Google image search meme

I saw this Google "images meme" at In and Out of Confidence who picked it up from kimbofu and I just wasted way too much time on it. Find a good google image of:

1. The place you grew up.
I grew up in Chappaqua, NY. Now it's famous as the home of the Clintons, but back then the only famous person ever from our town was Horace Greeley.


Here's a picture of the train station, exactly as I remember it from back when my dad, in a fedora and a dark overcoat, with a briefcase, got on the train every weekday with all the other daddies and slogged into the city. Sometimes we'd drive him there and I marvelled at all those men, dressed exactly the same, with the same grim looks on their faces. I swore I would never have a 9-to-5 job.

2. The place you live now.
I didn't actually find ANY pictures by googling "Chapel Hill" which expressed this place to me, so I googled, instead, the Red Clay Ramblers, the first musical group I heard when I moved here, the first "famous" musicians I got to know just a little bit. I spent quite a bit of time with Tommy Thompson before he died, which meant a lot to me. Even though he had Alzheimer's his spirit was the same.

Then I googled "New Hope Creek," which I live on, and found a photo gallery kept by my ex-lover, who annoyingly moved right into my neighborhood after we broke up. He took this picture about a two minute walk from my house. Don't tell him I stole his picture off google search.

3. Your name.
I saw the original of this print when the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit came to Raleigh, and what a revelation. It looks SO MUCH BETTER in real life than in any copy I've ever seen.



I was very embarrassed as a kid to have the name "Jane." So next I looked for a picture of Tarzan because little boys always asked me "where's Tarzan?." Each thought he had made a marvellous, new, joke.

Here's a picture of the family when they were just two.


Here's a picture from when they had added a chimpanzee to the family. The next family addition was "Boy" (maybe this started the craze of naming your cat "Kitty") but he didn't interest me.


4. Your grandmother’s name.
My grandmother's name was Marjorie but we called her Madge. This horrible woman (left) actually expresses my grandmother's anima with surprising accuracy although my grandmother wore not tiaras and ostrich feathers but only moth-eaten old sweaters, sneakers with holes in them, and wraparound skirts.

Since I don't want to turn out the way she did, I throw away my sweaters when they get holes in them and I have NEVER worn a wraparound skirt.



5. Your favorite food.
One summer when I was in college the orchestra went to Vienna, along with a pick-up rock band, to do the premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass. I went to the open-air market every day and bought cherries. They put the cherries in a cone of newspaper and that's what I had for lunch. The perfect food. I can't believe they're $6.99 a pound at my local grocery right now. When they get cheaper I eat lots and lots and think dreamily of those newspaper cones.

6. Your favorite drink.
I am embarrassed but must be honest, I drink far more Diet Coke than I drink water or anything else. I liked this picture particularly because the box turtle is my (self-selected) totem.


7. Your favorite song.
It's ridiculous to ask a musician for her favorite song. I may have one favorite song for a given hour, but while I love intensely, my love is inconstant and I've fallen for another in the blink of an eye (oygnblik in Yiddish). For today I choose "The Watermelon" - actually, "Di Arbuzn" in the original Yiddish. Well, actually, arbuzn is a word Yiddish stole from Russian. Anyway, in the song a farmer tells his beloved that her eyes are as black as cherries (see #5) and that his watermelons are bursting with sweetness and his branches are so heavily laden with fruit they are bending down and that his love is ready, just like his plums. Really!

8. Your favorite smell.
Currently my favorite smell is Freesia Suave shampoo on my son's head. (I use it too but I can't smell it on my own head.) Isn't he patient to let me smell his head? I have no idea if a real freesia smells as good as this shampoo does.


My runner-up would have to be the lavender oil that the annoying boyfriend (see #2) used to wear. If it hadn't been for that lavender oil, I might not have gotten myself into such disastrous mishigas.

OK, there you have it. Do it or not, as you see fit. If you do, let me know and I'll link to you.

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