Wednesday Words ~ lollygag, dillydally, dawdle

To lollygag means to dillydally, dawdle, or waste time.  Lollygag goes back to 1868, but dillydally is older (1741).  Dawdle, which came to my mind while reading a thread on Facebook about the first two words, goes all the way back to 1656.  Thanks, Merriam-Webster.com.

Looking for an illustration, I found a Jim Hunt cartoon of a person sprawled on a sofa clicking through TV channels.  "Some people lollygag.  I'm more of a dilly-dallier."  (The hyphen is a mistake.)

I found a Pickles cartoon where the grandson is staring at the old man sitting in a chair.  Puzzled, he asks, "What are you staring at, Nelson?"  The kid says, "You.  Grandma said you were lollygagging.  I wanted to see what that looked like.  It sounded like more fun than it looks like."

I also found a Family Circus cartoon where the mother says, "Hurry up, Jeffy!  You're being a dawdler!"  His comeback:  "No, I'm being a son."

Since cats have perfected the art, I ultimately chose to illustrate this post with a photo of Clawdia lollygagging on the back of my recliner.  Pictures of Clawdia are better than cartoons, anyway.

TWOsday ~ two slumpers

I'm in a reading slump, and I don't know why.  No, this isn't a picture of me, but it's how my reading seems to be going lately.  I completed only one book in October and two short books in the first half of November.  Here's the novel I'm reading now ― sort of.

Marching to Zion ~ by Mary Glickman, 2013 fiction (Missouri)

In 1916, Mags Preacher arrives in the big city of St. Louis, fresh from the piney woods, hoping to learn the beauty trade.  Instead, she winds up with a job at Fishbein’s Funeral Home, run by an émigré who came to America to flee the pogroms of Russia.  Mags knows nothing about Jews except that they killed the Lord Jesus Christ, but by the time her boss saves her life during the race riots in East St. Louis, all her perceptions have changed.

Marching to Zion is the story of Mags and of Mr. Fishbein, but it’s also the story of Fishbein’s daughter, Minerva, a beautiful redhead with an air of danger about her, and Magnus Bailey, Fishbein’s charismatic business partner and Mags’s first friend in town.  When Magnus falls for Minerva’s willful spirit, he’ll learn just how dangerous she can be for a black man in America.

Slumper #1

Every time I pick up Marching to Zion, something soon diverts me.  First, it was the lyrics of the song, which are printed before Chapter 1 in the novel.

Marching to Zion

Come, we that love the Lord,

and let our joys be known,

Join in a song with sweet accord,

And thus surround the throne.

Chorus:  We're marching to Zion,

Beautiful, beautiful Zion;

We're marching upward to Zion;

The beautiful city of God.

I didn't read those words; I sang those words in my head.  Do you know the catchy tune?  I sang the words ... and ... it didn't work!  I tried again, and again I bogged down.  I tried all four verses, and still I couldn't get through the song.  Why?  Why not?  Finally, I had to get out of my chair and look up the song in an old hymnal I have, and that's when I discovered that lines three and four in each verse REPEAT.  The words didn't match the tune in my head because they repeated!

"Join in a song with sweet accord,

Join in a song with sweet accord,

And thus surround the throne,

And thus surround the throne."

By then, of course, I couldn't get the song out of my head enough to get into the story.  And I kept singing it for days.  Every time I tried to read the book, that song got stuck in my head again.  But that's not all that sidetracked me.

Slumper #2

Image from the W.E.B. du Bois Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst.

I noticed both "St. Louis" and "East St. Louis" mentioned in the book's description and wondered if the author had confused or conflated the two.  St. Louis is a city in Missouri, where I live, and East St. Louis is a city in Illinois.  I even looked it up to be sure I correctly understood that the race riots of 1917 took place across the Mississippi River.  Yes, the white mob surrounding the streetcar in the photo is in East St. Louis.  (And I still haven't gotten past the first few pages of the novel.)

And finally...

Let's define "slumper" as I'm using it.  An urban dictionary says it's "a person who is doing something that is lame, embarrassing, rude, annoying, or anything less than perfect."  No, I'm saying it's something that diverted me from reading, thus putting me in a reading slump.  Or is this all just an excuse?  Like writing this post rather than reading the book.  Hmmm.

Was Jesus the first Christian?

Jesus Before Christianity ~ by Albert Nolan, 1976, 1992, religion

Nolan's portrait introduces readers to Jesus as He was before He became enshrined in doctrine, dogma, and ritual, a man deeply involved with the real problems of His time, which are the real problems of our time as well.

"The most accurate and balanced short reconstruction of the life of the historical Jesus." ― Harvey Cox

Coincidence?

A Jewish friend said to me, "Jesus was the first Christian."  I told her Jesus was always and only a Jew.  Christianity evolved over many years, from the first Jewish followers of Jesus through its spread to the non-Jewish population of the Roman Empire and beyond.  It was years after the death of Jesus before the name Christian was tacked on.  The word comes from the Greek Christos (Χρήστος), which is the translation of the Hebrew word for Messiah (מָשִׁיחַ).  A few days later, I mentioned to a different friend that I had run across a book entitled Jesus Before Christianity and had decided to buy it, since the library doesn't have a copy.  She said, "I'm reading the book right now and will let you borrow it when I'm finished."  So now I have her book.

Just saying

Was is something I read?

Oh, boy, what a difference a comma makes!  Reading Facebook this morning, I ran across this wrongly-placed comma:

"Well, said Matt."

What this reply actually means to communicate is:  "Well said, Matt.  I agree with you."  Instead, having misplaced the comma, the writer made me stumble.  (And laugh.)  I probably won't mention this to any of my friends because someone would reply, "Oh, Bonnie!  You knew what he meant!"  So, do you think I'm making a mountain out of a molehill?

TWOsday ~ two jokes, plus one

Jokes Every Woman Should Know ~ edited by Jennifer Worick, 2013, nah

I spent an hour this evening going through books to be shelved in our small library at the Crown Center where I live.  Among a bunch of donated books someone had left on the counter were coloring books, a Rugrats jigsaw puzzle for 5-8 year olds,  and a couple of torn children's books.  We don't have many infants living in our retirement center (exactly zero, actually), so it was strange to see these "gifts" for our library.  Among the books for grown-ups was this tiny joke book, which I took home to peruse and decide whether to shelve or discard.

I'd heard several of the jokes before, but most weren't worth the time, even though I read through the entire 144 pages of one-joke-to-a-page in no time flat.  I found two I'd heard or read previously that I still like, plus that one, single, new-to-me joke that made me smile.

ONE (p. 32)

A car skidded on wet pavement and struck a telephone pole; several bystanders ran over to help the driver.  A woman was the first to reach the victim, but a man rushed in and pushed her aside.  "Step aside, lady," he barked.  "I've taken a course in first aid."  The woman watched for a few seconds and then tapped him on the shoulder.  "Pardon me," she said.  "But when you get to the part about calling a doctor, I'm right here."

TWO (p. 115)

As a professional photographer, Nora takes a lot of pride in her pictures, carrying them with her everywhere.  She goes to a party where her host Liz says, "Wow, these are amazing pictures.  You must have a great camera."  Offended by the idea that her whole talent is based on her camera, Nora waited until the end of the meal and then thanked her host.  "Thank you, Liz, the meal was delicious, especially the soup.  You must have really great pots."

PLUS (p. 113)

An executive was interviewing an applicant for a position in his company.  He wanted to learn something about her personality, so he asked:  "If you could have a conversation with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?"  She quickly responded, "The living one."

All three of these, I notice, are quirky.  Maybe the word is snarky.  And maybe my sense of humor is just different.  Oh, yeah, shelve or discard?  I gave it to a resident who's a temporary shut-in, with instructions to let me know her opinion of the book.  We'll probably discard it, which in our case means sending it to the JCC for their bi-annual book fair.

Sunday Salon ~ exercising, books, family

Exercising

Dorothy, Marilyn, and Shannon had gotten into position to do "wall pushups" the day I snapped this photo of part of our group.  I'm not a morning person, and most of our scheduled exercises meet in the morning.  So I rounded up a few like-minded people to join me a couple of afternoons a week to do our own thing.

Books

Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne  ~ by Wilda C. Gafney, 2017, religion

Several of us who live in my retirement center are meeting each week.  We are Jewish and Christian and studying a book about religion together.  What we've found is that each of us brings an enlightening perspective and enriches us all.  By clicking on the title, you can read what I wrote about the book when I bought it.

Family

My great-granddaughter Shiloh celebrated her first birthday yesterday.  I could have shown you the requisite photo of her eating (and wearing) her special birthday cake, but I like this one better.  It shows what a cute little girl she has become.  She had trouble breathing when she was born, but look at her now!

Bloggers gather in the Sunday Salon — at separate computers in different time zones — to talk about our lives and our reading.

Mom's Monday ~ 100 years

Mildred Inez Reynolds Setliffe (1917-2004)

My favorite photo of my mother was taken in 1987, the year she turned 70.  Today marks a century since she was born.  One hundred years ago!  That's hard for me to fathom.

Reynolds family at home at 3208 5th Avenue, Chattanooga, Tennessee

Here's a photo when she was 12 or younger, since her dad died in a traffic accident when she was only 12 years old.  That's her on the front row, a tall girl with her sister Bonnie (behind her), their six brothers, and their parents on the left.

She loved her four children, twelve grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.  I'm not sure how many great-grands she had before she died, but seven of them were my grandchildren.  This photo shows her with one of my sister's granddaughters.

Here's our family about 1944, when I turned four and Billy was about a year and a half old.  Later that year, Dad was drafted and had to sell our grocery store.  Mother couldn't run the store.  She was pregnant, had the two of us children to look after, and ― besides ― Dad was the meat-cutter in the family.  With him gone, Mom had to learn how to drive.  He didn't see Ann until she was several months old.  They didn't have Jimmy until 1949.

So what would she want me to tell you about her, besides her love of family, of course?  Maybe .....

• that she taught an adult Sunday School class for more than forty years;
• that she was president of the PTA (Parent-Teacher Association) of my elementary school two different times;
• that she went back to school and became a cafeteria manager (she always loved cooking), 
• that she took college courses when she was Assistant Manager of the Food Service at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga;
• that a grandson called her "gallivanting granny" when he talked to a trucker while they were on the road visiting family;
• that she never seemed to sit down when she had the whole family over for dinner because she was too busy getting things for everyone.

Nah, she wouldn't want to brag, but I'm doing it anyway.   I love you, Mom, and I miss you.

Edited to add what my daughter Sandra sent in an email about her "Jamma" (Auntie is my Aunt Bonnie):

Mom,  I loved the pics and biography you wrote.  However, when you mentioned "taught a Sunday school class" I wish you had taken it a bit farther.  Knowing Jamma, she would want her biggest legacy, being a strong Christian, to be given more emphasis.  When she was in her last stages, her memory often failed on so many things.  She often "switched" family generations around and she thought I was you and you were Auntie.  However, one thing she could always remember perfectly was:

"Jesus loves me this I know,

For the Bible tells me so,

Little ones to him belong,

We are weak but He is

      strong. 

Yes, Jesus loves me

Yes, Jesus loves me

Yes, Jesus loves me

The Bible tells me so."

I truly love remembering how happy she was, even when nearing her end, when we would sing this together. 

Happy 100th, Jamma!