National Night Out

National Night Out, a national community-building campaign, is celebrated every August 1st.  This year the Crown Center will have Nigel Thomas here to perform on steel drum for us at 6:00 pm, when we will also be served Caribbean refreshments.

My town of University City is also celebrating National Night Out.  This one is from 5:00-7:00 pm at Jackson Park Elementary.  I'll be going to the one here at the Crown Center.

I read that magnesium may help prevent dementia

Some folks who live in my senior center are thinking about Alzheimers (or dementia in general) because a neighbor with symptoms was just moved somewhere else.  So I've been poking around the internet.  Here's some of what I've found out:

If you forget the name of a neighbor who just moved in or it took you ten minutes to remember where you left your phone, it is more than likely just part of aging that can happen to anyone.  Age-related changes that are often mistaken for symptoms of dementia include:

• forgetting why you walked into a room
• taking longer to retrieve common words or names
• finding it harder to pay attention to detail
• misplacing things, but finding them later
• taking longer to learn something new
• finding it harder to multitask

On the other hand, I read that magnesium in foods may be good for avoiding dementia.  Not taking magnesium supplements, but eating food that has magnesium in it.  It's found in many plant-based and animal foods, such as:

• leafy greens
• nuts
• beans
• whole grains
• seeds
• milk
• yogurt

When I read "leafy greens," I immediately thought of Popeye and his spinach.  I found a couple of iconic illustrations of the cartoon character for this post and have been singing his song in my head:

I'm Popeye the Sailor Man,

I'm Popeye the Sailor Man.

I'm strong to the finich

'cause I eats me spinach.

I'm Popeye the Sailor Man.

Okay, folks, do you eat your spinach?  Drink your milk like good little girls and boys?  Buy whole wheat bread at the store, as I do?  Okay, I think we're all set.  And yes, "finich" is the way Popeye pronounces "finish."  I have milk with my cereal and eat yogurt most days.  I eat beans, and my favorite salad has nuts in it.  Maybe all of that is why I'm still able to live on my own at 83 and keep doing things for myself, like grocery shopping.

Quantum Healing: Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine ~ by Deepak Chopra, M.D., 1989, psychology, 278 pages

Inspired by the unexplained recovery of patients in his own practice who had been given just a few months to live, Dr. Chopra began his search for answers.  After returning to his native India to explore humanity’s most ancient healing tradition, Ayurveda, he combined those insights with Western medicine, neuroscience, and physics.  What he discovered — a "network of intelligence" in the human body with the potential to defeat cancer, heart disease, even aging itself — forms the basis of this book.

Since few people seem to read what I post on other days of the week, I also want to share my Saturday Stuff post about what was on my mind yesterday.  So click HERE to read about another book I found on my shelves:  Beautiful Child by Torey Hayden.

Oh, no, I almost missed it!  The third Sunday in July is National Ice Cream Day!

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz

hosts The Sunday Salon.

Thursday Thoughts ~ for March 16th

National Social Work Month recognizes the dedication and empathy social workers across the country deliver while providing services to children and adults in need.  Social workers are advocates, advisors, counselors, and facilitators in schools, businesses, clinics, and government offices.

Hugging ~ The best thing about a hug is that you can't get one without giving one.

National Slam the Scam Day

National Slam the Scam Day is March 10.  Click HERE for more details on what to do, and HERE is information on how to spot government imposters.

Wear Holiday Socks Day

Do you have holiday socks?  National (International) Wear Holiday Socks Day is an online event today.  I managed to lie on my back with a foot up in the air to get a photo of my green socks with red cardinals on them.  Can you see they are wearing red Santa hats and green scarves around their necks?  Show me — or tell me about — your holiday socks.

Caring for self on a day of sad remembrance

Self-Care Bingo

Back in March, a couple of weeks after our lockdown began, I posted this Self-Care Bingo card.  This seems like a good time to post it again.  Click on the image to enlarge the words, if you can't read them.

• Drink another glass of water (twice; we need to stay hydrated)
• Create something
• Listen to a favorite song
• Cultivate gratitude (5 times; feeling grateful lifts my spirits)
• Read a poem
• Cook something sustaining
• Offer to help someone
• Inhale/exhale
• Connect with someone (3 times; especially important if you live alone or with only a pet for company)
• Clean up a messy spot
• Look at something beautiful
• Go to bed
• Turn off the news (twice)
• Eat something tasty
• Relax and do nothing
• Watch something that makes you laugh

Did I miss any suggestions on the Bingo card?  How many of these have you been doing?

National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day

A blogger I've never visited before began her post today:  "Most of my fellow American readers, followers, and lurkers are too young to have remembered the attack on Pearl Harbor.  In fact, most of us weren't born yet..."  She reminded me it's the anniversary of the deadly day in 1941 that got the United States into the Second World War.  I was too young to remember the event, having been born the year before.  I do remember the day my Daddy went off to war three years later, when I was four-and-a-half.  He was drafted even though he had two children and a third on the way.

Black cats ~ Caturday on TWOsday?

Donna told me it's Black Cat Day.  When I looked over the blog, I found that I celebrated Clawdia on October 27, 2018.  This is the photo I used two years ago, calling it National Black Cat Day.  So is it a "national" day, or not?

I used this drawing by Sandra Boynton to celebrate Black Cat Appreciation Day on August 17, 2018.  Could there be a National Black Cat Day and a day without "national" in it called Black Cat Appreciation Day?

To complicate things a bit, I have already celebrated National Black Cat Appreciation Day this year, when Sandy called on August 17th to tell Clawdia she appreciated her.  Hmm, there's something fishy going on here, friends, like some kind of ploy by black cats to get extra doses of adoration.  Yep, the black cats are up to something with all these special days.  I asked Google and learned that today is National Black Cat Day without the word "appreciation" in it.  Oh, never mind what it's called.

Where are you, adorable Clawdia?  Do you want some treats?

National Black Cat Appreciation Day

Sandy just called to tell Clawdia she appreciated her, because today is National Black Cat Appreciation Day.  Oh, no, I almost missed it.  Sure enough, I found this cat's picture with "Mon Aug 17" and all sorts of facts about black cats, if you want to read that page.

This is my favorite black cat, though, and this is currently my favorite photo of her.  I call this window Clawdia's window because she loves to sit there looking out, sniffing the fresh air, watching the birds flit by, and listening to them chirp to each other in the trees just below our sixth floor windows.  It's the photo of her I have in the right sidebar of the blog, too.

Freedom to vote ~ theme for February 2020

This year's theme for Black History month is "African Americans and the Vote."  2020 marks the 150th anniversary of the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) which gave black men the right to vote following the Civil War.  In this important voting year, Martin Luther King, Jr. gives us something more to think about:

"The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live.  Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.  We have guided missiles and misguided men."  ~~~ MLK

A day for bibliophiles

It's National Book Lovers Day, so tell me what book you are currently reading.  I usually have at least two books going at any one time.  Right now, I'm reading the book I wrote about yesterday ~ A Curious Mind ~ and re-reading a novel on my Kindle ~ Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival by Velma Wallis, 1993.

Enjoy this bookish quote from Albus Dumbledore:

"Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic."

Okay, Dumbledore is a wise wizard, but I guess I should credit the author.  J. K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series, and Albus Dumbledore was one of the characters.  Yes, books are magical.

Books, butterflies, and the color orange

Marie took this photo of me beside a monarch at the Butterfly House today.  It happens to be orange like the orange-flowered shirt I'm wearing to emphasize Wear Orange this weekend (see more on that below).  It was purely accidental that Marie and I happened to go there on World Swallowtail Day, June 9th.  After a couple of hours watching butterflies flutter by, we went to eat at the Boathouse in Forest Park.

On Friday, which was National Wear Orange Day, I invited Donna and our friends Bonnie M. and Juleta to have lunch with me in the Circle@Crown Cafe.  I used this photo to tell people that wearing orange this weekend is all about encouraging our lawmakers to "pass sensible gun laws to prevent senseless murder."  Click to enlarge the photo to see those words on the smaller sign.

The Island of Sea Women ~ by Lisa See, 2019, fiction (Korea), 4/10

"When we go to the sea, we share the work and the danger," Mother added.  "We harvest together, sort together, and sell together, because the sea itself is communal" (p. 18).

The Man in the Ceiling ~ by Jules Feiffer, 1993, fiction, 5/10

"Jimmy had a good memory, but not for that sort of stuff. ... the answers he had to memorize for school had nothing to do with the questions he was interested in.  They had to do with what Mrs. Minnafy and Ms. Hazeltene were interested in" (p. 102).

Sorry, but I can't really recommend either of these books.  'Nuff said.

Bloggers gather in the Sunday Salon — at separate computers in different time zones — to talk about our lives and our reading.  Other Sunday Salon musings are linked at the bottom of this Readerbuzz post.

Best Friends Day ~ June 8th

National Wear Red Day ~ tomorrow

Coronary Heart Disease is the #1 killer of women in the United States.  Since 2002, the first Friday of February has been designated as National Wear Red Day® in the United States.  Men and women are encouraged to wear red as a symbol of their support of women’s heart health.  I plan to wear a bright red shirt like this one.  Will you join me?

Ya gotta have heart

If you're interested in why I'm supporting this Wear Red Day, take a look at what was happening in my life ten years ago, in February of 2009, by clicking on either of these two
Ya gotta have heart links.

Independent Bookstore Day ~ and a book

"Independent Bookstore Day is a one-day national party that takes place at indie bookstores across the country on the last Saturday in April.  Every store is unique and independent, and every party is different.  In addition to a day full of activities (and a few surprises!), there are exclusive books and literary items that you can only get on that day.  Not before.  Not after.  Not online.  Independent bookstores are not just stores, they’re community centers and local anchors run by passionate readers.  They are entire universes of ideas that contain the possibility of real serendipity.  They are lively performance spaces and quiet places where aimless perusal is a day well spent."

I found those words on Facebook from The Novel Neighbor, located at 7905 Big Bend Blvd in St. Louis.  Just this week, I bought a book about bookstores because I was looking back at what I'd written about Jen Campbell a few years ago.  This is a newer book she wrote.  My "bookstores" in the USA are her "bookshops" in the UK.

The Bookshop Book ~ by Jen Campbell, 2014

We're not talking about rooms that are just full of books.  We're talking about bookshops in barns, disused factories, converted churches and underground car parks.  Bookshops on boats, on buses, and in old run-down train stations.  Fold-out bookshops, undercover bookshops, this-is-the-best-place-I've-ever-been-to-bookshops.  Meet Sarah and her Book Barge sailing across the sea to France; meet Sebastien, in Mongolia, who sells books to herders of the Altai mountains; meet the bookshop in Canada that's invented the world's first antiquarian book vending machine.  And that's just the beginning.  From the oldest bookshop in the world, to the smallest you could imagine, Jen Campbell examines the history of books, talks to authors about their favorite places, and looks at over three hundred weirdly wonderful bookshops across six continents (sadly, we've yet to build a bookshop down at the South Pole).  This book is a love letter to bookshops all around the world.

I had fun reading this excellent book and rate it 9 of 10, one to be enjoyed by people who love bookshops (or bookstores).  Here's the author's web site, where you can link up with her podcasts and read about her other books.

Donna and Bonnie, 2015

By the way, have I ever told you that my friend Donna and I opened an independent bookstore in 2004?  We named it Book Buddies for our group of friends who discussed books online.  This photo of the two of us is in the little library here at the Crown Center for Senior Living, where we sort donations and shelve books these days.

Caturday ~ extra treats for kitties

• Oct 29 is National Cat Day

A quick search tells us that

• March 28 is Respect Your Cat Day
• May 30 is International Hug Your Cat Day
• June 15 is World Catnip Awareness Day
• June 25 is Take Your Cat to Work Day
• August 8 is World Cat Day
• Sept 1 is Ginger Cat Appreciation Day
• Oct 16 is Feral Cat Day
• Oct 27 is National Black Cat Day.

I have a theory as to who is behind all of this. — by Sandra Boynton

Okay, Sandra Boynton may have done a quick search for all these dates, but I — Clawdia — am announcing it to the world on this special Caturday!  Yay, me!   (No, I don't care that it isn't October. I'm still a cat, aren't I?  And I'm black.  Why is this Caturday special?  Because I'm special, and I'm a cat.)

Clawdia, 'til next time  >^..^<

National Library Week 2016

Black Cat Day

It was late in the day that I learned today is National Black Cat Day. I've never heard of it before. Maybe I noticed it this year because I adopted a black cat on July 23rd. Clawdia, the vet says, is about six years old.

Books to empower girls

Women's History Month is celebrated during March in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia.  I'll celebrate with books, of course.  Here are two of my favorite children's books that empower girls.

Miss Rumphius ~ by Barbara Cooney, 1982, children's, 10/10

This beautiful book, which won the American Book Sellers National Book Award, passes along the wisdom of a grandfather's philosophy of life.  He told Alice Rumphius that she should not only travel the world and come home to live by the sea, but also to do something in her life to make the world more beautiful.  Little Alice grew up, traveled, and settled by the sea, and what she did to make the world more beautiful was to plant lupines all over the place.

Once upon a time, I was asked, "If you could meet any fictional character who would it be and why?"  My answer was "Miss Rumphius."  I love how she grew up wanting to make the world a better place — and how she figured out a way to do it.  I've written about Miss Rumphius again and again on this blog.

The Paper Bag Princess ~ by Robert N. Munsch, 1980, children's, 9/10

Princess Elizabeth is a spunky little girl.  The dragon smashed her castle, burned all her clothes, and carried off Prince Ronald (p. 28).  The only thing the princess could find to wear was a paper bag, yet she bravely went after the dragon.  Was Ronald grateful when she rescued him?&nbsp Oh, no!  He said (pp. 46-48):

"Elizabeth, you are a mess!  You smell like ashes, your hair is all tangled and you are wearing a dirty old paper bag.  Come back when you are dressed like a real princess."

"Ronald," said Elizabeth, "your clothes are really pretty and your hair is very neat.  You look like a real prince, but you are a bum."

They didn't get married after all.

This is another book I've mentioned more than once, like for the 25th anniversary edition.  I love children's books that go against the norm.

And look!  This article about Twelve Empowering Children's Books To Add To Little Girls' Bookshelves includes both of my favorite children's books.

National Readathon Day ~ this Saturday

On January 24th, I plan to take part in National Readathon Day for the four hours between 12:00 noon and 4:00 pm.  This readathon is to help "create, promote, and sustain a lifelong love of reading."  Do you want to join me?  What will you be reading?

And tell me, please, "Where is your book while you sleep?"  Mine can be found in all of these places:  A, B, D, and E.  Yes, all of those places, since I usually am in the middle of more than one book at a time.  Kiki died in 2012 and I don't think she ever slept on a book, so never as illustrated in C.  The most likely place for whatever book I was reading when I fell asleep, however, is on my chest with my finger marking the place where I stopped reading.  Yes, the light would still be shining in my face.

Sunday Salon ~ books and pink

FIRST, the BOOKS

National Library Week (April 8-14, 2012) ended yesterday.  Oh, no!  I missed it, just like yesterday's snapshot.  I'll celebrate today, instead.  I love libraries.  I must confess that I found this "put your face in a book" photo on — where else? — Facebook.  (Thanks, June Damanti.)

WHAT I'M READING

Currently

1.  The Age of Grief ~ by Jane Smiley, 1987, fiction

Concurrently

2.  Into the Tangle of Friendship: A Memoir of the Things That Matter ~ by Beth Kephart, 2000, memoir

Next

3.  Eternal Life: A New Vision: Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell ~ by John Shelby Spong, 2009, religion

SPRING THING

March 20 - June 20, 2012

At almost four weeks into the thirteen weeks of spring, it's time for me to look at how I'm doing for the Spring Reading Thing 2012 challenge, which began on March 20.

I chose thirteen books to read (and keep adding to the list), along with two other goals:  to read twice as many of my own books as library books, and to clear books off my shelves.

• I've read 9 of the 13 planned books, plus 3 I've added = 12.
• Of those 12, only 3 were library books.
• So I'm averaging 3 of mine to every library book.
• I've boxed 27 books to take to the used book store.

I feel pretty good about my progress!  These categories (see below) show I've read half fiction and half nonfiction so far, and I'm currently reading one of each right now (see above).

6 fiction
1 psychology
1 writing
2 memoirs
2 religion

READATHON

I almost forgot to mention that Dewey's 24-Hour Readathon is coming up this week.  There's still time for you to sign up, if you'd like to join us in all the fun, which includes mini-challenges and prizes and all sorts of hoopla.

Best of all, of course, if trying to get a lot of reading done.  A lot or a little, it's up to each person.  I read, but I spend probably an equal amount of time visiting other readers and playing with the mini-challenges that appeal to me.

PINK

Raegan was very pink this week.  Even her lawn chair was pink.  I don't see my great-granddaughter every week, but my granddaughter posts a lot of photos on Facebook.

GREEN

This photo, which I am currently featuring at the top of this blog, was taken by my friend Ginnie Sams.  I really like it, and it "goes so well" with Raegan's pink.  Thanks, Ginnie!

THANKS

This is a very public THANK YOU to Rich, who worked valiantly to keep up my blog called Weekend Wordsmith.  He kept it going for three and a half years.  I was ready to drop it, when the comments sagged, but Rich stepped in and posted the weekly prompts.  Participation has dropped again, so it's time to try something new.  And I have once again taken over of posting weekly prompts on Fridays. Today's prompt is for us to Thank Rich.

Visit the Sunday Salon's Facebook page for links to more posts.