Saturday Morning Rambles

Life has a funny way of throwing you curve balls.

You go along, assuming everything will continue the way it always does. Until it doesn't. We make assumptions about people and situations. 

A guy kills his wife and himself, and the neighbors are all in shock. 

"I can't believe it. He was a nice, quiet guy."

How many times have you watched a movie and made assumptions, then discovered all your assumptions were wrong? 

We saw a documentary film the other night called The Duke. Spoiler alert: if you're planning on watching it, skip this paragraph. The story is about an older gentleman who is tried in court for stealing a painting from the National Gallery in London. It's a recreation, with actors playing the roles of the defendant and his family. The alleged perpetrator is able to avoid extensive prison time using his charm and the fact that he tried to use the painting as a sort of ransom to help elderly pensioners. Anyhow, they go through the whole thing and it turns out it was the son who stole the painting and the father who covered for him. So many assumptions made.

photo attribution below

And...what's the point of my ramblings this morning?

Just that maybe we all need to be careful about making an "ass" of "u" and "me". You don't really know what's happening with people inside. Just because they don't smile and say "good morning" doesn't mean they think you're an a-hole. Go ahead and give them a "good morning" anyhow and move on. Or if they want to share, just listen. Don't try to solve their problem or give advice unless they ask for it. (I'm guilty on all counts of doing the wrong thing here, by the way. So this is as much a reminder to me as it is to anyone who's reading this.)

I do believe social media has exacerbated the judgy-judgy thing. More and more I'm seeing clickbait with headlines like, "Karen Has a Meltdown in Wal-Mart" and "Did All the Characters in MASH Hate Larry Linville?" (By the way, the answer to this is "no.") 

One more example to illustrate my point. Perhaps you're thinking you know all about me because I've been so candid in my blogs. But just remember, I'm the gatekeeper. You only see what I want you to see. 

Oh look, puppies!

Photo attribution: kitty.green66, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Support Bros

I believe the real measure of a partner can be determined when the going gets tough. 

Drink Up!

A prime example of this presented itself yesterday when I had to go in for a colonoscopy.

There are few things as ick-worthy as this procedure, which requires a stranger to maneuver a tiny camera up into your colon to see what's what.

Prior to this adventure, one must cleanse oneself of all detritus so the doctor can see clearly. This requires the patient to drink a gallon of nasty liquid until everything in their system is cleaned out. (It felt like things came out of me that hadn't seen the light of day in years, but I could be exaggerating.) 

There's an old Allan Sherman song that kept going through my head..."I see things in your peritoneum that belong in the British Museum..."

But I digress.

My point is, the process was not pleasant, but Mr. Ginley was there to provide support, bringing me refills of the colon blow required to clean me out, transporting me to and from the procedure, settling me in with snacks so I could rest for the remainder of the day and getting his own dinner. 

Being that he's always there in the clutch, it's easier to overlook the stray banana peel left on the living room floor, his repetitive queries and other minor annoyances. 

Sometimes when I get frustrated, I imagine what life would be like if he weren't around, and I decide to keep him.

I mean, who else would make an observation like, "Why are people freaked out by aliens doing anal probes but they don't think anything of getting a colonoscopy?" 

Get Off My Lawn, the Sequel

I guess it's a generational thing.

photo attribution below

When I mentioned to a group of young friends that I was appalled the film industry remade Winnie-the-Pooh into a horror movie, I got shrugs.

Seriously? This is the generation that embraces safe spaces and has lately decided that the thumbs up symbol is offensive, but turning Pooh and his pals into bloodthirsty forest terrors is okey-dokey?

Maybe it's a shame-on-me situation because Mr. and I have complained about the endless series of remakes. "Doesn't anyone in Hollywood have an original thought?' we decried.

I must admit, this falls under the heading of "be careful what you ask for." Certainly, Pooh-turned-savage is an original – albeit abhorrent – concept. 

So much for modern cinema.

For some time I've had a free movie pass, but given the dearth of options, it remains unused. My kingdom for a witty, brilliant film that isn't centered around super heroes, blow-everything-up rogue cops or interplanetary shenanigans. 

It seems that rom-coms (watered down as they are) have been relegated to the Hallmark Channel. The grand dames of the theatre have either retired or turn up on PBS playing dotty old women or wealthy socialites of yore. And suspenseful Hitchcock-like thrillers have been replaced by gory, graphic spectacles that leave nothing to the imagination. 

I'd love to sit in a theatre, munch on popcorn and Raisinets and be absorbed into another world for two hours. 

Ah, well. 

We can save the cost of admission, I suppose, and continue to watch DVDs at home. We saw the original Henry Fonda version of 12 Angry Men the other night, and I was struck anew by what a marvel it was. So many classics out the there to be rediscovered.

Back when Hollywood was breaking ground.

Now, most of the time, it's just breaking wind. 

Photo Attribution: Runner1616, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Localizing

A lifetime ago, I flew across the pond and spent some time in England. Back then, it was my dream to return again, although somewhere, deep down, I knew it was a one-and-done.

(photo attribution below)

As it often happens, life took turns in unpredictable directions, and my focus shifted to marriage and motherhood. One day I awoke to find my knees and back ached, flying had become a major ordeal and gas prices had risen to astronomical levels. And while I sometimes longed to visit faraway places, the lure was not enough to cause me to take action.

Mr. Ginley and I do daydream about winning the lottery and living in Ireland or Paris or London long enough to soak up the culture and see what it's all about, like natives. But we know this is a pipe dream.

Rather than groan about becoming an alter cocker and counting down the years until my demise, I'm taking another tack. I've decided to explore my own little corner of the universe to see what I can see. So here we go.

I feed the birds in my backyard and watch them. Mostly they're sparrows and can often be assholes, dropping their "thanks" all over my car. But they're also pretty fun to observe. Like passengers on the subway, they shove and jostle each other for position, fighting for their share.

As I opened my front windows the other day, a little boy, headed for school, stopped to pick a dandelion out of our yard. The backpack-strapped lad slowed his pace, held the dandelion to his lips and blew. He watched with delight as the seeds caught the wind and flew here and there, before he scurried to catch up to his companion, who'd witnessed none of this.

We returned home the other night from my son's house. It was dark by the time we pulled in the driveway, and as we parked the car, Mr. Ginley said, "Look!" And there, caught in the headlights, were two bunnies, munching away in the tall grass of the neighbor's lawn. Their eyes glowed, and they paused a moment. But if rabbits could shrug, these two would have. We just turned off the headlights and let them get on with it.

Malley's is a chocolate store that also sells ice cream. On a whim, Mr. and I pulled up to the pink-and-green store, went inside and ordered malts to go. They were the best. 

Thursday evening was lovely, so Mr. and I decided to grab some grub and head to the park. We pulled up, rolled down the windows and sat in our car. On other visits, we'd noticed a picnic table of older gentlemen, speaking some type of Eastern European tongue, while playing dominoes. Sure enough, they were there Thursday night, playing the game and arguing among themselves. I don't know any of them, but I love them just the same. If I were bolder, I'd go over and talk to them and get their stories. But I'm not. So, alas, I won't.

I know this isn't a very exciting post. And maybe there's not much to be learned from it. Except it's good to take a little vacation every day. I know I don't have to travel halfway around the world to experience things. 

Amazements happen locally, too.

Photo attribution: Eder Thorunensis, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Emoting

I suppose you could say emojis have always been a part of our culture. 

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons*

Yes, I realize the modern emojis were created in chatrooms in the 1990s, when folks started playing with the characters on their keyboard to make silly faces. Which they used to enhance otherwise graphic-less communication. (After all, exclamation marks can only get you so far). 

A little digging told me the story of the emoji. These are the quick facts:

• Shigetaka Kurita, a Japanese designer, is credited with creating modern emojis. There were originally 176 emojis designed for the Japanese cell phone company, DOCOMO, which used them for cell phones and pagers in 1999. 
• The word "emoji" comes from two Japanese words: letter and picture. (No, there was no connection with the English word "emotion.")
• Kurita was inspired in part by the Zapf Dingbats typeface and by graphic novels when he designed his first library of emojis. 
• You can see the original bank of emojis at the Museum of Modern Art.
• The most-used emoji is the "face with tears of joy":  😂 Today, you can also get the cat version: 😹
• Emoji" became word of the year in 2015.
• World Emoji Day is July 17. If you look closely at the calendar emoji, you'll see that date on it. July 17 was chosen because that's when iCal for Mac was introduced at the 2002 MacWorld Expo.
• Mr. Ginley's favorite emoji is what he calls the "kissing chicken": 😘

While the emoji clearly resides in the modern world, there are clearly predecessors.

There was the smiley face, created by Harvey Ross Ball in 1963 as an icon to boost employee morale. (It took him 10 minutes to come up with the graphic, for which he was paid $45.)

When girls used to pass notes back in the day, they would punctuate their messages with little hearts (sometimes as the dot in the letter "I" (as in "ick"). 

Many of us have used XXXOOO for kisses and hugs. And I've been known to add a face or doodle to notes to my family.

But before any of this, there were those wacky funsters, the medieval scribes. Under the heading of "monks just wanna have fun," these doodles were done when the scribe wanted to test the new nibs on their writing implements. There's a fascinating article by CNN about these 700-year-old "cheeky doodles," if you're interested. 

In the meantime, have a nice day! 

*Photo credit: GorillaSushi from Aurora, IL, US, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons