Magid at Creation tells me I am scheduled to speak from 10:05 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. on August 11th on the main stage at the STAR TREK Convention. So now you know. And I know. And will be able to RELAX (or collapse, as the case may be) afterward for the rest of the day! I’m glad it will be early in the day. (It might make for a sleepless night, but hey… conventions are like that, yeah, they are!) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Weather Report – cool and wet for many days in a row. We are LOVING IT! I just hope some of this wonderful wetness is getting to eastern Washington where it has been so hot and dry. There is grave fire danger in the forested areas; we are three inches shy in precipitation to date.
Despite the best-laid plans of mice and men, I didn’t get to sleep before midnight again last night. I was careful not to drink tea or caffeine yesterday afternoon, and was very weary at work as a result all afternoon, so caffeine wasn’t a factor. The major factor was sitting at the PC emailing folks who are coming to the convention or flying over to stay with me after it, which was great… and ordering a couple things at my CafePress.com store (DeForest Station) for the convention. That’s where I stumbled -- started looking at what other CaféPress stores are offering and lost myself to curiosity for an hour or so (searched on DeForest, and Kelley, and Robert Kennedy, and Faith, and Jesus, and such as that…) I almost ordered a few things from the RF Kennedy and Jesus stores, but changed my mind (came to my senses) and realized these are luxuries, not necessities, and I can put them on a wish list for Christmas. The prices are low enough that someone could actually get them without undue hardship to a checkbook. I took notes and will make a list. My family, every year, asks me what I want for Christmas and I can never think of anything other than Subway gift cards and phone cards. (Those are very important staples, you see!) Now I will prepare to answer the question for six months and give those who inquire a smile and an actual list – probably very short, but at least a list! -- instead of frustration. “She actually has a list this year! Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles!” If they dance, it won’t be a surprise!
Bobbie Bobstein says I should reclaim my guitar from the garage (purchased in Mexico forty years ago for $10 by my dad for me) and she will tune it and play some folk songs on it when she visits! Maybe I will get the music sheet for A SIMPLE COUNTRY DOCTOR from its creator and have her sing that… It’s a great tribute to De, written the weekend he passed away. You can find the lyrics here: http://www.ovff.org/pegasus/songs/simple-country-doctor.html . You may even be able to hear it on the Internet, but I’m not sure about that. The creator of the song sent me a copy on DVD so I could use it as an intro, but it’s about five minutes long, and I have never had that much leeway for an intro. Wish I did. It’s exceptionally good. It won a folk song award (Pegasus?) a few years after it was written, and should have! I wish De could’ve heard it. I think it would touch him deeply, to realize the depth and breadth of the legacy he left. Not bad for a man who said, when asked what he thought his legacy would be: “That’s almost something for someone else to answer, but my first thought is, I hope they will remember! There’s nothing deader than a dead actor, you know!” As far as I know, that’s the only proclamation he ever missed by a mile! It may be true of most actors, but it’s certainly not true of De Kelley.
What else?
If Aunt Tod doesn’t need me tomorrow morning to take her shopping, I will probably have lunch with Della at Kings Manor. I left my TREK Magazine with her (the one with my interview in it) so she could read and then share it with her daughter (a big Trek/De fan), so she is expecting me to come back one of these weekends to have lunch again and retrieve it. If it’s cool still, I may stay and play Hangman with her and other ladies and gents who want that kind of challenge to their brain matter. They love it when I stay to play because of my extensive (writer’s) vocabulary and knowledge of critters, the Bible, geography within the U.S., movie and song titles, and other categories I can use to try to “hang” them. Rarely do I succeed, because Della still has a mind like a steel trap. She and a couple others usually figure out the word or phrase…
I also use fun/funny hints during Hangman. One hint, e.g., was “Biblical Prophet, He Was a Bullfrog… That threw them for a loop! “A bullfrog prophet?” one lady thoughtfully inquired. “Wasn’t that during the plagues against Egypt?!” I just about wet myself laughing! (Answer: Jeremiah.) That way we get laughs when the answer is finally discovered.
I put the word “douche” up there one time with the hint, “Internal sprucer upper” or something like that. Strangely enough, Della figured it out right away but was embarrassed that she may have guessed wrong and whispered (with a strategically-cupped hand to her mouth), “Douche?” I do have to remember that the older generation doesn’t talk about personal matters with the alacrity of more recent generations! (Who am I kidding? Neither do I! That’s precisely why I threw it in there – to wake ‘em up and make ‘em wonder if I finally had lost all sense of decorum!) A little shock to the system is just what a brain needs to wake up and smell the coffee. After “douche,” I didn’t stump anyone on anything all afternoon, no matter how difficult or unlikely the word! My elderly friends were fully alert, awake and aware; as McCoy would say, “working on all thrusters”!
Let’s face it, YOU’RE more awake now that I’ve shared this anecdote, aren’t you? It’s amazing what a picayune, unexpected “moral outrage attack” can do to one’s mental abilities! It certainly sits me bold upright!
One of my first jobs as a young adult was working in a veterinary hospital. (I was a very innocent young lady – my Dad never told me an off-color joke until I was 24!) At the veterinary hospital, I blushed red for three months straight. The vets would joke about artificially inseminating dogs while actively gathering sperm from a male and then depositing it into a female (believe me, you don’t want to know; don’t ask!). I would just about die of acute embarrassment, not necessarily by the process itself but by their description of the process! And Max would mangle lovely standards (songs) to fit the veterinary profession, ditties like, “They asked me how I knew… raccoon shit was blue… and to them I said … you have been misled, raccoon shit is red” and “colder than the ring around a polar bear’s ass, COLD!”
Yes, it’s true: I have Max Flockerzie and Pete Yantorni to thank for the lop-sided “blessing” that I almost never blush anymore! If you can survive working in a critter care facility with two veterinarian cut-ups (pun intended), you will not blush again, either. Your blood will learn to stay out of your face and chest. I don’t know how, but it will.
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