Sammy's Musings and Insights

As many of you know, I have an avid interest in genealogy.  In genealogy, there are those questions that you get answers right away and some you don't get the answer until later and those questions that become a mystery and cannot be solved.  In some cases, the questions you feel you have reached a dead end suddenly shed to light after all this time and you feel like you are on top of the world.  There have been a few instances this has happened to me where there were questions that felt like there were no answers to and finally by divine intervention, the answer is here and now.  There was a case two years ago in 2014 when I finally found out how and when my paternal grandmother had passed away and not only that, where she was living in Albuquerque when she finally passed.  This had been a mystery for years to the day I bagan my family tree in 2009 (or at least my version of the family tree).  At the time I thought I was at a dead end on my s...

After much deliberation of processing this for the last few weeks, it is time to say this. The Internet is a tool to use for research purposes, for reaching out to old friends, keeping in touch with family faraway, for entertainment and for practical uses such as shopping and education. It is not, and I reiterate, NOT, to be used as a way to stalk, threaten, intend to threaten or harm or frighten a person in any way, shape or form because someone is angry at someone else. ... Just recently, I have been the victim of this and this perpetrator knows who they are and what could be done to them if they do not stop (thank goodness not one of my friends/family here on Facebook). I have been calm, professional, and ladylike about this, but this was very unnecessary and inappropriate and with everything else I am coping with, this was over the line and unacceptable. People like this are part of the reason I don't date, go out to parties, go on social media or reveal private parts ...

I have been contemplating something for weeks that has been bothering me since it happened.  Along with that, I am still bothered by the attitudes surrounding it.  After many weeks, I am still at the same conclusion; not only that I am still baffled by why others would not agree with my conclusion.  A few weeks ago, I was moving my things from my apartment to a storage area and was scrambling to find people to help.  I was in a bind because I had to be out by a certain date and my landlord had already made arrangements for another tenant to move in.  (Along with that I could not afford the increase in rent which would have gone from $1050 to $1395.  I don't have it).  I originally called a moving company to see if they could do the job, however every weekend until my move out date was booked and a weekday would not work for me because I couldn't get the time off.  I did manage to get two people to help me, a old colleague and his friend/roo...

Tonight I finished watching the latest episode of Once Upon a Time, "Sympathy for the De Vil".  The episode focused on the backstory of Cruella De Vil and her turn toward darkness and villainy.  Now if you are a follower of the show, you will know that the producers make a point that there is no such thing as pure good or pure evil.  As Regina says "Evil is not born, it's made, and so is good".  Yet in Cruella's case, we end up with a villain who was already evil from birth: the classic bad seed.  It seems this classic villain broke the mold the producers created in the first place: good and evil not born but made.  Let's take a look at how the villains were created.  Regina is a perfect example: a young aristocrat happily in love with a stable boy, enjoys riding horses and enjoying a more simple life.  Yet thanks to overbearing mother Cora, Regina is thrown into the path of regality by saving the life of Snow White and marrying her father, King...

I know as a single woman, it is expected to be with a family on Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Well, on Thanksgiving I am covered because friends always invite me somewhere, sometimes but not always.  I decided that regardless of that, I still keep these holidays special to me in my own way and so I made a list of traditions I love and some I think I may incorporate: 1) No After Thanksgiving Black Friday shopping--this is thanks to moving to the Bay Area and seeing how crazed shoppers are here. (This is like Ramadan for me as a recovering shopaholic) 2) Celebrating Advent by going to Mass on Sunday 3) Putting up the tree and decorations 4) Lighting my candles on Winter Solstice 5) Watching A Christmas Carol and Miracle on 34th Street on DVD 6) Go see the Nutcracker 7) Attend Christmas Eve Mass 8) See a movie on Christmas and eat at Denny's (I started this in 2002 with my sister) New ideas for this year: 1) Attend Las Posadas (Spanish-American trad...

Despite my disappointment and frustration I had at the Anne Rice signing, I have to give her credit for this: for the best writing advice I ever got from her.  This advice was is that there are no rules to writing.  I am glad she has said that because there have been times in class where I felt like I was restricted in my writing and my creativity and felt like my writing was being hinged.  This happened to me again last week in my American Women's Literature class.  Our assignment was to write a memoir piece that shaped our identity cultural, spriritually, etc.  It had to reflect on our gender identity and values.  Unfortunately, my first draft of my essay, it was not acceptable because it did not meet her requirements.  So I had to ask myself what experiences shaped me as a woman and my gender identity.  I ended up writing about an experience about being bisexually curious.  I was off and running on this and the ideas were comin...

Can I even call it a meeting?  More like I just had a quick word while she signed my copy of her latest novel "Prince Lestat", on Wed. over at Books Inc.  The only word I can sum up my experience is disappointing. I have been a eager fan of her books for fourteen years, since I was an accounting student over at Solano Community College.  Her Vampire Chronicles began to heal me from a depression I was feeling about myself: a 20 year old college student who was unsure of herself and what she wanted to do with her life.  Especially when I was being encouraged to take up accounting and was not completely sure if this was the career choice for me.  Of course, I still finished the accounting program at the college, but I was still feeling empty.  Then came the days when she became self-proclaimed Catholic again.  My knowledge of religion and faith were foreign to me.  Trying to understand the mystery of faith was something I never could grasp or eve...