I just saw a commercial — I think it was for Lay’s potato chips — where they were bragging about their farm-raised vegetables. What other kind of vegetables are there? Free-range? In that case, I want free-range vegetables!
Humor
My First Blogger Award!
I guess I have arrived. My blog got nominated for its first award by another blogger – the Liebster Award. Thank you Nimi, blogger for Simple Moments in Life!
One of the things I love about blogging is the opportunity to read personal stories from people living all over the world. Although Nimi lives in India, even U. S. readers might be surprised at how much they can relate to her world.
I remember enough college German to know that liebe is the German word for love. I assume a Liebster Award means a person loves the blog (or the blogger!) The process of this chain-mail-letter-like award is to answer questions posed by your nominator and then to nominate ten other bloggers for the award. The goal seems to be to increase readership for the nominee. Here goes with the questions:
- Define yourself in a sentence.
You would go and make the first question impossible, wouldn’t you? I’m much too complicated for definition in one sentence.
- Who’s your favorite author?
This question is impossible, too. I have several favorite authors and poets, and I read a wide range of books. My favorites include: Terry Tempest Williams, Diana Gabaldon, Margaret Atwood, Sigurd Olson, Mary Oliver, Billy Collins, Louise Erdich, and myself. (Yes, I like my own books, too!)
- What kind of music do you like?
Again, I will give a plural answer, because I like several kinds: alternative rock, classic rock, classical, jazz, folk. Stop asking such hard questions!
- What gives you the greatest happiness?
Oh shoot. Just kill me now, will you? No one thing gives me happiness. It’s a combination of things. And mostly what gives me happiness is giving other people happiness. - What’s your dream holiday destination?
Lately I’ve been thinking about Bermuda and Scotland/Ireland. Maybe the Jersey Shore.
- To you, blogging is __________________
. . . Like publishing my own newspaper. I’m a journalist by training, so that appeals. It’s also an outlet for a different kind of writing than I am able to do during my day job as a science writer or my night job as an eco-mystic romance writer. Mostly, I blog just for fun and to share.
- Whom do you draw inspiration from?
Argh — there you go again! I get inspiration from more than one person – my friends, other authors and poets, my dog, nature. The trick is to be open to the inspiration.
- What’s your favorite snack?
Ooooh, this one I can answer in the singular! Chocolate. Hands down. Oh, but it pairs well with wine. Okay, wine and chocolate. Sorry, two answers. - Your all-time favorite movie?
Okay – this one I can truly answer with one thing, no fooling or sneaking necessary: The Princess Bride. - Two things about yourself that you love.
What?! I just got used to answering with one example, now you want two! I would say I love my indomitable humor and my ability for compassion. Oh, but then there’s my creativity. Shoot. Sorry, that’s three.
I would like to nominate the following blogs for the Liebster Award:
Jennifer’s Journal https://jenniferkellandperry.wordpress.com/
Spiral Visions https://lisaspiral.wordpress.com/
I would nominate Writer in Soul, but she only accepts cash awards (Smile) https://writerinsoul.wordpress.com/
10 Years a Single Mom http://10yearsasinglemom.com/
Things my Ex Said http://thingsmyexsaid.com/ (although it has more followers than the Liebster rules allow, and so do some of the others I’ve listed, I’m sure.)
Travelling the World Solo https://wwellend.wordpress.com/
Joshi Daniel Photography http://joshidaniel.com/
Northern Visions Media https://northernvisionsmedia.wordpress.com/
Kwentokoto https://jehanforro.wordpress.com/
Notes from the Coulee https://bobnellis.wordpress.com/ (Although he hasn’t posted anything in a while. Get on it, Bob! You were my inspiration to begin blogging.)
I enjoy reading your blogs and seeing your photos, and look forward to more. There is no compulsion to accept if you have a no-award policy, or if you’ve already won this award from someone(s) else.
Here are my 10 questions for you:
- Why did you decide to start blogging?
- What gives you comfort?
- Do you have any pets?
- What’s a recent book you read that you liked and why?
- What’s your favorite meal?
- Does the current place you live in feel like home or is there someplace else that feels that way for you?
- Where do you find your inspiration?
- What makes you laugh?
- What haven’t you done in your life yet that you’d like to do?
- If you were a tree, what kind would you be?
Rules: Once you are nominated, make a post thanking and linking the person who nominated you. Include the Liebster Award sticker in the post, too.
Nominate 10 other bloggers who you feel are worthy of this award. Let them know they have been nominated by commenting on one of their posts. You can also nominate the person who nominated you.
Ensure all of these bloggers have less than 200 followers.
Answer the ten questions asked to you by the person who nominated you, and make ten questions of your own for your nominees.
Lastly, COPY these rules in the post.
ALL THE NOMINEES ARE FREE TO ACCEPT OR REJECT THE NOMINATION.
Yo, Dorcas!
Some of my female ancestors.
My ancestors had weird names. I was looking through a genealogy book for my mom’s side of the family recently, and came upon gems like “Experience.” Actually, there are several “Experience”s, and they were women who lived in the 1700s. Tell me, how can you make a nickname out of “Experience?” Spiery? Expy? It just doesn’t work. Maybe they didn’t use nicknames in the 1700s.
I know that names of virtuous traits were popular then – such as Prudence, Virtue, Hope, but Experience? Maybe it meant the opposite of Chastity? (Smirk)
Then there was Dorcas. And there are several of those poor women in my tree from the 1600s and 1700s. The name connotes whiffs of Dork and Doofus. I was so curious and disturbed by this name that I had to look up its meaning on several baby name websites.
One said: Dorcas — Derived from the Greek dorkas (gazelle). The name was borne by a Christian woman of Joppa who devoted herself to works of charity. She was raised from the dead by the Apostle Peter and converted many to Christianity.
Another said the name was used in America. The Aramaic version is “Tabitha” and that it means gazelle. In the bible, Dorcas was called Tabitha by the Jews.
Personally, I like Tabitha better, too.
With names like Ephraim, Menzies and Ruben, my male ancestors didn’t fare much better. There’s even an Ebenezer.
I suppose in the far future, should I be so lucky to still have descendants, they can laugh at my name, Marie. The urban dictionary (my favorite dictionary!) says it’s the French version of Mary. It’s a universal middle name. Also that it’s “the name for that irresistibly mysterious girl whom you see around often, yet know nothing about. An outrageously cute spontaneous person. Lovable, extremely intelligent, and slightly eccentric. Often resembling a nymph of sorts. Beautiful and trustworthy.”
Yeah, a nymph. That’s me! Actually, my mother told me I was named after a Catholic nun who took care of her when she was in the hospital having me. Sister Marie later left the order. Maybe because she was such a nymph.
How I Fought for my Mole
Cindy Crawford and her mole. Image from Style Noted website.
I have a skin condition (rosacea) that, if left untreated, will turn my face into a vein-strewn red mess. Years ago, I had an elective skin treatment to eliminate the broken veins that had snaked their way onto my cheeks and nose. It was a light laser treatment, which they said would “feel like a rubber band is being snapped on your face.” Let me tell you, it was a heck of a lot more painful than that! But the treatment worked well. Since some veins and other assorted age-related globules were beginning to appear on my face, I decided it was time to subject myself to more elective self-torture.
I went to a local plastic surgery clinic that has a skin care specialist. She took one look at me and gave me a facial to remove about seven years of dead skin. We discussed options for removing my globs and decided on the lamprobe, a device that uses high-intensity something or ruthers to zap the veins and bumps into oblivion. This option was cheaper than the laser treatment I had before, so I was all for trying it.
We discussed what she would remove on my face next week, once my skin recovered from the shock of the facial. Things were fine until we talked about the big juicy mole I have on my right cheek. Well, it used to be a mole until a couple of years ago when its color began mysteriously disappearing. Now it’s just a big bump.
I swear I could hear the saliva collecting in the skin care specialist’s mouth as we discussed zapping my mole. She wanted it to add to her collection of dead skin tissue that I’m sure she keeps on a shrine in a hidden room inside her home.
I panicked. Unlike the other unwanted spots on my face, my mole had been with me for as long as I can remember. It had become part of my identity. Sure, it wasn’t as sexy as Cindy Crawford’s mole, but I was uncomfortable at the thought of parting with it.
The specialist said I should think about it during the coming week, and let her know when I came back for the procedure. So I did. The more I thought, the more I knew my mole had to stay. But that old crone’s bump alongside my nose? That could go. All those bumps on my forehead? Those could go, too. Good riddance.
The day of the procedure the specialist showed me a small device (like a pen) that had a pencil-lead thin metal probe on the end of it. This is what she would stick into my skin, firing the high-intensity whatevers to zap my face.
Would it hurt? She wouldn’t answer that directly, instead saying how some patents “got tired” after the worst blemishes were zapped and sometimes decided to leave the rest for another time. That did not bode well.
She washed my face and we discussed again what would go. The mole? “It stays,” I said. I gave her the whole Cindy Crawford argument.
She countered with “But Cindy Crawford’s mole has color to it. Yours doesn’t. It’s just a bump!”
After further negatory comments on my part, she begged, “Are you sure you don’t just want it made smaller? I can do that.”
“We’ll see once we get to that point,” I said.
She began on my forehead and worked her way down my face. It @#$%^&*! hurt. Not as much as the laser, but enough that my back arched several times while the probe did its nasty work. Specialist Lady said I was doing wonderfully.
Somewhere in our conversation punctuated by small moments of intense stinging – like a wasp was having its way with my face — I asked her if anyone had ever tried to hit her because of the pain. She said a woman raised her arm once, but put it back down after the specialist called the woman’s attention to it.
When Specialist Lady arrived at my mole terrain, I knew by that point how much more it would hurt than the other things she’d removed. I turned a hard heart to her pleas and said no again. But I did let her take off a mole on my lower neck as a consolation prize.
However, it’s been a few days now, and my neck mole has turned into a colorless blob. I’m a bit worried it will stay that way and am regretting giving Specialist Lady even this bit of turf. Well, I guess if it stays a colorless blob, it will match the one on my cheek! Who knows? Maybe I’ll even become attached to it.
* * *
P.S. My neck mole did eventually disappear, so the treatment worked!
Help, help! I can’t find my dog.
Oh, there he is.
Having nothing profound to say, I am posting photos of my dog. You haven’t heard from Buddy for a while – not since Christmas 2013. Oh yes, and when he shat upon my exercise room fantasy . In the meantime, he’s been perfecting the art of camouflage.
A highland cow. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
The photo above was taken last week. Buddy looks a lot different now, after a visit to the groomers. Buddy is a goldendoodle (half standard poodle, half golden retriever). He has actual hair that needs to be cut. This means he doesn’t shed (thank goodness!) But it also means he needs a haircut every six weeks or so.
Buddy after a haircut.
I always think he looks like a Scottish highland cow before his groomings. Some of my friends think he looks more like a sheep. Whatever the impression, afterwards, he looks more like a doe-eyed African gazelle. Although he weighs 75 pounds, he looks about 20 pounds lighter with all that hair gone. And he’s less likely to disappear into the carpet.
Three Wishes
My new magic slippers.
I was granted three wishes last week, but didn’t realize it until they were over. Have you ever had one of those weeks when things randomly and mysteriously work out?
It began with a pair of slippers. My house slippers were held together by pink duct tape that was slowly eroding (long story). When I put them on every morning, I felt a bit like Reese Witherspoon in the movie/book “Wild” where she loses her hiking boots and makes do on the Pacific Crest Trail with her feet and sandals wrapped in duct tape.
I decided it was time to class up my act, so I bought some new slippers during an after-holiday sale. I didn’t have time to try them on in the store, and I forgot that sizes run small for this brand. Once at home, I found they were too small. A few days later I returned to the store only to discover they were out of larger sizes in that style. Resigned, I chose a different style that I was less enthusiastic about, and brought them to the counter for exchange.
As I was explaining my plight to the cashier, I noticed a pair of the original slippers on the counter behind her. Might those be the right size? She said someone had just returned them and she checked the size. They were my size. Score! How lucky was that?
My second wish involved a shared lunch. It was Thursday and all my regular lunch people were otherwise occupied. As I sat in my office, wishing I had someone to go to lunch with, in popped a co-worker who asked me if I wanted to eat out. She and I had never lunched without others along, so this was a new thing. But now I had someone to eat with. Score!
My third wish involved my son’s indoor soccer game. The day of the championship game, I noticed I had an appointment that conflicted with it. I didn’t think there was any way to change the appointment, so I was resigned to missing the game. Soon afterwards, the phone rang and it was the appointment people. They wanted to know if I could come later. Scooooooore!
If I had known I was receiving three wishes last week, I probably would not have wasted one of them on slippers. I would have chosen world peace or a vaccine for Ebola. But having company for lunch and being able to see my son’s soccer game were pretty darn worthwhile.
The Ears and Doors of Yale
An interesting carving in an archway at Yale.
I have a navy blue sweat jacket with white letters emblazoned across the chest that spell out “YALE.” Ivy League paraphernalia are not common in northern Minnesota, so I get sideways looks when I wear it. It’s also not common to “brag” in this manner about going to an Ivy League school. When someone is curious or brave enough to ask if I went to Yale, I delight in saying, “Yes! . . . But only for three days.”
You see, I went to a science writers conference there a few years back and couldn’t resist buying the jacket. I wear it when I’m in the mood for a social joke, or when I’m cold (which happens quite often).
The wording over the door says “Yale News.” A door for journalists.
Anywho, I thought I’d share with you some photos of my Yale meanderings. I have this thing for doors, and Yale has some great ones. It also has some great ears. If you ever get the chance to walk the campus in New Haven, Conn., look for these!
The dining hall door. Note the cooked poultry above it.
The Banned Words of Bleak Mid-Winter
Cartoon by Adam Raffaele
I look forward to this time of season every year. What’s to like about bleak mid-winter – especially since the temperatures are below zero and I have a head cold that’s producing enough mucus to irrigate a small farm field? Why, the “List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English,” of course! The list is distributed annually by fellow northerners over at Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.
At only 2,500 students the university is small, but its influence on writers looms large with a forty-year tradition of publicizing words that are misused, overused, or generally useless to society. The tradition of listing words everyone loves to hate started at a New Year’s Eve party in 1975 and has enjoyed worldwide fame and attention since then.
This year’s list includes several entries that I totally agree should be banned, such as SWAG. Around my house (which contains a highschooler and his friends) this means that someone is “cool” more than it implies a “free gift.” I have heard this word enough times to last a lifetime. Yes, it should be banned for the sake of parental sanity.
Another term that should never be uttered is ENHANCED INTERROGATION, or as the head of the CIA would say for short, EIT (for Enhanced Interrogation Techniques). The term hit the national spotlight last month with the release of the U.S. Senate report on the CIA’s intelligence-gathering tactics under former President George W. Bush. Torture is torture, people. Let’s not sugar-coat it with a lot of extra syllables.
The top word on the list, however, I’d never heard of. It’s BAE, which stands for “before anyone else.” I suppose it could also be a shortcut word for “babe.” Perhaps I’ve never heard this term because I am nobody’s bae (maybe it’s the mucus). But my Facebook friends and my highschooler assure me the word is alive and well among the middle school and highschool crowds, and apparently, people are sick of it.
The other word of note is NATION used as a suffix to denote fans of a team, celebrity, or the like. I thought it was entirely and appropriately ironic that Lake Superior State University encourages people to join the “Laker-Nation” in the standard institutional blurb that’s included at the end of the banned word list story. I hope they did that on purpose.
Some of the other words are featured in the cartoon above. If a word strikes you during the year as one that should be banned, go here to list it with the university and see how it fares in next year’s list. They also have a Banished Words Facebook page that you can join.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go blow my nose again.
Year End Review (or is it Rear End View?)
Photo credit: Heather Cowper
The end of the year calls for a review of the second year of this blog. Since last April, when I did my rather tardy year-end review for 2013, the number of my followers and views has grown, which is heartening. It’s always nice to know that the effort is worth it. Marie’s Meanderings received 3,000 views in 2014 (out of a total of 5,100 views), and has 126 followers.
I continue to receive the most feedback by sharing my blog stories with my Facebook friends. Between them and my followers, each story has the potential to reach almost 300 people.
The most popular post that I wrote since April was my social commentary on our local Christmas City of the North Parade. The story was shared among several of my Facebook friends who perhaps feel the same way – that sending our kids parading down the street in the dead of winter is a form of socially sanctioned child abuse. (Smirk.) And I can’t forget to say it was mentioned by fellow blogger Colette on her blog, WriterInSoul. Her humor is even quirkier than mine. I especially enjoy her “Things Men Have Said to Me” postings. Check it out!
Next comes “Why I am a Zumba Failure,” perhaps because there are many others out there who do not like to gyrate their hips in public.
Finally, is “The Planet Where They Don’t Give Christmas Presents” poem. My guess is its popularity has to do with the appeal of mild profanity among my Facebook friends.
But (or I should say, Butt) the most amusing aspect of my blog continues to be the international appeal and usefulness of the image that conveys the message “don’t flush toilet paper down the toilet.” It accompanied a post about my temporary roommate who had an obsession with toilet paper. That’s why I’ve chosen the image to decorate this post. It has received 69 clicks and downloads this year from many a country that must have sub-standard plumbing, including: Greece, the United Arab Emirates, India, Turkey, Romania, Pakistan, Cambodia, Kuwait, Malaysia, and the Philippines. I am proud that my blog serves such a purpose to the world, and hope to continue to be similarly useful in 2015.
Thank you, my friends, for reading!
Two Poets in the Cereal Aisle
Image from Pulpconnection.
I attended a reading last night by Duluth’s Poet Laureate Jim Johnson. (Yes, Duluth sports its own official poet.) Superior writer Tony Bukoski also read from his essays. It was hosted by Holy Cow Press – a local publisher that’s been in business for 37 years. Both Jim and Tony write from their ethnic roots (Finnish and Polish, respectively), providing for many laughs and some sighs. Topics included accordions, cows, gravel roads, railroads, and tractors. No saunas, though. Maybe next time.
The reading inspired me to uncover a poem that’s been incubating within me for several years. The reading must have made me think about local poets. Hot off the brain press – enjoy!
Two Poets in the Cereal Aisle
He stands, head bowed toward boxes
on the Captain Crunch shelf.
Bearded and barrel-chested,
if Hemingway had been a poet,
this is him.
The local Old Man and the Sea
is in my grocery store.
I slide over
pushing my cart softly, carefully.
Not wanting to disturb.
Will I see in his next book
a poem about golden wheat?
About waves and ships?
Short men in blue uniforms with
shiny gold buttons, and wearing
large hats?
Eyes still closed,
he reaches out his hand,
steadies himself against the shelf —
inspiration rocking and
pulling him
away from shore.
©2014 Marie Zhuikov
