Thinking and blogging again ~ yeah, again!

My laptop was not working right, so my computer guy came yesterday and fixed it.  Whew!  But when I saw Tuesday's post, I thought, "Wait a minute!  How did that get posted?"  Then I realized I had set it long ago to post automatically on that special day.  Relief!  Okay, Bonnie, take a deep breath and start blogging again.

 

It's National Cat Day ~ I hope your cat is feline fine!

National Cat Day is celebrated in the United States

on October 29th.  It was created by Colleen Paige

to bring awareness to the number of cats that

need to be rescued each year.

Like lightning

Lightning sailboats are 19-feet long.  I was having lunch with a friend and the conversation somehow got around to my former boat.  My friend doesn't like the water, so she wouldn't go out with me even if I still had that boat.  But our lunch-time chatter became a search on this blog to see if I'd ever written about it.  We named our sailboat Blue Streak.  Can you guess why?  Well, yes, lightning, but also because we talked a blue streak before deciding to get it.

I used to launch that boat into the waters of Lake Chickamauga, which was formed by Chickamauga Dam across the Tennessee River.  We sailed in and out of Privateer Yacht Club, back in the day.  I went out on the water with family, not to race other boats, but this was the best picture I could find online.

Though I'm sitting here in my easy chair with my computer on my lap, I can still feel the breeze blowing through my hair and the wind tipping the boat with its power.  Passengers (uhm, crew) have to lean off the other side to help keep the boat upright.  "Hey, kids, hold on tight!  Wheeee!"

I learned about furling (and unfurling) sails, how to sail into the wind, and how to tow that big boat behind my station wagon.  Because we were on a major waterway, we also had to constantly watch out for bigger boats, like barges heading towards the lock at the dam.  We especially had to watch for speedboats racing each other, often unaware that a sailboat cannot dart out of their way.

"Don't rock the boat" comes to mind, as those racing speedboats would leave a wake that actually did rock our boat.  It also "knocked the wind out of our sails."  Are you familiar with those nautical-sounding terms?

• If you rock the boat, you do or say something that will upset people or cause problems.
• If you knock the wind out of someone's sails, you cause that person to lose confidence in what they were saying or doing.

Squirrel Awareness Month

Squirrels spend most of the warmer months getting ready for winter.  They don't hibernate during the winter, but like to stay cozy in their dens to sleep and snack until it warms up again.  October was designated squirrel awareness month.  My research indicates it is now called simply Squirrel Month.  Whatever we call it, it's fun to imagine "squirreling away" what we need for winter, right?

Today's Words

squirrel away = hide money or something of value in a safe place.  Example:  "The money was squirreled away in foreign bank accounts."  Similar words:  save, put aside, set aside, reserve, accumulate, stock up on, hoard, salt away.

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?)

 

A book and a story about a tired puppy

Billy Budd ~ by Herman Melville, 1948, novella, 96 pages (plus a 48-page Reader's Supplement)

This is a sea adventure classic and the final novel by American writer Herman Melville.  It was first published posthumously in London in 1924.  Melville had begun writing the story in November 1888, but left it unfinished at his death in 1891.  British critics called it a masterpiece when it was published in London, and it quickly took its place as a classic literary work in the United States.  Billy Budd represents Melville's return to prose fiction after three decades when he wrote only poetry.  He started it as a poem, a ballad entitled "Billy in the Darbies."  In 1919 the novella was discovered in manuscript form by someone studying Melville's papers.

I read the book years ago.  Actually, decades ago.  My copy is the version shown above.  It has lots of copyright dates:  1948, 1956, 1962, 1966, and 1972.  I can remember reading it in school long ago, so I picked it up to read again and see what I think of it now.

I want to share a story I recently learned about (HERE).  A little German Shephard puppy was crying to take her bed on a walk.  I understand, since walks make me tired, too.  (This isn't the same pup, but a cute one I found online.)

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

Beginning ~ with the truth

Beginning

Every word in this book is true.  I only say that for the men who read it ― every woman who reads it will know its truth instinc-tively.  We could swear it was all made up and women would know better.

It's a Chick Thing: Celebrating the Wild Side of Women's Friendship ~ edited by Ame Mahler Beanland and Emily Miles Terry, 2000, social sciences, xvi + 189 pages

This collection has forty stories about the special and unique times that strengthen the bonds of women's friendships and create shared history. It takes a look at women's friendship at its wildest, with antics, escapades, risk taking, loyalty, irrepressible humor, and merriment.  I thought Fergie's and Diana's night on the town was funny, but it's just what I read when my friend Sharon brought some books and had lunch with me.

Read about Dolly Parton's escapades with her friends in high school,  how Sharon Stone literally gave Mimi Craven the shirt off her back, and the time when Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn faced down detractors of the "Coal Miner's Daughter."  I found it very annoying, though, that tHe woRdS were in mixed font, with some uPPercaSe lettErs and SomE loweR cAse, with NO  rhyme  oR reason.  That was annoying and made it hard to read.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts

Book Beginnings on Fridays.

Blowing the Shofar

This is a rabbi from Chabad blowing a shofar at a program that I attended this afternoon.  If you are not Jewish, you may be asking, "What is a shofar?"  It is a horn from a ram, like the ram in this photo:

The rabbi gave a talk to explain what it was all about, using A-B-C to help us remember.  Alarm or wake-up call, Binding of Isaac, and Coronation of a king.  First, we have to wake up and know we need something.  Isaac was bound by his father Abraham to be the sacrifice he offered, but then a ram got caught in a bush nearby and became the sarifice instead.  (Find that story in Genesis 22).  I can see how a ram's curved horn could be caught when he pokes his head in the green stuff to eat it, can't you?  That's how the ram's horn comes into the story.  Today, we heard the sound of the ram's horn in the rabbi's hands.

Yoghurt or Yogurt?

Yogurt and yoghurt are both English terms.  The spelling is usually "yogurt" in the United States, while "yoghurt" is predominantly used in British English (the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand).

When I went looking for something to illustrate the diffence in the two words, I found the picture above.  But it says there is also a difference in what the two are made of!  Really?!?  Now I'm confused.  I live in the USA, so I guess my version is on the right.  Can you read that small print?  Here's what it says:

• YOGHURT ~ The milk they use is typically heated to a higher temperature before fermentation. Traditionally made with sheep or goat milk, although cow's milk is also used.
• YOGURT ~ A yummy dairy product made by the process of fermenting milk using good bacteria. 

The words yogurt and yoghurt may look similar, but they have slightly different meanings, apparently.  Both are products with a milk base, but their origins and the way they’re produced vary slightly.

Then I read that "yoghurt isn’t just a funny way of spelling yogurt.  It’s actually a type of yogurt that originated in Turkey and somewhere in the Middle East.  It’s made sort of in the same way as regular yogurt, but the milk they use is typically heated to a higher temperature before fermentation.  This gives it a slightly different flavor and texture compared to regular yogurt.  Yoghurt is also traditionally made with sheep or goat milk, although cow’s milk is also used, and it’s rich in probiotics, which can help support a healthy gut."

There are also different kinds of yogurt.  I usually get Greek Yogurt, though I go from flavor to flavor.  This shows Strawberry, but Monday I brought home vanilla-flavored Greek yogurt.  And that brings me to the reason I'm thinking of this word (and its spelling) in the first place.  Yes, I'm in the USA, but I wrote YOGHURT on my list.  Wait, why?  That's when I looked up the "correct spelling" of the word.  Maybe I was confused because I read books (and blogs) from all over the world.  That's when I got online to figure out the "correct spelling" of the word.  And that's why the word (words?) became the subject for my Wednesday Words.  (And I learned some new things.)

Then I wondered why it's called "Greek Yogurt", and found this posted HERE:

Yogurt is milk cultured in a particular way.  A quart of milk makes a quart of yogurt.  "Greek yogurt" is just strained yogurt.  You can make it from regular yogurt by dumping it into a mesh strainer lined with cheesecloth and letting it drain for an hour or so.  So a quart of milk makes less than a quart of strained yogurt.

Though strained yogurt is popular in Greece, it's also popular in other parts of the Balkans and the Middle East.  It's only called Greek because it was popularized in the US by a Greek company.

Women's groups in Methodism that I remember

Women's groups in the United Methodist Church have changed names several times during my life.  (I found these dates HERE).

1939 ~ The various women’s home and foreign missionary societies of churches that came together before my time became the Woman’s Society of Christian Service.  (My mother was president of the WSCS at the church we attended.)

1968 ~ The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church united to form the United Methodist Church (UMC).

1972 ~ The Women’s Society of Christian Service and the Wesleyan Service Guild were united to form United Methodist Women (UMW).

2019 ~ The UMW celebrated 150 years since eight denominations had come together and begun various women's missionary societies.

2022 ~ United Methodist Women (UMW) became United Women in Faith (UWF).  (Some of us still say UMW; old habits die hard.)

Two thoughts for TWOsday

Nightwork ~ by Nora Roberts, 2022, fiction, 437 pages

Bestselling author Nora Roberts introduces an unforgettable thief.  Greed.  Desire.  Obsession.  Revenge ... It’s all in a night’s work.  Harry Booth started stealing at nine to keep a roof over his ailing mother’s head, slipping into luxurious, empty homes at night to find items he could trade for precious cash.  When his mother finally succumbed to cancer, he left Chicago ― but kept up his nightwork, developing into a master thief with a code of honor and an expertise in not attracting attention ― or getting attached.

Until he meets Miranda Emerson, and the powerful bond between them upends all his rules. But along the way, Booth has made some dangerous associations, including the ruthless Carter LaPorte, who sees Booth as a tool he controls for his own profit.  Knowing LaPorte will leverage any personal connection, Booth abandons Miranda for her own safety ― cruelly, with no explanation ― and disappears.

But the bond between Miranda and Booth is too strong, pulling them inexorably back together. Now Booth must face LaPorte, to truly free himself and Miranda once and for all.

My friend Lois read this over the weekend and insisted I'll love it, so I brought it home with me.  Yes, even though it has over 400 pages!

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins tomorrow evening.  It's a time of introspection, prayer, and repentance that is celebrated with traditional prayer, followed by blowing a Shofar (a curved ram's horn) and eating traditional food like challah, apple, honey, and pomegranates. The Crown Center has a rabbi coming for a service, and everyone is welcome ~ even those of us who are not Jewish.