Hilary Who?

I think everyone should have a hyphenated name (sort of like the way it's done in Spanish speaking  countries.) For example: if your father's name was Tom Smith-Brown and your mother's name was Ann White-Jones, you would be Jane Brown-Jones.

It has never made sense to me that children get their father's last name, but not their mother's. I say it's time to end this outdated custom of the patriarchy. Under the hyphenated name system a woman would not change her name when she married - another outdated custom. Since women can now vote and own property I think they ought to be able to keep their names, too.

Here's another little interesting part of my idea: Females would take the name of their father first, mother second, and males would take the name of their mother first, father second.  The brother of Jane Brown-Jones would be Tom Jones-Brown.

In this way Jane's children would get her maternal name, and Tom's children would get his paternal name.

Pretty nifty, huh? Sure do wish I was queen of the world.
 What would your name be under my system?

Sans umbrella in the suburbs

It  rained here today in the suburbs of Detroit and so, of-course, I took my umbrella along with me when I went out to do errands.  I opened my umbrella each time I got out of my car to walk into a building -which included the post-office, the grocery store, and the library.   But I was the only person using an umbrella at each of those places!   Everyone else just ran through the rain, or waited in their cars for it to stop.

I've noticed this trend for a couple of years now.  I guess most people are too cool to own an umbrella.  Or else they just don't think they need one because everyone drives to where they're going in the suburbs.  And I think this is too bad.  There's something so civilized about umbrellas.  There's also something about being in your own little world below your umbrella that those without them miss out on.  It's also fun to have an umbrella that expresses your personality or fashion sense.

I love my Mona Lisa umbrella - a gift from a friend many years ago.  It's not something I would have ever bought for myself, but I love to use it on rainy days.  I love the smiles I sometimes get because of it.  I took this photo of my grandson, Ben, with my umbrella last year:

Falling backward

Okay, so it's hard to complain about the extra hour we're gaining as Daylight Saving Time comes to an end, but I'm still not happy about the whole crazy idea. I mean, time is time. You can't change it. When the sun is highest in the sky it's NOON. Not 1:00

I think it's unhealthy to mess with people's circadian rhythms the way Daylight Saving Time does.

It's a pain in the ass. And what's the advantage? Who does it profit??? For what greater good are millions of people forced to go around sleepy and cranky every Spring?

I used to think Daylight Saving Time was put into place to help farmers, but I've learned that is not true. Daylight Saving Time was put into place to save fuel during WWI.  It is outdated.  Unnecessary.  And definitely not worth all the trouble it causes.

Personally I love a lovely summer night. I like to look up at the summer stars - and I'd like to be able to see them before 10:00 or 11:00 PM. Same thing with fireworks.

My point is, Daylight Saving Time is not natural and it doesn't seem to have much advantage. So Why? WHY?

Left or right ?

I was a passenger in my daughter-in-law's car on our way to a park recently when she asked, "Is it on the left?"

"Yes." I replied. But as she switched lanes I realized I was wrong; I hadn't consulted my wrist.

I have a scar on the inside of my right wrist that tells me which is my right hand, and therefore which way is right. I apologized to my DIL and explained what was going on. "You don't know your right from your left?" she asked (sounding just a tad judgemental.) And I had to say yes, it's true, much to my shame and dismay.

Just as some people make a writing motion to remember which is their right hand, I depend on my scar.

I got the scar when I was seven and accidentally put my hand through a pane of glass. And because of my early dependence upon it, I never learned right from left. If someone asks me which way to go I just reflexively flip my wrist and look at the scar.

I related this quirk to a friend a while back and she said, "But don't you have a sense of the right side of your body, and the left side of your body?"

I'd never thought of it like that.

I'd always thought of right and left as being something "out there." Not as something that was a part of me.

So, in order to be better at telling left from right I've been looking down at myself lately and consciously thinking "here is my right" and "here is my left." I've been trying to get this idea ingrained in my sense of what's what. And it has been helping; I'm much better at telling right from left than I used to be, except when the pressure is on.

It's just like math anxiety - which makes me unable to add 2 plus 2 if I'm under pressure to do so, or if someone is looking at me expectantly. My brain just refuses to concentrate in a situation like that. It's too busy thinking "Math - accckkkkkk!" to actually do any math.

Same goes for right and left. If I'm nervous or on the spot I'll get flummoxed. There have been times when I've consulted my wrist and still couldn't tell right from left because I was too distracted with embarassment to remember which hand the scar was on!

I spent a lot of time in community theater and always had a hard time knowing stage right from stage left. When I directed I had to keep a chart in front of me - a fact I kept hidden. My shameful little secret.

How do you tell right from left? Is it something you just never have to think about, or do you have some little reminder? How did you learn it as a kid? This must have been something I missed out on.

Trailer or Preview?

Do you remember when movie trailers were called previews? I sure do. And I don't understand why we made the switch. "Preview" makes much more sense since it is, indeed, a pre view of a movie. And trailers don't follow behind movies, so why call them that?

By doing a little investigation (which means I looked it up on Wikipedia) I learned that ads for new movies did originally follow the main feature. But this practice didn't last long since most movie patrons left the theater before the trailers were over.

But even after they began being shown before the movie, they were still called trailers - by the movie industry. I think it's just us peasants who called them previews. Or if we were being really formal we might have referred to them as the "coming attractions. "

Now everyone uses the term trailer, which I think is too bad. But, whatever they're called, I enjoy them. And I love that you can find so many of them on You Tube these days.  Here's one of my favorites:

Another new decade

I remember when the 60s became the 70s, the 70s became the 80s, the 80s became the 90s, and then the turn of the century. But I remember those occasions as seeming much more significant than the beginning of a new decade seems to me now. And I wonder why this is?

Is it just because I'm getting older? Or does it have to do with leaving behind a decade that still doesn't quite have a name? Was it the Oughts? The Oughties? The Ohs, or the OhOhs? And what are we entering? The Teens?

You rarely hear references to the 20th century's teen years as the Teens. Why is that? When we refer to "The Turn Of The Century" do we mean the years 1900-1909, or does it go all the way to 1919?

I have a hard time imagining how the years 2010-2019
might distinguish themselves from the years 2000-2009. Though I'm sure they will, and I'm sure it will be interesting.


How funny to think that there will be a day when photos taken in the Oughts and the Teens will be as distinctive and representative of their decade as the photos on this post are of theirs.

I think another reason the change from one decade to another seems less significant to me than it used to is because new decades now make up much smaller percentages of my lifetime.

I was 25 when the 70s became the 80s - so the ten years of the 70s had comprised nearly half my lifetime. In contrast, the Oughts took up less than one fifth of my life so far. And the Teens will be even less.

There's a cheery thought for the new year

The beginning of time

Why do the days change from one to the other at midnight? This has never made any sense to me. New days should begin at the beginning - when the sun comes up.

In spite of the fact that the sun rises at a different time each day I think we could agree that 6 a.m. is a pretty reasonable average time for the beginning of the day. This is when the day should begin. And, of-course, end at 5:59 a.m

This way when things happened at one, two, or three a.m. it would be considered late at night and not early in the morning - which seems so much more logical to me.

And just to make things interesting we could change the faces of all our clocks so that 6 would be at the top. (For the few clocks left that actually have faces.) Wouldn’t that be fun?


Just a thought

People for sale

I recently read an article about an increase in people willing to sell their sperm or eggs. This increase was attributed to the recession. Sperm sellers can get up to $100 and eggs go for as much as $5,000.
The article noted that sellers must undergo extensive medical and psychological screening, but what it didn't say, and what I find bothersome, is that fact that nobody seems to think there's anything wrong with this. This practice, which has slipped into modern society without much, if any, ethical debate, is essentially the selling of human life.

I don't think human eggs and sperm should be used in fertility treatments unless they've been donated for free. It's just not the kind of enterprise from which a profit should be made. And what really bugs me about this is that it's creating a crop of people who will one day feel cheated of their biological heritage.

I strongly believe that everyone born as a result of these procedures deserves to know the names of their donors, see their photographs, and be told their social and medical histories. Adoptees have fought long and hard for these rights which are finally being recognized and respected. I don't think we should create another segment of society denied the dignity of this basic human knowledge.

junk or antique?

While I was dropping some things off at the Salvation Army today I noticed a sign with a list of items they do not accept. The list included computer monitors, waterbeds, console TVs, and typewriters.

This made me wonder what happens to old typewriters now. Do they just get pitched in the dump?

I wonder how many electric typewriters were made and sold in the 70s - 90s that are now just worthless junk? I'm sure that older, manual typewriters have already become "collectible," but will obsolete electrics ever achieve this status?

I got rid of my old electric typewriter two moves ago - back when they were still being accepted by charity. And I'm kind-of sorry I did. It could have become an antique family heirloom.

Or maybe not.

what's inside?

Aside from the frustration and tremendous amount of time it eats up, something I enjoy about house hunting is the opportunity to walk around in other people's homes when they're not there.

I'm pretty nosy by nature, so I especially enjoy looking into closets and cupboards. This is necessary, of-course, to determine if the closet and cupboard space are adequate to my needs. But I must admit that I enjoy this license to take note of what's kept and how it's arranged. I can't say what it is about this that intrests me so much, but it does.

I've always been a bit of a snoop. I'm the kind of person who will probably open your medicine cabinet when I'm a guest in your bathroom. I know I shouldn't, but I usually can't resist just a quick little peek. And I'm sure I'm not alone in this tendency. Don't we all do this, to one degree or another, at least sometimes?
I think it's this enjoyment of peeking into other lives that explains the current popularity of memoirs, blogs, reality TV, YouTube, Facebook, and, unfortunately, gossip magazines. Is it a trend, or just a natural inclination that has - um - come out of the closet?

Eostre Fest

Every year on Easter Sunday I think about what a shame it is that the celebration of the arrival of spring was stolen from the pagans and distorted into a religious holiday. What a shame it is that both the winter solstice and vernal equinox have been mixed up with, and overshadowed by, Christian myths.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could celebrate the rebirth and revitalization of the land we live upon without religion? Just imagine...

All schools and businesses would close on the day of the spring equinox, called Easter after the ancient Saxon goddess Eostre, and the German fertility goddess Ostare. (Not that I'm suggesting we worship pagan deities, just that we shouldn't forget how Easter got its name.)

There would, of-course, be baskets of colorful eggs, flowers, and rabbits as symbols, but there would also be rituals to do with the Earth - maybe something like greeting the dawn, or planting seeds. There would be songs, outdoor games, and in the evening a bonfire. It would be a happy holiday that everyone could celebrate, completely devoid of dogma.

You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one...

Long lost objects

I was looking at some old photos a few weeks ago and was especially interested in noticing the many objects that appear in them by chance - things like lamps, clocks, cars, phones, furniture, etc... It's interesting to see these things that seemed so commonplace at the time, but now are so nostalgic.

There are a couple of my childhood pictures that include my old toys. I had tons of toys as a kid, but all that survived are a baton, a sled, and a rocketship bank.

This got me thinking about things I wish I could see once more, and the first things that came to my mind were: My mom's big brown tea mug; my record player and my collection of 45s; my pink Schwinn bicycle; and my turquoise transistor radio.

It occurred to me that it would be interesting to ask people what two items from their childhood or youth they'd like to see again and why. I asked BB and this is what she said: "My metal pedal car, because I loved it and because they don't make them anymore." And, "My bellbottom jeans with the peace symbol I sewed on in 6th grade."

What old objects would you like to see again?

Inspiration

So, I was driving down the road wondering what I should write my next blog post about when I had a sudden flash of inspiration: I decided to write about those sudden flashes of inspiration that come to you while driving.

You know how it is - there you are mindlessly driving along, when suddenly the solution to whatever it is you've been worrying about, or the sudden recollection of that thing you've been meaning to do, suddenly hits you.

This is a phenomenon that also happens to me in the shower. I seem to get my most fabulous insights and great ideas when I'm either driving or bathing. And I'm sure I'm not alone in this. For some reason these routine activities seem to free the brain of a lot of noise that otherwise gets in the way.

The only problem is that I can't remember these flashes of genius unless I write them down. Which is why I keep a pad of paper and a pen in both the car and the bathroom. I have actually gotten out of the shower to write little fragments of thoughts on occasion, and in the car I've become fairly adept at writing with my right hand while steering with my left.

Here is a small sampling of my car notes: Too imbued with per. sig. Kazoo, symph? Peeves, talking etc... tkts wait wait. chi. Fluke. All about happiness! Add Gram P. stuff. Took a long time - flawed. thng abt C. Mem. Antonym of intense?

These are all things I wanted to remember to do or to write about. But none of these things seem as important and significant now as they did at the moment of inspiration - which is, sadly, the way so many of my moments of inspiration go.