I’m great in bed

full title is The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters: A True Story of Family Fiction.

from amazon;

Ever since she was young, Julie Klam has been fascinated by the Morris sisters, cousins of her grandmother. According to family lore, early in the twentieth century the sisters’ parents decided to move the family from Eastern Europe to Los Angeles so their father could become a movie director. On the way, their pregnant mother went into labor in St. Louis, where the baby was born and where their mother died. The father left the children in an orphanage and promised to send for them when he settled in California—a promise he never kept. One of the Morris sisters later became a successful Wall Street trader and advised Franklin Roosevelt. The sisters lived together in New York City, none of them married or had children, and one even had an affair with J. P. Morgan.

The stories of these independent women intrigued Klam, but as she delved into them to learn more, she realized that the tales were almost completely untrue.

an interesting book, not only about the morris sisters' lives but about family truths and not lies exactly, but mistaken beliefs about what happened and what didn't in a family. and how much can you believe what you've been told about your distant family.

like; can you believe that your great-great grandfather's brother was on the team that developed some kind of revolutionary invention? or that your grandmother was the inspiration for a character in a well-known novel?

on friday the old/former neighbor mentioned in this post needed some help with stuff, and afterward he offered to buy us dinner. we let him decide the restaurant, it was 8pm by that time & i thought be might end up at a burger place. but he chose to go to red lobster.

first, of all it was so dimly lit. like, i've had better lighting with a couple of candles during a power outage. my brother & i went a couple of times with our parents before long ago, but that was during the afternoon & we could see better. i had a hard time reading the menu because of how the dim the over the table light was.

got root beer to drink. it's supposed to be mug brand, but didn't taste the same as the mug from taco bell. my brother figures it was watered down.
had a couple of the cheddar bay biscuits. which were flavorful, but dry & i could never favor them in the red lobster vs. olive garden bread sticks debate. although, i don't think i've been to olive garden to try the bread sticks.
i went to the bathroom afterwards to wash my hands because of the butter topping from the biscuits. i only use public bathroom soap sparingly on my fingers, because it make the backs of my hands break out in weird, itchy bumps. the label on the dispensers said safeguard & whatever it was smelled a bit like a perm.

my brother got the grilled lobster, shrimp and salmon with a baked potato and orzo rice. he could not get any meat from the lobster tail, it was basically flatted in the grilling process. everything was on a large bed of the orzo rice. which was kind of nice, in terms of the amount of food overall. he didn't finish it & brought the leftovers back and had them for lunch. where he was more successful with eating the lobster tail.

i got the admiral's feast with seasoned broccoli and mashed potatoes. they bring it out on a huge tin tray of some sort & it didn't look like much of a "feast". the former neighbor asked if i had gotten an appetizer & i said it sure looked like it. i got 4 shrimp, a handful of fried clam strips, another of fried bay scallops & a piece of fried, breaded flounder cut in half. the sides of seasoned broccoli and mashed potatoes were on a a separate plate, literally to the side.
the picture online (i know they're all BS) shows a full tray with all of that, but 5 pieces of shrimp & 2 pieces of flounder plus optional fries. they'd be better off having it on one of the oval plates/patters, that way it would looked like you got more. and save the tin tray for the 1 pound of snow crab legs and stuff like that.

overall, it was not horrible. just a bit disappointing.

This week's questions are brought to you by toniarachelle .

1. What is your all time favorite book?
i don't really have one. there are some i've read more than once, but not one that i read every year because i like it that much.

2. What is your all time favorite movie?
pretty much the answer for question 1.
there are movies that i will watch on TV even though i've seen them 30 times & i've come across it in the middle of it. but not really any that are much watch every time.

3. What are you reading right now?
the sun and her stars: salka viertel and hitler's exiles in the golden age of hollywood by donna rifkind.about a woman who was a writer for MGM in the '30s & helped people of fled nazi germany.

4. What is your favorite show on TV?
i really only watch the amazing race.

5. What is the last movie you saw in the theater?
the world is not enough in 1999.

other answers over here.

Today's questions were brought to you by silent_r_infork .

1. If you could retroactively erase one TV show from the history of entertainment, which one would you choose?
there are so many.

2. Are you more like your mother or your father?
i don't know. i've been told that i kind of look like my dad though.

3. If you could take a year-long vacation, what would you do?
travel europe. visiting historical sites & museums and eating local food.

4. Can you think of a reason not to answer this question?
yes, i do not want to.

5. What's the nicest thing you've ever done for someone?
not kill them.

other answers are over here.

These questions were written by lady1raven .

1. If you were a crayon, which color would you want to be?
a nice medium blue. or silvery gray.

2. Which color do you think you would be regardless of what you wanted?
probably something like burnt orange, raw umber, burnt sienna. some sicking green. maybe one of the purples, oranges, yellows or reds.

3. Would you rather be used and get blunt, broken and lose your wrapper, or not be used and stay pristine?
somewhere in between.

4. Would you rather be in a small set of crayons or a large set?
probably the 24 count set. it's a good variety, but not so big that most of them don't get used, like the 96 pack.

5. Would you rather be Crayola, or a different brand?
ideally i'd want to be crayola (who wouldn't?). but i'd most likely end up being rose art, or pen + gear (wal-mart brand).

other answers are over here.

These questions were written by ange420 .

1. How far back can you trace your family tree?
just to grandparents on my mother's side & great-grand parents on my dad's side, both his mother's & father's sides. one of the things i want to do if i win a multi-millions lotto is pay to have my family tree researched.

2. What is the most interesting (or strange) thing you've heard about one of your relatives?
one of my dad's great-uncles came over from what was the austro-hungarian empire (what became Poland, maybe?), but couldn't get into the U.S. for some reason. so, he went to canada & when some great lake froze over in the winter, walked across it into this country. things were fine for about 3 years, he lived with his sister (dad's grandma) who had a boarding house & worked in a coal mine or something. then one night he got into a bar fight, was arrested, they found out that he was here illegally & sent him back to the austro-hungarian empire.
he became a priest, was sent on a mission to south america & was never heard from again. no one is sure if; 1. he just didn't write to anyone, 2. the locals didn't appreciate being preached at & killed him, 3. he died of a tropical disease, or 4. he gave up the priesthood & just lived a non-religious life.

3. How do you feel about legacy names like John Henry Smith IV or naming children after other relatives?
they're ok.
i wonder how far down the number like does the average person (not royal or rich) go before giving up on the name? the fourth, the fifth?

4. Would you consider yourself and/or your family to be traditional?
i don't follow any "family traditions" if that's what this means.

5. What is one tradition you have passed on to your children and/or plan to pass on to them?
i have no children, nor do i want to. and would have no traditions to pass down if i did.

other answers over here.

the moving the clocks one hour ahead thing is happening tonight.

my usual stuff about it; most electronics will do it automatically, but stuff like stoves & microwaves will not. unless you have some super fancy, connected to the internet kind of thing.

some forums and bboards have something in time setting about DST in effect. so look at where you post to see if they do. for example, DW doesn't have that. they have pick your time zone & if you want the time display in 12 hour (am/pm) or 24 hour.

people ask the question of would you go back in time to kill hitler as a baby to prevent WW2? But i am not sure that killing him (or even encouraging him to just be an artist) would prevent the war. that idea supposes that there is no other man (or group of men) who was 1.mad about losing WW1, 2. angry about gemany having to pay reparations to the winners of that war. which lead to 3. an economic depression years before the one in the 1930s. any of his top officials, or generals; himmler, gobbeles, rommel, or goring could’ve been “der fuhrer” (which means the leader, if you didn’t know).
i go back & forth on if the holocaust would be a part of an alternate version of WW2. because a lot of hitler’s top men shared his beliefs, but who knows what would’ve happened if they didn’t have someone encouraging their hate.

most likely in order to prevent WW2, you have to prevent WW1. also in this situation, it’s not just about one man; the assassination of archduke franz ferdinand was just the catalyst, or excuse, to start the war. there were people chafing under austro-hungarian rule. kaiser wilhelm II was jealous of the british empire, angry about his messed up left arm & not being as tall as he wanted to be. not to mention how his father, frederick III, might have handled things if he lived longer. princesses of denmark, alexandra & dagmar (maria feodoravna), telling their husbands, edward VII & tsar alexander III respectively, not to trust prussia/germany. which influenced what their sons, king george VI & tsar nicholas II did. because of a war the prussians/germans pursued to get some disputed territory in denmark, a war they won & had denmark pay reparations for*. sound familiar?

and in order to prevent WW1, you probably have to prevent a dozen, or more, wars and conflicts going back at least 100 years before that. of course preventing WW1 would leave the map of europe looking very different, not to mention all of those royal houses staying intact. speaking of royalty; would there have been a russian revolution which lead to the tsar and his family being arrested and executed? and if there was a revolution, could the royal family have found refuge with some other royal house in europe? or would they have been afraid of backlash like king george VI was?


*i probably only have like 50% of all of this correct.

These questions were originally suggested by veracious_g .

1. What type of mood are you generally in on a rainy day?
i like the rain, or a nice overcast day. i don't like the pouring down kind of rain though.

2. What are your favorite things to do when the weather is gloomy?
i don't have any.

3. Have you ever been kissed in the rain?
i have not.

4. After the rain stops, do you continue what you were doing, or do you run outside to do something else?
if i was doing something outside & was interrupted by the rain, i try to get back to it. otherwise, i just continue with what i was doing.

5. What is your favorite drink/food to have when it's raining outside?
i don't have anything in particular.

other answers are over here.

These questions were originally suggested by alfvaen .

1) Do you like your birth-name? Why?
it's ok. my last name is kind of long & it is often mispronounced. a few times people have added letters that were not there & made it a different name. it's like the difference between schwartz & schwarzkopf (neither are close to my last name). i'm like; why are you doing that? do they see the first few letters & just assume the rest?

2) If you could change your name to anything else, what would it be?
no idea. but a simpler last name would be nice.

3) What names would you consider giving your children?
i'm not interested in having children but i like the older kinds of names; like elizabeth & katherine. james & robert.

4) If you had a band, what would you name it, and why?
it depends on what kind of music the band would play. i think rum runner would be a good band name. also craig ferguson once suggested that chlamydia would be a good punk band name & i think about that now and then.

5) Is there a name that you completely hate? Why?
any name that the parents changed to spelling of to be unique. like ashley being spelled ashleigh. my apologies if someone reading this has done that. but really, it's ridiculous.

more answers are over here