(no subject)

[gottawonder]

66. Ice cream: chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry? Why should anyone have to choose?

67. What historical events happened the year you were born? Atari released Pong. Mark Spitz (swimmer) wins 7 golds at the olympics, and the beginning of Watergate investigations.

68. Pick up a random object that has special meaning to you and describe it in as much detail as possible.
A shiny metallic red heart, about an inch long, and three dimensional. I'm not sure what it's made of, but it's light, and has a little loop at the top so it can be hung. It got separated from it's other little charms; a sun, a star, and a moon. They're here somewhere. This set of little charms was given to me years ago by a friend when we lived in Wyoming, kind of as a blessing for our home.

69. Write about a recent visit to a museum or art gallery. My husband and I have gone to see the new Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton a few times now this year. It's a brand new building, really beautiful. It houses quite a lot of natural history items, a mineral display that is dazzling, dinosaur fossils, a mammoth and mastadon skeleton side by side for comparison (interesting differences between the two species), First Nations artifacts and early Canadian artifacts, as well as a room full of exotic insects.

There is also a gallery for changing displays, and it is currently a very interesting exhibit of Viking items, complete with a full size model of a Viking ship with interactive computer models.

70. What food items do you consider staples in a well-balanced diet? Well, in MY diet, quinoa, veggies, fruit, nuts, lentils and beans, eggs, coconut milk, some dairy, muesli, all figure in pretty often. It's kind of spartan.
71. Describe your feelings in regards to an issue in today’s society, and what would be done to fix it.

Isolation/lonliness. We don't have social and family connections the way we used to (or is that just rose-tinted sentiment?), and our mobile lives mean that we often uproot dramatically fairly often, leaving behind whatever social ties we had managed to make.

As a solution? More community places that for low fees, do art classes for all levels, yoga and meditation, book clubs, drum circles, dance, and walking clubs. Anything to get people into a room together without having to justify themselves, and to give them a context to connect. I think places like this should exist all over the place, in high density. Not expensive places with gym equiment and pools, just a building with a few big rooms, and one room that has a bunch of sofas and board games and coffee and tea. This way people can walk there easily, and have a good chance of meeting someone who is on their block. Right now places like this do exist, but the classes aren't that cheap, and you sign up for one specific thing and only come for one thing a week. I would like people to be able to get a pass that lets them come for anything, every day, and join in. For maybe $20 a month for access to core classes, and coming to just the tea room is free, and extra fees for some of the classes if they are more professional.

72. If you had only one wish, what would you wish for? These one wish things are just traps.

73. If you could tell the world just one thing, what would you say? Did that already.

74. Share a dirty little secret about yourself (or someone else). I'm not in the dirty little secret business.

75. Name a time when you broke a rule or law. Did you get caught, or did you get away with it? I got pulled over because I didn't have the new sticker on my license plate, showing that I had updated the registration, and legit I had not done so. Alberta doesn't send you a notification of the impending expiration of your vehicle registration; you just have to remember it yourself. I guess I did get away with it for a while, it was long overdue, but ultimately I was caught.

76. Have you ever gone skinny dipping? Once, in a dugout; a stinky, gross dugout.

77. Name something you would like to devote more time to seeing or doing. More museums and art galleries. Maybe live musical performances of all kinds. I'd like to get back to all of my creative endeavors once the house thing settles down. I truly hope I can do pottery again soon, if they can find a place for the studio. Hopefully I must not need to resort to trying to make a studio at home.

78. What is the name of your favorite book, magazine, or publication? National Geographic.

79. Describe your first car. New 2000 X-Terra. Green. My husband and I bought it when we were moving to Wyoming.

80. Thunderstorms… Inspiring or scary? Both. Power is like that.