Lots to do today

[clevermanka]

Limiting this to Fives.

thefridayfive
1. What is your favorite noise to hear?
The coffee percolator bubbling on a weekend morning.

2. If you could live in any era of time, what would you choose and why?
Now. What would I gain by living in the past?

3. You just found $50 while cleaning your house. Where do you decide to spend it?
Ooo. I wanna go on a crafty spree at Michael's.

4. What magazines to you subscribe to/read on a normal basis?
I don't read any, but I'll browse People in the checkout lane if the line is long.

5. If you could witness any event in history, but not change anything about it, what would you choose and why?
I loved verminiusrex's answer. On a more mundane and happy level, though, I'd like to go back and watch a Christmas with my dad's folks when they were still alive.

fridayfiver
1. Have you ever been to the ocean?
Yes, and a few seas.

2. When is the last time you wore a swimsuit?
Hm. For more than a couple minutes of just trying it on to make sure it still fit? I don't remember. Most of my recent hot-tub forays have been nekkid. Wow, so probably the last time I wore a swimsuit for any length of time was at Rebel Rockabilly Weekender in Indianapolis two summers ago.

3. Do you respect people more for staying through difficult times or knowing when to call it quits?
Depends. Sometimes it's stupid to keep doing the same thing with no positive results. Why would that be admirable?

4. Name a TV show that made a huge splash in the beginning, but has since gone downhill:
Smallville. I weep for it.

5. Have you ever eaten shark?
No, although I'm not opposed to trying it. I'll try nearly anything once.

altfriday5
1. What are you doing, if anything, to mark Remembrance Day/Veteran's Day? (I believe this holiday is observed in most of the countries in which altfriday5ers live; my apologies if this is not so in your country.) Nothing. I came in to work so I could use the time and a half comp time during xmas.

2. What personal connections do you have through your family or yourself, if any, to previous or current wars? I'm amazingly lucky. My dad failed the eye exam and didn't have to go to Vietnam. My mom's dad was in WWII but never served overseas. I have one friend who got back from Iraq last summer, and another friend was in Sarajevo lo these many years ago. That's it. Like I said: Lucky.

3. If you had to choose one war to be remembered by the world over all others, which one would you choose? Why? I can't really answer this because different wars have affected people and cultures so differently. Just because one has terrible importance to one country doesn't mean it's important to another.

4. How much would you say you know about previous wars? Current wars? As little as possible. I find the concept of war terrifying and sickening. I have problems thinking about it, honestly.

5. What is the most important lesson to be learned from the remembrance of wars, previous and current? The people who decide to go to war are no longer the people who have to fight them--and that is obscene.

Comments

I am reminded...

[themadblonde]

of a heartbreaking song about WW1 called "Christmas in the Trenches."

"But the question haunted every heart
Who lived that fateful night:
'Whose family have I fixed here in my sights?'"

And:

"The ones who call the shots
Won't be among the dead & lame
& on each end of the rifle we're the same."