Although I’d like to and intend to post something new and regular-blog-post-like to this blog on a semi-regular basis, sometimes I go for stretches where I seem to have lost access to any extra brain cells, especially the ones needed for coming up with anything even vaguely resembling ‘new.’  In fact, lately, I’ve been hovering near the borders of just such a state.  And so, I’ve come up with an idea!  What sort of prompt might require not very many braincells to complete, yet produce results that are at least potentially interesting and/or amusing and will produce different results depending on when it’s prompted?

Answer: This series of twenty questions, posed to whomever, and answered here by me.  They’re pretty random, but sometimes random is about all I’ve got access to.  Take a gander.  (And hopefully you won’t see these questions again for a good long while, but if you do, you’ll know what’s up with my brain cells.)

1. What song is stuck in your head right now?

“I Could Have Danced All Night”, from My Fair Lady.  Over the holidays we’ve been watching some of the classics with my daughters, mostly musicals or Alfred Hitchcock movies.  So far, the only real bust has been Vertigo, where my eldest declared that the only suspenseful thing about it was: ‘When is it gonna end?’ and I rather agreed with her.

2. What’s the last book you gave 5 stars on Goodreads?

A Matter of Class, an historical-romance novella by Mary Balogh.  Short and sweet with a tiny bit of mystery.  Basically perfect.

3. What part of your house is currently most in need of a cleaning intervention?

The guest bedroom.  It was my office for a couple years during Covid and, now that work-from-home is a more commonly used option, it really hasn’t yet recovered.  I am not a tidy office person.

4. What plant are you scheming to add to your garden?

An autumn-blooming cherry tree.  I’ve only recently heard about this, but I think I’ve got a spot where I could put it and it would survive.  Our property already has a lot of trees, so it’s a matter if figuring out where we could wedge in another one…

5. What is something mundane you’re grateful for?

Scrap fabric, pretty cotton prints, and patchwork.  My patchworked sheets and pillow cases always make me happy, even though they’re a little ridiculous.

6. What word did you last look up in the dictionary?

Inflammable.  But there was a word I looked up before that that I can’t quite remember now that started the whole thing.  It was something about when does the ‘in’ prefix negate the rest (e.g., inelegant) versus reinforce it (inflammable).  I decided it was something to do with verbs (maybe?), but didn’t get further than that…

—Okay, now the most recent word I’ve looked up is trepid (after double-checking intrepid), which appears to be related to: trepidation.  I should have known, and yet…Dictionary to the rescue!

7. Random astronomy factoid – Go.

Much like the decimal system for sound, the magnitude system for defining the brightness of a star is logarithmic.  This is because the way human eyes interpret brightness is logarithmic.  When early astronomers sorted stars by brightness the bins were more like x2, x4, x8…, rather than x2, x3, x4…. in terms of the amount of actual light shining down.  Unlike the decibel system, though, a smaller magnitude means a brighter star, with the brightest stars in the sky given a magnitude of 0, or even less than 0.

8. What’s a recipe you’ve tried or been working on lately?

Beef pot roast.  My husband can’t eat onions (but can eat garlic, thankfully), so I’ve learned about using turnips to add in some sharpness.  I’ve been experimenting with including different fruits as well.  Apple was good, but I’m a little allergic.  Blackberries were good, but the seeds are so big! (and crunchy…)  Currently trying a handful of raspberries and blueberries…?  We’ll see how it goes.

9. If you suddenly didn’t have food restrictions, what would you eat right now?!

A ‘hole-in-one’!  Which is an egg cooked sunny-side-up inside a hole made in a buttered piece of bread.  So messy-but-delicious when the yoke runs all over everything.

(For the curious, out of the above I am allergic to or have to restrict: eggs, milk (butter), yeast (bread).)

10. What cartoon have you been watching lately?

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.  My girls really, really like it.  I like the world-building ascetic, but wish that the cast wasn’t so limited.  It’s like watching a movie that didn’t have the budget to pay any extras.  Kind of spooky and disconcerting.

11. Random movie quote – Go.

“We’re going to open the presents now.  Not later.  Now.  Why?  Because we’re adults, and we can open presents WHENEVER WE WANT!”  –The Ref

12. If you had a teleporter, where would you take it for a mini-vacation right now?

I’d really like to go back to El Yunque in Puerto Rico, which is “the only tropical rain forest in the [U.S.] national forest system” (link).  When we were there years and years ago, it was so very lovely.  And there were a couple of cool, old, stone Spanish watch-towers you could climb up in and look out over everything green and beautiful.

13. What’s a piece of clothing you’ve been neglecting to mend or replace?

I just unearthed an old pair of pants at the bottom of my mending pile that are already quite patched, but really need to be patched more if I want to wear them again.  I really don’t like clothing shopping and they do still fit pretty well, so I really should get to that.

14. What sort of weather do you miss right now?

Rain.  A really good, soaking rain.  Colorado is so dry in the winter time.  This time last year I travelled to New Jersey and it was raining quite a bit.  My travel companions were displeased, but I was so happy.  I felt like I was being watered, along with the ground.

15. What’s a made-up garden or forest you wish you could visit right now?

Okay, so obviously the snowy forest in Narnia would be awesome.  But I’d probably be really tempted to try running back-and-forth between the wardrobe and the woods to watch the transition, and so end up getting the magic messed up.

16. What’s something you’re currently trying to improve?

…I’ve got a test coming up in TaeKwonDo soon.  Breaking is always touch-and-go for me, but I’m going to see if I can get a jump-twisting-kick break up to snuff.  (Right now the big problem is that I just can’t jump that high…)

17. What’s something beautiful you’ve seen out in nature lately?

We went on a little hike above Loveland just before New Years.  We were late getting up there, but that meant that as we were leaving we got to see the most glorious sunset, all lined up with the lake and a snow-covered mountain peak.  And that glorious sunset persisted for most of the drive home, too, the red in the clouds getting darker and darker, but still visible for a really long time.  It was so cool.

18. What’s a book you both do and do not want to see made into a movie?

A Deadly Education, by Naomi Novik.  It’s an amazing book, the first of an amazing trilogy.  And it’s got the best snarky teenager main-character.  But I worry that whoever did it would twist it toward whatever they think is popular for teenagers right at the moment and not let it be its full, glorious self.  Maybe if whoever did the Netflix series of Lockwood & Co. took it on it would be safe.  That was excellently done, even and including the things they changed, and with such good characters and casting.  I’m so sad we didn’t get another season.  There would have been really awesome stuff coming up next.

19. Random music lyrics – Go.

‘You can hear her laugh on a sunny day, coming down the road with a gypsy blade.’ –“The Gypsy in the Photograph” sung by Michael Johnson.  (One of my very favorite songs ever.)

20. What’s something that should be added to the news these days for a welcome change?

Instead of wildfires, I think we should be hearing about some sudden influx of butterflies to some small town that wasn’t expecting it.  I would like to hear about what is disconcerting and downright irritating about having Too Many Butterflies!  And I’d like to see lots of pictures of things covered in butterflies.  That would be just the ticket.

Okay, that’s as much brain as I’ve got right now.  Bye!