dailyprompt

Figure skating and gymnastics

~ MaryG ~ 11 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What Olympic sports do you enjoy watching the most?
View all responses

I was not a jock. I played some competitive tennis and ran a bit of track, but I never played any true team sports. I was a good swimmer and eventually a lifeguard, but swim racing was of no interest.

I loved both of the dance-y sports—gymnastics and figure skating—until they got hard. At one point, I could do both front and back walkovers and a front handspring. (A back handspring was too hard.) In skating, I progressed to the point of doing one competition in a hand-sewn skating dress made by my mother. Figure skating to music was fantastic and freeing, but I did not enjoy being judged.

My Olympic heroes were Nadia Comaneci (the Romanian gymnast) and of course, Dorothy Hamill. Both made their marks at the 1976 Olympics when I was ten or eleven. Nadia with her perfect tens was a bit of a mystery because she was from a Soviet block country, but Dorothy was EVERYTHING. All-American and perfect in every way, she was the ideal. And yes of course, I got the haircut, but it never looked as good on me (or really anyone other than Dorothy). She was America’s best Olympic hero ever and I will never be convinced otherwise.

Dorothy Hamill in 1976

So yeah, give me the opening & closing ceremonies and figure skating in the winter, or gymnastics in the summer, and I’m good.

Cough over there, please

~ MaryG ~ 20 Comments
Daily writing prompt
How have you adapted to the changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic?
View all responses

I’m not a big masking fan. I mean, I was at the beginning. I was adamant. Then the vaccines came out. I got them, including all the boosters. By summer 2022, I was pretty much done with masking, so I threw caution to the wind and came down with COVID in early October after attending a funeral unmasked. I did not get terribly sick, but I did take Paxlovid because people said it helped if you started on it early. My husband also came down with it, but wasn’t too sick. He also took Paxlovid. Unfortunately, I ended up getting bouts of vertigo about ten days in (when I was otherwise feeling OK) and then had a lot of trouble with my hearing and tinnitus that still has not fully resolved.

For this reason, I really do not want to contract COVID again, but masking is just not fun. My husband had a cough in January and did not want to test because he didn’t want to mess up his gym schedule. Finally, when the cough was keeping him up at night, I forced him to test and it was COVID. I moved to the other bedroom and made him wear a mask at home for a few days. I did not come down with it. (Maybe the boosters actually worked.)

I’ve worn masks a few times recently. When I was going to Florida to visit my elderly parents in February, I wore a mask most of the time in the airport and on the plane. I also wore a mask at church when I had a cold that was not COVID a few weeks ago.

Basically, my tolerance for unmasked sick people is lower now. If you’re obviously coughing and sneezing, I don’t want to be near you. I wish sick people would either stay home or wear a mask. (Apologies to allergy sufferers.)

Image from Pexels

Hurkle-Durkle

~ MaryG ~ 14 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like?
View all responses

I was listening to a local talk radio show in my car a few weeks ago and the topic was “hurkle-durkle.” The hosts described it as a time to briefly lie around in bed (awake) before rising and starting your day. People were calling in to discuss the pros and cons. Mostly everyone seemed to be having fun just saying hurkle-durkle in every possible way. “Once I’ve hurkled my last durkle, I have to get up and feed the cat.”

I missed the beginning of the show, so I didn’t hear where the term came from or why they were talking about it, but I’ve since googled and learned that it’s a 200-year old verb meaning “to lie in bed or lounge about when one should be up and about.” It comes from Scotland (no surprise!) and apparently TikTok brought it back.

In any case, I’m PRO hurkle-durkle, but not for a full hour. I like about 20 minutes of hurkle-durkle. Typically I do a couple of in-bed yoga stretches, before launching my feet onto the floor. I like to do Apanasana (one or both knees to chest) to stretch out my lower back.

I wonder what word the Scots would come up with for a stretching/yoga hurkle-durkle? I’ve got nothing.

Image from Pexels

Related post:

Curse therapy

A Model Philanthropist

~ MaryG ~ 12 Comments
Daily writing prompt
If you could have something named after you, what would it be?
View all responses

Naming facilities is something I know a bit about due to my career in fundraising and philanthropy. At my last job, we built a sweet, state-of-the-art, 300-seat black box theater that could’ve been named (in 2009) for a mere $3 million. Sadly, we could not find a lead donor at that level…in Boston of all places (where we have many wealthy patrons of the arts). It was a real bummer. A total fail. We blamed the recession.

More recently (in 2023), a spectacular new non-profit community music center opened up near my home in the northwestern suburbs. And when I say spectacular, I mean it. You’ve heard of Tanglewood, right? This place is like Tanglewood East. Check it out here. I don’t know how much Groton Hill Music Center cost to build, but I’m certain it was hundreds of millions of dollars with the massive parcel of land that it’s set on (part of which was formerly owned by rocker J. Geils, who died in 2017). There is no other community music school like it – anywhere.

And get this. It was all paid for (including an endowment for maintenance) by an anonymous donor who wanted NO recognition. He didn’t put his name on any of it! It was only after his recent death that the community learned the donor was Al Stone, owner of Sterilite (maker of those ubiquitous clear plastic storage bins).

Recently, I spoke to Groton Hill staff and here’s what I learned about Mr. Stone. He was a visionary philanthropist. He didn’t believe in naming things (the Susie Smith elevator, the John Doe staircase, etc). He believed that type of fundraising let donors off the hook. Once they’d given enough money to get their names on something, they tended to stop giving. Mr. Stone wanted the community to embrace the venue and keep supporting its operations, year after year, regardless of recognition. The music itself should be the reward.

At Groton Hill Music Center, all donors (from $100 to $1,000,000+) are listed on a simple, tasteful sign in the lobby. A community resource this magnificent belongs to all of us.

I was in awe the first time I went to a concert in the largest of the venues within the music center. Known simply as “The Concert Hall,” it can seat 1,000 people and hosts all types of artists—from major classical performances, to Broadway stars, to folk, pop and world music.
Meadow Hall (seats 300)
A partial view of the exterior
Groton Hill Music Center, Massachusetts
One of dozens of studios for lessons and rehearsals at Groton Hill Music Center

Related posts:

Dream job

Playing for the other team

Randy Rainbow

~ MaryG ~ 10 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What makes you laugh?
View all responses

Are you like me—a musical theater lover who loathes Donald J. Trump with every fiber of your being? If so, then you probably know all about Randy Rainbow already!

For the uninitiated, check him out here. (Gilbert & Sullivan)

And here. (Funny Girl)

And here. (Fiddler on the Roof)

And here. (Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy)

And my personal favorite: Seasons of Trump (from Rent)

Related posts:

The Big One

Curse therapy

Dear Mary

GenX Mom Not Calm

Protest Photos: Then & Now

The Brainiacs

~ MaryG ~ 7 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What’s something most people don’t understand?
View all responses

Oh gosh, I don’t know. Physics? I certainly don’t understand physics…or…chemistry…or calculus.

Here’s to the scientists and engineers. May they use their powerful brains for good not evil.

Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer at Princeton in 1947
(image from http://www.life.com)

“For better or worse, we’re all living in Oppenheimer’s world.” ~Cillian Murphy

OK Boomer

~ MaryG ~ 24 Comments
Daily writing prompt
How has technology changed your job?
View all responses

As a recently-retired GenX elder (born in 1965–the first official GenX year), I am going to use this prompt to tell you a couple of stories about how we did things at my first job. You will probably find these stories boring, but that’s life. Older people will tell you their stories (repeatedly), regardless of their audience’s level of interest.

In the late 1980s, we had computers on our desks but no email or internet. So, if you wanted to put something into writing for others to see, you had to type it up in a Word document and then print it out on a ridiculously slow printer. “Memos” were written up like business e-mails are today, with the date (which you had to figure out yourself—people were always putting the wrong year on their memos in January and February), a “TO” line, a “FROM” line, a “SUBJECT” line, and a “CC” line. After you wrote and printed your memo, you had to initial it and then make Xeroxes (old timers called them “mimeographs”). Then you ran around the office, leaving your memo on peoples’ desks. As you can imagine, memos were used strictly for covering your ass, because otherwise, you’d just tell your co-workers whatever you wanted them to know.

Some people (me included) spent a great deal of time chit-chatting with co-workers throughout the day. One guy I worked with “made the rounds” ALL afternoon. After lunch, he went from office to office, desk to desk, cubicle to cubicle, trading information and gossip. He knew everything about everyone, which was very valuable back then. One person that everyone knew they needed to be liked by was the boss’s assistant (we called them secretaries back then). If the boss’s secretary didn’t like you, you were fucked. I once made the HUGE mistake of taking the boss’s secretary’s gift away from her during a Yankee Swap holiday gift exchange (which was my right, per the rules of the game). It was a salad spinner and I wanted it, but so did she! It took me months to get back on her good side. The so-called “soft skills” (reading a room, communicating, putting people at ease, small talk, empathy) were very important back then. Excel spreadsheets were non-existent.

So that’s how we rolled in the late 1980s…and don’t call me Boomer.

Saying yes

~ MaryG ~ 6 Comments
Daily writing prompt
How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?
View all responses

I was good at saying “no” to things for many years, especially volunteer roles in my church and in the schools. I had too much going on with the kids and work. I did my part for various fundraisers and events, but I wasn’t one to get roped into running the whole thing. In fact, a woman once told me she admired my ability to say “no.” (possibly a backhanded compliment)

Now that I’m retired (there, I said it) I’m ready to say “yes” to more things, especially if it’s something fun. Kudos to my husband, who is still working, but says “yes” to quite a few of my proposals. He doesn’t agree to everything I want to do together, but I’d estimate that he says “yes” 75% of the time. For example, we went and saw ALL TEN Best Picture nominees before the Oscar broadcast. And he’s been especially good about visiting museums with me. (He likes museums too, but it’s a bit more of a sacrifice for him to make the time to go.)

On Saturday, we went to a very cool exhibit at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts about Hallyu (Korean Wave)—the surge of popular culture from South Korea that started with K-drama and cinema in the 90s and then spread across the globe with K-pop and its massive fandoms in the mid 2000s. K-beauty and fashion has also been a huge cultural export and Korean designers’ work was on display. After that, we went to a Korean restaurant to round out the K-culture experience.

A K-pop idol’s costume at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Reconstruction of a set from “Parasite,” the 2019 film directed and co-written by Bong Joon-ho. It was the first non-English language film to ever win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The costumes from Squid Game
Fashions by South Korean designers
Korean “sticky ribs”

Related post:

Are you retired?

Not-so-secret skills

~ MaryG ~ 25 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What’s a secret skill or ability you have or wish you had?
View all responses

I think the difficult word in this prompt is “secret.” I have a couple of skills that I like to brag about and/or show off, with baton twirling being the most impressive. I can also sing a very high note, when called for. For example, my choir was asked to perform “Bohemian Rhapsody” at a memorial service last year and someone had to sing that very high note (you know the one). It’s a high B-flat. Welp, I fucking nailed it. (And yes, there is a video, but the fact that it was a funeral prevents me from posting it.)

So clearly, modesty is not keeping me from sharing any other exciting skills with the world. If I could choose a new skill to secretly have, it’d probably be clairvoyance. Sometimes, I’d like to know what’s going to happen ahead of time so I wouldn’t worry so much.