Sweet Mystery of Life

If you've seen Young Frankenstein, you no doubt remember the line that was sung by both Madeline Kahn and Teri Garr. 

To whit, "Oh. sweet mystery of life, at last I've found you!" 

If you're familiar with the reference, you may be tittering right about now. But I have a completely innocent reason for proclaiming these words.

On a recent trip to the thrift store, I was perusing the puzzles and games section, when what did I stumble across but a vision...a game I coveted during my preteen years. Could it be, yes, it was.

Mystery Date!

I put back the jigsaw puzzles I had eyed only moments before and nabbed my prize. A handwritten note on the top of the battered box said, "new inside." I had to make it mine.

Fast forward an hour or two, and there I was, sitting on my couch, the box open, and, indeed, it looked like the game had never been played. The game pieces hadn't been punched out of their cardboard frame, all the cards were there (I counted them twice), and the door worked (I tested it to make sure all of the guys appeared). The inside of the box said it was the original game, copyright 1965. 

Oh happy day. At last, the game was mine. All mine. I gazed at it lovingly and sighed.

But, alas, I'm not 10 years old anymore, and the novelty of owning this treasure vanished, much like my youth. Poof.

So now I am wondering, what does one do with such a relic? Do I find a vintage game store to sell it to? Do I keep it hoping for granddaughters who will play the game with me someday?

More likely, I'll store it in the closet beside my Barbie Queen of the Prom game. I doubt that future generations will give a toss about it. I'll probably just elicit something like, "Poor you, such a pathetic childhood you must have had to want this silly game."

Fortunately, there are one or two of you out there who understand. Who remember the thrill of finding the desired boyfriend behind the door. 

If any of you would like the game, you know how to reach me. 

My door is always open.

ISO Good News

I'm exhausted from all the awful stories that have surfaced in the news. 

False allegations in Springfield, Ohio, about a neighbor eating Anna Kilgore's cat. (No, it didn't happen, "Miss Sassy" was hiding in the basement the entire time.)

Political ads spouting lie after lie – like the ones about Sherrod Brown, which have been proven false but still flood the airwaves. They're insidious because not only are they patently untrue, they prey on people's fears that those who are different from themselves are a threat. (And yet, the two attempts on Trump's life have been by white, male, Republicans. Go figure.)

Well, there goes my blood pressure.

I'm going to climb out of the rabbit hole of mayhem and instead share a story I read in The Plain Dealer this morning – originally published in The Washington Post – because, don't we all need to be reminded there are good folks out there?

The story is about Raheem Cooper, a UPS driver in Valdosta, Georgia, who was on his route when he saw an older woman sprawled on the ground in front of her house, groceries strewn every which way. He grabbed a bottle of water to cool her down (it was stinkin' hot in Georgia in August), called 911, and waited with her until help arrived. 

The woman, Marie Coble, 78, suffered bleeding in the brain, and would likely have died in her driveway if Mr. Cooper hadn't spotted her.

He left a note with her that had his contact information in case she needed it. Her granddaughter found the note and got in touch with Raheem, who asked if he could visit her. When he came into her hospital room, Mrs. Coble recognized her rescuer, sat up, and gave him a hug.

Since then, he's visited her several times, and the two have become fast friends. When he heard that Marie had to have a second surgery, Raheem set up a GoFundMe account, and captured the attention of a local news station. He's raised $9,730 so far. 

I must say, this story gave me a lift this morning, and I hope it does for you, too. 

Enjoy your Saturday, and hug 'em if you've got 'em.

P.S. In case you're not hip to this one, ISO = In Search Of. You may associate it with Leonard Nimoy. Or not. 

Photo attribution: Vijay Verma, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Setting a Record Straight

If there's one thing writers hate, it's when their work is attributed to someone else.

"Beauty, Thinking About Getting Older"*

Coming from an advertising background where none of your words are your own, I understand the frustration of others taking credit for your work. However, that's to be expected in the corporate world.

But it should not happen to personal writing. Unfortunately, in the age of the internet, we all know how easy it is to spread falsehoods and for them to be gobbled up and regurgitated over and over again.

Sometimes this happens innocently, as when a celebrity quotes a favorite poem, and it's attributed to them rather than to the person who penned it.

While I can't write every wrong (see what I did there), I can set the record straight on a quote I came across recently. It's a poem attributed to Judi Dench that was actually written by Donna Ashworth. I love the poem, it strikes a chord with me, particularly at this point in my life. 

So, without further ado, here's the Donna Ashworth poem (British spelling left intact):

Don't Prioritise Your Looks

Don’t prioritise your looks my friend, as they won’t last the journey.

Your sense of humour though, will only get better with age.

Your intuition will grow and expand like a majestic cloak of wisdom.

Your ability to choose your battles, will be fine-tuned to perfection.

Your capacity for stillness, for living in the moment, will blossom.

Your desire to live each and every moment will transcend all other wants.

Your instinct for knowing what (and who) is worth your time, will grow and flourish like ivy on a castle wall.

Don’t prioritise your looks my friend,

they will change forevermore, that pursuit is one of much sadness and disappointment.

Prioritise the uniqueness that makes you you, and the invisible magnet that draws in other like-minded souls to dance in your orbit.

These are the things which will only get better.

*Photo Attribution: Till Krech from Berlin, Germany, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons. The fountain was designed by Hugo Hagen, 1871 

The Chair of Shame

Don't get me wrong, working from home is wonderful.

There are plenty of advantages. I don't have to drive 30 miles to the office, make nice with coworkers, or pack a lunch. And, perhaps best of all, I can work in my pajama bottoms.

The downside is that occasionally, I need to go to the office for one reason or another. This coming Monday is one of those times. 

"I'd better try on my dress pants," I said to Mr. Ginley. "I've put on a little weight, so I need to make sure something fits."

Add one more downside to working from home. 

All of which means we'll be heading to Kohl's to find a pair of work pants that won't make me look like a stuffed sausage. And because I'm dragging Mr. with me, he will need to prepare for his stint in The Chair of Shame.

I recently alluded to this when talking to my brother-in-law, John, a few weeks ago. 

"What is The Chair of Shame?" he wanted to know.

It's the chair outside the women's dressing room, where Mr. waits patiently, holding my purse, while I try on several items. I model them for him, and he provides a thumbs up/thumbs down to each article of clothing.

He's pretty good at this, commenting things like, "That works" or "Makes your butt look big" or simply "Nope, not gonna happen."

Truly, he does not mind doing this, but he does draw disapproving looks from other shoppers, who eye the old guy in the chair holding a purse as being henpecked, having cognitive issues, or being a pervert. 

Since it's been quite some time since I shopped for nice clothes, I suggested Mr. Ginley prepare for our shopping trip. As part of the warm-up, he:

• Assumed the Position: We recreated the scene in our dining room (see photo).
• Chose the Look: Arranged his facial expression to elicit sympathy rather than fear/disgust from other shoppers.
• Practiced Quipping: Chose some snappy comebacks to raised eyebrows such as, "I'm waiting for my wife" or "Good day to you, madam," or simply calling out, "How are you doing in there, honey?"

Things are going quite well, and we discovered that, like riding a bike, sitting in The Chair of Shame is a talent that comes right back to you.

No need to tell him I'm shopping for underwear today, too. 

P.S. Alas, no chair of shame. Only a wall of mortification:

 

Playing With Words

When Wordle hit the puzzle scene several years ago, I swore I was never going to engage. 

Kees Swart, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Well, so much for that declaration.

While I won't go so far as to post my results on Facebook (because they're pretty dismal, honestly), I now attempt to solve it every morning. I don't know why. There's not a lot of strategy involved. Mostly, you're trying to guess what word is in someone's head. The word is selected from a list of about 2,500 common 5-letter words.

Here's how it works. You begin with five empty boxes, one for each letter. You get six tries to guess the word. So you type in the first five letters. (There's some strategy on this, like typing a word with three vowels – vowels are key.) If you have the right letter in the correct spot, it will turn green. If you have a letter that's in the word but you've slotted it in the wrong place, it will turn yellow. If the letter ain't there at all, the space turns black. Below the puzzle, it shows an alphabetic listing of all the letters so you can see your progress.

Most of the time, I can guess correctly before I run out tries. There's a screen that shows your statistics. I've only guessed the word right on the first try one time. Mostly, it takes me four or five tries. The stats don't give you a failure rate, which is nice, I guess. It keeps me coming back.

Just to note, I didn't just start Wordle one day out of the blue. It was included in a handy-dandy app the New York Times has for all their puzzles. A sort of one-stop-shopping for word nerds with nine interactive games:

1. I got hooked on Spelling Bee, where you make words out of a set of seven letters.
2. Connections is a diabolical word association game where you have to figure out what's going on the game-maker's mind. (I'm really bad at it). 
3. There's the crossword (which I won't do in the app, it's a bit much)
4. I do partake of the mini crossword. 
5. Strands is a word search of sorts. 
6. Letter Boxed connects letters to make words. 
7. Sudoku is there, but it's not my thing. 
8. Tiles describes itself as a game where you "match motifs." I think it was created by someone on acid.

I find myself spending an inordinate amount of time playing these silly games. It's really cutting into my Facebook time.

Which, come to think of it, may not be a bad thing, after all.

In Tune With the Past

Given the current state of the world, there are mornings when I simply delete my New York Times Newsletter. I can't always face the insanity and mayhem that have come to define the cultural climate in this country.

However, weekend topics tend toward the more frivolous, so I opened today's newsletter and read on.

The lead story was about music as the playlist of your life. I was intrigued.

The gist is that you create a playlist for a particular time period, a season, perhaps, like Summer of 2024. It isn't necessarily current tunes. It can be music you've rediscovered, for example. Songs that you'd long forgotten about and played over and over as you were working or hobbying or driving around town.

I can certainly relate to this idea. There are songs that define certain times in my life. The Beatles carried me through my early years. Carole King's Tapestry has popped up again and again as I've struggled with life. Graham Parker, Dave Edmunds, and David Bowie are some of Mr. Ginley's favorites artists, and their music set a "when we started dating" watermark in my life. There's music from old loves and painful partings. Tunes that even now can have me tearing up or laughing aloud. 

It's funny how music can evoke so many emotions. 

So, maybe that's a good project for me to think about. Sorting and categorizing the music that helped me get through. 

More likely, I'll just do what I've always done – pull out random musical selections, and let them carry me back to a lost time and place.

Obscure References

One of the many things I hate about aging is that youngsters don't understand my references.

Brother Paul, all set to see the USA

Of course, they can always google it, but I suspect most will just shrug off my odd phrases and chalk it up to my being an old quirky wingnut.

Which is not entirely off-base. 

But I digress.

Here's an example. The other day, I was writing about Chevrolets for work. I decided to try and incorporate the phrase, "See the USA in a Chevrolet," but I didn't want to take credit for this snappy slogan, which was penned in the 1950s and was used for decades. I left it in with an aside, but I have a feeling it won't make it through the editing process. Sometimes, I just can't resist.

I know that getting odd references isn't just an aging thing. Musicians, for example, have been misunderstood again and again (as illustrated in my blog last week – yes, this is a shameless attempt to get you to go back and read it if you haven't already).

Mr. Ginley was reading a book about rock songs, and he stumbled across AC/DC's Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap. There has been a fair amount of speculations as to the impetus for this tune, but the truth is much better than anyone could have imagined. However, it's only really funny if you're familiar with Beany and Cecil. The three main characters were a boy named Beany, a "seasick sea serpent" named Cecil, and Dishonest John (DJ), the antagonist, fashioned after classic black hatted villains. The show ran for a few years in the early 1960s and, much like Rocky and Bullwinkle, was rife with puns. 

DJ had a business card. It read, "Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap. Holidays, Sundays, and Special Rates." Which is where AC/DC got the idea for the song. Feel free to share this bit to impress family and friends.

And I can still recall the hoo-hah caused by Don McLean's American Pie. I was one of those who listened to the song over and over to discern what it meant. The tune is really long – I had the 45 single, and it was on two sides. My mom, who quickly grew sick of the whole matter, saw Don McLean on a talk show saying the song didn't mean anything, and she told me I should give it a rest. Critics and fans analyzed the lyrics ad nauseam until they'd broken it down. Eventually, Don McLean relented, and fifty years later, the song was the subject of a documentary, The Day the Music Died. McLean explained the song is biographical and chronicles the music social scene of the 1960s, starting with the 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson. 

Another amusing rock music reference which is less obscure is the origin of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker's band name. Steely Dan is a steam-powered dildo featured in William S. Burroughs' book, Naked Lunch. In all likelihood, it was before the battery-operated kind and was likely a plug-in. (Sorry, I could not resist.)

Of course, there are many other such examples of sly asides, inside jokes, and hidden meanings, rock musicians being the cheeky sort they are. You probably know of several yourself. Please share.

In the meantime, I'll keep on working Eight Days a Week – by the way, did you know Ringo got the title from his chauffeur? 

I just can't help myself.