Saving a Local Bookstore

Cynthia Reyes’ blogpost about a British bookstore is heartwarming and how sometimes twitterstorms can be a good thing.

Cynthia Reyes

If you love books, and value bookstores, you’ll want to read this remarkable story. It started with a single tweet:

7

Petersfield Bookshop@The_PBS

…Tumbleweed…

Not a single book sold today…

£0.00…

We think think this maybe the first time ever…

We know its miserable out but if you’d like to help us out please find our Abebooks offering below, all at 25% off at the moment….

Read the story here:

https://www.lifeisamazing.co.uk/kind-words-on-a-stormy-day

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From Being the Goat to Being the G.O.A.T

Charlie Brown may not have been the original goat, but he came to personify it.

This type of Goat has even made it into Survivor lexicology.

During every season of Survivor, there will come the point when players and fans begin discussing which of the remaining players are “goats.” The goat refers to a player with a highly unlikely chance of winning; whom if taken to the Final Tribal Council should be easily beatable due to the way they played the game or treated the members of the jury. It has become such a repeated term that it is now cemented in the lexicon of Survivor;

How did Goat become G.O.A.T.?

According to GOAT| Know Your Meme:
G.O.A.T, is an acronym for the expression “greatest of all time,” which is commonly used in sports when referring to players who are widely considered the most talented. Online, It is often used on sites like reddit and 4chan when referring to someone who is believed to be the best at a certain skill.

On September 12th, 2000, rapper LL Cool J released his eighth studio album G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time). The album was a commercial success, reaching the number one position on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart.^[1]

Ken Jenning is Jeopardy’s GOAT.

Who is that Dithery Lady of a Certain Age?

In the parking lot of the local Kroger grocery store, a woman of a certain age pushed her cart up and down the parking lot rows. She kept pointing her key fob in different directions as if trying to echo-locate her car.  The car did not return a confirming beep.

After walking down one row and up another, she paused to see if her car might be in a different row.  Even though she was not in the middle of the road, she unknowingly paused in front of a car, blocking its ability to drive forward.

She became aware of the frustrated driver within a few seconds, waved at the lady behind the wheel and pushed her cart forward.  The driver revved her engine to show her annoyance.

Was I the cart pusher or the frustrated drive?  Neither is an admirable person.

Poem: Slavery by any other name is still Slavery

This is a powerful poem about how many Westerners (both Europeans and Americans) view Asian women.  I have heard many men who were on West Pac cruises or stationed in Korea or Japan or Vietnam or the Philippines use some of these terms and have read them in many novels.   We are monumentally blind to the cruelty we inflict in the name of humor. Poem: Slavery by any other name is still Slavery

January 10–Today is National Peculiar People Day

We are all weird to somebody.  I had a good friend in college whose mother would refer to her as odd, her sister as strange and her brother as different (if I remember correctly).  I used to ask her which one she was.

According to https://happydays365.org/peculiar-people-day/peculiar-people-day-january-10/

The inventor or creator of Peculiar People Day is still unknown. The Peculiar People were founded in 1838 by John Banyard in Rochford, Essex. John Banyard is a farm worker’s son born in 1800. The Peculiar People is derived from the phrase “Chosen People” which taken from the Deuteronomy Book. Conflict of the ideas you might think, it is the fact that the ordinary individuals haven’t set the world in motion. Always peculiar peoples made the sweeping change, they always refuse the things as they are, they create new ideas and overturn the ideas which are thousands of years old.

They offer recommendations on how to celebrate today (besides being yourself.)

Celebrating Peculiar People Day is quite easy and very simple. At morning, spend some time in the salon and have your hair dyed pink, yellow or blue. You can visit the nearby mall and take pictures with the peoples who looks unusual. Cook some exotic food, but it should be an eatable food for the family. For more fun, dress up your pet with some wigs and have a walk with them in the nearby park. Post pictures and share your thoughts on social media by using the hashtag #PeculiarPeopleDay.

C-O-L-D Indoor Bathrooms in Cold-ifornia

As  a setter and not a pointer, four things govern the desirability of a public restroom:

1. Cleanliness–probably the most important
2.  Temperature–toilet seats can be chilly
3.  Toilet paper availability–sometimes drip dry is not an option
4.  Toilet seats–one public rest  area just off I-5 near Oceanside felt  this was an unnecessary luxury, which required hovering or perching on the rim

On a recent trip to the Monterey-Big Sur area, every single public restroom was indoors, sparkling clean and cold enough to remind me of the old cartoon where someone has to break frozen dogs off of fire hydrants.

From the new women’s restroom at the Central California Veterans Cemetery on what used to be Ft. Ord to the ladies’ room at the Hyatt Carmel Highlands Inn in Carmel Highlands, the restrooms were universally chilly.  Ladies rooms at the Ventana Inn (Big Sur), Rocky Point Restaurant (Big Sur), Sand Bar and Grill (Monterey). Mission Ranch Restaurant  (Carmel), From Scratch Restaurant (Carmel), Phoenix Shop (Big Sur) were all clean but chilly.  Does the lack of heat make the ladies’ room easier to keep fresh smelling?

Murals inside the Ladies Room at the Phoenix Shop at Nepenthe in Big Sur,CA

 

Bathroom Signs V

My shipmate Bonnie and her husband were on a tour of Italy, Castellina in Chianti – a small town of 2800 inhabitants.  She took this picture of the men and women’s restroom signs in an Italian coffee shop.

From Facebook–a golden oldie  Unisex

Bathrooms at  Element  Restaurant in Front Royal, Virginia

Sign inside the  women’s restroom at Moe’s Barbeque in Charlottesville, VA

Bathrooms at Burton Grill at Stonefield in Charlottesville, VA,

Tito’s Diner, Fredericksburg, VA

Bathroom sign at Ikea at Potomac Mills in Woodbridge, VA.  Picture provided by my friend and shipmate, Wendy Hill.

Water Closet sign at the Big Sur Coastal Gallery, Big Sur, CA

 

Today is National Chocolate Day

If you are a choco-holic like I am, this is one day you can get into (or preferably get into you.)

National Chocolate Day, on October 28th, recognizes one of the world’s favorite tastes. While many specific chocolate related holidays exist throughout the year, National Chocolate Day celebrates all things chocolate.

From the National Chocolate Day website:
Chocolate comes from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia and grows in Mexico, Central America, and Northern South America. The earliest known documentation of using cacao seeds is from around 1100 BC.

Since cacao tree seeds have a very intense, bitter taste, they must be fermented to develop the flavor.

“Chocolate, when eaten moderation, can lower blood pressure.”   Rhetorical question, what is moderation: one section or piece, one candy bar, or one bag of candy?

Do you consider white chocolate  to actually be chocolate?

Milk chocolate or dark chocolate?

Mars or  Hersheys?

Sees or Godiva?

Can you choose?

 

 

 

Virginia Is for Lovers–50th Anniversary

I first heard Virginia’s tourism and travel slogan in 1970 when it was a year old.  Fifty years later, the slogan has gained new life.

“Virginia is for Lovers” is the tourism and travel slogan of the U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. Used since 1969, it has become a well-recognized and often imitated part of American jargon. In 2012, Advertising Age called “Virginia is for Lovers” “one of the most iconic ad campaigns in the past 50 years.”

Autumn is beautiful in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Love ya,  Virgina.

Fall color at the Charlottesville DMV

Love outside the Stoney Point  Market  along Route 20

   Clark Mountain Road near Crozet, VA.

Love at the Grelen Farm Market in Somerset, VA

Multicolored neighborhood tree and pumpkins under a red tree at Blue Mountain Brewery in Afton, VA.

Love at Cardinal Point Winery, Veritas Winery, and Palladio Restaurant  at Barboursville Winery

 

50th Anniversary of LOVE at Barboursville Winery

 

Lessons for a Locker Room Trixie

When I arrived at the  upstairs locker room outside the  UVA North Grounds pool, I found a large puddle of water on the floor in front of my locker and the bench  below the row of lockers strewn with a variety of personal possessions.  The owner of this disarray was nowhere in sight and she left  her  locker unopened.

I made some assumptions about the female that later proved to be true.

I gingerly took off my clothes to avoid slipping on the puddle of water and to keep the hem of my pants from getting soaked.  I relocated her bag of sundry body and hair products so that I could open my locker and desposite my belongings in it.  Once clad in my bathing suit, with my possessions safely stowed in the locked locker, I took my shower and went to the pool.

About  40 minutes I returned to the locker room and once again relocated the bag of body/hair products from in front of my locker.  The owner, which I will only identify as an undergraduate, was sitting across from the row of lockers I was at, on another bench, studiously texting or reading emails.  She was (fortunately) wearing panties as she sat there but her bra was discarded next to her on the bench. The cute raincoat (clear plastic with narrow black trim) had been relocated from the puddle under the original bench and was now in a heap under the bench she was now sitting on.  Her clear matching rain boots were still left in a heap under her  open locker.

Trixie, here are the lessons I wish someone had taught  you.  I’m  glad for your sake (and the sake of anyone else who might sit on that bench) that you knew enough to put on panties before sitting on the bench.

• Locker rooms are shared facilties, you are given a key to a single locker.. By reasonable assumption, the space on the bench in front of the locker and the floor space under the bench in front of your locker is for your use.   Bench and floor space under adjacent  lockers should be left  empty for those locker users.
• Please wipe up large puddles of water.  People are asked to dry off before returning to the locker after using the showers.  This should apply to people who drip copieous amounts of water from rain coats and boots.
• Put your posessions in your locked locker.  I had to relocate your bag or personal products twice.  I did not look closely enough to see if there was anything I wanted to try and you did give me ample opportunity to do so.
• I really appreciate that you were using your  phone for texting or emailing.  I doubt I would have wanted to eavesdrop on a prolonged personal conversation.   But until I changed my clothes I would not have had a reasonable option.
• The locker rooms are kept  exceptionally clean but there is no provision for personal maid service.  The other locker users should not have to pick up after you.

October 22 is INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY and Nut Day and National Knee Day

I AM NOT SCREAMING AT YOU, I’m just celebrating National Caps Lock Day.  I have a keyboard which has a caps lock key but it  does not light up when the caps lock is on. Typing my password can be problematic, particularly when I am in an app where my username is all in CAPS.  For those of you who can not  get enough of National Caps Lock Day, it is also celebrated on June 22. (Not sure why this day rates two occasions to celebrate.)

 

Nut Day celebrates the health value of eating nuts.  It  does not refer to the drooling, raging nut I become when I have to bring up a word document so I can tell if I am typing all in caps or in upper and lower case letters.  (What is the sense of having a password where you can actually see what  you are typing?  If you can see the password so can anyone looking over  your shoulder.)

It’s also National Knee Day.  (This day strikes very close to home for me. My arthritic knee and my artificial knee trade-off being the “good” knee.)

From the Checkiday website:

Today’s holiday is the bee’s knees, so think a little bit about how you want to celebrate it instead of just making a knee-jerk reaction. Here are a few ideas on how to spend the day:

• Show off your knees.
• Do some jumping, crouching, walking, and running.
• Read the poem “Stop Thief!” by Shel Silverstein.
• Take steps to prevent knee pain.
• Self-diagnose any knee pain you may have.
• Get the knee replacement surgery you’ve been planning.
• Buy a new pair of knee pads.

 

Book Review: Resistance Women by Jennifer Chiaverini–Part II

As I read this book, I am repeatedly struck with how apt the words of the characters in 1930’s Germany could apply today by changing the country and political parties.  The book is written in 2019 so one would have to draw one’s own conclusions on how concidental the remarks are.

p15 (1929)   “Mildred knew that Germany was not perfect, that like the United State it grappled with various economic, political, and social problems….”  Mildred is an American, married to a German national and has joined her husband in Germany.  (She and her husband are  based upon real people.) Mildred is studying for a doctorate in American literature and is trying to find a job as a professor at a time when the Nazi’s are coming to power.

p42-43  (Oct 1930) “People are struggling,” Sara replied…..”They can’t find work and they’re afraid of what the future holds.” Sara  is Jewish and a student of Mildred’s.  Sara’s family is well off–her father is a banker. Her brother Natan is a reporter and an editor for an important Berlin newspaper.  They hope that their relative wealth and generations of being German will keep them safe in the future.

Natan’s response to Sara, “Then comes along this loud, angry man  promising to take them back to a mythical golden age of prosperity, swearing to punish Germany’s enemies for wrongdoing them.  Some peple respond to that–in this case, vast numbers of people.”

p50  “Women and Jews–what threat do we pose to those men, that they call for our deaths?”  Amalie, Sara’s sister, and married to  well-off Christian who is an officer in the Wehrmacht, is lamenting what has happened in public after the “results of September 14 election had stunned everyone–except perhaps the leader of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, an Austrian named Adolph Hitler. ”

Following the election, there was a riot in Berlin.  p52, “..(N)one of the roughly 300 protesters had been arrested, less surprised to read that most of the windows broken had belonged to businesses owned by Jews.”

“And though there was not a word of truth to it, the National  Socialist press spread the rumor  that the Communists had started the riot.  They proclaimed the lie so often and so emphatically that those who had not seen the riot for themselves could not distinguish truth from falsehood.”

p63 (1931), Dr. Kienle, a prominent female gynocologist, tries unsuccessfully to give a speech in Marburg,  The Nazi brownshirts disrupt her speech by proclaiming a woman’s role “Kinder, Kirche Kuche!”–Children, church, kitchen.  “Mildred knew then that outspoken, independent women made up one more class of undesirables that must be suppressed if the Nazis were to remake Germany in their own image.”

p189 (1933) “Rational people,” said Mildred.  “People who act out of decency, compassion, and respect for the rule of law rather than hatred and fear.  That is the real Germany, not that frenzy of lies we saw yesterday.”

 

Book Review: Resistence Women by Jennifer Chiaverini, Part I

The latest book by New York Times best seller author Jennifer Chiaverini, is set in Germany from the waning days of the Wiemar Republic through Adolph Hitler’s legal rise to power, where his Nationalist Social party changes Germany from a democratic republic to a dictatorship. It culminates with World War II.

The Resistence Women are based upon  three real women and a fictitional Jewish woman who make up a group opposing Hitler and the rise of the Nazi regime. Mildred Fish-Harnack, a University of Wisconsin graduate student in American Literature goes to Germany in 1929 to be with her German born husband, brilliant economist Arvid Harnack, who she had met and married in the United States.  Mildred is trying to finish her doctorate, while seeking a position as a professor in a German university.  Greta Lorke, a friend of Mildred and her husband Arvid  from the University of Wisconsin, returns to Germany in 1930 to find that that 1929 stock market crash has severely affected the already struggling German economy.  Greta is also trying to finish her dissertation and is seeking a position as a writer in the theater.  Martha Dodd,  the daughter of the new American ambassador to Germany and also an author, meets Mildred through the American Women’s Club.  Sara Weitz, one of Mildred’s students in American Lit, is the only fictional character.  She is from a well-off Jewish family and represents a composite character of some of the Jewish members of the resistence cell.

The four women and their partners are drawn into an underground espionage network, where imprisonment and possible death are the most likely outcomes whether one is German, American, gentile or Jew.  Anyone who is not a fervent Nazi is an enemy of the Reich.

However, the Nazi’s are not the only ones who practice anti-semitism and the perception that Mildred and Arvid are Communist sympathizers (in the post WWII Cold War era)  lead to the story not getting the attention it might otherwise have recieved.

October Is Domestic Violence Awareness Month | Weird Chick Chronicles

October is one busy month.  Here is another thing to be aware of this month and it’s an important one.

via October Is Domestic Violence Awareness Month | Weird Chick Chronicles

When We Say “We Can’t” as We Age, Is it Common Sense or Psychological?

 

Senior Citizens:  Unload Here

 

I have a friend in her 70s who is a very reluctant driver, and she has been like that since at  least  her 50s.  For over twenty years, her longtime boyfriend drove her almost everywhere.  Since he’s moved out, she mostly drives to work, the doctor, and to neighborhood businesses.  She does not like to travel alone and has curtailed many things that she has enjoyed doing for years like taking the train to New York to attend the opera. (She does not like to drive from the close in Virginia suburbs to Union Station in DC for starters.)

 

I have another frend, also in her 70s, who has bought a new car with all of the safety features like accident avoidance cameras.  She’s a widow and is used to travelling by herself or with family or friends.  She wans to keep driving but wants to do it safely since an accident involving older driver is often perceived to be that driver’s fault.

I have another friend, in her late 70s, who will drive her minivan almost anywhere (with or without her husband.)  She is very active with many friends, hobbies, and interests.

So is an unwillingness to drive as we age, psychological or common sense? (Each of these ladies is in good health and to the best of my knowledge has no reason why she should not drive.)

I used to love to climb on rocks and explore tidepools.  I am now afraid to do that.  I can’t decide if that is commonsense or a self-imposed pyschological barrier.  Yet I see dozens of volunteers in their 60s, 70s, and 80s who climb up and down from the tidepools with no outward signs of trepidation.

There are many things that we can no longer safely do as we age.  So not doing some of those things make sense, especially if we have a medical condition that precludes doing them safely.  For other things, why do we allow ourselves to do things we could easily accomplish if we gave ourselves permission?

What have you given up as you age and why have you given it up?  Is it fear or reason that keeps you from continuing a previously beloved activity?

September is Pain Control Month

The month of September has been declared Pain Awareness Month. Pain Awareness Month is a time when various organizations work to raise public awareness of issues in the area of pain and pain management.

I am finding this quite ironic.

What Are the Boons in Your Life?

Youth is a silly, vapid state, Old age with fears and ills is rife; This simple boon I beg of Fate – A thousand years of Middle Life.–Carolyn Wells

A boon is a thing that is helpful or beneficial. Its archaic definition is a favor or request.

For me, boons are those simple,  unexpected gifts that life hands us occasionally.

It can be the earliest Christmas lights in the neighborhood or the unexpected ones that shine through the night after January 1 or January 6.  Or people who once a year do not draw their curtains so you can enjoy their Christmas tree as you walk or drive past .

It’s the earliest fall colored leaves or the last ones that cling to the trees after the rest have flown, fluttered or swirled off to other destinations.

The grass greening in the spring, new leaves sprouting on tree limbs, the progression of Spring flowers from crocus through daffodils, tulips, and iris.

Cold fronts in summer and warm fronts in winter, when the temperature and humidity give us a break from the norm.

Someone who pauses briefly to acknolwedge me (or any of us)  as a person, not background noise or an impediment to someone they really want to see or talk to.

The person who gives up his/her seat to someone in need on a bus, holds the door open, offers to help carry a heavy burden,  or smiles along with a salutation and how are you.

Flags and bunting on houses on patriotic holidays.

Pumpkins, scarecrows, and  chrysanthemums in the fall.

Small military convoys driven by troops in uniforms as I travel down the road.

Blogs or stories that touch my heart and make me think.

Friends both old and new that make the effort to stay in touch–in person, by mail, by voice, or electronically.

Family (for the most part.)

Oceans, mountains, green spaces and the opportuity to visit  and enjoy all of them.

National Park system.

Unexpected glimpses of wild animals–bears in a National Park, squirrels in the back yard, birds on the wing or on a limb.

Memory–the chance to enjoy these boons again and again.

Beautiful sunrises/sunsets.

The freedom to worship or not (as one’s conscience dictates)

Volunteers that keep so many activities rolling along.

What  are your boons?

Recovery

Recovery’s a slog,
Not a sprint or a race.
Each day progressing
At it’s own pace.

Pain is a skirmisher
Delaying tactics on hand
Like winter reluctant
When Spring tries to land.

Physical gains
Are more easily tracked
Today a new goal
That yesterday lacked.

Progress is slower
From walker to cane
Seldom achieved
Without accompanying pain.

It’s been a struggle,
Can’t say it’s been fun
I hope I’ll be happy
With what has been done.

Knee Replacement Recovery, 1 Week in–5 Lessons Learned

With surgery a week ago tomorrow,  I have no complaints about my surgeon or the surgery.  The recovery has had it’s plusses and minuses.

1. Pain management – I’ve found this to affect almost every other part of my recovery to date.  When the pain is less, I am better–not as irritable, apthetic, bitchy–you name it.  Right now this is the part of my recovery that I am most dissatisfied with.
   Given the possible addictive nature of opioids, I am relieved to say that Oxycodone did the least that I could discern and has been the easiest to give up.
2. Value of Friends and Family- From my family, through my  real life friends and my virtual friends in Second Life and those of you in the blogosphere, I can not over emphasize how much your cards, texts, messages, comments, and visits have  meant to me.  They really do help–especially for those that have the patience to sympathize with the  days I am bitching because I am frustrated or in pain.   Yesterday, the Bionic Blonde (2 knee replacements, 2 hip replacements, 2 Achilles Tendon repairs) drove an extra 2 hours out of her way to stop by for a visit.  I had my first outing in her car since coming back from the hospital last Friday.  We made a stop at Dairy Queen since we both love their Caramel Burst Blizzards.   Since she has gimped the walk as well as talked the talk, I rely on her insight and experience that this too shall pass.
3. PT uber alles.  I am fortunate to have 3 weeks of at home PT followed by a period of out patient PT.  I was a semi-regular gym rat (love my reclining bicycle) before my surgery so I have not found the exercises too arduous yet.  I have also, gratefully found, that each day I get stronger and more agile.
4. Listen to your body carefully.  There is a fine line between pushing  yourself enough to get stronger and hurting yourself.  As a long time Weight Watcher, I can only use the analogy of appetitite and hunger.  Do I want to eat because….or am I really hungry?  If I’m hungry  or in real discomfort, then I take the feeling seriously.  If I just want to  eat (or in this case  sit in my chair), then it’s past time to get off my ass and onto my walker.
5. You are your Attitude.  We all prefer to be around cheerful, optimistic people.  I also face the daily/hourly challenge of realizing that only I can determine which type of person I will be.  I think I’m an optimsist by nature (not to mention a staunch introvert) so I’m not struggling as much as I might-but there are those moments.

Knee Replacement Surgery– Five Observations

 

Therapy tools

For most of my life, I have been healthy and am still healthier than not–so no chronic illnesses, hospital stays, or  unusual restrictions (other than apathy and the don’t wannas.) When I developed osteoarthritis a few years ago, it was a minor inconvenience that gradually became an increasing instrusion into my life.

1. 1. 1.  Attitude determines a lot of what we think we can/can not do.  –  Stairs were something to avoid, if possible.  (I still found that most of these impediments were psychological.  If the weather was nice and I was chatting with friends or listening to good tunes on my iPod, the activity was no problem to accomplish.)
      2.  The nursing staff makes medicine nicer/kinder/approachable. – I  had right knee replacement surgery on Friday and had to stay in the hospital for a single night. (It was my first hopital experience as a patient.)  From my first referral by my primary care physician, through the intermediate steps of PT, accupuncture, and orthopedic referral) to the actual surgery, the nurses were the ones who had the time to answer my questions, listen to my fears, help me to the bathroom, brought my medications and meals, made me feel like a person and not   some speciment on which to practice medicine.  (Don’t get me wrong, the doctors were nice and all were skilled practicioners, but the nurses took the time to see the person behind the patient.)
      3. The second night and the third day are the worst.  –  As my friends (who have already had joint replacement) tell me, they give you really good drugs in the hospital so  pain management is a piece of cake.  (One of those wonderful nurses had also told me that this period would be the worse and that each day would get better after that.)  When I came home, life took about 3 hours to  sledgehammer me into reality.  Between 3 pm on Saturday, and about 4 pm on Sunday, my medications were not touching the pain.  (In retrospect, I should have accepted the nurse’s offer for some oxycodone before I left the hospital, but I was not in pain and did not want to use oxycodone anymore than I had to because of it’s addictive qualities.)  Last night was better, but I was still needed remedial training on bringing my overnight medications into the bedroom next to me rather than leaving them in the room where I had spent my waking hours.
      4. Use it or lose it–PT will set you free. –  It’s too easy to sit in your chair with your meds and ice machine.  It’s a hassle to haul your carcass and your attendant walker to the bathroom.  You are stiff, cranky, and just  want life to be ‘normal’.  It is more likely to get back to ‘normal’ if you do your PT and make an effort to move each hour.
      5. Your friends, family,  and support system are as an important part of your recovery process as your medical team.  My husband, Bob, has been a wonderful help, bringing my meals upstairs, going to the store to fetch the medications or my favorite grande skinny iced vanilla chai.  My friends have been supportive with texts, phone calls, flowers, cards, and offers to visit.  Both of my sisters have offered to come stay with me for a few days, if I need them too. (As much as I truly cherish the offer, I think we are all relieved that Bob will make their offer unnecessary.)