Sunday Salon ~ ruthless, rueful, and folded

Books I'm still reading

Turning to One Another ~ by Margaret J. Wheatley, 2009
Simplify Your Life ~ by Sam Davidson, 2011
America's Women ~ by Gail Collins, 2003
A New New Testament ~ edited by Hal Taussig, 2013

Wordplay

I learned a new word today.  That's so unusual that I want to announce it.  Madeleine Begun Kane, a humorist and song parodist who calls herself and her humor blog Mad Kane, sent out this limerick today:

Ruthless Limerick
by Madeleine Begun Kane

A dentist who’s lacking in ruth
Worships money, possessions, and youth.
In his quest for all three,
His crimes guarantee
He’ll be jailed until long in the tooth.

Ruthless means lacking in compassion, and ruth is a noun meaning compassion for another.  I wrote about ruth and rue on my word blog earlier, if you want to have a laugh or two.  Rueful?  It means "expressing sorrow or regret, especially when in a slightly humorous way."  I'm not at all rueful.

The world is divided into two kinds of people.  I would never dog-ear a book; therefore, I have a large collection of bookmarks.  What's your opinion?  Tell me in the comments, then go explore Mad Kane's Humor Blog.

The Sunday Salon's Facebook page has links to other blogs.

Beginning ~ with a pregnant traveler

America's Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines ~ by Gail Collins, 2003, history

"Eleanor Dare must have been either extraordinarily adventurous or easily led.  In 1587, when she was pregnant with her first child, she set sail across the Atlantic, headed for a continent where no woman of her kind had ever lived, let alone given birth."

I remember learning about Virginia Dare in school.  She was the first English baby born in America, so I figured the pregnaant Eleanor Dare must be her mother.  I knew from the back cover that Gail Collins "tells the story of how women shaped the nation and our vision of what it means to be female in America."  And I'm interested.  The history lessons I was taught were all about men and wars and politics; but this book is about "how women lived, what they cared about, and how they felt about marriage, sex, and work."  I've finished the first chapter, so far, and look forward to the rest, including the last chapter — "The Sixties: The Pendulum Swings Back with a Vengeance" — which covers the time when I was a young mother.  I've already read Gail Collins's 2009 book, When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, which I reviewed here.  Now I need to catch up with what came before.

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

Friday Five ~ First Times

In today's Friday Five for RevGals, we're looking at Firsts.

1.  Your first "place" — whether it was an apartment, dorm room, or home with a new spouse, the first place where you really felt like a grown-up.

Grown up?  I finished a semester of college before marrying at eighteen, but we put off having children until after we bought our first house a year later.  In the meantime, I had a lot of growing up to do, things like learning to cook.  Being scholarly — which we'd call nerdy today, I guess — I hadn't paid a lot of attention to my mother's attempts to teach me about food, even though she later became a cafeteria manager.  So I frequently called her to ask, "How do you cook pork chops?" or "How long does it take to bake potatoes in the oven?"  I tended to teach myself other things, like sewing.  One Sunday evening, while the family was at church (I don't remember why I stayed home), I cut out and sewed together a blouse on my own and was making hand-stitched button holes when Mom got home and inspected my work.  It was good enough to wear to school.  However, I'm still not fond of housework and would rather have my nose in a  book or write another blog post.

2.  Your first time away from home.  Construe this any way you want.  College?  Girl Scout Camp?  Study abroad?

I was a mere 18 months old, so I was told, when I first spent a night away from home — with relatives.  Obviously, I don't remember that, so I'll tell you about Girl Scout Camp at Fall Creek Falls, located near those falls pictured above.  My cousin Carolyn and I roomed in the same cabin with a couple of other girls.  The mountain streams, where we swam, were freezing cold.  We went to the falls and actually climbed down the steep sides to the base of the falls while holding onto a thick metal cable.  Fall Creek Falls is the highest free-fall waterfall east of the Mississippi River, according to Wikipedia.  The total height is 256 feet (78 m), and we campers climbed to the bottom and stood on the slippery wet rocks behind the falls.  Our counselors told us it was taller than Niagra Falls.  When I returned as an adult, the cable had been removed.  I can't imagine letting youngsters climb down (and back up) with no safety devices but our own hands clinging to the cable.  Yet I did it several times in the years I camped there, first as a Scout and later at church camp.

3.  Your first job in your field of endeavor (so, not babysitting, unless you are A Professional Babysitter today).

I was considered "second career" when I attended seminary, but we'll have to count to figure out how many "careers" I had before pastor.  Let's see, not counting babysitting (which I did overnight for neighbors while both parents worked, when I was only 14), I was a file clerk in a teacher's agency, did office work and shipping while in college, worked in the merchandising department at Sears Roebuck (had to leave that job at about 4-5 months pregnant in 1959 because that was the rule), motherhood (what, you don't call THAT a career?), illustrated a couple of books, became a published freelance writer at 25 (have been published locally, nationally, and internationally now), wrote grants for county government, edited two in-house publications (which included doing most of the writing and all of the B/W photography), did management training, started my own company doing training in the South (like at hospitals), taught continuing education at local colleges, went to seminary for my MDiv and became a pastor, taught Religions of the World as adjunct at Chattanooga State Community College, and opened my own bookstore with a friend after retirement.  Oh, yeah, one more — on Saturday nights, while getting my first degree (BA with double major in philosophy/religion and in English), I stuffed the Sunday funnies and advertising into our local newspaper.  Okay, which of those "count" as a field of endeavor?

4.  Your first time hosting.  Again, construed broadly, this could be a dinner for the in-laws, your first time to have guests for a holiday meal, etc.

Must not have been memorable, since I'm not remembering anything I'd consider "first time."  I know I made a conscious effort not to be like my mother, who never seemed to sit down and join us when company was there — she was always jumping up to go get something else or re-fill a glass.  I made a point of enjoying the people whenever we entertained.  Charlotte and Harry came for supper a lot of weekends when we were first married, while they were still dating.  One odd fact:  three couples from our church married in February 1959 — Nathan and Mary Alice on the 1st, Jim and Jane on the 15th, and us on the 28th.  Harry and Charlotte waited another couple of years.  (Mary Alice died years ago, Charlotte died in March, Jane and I both divorced and are now "widowed," as our former husbands have died.)

5.  Your first love.  That can be a person or something else!!

I remember falling in love with Lewis in the first grade.  His dog jumped up on me after running through hot tar that summer and ruined my pretty blouse, but I don't remember if that's what ended it for us or starting back to school in the fall.  In second grade, I fell for Nathan (yes, that Nathan mentioned in #4) — and I don't remember any others until Tom, when I was in sixth grade and he was two years older (and totally unaware of me).

Hmm, looks like I took a walk down memory lane.

BTT (#39) ~ quality or quantity?

Today's prompt from Booking Through Thursday:

"Which is more important?  Quality for your reading?  Or quantity?"

The question makes no sense to me.  Oh, I understand the words, just not why anyone would choose to read books just to say they had read lots of books.  My answer, of course, is quality.  See my profile on the sidebar, where the only thing I say is "I read to explore ideas."

Let's dance

Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, plus countless others, including the ones below.  I couldn't find a way to embed Let's Dance, so let's watch it on YouTube.  Whoever put this montage of dancers together has a wonderful sense of music.  Oh, and it starts with ballet and a little Riverdance, and includes Charlie Chaplin, the Three Stooges, Shirley Temple, Dancing with the Stars, and the Yellow Brick Road.

Gene Kelly "Singin' in the Rain"

John Travolta in "Grease"

Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk

Elvis Presley in "Jailhouse Rock"

Library Loot ~ August 21-27

Don't Kiss the Frog! : Princess Stories with Attitude ~ chosen by Fiona Waters, 2008, children's

This collection of six stories about princesses with attitude turns fairy-tale traditions upside down.  Perfect for girls who love tiaras, ballgowns, and happy endings — but also sports, silly jokes, and being different.  Featuring the work of seven writers and three illustrators, this anthology of “princess stories with attitude” will make kids laugh as they encounter a bevy of sleepy, sporty, clumsy, brave, resourceful, and curious princesses.

• "The Clumsy Princess" ~ by Lou Kuenzler, illustrated by Miriam Latimer
• "The Princess Exchange" ~ by Anne Marie Ryan, illustrated by Sarah Massini
• "The Princess and the P. E." ~ by Angela Kanter, illustrated by Miriam Latimer
• "Sleepy Beauty" ~ by William Bedford, illustrated by Ella Burfoot
• "Double Dragons" ~ by Enid Richemont, illustrated by Sarah Massini
• "Princess Rose" ~ by Elaine Canham and Rose Canham, illustrated by Ella Burfoot

I've been checking out children's picture books lately, but I haven't managed to read them or review them.  Some of them were suggested by A Mighty Girl, which suggested a different kind of princess for girls to read about.  See also, for example, Part-Time Princess in last week's Library Loot.

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire @ The Captive Reader and Marg @ The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages us to share titles of books we’ve checked out of the library.  Add your link any time during the week, and see what others got this week.

Reading Books I Own Challenge ~ part one

Pam @ Travellin' Penguin (she collects Penguin books) has started a reading challenge for herself and any of us who want to join her.  As I sit here typing and looking up at the stacks of books that surround me, I know that I must — I really MUST — follow her example and read these books I already have.

"The Challenge:  I will read [only***] the books I own and put the list up linked to the badge. ... Feel free to take the badge and link it to your list of books you own.  You might only want to do a list of 10 or 20 at a time."

I took the badge, and I wrote up the challenge [almost***] as she wrote it.  I compared the shelves in her post to my bookshelves, and I started compiling a list of books.  Here's what I plan to read first, though I'll count any additional books that come from my own boxes, shelves, or stacks.  I'll start today with the first one on this list.

1.  Simplify Your Life: How to De-Clutter and De-Stress Your Way to Happiness ~ by Sam Davidson, 2011
2.  The Dalai Lama's Cat ~ by David Michie, 2012, fiction
3.  How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life ~ by the Dalai Lama, 2002
4.  Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future ~ by Margaret J. Wheatley, 2009
5.  Living Buddha, Living Christ ~ by Thich Nhat Hanh, 1995
6.  Inferno ~ by Dan Brown, 2013, fiction
7.  Mixed Blessings ~ by Barbara Brown Taylor, 1986
8.  Reflections on My Call to Preach: Connecting the Dots ~ by Fred Brenning Craddock, 2009
9.  The Death of Fidel Perez ~ by Elizabeth Huergo, 2013, fiction
10.  Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith ~ by Barbara Brown Taylor, 2006

When I finish ten books (which may change as I go along), I'll post another ten and call it "Reading Books I Own Challenge ~ part two."  Stay tuned.

*** I modified her word [only***] because I'm a teacher and a writer and MUST read other books.  However, my goal is to read my own books, in chunks of ten at a time.  That will help clear the shelves and de-clutter some books from my life.