Sunday Salon ~ friends, family, and books

FRIENDS

This is "my" usual table when I eat dinner here at the Crown Center.  I wasn't there when they celebrated Cardinals Night.  Left to right are Gail, Susan, Sheila, Mickey, Adeline, and Donna.

FAMILY

My youngest grandchild graduated from high school yesterday.  Congratulations, Cady!  She'll be starting university life in the fall.

BOOKS

The library loot I wrote about last week hasn't been as difficult to get through as I had expected.  I've already completed three of the seven books...

• Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer ~ by Barbara Ehrenreich, 2018, sociology, 9/10
• The Cheshire Cheese Cat: A Dickens of a Tale ~ by Carmen Agra Deedy, illustrated by Randall Wright, 2011, children's chapter book, 7/10
• Solving the Puzzle Under the Sea: Marie Tharp Maps the Ocean Floor ~ by Robert Burleigh, illustrated by Raul Colon, 2016, children's picture book, 8/10

...and have gotten well into a fourth library book.

• Counting by 7s ~ by Holly Goldberg Sloan, 2013, YA fiction

These are quotes I want to remember from Ehrenreich's book, Natural Causes:

"Once I realized I was old enough to die, I decided that I was also old enough not to incur any more suffering, annoyance, or boredom in the pursuit of a longer life. ... As for medical care: I will seek help for an urgent problem, but I am no longer interested in looking for problems that remain undetectable to me. Ideally, the determination of when one is old enough to die should be a personal decision, based on a judgment of the likely benefits, if any, of medical care and — just as important at a certain age — how we choose to spend the time that remains to us" (p. 3).

"Not only do I reject the torment of a medicalized death, but I refuse to accept a medicalized life, and my determination only deepens with age. As the time that remains to me shrinks, each month and day becomes too precious to spend in windowless waiting rooms and under the cold scrutiny of machines. Being old enough to die is an achievement, not a defeat, and the freedom it brings is worth celebrating" (pp. 12-13).

Quoting physician John M. Mandrola: "The default should be: I am well. The way to stay that way is to keep making good choices — not to have my doctor look for problems" (p. 9).

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