ode to aging

To commemorate her 69th birthday, Julie Andrews made a special appearance at Manhattan's Radio City Music Hall for the benefit of the AARP. One of the musical numbers she performed was My Favorite Things from the legendary movie The Sound Of Music.

Here are the lyrics she used:

Maalox and nose drops and needles for knitting,
Walkers and handrails and new dental fittings,
Bundles of magazines tied up in string,
These are a few of my favourite things.

Cadillac's and cataracts, and hearing aids and glasses,
Polident and Fixodent and false teeth in glasses,
Pacemakers, golf carts and porches with swings,
These are a few of my favorite things.

When the pipes leak,
When the bones creak,
When the knees go bad,
I simply remember my favourite things,
And then I don't feel so bad.

Hot tea and crumpets and corn pads for bunions,
No spicy hot food or food cooked with onions,
Bathrobes and heating pads and hot meals they bring,
These are a few of my favourite things.

Back pains, confused brains, and no need for sinnin',
Thin bones and fractures and hair that is thinnin',
And we won't mention our short, shrunken frames,
When we remember our favourite things.

When the joints ache,
When the hips break,
When the eyes grow dim,
Then I remember the great life I've had,
And then I don't feel so bad.

Ms. Andrews deservedly received a standing ovation from the crowd that lasted over four minutes.

rebellion by proxy

Remember how in the meme yesterday I confessed that once upon a time I had a red-or-black-would-be-really-cool-for-a-wedding-dress notion? Before deciding that that might not be a valid enough reason to get married? Well, reading in the tub today (one of the advantages of NOT being married or having kids or working at a regular job is that you can take a bath ANY time of day or night), I happened to come across a blurb for a book called My Wedding Dress. It's supposed to be an anthology in the tradition of Dropped Threads, which I absolutely loved, and how in keeping with my motto of Why Do It When You Can Read About It Instead. Apparently there's even a section about women who have made non-traditional choices when it comes to wedding apparel. What a relief—now I can vicariously enjoy being a rebellious bride without having to compromise my single status! Snort.

p.s.

Sat outside for the first time today—woohoo!!

the meme game

Dakota tagged me (thank you!) for the following meme:

A) Available or Single? – definitely single, but MAYBE available for the right person

B) Best Friends? – online or offline?

C) Cake or Pie? – cake, specifically, real Dutch mocha cake, yum

D) Drink of Choice? – water, as I don't consider my must-have coffee in the morning a choice per se ;)

E) Essential item? – computer

F) Favourite Colour? – to wear: blue, to look at: yellow, pink, red, orange – all the cheerful hues

G) Gummi Bears or Worms? – neither, yuck!

H) Hometown? – past: Maasdijk, South Holland, the Netherlands, present: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, future:?

I) Indulgence? – gosh, I guess some would argue that by not having a regular full-time job my whole lifestyle is indulgent

J) January or February? – February as that brings us closer to spring

K) Kids and Names? – Adrian Mole and Kazumi Joy, but because those names didn't really suit kids, I chose to adopt cats instead ;)

L) Life is incomplete without? – creativity, of whatever sort

M) Marriage Date? – well, I confess to fantasizing about wearing a red or black dress when I was young (the only detail of the ceremony that seemed to interest me), but wisely concluded that rebelling against colour wasn't a sufficient enough reason to ever get married :)

N) Number of Siblings? – four (4!), all older, haha!

O) Oranges or Apples? – both, I refuse to choose, or compare ;)

P) Phobias/Fears? – spiders when I was young

Q) Favourite Quote? – I'm a quotaholic, they're ALL my favourites

R) Reasons to smile? – sunshine, books, cats in general, KJ in particular

S) Season? – spring, fall, winter, summer - in that order

T) Tag 3 People? – anyone reading is welcome to play

U) Unknown Fact About Me? – ah, but if I told you it would no longer be unknown!

V) Vegetable You Hate? – mushrooms, ugh, they ought to be banned :(

W) Worst Habit? – none, I am nearly perfect, and if you believe that, ha!

X) X-rays You've Had? – dental primarily

Y) Your Favourite Foods? – desserts, but since I have no willpower and WILL consume the entire thing in a time period too embarrassing for any decent person to admit, I rarely have them in the house

Z) Zodiac? – Scorpio, but a very early Scorpio, so consider myself an honorary late Libra as well

Whaaaaaaat, no more questions? I don't WANT this alphabet to stop! :))

kids write the darndest things

One of my brothers sent this to me a few days ago.

In a Catholic elementary school test, kids were asked questions about the Old and New Testaments. They came up with the following answers:

1. In the first book of the Bible, Guinessis, God got tired of creating the world so he took the Sabbath off.

2. Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. Noah's wife was Joan of Ark. Noah built an ark and the animals came on in pears.

3. Lot's wife was a pillar of salt during the day, but a ball of fire during the night.

4. The Jews were a proud people and throughout history they had trouble with unsympathetic genitals.

5. Sampson was a strongman who let himself be led astray by a jezebel like Delilah.

6. Samson slayed the Philistines with the axe of the Apostles.

7. Moses led the Jews to the Red Sea where they made unleavened bread which is bread without any ingredients.

8. The Egyptians were all drowned in the dessert. Afterwards, Moses went up to Mount Cyanide to get the Ten Commandments.

9. The first commandment was when Eve told Adam to eat the apple.

10. The seventh commandment is thou shalt not admit adultery.

11. Moses died before he ever reached Canada. Then Joshua led the Hebrews in the battle of Geritol.

12. The greatest miracle in the Bible is when Joshua told his son to stand still and he obeyed him.

13. David was a Hebrew king who was skilled at playing the liar. He fought the Finkelsteins, a race of people who lived in biblical times.

14. Solomon, one of David's sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines.

15. When Mary heard she was the mother of Jesus, she sang the Magna Carta.

16. When the three wise guys from the east side arrived they found Jesus in the manager.

17. Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption.

18. St. John the blacksmith dumped water on his head.

19. Jesus enunciated the golden rule, which says to do unto others before they do one to you. He also explained a man doth not live by sweat alone.

20. It was a miracle when Jesus rose from the dead and managed to get the tombstone off the entrance.

21. The people who followed the lord were called the 12 decibels.

22. The Epistels were the wives of the Apostles.

23. One of the opossums was St. Matthew who was also a taximan.

24. St. Paul cavorted to Christianity, he preached holy acrimony which is another name for marriage.

25. Christians have only one spouse. This is called monotony.

in honour of spring

"One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring.

A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence. A chipmunk, emerging for a sunbath but finding a blizzard, has only to go back to bed. But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges." —ALDO LEOPOLD

from A Sand County Almanac

yum!

Jealous? Ha! I would be too if this lovely pea soup wasn't sitting on MY stove. ;)

because you can't beat the classics

Snort. I've seen this one before (in fact I believe the poem, although not the image, is in KJ's blog somewhere), but hey, it's worth repeating!

spring has soon sprung?

Spring supposedly kicks in at 8:07pm tonight, but I don't know. It doesn't seem that warm yet, and worse, according to The Weather Network's Spring Outlook report, most of Ontario will see below normal temperatures this season. Hmmm, not quite what I had ordered. ;)

did you know?

The sun is precisely 395 times larger than the moon, and is precisely 395 times farther away from the earth than the moon. But the sun and moon appear the same size when seen from earth because of the precise ratio of the distances.

A friend of mine who sent me this tidbit absolutely loves anything to do with astronomy, and I don't blame him. It's fascinating, but in my opinion almost too fascinating as I find some of the facts and numbers involved so astounding it's as if I can't wrap my brain around the enormity of it all. I also get overwhelmed just sensing some of the possible implications to the point where I feel my noggin might shut down if I think about it for too long. It wouldn't of course, but it feels like it might, so I refuse to think about it at all. And that, of course, is just plain silly. So, here's a site that presents a different astronomy image every day along with a brief explanation—maybe I can digest some of it if it's bite-sized enough? ;)

Zen saying

"Just this."

the Canadian books

I thought I'd do this entry because quite a few of the titles that I had bolded in the meme list were Canadian, and thus not as well-known or read as most of the others. Which is a shame as many of them are quite excellent. I also found a list at home of the top 100 Canadian books as chosen by reader members of one of Canada's biggest bookstores, and thought it'd be fun to do a comparison. First, here are the Canadian titles (at least, the ones that I recognized) as they appeared in the meme list:

8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davies)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)

In the following list (links are included to a few of my personal favourites) I'm going to include the top ten of Canada's Best, plus any of their other books (and that of the authors above) that made the list:

1. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
2. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
3. Fall On Your Knees (Ann-Marie Macdonald)
4. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
5. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
6. Stories From The Vinyl Café (Stuart Mclean)
7. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
8. Anne of Green Gables (Lucy Maud Montgomery)
9. No Great Mischief (Alistair Macleod)
10. Runaway (Alice Munro)
15. Fifth Business (Robertson Davies)
16. The Wars (Timothy Findley)
17. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
41. Alias Grace (Atwood)
42. The Way The Crow Flies (Macdonald)
43. Unless (Shields)
44. Oryx and Crake (Atwood)
45. In The Skin of a Lion (Ontdaatje)
46. The Blind Assassin (Atwood)
47. Family Matters (Mistry)
48. Larry's Party (Shields)
49. Dropped Threads (Shields)
51. Such a Long Journey (Mistry)
52. The Diviners (Laurence)
53. The Penelopiad (Atwood)
54. Lives of Girls And Women (Munro)
55. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Findley)
56. The Piano Man's Daughter (Findley)
57. Cat's Eye (Atwood)
59. The Edible Woman (Atwood)
62. The Robber Bride (Atwood)
63. Anil's Ghost (Ondaatje)
64. Pilgrim (Findley)
67. Running in the Family (Ondaatje)
71. The Love of a Good Woman (Munro)
81. Surfacing (Atwood)
87. Spadework (Findley)
89. The Deptford Trilogy (Davies)
91. The Tent (Atwood)
93. Open Secrets (Munro)

As you can tell, we Canucks really like the work of the Canadian authors included in the meme list, and I can only hope that their books will gain greater international acclaim. The one name that surprised me the most when I didn't see it on the meme list was that of Alice Munro. She's a superb short story teller (some consider her the best short story writer alive) and her work IS, thankfully, gaining widespread attention outside of Canada. Other authors who had a number of books on the Canadian list but not on the meme list include Farley Mowat, Douglas Coupland and Pierre Burton.

It was interesting too to see that seven of the Canadian titles in the meme were also in the top 10 Canuck list, and that Anne of Green Gables was #8 on both lists.

p.s. now why do I have the feeling that this will not be the last of book list entries? :))

a taste of spring

Am pleased to report that even though it wasn't quite warm enough yet to sit outside today, I WAS able to wear my denim jacket as opposed to denim coat when I did my errands—woohoo!

p.s. am working on the Canadian book list as we speak, so to speak ;)

a record

What's going on? I've never posted this many entries in one day before! Ah yes, now I remember, I was going to start my income tax today....

(note to self: never mind....)

kinda cool

You know how some people Google themselves? Well, for fun today I entered my name in our online public library database instead, and to my surprise there were five entries! I'd forgotten some research reports I'd written for work years ago (80's and 90's), so I guess if I'm ever asked I wouldn't technically be lying if I said I'm a published author. Oh yeah, one of my humour columns appeared in the local paper once too, so I guess that counts as well. Snort.

(note to self: I meant what I said in my previous note)

weather

Canadians (and permanent residents) are a bit obsessed with the weather. How do we prove this? By finding it very difficult to have ANY conversation without at least throwing in some reference to what's going on outdoors. Maybe because we enjoy such variability in our glorious four seasons, or maybe because we're conversationally-challenged. ;) (Yes, living in this country allows me to make fun of our tendencies, snort.) Either way, to make sure you don't feel left out, I've managed to add (don't ask me how, lol) a nice little weather box in the side-bar so that you know EXACTLY what kind of weather is going on, right here, right now. Feel free to discuss it with me. I have experience. :)

(note to self: stop using blog as procrastination tool)

blasphemy!

What did I just hear while posting the previous entry? The theme music to The Mary Tyler Moore Show used in a COMMERCIAL! Oh dear readers, is nothing considered sacred anymore? ;)

a cranky post/er ;)

Snort.

Why the crankiness? Well, yesterday's post took a fairly long time to get up, not so much because of its content (although that contributed as well), but because Blogger would not initially let me in to my own blog. I had to sneak in the virtual back door as it were (which took about ten minutes) as I was told I couldn't go to my blog without switching over to Google first. Well! As you all know, I hate not having a choice and HATE being told what to do. ;)

Anyways, apparently EVERYONE is going to get switched over at some point whether they like it or not (no question as to which camp I fall in, LOL), so I suppose I either have to give in, or go somewhere else. Haven't decided yet what I'll do. Part of why I don't want to switch over though is that I like having all those entries on one page, like being able to scroll down to when it all began, and as far as I can see from other blogs the new format only allows a few posts per page. Unless you can still determine the number of entries yourself? Anyone out there know?

all about books

Dakota invited readers to participate in a meme involving a list and books. Well, considering that I love both, it doesn't get much better than that! Anyway, in this meme you bold the books you've read, italicize the books you want to read, and leave blank the ones you're not interested in. I finally got around to doing it myself and here it is! Thanks Dakota.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Yikes. And I call myself a reader? Well, at least I've read some of the Canadian books (as it should be I guess), but I'm embarrassed at the number of classics I HAVEN'T read. I mean, Dickens and Austen? For shame! Ah, but this list makes me want to compile a bunch of my own of course. Namely:

How Could They Not Have Included THESE On The Above List?
Books I Feel I SHOULD Read,
Books I Feel Slightly Bad About NOT Wanting To Read,
Books I Feel Slightly Guilty About Having Enjoyed,
Books I Can't Believe I Ever Read,
Books I Can't Understand All The Fuss About,
Books I Know For Sure I'll Never Get Around To,
Books I Already Own and am Determined To Get Around To Eventually,
Books I Already Own and Feel I Should Read but Know Almost For Sure I Won't ;)

Oh, can you guess which two books on the list above are included in my profile as favourites? Um, without checking it first? ;)

And here's a short list of books I actually AM reading at the moment:

Above Us Only Sky – Essays by Marion Winik
A Whack On The Side Of The Head: How You Can Be More Creative by Roger von Oech
For The Love Of Books: 115 Celebrated Writers On The Books They Love Most by Ronald B. Shwartz

Okay, your turn! ;)

pic for paula

time's value

(E-mailed to me the other day.)

To realize
The value of ten years:
Ask a newly divorced couple.

To realize
The value of four years:
Ask a graduate.

The realize
The value of one year:
Ask a student who
Has failed a final exam.

To realize
The value of nine months:
Ask a mother who
Gave birth to a stillborn.

To realize
The value of one month:
Ask a mother who has given birth
To a premature baby.

To realize
The value of one week:
Ask an editor
Of a weekly newspaper.

To realize
The value of one minute:
Ask a person
Who has missed the train, bus or plane.

To realize
The value of one second:
Ask a person
Who has survived an accident.

Time waits for no one. Treasure every moment you have.

more

While Googling the other day I found some other quotes on writing and books that I quite liked. Unwisely probably I did not double-check these either. ;)

"Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher." —FLANNERY O'CONNOR

"Every author really wants to have letters printed in the papers. Unable to make the grade, he drops down a rung of the ladder and writes novels." —P.G. WODEHOUSE

"A good novel tells us the truth about its hero, but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author." —G.K. CHESTERTON

"A house without books is like a room without windows." —HORACE MANN

"One writes to make a home for oneself, on paper, in time, in others' minds." —ALFRED KAZIN