Daniel, my son-in-law, with Ian. Photo credit: D. Bennett
Today I am thankful for:
Autzen Stadium, Nov. 25, 2017. Note the sky! Photo credit: D. Bennett
Weather: I may not like it, but I am grateful for the rain as we had a very dry summer and we need the rain to fill up our reservoirs and nourish the plants.
My parents, great-grandparents to Ian. Photo credit: D. Bennett
My parents: 88 and 89 years-old they are both plugging along. They were like the king and queen of the huge family gathering we had this weekend. Bet they will spend a days sleeping-in after we all cleared out today.
Thomas, the turkey chef. Photo credit: D. Bennett
Thanksgiving gatherings: this year my sister and her husband, Kathy and Tom, hosted the meal at their home. It is a lot of work to pull off a successful meal for fifteen people and they did it in a wonderfully warm setting with delicious food, too.
Nephew, Andrew and brother, Tony. Photo credit: A. Parr
My brother: His cancer, melanoma, is in remission and he seems to be doing so well. I am so grateful for the doctors who are treating him and for my sister-in-law, Becky, for her loving care for him over this past year while he received seriously difficult treatments.
Rachel after she found her wedding dress. Photo credit: K. Kingsbury
My niece: Rachel and Michael got engaged recently and this weekend we had a shower for her and were included in an event at a bridal shop where she tried on lots of gowns and actually said yes to a dress! What fun.
Ian with quite the hairdo! With Grand-aunt Becky in background. Photo Credit: K. Powers
Ian: our little grandson met his great-grandparents, his great aunt and uncle, and several second cousins this weekend. He was the star of the weekend.
Me (dark hair) and my siblings, July, 2017. Photo credit: G. Ruddy
Siblings and nephew: My brother, sisters, and I bought a dishwasher for our parents during the Black Friday sales. My brother and his son, Andrew, put in a new support handle in the bathroom to assist my father, (it doubles as a towel bar.) My husband put in some suction cup handles in the shower. Now we hope he will feel a bit more secure in the bathroom.
Bobby, my niece's husband, reading. Photo credit: A. Parr
Daniel and Bobby: My son-in-law and my nieces husband are such good guys and have integrated into the family so well. Dan engaged Dad and had him tell his old stories about his own father's adventures building the Panama Canal and exploring the Amazon river. Bobby is so helpful and friendly.
Rita and Ian, Nov. 25, 2017. Photo credit: D. Bennett
Carly and her friend Kelsey horsing around before Thanksgiving. Carly spent Thanksgiving with Kelsey's family.
My daughters: Rita, mother of Ian, is such a friendly, happy person and such a sweet mother. I heard her talking to my sister this morning and I felt so proud of the woman she has become. Carly spent Thanksgiving with a friend in Pennsylvania. I know she missed being with her family but she was in a good place with a family who also likes to play games. So that was good. She will be home December 15th for a month, but first she gets to host me and her aunt Kathy in New York.
Don and I at the game. Photo credit: D. Bennett
Football: I admit it---I love Duck football. Yesterday was the Civil War game vs. Oregon State. My mom bought tickets for ten of us to go to the game. Fun.
Bridal shower with the bride-to-be's mother, grandmother, three aunts, two cousins, mother-and sister
-in-law-to-be, and one friend.
Prayers for:
Rocky---recovering from his surgery on his elbow tendon.
Andrew---for his job situation
Tony---for relief from neuropathy in his feet and legs.
Books:
Locked Up for Freedom: Civil Rights Protesters at the Leesburg Stockade by Heather Schwartz. Read as part of the Cybils judging. Completed. Print.
La Belle Sauvage (Book of Dust #1) by Philip Pullman. The prequel to the Golden Compass series. Loved it. Completed. Print.
All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater. A bit of magical realism set in the Colorado desert. 78% complete. Audio.
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson. Funny. 83% complete. Audio.
This video: Christmas season is upon us. The first Christmas video of the season from me to you.
You: I am thankful for all my readers. Thanks for spending a bit of time with my blog and be sure to leave me a note in the comment section. I'm thankful for comments, too.
Part of the Summer Palace in Beijing. Photo Credit: Don Bennett
Weather: Novemberish
This week: I practically did nothing and hardly even left the house. First I think I was a little time warped after returning from China, then I came down with a humdinger of a cold and didn't want to go anywhere or see anyone. I'm home right now instead of at church for that very reason. Ugh.
Don and I on the Great Wall. Notice the poor air quality.
Read. Read. Read: Because I was essentially house-bound I did a lot of reading, mostly as part of my role as judge for Cybils nonfiction. I didn't necessarily read all of each book but enough to judge the book properly for its award-worthiness
Cybils candidates
Earth Hates Me: Confessions of a Teenage Girl by Ruby Karp---written when Ruby was 16 years old. Fun and lighthearted, Ruby dishes out advise and wisdom for teens from a teen. (Read 50%)
A Soldier's Sketchbook: The Illustrated First World War Diary of R.H. Rabjohn by John Wilson. Wilson was speaking at an event about WWI. Afterwards a woman approached and showed him her grandfather's diary which he wrote during his experiences as a soldier in WWI for Canada. This book has entries from that diary and the illustrations Rabjohn, who was a good artist, made of his experiences. (Read most)
Geoengineering Earth's Climate: Resetting the Thermostat by Jennifer Swanson. Interesting and inventive ideas of ways that scientists are considering trying in an attempt to offset the effects of global warming. one idea is to launch little mirrors into the stratosphere to reflect back some of earth's rays. (Read 25%)
Game On! by Dustin Hansen. The history of gaming, starting with Pong. One could really geek out on this book. (Read 50 pages.)
Far From the Tree, Young Adult Edition: How Children and Their Parents Learn to Accept One Another... by Andrew Solomon and Laurie Calkhoven. A rewrite of the National Book Award nominee by the same name. At 450 pages it is hard to see how this one qualifies as young adult, but the original is over 900 pages long! Topic: how we view ourselves and how to accept our children looking through the lens of deaf culture, dwarfism, homosexuality, etc. (Read 75 pages)
To Look a Nazi in the Eyes: A Teens Account of a War Criminal's Trial by Kathy Kacer. A true account of a teen's experience attending the trial of Oskar Groening, the bookkeeper of Auschwitz. (Read 25%)
How Dare the Sun Rise: A Memoir of a War Child by Sandra Uwiringiymana. Sandra and her family were living in a refugee camp in Burundi when rebels came into the camp and slaughtered over 100 people, including her sister. After Sandra and her family relocated to the USA, she became an advocate for refugees worldwide. (Audio. Listened to all)
Other books:
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds. A boy hops onto an elevator on his way to kill the person he think killed his brother, an honor killing, when he is met by ghosts of those people he has known in the past who were also killed by guns. Written in verse. Very impactful.
The Book of Dust, Vol.1: La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman. A prequel to The Dark Materials series. I am about 45% complete and racing to finish, as it is due back at the library in three days.
Outside the Forbidden City in Beijing with Ken and Carol. Mao was watching.
Prayers for:
Mary, who lost her mother this week
Louise, who was hospitalized due to complications from shingles
Susan, who is receiving treatment for breast cancer and it is taking a toll on her energy
My father, he fell last week and is having trouble with dizziness and energy
Janet, who lost her father two weeks ago
For Bethel High School staff and students. Their principal died suddenly last week.
My China Update: I published my last Sunday Salon on Tuesday and many of my friends didn't appear to see it. So I am trying again. Please click the hyperlink to read about our China trip. Thank you.
Statue guarding the Sacred Way, near the Ming tombs, China. Photo credit: D. Bennett
Terracotta Warriors in the Shaanxi Province museum. Photo credit: Don Bennett
Another cute Chinese kid. This guy was fascinated by Don.
My nonfiction reading for the Cybils Award is progressing nicely. So far I have read 35 of the 64 books nominated. There are so many good books on a variety of topics. I am just blown away by the quality of writing and the topics which are covered. Today I want to talk about one of those books which has percolated toward the top of the list for me due to strong writing and the coverage of the topic.
The March Against Fear: The Last Great Walk of the Civil Rights Movement and the Emergence of Black Power by Ann Bausum.
The year was 1966. The setting was Mississippi. In the beginning the march started out as a walk. James Meredith, the black student who integrated Ole' Miss University a few years earlier, decided he wanted to walk from the Tennessee border to Jackson, Mississippi in support of voter registration and to prove that he was not afraid. But by the end of the second day things turned around after Meredith was shot at point-blank range by a man with a shot gun. He survived but had to spend a long time in the hospital and recuperating afterwards. When members of the Big 5 of the Civil Rights Movement found out about Meredith's situation, they picked up the goal and turned it into a march.
Often called the March Against Fear, King, Carmichael, and many others started toward Jackson, stopping off to register black folks to vote in the towns along the way. The march took over 20 days and the marchers met lots of opposition along the way. In Greenwood, Carmichael was arrested for attempting to set up the tent where the marchers slept. When he was released, he spoke to the assembled crowd about the need for black power. His words became a chant. With these words the Civil Rights Movement seemed to turn, from nonviolence to something else. Suddenly supportive whites from the North turned their backs on the movement.
Thus this march was historic on many sides: it was the longest and most expensive march of the movement; it was the first time that revolutionary words of Black Power were spoken; and the movement never again held a march of any magnitude. In a lot of ways people want to forget it. There was no happy ending to it, like Selma or the March on Washington.
A year after the march Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, "It is necessary to understand that Black Power is a cry of disappointment. For 12 years I, and others like me, had held out radiant promises of progress. I had preached to them about my dream...I had urged them to have faith in America and white society. Their hopes had soared...They were now hostile because they were watching the dream that they had so readily accepted turn into a frustrating nightmare" (Bausum).
I read this book with my mouth agape. I had never heard of this event from the Civil Rights Movement and how things dissolved from here out. I know from my history lessons how things continued to degrade to the point of the race riots of 1968 and beyond. In fact, today we are still seeing the ugliness of racism in our country with the resurgence of the white supremacists movement and the negative reaction to the slogan "Black Lives Matter." It makes me feel sick.
I am so grateful for authors like Ann Bausum who continue to write about events from our past so that we can hold them up to examine and, hopefully, make some needed changes. After the election of 2016 when Trump was elected and the events that have followed it is very obvious that we cannot ever take out eyes off the prize. We must all hold voting as dear and not abdicate our responsibility to vote and allow others to do so, too.
I don't think this will be everyone's favorite book, but it is good to read books to educate ourselves and to make us squirm. Maybe that will cause us to get up out of our chairs and do something to better mankind! Read it! And, I want to point out if you are a teacher, Ann Bausum has a whole lot of resources on her webpage that you can use with your classes on this topic. Check it out.
If you joined the game last week, find number 4 on your Spin List! That’s the title you are challenged to read by December 31, 2017.
As always, the prize is the reading experience.
My book is: My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin.
Initial thoughts: About time! I've wanted to read this book since I saw the film back in the late 1970s. My mother thought I was like the main character: I guess because we both are headstrong with frizzy hair.
What’s your #4 title? Are you glad, hesitant, excited about your title? Do tell!
Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from the book. The Friday 56 is hosted atFreda's Voice. Find a quote from page 56. Check out the links for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Participants don't
select their favorite, coolest, or most intellectual books, they just use the one they are currently reading. This is the book I'm reading right now--- Title:Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
Book Beginning: DON'T NOBODY Believe nothing these days which is why I haven't told nobody the story I'm about to tell you And truth is, you probably ain't gon' believe it either gon' think I'm lying or I'm losing it... Friday 56: (56% on e-book) BUT TO EXPLAIN MYSELF I said, The Rules are the rules. Comment: If you haven't heard of this book, it is about a boy who is considering killing the person he thinks killed his brother. While he is on the elevator heading out to do the deed he is visited by six "ghosts" of people killed by guns. It is very distressing to think that this book is reporting a truth, that a lot of killings in the inner city are considered honor killings...you killed my brother, so I will kill you. When will it stop? The whole book is written in verse. On occasion I had a hard time telling who was speaking and what was being discussed, but I got the gist of the message. Very powerful.
Temple of Heaven, Beijing, China. Photo credit: Carol Wenk
Weather:
Home---wet and windy. A storm went through our area yesterday with lots of water and wind, more is predicted for today.
China--- the weather in China was unseasonably warm while we were there last week. The air quality was poor, too. Anyone thinking it is a good idea to reduce regulations on air standards should travel to China first before changing them. Ugh.
Don and I standing on the Sacred Way
China: Yes. We just got back from China where we had the trip of our lives. This Tuesday edition of Sunday Salon is dedicated to our China trip.
Ken and Carol on the Great Wall. Photo credit: Carol Wenk
Invited: Our friends Ken and Carol invited us to go on the trip, as Carol could take a week off work in November. I'd been wanting to take a big trip, my first of retirement, so we jumped at the chance. We've been friends for over forty years and traveled easily together.
Kevin, our Beijing guide, and Ken in the Forbidden City
Tourists: We paid for guides to take us around Beijing and Xi'an, the two cities we visited in China. They were worth every penny we paid for them. We went to most of the famous tourist sites: The Summer Palace, Tienanmen Square, The Forbidden City, The Great Wall, The Terracotta Warriors, The Temple of Heaven. We saw the tomb of the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, the Lama Temple, and walked on the city wall of Xi'an. We saw the pandas at the zoo.We rode in a rickshaw, and ate Peking Duck. We also squeezed in some not so touristy things like a visit to the 798 Art Zone, and witness to a spontaneous dance in the park in Xi'an, and a ride on the bullet train. What a trip!
We were all obsessed with the lines and colors of the architecture. Here is a building on the grounds of the Summer Palace.
A roof detail from the Forbidden City
We were surprised by the lines of people waiting to see the tomb of Mao in Tienanmen Square. Our guide estimated 250,000 people were in line at 8:30 AM, some would be waiting in line four hours (at least).
All the pandas we saw (there were eight in the zoo) were asleep. This one at least was facing forward.
The Red Panda, or lesser panda, is also a native of China and he was active.
We spent an hour away from the crowds at a tea tasting. Fun.
The terracotta warriors blew us away.
We weren't expecting: There were some things about China that we expected: fabulous historic sites, The Great Wall, pollution. But there were other things we didn't expect: the vast number of bicycles, squater toilets (my least favorite part of the trip), and the darling children. DRIVING in traffic (I'm still in recovery from this harrowing experience.)
We stumbled upon this huge pile of bikes in the 798 Art Zone. We don't know if it was intended to be art or just a pile of bikes waiting to be redistributed around the city
Our guide service also provided a driver. In Xi'an our driver had a little shrine in his car.
Food vendors sold roasted corn and sweet potatoes everywhere. Here I am tasting haw, a candied fruit. Obviously I bit off more than I could easily chew.
Darling children in cute outfits were everywhere with proud parents. Photo credit: A. Bennett
Quiet moments: There are at least 22 million people living in Beijing and another 9 million in Xi'an. It is hard to get away from the crowds but we managed to have a few moments while in China. When we walked down the Sacred Way we were about the only people there. While visiting the Forbidden City, Kevin took us down a side alley to a small courtyard which at one time was the home of the Emperor's favorite concubine, few other people were there. And who doesn't love a serene moment with swans (at the zoo.)
Quiet courtyard in the Forbidden City. Ken is exiting a small museum.
The four of us on the Sacred Way, near the Ming tombs
A brief serene moment among the chaos at the zoo.
Look what we stumbled upon: We came upon a film project in the Art Zone and a spontaneous dance in the park across from the hotel in Xi'an.
Don and I make weird art.
Dancing in the park in Xi'an with the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda in the background. A delight.
Books read during the long flights and train trips:
Girl Code: Gaming, Going Viral, and Getting It Done by Andrea Gonzales (e-book)
Uprooted: The Japanese American Experience During WWII by Albert Marrin (e-book)
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin (print)
Queer, There, and Everywhere: 23 People Who Changed the World by Sarah Prager (e-book)
International Dateline: I've heard about it but finally experienced it first hand. Heading west we lost a day. We left Seattle on Friday afternoon and arrived in China on Saturday night. That was strange but heading east was weirder. We left China on Sunday around noon and arrived in Seattle at 6:30 AM Sunday...the longest day of our lives.
Trip of a lifetime: one more image from China, a place of mysteries and delights.
A view from the Forbidden City. So lovely.
Home: We are home. There is no place like home. Thank you to our neighbor Susie for taking care of the cats. We had to visit Ian and his parents right away. Ian is growing so fast. At two months he is still the great delight of our lives.
An artsy rendition of our little guy. Photo credit: R. Adams
Unless otherwise noted, photo credits belong to Don Bennett.
