The Electric Slide and Mint Chocolate Ice Cream

Last Friday at our annual "Employee Appreciation Day," actually a one-hour event in which judges donned plastic gloves and aprons and served us ice cream, I proved that it is possible to dance the Electric Slide while consuming a waffle cone filled with mint chocolate ice cream. Enough said.

The Reality Of Growing Older

I was the Table Topics Master at my Toastmasters club today. Considering that I recently celebrated a birthday, that my family will get together this weekend for my mom's 84th birday, and that my oldest daughter turns 21 this month, aging is on my mind. Thus, I chose as my theme "The Reality of Growing Older." I asked each speaker to comment on one of the following quotations:

"I was born in the wrong generation. When I was a young man, no one had any respect for youth. Now I am an old man and no one has any respect for age."--Bertrand Russell

"After you've done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over."--Alfred Edward Perlman

"It is well documented that for every minute that you exercise, you add one minute to your life. This enables you at 85 years old to spend an additional 5 months in a nursing home at $5,000 per month."--Unknown

"Thousands of geniuses live and die every year undiscovered--either by themselves or by others."--Mark Twain

"It is not good for all your wishes to be fulfilled. Through sickness you recognize the value of health, through evil the value of good, through hunger satisfaction, through exertion the value of rest."--Heraclitis

"A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."--Jackie Robinson (whose words appear on his tombstone as his epitaph)

"You know you are getting older when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you can do as long as you are already down there."--George Burns

"Women over 50 don't have babies because they would put them down and forget where they left them."--Unknown

I concluded by sharing this quote: "So much is pressing in on humans today that no one has time to stand still long enough to evaluate it. They gulp life and taste nothing. They eat life and have no savor."--Geraldine Farrar (former opera star, on her 80th birthday)


Here are a few others on aging from my quote file:

"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young."--Henry Ford

"Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to the future generation."--George Bernard Shaw

"One thing that stirs me when I look back at my youthful days, the fact that so many people gave me something or were something to me without knowing it."--Albert Schweitzer

"Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years wrinkle the face, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-interest, fear, despair--these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust."--Watterson Lowe


The Word of the Day provided by our Grammarian was "scintillating." I commented that the word appears on my blog. When I asked how many people read blogs, only one hand went up. One person asked what a blog is. I doubt that he was the only one with that question. I mentioned this blog and sent out an e-mail letting people know where to find it. I am curious to see how many people actually look for it.

Hitting the Highlights

My fiance over at Steve's Corner has asked me to update my blog. Unlike some bloggers, such as our friend Lisa, my blogging thus far has been infrequent. In order to appease the man in my life, I'll list these highlights:

(1) Scott graduated from the Naval Postgraduate School with a Masters in Systems Engineering. We went up to Monterey for the graduation, where we met up with Scott's parents and with members of his cohort. Obviously I am very proud of him and the two and one-half years of hard work he put into the the Masters program. I look forward to his putting that knowledge into action both in his professional life (obtaining lead positions at work) and his personal one (wedding and marriage planning). And of course I look forward to our having more time to spend with each other.

(2) In honor of his graduation, I agreed on a wedding date: the first Saturday in October 2008. He said he'll hold me to it.

(3) I was able to spend quality time with Scott's parents, including a day at the Monterey Aquarium. They are wonderful people and already treat me and my girls as part of their family. My younger daughter has been referring to them as her grandparents ever since last November. The five of us went to the Spaghetti Factory the night before they returned home, which was great because it was the only opportunity by daughter had to see them this trip. They are talking about returning in February for the Dickens Festival in downtown Riverside.

(4) My daughter's volleyball team won its first game. That puts them 1-1. I was thrilled to see her actually get a point by serving. Actually, I was thrilled just to see her serve go over the net. If there were an award for the greatest team spirit that day, her team probably would have won it. They enthusiastically celebrated each point scored and cheered each other on.

(5) I received a Notice of Entry of Judgment letting me know that my maiden name has been restored. I decided some time ago that returning to my maiden name will have positive effects on my mental health. I found out today that the court is a bit slow--the judgments are not Imaged and input into the system until about five days after they have been entered. I was told that I could mail in a request and get the judgment back in two or three weeks. I think I will check back later in the week and then, when I find that the judgment has made it into the system, go down and get a certified copy. Then the real fun begins. The DMV won't do a name change until the change is made with Social Security, and Social Security won't do a name change without a certified copy of the name change document. I need to change my name with my employer, my credit union, my credit cards, the utility companies, everyone who knows me .... And I've been waiting to apply for a passport under my maiden name. After all this hassle, which I last went through about 23 years ago, I think I will be loathe to ever change my name again! (Yes, Scott, after we get married we can be known socially as Mr. and Mrs. H, but I'll keep my maiden name for everything else.)