Thinking about a lot of things

1.  Do you remember the Coexist bumper stickers?  I had one on the bumper of my car.

• Coexist = Islam                               \
• cOexist = peace                                 \
• coExist = male and female                  \
• coeXist = Judaism                                  What does each letter represent?
• coexIst = Bahai religion                       /
• coexiSt = Taoism/Confucianism        /
• coexisT = Christianity                     /

2.  "If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything.  You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree."  Avi posted this quote from Michael Crichton HERE.

3.  I read history and historical fiction both.  Do you?  One book of historical fiction that I read recently and rated 10/10 was this one:  The Lighthouse Sisters ~ by Gill Thompson, 2022, historical fiction, 439 pages.  Click the title for info.

4.  I found a book of history on my Kindle, still unread, even though I wrote about it on my blog a couple of years ago.  I guess I was overwhelmed by the 736 pages.  What's in it?  It answers questions like these:

5.  When did people first start to play music?  Where were the first cities?  When were cows domesticated, and why do we feed their milk to our children?  Who developed math?  Who invented money?  When did people first start to wear jewelry?

6.  Here's the book, which I should just read in short bites:  A History of the World in 100 Objects ~ by Neil MacGregor, 2010, history, 736 pages.  Read what I've already shared about it HERE.

7.  On Tuesday evening, there was an 80% chance of getting 4.75" of snow overnight.  I went to bed wondering if the Café would be closed on Wednesday, though I had made no plans to eat there with friends the next day.

8.  At 11:22 pm on Tuesday (when I was already in bed reading), my phone notified me that snow was expected to start at my location at 11:37 pm.  So did it snow?  At 11:37 pm, it looked to me like rain hitting the puddles.  However, snow was on the ground and covering the cars when I peeked out the window in the middle of the night.

9.  So how much was on the ground on Wednesday?  At 9:45 am, my weather app said we had had 2.75" of snow, with only 0.1" expected in the next 24 hours.  Not much, after all.  By then, the parking lot and sidewalks had been cleared, and snow was sliding off the cars in the parking lot.

10.  One of my friends has aphasia following a stroke, so I want to understand it better.  Here's what the image says, in case you can't read it:

• Inability to find the right word
• Use of made-up words
• Trouble understanding speech and written language
• Talking in short, one-word sentences
• Repetitive language
• Failure to realize writing and speaking errors

11.  I noticed the cartoon cloud behind Thursday Thoughts below, representing what someone is thinking.  It reminded me of the phrase "having your head in the clouds."  

12.  We laugh at someone with his "head in the clouds," but I googled and found that it's a sign of creativity.  Neuroscientific research supports the idea that a creative person often has his head in the clouds, as "daydreaming involves the same brain processes associated with imagination and creativity."

13.  I was downstairs in the lobby checking my mail when an ambulance arrived, so I sat down to look over junk mail and wait with three others.  It turned out to be a resident who'd fallen on the sidewalk outside earlier in the day.  It was only later that she realized she needed to go to the emergency room.  I don't know whether she was kept overnight or not.  Living in a building full of seniors means seeing ambulances too often.

14.  I read in a "news" item online that, due to the rising popularity of vegan or plant-based lifestyles, dairy milk is becoming less likely to make it onto grocery lists.  Hmm, and I just mentioned feeding cow's milk to our children, up there in #5.

15.  How to Unsend an iMessage ~ read all about it HERE from Reader's Digest.  You must be running at least iOS 16 to do it.  Older operating systems are not compatible with this feature.

16.  I guess that's enough for today.  I think I'll go read something, maybe A History of the World in 100 Objects (see #6).