Liebster Meme Revival (for the Benefit of Local Lurkers)

Some blog posts have been funded, and here's a quick one. I stumbled across this at the Little Bookstore blog, which I visited during some unexpected online down time:

https://wendywelchbigstonegap.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/which-came-first-the-leibster-award-or-megalomania/

It's Liebster, from German, "dearest"--a meme bloggers passed on to eleven of their favorite blogs. First you answer eleven questions posted by another blogger. Here are Wendy Welch's questions: 

1. So, do you like kittens? 

I adore kittens so much that, if they're female, I'm even willing to keep them around after they become cats, if no one else adopts them. As regular readers know, more than ten years ago I adopted a feral cat family from an alley in Kingsport, Tennessee. They had a lot of health problems, as real alley cats usually do, but they were incredibly clever and social. For this cat family, kittens are generally a Blessed Event rather than a problem to be prevented. Individuals with especially bad health problems, like the Manx gene, are being neutered; there's still a waiting list for kittens born to healthier members of the family, although it's shorter than it once was--and this spring nobody's moving up the list, because if Samantha's one kitten doesn't die of Manx Syndrome and/or glyphosate poisoning, she stays here. She has the Manx gene and will be spayed when she's old enough to risk a trip into town.

2. Do you like authors? 

Well...I don't keep them in the office room and feed them, so, arguably, not as much as kittens. Then again, if authors lived in 24" boxes on a handful of kibble a day...

Seriously, I like a lot of authors. That's what this web site is about: celebrating older books, paying due respect to older (living) authors. Other web sites shriek endlessly about new books. This site likes new books, too, when and as we've had time to read them.

3. Have you ever wanted to deck an author with a swift punch? 

Wayne Dyer comes to mind, and I recently reread and reviewed a book by Helen B. Andelin...Actually what I wanted to do was set them down and explain to them where they made their major mistakes, but if that were what it took to get them to that point...!

4. Have you ever decked an author with...[any] method? 

No. Of course not. This web site never condones violence and reminds everyone that, far from getting authors to retract their major mistakes, decking them is more likely to get us arrested. It makes us seem as if we couldn't explain their major mistakes on our own blogs. Also this web site ponders briefly whether Wayne Dyer ("Whatever you're feeling is entirely your choice") or Helen B. Andelin ("Women should try to be incompetent so that men will want to take care of us") would be more likely to beat us up, and if either of them were still currently alive, this web site would be more concerned about Andelin.

5. Will you be attending any of my readings? 

If and whenever my Significant Other is healthy enough, and his relatives aren't in need of whatever home health care he's able to provide, so that we can go up to Wise County (which is where he's from) and do something that is fun, we'll do that. Currently I have no social life. I do two things: (1) work for subminimum wages and (2) try to collect some sort of payment for it.

6. If you were going to make the world a better place, which would you hire as global leader: a teacher or a mom? (no fair combining) 

The last chance I had, I voted for a doctor.

7. Did you know that a woodchuck who chucks wood can chuck two cords? 

No. The answer I learned in grade two was "A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as the woodchuck could chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood."

8. Do you think teachers and moms should be given free vodka and hot wings at an annual global appreciation day, or just cash? 

My Mom, being both a teetotal abstainer and (most of the time) a vegan, would obviously prefer cash.

9. Have you ever moonwalked? Or read the Huffington Post? 

(These are funnier if you've read WW's post, linked above!) Moonwalked, no. Read HP, fairly often--it behaves better these days than it did when the post was first posted.

10. Are you going to look at the adorably charming Youtube videos my husband and I made of our independent bookshop? 

This computer is set up not to play most videos, but any Gentle Readers who've not imposed that limit on themselves are encouraged to go back to WW's blog and click around. The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap is an adorably charming, big oldfashioned house, conveniently located near the footpath along the road between the college and the town library, full of books, friendly cats, and crocheted cotton souvenirs. There is also a cafe section, separate from the books.

11. Um, so, how do you feel about megalomaniacs? 

Isn't everybody in cyberspace one? Well, I try...urrrr (braking noise), there I go, me-me-me-ing with the best...I do try to read e-friends' blogs, as well as pontificating and self-advertising on mine.

Eleven things about me:

1. I've been blogging long enough that regular readers know as much about me as anyone in cyberspace needs to know.

2. I do not crochet cotton towels and washcloths for sale to tourists as souvenirs. I knit them.

3. I also knit full-sized one-of-a-kind blankets. You can specify colors and design motifs.

4. I was brought up to believe that children must be taught proper behavior by spanking, but I've found it more effective to threaten to sing out loud in public.

5. I have never actually had to sing at any of The Nephews' schools.

6. Due to ancestors having lived near Gate City and selectively bred to type for 200 years, I look a bit like a lot of people, including some older than my mother and some younger than any daughter I could have had. I talk to people who obviously think they're talking to one of those other people. They're related to me if you go back far enough.

7. So, if I stare dumfoundedly at you instead of answering your question, this does not necessarily mean that I can't think of a verbal dodge or counterattack. It usually means I'm trying to work out which distant relative you think you're talking to. If what you said makes sense as something you might have said to someone else, and I know who it is, a normal polite conversation may be possible--if you don't jump down my throat first.

8. So, for the local lurker who might have been reacting to the story that began with the character called Frank ( https://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-luck-of-jesse-barclay.html ), or to who knows what or whom else...I've met about a dozen men called Frank in my lifetime. I wouldn't say that any of them ever has helped me, in any way. The one who was standing where he could hear you, I've never seen help anybody, in any way, but he could hardly have lived as long as he had if he hadn't had a nicer side.

9. And, for the one who wanted to know how I lost "all that weight"...I've worn the same dress size all my life; during the past year I've actually gained a little weight. I have no idea which relative you thought you were addressing, or whether she's lost weight or gained weight, or how. So far as I know, all the ones who are or have been fat are considerably older than I am, though some were fat when they were fifty.

10. And, for the one who wanted to know whether I'd "go with" him...I am sorry I spoke to him as severely as I did. Insane Admirers are always a problem. You know they're physically harmless, and treating them as if they were still likely to molest anybody is cruel. You know that allowing them to carry on and possibly get overexcited is also cruel. The thing to do is find a distraction before they become either overexcited or a real impediment to legitimate business or conversation. I did try. Whether he imagined he was talking to the tall, slim, tragically beautiful young thing who was arrested recently for soliciting to feed the habit that she tried to cover up with all those tattoos that apparently remind some people of the pattern of a dress I've worn, or to someone he invited to go to a Sunday School picnic with him in 1945, I have no real idea. I get mistaken for all kinds of people by the profoundly confused. The idea of being mistaken for the Kingsport hooker, who wasn't even thirty when arrested, and for some obese elderly relative, within one hour, really did blow my mind. If it hadn't I would probably have found a way to brush him off without raising his blood pressure.

11. I would have more respect for my neighbors if they'd stop trying to carry on personal conversations in public places, and stick to either talking about business, or not talking at all.

Eleven questions for you, fellow bloggers...for some of you I could think of links to answer some of these questions, but the idea here is that you decide whether to use a short answer, back-link to your choice of older posts, or write a new post:

1. If you're not a cat person, have you posted a legitimate explanation for this? (Yes, adorable dog blogs count.)

2. Do you post recipes?

3. Would you like to read blog posts in which real people test your recipes?

4. Have you been in Washington, D.C.? If so, have you blogged about it?

5. Have you been in Gate City, Kingsport, and/or Big Stone Gap? If so, have you blogged about it?

6. (Nieces and) nephews, children, grandchildren, or all of the above?

7. What was the last book you read?

8. Did you blog about it? (If not, what was the last book you blogged about?)

9. What is your Twitter handle?

10. Do you miss Google +?

11. Where else can anti-Facebookers find you in cyberspace?

Eleven bloggers chosen for the Liebster Award meme...Y'know, I'm not sure I want to impose a meme on anybody. Some people hate memes. Some people think memes are sooo ten years ago. Some people may have done this meme when it went around, years ago, before I was following them. The eleven blogs showing at the top of the list on your right have posted something recently. Some are heavy, some are funny, some are cute, some are heartfelt. If you have some versions of Chrome your screen will show some of them in different colors to indicate that someone's clicked on those links recently; I may have been the one. Since the list includes over 100 blogs you're sure to find something good, even if you don't want to open The Blaze, which is understandable. (The Blaze stays at the top of the list because it's an aggregate of news blogs by a couple of dozen different bloggers, most of whom are paid semiprofessional journalists by now.) The following bloggers came to mind based on recent posts when I was writing the questions...Vince Staten doesn't post often these days, but has recently been sharing a French friend's blog about visiting the U.S., translated into English:

Scott Adams

Mona Andrei

Elizabeth Barrette

Ruth Cox

Ellen Hawley

John Horvath

LB Johnson

Coral Levang

Melissa & Mudpie

Barb Rad

Vince Staten

...and having found this meme there automatically disqualifies Wendy Welch.