Sunday Salon on Monday. Memorial Day!

Jamie and Rhubarb at the Rainiers Game on Sunday

 

Weather: Overcast, but not raining. Still quite cool for this time of year.

Rita and her family. She is 34 now. Happy Birthday!

The visit: My sister drove up from Oregon for a whirlwind visit this weekend. She got to spend lots of time with our grandchildren, which is usually the point of her visits. Friday night we had a birthday party for our daughter and the boys and their cousin were like little tornadoes,spinning around the house causing chaos for three hours. We were all exhausted when the left. HA! The next day we drove up to see the construction project on their new house. It was raining and cold but that didn't deter the boys from running around, getting muddier and wetter with each foray outside. Later we walked the dog along the Chambers Bay park promenade. It was overcast but the weather held long enough for us to not get totally wet. Yesterday the whole family went to a Tacoma Rainiers game (local AAA affiliate of the Seattle Mariners), the first baseball game for the boys. Jamie met Rhubarb, the mascot. He was enamored as you see in the photo above. Later we returned home for a quick dinner of hamburgers and tater tots. Whew. 

100 Books Every Child Should Hear Before Kindergarten project: Our library has put together a brochure of books every kids should have read to them before they start school. My daughter, overwhelmed this time of year with the end of her teaching year, building a new house, and wrangling two busy boys, wasn't interested in investing in the work/time this project would require. But I'm retired so I decided to take charge. So far Ian and I have read 30 of the 100 books. We are checking them off the list as we go. He seems as delighted with the project as I am, wondering when we will have time to read all the books before fall. Above you see my marked up copy of the brochure. Ian has his own copy where he checks off the books as we read them.

Guns and politics: Many politicians are more concerned about gun rights than they are about the lives these guns take every year. The death of 19 children and two teachers this week in an elementary school in Texas is just heartbreaking. Will we finally get something changed in our laws to make it harder for these lunatics to get their hands on guns? Read the tweet she sent with the poem and the Twitter thread here. This poem by poet Amanda Gorman provides a little bit of light in all this darkness:

 

And while I'm at it, think about this:

Think you are alone in your anger and sadness? Think again:

But what can you do?

• Everytown for Gun Safety has a page filled with things you can do — many of them very easy — to get guns off our streets.  Click here for many ideas and action links.

• Donate directly to those affected by the shooting in Texas through GoFundMe verified pages at this link.

• Donate to Mom’s Demand Action at this link

• Donate to Sandy Hook Promise at this link

• Give us the ability to pass gun control by donating to Democrats running for office.  Think of it as a one stop shop for using your $$$ to save democracy.  Here is the link: ***** Click Here to Donate for House and Senate Races ****

Books:

• My May Project final: I attempted to read only books from my TBR list or those I physically own. I also hoped to not add any new books to the list or purchase any new volumes. How'd I do? Failure. I started the month with 205 books on my TBR list, I now have 207 books on it and that is after reading a few titles off the list. Net gain: two. In additon, I actually purchased four or five books this month which increased the unread piles on my book shelves. Sigh.
  
• Currently reading:
• The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief by Jan Richardson. Powerful and helpful on so many levels. Print. 80%
• The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne. Recommended by several bloggers I started reading this basically blind. The main character is gay in Ireland when it was not okay to be gay. It also has some very heartbreaking parts. Other bits are funny. I finally feel like I have some momentum and will likely finish this book today or tomorrow. Print. 90%.
• The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen. The 2022 Pulitzer Prize winner. Interesting?! Is that a good description? Not sure if that helps you. It is somewhat about Jewish history. Audio. 41% complete.
• The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis. The sixth book in the Chronicles of Narnia. A reread. Print. 20%.
• The Book of Sharks: Poems by Rob Carney. I've wanted to read this collection of poems by the son of one of my friends and a past colleagues for a few years now. I finally gave up and bought it after not finding it at the local library or at any bookstores. Print. 50%.
   
• Completed this week:
• Discussions on Race: essays by a variety of authors. Thought-provoking. Print. 
• The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See. Set in Korea starting in the 1930s, this is the story of one woman's life. She is a Haenyo, a Korean female diver. The book is historical and very heartbreaking. I look forward to discussing it in June book club. Audio.
   
• Book club: Our discussion on the Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead did not go as I predicted. The book was not a favorite of anyone in the group therefore our discussion suffered.
• Summer reading challenges start today:
• 20 Books of Summer (Read 20+ books between Memorial to Labor Day)
  
• Big Books Summer Challenge, my goal is to read a minimum of four big books (over 400 pages long.)
  

Funny or sad? Life isn't turning out the way we thought it would.

Memorial Day: Is one of those confusing holidays. What are we supposed to do? It is a day on which those who died in active military service are remembered, traditionally observed on May 30 but now officially observed on the last Monday in May. It is not a day to honor living Veterans or all dead, though we did visit Dom's final resting spot at the First Responder's Memorial Site. Thank you for your service and for your final sacrifice.

Whatever you do, I hope it involves some fun, memorable moments.

The antics of Fred and George:

Both Fred (right) and George (left) take their role of supervisors and inspectors very seriously. This week they inspected the baby blanket my daughter crocheted for a friend before she gave it away.

 -Anne