Used Book Sale

Books!!

I used to be an avid book collector.  You know, the actual hold-in-your-hand book, with pages and print and all bound together ... 😀 !!  One of our favorite things to do over the years of our marriage was to go to books stores or used book dealers and leave with arm loads of books.  There is nothing like the smell of a new book or an old book.  I always felt that old books that were 75 years or older were like little old men - a bit wrinkled, maybe yellowed, old man smell, stuff written in it showing it was valued by somebody at some time.  And they had to be handled with care - just like a little old man.

Ahhh ... old books.  I miss those adventures.

When the Kindle and the Audiobook craze was born, I couldn't imagine giving up the 'hold-in-your-hand' book.  Years went by and I watched peers shifting over to digital technology for their reading pleasure.  I shook my head in disbelief and knew in my heart I would never get caught up in that trend.

Ha! Famous last words.

Today I have a Kindle Paper White full of books (many free, some borrowed) and a iPhone with many Audible titles - AND a tiny library of actual books (most reference books) enough to fill maybe  2 boxes.  I could do a whole post on why I enjoy my digital technology even though we were sort of forced into it.  My husband downsized his large library about 6 years ago when reading became too difficult, and I did the same with my books moving into our condo (a move required for my husband's safety.)  It is amazing how his blindness has changed our lives.  I do miss going to book stores - especially used book stores.  Sometimes I stop at Barnes and Noble to look around, but it isn't as much fun without my husband.  I usually leave empty handed.

About two weeks ago, our senior center had a used book sale.  I stood in the doorway peering in wondering should I bother.  Then I was cheerfully invited in to look around by one of the volunteers.  It would have been rude not to enter.  All the paper backs were 3 for a $1.  Wow, a bargain.  So I started to poke around.  No little old man books on the tables but lots recent popular stuff.  I found these three books that just seemed to want a new home.

I haven't read them yet, but I thought I would share the titles and brief descriptions to see if anything catches your fancy like it did mine.

Recipes from the Dump by Abigail Stone - really, how could anyone resist a book with that title.  Here is the book cover synopsis.

Dignity Divinity (recipe)

1 father, deserted

1/4 cup sugar

2 cups flour

2 heaping tablespoons children

1 father, disappeared

1 indulgent or disinterested town

1 woman with a weight problem, shabbily dressed

1 or more public embarrassments

• Put all the ingredients in a bowl, mix well, and savor this hilarious, heartfelt chronicle of life with Gabby Fulbriten.  A single mom raising three kids next to the Leadbelly, Vermont town dump.  Gabby is tirelessly searching - for a man who knows there's more to a relationship than candlelight and clean laundry, for the thin person the Diet Center promises lives inside her, and for the missing ingredient that will bring order to her cluttered existence.  A mock cookbook of our culture, Recipes from the Dump will warm your stomach, fill your soul, and, like an afternoon spent trading laughs and recipes with an old friend, leave you hungering for more. 

The Lobster Chronicles by Linda Greenlaw - a true story of drama in small-town life and a celebration of family and community.  I am a sucker for true stories of people who live very different lives from my own and this one takes place off the coast of Maine - a win-win for me.  The synopsis.

• After seventeen years at sea, Linda Greenlaw decided it was time to take a break from being a swordboat captain.  She felt she needed to return home, to a tiny island seven miles off the Maine coast with a population of seventy year-round residents, thirty of whom are her relatives.   She would pursue a simpler life; move back in with her parents; become a professional lobsterman; and find a man and settle down.  But almost none of this works out as planned, and soon she is forced to reevaluate everything she thought she knew about life, luck and lobsters.

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier - a book made movie and described as an 'American Odyssey.  The synopsis.

• Sorely wounded and fatally disillusioned in the fighting at Petersburg, Inman, a Confederate soldier, decides to walk back to his home in the Blue Ridge Mountains and to Ada, the woman he loved there years before.  His trek across the disintegrating South brings him into intimate and sometimes lethal converse with slaves and marauders, bounty hunters and witches, both helpful and malign.  At the same time, Ada is trying to revive her father's derelict farm and learn to survive in a world where old certainties have been swept away. 

There is little doubt that these books will not go the distance to make it to 'little old man status.'  And paperbacks seldom last anyway.  But they appear to be interesting and fun stories.  When I am done, I will just pass them on to others.

Happy summer reading, all.

Doing the Aunt Thing ...

More pictures ... this time with my daughter - my very beautiful daughter ... who is sharing the stage with Eskarina in these pictures.

The first two pictures I took with my camera.

While I was taking those two pictures, my daughter was taking these.

The things you can do with Smart Phones now-a-days!!

Doing the Grandma Thing

Since I can't whip out my wallet and

force you to look at pictures of the most beautiful baby in the world ...

the love of my life ...

I am placing them here.

Enjoy! 

All decked out in her 4th of July duds!

There is something about this look that says
 ... ok, I am done with having pictures taken of me
 and I am done with this hat!!

4th of July Memories - and a shadow legacy.

I did a whole series of posts on my mom. 

I seldom speak of my dad.  

But the 4th of July always triggers memories of him.

1943
New York City, NY
 My dad and mom on a date before they married.

His birthday was July 3, 1917 - so if he had lived, he would 101 today.  Not sure why every 4th of July triggers memories of him.  Father's Day doesn't do that.  Our family didn't do anything special on the 4th of July.  In fact, our family seldom did anything special.  Guess it is just that his birthday fell so very close to the holiday.

1954
Hyattsville, Maryland
My family - probably the only picture I have of us as a family.
I was 7 years old.

Memories of my dad for the most part aren't happy ones.  He suffered from alcoholism - for as long as I knew him.  Sober he was a wonderful person.  Drunk he was just the opposite.  In the 1950s  the disease of alcoholism was not well understood.  It was seen as a personal failing ... or even as a choice you could simply choose to do differently.  It wasn't talked about - it was something to keep hidden.  We hid it well.

I am not silent about it now as an adult.  There are limits I have set in my personal life with regards to alcohol and one of them is speaking out.

I think I have a better grip on what addiction is, but I also have some rigid expectations due to my formative years living with an alcoholic.  Alcoholism is black or white for me .  You have it, you get help.  You don't get help, I limit my exposure to you.  If you don't treat the drug alcohol with respect for the risks it poses ... then I can't be around you.  There are no shades of gray for me being the child of an alcoholic.  I spent 21 years of my life forced into situation not of my own making - and I won't waste one more day of my life coping with it if you won't help yourself.  I know that is a hard stand to take - sounds heartless even as I re-read my post, but for even the closest of family ...  it is a line in the sand that can't be crossed for me.

It is the shadow legacy my father left for me.

These are some of the thoughts that fill me up around the 4th of July.  But it is not all bad.  I saw glimpses of the man my mom fell in love with.  I saw the love he had for his family - when he was sober.  I saw the father who loved his children in many small ways.  So I try to balance the bad with the good when remembering.

Dad left behind next to nothing of himself in life, sadly.  But I do have one very precious document he hand wrote to me when I was about 12 years old.  Dad was not a writer.  He did not have a way with words.  He had only a 9th grade education.  He worked with his hands, and they were rough and thickened from years of hard work.  Managing a pen probably wasn't entirely comfortable.  But on one early summer morning before he left for work, he wrote this letter to me.  It brings tears to my eyes to read it even this day 60 years later.  I was preparing to go on a Girl Scout camping trip and would be gone for a few days.  (I bet that trip was in July.) He wasn't going to get a chance to say goodbye before I left.  So he wrote this letter.  (note: Lucky was our dog at the time, and Canada Dry was where he worked.)

So, although my memories are filled with many darknesses, there are some shining lights he left behind for me.  What a wonderful father he could have been if addiction had not entered his life.

Not all shadows are sad.

(The top image header of my blog has a picture of dad and I at the beach. I don't remember this picture, but it does make me smile - happier times were rare.  We seemed to be enjoying ourselves.)

The Air

IT IS HOT!!!

I've lived in Maryland since I was 6 years old.  It can get very hot and very humid.   Now we are not talking jungle levels of heat and humidity.  But it is distasteful enough that folks from other states sometimes comment "what's the deal with your weather?"  I think the issue is this - if you aren't living by the ocean, or on a mountain, or on a farm, or in a forest, anywhere that makes the heat manageable - you are just meat cooking in the sun.  That's what it feels like here this week.

I was raised without air conditioning and lived without it until I was married - so I know it is possible to live without it.  And with time I know I would adjust to no air conditioning again.   But in my area - high heat and high humidity creates another problem that I can't just "get used to."  Poor air quality!

I didn't always understand about air quality.   About 10 years ago on a hot humid day,  I went out for a walk.  I had been walking regularly.  I was in pretty good shape.  The report said the air quality level was Red.   I couldn't see anything wrong with the air ... and besides ... air quality alerts were for the elderly and for people with chronic problems.  So I headed out.

I got about 1/2 mile down the road, and I couldn't seem to take a deep breath.  My lungs filled but the exchange of gases just wasn't doing it.  My energy lagged and I began to feel sick.  I slowly walked home wondering if I was coming down with something.  I got back into our air conditioned townhouse and sat down.  Almost immediately I began to feel better - like I had an oxygen mask on!

And it happened again today - that "can't catch my breath" feeling - only I was just out running some errands.  While I was in the air conditioned car I was fine.  I was fine in stores.  But trips through the parking lots - not good.  I don't know what the air quality was today, but my lungs said it wasn't good enough.

What is crazy about this is - I am not an ex-smoker.  I don't live with a smoker.  I don't have a history of chronic lung disease like asthma or repeated bronchitis.  I am older so maybe age is contributing to my struggle to breathe in these conditions.

I am not knowledgeable about the topic of air quality and weather.  But I know the way we live has caused most of these problems with our environment.  That topic has been well researched and proven.  Makes me sad that the air which we breath is tainted at times by our own actions.

But on this day, and at my age, I am grateful beyond measure to the invention of air-conditioning.  I might be able to adjust to warmer temps, but I need to be able to breathe.

So how is everyone else doing?
Extreme heat in your little corner of the world?  

And has your air quality been acceptable?  

Do you live in an area where air conditioning is needed? 

Immigration - Worth the Read

Found this on Facebook.  Its rather long, but it puts more facts to our current immigration issues with the US American border.

Facts are always good!

Mike Harlos

June 26 at 7:10 AM

So I have almost completely avoided political posts for over a year now.

Today, I take a break from that. 

Tornillo, TX is on the US/Mexico border. There is a “tent city facility” setup there. The facility is housing 326 children (312 boys, 14 girls). 

Of the 326:

162 are from Guatemala

117 are from Honduras

40 are from El Salvador

4 are from “other countries”

3 are from Mexico

SOURCE for these numbers:
https://www.msnbc.com/…/joy-reid-and-cal-perry-get-a-first-…

(And apologies, I would love to post a Fox News link but they don’t seem to be trying to get into these facilities to release these kinds of statistics, but if it happens someone please let me know!)

I think it’s a fair assumption that the percentage of children would also be fairly close to the percentage of adults that came to the border. 

So if less than 1% are from Mexico, what exactly is happening?

The reason that 98% are from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala is that, out of 195 countries:

El Salvador has the 2nd highest rate of violent deaths.

Honduras has the 4th highest rate of violent deaths.

Guatemala has the 17th highest rate of violent deaths.

SOURCE for rate of violent deaths:
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/…/U-R…/SAS-Report-GVD2017.pdf

I’ve included a map for those unaware of the locations of each of these countries.

We are being told that all these people “pouring into the US” are Mexican drug dealers, rapists, murderers, “bad hombres”. 

But it just isn’t true. 

Think about when a major hurricane comes to Florida and people pack up their vehicles and evacuate, out of caution, especially those with children... just in case. Depending on the situation, people typically traveling 50-500 Miles (driving to inland Florida or Atlanta/Tennessee) 

Now imagine it’s a hurricane that is firing bullets randomly and people are dying all around you in your neighborhood every day. And you have children. 

To quote President Ronald Reagan, from his final Oval Office address to the nation: 

“The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the "shining city upon a hill." The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free.

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.”

SOURCE for Reagan quote:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29650

The VAST MAJORITY of the people coming to the United States are coming, in the ways discussed so much lately, are seeking refugee status or asylum. 

US Legal Definitions of both “refugee” and “asylum”:
https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum

Stop getting caught up in just agreeing with everything someone says or does because you voted for that person and if they do something wrong, it’s human nature to defend the choice you made in that voting booth. 

Don’t put pride and ego ahead of intellect. 

Every situation should be judged based on fact, not on who is saying it or doing it and not just because it’s “your team”. 

Parents aren’t taking their children and leaving everything else and everyone else they’ve ever known to walk, raft, swim, hide in vehicles, etc for ~2,000 miles to get to our border and request refugee or asylum status just to “get free hand outs” and “take our jobs”. 

(1 little sidenote, if “Mexico” (And we’ve already established it mostly isn’t Mexico) is really sending their worst (no one is sending these people, and I can’t imagine that most people that really care about their children this much are “the worst”) that are “murderers, drug dealers, rapists” and you’re worried about one of these people taking your job, what the hell is it you do for a living?)

Yes, any time you have a large number of people, there will be some bad apples. But there’s a reason you’ve never been shown actual statistics that show that someone coming here as a refugee or seeking asylum is any more likely to commit a crime than anyone else. Because it isn’t true.

MOST are doing it for the same reasons people evacuate. 

They’re doing it to protect their loved ones.

And they’re doing it in a way that is consistent with the United States Refugee & Asylum laws. 

I can explain it to you

I cannot understand it for you.

Almost A Living Thing

This month I celebrate my 8th year of blogging.

I got thinking.

Why did I start blogging?  

How did I pick this title and why 20 years?  

(and then I got fixated on the number 20)  

Did I think I would live only 20 more years, or blog for only 20 years?    

Did I think my next 20 years would be (hopefully) exciting and full of things to blog about?
('cause my life to that point wasn't any of those things.)

I can answer the first question.

Why did I start blogging? 

I started blogging during a period of personal turmoil.  When I started the blog I was years into caregiving for my mom. I felt alone in that role, and the stresses were piling up steadily.  How to cope without burdening others.

I tried to keep a journal - on paper.  Instinctively I knew writing would help.  But using pen and paper just didn't provide the right flow or feed back.  My brain engages very well with a key board - not so much with pen and paper.

Then I met Karen at my knitting group.  At some point she mentioned her blog - Life Is Good - Smile.  I was intrigued.  I had never met a blogger.  Her blogging name is HappyOne.  I visited her site.  I found it filled with her normal everyday activities and her walking experiences (she is a daily walker of 6 miles - no joke!)  She takes beautiful pictures - just on a point-and-shoot camera - but she has a good eye for photography.  Almost every single day she blogs.  Reading it that first time had an almost immediate settling effect on my agitated mind.  I still follow her blog, and I still find it settling.  What her blog said to me is that life is amazing if you make it so - no matter what your life is filled with.  I encourage you to visit when you can.  Life Is Good - Smile

I thought ... maybe I should give blogging a try!

Looking back over my first posts in 2010 I noticed that I bounced around in my topics and in my writing style.  Settling into the practice of writing took some time.  I also noticed that I never mentioned the 'elephant in the room' of my brain.  My mom!  I remember intentionally omitting that part of my life in my writing - even though it was most of my life at that time.  I was going to stay focused on all those other things that made up the person that was me.  It was me I was trying to help.  And there was a lot of me I set aside to be a caregiver!  I needed to hold on to all that stuff I set aside somehow.  My blog was where I was holding the me-stuff.

MY STUFF

Within a very short time, however, my life with mom became an ongoing series of posts called "Through My Caregiver Eyes." **  It is hard to stop a dam from breaking once it starts to crack. Yes, I was still knitting, and a wanna-be walker (you will want to walk after reading Karen's blog!) and a wife, mother, cousin, grand-dog sitter.  I was all those things and more, but it was the caregiver role that drove me to write.  The series on my mom had healing properties I couldn't have anticipated. Writing about her and our time together reminded me why I chose to be a caregiver, and how much I loved and owed the lady I was lucky enough to call 'mom.'  The blog kept me going through some very sad times toward the end of her life.

OTHER PEOPLE'S STUFF

Over time this practice of writing became more than just a way to vent pressure.  I have 'met' people in the world that I would never have had a chance to know any other way.  I know some of them better than my neighbor across the hall.  I have vicariously experienced different life styles, ways of thinking, travel, celebrations, sorrows, crafts, new family members, new careers, big moves, etc.  And in a stunning realization for me, I noticed that many of my experiences were replicated in the lives of others.  I met other caregivers.  I had met my 'Tribe.'  I wasn't alone. Finally, it confirmed that people aren't so different from each other as popular news organizations seem to portray.  It all comes to me through the window of my computer screen ... through blogging.
  

BLOG FRIENDSHIPS

Oh, there have been some gaps in my writing since mom died and at times I have considered closing down my blog.  Thought, however, never became action!  Why is that??  I believe regardless of the reason you start your blog - if you do it long enough, regulars visit you and you visit them and your circle of contacts grow and you get to know a large array of people .... the blog platform grows with regular attention - just like a living thing.

I encourage people - friends and family - to blog.  It is the most direct and simplest way to stay connected in a world that sometimes is one BIG disconnect.

Did I answer any of the questions I asked myself at the start of this post!  Maybe one.  I think the other questions are still a mystery.

Happy Blog Anniversary to me!
Eight years into a 20 year stretch!

Let's see where we go from here.

Thanks for joining me.

** If you are a caregiver or just curious, you can find the series of posts Through My Caregiver Eyes by sorting on the Labels section, right side of the screen, under that title.