A Tuesday miscellany

 * Couple things in the mail today

First up: my mother has been doing extensive cleaning/decluttering. (I realize now my father was the packrat of the family. Ah well, I have some other of his personality traits). Anyway, as she finds stuff my brother or I might want, she either sends it, or puts it aside from when we're there next. 

This time, she just mailed the thing. (I think she had to go to the post office for some other reason). She said I could do as I wanted with it; I think I will keep it. I might sew a little loop on the back so I can put it up on the tree at Christmas:

It's a little felt turtle. With a sequined shell. It's flat - I don't think I ever planned for this to be a stuffed animal. Interesting design choice: I sewed the sequins on (with seed beads) but then glued the shell to the rest of the body (and the glue has discolored slightly). Though I often did things like that as a kid, got close to finished with a project and just went "I am taking the easiest shortcut so it will be DONE"

But as I said: I think I'll keep it. I think I was 7 or 8 when I made it. 

* I also got a package from a friend who lives in Ohio, not too terribly far from the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. (I have a hard time not typing "National Recreation Area," that's what it was when I grew up there). 

I had expressed a desire for a hiking-staff medallion from there; she sent three. (I will put them all on; it's the park I spent the most time in, except for maybe Chickasaw here now).

I have one from Hawaii Volcanoes that I ordered (I have been there) and I still might call the Summit Metroparks place (they don't have a order form online) and see if I can order a specifically Summit Metroparks one - they are the ones who have Deep Lock Quarry as a park.

* They changed out our computers for new ones, which is good (and they pretty much cloned the hard drive, though we all lost our bookmarks and auto logins for websites). I have two monitors now which I'm still getting used to. But. There are some infelicities with the whole file-sharing system, where the Office suite is now the online one (so not resident on the computer, and I take that to mean if our internet ever goes down for a period of time, we'll be utterly hamstrung about being able to work) and also it does make some things harder - I learned, after MUCH effort and frustration that if you are uploading a file to send to have printed, you cannot ALSO have that file currently open in Word - you must close it first.

Which seems silly. There's probably a reason for it (maybe forcing people to think about "is this the most recent version?" but it is annoying and I'm slowly building a small mosaic of post-it notes around my new computer to remind me "you have to do THIS thing THIS way now" because I have no memory left for things like that (I think I am just overextended, but that's not going to let up). 

* Laura may not be able to meet up on Friday (work and family issues). I'm more okay with that than I thought I might be. I am sad not getting to hang out with her (if she can't meet up) but I admit it would be a relief not to have a three hour drive each way. (I wouldn't drive that far other than for a meet up and day of hanging out). My tentative substitute plan is Chickasaw National Recreation Area (and also The Spice and Tea Exchange after). 

* Angela Lansbury died today. I'm sadder about this than I thought I might be. I think it is because she was sort of an actress who was "always there." I knew her best as Jessica Fletcher, some years back I linked to this article about the fundamental goodness of the moral universe of the show.

I dunno. I just liked Jessica Fletcher. She has, and espouses, a clear sense of right and wrong, and yet, at the same time, you get the sense there's kindness and mercy there, that she would forgive someone who was truly contrite. And she was clearly smart - too often television in the 80s celebrated dumbness, and it was nice to have a smart character who read and wrote books and had smart friends. (The early seasons, mostly set in Cabot Cove, were my favorites). 

And yes, yes, I know: a lot of people are making jokes about how everywhere she went, there were murders, and hmmm? I guess I never worried that much about it - I mean, I knew it was really just a show, and we all really should relax. Or if pressed - she was a writer, correct? Perhaps many of those murders never happened; instead she was plotting out a book in her mind and had herself as a self-insert character. (That would actually be an interesting premise for a show, the "what is real, and what is the writer's imagination" distinction. Though maybe too subtle to be popular). 

I also know her version of "We Need a Little Christmas" (and how sad that the Broadway version of Auntie Mame, with her in the lead, was never filmed) as my favorite version of that song. 

And the under-rated (IMHO) and under-remembered Disney movie "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," where she was sort of an apprentice witch who wound up saving the day (driving some would-be nazi invaders away, with a substitutionary locomotion spell).

I know she did LOTS of things, but those are the ones I know and remember - I've seen a few of her early movies where she was sometimes more of a supporting character - but I don't remember them like I remembered Bedknobs and Broomsticks.