"Same Time, Next Year"

We watched "Same Time, Next Year" with Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn.  It is a 1978 film available on Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube and Apple TV.  I guess the movie was much like the play that ran before it.  I thought the dialogue was especially good, appropriate and clever.  It is true that the film is about meeting a person of the opposite sex for a weekend in a motel room annually so if you can't stand watching sweet sinners, you might not like it.  

Storks and babies

Just to get to the bottom of the matter, I asked the internet if storks bring babies.  We were considering various stories that have been used to explain the occurrence of babies, money that appeared after the loss of a tooth, and gifts delivered on Christmas.

Yahoo reported 45, 800 answers to my inquiry but the first one listed was composed by artificial intelligence:

"To clarify the myth about storks bringing babies, consider these points:

• Storks are often depicted in folklore as baby deliverers, but this is a myth.

• The origin of this myth may stem from ancient cultures associating storks with fertility and new life.

• In reality, babies are born through human reproduction, not delivered by birds.

• Storks do care for their own young, which may have contributed to the legend.

• The stork myth is often used in children's stories to explain where babies come from in a gentle way.

• Understanding the real process of childbirth can help dispel this myth."

We see many babies but we have never seen a stork around here.

Delete, delete

I got a notice from Apple that I am running low on space and need to buy more for saving things.  I do care about my past and my family but I am confident I have enough documents and pictures.  So, I spent about an hour or so deleting things.  While doing that I stumbled on a giant patch of photos of a QR code.  I imagine there is a setting somewhat that will avoid saving such photographs.  I guess some smart intelligence kicked in and kept showing me photos of that.  I doggedly deleted over and over, finding it a bit faster to use a pen with a soft rubber button on the end.  I guess it feels like a finger to the machine.

Some notable authors

Ok, authors that we have enjoyed.  You might, too.

Eric Berne - a psychiatrist, who wrote Games People Play, Sex in Human Loving

Dona Leone, Victoria Houston: Leone writes about fictional crime in Venice, Houston writes about crimes in fictional Loon Lake, Wisconsin

Carl Zimmer - a good science writer who selects interesting subjects and angles

Alexander McCall Smith - stories about Mma Ramotswe, a detective in the African nation of Botswana. Also about Bertie, a little boy in Scotland

Photos, blog posts

CNN photos of the week

1. https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/05/world/gallery/photos-this-week-january-29-february-5

My older blog posts  https://fearfunandfiloz.blogspot.com/

"Thank Q!"

I am still a big fan of "Call the Midwife", which I think I read has earned the title of a favorite program on British TV.  We use streaming, that is internet connection for the tv. I didn't realize how extensive the collections on Netflix and Amazon Prime are.  I have learned that there are other streaming services that specialize in art films and rare movies.  We watch Wis Public TV and Acorn and we have many other choices.

Lately, we have gotten interested in "The Closer" with Kyra Sedgwyck, as a deputy police chief.  Her role makes her somewhat obnoxious in my opinion.  She plays a woman police official who is competent but impolite and irritating to her fellow officers.  She is over-polite and is constantly thanking coworkers with her "Thank q so much", her rapid way of saying "thank you".

Hiding the price

If I come right out and tell you the price, you drop the whole deal.  Better I should insert a page where I state the price is lower than buying a house, then have you click onto another page that offers bank phone numbers to connect eventually to a loan department.  Prices are old hat anyway. Be modern and just SUBSCRIBE to continuing worry and pestering and owe some each month.

Dr. Brizendine's "The Upgrade"

Today I had to take my car for service.  It is a 2016 Honda Fit, a small hatchback model that is no longer made.  There are many non-standard things about me and one of them is that I have never been in love with cars.  Growing up in Baltimore, I used public transportation until a professor offered me a job IF I got my license.

While waiting for the maintenance service, I started re-reading Dr.Louann Brizendine's 3rd book, "The Upgrade".  Dr. Brizendine is a physician who has written three books: The Female Brain, The Male Brain and The Upgrade.  I have read them all but today I started re-reading The Upgrade.  I see that Jane Fonda has endorsed this third book, The Upgrade.  It's about women's brains after they go through menopause.  The Cleveland Clinic website says that an average age for menopause is 52.

I noted this statement:

There is no place for women to talk about the stand-off that is going on in so many homes (as post-menopausal women strongly drop interest in sexual activity.)

From 2017 - Midwinter

From 2017

Even though a season can seem long or short, each one is 3 months long, according to our calendar.  The earth and the sun don't always behave exactly according to human hopes and plans but it generally works to think of each season beginning on the 21st of March, June, September and December.  Three months is just about 90 days so half of a season is 45 days.  When you add 45 to the first day of a season, you get not the next month but the one after that.

So, winter began on Dec. 21.  Add 45 days you get to Feb. 4, today!  Today is the mid-day of winter.  That means we are passing the mid point and the remaining days in winter are fewer than we have already experienced.

Her documents

A friend called yesterday to tell us Wis. Public TV was showing a history of our town.  We watched it and enjoyed it, but it was quite similar to Lynn's "The Reasons for Stevens Point", a project in her master's degree program.  It, too, is about the founding and development of the town where we have lived since 1968.  She has a PhD from UW-Madison but I thought momentarily that that slide-tape/filmstrip was her only foray into history and the past.  No!  Definitely not!  She created a good sized paper called "Who we came from" about her complex background and family history.  Then, I remembered a second good sized paper about her childhood and growing up.  It turns out she is far more of a historian than I remembered.