Saturday Nine: Letting the Sparks Fly

1. Where would you go if you wanted to spark your creativity?

My first choice is always the ocean, but when that isn’t pos­si­ble, any change of scene will do. The other day I spent sev­eral hours at my favorite local cof­fee house, Java Stop, with my lap­top. I needed to get some writ­ing done. Get­ting away from my usual sur­round­ings and rou­tine helped me to con­cen­trate and get the work done.

2. What would be one thing that would embar­rass you a great deal?

I read a lot of other blogs and just when I think that I can no longer be shocked, I find myself com­pletely flab­ber­gasted by some of the top­ics peo­ple write about and the details of their per­sonal lives that they pub­lish. A few months ago, one woman wrote about her inabil­ity to con­trol her tem­per and what, in my esti­ma­tion, amounted to ver­bal abuse of her chil­dren. She revealed her real name.

A lot of peo­ple post inces­santly about the most bor­ing, mun­dane details of their lives. Frankly, I doubt that my read­ers care that I got my hair cut, went to the car wash, did the laun­dry … I don’t really care to read about that level of detail of other folks’ lives unless such details are rel­e­vant to a vignette, expe­ri­ence or sit­u­a­tion that is the main topic of the post.

A few days ago, I hap­pened upon a long, ram­bling dia­tribe about the blogger’s inabil­ity to think of some­thing to write about. I admit that I kept read­ing because I thought there was going to be a moral to the story, i.e., she would segue into a valu­able dis­cus­sion about where/how she finally was inspired to write about some­thing sig­nif­i­cant or decided to walk away from the com­puter and go do some­thing con­struc­tive which then pro­vided her with an idea which would be the focus of the remain­der of the post. Alas, the entire post was about noth­ing more than her des­per­ate desire to write even though she had noth­ing to say. I found myself feel­ing embar­rassed for her when I closed the browser win­dow, as though I were a voyeur who hap­pened upon an event I never wanted to wit­ness because, in the process, I learned some­thing about another per­son that I was hap­pier not knowing.

3. What val­ues did your par­ents instill in you?

The prime value I learned was the inher­ent value and worth of work­ing hard, mak­ing my own way in the world, and being proud not just of my accom­plish­ments but of the extent to which I am respon­si­ble for my own suc­cess, as well as my failures.

I’m glad that my par­ents are not alive to per­ceive and expe­ri­ence the cur­rent eco­nomic cri­sis. They would be appalled and quite fear­ful, given that they sur­vived the Great Depres­sion and their expe­ri­ences fueled the remain­der of their lives. In par­tic­u­lar, my father would be furi­ous about the mort­gage cri­sis and the government’s response. I live in a home that they built and paid for solely through their own labor. They wanted a larger home, but they believed in liv­ing “within our means.” That mean that they waited until they were more finan­cially secure to enlarge and remodel the house. It seems that Amer­i­cans no longer under­stand or appre­ci­ate the sat­is­fac­tion that comes from “delayed grat­i­fi­ca­tion,” i.e., acquir­ing goods and ser­vices by work­ing and sav­ing money until you amass enough to make the pur­chase. That’s how I was brought up.

4. What’s a fad of your teen years that you remem­ber well?

Dur­ing the 1970’s, nos­tal­gia was the rage. We wore clothes that were styled much like those of the 1930’s and 1940’s, and watched movies like “Sum­mer of ’42,” “The Way We Were,” and any star­ring Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Judy Gar­land, et al. In fact, one of the most pop­u­lar movies of that time period was “That’s Enter­tain­ment,” an homage to MGM’s clas­sic film library and stars.

5. What is your favorite breakfast?

Eggs bene­dict with coun­try pota­toes and mimosa eaten leisurely at my favorite restau­rant while chat­ting with Big­Bob and friends.

6. What is the best birth­day gift that you have received?

I got a new wed­ding ring last year … that was pretty memorable!

7. What gad­get could you not live without?

My car. I vividly remem­ber life with­out cell phones, com­put­ers, cable tele­vi­sion, and any of the gam­ing sys­tems. (Pong was the big new thing when I was in high school. We were fas­ci­nated by it.) So I could func­tion with­out being “con­nected” all the time, but I would be very unhappy if I lost my inde­pen­dence as a result of being unable to drive. I am very par­tic­u­lar about my car. Even Big­Bob does not drive it with­out my per­mis­sion. And he does not have a key. He uses mine and then must return it to me so that I know where it is at all times.

One day many years ago, he was run­ning late for work. Since he was work­ing the night shift, and couldn’t find his own key ring — a never-ending issue — he decided that he would just bor­row my keys since I was asleep. He was cer­tain he would be home before I had to take the kids to school and go to work. Sure enough … he had to work over­time. I turned the house upside down look­ing for my keys which are always in my purse. Finally, I called his work­place and had him paged. As soon as he answered, I heard the guilt in his voice. To say that I was livvid would be a major under­state­ment. Luck­ily, my mother was still able to drive, so she picked up the boys and took them to school. For­tu­itously, I did not have a court appear­ance that morn­ing. But I was so infu­ri­ated that I did not speak to Big­Bob for sev­eral days. I felt vio­lated, trapped, vul­ner­a­ble, and help­less being stuck in my house with my car sit­ting right there in the garage but unable to start it and go. That inci­dent is the rea­son that Big­Bob has never again touched my keys with­out permission.

I’m sure that my atti­tude is a direct result of being the daugh­ter of an auto mechanic extra­or­di­naire. Cars and all that they sym­bol­ize fig­ured very promi­nently in my for­ma­tive years, and from the moment I was old enough to drive, I always had ready access to a reli­able, lov­ingly cared-for vehi­cle. My father took excel­lent care of my cars for me well into my adult years and, even when he could no longer do the work him­self, he used to stand on the dri­ve­way and guide Big­Bob through a repair job, point by point.

8. Do you col­lect anything?

Angels play­ing flutes:

9. What web­site (non-blog) do you reg­u­larly visit?

The Lodi News-Sentinel.

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