Chicken Fat!!

Back in the 60’s, girls always wore skirts or dresses. So did female teachers. So it was a real treat when President Kennedy sent this cute little exercise record to all the schools, because on the days we all went to the cafeteria for exercise, girls were allowed to wear  SHORTS UNDER THEIR DRESSES! That’s because there was a section in the exercise routine where we were all on our backs with legs in the air doing “the bicycle” and you sure didn’t want your panties to show!

As non-athletic as I was (and still am) I did enjoy Chicken Fat days. I LOVED the song and the exercises were fun and not out of my league (like those evil pull-ups!) And having more physical freedom at recess time because I was wearing shorts was awesome!

This clip is a shorter version, but has some interesting info about the record. It also shows what we kids wore in the 60’s.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af2j59zzX3Q

The longer version is what we did at school. It was a pretty good little workout.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFofqe26t-4

And if you’re interested, here is a link for the words.

http://dmdb.org/lyrics/chicken.fat.html

It was a real joy to find this on youtube. I had no idea that it was Meredith Wilson who wrote the song, and that it was the truly wonderful Robert Preston who sang it. It did my heart good to hear this again. And it would do my heart even more good if I did the exercises, but I’m afraid some of them are beyond my physical capability anymore.

So…hands on hips! Begin!!

eeeek!

Totally forgot my blog! As you can tell by the late posting.

I’ve been scrambling to get a few art projects done and just plain lost track of time. That happens a lot when Myrtle gets a grip on me and drives me relentlessly. For a while, I was trying to get some sample projects done for a program I thought was going to take place at my church. Then when it turned out that things were going in a different direction, I stopped working on that and started something else.

I got one project almost completed. Gotta say that this one is one of the most involved I’ve done yet. Really need a breather after this. BUT…I have another in the offing that I have to get started if I want to finish before the deadline I’ve set. I don’t know why I do these things to myself…I blame Myrtle…

The next project will be entirely different from anything I’ve done before, so it’s not like I’m plunging into another altered book. Those things take large chunks of my soul to accomplish.

I always take pictures of completed projects and usually post them on Facebook. If you want to see them, you gotta friend me! Dorothy Jackson Binder. Just message me first about your intentions and I will almost always add you. It used to be that when someone wanted to be your friend, you could look at their profile and check them out first. With all the privacy settings, though, you can’t do that.

So there ya go. Not much of a blog this week, I know. Now it’s back to dealing with Myrtle….

April 2013 Book Report

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

I had just finished writing a GLOWING report on this book. What I wrote was WITTY. It was HUMOROUS. It was FULL OF WONDERFULNESS.

Then I was interrupted by a phone call.

When I came back to the computer, with great flair I accidentally DELETED THE WHOLE THING!!!

I sat here and looked at the blank page. There is probably some clever computer-type magic whereby I could retrieve my report, but that is magic beyond my humble powers.

So all I’m gonna do now is tell you to GET THIS BOOK. READ IT. Don’t be put off by the fact that in the original Japanese it was a 3 volume set, and the English version is just one big honkin’ 1,175 page tome. I didn’t know that when I ordered the book from B&N. I was a tad dismayed by the size of the book, but once I started, I found it difficult to put it down and do anything around the house.

So you’ve been both warned and encouraged. It’s a huge book. But I was sucked into that other world of 1Q84 in the first few sentences and never looked back.

BTW…if anyone ever reads or has read one of the books I report on, let me know! Tell me your thoughts on the book(s) we have in common. I have no one to talk to here….

peace out

Playing With The Phone Book

Words have always been my playmates since a very early age. Once I learned to read, that was it…I was never at a loss for friends. One of the biggest ways to play with words is to take any word and see how many other words you can make from the letters. I would have very set rules for this, too. You can only use the letters of that word. If you need two “E”s for a word, but there was only one “E” given, you couldn’t add another one. And words had to be 3 or more letters long. Example: MATE  1)mat 2)met 3)ate 4)tam 5)tea 6)eat 7)team 8)tame 9)meat   9 words within the word MATE. If I was in a situation where I was bored and didn’t have a book or magazine, I would find a word somewhere and make other words. Many times on the school bus, I would see a sign of some sort and start making words in my mind.

BTW…don’t EVER challenge me to a game of Boggle. You WILL lose…Scrabble is a safer bet because of the separate randomness of the letters.

Somewhere along the line in my youth, I decided to play with the phone book. White pages, last names only. For this game, spelling can be flexible.

How many different colors can I find? Brown, White, Green, etc.

Money? Penney, Nichols, Pentz (pence), Gold (could also be a color), Silver (same thing)

Things in nature?  Wood, Brooke, Meadows, Hawkes.

Occupations?  Baker, Cooper, Miller, Weaver.

With my pencil and paper handy, I could easily spend a couple of hours just going through all the names and finding different categories.

And you thought I was weird BEFORE, huh? Now it’s verified!