A Prayer For Travelers by Ruchika Tomar. This author is a Wallace Stegner Fellow (which means she participated in a two year crazy wonderful program at Stanford!) This novel was well written and showed her talent as a writer but it is NOT an easy read…what reviewers call “the complexity of a shifting timeline” means […]
Sans Forgeticus: Poetry Club March 2020
March 6, 2020 by
I should mention that we DID choose a name for our group: Sans Forgeticus. Think visions of the poetry salons of past times, as well as our underlying belief that memorizing poems will help our aging brains. Today’s trend was “free association poems.” New member Barbara started us off on this track with “The Currency […]
Colonoscopy cures Jet Lag
February 28, 2020 by
Many years ago a friend of mine who travels extensively introduced me to “The Jet Lag Diet” by Ehret and Scanlon. A simple little book, with a plan developed for use at the Argonne National Laboratory, I’m pretty sure for rapid military deployment forces. They wanted those soldiers to be able to hit the ground […]
February 2020 Book Reviews
February 21, 2020 by
Justice Denied by J.A. Jance. Yep, it was time for a genre detective story. Not sure, but I really need one once in a while (okay, often, I love them!) We’re back in Washington and I did enjoy the fact that detectives J.P. Beaumont and Mel Soames live in an area where a friend of […]
2020 Birthday Challenge
February 14, 2020 by
I have been flip-flopping on my 2020 birthday challenge. As I get older the numbers increase and the thought of doing something 62 times has become for difficult. I thought about splitting it into two categories this year: to dance thirty-one different places (5Rhythms or other) and the second half thirty-one acts of kindness, above […]
Poetry Club February 2020
February 7, 2020 by
A small group met today, with four poems were shared. Leslie read the famous “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats, a long poem that has been greatly analyzed. While we had all heard of Keats, Leslie shared some history that we didn’t know! Like how much trauma he suffered in his early life […]
Small Talk 101
January 31, 2020 by
I don’t like small talk. I never have and I have only gotten worse with time. And in theory, I don’t like gossip, but I find myself falling into that trap all too often. Lately I have been in more situations where small talk is required. So here are some guidelines. Don’t talk about politics. […]
My 2019 Birthday Challenge: 61 Unique Experiences
January 24, 2020 by
Each year I give myself a birthday challenge: something to reach for over the 365 days until my next birthday. Admittedly, 2019 challenge of complete 61 Unique events (simply something I had never done before, not necessary that it be planned or good or anything other than unique) fell short on my birthday. But I […]
What you can Learn about Life while at the Scholastic Book Fair
January 17, 2020 by
I volunteer for a community group who works at the local school book fairs. I had not been to a book fair in about ten years . My last exposure was memorable: I escorted students with explosive behavior issues on this overwhelming shopping expedition. One student melted down because he didn’t have enough money for […]
January 2020 Book Reviews
January 10, 2020 by
Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler. This is marked as a NYTimes “Notable Book,” which I find is the perfect description. Not an easy or ordinary read, but a very unusual tale of Chin, a Chinese railway worker, BJ, an escaped mental hospital patient, Adelaide Dixon, a doctor and suffragist, and Sarah Canary, a mysterious […]
