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!

Beginning ~ with Katie's weird day

"It was like an alien had landed.  Really, it was that weird.  Like an ancient creature from another planet had crashed into Katie's day."

Unbecoming ~ by Jenny Downham, 2016, fiction

Katie's life is falling apart:  her best friend thinks she's a freak, her mother, Caroline, controls every aspect of her life, and her estranged grandmother, Mary, appears as if out of nowhere.  Mary has dementia and needs lots of care, and when Katie starts putting together Mary's life story, secrets and lies are uncovered:  Mary's illegitimate baby, her zest for life and freedom and men; the way she lived her life to the full yet suffered huge sacrifices along the way.  As the relationship between Mary and Caroline is explored, Katie begins to understand her own mother's behavior, and from that insight, the terrors about her sexuality, her future, and her younger brother are all put into perspective.

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

Monday Mindfulness ~ some thoughts

 

I don't understand the urge to follow people who haven't accomplished anything, but are famous because they are well-known, and who are well-know because we talk about them.  And we celebrate that?  Why?  I'm a reader, so "authors are the kind of celebrities I love."  And then only when they have written something that interests me.  Back in 2010, I wrote about a few authors I have met:

• Masha Hamilton
• Fannie Flagg
• Laurie Halse Anderson
• Christopher Paul Curtis
• Avi
• Marcus Borg
• John Dominic Crossan
• Theda Perdue
• Madeleine L'Engle
• Robert Hicks
• Susan Gregg Gilmore
• Paul Von Ward
• Janisse Ray
• E. L. Konigsburg

Since moving to St. Louis, I've also met Reza Aslan, as you can see in this photo.  That day, he signed my copy of his book  Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (2013) that had just been published.

Today, I'm also pondering an event that happened a year and a half before I was born.  My parents were married on October 16, 1938.  My dad had turned 20 exactly one week earlier, and my mom was still 20 until exactly one week later.  That was important to him, that they were the same age, that she was not a year older.  Next Monday, I'll be thinking about her birthday, a century after it occurred.

Caturday ~ pumpkins

One of Bonnie's great-grandchildren has a picture of me on her shirt!

Compare it to a photo of me from a couple of years ago.

Clawdia, 'til next time   >^. .^<

Wednesday Words ~ jibe and jib

The word "jibe" (jibed; jibing) is an intransitive verb that means:

1.  to be in accord 
2.  agree — which is usually used with the word "with."

Example:  a story that doesn't jibe with the facts.  According to Merriam-Webster, the first known usage is from 1813.  A recent example from the web from the AP in Washington:  "President Donald Trump’s new communications aide is deleting old tweets that didn’t jibe with his boss’ views."

I looked it up after using it in a private message to a friend on Facebook.

"The woman gave me directions which jibed with the google map."

When I looked up "jibe," I also discovered it's an alternate spelling for "jib," one of the sails on a sailboat.  In 1968, we bought a sailboat and named it Blue Streak, because we talked a "blue streak" before deciding to buy it and because it was a 19-foot Lightning class sailboat.  (I found this labeled photo at Brit Word of the Day.)

Here's the difference in pronunciation:  "jib" rhymes with "rib," and "jibe" rhymes with "tribe."  Since I use both words, I'll stick with the two different spellings.