Eating and reading

Emma came to have lunch with me on Friday (April 8, 2022) at the Circle@Crown Café.  She had the Avocado Panini with onion on it, and I had a Mediterranean Panini and a baked potato.  Speaking of food . . .

Here are a couple of easy recipes.  Hmm, now I'm hungry for that salad and banana bread.  I think they would be delicious together.  I also enjoy Greek food, but here's someone who doesn't like Greek eggs and lamb:

April is National Poetry Month, so a pun about Dr. Seuss is appropriate today.

What I'm reading now

We Turn to Face the Sun ~ by Stephanianna Lozito, 2022, fiction, 290 pages

Jennifer Rossi is a 35-year old professor who is tormented and exhausted by a broken and painful relationship with her younger sister, Tara.  When Jennifer receives shocking news about Tara, she begins a quest to uncover answers she may not want to find.  As she learns more about her sister, she becomes more alone and confused.  Jennifer must face up to her complicated relationship with Tara — or lose herself in the process.  This story examines sisterhood's loving bonds through the complexity of death, grief, loss, and love.

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

A book, a puzzle, good things, and a cartoon

I'm currently reading Zora Neale Hurston's Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" (2018) as part of my TBR 22 in '22 Challenge — since I bought it in 2021, and the idea is to read books I already own.  The book is about Hurston's interviews (in 1927 and 1931) with the only person thought to be still alive to tell the story of being transported across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa to America as a slave.  And by the way, this is also still Black History Month.

The Epigraph of Barracoon is a quote from Hurston's autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road:

"But the inescapable fact that stuck in my craw, was:  my people had sold me and the white people had bought me . . . It impressed upon me the universal nature of greed and glory."

Zora Neale Hurston was a novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist.  She was the author of four novels (Jonah's Gourd Vine, 1934; Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1937; Moses, Man of the Mountain, 1939; and Seraph on the Suwanee, 1948); two books of folklore (Mules and Men, 1935; and Tell My Horse, 1938); an autobiography (Dust Tracks on a Road, 1942); and more than fifty short stories, essays, and plays.  She attended Howard University, Barnard College, and Columbia University, and graduated from Barnard College in 1927.  She was born on January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama, and grew up in Eatonville, Florida.  She died in Fort Pierce, Florida, in 1960.  In 1973, Alice Walker had a headstone placed at Hurston's grave site with this epitaph:  Zora Neale Hurston: A Genius of the South.

Here's a puzzle for you.  Find the Volkswagen bug.  I did.

I found it nestled among the snails and the mushrooms.  If

you want help, ask and I'll post the location in the comments.

I used to have a Volkswagen bug.  My VW beetle looked a lot like these.  I forget the exact year of  mine, but I think late 1960s.  Though VW called it Bahama Blue, I always thought it looked more greenish, like the first one.

This one is VW's own example of Bahama Blue.  You decide if it looks blue or green.  Is that, maybe, the color of the sea around the Bahamas?

Good Thing #1

Being friends with Dora

(We'll be having lunch together on Wednesday.)

Good Thing #2

Being friends with Emma

(We had lunch together last Tuesday.)

Good Thing #3?

Being friends with Lauree

(We had lunch together last Wednesday.)

Like Calvin, I'm willing to help Hobbes do nothing at all.  Wanna join us?

Deb at Readerbuzz hosts The Sunday Salon.

Getting out again

Hurray, hurray!

Furniture is being moved back into the lobby of my building.  Maybe we're beginning to see the rainbow at the end of this miserable pandemic year — actually, it's been more than a year, as shown by this photo I took of the lobby on April 2, 2020.  Taped squares have been removed from in front of the elevator showing where to stand to be six feet from others waiting.

Philosophizing

This quote I found on Colleen's Loose Leaf Notes blog today made me stop and think.  I've emphasized the four categories of people, which I'll note could be women as well as men, no matter how Mencken and Keillor labeled them:

"A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn’t there.  A theologian is the man who finds it.  A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.  An author is a man who, in the absence of toilet tissue, is forced to use his own manuscript and regrets that he wrote on such stiff paper." — H.L. Mencken and Garrison Keillor

Visiting with neighbors

The Crown Center recently put our outside tables in grassy areas with two chairs each, so we can visit with each other again, I presume.  I sat down with Rosie just outside the main entrance to our building on a warm day, and we caught up a bit on what we've been doing.  Earlier that day, I visited with Emma, one of the two grad students who lived here before the pandemic.  She came with her mother Jane, who was visiting from Ohio.

Thursday thoughts ~ at the end of the day

ACTIVITIES

You’re in lockdown.  The only items you have to survive on are foods starting with the letters of your first name.  What is keeping you alive?

• Bananas / Bologna / Broccoli / Bread
• Olives / Onions / Oatmeal / Oreos
• Nutty granola bars / Noodle soup
• Navy beans / Nectarines / Nachos
• Ice cream / Iceberg lettuce / Iced tea
• Edam cheese / Eggnog / Eclairs

The rules don't say only ONE kind of food for each letter, so I stocked up for the long haul.  Donna put hers on Jean's Facebook post (thanks for the fun, Jean), and I see Donna and I have Navy beans in common:  Drinking water; Oranges; Nuts; Navy beans; Apricot preserves.  Now it's YOUR turn.  Go for it.

EXERCISING

The sun was shining and the temperature reached 73°F, so I took Clawdia outside for a walk in the grass.  She visited Donna through the window, while I stayed six feet away (see the long leash?).

Continuing our stroll, Clawdia discovered the Crown Center bus, parked with the back of it over the grass where she was walking.  I drew the line (and the leash) when she wanted us to go under the bus.

CONNECTING

While we were outside, a couple walking on the Greenway waved at me; it was Lauree and her husband Ron.  She told me that her mother Tiny is doing fine.  We saw several people while out and about, including Emma at the Crown Center greenhouse.  I chatted with Ginny in Tallahassee by using Facebook's private messages.  Connecting with folks far and near.