"Outside a dog a book is man's best friend, inside a dog it is too dark to read!" -Groucho Marx========="The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." -Jane Austen========="I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book."-JK Rowling========"I spend a lot of time reading." -Bill Gates=========“Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really.” -Jacqueline Kelly=========

Sunday, July 19, 2020

Sunday Salon...let's celebrate more good news and jokes

Weather today: Beautiful

Friday: Don and I used our adventure day to explore the Weyerhauser Bonsai and Rhododendron Gardens in Federal Way, Washington, not far from our house. Don had appointments book-ending his day of furlough so we had to explore closer to home. Surprisingly a few rhodys were still blooming though most of the hike was spent admiring the greenery and a few flowers blooming here and there. It was a lovely day. BTW---the pretty purple flower is a bonsai bougainvillea. Isn't it gorgeous?

Earlier in the week: I spent the early afternoon with my grandson, his mom, and a friend (socially distanced) at a lake not too far from their home. Moments spent with Ian are pure magic. Yes, that is Mt. Rainier peeking out of the trees overlooking the lake.

Hilarious haul: Apparently, the whole time we've been on lockdown due to the pandemic I've been blithely placing books on hold at the public library. This week the library started curbside pickup and contacted me to come and get the books I've placed on hold. When I arrived they placed twelve books and one DVD in my car trunk. I never thought that ALL the holds would arrive at one time. How on earth am I supposed to read all those books in three weeks? See photo above to appreciate my haul.

Books:
  • Completed:  
    • Some Writer! The Story of E.B. White written and illustrated by Melissa Sweet;
    • Evidence: Poems by Mary Oliver. Both from the above above mentioned haul.
  • Currently reading:  
    • Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore (Audiobook; Book Club selection, 40% completed)
    • Close to Birds by Magnusson, et al (Print, from the haul; 10%) 
    • Bedtime Stories for Stressed Out Adults edited by Lucy Mangan (E-book, title tells you the state of my life right now, 20%)
    • Be the Bridge by LaTasha Williams (E-book; Church small group class on anti-racism)
    • Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad (E-book; for book club this coming week; 55% completed)
John Lewis: Civil Rights icon dies at age 80. Here is the statement that President Obama made about John Lewis at his passing. It is short. I recommend you read it. (Medium) I've spent quite a bit of time crying these past 24-hours.
Lewis's words: "Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble."

Good News:
This week was filled with bad, very bad, and terribly sad news. But even amidst all that, there were tremendously encouraging pieces of good news, too.
  • Preliminary studies suggest that a tuberculosis vaccination seems to mitigate the severe, extreme reactions to COVID19. It doesn't keep people from getting the infection, but from getting severe cases. Maybe it could be used to help to keep healthcare workers safer. (Science Daily)



  • Privilege/Class/Social Inequalities explained in a $100 race. (YouTube)
  • Tenino, Washington is giving it's residents wooden money to spend on things they need during this economic crisis. You have got to read or watch this story! (YouTube) (AP)
  • City Council in Asheville, South Carolina  to vote to give reparations to blacks. If it passes they will create a commission to help the city, and potentially other local governments, assign money and resources toward "increasing minority home ownership and access to other affordable housing, increasing minority business ownership and career opportunities, strategies to grow equity and generational wealth, closing the gaps in health care, education, employment and pay, neighborhood safety and fairness within criminal justice." (Citizen Times)
  • I know there are still 3-1/2 months to go before the November election, but we must keep our enthusiasm up.
  • Double haters: In 2016, nearly one-fifth of the electorate didn't like either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, and exit polls showed Trump won that group of voters by a 17-point margin that easily could have accounted for his narrow wins in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. But according to newly released Quinnipiac University polling, this bloc of double-hater voters now prefers Joe Biden by a 27-point margin—an ominous sign for Trump. (What seems like bad news may actually be good news.)
  • Joe Biden grabs and copies Jay Inslee's climate plan and Inslee is delighted. (Intelligencer)
  •  "Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man." This advances the conversation on BLM. (YouTube) Go to Emmanuel Acho's YouTube page for more of these uncomfortable (but necessary) conversations.
  • A teenager creates an anti-racism activity calendar. Check it out here. Print if off. Try to do some of the suggested activities. (Google Drive)
  • There have been more than 3,300 racial justice protests nationwide since late May, including hundreds in sparsely populated communities. These Black Lives Matter protesters don’t always prioritize defunding police departments or tearing down Confederate statues. Their goals are simpler but perhaps just as revolutionary: to force white neighbors not used to encountering so many black and brown faces in their towns to acknowledge their experiences with racism. (WaPo)
  • Need some good news on the coronavirus situation? This article identifies six good pieces of news related to the fight against the virus right now. (WaPo)
On the lighter side

1. A little snark about people saying if we pull down confederate statues, their history
 will be forgotten.

2. A little more snark for your listening pleasure: "Thank you for calling the White House." (YouTube)

3. Will this mask stupidity never end? Oh wait...
4. I guess it's true...

5. If you need visual proof of the stupidity factor...

6."But freedom..."
7.Speaking of stupid. Opening schools in the Fall without a plan how to prevent the spread of COVID. Could be deadly for a lot of students and teachers. Makes one think of the Hunger Games.

8. You knew I had to work in something from Hamilton, right? Well, here are some words of wisdom from King George about opening schools. Sing along with me now...


9. Gerry Brooks finally got his call through to Secretary Betsy DeVos. (YouTube)

10. This week the 'mandatory cat photo' made it under the "lighter side" heading. Note there are two cats in the photo. Ignore Fred in the foreground. Look instead at George in the crate in the background. That is the way he was sleeping...on his back with his legs splayed apart. This makes me laugh every time I look at it.
Tootles. Gotta run.

Remember: please leave me a comment so I know you were here. Thanks!

-Anne
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Thursday, July 16, 2020

Review and quotes: SO BIG by Edna Ferber

Title: So Big by Edna Ferber

Book Beginnings quote: 
Until he was almost ten the name stuck to him. He had literally to fight his way free of it. From So Big (of fond and infantile derivation) it had been condensed into Sobig.
Friday56 quote:
It was shortly after noon that High Prairie hearing the unaccustomed chug of a motor, rushed to its windows or porches to behold Selina DeJong in her mashed black felt hat and Dirk waving his battered straw wildly, riding up the Halsted road toward the DeJong farm in a bright red automobile that had shattered the nerves of every farmer's team it had met on the way.
Summary: Selena DeJong, née Peake, always has dreams of being an artist of some sort. But when her father dies she is abruptly left with no money and few prospects. To get by she becomes a teacher in a small Dutch community near Chicago. Within a year she falls in love and marries a farmer. Now all of her dreams of an artistic life are thrown out. Survival is the name of the game now. But she does encourage a neighboring boy to follow his artistic dreams and when her son Dirk, called Sobig, goes off to college to become an architect, she is thrilled. But dreams of an artistic life verses making a living often can't coexist, as both Selena and Dirk learn. Both end up disappointed with where they end up.

Review: A few years ago I decided that I wanted to read a bunch of the Pulitzer Prize Award winners from past years. Not all of them, but just the ones that sounded good to me and that seemed to have stood the test of time. I based my decisions on, in large part, if I had heard of the book or the author before. I also checked the library to see if the book was even still in their collection. SO BIG came to my attention because bloggers kept mentioning it and the title was so cute and catchy. It was an inauspicious reason for selecting a book.  So Big won the Pulitzer in 1925.

In a lot of ways the book is plotless. Even Ferber herself thought this. She said, “I wrote it against my judgment;...Nothing ever really happened in the book. It had no plot at all, as book plots go. It had a theme, but you had to read that for yourself between the lines.” (Wikipedia) What I liked about it was how the book gives the reader a peek at what life was like back at the beginning of the twentieth century. It showed how hard people had to work for so little and how most dreams were incongruent with that lifestyle.

Would I recommend this book to others wanting to read a classic or past a Pulitzer Prize winner? No, I don't think so. The lack of a strong plot pulse, the poor character development of almost all the characters except Selena, and the sketchy descriptions left me wanting more. I'd recommend reading something by Willa Cather if a person wants to read a book set in a similar time frame. I think she is stronger writer, though I haven't read her 1923 Pulitzer book, One of Ours.

A note of amazement: I just checked. Women writers won the Pulitzer Prize for literature seven times in the first twelve years of the prize starting in 1921! See list here.

I read SO BIG as part of the Classics Club Spin activity which ended on June 1st. Completing the book by that date, I just didn't finish the review on time!

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.
The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. 
Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material. 

-Anne
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Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Tanka-poetry reviews

Thanks to Lark Writes for giving me the inspiration to write short, poetic book reviews. Hers are called 'Haiku Reviews.' I'll make mine a little longer and call them tanka-poetry reviews. Similar to haikus, tanka poems are short, using only 31-syllables in the cadence pattern of 5, 7, 5, 7, 7. I'm catching up here on past-due reviews.

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Bloom (Delacorte, 1970)

My daughter, Rita,
loved this book when she was young.
Margaret writes to
God on growing-up issues,
 though she's not sure he exists.



 

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: Neighborly Words of Wisdom from Mr. Rogers (With Movie Tie-in) by Fred Rogers (Penguin Books, 2019)

This book starts with Tom
Junod's Esquire piece, "Can You
Say...Hero?" about
meeting Fred Rogers, forming
a lifelong, inspired friendship.




Hatchet by Gary Paulsen (Atheneum Books For Young Readers, 1986)

When my daughter learned
I finally read this book,
she commented that
it is the favorite book
of 5th graders everywhere.





Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions by Amy Stewart (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017)

Deputy Sheriff,
Constance Kopp and her sisters
in a fiery romp.
The third book in the series
which is based on real people.




Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation by Duncan Tonatiuah (Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2014)

Ten years before Brown 
vs. B.O.E, Sylvia
Mendez and her family
desegregated
schools in California.



Hinds' Feet in High Places by Hannah Hurnard (Blackstone Audio, first published in 1955)

An allegory
dramatizing the journey
people take before
they can live in "high places,"
a child of the good shepherd.




Quite an assortment and variety of books that seem incongruent, but they match my reading mood of late.

-Anne
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Monday, July 13, 2020

TTT: Uplifting books

Top Ten Tuesday:  Uplifting books 

In these tough times we all need help finding ways to cope. Mine all include uplifting books, movies, poems, and inspirational words-to-live by.  Here are a few of my suggestions:



1. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery...The Little Prince speaks to our better selves and encourages us to be loving and kind.

2. Cicada by Shaun Tan---Cicada works and works and isn't appreciated but in the end he has the last laugh. This illustrated story is a quick and hilarious book which will make you laugh every time you think of it.

3. God Got a Dog by Cynthia Rylant---Imagine what God would do and feel if he came down to earth. These poems all center around this theme and all of them, every single one, make me smile.

4. Playlist: Rebels and Revolutionaries of Sound by James Rhodes---Cue up the Spotify playlist designed to be played while you read this book by a classical pianist about his muses: Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, and several others. Allow the music to lift your spirit to a new plain.

5. The President Sang Amazing Grace: A Book About Finding Grace After Unspeakable Tragedy by Zoe Mulford. After you are done crying you will feel so much better. Plus it reminds you that there is good in the world if you look.

6. The Walk by Richard Paul Evans---The man loses everything. EVERYTHING. So he decides to walk and on his walk he begins to find himself. The message is very uplifting in the end.

7. A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman---An old curmudgeon finds solace in friendships. His evolution as a human is inspiring.

8. Help Thanks Wow: Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott---anything by Lamott lifts my soul and helps me keep things in correct perspective.

9. Devotions: Selected Poems of Mary Oliver---If I need serious uplifting, I reach for Mary Oliver poetry. They are always about nature and being at peace with one's self.

10. The Holy Bible---My soul must be fed and sometimes only the word of God will fit that need.

-Anne
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Sunday, July 12, 2020

Sunday Salon...with a focus on good news and funny inisghts

Yesterday as we spoke on FaceTime with our youngest daughter, her sister called us on FaceTime on another phone. Right before all of our eyes our grandson transformed from Ian to superhero using items he and his mom gleaned from a thrift store sale. He is now ready to combat evil and sadness in the world.
Weather: Overcast with sunbreaks. But possible rain showers are in the forecast.

This week: Don has been furloughed one day a week for the summer. We've decided to make that day an adventure day. This week we drove toward Mowich Lake in Mt. Rainier National Park. The road was closed six miles below the lake. We hiked up the road for a ways, but didn't have enough time (or inclination) for a 12 mile round trip so we had to turn back before reaching our goal. See selfie above.

Note from author (me): Last week a friend commented on Facebook that she enjoys reading my Sunday Salon posts and peeking into my brain for a few minutes. She is right. This post is a peek into my brain and what I'm focused on...mostly politics, masks (pandemic), books, family, faith, and cats. I hope you enjoy reading this and exploring some of the links I've provided.

Another note from the author (still me): Another friend said she was grateful for all the pieces of 'good news' that I find and link. At the beginning of the pandemic I was reporting all news of interest, but so much of it was bad and depressing and it made me sad and angry. That is why I try to focus on good news items only. The definition of good news, of course, comes out of my biases. Feel free to skip over the links you don't think of as 'good news.'

Books:
  • Books completed this week: This Book is Anti-Racist by Tiffany Jewell; Weather by Jenny Offill; How Lovely the Ruins by Spiegel and Grau. 
  • Still reading: Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad; Be the Bridge by LaTasha Morrison
  • Paused reading until a later date: Tiny Habits by B.J. Fogg; This Train is Being Held by Ismee Williams
Good News:
  • Presidents don't usually lose as badly at the Supreme Court as Trump did this past week. (WaPo).
  • The Supreme Court ruled against the Trump Administration this week on the Keystone XL Pipeline question. That makes three pipelines delayed or canceled in one week. This is a potentially dirty fuel source and time is needed to make things right, if at all. (Greenpeace)
  • Seattle City Council voted to tax Amazon and other big businesses for relief efforts. (Seattle Times)
  • A new technique has been found that sucks CO2 from the atmosphere and traps it...spreading basalt rock dust on fields. Don't laugh. Apparently it is a very doable and cheap method that really works. (Guardian) 
  • Top general says the military needs to take a 'hard look' at confederate symbols and names on their installations. (The Hill)
  • Supreme Court rules that a huge swath of Oklahoma remains tribal reservation land. The decision was potentially one of the most consequential legal victories for Native Americans in decades. (NBC)
  • All nine justices expressly rejected President Trump’s extravagant claim backed by Bill Barr that a sitting president cannot be forced by subpoena to turn over documents sought in a criminal investigation of his conduct. No-one is above the law.— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) July 9, 2020

On the lighter side:

1.  Staying with the Hamilton theme started last week: watch this rendition of 'Helpless' by the original cast of Hamilton and the Tonight Show musicians. Here
 2. People Deer will always take advantage of a good thing. Ha!

3. Gary Larsen, long retired cartoonist of the Far Side, is back! See his new stuff here. The first comic is titled "Taxidermist." Love it! 😅

4. This funny was sent to me via my sister, a pre-K teacher. Hope you remember all these books (or what they used to be titled):

The actual titles are: No David!; Hats for Sale; Miss Nelson is Missing; Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

5.Yep. That's probably it.

6. Mary Trump's book comes out this week. President Trump tried to block publication. Wonder why?


7.Another book funny. This one is not related to COVID or politics. I do all of these things. Honestly!

8. 21 signs on businesses about wearing masks. These are too funny to miss. I promise you. Click the link. You will laugh. (BuzzFeed)

9.




10. Fitbit funny: Yesterday on our trip to Mt. Rainier National Park the road was in such poor shape the potholes were impossible to miss. At some point I realized I was getting steps on my Fitbit for being thrown around in the pickup. Those steps totaled over 700. Ha! That's one way to reach the daily goal of 10,000 steps.

11. I'll let the Viking have the last funny word...


And now a moment with Fred and George. My daughter tells me that the orange toy is George's favorite and he carries it around the apartment where ever he goes. The photo of the splayed upside down cat is also George. This is his usual position. The other two photos are Fred...playing in the laundry and sleeping in the sink. These two boys are priceless.

Comments are very much appreciated, if for no other reason than to know you've been here. Leave a note below or on Facebook. Thank you.

-Anne
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Saturday, July 11, 2020

Review and quotes: HOW LOVELY THE RUINS

Published by Random House in 2017
A few days ago a godsend arrived in my library inbox, a poetry book for my e-reader, HOW LOVELY THE RUINS: INSPIRATIONAL POEMS AND WORDS FOR DIFFICULT TIMES edited by Spiegel and Grau. Reading this small volume was like taking a long drink of water on a hot day, refreshing and necessary. The title pretty much tells you why. We are experiencing bad times like no other and while we are home alone or feeling isolated, how refreshing to read poems and essays which speaks right to those feelings. We are frustrated by an administration who are doing nothing to help us or protect us. We are indignant that black people keep losing their lives just because they are black. We are worried about the future.  Here are some quotes from the book which spoke to me especially this week...

"Out Beyond Ideas" by Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, pg. 18
"Differences of Opinion" by Wendy Cope, pg. 30
Robert F. Kennedy, June 8, 1964, pg. 34
"Global Warming" by Jane Hirshfield, pg. 43

Carl Sagan, pg, 86

"Praise Song for the Day" by Elizabeth Alexander, pg. 95

"Prayer of Sunrise" by James Weldon Johnson, pg. 164

pg. 151

 p. 180

I am not sure why I can read poetry, indeed need to read poetry, when I can barely make myself read anything else these days. Yet, I know that a lot of you don't care for poetry and find it very tedious to read. I hope the way I presented this makes it possible for you to read some of the poems and pieces of essays to find little jewels of inspiration for yourself today.

-Anne
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Thursday, July 9, 2020

Review and quotes: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES

Title: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES by Suzanne Collins

Book Beginnings quote: 
Coriolanus released the fistful of cabbage into the pot of boiling water and swore that one day it would never pass his lips again.
Friday56 quote: 
He was always gracious to Io, though, and as a result, she adored him. With unpopular people such a minor effort went such a long way.
Summary: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES is considered the #0 book in the Hunger Games series, a prequel set about 65 years before the action in the original books. In it we meet President Coriolanus Snow as a teenager when he is chosen as a mentor for one of the participants in the 10th Hunger Games. His family has lost their fortune in the war and now they have to eek out their existence while pretending to still be rich. When the list comes out matching mentors with tributes he has been assigned to Lucy Gray, the female from district 12, the lowest of the low assignments. He is stung by this and works to do everything to make Lucy successful to not only save her but to save himself. Along the way he comes in contact with Dr. Gaul and discovers many of the dastardly tricks she uses on the tributes in the games. He also becomes linked to Sejanus Plinth, another mentor who is not interested in being a mentor and is opposed to all the killing. Along the way we see the development of the man who eventually becomes the cruel President of Panem.

Review: I really wanted to like this book. In fact, I was so excited for it that I pre-ordered one copy for my daughter and one for myself so we could received it the day it came out. That way we could read it at the same time and discuss it like we did when MOCKINGJAY came out years ago. But before it even arrived I started hearing murmurs of dissent from reviewers who received early copies. When my copy arrived my eldest daughter hijacked my copy and read it before I had a chance at it. After reading  it she commented that she didn't feel the need for the book in the first place. She was fine not knowing how the Hunger Games developed into the fiasco we know from the original series and she had never wondered what President Snow was like as a teenager. I actually thought that the portion of the book dedicated to the 10th Hunger Games was pretty good, it was more the long build up and what came after the game that bothered me. In fact, I think the book should have been divided into two books with the build-up and 10th Hunger Game in book one, ending on a big cliff hanger. Then book two could be what happens in the district afterwards. I was so put off by the length of the book I completely lost steam reading it and had to struggle to complete it.

Though I was enthralled with the Hunger Games trilogy, I was never very enraptured by Collins' writing. If you remember back to scenes from Mockingjay, whenever the action would get exciting or fierce, Katniss would faint or get hit on the head and we would only learn about the action later as someone described it to her. I was pretty critical of that aspect of the writing when I reviewed her earlier books and I noticed the same thing in THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES. When the action would be building to a big crescendo I would anticipate much more action than what was delivered. Near the end of the book I wasn't even sure what happened because the writing and the descriptions were so vague. I was left with an unsatisfactory feeling overall.

So I guess you are wondering if I recommend that you read the book? My answer is probably not. I liked the original series for the story more than for the writing. I, like my daughter, never wondered how the Hunger Games began and what they looked like in the beginning. I never wondered what kind of person President Snow was as a teenager and what led to him becoming so diabolical. But if you have wondered those things, then I think you should read the book and judge it for yourself.

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.
The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. 
Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material. 

THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES qualified for the Big Books Summer Challenge at 517 pages.
 

-Anne
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Monday, July 6, 2020

TTT: Authors I'd like to read or want to read more

Top Ten Tuesday: Today's topic is supposed to be 'Most read authors by me.' I've already done that one, check out my list here. So I decided to tweak the topic to be:
Authors I'd like to read or want to read more.

I did a little sleuthing on my Goodreads account and have listed authors on my TBR who appeared with more than one title by their name:


Anne Tyler:
  • Breathing Lessons
  • Redhead by the Side of the Road 
  • Clock Dance
Connie Willis
  • Doomsday Book
  • To Say Nothing of the Dog
Terry Pratchett
  • The Colour of Magic
  • Light Fantastic
  • The Carpet People
  • A Slip of the Keyboard
 Mary Oliver
  • House of Light
  • Evidence
  • Thirst
  • Long Life
  • Why I wake Early
  • Etc.
Elizabeth Gaskell
  • Cranford
  • Wives and Daughters
  • North and South
Robert Galbraith
  • Career of Evil
  • Lethal White
George Eliot
  • Middlemarch
  • Silas Marner
Wendell Berry
  • Hannah Coulter
  • Given
Katherine Arden
  • The Girl in the Tower
  • The Winter of the Witch
Kate Atkinson
  • Transcription
  • God in Ruins
-Anne
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Sunday, July 5, 2020

Sunday Salon...Independence Day and so much more

         Stars and Stripes. Photo taken at our house several years ago on the 4th of July. Photo credit: Keith Stapley. Used with permission.
Before you read anything else watch this 4th of July message from Joe Biden:

Weather: Saturday ended up being a lovely day after a slow start. Not sure what today will be like.

This week:
  • With no plans to celebrate Independence Day, Don and I went food shopping. On the way home, as we drove past the fairgrounds, we saw a notice that the Chamber of Commerce was hosting a drive-in fireworks display at 10 PM that evening.We decided to find a spot to watch them where we didn't have to pay. We had to look through power lines but otherwise it was a good view. From where we stood we could view the whole valley and see all the fireworks set off by families in their own neighborhoods, too. The whole event made me feel very happy.
  • My sister visited us and we spent a day at the Washington Coast and another in the park near our home. As you see the tide was out but it was still fun to run away from the waves with one's dad and dog; the kite strings were tangled and were never up in the air for long but who cares when you are working with Grandpa? And Aunt Kathy knows the best sites to go to to learn the ABCs.
  • Today in on-line church the pastor talked about church camp and outdoor ministry. It made me recall all the happy memories of attending church camp as a teenager. Some of my happiest memories were from those experiences and I am still friends with many of the folks I met there: Gerry, Andy, Ken, Rita, Lael, Tami, Greg, and Paul to name a few.
  • The Broadway musical "Hamilton" is available now on Disney Plus. We watched it the first night it was available. We were lucky to see the musical on stage when we were in London last year. Seeing it through the eyes of Brits was a fun experience. But last night we loved seeing the original cast which included Lin-Manuel Miranda as Hamilton, Phillipa Soo as Eliza Hamilton, and Leslie Odom Jr. as Aaron Burr.
  • We also enjoyed watching the silly but fun new film: "Euorvision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga". I liked it so much I watched it twice in one week.
  • We stopped for a wine tasting at the Westport Winery on the way home from the beach and swooned over their Almond Sparkling wine. The Washington Coast is known for its cranberries so it is expected that they would have a lovely cranberry wine. They had two. See offerings list here.
  • I only finished one of the seven books this past week but I made progress on the other six. Stay tuned for updates in the future.

Good news:
  • I am not an Alabama Football fan, but I admire this video and that statement that Coach Saban made by filming it. "All lives can't matter unless black lives matter!"

  • Minnesota is suing Exxon and Koch Industries for a "30 year campaign of deception" on climate change. Finally. It is time to hold the fossil fuel industries accountable. (RollingStone),
  • Two very funny guys, Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, discuss a very serious subject: the upcoming election. Jon Stewart has some important things to say about Biden and his humility. The video is about 6 minutes long. If you want to get to the part I mentioned, skip ahead to about 3 minutes. Link provided, or read transcript below. (Colbert Show)
    • Stewart: "Biden was not my guy. ... I was more of a Sanders, Warren [guy]..."
      "I feel [the "Uncle Joe" shtick] is not the core of who that guy really is. ... We are a country in terrible anguish right now. ... We are fearful, and we are angry, and we are in pain. And when I see Biden past the shtick, I see a guy who knows what loss is."
      Steven Colbert: "That's it."
      Stewart: "Knows grief."
      Colbert: "That's it."
      Stewart: "And I think that that kind of grief humbles you. ...[It] brings about a caring that can't be faked, and it can't be contrived. And what I think in this moment this country needs is a leader of humility, that understands that he doesn't understand... Maybe he is the man of the moment. ... I'm not just making the negative case for Biden, it's not just 'Well, we gotta get rid of that [bleep] guy' [referring to Trump]. I actually believe that something in his life experience can benefit this country at a moment when it desperately needs it."
  • The two largest universities in Oregon (where I'm from) will stop calling their football rivalry the 'Civil War' game. The change comes amid a larger re-examination of the country's history. (Willamette Week) 
  • Tiny forests are springing up all over Europe to encourage biodiversity. It is inspired by a Japanese project and uses native species planted very densely in urban areas. (GNN)
Adorable artwork created by children shows up in Times Square to thank essential workers. (GNN)
  • Two Republican Senators introduce legislation to get rid of Columbus Day as a holiday and make Juneteenth a federal holiday. (Daily Caller)
  • Proof that wearing face masks actually works: Hair stylists infected with COVID-19 were wearing masks and so were with their 140 clients—tests prove no one got sick. (WaPo)
  • This guy puts a whole new spin on what is happening today with Black Lives Matter, the Confederate flag coming down, and Donald Trump. This isn't anything I've heard before, but he makes a lot of sense. His video is seven minutes long. I urge you to take the time to listen and to embrace some new thoughts. (Youtube) (Fifth Column)



  • Joe's vision for America: Over 100 progressive bills will be lined up ready for the House to consider the minute he becomes President. (JoeBiden)

On the lighter side...
1. This Chinese grandfather and his cute granddaughters dance to 'Staying Alive' by the BeeGees. Good advise for all of us today. I can't get enough of this short video and have watched it like twelve times. It makes me so happy. This grandpa gets extra credit points for sure. (YouTube)

 


2. Sticking with the Hamilton theme of the week, here is a parody about wearing masks:

 


3.


4.  You just know something bad is going to happen to the guy in red.


5.
6.


7. From polls taken last week. I am not alone in my estimation of Trump's leadership.
And finally this. Make sure you are looking at the right thing.

Instead of a cat photo. This week I am featuring the daughter of our friends. She clearly believes everyone should wear masks.
American Girls! Photo credit: W. Shoemaker. Used with permission.
And a late addition sent via my sister in Boise. I think this is true:

Please leave me a comment so I know you were here. Have a good week!
-Anne
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