March Diversions

 

This is the last of the monthly celebrations lists. I’ve been doing this for a full year of fun and nonsense. I hope you’ve enjoyed them and maybe even taken part in some of them. They were a lot of fun to do.

 

National Celery Month! 

I LOVE celery for dips (see below), soups and salads. And it’s great with peanut butter. You have to be careful, though. Sometimes the celery can be bitter, and there’s nothing you can do except throw it away. I also enjoy using celery salt when cooking.

 6 – Namesake Day

I was named after my Aunt Dorothy, who died when she was only 4 years old. She was named after HER Aunt Dorothy. Since my mom really wanted a boy, because she was in competition with my dad’s first wife (a fact that I didn’t know until many years later) it was my dad who named me in honor of his sister and aunt. The name is from Greek origin and is the feminine version of Theodore, which means gift from God.

 

 

20 – Birthday of Fred Rogers (1928). Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood was one of the best children’s show there ever was or will be. That man was and still is loved by so many. 

 

 

21 – Birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685). Greatest classical musician of all time. And he was a Lutheran! Bonus points for that!  

 

 

23 – National Chip & Dip Day

Everyone knows how finicky I am about stuff like this. I love chips and dip, also veggies and dip. HOWEVER…these are the ONLY 2 dips I will accept: 1. Cream cheese and a packet of toasted onion dip mix and 2. Mild chunky salsa pureed so there are no obvious chunks.

 

And that’s it. Celebrate every day. Give thanks every day.

 

How Big Is Your Bucket?

 

I don’t particularly believe in having a bucket list. I prefer to be satisfied with what happens naturally. The question “What would you do/see/buy if money were no object” is useless. I like fairy tales, but I know that’s what they are. They are not real or attainable. I’ve already done blogs on this kind of thing, knowing that they were fairy tales.

 

There is one thing, however, that is marginally attainable. There would be many requirements for it to take place. It calls for a competent pianist and a venue with a second piano.

 

When I took piano lessons, there was a book I loved: Friedrich Burgmüller, Opus 100, Twenty-five easy and progressive studies for the piano. I learned ALL 25 pieces, with several of them becoming favorites.

 

Several years ago I was in a thrift store and found a 2 volume set of piano duets for 4 hands, 2 pianos of all 25 of the Burgmüller pieces. I was overjoyed. Now all I had to do was find a second piano and someone to play the duets with me.

 

(screeching halt)

 

For a while, we had a guy at our church who played the keyboard for the services. He was very talented but a total flake. I managed to browbeat him into doing one of the pieces with me at an Advent service. He had a second keyboard to play with the church one, but our sound system didn’t work out very well. That was the only time I’ve been able to play one of the duet pieces. I can’t even find them performed on youtube. At least not as a 2 piano duet.

 

So that is my bucket list. I don’t need to “perform” the pieces. I just want to play them and hear them as duets. I think I need a bigger bucket… *sigh*

 

Saturday Morning

Many, many years ago, children, there was a wonderful event that took place every Saturday morning. In that world of long ago, a television (if you were so lucky as to have one) did not play video cassettes, or DVDs or connect to any kind of streaming service. All you could do was turn it on and watch whatever happened to be playing. For children such as yourself, it wasn’t much fun. There wasn’t even any PBS! No Sesame Street! No Mr. Rogers!

 

Ah, but Saturday morning would arrive! It was a day where children would rejoice and plunk themselves down on the floor as close to the TV as possible and take part in the wonderful world of children’s programing. At least until your mom or dad (in my case, it was my grandma) would say, “You’ve been watching that junk for two hours! Go outside!”

 

My kids are old enough that there was still some of that programing when they were small. Now there are entire channels dedicated to children. And it’s not limited to Saturday morning. Thanks to the Internet kids, you can also access your parent’s favorite shows from the dim past. Since anyone can do this, I will only speak of the sainted programs from my own childhood that made my heart leap with joy on those Saturdays from long ago…

 

Captain Kangaroo. My first love. The songs, Dancing Bear, Mr. Moose and the ping pong balls, Mr. Green Jeans and his cute little animals. And my favorite of all: Bunny Rabbit. (I had a small bunny that had to be with me every night when I went to bed)

There was also Tom Terrific and his mighty dog Manfred.

 

I watched Mighty Mouse, but got a little tired of the cat always being the bad guy and getting beat up all the time. Since MM was so strong, why didn’t he just hold the cat down and talk to him and try to reason with him?? Same with Tom and Jerry, Sylvester and Tweety, Pixie & Dixie and Mr. Jinks.

 

There were more, I know, but I will move on to the non-cartoons.

Sky King. He would catch bad guys using an airplane. I thought that was kinda neat. A Western with no horses! He was joined by his niece Penny and nephew Clipper.

 

Roy Rogers. ‘Nuff said; King of the Cowboys. Same with Lone Ranger and Tonto. The bad guys ALWAYS lost to the power of good.

 

Marvin watched Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. This Canadian Mountie and his dog Yukon King brought the bad guys to justice in the wild gold rush days. I’ve seen the reruns of it on TV and knew this would have been one of my favorites as well. We even forced Lia to watch one episode with us. She tolerated it very well because she is a polite granddaughter…

 

I was a bit older when Thunderbirds was on in 1960. The sci-fi show was set 100 years in the future and featured marionettes. I knew it was cheesy, but I secretly loved it. Once in a great while you could see a glimpse of the wires controlling them, but this was pretty high tech stuff for the day.

 

So that’s the kind of thing that kept us entertained in our younger years, kids. You may have better tech in your shows now. A lot more shows with real people in them. All the games you could ever imagine on your electronic devices.

 

But I still think my generation had it pretty good.

 

Now put your phone down! Shut off your devices! Go outside and play!

 

(And stay off my lawn!)

 

Cranial Celebrations – Fun With Words

 

I’ve written before about my love of words and the games I’ve played with them since I was very young. I find words a fascinating play-fellow. Whenever I run across a fun word or phrase while I’m reading I make a note of it.

 

Cerebral insolvency

This was from a mystery novel. It described a rather oafish, crude man as being “cerebrally insolvent” and I thought that was a marvelous description.

 

Nominative Determinism

It’s the hypothesis that people tend to gravitate towards areas of work that fit their names. I used to love playing with the phone book to see how many “job” names I could find. Examples like Baker, Cooper, Banks, etc.

 

Abattoir

It’s a slaughterhouse. One of the first times I came across this was in a Monty Python sketch where an architect was supposed to design an apartment building. With rolling floors and revolving knives…

 

Oubliette - (ooo blee ette)

It’s a secret dungeon accessible through a trap door. Very fancy name for a hidey-hole.

 

Shibboleth

A particular custom, principle or belief. “Y’all” is a shibboleth associated with southern culture. In Judges 12:6 it’s a word to distinguish between enemy and ally. There are many other examples. If you can work it into a conversation, you will be noticed.

 

Bureau

I STILL have trouble remembering how this is spelled!!

 

Pince-nez (pants-nay)

Those glasses without temples that perch on your nose. Like the ones Teddy Roosevelt wore. It comes from the French for “to pinch” and “nose” and I had the hardest time remembering how it was pronounced.

 

The room had no tongue, yet it spoke volumes/yet the walls spoke volumes.

I don’t remember which way it was written, but the meaning is the same. I love the mental picture of inanimate things having a “voice”. “I bought that dress because it spoke my name.”