Living In the World, Not on It

The Blue Memory Meme, Part Two Welcome back to Sunday Stealing which originated on WTIT: The Blog authored by Bud Weiser. Here we will steal all types of memes from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent memes. You may have heard of the expression, “honor amongst thieves”. In that age-old tradition, we also have our rules. First, we always credit the blog that we stole it from and we will “fess up” to the blog owner where we stole the meme. We also provide a link to the victim's post. (It's our way of saying "Thanks!") We do sometimes edit the original meme, usually to make it more relevant to our global players, to challenge our players, sometimes to select that meme's best questions, or simply to make it less repetitive from either this new meme or recently asked questions from a prior featured meme. Let's go!!! Today we ripped off a blogger and...

Several times recently, “Thanking God” has been a trending topic on Twitter. What if you had to list seven things from the past week that you’re thankful for in your own life? Could you do it? That’s this week’s challenge! Be sure to check back this week and click on the links of bloggers who play along in the comments below! It’s a great way to find blogs you may not have visited and to keep the conversation going! Here is this week’s “ Sunday Seven ” question. Either answer in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your blog (with a link here), and then comment here with a link back to your blog so that everyone else can visit! Permission is not granted to copy the questions to message boards for the purpose of having members answer and play along there. Enjoy! THIS WEEK’S QUESTION : Name seven things you’re thankful for this week. Wow. seven things in one week that I'm grateful for... hmmm. That is a tough one. 1. Sunny weather with low humidity. This s...

"Welcome to Saturday: 9 . What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love memes, however, and here is today's meme!" Saturday 9: The Devil Went Down to Georgia 1. Do you believe in the concept of the devil? No, not really. I do believe in entropy, but not in a semi-human form. 2. What's your favorite nickname that you're called? Ash Can, Ash Tray, Tr'Ash 3. What would you do if someone cheated on you? The rules are simple: don't pick up anything you can't put down. I have a clear understanding of human sexuality and don't have any problems with it, but protection is mandatory. 4. Do you ever cry at...

In the 2004 Old Farmer's Almanac, which I get the moment it comes out and read cover to cover, I read about the transit of Venus across Sol. This is an astronomical event that only comes around once every 105.5 to 121.5 years . It's a two-part event, however. The first return comes and then exactly two days short of eight years later, the second transit follows. And then comes the century plus wait. The Moon transits across the sun about once a year. Mercury transits across the sun 13 times each century. Venus, the last of the planets to do this, does it only 13 times every 1,000 years. (Outer planets from our point of view cannot transit across the sun - they need to have their orbits within ours. Imagine the number of transits we'd get to see from Pluto!) In December 1874 and 1882, Venus came to do its transit for the world and people (mostly astronomers) were treated to this rare sight. Venus missed the 20th century completely to revisit us in 20o4 and next year... and w...

When I first left work, I had this puzzle I was working on. At the time I left, I barely had Spring completed. It was creeping along... Notice my blog has been creeping along and suddenly this month I've posted a month's worth in a mere 14 days? That is a LOT of free time. I've actually had a lot of free time over the last three months, but I haven't really felt good about it. I figured with enough time I would reach the "I feel better about this point" and while I might still kinda get down about it, in general, I would start to feel better. (Wow. What a poorly structured sentence that is...!) Well, I have reached that point. Not that I didn't think I would. I just did not know how long it would take. It feels so much better to be more my sunny self again. Like I said, I may get down about it again, but at least it will be temporary. I suspect I'll feel it more in the winter. I thrive on sunlight. We have the longer days now, so I'm thriving. An...

"I happen to believe that a life unexamined is a life not worth living. I also happen to believe that a life examined will cause an incredible amount of heartache. With that dilemma in mind, here's where my examination has gotten me so far. The only real progress I've made as a human being came at those times when my carefully constructed ego was completely shattered by people and/or events. Unfortunately, that progress was always short-lived because each and every incident of ego deflation was followed by years of building up a stronger, more resilient replacement. Son, friend, athlete, musician, rebel, space cadet, husband, daddy, TV writer-producer, divorced guy, jerk, smart guy, wiseguy, fool, seventeen handicap, success, failure are all false selves because they are fleeting processes with no real substance or permanence. So where does this leave Chuck Lorre? Egoless? I wish. But it does make one think, maybe Prince was on to something when he shed his ...

I love men! OK, people who do good deeds are driven to do them, and usually for personal reasons - and in some way, all self-serving. Donating to a group to assuage guilt for the death of a loved one, adrenalin junkies, being surrounded by men/women, whatever. People are human, and we are driven for reasons, not just pure, unadulterated generosity. Mostly I'm driven by adrenalin, but I'm not one to pass up the company of men! And EMS is full of men. We love EMS. We love what we do. We love telling war stories. We confide in each other. When I joined the squad I went from being an only child to having a unique set of brothers and sisters and friends. There are always some points of friction... there are some people we may not like, but we all get passed most of it to do the job. And we all help each other through the weird stuff. And then there are the men. Today we went with Parsippany's Rescue & Recovery to do a diving drill. There were six divers and four of them were...

That makes it sound like I sat in a dark room, glued to the computer, eyes wide open and affixed to e-bay. In fact, other than Friday's countdown to sharking that incredible crystal point, I hardly looked at e-bay. Most of what I bought fell into the $10 - $15 range. I needed anklets now that I'm wearing skirts so I found a lot of nice, inexpensive anklets that went from $0.99 to $14.99. One was $44.10 but the whole thing is sterling silver and I have a bracelet that matches; I like sets when it comes to jewelry. (I should search for footprint earrings and necklace, too, come to think of it.) I bought seven candles (including the grapefruit rosemary pillar for the uncontested amount of $17.50) and one, the Beanpod Green Tea candle, arrived yesterday and is filling the sun room with its delicious aroma. I won that lovely quartz point, which will come to a great home, along with another rainbow obsidian sphere stand. I can never have too many stands. In fact I need to get more, ...

As you., my few readers know, I went to Philadelphia Tuesday afternoon, had my doctor appointment at 0800 and left shortly after to return home. We drove down Route 287 for a while until the navigator, harboring its own thought-processes on how to get there, took us off the highway and put us on Route 206 South, which was, in short, a nightmare. We passed through small towns; many, many traffic lights, all of which turned red just for us; cows; farms; open fields... it was boring, long and complete with schoolbusses, the root of all evil where road travel of any kind is done. I wanted off of those backroad, backwoods lanes NOW! Eventually we made it to Route 95S (the other Route 95S - don't ask!) and there I happily took my chances with the local constabulary doing 80 - 85 the remaining distance until we reached Route 30 in Philly. Then the wretched traffic confined my speeding to low but steady numbers. That, and sheer stress - I hate driving in cities. Any city, really, but espe...

Yes, I know, not my usual flavour of show. But, as with so many shows, this is all Luis' fault! A few Sundays ago, a new off-season show (guaranteed to keep people as television junkies throughout their days) started called Drop Dead Diva . At first I thought this is some wierd teenage depressing soap opera like The Life of the American Teenager (total garbage) or 90210 but this surprised me. Luis liked the premise and when he told me about it, I could not miss the opportunity. A young, cute, perfectly figured woman is killed and in a mix up where she thought she'd be going to heaven, she reached forward, hit the enter key on a keyboard and ended up alive again... in the not perfectly figured, young or cute body of another woman. The person she becomes? A successful lawyer who earns big money, has quite the brain, weighs more than I do and is not fast-tracking it to becoming a model. Here is the fun part: the diva, Deb, cute, sexy, brainless and vacuous, now has Jane's ov...

25 June 2009 0850 EDT Flight #CO (I've forgotten) from Newark, NJ to Phoenix, AZ I have no idea what the local time is, since there is not a running monologue kept at 36,000 feet. No big deal – flying itself is joy enough. It started out well enough and took no time at all to sail through the seemingly permanent cloud cover that New Jersey has been mired in for ages. It was a welcome sight to see blue sky and the cloud layer under us. Sweet relief! This is a mid-sized airplane, not a puddle jumper but not a jumbo jet by any means. The seats are just what you’d expect when not flying first class. I suddenly wish I’d been willing to pony up the $1,800 to fly first class… but that is patently absurd and in some ways, not worth it. My riding companions are diverse. Originally there was a whiny young kid in front of me (always a heartwarming experience… kill, kill…), and the mother kept lying to the two- or three-year-old, who liked enunciate, “NO!” anytime a plane flew away. Why people...

What would make me say that? This! If you are wondering who that is, it's me. How do I know? Well, that wretched painting made it onto the local Wayne HS channel in 1985 or 1986, because it somehow ended up there after an art show and no one knew whose it was. (I find that a bit hard to believe, as I am distinctive looking - not in a model or famous person type way, but just easily recognisable throughout the ages). This was when I was working on it in Mrs Hughes' art class. And how else do I know? It's been a while, but I do remember life with just one chin. And normal, even (dare I think it) perky boobs. (We are dating ourselves now!) And the hair... I paid less attention to it then than now, hard to believe. I'm as indifferent as ever to fashion. I never made much of an attempt to care about it anyway. Funny to see me that age. I looked happy there, and happiness in high school was fleeting, to grabbed at whenever possible. It's painful to recall those days, when...

Last night we had the Wetdown for Car 65 (Parsippany's Volunteer First Aid Squad) and Car 69 (Parsippany's Rescue and Recovery Squad). Here are some of the highlights. The truck in the foreground is 65's new ambulance. The monster behind it is 69's new toy. More fun and games among firefighters. It's all in great fun - but this is by and far the most boisterous I've ever seen it get. I've been to at least a half-dozen of these things, including our two. Heaps of fun! The new Heavy Rescue rig. This one has all the trappings except a winch, but you can attach a rolling winch to it! Me and Nan standing with their new baby. More soakings for the different firemen. One of the Roxbury Trucks getting in on the action... The fire departments want to dump water on anything , so shortly after soaking the new trucks, they'll happily soak each other. It gets a lot more out of hand than this. Hello, Nick. Here's from Car 65... but you likely guessed that.....

I'm reading Erma Bombeck's Forever, Erma , which is a book compiled from various articles whe wrote. How many of you under 40 know who Erma Bombeck is? Show of hands? All of you. Yes, I know. Every day that I scoff and laugh at aging and say that I refuse to let it get me down, there is another example of why some cultures have ritual suicide at a specific age... Anyway, in it is one article entitled Marching to a Different Drummer , dated November 3, 1979. She talks about her one son, who didn't fit into any of those typical descriptions of kids. That's me. I'm the baby who used the stuff in my diapers to draw on the walls. I'm the kid who threw a rabbit skin (very soft and fluffy) out the car window and yelled, "Furs flew away!" I'm the kid who played in the dirt, hated girlie clothes (as you can see, little has changed that way), and traipsed around the house in my mother's work clothes... a sequined bikini (she was a go-go dancer. What, are...

The best image went up a couple of days ago, so there was no reason to post it here. Our installation dinner was a success, and I think all who went had a great time. The food was excellent, the drinks flowed, dancing was ongoing and everyone was smiling and having fun! What more can one ask for? Our youth squad, all beautifully dressed for the event and ready to show us old-timers how to really get down and party! The conga line. Luis is sorry he missed that! Jack from Car 69 and me having a good time! The Macarena at full strength and me front and center. I'm not the best in show for this but I know the steps and have a lot of fun doing it. I enjoy the coreographed dances like the Macarena , Cotton-eyed Joe and others. My five years of service award - yay! It's hanging in my office at work with my high calls plaque from 2005. Next year I hope to squeeze in another high calls one. It feels good! I'm not exqctly sure of the signifigance of the paper bag with the smiley...

Wahoo!! It's that time - time for the Installation Dinner for Parsippany's Roackaway Neck First Aid Squad! It's the one night of the year that all of us are off and get to have a great time at a restaurant with dancing, music and (for most) alcohol. We all work hard when we are on, but boy can we party with the best of them! I'm so dressed up, no one'll recognise me! The dinner is a little later in the year than usual - this is generally a winter event, February or March. But any time of the year is fine for a good time, really, and it is rare that these dinners disappoint. There will be representatives of other squads there and all kinds of awards given and swapped - oh, hey! I may be getting one - five years of service - so I won't be left out. And the officers on the Executive Board will be sworn in to office (despite the fact that we have held them since December 2008) by... it should be the Mayor of Parsippany but I'm sure I'd heard he couldn't ...

Week Number 155 1) What is the cause that you believe is the most worthy of all? World peace? Oh, wait, wrong thing... I don't know. Many of them are very worthy, and who am I to say that one is more so over another? 2) How would you change the way you were disciplined as a child? I wouldn't. My parents never struck me and I didn't grow up to knock over a bank or pick up a drug habit. I also was never told, "If you do this, you will have to leave" or anything like that. My parents also told me that when I was ready to have sex to bring the man home, so that things could not get out of hand, I could just yell for them. I tell you now I had the best parents I could ask for. 3) What is your greatest virtue? Vice? I am not sure that I have any... certainly not patience... Um, honesty. I may keep to myself what I need to but I never sugarcoat or lie to the employees, the patients, my family and/or friends. I think being up front is a good quality. Vice... whew. How muc...