Shiloh is her name ~ November 4th

Held by her daddy

I hadn't seen Donna in a week, so Friday evening we went out to eat.  In the middle of dinner, I got a text message from my son:

6:40 pm  Shiloh Mae is here.  Mom and baby okay.

I texted back:

6:47 pm  YAY!!!!  Donna says, "Me, too!"

She looks like her big brother.

After eating, we stopped to buy groceries, and I needed ink for my printer.  Yes, I looked at things I could get for the new great-grandbaby (okay, I looked at books for her), but I postponed buying anything until I could learn what she needs.  Two more texts arrived while I was driving us home, so Donna had to read them to me.

8:36 pm  Baby still in NICU being observed since she was premie.  We aren't going to get to see her tonight.  I'll update you later.

8:40 pm  Just heard everything is okay.

By the time I got home, got the groceries up the elevator to my apartment, and had put away perishables, it was after 10:00 pm Eastern time.  So I didn't text anything back.  The photos arrived on Saturday, and I'm grinning ear-to-ear as I share them here with you.

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

What's the kitty thinking?

Sherry left a comment on my Book Beginnings on Fridays post yesterday:  "I'm wondering what the kitty's thinking.  LOL."  Since nothing in that post is about a cat, I assume she meant this photo of Clawdia.  It was at the top of my blog until I changed it just now so we wouldn't be looking at two identical pictures.  Caturday is a good day to try to answer Sherry's question, so ... "What was Clawdia thinking?"

I have a very strange cat, though some would say all cats are strange.  Clawdia likes to get out of our apartment, where I often leave her alone when I go out with friends or join activities here in the retirement center where we live.  She gets lonely, so I take her for a walk in our hallway late every evening.  She has made friends with several people and runs to be petted, like in this photo with a neighbor at the other end of our hall.  You may ask why I don't have her on a leash.  Please take a moment to read about Clawdia, the Drama Queen.

That day she sat staring up at the ceiling, I took a second picture as we came back by that corner.  This one shows her once again sitting and staring at that ... um, thing ... from a different angle.  I'm not sure if it's a security camera (perhaps she heard a whirring sound?) or if it's something else.  But it fascinated her, and she often glances at it now as we take our nightly walks.  She isn't really interested in the brightly-lit exit sign that's visible over her head.  Just that strange boxy thing aimed down the long part of the hall.

Oh, yeah, what was the kitty thinking?  She usually checks out the bulletin board next to the elevators, peers up at decorations people hang on their doors in different seasons, and studies anything dropped on the carpet.  Maybe she wondered how anything got so high up the wall, but probably she was simply trying to decide how to get up there and check out the strange thing more closely.  That's my best guess.

Four beginnings ~ as they wake up, again

And Again ~ by Jessica Chiarella, 2016, fiction

1. Hannah (p. 3):  Maybe it's like being born.  I don't know.  It's impossible to compare it to something I cannot remember.  When I finally come back to myself, it takes me a moment to realize I haven't died.

2. David (p. 17):  Within an hour of waking up, all I want is a shave and a cigarette.

3. Linda (p. 23):  It amazes me, sometimes, how small a world can be.  Not the world as a whole, from horizon to horizon, but the world as it exists for a single person.

4. Connie (p. 26):  Nobody comes to visit me in the hospital that first week.  And that's fine because nobody was really around for the past five years when I was sick, either.

What would you do if you had a second chance at life?  These four beginnings represent people waking up to new lives.  They have been given genetically perfect bodies as part of a pilot program.  Their new bodies are exact replicas of their old selves, but without the deadly illnesses they suffered from.  Scars and blemishes are gone, and their vision is impeccable.  But without their old bodies, their new physical identities have no memories.  How much of who you are rests not just in your mind, but in your heart and in your body?

1. Hannah, an artistic prodigy, has to relearn how to hold a brush.

2. David, a Congressman, grapples with his old destructive habits.

3. Linda, who spent eight years paralyzed after a car accident, now struggles to reconnect with a family that seems to have built a new life without her.

4. Connie, an actress whose stunning looks are restored after a protracted illness, tries to navigate an industry obsessed with physical beauty.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.  Click here for today's Mister Linky.

Mountaintop retreat

Imagine taking a break and going on a spiritual retreat on a mountaintop.  Time apart.  Time to think.  Time to ponder life and all its mysteries.  That's what I'm doing right now.  Sort of.  Okay, my mountaintop is only six stories high, inside my apartment, with a cat bent on distracting me at every turn.  But it's more comfortable than being atop Lookout Mountain with the Tennessee River in the distance.  Unlike Moses going up his mountain, I don't expect to come down with Ten Commandments.

Actually, I've had to come down a few times already, like yesterday when Theresa called from the office to say I'd forgotten to sign my rent check.  Hmm, okay, so I've had to interact with a few people.  But I'm basically taking a bit of a break, reading and writing and thinking 'bout things.  Not eating out with friends.  Not joining in the usual activities around the Crown Center.  Just chilling in my own place.  With my own cat, who insists on being fed any time she notices me and wants to go for a walk after dark.  We're good.

Stressed out

Stress: The Good and the Bad ~ by Paula Ceccaldi, Agnès Diricq, and Clémentine Bagieu, 2001, health

Five sections:
* FACT ~ Facts, figures, and quotes.
* DISCOVER ~ A short history of stress and what it does to your body.
* LOOK ~ Calming images for tense moments.
* IN PRACTICE ~ Coping with stress using relaxation techniques and therapies.
* FIND OUT ~ A stress-level assessment, anti-stress golden rules, and useful web sites.

I bought this book on sale almost two weeks ago, but I really must have needed it.  I felt the stress on Sunday, though I didn't realize that's what it was, when I cried for almost an hour after the last pieces of a puzzle fell into place.  My eyes were puffy and red the next morning.  Then I blogged.  I'm aware that I use words to get things out of my system, either by talking or by writing.  So I wrote about mindfulness to lower stress and meditation to reduce stress on Monday.  I wrote about relieving stress two ways and being stressed about computer repairs on Tuesday.  Only today did I make the connection between feeling stressed out and this book I haven't thought about since the day I got it.  I guess I'll just have to read it, huh?

Beginning ~ with an almost rape

The Double Bind ~ by Chris Bohjalian, 2007, fiction (Vermont)

Laurel Estabrook was nearly raped the fall of her sophomore year of college.  Quite likely she was nearly murdered that autumn.

When Laurel Estabrook is attacked while riding her bicycle through Vermont’s back roads, her life is forever changed.  Formerly outgoing, Laurel withdraws into her photography, spending all her free time at a homeless shelter.  There she meets Bobbie Crocker, a man with a history of mental illness and a box of photographs that he won’t let anyone see.  When Bobbie dies, Laurel discovers a deeply hidden secret — a story that leads her far from her old life, and into a cat-and-mouse game with pursuers who claim they want to save her.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.  Click here for this week's Mister Linky.

TWOsday ~ relieving stress two ways today

Exercising and meditating

I spent an hour exercising yesterday, as planned (MWF), and felt good afterwards.  Today's been super-busy, so I guess it's time to do my Tuesday meditating (TThS).  I plan to spend an hour practicing the piano in a bit, when there's no one in the big room downstairs that has a piano in it.  Playing the piano is relaxing for me and puts me in a good mood.

Computer maintenance

I was stressed about what it would cost to fix my computer.  Weeks ago, I spilled water into my laptop and actually poured it back out.  Yes, you heard right (read right?).  It dried out, and it worked, though slowly.  Dean, the repairman, said I was lucky.  He blew out all the dust that had collected since I got the laptop in 2011 and replaced the battery, which apparently had shorted out when it got wet.  I had been half afraid that I'd have to replace the whole thing, and my stress level went down considerably when he was able to delete a lot of programs I never use that were slowing down the computer.  It's (almost) like having a new laptop.

As for the cat?  Hmm, well, Clawdia can be peaceful and calm like in this photo, or she can raise my stress level by standing between me and the computer screen when I'm in a hurry to do something.  So it depends.