This week’s Sunday Stealing is One to Ten.
One song that describes my life.
I’m trying to pick a song I haven’t discussed recently. From Paul Simon’s Still Crazy After All These Years album is a tune called Have A Good Time, which I used to play every March 8 for about two decades. The lyrics begin:
Yesterday, it was my birthdayI hung one more year on the lineI should be depressedMy life’s a messBut I’m having a good time
Two things I wish I had more of in my life
Money, though I’d give most of it away, and time.
Three ways I relax
Getting a massage, listening to music, taking a nap
Four of my best accomplishments
Blogging for nearly 18 years, winning on JEOPARDY, figuring out some genealogical puzzles, and working long enough so that my wife’s health insurance is paid for until she’s 65 and my daughter’s until she’s 26
Five things I am looking forward to
Visiting Vermont again, reading several books, attending Jagged Little Pill, attending Ain’t Too Proud, going to a concert
Six things I am grateful for
My wife, my daughter, my sisters, my friends, living in a walkable neighborhood, and my house (despite its flaws, but don’t tell it I said so)
Seven Deadly Sins
Seven facts about me
I met former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1973, I introduced Rod Serling at a high school assembly in 1970, I’m much more likely to remember numbers than words, I was born on a Saturday, I’ve never been off North America, I’m the oldest of three children, and I know all of the two-letter postal abbreviations for the 50 states
Eight things I can see from where I am sitting
Lots of books, several Hess trucks, photos of my wife and daughter, my inhaler (which I haven’t needed lately), an empty diet cherry Pepsi bottle, a file cabinet that had been spray-painted blue, the radiator, a lamp
Nine words I would use to describe myself
Intelligent, cautious, opinionated, political, musical, curious, melancholy, considerate, observant
Ten little things that make me happy
Watching kids read, barbershop quartet harmony, people holding the door for others, kittens, missing all of the red lights when going to church, getting JEOPARDY questions correct when all three players fail to ring in, fixing something mechanical (not generally my strong suit), people shoveling their walks after a snowstorm, listening to Italian even though I do not understand it, a clean kitchen counter