Old friends

March 16th was the 86th birthday of my friend Shirley.  We've been friends since 6th grade.  Years ago, she sent me a letter with this old B/W photo of the two of us.  I just learned last night that she died two days after her birthday last month.  I started thinking of other friends and realized Ginny in Florida is now the friend I have had the longest, though we didn't meet until we were in high school.  She was a year ahead of me in school (and in age), but we keep in touch even though neither of us now lives in our hometown.

Remembering a long-ago Saturday

The long-ago Saturday that is on my mind today was February 28, 1959.  Let's see, 2026 minus 1959 is 67 years ago.  That's the day I married.  I remember as we left the church, that car-loads of friends were lined up to follow us.  We got into our "getaway" car driven by a friend, but went straight through it to another friend's car going in the opposite direction.  Yep, we almost got away, except for those who happened to be parked going in that direction.  I no longer remember details, but I do remember divorcing him 14 years and three children later (also in February).  The three children, all married now, gave me seven grandchildren.  The first one made me a grandparent on grandparents day.  And now I have six GREAT-grandchildren).  This photo includes four generations (I'm wearing red):

I'm a bookie!

The Question of the week is:   A songwriter composes a song about your love for books.  What would the song's title be?  (This question was submitted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer).

My response:  I tell my friends I read a lot because I'm a "bookie."  That is very different, of course, from the way my dictionary defines that word.  But it works for me.  The song would be titled "She's a Bookie."  That's a photo of me reading to one of my great-grandchildren.  Books were always my choice of gifts for birthdays and Christmas.

Here's another of my great-grandchildren, reading a picture book I'd given him.

A book, a photo, and a coincidence

Cults Like Us: Why Doomsday Thinking Drives America ~ by Jane Borden, 2025, cultural anthropology, 304 pages

This colorful and enlightening pop history explains why the eccentric doomsday beliefs of our Puritan founders are still driving American culture today.  The current rise in far-right extremism as a natural result of our latent indoctrination, so the author proposes that the United States is the largest cult of all.

Since the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth Rock, cult ideology has been ingrained in the DNA of the United States.  Journalist Jane Borden argues that Puritan doomsday belief never went away; it went secular and became American culture.  From our fascination with cowboys and superheroes to our allegiance to influencers and self-help, susceptibility to advertising, and undying devotion to the self-made man, Americans remain particularly vulnerable to a specific brand of cult-like thinking.

With in-depth research, Borden uncovers the American history you didn’t learn in school, including how we are still being brainwashed, making us a nation of easy marks for con artists and strong men.  Along the way, she also revisits some of the most fascinating cults in this country presenting them as integral parts of our national psyche rather than aberrations.

Family photo

A photo I found recently among my stuff shows my dad holding my little brother and me when there were only the two of us children.  Since Billy was two-and-a-half years younger than I was, I think the photo was taken about 1944 or 1945.  I believe our car was a black 1940 Chevy.

I could call this coincidence #1142

I love coincidences.  I went to the Café one morning this week and got back to my apartment a bit before noon.  I looked to see how many steps I had taken by that time.  There would be many more steps before I went to bed, but I smiled when I saw that at 11:42 a.m. I had taken exactly 1,142 steps.

Here's what I posted this week:

1. Monday's focus was on food, HERE.  Fried okra is my favorite food.
2. Wednesday was a "purr-fect" day to "Adopt a Shelter Pet," HERE.
3. Thursday was about May Day protests, HERE.
4. Saturday was a family birthday, HERE.  My twins are now 65 years old.

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

Reflecting on our Café Conversations

On Monday, I had an annual doctor's appointment.  No big deal, but it takes up time in the middle of the day.  On Tuesday, however, I had invited about 20 people to come to the second meeting of Café Conversations.  A few told me ahead of time that:

• they had other plans or doctor appointments.
• she would be out of town.
• she would put it on her calendar.
• she would be delivering meals at that time.
• she would see me Tuesday, followed later by "oops, can't come."
• she "was assisting a friend in Hospice."
• another said, "Maybe." 
• one said simply, "Thank you" with a smiley face.

Most, however, never replied one way or the other.  So I had no idea how many people would be there or how many tables of people we might fill.  At our mid-August gathering, we had squeezed seven of us around one big table.

Well, here's my report about this month.  See that photo at the top?  We had only five of us on Tuesday, so we moved to one side to let Andrew take this photo of us, sitting over in our corner of the Café:  Myrna, Betty, Bev, Bonnie, and Sue.  We talked a couple of hours.  Risé had desk duty and had to miss it this time.  We are still trying to find the best day and time to have our Café Conversations.

Thoughts about a book and a debate

All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way ~ by Fred C. Trump III, 2024, memoir/biography, 352 pages

With revealing, never-before-told stories, Fred C. Trump III, nephew of President Donald Trump, breaks his decades-long silence in this honest memoir and sheds a whole new light on the family name.

For the record, Fred Trump never asked for any of this.  The divisive politics.  The endless headlines.  A hijacked last name.  The heat-seeking uncle, rising from real estate scion to gossip column fixture to The Apprentice host to President of the United States.  Fred just wanted a happy life and a satisfying career.  But a fight for his son’s health and safety forced him onto a center stage that he had never wanted.  And now, at a crucial point for our nation, he is stepping forward again.

In this book, Fred delves into his journey to become a "different kind of Trump," detailing his passionate battle to protect his wife and children from forces inside and outside the family.  From the Trump house to the White House, Fred comes to terms with his own complex legacy and faces some demons head-on.  It’s a story of power, love, money, cruelty, and the unshakable bonds of family, played out underneath a glaring media spotlight.  All in the Family is the inside story, as it’s never been told before.

I loved the look on Kamala's face during the debate on Tuesday, especially after one of Trump's claims.  Fact check:  "There is no state in this country where it’s legal to kill a baby after it’s born."  Wow, that statement floored me!

The next day, a friend met me for lunch in the Café and let me borrow Fred Trump's book (above) that she had gotten from the library and had already finished reading.  I have two weeks to read it before the due date.  She says that it's a quick read.

Is this octogenarian a bag lady?

Word of the Day #1

octogenarian / aak·tuh·juh·neh'·ree·uhn / noun = a person who is between 80 and 89 years old.  Example:  Although I am an octogenarian, I have not seen, heard, or thought of that word in years.  I read somewhere that an octogenarian is a chronologically-gifted person in their eighties.  This photo was taken back when I was ONLY 80 years old.

Word of the Day #2

bag la·dy /ˈbaɡ ˌlādē/ noun INFORMAL = a homeless woman who carries her possessions in shopping bags.  Example:  Yes, I'm sure you already know what a bag lady is, but it occurred to me that I, too, am a bag lady.  What?!?  Yep, I just happen to be a bookbag lady.  My bag, of course, is a bookbag.  Here's one of my book bags, which is the bag my library uses to deliver books to me and the other elderly folks who live at the Crown Center.  (Now I wonder if my handle should be "bookbag lady"?)

Word of the Day #3

han·dle /ˈhandəl / noun =  slang, a person's nickname or username, as on a social media website.  Example:  Being known by the handle of bookbag lady makes sense to me.

Hazel and Bonnie . . . Happiness Is . . .

This little dog is Hazel, and she likes me — can you tell?

Hazel comes running when she sees me.  She often jumps in my lap or let's me take her leash from Alyssa so we can run together.  Okay, so I'm running with a Rollator and my hands are safely on the brakes, but it's running, sort of.  We're going fast, anyway.

Late yesterday, I was sitting in the empty Café talking to Fay when Hazel, on her way out for a walk, spotted me.  In the photo on the left, she is telling me she likes me.  (See that kiss?)  In the photo on the right, she listened carefully as I told her she's such a good girl.

By the way, Alyssa took these photos and came up with the title of this blog post.

The iconic phrase "happiness is a warm puppy" debuted when this Peanuts strip by Charles M. Schulz was first published on April 25, 1960.

First book of the new year

Rumpelstiltskin ~ by the Brothers Grimm, illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky, 1986, children's picture book, 40 pages

A miller carelessly boasts that his clever daughter can spin gold from straw.  He is forced by the king to deliver on this claim.  A little man arrives to help the miller's distraught daughter in exchange for her firstborn child.  Later, when the daughter, now the queen, gives birth to her first child, the little man comes to collect.  He agrees to release the queen from her promise if she can learn his name.

The Wikipedia article about the book is fascinating.  According to researchers at Durham University and the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, this story originated around 4,000 years ago.  Some versions make the miller's daughter blonde and describe the "straw-into-gold" claim as a careless boast the miller makes about the way his daughter's straw-like blond hair takes on a gold-like luster when sunshine strikes it.

So are you wondering why I chose a children's picture book for my first book of the year?  Old age has been viewed as a time when older people regress to child-like behavior and become dependent on others for help.  Or to put it another way, we are forgetful to the point that someone else needs to take care of us.  Nope, nope, nope!  I choose to define second childhood as being old enough to be playful again and have a little fun!  It would be even more fun (for me) if I had the actual childhood books that my parents read to me when I (their first child) came running to say, "Read this book to me!"

P.S.  That's a baby photo of me, probably too young to understand Rumpelstiltskin.

Two for TWOsday, both recommended by Risé

Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying ~ by Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley, 1992, psychology, 224 pages

In this moving and compassionate classic, hospice nurses Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley share their intimate experiences with patients at the end of life, drawn from more than twenty years’ experience tending the terminally ill. Through their stories we come to appreciate the near-miraculous ways in which the dying communicate their needs, reveal their feelings, and even choreograph their own final moments; we also discover the gifts — of wisdom, faith, and love — that the dying leave for the living to share.  Filled with practical advice on responding to the requests of the dying and helping them prepare emotionally and spiritually for death, Final Gifts shows how we can help the dying person live fully to the very end.

How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter ~ by Sherwin B. Nuland, 1995, psychology, xviii 

+ 278 pages

This National Book Award Winner and national bestseller addresses issues in end-of-life care and includes an afterword that discusses how we can take control of our own final days and those of our loved ones.  Each of us will die in a way that is different from anyone else's death.  Behind each death is a story.  Sherwin B. Nuland (1930-2014) was a surgeon and a teacher of medicine.  In this book, he gave us portraits of the experience of dying that makes clear the choices we can make to allow us our own death.

Risé was working in the Crown Center library, so I went in to speak to her.  While we were talking, Harry came in to get a book, which they must have talked about, since she handed it to him.  It was the first book above (Final Gifts), and while we were talking, I noticed the second book (How We Die) among the nonfiction on the counter.  Risé said she recommends both books, so Harry checked out one and I checked out the other; we agreed to swap books after we finish the ones we had in hand.

** Footnote **

Two related books I've written about in the past on this blog are:

1. The Art of Dying ~ by Katy Butler (posted HERE in 2014)
2. Being Mortal ~ by Atul Gawande (posted HERE in 2019)

Library loot and a party

The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row ~ by Anthony Ray Hinton with Lara Love Hardin, 2018, memoir, 299 pages

In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in Alabama.  Stunned, confused, and only twenty–nine years old, Hinton knew that it was a case of mistaken identity and believed that the truth would prove his innocence and ultimately set him free.

But with no money and a different system of justice for a poor black man in the South, Hinton was sentenced to death by electrocution.  He spent his first three years on Death Row at Holman State Prison in agonizing silence ― full of despair and anger toward all those who had sent an innocent man to his death.  But as Hinton realized and accepted his fate, he resolved not only to survive, but find a way to live on Death Row.  For the next twenty–seven years he was a beacon ― transforming not only his own spirit, but those of his fellow inmates, fifty–four of whom were executed mere feet from his cell.  With the help of civil rights attorney and bestselling author of Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson, Hinton won his release in 2015.

With a foreword by Stevenson, this book is an extraordinary testament to the power of hope sustained through the darkest times.  Hinton’s memoir tells his dramatic thirty–year journey and shows how you can take away a man’s freedom, but you can’t take away his imagination, humor, or joy.

Get-together on my floor

Residents on my floor did party together on Thursday afternoon, as we got to know our new neighbors.  I mentioned the upcoming event HERE on my blog.  This photo shows me, Vern, Phil, and Myrna the next day on the television screen at the elevator on our floor.

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz

hosts The Sunday Salon.

Chunksters, numbers, and a RE-birthday

Books I'm still reading:

• 50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True ~ by Guy P. Harrison, foreword by Dr. Phil Plait, 2011, collection, 458 pages — This book is divided into eight sections:  Magical Thinking, Out There, Science and Reason, Strange Healings, Lure of the Gods, Bizarre Beings, Weird Places, and Dreaming of the End.  Wherever possible, Harrison presents alternative scientific explanations, which in most cases are even more fascinating.
• A History of the World in 100 Objects ~ by Neil MacGregor, 2010, history, 736 pages — I'm still reading this chunkster a bit at a time.  More info HERE.

Word of the Day

Chunkster = There was a Chunkster Challenge about a decade ago, and people were challenged to read big, fat books of 450+ pages.  They could be fiction or nonfiction.  It looks like that's what I'm doing with these two books:  458 + 736 pages.  They're both on my Kindle, so they're not heavy.

Numbers of the Day (odd ones and even ones)

Amy Krouse Rosenthal (Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, 2005, p. 119):  "Justin came home from school with the announcement that he had just learned what even and odd numbers were.  Okay, I said.  So tell me:  What's infinity, even or odd?  I certainly didn't have an answer in mind; I posed it only as a fun, unanswerable kind of question.  He thought about it for a moment, then concluded:  Mom, infinity is an 8 on its side, so it is an even number."  [FYI, infinity is not a number.]

Re-birthday

Today is the 14th anniversary of my quadruple bypass surgery on February 19, 2009.  A year later, I decided it was a perfect occasion to party with the friends who took care of me (and my cat) while I was recovering, so I sent invitations to my RE-birthday party.  This photo shows me holding the cake Donna brought for the occasion.  See the giant candle shaped like a ONE?

Hmm, that means the "new" me is 14 years old.  Somebody remind me how to act like a teen.  At 11, my sixth grade teacher called me "stately" and chose me to play the part of Marmee in the 2-hour production of "Little Women" she produced using my classmates and me.  That made me the "mother" of four of my friends.  Hmm.  I don't know how to act like a teen, and I'm not sure I ever knew.  I was always considered the "mature" kid.

As I was searching for the top photo, I ran across this one of me in an art class after moving to the Crown Center.  I was struck by the similarity of how I posed — or at least the tilt of my head.  The photos were taken at least five years apart, maybe more.

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz

hosts The Sunday Salon.

What I'm thinking about

1.  On the Crown Center bus ~ Iva, Betty, and Meredith on the left; Bonnie, Esme beside Jerry, and Shannon (in the back) on the right.  This is an old photo, but I'll be on the bus again today when we go to buy groceries.

2.  Another bagful of books ~ Risé invited me to go with her this morning to the last day of the sale of used books at the Jewish Community Center.  That's when we can fill a bag with books for five bucks.  I've written about the books I've stuffed into bags other years, like THIS in 2017, but I haven't been to their sale since I quit driving.  I'll tell you about the books later, probably over several days, a few books at a time.  I set this to post itself while we're book shopping.

3.  Punxsutawney Phil ~ Did you see my earlier post?  Today is Groundhog Day, so go back one post to see what I wrote.

4.  Einstein's cluttered desk ~ The photo on the right was his office on the day he died.  These are the words on the left photo:  "If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?" — Albert Einstein

5.  Survey about daily life ~ Do you need help...

... with using the telephone?

... with shopping?

... with food preparation?

... with housekeeping?

... with laundry?

... with transportation?

... with your medications?

... with your finances (budgeting, buying, banking, paying bills)?

6.  And then there's quality of life to consider, as Atul Gawande wrote about in his 2014 book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End.  I gave that one a 10/10 rating and highly recommend it.  A survey could ask questions about whether you are satisfied with your life, how you feel, whether you are involved in activities or not, whether you feel hopeless or happy.  Think about it.  How alive and involved are you feeling these days?  In answering some of their quality of life questions, I didn't just circle Yes/No as requested.  You know me, right?  I had to throw in a few remarks, as well.

7.  Do you often get bored?  NO, I don't think I've ever been bored, except in some business meetings.  😃

8.  Do you prefer to stay at home, rather than going out and doing new things?  YES, but that's because I'm an INTJ (introvert).

9.  Do you think it is wonderful to be alive now?  YES, but reading news of random rampages is not "wonderful."  (Neither, is reading about wars and violence.)

10.  Do you feel full of energy?  NO, not physical energy.  Mentally I have lots of energy, but my physical energy is slowing down.

11.  An alarming day ~ I set off alarms at the courthouse in my town back in 2009.  Why?  I told people it is because I am held together with baling wire. I actually WAS wired together after quadruple bypass heart surgery earlier that year.  The guard let me pass through after I showed her my scars from surgery.

A Christmas tree and a poem for 2022

And a very Meow-y Christmas to you, too!

I wish you a Meow-y Christmas,

I wish you a Meow-y Christmas,

I wish you a Meow-y Christmas,

and a Happy New Year!

from

Clawdia and Bonnie

Food for thought and for the tummy

Risé and I had lunch at Jilly's Cupcake Bar and Café, which is about half a block from where we live.  We both got their Brisket BLT (called a BBLT) and a Snickerdoodle gingerbread cupcake (a better view is on the left).  We had enough for another lunch.  We two book lovers managed NOT to go to the bookstore that's in the same strip mall.

Across That Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change ~ by John Lewis, 2012, nonfiction, xvii + 180 pages

Faith, patience, truth, love, peace, study, and reconciliation:  these are the buckets into which Lewis poured his message about "the inner transformation that must be realized to effect lasting social change."  A civil rights pioneer and Georgia congressman, Lewis (Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of a Movement) sought to inspire nonviolent activism in a time that he regarded as the most violent in history.  For his audience, Lewis targeted Occupy protestors, and members of the movement could draw lessons from the anecdotes that are the heart of the book.  

At its best, the book provides a testament to the power of nonviolence in social movements, with moving personal accounts of the Freedom Rides, such as when Lewis described being physically beaten in South Carolina or sitting out a 40-day sentence in the unrelenting Parchman Farm prison in Mississippi.  At its worst, it resembles an extended campaign speech:  "Some people have told me that I am a rare bird in the blue sky of dreamers ... despite every attempt to keep me down, I have not been shaken."  In between these extremes is the advice of a wise uncle who has earned the right to have his say. 

John Lewis "was a guiding voice for a young Illinois senator who became the first Black president," according to the West Suburban Journal, where I found this photo of Barack Obama awarding him the Medal of Freedom in 2011.  Quote from the book:

"The most important lesson I have learned in the fifty years I have spent working toward the building of a better world is that the true work of social transformation starts within.  It begins inside your own heart and mind, because the battleground of human transformation is really, more than any other thing, the struggle within the human consciousness to believe and accept what is true.  Thus to truly revolutionize our society, we must first revolutionize ourselves.  We must be the change we seek if we are to effectively demand transformation from others."

This quote is from the dust jacket, so I don't know the page number.  Amazon readers have rated this book 4.9 out of 5 stars, so it must be pretty good.

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.