Old movies and puttering

 As I live my way through this "whatever it is" crud... feeling better or worse day by day... I've been avoiding news and watching old movies.  Let's see, I watched Ivanhoe, the 1982 version Saturday. I noted as I did that I understood it a whole lot better at 71 than I did at 8 or nine when my folks took me to the movies (earlier version).

Funny thing about that... I think I was in second grade at the time and I considered myself a good reader so having seen the movie, I decided to check the book out of the little library five blocks from our house.  Shall we say it was a bit above my reading level at the time.  I wonder what I would think of it today.  Sir Walter Scott... am I up to you now?

I also indulged in watching Harvey, always a gentle flick, and one of my ex-husband's favorites.  I do like gentle humor.

I think it was Sunday morning that I was awake before four a.m., but went down for a nap by 7 a.m. and got up for good at 9:30.  I cleared out the recycle bins into brown paper bags, and broke down the corrugated cardboard boxes.  All loaded into the car, but then I decided not to go drop them off at the high school center.  Give myself another day of healing first, but it feels good to have empty bins in my kitchen corner, for a while.

I enjoyed watching the Puppy Bowl in bits and snatches, too.

Super bowl was a family watch party, messaging back and forth.  This started because of a generated graphic NFL ad with football players doing "bird-like things" (Eagles and Ravens).  Paused here at the start of overtime!

Well of course everyone thought of Lacey (my daughter in law) at once.  Kid sis (The Grateful Girl) immediately sent a text message to that effect.  I messaged the small family group, too.  Meanwhile, at their house, my son had called his wife in from the kitchen to see the ad.  She was using the distraction of cooking to avoid the boredom of the game.  Same daughter in law who picks her teams based on the mascot being a bird of some species.

The game proceeded with various of us chiming in opinions about the various ads that were shown, as well as any "rooting" comments, including comments about the actual grass on the field staining those nice white uniforms and the strip tease of the Usher half time performance.  I missed the top two layers of style (Nancy Reagan, Jackie Kennedy) because I was brushing my teeth.  By the time I turned around to actually watch the TV again, we were down to bare abs on Usher!  

When the game went into overtime, my daughter in law bowed out in favor of bedtime.  She's not a big sports-ball fan, and she is an early riser!  Monday is a work day for her!

I stayed up later than usual due to interest in the game!  It was a great 5th quarter!  And "my" team won.  There were fireworks in the neighborhood... lots of pops and booms... following the game as it is after all, kind of Chiefs Kingdom around here.

Am I getting better?

Monday morning was health assessment time, as I had the appointment for a mammogram for 3:30 p.m.  I called and asked how long I'd have to wait if I rescheduled, and they had something in just a couple of weeks, so I moved it.  

The real test came after lunch, when I took those recycles to the drop off site.  When I came home, I had a couple of big coughing fits.  So it was a good decision.  It's got me thinking I might also wave off tomorrow's trainer workout.  I am getting better, but slowly.  The old saw about if the illness is all above the neck, it's OK to work out, but if it's below the neck, don't.  Well, this is chest level, so that's a no.  Unless of course it's much improved by Tuesday morning.

Random topic:  Dreaming

Am I unique in having dreams about elevators and stairs?  This seems to be a recurring theme... the elevator doesn't go to the floor I want and the staircase is missing steps or whatever, or doors are locked.  I muse about whether this is the brain's way of repairing pathways, via dreams.  Some of them involve parking garages, some of them office buildings.  I've even had a few where the elevator goes outside the building and up and around the top floors.

What are your oddest (clean) dream themes?

That's enough for today!  Life is good!  Spring is almost here.  Spark on!

Researching before the Super Bowl

Friday evening, with a cough keeping me awake, I was bored.  That's my excuse.

Now let me explain.  I live in BIG Red Nebraska Husker Country.  This overlaps with KC Chiefs territory.  We have been watching commercials starring Patrick Mahomes and what's her name's boyfriend who catches his passes for a looooong time.

Taylor Swift... oh, yeah, I had heard "Shake it off" years ago, but confession, I'm a terrible music fan.  I can spot a song I like and not acknowledge the artist.  I know this is terrible, from a marketing perspective, but I've been this way since I couldn't tell you whether a song was performed by the Eagles or Queen...

Anyway, I kind of wrote off Taylor Swift as a "country" artist a long time ago, but I knew who Travis Kelce was.  And when they made a big deal of his mom rooting on BOTH her sons in the playoffs against one another a couple of years ago, that was interesting, too.  In other words, I'm more a football fan than a music fan.

Which is funny, because music plays in the background of everyone's life almost all the time!

In any case, in my bored state of mind, I started checking out YouTube videos and I discovered that the Kelce brothers host a podcast together!  And they are both articulate and say interesting things.  Kind of like their mother.  Being the mom of a son, I can certainly understand her influence in their lives.

So, having encountered this, suddenly my feed was filled with interviews of Taylor Swift, and clips of her songs, and started checking THOSE out.  Surprise!  This didn't exactly turn me into a "Swiftie", it did garner respect for the intelligence, drive, and talent that this woman who is younger than my son has demonstrated!  Of course her feminism vibed with my own youth.  In my youth our big issues were related to school dress codes. 

In any case, I'm all researched up now, and ready for the Super Bowl and its commercials and other distractions.  I'll be sitting home with my cat and my hopefully a lessening of symptoms for the Puppy Bowl and the football game.

Here's wishing health and safety for all... whether you like or don't the music or the football of two grown people whose relationship is quite honestly nobody's business but their own.

Life is good.  Spark on!

Under the weather

Miaow!  Where's my breakfast!  Want soft food!

Mom's been under the weather... this is The Prisoner meowing at everybody!  She says she can't go out in crowds, and she catches everything anymore.  She used up two at home Covid tests this week, both negative, but they were about to expire anyway, so why let them gather dust?

Meanwhile, across town, posted photos of the fashion show, starring Carl.  Sigh... his expression shows he's long-suffering for his humans' silliness.

Hoody and jammies!  If he were a cat, he would never put up with this!

Somehow a hunting breed doesn't look "right" in clothing, to my way of thinking.  Their eyes seem to plead: "really?"

That's about it from here... quiet house, except for the coughs, sneezes and loud nose blowing.  

But mom says, "life is good".  Purr... and Spark... on!

Thoughts on getting older

Last weekend

As we age, things change.  As our children are adults, we do things so we can connect with them.  In my case, this means I go to bars more often than I ever did in my youth.  How often?  Maybe four or five times in a year?  If you count the dog bar visits, the birthday outings, etc.  This one, on Sunday January 28th, was a joint party for my daughter in law and her dad.  They called it the 70-40 party.  I sat with my son as these kinds of things are among the times I actually get to see and talk with him.

Observation of one change:  a sugar-hangover lasts longer.  Tuesday morning I was still dealing with after effects.  Sigh.

Observation of another change:  vocabulary.  I found myself writing a review of Cassidy Hutchinson's book, Enough.  I called it a "coming of age" story.  She was 24 or 25, post-college.  Coming of age is happening later and later in my mind.  It's not a 14 - 16 year old getting through high school or finding puppy love, it's a professional figuring out what her priorities are, and having to leave behind one support structure to live with herself.  I have gone through transitions like this, periodically, over my seven decades on the planet.  Every transition brings change.  I'm still "coming of age", in my 70's.

Confession, I grew up in a Republican state, with Republican parents.  Consequently, I found it easy to identify with this idealistic young woman.  It reminded me of something that happened with my dad during Nixon's presidency.  

Son and mom thought:  Lacey's grandma was there to honor her son's 70th birthday.  

If I were to be present for my son's 70th birthday, I would be over 100 years old.  

By the way, the date of the party was not the date of either celebrant's birthday, they looked for a date "between" and that was the day they arrived at.  This is big KC Chiefs country, by the way, so folks were sneaking looks at video on their phones to check the progress of the game, but they still came!

I had written this part of the blog early in the week, on Tuesday, I think.  Then I went dark.

This weekend

Fast forward... got e-card from a reader checking up on me... so, time to pick up the traces after my "cave" time the rest of the week.  What dragged me out of the cave was a pre-arranged women's basketball outing, with my friend Gerri.  Yes, the same Gerri I go kayaking with in the warm seasons, and have walked the 6 miles of the state games "Volkswalk" with.

I had forgotten who we were playing.  Turns out it was Rutgers.

We were a bit "drowned rats" in our proof of presence selfie, before all of the crowd had arrived.  Turns of the precipitation that we really do need came as rain, so we were walking through the rain from the car to the arena, and it was still raining after, as we walked back.

Not too bad a crowd, considering the weather and that it's women's sports (but then again, Nebraska is pretty good at supporting our women's sports... remember Volleyball Day last August?)

The game was hard fought, with swings back and forth.  It was tied at the half, and then Rutgers went on a great run in the 3rd quarter and we were down by 11 as the 4th quarter started.  Yikes!

The Husker women fought back in the fourth quarter.  It ended in a heartbreaking 1 point loss for us.

Anyway, I have not fallen off the edge of the earth, but I have been in a writing slump, for a variety of reasons.  I actually have been reading more the past couple of weeks, not blogs (which, sadly, I'm behind on), but books.  I'm on a UK-written romance at the moment, as a swing back from the political/moral drama of Cassidy's book.

But all in all, Life is still good.  News is scary.  So, in self-defense and as part of self care... Spark on!