It's Sunday again

101 Things You Need to Know ~ by Scholastic staff, 2003, nonfiction, 64 pages

What's the difference between heat and temperature?  Who was our twenty-sixth president?  How do you figure out the circumference of a circle?  Who made the first national flag?  What is a bar graph?  Where do you place the colon in a business letter?  Why do earthquakes happen?

1. On Monday, I was feeling frustrated, HERE.
2. On TWOsday, I had two subjects, a book and a word, HERE.
3. Wednesday's Word was "sidetracked," HERE.
4. Thursday's thoughts were about all the friends who joined me while eating in the Cafe, HERE.
5. Friday's "book beginning" was from a book I found "blowing in the wind" on our outdoor patio, HERE.

is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

Wayside or sideways?

Beginning

Sue was very excited to be at Wayside School in Mrs. Jewls's class!  She was surrounded by all the kids she had read about in her favorite book, Sideways Stories from Wayside School.

Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School ~ by Louis Sachar, 1994, children's (ages 7-9), 90 pages

"Everyone take out your spelling books," said Mrs. Jewls.  "It's time for arithmetic."  Sue is so excited for her first day at Wayside School.  But things at Wayside are far from normal — and Sue's teacher, Mrs. Jewls, is completely wacky.  She expects the students to add and subtract words!  Sue has never heard of anything so ridiculous.  She knows adding apples plus oranges is impossible . . . or is it?  Anything can happen at Wayside School.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts

Book Beginnings on Fridays.

The Thinker is thinking thoughts today, and so am I

It is supper time, and I haven't yet posted my thoughts for today.  The Thinker is reminding me to share some thoughts.  Okay.  Sue and I planned to have lunch together, but I decided to go down to our Circle@Crown Cafe early to have my breakfast when they opened at 8:00 a.m.

Alice McC. joined me at my table.  When Sandy M. showed up, I invited her to sit with us because today's her birthday.  Sue arrive a little before 11:00, as she had planned to do, and joined those of us already sitting there.

When I got a call from Sandra H. asking if I'd like to meet her in the Cafe (she lives in the neighborhood near here), I told her I was already in the Cafe, so come join us.  She was coming to the Crown Center for a program that met at 1:00, but she had time to eat with us before it started.

So my friends from here and there just came and went all morning, and I ended up being in the Cafe with various people as they met each other and left for their own activities.  Do you wonder how long I was in the Cafe?  From 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. as those folks chatted and ate together.

When I finally headed home, after walking around the block (going the long way home to get in my steps, in other words), I ran into Dora H. sitting in the lobby and sat down to talk to her awhile.  Other friends stopped to speak to us as they passed by us, like Alyssa with her dog Hazel, and Betty B. who sat down to talk.

I think I got in a good day's worth of socializing:  Alice, Sandy, Sue, Sandra, Dora, Alyssa, Hazel (yes, dogs count), and Betty.  And these don't count the ones we said hello to as they came and went through the lobby.

Sidetracked

The Little Book of Answers: The How, Where, and Why of Stuff You Thought You Knew ~ by Doug Lennox, 2003, non-fiction, 191 pages

These easy to read vignettes are bite-sized chunks of wisdom on topics like people and places, pop culture, customs, sports and leisure, politics and history, war and military, holidays, animals, superstitions and beliefs, words, expressions, and trivia.  I knew the chapter on words would be a favorite, so I flipped to that section.  This is the part (from page 139) that convinced me I would love this book:

Why do we say someone diverted from a goal has been "sidetracked"?

Early railroads had only a single track between destinations.  Problems arose when a train was met by another goin in the opposite direction or was overtaken by a faster one.  This dilemma was solved with the creation of sidings, short lengths of track built parallel to the main line where one train could pull over while the other went by.  The train had been "sidetracked," meaning that, for a time at least, it wasn't going anywhere.

Two subjects = a book and a word

How to Speak Midwestern ~ by Edward McClelland, 2016, linguistics and cultural anthropology, 199 pages

In this book on Midwestern accents and sayings, Edward McClelland explains what Midwesterners say and how and why they say it.  He provides humorous definitions of jargon from the region.  The glossary even has a section about St. Louis (pp. 53-57), where I currently live, roughly two miles from"the Loop."  Did you know that people here call St. Louis "the Lou"?  Actually, I live among people from all over the world:  Vietnam, Russia, China, Britain, Germany,, and many parts of the United States.  I have been told I have a Southern accent, so I wanted this book when I came across it recently.

Word of the Day

lin·guis·tics /liNGˈɡwistiks/ noun = the scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of morphology, syntax, phonetics, and semantics.

I'm frustrated

I took 20 books to trade in at a nearby bookstore and got all of $5.00.  That is the last time they will ever see me, especially since they kept ALL of the books that I brought.  Why?  Because they "donate" them.  If I had been thinking rationally, I would have said, "I choose to donate them to the Crown Center library."  Why do they think they have a right to decide what to do with my books?

A memoir

The Beauty in Breaking ~ by Michele Harper, 2020, memoir, 304 pages

Michele Harper is a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is overwhelmingly male and white.  Brought up in Washington, D.C., in a complicated family, she went to Harvard, where she met her husband.  They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a hospital in central Philadelphia, when he told her he couldn’t move with her.  Her marriage at an end, she began her new life in a new city, in a new job, as a newly single woman.

In the following years, as Harper learned to become an effective ER physician, bringing insight and empathy to every patient encounter, she came to understand that each of us is broken — physically, emotionally, psychically.  How we recognize those breaks, how we try to mend them, and where we go from there are all crucial parts of the healing process.

The Beauty in Breaking is the story of Harper’s journey toward self-healing.  Each of the patients Harper writes about taught her something important about recuperation and recovery.

1. How to let go of fear even when the future is murky.
2. How to tell the truth when it’s simpler to overlook it.
3. How to understand that compassion isn’t the same as justice.

As she shines a light on the systemic disenfranchisement of the patients she treats as they struggle to maintain their health and dignity, Harper comes to understand the importance of allowing ourselves to make peace with the past as we draw support from the present.  In this book, she passes along the necessary lessons that she has learned as a daughter, a woman, and a physician.

Online comment:  "Overall, the author tells an incredible story of overcoming her childhood trauma, dealing with racism and sexism, and growing into an ethical human being."

1. On Monday, I wrote about the tittle (dot) over the letters i and j, HERE.
2. On TWOsday, I was thinking about okra and walking, HERE.
3. Wednesday's Word was "remit," HERE.
4. Thursday's subject was the Book Bike visit to the Crown Center, HERE.
5. Friday's "book beginning" was from Tom Brokaw's memoir, HERE.

is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.