Bigger Than a Bread Box

Image credit to Sam Karp

Majestic giants

Tread lightly in their thunder

Gentle eyes so wise

~*~

Posted for Cee’s B&W Challenge.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Truthful Tuesday Lemons

PCGuyIV continues his series with the following questions. There have been so many great prompts lately, which is why I’m a couple days late on this one!

When was the last time you had well thought-out plans that got dashed to pieces by circumstances beyond your control? Were you able to “make lemonade” out of the “lemons” life handed you, or did you have to completely step back and regroup?

Last year around this time I was planning to go to Las Vegas with some good friends. I was pretty excited about it, since mostly my vacations are to visit family. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! But this would have been different and fun. One friend and I spent an afternoon shopping for some sparkly clothes, and I reserved my hotel room/bought a plane ticket.

Then everything fell apart. 🙁

Even before the trip was officially canceled, I decided not to go because the pandemic info had become scary and unpredictable. Back then, we began freaking out about everything, including groceries. I stayed home from work wondering wtf was going to happen. Were we all gonna die? What about my kids? I also had a plane ticket to visit NorCal in April.

Like everyone else, I adjusted to the new reality of masks and distancing. Never socializing. Working from home or alone. The Vegas hotel refunded my deposit, but idk what will happen to my plane tix. It’s possible I could use one this fall…

I can’t see any upside to the pandemic that has taken half a million American lives and many more around the world. It sucks. No lemonade for us! Just more lemons, lots and lots of lemons.

~*~

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Essss

S is for smiling summer sisters, sloppy silver sweatpants / sky blue sweatshirt, sentimental scrapbooks, sweet scented soap, and San Francisco sourdough!

Posted for Tina’s challenge.

~*~

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

February Love Me 21

Let’s celebrate the month of lurve by posting one thing we love every day throughout February. Today I’m loving Northern California!

Have a great day, everyone! ❤️😻🥰

~*~

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Truthful Tuesday Directions

PCGuyIV continues his prompt series with a question about directions.

When it comes to navigation in unfamiliar territory, do you shun technology, relying on traditional maps and written directions, or do you leave the atlas behind letting GPS and Google Maps guide the way?

First, despite being online all the time, I’m generally a luddite and dislike adding new tech into my life. It’s all so complicated and glitchy, imo, and I get more enraged when it fails than I ever did when the normal ways of doing things didn’t work. Back then, I could say, OK, this didn’t work because I skipped a step and next time I’ll know better. But with technology, things simply happen that are out of our control and we can’t fix them. Like Facebook logged everyone off and sold our data to the Klingons. Or my home internet is down because of an outage. Or those effing WP blocks are screwy and ruined my posts…

That said, I totally rely on my GPS now and it’s been literally a lifesaver. I used to copy down directions from Yahoo maps and then end up not concentrating enough on the road because I was trying to read them while driving.

I love Google maps and navigation! I no longer bother printing out directions or scribbling them down. I have a terrible sense of “space” anyway (not merely NSEW) and have to override my impulse to do anything differently from what the nav is telling me. Luckily, I don’t travel obscure roads in the wilderness where GPS can mess up and send you into a pit of quicksand.

But even pre-plague, I didn’t like to go anywhere new, or anywhere period, so there’s that…

~*~

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Weekend Quickie

Rory offers up another weekend quickie and I have time to squeeze it in between my rounds of social engagements, of which there are none.

Are you more of a sarcastic or pleasant personality or alternatively a mixture of the two pending your mood of the day? It depends on the circumstances. I’m mostly pleasant around other people, especially at work. Alone, I mutter to myself nonstop, ranting, cursing, snarking, etc. I try not to be too sarcastic in public, since sarcasm is an unattractive trait and exposes the weakness of an argument. If you have the facts, there’s no need to be a jerk. Sarcasm is not equal to real humor, despite what men on dating sites seem to believe. See what I did there? Oops.

We live in a world of data, knowledge and information – but do we always have the right sort available at the right time? We certainly do not. Take nutrition, for example. How many times have we been told different or flat-out incorrect information regarding food? And then it turns out certain “studies” were funded by the same industries they touted. Eggs good, eggs bad, repeat endlessly. Carbs good, fat bad, carbs bad, fat good. On and on.

What are three of your favourite ‘go to’ websites [not blogs] for information or relaxation? I like playing Microsoft Solitaire card games and doing Happy Color pictures for relaxation. I mostly go to the LA Times, CNN, or ABC for news.

How lucky are you? I’m pretty damn lucky to have been born a white person in the USA. Anything else is frosting on the cupcake.

What’s the best advice you have ever received from a friend? Not a friend, but an ex: “Sometimes the best thing to do is… nothing.” This applies to many situations, most particularly those in which you are having trouble making a decision. Just wait it out.

You have five minutes to pack a bag with the absolute essentials to be away for a long weekend in an unknown location … what do you pack and why? Phone, charger, change of clothes plus an extra jacket, teabags, Clif bars. Give kitties extra food and water before I go…

~*~

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Sausalito

Here’s my contribution to Jez’s water photo prompt. This picture was taken in 2014 when I visited my daughters in NorCal. Such a great day. Miss my girls! 💖💖

~*~

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

One Ringy Dingy [SOCS]

Lily Tomlin said “one ringy dingy, two ringy dingy” on Laugh-In when she played a sarcastic telephone operator. Later, I saw Lily Tomlin in a one-woman show and she was funny then too, though not crazy funny like on Laugh-In. One of the skits that sticks out in my mind was when she said she always wanted to be a Howard Johnson’s waitress, riffing on the trope of waitresses who are dying to become actresses, I guess. Then again, Howard Johnson’s was pretty awesome… we went there on our driving vacations when I was a kid. I used to get Ipswich clams, and I still don’t know what they are or why they’re different from regular clams. Their blueberry pancakes with sausage links were yummy too. I also loved Lily in 9 to 5 with Dolly Parton and Jane Fonda. Super funny movie. Of course, Jane is great in her role on Grace and Frankie ~ with Lily Tomlin costarring! Not sure if Dolly makes an appearance on that show. Anyway, I had an Aunt Lily, who told risqué jokes, and my protagonist in Ghosted is named Lily. YES I AM STILL WORKING ON THAT NOVEL. In case you were wondering, which I’m sure no one is. I actually have been making good progress. This post is about rings though, so let’s get back on track. Besides telephones, fingers have rings and so do trees and also ring tailed lemurs. I’m not sure what a lemur is… some kind of monkey? Must google. But not now. Now I’m just streaming. There was a song about putting a ring on it, which I think means that if a man is interested in a woman, he should propose marriage to her. That makes sense, but then again it doesn’t really. It’s not like there’s a stigma in having multiple relationships before marriage any longer, so why can’t someone be interested for a short time and then move on without the other party turning into a psycho? On the other hand (the one without a ring, just saying), if your goal is to find a life partner, you don’t want to waste time with players. People should be honest about their intentions and goals. That said, it’s really bothering me about the clams, so I’m ending this now in order to google. Will look up lemurs too. It’ll be a whole Animal Kingdom google palooza…

~*~

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

November Share

Melanie has a new set of questions for us this week…

1. Which meal is your favorite: breakfast, lunch, or dinner?

Dessert!

2. Who do you admire most in the world?

My daughters ~ they’re awesome! 💖💖

3. With the obvious restrictions in place, what do you regret not doing in the last year?

I had to cancel my trip to NorCal to visit my daughter. I also had to cancel a fun trip to Las Vegas with friends. All game nights and restaurant type get-togethers have also been canceled, so I’ve just been sitting at home…

4. Feel free to share something you’re grateful for.

I did get to see my LA daughter yesterday and I made unicorn cupcakes with my little granddaughter. This also counts as my smile for the week!

~*~

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

Truthful Tuesday Holidays

PCGuyIV continues his series by asking if the pandemic has altered our Thanksgiving or Christmas plans. 🎄

For the last few years, I’ve been flying up to NorCal to spend Thanksgiving with my eldest and her husband. This year, I won’t fly. I have a bunch of credit with Southwest for trips I didn’t take in the Spring, and they’ll remain unused. May end up losing them. I am planning to drive up there this year, which will be a giant pain, but worth it to see them. It’s about a six hour trip each way, fastest route, maybe more if there’s a traffic jam. I could go the scenic route, which adds at least an hour, but it’s so pretty along the coast that I might do it coming back.

Being a Jewish atheist, I don’t celebrate Christmas, though I enjoy seeing the lights and nomming up cookies, not to mention Reese’s peanut butter trees. I never had much interest in turning Chanukah into Christmas lite, so I’ll probably ignore most of the season as usual, except for giving gifts to my grandchildren.

Regarding the plague. I know some are tired of wearing masks, distancing, etc, but for me… I’m doubling down on all that. The Rose Garden fiasco says to me: be more careful, not less. I especially don’t want to pass this terrible bug to my family.

~*~

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