Sunday Salon ~ art, food, and books

Art

It doesn't usually occur to me to photograph what I'm eating, but while having lunch with my friend Donna this week at The Shack where people are given markers to write on the walls, I made an exception.  Next to me was a magnificent, small dragon which was too low for Donna to see from her side of the table.  So I whipped out my camera to show it to her ― and now to you.  A black-and-green dragon amidst the graffiti.

Food

While I had the cell-phone camera in hand, I also snapped what we had ordered because it arrived at that moment.  Serendipity?  I guess.  Anyway, I had this huge burrito on chili covered in cheese and Fritos, full of bacon and hash browns.

Donna had a croissant with scrambled eggs and sausage called "Why the French Hate Us."  Donna's hash browns were on the side.  We both took half home for the next day's lunch.

 More Art

And now for the art of the bulletin board.  I've started changing the board by the elevator on my floor, the 6th floor, every month.  It's a volunteer thing, which I've done three times so far, as you can see.  For March, my neighbor Tiny added St. Patrick to my two nature pictures.

The focus for April was Earth Day, with "Take One" word-search puzzles hanging from the bottom of the bulletin board.

For May, I decided to unclutter the board and open it up for a breath of fresh air.  By the way, most floors have an extra push-pin or so for events that come along during the month.  At the bottom in this one is information about the Resident Council meeting for that Thursday, and (if you click to enlarge the photo) maybe you can see the announcement is in English, Russian, and Chinese. We're a very diverse community, here in our retirement center.

Books

In these first three weeks of May, I've completed these seven books:

39.  Golden State ~ by Michelle Richmond, 2014, fiction (California), 9/10

"Without a child, are we even a family?" (loc. 2194)

40.  Off the Page ~ by Jodi Picoult and Samantha van Leer, 2015, fiction (New Hampshire), 8/10

"If a character sits in a book and no one reads it, is he truly alive?" (p. 4).

41.  Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths ~ by Karen Armstrong, 1997, history, 8/10

"Mythology was never designed to describe historically verifiable events that actually happened.  It was an attempt to express their inner significance or to draw attention to realities that were too elusive to be discussed in a logically coherent way" (loc. 209).

42.  Still Time ~ by Jean Hegland, 2015, fiction, 8/10

"I keep thinking his mind is like a broken necklace ― some beads are lost forever while the rest are just scattered everywhere" (loc. 1230).

"He has studied Shakespeare's work for the length of Shakespeare's lifetime, but he has forgotten how King Lear ends" (loc. 2990).

43.  I Shall Be Near to You ~ by Erin Lindsay McCabe, 2014, fiction, 10/10

"I never had so much of nothing to do before in my whole life" (p. 76).

44. The Tenth Justice ~ by Brad Meltzer, 2011, fiction (Washington, DC), 8/10

"Every day, the Court is flooded with petitions seeking certiorari, or 'cert.'  When four justices grant cert, it means the Court will hear the case.  To save time, we [Supreme Court clerks] read through the cert petitions, put them into a standard memo format, and recommend whether the justice should grant or deny cert" (p. 16).

45.  A Pain in the Tuchis: A Mrs. Kaplan Mystery ~ by Mark Reutlinger, 2015, mystery, 9/10

"As I have said before, death at the Julius and Rebecca Cohen Home for Jewish Seniors is not what you would call an unusual event.  Sad, yes.  Unusual, no.  Given the average age and state of health of the residents, it is perhaps surprising we are not having memorial services on a daily basis" (loc. 74).

"Listen, we're not getting any younger, you and I, and we should be having all the new experiences we can, while we can" (loc. 2149).

Bloggers gather in the Sunday Salon — at separate computers in different time zones — to talk about our lives and our reading.