Thinking about mistakes I've made

“Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something.” ― Morihei Ueshiba

(I like this quote from my spiral-bound 2025 calendar.)

Why is there something rather than nothing?

Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story ~ by Jim Holt, 2013, philosophy, 320 pages

Jim Holt explores the greatest metaphysical mystery of all:  why is there something rather than nothing?  He takes on the role of cosmological detective, interviewing a host of scientists, philosophers, and writers.  As he interrogates his list of ontological culprits, he contends that we might have been too narrow in limiting our suspects to God versus the Big Bang.

Word of the Day = ontological

on·to·log·i·cal /ˌän(t)əˈläjək(ə)l / adjective

• relating to the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being.  Example:  "I'm curious about his ontological arguments."
• showing the relations between the concepts and categories in a subject area or domain.  Example:  "She decided to compile an ontological database."

Learn more at Wikipedia, HERE.

A Scholastic book for children

The Monkey Thief ~ by Lynn Henderson, illustrated by Paul Mirocha, 1996, children's fiction (8 - 13 years old), 157 pages

Twelve-year-old Steve Janson is sent to Costa Rica for eight months to live with his uncle, who is setting up a nature preserve.  Steve befriends rain forest native Don Luis and hatches a dangerous scheme to capture a pet monkey for himself.  

An Amazon reviewer wrote:  "The Monkey Thief introduces tween and young teenage readers to the jungles of Costa Rica, where a young boy is obsessed with capturing and taming a monkey.  As is true in all of Aileen Kilgore Henderson's novels for middle-grade children, this novel provides a strong plot, accurate cultural information, and good character-building problem solving by the main character.  Environmental protection is also at the forefront in this story.  A lovely novel for young readers."

A borrowed book ~ or two ~ or three ~ actually four

Poets Square: A Memoir in Thirty Cats ~ by Courtney Gustafson, 2025, memoir, 256 pages

When Courtney Gustafson moved into a rental house in the Poets Square neighborhood of Tucson, Arizona, she didn’t know that the property came with thirty feral cats.  Focused only on her own survival — in a new relationship, during a pandemic, with poor mental health and a job that didn’t pay enough — Courtney was reluctant to spend any of her own time or money caring for the wayward animals.

But the cats — their pleading eyes, their ribs showing, the new kittens born in the driveway — didn’t give her a choice.

She had no idea about the grief and hardship of animal rescue, the staggering size of the problem in neighborhoods across the country.  And she couldn’t have imagined how that struggle — toward an ethics of care, of individuals trying their best amid spectacularly failing systems — would help pierce a personal darkness she’d wrestled with for much of her life.  She also didn’t expect that the TikTok and Instagram accounts she created to share the quirky personalities of the wild but lovable cats, like Monkey, Goldie, Francois, and Sad Boy, would end up saving her home.

Courtney writes toward a vision of connectedness, showing how taking care of the cats reshaped her understanding of empathy, resilience, and the healing power of wholly showing up for some-thing outside yourself.  She takes us from the dark alleys where she feeds feral cats to inside the tragically neglected homes where she climbs over piles of trash, and occasionally animals, and then into her own driveway with the cats she loves and must sometimes let go.  Compelling and tender, Poets Square is as much about cats as it is about the urgency of care, community, and a little bit of dumb hope.

Knowing my love of cats (and books), one of my neighbors called to invite me for a chat.  She wanted to "show" me something.  Actually, she wanted to let me borrow one of the library books she'd just gotten.  This is the book she handed me.  I started it immediately, since she would want to read it herself when she finished the other book (or books) she'd checked out.  That's why I opened it the minute I went back to my apartment.  Thanks, Madeleine.

Here's what I posted this week:

1. My Wednesday post, HERE, was about a book loaned to me by a neighbor who also loves cats.  Thanks, Larry.
2. On Thursday, I didn't mention HERE that a friend from the community met me for lunch in our Café and brought a book she'd just finished, thinking it is one I'd like to read.  Thanks, Sharon.
3. On Friday, I wrote HERE about a book another neighbor let me borrow, one her daughter had given her.  Thanks, Betty.

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

Beginning ~ with light everywhere

Beginning

First, he was aware of light ― so white and sharp it seemed to come from everywhere, to be everywhere, above and below, cutting through him as a sunbeam cuts through a windowpane, and emanating from within, from the place where the physical substance that had once made him had once existed.

The Stars and Their Light ~ by Olivia Hawker, 2025, historical fiction (Roswell, New Mexico), 381 pages

In Roswell, New Mexico, the mystery of the unknown grips a sheltered novitiate in a haunting historical novel about fate, faith, and agency.  It’s 1947 when Sister Mary Agnes arrives in New Mexico.  Her mission is to establish a monastery in the town of Roswell, where weeks before rumors of the crash landing of an unidentified craft have triggered a crisis of faith.  Residents are drifting away from the divine, awed no longer by the heavens, but rather the stars.

In service to the frightened and confused, Sister Mary Agnes soon befriends Betty Campbell, a teenager marked both physically and psychically by the inexplicable event.  Mary Agnes is also drawn to Harvey, a handyman refurbishing the monastery ― and a firsthand witness to the crash.  But as Mary Agnes tries to guide her wayward friends back to the church, it’s the fantastic and the forbidden that begin to loom large in her imagination.

Thrown into her own crisis of doubt, Mary Agnes must choose whether to uphold the order in which she came of age or embrace the truth she feels in her heart, despite its terrifying complexity.

An online reviewer wrote:  "Underneath the 'cover story' of UFO's, the book also deals with themes of fear, alienation, loss of faith in institutions, adolescence, and bullying."

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts

Book Beginnings on Fridays.

Paris, anyone?

Lunch in Paris A Love Story with Recipes ~ by Elizabeth Bard, 2011, memoir, 352 pages

In Paris for a weekend visit, Elizabeth Bard sat down to lunch with a handsome Frenchman — and never went home again.  Was it love at first sight?  Or was it the way her knife slid effortlessly through her pavé au poivre, the steak's pink juices puddling into the buttery pepper sauce?

Lunch in Paris is a memoir about a young American woman caught up in two passionate love affairs -- one with her new beau, Gwendal, the other with French cuisine.  Packing her bags for a new life in the world's most romantic city, Elizabeth is plunged into a world of bustling open-air markets, hipster bistros, and size 2 femmes fatales.  She learns to gut her first fish (with a little help from Jane Austen), soothe pangs of homesickness (with the rise of a chocolate soufflé), and develops a crush on her local butcher (who bears a striking resemblance to Matt Dillon).  Elizabeth finds that the deeper she immerses herself in the world of French cuisine, the more Paris itself begins to translate.  French culture, she discovers, is not unlike a well-ripened cheese — there may be a crusty exterior, until you cut through to the melting, piquant heart.

Peppered with mouth-watering recipes for summer ratatouille, swordfish tartare and molten chocolate cakes, this is a story of falling in love, redefining success, and discovering what it truly means to be at home.

Thursday Thoughts:  I'm wearing a Snoopy tee-shirt today and will attend a class on the importance of balance for older folks.  Falls can really mess up the lives of older people, you know.  So around here, we have exercise classes designed specifically for us.  I am 85, but I walked 7,083 steps yesterday and 10,446 steps the day before, according to my step counter.  It helps my balance and strength.

A cat lover let me borrow this book

Catland: Louis Wain and the Great Cat Mania ~ by Kathryn Hughes, 2024, history, 402 pages

How cat mania exploded in the early twentieth century, transforming cats from pests into beloved pets.

In 1900, Britain and America were in the grip of a cat craze. An animal that had for centuries been seen as a household servant or urban nuisance had now become an object of pride and deep affection. From presidential and royal families who imported exotic breeds to working-class men competing for cash prizes for the fattest tabby, people became enthralled to the once-humble cat. Multiple industries sprang up to feed this new obsession, selling everything from veterinary services to leather bootees via dedicated cat magazines. Cats themselves were now traded for increasingly large sums of money, bolstered by elaborate pedigrees that claimed noble ancestry and promised aesthetic distinction.

In Catland , Kathryn Hughes chronicles the cat craze of the early twentieth century through the life and career of Louis Wain. Wain's anthropomorphic drawings of cats in top hats falling in love, sipping champagne, golfing, driving cars, and piloting planes are some of the most instantly recognizable images from the era. His round-faced fluffy characters established the prototype for the modern cat, which cat "fanciers" were busily trying to achieve using their newfound knowledge of the latest scientific breeding techniques. Despite being a household name, Wain endured multiple bankruptcies and mental breakdowns, spending his last fifteen years in an asylum, drawing abstract and multicolored felines. But it was his ubiquitous anthropomorphic cats that helped usher the formerly reviled creatures into homes across Europe.

Illustrated and based on new archival findings about Wain's life, the wider cat fancy, and the media frenzy it created, Catland chronicles the history of how the modern cat emerged.