Dream thoughts

As I woke up this morning, even before opening my eyes, I realized that I was repeating, "who, what, when, where, why, and how."  Yes, in this order, slightly different from the illustration I found online.  It was like a mantra.  I just lay there, without rolling over or anything, repeating it in my head:  "Who, what, when, where, why, and how."  Like a song.  And no, my sing-songy words did NOT have a question mark at the end.  Simply "who, what, when, where, why, and how."  Well, I knew I was a word person, but a dream about half a dozen words repeated over and over?  That's a new one for me, the wordsmith.

Toponymy or what's in a name?

to·pon·y·my /təˈpänəmē/ noun = the study of place names.  For example, some places are derived from topigraphical features:

1. Montana means "mountains" in Spanish.
2. Mississippi means "big river" in Chippewa.
3. Moccasin Bend describes the Cherokee name for where the Tennessee River is foot-shaped, and they wore moccasins on their feet.

Below are moccasins like I'm wearing right now.

First, a coincidence

I've already shared this card from my sister, HERE, but today I'm sharing it again because of a coincidence.  I found it under a pile of books yesterday, on the day that just happened to be my sister's birthday.  Here's the story behind it:

It's a birthday card from my sister Ann, who died in 2016.  There's no date on it, but it was ironic that I found it on March 22nd, HER birthday.  A week ago, the online cards I use reminded me to "send a card" to her, and I told someone that I'm not convinced they know how to contact the dead.

On the front it says:  "Perhaps you know why women over fifty don't have babies."  Printed inside:  "They would put them down somewhere and forget where they left them.  I can't even remember why I'm sending you this card."  My sister added:  "But I do remember that I Love You!  Ann."  The amazing coincidence, to me, is that I happened across it on HER birthday.  It's like she's sharing another laugh with me, even though she died almost a decade ago.

Five Equations That Changed the World: The Power and Poetry of Mathematics ~ by Michael Guillen, 1995, mathematics history, 288 pages

Dr. Guillen shares simple stories of five fascinating people who were able to harness the power of electricity, fly in airplanes, land astronauts on the moon, build a nuclear bomb, and understand the mortality of all life on earth.  He was ABC's Science Editor and an instructor at Harvard University.

Here's what I have posted this week:

1. On Monday, I posted an Irish proverb, HERE.
2. On Tuesday, I wrote about wearing green and "the luck of the Irish," HERE.
3. Wednesday's word was "rankle," HERE.
4. On Thursday, I wrote about happiness and kind words, HERE.
5. Book Beginnings on Friday's subject was the winner of the National Book Award for Fiction in 2012, HERE.

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

Beginning ~ with the house's foundation

Beginning

Small trees had attacked my parents' house at the foundation.  They were just seedlings with one or two rigid, healthy leaves.  Neverthe-less, the stalky shoots had managed to squeeze through knife cracks in the decorative brown shingles covering the cement blocks.  They had grown into the unseen wall and it was difficult to pry them loose.  My father wiped his palm across his forehead and damned their toughness.

The Round House ~ by Louise Erdrich, 2012, literary fiction, 357 pages

One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked.  The details of the crime are slow to surface because Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe.  In one day, Joe's life is irrevocably transformed.  He tries to heal his mother, but she will not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude.  Increasingly alone, Joe finds himself thrust prematurely into an adult world for which he is ill prepared.

While his father, a tribal judge, endeavors to wrest justice from a situation that defies his efforts, Joe becomes frustrated with the official investigation and sets out with his trusted friends, Cappy, Zack, and Angus, to get some answers of his own.  Their quest takes them first to the Round House, a sacred space and place of worship for the Ojibwe.  And this is only the beginning.

The Round House is a page-turning masterpiece — at once a powerful coming-of-age story, a mystery, and a tender, moving novel of family, history, and culture.  And it won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2012.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts

Book Beginnings on Fridays.

Are you happy?

March 20 is International Day of Happiness, and it also happens to be the first day of Spring.  After a rough winter, I imagine lots of folks are happy to see the arrival of spring.

I have a copy of Clean Speech St. Louis, Volume 4.  It encourages us to speak words of kindness during the month of March this year.  Each year has a slightly different focus.  It reminds us (daily during March) that what we say makes a difference.

I noticed some trees between me and the highway are turning white.  I wonder if they are dogwoods.  I would go check, but my spring allergies say "no" to that.

Have you ever gotten rankled?

ran·kle / ˈraNGk(ə)l / verb = A comment, event, or fact that causes persistent annoyance or resentment.  Example:  The way he jokes about my hair or clothes always rankles me.

Two thoughts for TWOsday

1.  Did you wear green yesterday for St. Patrick's Day?

I did.  Some of my ancestors were Irish.

2.  Saying "the luck of the Irish" was originally an insult.

The phrase dates back to the 19th century and is often linked to

Irish immigrants who found success during the American Gold Rush.

In other words, they weren't smart, just lucky.

An Irish proverb for St. Patrick's Day

The background color is green for St. Patrick's Day,

and I loved a black cat that I named Clawdia.

So this proverb is perfect for my blog today.

I miss you, Clawdia, my little black kitty with a heart on your chest.

Sunday Salon ~ book I heard about

The Second Chance ~ by Charlotte Butterfield, 2025, fiction, 384 pages

Nell has always known the date she's going to die.  After a psychic predicted her death date twenty years ago, she has lived life accepting she would never see forty –  embracing adventure and travelling the world, choosing fun over commitment and laying down roots.

So, when the fateful day comes, Nell feels ready.  She sends five excruciatingly honest confessions to her sister, parents and past loves, knowing she won’t be around to face the consequences.  Then, with her heart laid bare, all that's left to do is check into a glamorous hotel and wait for the inevitable.  But when Nell unexpectedly wakes up the next morning broke, single and very much alive, she must figure out exactly how to seize this second chance at life.  And then it also hits her ... what on earth happens now that everyone knows how she really feels?

QUOTE from a resident in our Cafe on the day before Pi Day (Friday, 3-13:  "Don't forget the MAGPIE while sitting around on Pi Day."

Here's what I have posted this week:

1. On Monday, my subject was Roberta Flack and a book she published, HERE.
2. On Tuesday, I wrote about Vitamin B12 deficiency, HERE.
3. Wednesday's word of the day was "extrapolate," HERE.
4. On Thursday, I was getting ready for Pi Day (or pie day), HERE, and also thinking about brain activity, HERE.
5. Book Beginnings on Friday's subject was a boy in a suitcase, HERE. 
6. On Saturday, I posted a cat quote, HERE.

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

A quote for Caturday

"If there is one spot of sun spilling onto the floor,

a cat will find it and soak it up." — J. A. McIntosh

This is a repeat of a post from 2017, found HERE.

The Caturday quote was illustrated by my cat CLAWDIA,

who lived with me and blogged about things on CATURDAYS.

She still graces the heading above and the sidebar.

Beginning ~ with a woman dragging a suitcase

Beginning

Holding the glass door open with her hip, she dragged the suitcase into the stairwell leading down to the underground parking lot.  Sweat trickled down her chest and back beneath her T-shirt; it was only slightly cooler here than outside in the shimmering heat of the airless streets.

The Boy in the Suitcase ~ by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis, 2011, mystery, 313 pages

Nona Borg, a Red Cross nurse, wife, and mother, is a compulsive do-gooder who can't say no when someone asks for help -- even when she knows better.  When her estranged friend Karin leaves her a key to a public locker in the Copenhagen train station, Nina gets sucked into her most dangerous project yet.  Inside the locker is a suitcase, and inside the suitcase is a three-year-old boy, naked and drugged, but alive.

Is the boy a victim of child trafficking?  Can he be turned over to authorities, or will they only return him to whoever sold him?  When Karin is discovered brutally murdered, Nina realizes that her life and the boy's are in jeopardy, too.  In an increasingly desperate trek across Denmark, Nina tries to figure out who the boy is, where he belongs, and who exactly is trying to hunt him down.

Pi Day = pie for dessert

Pi Day is celebrated each year on March 14th.  Why?  Because the mathematical "pi" equals 3.1415 (plus a string of other numbers).  When we put those numbers into the way we count days, they become 3/14 or 3-14.  Do you see it?  I loved numbers (as well as words) when I was in school, so this kind of stuff intrigued me.  This year (3-14-25) is a Friday (as you can see).  The illustration above seems rather impossibly to be a mixture of cherry pie and pumpkin pie.  I like both, but I prefer fruit pies like these.

Thursday Thoughts

What happens when we die?  I ran across THIS a few days ago, and I was fascinated:  "Brain activity may prove our souls leave our bodies when we die."  Recent studies suggest that a surge of brain activity observed in clinically dead patients could potentially be interpreted as evidence of the soul leaving the body.  EEGs have detected a burst of brain activity in the brains of clinically dead patients, even after vital signs like blood pressure and heart rate have ceased.  Another way to say it is the brain's final moments of activity or the effects of the dying process itself.  Someone called it a "near-death experience."  Yeah, I know this is a speculative interpretation, but isn't it interesting?

Once again, I happened across one of my old posts with a link to WindowSwap, which linked me HERE.  Clicking from window to window all over the world is fascinating . . . and addictive.  I just kept clicking, from backyards here and there to active scenes.  I saw Cancun and Japan and different states in the USA.  I glimpsed parts of the UK and South Africa and the Punjab, India.  I saw several cats looking out windows the way Clawdia did when she lived with me (shown above), plus a few cats cleaning themselves in the window or out on the porch.

Extrapolate is my word for today

I was in the Cafe recently, eating alone and blogging on my laptop.  Two men sitting near me were deep in a philosophical discussion of words and ideas.  One of them said "extrapolate," and I actually smiled to myself.  That was when this "wordy" person started composing this blog post.

Word of the Day

ex·trap·o·late / ikˈstrapəˌlāt / verb = extend the application of a method or conclusion (based on statistics) by assuming that these existing trends will continue.  For example, if I encounter only friendly faces in a town I am visiting, I may extrapolate that all the folks in that town are friendly.

Two thoughts

What TIME is it?

When I woke up on Sunday morning, I learned that my iPhone had updated with the time change, but my watch had not and was an hour behind.  The clock on my kitchen stove was also an hour behind and needed to be reset.  I think we should get rid of the annoying "spring forward" and "fall backwards" changes.

The Unbreakable Brain: Shield Your Brain from Cognitive Decline ... for Life! ~ by Will Mitchell, 2015, health, 121 pages, 8/10

I wrote about this book (HERE), but I marked a lot of pages and want to save some quotes.  So here are a few things from the book that I want to continue to think about and consider:

1. The first thing I noticed is that I stopped reading (or at least putting sticky notes) at pages 56-57.  Why there? I wondered.  It was at a section on "Regular Physical Activity" saying that "walking ... can significantly drop your chances of cognitive decline" (p.56).
2. "Pernicious Anemia" is caused by a deficiency in Vitamin B12.

As I write this, I'm thinking of my recent habit of noting the number of steps I take each day in my daily planner.  I took over 6,000 steps on Sunday and almost 8,000 on Monday.  The reason I noticed "pernicious anemia" is because my grandmother died of pernicious anemia.  I remember my grandmother, though she died when I was little.

I definitely did not want to ever have pernicious anemia, so what's the best way to avoid it?  Grandma Reynolds hated liver.  I learned to love liver and onions, but I also like milk and eggs, which are also sources of Vitamin B12.  As I sit in the Circle@Crown Café composing this (to post just after midnight tonight), I have just eaten scrambled eggs and usually have cereal with milk every few days.  So I am doing the best I can to avoid that B12 deficiency.

Roberta Flack died recently

The Green Piano: How Little Me Found Music ~ by Roberta Flack with Tonya Bolden, illustrated by Hayden Goodman, 2023, children's picture book, 40 pages

This autobiographical picture book by the multiple Grammy Award-winning singer Roberta Flack recounts her childhood in a home surrounded by music and love, and it all started with a beat-up piano that her father found in a junkyard.

Growing up in a Blue Ridge mountain town, little Roberta didn't have fancy clothes or expensive toys, but she did have music.  And she dreamed of having her own piano.

When her daddy spies an old, beat-up upright piano in a junkyard, he knows he can make his daughter's dream come true.  He brings it home, cleans and tunes it, and paints it a grassy green.  And soon the little girl has an instrument to practice on, and a new dream to reach for ― one that will make her a legend in the music industry.

This picture book is perfect for aspiring piano players and singers.  It's an intimate look at Roberta Flack's family and her special connection to music.  (I remember her version of "Killing Me Softly" and am now singing it in my head.)

Pizza and cherry pie, anyone?

Do you like pies?  Pi Day (pronounced like "pie") is coming up this week, so make a pie or buy a pie or somehow get yourself a pie before Friday.  I think I'd like a cherry pie (shown above) and a pizza pie, too.  Both are available at the Circle@Crown Cafe downstairs, so I don't even have to leave the warmth of the building to get them.  Of course, I'll have a book to read while eating my pies.

Mystery Midrash: An Anthology of Jewish Mystery & Detective Fiction ~ edited by Lawrence W. Raphael, preface by Joel Siefel, 1999, mystery, 300 pages

Confront murder and mayhem, from a corporate giant's kidnapping of a rabbi, to the disappearance of the clarinetist in a klezmer band, to four rabbis' use of their text interpretation skills to help a detective solve a murder that one of them has committed.  Each story presents the uncertainties that are a part of Jewish identity, inviting us all to confront our own mysteries of being.  Throughout the tangled puzzles and suspenseful adventures, the characters solve not only the whodunit-type mysteries, but also struggle to solve the mystery of their spiritual lives.

Contributors include:  Joel Siegel, Lawrence W. Raphael, Toni Brill, Howard Engel, Richard Fliegel, Michael A. Kahn, Stuart M. Kaminsky, Faye Kellerman, Ronald Levitsky, Ellen Rawlings, Shelley Singer, Bob Sloan, Janice Steinberg, James Yaffe, and Batya Swift Yasgur.

I opened the book randoming in the middle (almost literally, since this excerpt is from page 173), and what I read there made me decide to check out the book.  This is the beginning of a story called "Poison" by Ellen Rawlings:

    I got a phone call from a woman named Joanne Koppel.  She said she was Meredith Whitney's agent.  "I mean ex-agent," she said.

    I already knew about that.  "Yes?"

    "Well, she's been murdered, and I'm afraid people will believe I did it.  I thought I might hire you to clear my name."

    I knew about the murder, too.  "Did you kill her?" I asked.  "Meredith thought you might."

    I heard her draw a deep breath.  "Maybe I don't want to hire you after all."

    "I doesn't matter," I said.  "I've already been hired — by the victim before she died."

Daylight Saving Time ~ a minute after 1:59 tonight, it becomes 3:00 a.m.  This is the day we lose an hour where I live.  The rule is SPRING forward (lose an hour in the spring) and FALL back (gain an hour in the fall).

Here's what I have posted this week:

1. On Monday, I wrote about the struggles of African-Americans, HERE.
2. On Tuesday, I reflected on the subject of death, HERE.
3. I was acting rather nutty on Wednesday, HERE.
4. On Thursday, I pondered a tall tree and what it might say to me, HERE.
5. Friday's subject was a woman who refused to speak and said not a word after killing her husband, HERE.
6. Saturday was International Women's Day, which I wrote about HERE.

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

Justice for women

The official color of International Women’s Day is purple to symbolize justice.  Hmm, I notice that not a single one of the women in this illustration that I found online happens to be wearing purple, but I'm wearing it anyway.

Beginning ~ with "I don't know why"

Beginning (Prologue)

I don't know why I'm writing this.

That's not true.  Maybe I do know and just don't want to admit it to myself.

Beginning (Chapter 1)

Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband.

The Silent Patient ~ by Alex Michaelides, 2019, psychological thriller, 357 pages

This is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband ― and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive.  Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect.  A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas.  One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety.  The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia.  His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations ― a search for the truth that threatens to consume him.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts

Book Beginnings on Fridays.