Jake moved in with me 8/27/26

Jake moved in with me two days ago, and I have questions.

Who has had her so far?  (Sheila and Judy, that I know of.)  When was she born?  What kind of cat is she?  Why is her tail so stubby?  Does she have a chip?  (Yes.)  Who's her vet?  (I got that info from Judy.)  Sheila named her "Jake," even though she's a girl.  Judy has had Jake since Sheila died, but the office says she cannot have two pets.  Since I used to have a cat, Judy asked me if I would take Jake.  I agreed and talked to the office.  The form that I must complete has 25 sheets of paper, and the pet fee has gone up to $300.  Whew!

Now, my next question is whether Jake will want to blog on Caturdays, the way Clawdia and Kiki did.

A book recommended by Nancy, of Bookfoolery

A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy ~ by Tia Levings, 2026, memoir, 304 pages

Recruited into the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement as a young wife, Tia Levings learned that being a good Christian meant following a list of additional life principles –– a series of secret, special rules to obey.  Being a godly and submissive wife in Christian Patriarchy included strict discipline, isolation, and an alternative lifestyle that appeared wholesome to outsiders.  Women were to be silent, “keepers of the home.”

Tia knew that to their neighbors her family was strange, but she also couldn't risk exposing their secret lifestyle to police, doctors, teachers, or anyone outside of their church.  Christians were called in scripture to be "in the world, not of it."  So, she hid in plain sight as years of abuse and pain followed.  When Tia realized she was the only one who could protect her children from becoming the next generation of patriarchal men and submissive women, she began to resist and question how they lived.  But in the patriarchy, a woman with opinions is in danger, and eventually, Tia faced an urgent and extreme choice:  stay and face dire consequences, or flee with her children.

A Well-Trained Wife is an unforgettable and timely memoir about a woman's race to save herself and her family and details the ways that extreme views can manifest in a marriage.  Nancy wrote about this book on her blog, HERE.

Sir Percy of Marmalade is Bookfool's new kitten.

Oh, wait, now there are two:  Percy and Pippin.

International Dog Day

International Dog Day focuses on its mission of canine rescue, animal welfare, and adoption advocacy.  The photo below shows me "running" in the tenth floor hallway with Hazel, the companion of one of my friends.

Wednesday's word is change

A Dream Fulfilled: The Story of Barack Obama ~ by Tanya Savory, 2010, biography, 165 pages

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.  We are the ones we've been waiting for.  We are the change that we seek." — Barack Obama

Barack Obama grew up in a time when change was just beginning to come to black people in the United States.  He experienced an often difficult childhood, confusion over his own identity, and frustration when trying to help the victims of poverty and hopelessness.  But he never stopped believing that, in America, change for the better could happen.

A Dream Fulfilled: The Story of Barack Obama is about an inspirational man whose life shows us the value of hope, education and hard work.  Obama's journey — from his unusual youth to his travels to Kenya in search of his father to Harvard Law School and, finally, to the White House — proves that dreams can indeed be fulfilled.

The power of imagined experiences

Having been a life-long reader (I'm 86 years old now), I was fascinated by a recent article from Reader's Digest entitled "Here's the Scientific Reason We're Drawn to Certain Books — And What Each Genre Does to Your Brain" (found HERE).  So what exactly does each genre do to your brain?  (I read all four of their categories.)  Here what the article claims:

Mystery and Thriller

• Stimulates regions involved in tracking clues and predicting outcomes.
• Forces the brain to build theories, test them, and impose order on uncertainty.

Fantasy and Sci-Fi

• Activates the sensory and motor cortices to simulate unreal worlds and actions.
• Provides heavy escapism, triggering dopamine and serotonin to soothe anxious thoughts.

Literary Fiction

• Exercises the brain's default mode network, boosting theory-of-mind and social cognition.
• Enhances your ability to understand complex human perspectives and internal reflections.

Nonfiction and History

• Strengthens analytical thinking, logical pattern recognition, and memory retention.
• Slows long-term cognitive decline by building rigid semantic and factual networks.

Musing about time and science fiction

Beyond Time ~ edited by Sandra Ley, 1976, science fiction, xv + 268 pages

The back cover of this book (that I bought in August of 1968) says that all twenty stories speculate on the fascinating question, "What if?"  They ponder how the world might be staggeringly different if only one event or person had been changed.  The stories include:

1. “The Cliometricon” by George Zebrowski
2. "The Rise of the Sun" by Gordon Eklund
3. "Jupiter Laughs" by Edmund Cooper
4. "Worlds Enough" by Don Thompson
5. "Assault on Fat Mountain" by R. A. Lafferty
6. “O Brave Old World!” by Avram Davidson
7. "Hail to the Chief" by Lucy Cores
8. "Soy la Libertad' by Robert Coulson
9. "The Devil and the Deep Blue Sky" by Robert Chilson
10. “A Class with Dr. Chang” by Ward Moore
11. "Unscheduled Flight" by Juanita Coulson
12. "Alternate Universe I, II, III by Tom Disch
13. “Polonaise” by Alan Dean Foster
14. "U-Genie SX-1--Human Entrepreneur: Naturally Rapacious Yankee" by Dimitri V. Gat
15. "Letter from America" by H. R. Percy
16. "The Napoleonic Wars" by Felix C. Gotschalk
17. "Checkmate in Six Moves" by Olga Lay
18. "Many Rubicons" by Michael Orgill
19. “The Fellini Beggar” by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
20. "All Possible Worlds" by Laurence M. Janifer

(By the way, the original price on this book from 50 years ago was $1.95.)

A book for people who love words

Phraseology: Thousands of Bizarre Origins, Unexpected Connections, and Fascinating Facts about English's Best Expressions ~ by Barbara Ann Kipfer, 2008, etymology, 320 pages, 9/10

The front cover (above) has nine examples, which you may be able to read by clicking to enlarge the illustration.  Here are a few other examples from the book:

• alter ego is Latin for "other self" (p. 11)
• a captain's chair is one having a rounded back formed by a heavy rail resting upon (p. 30)
• the term flash flood only dates to 1940 (p. 109)
• flower children were hippies who typically wore flowers in their hair (p. 110)
• home page (1993) actually entered the language before website (1994) (p.139)
• kiss of life was a name used in the 1960s for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation (p. 158)
• living will, a written request that, if the signatory suffers severe disablement or terminal illness, he or she should not be kept alive by artificial means, dates to 1969 (p. 168)
• news flash (1904) originally applied to telegraphic news dispatches (p. 192)
• a red herring is something introduced to distract from a more important or controversial issue (p. 230)
• you're welcome did not exist as a polite formlaic response to a than you until 1960
  
  
  Week in Review

  • On TWOsday, I wrote about two books, HERE.
  • My book beginning on Friday, HERE, 
  • It's been a slow week for posting on my blog, it seems.

  

  Deb at Readerbuzz hosts Sunday Salon, a place for us to link up and share what we have been reading and doing during the week.