Fun Monday - Dinner Party

Our hostesses for the month of March, the Georgia Girls at In Good Company ask, "If you could invite 5 other people for dinner and conversation, who would be on the guest list?  A famous person, a favorite author, someone who shares one of your hobbies or passions, etc.  Do you have a question for them?  (If you want to include the obvious people, that's okay, but maybe there are some other individuals who might enjoy a night out." 


My mother, Laura Gray, loved to throw dinner parties. Although during the week, we might eat tasty but  routine meals (cooked by my father). On party days, my mother became the chef extraordinaire creating feasts of gastronomic renown. She cooked for friends frequently. Additionally, she was a grand hostess and a capable conversationalist making her all of her guests feel at home and included in the conversation. One time she prepared a feast for thieves and murderers, who were giving a presentation to the youth at our church. 


Unfortunately, I did not inherit my mother's flair for throwing parties. Thus, my dinner party would need to be a catered event. Now, who would be on my guest list? In honor of Women's History Month, I will invite five women, Eleanor Roosevelt, Sojourner Truth, Gladys Alyward, Mary Ann Evans (George Elliot) , and Madame Curie. I will pose this question to my honored dinner guests. "How were you able to overcome the bias against women still achieve greatness?" (These women are representative of women, who achieved success in times or in areas of male supremacy . Of course, a number of others throughout history could speak at length about the topic.)

Fun Monday - A Dilemma

During the month of March, the Georgia Girls at In Good Company are the lovely hostesses of Fun Monday. Today our task is "to list 5 things you are willing to spend your hard earned cash on and five things you would rather steal (hypothetically) than waste your money on." 

When I first read the assignment, I was not sure that I wanted to participate. What me steal? My overactive conscience does let me steal. When I was about 8 years old, my older sister and I were at the local movie theatre. She gave me a dime and sent me out for a pack of gum. Unfortunately, when at the counter, I dropped the dime. Afraid that my sister would yell at me for being careless, I stole one pack of Wrigley's Doublemint gum off the counter. Returning to my seat, I gave my sister the stolen goods. Gum at that time cost five cents, so of course, my sister wanted the change. I had no change to give her so she scolded me for losing the change. Anyway, my crime weighted heavy on my soul for weeks. As penance, I returned more than one nickel secretly to the theatre counter. Nonetheless, I was sure that the pack of gum was my one way ticket to HELL. On the other hand, I am really not so self-righteous to claim that I do no wrong. My 64 year old self came up with these two lists.

Items to spend hard earned cash.

1. Necessities like food, shelter, transportation, clothes
2. Charity
3. Presents for family and friends 
4. Entertainment
5. Leisure

Things that I might have taken

1. Good ideas
2. Lilacs - When I was a senior in high school, a good friend and I cut some lilacs from a bush in an alley. We took the bouquet to her mom, who was in the hospital.
3. Songs - Although I would never, ever dream of copying an album and selling it for personal gain or profit, I have purchased music and copied a song for another format for my own use. Technically even though you paid for the original, this is stealing.
4. Words - Plagiarism is defined as "Whenever you use more than three words in a row that occurred exactly in the same order in your source material, put the words into quotation marks and use a parenthetical note or footnote or endnote to give credit to your source." (From http://www.mnstate.edu , "Plagiarism: what it is and how to avoid it") The limitation of three words seems harsh to me.
5. Time - If time is not used productively, it is gone, vanished and never can be returned. In my lifetime, I have wasted more than a few moments by worrying about what might have been or about what is yet to come. Those moments are gone forever as if they have been stolen.