"When I tell you something is dangerous, I mean it. And, I never forget the Victims"
T.J. Hooker
"Everyone can master a Grief but he who has it”
William Shakespeare
”I had given him a life not worth living, but I had also given him an iron will to live. This was a common combination on the planet Earth”
Kurt Vonnegut about his character, Kilgore Trout.

Friday, December 29, 2017

True Blue and Just another New Year's, too.Saturday 9

Welcome to Saturday: 9. What we've committed
 to our readers is that we will post 9 questions
every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love memes, however, and here is today's meme! 
(Want to play along with the Niners??  Go HERE)

Saturday 9: It's Just Another New Year's Eve (1977)

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? 
Hear it here.
(Gal, this is a beautiful song!)

1) In this song, Barry Manilow declares New Year's Eve is "just another night." How do you feel about 12/31? Is it a special occasion or just another night?
It's just another day/night, like any other.  But I do like our little "sweet taste" ritual.  And I like the fact that I can eat something besides regular fare.  Chips and Dip, are what I  especially like, but I'm also thinking, "Pretzel stick party mix"....Yummm

2) Barry sings that in the past year, "we've made mistakes." What in 2017 do you wish you could do over?
 Generally, I don't want to relive this year.  I'm looking forward to getting past it.  Even going to see the kids was bittersweet, because we had a memorial at the gardens for Elle, and everyone was understandably sad.  But we did bring flowers, and we weeded the place, and blew bubbles.  All of it was good.

3) He also sings of happy nights with friends. Tell us about a really good time you had in the past year.
I almost always have a good time when I go to see my daughters, which we did this summer.  Just being near them is a boost to some insane kind of, well... "VERVE"....I feel more creative and energized by it.

4) The song references growing wiser, as well as older. What's something you learned or discovered in 2017?
I've been through years like this before but never with this intensity.  I've learned that Time does not heal.  Distance doesn't either, and though many more truly brave people than I am have picked up the pieces of their lives and moved on, I'd be a liar if I said it looked likely to happen for me.

5)  What do you wish you had spent more time doing during 2017?
Putting things up on Ebay?  I did manage to part with quite a few things this year but more would have been better.  Stuff rules our lives too long, and too often.  It's from having this mind that thinks that the body is eternally able  to perform tasks.  Ha!  My hands are so bad that it's hard to get a pill bottle open. 
MiniHaHas.com

6)  What was the smartest thing you did all this past year? 
I've accepted the new "Me".  She's the one who has to live the "day by day" that life allows the vast majority of other people on the planet.  
They are heroes to me, these Folks who do this brave thing every single day of their lives. 
They simply wake up, and they set their minds on making it through a day and trying to get the chores all done.  They do sometimes laugh, that's what makes it possible.... I'm trying to laugh more and to be in the moment more, like the good little Quaker/Taoist that I want to be.

7)  As this year comes to a close, what are you most grateful for?
My family and my friends, and the internet that keeps us all together.  I'm also very grateful for the tough little fighters out there who are still trying to make a difference in this odious climate in Washington D.C..  Elected, or otherwise, there are people from both side of the political divide who are there for ALL the people, not just the voracious moneybags.  Therein lies the best future for all of us.  It is in their capable, but outnumbered, hands.  They need our help to withstand any sort of black mail being doled out by "Russian" spy networks.

8) When this week's featured artist, Barry Manilow, was a jingle writer, he wrote the famous "You deserve a break today at McDonald's" song. When's the last time you visited the Golden Arches?
 It has to have been around 25 years ago.  It was for a cup of coffee for Mr.Z. at the Drive Thru Window...

9) Random question: In high school, were you more popular with the boys or the girls?
I had a lot more friends who were girls than who were boys.  The boys I was friends with were some of  the best friends I've ever had.  I just know in my heart that they got caught up in the Vietnam Fiasco because they were so "All American" and so very "true blue".  You see, their Daddies all fought in WWII.  That's in a poem/song I've written....

10 comments:

  1. Good morning, Zippi! I have to admit, my weakness is for the chips and dip and other crunchy, salty things, too. Sweet or savory treats just can't compare.
    It sounds, from your answers, that you are in the same nostalgic/melancholy mood so many found themselves in this holiday season (me, included). Everyone said they found themselves thinking more of how the holidays used to be and of the loved ones no longer with us. Part getting older and part how much our world seems to have changed in the last few years, I guess.
    My prayer for you, dear lady, is that the coming year does bring you some easing of your grief and that you find joy in living each moment, in the day to day.

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    1. Thank you, Stacy. And yes, I am and may forever be, nostalgic for the time when the girls were small (pre-teens?) and we spent Holidays together.
      Oh yes, salty snacks are the best! Ymm!

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  2. "Stuff rules our lives too long, and too often." How wise! I'm so encumbered by "stuff" I barely know how to attack it! And I have "stuff" I could sell on eBay or take to the consignment store. I just have to get off my prodigious butt!

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    1. If the kids were closer, I'd have given a lot of it to them for the co-ops in their city. And in your case, well, you also have to figure out how to get it to the site without a car to do that. I can just bag some up, stuff it in the jeep, and drop it at Goodwill or St Vincent's that are only half mile away. The only thing I can suggest is that you inch it out piece by piece, if there is somewhere to drop it off....

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  3. I was listening to some ambient music and knitting, kind of zen knitting, last night and I was thinking of how fun it would be to knit with you. Hugs to you.

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    1. Oh that would be so lovely, Kwizgiver. I will always think of you when I'm knitting. We could do a sort of "mind meld" over VAST distances. heehee That would be fun. I'm getting ready to set time aside for knitting in bed in the morning. Instagram will just have to wait! ;o)

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  4. I hope that you find some peace in your new year. I have a copy of the Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching on my desk here; my resolution is to read it and study a page a week, and try to live what it says. Stay strong, my Zippi. Here's a hug.

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    1. Thank you, CountryDew, and also Kwizgiver, for those Hugs! (((HUGS))) back. I'm trying to stay strong. It's two steps forward, three steps back...
      I also need to just learn to quiet my mind down (Taoist can actually do this!) because sleeplessness is causing leg and arm jerks. I also have dreams in sharp 3D now, and it's not really sleep. It's awake dreaming. I try to pick things up with my hands during these things. I'll wake up and I'm scratching the sheet with my fingers, trying to pry something loose. Wild and weird! Please do read that book. It will make more and more sense as you learn about it.

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  5. I'm all about moving on from stuff rather than let it take over my mind/life or lie to myself saying that I have forgiven someone, who has no right to be forgiven, just because someone says it is the only way to move on. Where was I. Oh yeah, pass that pretzel mix lady :) Happy New Year. I use to sell on eBay. It was the pain in the butt people who made me move on from it.

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    1. Oh, yes, there are people who have no right to be forgiven. The only way I do this is to think, "If the Buddhists are right, do I want another little child to suffer and not understand why?" No, I don't. It's the only thing that's worked for me. the ONLY thing. Moving on has now happened, and I'm not tortured by what happened to me.
      Yay, three for pretzel mix! Yum! I don't think I'll sell on Ebay either, and for those reasons. Unless, maybe, it's small things for women, like some of the yarn sellers who are on there. They have been great. I may join them...

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I’m going through some stuff but I will peek in now and then and will be back when it’s over..