Where Did We Come From

So my sister, her two sons and I had DNA profiles done.  The surprise for me, was to be 39% Scandinavian. Maybe that explains why I felt so at home in Iceland.  I knew Great Britain would play a major role.  There was a family legend that my mother's mother was half native American, nothing in the DNA of the four of us shows that to be true.  My sister has been in contact with third cousins, from my grand-mother's, father's side of the family.  Immigration and a century of time, and we know so little about from whence we came.  

Have you done a DNA test yet?

Random Thoughts

It does the mind and body good to take a break, sit in the square, indulge in something refreshing, and watch the world go by for a few minutes. 

What do I like in a blog posting?  A nice photograph or image.  I am a very visual person, a blog posting that rambles on for pages of uninterrupted text does not work for me.  If I want to read a book, I will pull out my Kindle.  

Some days I am tempted to go by the White House with a sign that says, "Remember to Take Your Meds!"  Based on the behaviors, most of them need meds, and NONE of them take them.

I have returned from 10 days off from blogging.  I know there was not a gap in my blog, I was that far ahead.  I am in the midst of getting that far ahead again. 

Why do business websites lack real contact information?  I was looking at one recently and had a terrible time finding the location of their retail store in Chicago, I am going to be in Chicago and I am interested in buying their product.  No one lists an email address on their website.  I know an email address online will bring lots of Junk Mail, but it will also bring email that generates business.  Communications, missing a major communications link. Businesses pay more attention to social media trolls, than real customers trying to contact them by email.  

What is on your mind today?   

I remember

I remember the first time I saw a picture of Mt St Michele.  I was about 5 and my father was rebuilding an airplane with a lifelong friend of his.  The wings were in the dinning room of Bob's house.  A painting of Mt St Michele was in the hallway.  I fell in love with it.  I had no idea where it was.  There was no explanation of the painting.

Decades later, after my first visit to Normandy, I had a collection of photos published in a book and gave my parents a copy for Christmas.  My father showed the book to Bob, he cried and then explained.  He was in a landing party on D-Day, he watched his friends drop around him in a hail of machine gun fire.  He had bought the painting when he went to back to Normandy after the war to accompany with the remains of his buddies being returned to the states.  The painting was a reminder to him of the beauty of a place that saw so much horror.    

Longing

No secret that this spring is a heavy travel cycle for me.  Unusually so, three personal trips and eight work trips in the first 6 months of 2018.  All on the same airline.  I am going some nice places - places I see a little of here and there, only a couple of free personal days in the trips.  They leave me longing, longing for a week or two off, in someplace iconic.  I was looking at vacation apartment rentals in Rome the other day, when my boss walked into my office to talk.  Oh the frequent flyer miles I am piling up. 

Where do you long to go? 

The Shoes!

I worked in the ladies shoe department in a department store for several months one year.  The experience left it's mark on me.  I notice things, but then who could overlook these? 

Do you notice people's shoes? 

The Answers to the Sunday five: 1b,2a,3c,4c,5a. 

Dare to be different

Tucker dared to be different, to take on the established automakers, to challenge the norm. He innovated in design and safety.  The establishment saw him as a threat and pushed back, ultimately the company went out of business, but he left his mark.  You see this, and you immediately what it is, and the story behind it.  

How are you daring to be different? How are you leaving your mark? 

Bull!

I was born and spent most of my childhood in a very rural area.  We were surrounded by farms.  My family had a farm, sort of a funny farm.  When I was in the 8th grade, I went to school in Florida for 5 months.  One of the core classes was agriculture.  Despite growing up in a rural area, that was the only agriculture class I ever took. We started out by learning the correct names for farm animals by gender.  Hence I know that is a bull above (male of the bovine species.) 

This weeks five:
1: In cattle, is female who has not had a calf is referred to as: 
                    a: a cow
                    b: a heffer 
                    c: a virgin 
2: In honey bees the male is referred to as:
                    a: a drone
                    b: a bull
                    c: a drake 
3: In pigs (swine) a female is a sow, a male is referred to as:
                    a: a bull
                    b: a buck 
                    c: a boar
4: In cattle a Steer is a:
                     a: male 
                     b: female
                     c: castrated male 
5: What animal mates for life?
                      a: queen bee
                      b: rabbits 
                      c: geese 
I will post the correct answers in a day or two. 

Sedimentary People

Our lives are built in many layers.  Our heritage and early childhood.  Growing up and schools.  Our family and friends.  Further education.  The work we have done. Our loves. Our wins and losses. Our accomplishments and failures.  The adventures we have experienced.  We build up kind of like sedimentary rocks, one layer at a time.  

What did I leave out?  The opposite of love, I don't have room, time or space for reflecting on that layer in my life. In the words of the Bard, breath in, breath out and move on. 

What layer do you not have room or time for in your life? 

How did they do that

When I see this, and I think of the decades of work that have done into trying reassemble this temple, using modern machinery, and am amazed at the amount of work that has been done and that needs to be done.  Then I stop and think, how did the Ancients build this thing without machines?  It is on top of a tall hill, with steep cliffs, how did they get the stone up there, how did they cut it, raise it into place?  If time travel was possible, spending a couple of days watching this being built would be a great adventure.  

Would you time travel with me? 

Routine or Rut?

We are creatures of habit, we like routine, a regular schedule, the comfort of knowing what we are doing.  After a while, routine can turn into a rut.  One book I read suggested simple things, taking a different route to work, stopping to look in a different store, going someplace different for lunch, walking around the block in a different direction to introduce novelty into our lives and stimulate our creativity.  

My Saturday routine, is get up, read blogs and FB, go grocery shopping, come home put things away, start laundry, go to the gym, and write blog postings and fiddle on the computer all afternoon.  I have done that 45 Saturdays a year for 8 years.  The last two weekends, we did something different.  Jay was here for spring break, we hung out in the morning, went to lunch, then grocery shopping, laundry, gym and blogging.  That little change of going to lunch then shopping opened new doors.  A new routine, or will it be a new rut? 

What is your Saturday routine? 

Traffic

It's spring school tour group season in DC, the annual pilgrimage of hundreds of thousands of yokels from Nowheresville to a major world capital.  It use to be just high school seniors and the occasional band, these days the school groups start in their early teens.  They arrive by bus, generally stay in suburban hotels, frequently near subway stations.  There is noting quite so fun as a hundred, sleep deprived, lost in the big city, away from home for the first time feeling their hormones teens, crowding into the subway at morning rush.  They all try to cram into the same car, afraid that if they don't they will get lost and never find their way back.  There are worse places to be lost.  

At this time of the year, when I get into an empty subway car, it is worth taking a picture of the well worn carpets.  When the DC subway system was put together in the 1970's they decided to put in comfortable seating and carpet the floors, to give it a comfy feeling.  It worked better than you would think.  The carpets wear, and have to be cleaned.  It was recently revealed that the specifications for the carpet, limited the manufacturers to just a couple of companies.  No one else could make a rubber backed, glue down carpet that was 100% virgin wool. Is it corruption or just detailed specifications?  Only in the last couple of years were the specifications changed so they could get more than one bid for replacement flooring.  And they announced that they are going to all hard surface floors, phasing out the carpet. 

Is it tourist season in your town?  

These Young People and Their Hair

Two more fashion statements in hair.  I remember how much my father loathed my long curly hair when I was a teenager.  I refuse to be like that.  Hair is an expression of individuality or identity.  Most young people wear their hair like others to fit in, to be identified as part of their group.  Wearing hair that is totally different, is a statement.  I did it, they do it today, and that is fun. 

I do have fun collecting pictures of the top-knots, or man-buns.  

Did you hair frustrate your parents when you were a teenager? 

Face of Experience

I need to update my office picture, it was taken a decade ago.  The picture has held up well, I have aged a bit.  I have put on a bit of weight, there are more lines and creases, a little less hair on top, and a lot more grey.  And that is fine.  My face reflects the life I have lived.  The victories show in the laugh lines, the weight is a sign of having survived and at times prospered.  You can tell I have been able to keep a roof over my head and good food on the table.  There is a scar on my left temple, left over from removal of a small tumor in my late teens, actually it was removed twice, the first time the doctor cut into it and went "opps."  It was exploded in his grip, leaving enough of it behind that it grew back and had to be taken off a second time.  That scar is largely lost in the wrinkles, wrinkles earned by years of paying attention and squinting in the sun.  My skin is dried and leathered a bit, it has been worn hard and put up wet.  I have lived life for the adventure, and not with the goal of preserving a beautiful corpse.  And that is fine with me.  I will take the wrinkles, and lines, and spots, and scars, and grey hair, as evidence of the adventures I have lived. My hair is honest, it is mine.   

If you offered me a free facelift, I'd pass.  I don't want to erase the life of adventure from my face.  

Would you accept a free facelift? 

Sunday Funday 5 times 4

1. What was the last thing you put in your mouth? Cheese

2. Do you sleep naked ? Usually 

3. Worst physical pain you have been in? Hmm, wisdom teeth removal?  The spine was bad, but the drugs were so good. 

4. Favorite place you have been? Florence Italy 

5. What’s your favorite music genre? Can't pick one, kind of like asking which of your kids to you like best. 

6. If you could move somewhere else where would it be? France 

7. Which of your Facebook friends lives the closest? Charlie 

8. When was the last time you cried? last Thursday 

9. Who took your profile picture? I did  

11. What's your favorite season? Spring 

12. If you could have any career what would it be?  Dictator 

13. What was the last book you read? Italian Life Rules

14. If you could talk to ANYONE right now, who would it be? My sweet bear 

15. Are you a good influence? Yes

16. Does pineapple belong on a pizza? On the right kind 

17. You have the remote, what channel will you choose? Discovery 

18. 2 people who you think will play along? Anne Marie and Deedles

19. Last concert attended? Kiss

20. Favorite type of food? Red sauce Italian 

Ok friends, copy and paste and change the answers

Random Thoughts

I had two postings on Wednesday, one of them was suppose to be for today, one wrong click. 

I am thinking about a trip to Michigan in late summer, any suggestions for a nice hotel in the Detroit burbs? 

Crazy busy in the office.  Am I the only one that wants to give up and say "why me?" shortly before finishing a big project? 

Bizarre times continue in DC.  If Tillerson writes a book, I'll buy it, especially if the title is "Fucking Moron - the twitter in the White House!" 

Spring has got to be just around the corner.  It was a warm mild winter, until spring.  

Have Fun! 

Making it Look Easy

I watch the guys do this, and it looks so easy. But I suspect it is not easy.  Blogging looks easy, and practice makes it so.  Recently I am struggling to come up with interesting things to say.  Yet, I know I must keep practicing.  And so I do.  

My First!

Like many firsts in my life, I have long ago lost track of what . happened to them or where they went, but I found the owners manual for my first camera.  I was about 10 and it was a Christmas gift from my parents.  It used 126 cartridge film.  I was able to process and print black&white film in the garage darkroom at home.  I remember saving up to buy film at K-Mart, being thrilled when I found it on sale for 79-cents a roll.  I moved up from this to a nicer Instamatic that was a hand-me-down.  From that to father's old Argus 35mm rangefinder, then when I was 15 buying my first 35-mm SLR.  

I have owned a lot of good cameras over the years.  Last summer I bought my first digital SLR and I really like it.  I also bought an underwater camera for the first time.  

What was your first camera like? 

A Dogs Life

Not all, but many dogs have a good life.  Lots of attention, walks, good food (by dog standards), lots of rest.  Some people take better care of their dogs, than they do of themselves.  

If dogs could talk, I am sure they would have an opinion on being "fixed." They would tell us that it worked before the visit to the vet.  I understand that unrestrained, the world would be overrun with dogs, but it can't be the highlight of a dogs life.  

Dog's have their people well trained.  We feed them, provide fresh water, take them for walks, lavish praise on them, and play games with them.  

I am sure they are mystified as to why we follow them around gathering up their crap, putting it in neat little bags and collecting it, while at the same time we ignore out own and flush it away.  Humans can be such strange animals.  

When you get home and the dog greets you at the door, the dog is not happy to see you, he has you trained to come home, take him for a walk, feed, water, and lavish praise on him.  The dog is stimulating you, to do the things the dog has trained you to do. If you fail to do this, the dog will punish your bad behavior or failure to act, with a little surprise in the middle of the living room carpet.  

Is there a dog that has you well trained?   

What A Life

I was talking with a colleague about work and retirement.  I sometimes complain about work. At times I have over committed and ended up working a real grind, but all in all, I have had a good run.  As my father once said, "when work looks nasty, just remember some guy is the gut snatcher in a hog processing factory."  Kind of graphic, dad's can be like that, but his point that someone out there has a nastier job stuck over the years.  I may not have spent my work life sitting on a chair watching the waves, but I have had some comfortable jobs.  

Hubby was talking with a colleague about his impending retirement from teaching, and they said, "after a while you will miss it and want to go back to work."  To which he responded, "I never wanted to work in the first place, that is why I never left school."  

I do think that I will want to keep doing something, but I can see changing pace to only doing the parts that I love doing in a few short years.  

How do you feel about retirement? 

Home

I was visiting family in Florida in January and someone mentioned possibly visiting me in the DC burbs some day.  I said it is easy, go over to US-1, turn left and then turn left on Mt Eagle Drive.  Let me know ahead of time, or security won't let you in the front gate.  The building I live in is group of high rises on the hill top dead center in this quick shot from takeoff from National Airport. 

Is it easy to give directions to your house?