What do you do when you wake up to another day in your precious life?
What do I do? I blog.
What do you do when you observe so many interesting things all around you?
What do I do? I capture them and share them in my blog.
.
What do you do when you want to get happier? I watch a Gene Kelly movie.
What do you do when you have a comment about a blog post?
What do you do when you’re grateful to someone? I express it without hesitation.
I do my best every day to publish a blog post that helps me face the world each day. If that post helps others too, that’s the best.
As I was doing my best this morning to come up with a good enough topic, I realized I had some “best” tweets to share.
.
I think it’s the best that people on Twitter are still responding to my recent post about four strangers treating me with contempt during one day (not one of my best days). Here are two of the best replies:
People can be the best.
What do you think is the best photo I took yesterday?
I don’t know if the Daily Bitch is really doing her best.
Several of my latest Twitter exchanges are about bests.
Here’s what might be the best scene from what I think is the best movie of all time.
Expressing gratitude is the best, so thanks to everyone who helps me blog every day, including YOU!
Best,
Ann
Do you see signs of spring in these images that are springing out of my iPhone onto your screen?
Poets are a sign of spring, because April is National Poetry Month in the USA.
From now on, the amazing 1967 French musical The Young Girls of Rochefort (Les Demoiselles de Rochefort) starring George Chakiris, Catherine Deneuve, her sister Françoise Dorléac, and GENE KELLY, directed by Jacques Demy, with music by Michel Legrand, is going to be a sign of spring for me, because I first discovered it in the spring of 2021.
Here’s the opening of The Young Girls of Rochefort:
Here are the sisters:
Gene Kelly always has a spring in his step, here and everywhere else:
If you make a comment, below, that will be another wonderful sign of spring for me.
I am always grateful for signs of spring and for all who help me create these daily posts, including YOU.
I always appreciate it when you come back to this blog, which today will start out with a definition of “comeback.”
come·back /ˈkəmˌbak/
noun
1. a return by a well-known person, especially an entertainer or sports player, to the activity in which they have formerly been successful.
“the heavyweight champion is set to make his comeback”
Similar: resurgence, recovery, return, rally, upturn, revival, rebound, fightback
2. INFORMAL
a quick reply to a critical remark.
“some of my best comebacks just go right over people’s heads”
I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s comeback of many well-known politicians to the activities in which they have formerly been successful. I’m also looking forward to the comeback of my country to the world stage.
Also, since I was very young, I’ve been known for my comebacks. Once, when a young man was telling me how wonderful he was and said, “You can call me God, for short,” I had this comeback: “Short for what — Godawful?”
Now it’s time to come back to my most recent images. Do you see any comebacks in them?
.
Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire have had many comebacks, as you can see here:
I look forward to your comebacks in the comment section, below.
Thanks to all who come back to this blog, including YOU.
I’m on a staycation this week, which is one of my favorite kinds of vacations.
My staycation favorites include
It looks like Oscar is going to be staying for my staycation.
The musical number Oscar and I were watching yesterday …
… is “Heavenly Music” from the 1950 musical Summer Stock, starring Gene Kelly, Phil Silvers, other humans, and animals.
Despite all those dogs barking, Oscar was his usual chill self as he stayed on my lap.
One of my staycation favorites is watching Gene Kelly dance, like in this solo from Summer Stock, which shows a favorite use of a newspaper:
What are your staycation favorites?
No matter where I’m staying, I’m staying with gratitude as my favorite way to end a blog post.
In my mind, I’ve been turning around the pros and cons of euthanasia for our ailing and beloved cat, Oscar. Yesterday morning, Oscar seemed so sick that I scheduled a home euthanasia visit for this afternoon. This morning, I am turning around to cancel that visit, because Oscar took a turn for the better yesterday afternoon.
I notice Oscar has trouble turning around without staggering in the morning. In the afternoons, he is turning around before he settles in my lap. And no matter what he is doing, he is still turning around to eat some delicious chicken whenever we offer it to him.
My son is not turning around in his belief that we should not euthanize Oscar. My husband Michael is turning around what he believes is right, depending on Oscar’s behavior.
I’m used to turning around many perspectives in my mind while making decisions, especially difficult ones like this one. With so much turning around, everybody seems a little dizzy, including Oscar.
Turning around to today’s photos, here’s the inspiration for today’s title:
When I saw that sign yesterday, I thought there was probably no turning around from today being Oscar’s last day on earth. However, in my life, I’ve experienced and witnessed so much turning around that nothing seems written in stone.
Last week, I witnessed people in my Coping and Healing groups turning around low self esteem by discussing positive attributes. If anyone had trouble naming what they liked about themselves, the other group members had no trouble turning around to share what they appreciated about that person.
Every time I try to write my last letter from the President for the Northeastern Society for Group Psychotherapy, I keep turning around to other activities, like watching musicals on TV (including The Music Man, Bye Bye Birdie, and On The Town).
Here’s a thought that’s turning around in my mind: It’s difficult to say goodbye.
No matter where I am, I’m often turning around to take photos like these:
In On the Town, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Jules Munshin are playing sailors showing up and turning around in New York, New York:
There’s a lot of turning around in “You’re Awful” from On the Town, including Frank Sinatra and Betty Garrett turning around the meanings of words:
What thoughts and feelings are turning around for you, here and now? Consider turning around and leaving a comment, below.
At the end of each post, I’m turning around to gratitude, so thanks to all who help me turn out this blog every day, including YOU.
I’m in the dark as I’m writing this because
I took this photo when it was dark last night.
I guess I felt the need for some sunshine, although that was just somebody trying to sell me soap.
When I’m in the dark, it helps to remember happy times, like this scene from my favorite movie:
Even though I’m in the dark about so many things, I’ll still keep singin’ in the rain with the late Gene Kelly, the late Donald O’Connor, and the late Debbie Reynolds.
As light through yonder window breaks, good morning and thanks to all of you for brightening my life, here and now.
Earlier this year, two days before I tried out for the TV show The Voice, I wrote a post titled “Comparisons.” Because comparisons are a cognitive distortion that can lead to envy, dissatisfaction, low esteem, disappointment, and misery, I hesitate to compare today’s post with the one I wrote before.
Since I’ve been back at work after my two-month medical leave, several people I’ve seen in therapy sessions have presented as unhappy due to comparisons with other people. Indeed, yesterday I circled “comparisons” on the list of cognitive distortions displayed on the wall of my office, because that particular cognitive distortion seems incomparably toxic.
Here’s a definition of the cognitive distortion of comparisons:
Comparisons.
We compare ourselves to others, with ourselves coming out short. For example, “I’m not as smart (or good, competent, good-looking, lovable, etc.) as that other person.” Or, we compare ourselves to how we think we should be, or how we’ve been before. We might think that comparisons help motivate us, but they usually make us feel worse.
I don’t want to compare myself to other people, but I’m wondering whether others ever make the kinds of comparisons I’ve been making lately. These comparisons have included:
As always, I might think these comparisons help motivate me, but they usually make me feel worse.
To help myself feel comparatively better, I’m going to invite comparisons among the photos I took yesterday.
Please leave presents of comments here, below.
And feel free to make comparisons between two music videos (here and here on YouTube) inspired by “Dance Yourself Silly” above.
To all who helped me create today’s post about comparisons and — of course! — to my incomparable readers, I express comparable gratitude:
When our days are numbered (and they are, though we rarely know the exact number), every day might be the best day ever.
But yesterday really was one of the best days ever for me, because:
And you know what? Today might be even BETTER, because they’re doing Singin’ in the Rain again at Symphony Hall, TWICE.
June’s looking pretty good to me, too — what with Simply Sondheim at Symphony Hall, my presentation about my therapy groups, continuing nice weather, and, I’m sure, so much more.
And — speaking of the future — there’s that little matter of making it to Italy, as soon as I can figure out how to pull that off, too.
To make this a better day (if not the best day ever) for all of us, here‘s an amazing dance number from my favorite movie:
Best-day-ever thanks to everybody and everything making yesterday exactly the day it was and to you — of course! — for making today better, for me.
Is anybody stumped about how I manage to blog here day after day, season after season, through sickness and health?
I’m not stumped about that, but I am stumped about why there is so much snow still around, during the second week of April in my hometown city of Boston. After months and months, this finally reappeared, yesterday morning:
That’s the stump of our tree, out back.
Have I been stumped by any thing else, recently? I am quite easily stumped, it seems.
Why has it taken me so many years to figure out how to make fried matzo that’s almost as good as my mother’s?
Why are there only three players on my 2015 Boston Red Sox, when I could have sworn they need nine players on the field, this Opening Day?
I’ve also been stumped about why I’ve been seeing Coca-Cola everywhere, lately:
If I hadn’t told you what kind of truck that was, would you have been stumped by that photo?
I am stumped by this new Kids Concourse at Fenway Park. If my sister Ellen reads this post, she’ll probably un-stump me, since she knows all the latest about baseball, the Red Sox, and Fenway.
I am stumped by what that bench is doing at that construction site.
People can really stump themselves with unhelpful negative thoughts. In case you are stumped by that last photo, yesterday at work I invited somebody to transform the thought
I’m not doing enough
to
I want to do more.
Are you stumped by why I thought that was so important?
I wonder if anybody at the hospital cafeteria yesterday was stumped by matzo balls. Are you? I was personally stumped because the soup, at first, was matzo-ball-less.
Don’t be stumped by the matzo-ball-less appearance of that soup. The matzo balls were there, but they were sinkers, not floaters. Are you stumped by the concept of floating vs. sinking matzo balls? If so, don’t stay stumped — ask for help, below.
Speaking of sinking, when I told my friend Jan yesterday that I’ll be having surgery next month for synching my heart ventricles, she looked stumped for a second. She thought I’d said “sinking” instead of “synching.” Because she’s a nurse, she realized her mistake immediately.
In case you’re stumped by what might be sustaining me, right now, while I’m creating this stumped post, here it is:
I’m stumped by why I and others don’t eat more apples, rather than junk food. Apples are so yummy. Are you stumped by that photo, in any way?
Speaking of food … 
That was dinner last night, served by my boyfriend, Michael. Is anybody stumped by why I let him do all of our cooking (except for an occasional fried matzo, by me)?
In case you’re stumped by how to move forward, here’s one answer I saw on a wall last night:
As I was taking one step at a time yesterday on my walk to work, I was stumped by how the universe put the PERFECT music into my earphones.
Are you stumped by what that music might be? I would expect you would be stumped, at this point, so allow me to answer that particular stumper.
It was the full version of “Gotta Dance/Broadway Melody” — from my favorite movie musical Singin’ in the Rain — which lasted every step of my way, until I reached the hospital.
I am stumped in my attempts to share that full version with you now, but here’s part of it from YouTube, with the stumpingly amazing Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse:
I wonder if anybody, yesterday, was stumped by how happy I looked, walking towards work on a Monday morning!
Stumping and stomping good thanks to Gene Kelly, to Cyd Charisse, to my family, to Jan, to people who do their best to let go of thoughts that might stump them in their attempts to heal and grow, to matzo in all its various manifestations, to synching and sinking hearts, to Fenway Park and Red Sox fans everywhere, and to you — of course! — for stumping your way over here, today.
The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally 