Hiding in plain sight

 When I talk to people on the phone and it relates in some way to customer service, I typically take notes on the call.  Things like, who I talked to and what they told me.  Oftentimes (but not always) I will also note the time and date, in case I need that information in the future.

Well, almost two years ago I had a conversation with someone.  I remembered what they told me but not who I spoke with.  I wasn't sure if I had made note of who I had talked to.  I had talked to a number of people during this time and knew I had taken notes on a lot of the calls but wasn't sure I had in this particular instance.

 

Several months ago I reached out to this "business" to follow up.  I was stonewalled on the call so finding out if I had noted the name of who I spoke to became all the more important.  Periodically I would do a search for it but always came up short.  It was frustrating because there was other information from the notebook I wanted to find as well.

 

Yesterday I was on a mission to find this notebook that may - or may not - have the information I needed.  I was like a tornado, leaving messes wherever I looked and getting more and more frustrated when I wasn't finding it.

 

 Lately, I've been working with two notebooks - a large (or normal size) one and a small (9.5x6 inch) one.  On a lark, I decided to see if it was possible that the notes were in the large notebook because I would've bet everything I had that the notes were in a large notebook.  The notes I had taken at the time were at the back of a notebook, so I started there.  In the large notebook I did find notes that I had taken around that time but not what I needed - and not all of what I knew I had taken notes on.

I was at the point where I was convinced I had thrown out he notebook by mistake when I decided to look at the smaller notebook - convinced I wouldn't find anything and . . . there was the information I needed!  It's been within arms length this whole time and actually been used with some regularity!  Hiding in plain sight!

Maybe my dog is offended

 As previously mentioned, I'm learning Italian from CDs I bought more than six years ago.  I've been doing the lessons five days a week (Monday-Friday) and stay on the same lesson for the week to help ensure I'm absorbing the information.

Well, my dog doesn't seem to like it.  He literally gets up and leaves the room when I start the lesson, and comes back when I'm done.

Yesterday he had burrowed himself under the throw on the sofa and was snuggled up to me.  He'd just gotten into position and I hit play for the lesson and all they said was "this is lesson 5" and he came out from under the throw and stormed off into the bedroom, after giving me "a look".  Seriously, he gave me a look!

It occurred to me today that maybe it's the language I'm learning.  He's part chihuahua and maybe he's offended that I'm not learning the language of his roots.  Who knows?  I just know he really doesn't like it when I do my lessons!  :)

Epiphany

I was having an email exchange with my niece earlier this evening and the topic of Alaska came up and she asked me if I had ever been and she mentioned she had been offered a job there but had been told she couldn't take it because of the weather and low temperatures there so she had to decline the offer.  The way she told it, it was unclear who had said she couldn't take it but that she then declined it, well, it confused me so I asked who had told her she couldn't take the job.  Turns out it was her husband.

As I thought about this it occurred to me that that is the reason I have no desire to be married again - well one of the reasons anyway.  It seems that when it comes to "allowing" their spouse to do anything, the husbands want the final say - kind of like a parent would for their small child.  We have to get permission to do things like go places or spend money, whereas the men do whatever they want and spend as much as they want and they feel no need to clear it through their wives.

But here's where the epiphany came in (because I pretty much knew the other part), they want to play the role of parent when it comes to what we do, EXCEPT when it comes to taking care of the house.  They want to be the child that gets taken care of.  The one whose only contribution to a meal is sitting at the table (or in front of the TV).  They rarely want to help with household chores of cooking or cleaning and to them, watching their own kids is usually considered "babysitting".  But when a woman does it, it's parenting.  And they expect to receive medals if they ever pitch in at all.  Plus, we can get fussed at if we don't stay on top of "our" chores (but we can't say anything if they don't stay on top of "theirs"!).

At the end of my marriage my husband and I were working together and we only had one car so we were both away from the house all day, everyday.  One day we got home and he immediately started complaining because he thought the house was a mess.  I was stunned by the viciousness of his "complaint" but once I composed myself, I pointed out that he was home exactly the same amount of time as I had been and if he was unhappy with the cleanliness of the house he could just of as easily done something about it as I could.  That didn't stop his complaining.  A few years back I was experiencing a debilitating illness where getting out of bed was challenging for me - literally.  Cleaning was not something I was physically able to do and I remember thinking that if I was still married to that person, he would probably have complained because the house was a mess and not lifted a finger to clean it himself.  I don't miss being married to that man.

Having said all that I also want to say, I know not all men are like that but in my experience, more are than are not and I don't want to be in a relationship with someone who wants to be the boss of me but expects me to be the adult when he thinks tasks are "beneath" him.  And somehow a conversation about Alaska brought more clarity to the situation for me.  Weird how that works, isn't it?  :)

Serendipity

One of my goals this year is to get some things done that I've been putting off.  Early in the year I made a list of things I needed to do each day and checked them off . . . or not.  I "invested" in a product that I can keep the list on my refrigerator (although that's not how I originally envisioned it - but that's okay).

 

Anyway, I moved here almost a year ago (less than a week shy of that anniversary!).  One of the drawing features is the fact that there is a generator here because my other house didn't (and doesn't) have one because it's all electric - no gas for the generator.  Well, about six months ago the power went out here and the generator didn't kick in.  I called the generator guy, who told me he was headed out of town so it would be about a week before he got here.  I said that was fine and I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  I finally got a call about six weeks later with him following up to see if I needed him to come out.  Since I'd originally called, the power had gone out again but that time the generator kicked in like it was supposed to.  I told him that and told him I didn't think I needed him to come out after all, and left it at that.

At some point after that, the power went out again and the generator didn't kick in - again.  I didn't do anything about it for a long time though.  After the first of the year, I added it to my "to do" list and I called him about three weeks ago.  I believe it was on a Friday.  He said he could probably come out on Monday.  My mistake was in not asking which Monday, but I digress.  He came out ten days later to check things out.  Long story short, it was pretty messed up and needed "servicing".

Fast forward to last night, a "severe winter storm" hit here and my power went out.  According to the email I received, I lost power around 3:00 a.m. last night.  But, thanks to the service call I put in a few weeks ago, my generator kicked in.  And thank goodness because there's still no power in the area and no estimated time it will be turned back on!

 

I'm also snowed in.  Below is a snapshot of my front yard this morning.  I have a rain gauge that can read 5 or 6 inches and it is completely buried under the snow!  But thanks to my call to the generator guy, I'm nice and toasty in my house.  :)

 

 

Learning a New Language

 Way back in 2016 I bought some CDs to learn Italian.  I was planning to travel there and wanted to be able to speak the language.

Well, I cancelled the trip and set aside the CDs, always intending to go back to them and learn the language anyway.  I did take a Mediterranean cruise in 2018 and we did spend time in Italy but, I hadn't learned the language yet.

In fact, I never opened the box of CDs until last week!  I had them all these years and never opened them, much less tried to learn the language.

But I did open them last week and I have been listening to them and practicing the language.  I've decided to do one lesson a week, repeating the lesson daily so that I feel comfortable with the lesson before moving on.  I decided this after the first lesson because, frankly, I just wasn't getting it.  By the end of the week, I did feel comfortable to move on.  

Lesson two seems easier.  The first ten minutes are a repeat of lesson one and the rest is things like saying hello and good bye - phrases I was already familiar with.

I will say that there have been times where I've found myself incorporating words or phrases from other languages but for the most part, I feel I'm doing okay.

Now, having said all that, I do feel that there are times when maybe I'm saying words in correctly - some I feel I just don't have the ability to pronounce the way they're supposed to be said.  When those words enter the lesson, the video below (particularly the second scene) comes to mind.  :)

Passwords

 I just tried to log into an account of mine and it took two tries to get it right.  

 

About a year ago I tried to long on to this account and apparently they had implemented a new system that forces you to change your password every few months - and it has requirements for those passwords.  You have to have upper and lower case letters in the password.  You have to have at least one number and at least one symbol.

 

In the past I had a few passwords that I used.  If I tried one and it didn't work, I tried another.  If that one didn't work, I'd try capitalizing a particular letter (in case that was a requirement for that particular account).  I could usually figure out the password before I reached the point of locking myself out of an account - I might not remember which one I just typed in to know for future reference, but I could usually figure it out before I was locked out.

Here's the thing, I don't typically use the type of password that would be easily figured out by a bad actor. I actually have some passwords that have all the required criteria I mentioned above.  But the thing is, they don't require me to change them every few months.  I mean, I get that companies want to make it difficult to access by a bad actor but when the user can't access the account?  Now THAT'S a problem!

Happy New Year

It's a new year and a time to start fresh, or something like that.

 

I don't make resolutions anymore but I do set goals for myself each year.  The theory being that if you make a resolution, you can fail - early on - and you're disappointed in yourself and want to give up.  If you make a goal, maybe you just haven't achieved it yet, so keep trying, right?  At least that's how I look at it.

 

This year I have a long list of goals and have even started collecting things to encourage my success at it.  For instance, I ordered a monthly chalk board where I can list what I need to accomplish and mark it off when completed.  It comes with a grocery list and a "to do" list board as well.  I think it will help but time will tell, right?

 

Another example of trying to set myself up for success, one of my goals is to read the entire bible in one year.  I've started this before and read every day for two and a half months before I gave up.  Well, as I was watching my church service this morning, at the end of the sermon the speaker mentioned reading the bible in a year and gave a website - bibleinoneyear.org - and I went there to check it out.  It was interesting because it's not just reading the bible from the beginning to the end, which is how I've always attempted it in the past, it gave passages from three different books in the bible - Psalms, Matthew and Genesis - in that order.  The passages connected to each other to share a specific message.  I liked that.  But to keep me on target for my goal, I signed up for the daily newsletter.  I assume it will be the message and bible passages for the day but if not, it will at least remind me to go back to the website to read that day's messages.

And this evening, I made a "to do" list for tomorrow.  I'm supposed to have someone show up tomorrow to do some work on the house and I don't know how long it will take and it's possible it will interfere with my "to do" list but I figure I at least got a start on the day, right?

So that's how I'm starting my new year and how I'm addressing the year's goals.  

 

How is your year looking?

Book Review Club - December 2022

I'm reviewing two books this month, this one being THE WIDOW by Kaira Rouda.  This book was offered as one of Amazon's First Read books for prime members in November.  One of the reasons I selected this as my book for the month was because it said she was also the author of a book I thought I had read (I haven't, or at least I can't find the title in any of my book histories - purchased or borrowed from the library).  Anyway . . . 

The story centers around Washington and the games people play to stay on top.  It's told, primarily, from the viewpoints of Jody and Martin Asher.  Martin is a House Representative for Ohio and Jody is his wife.

There is a reporter, Max Brown, who wants to interview Martin for an article he's writing but Martin is avoiding and ignoring him because the article is likely to make Martin look bad so he doesn't want to participate or contribute to that but Max is determined to get his story, one way or another.  Jody and Martin's daughter, Charlotte, is scheduled to get married "this weekend" and their goal is to just get through the wedding - which has cost a fortune so it's happening, no matter what! - and then they will deal with whatever else they have to, including sitting down with Max for an interview.

Jody believes Martin is a hardworking politician that has the best interests of his constituents at heart but truth told, she really doesn't care, so long as it doesn't interfere with her social standing within Washington society.  But as the wedding gets closer, the talk of scandals, investigations and subpoenas gets louder and Jody is upset that it will ruin "her" big day (really Charlotte's big day but Jody thinks of it as her own big day) and so she is angry with Martin.

A major event happens that changes the course of everything.  I would tell it here and it wouldn't really be a spoiler because it's disclosed in the amazon blurb and well, the title is a hint, but it's one of those things that I think the details are best read in the book, but things change when it happens.  And then towards the end of  the book several bombshell revelations occur that I didn't see coming.  It basically suggested that everyone in Washington has secrets and that they're stored up by others and used as leverage as needed.

I really enjoyed this book and found myself wanting to "read one more chapter" before I  . . . took the dog out, made dinner, etc.  Then I'd get to the end of the chapter and think "I can't stop now.  Just one more chapter."  In short, I read it pretty quickly because I wanted to see what happened next.  That said, I didn't find any of the characters particularly likeable.  Martin wasn't too bad but there was the cloud of potential scandal hovering over him so I wasn't fully invested in him - I was reserving judgment, so to speak.  Everyone seemed to love Charlotte but she wasn't a fully developed character and didn't really factor into things in the story - other than she was getting married "this weekend".

Between each chapter there was a "tip" on surviving in Washington, which I also found interesting.  As I read them, I wondered how legitimate they might be.  Then I read the acknowledgements at the end of the book (as I always do) and discovered that the author's husband actually did serve two terms in the House.  Interesting side note, an article on him accused him of breaking the law for trading stocks early in the pandemic.  He's also changed parties - started as a republican, became an independent before ultimately running as a democrat.  But I digress.

In any event, I feel comfortable recommending this book as I found it interesting and I enjoyed it.  :)

For more book reviews go to https://barriesummy.blogspot.com/index.html

Book Review Club - November 2022

 This month I will be reviewing Mad Money by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan.  This was a Good Morning America (GMA) book club recommendation that I listened to the audio book version of.

It's a story told from the perspectives of Olivia, who is Asher's mother, and Lily, who is Asher's girlfriend.  Olivia tells her story in chronological order but Lily tells hers in reverse order, which seemed a bit odd to me.  But considering Lily is found dead in Olivia's first chapter, I guess they had to decide how to tell her story and instead of starting two months prior to her death (where they ended), they started with the "day of" and worked backwards from there.

When the police arrived at Lily's house, after her death, Asher was there holding her body and there was evidence that he had moved her so he was a suspect in her death and that's what the bulk of the story revolves around.  Did Asher kill her?  Did he really just find her body as he says?  Was it just an accident?  We don't know.
 
Without giving too much away, there is a trial but here's the thing: a verdict is reached but that isn't the end of the story - there was actually still an hour left of audio to listen to AFTER the verdict.  That is to say, there is a plot twist.  I suspected that before the verdict came in but it went a different way than I expected (I think this option crossed my mind at one point but I was convinced of something else by the time I got to this point).

GMA had done an interview with the authors before I read it and at one point someone said "not to give away a plot point but . . . " and I just have to say, it definitely was a PLOT POINT - a pretty significant one, at that!  If they had not told it, it would've been a total shock when I got to that point in the book but, as it was, I was kind of like "oh, that's what they were talking about.  so?"

Overall it was a good story and I enjoyed listening to it but there were a few things (other than Lily's story being told in reverse order of occurrence) that took away from the story a bit.  For one, the language.  I'm not a particular fan of foul language so that bothered me.  Also, there was way too much information about what bees and beekeepers do.  It was like they did a deep dive in research into beekeeping and felt they didn't want to waste what they learned and dumped it into the book.  And it wasn't in a "to distract myself I . . . " with a detailed account of what she did.  It was a "the queen bee does this" and "the worker bee does that" in painstaking detail that added absolutely nothing to the story except length.  And this was done throughout the book.  Despite that, I still think it's worth a read / listen.  :)

For more book reviews, go to https://barriesummy.blogspot.com/index.html

Book Review Club - September 2022

Disclaimer:  I wrote this review last summer when the book review club was on hiatus.  I didn't have anything for this month so I'm recycling it now.

 I borrowed brat: an 80s story by Andrew McCarthy from my library (ebook) and read it in two days time - this includes watching a couple of the movies he talks about in the book as well!  It's worth noting that I had just finished reading Julianna Margulies' book, which took me the entire two weeks the library allows for ebook checkouts because I just couldn't get into it but forced myself to finish so that I didn't have to wait months to borrow it again (since there were others waiting for it).  

 

With Julianna's book I felt like it started very slow.  The writing wasn't great and the stories she was telling weren't all that interesting - at least for the first 1/3 of the book.  And I like Julianna - a lot - but her book wasn't the best memoir I've ever read.  I didn't feel like I learned anything new about her or her work.  And that's okay.

 

But to follow it up with Andrew's book - an actor I wouldn't call myself a fan of and who I constantly confuse with George Newbern - that I didn't want to put down, says something.

I loved this book.  He gives insight into who he is, how he became who he is and where that took him.  And the behind the scenes stories about movies he has been in were great.  

Andrew's father was against him going into acting, that is until he booked Class with Jacqueline Bisset and his father wanted Andrew to invite her to dinner. Ha!  (Andrew declined.)  He spoke about his relationship with his father throughout the book and his father's response to things related to Andrew's acting and income really strained their relationship.  Andrew found some peace with his father before his death but I don't think anything was truly resolved.

I'll be honest, I'm sure I've watched Class before decades ago but I couldn't have told you Andrew was in it.  I had a vague idea of the plot but (spoiler alert!) I would've bet everything that Rob Lowe was the one who slept with his friend's mother.  Before I read the background behind the movie, I watched the movie on some platform (HBO Max maybe?).  I believed his acting and thought he did a good job.  It was his first film and he had to develop some mechanisms to deal with the process itself.  I wouldn't have guessed that by the performance.

I actually had recorded Pretty in Pink a few months back.  Several things - I had no idea Andrew was in it.  As with Class, I'm sure I watched it decades ago but couldn't have told you the plot to save my life.  I knew Jon Cryer and Molly Ringwald were in it but that's about all I could've said for certain.  I also had expected that I would delete the movie without watching it because it's not really on the list of movies I thought I would want to watch (I have a few others of those on my DVR still, but that's a whole other story / issue).  I read the chapter on Pretty in Pink (actually the book's longest chapter) before I watched the movie.

Again, I liked the movie and his performance - I definitely believed him.  Now, without intending to give away any spoilers, the ending the movie has was not the original movie ending.  They screened the movie before release and the ending was a problem so they re-did the ending.  The problem was that Andrew was already working on his next job (on an off-Broadway production) and had shaved his head for that role.  As a result, the final scenes of the movie were shot with him wearing a wig.  

I'm so glad I knew that going in because it made me pay attention to that, whereas I wouldn't have noticed.  But that's part of the point of this - if I hadn't known it was a wig I don't think I would've thought it was a wig.  Since I did know though, it stood out like a sore thumb!  hahaha

Those are the only movies I've watched so far but HBO Max has some others of his movies that I plan to check out, now that I know the backstories (and some I haven't seen).  (Some of Weekend at Bernie's were ad libbed moments.  He thinks the sequel was a mistake.  Also another movie I know I've seen but I wouldn't have said he was in.)

He's also open about his drug and alcohol abuse.  He talks about missing the signs that it would be a problem for him - in hindsight he sees it very clearly.

Bottom line, I enjoyed this book and like Andrew better for having read it and will be less likely to confuse him with George in the future.  

 

I don't feel differently about Julianna - even though I didn't find her book all that engaging (I have read books before that completely changed my mind about someone negatively - this wasn't that . . . I just don't think she's the best storyteller, at least not in word form.  just my opinion.)

So there you go.  Kind of a twofer in book reviews, one I highly recommend (Andrew's) and one I don't recommend so much (Julianna's).  

😁

For more reviews go to https://barriesummy.blogspot.com/index.html

Book Review Club - June 2022

 By way of disclaimer I just want to say that I typically write my reviews immediately after I read the book so that the details are fresh in my mind.  It's been a couple of weeks since I've read this book so I don't remember all the names of the characters, but I hopefully remember the right details.  :)

With that said, this month I will be reviewing All Her Little Secrets by Wanda M Morris.  All Her Little Secrets tells the story of Ellice Littlejohn - from her point of view.  Ellice works in the legal department of a corporation, is one of the only black people working for the organization and is having an affair with her boss, who she followed to the company after the both left the law firm they'd worked for previously.

The boss she's having an affair with is white and married.  They often meet at work before any other employees arrive at the office and that is the plan for the day when Ellice goes up to the 20th floor to meet her boss, only to find that he's been shot and is dead.

As Ellice tries to process the scene before her she remembers that there are no security cameras on the 20th floor so if she leaves, no one will ever know she had found him dead.  So she does just that - leaves and pretends she knows nothing because she doesn't want to be in the middle of something like this . . . again.

Then she gets offered the dead boss's job.  She says she would like to think about it before accepting, only to find out it was announced within hours of her being offered the job - before she could accept.  But it puts her in meetings with upper management.  When a particular topic gets brought up she starts to ask questions and gets told to basically mind her own business but it piques her curiosity and she starts digging further.

As she launches her own investigation into things she starts to receive threats and warnings that let her know that someone within the company knows all her secrets and may be trying to set her up to take the fall for the death of the boss in the office.  She also learns that the death hits closer to home than she realizes and she finds herself in a race to discover exactly what is going on before it's too late.

Periodically the story goes back in time to share events related to the "again" comment and tell you what she's been through and brought her to this point.

Overall, I thought it was a good book and definitely made me want to read further to find out what happened next - I could recommend it.  :)

For more reviews go to https://barriesummy.blogspot.com/index.html or click on the icon below.

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@Barrie Summy

Active Shooter

Have you ever had a situation that made your heart stop?  A few seconds that seemed to drag on for hours?  I'm thinking of a situation where maybe a child falls from the jungle gym at the park and you're paralyzed with fear of what will happen.  Or maybe your dog gets loose and runs right in front of a speeding car.  Until you know the child or pet is okay you experience an overwhelming sense of fear and it seems to last a lifetime, even though it's only a few seconds before you know the results.

Years ago I was working for a company that has offices all over the world.  Our particular office had just started having active shooter drills.  In the announcement for the drill it states that it is NOT a drill.  Normally when they would have drills the managers would be notified in advance so they could plan their day accordingly.

One day the announcement went off.  We learned later that someone had accidentally set it off (although, from what I'd heard, it would've been really hard for hit to have been an accident - but that's not the point here) but at the time, since no managers had been notified of a drill, there was more concern in the office that there was an actual active shooter situation.  Making matters worse, it was during the time of year where employees were being given performance feedback so the timing even made sense.

My office was outside my boss's office so we closed and locked my office door and went into her office and locked that door as well while she texted other managers (we weren't supposed to call or talk to anyone so that an active shooter wouldn't know if the office was vacant or not) to see if anyone knew anything about the situation.

Meanwhile, we had a visitor who worked in our office a couple of days a week.  She worked at another location within our company and their location had never done an active shooter drill so she was terrified of what was happening.  She closed and locked her door, crawled under her desk and started texting family members because 1) she wanted them to know she was okay - at least in that moment - before they heard about the active shooter at the company and 2) she wanted to be sure she was able to tell her loved ones that she loved them because she thought it might be her last opportunity to do so because she didn't know if she would make it home that night.

The "drill" went on for five or ten minutes and she was terrified for all of them.  They felt like an eternity, and it turns out it was a false alarm.

Then there's Uvalde.  It wasn't a drill.  Those students could hear the gunshots ringing out from other parts of the school.  Some saw their friends and teachers shot and killed.  Some called for help, desperate for help, begging for help.  The terror they felt was real and it was justified.  Parents and neighbors begged the police to go into the school and save the children.  Some parents tried to help the children themselves when the police refused.

The terror went on for more than an hour while the police waited outside and did nothing.  These are memories those children will never forget and will shape their lives going forward and it didn't have to be that way.

I read an article where a child psychologist talked to a child about Uvalde and the child said she didn't need to worry because they had drills and they knew what to do when this type of thing happened.  When, not if.

It may have been in the same article where another child told her parents about an active shooter drill at school and told her parents where she had to go so that when (again, when - not if) it happened at their school, they'd know where she was and could come get her.

One of the kids at Uvalde said he pretended to be dead so that the shooter wouldn't kill him.

These are things kids shouldn't have to be dealing with.  And yet, nothing is being done about it.  Governor Abbot in Texas has said it's not a gun issue but rather a mental health issue.  This from the man who cut funding to mental health programs and lifted most - if not all - restrictions on gun ownership.  And several years ago he posted a tweet saying he was embarrassed because Texas was #2 in gun purchases behind California and told Texans to step up their gun buying.

If you believe that our leaders should lead by example, what does Abbot's words and actions suggest we should do?  Nothing.

Republicans constantly complain, saying they're being silenced and being denied their first amendment right of freedom of speech but what I see is them trying to silence the opposition.  Did you see what the Republicans did to Beto O'Rourke when he tried to express himself - calmly, I might add - at a news conference recently?  He was told to shut up.  He was called a sick son of a bitch and told to get out and was removed from the venue, simply because they weren't willing to hear a side that didn't align with their own.

Additionally, Ted Cruz was approached in a restaurant after he spoke at the NRA convention Friday night.  One of his constituents tried to talk to him and he wasn't interested in a dialogue.  He told the guy he didn't know what he was talking about and blamed Democrats and the media for the shootings.  And then the guy was removed from the restaurant.  

From personal experience I know that Ted Cruz does NOT want to hear from his constituents.  Until a few months ago I was one of his constituents.  I wrote him on two separate occasions on two separate topics.  With the first one he didn't respond to me personally, he just added me to his newsletter mailer (which I promptly told him to remove me from!).  The second time he literally tried to gaslight me by telling lies in his response.  Apparently he considers his constituents ignorant and uninformed and thinks that because he says something that we will believe him.

I say it's time for change.  We need to vote out the leaders that turn a blind eye to senseless - and preventable - murders that continue to happen under their watch.  We need people like Beto O'Rourke who will fight for what's right and who isn't afraid to go up against people in power.

It it my sincere hope that the events of the last few months will motivate people who might not have otherwise voted in November to get out and vote.  And support the candidates (financially - with time - or any other way you can) who work for the people and not the interest groups that fund their campaigns because no child should have to endure one second of fear that they could be shot and killed, much less endure it for more than an hour., only to have their governor say "it could've been worse".

Book Review Club - April 2022

Nora Seed was having a bad day.  She gets home from work and a friend stops by and tells her that her cat is dead in the street, presumably having been hit by a car.  She goes to work the next day to have her boss inform her that he can no longer afford to pay her and he was going to have to let her go.  She leaves work and runs into an old friend who yells at her and tells her she ruined his life when she quit the band they were in.  She gets home and decides to kill herself, after all, who would care if she died?  Her best friend had moved away.  She'd called off her wedding two days before it was supposed to happen and she wasn't on good terms with her brother.  She'd had lots of opportunities to make something of her life - she was a great swimmer; she was a gifted singer / songwriter and had even considered philosophy and glaciology but she never followed through on things.

 

She left her brother a voicemail message telling him she loved him and wrote a letter and decided to die.

 

It was midnight and she "woke up" in a library.  It was being tended by the librarian from school, which Nora found odd.  But after speaking with Mrs. Elm (the librarian), she learned that she was at the midnight library.  Mrs. Elm explained that the books on the shelves were her life.  The biggest and heaviest book was her book of regrets.  At the midnight library, Nora would have the opportunity to go back and live any of the versions of her life that she chose to in order to see which one truly suited her.  She was advised to choose wisely because there were no guarantees - she could die in any of the other versions of her life and things would end immediately.

Any life she chose would take her to the exact date and time she arrived at the midnight library but her history would have changed, based on the choice she made.  For example, in one instance she returned to a life where she hadn't stopped swimming and changing that decision had changed everything that happened after that.  The problem was, she entered these alternate lives without the knowledge of the history that came with it so that she didn't know where she was, where she lived or who the people around her were.  On the plus side, once she realized she didn't want that life, she would return to the midnight library and get to experience another life.

I think we all have times in our lives that we wish we'd done differently and in The Midnight Library, Matt Haig gives a glimpse of how certain decisions can totally alter your life - and not always for the better.  One thing I liked about the writing is that the chapters were short - well most of them anyway.  It reminded me of how James Patterson writes in that the chapters are short so you're always willing to read just one more chapter, but there's such a big hook you kind of HAVE to read the next chapter. :)  Although, it did seem to lag in the middle and I felt that things were dragging out too much.  Then it picked up again and I couldn't put it down.

Overall it was an enjoyable read that was thought provoking and entertaining.  I would recommend it!

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@Barrie Summy

Book Review Club - January 2022

This month I will be reviewing We are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza.

It's a story about best friends, Riley and Jenny.  Riley and Jenny have been best friends since they were five years old.  Now, thirty years later, we're seeing how things have evolved between them.

Jenny always wanted to be married and have kids.  She is married, to Kevin, and is expecting her first child.  Getting pregnant had been difficult and she had gone through IVF unsuccessfully many times.  With their life savings depleted and their credit cards maxed out, it is Riley who gives them the money to try again, and this time it took.

Riley, on the other hand, wanted to be a journalist and went away to college for her education, followed by working ten years in another state before finally coming home to be an on-air reporter at their local news station.

Jenny is white and Riley is black.  Riley is also one of only two black people at the news station - the other one being a behind the scenes person.  So when news breaks that an unarmed black teenager has been shot by a white policeman, Riley is given the story to cover.  It's a career building story and one that is close to her heart because she is black.  She knows it will be a hard story to tell and tell it impartially. 

It's made harder when she learns that the policeman that shot the teenager is Jenny's husband, Kevin.

Each woman is going through their own personal struggle as it relates to how this one event, and the resulting events, impacts their respective lives.  Will the teenager survive?  Will Jenny and Riley's relationship survive?  Can they see and understand each other's perspectives?  The question is, how will it all play out?

Sadly, black and brown people being shot - and killed - by white police officers is not an unfamiliar one or one where we have to stretch the imagination over much but this story is told in a way that evokes emotion.  I read the question and answer session at the end of the book and the authors' goal was to make you feel empathy for both Riley and Jenny and they did that successfully.  It's told in alternating points of view of Riley and Jenny, who dig deep into their differences as well as their, hopefully, unbreakable love for one another.  It's a good book and well told.

I was immediately drawn in by the first two lines of the prologue, which are compelling, chilling and heartbreaking all at once:

When the bullets hit him, first his arm, then his stomach, it doesn't feel like he'd always imagined it would.  Because of course, as a Black boy growing in this neighborhood, he'd imagined it.

If you had asked me six years ago the status of racism in America I would've told you that it wasn't quite dead but it was in hospice care because I honestly thought there were few racists left in America.  But four years of an administration that emboldened the worst impulses of select groups and the resulting headlines of unarmed black and brown people being shot and killed by white police officers has opened my eyes.  As a white woman, I will never fully understand the challenges my black and brown friends face on a daily basis but this story touches on it in such a way that I hope it helps educate me - and others - if even just a little bit.

For more book reviews go to https://barriesummy.blogspot.com/index.html

Odd Dream

Last night I dreamed I was working.  The environment looked like a job I once had but the people were from a different group I had worked with.

I kept changing clothes, like a LOT.  It was weird.

Then I was standing in a doorway (half naked because I was changing clothes - again) and the plane we were on took a nosedive.  Yeah, I didn't see that turn of events coming either!  I grabbed a thing on the wall (can't think of what you call it but it's there to hold on to to brace yourself) when the plane shot straight up.  I somehow managed to get clothes on during all this before the plane did a huge turn to one side and then was upside down.  I was still holding the thing on the wall but people went flying down the hall (oddly not straight up as you'd expect) and screaming.

We were upside down for longer than expected but the plane did right itself and then basically did a u-turn in the sky.

I could tell we were descending and had this weird feeling.  I looked out the window and realized we were about to land in a parking lot!  Which I basically scream out.  There were cars and people everywhere but we somehow managed to land without hitting anyone or anything.

And then suddenly we're in a hotel lobby, checking in.  The group wanted to go have dinner like it was no big deal, that planes flip and land in parking lots on them all the time but I was shaken up.  I wanted to go to my room and my supervisor was trying to force me to stay for dinner and I snapped at her and told her I was on a plane that just freaking crash landed and I couldn't care less about dinner, I just wanted to go my room.  She backed off because I was yelling all that at her.

I go up to the front desk to get the key to my room and realized I wasn't going to get home to my dogs (in the dream I think I had more than one - I only have one at the moment though in real life).  I also realized that I didn't know anyone's number by heart and wasn't sure how I would call anyone to go to the house to tend to my dogs until I could get home (after I woke up I wondered how long the trip was that I would've left my dogs home alone).  I finally realized that I could call from my cell phone and was digging through things to find the phone when I woke up.

Weird dream!

I had another one the day and thought I would remember it but all I remember about it is that I was calling 9-1-1 when I woke up.  Didn't do that in the dream where the plane landed in a parking lot so that other dream must've been bad!  ;)

And Just Like That

WARNING - THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!  

Yesterday two episodes of And Just Like That dropped on HBOMax.  I was excited so I watched both episodes first thing yesterday morning.

Since then there has been a lot of chatter about a couple of the storylines that I want to address here.  The first being how Kim Cattrail's character, Samantha was written out of the show.  I didn't do a search for this post but I do recall reading that they were NOT going to kill her off, they were just going to address is as friends who drift apart.  Okay, that's realistic, right?  Well, what they did is they had her get upset because Carrie no longer needed her as a publicist, which I personally don't think is consistent with the character.  Not only that, she apparently also wrote off Charlotte and Miranda in the process and moved to London.  Wasn't it the first movie that Samantha had moved to California for her love interest but ultimately left him because she couldn't be away from New York and "her girls"?  I guess this way of handling it gives Cattrail the option to return to the show but it's completely out of character, in my opinion.  Just saying.

But the bigger story here is that they killed off Big in episode one!  That surprised me!  That said, I did consider an article I had read that said Chris Noth was reluctant to return to the show (found an article here - not the one I initially read though).  The article I originally read (but couldn't find) indicated that he was unhappy with how his character was handled in the second movie.  But after a sit down with the powers that be, they convinced him to sign on.  Given how they "handled" the situation, I'm guessing that he was told that they didn't want him to die off camera but that they could kill him off and he wouldn't be expected back for future iterations of the show.  Mission accomplished.

As a side note, I think it's sad they handled Big this way, considering Willie Garson recently died.  They couldn't know that would happen and I get that but I watched the shows with that in mind (and watched Willie for any indication he was as sick as he obviously was during filming).  But I digress.

People blew up about Big being killed off.  Peloton stock is falling because Big had a heart attack right after his one thousandth ride on his bike.  

But the most outrageous thing I've read about it is Peloton's response to the episode.  In the statement you will find that Peloton's cardiologist made a statement about Big's death.  She reminds us that Big had previously had a cardiac event and lived an "extravagant" lifestyle.  She suggests that maybe there was a family history of heart disease in his family.  And . . . AND she suggests that his riding the Peloton likely delayed his fatal heart attack.

Do I really need to point out here that Big is a FICTIONAL CHARACTER and that Chris Noth is still alive and well?  I mean, I get that Peloton might be a little ticked off at how the role their equipment played in what happened in the show but the cardiologist sounds like she's defending a case in court where someone sued the company because they died right after their Peloton workout.  I mean COME ON!  IT'S A SHOW!  NO ONE REALLY DIED!

That all said, I was kind of disappointed with the show overall.  I'll still continue to watch and hope it gets better but right now, the bigger entertainment - for me anyway - is seeing how people (and Peloton in particular) are spinning out of control over what happened in the first two episodes.

I will also say, I heard that Big's death will be at the center of this season, which makes sense.  I think that explains why when the actors on the show have done interviews, they don't talk about specifics and they don't bring clips.

Have you seen it?  If so, what did you think?  Inquiring minds want to know!  :)

Book Review Club November 2021 - State of Terror

This month I will be reviewing three books.  Here I will be reviewing State of Terror by Louise Penny and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

It's been a while since I've read this many books between book club meetings, much less like them all and want to review them!  Having said that, I really liked this book.

I saw interviews with Louise Penny and Hillary Clinton talking about this book.  They said they wanted to write a realistic book about being the Secretary of State, particularly when you were coming into a new administration that follows an administration lead by an incompetent president.  Their jabs at Trump aren't even remotely subtle.  The former president's name is Eric Dunn - nicknamed Eric Dumb.  He withdrew from the Iran nuclear treaty, negotiated a withdrawal from Afghanistan without a plan or conditions on the Taliban, demanded loyalty, called press conferences for the sole purpose of telling lies and calling the press "fake news", among other things.  Oh, and after he lost the election, moved to Florida while his "followers" planned coup that would put him back into office while in league with terrorists and dictators.  Sound familiar?  I thought so too.

Anyway, Ellen Adams is the Secretary of State and the president who appointed her doesn't much like her but she was a vocal critic of him during the campaign so he figured the best way to shut her up was to give her a place in his cabinet.  His goal is to make her look bad so he can fire her but she's not going to make it easy on him.

A bomb goes off in a bus in London.  While the US is trying to get intelligence on it a second bomb goes off on a bus in Paris.  A staff member under the SOS receives an odd email that her supervisor tells her to delete as spam.  The staff member does so but not before she copies what the email said.  She later figures out it's a code and that there is a third bomb scheduled to go off, and soon.

The events that follow and their determination to find out who is behind the bombings. lead them to the conclusion that these bombings were intended as just a distraction, that the main event is much larger and will happen on American soil.  The SOS and her team are frantically working to figure out who is behind the threat and trying to eliminate the threat before it is too late.

This is a fast paced, page turning thriller that I didn't want to put down.  It was very well written and given the situation we find ourselves in after the last administration, all too realistic.  The thought that went through my head is that we shouldn't be putting these ideas out there for people to copy!  But it was a good story and a book I would recommend highly for anyone who enjoys thrillers, or just good books in general. 

For more reviews, go to https://barriesummy.blogspot.com/index.html.

Book Review Club - December 2021 - The Boys

 This month I will be reviewing three books.  Here I will be reviewing The Boys by Ron and Clint Howard.

I've always liked Ron Howard.  I haven't held Clint Howard in much regard though.  My opinion has kind of been that Clint got his career by being in Ron's movies.  Reading this book though I came to realize that Clint had his own career as a child actor.  The difference was, after a brief stall, Ron's career continued into his teens while Clint outgrew his "cute" child star self and from what was revealed in the book it does seem that with little exception that Clint has been riding Ron's coattails for employment.

That said, Ron was interested in directing from very early on in life.  While he didn't say this, I feel like a lot of the acting opportunities that came to Ron were won because he approached them from a "nothing to lose" attitude.  If someone didn't want him or if he felt they weren't treating him with respect or dignity he could walk away because his true dream was to be a director anyway.  He did a lot of short films growing up and learned camera angles as he went.  He was also like a sponge on set, getting to know crew members and what their jobs were, all while making good money.

They also told the story of their parents.  They truly came from loving and supportive parents that taught them compassion and respect.  That isn't to suggest that everything was always rainbows and unicorns but they led a good life, made a lot of money early in life but were pretty grounded despite all that.

The story is told by alternating between Ron and Clint (with an occasional "interruption" from the other one, in a cute way).  It is a sweet story about family, hard work and always being there for each other when needed.  There's also a lot about how Ron met his wife Cheryl.  I knew they married young but don't think I knew that they had already been together for years when they got married.  He fell in love quickly and that was it for him (she liked him a lot early on but to fall as hard as he did took more time).  A very sweet love story there.  :)

By the end of the book I had a much deeper affection and respect for Ron than I had before (and I really liked him before) but also came away with the opinion that I was also right about Clint.  He came across as an entitled jerk - even when he got to direct the narrative! - so my opinion didn't really change on him but very much improved on Ron.

Overall, I felt it was a very good book and would highly recommend it.  For more book reviews go to https://barriesummy.blogspot.com/index.html.

 

Book Review Club - December 2021 - I'll Take Your Questions Now

 

This month I will be reviewing three books.  Here I will be reviewing I'll Take Your Questions Now by Stephanie Grisham.

I want to start by saying I don't normally spend time on this type of book because we lived the events in real time and it was traumatizing enough the first go round so why put myself through it again.  That said, I did read Bob Woodward's book Rage and Mary Trump's first book, whatever that was called (Too Much and Never Enough?).  I thought given his journalist background that Woodward's book would have more credibility and be unbiased.  And I'm not saying it wasn't those thing but to be honest, my take away from the book was that he had a lot of input on the book that wasn't from Trump, even though it was promoted as being written almost exclusively based on interviews he had with Trump himself.  He also ended it by stating he didn't think Trump was fit for office, something I didn't need to read to know to be true.

As for Mary's book, I think I thought there might be some juicy gossip about the family in it.  And while I believed all the stories she told, at the end of the day she came off as skeevy as her uncle.  It may be the only time that Trump was right in saying that the author of a book about him was only in it for a payday and to hurt him - not that I felt any sympathy for him, because I didn't and don't.  I just don't think Mary came across how she probably thought she did.

As for I'll Take Your Questions Now, I don't remember why I wanted to read it.  I think it was the book that I sent a link to a friend of mine about and said it could be interesting and that I might make an exception and read it, and obviously I did. 

You know how you read a mystery or thriller and don't want to put the book down because you just have to know what happens next?  Well, I kind of had that reaction to this book in that I didn't want to put it down.  I knew how it ended though, no mystery there but the storytelling was great and Grisham is actually a good writer.  She came across as sympathetic in her telling of events.  I had seen her on a couple of interviews where she commented on how she didn't hold back or spare anyone - including herself - and I think that's accurate.  I hadn't expected to like the book - or her - but I did.  I also believed her telling of the stories because they were consistent with what we saw play out in real time.

What I find ironic though, the Trumps (Donald and Melania) both put out statements when it was announced this book was coming out that it was filled with lies, that she wrote it for a payday and that she was just trying to cash in on the Trump name and was a loser and incompetent, etc.  That's pretty standard fare for what they say regarding books that they believe will be damaging to them, right?  Here's the deal, she says very little bad about either one of them!  While she does allude to the fact that things weren't always great between them, she talks about how charming, funny, supportive and welcoming the former president and first lady were with her.  She basically blamed Trump's advisors for some of the worst decisions he made.  It was roughly three quarters of the way through the book before she talks about seeing the bad side of Donald and she basically praises Melania for the entire book!  But hey, maybe they were right and it's all lies, right?

She did make it clear though that she did NOT like Jared or Ivanka - at all.  There was never a honeymoon stage with them, she didn't like them from page one and that didn't change - it only got worse from there. So there's that.

She did address why she stayed at the job for as long as she did.  Aside from the power felt by holding a position in the White House, she had a family, saw that former staff from the administration couldn't find work when they left, and really she wasn't seeing the bad side of things - she was kind of insulated from that in a way.  She seemed to attribute the bad side of things to the fact that it was a highly stressful job, given that it was within the White House.  And I can actually get on board with that because, I worked temp jobs (by choice) for more than ten years because I loved the flexibility it afforded me.  Then one day I woke up and decided I needed more stability and accepted a job in the single most toxic work environment I had ever had the displeasure of working in, and yet I stayed there for almost sixteen years.  So I get trying to adapt and make the best of a bad situation so that you can pay the bills.  It's easy to sit in judgment and say "this is what I would've done" but you never really know what you would do until you're put in that situation, do you?

So, as far as books about the Trump administration go, this the only one I could recommend.  The material is not really new but the perspective is.  In my opinion it was interesting and very well written.

For more book reviews go to https://barriesummy.blogspot.com/index.html.

Dancing with the Stars

 Let me start by saying there will be spoilers in this post.  If you have not watched last night's episode and have managed to avoid hearing who was eliminated last night, you might not want to read further.  You've been warned.

Okay, let's start with, I've watched DWTS from the very first episode back in 2005.  It's part dancing competition, part popularity contest.  That was evident from the first season.  Kelly Monaco won even though John O'Hurley was the better dancer.  Not that Kelly was a bad dancer but she should've been out several weeks before the finale, which as I said, she won.

Now, years later I figure I know how some of the votes are going to go.  If you have a favored professional, the star may get more votes.  It seems to me that the male professionals can pull in more votes than the female professionals, in most instances.  A star with a broad fan base can do well as well.  A few years ago the winner (I think his name is Bobby Bones) couldn't dance but he had a big fan base and so he won.  They changed the format after that so that the judges get to determine who goes home from the bottom two dancers at the end of the night.  They also went to having one season per year after that as well.

Now, let me say this, the voting rule for the judges sucks with having four judges because two of the judges can vote to eliminate one couple and the other two for the other couple.  In that instance head judge, Len Goodman, decides who stays with his vote.  It's my personal opinion that in the event of a tie like that, the couple with the overall lowest score from the judges' scores and the viewers' votes should be who goes home.  No one asked me my opinion but I think that would be more fair than how it has been playing out recently.  I keep reading that people are upset with how they're voting so in a tie, so let it play out how it used to in that situation.  Just a suggestion.

Anyway, back to last night and now I'm really getting to the spoilers here (you've been warned, again!).

I haven't voted on that show in a long time.  I used to vote every single episode and voted based on who did the best dance, in my opinion.  Now, if I vote, I vote for who I want to stay.  You can vote ten times, per couple, per voting method.  I only send texts though and I voted last night.

I voted for three different couples - Amanda Kloots, Jimmie Allen and Melora Hardin, in that order  (when they showed Iman I thought I should vote for him but I was behind watching the show and voting was already cut off at that point).

Amanda and Melora both had perfect scores and both got the two bonus points in the dance off.  Jimmie scored 32 points and was at the bottom of the leader board at the end of the night.  I thought Jimmie's score was lower than it should've been because he did a good, fun and entertaining dance, in my opinion.

Iman was in next to last place on the leader board with 34 points but was saved by fan votes.  

There was a double elimination last night so the bottom three were on stage after the others were saved.  (last warning about spoilers!)  The bottom three were Jimmie Allen, Olivia Jade and Melora Hardin.  

Melora was tied with the top score of the night, yet she was in the bottom three!  Jimmie was at the bottom of the leader board so that was less of a surprise.  Olivia Jade was third from the bottom with a score of 36 - a good score!

Now, here's the whole point of the post.  Jimmie and Olivia Jade looked frightened about possibly leaving, given they were in the bottom three.  Melora just looked pissed.  Like someone is going to die over her being in the bottom three pissed.

Me, I was upset that two of the three people I voted for were in the bottom three.  Olivia Jade is a good dancer but I feel like she was only on the show because of the scandal she was linked to because of what her parents did.  Personally I didn't think she should've been on the show and thought she should be voted off immediately but she wasn't.  She was in the bottom two once before but was saved by the judges.

When they do the double elimination like last night, the person with the overall lowest score goes home - no potential saving for them.  I thought, because of his scores, it would be Jimmie and then I was concerned they would save Olivia Jade, which I didn't want.

Turns out Olivia Jade had the overall lowest score and went home immediately.

Meanwhile, Melora still looks pissed.  I didn't want Melora or Jimmie to go home but the fact that Melora seemed more pissed at the situation than worried whether she would stay or not, I kind of hoped they saved Jimmie at that point, even though Melora was the more consistent dancer.

I don't remember the order of the judges saying who they wanted to save but Len is always the last one.  The first one said Melora.  Her partner seemed happy.  She still seemed pissed.

The next judge said Melora.  Her partner tried to be encouraging about it.  She could not muster relief, she was still plotting the murder of whoever put her in the bottom three!

The third judge said Melora, meaning it didn't matter what Len said (although he did confirm he would've voted to save her too), she was staying and Jimmie was leaving.  Did she look happy?  Relieved?  NO!  She was so pissed she probably didn't realize until later that she had been saved.

And my takeaway from that is, Melora got the last votes she will get from me in this competition.  I don't care how good she does against how bad anyone else does - she will NOT get any more of my votes!  She came across as a poor sport and poor sports don't get my votes!

So, that's how it played out.  That's how my thinking on things went over the night.  And, that's how what played out affected how I will approach things going forward, based on how they played out last night.

For better or worse.