GenX

Merry Christmas

~ MaryG ~ 3 Comments

How are you creative?

I’m up early (7:30am) thinking of all the parents of all the young children around the world who have probably been up for two hours already. Santa came! Woo hoo! Enjoy it…these years are a lot of work, but will fly by in the blink of an eye. (Sorry, I’m sure you’ve heard this once or twice – or like ten thousand times – before.)

I think my main creative outlet these days, besides singing and this blog, is photography. And I don’t even use a real (35mm) camera anymore, just my iPhone. Here’s a shot I got the other night on my way home from choir. I thought this deer was a holiday lawn ornament, then I realized he was real. I backed up my car, opened my window, and said “hey deer.” This made him stop munching the neighbor’s shrub and look up at me.

We’re not having a white Christmas here in New England, but at least we’ve got (rein)deer.

Christmas deer

Grant Us Peace

~ MaryG ~ 4 Comments

I hope you enjoy this recording that my choir made in 2021 during the pandemic lockdown. We each recorded ourselves singing alone at home and then sent the files to our choir director. She mixed them together using some sort of software and it really sounds quite good, especially considering she’d never done anything like this before. It was also very meaningful to the choir, and to the congregation, to hear our voices blended again after being separated for so long. Many were struggling with loneliness and isolation.

The text “Dona nobis pacem” means “Grant us peace.” The melody has been passed orally, although it is sometimes attributed to Mozart. English-language hymnals usually mark it “Traditional.” It is sung as a round, so you can sing any of the three parts at any time. You’ll never be wrong.

Beyond use at church, the round has been sung around the world in secular settings as a prayer for peace.

Here’s the music. Sing with us.

Merry Christmas.

Peace on Earth.

GenX arrives

~ MaryG ~ 3 Comments

Share what you know about the year you were born.

OK, I cheated and googled it. A fantastic photo journey through 1965 from The Atlantic came up. Check it out here.

The eldest members of Generation X arrived in a big year – Selma, Vietnam, The Beatles, the first moon walk, the Voting Rights Act. I did not know that Winston Churchill died in 1965, or that the US occupied the Dominican Republic that year.

Now I’ll admit to a horribly vain thing that I do: I keep track of a select list of female celebrities – born in 1965 – for the sole purpose of watching them age and comparing myself to them. I’ll literally pause a TV show and ask my husband if Sarah Jessica Parker looks older or younger than me. He knows the right answer is always “about the same as you.” You don’t stay married for 30+ years without learning basic shit.

Here’s my “born in 1965” vanity comparison list with birthdays. I was born in June, so I’m within 6 months of each of them.

Kyra Sedgwick, 8/19

Diane Lane, 1/22

Sarah Jessica Parker, 3/25

Elizabeth Hurley, 6/10

Brooke Shields, 5/31

Kristin Davis, 2/23

Paulina Porizkova, 4/9

Viola Davis, 8/11

Julia Ormond, 1/4

Maura Tierney, 2/3

Marlee Matlin, 8/24

Shania Twain, 8/28

Linda Evangelista, 5/10

I seem to have a special fondness for my fellow GenX Gemini, Brooke Shields. (She was looking at colleges the same time I was and visited some of the same schools.) I really enjoyed the recent documentary about her (Pretty Baby). She’s keepin it real and, in my opinion, looks better than ever.

All bets are off

~ MaryG ~ 4 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Are you a good judge of character?
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No, I am not a good judge of character. Prior to the 2016 election, I would’ve had a different answer. Back then, my idea of “good character” was still based on what I’d learned over the years in school and church and from my family. Lying and stealing were bad. Racism and misogyny were also bad. Nazis were the absolute worst. Sure, I had rejected the Catholic Church and become a Unitarian Universalist, but I believed that most people (liberal or conservative) had a common understanding of the differences between right and wrong. I did not vote for John McCain or Mitt Romney, but I understood why reasonable people would. They were men of good character. Then, 63 million of my fellow Americans, including the man I’ve loved and trusted since Day One (my dad), voted for someone who had been caught on tape admitting to sexual assault and I realized that I never really knew anything about anyone. 

Back when things were clearer, my mom was a leader of Camp Fire Girls and took us camping. The Camp Fire Girls motto was WoHeLo, which stood for Work, Health, Love.

LOL

~ MaryG ~ 1 Comment
Daily writing prompt
When are you most happy?
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Wow, tough prompt. There are different kinds of happiness. There’s contentment, relief, satisfaction, pure joy, thrill, etc. I was relieved when I woke up in my warm bed this morning and realized again (re-realized?) that someone I truly dislike is out of my life forever. Ahhhhh.

I’m content sitting here looking at my beautiful December delivery from BloomsyBox.com. I’ll be satisfied when we finish our Christmas puzzle, but – horror or horrors – it appears that a piece may have disappeared into the vaccum cleaner. Lifting up my voice with others in song is pure joy, especially when I feel like our choir is really nailing it and the congregation responds. Travel can be thrilling. My very first glimpse of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris from the taxi on the way to the hotel was a thrill. There it was – the real thing.

My first glimpse of the Arc de Triomphe from a Paris taxi was a thrill. Now that I look at photo, I’m remembering our driver was named Clovis and was French-Haitian. He had some interesting objects hanging from his rear view mirror.

But there’s nothing quite like laughter – tears in your eyes laughter – to really make you feel happy. Here’s where I admit that I enjoy smoking weed, always have. I have so many great memories of smoking a joint and giggling with my dear departed friend Carla. Looking into her big beautiful eyes and just cracking up about something. I’m not saying I need weed to laugh helplessly, but it does tend to have that effect on me. Most recently, I smoked (well, vaped) and watched a really funny Netflix stand-up comedy special by Pete Holmes (whom I’d never heard of before) and laughed out loud. White, straight, male stand-up comedians can go either way for me – I either hate them or I love them. Holmes has a modern, silly, interesting male perspective and goes a bit deep on things like God and atheism. Plus, he’s got some absolutley hysterical GenX bits, including one about the old “See and Say” toy we all had. Check it out. High or not. Hopefully, you’ll LOL like I did.

Puzzling

~ MaryG ~ 3 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What was the last thing you did for play or fun?
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In the past, I wrote about how we did a lot of puzzles during the pandemic, but then I decided I really only enjoy doing them once a year – at Christmas. It’s so nice to work on it together in the same room as the Christmas tree.

The only hard part is figuring out what music to listen to while we puzzle. I like the “Classical Christmas” station on Amazon Music, but after a while that tends to drive my husband out of the room. (To be honest, one too many versions of “Greensleeves” by the Celtic Women is annoying – even to me – and I love that stuff!) I came home the other day and he was working on the puzzle all by himself and listening to everyone’s favorite holiday band: Black Sabbath. 😂

I think we’ll finish by Christmas. We’re making good progress.

White Mountain Puzzles of Jackson, NH makes a good puzzle. Made in the USA. https://www.whitemountainpuzzles.com/

It’s butter – and maple – time

~ MaryG ~ 2 Comments
Daily writing prompt
List your top 5 grocery store items.
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Our top 5 grocery list items are usually milk, pasta, eggs, bananas and yogurt.

This time of year, I buy a lot of butter because I like to bake holiday cookies, especially when my son is home to help eat them.

A few years ago we were gifted a large jug of real maple syrup from a friend’s farm in Vermont and I discovered a great maple cookie recipe on sallysbakingaddiction.com (a wonderful website for free baking recipes). These maple brown sugar cookies are delicious and moist. (I’m allergic to tree nuts, so I make them without the pecans and they’re still delicious.) The icing is reminiscent of maple sugar candy. If you grew up in New England, you probably remember begging your parents for a maple leaf like this from a tourist gift shop in New Hampshire, Vermont or upstate NY:

The dough needs to be chilled for a few hours before baking and highly recommend the parchment paper method she describes, including banging the cookie sheet when first out of the oven to get these nice crinkles. 

The only catch is that the recipe calls for maple extract (in addition to vanilla extract), which is not available in most grocery stores. I had to order some from Amazon. I’ve never made these cookies without the maple extract. I think it may be a key ingredient. The other key ingredient is, of course, real maple syrup. It’s in both the cookie dough and the icing – a third of a cup in each.

I got two of these for Christmas last year (one light, one dark). April’s Maple is a family-owned American (blue state) small business. Check their website for gift ideas: https://aprilsmaple.com/
The icing makes these special and is very easy!

Ralph Nader

~ MaryG ~ 4 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Describe a man who has positively impacted your life.
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When I was a senior in college (around 1986), Ralph Nader came to campus and I went to hear him speak. At that time, he was mainly known as a consumer safety advocate and had not yet run for POTUS. He was suffering from Bell’s Palsy at the time (a temporary condition) and half his face was paralyzed, yet he persevered with a pair of dark sunglasses to protect his unblinking eye and gave a very inspirational speech.

I had no idea what I wanted to do when I graduated. I’d majored in history. My standard answer to people who asked me what I planned to do after graduation was, “well, I have jury duty,” which was true.

It seemed that a lot of people were planning either to go to graduate school or seek jobs in New York City (Wall Street for financial types and Madison Avenue for advertising types). I was interested in neither. Nader was the first person to introduce me to the idea of a “nonprofit organization.” He talked about “the greater good” and floated the idea that a career in the nonprofit world was a perfectly legitimate option for college graduates. I honesly had never considered that path until I went to a lecture by Ralph Nader.

That led to me seeking out an internship and eventually a job in the art museum world (a true passion of mine). I remember that my college had exactly zero resources for someone looking to work in nonprofits. I had to drive down to neighboring Wesleyan University to access a datatbase of opportunities. One job lead to another and I ended up working in the nonprofit world for over 35 years. For the most part, I really enjoyed my career and was motivated by the missions of the various organizations I served. I don’t think I ever would’ve been happy at a bank or an insurance company.

So thanks Ralph. I do appreciate the door you threw open in my mind back in 1986. This does not, however, excuse your possibly throwing the 2000 election to George W. Bush over Al Gore, but everyone makes mistakes.

It’s great to be done with Danielle

~ MaryG ~ 2 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Is your life today what you pictured a year ago?
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A year ago, I would not have anticipated being unemployed (or very possibly, I’ll just say it: retired) by December 2023, although I had been thinking about it.

I had worked in a job I really loved for nearly 20 years, but it was definitely getting repetitive. ALL my requests had been honored (full-time status; remote status, etc.) except ONE. And the one was that I really didn’t want to report to my toxic supervisor Suzanne Danielle (her real name) any longer. But I thought I’d put up with Danielle until I turned 60 (at least). The salary was quite good and the benefits were great.

Well, a “last straw” event led to my resigning and leaving just after Thanksgiving. As of today, I think I made the correct decision. I’m so happy to never have to deal with Danielle again – ever. We’ll see how I feel about being unemployed/retired once the excitement of the holidays has passed.

In the meantime, my son came home from college yeserday (yay) and I made an attempt at one of NYT Cooking’s top 50 recipes of the year. They call it “Marry Me Chicken.” Supposedly, if you’re single and you make this for someone, they’ll put a ring on it fast. Here‘s the recipe. Here’s how mine came out:

I have no notes. I followed the recipe as written and it’s a winner.

Google Translate tip

~ MaryG ~ 1 Comment
Daily writing prompt
What skills or lessons have you learned recently?
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This is more of a tip, rather than a skill or a lesson, but it was useful on my recent trip. Just before I left, a friend told me about the camera feature in the Google Translate app. She said you could take a photo (of a menu item or whatever) and it will translate the text from a photo. While in France, I discovered it will also translate things “live.” In other words, you just open the camera feature in Google Translate and focus on a sign (or whatever) and it shows you the translation right there in the camera frame. You don’t even need to take the photo!

I did make a fairly earnest effort to brush up on my French before we left. (I used the Mango app, which was free with my library card.) I think it really helps to use a bit of French with Parisians. They like that you made an effort. A simple “Comment vous vous-appelez?” and an “Enchanté” goes a long way with your taxi driver or waiter. Many speak decent English and when they realize you suck at French, they’ll switch to English and you learn a lot. I can honestly say that I did not encounter one bristly Parisian, and prior to the trip, grumpy Parisians were my husband’s biggest fear.

Five kinds of melted cheese for dinner at Monbleu in Montmartre. It’s not exactly what we thought we ordered, but it was good!