Okay 1960s music fans, tell me all you can about Donovan’s musical valentine that made it to #1 on the Billboard’s pop chart in 1966. Other than the phrase “Sunshine Superman” is never uttered among the rambling lyrics. Time’s up. I don’t know that much about it either. He wrote it for his then girlfriend/future wife although they may have already had one of their kids by then. It was a confusing time.  I only bring it up because I personally am a Sunshine Superman. Or. Sunshine Blogger Superman, now having been twice singled out (once doubled out?) for the honor. This time you can blame it on Vicki at Victoria Ponders. If you were around in April 2018, you could blame Sue. I’d include a link to her blog also because why not, but she is no longer blogging.

It doesn’t seem like that long ago does it. Um, 2018, not 1966. Seven years. Your basic Statute of Limitations interval. In 2018 I was tagged with tagging 8 others for the Sunshine Blogger Award. A few weeks before that, in January 2018, I was tapped for the Blogger Recognition Award which included a requirement to nominate 10 others. My nominator for that award is also no longer blogging. In fact, of the 18 blogs that I singled out between the two awards, four bloggers are still plying these pixels, one of them quite sporadically.

 Enough Memory Laning, let’s get down to business with this year’s festivities. Fair warning, this a lot to this post. Pull up a chair and get comfy.

According to dear Vicki, the rules are:

• Display the award’s official logo somewhere on your blog.
  • Thank the person who nominated you.
  • Provide a link to your nominator’s blog.
  • Answer your nominators’ questions.

Easy enough. Except it isn’t. More on that later. Let’s get started with the easy stuff, with a hearty Thank you [Yay!] to Vicki, and her remarkable writings on this platform at Victoria Ponders. The logo is here somewhere, look around. Now on to the semi-easy stuff. Miss Victoria’s Eleven Queries.

What is your morning routine?
Mornings and I have a complicated relationship. Even though most days I don’t have to be up at any time in particular I still crawl out of bed early, often just as the sun is rising (except in winter when it’s pert near noon(!) before the sun crests the horizon). Take whenever the exact time I get out of bed and go back about 10 minutes. That’s when I thank God for another day and take a few minutes of silent meditation.  We are then out of bed, heading for formal prayers, morning ablutions, a couple good morning messages, then juice and coffee while I make breakfast.

What is your favorite season? Why?
I just walked a similar path in comments to a blog by Ally at The Spectacled Bean regarding most and least favorite months. My favorite month is October so by extension my favorite season is Fall. I’m not a good cold-weather person. I want warmth and sun and one of my favorite spots in the world is Puerto Rico. Still, I could not go through a year without the crisp Autum air, the first hint of wood burning in fireplaces while taking a walk, picking apples and making fresh apple soup (delicious), and marveling over the colors, oh the colors. Yep. Fall.

What is your favorite childhood memory?
Childhood was so long ago. I’m not sure if the memories are memories of what happened or memories of what I thought happened. A lot of the memories aren’t necessarily the happiest things a kid can go through, like being lowered through the basement window to unlock the doors after a vacation because the keys were undiscoverable and I was the only one small enough to get through the little vent like window. I think the fondest of the memories all centered around vacations, which for us were road trips to visit relatives. I don’t recall many parks, or rides, or games, but I remember the trips to wherever from the back seat of the family car. I wrote about that back seat here.

Who or what has been your most unlikely teacher?
Now the questions are getting harder. I will give you a who. The artist, Andy Warhol. And it isn’t because I’m still looking for those 15 minutes. He once said “Don’t think about making art. Just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” What I took from that is don’t spend so much time thinking about doing something that you never get around to doing it, or waiting for THE perfect moment that never comes around. I wrote about that too. That one is over at ROAMcare, Think less, do more, then do more again.

Who or what are you most proud of?
Without a question, that’s a who and that’s the daughter, who let me think I was teaching her how to be a good person when all the while, she was teaching me.

What is something that surprises people about you?
Without a doubt, that I have a creative side. My entire professional life has been analytic, whether in practice, or when teaching, or even in volunteer positions where I’d usually head some committee or be stuck doing the finances. There are few who realize I can paint, play piano, and write. Am I an artist, a pianist, an author? No, but I could play one of each on TV.

What motivated you to start blogging?
I dunno. I’ll get back to you on that.

What forms of entertainment do you enjoy the most?
This varies depending on mood but I’m always in the mood for an old movie, a 1930’s, 40’s, 50’s movie, preferably something with at least one murder and one that’s been adapted from a book so I can read it and argue with myself about which is better.

If you are a book reader, do you prefer a paper copy or a digital copy?
I’ll read anything, book, digital, magazine article or serial (do they do that anymore?), but I prefer a book. I really do geek over the feel and the smell and the heft of a book and the physical turning of the pages and seeing the story progress as much as feeling it.

What’s your favorite music genre, and who is your favorite singer?
That’s a little of a toss-up. For straight up listening or playing, it would be jazz, modern, smooth, traditional, any sort of jazz and by far my favorite artist/composer is pianist David Benoit. But… you can’t sing jazz in the shower. For that, it’s 1960’s ballads.

What societal causes do you care about the most?
Healthcare. Fair, equitable, reasonable, affordable healthcare. Between battling a rare disease, bladder cancer, and a failed kidney transplant all in short order, I nearly bankrupted myself. I’d love to see some equitable distribution of services so we at least can provide basic primary care to everyone. We never will because “they” have discovered most people will pay anything to stay alive so more providers will charge anything. I honestly do believe if I were to hit a lottery for $8 billion or so, I’d open as many free clinics as I could and treat as many people as possible until the well ran dry. Maybe it would encourage others to do the same.

So that’s the easy and the not so easy part of this assignment. Now according to the rules, which haven’t changed in 7 years. I must craft a set of questions to be answers by a group of unsuspecting bloggers. I hesitate to name “up to 11” fellow bloggers because you see what happened the last time. Most of them are gone, poof, disappeared. I’d hate that to happen to any of you.

But first, the questions. These will be easy, at least as far as I can tell.

1. What is your worst bad habit or secret vice?
2. Would you rather read or write?
3. How do you describe yourself physically and does your go to ID picture look like that?
4. How do you describe yourself emotionally?
5. Are you an Oscar or a Felix? And do you understand the reference or did you have to research it?
6. What celebrity, living or dead, would you like to have dinner with.
7. What is the longest drive or ride (including bus or train rides) you have ever taken?
8. Cat, dog, both, other, neither?
9. What’s the most embarrassing thing in your refrigerator?
10. Do you have a superstition or what do you do to avoid bad luck or encourage good luck?
11. If you couldn’t live where you live now, what different country would you pick based on beauty, culture, what you know, what you hear or read about, and price is no object?
12. If you couldn’t live when you live now, what different time or historical era would you pick based on however you pick such a thing?

Now for the hardest part of this nonsense, errr honor. Picking others to follow in my footsteps. First, a review of the rules:

• Display the award’s official logo somewhere on your blog.
  • Thank the person who nominated you.
  • Provide a link to your nominator’s blog.
  • Answer your nominators’ questions
  • Nominate up to 11 bloggers.
  • Ask your nominees 11 questions.

I honestly hesitate to do this, but here we go.

First, Vicki at Victoria Ponders, I really would like to hear your answers so to you I extend my questions but you can skip all the other rigmarole, errr details.

I should stop right there. Some people I would forward this to have received the same from either Vicki or one or two levels up. There are a few people I’d love to hear from although I’d understand if these don’t fit your blog’s concept.

Kris at Around the Corner

Belle at Between the Lyme

For Rachel (Rachel Mankowitz) and Dayle (Tip of the Iceberg), I know this isn’t the sort of thing you would write about but you do bring me sunshine and I certainly won’t exclude you.

Wynne (Surprised by Joy) and Ally (The Spectacled Bean), I’d love to include you but it’s terribly unfair of me to asks you to do all this again. But then I am sort of telling Vicki I want her to do it again so what do I know.

And of course, anybody else who wants to have at it, have at it. Years ago, I was much more active writing, reading, and commenting. Today, I read a select but cherished few and comment even less, but I do read and I do enjoy. I think I’ll stop now.