quotes for the week: hurricanes

 

When all is said and done, the weather and love are the two elements which we can never be sure of.   Alice Hoffman

I love whenever they downgrade a hurricane to a tropical depression because I always think of a tropical depression as how I feel three songs into a Jimmy Buffet concert.  Andy Kindler

Hurricane season brings a troubling reminder that despite our technologies, most of nature remains unpredictable.  Diane Ackerman

On cable TV they have a weather channel--24 hours of weather.  We had something like that where I grew up.  It was called a window.  Dan Spencer

You can't get mad about the weather because it's not about you. Apply that to other aspects of life.  Douglas Coupland

Be prepared!  Stay safe!

This is Jeopardy

 

I love Jeopardy.  Every year I buy a 365 day Jeopardy calendar and keep count of all the items I get right with the goal of reaching $200,000 a year.  (Sundays, which don't list an amount for the day, I figure are worth $800).  So far this year I have earned $142,000.  

Here are some Jeopardy clues.  Remember, your answer must be in the form of a question.  Answers next week.  Do Not Google to find out the answers.

Category         Clue                                                                                                                   Amount

Geology         This class of rocks is formed in part from layers of dead plants and animals.  $200

Diaries            The journsl of their 1803-1806 expedition mention sacagawea, not always    $400

                        always by name and not always spelled the same.$

Final expsode  The last words of this NBC sitcom in 2993:  "Sorry, we're closerd."               $600

Horror films     In this 1984 Wes Craven classic, a girl warns her boyfriend, played by

                         Johnny Depp, "Whatever you do, don't fall asleep."                                        $800

American Inventions  In 1906 Frank Rose made these pest killers by attaching squares

                                   of window screens to yardsticks.                                                           $1000

Are Face Masks the New Fashion Statement?

 Every women's clothing catalog I find in my mailbox is advertising face masks--solid colors, animal prints, abstract designs, Disney character masks for the kid in your life, the ocean (see above), the sky, plants, flowers, anything you can think of.  Friends of mine are making masks.  You can make your own.

My first mask had a flowery design on  a lovely purple background. A church in S. Carolina made masks and sent them to our senior living building.  I wore it every time I left my apartment for weeks, until I realized the pandemic might go on and on, so I decided I needed a change.  I bought a bamboo mask that was advertised as pink but looks more coral.  It's very soft and comfortable.  My sister-in-law, who owns a cloth diaper company sent me two masks made by her company one with Saturn in the night sky and one with kittens.  Then I branched out and bought some more.  One came from a company that advertised masks with famous art designs.  Mine is Starry Night.  I also added a black and white mask to my wardrobe, .

 Why not have a mask for every outfit?  They're much less expensive than clothes; you don't have to bother with make up, not even lipstick.  People compliment you if your mask is especially attractive.  Of course, it's hard to recognize people when 2/3 of their faces are covered and masks aren't especially comfortable, but I figured, why not enjoy them since you can help stop the spread of COVID and be fashionable at the same time?

Romance in the Time of Pandemic

 Here's one of my books from my days as a romance writer.  Here's a quote that reminds me of those days.  It's not really a quote per se--it's one of those sayings that floats around the Internet to make you laugh:

Romance novels during COVID 19 will be, like

"And then she slipped her mark down, revealing her warm red lips and her blushed face, and then, as their eyes met, he gently removed her gloves."

Mah Jongg Versus Life

 When I retired in 2018, I began playing Mah Jongg.  I had played sporadically since I was a child, but now I joined a group that played every Tuesday.  I copied this piece from Mah Jongg Mentor's website.  The author is unknown.

In Mah Jongg, as in Life, we start with a set number of random tiles.  They line up on the rack before us, like DNA sequences and chance circumstances.  We begin to make sense of the randomness, to arrange bams together or notice number sequences.  We make sense of what we've been given to start with.  We form our core "identity" and try to make sense of it.

There is in Mah Jongg, as in Life, an element of destiny or inevitability.  Some might call it Fate.  Some people are born with more "Jokers"--more good fortune, if you will--than others.  Some people have an obvious life path, based on given talent or proclivity.

But in Mah Jongg, as in Life, we have free will.  From the tiles before us we have a choice as to which "hand" to play, which 
"path" to take.  There are often several possible directions open to us.  The decisions we make early on affect the direction our hand will take.  The skill we bring to the play once that path is chosen affects our outcome as well.  So Life, as in Mah Jongg, is a combination of chance, choice and skill.

The beauty of Mah Jongg and Life is that even with the worst opening set of tiles, there are several directions open to us. But with practice and hard-won wisdom of many games played (read "years lived") we get better at spotting the best choices to make, the most optimal paths to follow given what we have to work with.  Even the tiles themselves, with their lovely imagery, speak of Life to me.  The "winds" of change the "dragons" we must slay, the "flowers" we cling to, grace notes and moments of beauty, the circle of "dots"  of Life itself and the "cracks" we sometimes fall into.

Like Life, Mah Jongg is never "fair." The random distribution of tiles favors one player over the other.  Some are gifted from the very outset with clear patterns, the blessings of numerous jokers making their game much easier, the chance of winning much higher. But again, as in Life, skill and judgement, patience and effort, can allow even the most mediocre of initial hands to prevail, just as with carelessness, lack of focus or poor decision-making, the best initial hands can fail.

 

There

Books of July

• The Order.  Each summer I wait expectantly for Daniel's Silva's new Gabriel Allon book.  I watched an interview with Silva on Zoom and found it very interesting.  This book was slow to get started with a lot of background.  It did pick up around the middle but it was not his best.  The story begins when Gabriel and his family are on vacation in Venice.  The pope dies and his private secretary suspects foul play.  And of course, Gabriel comes to the rescue.

quote for the week

In Blackwater Woods

by Mary Oliver

Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

of the ponds, 

and every pond, 

no matter what its

name is, is

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

in my lifetime

leads back to this:  the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

you must be able 

to do three things:

to love what is mortal

to hold it

against your bones, knowing

your own life depends on it,

and, when the time comes to let it

go,

to let it go.