Sunday Stealing-Extraordinary Penpals

Hi! Your host is Bev Sykes of the blog "Funny the World". . Welcome to Sunday Stealing. This feature originated and published on WTIT: The Blog. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves! 

Stolen from League of Extraordinary Penpals

1. What are your plans for August? To have my family and I survive it without getting the coronavirus. We all have underlying conditions, and my daughter also has asthma. The state fair we attended last year would have begun Friday. Since it was canceled, I’ve decided that we will recreate some of our fair favorites. We’ll be starting at the end the week. I have to work around physical therapy and doctor appointments.

2. Review the first half of 2020. It’s been a 💩 show since the beginning of the year, and continues to be. No need to relive it in our minds.

3. A place you’d go if money were no object. New Zealand, Australia. Somewhere that the coronavirus was quickly gotten under control and has virtually stopped spreading.  

4. Who was your childhood best friend. We were friends since our parents had their homes built in the subdivision and we moved in. We stopped being friends when I was a freshman in high school. She was a sophomore and felt she couldn’t be friends with a freshman. I got a call around this time of year in 1996 or 1997 that she had a malignant brain tumor. She wanted to see me. Because of circumstances at that time I couldn’t travel. She passed away later in the year. I did attend her funeral and spent time with her Mom and sister. 

5. The city or town you love most. My kind of town, Chicago is...I really did enjoy living there. I could walk out my door, walk to the corner and hail a cab or catch a bus. Where I live now there is no bus service and cabs are never around. If you want a cab you’d have to call for one and you’d have to pay extra because of the distance they’d have to drive to get here. I also miss my hometown.

6. How do you spend hot days? In air conditioning, sipping ice water.

7. Are you a skilled cook or baker? I’m both, but since I’m watching carbs, I seldom bake. I cook all types of cuisine. I was supposed to make Indian food last night but as it turned out, several ingredients were bad, so the chicken was put in the freezer and will be made later in the week after grocery shopping.

8. One thing you wish you could currently do. All the things I used to be able to do before my car accident. I did most of the repairs on my home myself, as well as yard work. Now I have to pay people, which is hard to do being on a limited income.

9. A time when you learned your lesson. I’m married now, but when I was dating I should have paid more attention. Looking back now I see that I had several “relationships” where I was being used. Whether it was financially, or otherwise. I also had a friend during that time that would make plans, then on the day of she’d see what her other options were and picked the one she liked best and she never bothered to let me know she made other plans. I’d be left hanging. This person is my sister in law’s fiancé. I have resisted making plans with her because fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...Nope. My wife made plans with them to celebrate my birthday last month. I told my wife not to do it because of the past, but she insisted. Guess what? They never showed up for my birthday last month. The former friend ruined my birthday 9 years ago telling my girlfriend (now wife) to not worry about making plans, the food, the cake, and inviting people...she would handle it all. Apparently something better came up because there was no party, no people invited, nothing.

10, What consistently makes you laugh. My immediate family. We’re always yuckin’ it up.

11. Routines that bring you calm and peace. I need to find some. I think they would calm my anxiety. It’s difficult to have routines now because of my insomnia, pain, medical appointments.

12. Who annoys you the most? I’m just going to keep this one to myself. It’s not anyone on here or a family member. 

13. Describe some of your favorite household items. Hard to say. 

14. What have you gotten better at? 🙋🏻 L arm. I can raise it all the way up! I haven’t been able to do that since my son was 4, he’s 25 now. Surgeon at the time didn’t believe in PT. I’ve had PT since, but my back was the focus. Now I’m focused on the shoulders. It still pops and I have pain at times, but I can’t stop showing off my L arm. 😂 My R arm is toast. I am in constant pain. I had an evaluation at my last PT appointment. There was a little improvement in range of motion, but the pain is still constant. Also, I have become less of an introvert, not quite an extrovert, but I have come a long way. I start conversations when I’m out and about, and I’m a fierce advocate for my daughter.

15. Share a random memory. I think a lot about my Mom doing laundry with her wringer washing machine. I used to watch her do laundry when I was a kid. I’m guessing this memory keeps popping up because I think about laundry a lot. My machines were ruined when my sump pump died.

16. How many pairs of shoes do you have? This is a tough one. I used to only have 1 pair of dress shoes and 1 pair of sneakers. Now I have 3 pairs of sneakers, a pair of pumps, 3 other pairs of dress shoes, 1 pair of boat shoes, and 3 pairs of boots (1 pair dress boots, 1 pair of hiking boots, and 1 pair of motorcycle boots.) So that’s 11 pairs. Wow! 

17. Who do you go to for encouragement? My wife.

18. References you make that others don’t get. Anything Wisconsinish. Bubblers (not drinking fountains). There are a few others I can’t think of now. I also use obscure quotes from movies in conversation. Oh, and I know a lot of Yiddish, which no one understands where I live now.

19. What are 10 things you consider essential for you? Air, water, food, clothing, medication, transportation, a home, my family, tv and books, my iPhone.

20. Is there any accent you wish you had? I don’t know if I could pick one accent. I mean, hearing myself talk with an accent isn’t as exciting or interesting as hearing someone else talk with an accent.

Lola’s Diner  cc  2008-2020