This year my birthday falls on a Friday. Today. Once I knew I was doing color quizzes this summer, I knew which color I was going to post for my birthday. Orange.
Whew. I got an 18 out of 18. Of all the colors, this is the one I should know. Alas, some of these I did get via process of elimination.
(While I don't have an ultimate favorite color, I am quite partial to orange.)
How did you do? Let me know in the comments.
Ah, the joys of mid-summer, when TV is a vast wasteland. Are you struggling to find something interesting to watch? I am. So, I've listed (for Thursday 13) thirteen shows that I enjoyed recently (across varying streaming platforms).
(I did this last year for Apple TV Plus and Netflix. I won't repeat any of the shows already on those lists.)
In the comments feel free to suggest anything you think we also might enjoy. (Please. Seriously. I need something to watch.)
1. The Way Home (Netflix)
I wrote about this show back in 2023 after seeing season 1. I recently saw that Netflix had added it. (It had aired on the Hallmark Channel.) And season 4 (containing the show's finale) just finished a couple months ago. Only the first three seasons are on Netflix at the moment, but I expect that they'll add the fourth and final season soon.
The concept: they have a time travelling pond. That is, when members of the Landry family jump into this pond, they can surface at any point in history. The show begins with Alice finding herself in 1999 when her mother was her age. But by the end of the series, they've seen the early 1800s, the 1920s, the 1970s, and then they came home.
2. Death by Lightning (Netflix)
I wrote about this show already in December, but it bears repeating (and I needed enough shows to make 13).
This show is all about the election of (and death of) President James Garfield. The history is way weirder than I ever knew.
3. Dept. Q (Netflix)
Crime drama in Scotland. Very well done. (Also violent. Sorry.) I don't want to give too much away as it would spoil the first couple episodes, and you really don't want me to do that.
4. This Is a Gardening Show (Netflix)
My brother turned this on a couple weeks back (while I was visiting). Zach Galifianakis talks about gardening. The episodes are short. Lots of kids are involved. And while it is informative, it is also comedy, so if you aren't into gardening, you might still enjoy the show.
5. Lioness (Paramount +)
An elite team recruits a female soldier to insinuate herself next to a target that they need to "take out". Politics and drama ensue. Lots of famous faces. Murky moral ground. And a great show. I saw recently that season 3 is coming, and I can't wait.
6. School Spirits (Paramount +)
I avoided season 2 for way too long. Silly me.
One day Maddie wakes up to discover that she's dead. How did she die? She has no idea. The other ghosts at her high school (because she died at school) want to help, kind of. And her best friend Simon can see her, for some weird reason.
7. Sky Med (Paramount +)
I wrote about this show two years ago, but I'm repeating it here as there've been two whole new seasons since then (and I needed enough shows to make 13).
Canadian show about an airline that transports people to hospitals. Kind of an air ambulance. The various pilots and nurses have romantic dramas in between them saving people from accidents and such. I like rescue shows, so this is right up my alley.
8. Pluribus (Apple +)
One day an alien virus turns the whole world into one hive mind. Except for Carol (and 11 other individuals across the globe). Carol wants to turn them all back, but she doesn't know how. Oh, and the rest of the world? Very nice. Seemingly happy. And all they want is for Carol to be happy (while they figure out why the virus didn't work on her).
Getting through the first episode or two was hard. But once the plot settles, it gets interesting.
9. Shining Girls (Apple +)
Okay, so I lied. I did mention this one last year on that list, but I hadn't seen it yet. (I rounded out the list with shows that were recommended but I hadn't seen yet.) Now I've seen it, and woo-boy... It's a doozy.
A woman's reality keeps changing, and she has no idea why. She'll come home from work to find she now has a cat instead of a dog. She'll go into work and find her desk has moved. No one around her notices the differences. (Imagine coming home to a husband you did not have when you left for work. Yeah, that happened.)
At the same time, there's a series of murders that don't make sense. They take place over a time frame that doesn't make sense. But somehow they seem to be connected.
It all connects. Eventually. And I don't want to give out how, because the reveal is so good if you don't know what you're walking into.
10. Reacher (Prime)
Large man helps people. He's a drifter (retired from the military) who shows up in a town and ends up helping someone who needs help. Not by choice, really. He just gets pulled into these things. Based on the books by Lee Child. They're doing the seasons out of book order, so if you've read the books, it'll seem jumbled. But great entertainment.
11. Leverage: Redemption (Prime)
Back several years ago, there was a broadcast show about a group of thieves who used their skills to take down criminals with power. They rebooted it with kind of the same cast, and it's now streaming. I have not quite finished the current season (which reminds me I do have something to watch), but the previous one (or two? hard to recall) were well worth it.
12. Ride or Die (Prime)
I'm only halfway through this new show about an assassin and her best friend. Best friend did not know the woman was an assassin (for 20-something years), but found out because now people are after her. I'm enjoying it so far, and definitely recommend it.
13. Percy Jackson and the Olympians (Disney +)
One of my twin nephews was watching this show while I was visiting. I watched some of the show with him, but our timing didn't sync, so I saw an episode here or there, and then he was on to the second season.
So, when I got home, I pulled up my rarely watched Disney + (which I bundle with Hulu, so it's not costing me extra) and watched it. And now I see season 3 is due in November.
This show is based on the series of books. Percy finds out that he's a demigod, son of one of the Greek gods, and monsters are after him. He ends up going on quests that bring out various characters out of Greek mythology (and The Odyssey, for those of you who have seen the movie--like Medusa and Circe and Cerberus and...)
One more Ohio story...
Priscilla (blog name) wanted to see historical things, so sister-in-law took us to Historic Roscoe Village. It's in Coshocton located on Whitewoman Street. Of course, Priscilla questioned that name ("an interesting choice"), but it turns out that the name is there for a good reason. There was a QR code at the end of the street which led to this website.
The "white woman" was named Mary Harris, who at ten was taken by the local Mohawk tribe, and she eventually became a tribe member, married, and had two sons. Now, if you recall Priscilla from the castle post, you'll understand that we read into that history a bit and wondered at what sort of life Mary had.
Anyway, onto the tour...
The tour started at the visitor center, where we were directed to the path we'd be taking and where we checked out keys for the buildings that were locked. (The tour did cost money, but I can't recall how much.)
Our first stop was to the blacksmith.
There was a real working blacksmith in the small, hot building. He talked about how the job was back in the day, informing us that the first skilled worker in a village would be the blacksmith, and he would have likely been the only one in town who could read.
Then we moved on to Hay Activity Center where we learned how they printed stuff and how they made brooms.
It was a hot and humid day. Everything after the blacksmith was air conditioned. Whew. Not period appropriate, but we really appreciated seeing the sights in nice and cool.
The activity center also contained a little gift shop. It had been a slow day for the guy behind the counter. We enjoyed the a/c. He thought it was a bit cool.
For the rest of the tour we needed the key (which was a fob that electronically opened the doors).
The next building was Dr. Johnson's office. It was set up the way it would have been back in the day. I took no pictures. It was set up with the tools he would have used. We went up the (very steep) stairs to find more 19th Century medical stuff.
Next to his office was his home. That I did take pictures of.
And upstairs.
Then came the home of Daniel Boyd, a weaver. They call it the craftsman house, and they moved it from its original location.
And his looms, which were in a back room. There were video monitors in each place which gave background. Apparently the looms could be disassembled and reassembled in barns in various locations, as the weaver would travel around to make cloth for communities that did not have a weaver.
Our tour ended at the schoolhouse.
There was a woman sitting at the teacher's desk, there to answer any questions we had. There were back rooms with displays of the materials the kiddos would have had. Those desks do not look comfortable.
We finished up right about 4 o'clock, which was technically closing time for the tour, although the other buildings had no people, and we had a key to the locks. But as we were leaving, the guy from the gift shop was at the schoolhouse to pick up the woman at the teacher's desk, and rather than us returning the key to the drop box, he said he'd take it up for us (as he was heading that way anyway). That was helpful.
It's a cute little tour. We did it in about an hour, but a bigger group could totally take their time. (There were a bunch of cute shops along the way, too, but they were all closed the day we were there.)
It was interesting to see what life was like on the Erie Canal back in the day. This village was right on the highway, but it was then too, just a different sort of highway.
After leaving, we headed towards dinner, but I already talked about that in a post last week.
Did you know it's illegal to wager on an election you're casting a vote in (in Wisconsin)?
(I would hope that this wasn't isolated to Wisconsin. Time to call your state reps to get this law on the books. *looks up phone number for my California state rep*)
It turns out that those prediction market betting apps don't like this law, so they're pushing back. (Because those prediction market betting apps are horrible. If you want to gamble--please gamble responsibly--use a bookie like an adult.)
It turns out the road to fascism is paved by idiots pursuing riches. Deep sigh.
Speaking of scams, let's talk about all the research funding that was cut to provide tax cuts for billionaires. Or rather, let's talk about Daniel Blumstein, whose funding for studying marmots had been cut, so in an effort to raise money (and awareness), he started an OnlyFans for marmots called OnlyMarms.
It's a great idea. It's too bad that science funding has had to resort to this sort of thing.
I'm wilting.
I have not been dealing with the summer heat all that well. Terribly, in fact. The thing is, it's not truly that hot. So, I don't have much sympathy for myself here.
(We've been in the upper 80s and lower 90s. Fahrenheit, of course. Mostly 80s. I mean, if we were spending a lot of time in the 90s and getting into the 100s, then I could understand. But this is pretty standard summer here, so why it's bothering me so much is also annoying me.)
Which is to say that I'm not making loads of progress on the crochet front. Although, considering the time of year and what I'm normally getting accomplished right about now, I'm positively industrious.
I added a couple rounds to the first side:
and a few more rounds to the second:
Right now they're practically the same size (which is why the first side got some more rounds). They're both wavy, but I think a couple rounds of no increases will tame that out of them a bit. I've decided that they're not wavy enough for me to rip them out again.
I've gotten to the point where I'm just adjusting every round. I lay it flat. Look at it. And decide if it's feeling ruffly. Then it gets an "even round" (no increases). If it feels flat and the round I just did is curling up, then it gets an "increase round" (I increase every X number of stitches--X is one more than the last "increase round" I did).
I've decided that since this is going to be for a woman, and women have curves, the bit of ruffle is just so that it'll conform to her curves.
So, that's where I'm at now. It's going to be slow going for a bit. But then I'll hit the point where it's as big as it needs to get, and then things will get interesting. I hope.
I hope things aren't blazing hot where you are. Ah, the joys of summer.
The Reluctant Sweater:
I could have done these color quizzes (from Quizly) in rainbow order. I could have done them in the order I took them myself. But no. There's no true logic to the order I'm doing these in. If you haven't seen your favorite color, it's coming. Today, we're going with purple.
Apparently I don't know my purples. I only got 13 out of 20 on this one. If I knew it, I knew it. But if I didn't know it, I wasn't able to eliminate as many choices as in the other quizzes.
Good luck. Let me know how you did in the comments.
For the last two weeks, I was in Ohio visiting my brother and his family. Here's what I got up to. (This is a Thursday 13.)
DAY ONE
Flight day.
The TSA line was non-existent. The agent checked my ID and then sent me back because somehow my birthdate was wrong in the system. (I must have entered it wrong. Oops.)
Onboard the plane, the pilot introduced himself as Abe Frohman and his copilot as Ed Rooney. I laughed. No one else got the joke. Not my neighbor, who was on his way to Texas for the World Cup game with Egypt.
We arrived at Dallas 15 minutes early, but we had to circle for 15 minutes due to weather. I had a two hour layover, so I had time to eat something and I had plenty of time to make my flight.
We arrived on time. My brother picked me up from the airport, and it wasn't terribly late when we got back to his place.
DAY TWO
The plan was to go to Berlin to explore the Amish shops and such. But I woke with a terrible migraine (with nausea), so I cancelled. (My sister-in-law had other visitors in town, so they all make the trek.) I slept until about 4 PM.
DAY THREE
The 4th of July.
Middle nephew is in the high school marching band, so we headed out to the town's 4th of July parade. After the band passed, we headed out, but hit crazy traffic.
A couple hours later, my niece, her boyfriend, SIL's friend's twin 13-year-old daughters, and I all headed out to the town's street fair.
There was grilled meat. There were party guests. And there were fireworks. A great time was had by all.
DAY FOUR
...was a very chill day. One of SIL's friends headed home. The other (Priscilla) took her daughter to skate camp and was gone all day. I watched TV with SIL, did some crochet, and wrote a blog post for Monday.
DAY FIVE
I got invited along with SIL and her friend Priscilla (blog alias). We started off at Historic Roscoe Village (which should become its own blog post, maybe next week). Then SIL wanted cinnamon rolls from an Amish bakery, so we headed out that way, but when we arrived, it turned out the bakery was closed. Sigh.
We had dinner at Olde Jaol in Wooster. The fun part was that the restaurant was in the brick basement which used to be the jail. The food was good.
DAY SIX
Priscilla, Liv (my niece), and I started off in German Village in Columbus. There was a visitor's center where we learned of the history of the area. There was a bookstore with 32 rooms of books. We visited a couple shops, and then we had lunch.
And then we headed to Loveland Castle which I already wrote a whole post about.
We drove right by the place first as Priscilla had entered her daughter's skate camp into her GPS, but she figured it out before we went too far beyond where we were supposed to go. And then, on the way back, we met SIL in Columbus at a Mexican restaurant for dinner. (Definitely a different vibe than Mexican restaurants in SoCal.)
DAY SEVEN
I woke to find a text from my niece. She'd taken the day off work, and would I like to go to Yellow Springs? Yes please.
Once we finally departed, we had much of the family in tow. Only my brother, who had to work, and middle nephew, who just didn't want to go, stayed home.
We looked in some shops. We had lunch at the restaurant that has live music in the evenings.
And then we headed back. We went in search of a rock garden, but didn't make it as the neighborhood it was in was kind of sketchy.
DAY EIGHT
It was time for a day of rest. I baked chocolate chip cookies with eldest and middle nephews. (I instructed. They did the work.) And that was about it.
DAY NINE
This was another quiet day. Sitting and watching TV (and crocheting) with the family and getting to just talk to them was nice. Since they don't live close, I don't really get to talk to them that much. And we made plans for Saturday. (This was a Friday.)
DAY TEN
While looking at a map of the US, I noticed that Ohio borders West Virginia. And I thought it would be cool to drive to West Virginia.
Point Pleasant, West Virginia, is famous for Mothman sightings prior to a bridge collapse in 1967. They made a movie about this. The family wanted to see the museum. I was happy to tag along.
Niece and eldest nephew decided to go somewhere else. SIL was feeling terrible, so she stayed home to rest. So, it was just my brother, middle nephew, and the twins with me.
The drive was very wet. The rain came down pretty hard at times. But it wasn't raining when we arrived.
It's a cute town. The local shops all cater to the cryptid crowd. And the museum has all sorts of stuff about the Mothman sightings. Maybe not worth the long drive if you don't like the drive, but I had a great time.
And I got to see the Ohio River.
DAY ELEVEN
It was a lazy Sunday. This time I baked chocolate chip cookies with Liv. The TV was on. I wrote the blog post about Loveland Castle (see day six). I caught up on some blog visiting. And we didn't do a whole lot of anything else.
DAY TWELVE
Liv stayed home sick from work, but by the afternoon she was feeling a bit better. She found a yarn shop in Columbus for me to visit. We saw a couple more shops in German Village, but then we headed back as she was tired. And I took a nap as well.
DAY THIRTEEN
As I prepared for my departure the nephews all wished me well. One of the twins: "I hope your plane doesn't crash." Yeah, he can be a bit blunt. Spoiler: my plane did not crash.
My layover in Nashville did not go so well, but I already wrote about that yesterday. I got home after 9 PM, and I slept well in my own bed.
I've been home from Ohio for a week now. I had mostly scheduled my posts for when I'd be out of town, but now that I'm back, I have some stories to tell. (I did start a bit last week with the tale of Loveland Castle.)
Last year, when I went to visit my brother, weather was an issue during my return flight. Waiting for an opening to land in Denver lasted so long, I missed my connecting flight home. Sigh. Yet, at no point did I blame Denver for this. I'm not sure why.
(I did not want a repeat, so when booking my flight, I made sure not to use Denver as my layover this year.)
I do, however, blame Nashville.
When booking my flight this year, I noted that the layover in Nashville would be almost four hours. (We were due to land at about 1:15 PM. The flight was close to on time. We were due to take off at 5:55 PM.) Considering last year, I was fine with that.
After deplaning, I went in search of a monitor so I could locate my next flight. The destination cities were in alphabetical order. Los Angeles... Las Vegas... some M city... Um. Wait. You're missing something. I was flying into Long Beach. I checked again. No Long Beach.
Did I get on the wrong plane? They scanned my ticket before getting on board in Columbus. They would have said something. (I had seen them say something to passengers before, so they do confirm you are where you should be.)
I checked my phone and the airline app. It gave me a gate number. D6. I was somewhere in the upper Cs.
Okay, so here's a diagram of the airport:
The red arrow is where I deplaned. The blue arrow is the gate my phone told me was the gate I'd be leaving out of. The distance between the two was roughly a half a mile. (This will become important in a bit.)
I hiked to my departure gate. I checked the screen, but it didn't show my destination yet. I didn't expect it to. I was way early. But I double checked with the lady at the counter, and she confirmed that this was where my flight would be. I found a seat and relaxed.
An hour or so later, I got hungry. I headed back up the way I'd come to find a Burger King. (About halfway up the concourse.) I double checked the monitors. Now it said I'd be departing from gate D7. Okay, then.
I didn't want to walk all the way back, so I sat at the gate nearest where the restaurant was, and I overheard a flight going to Milwaukee getting ready to board. It was going to be the pilot's last flight, as he turned 65 the next day (and the FAA mandates pilots retire on their 65th birthday). His son, daughter-in-law, and grandson were all joining him on the flight.
I headed back to gate D7. Double checked the screen. The flight after the current flight was not Long Beach. It wasn't even close to Long Beach. We'd been moved again?
The departure screen still read D7. My phone? C22. All the way back.
That seemed like a monumental hike. Deep sigh. No help for it.
I struggled. And clearly I looked like I was struggling because an airport worker pushing a wheelchair asked if I needed assistance. Sigh. (I declined. Yes, it was a hard slog, but I could do it.)
By the time I got to the Cs (all the way through the whole C concourse, basically back to the red arrow in the image), the monitors had finally caught up. Long Beach: C22. Only, now my phone said C23.
I sat down and texted my brother. Whining. (I still had plenty of time before my flight. I'd get home that day. But now I was wiped out.) And that's when he noticed my gate had been changed. Again. To...
D4.
I couldn't face it. I sat for a bit. I had to make that hike. Again.
But I'd have to do it sooner or later. I gathered my tatters of energy, and I set out again. This time I started my walking app so I could measure the distance. And at least no wheelchair pushing staff were around to point out how terrible I looked.
D4 showed Sacramento as the destination, but a good hour before my supposed departure. My phone continued to show D4. And the monitors had finally caught up.
Throughout this, I was getting texts about my flight being delayed. 5:55 was a distant memory. It became 6:08. Then 7:15...
My brother did some sleuthing. The airplane scheduled for our flight was coming from Washington, D.C. And it hadn't left yet.
I watched the Sacramento peeps line up and board. Those of us who remained looked around. Was this the Long Beach gate? Would we get moved again? Yes, there were others who knew my pain as it was their pain. And we noted the changes in our departure time...
And suddenly departure time was 6:08 again. Huh? Via my brother, I knew the flight hadn't left DC yet. They were stuck on the runway.
The pilots showed up. The flight attendants showed up. No airplane, but the staff was there. That we would be boarding soon was announced. Um...
I don't know which plane it was, but they had given up on our expected plane and found us a different one. Good enough.
An airplane arrived. Passengers deplaned. Our pilots and flight attendants boarded to prep. And then we could board.
6:08? Nah. It was more like 6:45 by the time we left. But I did not care. I was on a plane headed for home on the same day that I left. I was good with this.
We were supposed to arrive at 8:15. The flight was supposed to be 3 hours 50 minutes. We landed at roughly 8:40. (Time zones are so much fun while flying. We were on the edge of sunset for a good hour at least.)
Whew. Home.
And now I have another airport to maybe avoid. (Will I avoid Denver in the future? Will I avoid Nashville? Meh.)
And that was a good reminder that I need to continue my daily walks. Which I will do once I've recovered from this trip.
While I was out of town, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents killed some more people. Because that's what they do now. Kill people.
Via my Member of Congress: "Fear does not secure our border. Violence does not secure our border. Terrorizing our communities does not secure our border."
There's a list of all the terrible things they've done here. There's also a place to report instances of misconduct if you've witnessed any. (I believe I've linked to this resource before, but it bears repeating.)
We need to keep pushing. Keep witnessing. Keep protesting.
Someday we'll (as a nation) regain our sanity, and those responsible must be held accountable. Right now all we can do is keep the records. The records will be needed later.
(I have to believe that the records will be needed later.)
Let people know about the Immigration Enforcement Database. The more people who know about it, the more useful it'll be.
I'm a little further along on the second side of the sweater:
For comparison, last week:
And the week before that:
And before this I had ripped the whole thing out and started over. So, I've made decent progress.
Now I have some decisions to make. It's almost back to the size of the first side:
And, as I mentioned last week, sister-in-law doesn't remember exactly what she asked me for, so I have a little lot of leeway in how I put this thing together.
The first thing I need to do is to get the second side as big as the first. Then, it's a question of how much bigger, or do I start to square it all off?
What would be really helpful would be a working day where the kiddos have plenty of work to do, and I have paper and a pencil to sketch ideas. Alas, it's still summer. So, I might get these ovals to about the size I want and then get stuck for a bit.
This Christmas present is already seven months late, so what's another month or two? (Her birthday's the end of September, so no one mention how it could become a future gift. Those deadlines would just unnerve me.)
The Reluctant Sweater:
When Quizly started showing me their color quizzes, this was one of the first. I'm not sure why they started with pink, but why not?
Think you know pink? I got 16 out of 18. Not bad. There were a couple I just did not know. (And there were a couple that were really good guesses.) Good luck. Let me know how you did in the comments.
I've joined the short video social media ecosystem. I'm not proud of this. But sometimes it's nice to just look at short videos online to wile away the time. (My platform of choice: Facebook Reels. Yeah, I know.)
Today I'm sharing 13 creators (for Thursday 13) who I enjoy. I have included one video from each as well as a link to their YouTube channel. Let me know in the comments of anyone I should find or if you watch these creators as well.
1. Ozzy Man Reviews @ozzymanreviews
He takes videos of animals and adds voices, as if the animals are talking. It's something we've seen before, but it's still funny. This is two rams, one who is angry and wanting to fight.
2. Smosh Pit @smoshpit
When these pop up on my feed they suck me in. He reads posts from Reddit (usually AITA, but this one is a petty revenge), and two others sit on the couch and react. They discuss. It's way more fascinating than it should be. (And there's way more to it than what I usually see, if you follow the link.)
3. Rangsk Puzzles @Rangsk
He does the various New York Times online puzzles. Daily. I like watching his Wordle solves after I've done them.
4. TerryAndKaniyia @TerryJ46
These two kids (well, twenty-somethings) listen to music that they have not heard before (but you most definitely have) and react. In this video, they're hearing Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain". They seem to enjoy most of what they listen to, and it's just fun watching them hear it for the first time.
5. Taylor Black @taylormakesvideos
She has some interesting takes on things. This video is where she's reading the comments section of a question someone posted online. Some of these are pretty funny.
6. Refashioned Hippie @refashionedhippie
This creator has a few different things she does. She finds ridiculous clothing pieces made by famous design houses that are crazy expensive, but you wouldn't want it anyway. And here's a bad design short. Oh, this is very much NSFW. You've been warned.
7. Gabe @gabectomy
He works in a phone store (which he does not name). And he tells stories of bad customer interactions. It reminds me of my days working retail. Yes, customers are this bad.
8. Sums of Anarchy @SumsofAnarchy
She does shorts on math. There's a lot of different ways to calculate things that I find interesting. This short is on where the word square came from (for you math-phobics).
9. Kameron Johnson @Kameronisfunny
He talks a lot about his family, mainly his daughter who must be a teenager. In this short he lists various punishments he can come up with in case she misbehaves. Like chaperoning prom and showing off his dance moves. Of which he has no good ones.
10. Sidneyraz @sidneyraz
"Here's something I wish I knew before I was in my thirties," is how he starts all his life hack videos. Well, I'm in my fifties, and I didn't know some of these. I definitely didn't know this about three fingers on my laptop trackpad.
11. JasonKPargin @JasonKPargin
He finds interesting things to say about all sorts of things. This is about how people tend to move counterclockwise. You'll find this fascinating.
12. Steve Hofstetter @stevehofstetter
He's a stand up comedian (who in this bit is talking about why he shouldn't be). Yeah, funny. Funny is good.
13. John Kotrides @genxjono
And for us Gen Xers, he talks a lot about our '80s childhoods and such. When did we get old?
While in Ohio visiting family, I got a chance to see some of the sights. (Assuming all went well with my flight, I'm at home today.) This is not a travel blog, but I'm going to post about my trip anyway.
I was not the only visitor. My sister-in-law's friend and her 16-year-old daughter were also in town.
On the 4th of July, Priscilla (blog alias) asked the various local friends about what things she should see while she was in town. The Ohio natives gave her a list, and on that list they all concurred that Loveland Castle was something she should see.
Priscilla researched via internet what this castle was all about. (Here are some links: Loveland Castle, Wikipedia Page, Chateau Laroche.) She read out loud stories of this Harry Andrews who was declared dead in World War I, and when he finally returned home (and declared alive), his fiancée had married someone else, and he dedicated his life to teaching his Sunday School boys to camp and fish.
Harry taught the boys the lessons of the knights. The boys said they couldn't be knights without a castle. Harry decided to build them a castle.
Okay, so Priscilla (and the rest of us) drew some Conclusions about Harry based on the stories of his life. (I will not repeat said conclusions, but we highly doubt the assertions that he turned down fifty marriage proposals.) And we gave the castle some inappropriate nicknames. But Priscilla decided she had to see it.
Somehow I got invited along on this excursion. My niece Liv decided to join us. Priscilla's daughter was at her skate camp (the reason they were in town), and my sister-in-law ended up with doctors' appointments, so neither were able to join us.
The castle is outside of Cincinnati. My brother lives outside of Columbus. Those two cities are about 100 miles apart, so the journey took us under two hours.
We found a guy sitting at a table, and we paid our fee to get in. He directed us to a small room with a video on loop that showed the guy, at that point in his 90s, continuing to build the castle.
(Not the video, but this shows some of what was in that video. Someone recorded the video, and you can find that here.)
Then we made our exploration. We headed upstairs, a very narrow, very steep staircase. (There was a handrail, which I totally needed.) The whole castle is stunning, but it was a hot, humid day. We were a bit punchy. And our Conclusions were at the forefront.
In the entry, there was a woman running the giftshop and answering questions. Her father had been a Knight of the Golden Trail (KOGT), and she had been visiting the castle since she was a small child. Priscilla expected that she should also be a knight. Apparently, the knights would not allow female members (except for one exception, now deceased).
Priscilla had lots of questions. It sounded like the current knights use the place as a sort of clubhouse. Our guide kept trying to go back to the script (she repeated things we had read online before arriving) and told us about the "security" door (with three different ways to open it and a sword at the ready). I got a picture of a different door upstairs.
The castle is gorgeous. It's amazing how one random guy built this thing mostly from rocks picked up near the river (and from bricks made using milk cartons), even if he was probably a kook and maybe worse?
We wandered around a bit more, taking in the gardens out back.
And finally we were ready to leave. Priscilla had questions for the ticket seller outside. Namely, why the woman inside couldn't be a knight? He hemmed and hawed about how women couldn't be knights, and ultimately, neither saw the other's point. (Priscilla was sure he was cursing her out under his breath.)
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| The umbrella covers the ticket seller and his table. |
The trip was definitely worth the price of admission ($5). It is an amazing structure. But Harry was definitely an odd duck.
(We met up with my sister-in-law for dinner. We laughed so much about the whole trip. It was a crazy day.)
One more video, this one is a great description of the place:
Today I'm getting on an airplane (or I'm on one or I'm arriving home--and not getting stuck overnight in Denver like I did last year), so you might not see me today. (I'll be around tomorrow, or Thursday if... Well, I'm planning on being around Wednesday.)
So, like last Tuesday, here's another Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. This one is about Bari Weiss being put in charge of CBS News. This happened months ago, but this episode is from when it was new. How well has this aged? Hmmm....
Have you noticed a difference in CBS News?
I'm still in Ohio, visiting family. (I leave tomorrow.)
We've done a few road trips. We've spent some time just hanging out. And I've done a little crochet...
I'm not quite where I was when I ripped it all out, but I'm getting closer. And it's not nearly as ripply. (For comparison, before...)
So, progress.
(I should probably mention that sister-in-law doesn't entirely recall the conversation we had a year ago when she described what she wanted me to make her, so I've kind of been released from making this whole thing an oval. Before I leave, we're going to measure this against her, and then I might just square things off to make the whole thing simpler. Or not. We'll see how I proceed from here.)
The Reluctant Sweater:
When Quizly started showing me the color quizzes, I wondered if they were going to hit all of the colors. It took a while (as they'd show me one and then it'd be a couple weeks before I saw the next one), but it got to the point where yeah, they have a quiz for each color. (I haven't seen all of them as of this writing, but I've seen enough to know that they all exist.)
We should get through most of them this summer.
Today: red.
I got 17 out of 18. Again, some of these I knew via process of elimination, and some of these were lucky guesses. (There were a couple I did actually know.)
How did you do? Let me know in the comments.
So, yeah, it's now become a thing.
In 2023 during the summer, I was bored and looking for topics for Thursday 13, and I thought to mine my phone for the various memes I had saved. When summer 2024 came around I realized I had 13 more memes to share. I did it again last year. So, now it's an annual event.
(Now that I know it's an annual event, I'll be more careful to collect some more. I came up a little short, so the last couple are posters I found in classrooms that I snapped pictures of. Kinda meme-y. I hope you don't mind.)
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| 1. I think I saw this on Bluesky, and now I can't find the creator to credit. I showed this to the art students in August as I thought it was something they should see. |
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| 2. Same creator as #1. Very good education-type explanation. |
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| 3. Also found on Bluesky. You can find the whole comic here. |
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| 4. Vintage cartoon. |
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| 7. I looked at this. And I looked at this. And then I remembered that that white thing is called a buoy. And then I couldn't stop laughing for five minutes. |
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| 8. I love to watch the tracking of everything I order online. I feel this meme so hard. |
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| 12. Found in a 12th grade government class. |
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| 13. Found in a forensic science class. |
