Aug 27

Scotland’s August Bank Holiday

Last year we’re in Scotland on August 28, so we were affected by the August Bank Holiday.  This year’s holiday is on Monday, August 27.

The August Bank Holiday was instituted by the Bank Holidays Act of 1871 to give bankers a day off so they could participate in cricket matches.

Since then, however, its significance has greatly expanded beyond those narrow limits. Now, it is a day intended to give workers of all stripes a three-day weekend before the summer holidays end and employees must return to the workplace and students to their schools.

(The video below says that they celebrate the August Bank Holiday on a different day in Scotland [August 7, 2017].  Where we were, they also celebrated August 28!).

 

Aug 26

Isn’t Every Day Dog Day?

Mimi sure thinks so!

A dog is man’s best friend.

National Dog Day is observed annually on August 26th.

This day encourages dog ownership of all breeds. Whether mixed or purebred, embrace the opportunity for all dogs to live a happy, safe and abuse-free life. Dogs give us companionship; they keep us safe, and they aid those in need. It is a goal for many on this day to find homes for all dogs in need of a loving family. The purpose of the National Dog Day Foundation is to rescue 10,000 dogs each year

When dogs find a forever home, their companionship creates lifelong benefits. They bring with them joy, loyalty, and devotion. Eventually, no matter the breed, these pets become family.

 

We’ve had Mimi for most of her 10 years of life.  After our previous dog died, I didn’t think I could ever get another dog but a friend was fostering a dog who’d just had puppies.  When I first met Mimi she was a bit nippy but we straightened that out fast!

 

Aug 25

1939: The Wizard of Oz Premiered

Screenshot 2016-08-25 10.48.11

 

1939 ~ Dorothy embarked on a journey down the yellow brick road with a lion, a tin man and a scarecrow in the classic film “The Wizard of Oz.”

 

 

When I saw the movie MUCH later I was terrified of the witch and hid under one of the theater seats.  My mother was so mortified by my behavior that she took me home.  Too bad there was no Mr. Rogers yet.

 

Aug 19

World Photo Day

World Photo Day

 

Today is another of those “Who Knew” holidays.

I was recently talking to someone about our last trip to Scotland and she reminded me to take lots of pictures.  Then, she said to be sure to print them out so she could see them.

cornerUm, no way!  I haven’t printed out pictures since probably the 1980s – or earlier.

All the work that went into that.  Taking the film somewhere, getting back to the store to pick up the prints, buying scrapbooks, and those little corner holders, sorting, writing the people’s names on the back, the place.  Then, finding the right scrapbook to show people…

No, NO NO!

These days. I keep most of my photos online.  There are 58,337 photos right now in my Flickr account and it’s so much easier to share online.

It’s interesting about photos.  A couple of my first real jobs were working in photo processing.

When I was first out of college, I worked for Technicolor, processing negatives into photos.

US3418913-5Back then, the film had to be processed entirely in the dark.

When the door of the machine was open, the light-proof curtain of the cubicle was shut tight.

I learned how to thread huge, heavy rolls of photo paper into a machine – in total darkness. Over, under, around, over…

Neither the undeveloped paper nor the negatives could be exposed to any light – ever.

Someone else had cut the end of the roll of negatives square and stuck it to a “leader” using special tape which wouldn’t peel off during the developing process.

leaderThe leader featured small rectangle holes like old movie filmstrips. The holes catch onto sprockets which guide the leader card and film through the processing machine.

After being sure we had enough paper in the machine, we would feed the leader end of the negatives into the side and that automatically moved the leader card forward.

We’d be sure that the machine was set for the type (size) of film it was (mine were usually 110 or 35milimeter) and feed the roll of negatives through the machine, making minor corrections using a special keyboard. Different amounts of cyan, magenta and yellow were added or subtracted to each photo to ensure the color was correct.

Adjustments are also made for exposure to each individual photo, and sometimes we’d recenter the subject (or what we guessed was the subject).  Sometimes, we had to choose between 2 or more photos to find the one that was “best”.

Then we’d (finally!) get the prints, package them up and start again.

The whole thing was on piecework so the faster, the better.  The faster we worked, the more money we made.

pocketfilm-110The young women who had worked here longer than I had got really good/fast at this and they were able to work with newer machines that let them work in a large room out in the light and have others to talk with.  As I recall, those machines only processed the 110 film, which was becoming more popular with amateur photographers.

It was a boring job, but it was a job.  I worked there from late afternoon until midnight, so it gave me lots of time to hang out at Lake Metacomet where I was living with a roommate.

Somehow, my roommate had managed to get us an apartment right on the shore of the lake and it was much easier to hang out there in the sunshine than to drive to work and be in the dark all evening.

Sometimes, I’d call in “sick”  LOL

Tom and I moved to Milwaukee so he could go to grad school.  While I was there, I did substitute teaching for public school music classes around the Milwaukee area.

And, after school, in the evenings, I did photo processing for a small photo processing company.

They hired me on the spot because I knew how to thread that machine.  I didn’t have to do that for long, though.  Somehow, I got promoted to wedding photos, those that took a lot of care, color corrections, perfect centering…and I was mostly in the light.  No more piece work because I had to spend so much time on each photo, striving for perfection.

Fond memories, all of them.  To this day, I am very good at telling if things are centered properly, level, and if the color matches perfectly.

In the greater scheme of things, World Photo Day is an international photography event on August 19th that celebrates the passion for photography in our communities.

Go out and get some pictures.  Print them, if you want – or not 🙂

Aug 18

Happy Palindrome Time!

 

A palindrome exists when letters, numbers, or phrases are the same forward and backward. For example, the words “racecar” and “kayak” are palindromes along with the phrase “Was it a car or a cat I saw?”

The dates this week are all five-digit palindromes. Today is 8-18-18; it’s the same if you read it forward and backward.

 

From 2017:

Jul 17

It’s World Emoji Day Again

 

Another of those Who Knew holidays.

 

World Emoji Day is an unofficial holiday celebrated on July 17. The day is deemed a “global celebration of emoji” and is primarily celebrated online. Celebrated annually since 2014,[NBC reported that the day was Twitter’s top trending item on July 17 in 2015.

Now before the emoji, there were emoticons. Emoticons (emotion + icon) were actually developed as an expression of emotions in the cold hard texts that were devoid of it.

Emoji, a Japanese expression, roughly means “picture word” and was developed in 1990 by Shigetaka Kurita. While working for NTT Docomo, a Japanese telecom company, Kurita design these picture words as a feature on their pagers to make them more appealing to teens.

When Apple released the first iPhone in 2007, an emoji keyboard was embedded to nab the Japanese market. While not intended for U.S. users to find, they did and quickly figured out how to use it.

Every year new emojis (both emoji and emojis are acceptable plural forms of the word) are developed. The emojipedia.org keeps track of all the emoji updates across all platforms and operating systems. There are over 1800 emojis covering much more than just emotions.  From transportation, food, an assortment of wild and domesticated animals to social platforms, weather and bodily functions emojis virtually speak for themselves.

 

 

More about emojis

 

 

Jul 16

Ice Cream Day

ice-cream-day

 

National Ice Cream Day is observed each year on the 3rd Sunday in July and is a part of National Ice Cream Month.  This day is a fun celebration enjoyed with a bowl, cup or cone filled with your favorite flavor of ice cream.

Thousands of years ago, people in the Persian Empire would put snow in a bowl, pour grape-juice concentrate over it and eat it as a treat.  They did this when the weather was hot and used the snow saved in the cool-keeping underground chambers known as “yakhchal”, or taken from the snowfall that remained at the stop of mountains by the summer capital.

It is believed that ice cream was first introduced into the United States by Quaker colonists who brought their ice cream recipes with them.  Their ice cream was sold at shops in New York and other cities during the colonial era.

  • Ben Franklin, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson enjoyed ice cream.
  • 1813 -First Lady Dolley Madison served ice cream at the Inaugural Ball.
  • 1832 – African American confectioner, Augustus Jackson, created multiple ice cream recipes as well as a superior technique to manufacture ice cream.
  • 1843 – Philadelphian, Nancy Johnson, received the first U.S. patent for a small-scale hand-cranked ice cream freezer.
  • 1920 – Harry Burt puts the first ice cream trucks on the streets.

HOW TO OBSERVE

Enjoy National Ice Cream Day by sharing some with your family and friends! Post on social media using #NationalIceCreamDay.

HISTORY

National Ice Cream Day is a holiday declared by President Ronald Reagan back in 1984 to promote the economic well-being of the U.S. dairy industry. It was a nod to the fact that the frozen treat is produced using nearly ten percent of U.S. dairy farmers’ milk supply.

Reagan’s proclamation also called on the people of the United States to do their duty and pay tribute to ice-cream with “appropriate ceremonies and activities.” So who are we to argue?

 

DATES

July 15, 2018
July 21, 2019

 

 

Jul 04

Happy 4th!

Micky-mouse-4th-of-July-greetings

 

 

Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from Great Britain.

Independence Day fireworks are often accompanied by patriotic songs such as the national anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner”, “God Bless America”, “America the Beautiful”, “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee”, “This Land Is Your Land”, “Stars and Stripes Forever”, and, regionally, “Yankee Doodle” in northeastern states and “Dixie” in southern states. Some of the lyrics recall images of the Revolutionary War or the War of 1812.

Have a safe and happy Fourth of July! Share on X

A bit of audio for your listening pleasure, as played by Vladimir Horowitz…

 

 

And, just for fun:

 

 

 

MaryOUSAheart

May 28

Memorial Day 2018

Thanks, Grandpa…  You weren’t American, but you fought valiantly for the cause overseas.

 

I never met my grandfather.  He had died in Peshawar, India, fighting for the Black Watch during World War l.  Peshawar was on the northern frontier of British India, near the Khyber Pass.

In 1947, Peshawar became part of the newly independent state of Pakistan after politicians approved the merger into the state that had just been carved from British India.

peshawar

We have a trunk of his belongings, though, and it’s very interesting to recreate his life.

My dad was born in Scotland in 1913.

In 1914, my grandfather was involved in this:

On the outbreak of war there were seven Black Watch battalions – for in addition to the Regular 1st and 2nd Battalions and 3rd (Special Reserve) Battalion there were a further four Territorial ones which had become part of the Regiment in 1908. They were the 4th Dundee [Mary O’Note: I’m pretty sure this was his, since that’s where my dad was born], 5th Angus, 6th Perthshire and the 7th Battalion from Fife. The 1st Battalion was in action at the very start of the war taking part in the Retreat from Mons before turning on the Germans at the River Marne and the subsequent advance to the Aisne. Trench warfare then set in and the 2nd Battalion arrived from India, both battalions taking part in the Battle of Givenchy. Meanwhile the Territorial battalions had been mobilised at the start of the war but only the 5th was in action in 1914.

From http://www.theblackwatch.co.uk/index/first-world-war

black watch

Black_Watch2

I guess this is why I love the Pipes and Drums of the Black Watch so much.

blackwatch-pipers

Thanks, Grandpa!

In August 2016 we went to the Edinburgh Tattoo for the second time. This had been on my bucket list for a long time since my grandfather was in the Black Watch and I just love to hear bagpipes. Even my cellphone ringtone is Scotland, the Brave.

 

My mom says that my Grandfather’s name is inscribed as a war hero in Edinburgh Castle, where the Tattoo is held.

When we were there last time, I didn’t quite make it to the top of the hill but next time we go, maybe…

You know, I’ll find that, sooner or later.

Thanks again for your service, Grandpa – and everyone who served!

 

May 26

Diamonds, Daisys…

that-girl

 

When I was a young woman, I just loved That Girl.  I’d rush home from school to watch.  Later, several of us would watch in the common room of our dorm at college.

Over the years, I’ve owned videotapes, DVDs.  My mom bought me an episode guide for Christmas one year – which I still have.

I was absolutely excited last year when I found Season 1 is available on Amazon Prime – for free.  I thought it would be just the perfect way to spend these rainy afternoons we’ve been having.  I don’t think I’ve watched it all year, though.  LOL

Each episode begins with a pre-credits teaser in which an odd incident occurs or a discussion foreshadows the episode’s story. The scene almost always ends with someone exclaiming “…that girl!”, just as Ann wanders into the shot or the character notices her. The words “That Girl” would appear over the freeze-frame shot of Ann. The opening credits during the first season featured Thomas, in character, strolling the streets of New York.

 

 

Here’s the very first episode:

 

That Girl starred Marlo Thomas as the title character Ann Marie, an aspiring (but only sporadically employed) actress, who moves from her hometown of Brewster, New York to try to make it big in New York City. Ann has to take a number of offbeat “temp” jobs to support herself in between her various auditions and bit parts.

 

Ted Bessell played her boyfriend Donald Hollinger.  Many times during the show, Ann would say “Oh, Donald”.  It’s become a catchphrase in our family.

I was so sorry when he died in 1996.  It seemed like we were losing a family member.

 

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 8, 1996— Ted Bessell, the actor who starred with Marlo Thomas in the television comedy series ”That Girl” and was a director of the ”Tracey Ullman Show,” died on Sunday at the University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center. He was 57.

The cause was an aortic aneurysm, his family doctor said.

Mr. Bessell’s acting career spanned three decades, with appearances in at least 30 television productions including ”Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.,” ”Breaking Up is Hard to Do” and ”Don’t Drink the Water.” Perhaps his best-known role was as Donald Hollinger, the steady but suffering boyfriend of Ms. Thomas’s character in ”That Girl,” from 1966 to 1971.

”To this day when I’m walking in the street, people stop and ask me, ‘How is Donald?’ ” Ms. Thomas said today.

Ms. Thomas said Mr. Bessell was discussing a feature film remake of the series in which the two main characters, now 25 years older, would meet again and fall in love. ”That Girl,” set in New York City, was one of the first on television to focus on the life of a single woman.

From http://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/09/arts/ted-bessel-57-dies-pursued-that-girl-in-television-sitcom.html

 

That Girl also included a wonderful array of guest stars including Bernie Kopell, Ruth Buzzi, Dabney Coleman, Rob Reiner, Richard Dreyfuss, Carroll O’Connor, Teri Garr, Ethel Merman, Rob Reiner, Bill Bixby, Dick Shawn, Gary Marshall, Sid Caesar, Barry Williams, Vic Tayback, Larry Storch, Danny Thomas, McLean Stevenson, Avery Schreiber, Monty Hall, Jack Cassidy, Carl Reiner, Pat Boone, Russell Johnson, Cloris Leachman, Kenneth Mars, Regis Philbin, Joe Flynn, James Gregory, Reva Rose and Dick Van Patten.

Back to my show and my youth…

 

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