Fours Meme - Updated

Becase wolfbaby asked so nicely.


Four Jobs I have had

Waitress

Shoe salesperson

Statistical typist/bookkeeper/general flunky (on a typewriter with the world's longest carriage (3 feet) and an entire row of tab sets Strange beast. At least it was electric.) I did that twice; once with a large San Francisco morning paper and then for a steamship line back in the days when the USA actually had more than one.

Insurance broker (ships at sea) (Actually I had a solicitor's license but that always sounds slightly kinky. People wonder what I was soliciting.)

Four (oops five) movies I would watch over and over

Susie sure is picky.

Fargo (may be my all time favorite)

The Magic Flute (Ingmar Bergman) This one is fun and a good start for kids and opera.

La Traviata (Franco Zeffirelli) Teresa Stratas seems to have found her niche portraying tubercular women who have fallen from grace. She does a great Mimi in La Boheme as well (not on film but it is on dvd).

Carmen (Julia Migenes-Johnson/Placido Domingo) She is the best Carmen I've ever seen. Maybe not the greatest voice but she fits my idea of what Carmen should be.

The Third Man (partly for the zither but mostly for Orson Welles)

(aren't you glad you asked?)

Four places I have lived (Doesn't include my home town, Detroit, Albuquerque, San Jose, Memphis, Jonesboro, AR, or any whistle stops I may have forgotten)

Buffalo, NY

Phoenix, AZ

San Francisco, CA

Merced, CA

Four TV Shows I love to watch

Giants baseball

Law & Order (all of them - counts as 3)

Four places I have been on vacation

Vacation? Except for the trip east, these were all long weekends.

Marysville, CA (long story)

Eureka, CA

Paradise/Magalia, CA

Mohawk Valley/Adirondack Mountains, NY (trip home)

Four sites I visit daily (please don't feel left out. I get to everyone on the sidebar and some who aren't there as often as possible.)

Too tired to do links. Blogging Baby is on my sidebar; all others, including wolfbaby, are on the Blogroll.

Blogging Baby

ipodmomma (Mollie)

One Girl & Her Cats (Alice)

The Homesick Home (L.)


============

This one has been around for a while. I've been tagged before and can't remember for sure if I did it. Not tagging anyone. If you haven't done it and would like to, feel free.

****************
Ray sounded better yesterday and today. He hoped to be out but I'd rather wait and have him well than have him sent home to soon.

Yesterday a friend I hadn't seen in years stopped by. We sat around here and chatted; then he took me to lunch. Lovely surprise. We both went to see Ray for a little while after lunch.

I took the younger girls in the evening to display of safe and sane ground fireworks sponsored by the Merced HS band. It's always fun as well as letting people know what fireworks are available. I went back the next day with Tim and we picked up some between us. Not a huge amount; just enough for the girls to enjoy.

Then we (all of us) went to lunch and then dress shopping for Elcie. Found a nice dark green scoop neck dress and a pair of tan Naturalizer dress flats. Shoes are always a hassle. They have to be flexible to go over her foot which knocks out at least half of what's out there. She can't wear a heel or a platform; sandals don't provide enough support (although she wears them for dress sometimes anyway). Doesn't leave much to choose from in our price range.

Rebecca was feeling puny much of today. I took Elcie with me this morning for my regular coffee date. Carol was home with the other two. Rebecca called around 11 and said her tummy and head hurt. Meantime, Tim had called and invited me to lunch and I said sure; he could help me shop for Elcie. I went home, gathered up Rebecca and Rochelle and set off to meet Tim. Already talked about the shopping trip, etc. We had lunch but Rebecca couldn't eat and she whimpered all the way through the store. I would have taken her back home but the store was right next door to the restaurant and I thought it might take her mind off her ailments. It didn't. I finally got her back home, she slept for a couple of hours, got up and went to her mom's for a little while. I picked up R & R around eight for the real fireworks (Elcie begged off), picked up Tim (again), and Rebecca was sick again. Finally decided it was sinus (Dr. Ann here), stopped and bought some Comtrex and snacks. She was feeling fine 30 minutes later and it hasn't come back. I figure the headache triggered the tummyache earlier. She was tensing up which made her hurt all over.

The fireworks were a fizzle. We got there right before they started and they lasted about ten minutes tops. We said "Was that it?" No grand finale, they just stopped. We drove back and lit the ones Tim and I had bought. They were more fun. Baby Jonathan had his first 4th of July and was wideeyed right up to the minute he fell asleep.

And somewhere I have misplaced two packages of sparklers. We know they were in the same bag as the others so where did they go? I'll probably turn them up in time for Labor Day.

Hope all of you who celebrated had a great time (as well as those of you who didn't).

Here's What We're Celebrating Tomorrow

Declaration of Independence

[Adopted in Congress 4 July 1776]

---

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levey war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Butterscotch (blonde) Brownies

I knew someone would come through. From Sue
at Susie's Space Thanks to Pea as well for remembering Sue's post. I remembered her comment on Sue's blog but not who said it. I'm hopeless and I must start saving recipes and such as drafts when I first find them.

1 cup butter or margarine
2 1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup pecan halves

Preheat oven to 350.
Grease 8x11 pan.
Melt butter.
Mix with brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla until well blended.
Add flour and chopped pecans, mix until well blended.
Pour into greased pan.
Sprinkle halved pecans across the top of batter.
Bake about 35 minutes, until brownie springs back in center when pressed.
Let cool, then cut into squares.

************************************

Note: I'd probably use walnuts unless I just won the lottery. I don't know why pecans are so much more expensive but they are.

When I lived in Memphis and then Jonesboro, AR, my bil had two pecan trees in his backyard. We could and did rake pecans into baskets and used them for everything. In upstate NY, where I grew up, it was all walnuts. I like pecans mich better but if I use walnuts I can make three times as many brownies for the same amount of money.

My mom used to make two batches of all her cookies. One with nuts and one without. It must have been my brother who didn't like nuts. It sure wasn't me.

Have a great day. I'll probably be back later.