Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain has reigned over her queendom for 65 years, surpassing her great-granny Victoria’s record reign of 63 years. That’s a long time, to state the blatantly obvious. Best wishes to her.

Her milestone coincides with the U.S. airing, on PBS, of Victoria, a glossy, well-done series that tells the story of the teenage queen whose name defined an era. With the adorable Jenna Coleman as Victoria, the hunky Tom Waites as her cousin-husband, and the dark, brooding Rufus Sewell as her prime minister….if that’s what he was, wink, wink….it’s well worth watching. Love the dresses, love the stiff uniforms on the princes, love the castles, the palaces, and peeking below stairs at the servants. And candles! Never thought about how many candles it would have taken to illuminate an 1840s ballroom! Hope they had fire insurance.

So the darling, sparkling Jenna/Victoria and the hot-hot-hot Tom/Albert have just married and with the other beautiful people, will now live more or less happily ever after, she beautiful, he dashing.

Well, Jenna, of course, doesn’t look much like Victoria, really. We’ve seen the photographs.

And I was reminded of an essay my wonderful son Mike wrote in middle school, starring Queen Victoria.

I always used to say Mike would have been a good Quaker: social barriers do not exist for him. And as for honesty? It was the only policy he knew.

Me: “Do I look okay in this dress?” Mike: “Yeh, except for the black circles under your eyes, but they’re always there.”

So I begin to give his essay my expert mom-editor eye. Here’s the topic sentence:

“Well, to begin with, she was a very ugly looking woman.”

Had to give him that. She was no Jenna Coleman, for sure.

 Mike told the truth, right?

Yes, I snickered. And I suggested he should focus the paper more on history and less on the physical limitations of this venerable woman. I don’t remember the outcome, except that it turned out fine.

Happy Jubilee, Elizabeth II. You’re better looking than your great-great granny.

But not as cute as Jenna, sorry.

Shame on me, I have not posted in more than a year! No excuses, no reasons. I don’t know why, that’s the truth. I hope to join the April Blogging A to Z Challenge again, so  I have to get back into writing condition. This post will not be a good example!

So I’m limbering up my iPad one finger typing skills until I can get the good people at Apple on the phone and upgrade both browser and operating system in my elderly but lovable laptop. That could be a post in itself. I won’t include how many curses I call down on electronics while it happens, promise.

This is a practice run, just dipping timidly back into the hows and whys and logistics of this blogging thing. Truth to tell, I’d forgotten how much fun this is!

To paraphrase a movie line…….I’m baaaaaaaack! Let me know who’s out there! See you all more often!

 I am a night owl. Always have been, even when I have been forced to rise early. I rose, but I did not shine.

Nothing against sunshine and light and all that. There’s just something about the deep, dark, middle of the night that intrigues me and draws me in.

It’s a whole different world. Different sounds, different sights, different world view. Night seduces you and makes you part of it.

I think I inherited my night owl tendencies from growing up in the city. The neighborhood was never entirely asleep and especially during those hot, muggy, un-air conditioned summer nights, the nights that wrap around you like a damp towel……..you could sit outside til dawn, if you wanted.

Outside the city, there’s nothing so mind boggling as sitting on a starlit beach gazing at The Milky Way. Who are we? Why are we here? 

I love the solitude, the empty streets, the dark windows, the bright moon, the stillness of the night. The night creatures, the crickets, frogs, foxes, owls.  I like it in the rain. I like it in the snow, the wind, the heat, the cold. It’s mine.

Early risers have that certain air of superiority sometimes that makes me shake my head. “Oh, what a gorgeous sunrise this morning! Too bad you didn’t see it.” I chuckle. I saw it…….just before I went to bed!

Night belongs to you. You can be alone in it. You can make it your own. It’s glorious. Step out there and grab it.

Ya gotta laugh. If you don’t laugh you will become old before your time. If you laugh, you will never be old!

 There are so many ways to laugh, from the smug chuckle to the tear-inducing, out of control, belly laugh. You can cyber-laugh: LOL. You can graphic laugh: 😋. But there’s always something going on somewhere that is a  laugh-er of a situation. Even if it only rates an Angry Sneer (see chart). Politics, for example, could be a treasure trove for that kind of laugh.

This little chart (below) shows various laughs and where they originate in the body. It’s not a human body but you get the idea. I can say that personally, I have laughed most of the laughs listed, though I’m not sure about the “Sign of the Apocalypse” laugh. Was that like when my friend’s husband was explaining about murders and football in play she and I were going to and we were actually going to The Calamari Sisters? Because, wow, that almost had us til we realized he was confused, not us.

 I don’t have a favorite laugh unless it’s the “Oh, dear, I shouldn’t be laughing in this situation” laugh that makes your belly hurt and you can’t show that you’re laughing and you cry. You know, like when the dinner theatre lead singer flattens the first few bars of The Sound of Music to a pulp and your wine glass is empty.

You can laugh at people once in awhile, but always try to laugh with them as a rule. Again, politics can skew this concept but, as a rule, yes, be nice.

You can laugh til you cry (see above), you can laugh to keep from crying, you can laugh til you wish you wore Depends, you can laugh at the ironic, at the absurd, at the incomprehensible, at the just plain funny. Are you laughing yet?

How do you laugh best? Doesn’t matter. Just do it. You’ll feel good.

Stay laughing, my friends.