored dark, dark blue. As a matter of fact you can’t tell that I ever had ANY silver in my hair. As a matter of fact my hair looks blue-black.

So if you want to color the silver/grey out of your hair, do try Garnier Nutrisse. Next time I’ll try ‘Light Cool Denim’ .

I don’t know that I’m gonna bother with any photos of what my hair looks like now because it just looks – blue-black – not very flattering, I’m too old for such dark hair but it will wash out so no harm done.