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.)

Lettuce fetch it

Someone's cat Bruno loved to play "fetch."  He'd beg them

to throw a ball and would retrieve it until he was exhausted.

Sign on a restaurant:  LETTUCE bring it to you.

A neighbor shared a 1988 clipping from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about these two things.  I think they are perfect for my TWOsday post, with photos I found online to illustrate them.  I also summarized them in my own words.

Musing about art

The Painter's Eye: Learning to Look at Contemporary American Art ~ by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan, 1991. children's book (ages 9-12), 96 pages

The authors introduce young readers to an appreciation of the magic of art through conversations with the artists themselves, while providing them with the necessary tools to begin a lifetime appreciation of paintings.

 I have no idea why Risé chose this for senior citizens, since I checked it out of our library here at the Crown Center, but I'll give it a try.  It is, after all, a short book.  (Do you suppose Risé figures we old folks are in our second childhood?)