You did it. Thank you

It seems that I can’t stop writing this blog just yet. My readership doubled from last Friday/Saturday so I guess I’ll stick around for a while longer.

This is October. There is only one October. The playoffs and World Series of Baseball. I am rooting for the San Francisco Giants and today they won their first playoff game against the Cardinals 3-0.

It was a TV sports day for me. I started to watch the UCLA/Oregon football game, but it was too depressing when the score was 21-3. It wound up 42-30, but as I went to UCLA and so did my husband and two of our children, I am a big UCLA fan.

I wonder just how many 76 year old women watch a college football game in the morning and the NLCS playoffs in the afternoon.

Then tonight I found a rather shocking video on Amazon. It is their first ‘series’ exclusively on Amazon for Amazon prime members. ‘Transparent’. It is the story of a Jewish family. The father, who is 70 has decided to come out of the closet and begin living as a woman.

The three adult children are all dealing with this in their own ways. Each ‘child’ has their own demons. It is a good story but it is practically pornographic and the language and actions are definitely Adult Only. Just about every deviant/kinky action is broached. And filmed in living color.

I hadn’t heard about this, but read about it in Entertainment magazine and got curious. You can ‘binge’ watch, as all nine episodes are available.

If you decide to watch this, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Good Bye for Now

Good Bye for Now. This will be my last blog. I stopped for a while, and then started again. I have decided it is just too much effort for so few readers. 

Each day this site tells me how many readers I have. Unless all my readers tell a couple of friends to read my blog and all of a sudden my readership doubles, this is it.

Sorry. It’s been fun to write this, but other than the fact that I enjoy writing down my thoughts, I really don’t think very many people will miss my talents.

For you loyal readers who do enjoy my writing, I have over 1000 posts and you can go back to square one and read them from the beginning, if you like.

New Life for an old Clock

Ten years ago I moved to Mexico and rented a beautiful furnished condo on the water. It was quite complete, but there were no clocks. As shopping was limited in Rosarita Beach, I went to the 11 peso store, which is like our dollar store.

There I found two clocks, one round and one square, and both in a very pale tourquoise. That was it. For ten years I have used these clocks and today I decided that as I never liked the color, it was time to fix that.

I was inspired by my favorite designer MacKenzie Childs. All her dishes and accessories are hand painted, so I figured that with a few nail polish colors, I could transform my mundane clocks into little works of art.

Unfortunately I painted the square one before I thought to take a before photo. However it was pale tourquoise. Now the sides are purple and the top and bottom are dark blue. You can see the original color around the inside edge.

Nail polish covers a multitude of sins and is very easy to apply to plastic.

Here is the ‘new’ clock.

Here is a photo of the round clock in its before mode. Boring.

But not now. It is not perfect, but sure looks like a lot more fun than before. I used these colors because that is what I had on hand. Here is a craft tip, paint the inside edge (purple ring around clock) first. You can hide your mistakes with the stripes. Also keep a nail polish remover soaked cotton pad and some cotton swabs on hand for cleanup. You and clock.

Gone Girl-The Movie

All I can say is Go See It. I went to the first showing today and the theater was 3/4 full, which for Hawaii is like saying full.

It is over two hours long, but I never once looked at my watch. I would not be surprised if Ben Affleck is up for an Academy Award for his role as the husband of the missing woman.

I read the book, and it is very true to the book. It was at the top of the best seller list for a year. I don’t want to spoil the story for you, if you are one of the twelve people in the United States who hasn’t read the book.

So go see it. It is a ‘murder mystery’ like you have never seen before.

Hashtag?

Lots of new words in the dictionary. Hashtag. Selfie, .com. Since Facebook and social media have made it popular to post every mundane thing going on in one’s life, the whole social interaction thing has changed.

When I was in high school and college, the only way to connect with someone was in person or on the phone. And as most families only had one phone line, and mother could listen in from another room, it wasn’t all that private.

Now that children have their own phones and know how to text with their thumbs by the time they are six, things have changed.

Last night I had dinner at the Olive Tree, a Greek restaurant. At the next table were four children ranging in age from three to five. One set of twins. Each child has his own phone. (my children would not have had their own phones, much less eaten Greek food when they were that age.)

When I was sixteen, I got my own Princess phone. It was blue and it lit up when it rang. I even had a separate line from my parents and I could talk in privacy and for hours.

I’ve only had a cell phone since I was sixty six and I still don’t know how to text with my thumbs. Oh, well, lots of seniors don’t even know how to use a computer.

Now that I have the new iPhone6, I am wondering what wonderful new features will be on iPhone 7.

Envelopes

As I was recycling (more later) a greeting card and putting it in a new envelope, I got to thinking about how I usually send a card to someone I love.

I purchase a pack of pretty envelopes in various colors. Usually there are enough in one pack to last a year. And I send a lot of cards. Plus I use e-cards.

I also buy sheets of pretty, interesting postage stamps. And I have lots of return address labels from all the charities that send me these.

First select the card you are going to use. I use recycled cards (or fronts of cards) when I can. I save greeting cards that family and friends have sent me and usually I can find the perfect card.

Just be sure not to send it back to the person who sent it to you. Now, If you can somehow cut around the signature and salutation, great. If not, you may have to just use the front of card and tape it to a piece of card stock the same size. Or just glue the sentiment on the back of the front.

Sometimes I write my own sentiment/personal poem or such and print it out on the computer/printer and glue this over the entire inside. You are allowed to change the occasion, if necessary. For example, a beautiful card with a floral on the front could be birthday or ????

You can type up a personal greeting and paste it over whatever is there. Such as ‘Happy 24th Birthday’. Or, ‘Get well soon, John, Mary and Susie are getting tired of making their own dinner’

Back to the envelope. I always try to coordinate the envelope, stamp, and label as to colors or theme. If this seems silly, just think how pleased you would be to receive a bright yellow envelope with a circus stamp and yellow/cancer address label.

No chance of a plain white envelope with a flag stamp bringing a smile to your face.

Gone with the Wind 75th Anniversary

My how time flies. Seems like just yesterday. GWTW is almost as old as I am. One year younger. I have read the book and seen the movie many times. When I was in Atlanta twenty years ago, I went to one of the GWTW shops and bought a stand up Scarlett and Rhett cutout, which I still have on my curio shelf.

In the photo they look huge, but really are ‘paper dolls’  12 inches tall.

There are screenings in theaters or you can buy the DVD Blu Ray. I think it is better viewed on a large screen. To get the full scope.

Yesterday I went to the first (2 pm) screening here at the Dole Cannery theater. It always brings back memories when I go there. When I was a little girl we used to go to the real Dole Pineapple Cannery and get fresh pineapple juice.

The theater was quite full. I would say about 3/4. $12.50 for the ticket and well worth it. It is over a four hour movie, with Intermission. The coming attractions showed all the ‘live’ performances of events you can now see in a theater near you. Everything from the Metropolitan Opera to the Bolshoi Ballet. Hmmm. (I have actually been to the real Bolshoi ballet).

I doubt that you could buy tickets to the Ballet or the Opera for $12.50 (with free parking).

GWTW is a wonderful story of the South and the period of slavery and the end of slavery including of course the Civil War. A little gory at times, as it does show the wounded soldiers dealing with no bandages, medicine, or chloroform as they faced amputation and worse. But it is the love story for all times. And the hats are amazing.

This was the first color movie to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. This was 1939. It won a total of ten Academy Awards that year.

At the beginning of the movie, there is a special addition of a rather long quiz about Gone with the Wind facts. Most of which I knew, as I am a huge fan of Scarlett and Rhet. But what I didn’t know, is that Hattie McDaniel, who plays Mammy, won an Oscar for best supporting actress, but she wasn’t invited to the premier because she was black. (She was the first Afro American to win an Oscar.)

Many black people boycotted the film, as it portrayed most of the slaves as a happy lot.

I also read somewhere that in 1939 the United States population was 132 million and 56 million planned to see this movie. I expected the audience to be ‘older’ folks, but it was a total mix of ages and genders. It is a great way to teach your mid school child US history, so they can better understand the Civil War.

And if you want to get really thrilled, just watch that famous Clark Gable kiss.

The movie ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ opens February 15, 2015 and I wonder if it will be around 75 years from now. Or any movie of this century so far?

Memory Trick

One of the best tricks for remembering up to ten items is so easy and fun, I thought I would share it with my Readers.

I have been using this for many years and it always amazes people when you perform for them.

First of all, your mind works very similarly to a computer. Images are much more easily remembered than random numbers. So you will now assign a picture to numbers one to ten. Easy, because the pictures look like the number. One is a magic wand, two is a swan, three is a three leaf clover, four is a chair, five is a five point star, six is an elephant’s trunk, seven is a flag, eight is an hourglass, nine is a pipe, and ten is a bat and ball.

Now let’s say you want to go to the market and you need milk, bread, tea, vinegar, bananas, tomatoes, lettuce and coco cola. Of course you could write all this down or try to remember everything, but here is how I do it.

Number one is magic wand. So if milk is your first item, visualize the milk doing something with the magic wand. Such as a magician waving his magic wand over his hat and pulling out a carton of milk. The actual thought should be bizarre, but it will take a millisecond to do this. Less time than writing it down.

Now when you go to the store and think Number one, you will see the picture and remember Milk. Don’t worry, you can delete these images after you don’t need them anymore. Just like you can’t remember what the headline was on yesterday’s newspaper.

Two is swan. Visualize the swan swimming in a lake filled with loaves of bread floating around. And so on. Just incorporate the number/picture with your item.

Now for the fun part. Write down numbers one to ten on a paper. Have a friend read you ten items. You write each one down as you are thinking of a word/picture in your head. So as you are writing bananas next to the number four, you are imagining a bunch of bananas sitting on a chair.

When you are done, give your friend the list. She can give you any number, and you will know the item. Or she can give you any item and you will know the number.

Have fun. Amaze your husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, kids. And yourself.

Nutri Bullet

After reading all the hype, I finally broke down and got a Nutri Bullet. On TV you get two for $119 plus s and h. At Costco you get one for $69.95.

Forgetting all their miriad health claims, it is a very powerful little machine with very easy on/off parts. Plus it is very easy to clean. It is not too huge and is a nice dull gunmetal color. The mixing cups have handles that just twist, on so you can drink from the same cup you mixed your drink in.

If you have ever cleaned a juicer, it is nothing like that. Just a rinse is all you need.

This machine is called an extractor, not a blender or smoothie maker. It actually grinds up the skin/seeds etc. and you get all the nutrients. Usually the most healthy parts of the fruits and veggies go down the drain or into the trash.

What got me was the picture of 1/8 cup of flax seed (which this machine pulverizes with all the fruits and vegetables). Anyway this little bit has more antioxidants than 60 cups of brocolli or 100 slices of whole wheat bread. You do the math.

So today I went to Good Earth, a health food market near the University of Hawaii. The people there all looked very healthy. Sort of old hippie types. I bought two each of spinach, kale, apples, strawberries etc. $60. Ans of course the flax seed, which comes all ground up like meal.

Woman said I could sprinkle it on my cereal. To test out my new Nutri Bullet, I ignored their book of recipes and decided to try a kale and red grape mixture. Yuck. It tasted exactly like wet lawn.

Next time I will start with two leaves of Kale and a bigger variety of fruit Plus the addition of honey or maple syrup couldn’t hurt.

469.95

I did it!

I got my iPhone6 today. I ordered it on Tuesday from ATT and it came by Fedex today (Thursday). The store here said they wouldn’t have any phones for two months.

I amazed myself by setting it up, restoring my old phone to zero, and activating service.

I think it is a beautiful piece of equipment and I know I will enjoy using it. The box itself would make Steve Jobs very proud.

It is very thin and much larger than the iPhone5. (which was larger than the iPhone 1.2.3.4.)

As there are no instructions, I will have to go online to learn all the features.