MLK Day

Today (Monday, January 16th) we celebrate the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.  This day is celebrated on the third Monday in January in the United States.  MLK is remembered for many qualities, including his emphasis on love, justice, forgiveness, and action.  He asked, "What are you doing for others?"  Today is a good day for us to ponder this question, so what exactly am I doing for anybody else?

What I've read and what I'm ready to read

When I got to the chapter on Alzheimer's (p. 175) in Lisa Genova's book Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting (2021, neuroscience, 264 pages), I closed my Kindle to take a break and think of my mother.  That period is not easy for me to "remember."  My mother lived with me for 25 years, but eventually I had to put her in assisted living because I was still working and couldn't leave her in our house alone.  I ate a snack, gave Clawdia some loving, then finished reading this book that I rated 9/10.

The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times ~ by Michelle Obama, 2022, self-help, 336 pages

The library is holding Michelle Obama's book for me, in which she opens a frank and honest dialogue considering the questions many of us wrestle with:

• How do we build enduring and honest relationships?
• How can we discover strength and community inside our differences?
• What tools do we use to address feelings of self-doubt or helplessness?
• What do we do when it all starts to feel like too much?

She offers readers a series of fresh stories and insightful reflections on change, challenge, and power, including her belief that when we light up for others, we can illuminate the richness and potential of the world around us, discovering deeper truths and new pathways for progress.  She shares the habits and principles she has developed to successfully adapt to change and overcome various obstacles — the earned wisdom that helps her continue to "become."  She details her most valuable practices, like "starting kind," "going high," and assembling a "kitchen table" of trusted friends and mentors.  She also explores issues connected to race, gender, and visibility, encouraging readers to work through fear, find strength in community, and live with boldness.

The Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz, and Library Loot is

co-hosted by Claire at The Captive Reader and Sharlene at Real Life Reading.

Two small books for Saturday

Recitatif ~ by Toni Morrison, 1983, (introduction by Zadie Smith, 2022), fiction, 83 pages, 9/10

Toni Morrison called this story about race and the relationships that shape us through life "an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial."  We know that one is white and one is black, but which is which?  And who is right about the race of the woman the girls tormented at the orphanage?

In this short story — the only short story Morrison ever wrote — we meet Twyla and Roberta, who have known each other since they were eight years old and spent four months together as roommates in St. Bonaventure shelter.  Inseparable then, they lose touch as they grow older, only later to find each other again at a diner, a grocery store, and a protest.  Seemingly at opposite ends of every problem, and at each other's throats each time they meet, the two women still cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them.

My Evil Mother ~ by Margaret Atwood, 2022, fiction (Canada), 32 pages, 8/10

 Life is hard enough for a teenage girl in 1950s suburbia without having a mother who may — or may not — be a witch.  A single mother at that.  Sure, she fits in with her starched dresses, string of pearls, and floral aprons.  Then there are the hushed and mystical consultations with neighborhood women in distress.  The unsavory, mysterious plants in the flower beds.  The divined warning to steer clear of a boyfriend whose fate is certainly doomed.  But as the daughter of this bewitching homemaker comes of age and her mother’s claims become more and more outlandish, she questions everything she once took for granted.

Friday the 13th

Until I got up this morning, I hadn't realized it was the 13th.  Yeah, Friday the Thirteenth.  This illustration I found sort of looks like Clawdia, but she's not unlucky.  Maybe today could be her lucky day.  Just for fun, I think I'll post this at 1:00 pm, the 13th hour!

Forgetting is part of being human

Beginning

Picture a penny in your mind's eye.  Because you've probably encountered a penny hundreds if not thousands of times over the years, you should have no trouble remembering what one looks like.  You've committed this image to memory.  Or have you?

Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting ~ by Lisa Genova, 2021, neuroscience, 264 pages, 9/10

Have you ever felt a crushing wave of panic when you can't for the life of you remember the name of that actor in the movie you saw last week, or you walk into a room only to forget why you went there in the first place?  If you're over forty, you're probably not laughing.  You might even be worried that these lapses in memory could be an early sign of Alzheimer's or dementia.  In reality, for the vast majority of us, these examples of forgetting are completely normal.  Why?  Because while memory is amazing, it is far from perfect.  Our brains aren't designed to remember every name we hear, plan we make, or day we experience.  Just because your memory sometimes fails doesn't mean it's broken or succumbing to disease.  Forgetting is actually part of being human.

In Remember, neuroscientist and acclaimed novelist Lisa Genova delves into how memories are made and how we retrieve them.  You'll learn whether forgotten memories are temporarily inaccessible or erased forever and why some memories are built to exist for only a few seconds (like a passcode) while others can last a lifetime (your wedding day).  You'll come to appreciate the clear distinction between normal forgetting (where you parked your car) and forgetting due to Alzheimer's (that you own a car).  And you'll see how memory is profoundly impacted by meaning, emotion, sleep, stress, and context.  Once you understand the language of memory and how it functions, its incredible strengths and maddening weaknesses, its natural vulnerabilities and potential superpowers, you can both vastly improve your ability to remember and feel less rattled when you inevitably forget.

Quotes from the book:

• "...our brains have evolved to remember what is meaningful.  They forget what isn't" (p. 5).
• "...forgetting is a normal part of being human" (p. 7).
• "We can only remember seven plus or minus two things for fifteen to thirty seconds in working memory" (p. 41).
• "We have three basic types of long-term memories:  memory for information, memory for what happened, and memory for how to do things" (p. 51).
• "MAKE TO-DO LISTS" (p. 138).

==============================================================

I was reading this book and got to page 138 exactly 30 minutes before this was set to post on my blog.  "I've got to share this MAKE TO-DO LISTS quote," I thought.  So I'm back on my computer, telling the whole world that I definitely DO make lists of every little thing I need to do each day.  For last week's Thursday Thoughts, I had this as #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, since these are too big for my pockets

I also tell everybody the pen and paper ARE my memory.  It's how I remember things.  I hate to go down to get my mail and get back up to my apartment before I remember I was supposed to also take my library books back to the office to be returned.  So I may be retired, but I still use a daily planner to jot down which events I've signed up for and what time I'm supposed to meet a friend for lunch in the Circle@Crown Café.  I haven't finished the book yet, so I haven't officially "rated" it, but it's a very good book.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts

Book Beginnings on Fridays.

Drizzle ~ and other Thursday thoughts

1.  The weather app said it was drizzling at my location.  When I opened my blinds, I saw the little white "raindrops" floating upwards outside my window.  Back in olden days, we called them snowflakes and "drizzling" meant raindrops.  The photo is from last year, and we may yet see at least that much "drizzle" again this winter.  LOL.

2.  I think this joke is funny, even if I'm not as crazy about chocolate as some folks.

3.  Thursday comes from the name Thor, so this seems to be a fitting "thought" for today's Thursday Thoughts.  Did you see what happened on New Year’s Eve in Scarborough, a town in North Yorkshire, England?  A lost walrus (nicknamed Thor) was found resting in the harbor, so the town council decided to cancel their fireworks program for the welfare of that walrus.  A spokesperson from the Council said:

"We have taken the decision to cancel tonight’s New Year’s Eve fireworks display on the advice of British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR), because of the arrival of the walrus 'Thor' in the harbour.  There are concerns that the display could cause distress to the mammal."  Councillor Steve Siddons, leader of the council, said:  "We are really disappointed that we've had to cancel the fireworks, but the welfare of the walrus has to take precedence."

Scarborough, a city of about 108,000 citizens had been planning the fireworks event for about six months.  They'd already purchased the fireworks out of the annual budget, and then canceled the whole thing to protect that walrus.  I am so impressed.  (* Thanks to Jan for sharing this remarkable news and the link to the information about it.)

4.  Micah 6:8 is the source of that middle part:  "He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"  It's my favorite Bible verse.

5.  I have coins in an old film container like this and in old pill bottles so ancient any child could open them easily.  I have no idea whether or not a collector would find any of my coins of value, but it's not likely.  My coins are old because I collected them decades ago.

6.  Did you know Harvard offers free courses?  Here's one on Ethics that I wrote about several years ago:  JUSTICE by Michael Sandel.

7.  Speaking of "collecting" (#5), I'm still collecting my thoughts.  What's been on your mind this week?

Words and more words ~ idioms

One day, I observed an interaction between two people in our Café and thought, "She needs to sit on her hands and count to ten slowly before reacting to what he said."  When I got home, I googled to see what I'd find.  

• sit on one's hands = to do nothing about a problem or a situation that needs dealing with.  Example:  "Every day the crisis worsens, and yet the government seems content to sit on its hands."

Another day, I woke from a dream of Clawdia slipping out of my arms and falling into the toilet.  I was about to laugh at the "wet cat" when she kept going ... and going ... and was gone.  I was grabbing for her, but she was just ... GONE.  As I got out of bed, I pondered the meaning of that dream.  Was her life about to go "down the drain" (a slightly different idiom)?  Was I failing her in some way?  I have no idea what (if anything) such a dream means.  Here's what I found online about those two idioms:

• down the toilet = If something is or goes down the toilet, it is wasted or spoiled.  Example:  "After the drug scandal, his career went down the toilet."
• down the drain = If work or money goes down the drain, it is wasted.  Example:  "If the factory closes, that will be a million dollars' worth of investment down the drain."  

(These definitions are from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press.)