Collecting my thoughts for Thursday

1.  Advice for the new year:  The best way to find something that is lost among your stuff ("It's gotta be here somewhere") is to buy another one.  When you get the new one, I can almost guarantee that you'll find the old one that same day.  Maybe within minutes.

2.  Fall Creek Falls in Tennessee:  My friend Debra took this photo of my favorite falls on January 1, 2022.  Fall Creek Falls is the highest free-fall waterfall east of the Mississippi River, according to Wikipedia.  The height is 256 feet (78 m).  Thanks for the memories, Debra!

3.  Sticker shock:  To help you understand why seniors have a hard time dealing with prices these days, here's what I used to earn.  As a teenager, I made 75-cents an hour as a file clerk working in an office in downtown Chattanooga in the afternoon, after school was out.  In my first full-time job in 1959, I made $1 an hour.  That's $40 a week, which equals $2,080 a year before taxes were taken out.

4.  Now let's look at rent:  Compare that $2,080 annual salary in #3 with this statistic I found using Google:  "The average asking rent is now $1,900 — with single-family houses averaging $2,018 a month."  It blows my mind!

5.  Does this make cents?  Yes, I spelled it correctly.  When I typed #3 above, I needed the "cent" sign.  Typewriters used to have that cent-symbol "back in my day."  My laptop doesn't have any such thing!  Is that because a cent is almost worthless these days?

6.  On the other hand:  I learned to type on a typewriter like this clunky Underwood.  Although I can't focus in on it here, I'm sure this big typewriter has the symbol for cent over the 6, as in the slightly more modern keyboard in this photo below.

7.  More on the cent symbol:  I tried several ways different people said I could use to make the cent sign, but none worked.  Here's my solution:  I simply found one that somebody else had made and copied it.  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  That was easy!

8.  Nickels aren't worth much, either:  On Sunday, I considered a new occupation, until I realized that nickels aren't worth what they were back in my day, either.  So apparently, paper money is worth more than "hard" currency (unless it's collectible, like a buffalo nickel, also called an Indian Head nickel).

9.  Word of the Day:  clunk·y /ˈkləNGkē / adjective INFORMAL = awkwardly solid, heavy, and outdated.  Example:  "Even last year's laptops look clunky."  (See #6 above.)

10.  Do you have a system?  Before I leave my apartment, I count what's in my pockets (jeans with pockets are my retirement uniform):

• pen and paper
• pills and phone
• keys and comb
• clippers and Kleenex
• mask and money
• plus calendar and Kindle, if I take my cart  (too big for my pockets)

11.  The last thing I did in 2022:  I changed the calendar on the bulletin board beside the elevator on my floor.  Oh, wait!  No, I came home from changing the calendar and fed Clawdia.  She was eating as fireworks hailed a (hopefully less pandemic-y) New Year.

12.  I'm still wearing masks because of my age and being immunocompromised.  Is anyone else still masking up?

13.  I have decided I won't stop at an arbitrary number just because Colleen has done a Thursday Thirteen for years.  So I'll keep sharing until it's time to post my thoughts.

14.  Library books checked out:  I've blogged about how many books I had checked out of the library at any one time:  one, four, seven, fourteen, etc.  One (very unusual) time, I had ZERO books checked out.  The shocker, even to me, is that I now have 26 books checked out.  Yes, that number is 26.  That's proof I'm a "bookie," isn't it?

15.  I have a conundrum:  Why don't the words tough, cough, and dough rhyme?  On the other hand, these words DO rhyme:  dew, do, and due.  Why?  Can you explain it?

16.  Word of the Day (see # 15)

co·nun·drum / kəˈnəndrəm / noun = a confusing and difficult problem or question.

17.  We can now officially end sentences with prepositions if we want to.  (So I just did!)

18.  Do you "follow" any authors?  I see that I follow eight Amazon authors:

• Richard Bach
• Roberta C. Bondi — my former professor
• Lisa Genova — whose book Remember I just downloaded onto my Kindle
• Beth Kephart
• Stephen J. Patterson
• John Pavlovitz
• Jodi Picoult — whom I've meet in person
• Joan Uda, who's my best friend — so I picked up my phone and called her.  (The photo shows Joan and me when I visited her in 2019.)

19.  On New Year's Day, I read a children's book while waiting for someone:  Henry and Mudge and Annie's Perfect Pet ~ by Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Suçie Stevenson, 2000, 40 pages.  I rate it 10/10.  Annie needs a pet that's soft and dry and doesn't fly — one that's quiet and careful, just like Annie.  (Spoiler:  it's a soft white rabbit, but you won't find a rabbit among the animals shown on the cover.)

20.  Study the cover carefully (as a child might do), and tell me what pets you find.

Thirteen Thoughts for Thursday

1.  Word of the Year 2022

gas·light /ˈɡasˌlīt / verb (gerund or present participle: gaslighting) = to manipulate some-one using psychological methods so that they question their own sanity or powers of reasoning.  Example:  "He was gaslighting me into thinking I was crazy."

2.  In July 2021, I tried to download the free companion to this book and couldn't.  I even asked for help on my blog, HERE.  Last week, I was looking through my Kindle and ran across Am I Alone Here?  It showed as unread.  I thought, "But I DID read this book."

3.  Upon investigation, I discovered it was the unread COMPANION that I once-upon-a-time couldn't figure out how to download.  So help me solve the mystery, folks.  How is it that I now have this "free companion" book?  I have no idea.  The world is a mysterious place, especially with our devices doing their own thing.

4.  So I now have both the book and the companion on my Kindle, and they were NOT together.  Yes, the book itself shows as "read."  But not the companion.

5.  Next question:  Do I want to read that companion-book now, long after I finished the book?  No, because I don't remember details from the book 17 months after reading it.

6.  What if?  

Liz at Laws of Gravity used this image to ask:  "What if you found that $10 million was mistakenly deposited into your bank account due to a computer glitch?"  I'm not the only one who can't imagine NOT immediately informing the bank of the mistake.  Lisa commented, "Someone would be missing it, so they'd probably already have contacted the bank."  Exactly!

7.  Last week, I thought I'd see the Little Women movie on Friday, but it was cancelled because of bad weather and temperatures below zero.  St. Louis got nearly 3 inches of snow on Thursday, but my suburb to the west got more than that.  No, I didn't go out.

8.  I corrected the grammar book I was reading (a book I don't recommend at all).  Click HERE for the story, but basically the author called "Hindu" a religion.  Nope!  That should be "Hinduism" like the "Paganism" she had on the list.

9.  Word of the Day

pa·gan·ism /ˈpāɡəˌniz(ə)m / noun = (1) a religion other than one of the main world religions, specifically a non-Christian or pre-Christian religion.  (2) a modern religious movement incorporating beliefs or practices from outside the main world religions, especially nature worship.  Example:  "Paganism includes respecting mother earth."

10.  Do you order things online?  Or do you prefer to shop in person?  Because of Covid, I've been purchasing much more online.

11.  This chair also has eyes.  These photos give you an indication of how hard it is to see Clawdia when I walk through my apartment.  However, she's smart and knows I don't always see her.  As I approach, she says, "Mewp."  (Neither photo is of Clawdia.)

12.  Higher math?  I saw an ad for a charger that was on sale for $25.  It had been $38, so according to them, you save $12.  I guess I really am old.  In my day, a $12 savings on something that once cost $38 would then cost $26.  If all they are charging is $25, then it's an even better deal than what they are advertising.

13.  Speaking of math, whatever happened to that "new math" from the 1960s?  Click HERE to read all about it.

 

Little Women in my Thursday Thoughts

1.  Do you remember the story of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott?  That novel follows the lives of the four March sisters — Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy — and details their passage from childhood to womanhood.  Those four girls called their mother Marmee.

2.  Now there are four books about the four daughters.  I told you about those books in a recent Sunday Salon post.

3.  I phoned an old friend recently, and we talked about our 6th grade production of Little Women, which was 2 hours long.  I played the part of Marmee, and Shirley was Meg.  That was 70 years ago, when we were just 12 years old.  I told you that HERE.  You can read more about the novel in Wikipedia.

 

4.  You probably wonder what made me think of Little Women after all these years.  Surprise!  It's the Friday Afternoon Matinee Movie scheduled to be shown on the big screen in our Theater Room here on December 23rd.  That's tomorrow, and I'll be there.

5.  Here's a promo for the 2019 version we'll see.  Do you recognize any of the actors?

6.  I found this advice in a short article:  Decluttering should happen every time you go from room to room.  Take something with you to put in its correct place as you go. 

7.  Colleen quoted Aaron Freeman about "dying" in her recent Thirteen Thursday (#7):  "...your energy’s still around.  According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly."  I like the idea of being here, but less orderly.

8.  "Common foods that may trigger your nose to run when you eat include ... red peppers."  There's a name for this condition:  gustatory rhinitis.  And I have it, apparently.

9.  I guess I'll quit eating in the Café and getting the weekly meals, since peppers show up in a lot of their foods.  Or maybe I'll just order fresh fruits and yogurts and scrambled eggs when I eat there.

10.  The best part of Christmas is hearing from my friends and family who live far away.

11.  One of my neighbors has Covid.  When I delivered a small package that had arrived for her, I slid it under her door, not wanting to face her.  Another neighbor was spraying inside her car Monday, after having driven the sick person to the doctor for confirmation.

12.  Today is my maternal grandmother's birthday.  Inez Geneva Underwood Reynolds (1880-1943) was born 142 years ago on this day.  She's the second person from the left on the front row, and that tall girl on the front row is my mother.  This photo of Mom's family was taken about 1928.

13.  The snow in this Christmas card I got from my daughter Barbara in 2020 looks delightful, but the wind and snow predicted across the middle of the United States may not be what we want for the holidays.  Especially for travelers.  Temps are predicted to be below 0°F in St. Louis today and tomorrow.  On the other hand, there’s SNOW place like home for the holidays.

 

Joyful thoughts for Thursday

1.  Look what I got in the mail:  A package from my daughter that was wrapped in JOY.

2.  Time for a confession.  Everyone knows that old age is our "second childhood," and everyone also knows that you can't trust children around Christmas gifts.

3.  When I realized my daughter didn't actually say it was for Christmas, even though she used Christmas wrapping paper, I went ahead and opened the gift.

4.  And what was inside?  More JOY, which is now hung on the wall where I will see it every day.

5.  When I texted her to thank her, she wrote back that she wanted me to have a bit of Christmas.

6.  I told her I'll hang JOY on my cart, when I go to the Circle@Crown Café to eat.

7.  Oh, by the way, Clawdia wanted to play with that tassel on the bottom.  Nope, nope, nope!  This one's not for you, Clawdia.

8.  Let's make more connections to the word JOY, some of which I have shared before.  It's my favorite word, for one thing.

9.  Why?  Partly because I've spent a lot of time with this word; to wit:  I presented a paper on "Joy or Despair?" at the Southeastern Undergraduate Philosophy Conference held at Emory University back in the early 1970s.  I asked why existentialists seemed to focus on despair (Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus come to mind).  If, as they say, we find our own meaning in life, why not choose joy?

10.  One of my favorite phrases from the Bible is "make a joyful noise," so when I started a church newsletter, I named it Joyful Noiseletter.

11.  I was so "into" the meaning of joy during my undergraduate years that my best friend addressed my mail to "Bonnie Joy Jacobs."

12.  When my bank got its first teller machine, telling us to choose four letters or numbers to access it, I considered using B-J-O-Y.  My young daughter Barbara said, "But Mom, anybody could figure out that's what you would pick." 

13.  At the top of my blog about words, I have these words:  "Joyful Noiseletter — an exuberant newsletter to myself about joyful things, like words, which I enjoy."

Thursday Thirteen

Thursday Thirteen is a meme where we make a list of 13 things on this 

day on a topic of our choice.  The only rule is to write about 13 things.

  

1.  The fog was so heavy when I woke up last Saturday that the sun looked like the moon behind thin clouds.  I could look right at it and see only a disc like these elevator buttons.

2.  When I opened my kitchen blinds, I couldn't see Walgreens across the street.  I could only see a slightly darker fog where the building should be.  That's Walgreen's at top left.

3.  I decided it's once again time to click on WindowSwap, which "opens a new window somewhere in the world."  That site lets me travel all over the world.  Where to, today?

4.  Oooh!  I got a video looking from a cable car window in Innsbruck, Austria.  We passed other cars going up the steep mountain as we rode down.

5.  "Francesca's Golf Cart Window" on WindowSwap was lots of fun as she drove us around a neighborhood in Virginia, looking at fall foliage.

6.  Speaking of windows, this photo of Clawdia from 2015 shows what our view toward the south used to be, before construction began on our new building.

7.  I like this saying:  "Be the reason someone smiles today."  Let's all smile today.

8.  Buffalo got seven feet of snow a few days ago.  This photo was posted by Jackie McGuinness on her Junk Boat Travels blog last Saturday.

9.  I've decided to do a Gratitude Jar from this Thanksgiving to next.  I wrote about gratitude in 2021:  "You can 'rewire' your brain to be happy by simply recalling 3 things you're grateful for every day for 21 days."  I'll try to write down three (or more) things each week for a year and save the slips of paper in a big jar.

10.  Cluttered desk quote (first published in 2018).  My desk is also cluttered. 

11.  I went out to eat with a few people on the Crown Center's bus on Tuesday, but they all went shopping in the shopping center instead.  I ate alone and decided I won't sign up for something like that again, unless a specific friend also goes.

12.  I did have leftovers to bring home, so I ate the rest of that meal the next day.

13.  If I can get my iPhone to send the photo of my desert to my email, I'll add a photo right here for you to see.

Thursday Thirteen

1.  Ginnie Sams has a geeky mind, and she made a difference in the world.  Especially MY world.  She's the friend who took me in after my quadruple by-pass surgery in 2009.  I was looking for something else today when I ran across this video on YouTube.  Enjoy meeting my friend Ginnie, who was a member of Mensa when I met her many years ago.  Joining Mensa requires an I.Q. score of 148 or above.

2.  Here's a photo Ginnie took of me holding her cat when I was recuperating at her house on Lookout Mountain.  The cat's name was Wootchie.

3.  While composing this post, I stopped to call Ginnie and wish her a very Happy Thanksgiving.

4.  I also talked to her daughter for awhile, remembering things from the past.

5.  While on YouTube, I discovered a new (to me) recording of "Whippoorwill," a haunting tune by R. Carlos Nakai.

6.  "Whippoorwill" is the one piece I've memorized and play most on my cedar flute.

7.  I've posted "Whippoorwill" on this blog several times.  Click the link to hear the various recordings.

8.  Now I'll have to pick up my cedar flute and play this haunting tune again, won't I?  Yes, I did have to play it for myself.

9.  I slid the flute out of its green felt "case" and woke Clawdia with the dulcet sounds of "Whippoorwill."

10.  Word of the Day #1:  dul·cet /ˈdəlsət / adjective = (especially of sound) sweet and soothing.  Example:  "I didn't even try to record the dulcet tones I played on my cedar flute just now."

11.  Today I read about the book Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal and promptly put it on reserve at my library.  I'll tell you more about it later.

12.  Today I had the usual Thanksgiving fixings, another word for me to define.

13.  Word of the Day #2:  fixings (plural only) = the necessary ingredients for something, especially food or a social event.  Example:  "The fixings for Thanksgiving must include turkey and cranberry sauce."

Thursday Thirteen is home of the easy meme where you make a list of 13 things on Thursdays.  The topic is your choice.  The only rule for Thursday Thirteen is to write about 13 things.

Thursday Thirteen ~ DASHing

1.  My brother posted one of those "I'm going to see how many read this whole post" things on Facebook about diabetes devastating our family and how taking Metformin "may encourage the onset of dementia."

2.  He told us to copy and paste for friends to read, but I wrote that "instead of just posting this information and moving on past it, I'm going to share with you how I got OFF of Metformin, little brother.   I love you enough to share what worked for me."

3.  Here's how my story unfolded.  My doctor in Chattanooga suggested the Mediterranean Diet and, when I moved to St. Louis, my doctor here suggested the DASH Diet, I have followed each of these diets.

4.  Here's basically what I'm still doing:  Since having quadruple bypass surgery in February 2009, I have chosen healthy foods over processed foods and have lost 67 pounds slowly and carefully and safely over eleven-plus years.  Now I'm down from 224 pounds to 157 and still losing at an easy pace, by choice, by watching my intake.  I eat lots of colorful fruits and vegetables, rather than processed foods.  The less processed, the better.

5.  I have bought three DASH Diet books by Marla Heller, a registered dietician.  These have been very helpful to change my eating habits.

• The DASH Diet Mediterranean Solution is at the top, promising "the best eating plan to control your weight and improve your health for life."
• The DASH Diet Weight Loss Solution, on the right, says on the cover:  "2 weeks to drop pounds, boost metabolism, and get healthy."  It has two stages, starting with a two week "jump start" to reset your metabolish.
• The DASH Diet Younger You (below) promises on the cover that you can "shed twenty years — and pounds — in just ten weeks."

6.  Here's the link to these three books by Marla Heller that I've purchased.  I think it's enough to just get the blue book at the top, which combines the Mediterranean Diet and the DASH Diet into what Heller calls the MedDASH Diet for short.

7.  A key point is to think of "diet" as every-thing you choose to eat, and I told Jim (my brother), "Your library probably has a copy, if you don't want to buy it, or I'll have Amazon send you a copy, if you want it."

8.  I also told him there are Facebook pages for people to encourage each other to stick with the program, and I'm in two of them.

9.  If you are interested in the Facebook groups, the most important one for me is the MedDASH group, using the blue book at the top.

10.  I'm also in the  DASH Diet Weight Loss Solution on Facebook, which uses the gold book.  I joined it before the MedDash book was published, then added that one when the MedDASH book came out.

11.  There are other books by Marla Heller that I didn't buy, including The DASH Diet Action Plan and The Everyday DASH Diet Cookbook, if you want to explore all of them.  You don't need a separate cookbook, however, because she makes meal suggestions in each of the books.

12.   Did someone ask what DASH means?  DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension.

13.  Ask me questions in the comments, and I'll try to explain better.

The only rule for Thursday Thirteen is to write about 13 things.  For more information and to sign up, click on New Thursday 13.

Thursday Thirteen ~ memories are made of this

Click on the illustration to enlarge it for easier reading.

1.  As we sat around the (Kosher) table after dinner last week, the discussion turned to Birthright Israel.  The teenage grandson of one friend at the table is in Israel right now, though not with this program.  It was the first I'd heard of it.

2.  How interesting that, the very next day, I happened across an article about it:

"Birthright Israel, known in Hebrew as Taglit, is a program that sends Jewish young adults on free ten-day trips to Israel."

A few days later, I happened across another article about the Taglit program.  I'm still processing this article.

3.  A friend's email on Sunday randomly asked, "Have you found any opportunities to use your Hebrew that you learned years ago?"  Since the Jewish community provides the Crown Center residences and programs for the elderly, our meals are Kosher (see #1 above), if we choose to eat downstairs rather than in our own apartments.  Before our evening meal on Friday, we have Sabbath prayers over lighting the candles, drinking wine, and eating challah bread.  When the prayers (shown in the illustration above) are recited in both Hebrew and English, I am able to say the words along with those chosen to lead the prayers.  This is a unique place to live, and I'm loving it!

4.  My friend Debra posted something on her blog that linked to one of her earlier posts, and there I found a "conversation in the comments" that Debra and I had had three years ago about cedar flutes.

5.  I haven't played mine lately (it looks a lot like this one), so I got out of my chair and picked up my flute.

6.  Debra mentioned something she'd read on MY blog earlier, so I went looking for it.  What I found was ― surprise! ― another link to the Friday prayers in Hebrew!  Memories and connections are so interesting.

7.  Also on my earlier blog post was a photo of the Mid-County Branch of the library.  This building in the photo has been torn down, and a new one is being built in its place.  Donna and I occasionally drive by on our way home from shopping or eating out, just to monitor how far along construction has come.

8.  We don't all have the same 24 hours, and Jan Edmiston explains why.

9.  Books white people need to read ― there are 100 on the list.

10.  I googled "how to block calls on an LG flip phone" (yes, I have a flip phone like this).  Several answers came up, but none of the options worked on my phone.  Nowhere can I find "Security," much less how to restrict calls.  My 3-year-old phone must be too old for this newfangled stuff about blocking.

11.  Have you blocked spam calls on your own phone?  Was it hard to do?  Tell me what kind of cellphone you have, since I may have to buy a new one to block these stupid robo-calls.

12.  Would an additional $85 a month expense affect your ability to pay other bills?  It matters to lots of people, like the elderly on Social Security and "families in unbreakable patterns of hardship."  Read more in this article:  Crony Capitalism is Making Us Sick by Erin Wathen, the Irreverin I quoted last week.

13.  Hearing loss and how you can help.  Sometimes I have trouble with certain words spoken by certain people, so I can understand this list:

Thursday Thirteen ~ food and other stuff

1.  Donna (sitting at the right) and some of my other friends attended the "Bagels and Schmears" workshop on June 6th.

2.  Crown Center regularly has workshops in our culinary kitchen, which shares space with our library.

3.  Here's a look at some of the finished bagels the attendees got to sample.

4.  Speaking of food ... Celery May Help Bring Your High Blood Pressure Down.  This article also mentions the DASH diet.

5.  Donna says this is the best article she's read in years:  I Don't Know How to Explain to You That You Should Care About Other People.  I agree with Donna.  Here's a taste of the article:

"Personally, I’m happy to pay an extra 4.3 percent for my fast food burger if it means the person making it for me can afford to feed their own family.  If you aren’t willing to fork over an extra 17 cents for a Big Mac, you’re a fundamentally different person than I am.

"I’m perfectly content to pay taxes that go toward public schools, even though I’m childless and intend to stay that way, because all children deserve a quality, free education.  If this seems unfair or unreasonable to you, we are never going to see eye to eye."

6.  When I first started blogging in 2007, I joined the Something About Me Reading Challenge.

7.  Each of us chose five books that say "something about me."  Then we read and reviewed books chosen by the other bloggers.

8.  Here are the five books I chose to tell something about me:

* Evensong ~ by Gail Godwin, 1999, fiction
* On Tap ~ by J. Frances Alexander, fiction
* Booked to Die ~ by John Dunning, 1992, mystery
* Go Out in Joy! ~ by Nina Hermann Donnelley, 1977, memoir
* The Dance of the Dissident Daughter ~ by Sue Monk Kidd, 1996, memoir

9.  I listed these five books on this blog, too, when I posted that I'd joined my first ever reading challenge:  Something about me.

10.  I discovered a list of 50 Underrated American Towns, which I looked through because the first photo showed a bridge that reminds me of the Walnut Street Bridge in Chattanooga, my hometown.  Click the link, and see that this is a bridge in New Jersey over the Delaware River.  I love the flowers.

11.  It's been over ten years since I met John Dominic Crossan, and I heard him speak again the following year.  I recommend his books on theology, if you are interested.

12.  Take a look at The Enoch Factor: The Sacred Art of Knowing God by Steve McSwain, 2010.  This quote is from page 30:

I am sometimes asked, "If there are many ways to God, how do you understand Jesus' instruction to 'Go and make disciples' (Matt 28:19-20)?"  When Jesus said, "Go and train everyone . . . in this way of life" (Matt 28:19), he meant, as it is correctly paraphrased here in The Message, that we are to teach people his way of life, his way of thinking and living.  Jesus did not say, as most Christians have mistakenly thought, "Go and train everyone to believe in me," or worse, "Go and train others to believe as you believe."  Jesus said to spread around his "way of life."  The world around you will never change until the world within you does.  That's the message Christians know as the good news.

13.  Seems like there was something else I wanted to add.  Hmm, I lost my train of thought.  I think it has something to do with old age.

The only rule for Thursday Thirteen is to write about 13 things.  The New Thursday 13 is hosted by Country Dew and Colleen.  If you want to read lists by other people or play along yourself, here's the linky for this week.