Like lightning

Lightning sailboats are 19-feet long.  I was having lunch with a friend and the conversation somehow got around to my former boat.  My friend doesn't like the water, so she wouldn't go out with me even if I still had that boat.  But our lunch-time chatter became a search on this blog to see if I'd ever written about it.  We named our sailboat Blue Streak.  Can you guess why?  Well, yes, lightning, but also because we talked a blue streak before deciding to get it.

I used to launch that boat into the waters of Lake Chickamauga, which was formed by Chickamauga Dam across the Tennessee River.  We sailed in and out of Privateer Yacht Club, back in the day.  I went out on the water with family, not to race other boats, but this was the best picture I could find online.

Though I'm sitting here in my easy chair with my computer on my lap, I can still feel the breeze blowing through my hair and the wind tipping the boat with its power.  Passengers (uhm, crew) have to lean off the other side to help keep the boat upright.  "Hey, kids, hold on tight!  Wheeee!"

I learned about furling (and unfurling) sails, how to sail into the wind, and how to tow that big boat behind my station wagon.  Because we were on a major waterway, we also had to constantly watch out for bigger boats, like barges heading towards the lock at the dam.  We especially had to watch for speedboats racing each other, often unaware that a sailboat cannot dart out of their way.

"Don't rock the boat" comes to mind, as those racing speedboats would leave a wake that actually did rock our boat.  It also "knocked the wind out of our sails."  Are you familiar with those nautical-sounding terms?

• If you rock the boat, you do or say something that will upset people or cause problems.
• If you knock the wind out of someone's sails, you cause that person to lose confidence in what they were saying or doing.

Squirrel Awareness Month

Squirrels spend most of the warmer months getting ready for winter.  They don't hibernate during the winter, but like to stay cozy in their dens to sleep and snack until it warms up again.  October was designated squirrel awareness month.  My research indicates it is now called simply Squirrel Month.  Whatever we call it, it's fun to imagine "squirreling away" what we need for winter, right?

Today's Words

squirrel away = hide money or something of value in a safe place.  Example:  "The money was squirreled away in foreign bank accounts."  Similar words:  save, put aside, set aside, reserve, accumulate, stock up on, hoard, salt away.

Dear Book Buddies

Dear Book Buddies who live near me,

Let's have a short meeting in the Circle@Crown Café, and choose a book to discuss some day soon.  This little mouse is reading Of Mice and Men, but we don't have to read classical stuff to have fun, do we?  I have a little stuffed mouse sitting on the box beside my door right now (when he isn't going for a walk on my Rollator), and the little guy has a book in hand that says (wait for it) BOOK BUDDIES.  Yes, really.  Ask my neighbors.

Anyway, if you have an idea for a good book we could discuss, that would be wonderful.  The Café is open Monday through Thursday from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.  Suggest a time that's good for you, and we'll start there to narrow down the best time for all of us.

TWO words for TWOsday

By the way, you are more than welcome to invite your friends who love to read.  The more, the merrier, as they say.  And the words for today are BOOK and BUDDIES.  Two very important words for people who like to discuss the books they read.

Pondering my world

I locked the brakes on my Rollator and sat down to rest.  Then I pulled out pen and paper and started musing about what I observed:

A butterfly fluttered by, and somewhere a person's landline phone rang and rang and rang, then rang again and again.  Oops, there it goes again, as I sit and ponder my surroundings while out walk around my neighborhood.

Cars zip by, in a hurry going somewhere — or nowhere in particular.  At my stage of life, I'm usually going nowhere and in no hurry to get there.  So here I sit, in a shady spot within sight of my apartment complex, using pen and ink to write my thoughts into existence on a sheet of tablet paper.  Yes, I do always keep pen and paper with me, wherever I go.  Why?  Because I'm wont to need them, like now.

I smiled at the word "wont" and looked up at a perfectly pale blue sky with nary a cloud to break the blue in any direction.  There's a cool breeze blowing my hair, and it's 80° (according to the weather app on my phone).

P.S.  You do know that "wont" means what I usually do or customarily do, right?

A book about the founding of Israel

Testament at the Creation of the State of Israel ~ by Aaron Levin with introduction by Shimon Peres, 1988, photojournalism, 192 pages

Look at the faces.  Listen to the words.  These are people who helped form the state of Israel.  Shalom Masswari speaks nonchalantly of self-induced starvation, undertaken to make himself small enough to be smuggled out of prison in a suitcase.  Zelig Gonen stands beside the bicycle he used to traffic a basket of Molotov cocktails across an Arab war zone.  Eliahu Shavit crouches above the Jerusalem sewer holes he once crawled through as a saboteur, planting bombs.  Munio Brandwein gazes at the olive trees he planted where three friends lost their lives.

American photographer and journalist Aaron Levin heralds the men and women behind the founding of Israel on its 50th anniversary.  The essays that accompany each portrait tell of the extraordinary events that transformed everyday lives.

My friend was reading this book and showed me a black-and-white photo of a woman bending down to let a black cat sniff her hand, saying that one reminded her of Clawdia.  Oh, yes, it really does.  The other photo shows Clawdia gazing out her favorite window.

Do you remember I told you that people are sharing books with me that they enjoyed?  My friend handed me this book because she owns it and wanted me to read it, since I showed an interest.  Yes, I have it in hand right now and have started reading it already.

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

Beginning ~ in a spacecraft

Beginning

Rotating about the earth in their spacecraft they are so together, and so alone, that even their thoughts, their internal mythologies, at times convene.  Sometimes they dream the same dreams — of fractals and blue spheres and familiar faces engulfed in dark, and of the bright energetic black of space that slams their senses.

Orbital ~ by Samantha Harvey, 202i3, science fiction, 212 pages

This story takes us through one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts — from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan — have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below.  We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communi-cations with family, their photos, and their talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude.  Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet.  Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate.

People are sharing library books with me that they enjoyed.  First, Lois handed me one that I wrote about last week HERE.  And I came home on Tuesday to see a book in the box beside my door from my neighbor across the hall.  The post-it note said, "I loved this one — Betty B."  Yes, it was the book I'm sharing with you today.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts

Book Beginnings on Fridays.

Bugs, witches, and black cats

I saw a shieldbug stumbling around on the sidewalk when I was out for a walk.  It seemed to be hurt, so I bent down to watch it.  When it noticed me, it turned in my direction like it was asking for assistance, even trying to touch a wheel of my Rollator.  I carefully backed away and said I was sorry, but I didn't know how.  I have never before had a bug plainly beg me for help, but it seemed to know that I wouldn't hurt it.  Using the photos I took, I was able to identify it online.

That bug has wings and could fly, so that made me think of other flying things.  Since it's almost Halloween, how about a witch flying on a broom with a black cat?  (That cat reminds me of Clawdia, of course.)  That means today's thoughts are about bugs and witches and cats.  Specifically, black cats.  And my next-door neighbor has a broom like that picture among the decorations outside her door.  Another neighbor has a witch on a broomstick and other stuff on her door, too.  (I'll show you what they've done if and when I can ever get my photos on here.)