http://www.musebooks.com en Barbara J. Hamby Copyright 2008 Barbara J. Hamby 2008-05-09T01:55:00-08:00 http://www.musebooks.com/barbara/hamby/more/with_a_song_in_my_head/ http://www.musebooks.com/barbara/hamby/more/with_a_song_in_my_head/#When:01:55:00Z If I have written about this anomaly of memory before and am repeating myself, I apologize. Today I read about a woman who remembers almost everything that ever occurred in her life and thought what a horrible prospect that would be. She can’t force herself to forget anything that she’d rather not remember. As my general memory deteriorates, my specialized memory continues to tantalize me every day. Most mornings I wake up with the words to an old song running through my head. Sometimes I wake in the middle of the night humming a melody. Various occurrences during the day will trigger a hymn (from my days of singing in the choir) or a top ten tune from the forties. Heaven help me if I hear on the radio a catchy tune such as Yellow Ribbon, Goodnight Irene, or Delta Dawn, I won’t be able to lose it for days. I probably know the words to hundreds of songs. Nothing that’s been written recently, however, floats around in my head. Most are oldies, not all goodies. I’m the idiot savant of old time pop tunes. When my son was a teenager playing drums in a local jazz venue, they held a “Name that Tune” contest. He was amazed when I, in the audience, won tickets to a concert by naming the tune. Naturally, it was an old song. Sometimes I wonder how many others are out there humming in their heads. Barbara J. Hamby's Blog 2008-05-09T01:55:00-08:00 http://www.musebooks.com/barbara/hamby/more/greed_rears_its_ugly_head/ http://www.musebooks.com/barbara/hamby/more/greed_rears_its_ugly_head/#When:17:58:00Z (Or is it just good marketing) Grocery stores are reaching out to grab our “stimulus” checks. See who has the best offer before signing up. One will give you a gift card for the amount of your check plus 10%, one will add 15% to the value of the gift card, and another will give you cash with a discount coupon of 10% good for two days’ purchases and will run other “card specials.” Those are just the ads I’ve read so far. Actually, it makes some sense to take advantage of one of these offers. Most of us will actually spend that much money on groceries in the near future and the gift card offers will insure that we spend the entire amount at one of their stores. The other offer will tempt us to spend at least some of it at the check-cashing store. Undoubtedly, the grocers figure it’s a win-win situation for them and their customers. If the merchants have figured out a way, other than their usual marketing ploys, to lure in those who had their stimulus checks directly deposited to their bank accounts, I haven’t heard about it yet. I rarely read the department store ads so I don’t know what their schemes are. I have so much stuff already that I avoid shopping centers. The few things I need I can pick up locally at strip mall stores or order from catalogs. Catalog vendors offer discounts that at least make up for the cost of shipping and their prices are competitive. With the price of gasoline, eliminating or consolidating shopping trips makes sense. Since I buy groceries with a debit card from a money market account, I can save what I usually spend if I purchase a grocery gift card and use it instead. In addition, I can spend the additional ten or fifteen per cent the store offers.  So all I have to figure out is which merchant makes the best offer. In effect, I’ll be saving $330. to $345., depending on the choice I make, rather than just the $300. the government is “giving” me. Not a bad deal. Of course, I’ll have to spend it all at one store. You don’t suppose those sneaky marketers will up their prices on staples this month to reimburse themselves for their largesse. If I had more time and more mathematical prowess, I’d try to figure that out. Barbara J. Hamby's Blog 2008-05-07T17:58:00-08:00 http://www.musebooks.com/barbara/hamby/more/early_spring_thoughts/ http://www.musebooks.com/barbara/hamby/more/early_spring_thoughts/#When:21:53:00Z For the second day in a row, I can open windows and doors and let the warm air in, as opposed to turning on heat. Our next-door neighbors are industriously planting gorgeous, bright flowers for us to enjoy as well. I hope we don’t lose them anytime soon; they love to garden. My joints don’t like that kind of work anymore. I did buy a nice hanging basket yesterday for the front stoop and have some pansies blooming alongside the steps. I will put in a few more flowers and possibly replace the dying strawberry plants in the planter out front. I planted a tomato and some Lobelia in pots on the deck yesterday, also. The primroses in pots are blooming well, although somewhat beaten up by all the rain. The two basement neighbors who were in the apartments below us when I moved in have left. They took all their lovely plants with them and the new neighbors are not replacing them. One of the new tenants is in a wheelchair so can hardly be expected to do yard work. I don’t know much about the other one.  The reluctance of my eyes to focus together is slowing down my computer work somewhat. In order to do much on-screen reading, I have to enlarge the print, and rest often. Eye drops don’t help much. I have an ophthalmology appointment later this month, but even if they agree to correct the second eye then, there will probably be a several-month wait for the surgery. But, as I have often noted recently, time passes more quickly every day, and eventually the problems should be worked out. More and more interesting people turn up at the swimming pool to keep life from being boring. One, formerly employed at a mental health institution, has some harrowing stories. Her friend, a former cab driver, can probably even top her. I look forward to hearing more from them. Barbara J. Hamby's Blog 2008-05-05T21:53:00-08:00 http://www.musebooks.com/barbara/hamby/more/visit_from_a_friend/ http://www.musebooks.com/barbara/hamby/more/visit_from_a_friend/#When:22:14:00Z My Word Office Assistant is pouting today and wouldn’t offer any date, even the wrong one. I just chuckle. Yesterday I had a fun visit with the sister of my former companion with whom I traveled to many corners of the world in a three or four year period. She brought me up to date on his life in another state. Suffice it to say, he is doing okay. I feel my life is better, however. She is a dear and I’m sure we’ll be friends for as long as we live. Her daughter is also a friend. I miss a number of his other relatives whom I grew to know and no longer see, but life goes on. Friends and relatives of friends fall by the wayside at times. Today complaining joints are keeping me away from the pool. I may relent later and take a brief swim and hot tub dip. I sent regrets to the poetry group I’d hoped to meet with tonight. I have new poems to share, but they can wait until next month. This past week I submitted several poems for possible publication in a women’s anthology, and a memoir essay and a few poems to separate contests. I hope to send out more this week. I’m about to stretch out and watch a Saturday afternoon movie if I can stay awake. I’ll see how the movie goes before I decide whether to sleep or not. Maybe I won’t have a choice. Barbara J. Hamby's Blog 2008-05-03T22:14:00-08:00 http://www.musebooks.com/barbara/hamby/more/back_at_the_keyboard/ http://www.musebooks.com/barbara/hamby/more/back_at_the_keyboard/#When:07:02:00Z This Word program tries too hard to be helpful. If I type the month, in this case April, it immediately fills in a date. Once in a while, it’s actually the right date, but tonight it was stuck on the 29th. Oh well. Helping my son proofread his blog this afternoon reminded me that I haven’t posted to mine in several days. I get distracted more easily every day and forget what I should be doing. I checked Google Analytics tonight and, as usual, I can’t figure out why some days only two or three people check my website and other days it spikes to ten or fifteen. Twelve countries are represented among my viewers. The Czech Republic is a new one. I have no idea why that is either. Only three or four countries have more than one hit apiece—mostly the English-speaking ones. I can imagine some countries, such as India and Africa, are represented by scammers looking for new victims. I get SPAM fairly often from them. It’s been a busy week. Sunday we had a lovely brunch and visit with Floyd’s daughter and family, along with his son from Seattle and family Yesterday I had lunch at our Senior Center and then went to my writers’ critique group meeting. The “group” consisted of only two of us but we accomplished a lot.  Later I did some shopping and my exercise/swim routine and barely had enough energy to heat some food for dinner. Today I sat in on a Write Your Life Story class at the Senior Center and thoroughly enjoyed hearing snippets from the lives of a few of my peers. I stayed for a special luncheon with a Hawaiian theme, then went to the library and home for a nap. We fell heir to a small stack of firewood that was left by a tenant who moved out (I assume) since we found it by the garbage cans and the manager assured us it was up for grabs. So today I picked up a large plastic tub to store it in on the deck until next winter. It will be nice to burn along with the fire logs we normally use. We are being bombarded with political propaganda. Even our favorite Boston Legal tonight was largely political. I agree with their premise that our democracy is somewhat of a sham, but I am tired of all the hoopla. I will vote for my choices whether or not I believe it makes any difference. Once in a while, I luck out and pick a winner. Barbara J. Hamby's Blog 2008-05-01T07:02:00-08:00 http://www.musebooks.com/barbara/hamby/more/another_sunny_saturday/ http://www.musebooks.com/barbara/hamby/more/another_sunny_saturday/#When:05:29:00Z This is the second lovely spring day in April. The first was two weeks ago today and we had begun to think that would be our whole spring this year because it had been cold and/or rainy ever since, until today. Now I hope we can look forward to improving weather from now on into summer. We’ll see. The rain has really beaten up my early flowers. Maybe tomorrow I can get out and do some trimming and make the deck and the front porch area look better. When the weather settles into a warm pattern, we have benches to sand and paint on the deck. I’m not looking forward to that task, but they’ll look great when it’s done. Spring and fall are the busy times for writing contests. I have a stack of guidelines on my desk for poetry and other writing contests and a stack of possible entries. I mailed one entry on Friday and will try to send a couple more by their April 30th deadlines. In recent years I haven’t entered many contests or submitted material for publications, but I feel motivated to do some of that this year. Barbara J. Hamby's Blog 2008-04-27T05:29:00-08:00 http://www.musebooks.com/barbara/hamby/more/busy_days1/ http://www.musebooks.com/barbara/hamby/more/busy_days1/#When:04:41:00Z Yesterday I went over to the newly remodeled Tigard Senior Center to sign a new contract for selling my books in the gift shop. I learned that the ribbon cutting for the re-opening of the center would be held today. I toured the building and stayed for lunch on Tuesday. Then I returned today for the ceremony and luncheon. A huge crowd, including local officials such as the mayor of Tigard, was at the center. Fortunately, a church parking lot next door was available for the overflow of cars. The building has been enlarged and the facilities expanded to accommodate more people and activities. It is encouraging to see what is being done for senior citizens in this area. The expanded kitchen and dining room provide space for a variety of food, including salad bar items, which should enable almost anyone on a restricted diet to find an adequate meal. A diabetic woman at my table was happy to be able to have a good lunch. A nice highlight of the lunch today was a conversation with a tablemate, who complained about complicated Medicare paperwork. She turned to me and said, “You’re probably not on Medicare, so you don’t know about it.” I told her I’d been on it for fourteen years and she seemed shocked. Either she has bad eyesight or she’s a good actress. In addition to these two breaks in my regular schedule this week, I attended a new water exercise class tonight. The exercises were a good variation from the usual set I practice in my daily sessions. I have some sore muscles, especially my neck, but I’m sure I’ll recover quickly. Anyway, I’m now behind on writing, and need to park my rear end in a chair and hit the keyboard tomorrow. Barbara J. Hamby's Blog 2008-04-24T04:41:00-08:00