Slice of Life: Personality Quirks, Strengths and Weaknesses, Collecting Old Bottles

Labor Day, Monday, September 4, 2017,

Mom made a creamy turkey rice soup for our lunch, and I didn't do as much sous-chef-ing, or as Dad would put it, Sue-chefing, as sometimes, but I did help fetch and carry ingredients. Mom sent me to the downstairs pantry and fridge for some white wine, chicken broth and kosher salt. I came up with these, and she noticed we had a lot of baking ingredients to be stowed back in the pantry. "I should have sent you down with these first," she said. Mom likes to double up on tasks.

I did store away the baking ingredients, but I tried to explain to Mom that telling myself to go downstairs with one thing and come back upstairs with another thing, most likely, would not work. It sounds simple enough, but as many times as I've tried this before, nearly always, I manage to do the first thing and forget the other. It's when I get to the top of the stairs that I remember, "Oh, right, I was going to get such and such," and then head back downstairs. It's not selective stupidity, although it certainly sounds like it. I know it's just a personality quirk, that, as a writer and a creative type, my mind is always filled with more things than the practical thing that's right at hand. I won't go into details about Myers Brigg personality types, but if you are an INFP, and you know it, you can probably understand. (The same goes for INTP and some other types.)

Absent-mindedness doesn't really mean the mind isn't working. The mind is actually working very hard ... on more than one thing. I comfort myself that I have something in common with a lot of brilliant people who gained reputations as being absent-minded -- great inventors, great writers ... There's a reason why there is such an expression as the "absent-minded professor."

Even so, "absent-minded" seems like a negative trait, while creativity is considered a positive one. I've been thinking that a person's strengths and weaknesses are often very closely related. In fact, sometimes the same trait can be described in both negative and positive terms. For example, a person could be called stubborn, but the positive counterpart to "stubborn" is determined or persistent.

Well, I've described my character Jack Donegal, of Jack Donegal Mysteries, as absent-minded, and now you know I do not have to look far for inspiration.

In the afternoon, as I was putting away Saturday's picnic things, my lunch box and FreezPak, and so forth, I decided to save my pretty Blossom Water bottle. I am sometimes tempted to save pretty bottles, thinking they can be recycled as vases. This one, I think, with some flowers in it, would make a nice centerpiece for a girls' tea party.

I put it on my shelf of knick knacks where I already have a couple of other bottles saved, an Arizona green tea bottle and a unique bottle for some Japanese strawberry soda.

The handsome Air Force man in the central frame is my nephew Bill.

The strawberry soda bottle is a unique one. It holds a glass marble that drops down from the top when you open the soda and gets trapped in a narrow section of the bottle's neck. It can roll back and forth in a narrow little space but can not drop down any further. I don't think it serves any purpose other than to be novel. I bought it at a little Asian specialty store that sold bubble teas and Japanese snack foods. I suppose it's pretty useless as a vase, but it is interesting. Perhaps, I won't save it forever, but it's on my shelf for now.

I've saved bottles off and on, but, at one point, I felt I had a few too many of these and tossed a bunch. I did have some "limited edition" old-fashioned Coke bottles, and I think these may be among the ones that got discarded. I wish I had saved them now. For years, I held on to a bottle for China Cola, supposedly made from Chinese herbs, from a pizza place near my college. I eventually tossed it. I haven't come across the beverage since, but I did find an image online.

A few years ago, my parents and I stopped at a Cracker Barrel while on vacation, and we picked up some "retro" sodas at the shop there. I persuaded them to keep the bottles and put them on display in the den where we already had some antique bottles my cousin Kevin had given them.

The blue bottle is an antique and has "Merson's Drug Company" molded onto it.

I've been raised by a woman who is not a saver and has more of a Clean Sweep philosophy. Collections can get out of hand. Thank God for Pinterest where you can virtually collect all sorts of things without creating clutter.

Slice of Life: Book Thoughts, Writer Gifts, Hiking with Friends, Wildflower Meadow, Picnic

September 2, 2017

Mom woke me up on the intercom this morning to tell me she was confused with her Kindle. She came across a word she didn't know and remembered about the dictionary feature on the Kindle, but when she looked up her word, she then lost her place in her book. It took me a while to crawl out of bed and then reach for the phone on the side of the desk furthest from the bed.

“Where were you?” she asked, when I picked up the phone.

“In bed.”

“Why'd it take you so long?”

“I had to get up.” I'm not sure if my explanation made sense to her, but it did to me.

Mom and I both recently finished reading Laddie by Gene Stratton-Porter, and now she is reading Her Father's Daughter by the same author. She thought it might be the same book she'd read as a girl, and now she's certain it is.

The dictionary feature on her older model of the Kindle is a little bit troublesome. On my newer model, I can look up words without leaving the page I'm reading.

“She used the word bole for tree trunk,” Mom said of the author. “If she meant tree trunk, why didn't she just say tree trunk? I think the author's showing off her vocabulary.” Mom mentioned some of the plant vocabulary used. Gene Stratton-Porter is known for her "romantic outdoor stories" and knows a lot about botany and butterflies and birds, one of the things we like about her writing.

"She likes to write about characters who share her interest in nature," I said, but Mom thought there was more to it than that. 

Mom came across something even more objectionable later in Her Father's Daughter, and that is that the main character (and perhaps the author) has a strong prejudice against the Japanese, and the word "Jap" is used quite a few times. I didn't even know that term existed pre-World War II. That's disappointing, as I loved A Girl of the Limberlost and Freckles and now Laddie. I hope it's an attitude the character comes to change in the story, but we'll see. It's things like this that remind me not to idolize authors or singers or other people I might have some reason to admire. They're not perfect in every way. 

Later in the morning, I made myself ready for a hike at South Mountain Reservation with friends, Adrienne and Iris. We planned to have a picnic in the woods. My friend Debra had given me a cute insulated lunchbox which I had not yet initiated. The printed design features a vintage typewriter and the paper scrolling out of it reads "Get Carried Away." Now that I work from home, I don't have an every day need for a lunch box. I knew it would still be stowed away in the box she had mailed it in from Florida, and as I looked through the box, I made an interesting discovery. There was another small Christmas gift in there ... which I had not yet opened! It was a cute Victorian folding fan. I wanted to show it to Adrienne when she came, because she is a "fan" of the fan. At one point, she had tried to organize a girls' outing to an exhibit of fans, but it hadn't worked out.

I didn't want to carry the lunch bag loosely in my hand while hiking, so I found another bag I hadn't yet initiated, a Zumba cross-body bag that was given to me in my reporting days after covering a Zumba fundraising event. So, the combination of these two bags worked, one inside the other, but I had to find the proper footwear and the tread on my sneakers is wearing thin. I have two pairs of dance shoes that look like sneakers but aren't suited for hiking. The soles on these are made to slide on the dance floor. I dug around in my closet and found an old pair of Timberland boots I forgot I even owned and put those on my feet. As the fall weather hit when the calendar flipped to September, I thought I might need something more than a T-shirt, and the sweatshirt I selected has a writer's theme as much as the typewriter lunchbox does, a purple hoodie that reads "Weapons of Mass Creation" and displays a row of pens and pencils.

I make myself sound semi-athletic with my mention of Zumba bags and two pairs of dancing shoes and Timberland boots, but I have had mysterious symptoms over several months and haven't had recreational exercise in just as long. Just as mysteriously, I've begun to feel better.

I knew we had a tempting chunk of brie in the refrigerator, but, other than that and some other less French cheeses, not very much for the makings of a sandwich. I went out to the grocery store and bought some sliced ham and a wonderful whole grain croissant full of sesame and other seeds for my sandwich. Because I was feeling adventurous and there are so many interesting things in the store near me, I decided to try a drink I've never had before and a snack I've never had before. I decided on something called Blossom Water with pomegranate geranium essence and was probably partly intrigued by the beautiful fruit and floral designs on the bottle. I also bought Dang sticky rice chips in a coconut flavor which came in a snack bag big enough to share with friends. I made my sandwich on the croissant with brie, ham, Dijon mustard and mayonnaise.

There was one more thing I had hoped to pack, and that was a book of poetry. In a Grace Darby Mystery in progress, my English professor sleuth goes hiking in the woods with a poetry book, and this part is somewhat autobiographical. In previous solo hikes, I've brought a book of poetry with me. I downloaded two free or cheap poetry books onto my Kindle, one of nonsense verses by Edward Lear and one of 100 Favorite Poems by Dover Thrift Publishing. The nonsense poem collection wasn't my first idea, but silly ones seemed fun for sharing with friends. In the end, between running late and some other confusion, I skipped the "poetry in the woods" idea.

At home, last night, I read the beginning of Lear's The Jumblies.

They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,

   In a Sieve they went to sea:

In spite of all their friends could say,

On a winter’s morn, on a stormy day,

   In a Sieve they went to sea!

And when the Sieve turned round and round,

And every one cried, ‘You’ll all be drowned!’

They called aloud, ‘Our Sieve ain’t big,

But we don’t care a button! we don’t care a fig!

   In a Sieve we’ll go to sea!’

While I was at the store, things got a little crazy with our plan. Adrienne came to the door to pick me up, and Dad told her that I had gone out to buy a lunch, at least that's what I had told him to say. What Adrienne heard was that I had gone out for lunch, which must mean that I had gone out to meet them, and she left. After a bit of messaging back and forth and talking to Dad, he agreed to drive me over to the park and use the GPS feature on his new phone. It wasn't perfect in its navigation, and Dad wasn't always trusting it, so we took the scenic route and we passed a lot of the interesting recreational places in the area, the Turtle Back Zoo, the associated McCloone's Boathouse restaurant, mini golf and the zipline and ropes course. Finally, we met up with Adrienne and Iris. Dad rolled down his window and told them, "This GPS is good for two things, getting you lost and then getting you unlost."

We met at the dog park there, and Dad, who had looked over the map, advised us to look through the Meadow Sculpture Garden nearby. This was not my first time at South Mountain Reservation, but I had not been in this section and didn't know about a dog park or a wildflower meadow or a sculpture garden before today. There were a few sculptures near where we stood, but we were not terribly impressed by them. They were very modern. One looked like a column of lobster crates, and another looked like a teetering stack of pots. 

This one had "canoe" in the title, I think. 

We entered the fenced off area -- fenced to keep the dogs out -- and saw clearly marked signs for the Wildflower Meadow and a trail called the Lavender Loop. We went into the meadow first, and the path there was barely the width of a person with tall wildflowers on either side, sometimes swinging into the path. I wish I could identify as many plants as Gene Stratton-Porter, but we saw goldenrod and purple thistles and some daisy-like flowers. Some flowers we spotted by the path might have been a butterfly bush, I thought, and I noticed some little orange flowers that were somewhat bell-shaped and hollow inside that I could not identify. One impressive plant had dangling clusters of bright berries, but not of a variety we recognized or trusted to eat. The stem of this plant was just as fuschia as the berries, and Adrienne commented that this was my color and that I should grow some in the backyard and accessorize myself with it. 

Iris and Me

Adrienne at entrance to meadow

I really loved this area. Other things of interest were hidden away here and there among the flowers, a cozy little sculpted wooden bench, a birdhouse and a man-made station for pollinating insects. A central sculpture reminded me of a dress form. A second sculpture was called "Sunflowers." Adrienne called them "steel sunflowers," but we read "water bottles" among the materials in the identifying plaque, and then we saw the center of the sunflower was made up of clusters of water bottles. 

From here, we took the Lavender Loop and followed the lavender paint markings on the trees and occasional signs. Here and there were little informative signs on some plants or animals. One fun little part of the path was called a bog bridge, slightly raised planks that stretched on for quite a while. It all seems very dry at the moment, and one gulch we crossed is probably a creek at a wetter time of year. The bog bridge took us to the Aqua Loop, and here the trees were marked with an aqua green. Walking on the path, Iris shared one amusing incident in her life, the embarrassment of accidentally stumbling upon a nudist beach. Oh my!

I don't remember where along the path we were when we stopped for our lunch, but we found a nice boulder to lean or sit on, and my water bottle fit quite nicely into a little crevice in the rock. 

The girls and I (and this will include our friend Jin who is visiting her family in South Korea) hope to visit a couple of other parks in the near future, Verona Park for paddleboats and Anderson Park for an arts and crafts fair.

© 2017 Susan Joy Clark

Slice of Life: Adventures with a Cricket, Friend Outing, In-House "Geek Squad," New Book

August 30, 2017

I was in a happy mood this morning, cooking eggs while dancing around the kitchen to music I was only hearing mentally. There was a noisy little cricket chirping away at our tea and coffee station. I couldn't quite locate him, but after Mom and Dad were up, I joked that he sounded very close and I almost wondered if he was having a spa bath in my coffee cup, although I can't imagine he'd be so comfortable to keep singing in so hot a bath.

I listened to some YouTube music recommendations this morning, in an album of retro easy listening from the '60s. Two notable discoveries were “A Swingin' Safari” by Bert Kaempfert and “Murder She Says” by Ron Goodwin, a theme song for an earlier Agatha Christie Miss Marple show than the one I've been catching on Netflix. I say that these were discoveries, even though they're old, because they're new to me. The second piece has more of a danceable beat than I would, at first, associate with Miss Marple, but it's classy and even has some old-timey harpsichord sound in it.

I arranged to meet my friend Lisa today to go to lunch and on a drive with her to an address in Secaucus as a practice run for a drive she needs to make on Thursday. She spoke rather then typed her text message into her phone, and Autocorrect made Secaucus into “C Caucus.”

This morning, I asked Dad to set up the Kindle for PC app on my laptop, so that I could review my ebook file for Action Men and the Great Zarelda. Dad, our resident “geek squad,” was dividing his attention between helping Mom with her computer and helping me with mine.

So, I made myself pretty for my lunch date with Lisa in the mean time, even polishing my nails with an OPI color called Princesses Rule, a pale pink iridescent polish. Working at home, I ordinarily don't fuss too much with my appearance. My friend Gretchen says that every day is a party and that you must dress for it, and this seems like a nice and perky outlook. Putting polish on encouraged me to accessorize a little with a charm bracelet featuring charms in the form of a purse, high heeled shoe, perfume bottle, hanger and other girly fashion items.

Dad was successful in installing Kindle for PC on my laptop computer, and I had to return the favor. Dad wears compression stockings now after getting some treatment for a venous ulcer on his ankle which has now healed. It's been my job now to help put them on him, and it is quite an exercise as they are so tight and require a bit of tugging to get them on right. Dad told me I now had to “install” his stockings … “and configure them.”

I met Lisa at her house at noon, got in her car and she drove to the address in Secaucus. I learned that she has a new job as a visiting nurse for children with medical issues. Her new assignment, Tristian, lived at the address we were trying to locate. I learned she is a lot like me and doesn't enjoy driving into cities or highway driving. It was a little surprising since I would guess she is the bolder and braver of the two of us. She expressed I would make a good companion for her driving adventure, since I have such a calm personality. Later, she told me that, although she noticed I would sometimes grip the car door, at least, I refrained from making little gasps and other panic noises.

“I'm not going to like this,” Lisa told me, expressing her feelings on her future commute on more than one occasion. “No,” I said. “I wouldn't either.” I hope it will get easier for her. We did locate the apartment community where her little boy lives, and it is a fairly nice one with a central playground, and, apparently, indoor lap pool. “What is the good of that?” said Lisa, on the “indoor” part of that description which she picked up from a kind and helpful doorman.

We stopped at a Smashburger for lunch at Lisa's suggestion, which was ideal since I had a gift card here. Lisa ordered the basic burger and fries and a chocolate shake. I tried the New Jersey burger and Smashfries. The New Jersey burger has bacon, blue cheese, a combination of haystack onions (frizzled onions) and sauteed onions, lettuce and tomato on an onion roll. The Smashfries were flavored with rosemary, garlic and olive oil. Lisa told me she likes basics and doesn't like to “get too crazy” with food. I guess I like to get a little crazy.

Lisa and I prayed over our meal. I prayed for her new commute and new job assignment and for Tristian, and I thanked God for our friendship and time together. A very polite and friendly Smashburger worker hung by our table with a plate for one of us. “I saw you two praying and took a step back. You don't interrupt praying!” she said.

We smiled and thanked her and gave her some appreciative comments. I have a feeling the woman is a praying woman herself and was happy to see two others of a similar mind.

Lisa and I mostly got caught up on each other's life events. I talked mostly about my ghostwriting project, and Lisa gave me news about her husband who is in the hospital. Several times, Lisa had to remind me to eat, because I was doing more talking than eating.

We did a quick tour of Hobby Lobby after this, and Lisa found some miniature Christmas stockings for her cats and some fall fabric printed with scarecrows and pumpkins to cover her home desk. I didn't do any shopping but was happy to look around and have the company.

Once at home, I was able to review my ebook file for Action Men and theGreat Zarelda and uploaded it to Amazon. As before, I was told it might take 72 hours before it would go live on the Amazon site. I made an announcement it was coming soon on Facebook and got a few reactions from friends and fans, but before the evening was past, I learned it did go live.

I tried opening my file called Paloma's Story, for my ghostwriting project on Paloma Rambana, and it was in read-only format. I struggled, under Dad's instruction, to get it out of that format and into an editable one. I now have back-up files on the flash drive and some files Staples saved from the old hard drive on the laptop, and I'm guessing the latter are more up to date. I really didn't look it over to see if the file was up to date as I was so distracted by trying to change the format. I had to get Dad, the “geek squad,” to look at it, and he struggled too. It seemed to have something to do with the entire folder of files being in that read-only format and it affecting all of the subfolders. Dad was partly distracted by some other computer work, so we didn't get the issue resolved by the end of the day.

Paloma Rambana being awesome ... in spite of legal blindness.

At night, again, I heard the cricket in the area of our coffee and tea station and Keurig coffee maker. I moved each box of tea, asking, “Where are you, Cricket?” Dad added to this, saying, “We're coming for you, Cricket!” and immediately the chirping stopped as if the cricket was really intimidated by the sound of Dad's voice. It didn't stop for too long though. A little while later, he was chirping happily again.

I continued to move things around and when I moved a box filled with our refillable K-cups for the Keurig and held it to my ear, I was pretty certain the cricket was hiding in there. Dad came over, listened to it and agreed with me. “Be nice to him,” I said. Crickets don't seem as creepy to me as some other insects, and I actually like the sounds they make, even if I don't expect to hear them in the house. Dad picked up the whole box and carried it outside. I heard him tell the cricket, “We're giving you your freedom.” He sat on our front steps and removed the K-cups from the box one by one. When the cricket crawled up to the edge of the box, Dad gave him a little flick and said, “Goodbye.”

Later, Mom said that the cricket would probably find his way back to our garage and back into the house. “No,” I said. “He's going to find a girlfriend.” After all, isn't that why he was making so much noise, wooing a mate with his serenade? Somehow, I see a children's story in there somewhere and might come up with one if I thought on it.

Liebster Award

The lovely Diane Lynn of The Gratitude Letters nominated me for the Liebster Award.

In keeping with the Liebster Award tradition, I’ve been asked to follow the rules and keep the award going.

The rules are as follows:

1. Acknowledge the person who has nominated you for this award.
2. Answer the 11 questions that the blogger gives you.
3. Give 11 random facts about yourself.
4. Nominate other deserving bloggers.
5. Let them know you’ve nominated them.
6. Give 11 questions for the nominees to answer.

1. Coffee or tea?

Coffee. I drink coffee on most days, usually Dunkin' Donuts coffee, and have been drinking iced coffees in the summer weather. I also like tea and drink more of it when I'm sick or have a throat issue, but not exclusively only during those times. My favorite tea is Earl Grey. I like the romantic Victorian idea of a tea party and have visited several tea houses.

2. What was the last book you read?

Dream More by Dolly Parton. I don't often read celebrity-written books, but after a visit to Dollywood this summer, I was intrigued. It's an expansion of her commencement address at the University of Tennessee. I'm currently reading The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, part of the Lord Peter Wimsey series by Dorothy Sayers, and Crossing Boarders by Debra Sue Brice.

3. If you could only take one cd with you on a deserted island, what would it be? (Assume there is a cd player there.)

This is a tough one, because I'm eclectic and like music in different categories. It's hard to compare favorites in different categories because it's like comparing apples to oranges. I sometimes say that my favorite piece is Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Although I have other favorites in other categories, this one rates way up there, so I will say my desert island CD would be a Gershwin collection of his top hits that had both Rhapsody in Blue and selections from An American in Paris. Because the music is somewhat complex, I think I wouldn't tire of it as easily.

4. What is the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?

The first thing I do when I get up in the morning is go to the bathroom, which, I suppose, is not very interesting. Before this happens, I may pray a little bit and think of the day ahead. 

5. If you could be anything in the world when you grow up, what would it be?

This one is easy, an author who could actually live off her book sales. 

6. If you won a million dollars, what is the first thing you would buy?

I would buy a home, a house or condo. This would make sense since I don't have my own home right now. For some of the homes, even in my hometown, even a million dollars would  not be enough for their purchase, but a million dollars ought to be sufficient to buy some decent home with money left to spare.

7. Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses?

How did dear Diane come up with this one, I wonder. A Canadian goose, when it's being aggressive, can chase me away easily. A horse-sized duck, I imagine, would have a beak large enough to swallow my head. On the other hand, I'm attracted to what we call miniature horses that are still much bigger than duck-sized. Really miniature horses would be quite adorable, I think, even if they were fierce. I think I would scoop them up one by one and try to win them over with my cuddles and extremely amateurish horse-whispering skills ... whether they liked it or not. "Let me love you!" I imagine kicks from even miniscule horses could be painful. Keep in mind that I don't live in horse country. My mother, who is originally a Nebraska girl, had a different perspective. "Have you ever seen wild horses? Do you realize that they bite?" I hadn't considered the little horses biting before this, but I'm imagining Barbie doll horses come to life, and I think I could just close their snouts with a little pressure from my fingers, well, not all 100 of them at once. I still think I'd prefer to deal with tiny horses than a giant maddened duck. This is beginning to sound like a somewhat ridiculous fantasy story, "Susan the Giant Horse Whisperer Vs. An Attacking Army of Lilliputian Horses."

8. What is the last board game you played?

I last played You've Been Sentenced, a great game for writers, where you have to construct sensible sentences with the cards you've been dealt, each card containing a sentence segment, perhaps with several options, such as different verb conjugations.

9. What is the last movie you saw?

The last movie I saw in the theater was "Race" on Jesse Owens and the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

10. How would you describe yourself in three words?

introspective, creative, flexible

11. What is your favorite quote?

"Creativity is intelligence having fun." -- Albert Einstein

 Eleven Random Facts 

1. I'm the lastborn and have three older brothers who are 12, 10 and eight years older.

2. Over two summers, I taught English as a foreign language in Hungary and Latvia.
3. I've been in some sort of choir or singing group perpetually for 30 years.
4. In the past few years, I've ventured into singing solos. I am thinking to add some singing videos to my Youtube channel but would like a collaborator who could play a musical accompaniment.
5. I never learned true ventriloquism, but I've done puppet skits where I've unwittingly given viewers the illusion that I have.
6. I like spices and spicy cuisine like Mexican and Cajun, but I'm refraining from spices on my doctor's recommendation because I have gastritis.
7. I've studied French and Russian in school and have Rosetta Stone software for German.
8. I'm a big fan of Charles Dickens.
9. I find the Victorian period very interesting and like many of the designs inspired by this period.
10. I like browsing in antique stores but don't own any antiques.
11. I love old classic movies and especially enjoy Audrey Hepburn and Carey Grant.

My Nominees

My nominees are all bloggers whom I find interesting for different reasons. They are informative and inspirational.

Aleks K. Shaw

Traci Lawrence

Song Smith

Olivia's Catastrophe

Brices Mice

11 Questions for My Nominees 

1. Morning bird or night owl?
2. If money were no object, where would you most like to travel and why?
3. If your life were made into a movie, what actor or actress do you think should portray you?
4. How do you like your eggs?
5. Dog person or cat person?
6. What was your favorite thing to do/play as a child?
7. What is your best Christmas memory?
8. What movie can you watch over and over again?
9. What skill do you have that might surprise some people?
10. Winter or summer?
11. What are five of your favorite books? (Because I know I struggle to name just one.)

I like this idea of questionnaires. I think we should do this again, with or without an award.