1. If you saw a dog locked in a hot car, what would you do? Call the police.
2. Is it easy for you to accept help when you need it? It depends on what I need help with and who is offering the help.
3. Have you ever been in a fashion show? No, but both my kids were in a Bloomingdales Back to School Fashion Show when they were 4 and 5, I think. Or around that age. I had to coax my son off the stage because he was loving the attention a bit too much. Lol! I think that’s what may have encouraged my son’s penchant for dressing up. He was never the boy who bristled at wearing a suit. To this day, he looks for opportunities to wear a suit and tie or a vest, shirt, tie, and dress trousers. He’s probably the only soon to be 25 year old that has more than 1 vest.
4. Would you like to be famous? No. Being famous would ruin people watching opportunities. I would become one of the people watched and I couldn’t basically remain invisible and able to people watch undetected. And I love me some good people watching!
5. What is your most compulsive habit? Worrying. Currently it’s not like I lack things to worry about either.
6. What do you most strive for in your life: accomplishment, security, love, power, excitement, knowledge, or something else? Definitely security. My current situation leaves a lot to be desired as far as security.
7.How close and warm is your family? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Good one! 👏 I am not close to my sister. There is always something that comes up that drives a wedge between us that lasts years. Aunts, uncles, cousins (parents and grandparents passed away a long time ago) never close, but no longer on speaking terms. All of the lack of closeness is the result of NONE of said family attending my gay wedding 4 years ago. A couple years before the wedding, before I even knew there would be a wedding I reached out and contacted my aunts, I was in a “life’s too short, I should make an effort” type mood. It was not worth my time and to this day I kick myself for doing it. When I called one of them to say we would be in town and would like to visit, I was basically told no, that another aunt and uncle were visiting at that time. I had booked a hotel as I always have when going back to my hometown. I was not looking for a place to stay. The conversation was incredibly awkward. We attended a family reunion 2 months before the wedding. We were basically invisible except for one uncle, who I cannot think of who it was, chatted up my fiancé. I did not see him, so I have no idea who it was. He was really friendly and genuinely happy we did decide to attend. There was an extended relative who was incredibly excited to meet my fiancé and was hugging and talking to my fiancé in Italian. Not broken English, full Italian. We only speak English. My sister didn’t attend my wedding because her husband didn’t want to go and would not let her go by herself or to attend and bring a friend. It isn’t the fact that my sister didn’t go, we are used to his manipulations. My sister wanted me to LIE to my own children about the reason why she couldn’t be there. I don’t lie to my children and would never do so to cover for my sister. My in-laws have been wonderful. They knew the circumstances. During my father-in-law’s speech he said “You are one of us now.” And the entire room chanted “One of us! One of us!” It’s from the 1932 movie “Freaks” It was really nice.
8 Does that fact that you have never done a thing before increase or decrease its appeal to you? It depends on what it is.
9. If your friends start belittling a common acquaintance, would you defend that person? Kind of a moot question since I don’t have any friends at the moment. Before I met my spouse I belonged to a social group. When I broke up with the person I was seeing at the time, they took all the friends. Hypothetically speaking, my response would depend on what was being said. If I felt it was awful or completely uncalled for I might say something and leave abruptly. I have more than my fair share of stress and I wouldn’t want to be somewhere that would increase my stress. Not that it’s all about me, I would say something. It’s just I feel like I’m in a fragile place right now and I need to remove myself from situations that increase my stress.
10. Do you make a special effort to thank someone who does you a favor How do you react when you aren’t thanked for going out of your way for someone? Yes, I always try to always thank people when they do something nice. Even if it’s a wave at the car that let me change lanes. Yesterday I was at the grocery. Gah! Why do I do that to myself? Saturday grocery shopping is torture! The sale ended today on much of what I was buying and I could not fit it in Thursday or Friday. I have to use an electric cart because I cannot walk around the store due to back, knee, and balance issues. Super crowded, full of rude people. It took 3 carts to get through shopping because the batteries go dead quickly because so many people need them and they don’t get to fully charge. Then EVERY aisle had someone stopped in the middle on their cellphone. I can’t get through. I say “excuse me” in a regular conversational volume and tone. Nothing. Louder. Nothing. Finally I have to yell, even though I don’t want to. When they do move, I yell “Thank you”, cuz I’m polite like that. Take your cart and your damn phone and go move to a corner out of the way. When the carts died and my son went to retrieve a different one I always parked out of the way. It’s called being considerate of others.
11. Since adolescence, in what 3-year period do you feel you experienced the most personal growth and change? My early 40’s.
12. When you do something ridiculous, how much does it bother you to have other people notice it and laugh at you? I don’t know that I’ve ever had a stranger laugh at me. If it’s people I know I sometimes just ham it up/join in on the laughter.
13. Do you believe in capital punishment? In some cases. Why is this a recurring question in these Sunday posts?
14. Do you find it so hard to say “no” that you regularly do favors yo do not want to do? I wouldn’t say it’s hard, I’d say I do favors when I can. I try to be a good person. I try to follow what my parents always said, “you do for family”. That includes friends and neighbors. I must be the only one left on the planet that does this because no one has ever reciprocated, and no one has helped/done favors for me. I’m disabled, so is my spouse. We have a repair/cleanup situation due to flooding. Not a single soul has offered to help, nor have they helped when I said I would pay them. My neighbor does small engine repair and I need new blades and a clutch cable installed on my snowblower, and I need the riding mower looked at. I’ve spoken with him 3 times asking if he could do the work and said I would of course pay him cash, I don’t expect it to be free. My brother-in-law is a heating and a/c repair guy. We have furnace issues. Crickets. There isn’t a lot I can do because I’m disabled, but I have driven people places/picked them up with no expectation of being reimbursed for gas money.
15. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about? That would depend on the circumstances and who was involved. Some people can joke about even the worst situations, kind of as a coping mechanism. Other people are delicate snowflakes who you can’t joke with at all. Know your audience. Lol!
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