The Stars Won’t Come Out… [socs]

If they know that you’re about
Cause they couldn’t match the glow
Of your eyes… 🎶🎶🎶

(“Candida” by Tony Orlando)

While flirty banter and pick-up lines sound cheesy to me when spoken aloud, the same words in a song can be meltingly romantic. Weird! But true. Eons ago I noticed that some songs seem deeply poetic and/or philosophical, but if you simply read the lyrics as text… meh. How about this one?

“With every step you take, I’ll be watching you.”

Omg stalker! That definitely does not sound romantic outside of the song by the Police (written by Gordon Sumner). It’s not the only one either… there are tons of creepy lyrics that seem fine when sung.

One way or another, I’m gonna find ya
I’m gonna get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya
One way or another, I’m gonna win ya
I’m gonna get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya

Yikes, Blondie, take a chill pill! And how about this lovely ballad?

There is a rose in Spanish Harlem
A red rose up in Spanish Harlem
With eyes as black as coal
That looks down in my soul
And starts a fire there and then I lose control
I have to beg your pardon
I’m going to pick that rose
And watch her as she grows in my garden

Get a restraining order stat! Those lines do not sound romantic when read as text. They are scary, right? Dang, I’ve always loved that song (written by Jerry Leiber and Phil Spector). Let’s go with Rod Stewart for the grand finale.

You’re in my heart, you’re in my soul
You’ll be my breath should I grow old
You are my lover, you’re my best friend
You’re in my soul

Think that’s over the top too? Nah, it’s just about football (soccer). 🤣🤣🤣

~*~

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Images from Pexels.

Memorial Day Sharing

Melanie asks some topical questions for today’s SYW…

1. In your opinion, does patriotism require the belief that one’s country is the greatest on earth?

Absolutely not. That’s jingoism. Patriotism is supporting your country to help all of its citizens live good lives with quality education, healthcare, and employment opportunities. It also means helping to protect your country’s natural resources and wildlife. You can love something without denigrating everything else. You can also love something despite its flaws, while hoping they will be repaired.

2. Why is patriotism considered by some to be the highest of virtues? What is so important about love of country? Shouldn’t we be more concerned about humankind, or the planet as a whole, rather than a single country?

I don’t know why some people think that. I’m not gonna get into the weeds with a big lecture on what other people should do. Personally, my values are to first support my family and myself, pay my bills, take care of my pets, and just generally not be a jerk or a burden to others.

3. What is the relationship between decisions and consequences?

It depends on the context. Bad decisions often have bad consequences, but good decisions don’t always show good results, at least not immediately. For example, I could spend the weekend overeating and see an immediate gain of three pounds on my scale, plus feel bloated and gross on Tuesday. Bad decision = bad result. But I might spend the weekend eating only nutritious foods and taking walks, yet three days later nothing changes because good results take so long to show up. Bleh!

4. What is social justice?

Well, my knee-jerk response was to say that this is a term used on social media to mock people who earnestly stand up for things such as gay rights by calling out those who violate the earnest peeps’ principles. But apparently there is an actual definition, or a few variations thereof, which is the movement toward a society where the distribution of resources is more equitable and all people have the the right to live in physical and psychological safety. Sounds nice, in theory…

5. What’s one body part you wouldn’t mind losing? (told you.  Silly).

I don’t need my uterus any longer, lol…

6. What is something that made you smile during the past week?

Pictures of my adorable granddaughter! 💖

~*~

Images from Bitmoji.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

PFF51: Old News

Welcome to Paula’s Friday Flashback! This is a challenge begun by Fandango and it’s fun to see what we posted back when (as well as the comments). The post below is a reblog of a post I made exactly 9 years ago.

[Btw, I tried the horrid block editor for this post, from my laptop, and it was a complete fail. I couldn’t even find the button to copy a previous post, which is how I like to do these repeating posts from week to week. Gah! I immediately switched back to Classic Coke.]

On Journalism

There are many things I don’t understand and the following is a good example.

Last week it was widely reported that the actor Jeff Conaway had OD’d and was in a coma/near death. As it turns out, he has pneumonia and was put in an induced coma as part of his treatment. Why the rush to report Jeff had OD’d? Who knows. Why not an “alleged” or an “apparent” OD? Idk.

Today it’s widely reported that the songwriter Joseph Brooks has apparently committed suicide, as he was found with his head wrapped in a plastic bag, which was attached to a helium tank. This is not evidence enough yet for journalists to declare a suicide, only an apparent one, because we wouldn’t want to rush to judgment … perhaps Joseph was cleverly murdered, right?

Maybe I just expect too much consistency in life. That could be it. P, not-P, what’s the difference, really. Do you know that Golden Spoon has a cupcake flavor now? Well, they do! 🙂

/end reblog

~*~

Image from Pexels.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Want & Need [socs]

Want and need are supposed to be two different things, but I confess that there are times I have trouble telling them apart. When that happens, I turn to music to help me get a clue. 🎶

Meatloaf says he wants me, he needs me, but there ain’t no way he’s ever gonna love me… and as it turns out, someone said those exact words to him as well. Clearly, these are distinct categories of the feels one can has. ❤️

Then we have Bread, who says baby imma want you, baby imma need you, but it’s hard to tell if those are separate things due to the fact that he keeps smushing them together like that. I’m confuxzled all over again now…

Cheap Trick says if I want his love I got it and if I need his love I got it. Either way. I could want and need it, or just one of those, and he’d still give it to me. That leads me to believe want and need are not the same. Are ya with me? 🙃

Savage Garden confirms it when he says ooh he wants me but he doesn’t know if he needs me. That’s pretty pretty pretty darn good evidence right there that want and need are two entirely separate things. I’m feeling comfy with this now, aren’t you?

But what about Elvis? He repeatedly tells me he wants me, he needs me, he loves me, as though these three concepts are inseparable. I just don’t know what to think! It’s all such a big muddle in my mind.

You know what will help me sort things out? Cookies! I need some…

~*~

Images from Bitmoji.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

FUNQ’s 😍

Melanie suggested some fun questions for me! Thanks, M!

1. What’s your favorite holiday/celebration?

I enjoy any low key holiday when I can wear a cute kitty tee shirt and possible sparkly hat plus either go out to dinner or have a themed potluck. Not a fan of big complicated holidays that involve a lot of work.

2. Do you enjoy snow, if you have it in your area?

We do not get snow near the beach in Orange County, California (that I know of), but I enjoy looking at pics of winter scenes elsewhere. I wouldn’t mind visiting some snow again someday. Oh hi! Brrrr! Bye!

3. What do you think of the current news (generally, not today specifically)?

4. Dog or cat or guinea pig/ferret/fish/bird?

Love kitties! Doggies are nice too. If I were wealthy, I’d want a gorgeous aquarium full of beautiful fishies. Pets are a lot of work though, even cats, when they’re inside as they should be. 🐱

5. Do you like bacon?

I confess I do, but only super duper crispy bacon, almost burnt. Most places don’t make it crispy enough for me. I don’t make it at home because I don’t like my place to smell of meat. I’m fine never having it.

6. If you’re more vegan or vegetarian (someone please explain the difference.  Briefly.  I get confused! 😛 ) what’s your favorite veggie?

Vegans don’t eat or use any products from animals; vegetarians just don’t eat meat. I don’t eat much meat these days, but I’m not vegetarian. I might go a few weeks with no meat, but then I’ll have an Egg McMuffin. My favorite veggies are mushrooms, beets (roasted), zucchini, and spinach!

7. Sunshine or rain/snow?

I like sunny days, but rain is good for us, so I don’t mind it. Mostly I enjoy overcast days without blindingly bright light.

8. Frozen treat on a hot day?

I love an iced mocha Frappuccino from Starbucks with whipped cream. Yummy! Frozen lemonade is fab too, but it has to be at the fair. My friend told me a few years ago you can buy them at the grocery store and they don’t cost $6.00 per little cup, but I want to overpay AT THE FAIR! 🤣

9. Do you have a favorite type of tree?

Yes, a weeping willow. We had one in our backyard in New Jersey and it was awesome.

10. What generational nomenclature do you use?  (explanation:  which generation’s lingo do you most identify with?  Or are you a linguist who embraces ALL the words from every generation? )

I love words, but I was a teenager in the 1970s, so I probably use lingo from that era the most, including a lot of swearing (I try not to here). It’s all good, and I like to keep up even if I don’t use whatever is current.

Great questions! 😻

~*~

Image from Bitmoji.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

PFF48: That Girl

Welcome to Paula’s Friday Flashback! This is a challenge begun by Fandango and it’s fun to see what we posted back when (as well as the comments). The post below is a reblog of a post I made exactly two years ago.

Don’t Believe Everything You Read

Especially here. Remember back in the day when I was jabbering on about how much I lurve That Girl? Like last week? Well, I’ve changed my mind. Sunday I wrote a bunch in the morning and then took a little break, which turned into a 12-hour TG binge. At first, I still enjoyed the eps, especially the ones with guest stars, such as “Compudate,” which featured Rich Little doing impressions. I adore him and lost respect for Ann when she didn’t dump Don for Rich. Wtf? Ridiculous. Don’s a total bore. The more I watched the more convinced of this I became. What did she even see in him? He is totally dull. The British photog dude is also way more fun than Don, but nope. I guess it must be this opposites thing ~ sparkling butterfly needs a lump of mashed potatoes for a partner so she can make sure she’s always the center of attention. If she had gone with Rich, he might have grabbed some of the spotlight for himself. That’s fine for her, but what about us, the audience? After almost two full seasons, I’m really tired of Mr. Boring.

But that’s not even the main thing. There’s something about TG that’s really started to bug me. Several somethings.

1. The show takes place in NYC and everyone is white. There’s nothing but white people everywhere. White people celebrating generic white Christian holidays. No matter where Ann goes in the city, she never encounters anyone or anything but this. Amazing!

2. The city is freakishly clean.

3. Ann wants a career and left her small town to be independent, which seemed refreshing at first, but it’s not this way at all. She’s still emotionally yoked to her parents 24/7, especially to her father, and she calls him Daddy constantly, which is as irritating as her “Oh Donalds.” Daddy pops into her apartment whenever because he has “business in the city,” though he’s allegedly running a restaurant two hours away in the small town, and he has zero respect for her privacy. Ann is obsessed with his opinion regarding everything she does, whether it’s cooking a turkey or wearing dangling earrings, and it’s disgusting.

4. I’ve seen several eps now where Ann gets into dicey situations involving some creepy older man coming onto her and she wriggles out of it with her silly, spunky personality. If at any point she is actually physically touched, the scene is interrupted by Mr. Boring lumping in. Even when Don punches some otter guy in the face, he manages to be dull about it and hurt his widdle paw. The point is, nothing bad ever really happens to Ann, since she’s a “good girl.” This is the message we always have received.

5. Even worse, both Donald and Ann say “terrific” every freaking minute and it drives me up the wall. Of all the things, this started to turn me off the most Sunday night until I began dreading any positive announcement, since it would always be followed up with the inevitable. Why didn’t anyone buy these writers a thesaurus?!

Yes, I praised the writers earlier, so I’m blaming them now. Live by, die by. Goodbye, That Girl.

*

Of course I realize this was back then ~ I don’t care. I’m criticizing it now anyway, just like I did IDOJ.

/end reblog

~*~

Image from Pexels.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

X-Rated [A-Z Games]

Note: I’m doing the April A-to-Z challenge without signing up or linking back to the main site.

Many of the standard games people enjoy have X-rated versions ~ they also call them After Dark or Adults Only or something similar. Forex, Codenames, a hugely popular word game, has a version they call “Deep Undercover.” Instead of common words like puzzle, crown, and mouse, the X-rated version will have vibrator, orgy, and syringe. Taboo has a similar concept with their adult version containing terms for sex, drugs, crime, etc.

At first, I thought these would be fun, but they’re really not. Maybe if you’re 15 they are. But to someone my age, the idea of being “allowed” to play a game where I get to say naughty words isn’t that interesting. After one round, they’re a bore.

Then there are the games that exist only in this realm. These are all the Cards Against Humanity type of games where people think it’s hilarious to be disgusting and/or offensive, and if you don’t laugh, well, what is wrong with you? Obviously, I have issues with these type of games and in fact I don’t care to play them.

So, that’s my review of X-rated games. Pffft.

Please tune in tomorrow when I will blog about Yu-Gi-Oh! There are only two days left until the last post of this series! 🎉

~*~

Image credited to me and AddText.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Upwords [A-Z Games]

Note: I’m doing the April A-to-Z challenge without signing up or linking back to the main site.

Upwords is a Scrabble variation. You may have noticed that I didn’t blog about Scrabble even though it’s the game I’ve played the most in my life, online and off, thousands of games. Tens of thousands, probably. Who knows? But everyone knows what Scrabble is… and even Words with Friends, made extra famous by that jerk Alec Baldwin when he wouldn’t quit playing on a plane. There are a zillion types of online Scrabble now… I’m not playing any currently.

My mom loved Upwords for some strange reason. I don’t know why. But she always preferred it to normal Scrabble. So, even though I don’t love the game, I love the idea of it because I miss my mom. 💖

The game came out in 1982, according to Board Game Geek. Visit the link for a full description. The basic idea is to form words as you do in Scrabble, but you get more points if you can stack up letters onto existing words to make new ones. They give the example of turning CATER into BELATED by adding a BE at the beginning at putting an L on the C and a D on the R. So, the game stretches your imagination in a different way from traditional Scrabble. Instead of having an obscure vocabulary at your command, it may be more useful here to see patterns within common words.

Please tune in tomorrow when I will blog about Volleyball.

~*~

Image credited to Board Game Geek.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Bingo Update 7

See previous update here.

My friend Doug gave me Sirena by Donna Jo Napoli. At first, I was a bit wary. A book for young adults about a mermaid? Wha? But no! This is a super fun book, and it’s packed full of cool stories about Greek mythology. In fact, it takes place during the Trojan War itself. I love Napoli’s vivid writing. I felt like she truly had spent time living in a mermaid… pod (?) because I was transported into another world full of rich and glorious mermaidian detail. At heart, though, this was a love story, and it was a beautiful one at that. Four stars!

A big thanks goes to Angie for suggesting a Stephen King novel for the 500+ page book! I chose Full Dark, No Stars, which is four novellas. They aren’t specifically connected to each other except by the theme of ordinary people doing something extraordinarily horrible, which King more fully explains in his afterword. I enjoyed the book a lot, but for me the afterword was the best part. It was definitely the icing on the cupcake. 🧁 I gave this book five stars.

I’ll briefly review the stories in order. They will probably contain some spoilers.

The first one, 1922, isn’t the type of story I usually enjoy, but I liked it a lot. It was all narrative/backstory, which normally I avoid, but it worked, so… It took place on a farm, which… eh… but King made that work too. And it was completely disgusting and horrible. So, it had that going for it. 🤣

Big Driver is next, which is a rape revenge fantasy. I can totally get on board with this kind of thing, except idk… I just wasn’t so much into this one. I loved a lot of the details though, especially how she talked her way through the whole thing with her GPS. I guess I don’t feel the rapist suffered enough at the end, or at all really.

Fair Extension is fantastic! I had no idea how it would end. We’ve seen this kind of “deal with the devil” many times before, and yet this still felt fresh and exciting. I just gobbled it up. Loved it all the way through, just perfect.

The last story is A Good Marriage. Just wow. This is one of the best things I’ve read from King. Every moment of the story felt so real and true to me. I was right there with Darcy when she found that box and with each decision she made afterwards. Her character had been crafted so expertly that I felt mind-melded with her the entire time.

What a treat these two books were! 💖

~*~

Image credited to Kriti and Ariel.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Match Game [A-Z Games]

Note: I’m doing the April A-to-Z challenge without signing up or linking back to the main site.

Wow, I had no idea how much info there was on the Match Game television show! I had intended to say that I watched this game show pretty religiously in high school along with a few others (Newlywed Game, Hollywood Squares, Family Feud, $20,000 Pyramid, etc.).

When I watched Match Game, it was hosted by Gene Rayburn, and Charles Nelson Reilly was a regular panelist. They were both very funny. Some of the other funny regulars were Richard Dawson, Brett Somers, Vicki Lawrence, Rip Taylor, and Nipsey Russell. There were two players, and they competed to match the celebs in simple fill-in-the-blank questions. Actually though, the structure of the game is more complex than I realized and, if you care, you can read more here.

That show I watched in the ’70s was the second version of MG ~ Match Game ’73; it had first run from 1962 to 1969 as a tame show. But the one I got hooked on was risqué and silly (I read somewhere that there was a lot of drinking 🍷happening among the celebs before/during taping, which makes sense). “My” show ended in 1982 (and the weekly Match Game PM went from 1975-1981).

Match Game has returned many times since, including in 2016 hosted by Alec Baldwin (and renewed for subsequent seasons). I haven’t watched any of these new MGs. I will always have fond memories of the show I knew from the 1970s with the funny, risqué, possibly drunk celebs, all having a fun time with words and being silly. 😍

Please tune in tomorrow when I will blog about the Newlywed Game.

~*~

Images credited to IMDB.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.