THIS is my favorite time of year. A warm Sunday mid-morning. Slight breeze, sun shining, local high school field with some game chatter about a half-mile away, and still a hint of the weather to come hiding underneath the warmth.
It makes me think of bike rides as a kid on Columbus Day, local peewee football games with my dad, and a brisk walk in the afternoon.
If you had to give up one word that you use regularly, what would it be?
If you have watch “The Good Place” you’ll remember Eleanor, played by Kristin Bell, has lost the ability to swear so F*(#, becomes Fork.
My first recollection of saying the word was when I was 11 or 12 and said “Fongool” at the dinner table! Oooh, even with non-Italian parents, they knew what I was saying!
It can be a noun, verb, adjective, and adverb. Very versatile! It pops out of my mouth in personal conversations and it’s probably why my public conversation sentences are a little more measured.
Whether you say “freaking” or “fracking”, or “forks” it’s still the same thought. I think it’s time for me to give them all a rest. There may be some conversations that I’ll be totally mute but hey, it’s worth a try!
What does your ideal home look like?
I had a running joke with some long ago friends that if I won the lottery I wouldn’t move to a house larger than my 2 story barn style colonial. It had 4 bedrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen and 1-1/2 bathrooms but it was only 960 square feet.
No, my answer was, I would add on and make it a larger house. After all, we’re on just short of a half acre and there aren’t many of those in our town where you are within a mile of the center of town.
Well guess what, we didn’t win the lottery, but we added on two years ago. A family room, we moved the half bath out of the middle of the kitchen and made it a full bathroom, and remodeled the kitchen.
It is a dream come true. So yeah, ideal house? I’m in it.
I accumulate pens and pencils. At times, I will pull 4 or 5 out of my work bag. I don’t know how they get there because I only use it to transport work I bring home and back to work untouched.
I might be working on my computer at the counter, need a pen and go get one, only to realize one was by me already.
I have pens I love so collect them at every chance I get – Webster Bank pens! – and they have to be clicker pens! No stick pens with caps for me. Those are the first pens that tossed.
I love #2 pencils with a point so I sharpen them constantly. They have to have an eraser so I automatically add an eraser to them.
I developed a thing for mechanical pencils and bought them and their respective replacement leads. Then I discovered disposable pencils and they populate my drawers.
Watching Project Runway, I discovered erasable pens! I know there already were erasables, but I didn’t like them. These are awesome! Pilot FriXIon clicker and it comes in a variety of colors. I now have a set for home and work. I make sure I don’t use them at work for check writing or anything of permanence.
I know it’s not just how the pen feels in my hand but also how it flows. It has to be medium flow and definitely not skip. That gets tossed directly into the trash can with no second chances!
Something about a good pen makes me slow my writing down and really form the letters, and really enjoy the handwriting process.
What was the last thing you searched for online? Why were you looking for it?
I currently have 107 tabs open on my iPhone’s Safari browser. I’m in constant search mode!
Last night I searched for were walking/running shoes. Thanks for reminding me!
I was out walking this weekend and noticed the support in the shoes I was wearing was not as comfortable as usual. They are little old because I wear them forever. I’m the “hey but there’s no holes in them yet!” wear them til they disintegrate type of person. I probably have the receipt – no, maybe not but I do know I bought them over a Labor Day weekend one year!
Anyway, I found a brand called Altra and the style is Solstice XT 2 and they’re sold at a running store about 20 minutes away. The reviews said they were a good walking and running shoe and they looked good. I always agonize between a 6.5 and 7 so I’ll probably take a trip to try them on.
If you know anything about them, tell me in the comments!
What TV shows did you watch as a kid?
In the mid 1960s through the early to mid 1970s, my sisters and I loved to watch, The Monkees, The Brady Bunch, Here Come the Brides, and The Partridge Family. All these shows had cute guys in them and we were Boy Crazy!
It’s weird to google and see the years that these shows aired. The Monkees was on from 1965 to 1968 when I was between 5 and 8 years old. We were crazy for Davy Jones. How odd to be mooning over this 20+ year old man when we were that age. Right?
We watched variety of other shows, never missing the Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights. We even watched Lawrence Welk and the Jackie Gleason show together as a family.
Obviously, we didn’t have the channels we have today (but I bet you still watch about 4 of them right?)! Channel 5 out of New York gave us I Love Lucy, and The Bowery Boys movies. And how could I forget the original Little Rascals!
That definitely brought back some memories!
What’s your favorite time of day?
I love early morning seven days a week.
It started when my son was born. He woke up at 7am every morning on the dot so if I wanted to work out or be showered and dressed before he woke up, I had to get up, I had to have a plan.
I started waking up at 5am and working out to exercise tapes for 45 minutes to an hour. I knew the routines by heart so I didn’t need too much volume. After my workout, I’d take a shower and be dressed before he woke up.
Was it my FAVORITE time back then? Probably not, but it started the day off right and this habit was born. 33 years later I have the alarm set Monday through Friday for 5:15. I have my coffee and then go and work out. On weekends, if I’m feeling awake, I’ll get up and just drink coffee and relax and read.
It’s quiet, it’s peaceful. When I walk outside to go to my workout next door, I see the moon or the sky getting lighter. I look at my flowers or just admire the yard. No one’s around, no lights are on and it’s just me.
Yesterday was a strange, strange day.
Was it because I was worried about my niece? Did the Barbie movie I went to on Saturday fire me up? Or, was it the movie bag of Ike & Mikes I ate while watching the movie?
Whatever the case, it was fortunate for us both that my husband went for a motorcycle ride because while I was home alone, I was just in such a mood. Little things set me off like, “I CAN’T BELIEVE HE THREW OUT THE WATER BOTTLE THAT GOES WITH THIS HIKING FANNY PACK THAT I HAVEN’T USED IN FIVE YEARS AND I HAVE A CAMEL BAK THAT HE BOUGHT ME ANYWAY” or “I CAN’T BELIEVE THERE IS NO GROCERY MONEY LEFT IN THE DRAWER WE KEEP THE EXTRA IN BECAUSE I HAVE TO BUY SOME THINGS HE WON’T GO TO WALMART FOR!”
It was insane. Our poor dog who was already roaming the house looking for my husband as he always does, was looking at me like I had lost my mind.
So I took myself out for a nice long walk. I set my Peloton app to record it, I found a Spotify walking playlist (remembering to download it first), put on my work out clothes and just walked for and our on a simple route around town. Boy, did that help!
It cleared my mind, and maybe it got the rest of that sugar from the Ike & Mike’s out of my body. Whatever the case, by the time he got home from his ride, I was feeling like my better self again.
Something that happened to my niece recently who lives two time zones away, brought up some emotions in me that have been long buried.
I moved from Connecticut to California in 1987 when I was 27 and five months after my mother died from brain cancer.
In November of 1989, on a Saturday afternoon, I had intense pain in my side and my husband rushed me to the local hospital. It was discovered I was pregnant but bleeding internally somewhere. After an inconclusive ultrasound, I had exploratory surgery and they found it was a ruptured cyst. They stopped the bleeding, said hello to my little fetus, and closed me back up.
All of this was long before the days of cell phones, zoom, FaceTime, social media. And three hours time difference from my family.
I remember my husband calling my father to tell him. I remember asking him to call my boss to tell her I wouldn’t be at work on Monday. I remember talking to my sisters from the hospital.
I don’t know if I wished for my mother at the time but resurrecting these memories, I wish I had her then, even from a distance like my niece has my sister now.
Where did your name come from?
I have a twin sister and our dad always joked that he wanted to name us Gretchen and Gwendolyn but our mother refused because they were the names of two dogs in the neighborhood!?! We would argue over who might have received which name. Since I’m older and Gretchen was always said first, i claimed that would have been mine. I’m hindsight, Gwendolyn could have been shortened to Gwen and “Gretch”=nope.
So we became Nancy (me) and Gail. It was 1960 and I think mine was a popular name because of Nancy Sinatra. I don’t know where Gail’s name was plucked from. My older sister is Janice. I don’t know where that came from either.
It’s funny because of all our generation of cousins, we are the only three who don’t have a “family name”. No Julia, Elizabeth, etc. and certainly no “catholic/saint names”!
Also, none of us were given middle names. One name was enough we were told. What the heck?
Nancy is ok but for some reason people call me Cathy by mistake. I tell them, “call me whatever you want, just don’t call me late for dinner”. Hahaha
Thoughts From The Passenger Seat 