Way too much fun!

Okay, so blogland is way too much fun. Especially since I know so many incredibly creative bloggers, who are always throwing an interesting challenge out into the blogosphere.

There are, however, only so many hours in the day, and I'm finding I have to compartmentalize my life a bit. And this means that there are only so many fun challenges that I can meet. But what I can do is let others know what's out there, and maybe they can join in.

I've decided that I can't join in on weekly, story-based challenges. I can't do this because I fret over them too much and then I spend too much time on those and not enough time on my fiction writing (which really has to be first priority). But there are two wonderful, story-based challenges out there that I've played with and that I'd love to mention:

Flashback Friday - Cable Girl over at 42 is getting this effort going, and the point is to tell us a story from your past. It's great fun and some wonderful tales have been produced.

Soap Opera Sunday - the brainchild of Brillig of Twas Brillig and Kate of Walking Kateastrophe, this challenge has been going strong for months. The idea here is to tell a soapy story from your past. And boy have there been some doozies! It's great fun.

I'm going to post about cooking challenges tomorrow, but one I want to draw your attention to, because there's just enough time to join it (entries due by March 2nd), is Eat to the Beat, by Elly of Elly Says Opa. For this challenge, you need to create a meal around a song or piece of music that goes together in some way.

And since it's tomorrow, I want to draw your attention to Singular Saturday, Jenn in Holland's weekly one word challenge. One of the most interesting parts of this is how folks can bend the challenge by the hysterical titles they choose (that are considerably more than one word)!

More internet fun will be listed tomorrow or Sunday.

And a comment on comments. I've found I'm absolutely stinko at responding via e-mail to the comments on this blog. So from now on (and I started doing this on Monday), I am going to seriously try to answer each comment posted here in my comments section VIA my comments section. So far, it's working.

Okay, thanks for putting up with a fairly boring blog entry. See you tomorrow and in the meantime, have fun playing with some of these great games!

Flashback Friday: High School Memesical!

For more tales of ancient history, please drop by Cable Girl at 42.


I got this from wonderful, opinionated, and all-around-great-dad,Gunfighter. It seemed to fit a flashback idea and since my brain is stuck, this seemed like a great compromise.

This meme is about your high school experiences. If you decide to play along, answer these questions about your SENIOR year of high school.

1. Did you date someone from your school?

This was the only year I didn't. I had a college bf for the first part of the year whom I'd met working at a summer stock theater the summer between Junior and Senior years. I also was fixed up with a friend's cousin for a bit and had a brief fling with a guy from my neighborhood.

2. Did you win anything in Seniors ‘Who’s Who’?

Um... we didn't really have that, but I think I won some kind of award that had to do with fake snow being dumped on me because I'd had to build a snow machine for my set designs for La Boheme, which we did Senior year, believe it or not.

3. What kind of car did you drive?

Hey, I'm from NYC. The subway was my transport.

4. It’s Friday night…where are you?

Hmmm... this is so funny, because other years it would definitely have been at a party, hanging out with friends, hanging out at the West End, or seeing Rocky Horror Picture Show. Senior year I was home a lot. Many of my friends had graduated, my main group of buds were boys who had been "discovered" by a group of giggly Freshmen girls and who made me nauseous, and oh, yeah, there was that bf up in Connecticut.

I also was at theaters a lot on Friday nights - working, usually.

5. Were you a party animal?

Not really, although I really, really loved to dance.

6. Were you considered a flirt?

Um. Yeah. A tremendous one.

7. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?

Nope, I was the head of the backstage crew. ;-)

8. Were you a nerd?

In English, Foreign Languages and Art, yes. In everything else, a resounding no.

9. Did you get suspended/expelled?

Nope. A. that didn't happen very often in my school and B. I think I was considered a pretty good citizen by Senior year.

10. Can you sing the fight song?

We didn't have one. We did have a school anthem that was something in Latin and the only thing I can remember is "Gaudeamus" (I think).

11. Who were your favorite teachers?

Ken Hubner (English), Bill Werner (English), Ken Hubner (English), Bea Kreloff (Art), Ken Hubner (English), Joanne Brown (Art History), Ken Hubner (English), and Ralph Dressler (Advisor for Stage Crew and my mentor in set and lighting design).

In case you can't tell, Ken Hubner had an enormous influence on me. Probably part of everything I am today was due to his classes. Ralph Dressler was also a wonderful mentor and teacher and had the patience of Job.

12. Where did you sit during lunch?

We had an open campus, so I was usually at a diner down the road from school, hanging with friends.

13.What was your school’s full name?

Fieldston

14. School mascot?

I think it was an eagle, but I don't remember

15. Were you on homecoming court?

We didn't do this sort of thing. It was the late 70s and all that stuff wasn't "cool."

16. If you could go back and do it again, would you?

Hell no!

17. What do you remember most about graduation?

That there was an incredible rain storm and we were moved inside at the last minute. That the love of my life was being accompanied by my best friend (it was a somewhat random draw - didn't mean anything - and I walked with another good, good friend, but it still bugged me), and that our class student speaker actually rocked. He was a kid I had only known somewhat before and I was really touched and amazed by his speech.

18. Where did you go senior skip day?

We didn't do this. We kind of skipped the whole last month. During the last month we did Senior Projects - no classes, just special projects or internships. I designed lights for the Senior Project Play - Woody Allen's "Don't Drink the Water" and I worked at the Manhattan Theater Club for a show they were doing. Five of us had that internship and we had a great time.

20.Were you in any clubs?

We didn't have "clubs" really. I was involved in backstage stuff. Duh.

21. Who was your Senior prom date?

We didn't do Prom. (See above). We *did* have a senior dance, but we weren't really supposed to have dates, because it might make others feel bad. I had dinner first with my (very platonic) friend Tommy, and we went to Benihana and watched the flashing knives and had too much sake (these were the days when the legal drinking age was 18). Then we took the subway up to school and got a lot of funny stares. Probably due to the sake and the fact that we were in fairly formal clothing on the subway.

22. Are you planning on going to your 10 year reunion?

I went. I haven't gone to any of the reunions since. It was kind of weird. There was a lot of snobbery and posturing. More than there had been in high school, actually.

23. Do you still talk to people from high school?

Occasionally. There's one friend, Erin, who I wish I could really find again. I miss her greatly. We lost touch, and she's lost touch with other folks who knew her, too.

Flashback Friday: Trrrrreeaaattttttssssss!

Okay, so I want to support Cable Girl of 42 in what I think is a wonderful effort, so I'm doing Flashback Friday today, and encouraging people to visit her site and read the other Flashback Friday entries, but honestly speaking, I'm only flashing back.... to...

yesterday.

I have a pre-diabetic guinea pig. And yes, I promise you this is not another Jen post about the wonders and perfection of guinea pigs.

But anyway, Pookie Girl is pre-diabetic. And she needs glipizide twice a day. And the only way she'll take it is to know a treat (ie. a bit of cucumber, or an herb, or some other green, non-sugary vegetable) is waiting for her. And, of course, her sisters wouldn't understand if Pookie Girl got a treat and they didn't. Because piggies don't roll that way. So... twice a day, I call out, "Do I have a good girl?" And Pookie Girl comes running up to me and takes her .07 mg of glipizide and then I call out "Treeeeaaaatttttsssss!" and all the piggies scramble to the bottom the cage to see what wonder awaits.

Okay, so I promised this wouldn't be about pigs. And it's not. About guinea pigs, in any case.

But I have to admit, I was reminded just what a small town I live in yesterday. And this is why.

A new grocery store opened just down the road from me. But it's not just any store... oh, no, it's an organic/all natural/gourmet food/pharmacy/wine seller with salad and hot food bar, and a pizza station and homemade breads and pastries and a sushi bar, a See's candies shop and a Zingerman's cafe. I was happy for two reasons: one, I can now buy a gallon of milk easily when I run out. Two, I have to admit - I'm a foodie, and the temptation of all that was very... tempting.

I didn't, however, expect what I ran into.

Now, this super-duper fancy a-- grocery store is darned similar to a mega Whole Foods that we already have in another part of town. In addition, Whole Foods is opening their biggest store in the state of Michigan in yet another part of town. We have a mostly organic/local/natural food store that's been in business for 30 years that's independent. We have two, local gourmet shops with a wide variety of produce, meats and groceries. We have a well-stocked, amazing food co-op. We have a Trader Joe's. In the summers, we have three separate days of farmers markets. We have representatives of four grocery chains - all of which are well-stocked, clean and reasonably-priced.

And we're a city of a whopping 100,000.

Makes you wonder.

But this morning, you would have thought that the people in my town had never seen food before. It was as if someone had blasted "Trrrrrreeeeeeeaaaaaaattttttsssss!!!!" through the tornado sirens, and all the good citizens were scrambling like lemmings to take cover in the aromas of Peet's coffee and the perfume of fresh bergamot.

Michigan has the highest unemployment rate in the country. It seems like every third house is for sale. Houses in my neighborhood have been on the market for two years. No one works permanently anymore - almost everyone is on yearly contract. A successful job is one with health insurance.

And it makes me wonder... are we really all a bunch of guinea pigs, following the latest trend, getting into debt because we're told we need "stuff"?

Yeah, the new store is really nice.

But is it really necessary?