13: Turning the Page
1. In addition to Floyd’s new literary and art magazine. Floyd County Moonshine, we also now have the Republic of Floyd (featuring the Floyd Enquirer), which spoofsayer Tom Ryan has coined as a “literary enema.” Tom writes about the lighter side of Floyd with a bite. See HERE.
2. Talk Show Host Bonnie Hunt has a white mug with prominent black 13 printed on it. I wanted to get a picture of it off the TV. I was waiting for her to move it, because the number was off center, when my nephew Patrick pointed out the 13 on a book in my mother’s bookcase (pictured above), so I snapped that instead. My mother looked at me strange when I told her I collected 13’s but Patrick thought it was as normal as apple pie.
3. What do you do when you’re on a plane and the person sitting next to you spills his arms and elbows over into your seat and doesn’t seem to notice?
4. Why do we say ‘can I borrow a Kleenex or a cigarette?’ as if we will give it back?
5. Speaking of Kleenex: The doctor, who was wearing a white lab coat, spoke in an English accent, which gave his announcement a sense of formality and made the distance between his reality and mine seem more dramatic. A woman was with him, also in a white lab coat, holding a box of tissue. We were in the Intensive Care Unit, next to Dan’s room, and nurses in green scrub suits were walking by us. I was trying to figure out where I could go to get away from what he was telling me. I wondered why he hadn’t taken me to a private room to tell me such devastating news. Dan only had a 2% chance of living; they weren’t going to perform liver transplant surgery with those odds, he said. The words 2% were the equivalent of a death sentence, but he spoke them as though he were giving me the fat content of a carton of milk. ~ Read “A Box of Kleenex” in its entirety HERE.
6. There’s a backroom activity going on with this blog that most readers aren’t likely to be aware of. Several of my past posts on losing a loved one (written in 2005) continue to get comments from people who land on my site from related searches, continuing the ongoing conversation about grief and loss, which began when I first started blogging, after writing The Jim and Dan Stories, a book about losing my two brothers a month apart. See HERE and HERE.
7. There are 31 billion google searches every month. In 2006 it was 2.7 billion. A week’s worth of New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century. More “Did you Know?” HERE.
8. There were two oddball things I googled for my mother when I was recently visiting her in Hull, Massachusetts. One was “blade steak” (a cut of beef I got from her freezer and cooked for us and one which she said she grew up with), and the other was “giraffe.” She was telling me that a mother giraffe drops its baby while standing up (probably during the time she was complaining that the pain of shingles is worse than childbirth). We wanted to know if a giraffe lies down when it sleeps. It does.
9. Snacking at Gate B22 in Tennessee while waiting to board a plane to Greensboro, North Carolina, my bag of rye crisp crackers dumped over and crumbs spilled out in a big pile on the floor, making me wish that the travelers whizzing past me were rolling vacuum cleaners, but of course they were suitcases on wheels.
10. Written in the margins of a book above Greensboro: Surfing a wide open field of snow in an arctic sky of cumulus clouds, I need sunglasses. First blinded, then blind, I watch from the window as the plane’s sliver tip dives through the ghostly white in a wipe out. Immersed in an avalanche of breakers, there are no landmarks to show the way or any guarantee that we will come up for air, that we will ever see land again.
11. LOOK what I just found! Bonnie’s 13 mug turned the right way.
12. Tidbit borrowed from Kenju: My name was Susan Frame. I am a lawyer. I met and married Robert who is a banker. His surname is Mee. Now we are Sue Mee, a lawyer, and Rob Mee, a banker – ironic? I have taken no end of stick for this, believe me. More stranger than fiction names HERE.
13. While I was away Joe babysat for Bryce twice and sent me a few videos to hold me over. THIS is my favorite. Check out the tongue.
Safe travels to more 13 Thursdays HERE. My Thirteen Thursday archive is HERE. #178
March 18th, 2009 8:54 am
Why 13? I’m curious. The number for me is 6, being that my son was born on 6/6/6. We laugh about that as a number for his birth.
March 18th, 2009 8:59 am
Thirteen Thursday is a longstanding blogging meme where participants post 13 things and visit each other’s blogs. I just posted the current headquarters’s link but they have posted the new one yet.
March 18th, 2009 9:17 am
#3: I discreetly hit them with my arms and elbows until they get the message and move. If they don’t, I gently ask, Could you possibly share the arm rest, please?”
You’re welcome for the tidbit! Take all you need.
March 18th, 2009 9:37 am
BUT IT’S NOT THURSDAY! I just got my days mixed up. Blame it on jet lag. I just got home from Mass. Or maybe old age because this is my 179th Thirteen Thursday.
March 18th, 2009 9:53 am
omg kelly gave birth to damien!
March 18th, 2009 10:18 am
lol….and as i read i thought i had lost a day somewhere and blamed it on my own recent confusion. i have been distracted and recently drove to the hairdresser without my purse. i am glad this one is yours and not mine.
glad you are home safe and hope you left your mom feeling better.
March 18th, 2009 10:50 am
I never got why people say “borrow” either…
March 18th, 2009 5:50 pm
Great TT, even if it is a day early! LOL.
March 18th, 2009 6:12 pm
Confusion abounds…I thought I had missed St. Patrick’s day and was posting a day late, but I was on time!
I rarely make it to 13 as you well know.
March 18th, 2009 10:35 pm
Hey Coll you must be seeing the # 13 in everything…….because Bonnie’s 13 is a “B” for her name. I have to admit it does look like a 13.
March 18th, 2009 11:04 pm
Bonnie’s mug: This is the first time I have ever typed this: LMAO!
March 18th, 2009 11:50 pm
This is a great list lol Thanks for the chuckles. Happy T13!
March 19th, 2009 12:29 am
Random 13 fun
March 19th, 2009 12:51 am
So how seriously not up to date am I? I didn’t even know Bonnie Hunt had a tv show!!!
March 19th, 2009 1:32 am
Now that’s what you call random thoughts! I’ve no idea on the “borrowing” question, either, lol.
March 19th, 2009 5:05 am
Enjoyed this. A good mix of bits n pieces.
My T-13
March 19th, 2009 6:47 am
#7 just really boggled my mind!!!
My thirteen is posted. Come visit and view some of my favorite personal photos I took of them….Clydesdales that is. Happy Thursday.
March 19th, 2009 7:53 am
You mean you don’t stick your tongue out when you swing? 😉
March 19th, 2009 8:59 am
Ha, ha…number 12 was hilarious! It reminds me of a story (that later turned out to be true) that I heard when I was a child and was fascinated by it. One of the most distinguished people in Texas history was the daughter of the governor, Mr. Hogg. Her name was Ima Hogg.
March 19th, 2009 9:36 am
You have many deep thoughts, which lend me much to ponder. (And yeah, like the Kleenex, I won’t really be returning them.) Happy TT!
March 19th, 2009 10:25 am
Very interesting list.
Happy TT
March 19th, 2009 12:59 pm
I love the way your mind works. I definitely have on my list of things to do before I die – at least one lunch with Colleen and Joe
March 19th, 2009 3:22 pm
I did not know that about giraffes. That’s totally the kind of thing I would look up on Google.
March 19th, 2009 3:58 pm
re: #3… Wonder how bad your blood pressure is rising? (It’s a personal pet-peeve of mine… not only on planes, but trains and buses as well!) …and I’m one of those sheepish people too polite to say, “Move it or lose it!” despite wanting to VERY badly!!!
March 19th, 2009 6:33 pm
Oh Colleen. As Always your TT is so filled with “riches”…including Baby Bryce, who is not such a ‘baby’ any more—well, you know what I meam.
Interesting about Google….Sometimes I use Google three or four times a day, when researching something on ANY Subject. It really is FANTASTIC! If I see any 13’s I will take pictures of them and email them to you, my dear….FUN!
March 19th, 2009 6:54 pm
So random, so wonderful.
As always!
March 19th, 2009 11:14 pm
I think Tabor’s right – that is a B on her mug – not a 13 – but I could see how your 13 obsessed brain could view it that way. So I say we go with the 13 – just for kicks.
March 20th, 2009 12:03 pm
Hello NetChick Sent Me. I have some answers…
#3 spill back. Eventually they will move and you can claim the space for yourself – until then, put your elbows on top of their’s.
#4 When you borrow money do you plan on giving the exact bills back or do you give the different bills back? Same thing here. You will return the favor, not the actual tissue.
March 23rd, 2009 11:38 am
ooh, like 10.
We’ve lived on lot 13, house #13, and on the 13th floor twice. Bad luck is imagined and made by interpretations, not to do with numbers.
March 23rd, 2009 11:45 am
Republic of Floyd is a different outtake alright. Like the “lovely and talented owner of Oddfellas cantina and some guy.” that’s cute.