A Final Jeopardy! we definitely knew

On the Jeopardy! aired last night, the Final Jeopardy! category was U.S. Territories and the answer was:

Of the 5 inhabited U.S. territories, this is the

only one where cars drive on the left.

We got this immediately, having spent many wonderful weeks over the years vacationing on St. John in the Caribbean: The correct question was,

What are the U.S. Virgin Islands?

That question got me to wondering, what are the other four inhabited U.S. territories? Isn’t Wikipedia a wonderful thing?

The U.S. has five permanently inhabited territories: Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands in the North Pacific Ocean, and American Samoa in the South Pacific.

Puerto Rico

U.S. Virgin Islands

Northern Mariana Islands

Guam

American Samoa

Driving on the left side was initially a bit of a challenge, but over the years we certainly became used to it. For those who might be curious, the cars there, which presumably are manufactured in countries with right-side roadways, have drivers’ seats on the left side, so it is, I suppose, a bit odd for those coming from the UK and other countries where the cars are made to accommodate the different driving patterns.

We may be able to drive our cars on different sides of the roads but you would hope we could agree on some basic rules of grammar. Perhaps because I have been subjected to too much media (print, electronic, and television) lately, I am finding myself annoyed almost every day with the flagrant disregard for those rules. Here is one you see frequently that I just picked up in a fundraising e-mail:

Let’s do it again in 2020: pitch in $10 or more now to help Adam and I win our re-election campaigns and hold the House so we can keep making progress.

To help Adam and I? You want to help I? What ever happened to helping me? When did “me” become a forbidden word? Somehow people have the impression that “me” is too informal. But, no, and here is the distinction:

·       “I” is the subject pronoun, which means that it is used as the subject of a verb, the one "doing" the verb.

·       “Me” is the object pronoun, which means that it is used as the object of the verb.

So, please, if I need help, then I will ask you to help ME!

Be well, and drive safely!

Love,

Rebecca

Seeing clearly enough

The “Greatest Jeopardy Player of All Time” was determined in just four two-game segments. James Holzhauer won the second, while the first, third, and fourth were won by Ken Jannings, earning Ken the title and the $1,000,000 prize.

On that fourth evening, Brad Rutter hit on a “daily double” late in the game and bet everything. Unfortunately, he was unable to produce the correct question, bringing his score down to 0 points, and the game ended soon thereafter with Brad’s final score at 0. When the second game was initiated, host Alex Trebeck announced that they would now remove all the first-game scores and reset everyone’s tally to “0,” with the idea that at the end of the second game, the highest total two-game score would belong to the winner. When Alex announced this, James Holzhauer shouted out “they forgot to change Brad’s score.”  While I freely admit that I have never been particularly fond of James, I will give him the benefit of the doubt that he thought he was being humorous, although at least one friend shared with me that he saw the comment as rather mean-spirited.

One weakness of this tournament was that luck, rather than skill, may have played too large a role in the outcome. Why? Because the scores may have depended a bit too heavily on when the players found the “daily doubles.” This impact was apparent a number of times for Ken Jennings, who found the daily double late in the game and was able to achieve a very high score by betting his entire earnings and providing the correct response. Having said that, James Holzhauer would have won the fourth game had he correctly responded to the “Final Jeopardy.” Had there been a fifth game, we will never know what the outcome would have been.

Now we are back to regular “Jeopardy!”, and Barry and I were stunned last evening that none of the three contestants knew the correct question to this answer in the category of “US Representatives.”   

Finally, you might be wondering why I called this post “seeing clearly enough.” Although I have not driven a car since before 2002, I continue to carry a New York State driver’s license, if only because it is such a widely recognized form of identification. But a couple of months ago I received a notice that it was time to renew. I stopped in a local drug store that conducts the vision test, and unfortunately was unable to pass. I was overdue for a visit to my ophthalmologist, the same one I have been seeing since he was recommended to me by a Pfizer colleague over 25 years ago. Needless to say, we are both getting older. I was really nervous about this visit. But the assistant conducting the test of visual acuity was very patient, and went up to that very first line and had me read each one. As soon as I got to around the third or fourth line I started having a bit of trouble, but for reasons I cannot fully understand, I instinctively found myself “copying” the letters with my finger on my lap, and this helped me to correctly identify them all as far as I needed to go to indicate 20/35. Anything better than 20/40 is considered acceptable, so I “passed”! While I still have no intention of trying to drive, I was simply elated to be able to complete the renewal application and am really looking forward to that new card coming in the mail in a couple of weeks.

This has been a busy week of medical visits, including a follow-up CT of my bladder which continues to be negative for any signs of cancer, as was a recent cystoscopy. We are actually now talking about perhaps ending the pembrolizumab treatments in a few months, when I will have completed two years. It is not a simple decision, because the original trials were two years in length and there is no published long-term follow-up data to guide the decision. Even if we do stop treatment, I will need to continue careful follow-up.

I am so glad all these medical appointments are behind me because winter has now returned in earnest – it is very cold and that four-letter word beginning with “S” is back in the forecast. So, stay safe and warm!

Love,

Rebecca

A fascinating story

Sometimes we wake up too early in the morning, and we have found that putting on the television is not a great idea. I am fortunate that Barry finds us all sorts of interesting podcasts, and this morning we listened to a fascinating story. Of course, the story was a bit too fascinating in that it did not serve the purpose of helping us return to sleep!

It is the true story of two identical twin brothers, Farrell Randal "Randy" Sklar and Jason Nathan Sklar, born January 12, 1972. The two boys were so alike that even their parents could not reliably tell them apart, so their mother took to using color-coded diaper pins. This worked well until she took them to the doctor for a routine visit, and while she was not with them, the nurses replaced their cloth diapers with disposables, dutifully returning the four diaper pins to their mother. For the next 40 years she was never 100% certain that she had correctly identified her two sons. The story here tells of how the family was recently able to solve the mystery, but I do not want to divulge the ending because it is such a fun experience to walk through this with them.

Fascinating story

As adults, the two brothers are comedians. You can read about them here:

The Sklar Brothers

I hope you will enjoy it as much as we did.

Love,

Rebecca

Greatest of all tiime

This week, the first three matches to determine the “Greatest Jeopardy Player of All Time” have aired. Each match consists of two games, and the player with the highest total score for those two games is deemed the winner of that match. The three contestants will continue playing until one of them wins three matches. That winner will receive a cash prize of $1,000,000, with $250,00 to be awarded to each of the other two contestants.

The three players are familiar names to all Jeopardy fans: Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter, and James Holzhauer. These first three matches were aired on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings. Ken Jennings won the first and third, with James Holzhauer won the second. The games will continue next week.

Here is the Jeopardy! TV schedule for the entire tournament:

Episode	Date	Time (TV channel)
Match 1	Tuesday, Jan. 7	8-9 p.m. ET (ABC)
Match 2	Wednesday, Jan. 8	8-9 p.m. ET (ABC)
Match 3	Thursday, Jan. 9	8-9 p.m. ET (ABC)
Match 4	Tuesday, Jan. 14	8-9 p.m. ET (ABC)
Match 5 (if necessary)	Wednesday, Jan. 15	8-9 p.m. ET (ABC)
Match 6 (if necessary)	Thursday, Jan. 16	8-9 p.m. ET (ABC)
Match 7 (if necessary)	Friday Jan. 17	8-9 p.m. ET (ABC)

A nice recap, including brief biographies of the three contestants, can be found on-line on, of all places, the web page for Sporting News:

Jeopardy Greatest of All Time

Not to say that Barry and I are especially talented Jeopardy players, but these games were Jeopardy on steroids in three ways. The first is that the “answers” corresponded to questions that were, in general, significantly more obscure than the usual Jeopardy games. The second is that there were virtually no incorrect responses among these three legendary players, so the games moved incredibly quickly. And, finally, the third is that the potential impact of finding the “Daily Doubles” (one in the first round and two in “double” Jeopardy) is even greater than usual. Having that occur relatively late in the game can make a critical difference. In the first game, James, a “professional sports gambler,” did not find any of them, but in the second game, when he did, he was able to do what he did so well during his initial tenure: wager huge amounts. Having said that, all three players have displayed impressive good humor and fellowship.

For me, this could not be coming at a better time, one in which I think we could all use a break from the litany of distressing and often frightening news and celebrate some of the wonderful intelligence and good humor which we humans can share. Maybe we can leave this tournament with a resolve to make the world the better place which it surely can be.

Love,

Rebecca

Four movies in one week!

With grandchildren spanning in age from 5 to 15, going to the movies is no longer a “one size fits all” family event So, we ended up seeing three different movies with our grandchildren last week, and then today went to a distinctly grown-up film.

We took Joshua to see “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” Frankly, after a while all of these Star Wars films tend to seem rather similar to me. I have to admit that I am not very knowledgeable about the details of the series beyond the original film, released back in May of 1977. We may well have never seen the movie when it was initially released, since Simmie was born in early April of that year and it was a very long time before we went out after her birth. But at some point, we must have seen the movie, as well as the second and third movies which were released in early 1980s, which are actually episodes 4-6. Here is the full list of the nine movies with their release dates:

Original trilogy

         Episode IV – A New Hope (1977)

         Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

         Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983)

Prequel trilogy

         Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999)

         Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002)

         Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005)

Sequel trilogy

         Episode VII – The Force Awakens (2015)

         Episode VIII – The Last Jedi (2017)

         Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

In this last episode, when it is discovered that the evil Emperor Palpatine did not die at the hands of Darth Vader, the rebels must race against the clock to find out his whereabouts. Finn and Poe lead the Resistance to put a stop to the First Order's plans to form a new Empire, while Rey (played by Daisy Ridley) anticipates her inevitable confrontation with Kylo Ren (played by Adam Driver). Many of the favorite characters from the earlier films also appear, including Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker and Harrison Ford as Han Solo. Even Carrie Fisher, who sadly died four years ago, is “present,” due to some amazing tricks used to create her character from old film footage.

If you are “into” the Star Wars franchise, you have undoubtedly already seen this, and, like our son-in-law, have spent some amount of time during the past month gathering with friends to re-watch the entire set of nine films.

We went with Eliana and Ella to see “Little Women.” This was a beautifully done film directed by Greta Gerwig, with Saoirse Ronan playing the lead, Jo March. “Little Women” was a novel written by American author Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) which was originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869. The novel details the passage from childhood to womanhood of four sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March, and is said to be loosely based on the author and her three sisters. I am not sure that our granddaughters really appreciated it, depicting as it does a very different time from the one in which they now live. But was certainly charming, well-acted, and visually breathtaking.

Although Eliana had seen it twice and Julia had seen it once, we took them again along with Maya for the first time to see “Frozen 2.” In this movie, which includes all the main characters of the original “Frozen” movie, released back in 2013, Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, Olaf and Sven leave Arendelle to travel to an ancient, autumn-bound forest of an enchanted land. They hope to learn the origins of Elsa’s powers in order to save their kingdom. Needless to say, there is a happy ending, as well as a lovely new set of songs (including “Into the Unknown”) encouraging young girls everywhere to sing and dance.

We took a decidedly darker and more grown-up turn today and went to see “Uncut Gems,” a film from acclaimed filmmakers Josh and Benny Safdie. I should have paid more attention to the rating:

Rating: R (for pervasive strong language, violence, some sexual content and brief drug use)

This is a crime thriller about Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler), a charismatic Jewish-American Diamond District jeweler who is addicted to gambling and always on the lookout for the next big score. When he makes a series of high-stakes bets that could lead to the windfall of a lifetime, Howard must balance business, family, and encroaching adversaries on all sides, in his relentless pursuit of the ultimate win.

Idina Menzel, who was the voice of Elsa in the Frozen movies, plays Howard’s wife, Dinah, Kevin Garnett, a forward for the Boston Celtics, plays himself, Eric Bogosian plays Arno, Howard's brother in law and a loan shark, and Judd Hirsch plays Gooey, Howard's father-in-law.

If violence bothers you, this may be a movie you may want to let pass you by.

Meanwhile, stay warm and pray that cooler heads will prevail during the coming days and weeks.

Love,

Rebecca

End of a year, or end of a decade?

There has been quite a bit of discussion, as we await the start of 2020, about whether this is the last year of the past decade or the first year of the next decade. It seems to me that, since there was presumably never a year called “0,” but rather the first year is referred to as “1,” we are in fact ending a decade, and the new one will begin in 2021. Having said that, 2020 just feels like something new, and no matter what, it promises to be full of new challenges and concerns. Hopefully, this 2020 will offer the same clarity of vision that ophthalmologists call  “20/20.” Visual acuity is usually measured with a Snellen chart, and 20/20 means that a person sees the same line of letters at a distance of 20 feet that a person with normal vision sees at 20 feet.

There were only ten of us here in Sharon this weekend, because Ronen and Maya have spent the week in Israel, visiting family and joining for a Bar Mitzvah celebration.  All ten lit Chanukah and Shabbat candles and had Friday night dinner at Dina’s. Simmie, Eliana, and Ella joined us at our apartment for Shabbat lunch. After Shabbat, the ten of us gathered to light candles and decorate and then eat delicious butter Chanukah cookies Simmie had baked.

On Sunday we went to see Disney on Ice at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence. This was primarily a Chanukah gift for Julia, and Eliana came along as well. Julia was in good company wearing her Elsa costume, and was completely mesmerized watching the performance and consuming quite a bit of junk food (popcorn, cotton candy, and blue ice). After the show we stopped for lunch at Garden Grille in Providence, where I am happy to say that Julia still found room for pizza! It is a fairly health-oriented vegetarian restaurant so we were grateful to see her eat some actual food that day.

Although most of the children have seen the new movie, “Frozen II,” Julia was anxious to see it again (for the third time!) and Barry and I planned to take her today. But we failed to purchase tickets early enough and, although the movie has been playing for four weeks, they were completely sold out at the local theaters. So, we are hoping to get there either tomorrow or Wednesday. We also plan to take the two older girls, Eliana and Ella, to see “Little Women,” which has received terrific reviews. Maya and Ronen are scheduled to return on Wednesday morning but I imagine that after the flight she will be too exhausted to go to the movie, so we will need to catch that one with her at a later date.

There has been quite a bit of sadness for many of our friends in 2019. Let us hope that 2020 will be a better year, one of good health and happiness.

Love,

Rebecca

A sobering day

I have shunned writing about politics on this blog. For one thing, I have never been particularly political, and I do not in any way claim to offer any unique insights or understanding. Still, no matter what your view on all that has gone on in the United States government over the past three years, the one thing on which I hope all Americans can agree is that yesterday was a very sad day for our country.

I hope and pray that there will be better, happier, and more peaceful times ahead for the citizens of America and the entire world.

Love,

Rebecca