I've noticed that "weird" is making the rounds lately. So...
What is something that is weird about you?
I don't know if I can narrow it down to just one thing, so I'll go with the first thing that comes to mind. I have weird tastes in food. Name something that most people enjoy, and I likely hate it. I did a Thursday 13 about this topic last summer, so I feel I've covered the specifics.
Covid update: I tested negative yesterday. Woo-hoo!
Last week (on my birthday), I went to the Orange County Fair. My review of the day is in the form of a Thursday 13.
1. Just after we arrived (and after we'd perused the crafty area), I spied a booth selling lemonade. I ordered a frozen strawberry lemonade. And it ended up being more trouble than it was worth. (They had to go to another booth to get the drink? It was unclear.) The drink was tasty, after I did get it. But they were doing the paper straw thing (deep sigh), so the straw disintegrated long before I finished.
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| Frozen Strawberry Lemonade |
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| 2. Pumpkin in the "farm" section of the fair. |
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| 3. On the other side of the pathway from the pumpkins. |
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| 4. In the floral arrangement building. |
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| 5. Also in the floral arrangement building. This is made to look like a Pente board, which, considering I just talked about Pente in last week's Thursday 13, I just had to include. (There was a tableau of floral arrangements made to look like games.) |
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| 6. Fair food. No, I did not sample any of these wares. (A funnel cake chicken sandwich? Really?) But I couldn't pass up a shot of what you could order. (Lunch was fish-n-chips.) |
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| 7. After lunch, we hit the hobbies area. This was from collections. I had to take a pic of this Barbie collection for Jamie. |
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| 7. (Cont.) The rest of the Barbies. |
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| 8. Same building as the collections was the table settings. I don't normally care about table settings, but Twilight Zone? |
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| 9. Still in the same building, the quilts. The dresses are made from old handkerchiefs. |
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| 10. And, of course, the reason we were in the building in the first place, the knitting. This is such a great way to use up leftover yarn. I aspire to this level of creativity. As you can see, it won a ribbon. |
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| 11. Cosplay is a category one can enter their creations in. And this one caught my eye. (Still the same building.) |
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| 12. Very busy image (sorry!), but in the middle is what I was looking at--a crocheted dragon. As you can see, it's huge. |
13. After this, we went into visual arts (photography, painting, and woodworking). I did not take pics of pictures. We left soon after that. And I was wiped out. At the car as I took off my backpack I hit my ear with the strap, and my earring flew off. I managed to find the front, but the back was gone. (We looked for a while. Moved our car. Alas, it probably ended up under the car next to us, and while we poked our heads under as far as we could go, it was not far enough.)
We were only there about four hours. It was not a terribly hot day. But, I still managed to get sunburned on those bits of skin I missed with the sunscreen. The story of my life.
Does your county hold a fair? Do you go? (Technically, this isn't "my" county fair as I live in Los Angeles County, but I'm so near the border with Orange County. And LA County's fair is so much farther away.)
Covid update: Currently I feel like I have a very mild cold. I still test positive, but I'm confident that when school starts back up next week, I'll be fine (and back at work).
It's a good thing that school is starting back up soon as I am running out of TV shows to talk about. As I was lamenting that with the Olympics on, I wasn't watching anything new, I realized I had not talked about a show I saw a couple months ago. Franklin.
Franklin, on Apple Plus, is about Benjamin Franklin in France during the War of Independence doing the diplomacy thing to secure supplies and such to help finance the war.
There are spies, double crosses, and diplomacy. And half of the show is in French. (This was not a show I could knit to. A character would start in English, switch to French, and then switch back into English in one speech.) The subtitles are in English, though, so I didn't have to rely on my high school French (which was a long time ago).
If you like history, you will probably enjoy this. I couldn't get over how anyone could dress like that day in and day out. Yikes.
Has anyone seen this show? Has anyone heard of it before? (When I stumbled across it was the first time I had heard of it.) Have you been watching anything other than the Olympics lately? What's your favorite sport to watch?
What if? It's the basis of many stories. We ask. We ponder. We wonder.
On Tuesdays I throw one out there. What if? It may be speculative. It may stem from something I see. It may be something I pull from the news.
Make of it what you will. If a for instance is not specified, interpret that instance as you wish. And if the idea turns into a story, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements 😉
What if being a billionaire was illegal?
(I can sense some questions here. Let me specify that I don't mean billionaires would be hunted. It's more like the mechanisms in place that let a person acquire that amount of money are dismantled.)
Now it looks like a sweater:
(So, I got a new computer not quite a month ago, and instead of using the image editing software I've been using for more than a decade, I'm using what was on the new computer. It'll be better, once I get the hang of it.)
As you can see, I'm working both sleeves at the same time, just like I worked the front and the back at the same time. This way, I can't screw up by forgetting what I did for the first by the time I reach the second.
I confirmed with Liv that it's long enough. So, I can sew down those side seams (which I didn't as I wasn't sure if I was going to add length). Now it's just a matter of getting the sleeves to be 18 inches long.
It's something to do while watching the Olympics.
(I'm regretting the theme I adopted for the titles to these posts. I mean, it was obvious when I started, but I'm running out of seeing-themed words. As I type this, the post is untitled. Whatever will I title this post?)
Late edit: Guess who tested positive for Covid? My posts for this week are already all written and scheduled. I'll be around, but not as quickly as usual. (I feel like I have a cold--another cold this summer. Ugh.)
Eye sweater previous posts:
Something I had not mentioned on the blog (because I was really hoping it would fall through) was that in the spring, a science teacher had reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in covering her class long term for the upcoming school year. (She'll be on maternity leave.)
Deep sigh.
But, beginning of the school year, when things are slow. And I do know science...
Now it's official. (The sub caller contacted me, and I gave an official yes. It's on.)
It's seventh grade science. This is mostly life science, but they kind of mixed things a couple years back, so it's not entirely life science stuff.
But, that's not why I'm writing this post. It is Friday. And my question for you today is about your experience in seventh grade. (For non-U.S. people, the students are 12-years-old.)
What is something you remember from seventh grade? (Positive or negative. Funny or sweet. I'm leaving it open.) And it can just be one thing.
I'm running out of Thursday 13 ideas. Last week, while digging in my closet for something, I noticed my board games. I have way more than 13 of those. I can take a sampling...
Apropos for today. The object: kill all your opponents so you can win the inheritance. It takes loads of time to set up, but the niblings loved it. I'm afraid they're a bit bloodthirsty.
2. Chronology
I love this game. You're given an event, and you have to figure out where to place it in a timeline created by other events in your timeline. Tricky. And fun.
3. Skip Bo
This is my newest, and one I really enjoy. I was introduced to it at the adult transition center in 2021. You want to get rid of all your cards by placing them in order. It's fun.
4. Masterpiece
I love this game, but no one will play it with me. You acquire paintings via auction or by stealing them from opponents. The player with the most accumulated wealth via paintings wins.
5. Clue
I have several versions of this game: Master Detective, Doctor Who, Clue FX, Anniversary Limited Edition (in a commemorative tin box), and of course, the original (with a deformed envelope, sigh). Definitely a favorite.
6. UNO
This one seems to be a card game everyone knows. The object: get rid of all your cards.
I've got an original board and supplemental cards: Baby Boomer Edition, RPM Edition, Genus II, All Star Sports Edition, Young Players Edition, and Silver Screen Edition. Plus, I have the 20th anniversary edition. I haven't played this in years.
8. Pente
This one was kind of a play on the classic Go. The object: to get five stones in a row (or capture five pairs of your opponent's stones). It's a two-player game, and can be tricky.
9. Parcheesi
This is another of those classic games that you've probably heard of.
10. Sorry
This is one of my original games--one I've had since I was a kid with a single-digit age. And the board looks it.
You start with a car that you fill with your "family". Not a favorite of mine.
You're trying to find the villain via London's subway system. I haven't played this in years. It was tricky.
This is another game I've had most of my life. It works kinda backwards to Monopoly. It's been years since I played it, so my memory is fuzzy.
