Book recommendation: I heard about this book earlier today when I called my friend Joan Uda in Montana. I suggested we have lunch "together" by phone, and we talked across the miles as we ate lunch in different states and different time zones. She also suggested a couple of other books, and I told her what I was reading. When we got off the phone, after nearly an hour, I put this book on reserve at my library.
The Lost Tomb: And Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder ~ by Douglas Preston, (Foreword by David Grann), 2023, true stories, 320 pages
Douglas Preston, author of the bestselling The Lost City of the Monkey God, presents the jaw-dropping discovery of a vast Egyptian tomb containing dozens of sealed burial chambers. What’s it like to be the first to enter an Egyptian burial chamber that’s been sealed for thousands of years? Where might a blocked doorway or newly excavated corridor lead? And what might this stupendous tomb reveal about the most powerful pharaoh in Egyptian history?
The book brings together an astonishing and compelling collection of true stories about buried pirate treasure, enigmatic murders, lost tombs, bizarre crimes, archaeological mysteries, and other fascinating tales. Preston broke the story of an extraordinary mass grave of animals killed by the asteroid impact that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, he explored what lay hidden in the booby-trapped "Money Pit" on Oak Island, and he roamed the haunted hills of Italy in search of the Monster of Florence. In other words, Douglas Preston has written about some of the world’s strangest and most dramatic mysteries.
Yesterday, I called one of my two best friends, and we talked for two hours and twenty minutes. For part of the time we were in school together at Emory University, I lived with their family — she has a husband and four children. After our talk, I sent her a link to something we discussed, and she emailed back: "Thank you for calling....Loved it."
I later called my other best friend, who returned my call after lunch. We talked a long time, too. What? Why can't I have two best friends? One lives hundreds of miles east of me, and the other lives hundreds of miles west of me. I wish we could get together and talk for hours. Phones are the next best thing, but I can't get a hug over the phone.
Clean Speech St. Louis
I picked up a 2023 workbook for Clean Speech St. Louis (Volume 2) in the lobby recently and brought it home to read. Crown Center for Senior Living is one of 32 participating organizations. Last year's subject was about harmful or hurtful words said about a third party who is not present; this year's focus is on the verbal mistreatment of the person with whom you are speaking (p. 12). The third day suggests we review what we learned last year. They'll be happy to send a link to download the curriculum from last year, if you missed it: <https://cleanspeech.com/stl/>. Examples from the book:
Day 1 example
"Steve wakes up one morning to a text message from his brother, berating him for not being more helpful with their elderly parents. In a foul mood, he complains to his wife Beth that there's no coffee creamer. Feeling criticized, Beth is short-tempered with their teenage daughter, Sarah, who goes off to school in a huff, silent and moody in her carpool. Over dinner that night, they sit at the table and describe their rotten day, before retreating from the tension into separate corners of the house on their devices."
Day 2 example
"Steve wakes up one morning to a text message from his brother, thanking him for being so helpful with their elderly parents. In a cheerful mood, he compliments his wife Beth on the outfit she's wearing. Feeling loved, Beth is more patient with their teenage daughter, Sarah, who[m] she encourages to speak more confidently with the challenging girls in her carpool. Over dinner that night, they sit at the table and share small victories from their day, enjoying each other's company a little longer than usual."
What a difference a kind, positive word makes! I'm sure we've all seen this in real life.
2022 = Lashon hara (Hebrew: לשון הרע) means "evil tongue" for speech about a person or persons that is negative or harmful to them, even though it is true.
2023 = Onas devarim (Hebrew: דְּבָרִים) is the prohibition against saying hurtful words to a person.
With Her in Ourland ~ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1915, utopian fiction, 123 pages
This is the third book in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's utopian trilogy which begins where Moving the Mountain and Herland left off. Gilman masterfully compares our modern male-dominated world with an imaginary perfect society comprised of only woman. Gilman was a well known and deeply respected sociologist and this trilogy holds an important place in feminist fiction. All of our books are printed to order. This reduces waste and helps us keep prices low while greatly reducing our impact on the environment.
A blogger had this to say about the book: "With Her in Ourland reads less like a story and more as philosophy." That's okay with me, since philosophy was part of my double major undergraduate degree.
In response to my St. Patrick's Day post a couple of days ago about being Irish, a friend sent me this photo. I love it! Hmm, I'm taller than most of my friends around here, even though I've shrunk a couple of inches in my old age. Does does that make me less Irish?
Here's the gardener with the green thumb, the one who is growing the beautiful flowers near the gazebo behind our buildings. I shared two photos of these plants in July. We appreciate those flowers you have shared with us, Sandy. Thank you for adding beauty to our grounds.
Having now caught my breath (after a month), it's time to say thanks to some people. Joan's daughter Beth is an artist, who makes "wearable art." Thanks, Beth, for the exquisite silk scarf I'm wearing in this photo and also for the beautiful potholders and the times we gathered at your home while I was in Montana.
Thanks, Cari and Roger, for taking me along on your trip so I could celebrate Joan's 80th birthday with her. Thanks for getting this old lady through all the airports and baggage claims. Thanks also for the boat trip down the Missouri River to the Gates of the Mountains. But especially, thanks for the conversations and getting to know you.
Thanks, Donna, for keeping Clawdia that week. And thanks, Shannon and Risé, for leading the exercise group those two Friday afternoons I was traveling. I had a great time in Montana with Joan.
I enjoyed sharing ideas for retirement centers with residents at Hunters Pointe, when I was in Montana visiting my friend Joan. I told them about the Crown Center for Senior Living and learned what they do that's similar ... or very different. I'll share this sign from Hunters Pointe with my friends here: "Don't just live with us — participate with us!" We do that, here at the Crown Center: participate in events, bus trips for shopping or eating, volunteer work to help others around us, and gardening, for instance.
A slightly different angle shows the entrance to Hunters Pointe (off to the left), with a deer's head on the wall.
We have a group of knitters here at the Crown Center, whereas the residents of Hunters Pointe have a quilters group. This is the room where they get together, and that's a quilt on the wall that they were in the process of piecing together when I was there.
Looking down from the third floor near the elevator, the stairs and dining room are visible beyond the second floor corridor. To the left on the second floor is the table for working jigsaw puzzles, and to the right is a small table with a chess or checkers board on it. And two more deer heads. On the two unseen walls of the atrium are another deer head and an antelope head. It is Montana, you know.
Three weeks ago, I was in Montana to celebrate my friend Joan's 80th birthday. We celebrated with TWO parties plus lots of family activities that I got to attend, since I was there from out of town. The photo above is of Joan and me arriving at her daughter's house in Helena on the Saturday before Joan's birthday.
Here's a photo I took of one of Joan's grandsons and her son who flew in from Phoenix. Below is another grandson and his fiance trying to get a photo of the several tables of food in the garden area.
I didn't get any pictures during either patio party, but I'm hoping I can get a few from some of the many photographers who were there.
Continuing my "series" about my vacation in Montana to visit my friend Joan, here I am last week between Roger and Joan's daughter Cari on the boat tour on the Missouri River to a place Meriwether Lewis called the Gates of the Mountains.
Our boat was the Sacajawea II, which stopped at a picnic area for a short break during our two-hour tour. Along the path there, I saw this monument to the thirteen smoke jumpers (some mere teens) who died in 1949 during the Mann Gulch fire.
We learned a lot about history from our tour guide, who took the boat from one side of the river to the other to show us pictographs and bald eagles near their nests and how the "gates" seem to close off the passage. This photo shows the gates upriver "opening" wide for us.
And this is my favorite photo of the boat tour. Beautiful, isn't it?
This is the guest room at Hunters Pointe, where my friend Joan lives in Helena, Montana. Notice the moose on the wall and the wild life on the bedspread and on the lamp shade. I was there for eight days, getting to visit with Joan and her four children and most of her grandchildren.
Joan and I were having lunch and chatting in the Hunters Pointe dining room with some of her friends a couple of days ago, when I noticed the word "HOME" beyond Joan's head. It's on the mantel under the monitor displaying pictures of events and nature and cute wild animals. Since it's Joan's new home, it's very appropriate that I captured that moment.
I like this view of Helena from Joan's son's house. Click on the photo to enlarge it and see the sleeping giant in the center of that mountain range. His head (with pointed nose) is to the right, slightly to the left of the small forest fire. The giant has a very large chest (in the middle of those mountains), but he doesn't seem to have any feet.
And yesterday, I flew from Helena to Salt Lake City (airport shown here) and home to St. Louis. I'll share more vacation photos in the next several days, since I took dozens of pictures, including some at Joan's birthday celebrations — plural — over more than one day.
Clawdia on Donna's sofa
Coming up next on this blog: the Gates of the Mountains boat ride tour through 1000-foot limestone cliffs. The Lewis and Clark expedition arrived here on July 19, 1805. I arrived in the same month, 214 years later. Meriwether Lewis thought “the rocks seem ready to tumble on us.” At each bend in the waterway, great stone walls seemed to block passage, only to open like gentle giant gates as the expedition drew near. So he called it "Gates of the Mountains."
Donna sent me this photo of Clawdia, who was getting tired of her long "visit" at Donna's apartment. She was quite ready to come home when I went to get her.
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan designated July as National Ice Cream Month and the third Sunday of the month as National Ice Cream Day. That means this year's National Ice Cream Day will be Sunday, July 21st. My friend Donna and I celebrated today, a wee bit early because I'll be in Montana on Sunday, celebrating with my friend Joan on her 80th birthday. The blackberry cheesecake ice cream Donna dished out was delicious. Thanks, Donna!
I completed seven books in January, five books in February, but a whopping total of fifteen books in March. Wow! That's a lot, even for me. As you can see from this week's list, I have read 28 books so far in 2017, finishing that last one today.
25. The Greatest Prayer: Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of the Lord's Prayer ~ by John Dominic Crossan, 2010, religion, 9/10
"I would find in that prayer what the historical Jesus stood for ― or knelt for" (p. 7). ... "Could it be that love is a style or mode of justice, so that you can never have either alone?" (p. 189).
"...neither Jake nor I talked to anyone else while at the bus stop. Thinking about how easily my daughter melded into 'the group,' I wished, not for the first time, that I could be more like her. I also wished (although I would never admit it) that Jake could be more like her, too" (p. 125).
27. Girls Will Be Girls ~ by Franklin Folger, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, cartoons, 6/10
Woman standing in front of seated women, all wearing hats, at a meeting: "Since many of you applauded when it was announced that we have a large deficit in the treasury, I feel I should explain what that means" (p. 64).
28. Keeping Sam ~ by Joanne Phillips, 2015, fiction (England), 8/10
"Just how much else had her amnesia made her forget?" (loc. 278).
Donna and I went to Left Bank Books to hear Ferguson Wellspring Church pastor F. Willis Johnson discuss his book Holding Up Your Corner: Talking About Race in Your Community (2017). The book points out the complex causes of violence in the community, including racial prejudice, entrenched poverty and exploitation, segregation, the loss of education and employment, and the ravages of addiction. I read the book in January and rated it 9 of 10, an excellent book.
"People who are hurting
need to be affirmed in their hurt;
people who are angry
need to be affirmed in their anger" (p. 54, repeated on p. 60).
My life outside books
This photo shows the progress of the blooming trees where I live, and today my son and his wife are celebrating their 31st anniversary. When my friend Joan moved from the apartment complex next to mine last week, I "inherited" some of the food from her shelves. While looking at the "Best by" dates to decide what to use first, I found "Philippians 4:6-7" stamped beside the date on one box. Naturally, I looked it up in my Bible (NRSV).
6 Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Yes, I know that's another book I just quoted from, so let me get back to life outside books by sharing a yoga video. You may remember I'm in a Gentle Chair Yoga class, so here's "Yoga for Yankees" featuring Yankee humorist Fred Marple. If the video quits working, view it on YouTube.
Edited at 9:35pm: I just got a call from my daughter Barbara relaying the news that my brother Bill died. Jim, my other brother, asked her to call me. He's my only sibling now, since our sister Ann died in August.
Bloggers gather in the Sunday Salon — at separate computers in different time zones — to talk about our lives and our reading.
Eating out with friends
When Barbara found out Joan would be moving in a couple of days, she set up one last meal together. Joan moved to Montana yesterday. Barbara took this picture of Donna and Joan and me at OB Clark's.
Although I don't have photographs to share, I also ate out this week with a bus-load of folks at Rib City, with Joan for lunch at Pumpernickles Deli, with Miriam and her friend Arlene at the St. Louis Bread Company before an event by the Holocaust Memorial Museum at our library, and with Donna at Sonic after seeing the movie "Fences." I'm not sure who's going to Chevy's Fresh Mex for dinner this evening on the Crown Center bus, but I'll be there. And this list doesn't include the evenings I choose to eat at the Crown Center with other residents and people from the community. As you can see, I haven't done a lot of cooking lately.
22. Tao Te Ching: A New English Version ~ by Stephen Mitchell, 1988, religion, 9/10
"Those who know don't talk.
Those who talk don't know" (#56).
Po Chu-i, poet and stand-up comedian, wrote,
"He who talks doesn't know,
he who knows doesn't talk":
that is what Lao-tzu told us,
in a book of five thousand words.
If he was the one who knew,
how could he have been such a blabbermouth? (p. 85).
23. Two Tyrants: The Myth of a Two Party Government and the Liberation of the American Voter ~ by A.G. Roderick, 2015, politics, 9/10
"Educational accomplishment, social mobility, and economic stability should be bastions of American achievement" (p. 7).
24. The Boy No One Loved ~ by Casey Watson, 2011, memoir (England), 9/10
"If there's one thing that absolutely must come out of this is that he knows there are people here who love him unconditionally, and that we will always be here for him. Always" (p. 269).
Bloggers gather in the Sunday Salon — at separate computers in different time zones — to talk about our lives and our reading.
I'm following the advice of these book shelves by reading my own Jürgen Moltmann books. Can you see that it says "read your book case"?
This has been a good week, but not what I expected. For one thing, I didn't complete Moltmann's autobiography, as I had hoped to do. On the other hand, I managed to get six posts written (if I get to count the one my cat "wrote"), and I enjoyed socializing with friends several times: visiting with Sandy and Donna over a meal, "Talking It Over" with a group of Crown residents, eating out with Joan, meeting Rosie for lunch in the Circle@Crown Café, and getting to know Miriam over dinner with other residents downstairs. (I'm Miriam's
ambassador, a volunteer who helps a new resident get to know about the Crown Center.)
Book just completed:
The Indigo Children: The New Kids Have Arrived ~ by Lee Carroll and Jan Tober, 1999, psychology, 8/10
Books I'm reading now:
Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race ~ by Debby Irving, 2014, race relations
Stress: The Good and the Bad ~ by Paula Ceccaldi, Agnès Diricq, and Clémentine Bagieu, 2001, health
A Broad Place: An Autobiography ~ by Jürgen Moltmann, 2007, theology
Books up next:
The Living God and the Fullness of Life ~ by Jürgen Moltmann, 2015, theology
Jürgen Moltmann: Collected Readings ~ ed. by Margaret Kohl, 2014, theology
Bloggers gather in the Sunday Salon — at separate computers in different time zones — to talk about our lives and our reading.
2. The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently ... and Why ~ by Richard Nisbett, 2003, psychology (critical thinking)
I'm more than halfway through this one and, though it's deep, I'm enjoying it so far. It makes me think.
1. The Story of a Pioneer ~ by Anna Howard Shaw, 1915, memoir, 8/10
I've already finished this one for my book club meeting on Tuesday. It wasn't particularly interesting to me, but I did finish it.
3. Anna Karenina ~ by Leo Tolstoy, 1877, fiction (Russia)
Once again, I have totally bogged down trying to slog through this long, long novel. I abandoned it a few years ago and still hope to read all of it this time.
6. The Universe Is Calling: Opening to the Divine Through Prayer ~ by Eric Butterworth, 1993, religion
I'm reading Butterworth's Discover the Power Within You (1968) for a group discussion and wanted to know how his thinking about prayer had evolved between 1968 and 1993.
4. Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe ~ by Robert Lanza and Bob Berman, 2009, biology
A new paradigm which switches perspective from physics to biology. Berman says life is not an accidental byproduct of the laws of physics.
Loved this one, which I read straight through. Click on the title to read about the book.
I had trouble deciding what to call a section of this post about adding books to my new Kindle. It isn't exactly "bookstore bounty" or "library loot" or "Monday mail." Since these are the books I have now added to my Kindle library, why not simply "Kindle Library"? Duh.
FAMILY
Today is my oldest granddaughter's 28th birthday. She's on the right, with her younger brother and sister. Happy birthday, Cali!
Bloggers gather in the Sunday Salon — at separate computers in different time zones — to talk about our lives and our reading.
Dee had just opened her mouth to say something when the intercom in the hall sputtered: "Mary Louise, Mary Louise, please come to the office." I heard my name and roused myself to answer, but before I could speak, Dee shouted: "Mah butt aches."
Read the summary of this book that I posted on Sunday. The setting is Booth Memorial Hospital, a Salvation Army home for women and girls who were unwed and pregnant. It's set in 1954. The main character was a 22-year-old graduate student, one pregnant girl was only 14 years old, and Dee? Well, she was a character in every sense of the word. Booth, by the way, was a real place. The photo above was taken when Booth Memorial's time capsule was opened in 2013. It says: "Erected to the glory of God and the blessing of humanity. AD 1921." I've already finished reading the book because, once I started, I couldn't stop. I flew through it and rated it a ten!
Booth Girls: A Love Story ~ by Joan Uda, 2013, fiction (Iowa), 10/10
From the author's web site: A very pregnant Mary, a graduate student at the University of Iowa, refuses to marry her live-in lover Kenny, a physics whiz, because she has career plans of her own. Mary is a graduate student in Victorian literature and plans to build a career in that field, at a time when few women have successful careers and most women have difficulty being admitted to professional and most graduate schools.
Mary believes in herself, and is undaunted by her pregnancy, but she also loves Kenny, with whom she’s lived while she’s been in school for three years. Kenny tells her repeatedly that he wants to marry her, but Mary knows that he is not faithful to her, though he almost always comes home sometime before dawn. When Mary discovers that one of Kenny’s lovers is her best friend Callie, she decides to go to Booth Memorial Hospital, a home for unwed mothers, to have her baby there and give it up for adoption.
Kenny was reared by his mother to be a gentleman. But he is furious with Mary for wanting to give away their baby. He says she can give the child to him to rear, but Mary refuses. She knows that in 1954 there is no available test that will prove his paternity, that therefore he has no rights where this child is concerned, and so she can do as she thinks best. Kenny drives Mary to Booth in Des Moines, comes inside, but then takes off abruptly, leaving her behind, unable to contain his anger at what she is doing.
Mary settles in at Booth, meeting the Salvation Army officers who staff the home, and going to work for the hospital nurse who runs the hospital floor where the babies are delivered. Mary makes new friends at Booth, including Dee, a black girl from Des Moines who is bent upon marrying the father of her baby, and Ruby, who is married to a Des Moines mobster with ties into the Chicago mob. The action unfolds as each of the women works out her own destiny.
The Booth Memorial Homes existed in the United States and England, and possibly in other countries, until the mid-to-late 1970’s. By then sexual mores had changed sufficiently that most unmarried pregnant woman were no longer expelled from their families or held up as objects of scorn. But many of us born in the first half of the 20th Century remember vividly how things were back then. Some of us, including me, even experienced it. I leave it to the reader to decide which of the characters’ experiences most resemble mine.
Wow! Once I started this story, I read straight through, picking it up again after falling asleep in the wee hours of the morning. That's a 10/10 novel for me, one I couldn't put down until I finished, and even then wanting more, more, more! Wanting it enough that I called my friend Joan Uda and insisted on reading her second novel, knowing she hasn't finished it yet. I met Joan last fall, met and got to know her husband Lowell (also a published writer) before he died in December, and have been getting to know Joan ever since. I know she has several published nonfiction books. Because of Lowell's illness and death, Joan's writing on her second novel has been stalled. As a former editor, I want to read her next novel enough that I volunteered to edit it for her!
