Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
Melissa Etheridge once said this about parenting: “I think being a parent is knowing how to love. Sometimes love is discipline, sometimes it’s humor, sometimes it’s listening.”
I look forward to practicing different flavors of love and support with my kids over this week’s Thanksgiving break. I was about to start a sentence with the phrase “When I was a kid,” a phrase used by the people who are safeguarding much of the wealth in America. Millennials own just 3.2% of America’s wealth, whereas people from the Silent Generation and the Baby Boomers own closer to 80%. No wonder many young voters, along with Bernie Sanders, harbor suspicions about the millionaires and billionaires running for president, as well as about anyone who is as old as Bernie Sanders.
That said, when I was a kid, we got just Thursday and Friday off from school for Thanksgiving, whereas now my DJUSD and Woodland school-kids get the whole week off. Maybe American families need more time to research Thanksgiving carb-loading strategies and Black Friday purchases?
NaNoWriMo is almost over, and my novel is undrafted. No one is to blame but myself, for I overfill my schedule, only with giving rather than consuming. Last night, for example, something like eight journalism students attended my Sunday evening office hours at Crepeville. And although I didn’t “have time” to go over their drafts with all of them, I delighted in doing so, for I think I teach some of my best lessons one-on-one in office hours. The last of my charges left my 8-10PM office hours at 10:55 PM (hence the late publication time of today’s newsletter).
Earlier in the day yesterday, I agreed to a series of meetings with the organizers of a series of lectures on anti-racist topics at the Davis Shambhala Meditation Center. They need a marketing consultant. This weekend I also booked guests for my Wednesday radio show, and sent out the press releases for the December 5th reading at the Natsoulas Gallery.
None of this work for our community of culture-lovers equips me to buy more stuff on Black Friday. I guess instead my family and I will have to limit ourselves to long nature walks with the French Bulldog, Mondavi Center shows (we attended two just last week), and tree-lighting. I’m sure that each of these occasions will give me opportunity to follow the advice of Melissa Etheridge, though with a focus on the listening and the humor. I hope your Thanksgiving break is similarly filled with conversation, communion, and joy.
And if you anticipate any difficult conversations over the break, I will leave you with the advice of Robert Frost: “The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended–and not to take a hint when a hint isn’t intended.”
Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on topics raised above, and on the following: chemistry, Latin clouds, bringing balance to the Force, living and dead singers, the letter A, popular and unpopular places to live in the U.S., letter carriers, World War II substitutions, scrying, lopsides, cordial logicians among the horses, analytic geometry, the example of Jackie Robinson, best-sellers, old specimens, the Prince of Wales, talk show hosts, notable rivers, writing about dead people, hard cutbacks, youthful hubris, complaining athletes, common and uncommon words, veterinary anagrams, people named Murphy, Asian nations, centenary battles, Vitamin C, people born in 1963, Guinness World Records, checks, three-letter answers, and Shakespeare.
See you tonight at 7! There may be Star Wars swag tonight.
Your Quizmaster
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Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:
- Star Wars. The antagonist of the new and the most recent Star Wars movies was named after what famous Star Wars character?
- Science. The bullfrog breeding season is closest to two weeks, three months, nine months, or year-round?
- Books and Authors. What four- or five-syllable M word completes the title of this book by Ian Stewart? Significant Figures: The Lives and Work of Great BLANK-BE-BLANK-BLANKS.
P.S. When Kate read about my Sunday, she texted me her update on her Monday morning: “Well at least I am also working hard: cleaning out the gutters, getting my 10,000 steps in before noon, feeding the kids breakfast and lunch, getting all our medications at the pharmacy, finishing my book, and getting back to those gutters!” She also exhausted the bulldog, always a priority in our house. Peace.
P.P.S. Hat tip to Melissa Skorka, that other Melissa to whom I would always be happy to turn to for advice. We miss you, Melissa!