Thursday, October 30, 2008
Old Picture Thursday
Circa 1965
Thanks to the inspiration from the Far Side of Fifty I am going include an old picture from my archives that I have been scanning into my computer. I may do it on another day than Thursday, it depends on how I feel.
I love this picture for many reasons. First, it's my Dad holding my Sister in the back yard of the "old family homestead", the first house my parents ever owned and I grew up in.
Secondly, I love the expression on my sis's face. She always has had a serious side to her, which hides her sinister side. More on that later.
I love the background (and wish I had the newer version of Blogger so that I could enlarge this) and the upside down bicycle on the driveway, probably a flat tire being repaired or oil applied to the chain, or the chain being reattached, or maybe baseball cards being added to the spokes for that sweet rat-a-tat-tat sound.
The car in the driveway is my Nana's Ford which she was having trouble with and the service department could not fix it so Nan wrote Mr. Ford and complained. Needless to say, it got repaired! She became so feeble she could not drive any more, so Dad inherited the car and it was wrecked off Clays Mill's Rd one morning.
Also, Herself is on the back porch watching Dad to make sure he does not drop the baby! (My sis was always Nana's favorite, she had a tea party with Nana every day).
And I just love the feel of the black and white and how this little photo holds so many memories of life in the 1960's.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Wild Again
I could write a thousand stories about Wild Thing. I have always had cats thrust upon me, not by choice. Once I have them, I fall in love with them and can not imagine life with out them.
Enter, Wild Again. My daughters cat. Once I stop calling the cat "Cat" and tag it with a name, I'm a goner.
Wild Again is a three legged cat. He lost his leg in an accident several years ago and somehow managed to live through the operation that saved his life. he is a blessed cat. And real purdy.
So, he has been hanging out at my house while Bridget gets her life back in order and I have been feeding this Wild Again thing and ever so gingerly been allowing it to go outside. I did follow the cat around, but he usually did okay and ran back when he got tired of hiding from me and I suppose it was just no longer any fun hearing me plead, "Kitty come back!!"
So finally I am comfortable with just letting him out and leaving the back screen open enough where he can run in.
Something must have happened out there yesterday. He is laying in the patch of sunshine that engulfs the back patio doors, but does not whine to go out.
He has eaten, but not like normal, which is his weight in dry food and a daily dose of the good stuff. He has laid around on the couch in the same spot for hours!!
He finally went outside and stayed for a few minutes,not nosing around, or running off to scare me.....
I guess I will let it go another day and if Wild Again is not acting Wild enough for me, I guess its vet time.
Phew.....I had forgotten about all this angst.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
So blame it on your lying, cheating, cold deadbeating,
Mean mistreating, loving heart
Or how I've saved at least $127.92 + tax
Or...how I have nothing....so this insane post will have to do.
Have you ever found yourself loving a song that you heard in the midst of a movie. Did you ever find yourself sitting through the credits to the very end just so you could look over the music list and try and pick out the song you fell in love with? Have you ever stood in front of your TV and slowed down the DVD so that you could read the song list?
Well, I have and it is a hard thing to do. Made more so when you realize you have no idea which one (out of the 20 - 30 songs listed) just might be the one!
Then, I discovered imdb. And praise the lord, they list the sound tracks on their site when you research a movie!! And if there is not sound track I have found they have a message board where you can ask!
Since I am in control of the NetFlix queue these days, I have had lots of chick flick movies that have superb soundtracks that I have been able to track down through imbd.
Has anyone seen "Bonneville" with Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates and Joan Allen? If you have (wonderful movie about friendship) then I bet you will remember the song "Cha Cha" by Chello.
Or, "Bella" (a sweet movie about redemption)that had a song called "Sway with me" (I naturally had to look that up!!) by Rosemary Clooney!! Who knew I would fall in love with Rosemary's music! She is great!
Then there was Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, a movie I normally never would have rented but I can't remember why I did and when it arrived I just struck it in thinking I would give it 10 minutes and then send it back...but something happened!! Not the greatest movie, but I found myself drawn in by the Cinderella like quality. And I found "If I didn't Care" which made me cry when performed. I found it on MP3 by the Ink Spots and it still chokes me up when I hear it.
I was on a roll by then and found tons of songs from movies that over the years I kept in the back of my mind.
Such as, "Ain't got no Home" by Clarence "Frogman" Henry from The Lost Boys.
And "Cry to Me", Solomon Burke from Dirty Dancing that I once had on the Second Dirty Dancing album that I purchased (on vinyl!) in the height of the DD craze and could never find again! Thank you imbd.
The Full Monty gave me the bring you to your knees version of "You can leave your hat on" by Tom Jones.
Finally, because this insane post is becoming too long and too revealing, there is The Thing Called Love, which featured the gone way too soon River Phoenix singing Blame it on your heart. Took me awhile to find this tune on MP3, but when I hear it I recall how much I liked River and how this song always made me run into the room to watch it performed.....(my daughter was young and watched this movie over and over. Much like she watched Dirty Dancing over and over and I would run into the room when I heard, "No body puts Baby in a corner" because I knew what was coming).
I'm Mary and I reluctantly approved this post.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Travels with my Mother
It began innocently enough with our flight leaving at 715am. Still sipping coffee at 635am she announces that we should leave in six minutes. (I have no idea why six minutes was used, not five, not three...but six minutes). The airport is a mere 10 minutes away and so I did not think much of it.
I drop her off at the front and then, glancing at the clock and seeing it is now approximately 645, I step on it to find a parking place in long term parking. As I enter the lot I see it is packed!! WTH is going on? Why are there so many cars in this damn lot!! Where are all these people going? Why are they making my life complicated!
I finally find a spot on three floors up, against the far wall in front of a trash can, obviously a spot rejected many times before but there is no time for being choosy...it is now about five till seven.
I grab my suitcase, which I need to check and take off running. I have not checked in yet!!
As I hit the lobby and run towards the check in counter a young clerk reaches for my baggage and throws it on the scale and tags it in one grand swoop. The lady says, "Are you Mary?" as she hands off my ticket as if we are in a relay race in Beijing "Hurry, they are boarding!" she advises me and points towards the security line, which mercifully is empty except for a bored looking officer who makes me take my sandals off and then I have to return to take off my watch, and then I glance at the clock and it's now after 7am!
I'm in a cold sweat thinking I may miss the plane if they will not allow me to board!
I run up the moving escalator and round the corner to the gate at a fast clip, my purse and carry on bumping furiously against my thigh and I am on the move with my ticket clutched in my outstretched hand.
I pass a steward, "Your Mama is waiting for you" and he points to a wheel chair that is sitting in wait for boarding on the plane. "Hello dear, you made it! I was beginning to get worried!" she says as she clutches her carry on to her chest and has the death grip on her cane.
We are loaded immediately and I breath a sigh of relief except I only have my boarding pass, she has put hers somewhere in her luggage and is unable to lay a hand on it. I put her in my seat and head to the back of the plane and tell the attendant my take of woe. After everyone is seated (the plane is packed and not an extra seat anywhere, except my Mom's) I am seated in a row of three seats with a handsome couple from Bermuda with an 11 month old daughter, who slept from the moment her mother returned from the bathroom till we landed in Atlanta. And then she still was asleep as we left the plane!
At Atlanta they were waiting for Mom with a new fangled wheel chair! Race car Red and with fancy brakes that were applied the moment you took your hands off the back.
Of course all my worries were for nothing. Mom was treated like royalty with wheel chairs waiting for her at each leg of the trip down and back. On the last hop to Lex from Cincinnati we had to board the plane from the tarmac.
This was not a problem for the airline, as they rolled out a lift and Mom was raised to the door as I watched from the ground, with a worried expression on my face! But, I should not have worked myself up because she was treated with such respect and so gently that I was pleasantly surprised and very appreciative.
We boarded first, left last, got to sit up in the front section on most flights and they even let Mom have double treats!
I have to travel with her more often!
Monday, October 20, 2008
Only the Good Die Young
(Uncle Barney and My Dad in the back) (I am the in the dress second from the left)
My people are Irish. My fathers people came over through Ellis Island in the early 1900's. My mothers people arrived in Canada first, and then NYC where my mother is the only sibling to have been born on American soil. Both my families are solid New Yorkers as far as I am concerned.
Mom and Pop were married for several years when her brother informed them that IBM was hiring and that Dad should go apply for employment since they needed chemists. The story of Dad landing the job is legendary, where his soon to be boss came into the waiting area and unbeknowenst to Dad he was the head honcho, conducted the interview that subsequently landed Dad a job.
Everyone who has ever worked for IBM knows that the it does not stand for International Business Machines, but I've Been Moved.
And our (at that time) little family was moved from idyllic New York State to the Bluegrass. We left our entire families behind. All my Aunts and Uncles, Grandparents, cousins, and tons and tons of relatives that form the spider web of relations that had fled Ireland in the late 1800's and early 1900's for the promised land.
We became Kentuckians in no time, immersed in the culture. I am certain made my Mother's hair curl when we would use the term "ain't" and our northern accents suddenly took on elongated vowels. Our memories of New York faded. The land of our origin may as well have been a million miles away.
Every where around me were the families of my friends that included Aunts and Uncles, cousins and Grandparents. Mine were a million miles away. And somewhere in the heart of a little girl I missed my family that engulfed me and surrounded me as a much younger little child.
And so began the anticipation of every summer either we would load up the family station wagon and head up North or Up North would come to visit us! And the most reliable, the one that you knew you would see every year no matter what was Aunt Pat's family.
Mom and Aunt Pat had a special bond. Mom was Pat's first birthday gift, born exactlly one year apart they shared a birthday.
(Pat on the left, Mom with the more beat up leg)
And you can tell for the multitude of photo's that the angels were inseparable. That bond ensured that we would see Pat and her family every year. Aunt Pat and her husband Barney and our three cousins would make the trek in their variety of recreational vehicles which varied wildly over the years.
This one is my favorite.... (I am the girl on the left) (in the dress)
I refer to this camper as the Silver Bullit, but I think it actually is called something else.
To make a long story short, Aunt Pat passed away in 2003 and Uncle Barney passed away last week. My sister and I along with her husband made the trip to Florida (where pat and Barney had retired to during the 1980's) with my Mother for the funeral. We joined the shrinking members of my extended New York Irish family on my Mom's side.
This is the second time this year we have gathered to mourn and celebrate the life of one of our own.
And it is two times too many.....
As one of the grandsons said in his eulogy, "They say only the good die young, and he died 89 years young".
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Round Robin Challenge
The Round Robin Challenge this time is to photograph your Home Town. At times I feel I have no home town. I live in Indiana and claim Louisville because it's easier to say to people, they all have heard of L-ville, but not the Indiana town I live in across the river.
And when I think of Home I think of Mayberry (my fictitious name for the Hometown), So, I have this picture of a flour mill that is not exactly in town, and actually not exactly in the county, but it is on the border on the Elkhorn Creek (which is lots bigger than two of the "rivers" in FW).
I happened to be in Mayberry today and made an effort to get a pic and compare it to one I took several years ago on a foggy day in winter.
I like the contrast.
Go here to see all the entries!
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
The Usual Suspects
The usual suspects, public intoxication, trespass, terroristic threatening,(astonishingly from a Grandma looking person) (she claimed not to have had her medication that day),concealed weapon, theft by deception, possession of marijuana, and several prostitution! (interesting, they look nothing like you would think a prostitute, excuse me, an alleged prostitute would look like! They look like the worn out house wife who lives across the way). The prisoners were shuffled in last because they did not have representation yet and had to wait their turn.
Every time I find myself sitting in a court room it seems so ripe and seething with the drama of living that I could sit there and be fascinated for days. yet, I understand it also represents pain and sorrow, despair and desperation, poverty and bad judgement.
It brings back the first time I set foot in a court room because I had received a ticket while racing to a wedding that was in another city and I went under a yellow light and was pulled over. I also had an open beer with me....this was over 30 years ago when I was very young and stupid, very stupid.
I was so scared. I had no idea what was going to happen as I had never been in such a jam. I was reluctant to tell my parents. I suppose I forgot they would read about it in the Weekly Mayberry (fictitious name for my home town) Newspaper. The Police Report is what every body reads. It's right next to Church News. (I swear).
I went to my parents house and grabbed some lunch to fortify myself. As I sat at the kitchen table the door opened and my Dad walked in. He had come home from work to have lunch.
In the 25+ year Dad worked for IBM he never once came home for lunch that I could remember. It was so out of the ordinary. I had to tell him what I was doing and together we went to Court. He went to the front of the room, swarming with lawyers and abuzz with activity and spoke for a few moments with one of his lawyer buddies, the county prosecutor.
Mr. G. went to speak with the judge and in a matter of moments we were leaving the court room as the case had been thrown out.
I had not thought about that afternoon in....over 30 years. Now that Dad is gone I find that I have these random memories just bubble to the top of my consciousness.
Sitting in that courtroom I suddenly remembered that day, how the sun was shining and the whiteness of the inside of the courtroom, the huge windows behind the judge and my Dad walking with that calmness and determination that defined him to get his wayward daughter out of trouble.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
When Life Comes A-Knocking
I thought I would just sit in front of the computer and just let my fingers wander where they wanted. And it worked for a solid week! I am uncomfortable writing anything of personal substance, at least the dramas of my life that are going on now. Naturally in maybe a year, they will make some very engaging entries, but not now.
Yet, I will post this picture of my darling grand daughter when we went to the St. James Art Fair earlier this month. She is a handful and growing in leaps and bounds, which makes it extremely difficult to keep her in clothes! As a result, her outfits are a bit, shall we say, snug.
Since she is the first grandchild, there is not a soul to send her hand me downs!! I asked Joe if we could make a trip to the Second Hand Store, Once Upon A child (isn't that clever) or just the consignment shop in the ground floor of Mid-City Mall....just because the best Dive in Louisville the Back Door is also located in the mid City Mall has nothing to do with it! But Joe says that for some reason second hand clothes from strangers is out of the question.
So we all must suffer. And smile.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Monday Photo Shoot
Here is my entry for the Monday Photo Shoot titled Fences and what's behind them hosted by Ellipsis!!
I remembered this fence behind the garden shed being unusual. My compost pile is hidden back there and when I pass the bicycle and board I always smile. There is a dog that lives back there, but he is a gentle dog and only barks at the birds. He is not a curious dog, as I hoped he would come back and check out what I was doing. It would have been so cool to have the dog along with the sunset.
Alas, its just a fence with a sunset behind it.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Bloggers Community Photo Challenge
Changes - brought to you by the 1st Community Photo Challenge
I am surprised at how invigorated the AOL-Community has become since tearing up roots and relocating. Maybe its just me making the reconnection with this vibrant and diversified group. Over the years I have half heatedly tried to keep in touch, like changing jobs or cities. It's hard. I have said it so many times that it tastes like ashes in my mouth and my fingers feel heavy typing the words, but I dearly miss the AOL-J-Land of pre-advertising days. Before the 2005 mass Exodus. So many wonderful writers and personalities left never to be heard from again.
But this is a new dawn and new era. All of us have been banished from AOL-J-Land, all given the proverbial boot.
And so, I embrace the new Community by actively participating in the many activities that I have over looked or was unaware of. The first being this photo challenge!
This week's challenge.....CHANGE!
Last night I was talking on the phone to my husband and glance at the front door, which was bathed in the diminishing golden light of October and saw the tiny hand print of.... my grand daughter. She had left this mark behind to remind me that she had been there.
Actually she has followed Bridget and myself outside as we were about to leave on a trip to the store and she was to stay at home. Once she understood we were returning (she is two, almost three)she turned to go back into the house, but could not reach the door knob!
"Jo-Jo! Jo-Jo!" She hollered, "Let me in!!" and Bridget ran to open the door for her.
This little imprint reminds me that as things change and evolve an impression is always left behind.
As my little sweeties hand print.
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Foridden
When I was a kid the whole wide world was contained in the confines of our small town. It held everything we could ever wish for. It was the 1960's and the world was still slightly innocent and wholly uncorrupted. Life was bicycle rides, snow days, idyllic days at the local swimming pool, Halloween without razor blades but nickles given out by the ex-Governor of the state along with home made popcorn balls, walking downtown to purchase a cherry coke, the corner grocery store with penny candy jars,gigantic leaf piles we could burn in town and kick ball games in the lone empty lot in the neighborhood.
It was okay to jump on your bike and truck several miles across town. My brother tells of an ongoing BB gun game where he and several of his buddies would dress in layers and layers of padding and chase each other around town for target practice. Life was good. We felt safe and unthreatened. Except maybe by the Russians dropping the bomb on us, even then we were well educated at school on how to survive a nuclear attack (squatting under your school desk...what if you are st home? Bomb shelters.)
There were several places you had to beware of. Like the park downtown. That is where the "bums" hung out. Bums were bad and to be avoided at all costs. Naturally we always flocked to the park when ever we could on the look out for the these deviant bums. I never saw one. I never met another kid who did either. I have to think that maybe once upon a time some kid got flashed or something similar.
But, the worst of the worst, never to go, always FORBIDDEN and off limits, and you got your butt spanked but good if you got caught at this mother of all evil places in my home town........
THE TUNNEL! (as viewed from the church!!!!)
The tunnel was an abandoned train track that went under main street. The tracks were removed and the jungle had taken over.
The temptation was so powerful that resistance was impossible. The tunnel was next to the small Catholic school I attended. An entrance to the top of the tunnel was directly accessible across the street, next to the church, on the corner where we waited for the afternoon buses to take us home.
How many times and how many hundreds of kids climbed on top of the forbidden curved dome of the top, lay down and dangle their heads over and look into the black dank smelly cavern of doom and destruction. The darkness promised adventure and hidden treasure. No kids ever fell over that I ever heard of, and I would have heard.
To access the tunnel you had to enter the abandoned track by the old depot located a block from Main Street. The homes on Broadway backed up to the overgrown train track. Many eyes followed you if you attempted to approach the opening from that angle. The only way to make an unobserved approach was to slide down the back (because the bank to the track bed became steeper as you drew closer) was at Flea's house. (His parents worked).
There were bugs, albino crayfish, spiders and poison ivy, and a drainage hole that dripped and spewed chilly clear water at all times.
If it were not forbidden, it would have been ignored. But the forbidden part....Oh how sweet.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Round Robin
Yeah!! I made it on time to participate in the The Round Robin Challenge!
The subject mater is end os summer. I always try and make it to the Lexington Cemetery around this time of year to see the wonderful colors of one of the most magnificent landscaped botonical cemeteries in the area.
Check it out here to see the other particpants!
Friday, October 03, 2008
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping
The houses in the new neighborhood are larger and the yards are larger. There are very few back yard fences and lots of open garage doors and people sitting in the shade of their suburban caves watching the coming and goings of street.
My door gets knocked on a lot. The usual sullen kids from out of town selling magazine subscriptions, the ATT guy trying to woo me away from Insight, the tree service people trying to get me to let them take down my damaged tree, the insurance sales person who wanted to cut up my fallen tree, the Girl Scouts, the UPS guy, Joe who has locked himself out and then once the Mayor assuring me that they were going to stop everyone from running the stop sign in front of my house (yea right!!).
The best was yet to come last week when I heard that familiar Tap Tap Tapping on the front door (no one uses the door bell...can't figure that out) and I throw it open to find a blond haired large eyeglass adorned kid wearing shorts and a dirty white t-shirt, to match his scraped up legs, balanced on his bicycle (for a quick get-a-way?) kind of looking like the kid from Jerry MaGuire, only 10 years old. He blinked at me several times as I opened the glass storm door and smiled at him in what I hoped was a non-threatening manner (after my encounter with the next door kids and the resulting cold shoulder I received from their mother, I am very cautious).
"Hey, you wanna buy a candle?" he asked.
"A candle?" I repeated. Like I said, he was sitting on a bike, had no mother standing on the sidewalk guarding him from danger, no selection book with the usual ungodly marked up crap for you to choose from. No, I was only offered a candle.
"Yea, we have....." and he bit his lip trying to remember the selection and smiled when it came to him, ".....Hawaiian Tropical Breeze."
"What about vanilla?"
"No, just Hawaiian Tropical Breeze."
"How much?"
"Seven dollars."
"Can I write you a check?"
"No, just seven dollars."
"Well, come back tomorrow then, okay."
"Okay".
"Is this for your school? Do you live around here?"
"Yea, down there", he waved his arm to the east,and then he began to ride off my porch waving over his shoulder, "see ya tomorrow".
"What's your name", I cried after him, like some left behind sweetheart.
"Joseph T. XXXXXXXXXXXX". And he turned his bike and was tearing off down the road.
My lord, he was cute.
I remember the next day only after I got home and rushed to my purse to see if I had any money for him. Saints be praised, seven dollars exactly.
A half hour later I heard a knock at the door and there he was, perched on his bike, craning his head to peer into the front room to watch my advance.
I opened the door and handed him the money, which he took, licked one finger and began to count, one...two...three...four...five...six...seven, and nodded at me in confirmation of a sealed deal.
"Don't I have to sign something, like my address."
"Nope, I'll remember." He pocketed the money and pushed off on his bike. I felt like I had just been scammed by a the cutest little grifter I have ever seen.
"What's your name?" he called to me from the street. "Mary" I shouted back at him, he turned his bike towards the East and gave me a wave, but no backward glance.
I think I am in love.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Man! I Feel Like A Woman!
At first, when Sarah Palin was paraded out at the RNC for the country to fall in love with, (and we fell hard) I had an immediate and intense dislike of her. First of all, she looked like every sorority girl who ever black balled me from their stinking secret society and laughed behind my back about my large fake gold hoop earrings (bitches) (I know this because one of my dear friends told me .....??). Her voice made me want to put my hands over my ears! She sounded like Roseanne Barr in a slightly less nasal tone, but Roseanne all the way (sorry Roseanne).
So, my dislike was all irrational and unsubstantiated. Then my good fiend (oddly enough, the one who told me about the gold earring dislike all those years ago) asked me what I thought about Sarah and it was as if a dam erupted.
"Am I suppose to admire her or get behind her because she is a woman? I feel insulted if the Republican Party thinks woman are that shallow. If its only about being a woman, why didn't we get behind Hilliary? Because she was not pretty enough, young enough? We can't relate to her because she is smart and a lawyer and forgave her husband for his indiscretions and publicly humiliating her? If I had my choice, I'm a Hillary supporter."
I read with glee all the bad press and laughed along when she was stumped by Charlie regarding The Bush Doctrine. The Bush Doctrine! Ha!! Everyone knows the Bush Doctrine...(It's "Fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me, you can't get fooled again".....isn't it?)
I read everything the Courier Journal, a well know liberal paper, (in a state that has always historically voted conservative)has written about her. They truly tried to balance it with the Op-Ed page and Letters to the Editor but it was hopeless. Sara was being branded as a gun toting baby making bimbo.
The other night I watched Katie Couric once again gently grill Sarah. I was cringing when Sarah answered, when asked what newspapers magazines she read, "All of them" and when pressed to name even one, she once again replied (with some exasperation) "All of them."....
Oh, Sarah I began to feel sorry for you. Couldn't you wing it? Couldn't you just say your staff hands you the Wall Street Journal among others?
When asked about Roe vrs. Wade I wonder if she has even read it, which (natch) I did while completing a business law class during the 1980's. It's all hinged on viability outside the womb. Pro-Lifers believe that a soul enters upon conception. And when questioned about the morning after pill, did any once else get the idea that she had never heard of it? Maybe it's because she does not read any publications or magazines or newspapers.
At least none that she can name.
Oh, well.....let's hope that when a woman is finally elected to the White House, it is someone who deserves to be there.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
NightMare on AOL Street
This time I was a rotten teenager. Or rather I was 20 years old. I know this because as I slipped on my ten ton back pack, my half ton purse loaded with all my essentials, my lunch which was a sandwich crammed into a tiny plastic Tupperware thing and the top didn't fit and my sandwich got wet because it was raining I calculated how I was too old for this....at 20. I decided to skip school and was farting around looking for the text books thinking that "Dad" would leave to go to work and I would be home free. Only Dad was Gabriel Byrne (wow!) and was on to my tricks, reluctantly I struggled into that damn back pack when this witch arrives on the scene and says she is Gabriel's fiance and that erupts into a shouting match of some magnitude. Then I wake up and go "Wow!" and I was exhausted.
This is one of those many times when I really miss Joe (who is on assignment). He always listens patiently to my rambles about the dream and inevitably the questions, "What do you think it means?" or "What do you think about that?" and the usual one, "What brought that on?"
I suppose I was just unsettled because of the forced evacuation of AOL Journals. Yesterday I began to back up my journal by engaging in the laborious task of copying and pasting into Microsoft Word. In a way it was soothing to revisit many of those entries. Some I had sought out, like the one about the Jesuit who told about the possessions of people and places, but most were tiny gems of the necklace of my AOL Journal. I was prolific at the beginning and I breath a sigh of relief knowing that I slowed down in time!
I am lucky because I have been blogging on both AOL and Blogger since the beginning, so the majority of my entries are also parked in this journal, which has assumed many names, the beauty of Blogger, you can change your name!!
And as many of my AOL friends will find out, Blogger is a safe haven. And as they become more comfortable they will marvel at the tools available to them to continue the community outside the confines of AOL.
Number one, your counters will always work!! You can manipulate your pictures to insert them into different areas of your text. You can write an entry and save it rather than publish it right away. You can link up to Flickr and Slideshow and a multitude of other fun stuff that was unavailable on AOL. You can take on advertising yourself and reap the benefits rather than AOL using us and our journals for gain.
The list goes on and on, but I have not had my coffee yet.