Thanks for reading the February 2024 issue of This Awful Awesome Life. Previous issues are available to read on our website. Go to www.thisawfulawesomelife.com

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In March we’ll be celebrating Women’s History Month, the first day of spring, and the opening day of the baseball season.

We’ll have another author birthday and our next salsa recipe.

In honor of women everywhere, we are featuring an article by Robin Barefield about the many unsolved disappearances of Indigenous women in Alaska. Why are so many of these women never found? Why does law enforcement seem so reluctant to invest the necessary time and resources to look for them? Is cultural bias to blame? What can we do to insure that every disappearance of a woman or girl is taken seriously?

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

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 based on one of our March themes, but I’m not sure what will inspire me.

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

All my best,

 Fran  

Answers to the February 2024 Star-Crossed Lovers Quiz:

1.       These star-crossed lovers live in Oceania, a dystopian world monitored by the Thought Police. After being arrested and tortured, they renounce their relationship and profess their love for Big Brother. Winston and Julia/1984

2.       This love story about the illicit love between a Cornish knight and an Irish princess has been around since the 12th century. Tristan and Isolde (Iseut)/A Medieval chivalric romance

3.       He’s a vampire and she’s a vampire slayer. What could possibly go wrong? Buffy and Angel/Buffy the Vampire Slayer

4.       She’s a free-spirited liberal Jew who marries a handsome WASP. Her activism threatens his reputation as a Hollywood screenwriter during the McCarthy era and destroys their marriage. Katie and Hubbell/The Way We Were

5.       After her death during the birth of their 14th child, her grieving husband had a tomb built as a monument to their undying love. Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal/The Taj Mahal

6.       This orphan, taken in by a wealthy family, falls deeply in love with his benefactor’s daughter, but he is hated by her brother who will stop at nothing to keep the young lovers apart. Catherine and Heathcliff/Wuthering Heights

7.       A modern twist on Romeo and Juliet set in New York City featuring rival gangs, the Jets, and the Sharks. Tony and Maria/West Side Story

8.       They fall in love learning their lines for the high school play. He’s the cool guy and she’s the shy preacher’s daughter secretly battling a terminal illness. Landon and Jamie/A Walk to Remember

9.       The daughter of a wealthy merchant auditions for a play disguised as a boy and wins the heart of a playwright with writer’s block. Their love story is destined to fail after her family promises her hand in marriage to an aristocrat. William and Viola/Shakespeare in Love

10.   He has special powers and she’s the love of his life, but Lex will stop at nothing to keep them apart. Clark and Lana/Smallville

11.   He’s so smitten with her that he becomes obsessed with writing poems about her beauty. His obsession is taken for madness. Her father forbids their marriage and arranges for her to marry someone else. This really does drive him to madness. In some versions of the poem she dies of a broken heart, and their love remains unconsummated forever. Layla and Najnun/A Persian poem

12.   He falls in love with and has a brief encounter with a male friend who betrays him to hide their relationship. Years later their paths cross again, but they have chosen different paths and can never be together. Chiron and Kevin/Moonlight

13.   They fell in love in Paris, but she leaves without saying goodbye. Years later, she walks into his nightclub. Rick and Ilsa/Casablanca

14.   She was engaged to a wealthy brute. She was traveling in first class, and he was in the steerage section. They fell in love only to be separated by an iceberg and his untimely death. Jack and Rose /Titanic

15.   Just two cowboys in love. Jack and Ennis/Brokeback Mountain

16.   All’s fair in love and sports. Monica Wright & Quincy McCall/Love and Basketball

17.   Theirs was a love that transcended death, and changed the way we look at a potter’s wheel forever. Sam and Molly/Ghost

18.   After falling in and out of love, she decides to erase him from her mind permanently. He eventually does the same, but fate brings them together for another chance at love. Joel and Clementine/Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

19.   In 1952, a glamorous older woman going through a contentious divorce meets a talented young photographer and begins an affair with her. Their love seems doomed by the efforts of her spiteful husband who threatens to sue for full custody of their daughter because of their same-sex relationship. Therese and Carol/Carol

20.   From his ship, he sees flames lighting up the city unaware that it’s his former lover’s funeral pyre. Aeneas and Dido/Book 5 of Virgil’s Aeneid

21.   Convinced the love of his life will reject his affections because of his physical features, he pours out his heart to her using the attractive Christian to deliver his words of love. Cyrano and Roxane/Cyrano De Bergerac

22.   Through a crack in the wall these star-crossed lovers whisper their love for each other despite the feud between their families. After their tragic deaths by their own hands, the gods change the color of mulberries to match the color of their blood in honor of their forbidden love. Pyramus and Thisbe/Ovid’s Metamorphoses – the inspiration for Romeo & Juliet

23.   Ill-fated Russian lovers who flee to Italy by train only to return to Russia where their relationship is doomed to fail. Anna and Vronsky/Anna Karenina

24.   He’s assigned to escort the future queen to her wedding. They fall in love, but the marriage takes place anyway. After denying their love for many years, they give into temptation and their affair nearly destroys a kingdom. Lancelot and Guinevere/Knight of the Cart

25.   After being seduced by Alec who ruins her life, she finds love only to be rejected when her idealistic lover learns about her past. Tess and Angel/Tess of the D’Urbervilles