Saturday 9

The Star Spangled Banner

1) Are you a veteran? Are there veterans in your family? (We are grateful and want to hear about it.) My dad was a hospital corpsman in Korea. My uncle was a foot soldier in Vietnam.

2) Memorial Day also kicks off the summer season. What's your favorite picnic food? Barbecue. It's the aroma as much as the taste. I love that BBQ smell!

3) Let's celebrate the Memorial Day holiday with ice cream. What's your favorite flavor? Mint chocolate chip.

4) This marks the weekend when Americans step up their outdoor activity and do things they may not have been able to do during the winter months. For example, when is the last time you rode a bike? Years ago, in Key West.

5) Or went hiking? If we define "hiking" as taking a long walk, then last Sunday.

6) Or rode a horse? Decades ago, visiting my cousin when she still lived in Albuquerque.

7) Or toasted a marshmallow? When I chaperoned my niece, then in first grade, on her first-ever Girl Scout sleepover.

8) As you answer these questions, is there an air conditioner or window fan on? The fan is in the open window, but it's not turned on.

 9) Crazy Sam needs your help: What song or a performer would you like to see featured in a Saturday 9 this summer? Diana Ross and the Supremes. 50 years ago they were the second biggest act in the world, topped only by the Beatles, with 5 consecutive #1 hits. It was an astonishing achievement at the time, for women of color to dominate the charts like that when much of America was still segregated. They truly helped change the world, and I think that's a very big deal.

 

So that's what it's for!

I'm not really a fan of Facebook. Oh, I spend a lot of time on it. But usually I'm snooping on people (a former and very annoying coworker was looking for work and I was so happy to see where she landed ... because it meant she wasn't coming to my agency) or reading what feels like press releases from people I don't necessarily know very well. Not much that's posted feels real. So while I enjoy keeping up with people over the miles in real time (an old boyfriend, a really good guy, and his wife just posted the last day of school of their youngest child, so it truly was the last day of school for them), I don't much see the value of it.

Until Thursday. I posted this photo of Charlotte (posting it again because I like looking into her eyes again) and mentioned that, after all those years of looking after me and the boycats, she can now relax. I got so many very sweet little messages and hugs. I got two IM's, too (from my nephew and from Ms. Snarkypants herself). They made me feel better. They really did.

As did the sweet and sensitive comments I received on my Charlotte blog post (below). Thank you, everyone. Because she was such a good and trusting diva cat, I'm reminded from that Arthur Miller line from Death of a Salesman -- "attention must be paid." The internet gives us an almost immediate way to pay attention to the important things in one anothers lives.