Tell Us About ... A Day in the Life

Mom has been asked if she'd like to participate in the Global Writing Challenge on the second Thursday of the month. Yes, you are seeing that right, Mom has been asked, but I'm writing this post, Gundel the black panther lady and boss of this place.
It will go live a little early (to avoid collision with Mom's silent films), so if the posts of the others are not live yet, please check back later.
The current membership consists of Deb’s World, Suzy Turner, Within a World of My Own, Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After, Marsha in the Middle, Coffee and Cocktails at the Casa, and Mom. It's fun to learn how differently everyone interprets a topic.

You can play along and link up with them!
If that's too short notice for you, maybe next time?
Here are the prompts for the next months.
September - Poetry
October - Birthday
November - Superstition
December - Why do you blog?

The prompt for today was "A Day in the Life", chosen by Leslie, and Mom asked me to help her out.
Honestly, I may be named after a witch, but there's only so much magic even I can do. Making Mom sound more interesting than she is isn't necessarily among that.
Wait a second, though ... it says "A Day in the Life". That doesn't have to be a description of a "normal" day in her life. I can just pick any day I want, right? Let me think ...

How about the day two detectives turned up at her door asking for her then-husband? She got so nervous that she made a dumb joke asking if he was a bigamist (it was about having unknowingly bought a stolen computer off eBay some years before and as they were just one name on a very long list, police only wanted a picture of the serial number).
Or the night she got the call about her transplantation and confused the caller by telling them she still needed a moment to think - you have to process something like that first after just two hours of sleep - and the day after?
The day she picked up a prairie dog from the local zoo for bottle feeding (and the time after when she always took him to work with her)?

Fips as a baby

Wow, now I understand why she asked me to help out.
It really isn't as if Mom didn't have interesting days, but many people would probably just call the ones now boring.
Things began to change with Covid, self-isolating and working from home.
After decades of commuting and being surrounded by people all day - at work and on the train - Mom suddenly noticed how much she enjoyed being at home. Of course she would, after all I was there, and I too appreciated her being available for me more or less around the clock to be served in the way I deserved, only when I wanted it of course.
It was a good thing to learn as her health issues made it more and more difficult for her to be out and about.

So now her days are mostly like uniform beads in a string - she spends her time working, reading, watching movies, TV shows or documentaries, going down rabbit holes and blogging, crafting, doing chores, talking on the phone (landline, have I mentioned she can be very old-fashioned in some ways?), playing games online (her favorite are puzzle games), occasional errands, but most important of all, trying to find out what it is I want when cawing at her like a little crow. There have to be priorities after all.

Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom ... Moooom?

Usually, she's fine with that, though. Living with chronic disease has taught her early to be quite happy about the things she was able to do - and there were times when she got around quite a bit - or can still do and try not to give in to sadness over not being able to do some things anymore.
Of course, there are moments when she wishes she could just jump up (just kidding, I've never seen Mom jump) and do something spontaneously again, but there are always books instead, right? And me!

Now let's see what the others have to tell us.

Amy shares her still fairly new routine as a stay at home dog mom/retired high school Spanish teacher living in Louisville, Kentucky.

Suzy writes about the little moments that make up her everyday life, from puppy chaos and yoga to coffee, creativity and cosy evenings at home.

Deb tells us about a long day of travel. It might have been longer than 24 hours, but who's counting?

Sally discusses how the rhythms of her daily life have changed 1 year on from leaving her job.

Marsha writes about a day when she’s going to the museum.  You probably won’t be surprised at what goes on!

When she was still working, Leslie's favorite day of the week was Thursday with the weekend finally in sight.  Nowadays, at long last comfortably settled into retirement, Leslie's favorite day has switched to Monday.  Here's a look at a 'typical' Monday in her life. Sure to be a riveting read!!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Tell Us About ... Dance

I have been asked if I'd like to participate in the Global Writing Challenge on the second Thursday of the month. This is the second time for me and I really enjoyed reading all of the posts about sunshine last month.
My posts will go live a little early (to avoid collision with the silent films), so if the posts of the others are not live yet, please check back later.
The current membership consists of Deb’s World, Suzy Turner, Within a World of My Own, Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After, Marsha in the Middle, Coffee and Cocktails at the Casa, and me. It's fun to learn how differently everyone interprets a topic.
You can play along and link up with us!
If that's too short notice for you, maybe next time? Here are the prompts for the coming months:
August - A Day in the Life
September - Poetry
October - Birthday
November - Superstition

Photo of German dancer Mary Wigman
by Jacob Merkelbach, 1922
Public domain via Wikipedia

The prompt for today was "Dance", chosen by Suzy.

Let me tell you right away that I have never been a dancer. I can't remember ever having been one of those children who hear a song on the radio or TV and immediately start dancing to it happily.
I had friends who took ballet classes early and later jazz dance, and once I was taken along to pick one of them up from class because we wanted to meet at her house afterwards and I was early. It was a world that was utterly strange to me, and I honestly never envied my friends for the experience.

Ballerinas Barbie and Cara from 1976
(Barbie and Cara swapped their outfits)

Peer pressure - aka my best friends - made me take the basic dancing class. Here in Germany, dancing schools have a long tradition with the oldest one existing since 1787.
Originally, classes weren't limited to dancing, however, they were also about manners, dress codes, and conversation. Of course, all of that has evolved and changed, even in my time already. Over time, the dress code has become less and less restrictive and new dances are being offered.
My own experience was, hm, meh (not just the dancing itself, but also the whole teenage mating dance ritual around it 😉). I just couldn't get into it and never contemplated going on to the advanced class (also called bronze today), much less silver, gold, and gold star.
As an adult I usually got around having to dance and mostly danced only at home with Merlin, Greebo or Ponder (sometimes even two of them).

That doesn't mean, however, that I hate dancing. I just want others who are so much better at it to do it for me to look at - classical ballet, musicals, tap dance, rock'n'roll, folk dance, I could keep going.
Those performances can be breathtaking, acrobatic, incredibly elegant, but also hilarious sometimes.
Here are just a few very randomly chosen examples for your entertainment. Unfortunately, the videos seem to show directly sometimes and sometimes they don't, also depending on your browser settings, so I always added the link in the description as well.

I can't condone kidnapping, but the barn raising dance from "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" - wow, just wow.

Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman dancing a Scottish reel in "Indiscreet".

Audrey Hepburn doing a kind of expressionist dance in "Funny Face"

Bobby Banas (who also was in "West Side Story") and others doing the "Nitty Gritty"

Whitey's Lindy Hoppers in "Hellzapoppin'". No words.

You may think about Bollywood what you want, but the dances are amazing, here "Dola Re Dola Re".

I learned about "eccentric dancer" Jack Stanford through a YouTube suggestion.

Or how about this incredible snake dance by Janine Janik and Christian Arnaut?

In the 60s there was a couple named Fern on German TV, with short lessons for classic ballroom dancing, but also for "play dances" for parties, like the letkis (spelled Letkiss in Germany) which is based on a Finnish folk dance or the Hoppel Poppel (not the East German recipe!) in this video.
It never fails to make me snigger.

Enough, enough!
Of course I could keep going and going and going, but I think I've proven my point. I like to sing along with a song, but the world doesn't need me to dance, there are other things I can do better and like doing better.
Sometimes you just need to know your limits.


Now let's see what the others have to tell us (Debbie is still travelling).

Suzy shares why dancing has meant so much throughout her life, and how one night on the dance floor changed everything forever.

Sally discusses why she can play music but she can't dance to it.

For Leslie, this month's prompt - dancing - brings lots of things to mind: a favorite memory, ballet, and a great Ginger Rogers quote.  Which will she write about? 

When Marsha was teaching, her students would beg her not to sing (she still did).  But, when it came to dancing, they were all for it. I mean, who doesn’t want to see their teacher make a complete fool of herself?  Read Marsha’s post to discover all the goofy things she and her class used to do!

Amy shares thoughts on dance through quotes and lyrics as pertaining to her life history thus far ...


And now you. Tell us about "Dance" and link up with us!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Tell Us About ... Sunshine

I have been asked if I'd like to participate in the Global Writing Challenge on the second Thursday of the month.
My posts will go live a little early (to avoid collision with the silent films), so if the posts of the others are not live yet, please check back later.
The current membership consists of Deb’s World, Suzy Turner, Within a World of My Own, Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After, Marsha in the Middle, Coffee and Cocktails at the Casa, and me. It's fun to learn how differently everyone interprets a topic.
You can play along and link up with us!
If that's too short notice for you, maybe next time? The prompt for July will be "Dance".

This month's prompt is "Sunshine". Ouch.
I'd like to start by describing a cartoon by one of my favorite cartoonists, Graham Annable aka Grickle. My favorite are his vampire cartoons.
I don't share artists' work without permission, but you can find the cartoon here.

You see a vampire sitting on his couch holding a portable game console. Behind him there's a strange looking armor, his wolf is sleeping on the rug, a side table holds a skull lamp. Everything is grey, the only colors are those of the console and of the warm light shining from it - and the caption reads "The only reason he played Animal Crossing was to walk through the sunshine again."

Awww 😍
But, uhm, yeah, I'm not that vampire. I'm the kind of vampire who doesn't flee the sunshine by necessity, but out of conviction.
I was the "shadow child" under the tree at the local pool while my friend impersonated a sausage on the grill because she loves the sun.
I'm the one who lets the shades down when others pull them up.
Drag me into the sun and I might be hissing at you - or possibly dissolving in a cloud of dust like Hammer's Dracula.
If you have been around for a while, you already know that I'm very much drawn to the moon instead of the sun even if I won't find me flying in front of a full moon.

What you may not know, however, is that I don't have anything against the sun as such, not that I had ever given that a real thought before.
There's no question about our needing the sun. Our planet needs the sun for light, warmth, gravitation, vitamin D - in short, for life, and a lot of different cultures already knew that a long time ago, only they credited solar deities and built solar cults around their beliefs.

Goddess Sunna at the V&A,
public domain via Wikipedia

We all know the stories about ancient people panicking during a solar eclipse. I experienced one full solar eclipse myself, and although it was raining and we didn't get to see anything, the darkness and the silence gave me an idea of how much scarier that must have felt to people who didn't understand what was happening there, not knowing if the sunlight would return.

Trundholm Sun Chariot
Picture by Nationalmuseet, CC BY-SA 3.0

When I was a kid, my yellow pencil was always the shortest. I absolutely loved drawing a big sun into the corner of every classic "landscape with house" picture. Not a full sun, just one like this here - yes, this is practically a copy of the picture I remember drawing at my friend's house once at the tender age of 8 or 9.
Okay, not really, I only had felt-tips available, but no light blue for the sky and no brown for a tree, and filling out the grass wouldn't have worked for the flowers, so I had to make some small changes. Can't say my drawing abilities have much improved since then as I'm usually not a fan of tiny houses. Maybe it's a fairy house. You get the idea, that's what counts.
As you can see my suns always had a wide smile and the alternating short and long rays.

Suns (and sunflowers which don't have their name for nothing) didn't just turn up in my drawings, though, they also made their way into my jewelry creations.

Center picture via pxhere

So I guess you could say I appreciate the sun as a life giver and inspiration and love the concept of sunshine as long as I don't have to be in it directly myself (and for that I even have my medication as a valid excuse).
I think that's a pretty good compromise 🌞

Now let's see what the others have to tell us (Debbie is still travelling).

Suzy writes about her changing relationship with sunshine and why she appreciates it far more now than she ever did before.

Sally shares sunshine-inspired outfits and handmade jewelry.

Leslie packed a little El Paso sunshine in her pocket for their trip to the UK.

Even though her students begged her not to sing, Marsha loves music.  This time around, she’s writing about songs she loves that mention sunshine!

Amy writes about her first year of freedom to chase the sunshine in all four seasons.


And now you. Tell us about "Sunshine" and link up with us!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter