Thanks for reading the November  2024 issue of This Awful Awesome Life. I hope you enjoy the Creamy Avocado Salsa recipe in “The Twelve Months of Salsa.” Previous issues are available to read on our website. Go to www.thisawfulawesomelife.com and start scrolling or you can enter specific search criteria.

Please remember to vote and protect our democracy. If you have already voted, thank you!

Our December issue is about “The Way Forward.” We’ll also feature articles about the holidays including those pesky New Year’s resolutions.

How do you manage expectations during the holidays? Whether we are celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or New Year’s Eve/Day. I don’t believe we always get the type of experience we expect, but it’s possible we set ourselves up for failure when we don’t manage our expectations.

Set them too low, and it means we expect to be disappointed. Too high, and we’re putting too much pressure on everyone to be perfect. How do we top perfect next year?

We aren’t all mind-readers. Some people have a natural knack for finding the right gift or planning the perfect party. Most of us need a little guidance. Often, I work so hard to make everything perfect for my family that I forget to ask them their definition of perfect. Sometimes, I don’t allow myself to have expectations. When I do, I don’t always convey them to my family, and I end up feeling disappointed without understanding why.

If you’re like me, our children are adults now. Their availability and expectations have changed. We need to respect that. We’ll explore how to step back without getting stepped on.

Orlando Bartro and I will be back with interesting articles for you.

Next month, we will have a Q&A with the Pittsburgh Poetess, Rachel Bouvier. She’s graced our pages before and this time she has agreed to discuss how her poetry has evolved over the years and what subjects she may tackle in the future.

We’ll have another author birthday and our next salsa recipe because you need something tasty to snack on while you read the December issue. Spoiler alert – it’s the perfect salsa for the holidays.

We’re moving some of our regular features around to shake things up a bit and keep you on your toes.

I’ll have more streaming and reading recommendations. “What’s in a Word?” and “Dare to Believe,” will be back but we’ll be alternating some of our content. We’ll continue the monthly quizzes to exercise our brains, and we’ll continue reviewing books.

I’ll have a short story for you with a December theme.

Stay safe. Stay well. You are important, and you are loved.

All my best,

Fran       

Answers to the November 2024 “What Do you Believe?” Quiz – Best answers are highlighted

1. All Vikings wore horned helmets.

   a. True

   b. False –  The idea that Viking helmets had horns was made popular by the costumes from Richard Wagner’s Norse operas

   c. False – Horned helmets depicted in ancient tapestries may have been worn for ceremonial purposes or by renegade warriors known as berserkers. Most Vikings either didn’t wear helmets or wore helmets with brow ridges to protect their faces.

   d. Both b and c

   2. Cleopatra belonged to the Ptolemaic dynasty, a family of Greek origin.

   a. True

   b. False - She was an Egyptian related to Isis.

   c. False – She was Persian.

   d. None of the above

   3. The Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving in the New World in 1621.

   a. True

   b. False – Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi) in what is now the southwestern United States celebrated Thanksgiving as early as the 10th century CE.

   c. False – Spaniards in Florida celebrated a feast of Thanksgiving in 1565

   d. None of the above

   4. Caesar was born by Caesarean Section.

   a. True

   b. Most probably false – because of the crude surgical skills of ancient Roman physicians, mothers were either dead oy dying when this procedure was performed and there seemed no other way to save the life of the child. Caesar’s mother Aurelia was around to raise him, so he was probably not born by Caesarean Section.

   5. “Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword.”

   a. Accurate quote from Caesar

   b. Not a quote from Caesar because there were no drums in Caesar’s time and all swords during his time were double-edged.

   c. Not a quote from Caesar - Pompey said it.

   d. None of the above

   6. According to “The Myth of the Minotaur”

   a. To avenge the death of his son, Androgeos, Minos, the king of Crete demanded the city of Athens send seven young men and seven young women be sent to his place every year for nine years to be sacrificed to a monster.

   b. His monster, the Minotaur, had the head of  bull and the body of  a man.

   c. His palace contained a maze (Labyrinth) where he let the Minotaur) catch and kill these human sacrifices.

   d. All of the above

   7. The concept of an ozone layer is mentioned in Norse Mythology.

   a. True – In Norse Mythology, Odin describes a hidden shield, a Svalinn, which exists between the world and the sun to protect the world from burning up.

   b. False – Living so far North, the Norse seldom worried about too much sun.

   c. False – The Norse believed their sun goddess, Sól would turn the heat of the sun, up or down, depending on her mood.

   d. None of the above

   8. The legendary Greek hero Jason did exist and his search for The Golden Fleece was real.

   a. True

   b. False - Jason was a real Greek, but the golden fleece and his search for it were not.

   c. False – Jason was a made-up character, but the water that washes down from the mountains in the Svaneti region of what is now the modern-day country, Georgia contains gold deposits. For thousands of years, farmers in the area have used sheepskins to strain the water and collect the gold dust and nuggets -inadvertently creating golden fleeces.

   d. False - Minerals in the waters cascading down from the mountains give sheep’s fleece a golden- yellow color when they drink it.

   9. Historians and Archaeologists believe the legendary city of Troy never really existed.

   a. True

   b. False - Historians and Archaeologists believe the city of Troy once stood where the city of Thessaloniki now exists.

   c. False – Historians and  Archaeologists believe that ruins discovered in the 19th  century in the archaeological mound, Hisarlik, in Türkiye (Turkey) are the ruins of the city of Troy based on information taken from ancient literature (Homeric Troy).

   d. None of the above

   10. The myths about the existence of Krakens have been completely debunked.

   a. True

   b. False – Krakens have been found in the Bermuda Triangle and the Alaska Triangle.

   c. False – Researchers have found skeletal remains of Krakens in the waters off the coasts of Norway and Iceland.

   d. True and False – Giant squids 12-15 m (40 to 50 feet) do exist and are probably the basis for the legends of the Kraken. Giant squid live deep underwater and are rarely seen alive by humans, but their carcasses have washed ashore. It’s unlikely they would ever surface and attack ships.