Today’s pics are part of another fun Cee’s photo challenge: things people play with.
Games:
Dolls:
Words:
Food:
Love:
Light:
Fire:
Dominion is a card game I played once or twice in 2012 when I began playing a lot of board games after my divorce. It was a fun way to meet new people and make friends, without having to drink alcohol. When I say “card game,” I don’t mean Dominion used a deck of playing cards like you would need for gin rummy ~ it had a special set of world building type of cards, sort of like Catan, except there was no world. You had to imagine the world, or not. I didn’t really like it. I don’t really like Catan either, though I can tolerate it because it’s a very pretty game. My problem with the world building games is the arbitrary rules. Now, I know all games have arbitrary rules. Hell, our language is arbitrary, which makes all words and dictionaries arbitrary. But at least they try to be consistently so. The fantasy games are just ridonkulous with their rules… kinda like on Wednesdays we wear pink. Whyyy? Lately I’m wondering if I’m simply getting bored of games. Even my favorites seem like a drag and I’m happy when they’re over. I’d rather see a movie or read a book, but those aren’t social events. Just cuz I like a thing for a while, do I haz to do it forever?
Sorry my stream is trickling in late: I flew up to NorCal for some family time.
This week’s challenge is mundane and I’m here for it.
Food: turkey, blaaah
Game: Quiddler, 💤
Music: John Denver
Subject: sports, yawn
TV: most “comedy” yuk yuk
Photo:
Elvis the tortoise slooowly nomming kale…
Thank you Michelle for the Sunshine Award! Today I’m answering the questions, but instead of calling out 5 more bloggers, I invite anyone reading this to copypasta them to their blog and answer them too. They’re really good questions! I’ll add one more at the end to make an even dozen ~ you know how I am about numbers! 😂
1. Have you ever traveled outside of your country? If so, where?
– Not much, just to St. Martin on my honeymoon a million years ago.
2. Do you collect anything?
– No room! I used to collect Swarovski crystal, so pretty. Oh, and beanie babies lol. I guess I am accumulating a bunch of DVDs on my TV shelf and books on Kindle.
3. What is your favorite comfort food?
– Mac & cheese!
4. What does your typical weekend look like?
– Chores, board games, maybe a family visit, possibly a movie, lots of kitty cuddles, probably a migraine at some point. 😢
5. As a child, what did you think you were going to be when you grew up?
– A mad scientist.
6. What is your greatest inspiration in life?
– I just warily hope for the best, but it’s difficult now with chronic pain and our insanity politics.
7. What do you love most about blogging?
– I say what I want and get minimal grief. If someone tries to troll, I block them. For whatever reason, it’s much less stressful than FB (which I’ve dumped). I hardly see any 24/7 political bloggers, for one thing.
8. What is the most valuable information you can give new bloggers?
– Don’t blog about your job/coworkers or clients, unless you’re self-employed or unemployed, or want to be. 😀
9. What is the best present you can give that is not an actual physical thing?
– Your time.
10. What is the funniest thing that has ever happened to you?
– I “met” Mick Jagger while buying a Sunday paper in West LA back in 1988. He and I helped pick up a pile of cassettes that another guy knocked over. Then we both paid for our papers. He went back to his limo, and I returned to my Camry.
11. What is your best blog post and why?
– The Duke vs. the Secretary from 2012. It’s my most viewed and commented upon poast. I guess it really struck a chord!
12. Have you published any writing?
– I’ve been paid for a couple pieces, but most of my published writing is self-pubbed. I’ve just begun gathering the poetry I wrote this year for a new collection and will be putting that up for sale shortly. It will be for e-readers, like my other work. After that, I may return to working on other, older ideas I have percolating along. We’ll see.
As always, thanks for reading!
Better late than never is what I always say! Actually I rarely say that cuz I’m rarely late. Generally if I miss a prompt it’s by design ~ I can’t do them all! Someone has to earn cat food money and sadly it’s not gonna be the cat.
Yesterday Fandango had game. Well, he always has game, KWIM? 😀 But I’m talking about board games: Monopoly, Risk, Sequence, Scrabble, Clue, Chess, Chinese Checkers, etc. One of my faves is Ticket to Ride ~ I even have a new quickie New York version for impatient peeps. I also have the European version, which can take well over an hour, especially if Gatsby decides to invade France.
Okay then, caught up to where I wanna be! Chugging merrily along…
Around a week ago NewEpicAuthor asked if I know what causes my headaches and I didn’t reply in comments because the answer requires a whole poast… well, a whole book actually.
First, let’s begin with the debate over whether it’s acceptable to call migraines “headaches.” Frankly, my dears, I don’t give a fuck. I don’t believe it causes funding for migraine research to dry up if we say “goddamn I have a headache” instead of “Jeeves, I do believe the Grey Poupon has triggered a megrim. Please bring the bag of frozen blueberries to the quiet room at once. And for God’s sake, stop blinking so loudly.” There is a definition for migraine, but symptoms vary among sufferers.
(Nothing is going to cause migraine research to end, btw. It’s one of the hottest markets for new drugs because so many people suffer with this pain. It’s one of the highest causes of days absent from work.)
Second, I’m one of the “lucky” migraineurs in that, while I get chronic headaches, my pain generally is controllable. I’ve had many classic killer migraines, where I’ve vomited, had to lie down in a dark room, was totally non-functional for 24 hours, etc., but that’s been relatively rare, TG. Maybe I’ve had a couple dozen of these over the past 40 years, but most of mine can be calmed with the Rx medications, or even sometimes with extra-strength Excedrin, if I take it soon enough. About half the time they can’t be knocked completely out, but at least they can be managed down.
Third, so what causes these things? Let’s try to sort this out, lol. I have constant low-level neck pain from some injury (another complicated question) that sometimes gets worse and triggers head pain. My entire neck gets very stiff and hurty for whatever random reason and the pain radiates up, particularly on the right side. Or I will have sinus pain in my face, right side, that can trigger a migraine. (If I have throbbing on the left side, that can indicate a killer migraine is coming.) When I say “trigger,” I mean the original pain is left untreated and gets slowly worse until my temple/eye begins to throb and I feel nauseated. Light and sound start to bother me a lot. I begin to believe that everyone exists simply to annoy the hell out of me. More than usual.
I have done a zillion standard things to try to deal with the neck and sinus pain, except for acupuncture. I know this poast will encourage people to comment with wacko stuff I haven’t tried, and I will do my best not to get unreasonably irritated. 🙄🙄🙄 You mean well and I lurve you.
That was just the beginning of my trigger list, the neck and sinus pain. We can label those things “stuff outside Paula’s control.” Because they are, at least for now. Let’s toss weather in there too. Yes, weather is a big trigger. What kind of weather, you ask. Lol, I reply… all of it! Rain is bad, especially pre-rain when the air pressure goes wonky. Bright sun is bad, obviously. Heat is yuck and so is cold. Windy is the worst, all that dirt and debris swirling in my face. Don’t I sound like Monk? 😀
What is in my control? Avoiding alcohol, smoke, perfume and other flowery scents (but flowers themselves are fine until they mold, at which point they must be dumped immediately), Doritos and other cheesy chips, cheesy popcorn (cheese is fine, just not whatever “cheese” they put in these things), etc.; avoiding loud, crowded places; getting enough regular sleep; not eating too much salt; not eating too little salt!; getting enough protein; staying hydrated, which is oddly difficult; avoiding anxiety-provoking situations, etc.
Am I bound to get a migraine if I slip up and, say, play board games until 2AM and get only four hours sleep one night? Well, no. Here’s the thing (hehe). There’s no guarantee on anything in migraine land. Expect the unexpected. I can do everything perfectly, avoid all triggers ~ have no life basically ~ and still end up with a 3-day migraine that requires Rx meds so I can go to work. But some other time, I can slide a bit on sleep, have a few sips (ahem) of wine, eat potato chips, listen to loud music, and be fine. Yet, if I repeat that two weeks later, I might LITERALLY DIE. You just can’t know. Mostly I play it safe to avoid extra pain because who likes pain? Okay, not this kind of pain.
Also, I have tinnitus, and occasional BPPV (vertigo), which may not be related to the megrims, but it makes my head more annoying to live with. And I suspect it is related ~ why wouldn’t all the things that are wrong inside my head somehow connect to all the otter things that are wrong? We’re talking about a lot of things! Just because no one has figured it out yet doesn’t make it not so. And another thing (prepping for Columbo), why is there no otter emoji?
Hey, I warned you this wouldn’t be pithy.
Sometimes you don’t!
Share Your World questions from Cee:
Do you prefer eating foods with nuts or no nuts?
Complicated Q. I love peanut butter. In fact, I recently rediscovered my taste for crunchy PB, after declaring I hated it for decades, only because Target was all out of Jif smooth (I’m a choosy mommy). Yes, I know that peanuts aren’t technically nuts. 🙄🙄🙄 Sometimes I enjoy snacking on almonds, cashews, etc. I love marzipan and any pastries made with it. But the nuts stop there. I don’t want my c00kies, brownies, ice creams, etc. adulterated with nuts. So annoying! (Of course chocolate candy can have nuts; that’s entirely different.)
Do you sleep with your closet doors open or closed?
My preference is closed, to keep monsters and ghosties safely shut away, but my cat has other ideas and often opens them in the night to hang with the otherworldly beings.
Are you usually late, early, or right on time?
Almost always early unless I force myself to be on time or deliberately late. Is just my way of avoiding the stress of worrying about being late. I can always sit in my car and read something if I’m ridiculously early. Also, I tend to get lost, even with GPS, so I need to build that in.
What did you appreciate or what made you smile this past week? Feel free to use a quote, a photo, a story, or even a combination.
So many things! I had a great week and hope I don’t jinx myself by saying so. Last Monday I was still spending time with my lovely daughter and we were having fun painting to vids from YouTube. Tuesday I saw Crazy Rich Asians and enjoyed it a bunch. Wednesday I had a delicious free lunch at work courtesy of the landlord. Saturday I had a blast playing board games with friends. Yesterday I just chilled with Mr. G watching Monk all day… home sweet home!
Today’s prompt euphemism reminded me that I didn’t poast about the last movie I saw, yikes. So many prompts. So many topics to jabber on about. You know how it is. Anyway, I saw Crazy Rich Asians several days ago and loved it. Fab romcom, just fab.
I guess there might be some slight spoilers. Consider yourself warned.
A few points. Generally, to get the full flavor of a romance, we need to be present at the couple’s first meeting. This isn’t a diehard rule, like the happy ending, but it’s nice to have. I grok that opening with the poker game foreshadowed a later game, and metaphored (can verb if I wanna, pffft) a lot of gamesmanship throughout the film, but still. We could have had a flashback to Rachel and Nick’s cute-meet at some point.
One of the critiques of this movie mentioned that we didn’t get treated to the way “regular” people live in Singapore, only these crazy rich ones. Well, true, but it’s not about crazy average-income Asians. And I wasn’t expecting that. Wasn’t expecting a documentary on Singapore. Why hold the film to this standard? I think that’s really unfair. No one complained that Sleepless in Seattle neglected to show homeless peeps living on the streets. No one said Notting Hill should have shown the poor people in London. These are fairy tales, for cryin’ out loud!
So, I bet you’re wondering when I’ll get to euphemism. As they’re flying extra mega deluxe first class to Singapore, Rachel suspects that Nick’s family may be kinda… wealthy. He cops to “comfortable,” which she declares is exactly what a wealthy person would say. Is it? Since I’m not wealthy, nor do I pal around with the super rich, I wouldn’t know. But I do know it’s a euphemism for loaded!
If I were a rich girl (cue music), I think I’d keep things on the down low. No need for flashy cars or mansions that require lots of people around for upkeep. The more you own, the more you need. One of my blog buddies recently poasted about taking the bus, which I remember doing in Chicago, and that had certain stresses, but mostly people did not interact with each other; traveling by car and dealing with auto maintenance is probably on the whole more stressful. Of course, having a silent chauffeur and unlimited funds for limos could be the way to go. Hmm.
Anyway, like nearly every romcom, so much of the “plot” of CRA is built upon layers of communication failures. Nick didn’t tell Rachel the full story of his family’s empire before whisking her off to a gala event. Rachel’s mother never explained her own circumstances. Side characters are involved in other deceptions ~ to be explored in sequels, I presume. But this is what we expect from romantic comedies. And unless it’s done well, watching the protags resolve their miscommunications can be boring and irritating to sit through, but this one was excellent, IMO.
Anyway. It was fun diving headlong into a pure fantasy again. I really love this stuff, knowing I can depend on a happy ending, unlike real life. Such a great cast. I was thinking of seeing Alpha today, but then decided nah… just gonna keep watching Monk. I’m sure I’ll see something at the theater next weekend. My MoviePass is still working fine at the E-ticket place, and that’s good enough for me.
The otter week a couple friends and I began talking about how much we like the show Mrs. Maisel, and specifically we mentioned the father’s character, played by Tony Shalhoub. That reminded me I’d never seen Monk, which he stars in. I always meant to, and Prime has it, but you know… busy organizing socks. Anyway, I started it and am now almost done with S3. I plan to watch all of it (why not?), five seasons or so, except I will take a break soon for a Mission Impossible marathon, since I just bought the first five DVDs, and I’ve never seen any of those movies.
I love the character of Adrian Monk, and some of the supporting side chars are great too (the cops), but I don’t love the show. Does that make sense? Well, it doesn’t have to, pffft. This is stream of consciousness Saturday, and my stream has a lotta meanders in it. Not to mention rocks. And slimy toads on lilypads. Rebbit! God, my phone’s spellcheck is so annoying! What’s wrong with lilypad and rebbit? What was I even talking about anyway? Oh, Monk.
People think I’ll relate to him because of certain OCD tendencies I have, but really mine are nothing compared to real OCD. I do notice things being crooked, out of place, off-center, etc. and that bothers me somewhat, but whatever. In my own personal environment, I strive to keep things neat and clean, matched, aligned, organized, etc., but I’m not a maniac about it. My apartment right now has zillions of imperfect areas. And I don’t bother fixing them. Because eh. Endless. I never touch other people’s stuff, a la Monk, to align it. I’m also not a huge germaphobe like he is. I mean, I’m aware of ucky stuff everywhere, but yet I live a normal life and even have a pet. I touch public bathroom doors without using a paper towel. Yikes.
I could never be a cop ~ I don’t notice details about people, not relevant ones anyway. I might notice something like a woman’s part was really crooked, and the color of her hair, but I’ll fail to remember what she was wearing or anything she said. Or I might remember something really witty a man said but nothing about how he looked. It varies hugely. And I never notice people’s cars, unless they’re BMWs, at which point I will make all sorts of negative assumptions about their character even though I know some BMW drivers are good people. Well, I know of one.
One thing I enjoy about Monk, the show, is that it does progress, albeit glacially. After almost three seasons, Monk has cleaned out the office that belonged to his wife who died like 10 years ago. I’m happy to see that there is hope for him to be “normal” once again. He always had the eidetic memory apparently, but he seemed to be able to enjoy a loving relationship with his wife and a successful career as a detective. One thing I could relate to was his inability to retake the test to get his old job back a few shows ago. He kept erasing the first answer to fill in the box more perfectly and ran out of time. I can imagine doing something like this under extreme stress/anxiety. Which is a weird thing for me to say because test-taking is (was) my forte, but as I age I find it is not true so much and I get freaked out at the idea of tests or anything timed. Even timed games can upset me, especially if there are sounds.
My hypothesis is that when I was younger all these things like tests and dating and rollercoasters etc. which gave me an adrenaline rush were “fun” simply due to some physical chemical reaction, but that reaction occurs differently now because my aging brain processes the chemicals differently, and what was once perceived as yay-stress is now interpreted as boo-stress. (Sorry to get so technical with scientific jargon like yay and boo.)
One of the things I dislike about Monk, the show, is the samey sameness of the plots. They’re ridiculous. And as Monk’s new assistant points out: he’s like the Prince of Darkness. He witnesses a murder, so they have to be sequestered at a cabin in the woods until the trial, which led to some funnies with his OCD, but then naturally there’s yet another murder at the next cabin over. There’s always something like this every time. But since I like Monk, the character, I keep the show on at home in the background… whenever I pay attention again, I don’t feel I’ve missed much. So, in a way, the bug has turned into a feature.
I am starting to like background noise again. My own thoughts are too loud and that was the problem with writing in dead silence night after night weekend after weekend… Paula’s Yelly Brain. I’ll need a new show once Monk is done though. I’m starting to have slight anxiety about what to replace it with ~ it needs to be like Monk, engrossing but not too heavy. I have to be able to fall asleep in the middle of one ep and begin the next one later without a loss of anything important. It can’t be a show full of loads of character development or anything like that. A crime show would be good, I guess, where the crimes don’t really matter because you’re tuning in to see the same main characters behave the same ways every time. Or a comedy, if it’s not too stupid.
Ideas?
Much of my stress/anxiety has always come from the struggle to carve more freedom for myself. This is a bit ironic, since I like structure and routine, don’t mind rules as much as some people, and have desires that require funds, which necessitates an income/job. Having a job, no matter how good it may be, takes a big bite from the freedom pie. Mmmpie!
Yet I’m reminded of The Matrix, where at first people were given everything they desired ~ this supposedly bored them to the point where their brains quit producing enough energy. I realize this is fiction, but even so. A little stress and conflict may be good for us? Personally, I prefer the stress of a particularly difficult logic puzzle rather than an argument with another person, but YMMV. I guess I like the kind of anxiety I can control myself ~ I set my own pace in a pencil puzzle, but other people are too hard to predict.
Back to freedom. I like anticipating a long weekend and a nice chunk of time to spend on myself or visiting my daughters, but if every weekend was “long” or there were no weekends because I wasn’t working, then what would I have to look forward to? Just nothing piled on top of nothingness. 😛
It’s fun though to fantasize about more freedom, flashes of what it might be like to have gobs of time to write and do anything I pleased. I’d like to believe I’d fill at least some of those hours doing good works, however defined, and not only focusing on myself. But of course that’s a slippery slope too, since I would naturally feel good about myself for doing good things, unlike now when I have neither time nor energy…
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Extra nomz!
