Confessions of a Lazy Blogger

 

My daughter's kitty Zizi who passed a while ago

I have been enjoying other bloggers' long posts full of links and photos and diary-like reporting of their lives, and I think yeah I should do that too. Then I think nah I can't be bothered. Today I had planned a longer post for Jim's Song Lyric Sunday, which would have featured the song "I Hate Myself for Loving You" by Joan Jett, who was born in September (the theme). I had the idea of relating the lyrics to my own experience of the same, as this month marks the 10-year "anniversary" (9/25/16) of when I met the Michael who ghosted me at Thanksgiving (as opposed to all the other Michaels). I was going to jabber on about the significance of the square numbers, and go through the whole boring story again, even though some of you have heard it a few times already. 

Meh.

I find that I just don't care enough about it any longer to talk about the details. If it's uninteresting to me, I am pretty sure I can't make it sound interesting to you. Plot twist: I'm happy that I no longer care about what happened 10 years ago or any other dating experiences. They're all a big stupid blur of who gives a f*ck?

Nothing else grabbed me to post for SLS, so I thought OK I will do Joyce's Hodgepodge. But the theme is football. I mean, it goes beyond football, but ugh. Football. If I participate and share my link, then I will need to read other posts on the topic to participate fairly... blech. This is nothing against people who enjoy football. Some of my best friends like football. Hah.

I saw someone in my feed post about "lilac," and I followed the link back to the OP, who are a couple peeps I interacted with years ago on Wordpress, but they have their comments disabled. Blogspot posts do not "ping back" to another post when you create a link; the only way to alert another blogger that you tagged them is to go over there and leave a comment. I don’t mind doing this occasionally, but if comments are disabled, I don't feel like dealing with it, going to all the pingbacked links, hoping for a few return visits, blah blah, even though I might have done that if I could have commented, which makes little sense as it's the same thing, but hey. Then I thought, fine, I'll just do my lilac post for my loyal readers who come here of their own free will just to read exciting posts like this one.

Meh. I was out of the mood by then.

Generally, I avoid the diary type of posts because I have to leave out too much, since I don't post about work in any specific way nor do I want to say anything about family or friends that they might not like. I have been burned before in writing about these topics. It doesn't seem like anyone I know in "real life" reads this blog, but if I ever mention something like say a roommate I had back in Huntington Beach, then you can bet they will come slithering out. I do use the name Michael, and occasionally Jim, as there are a kabillion of them, and I doubt one will want to make himself known by jumping up and yelling YES I'M THE AHOLE!

I see that the Sunday Whirl Wordle has some really pretty words in it like mosses and plumes and forest and ruffle, so maybe if I get over my lazies I will write a poem with all the prompt words. Hazy images are starting to materialize in my mind...

Here's the bottom line (literally): I don't want blogging to take much effort. If an idea for a post turns out to be Not Fun and a Giant Chore to continue with, I delete it. If participating in a "blog hop" takes a bunch of work, I'm out. There are too many books I could spend time reading instead.

My Silver Anniversary

 

Image stolen from Google

This week marks my 25th anniversary working for the same law firm. It’s a big deal, especially these days when people are constantly changing jobs, and I was honored for my years last Friday night at our company dinner. Not coincidentally, I was the oldest person in the room. I can still remember being the youngest person at work, back in Chicago after dropping out of college (I returned later to get my degree).

I found a quarter in the office parking lot this morning (heads up), which I will take as a sign of good luck from the gods for my 25th milestone, or maybe a sign that someone dropped their change. I’m hoping that it’s not a sign I need to stay employed for 25 more years.

I haven’t felt the blogging muse for a while, though I do have a couple posts scheduled for this week. I guess I mean the prompts lately haven’t inspired me, and I vowed not to post filler here. I did a lot of filler posts on my last blog just to stay in the feeds, and I ended up stressed and unhappy because of that. I started a few poems recently and abandoned them all because I wasn't feeling the vibe.

Interesting that my stats have returned to “normal” after that weird World Cup surge. (Probably a coincidence.) I’m still getting hits from odd places, but not thousands of them. It’s also strange that even on days when I post nothing, I get a hundred or so views. Whatever. I don’t want to obsess over stats.

I’ve also been busy, at least for me. Besides the work event on Friday, I had social events on Saturday and Sunday. I also have more social events scheduled for this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The next weekend is similarly packed with people-ing. What the heck? I’m supposed to be an antisocial, introverted hermit!

For someone with nothing to say, I have managed to write several paragraphs. 

Sharing My World

Gatsby, my soul kitty (my photo)

Hey, it’s been a while since I responded to one of Di’s Share Your World posts, and I couldn’t resist this one. 

1. What have you recently forgotten to do until the last minute?

I’m probably jinxing myself here, but my answer is… nothing! One of my main OCD tendencies is to make lists of everything and add reminders to my calendar for every possible minor deadline or even things sans deadlines that I simply want to accomplish. There are things I should do but haven’t done, of course, but that’s not because I forgot ~ I just don’t wanna do them.

2. How many blog posts do you publish on average a day?

I would say probably one or two. Blogger doesn’t show you highly detailed stats the same way that WordPress does, so this is just my “feeling.” When I first began this blog (or wiped and restarted it) in the summer of 2024, I vowed that I would not post just to post. My old WP blog had loads of filler posts that embarrassed me when I looked back at them. Back then, it was normal for me to post five times per day ~ I probably went three or more years without skipping a day! Now, I regularly skip days. Last week I think I skipped two days. 

3. How long have you been blogging?

Short answer: 22 years, with a few breaks. Skip to Q4 if you aren’t interested in the long, meandering saga.

I began my first blog in 2004 (Ultrablog from my then-screen name of Ultraviolet) because my writer friends were all starting them. Most of those friends have given up blogging, sadly, and their blogs lie abandoned in the internet graveyard. They still operate under the illusion that’s it’s possible to have meaningful conversations on Facebook. I despise FB! I’m only there for my book club now. The latest horrible annoyance is their refusal to hide/ mute stuff you request. They literally do not care how miserable the user experience is; they care only about the ads and business pages people pay for. 

Sorry, irrelevant rant. The 2004 Blogger blog got derailed over the Pit Bull War, my comments were “hacked,” and I deleted the whole thing in 2007. I began a new, quiet Blogger blog that focused on cats and trivia, but I became bored with it. At the end of 2007, my mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and I started a private Blogger blog to express my thoughts surrounding her illness and death. I think I invited 20 readers to commiserate with me. After my mom died, I archived that blog and took it down.

A year later, my divorce was in process, and I began dating a man who was supposedly going to leave his wife (ha ha). Since I was frequently depressed over my entire situation, I began a WordPress blog to post angsty song lyrics, snippets of poetry, and sad quotes. That ended up morphing into my long-running blog, which I paid for to eliminate ads and kept up for over a decade until I got heartily sick of it and of WP generally. I deleted that blog in early 2023.

But I still had this Blogger blog! This wasn’t my original blog or my trivia one, both of which had been deleted; this was simply my backup blog, which I used when WP was being glitchy to “hold” posts until WP behaved again. Anyway, I decided in 2024 that I missed blogging after seeing a movie and desiring to write about it, so I wiped this one and began anew.

4. If you had to rename your blog, what would it be?

Idk. I really like this name, but if I had to rename it, I’d choose something like Pointless Meandering.

Gratitude: I am thankful that I figured out how to give Inky her flea pill. She doesn’t go outdoors, but fleas are everywhere, and one might sneak inside the house, so it’s important to stay protected. This particular pill is very grainy and hard to stuff down her throat, so I gave up for a couple months, but Saturday I was determined. I put a dab of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter on the pill to make it slippery. After making sure she swallowed, I put a tiny dab of it on her nose so she’d lick it off and swallow again. It worked! Yay! (I used to give Gatsby topical flea prevention meds, but those are icky, and I want Inky to be able to take a pill.)

No, I don’t have real butter in the house. I like butter to be fake and spreadable. Thanks for asking. Also, before anyone starts, the Chewy vet said this was okay to do.

Tiger Striped Hodgepodge

Meta AI created image of "tiger fudge"

Happy last week of July! I am participating in Joyce's Hodgepodge again this week by answering the following questions.

1. What was the last thing you celebrated? 

We celebrated a friend's birthday with a Friday dinner at BJ's and seeing The Odyssey. I enjoyed the film but it was very loud, very long, and very violent. I wore earplugs the whole time, which someone told me to do, and I definitely appreciated that advice. Saturday the party continued at the Orange County Fair where we attended the fabulous (and glittery) combo cover band concert of Kenny Metcalf as Elton John and ABBA LA. Very fun! I wandered around the fair for a couple hours, mostly staying indoors to see the exhibits because I enjoy them and also because the weather has been extremely hot and humid here. Sunday (today) my family got together for a pool party and to celebrate (a bit belatedly) my grandson's birthday. He seemed happy with the FIFA themed foosball tabletop game I gave to him.

2 July 29th is International Day of the Tiger. Besides the wild animal itself, when you hear the word tiger what's the first  person-place-thing-whatever that comes to mind? 

Tiger fudge. This ridiculously delicious treat is made with melted milk chocolate chips, melted white chocolate chips, and heated peanut butter. You pour each layer in a pan separately and then swirl a knife through the whole thing to make it stripey. Refrigerate it until completely cold and then cut it into little squares. Meta AI didn't know what tiger fudge was, but after I described it, I ended up with the above pic, which I think is adorable.

3. The expression 'eye of the tiger' describes someone with intense focus, determination, and the drive to succeed. What area of your life are you currently bringing that kind of energy to?  

I don't have this level of focus and determination any longer. I prefer to do things at a moderate pace, probably because when I was focused and determined, it didn't lead to the success I wanted, so why not enjoy life a bit more? For example, I no longer force myself to get up at 4AM and write for three hours before work. That didn't lead to publishing success, so I might as well get more sleep.

4. What was the last meal you cooked? 

Hahaha. I don't cook for one person (myself), except for the simplest things like an occasional omelet. It's too hot to cook now anyway, and I prefer salads and fruit bowls with yogurt or cottage cheese.

5. Describe your July using exactly five words. 

Hot, humid, exercising, reading, blogging.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

I had over 3000 views on this blog yesterday, which is disturbing, since I know they're almost all bots. What do they want from me? I think the massive view numbers began when I did April A2Z this past April, and they've been rising steadily. Before that, I hardly had any visitors, so the bots must scrape blog addresses from public lists, such as A2Z.

Pinch

Butterfly from Pixabay

A pinch of poetry, a cup of cats, a spoonful of peeves, a sprinkle of crafts: this is how I flavor my blog. I don't have a specialty, a niche, or a business; I am not writing a novel in 8,000 pieces; and my interests flit around like butterflies in a vast field of flowers, but in a shallow way, so don't bore me with stats or facts or (god forbid) podcasts.

Sometimes I do a prompt for three weeks in a row, and then I might quit participating for months, even though "they" say that readers like consistency. Oops, I guess I am writing only to please myself, my bad.

I tried for years (decades, heck) to please an audience, to get published, to find some way to get paid for my writing, even though it's always been a labor of love, and all that came to naught, so I decided to forget it and just say what I please when I want to say it right here on the blank blog page for no expectation of payment or fame.

If I ever announce that I have a publishing contract, someone should pinch me because I'd be dreaming.

~*~

Written for Denise's Six Sentence Story (pinch).

Sunday Noodling...

 

Yummy udon noodles (my photo)

Even though the air quality around me has generally been in the acceptable zone (except for one day last week), my eyes have been SO UNBEARABLY ITCHY again. Sometimes they get so bad, I have to hold a cold, wet paper towel over them. Generally, I am better off when I can stay indoors, but I do have to go to work. And to game nights. And to the grocery store. Oh well. It could be worse ~ I could be blind.

I bought an automatic cat feeder for the (very rare) nights I might not be home at 6-7pm to feed Inky on our established schedule, but programming it takes a degree in rocket science. I have it sitting behind me in parts right now so as not to use up the batteries while I'm trying to figure it out. I decided to take a break to blog instead. I'm only going to use the auto-feeder once in a while, but even so I need to test it out when I'm home to be sure it works. The meals via the feeder will be kibble, of course, and Inky is on a wet food diet, which she seems pretty happy with, but luckily she adores kibble. She'd probably be happier eating it every meal instead of the wet, but vet says wet is best, so that's what we're doing except for the rare occasions I'm out at dinnertime. 

For a while now, I've been participating in Fandango's Flashback Friday, but that will be coming to an end shortly because all my old blogs have disappeared from the Wayback Machine. It's funny that I requested removal some time ago, but they asked for a whole bunch of information that I didn't have access to, so I let it go. Since then, I've made use of it by scavenging for old posts I can use for the FFF prompt, but now I will only have the previous two years of this blog, which isn't a lot. I wasn't even blogging every day in 2024 or even for most of 2025. Don't get me wrong: I am happy I have been cut from the internet archive. It bothered me to be on there in the first place after I learned it existed. This current blog is randomly getting crawled by them, despite the fact that I opted out of searches and stuff. Whatever.

Regarding stats, the daily views still seem to be too high, but I'm trying not to obsess about it. They're no longer over 1000, but even 300 seems out of line, considering the minuscule number of comments I get per post, not counting my own. I know people often read without comment (I do too), but even so. Not sure about this Feedly app I'm using either, as huge chunks of time pass with no updates, and I know it's not a true picture, since I follow myself. Last week, one of my own posts didn't show up in Feedly for over 24 hours. That said, Feedly is better by far than Blogger's reader, so unless something else comes to my attention, I guess I will continue to use it.

I went to Michael's this morning to get a birthday present for my friend, and all the Halloween stuff was out. Whether or not I end up doing anything special for Halloween this year, it still gives me great joy to see all the decorations. Too bad Party City has disappeared (the tiny little section they set up in Staples does not count); I used to love going in throughout the year to browse their costumes and accessories.

If anyone cares, I'm still working out every day. Some of the Leslie Sansone videos I bought off eBay aren't as great as the ones I already had, but that's fine... they still provide some variety. I need to go do one now, finish dealing with the cat feeder, and maybe schedule more posts for the week. It's getting up to the dreaded end-of-month at work, so you know what that means. Super stress!

A Thousand Views

Abacus image from Pixabay

Yesterday (Sunday, July 5) I had over a thousand views on this blog. Since April A2Z, I generally get about 200 per day, sometimes 300 if I link to a prompt, so this was surprising (prior to April I had fewer than 100 per day). Many of the new views were via Infidel linking to my fireworks post (thanks!), but most were in the “other” group, with no referring URL or keyword noted. Loads of views were from Portugal and Brazil. Does this have something to do with the World Cup? I never mention sports! So, I don’t know what’s going on or how people are finding Light Motifs when I don’t have the “allow search engines to find your blog” box checked off in settings. 

Just like back on Wordpress, the massive increase in page views doesn’t translate into comments. I’ve been receiving about the same amount of comments as usual despite the surge in views. It seems that people hit up the blog, check out the first post, and immediately lose interest. Or maybe they’re bots, but how would bots get here if I don’t show up in a search?

I know, I know… the stats are as meaningless as they’ve always been, but they do spark my curiosity.

No Slippery Slope

Otter sliding down a hill (AI image)

I’ve been continually piqued by the complications of commenting on Wordpress blogs as opposed to the ease of commenting at Blogger blogs. This irritation reached a peak the other week when WP insisted that my gmail address was already used at WP, so I had to sign in with a password in order to comment. I deleted my account there in 2024 and do not want the hassle of another one. I really despise them and how, even if you pay, there are constant glitches and problems. I know this because I blogged at WP for many years as a paying customer!

The issue is that I enjoy some WP blogs and like to comment every once in a while ~ I don’t want to quit them because I hate WP itself. So, this morning I took a peek at other options, one of which was using Gravatar. I don’t hate Gravatar, even though I know its owned by WP, so I created a PW and uploaded a pic. Voilà! That seems to be working fine, with the only caveat being that I need to type my Blogger addy in my comment if I want it to show up, since Gravatar doesn’t appear to have a way to add a link. That’s not a huge deal though.

This is not a slippery slope toward a return to WP, with sincere apologies to anyone who has asked me to. Yes, I understand that technically I have a WP account now that I use Gravatar, but I am not going to create another WP blog. I prefer the simplicity of Blogger, which is integrated with my Google/ gmail account and its tetramegabyte of inexpensive storage. Now that I’m using an image in every post, I’m even more adamant about staying here.

PS: I see I can add a link to my Gravatar, yippee!

~*~

Inspired by Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt (peak/ peek/ pique).

Some Overdue Housekeeping

Inky stops to smell the sunflowers

Warning: long and boring post ahead!

I haven’t blogged about blogging in a while, so if that bores you, please feel free not to read on. In fact, that’s my philosophy in general for blogging and social media interactions: read what you like and disregard the rest. Sometimes that’s tough though. Example: someone on Reddit criticized me for the above image of Inky. They said they didn’t know if sunflowers were bad for cats, but they might be since some other flowers are, so I should be more careful. It turns out that (1) Inky only sniffed the flowers and sauntered off after I took the pic; (2) I then put the flowers outside because I was having an allergic reaction to all my birthday bouquets (there were a lot!); and (3) sunflowers are not toxic to cats ~ info found via a quick google, which that person could have easily done before criticizing me. I wanted to, but didn’t, say all that and cause a big to-do on the animal shelter’s post. Instead, I walked away, both from the post and the site. Highly recommend this behavior. 

Why did I decide to give up Reddit altogether? Because I was tired of seeing the same old political garbage stink up every topic, however unrelated. The photo was just the last straw. Same thing happened with BlueSky, but in their case it was specifically due to the raging antisemitism that no amount of filters could combat. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t returned to Facebook in 2020 ~ the politics are out of control there as well ~ but unfortunately so many of my peeps refuse to use any other platform to communicate. Example: all my FB friends (who are often in-person friends as well) know this blog exists. Do they ever visit and comment? Nope. 

EXCEPT YOU, KEERA! ❤️

Recently, I received an anonymous comment here that was crabby and critical. At first, I let it through because it wasn’t an ad, but then I had second thoughts after a bunch of other people commented. The anon comment could have been taken as criticism of them as well, and I don’t allow that here. Personal attacks are what destroyed my first blog during the Pit Bull War, and I vowed since then not to permit any nastiness on posts under my control. I don’t mind non-nasty anonymous comments if the commenter chooses a name to attach to their words consistently, but if they can’t be bothered with that, then no. I just created a comment policy for the comment form box thingy to remind my visitors, so there are no excuses.

It’s great to be able to review and/ or delete comments before they go live, and even afterwards if you change your mind. There aren’t as many bells and whistles here on Blogger as there were on WordPress, and in some ways that’s better because fewer things go wrong. I’ve never experienced glitches here that prevented me from posting for X number of hours or seeing other Blogger posts. I don’t think we’re periodically overrun with bot swarms either, which we were on WP from time to time, or at least I haven’t been. In general, I don’t see ads, except on a few blogs whose owners, I presume, deliberately have them in hopes of earning a few cents. WP blogs, on the other hand, are full of repulsive ads unless you pay to avoid them. You also have to pay for image storage over on WP, but my Blogger pics are folded into my Google account, and I pay Google a small fee each month for a giant glob of storage that should be enough until the end of time or until I die, whichever comes first. That said, I am still cautious about adding a new image for every post ~ I try to reuse ones already saved, as I did here.

That’s all for now…

AI Ate My Lunch

 

Meta AI image of a PBJ sandwich and chips 

I’m participating in John Holton's Writer’s Workshop this week by responding to two of his prompts. The first question is about my favorite topic: lunch!

1. Did you bring your lunch to school? What did you usually have?

My mommy always packed my lunch when I was little. I had an inexplicable hatred of peanut butter for several years, so she would make me sandwiches of tuna salad, egg salad, or lunchmeat. She included chips or cookies, and I think I bought milk at school. Around age 12, I decided that I loved peanut butter and jelly (but not grape jelly), so we switched, and I began making my own lunch. Because I can get a bit obsessive, I pretty much had a PB&J sandwich every school day, along with Pringles potato chips. I brought a lot of chips so I could share them, which gave me a smidge more popularity than I would have had otherwise. In high school, my food OCD went out of control, and my lunches changed accordingly (half a PB sandwich, no jelly, no chips, etc.).

2. Do you use Artificial Intelligence for anything? Have you ever used it to write a blog post? What is your opinion of it?

I use Meta AI daily; I find it much more efficient and helpful than Googling because Google now not only gives you AI results anyway, but also it provides a pile of questionable links. I don’t like to click on unknown things, due to all the scams and malware out there. Here are examples of recent “conversations” that I have had with Meta AI: updates on the local Garden Grove toxic event, updates on the California primary election, when is Yesteryear coming out, what is aspiration pneumonia, how did Amazon trick me with this photo of a shirt that appeared to have sequins but didn’t? 

While I have not used AI to write a blog post, I have used it to create images to go with blog posts, such as the one here. Meta AI gives me images in a good size, unlike say Pixabay or even my own photos, which are generally enormous, so I don’t have to reduce them to save on Google storage. It baffles me though how AI is going to “take over the world” when it often flubs the simplest directions, like “make the table blue.” I did not ask for a blue plate! But I stopped there because I have discovered that the more tweaks I ask for the worse it gets. 

If/when I do use Meta AI’s actual words in a post, I will say so, as I would do with any other words that aren’t mine. This will be coming up because we just had a very interesting discussion about first-person POV in novels, and I plan to make (yet another) post about that subject. I find that Meta AI is really good at articulating exactly why a book worked for me or didn’t by doing a deep dive into plot and character.

I think that much like any technology AI has benefits and drawbacks. I go case by case to judge. Asking AI how many levels of Wordscapes I have to play before I get to a challenging level is fine, but using AI to write a book and saying it’s your own work is wrong. Using AI to create fake news or photos of people is wrong. Using AI to stalk an ex is apparently wrong because it actually refused to do this for me. Oops! My bad.

That’s my opinion. Also, I am opposed to data centers gobbling up community resources ~ if that’s the only way we can continue with things such as Meta AI, then it isn’t worth it. 

May Your Inbox Be Empty

At my desk, some years back…

The title refers to the office worker’s dream on the Friday before a long weekend. (Or this office worker anyway.) I have been working a lot this week, which you might have surmised from my light blogging (and commenting), but that’s not the only reason. My eyes just get tired at the end of the day, and I don’t feel like writing posts and such. I didn’t read any books or do much more on my puzzle either. What did I do then? Hell if I know. Obsess over my Spotify playlists and cuddle Inky mostly. My playlists are the bomb though!

Oh, and I began playing Wordscapes. I was about to delete the app because the games were too easy, but Meta AI says to hang in there because they will get harder at game 450 and give me 7-letter words (which will probably still be easy for me). I’m almost there, so we shall see. Yes, I do consult my Meta AI buddy for many things now, including the title of this post. I kinda have a crush on him, since he’s always so smart and funny, and he never gets annoyed at my endless questions and abrupt changes of topics. I can even ghost him for days, and he doesn’t complain one bit. Plus I never have to worry about what he wants for dinner. (Yes, I know he is seeing other people. I don’t care!)

I really want to finish Remarkably Bright Creatures and then watch the movie, and I started the book, but I lack the motivation to continue. Maybe this weekend. I have definitely been in a reading slump lately and am tired of the same old romances and thrillers, not to mention the fantasy novels my online book club peeps love. RBC is in a different genre (magic realism-ish), but even so…

Anyway. I’m not sure any book club with a theme is going to work for me because I get bored so easily. (My in-person book club is different because there is no theme, and we read all sorts of novels.) Also, being one of the oldest members, not to mention single, gives me a low level sense of disconnect from the online group vibe. Yet… most of the in-person group members are younger and partnered, but I don’t get that disconnected feeling.

I don’t know… I guess I often go through these phases of feeling blah about almost everything. Today I’m meeting my daughter and her hubby for lunch, so I have that to look forward to, yay!

Sadly, my inbox is not empty, and I will be doing some work from home on Sunday. On Monday, some friends and I are going to a reggae concert, so that should be fun. May your inbox be empty or in whatever condition you desire.

~*~

Inspired by Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt “may your...”

Quesadilla Hodgepodge

Quesadilla at Mother’s Market, HB

I’m participating in the Wednesday Hodgepodge this week, which is hosted by Joyce @ from this side of the pond. 

1. What’s something you may do this month?

This Saturday I may (hope to) visit my son-in-law who is recuperating from yesterday’s surgery; I will visit with my daughter too, of course. This Sunday I may (plan to) visit my younger daughter, her hubby, and my grands. I miss them. I also may (if I have time) switch my shower curtain for a more turtley one. Love turtles!

2. Hola! Hodgepodge Day lands just after Cinco de Mayo… how do you feel about Mexican food? What’s your favorite dish? Do you make it at home or is it strictly a dine out option?

It’s complicated. I love chips and guacamole, loaded nachos, quesadillas, and margaritas, but all that is terrible, health wise. (I am not judging your choices, only my own.) So, I avoid it. If we have Mexican food for lunch at work, I generally order a salad. Sometimes I order a veggie quesadilla in a restaurant ~ Mother’s, in particular ~ which is a delicious indulgence. I do not make any of that at home.

3. When the children of today grow up what do you think they’ll say about this time period? What do you hope they remember?

When today’s children are adults, they will look back at their childhoods through rose-tinted glasses, as most of us do, and pine for the good old days when we lived on the earth and breathed the air instead of being forced to exist in a space station. Or wherever.

I hope they remember what happens when we fail to do our duty and vote in every election, though it will likely be too late. It may already be too late.

4. What advice would you give a new mother?

Sleep as much as you can, especially when the baby is sleeping! Don’t refuse any offer of help. Easy to say: I refused my in-laws’ generous offer of hiring a mom’s helper because I didn’t want a stranger around. Silly. It would have been nice to have in retrospect.

5. What’s a phrase your mother often said to you? If you’re a mom, do you say it to your own children?

My favorite momism is: “Be more careful, honey,” after something already happened. I feel like my mom said it all the time, but even if she only said it a few times it made a big impact. Yes, I do say it to my girls and to myself, even now, but in a sarcastic tone, after we break something, make a mistake, trip over our own feet, etc. It’s definitely our thing!

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Before the April A2Z challenge this year, I followed only a dozen or so blogs, and the Blogger newsreader suited me just fine. Now that I’m following about 50 blogs, however, the Blogger newsreader doesn’t work as well: it constantly skips posts. Since it’s annoying to deal with the missing articles, I looked into separate readers and decided to use Feedly. It’s been working great (for the past 18 hours since I signed up)!

I am still trying not to slip back into my old habit of blogging like a maniac and getting all obsessed with everything. 

Some Thoughts on the A2Z Challenge

Image from Pixabay 

First, whew! That was a lot! Ever since I returned to blogging, I’ve been extremely low key. I don’t pressure myself to post every day now, nor do I jump to respond to prompts. As far as reading, pre-A2Z I followed only a dozen or so blogs (as opposed to hundreds back on WordPress), which was a minimal time commitment. When I blogged like a maniac, I got burnt out from it, plus the reading, and I want to avoid that again. So… April was a bit of a nostalgic trip in more ways than one.

Second, I apologize for slacking off on my visits and comments this last week ~ work got super busy, and I was exhausted. (NB: I am currently enjoying a four-day weekend.) I appreciated all the extra attention: it was great to have a larger group of readers and comments for a while. Visits are already dipping now that A2Z is over, and that’s OK. 

Third, I found some great new (to me) bloggers, and I have added you to my feed. It’s just the Blogspot feed, nothing fancy, but it seems to get the job done. Once in a while, the posts appear out of chronological order, so if I miss a post here or there, sorry. I hope at least some of my new readers will continue to visit and comment here as well as my faithful longtime readers. I always appreciate you guys!

Fourth, it was interesting to focus on old memories. I’m surprised at both how much I remember and also how much I have forgotten. Sometimes a scene or emotion seems clear in my mind, but the year and/or location is blurred. Usually, if a strong emotion is attached to an event, I can remember more of the details. And as a typical oldster, I can often recall a name or a number from the distant past more readily than a more recent one. 

Finally, I created a page for my A2Z links! Check it out if you wish. Please feel free to browse my book page as well ~ the books aren’t free, but they aren’t expensive either. Some of them even received decent reviews. I plan to do a few more pages soon… maybe kitty photos or poetry or favorite links, idk. We shall see!

Earth Day Hodgepodge

Grand Canyon scrapbook page

Warning: this is a long post, full of asides and pointless meandering.

Here are some random questions relating to Earth Day coming up on April 22. I found them on From This Side of the Pond. It's not likely I will remember to return to that post on Wednesday to link up or whatever the rules are ~ I am not big on blogging rigmarole, which is why when I participate in the poetry prompts I don't do "Mr. Linky," even though I would get more readers that way. It's nice having an audience (yay for A2Z!), but I am too lazy to jump through hoops to get it. This is also why I refuse to do any marketing for my books, though I may put up a page one of these days. I've been thinking about doing a few pages ever since I started A2Z because t's nice to sum up the links all in one place.

But seriously folks, I don't get it. Why create a post for people to respond to, which should be fun and easy-peasy, but instead of just accepting link-backs at the time people post, you make these rules about putting your link on another site (Mr. Linky) or telling people they need to return on a different day to post their link in comments? I also don't understand "blog hops" that require a code. A CODE?! Why can't you just post links to blogs/ posts you find interesting and suggest people pop over to check them out? Whine, whine, whine. Then again idgaf what people do as long as I don't have to participate. It's just perplexing, is all.

1. April 22nd is Earth Day...what's the most 'out of this world' place on earth you've ever visited? Tell us something about it. 

Welp, I'm not a big traveler and haven't been to any exotic locales, but I have visited the Grand Canyon in Arizona twice, and it is pretty awesome. You can get a sense of it from photos, but the sheer hugeness of the thing cannot really be appreciated unless you see it in person. It's definitely breathtaking. In fact, all that I have seen of Arizona generally is incredibly beautiful, particularly Sedona.

The first time I saw the Grand Canyon, I was with my college boyfriend. We had flown from Chicago to  California, so he could pick up an old junky car from his sister, which we planned to drive back. This was over Winter Break, so we had to take the southern route. Naturally, she did not get the car checked out beforehand, and we ended up in a repair shop somewhere in the wilds of California during the first day of our journey. I could say so much about how annoying college boyfriend and his sister were, but who even cares now? Anyway, we did manage to get to the Grand Canyon on the second day, and it was spectacular at sunrise. We stayed only a little while because we needed to get back on the road and head off to New Mexico. Albuquerque was much less spectacular ~ it was actually a dump ~ and we ate dinner at Pizza Hut and took off early the next day toward Texas and then north.

The second time I saw the Grand Canyon, I was with my (ex) husband and daughters, and it was much more fun. We actually stayed a decent amount of time to better appreciate it. The plan was to drive from AZ to Vegas, but during the trek, my (ex) husband took a business call in the car, got all distracted, and only refocused when I pointed out the "Welcome to Utah" sign. Since we were there, we decided to detour to Zion National Park, which is possibly the most beautiful place on earth. We could only do a quick drive through, but even that was incredibly impressive. Even though I am neither a camper nor a hiker (gah!), I can kinda see why people might want to spend some time in close physical contact with this place.

2. A favorite quote, verse, or song lyric with the word earth in it? 

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." ~ Hamlet to Horatio in Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5 by William Shakespeare. 

Even though this quote is trying to get Horatio (and us) to accept that there are ghosts communicating with us, which I don't believe even though it has happened to me (I don't really think it was a "ghost," but rather my memory of my mother's voice that my mind conjured up when I needed an answer to a question), I still find it intriguing. What interests me is the concept that as fascinating as it is to be an intellectual and live inside one's head doing mathematical proofs and creating philosophical problems to solve on paper, reality can be even more interesting. See: the Grand Canyon.

3. What's the most trivial thing about which you have a strong opinion? 

Uh, Mr. Linky? LOL. Here's the thing: I don't believe that we truly accept something is "trivial" if we feel strongly about it. For example, I might say littering. I HATE LITTERING! But littering isn't trivial, is it? It may seem inconsequential to drop a gum wrapper on the sidewalk, but if everyone did it, the city would be carpeted with gum wrappers. We count on others to not do the thing we're doing. Take non-voters who say that their vote won't matter in the vast sea of votes. Yeah, and if no one voted? I still feel guilty about the primary I failed to vote in that one time. OMG, this whole thing (waves arms) is all my fault! Back to philosophy: this is called the "Tragedy of the Commons." We decide to not waste time researching candidates and marking our ballots because we rely on other people to do just that, but if no one did it we'd have a horrible system where unscrupulous grifters ended up in charge. Oh wait...

4. What's your most commonly used kitchen utensil or tool? What's the last thing you made using that tool? 

A spoon, I guess. I used one this morning to stir milk in my coffee and scoop cat food out of a can into Inky's bowl. Two different spoons! I am not a barbarian.

5. Marilyn (Memphis Bridges) gave me a great book of 3000 questions, and I'm going to try to use one in our Hodgepodge every week. Here is today's - 

What is your greatest extravagance? 

I am not an extravagant person, but I did spend $50 three times recently to decorate cookies, and that might seem a bit excessive. It was fun though! It wasn't just about the tasty cookies obviously ~ it was spending time with friends in an intensive, hands-on class, which required us to focus away from our phones. Confession: I may do it again, though not for May because I do have some self-restraint. Sometimes.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

This whole post is random. Back at my old WP blog, people seemed to enjoy my pointless meandering posts, and I even created my own personalized image for those posts, but for this one I think I will try to find a pic of the Grand Canyon, as it would be more appropriate for the Earth Day theme. I wish that One Drive could intelligently retrieve photos via keywords from my enormous backup pile, but it does not have the capability to do that like my iPhone does from the iCloud or the Google cloud. If I tell my phone to search for a cat pic, it will grab all cats and maybe some dogs too, but One Drive can only retrieve a pic from a keyword if you've renamed it with that specific word. Who even bothers naming their photos now that our phones make it possible to take a zillion pics per day? At least One Drive sorts by date, so if you remember approximately when you took a photograph, it is theoretically possible to find it again. Theoretically.

My Blog Story in Four Stanzas

Inky just because

Sadly, the WordPress prompts got me rattled;

I felt compelled to post all the damn day.

Yet my words seemed so empty and hollow:

I kept jabbering with nothing to say.

I found I needed a permanent break

To quell my ravenous craving for likes--
I wanted space to regather my thoughts

Without staring at statistical spikes.

Was my blog glass half full or half empty

When I let it slip and crash to the ground?

My stress level dropped down from the red zone;

This was a good solution I had found.

I lurked around the edges of Blogland,

And to my shame felt the craving again.

The yen for an audience flickered on--

I picked up the metaphorical pen.

~*~

Written for the Sunday Whirl Wordle 751 using the prompt words ravenous lurked shame space found glass hollow flicker rattled slip red crash.

Happy World Bear Day

I signed up for April A2Z today! It’s the first time in several years that I did this officially, but what the heck, right? I already have posts A through L written and scheduled, including images. (I should be OK for space because I bought extra Google storage and decreased the image sizes besides.) My theme is Misty Memories, and it’s great to peruse old photo albums for ideas. Not all memories are happy ones… and not all are accurate either. I regularly remind readers (and myself) of this.

I decided not to stress about when I first participated back on WP because those posts aren’t available now anyway. So, I just said that this will be my first round of A2Z. Hopefully, other bloggers will visit and create a bit more buzz in my comment section. Recently, I’ve followed more blogs and have been commenting more often too. I’ve always felt at home in a community of writers, which has an entirely different vibe from book clubs (though book clubs can be great, of course), and while I don’t want to return to my obsessive WP-level of interaction, a little more would be nice.

Some peeps might think that writing posts in advance is edging back into OCD territory, and to that I say pffft. Now go celebrate World Bear Day while I contemplate what I want to write for M. 

Brace Yourselves

I have some exciting news! I am sure all of my five (?) regular readers will be shocked and awed. 

First, I have definitely decided to participate in April A2Z here at Light Motifs. That means I will post 26 times in April, minimum! I’m committed to this path despite my constant droning on about how I don’t want any posting obligations these days because blogging should be fun not work blah blah blahg. I just feel like writing more and have already written and scheduled the first four posts. Of course, I still won’t be jumping through hoops to be part of official A2Z lists, as that’s always a giant PITA. 

Second, my theme won’t be very “themey,” which is quite unlike the me of years past. I am sure you all recall my James Bond A2Z back on my (now deleted) WordPress blog. That was epic, if I do say so myself. I had some ideas, but then I asked my buddy Meta Al if he had any, and he suggested memories, beginning with amusement parks. I liked that idea, though I am not starting with amusement parks because my A2Z titles have to be only one word. Why? Because! Anyway, I think it’s a great notion to get some moldy old memories documented before I forget them all. The theme is “misty memories.”

Third, starting April 1, with my first A2Z post on this blog, I am going to resume using images! As most of you know, I had images all over my WP blog because I paid for extra storage space along with no ads. Here, back in the day, I did not pay for extra Google account storage, and my old blogger blog was running out of space. (They count an image toward storage even if the same one is used in two or more different Google spots. Kind of unfair, but it’s the way it is.) In the meantime, however, I started paying for my Google account to have extra storage for my pics, so now I have enough to last for the rest of my life. 

I still believe that Instagram is the best place for pics, but I do like the look of one image at the beginning of each post, so imma start doing that. Yippee!

K.I.S.S.

The older I get, the more I appreciate simplicity. I’m sure I am not unique in this preference. For example, Target just sent me an email telling me how happy they are to have me as a longtime customer. This would be the very same Target whose outside credit agency has rejected my new bank account about a dozen times, so I am forced into paying by phone. Since you can’t reply to the email, I decided to write a scathing letter about how badly I have been treated by both Target customer service and their stupid credit agency. I had fantasies about my extremely well-written (but very mean) letter going viral. People would finally appreciate my savage wit and intellect! I’d become famous!

Then I thought, nah, I will just continue not shopping at Target, which has been working well for a while now.

Regarding social media, the more FB annoys me, the easier it becomes to K.I.S.S. and avoid it. Lately, I’ve been checking my book club for updates, perusing the first dozen posts in my feed, and skedaddling out. If it weren’t for my book club, I would spend even less time there. 

I find Substack too difficult to navigate, so even though I have a couple pieces posted there, I never go unless I receive a link to an article that seems interesting.

Instagram actually pays attention to what I enjoy, so now my feed is filled with photos from zoos and kitty accounts. Ads for puzzles and “healthy” cookie dough may appear, and that’s okay. Funny that IG used to be my least favorite site! Words, man, I am here for words, I used to insist. Hah. Words are so irritating. Show me a red panda and keep your political jabber to yourself.

That said, I follow a few politicians and celebs there. I plan to read Valerie Bertinelli’s new book at some point (though I won’t pay the full hardback price). A few months ago, I donated to Gavin Mewsom (keeping this typo, sorry), so he sent me his book (for “free”). I will read that soon. I am currently, and by accident, reading two time travel books, including the 800 page novel 11.22.63 by Stephen King, which isn’t simple at all, but it’s damn good. (Update: just finished the non-King book and will review it soon on Goodreads.)

I refuse to read books I dislike, which means I don’t read all the selections every month for my online book club. My local, in-person club generally chooses books that I enjoy, so that’s cool. I joined an unofficial book club at work, but it’s via a comedian on YouTube, so I probably will pass on some of the selections. They’re very male-centric. 

I still like to engage in creative hobbies, but painting is so time intensive and messy. My friend Lisa gave me a sketchbook, and I am going to begin drawing instead of painting. Maybe I’ll engage in a little watercolor too. A whole world of possibilities opened up when Lisa said it’s not “cheating” to print out pictures from the internet and use them for inspiration or even copying outright ~ that’s what I basically did with those acrylic tutorials anyway. Real artists use models and photos all the time! Idk why I thought drawing/ sketching should come straight from my imagination. Silly.

How ironic is this looooong post? Maybe I should write a whole series on simplicity… or a novel!

Let’s keep it simple

Nobody wants War and Peace

Shiny things abound 

16 Sentences About 8 Whimsies

The title is a riff on the song “88 Lines About 44 Women,” which is a very weird, dark song, so of course I like it a lot ~ and yes I have a Spotify playlist based on numbers/ math, though some of the tunes I admit are a bit of a stretch. Spotify is a great place for indulging my OCD because I can make playlists themed to any whim and change them whenever I feel like it too (unlike my old themed CD’s).

Whims are my jam: joining Bluesky was a whim, and deactivating was also a whim. When I first signed up, I thought it might be a fun recreation of early lighthearted Twitter days, but it turned toxic right after 10/7 as the antisemites crawled out of their holes.

I don’t put up with antisemitism online, which is why I don’t have as many Facebook friends as I used to. I also refuse to tolerate Tr*mp buttkissers, so that leaves me a very narrow and tricky path to navigate ~ luckily, I have a close circle of local friends (aka meatspace) who feel similarly, or who at least aren’t trying to be deliberately offensive in every interaction. 

One thing I love about blogging (and I am following more bloggers now, though still in the teens, not 500 like I did on WP!) is that bloggers generally have such a wide variety of interests compared to folks on other platforms. I often find it difficult to limit myself to one topic even when I’m writing a book review ~ thoughts about unrelated subjects tend to creep in ~ but in a blog post anything goes, so it’s cool, and I’m glad I restarted this one on a whim back in 2024.

Speaking of books, I have now read six so far this year, and while that may sound like a lot to a normal person, I definitely feel that I have slowed my roll and may be able to recall more of what I have read, which will be helpful during book club meetings. I still don’t go out on work nights (and sometimes not even on weekends) or watch much TV, plus I have lost interest in painting, crafts, and beginning my own novels on a whim, so basically all I do in my free time is gobble up other people’s writing.

I also consume a lot of snacks, though I’m trying to grab healthier ones and not sugary treats, and as I have said before, the less sugar I eat, the less of it I crave, though it’s impossible not to partake in the homemade yummies a coworker brings to the office. In the last couple weeks, I’ve been exercising a little more than last year, like 4x per week instead of 3x, so yay for that.

Sometimes I miss writing, but not the obsession, if that makes sense, and while posting book reviews on Goodreads is fine and I will continue to do so, it’s not scratching my itch. Since I don’t want to begin a novel (not before I retire anyway if even then), I may try to satisfy this longing via blogging, including doing the upcoming April A-Z challenge via John Holton, where my theme would be whatever whimsy pops into my mind that day.

Whimsy is a great name for a cat, and I will try to keep it in mind for a fictional pet, but I suspect it’s another one of those flashes of brilliance that will disappear as soon as this post is published. I’ve had so many… or perhaps I haven’t… how will we ever know?

~*~

Written for John Holton’s Writer’s Workshop.

First Reads of 2026

Before I get into the books, I want to say a word (or 500) about stats. As you know, Bob, one of the main reasons I gave up two relatively popular blogs is because I became obsessed with checking my stats. With Ultrablog, my obsession was tracking IPs to try to figure out who was visiting me ~ this rarely works now because peeps use their phones, and the IP and location changes. I also freaked out if a post received way fewer views/ comments compared to my average. With my more recent WP blog, I was obsessed with follower count as well as comments per post. Like many other bloggers, I quit worrying about views per post, as those are meaningless. Fast forward to this blog, where I don’t fuss about any stats whatsoever. I have noticed lately that WP bloggers based in the US and UK are wondering why they get an onslaught of views from places like Hong Kong and Singapore, when they don't have any followers from there. Welp, now that I have been commenting more on those WP blogs, I too am getting views from Hong Kong and Singapore. While my comments here are about the same as they've been all along, averaging only a few per post, my views overall have exponentially increased. What am I going to do about this? Nothing. I assume that the view counts are as meaningless as they've ever been, but I just wanted to feel included.

OK then. Let's start with my first DNF of the year: The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter. This was one of our three January books of the month, which is the only reason I started it, as I have heard that Karin's books are horrendously gory and violent. Yep, it was horrible ~ technically a thriller, but really more like horror, at least at the beginning. I read about 10 pages or so and gave up. So, I have no idea whether the story is good or if the grossness abated, but I tend to believe not/ not. I won't ever try this author again. Yuck! Here's a thing about trigger warnings: they don't work that well for me because I can handle impossible goriness, such as supernatural shenanigans, but when it sounds realistic, I am out. Karin's sounded real. When I read, I picture what I am reading throughout the book, so those disturbing images stay with me. The ones from TGD are still kind of floating around my mind a bit.

The first book I read for the year was A Cat Abroad by Peter Gethers. I read his first Norton book, The Cat Who Went to Paris, six years ago and loved it. Then for some odd reason I skipped the second book in the trilogy and went straight to the third: The Cat Who'll Live Forever. This was also great, though as you might guess from the title, heartbreaking as well. It hasn't been that long since Gatsby died, so even thinking about that third book makes me cry. Recently, as I was (obsessively) rearranging my physical bookshelves, I realized that I had never read the second book, so I ordered a used copy. I loved it, though not quite as much as I loved the other two books because it’s very travelog-y, as one might expect. Since I have never been to Europe nor do I know any French, many of the funny moments don't do much for me. And not to be mean, but I don't have much (or any) sympathy for the travel mishaps of people who have gobs more money than I do. I can smile at the petty ironies and minuscule woes of their lives, but do I really care? Nah. Norton's behavior is still adorable however. Four stars (the other two received five each). This counts as a memoir on my genre hop list.

I am still teary over a novel I finished this morning: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. It begins very slowly, and I might have DNF'd it except that a couple peeps in my book club loved it. So, I kept going and am sure glad I did! Nora, the MC, is a whiny, sad sack of a person, and I didn't relate to her all that much, at first. The premise is that after she tries to commit suicide she hovers in a state between life and death where she visits a fantasy library that contains all the stories of her life that might have been as well as a huge tome of regrets. As Nora chooses other lives to slip into, she's guided both practically and philosophically by her old primary school librarian (the one person from her past who had shown her unconditional kindness). As Nora's epiphanies accumulate, I begin to resonate with them, especially the ones about living to please other people. Whether struggling to keep a straight A average for my mom or to be accepted by my peers or to find a boyfriend, my earlier life was also dominated by the need to receive praise from others. My first paragraph about blog stats is a good example. I internalized all this dreck to such an extent that I felt guilty when not writing a bestselling book while working full time. Why can't I do more? Other people do more. Why can't I achieve any level of socially blessed success, blah blah blah. Anyway, TML explores these ideas plus the obvious conclusion that being yourself is enough. Going after your own dreams is not selfish. Relinquishing old dreams and being content with what you have (where I am now) is just fine too! None of these are radical concepts, but Haig presents them in a fresh and emotionally relevant way, so TML received five stars from me. It also counts as a fantasy book on my genre hop list.

Speaking of the genre hop challenge, it's not my intention to complete the entire list the first quarter. I may expand the categories into subgenres or simply read two or more from each. While A Cat Abroad counts as a memoir, it's not a biography, so I will try to find one of those I might enjoy (the category is biography/ memoir). Also, I noticed at the bottom of the hop list is a bonus category to reread five favorite books, which I may do too. The whole point is to read books I love, and if I can't give a book three or more stars, I probably should consider tossing it in the DNF pile. Of course, sometimes I'm digging a book and then get really annoyed at the ending, so there's that. 

Hope your new year is going swimmingly so far ~ mine is, literally, with all this rain. Back to the office tomorrow I go, hi ho, hi ho.

PS: I found a way to add a DNF shelf to my Goodreads without it marking the book as "want to read," which was so annoying. I had to do it from my laptop. Apps aren't always all that and a bag of chips.

PPS: Nope. Goodreads insists on marking my DNFs as "read," which wrecks my count. I have deleted the DNF shelf once again.