Tag: Generations

Seven Things I Love (11-23-2020)

1. This Millennial Explaining Why People Use the Word “Verklempt” So Much(I need to mention this article is two years old. Not that it matters.) Things like this makes one feel old. This young whippersnapper clearly never saw “Coffee Talk with Linda Richman” until she started researching this etymology.

You know, as a Gen-Xer, I know I was/am fairly absorbed in the decades of my salad days. Most people do this. But I think our generation grew up experiencing the pop culture of previous generations more than current gens. I mean, any of you watch the Cisco Kid or Three Stooges or Laurel & Hardy movies on Sunday mornings because the only other alternative was wrestling or religious programming (apparently Saturday & Sunday morning programming was the least expensive.) Where I grew up in Iowa, that is what aired. The major network programming was preempted by devotional television shows.

Of course there was some new shows like the ABC Afterschool Special (usually the topics were rather heavy and sometimes even traumatic or miserable.) This show did not age well and there’s probably a reason why we preferred shows from previous decades…

And there were the shows of Sid and Marty Krofft, Zoom (the amazing thing about watching these intros is you will remember all these kids as if they were friends from grade school), and Clutch Cargo, but overall, kind of slim pickings compared to the today. In fact, when try to find a list of popular kids television shows of the 1970s it will almost always include shows from the 50s and 60s.

(Side note: here’s a wonderful video about a guy who had an original talking candle prop from the Side & Marty Krofft show ‘H.R. Pufnstuf’ that he was trying to sell at auction.)

Myself, I was a big fan of Gilligan’s Island, really, who wasn’t. That show originally aired from 1964-1967. I was only TWO when it ended. The same with Leave it to Beaver, Bonanza, I Love Lucy (by the way, if you haven’t seen the Grace Adler version of Vitameatavegamin, you must), The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, I Dream of Jeannie, The Munsters, even The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle – these were all shows of the 1960s, some even of the 1950s. They were shows we were able to watch in rerun because there wasn’t four bazillion new shows on so we shared in stuff our parents had enjoyed.

Not that every skit that SNL does is worth seeing but there is certainly a huge number of things over the past two decades that have had significant impact on pop culture and it’s kinda sad that millennials will never know the references.

So why did verklempt become such a popular descriptor? Is it because we’re living in the age of rampant millennial hyperbole? Or does verklempt just ring true in many situations? Is its meaning versatile enough to cover everything from Star Wars references to ailing dogs getting free hamburgers?

The origins of verklempt trace back to the Yiddish farklempt, which refers not to any old overwhelming emotion but to a particular one: depression and grief. Farklempt is the past tense of farklemen, which means “to grip, press” and has roots in the German word verklemmen, “to press, squeeze,” which is related to the German verklemmt (“uptight”). And, following verklempt even further back in time, it leads to the Old English word clam or clom, meaning to “bond” or “fetter.”

But it wasn’t until the ‘90s when we started seeing verklempt being used in pop culture. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it started, but Mike Myers professed his verklempt-ness as Linda Richman in the 1992 Saturday Night Live sketch, Coffee Talk, about — you guessed it — Barbara Streisand.

I mean, how sad is it that generations of people will never see this??? Oy Vey, what a tragedy! What else has this generation missed?

2. This Animated History of the Lego Company – truly fascinating and the animation is fabulous.

I love the creativity of the fans of LEGO. For example, this creation done by LEGO artist Ochre Jelly

3. This Music Video from Naughty Boys and Beyonce – before I even saw the video I loved this song but then I watched it and I was blown away. It stars two free divers named Alice Modolo and Guillaume Néry underwater for the entire video. It’s amazing, you have to see it to believe it.

4. This Animal: Leaf Sheep – the only animal that can photosynthesize. I mean, how freaking cute is this???

5. This Illustrator’s List About Why She Misses Going to the Public Library – First, thanks Meta! Second, you will want to be sure to click on post so it takes you to Instagram because there are NINE items on her list and to see them all you have to be able to scroll.

6. This Reboot of Animaniacs (on Hulu) – I’m not a child of the 90s but I still loved this show (probably because I’ve always been a child at heart.) And this reboot is NOT a disappointment.

7. This Photo of Flowers as Bees & Butterflies would see them...

Because I’m always a little skeptical nowadays (as one should be, especially about things found on the internet) I wanted to make sure that the above photo had some scientific verification or at least find a reliable source that verified that insects see UV light. And I found something on PBS, which I deem a reliable source.

[Bonus] This Season Finale by John Oliver – I mean, the ending is amazing and Adam Driver is AWESOME!!! Fuck you 2020!

[And one more BONUS for Fans of The Crown]
This Series of Impressions of All the Characters from Season 4….


Word of the Day


Have a MARVELOUS week

Seven Things I Love (8-31-2020)

I meant to post this last night but I wanted to proof-read it and it got too late. You see, yesterday I had to straighten up my house because I have my cleaning person coming back after being away for almost eight months. I’m so excited!

It’s kind of a long story but when I moved four years ago into my “Golden Girls Dream House” I knew that this was going to be the last house I lived in until I died (or went into a home). I figured I needed to make it exactly what I wanted it to be and that meant it had to be big enough for my family and friends to visit and to have parties. That also meant that I had a fairly large house for one person and cleaning it by myself wasn’t an option.

Enter my amazing cleaning people. Course when the pandemic hit they could no longer come so I’ve been doing everything myself. I asked them, back in June, to restart cleaning but unfortunately they are short a person. I’ve been waiting until they could get me in. Last week we worked it out that they could come less frequently and only clean the kitchen and the bathroom. Originally I was told Friday but then yesterday I got a text and was asked if it was okay if they could come this morning instead. Heck yes! Knowing their situation I have to be flexible.

I remember when I was a kid my Mom would always spend nearly a day straightening up before our cleaning person came over. I used to think she was nuts. But now that I have a cleaning person myself I totally get it. You don’t want them wasting their time straightening up, you want them to be able to focus on the cleaning part. Sadly, after months of isolation there was a bit more straightening to do than usual.

And so my friends, that is why my “Seven Things I Love” post is a day late.

  1. This Meme Comparing Generations – Eerily accurate. I fall on the cusp of GenX and Boomer. Though I most definitely identify as GenX, lately my Boomer side has been starting to show. Maybe I need more gin. Nah, fewer attacks on democracy would be better.

2. The Dole Fr*it B*wls Commercials – I’m not sure if these ads will become as popular as the Geiko ones but some of them are pretty clever. I really love this one in particular – with the two Moms showing what real-life families are like and then asking, was it your idea to have kids or mine? The expressions on their faces is what really makes it so wonderful, it captures so much – love for one another, resignation, and exasperation. (Side note, this commercial aired over and over again a week ago Sunday on the Hallmark Channel during a Jane Doe Mysteries marathon. Hallmark seems to be on board with the LBGTQ thing. They aren’t stupid.)

3. This biopic about Harriet, Tubman of course – this biographical film is amazing. What I liked most – though it spends a good amount of time showing the atrocities inflicted upon the people kept as slaves, it spends an equal amount of time showing Harriet’s success with emancipating others after she herself has escaped slavery. It’s tremendous. So many films like this would spend the entire thing on just her journey to freedom and then would go to a black screen with a message that would say something like,

Harriet Tubman made 13 total trips to Maryland, saving 70 people on her missions. She continued to be known as the “Moses of her people.” She served as a scout, spy, guerrilla soldier, and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War. She died at the age of 93 surrounded by her family and friends and was buried with military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery.

But we wouldn’t get to experience the joy of seeing the rescues – that is the gift of this movie. I know that a lot of our heroes suffered and even shed blood for causes that meant so much to the world today but we need to see more films that show both the good and the bad.

(I will say this though, with what has been going on this past week, these past several months, when you do watch this movie, you will find yourself horrified that things haven’t come so much further in 170 years.)

4. This Cartoonist, Jackie Ormes – who was the first female African American cartoonist popular in the 30s, 40s, and 50s

She is being honored in the September 1st Google Doodle and it’s really wonderful. Take a look.

5. This article (which is excerpted from a book) on How to Identify Pebbles on Britain’s Beaches – what drew me to this initially was the drawings (by one of my favorite artists, Eleanor Crow) but the idea that someone would actually try to identify the various types of pebbles was fascinating to me. I would have thought that pebbles were as unique as snowflakes, but apparently not. The original book, The Pebbles on the Beach, was written by Clarence Ellis in 1954. Studying rocks and beaches is something that people, particularly Brits, have done for a very long time. There is a new film coming out called Ammonite, starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan, about British Palaeontologist Mary Anning and her romantic relationship with Charlotte Murchison. It looks like a must-see film. Mary Anning definitely knew that there were different types of pebbles on the English beaches.

6. This Last tweet from Chadwick Boseman’s twitter account, posted by his family, announcing his passing. It has become the most-liked tweet in Twitter history. So a propos for a regal man and the King of Wakanda.

7. This Evian Commercial: Baby Reflection – just so damned cute. (I’ve always had a thing for commercials, so you know. I think some of them are like mini-films/works of art and some are so damned funny so don’t be surprised if I include them.)


Have a HAPPY and HEALTHY week!

Five Things I Love (3-23-20)

We all need to hear about as many positive things as we can right now. Having said that, I’ll be adding a few extra items on my “Five Things I Love” lists for the indefinite future…

1. This fabulous article about how Gen-Xers are so freaking awesome, which we already knew because pretty much every article about Gen-Xers talks about how strong we are, how we can handle more than other generations, how we never complain, well, basically all the same stuff that Korin Miller wrote about here

2. My sister-in-law’s floral masterpieces. My brother and sister-in-law are going to be opening up a floral shop supper club in Camas, WA. They were hoping to open up in the next few weeks but as you can imagine, things are tentatively on hold. In the meantime though, my SIL does what she usually does, and that is bring rays of sunshine to everyone around her.

Both my brother and sister-in-law have been trying to come up with ideas on how to make lemonade out of lemons. For example, they had a bunch of flower arrangements made up for event that was cancelled so instead they auctioned them off on their Facebook page and donated 100% of the proceeds to two separate charities.

Recently they procured a bunch of free flowers (one of the nearby flower markets was giving away their inventory – with all the cancellations of weddings and special events they have massive overstock and the flowers will just go to waste in their warehouses.) Anyway, my sister-in-law (with my brother as her assistant) created beautiful flower installation around Camas. Some of them were even bouquets that people could stop by and pick up. If you live near Seattle, ATV (after the virus) be sure to check out their place and follow them on Insta or Facebook. You can see many more of my SIL’s beautiful creations on their Insta and FB.

3. How to dial a telephone – this video is hilarious to watch now. For menopausal broads though it may also give you the warm & fuzzies…

4. Self-pampering – if you’re like me you may have a few (dozen) products that you bought, that are supposed to have miraculous effects, but haven’t had the time to use. Well, NOW we all have time! Besides trying out various sheet masks and serums and lotions and cleansers I have also started doing a guided meditation for 15 minutes every day. There are lots of guided meditation videos on YouTube. I recommend searching for guided meditation and the length of time (10, 15, 30 minutes). You may need to try out several before you find one that you like and that has a voice that you find soothing. I myself saved several into a playlist so that I gave vary it up a little.

5. Puzzles! The one I am currently working on is GORGEOUS, 1000 pieces, and the most challenging one I’ve ever tried to put together. Slow going but super satisfying!

6. (Bonus) This online course at Yale University which you can currently take FOR FREE – Dr. Laurie Santos is teaching people how to be happier with their lives! She recognized a need for the course when she saw that there was an increasing number of students being diagnosed with depression. I’ve already watched the videos and done the reading for the first week. It’s very manageable, maybe 30 to 60 minutes twice a week. The only real homework is practicing what you are learning! You can register here.

7, (Bonus) – this artist (Junior Fritz Jacquet) who created these wonderful squishy faces out of discarded toilet paper rolls. What with toilet paper being so precious right now you may, like me, hesitate momentarily to toss out those empty toilet paper rolls…

8. (Bonus) – Star War fans, if you haven’t watched this sped up time-lapse of the construction of the Death Star you must do so immediately. It’s only two minutes long!

9. (Bonus) – Last but definitely not least, this animated video explaining the Coronavirus Pandemic. Flatten the curve!