It was a great night for the Good, the Battleship, and the Ugly this month at the Movie Quiz.
We aren’t even holding up the bottom of the middle; we’re smack dab in the middle! Our 130 points is 10 above what I consider an acceptable score!
Fun names this month: Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie, the quiz; the Rambo Connection; and Ken Burns’s Squatty Potty
Those clever library workers have done it again with this book display.
What could they be getting at?
These are some gorgeous edges!
There has been square dancing drama, and a new square dance group has come into my life: Fun Squares. On this night, we visited the Happy Hoppers in Vancouver for their anniversary dance. We elected to wear polka dots, and, as you can see, look great.
It was a big turnout and a crowded floor and some good dancing.
I’ve created a self-study program to better learn grammar and sentence diagramming. One of my tutorials was the Get Smart Grammar Program from the Grammar Revolution Website. I have now completed all 37 lessons, and I am much better at diagramming sentences.
Elizabeth O’Brien is quite good at simplifying and explaining things. If you are looking for more grammar skilz, including the waning art of diagramming sentences, check out her website. There are a lot of free resources.
Back in November, I signed up for Grammar Revolution’s Sentence Diagram a Day.
Each month, Elizabeth selects a book to feature, and then gives us a week-daily email with a sentence to diagram.
In the email, she gives us a sentence, breaks down the parts, and shows us how to diagram it. It’s been a very good learning experience, though I am often a few days behind.
For the month of April, the book we were diagramming from was The Princess Bride. This was nice, because the sentences were somewhat easier than some of the books we’ve been working from. Books in the public domain often have a complex writing style.
She saved the best sentence for the last day of April:
I nearly got the whole thing on my own. I missed the infinitive as direct object. But other than that!
I wanted a somewhat lighter bag for summer. The orange leather one has been a great fall/winter bag, but it was time to lighten up. Enter, this new Maruca bag. It arrived today.
As I was going through the pockets, I found Maruca’s calling card.
And in the back zipper pocket, I also found Emma’s Algebra quiz on factoring???
It amused me, and had me running scenarios as to how Emma’s quiz made it into the bag. I sent the quiz back with a note saying how much I liked the bag and congratulations to Emma, factoring whiz. I heard back from the owner via email more or less immediately after she received the mail. She said:
I wanted to reach out and thank you for the lovely note you sent us. I laughed so hard! Recently I was walking through the warehouse looking at some of my favorite patterns when my daughter came running in to show me her most recent math score. It was a herculean effort on her part and we were so excited! Hugging with such excitement that I totally forgot what I was doing. Emma and I walked back to my office and in all the excitement and silliness I put the test in the bag. Yes, I was wearing it. I randomly test our bags to make sure QC is catching everything. I put the bag on to test fit, zippers and strap and I look for any imperfections.
I also laughed. What a fun random happenstance.
The Albina Library has this display about Coretta Scott King. I enjoyed reading it.
This was my favorite part:
Initially, I wondered who the author of this great display was, but further research has shown that it was curated by students from a local elementary school, presumably Dr. Martin Luther King Elementary School. The quote make a little more sense in that context.
Thank you, Black History Festival NW, for this display.
People who attended the first week’s 70mm screening of Marty Supreme at the Hollywood got to take home not only a poster but also a box of Marty Supreme orange table tennis balls. (Never wear black again.) So. Much. Fun!
There was also a local table tennis club tabling, so I brought home their flyer.
All of this went to my friend S. North, who actually plays ping pong.
After dropping Matt, Linda, and Rick off at the airport, I went to Ikea, and then I had planned to hang about Hollywood for a bit of time before my 2:30 move showtime.
I discovered that unless one is eating (or seeing a movie, but it wasn’t yet time for my movie) there’s not a ton to do on a Sunday in Hollywood. The Rite-Aid closed and turned into a Planet Fitness and the antique mall is closed on Sundays, Ray’s Ragtime isn’t where it once was, and the clothing store I thought I would check out had gone out of business and were moving their naked mannikins into a U-Haul.
I ended up wandering slowly through Trader Joes and then took a tiny street behind the Hollywood Theatre that I hadn’t walked down before.
And what did I find? Lockbuster? What might this be?
In the tiny storefront was a huge display of VHS tapes. When I got closer, I saw that the labels were top-notch. Who wouldn’t want a “vaguely British/Hitchcock” category.
Or a “holy pursuits” category that included both Excalibur and Monty Python’s the Holy Grail.
This label elicited a bark of laughter:
And I also enjoyed the “movies that look like this” category as that packaging was very familiar to me and I had forgotten its existence.
On a return visit to this window, a passerby informed me that this is an escape room, pulling the “Lockbuster” name into focus.
In elementary school, I purchased 40 Presidents Facts and Fun at a book fair. It was one of those books that had an outsized effect on me.
First of all, I can tell you immediately that Ronald Regan was the 40th president, because that’s where the book ends. Also, it shored up my interest in olden days stuff. And for some reason, the title has always delighted me. Most of the time when someone is referring to a president by number, I will think, “Forty Presidents Facts and Fun!” and feel a squee of glee.
In lieu of reading while I am awake in the middle of the night, I’ve taken to memorizing the presidents in order. And that got me to thinking about 40 Presidents Facts and Fun.
I had given my copy away, but it was time to welcome it back into the fold. I found a copy on Thriftbooks, and paid about five dollars more for it now than I did back at the Scholastic book fair.
My copy has arrived, and I have started reading. Verdict? This was not a book that prioritized good prose for young people. The sentences are short and choppy, and the profiles vary depending on the length of the presidency (which makes sense; there’s not much to say about William Henry Harrison’s short time in office) and how popular the president in question was when the book was written. The Andrew Jackson bio was quite lengthy in a way I don’t think it would be today.
It’s also bizarre what the text focuses on. I know, for instance, that John Adams was very fat, and that John Quincy Adams, was nearly as fat as his father. Not something that adds a lot of knowledge about the president.
When I finish reading, I’m looking forward to finding the modern equivalent of 40 Presidents Facts and Fun and seeing what the similarities and differences are.
