Clawdia loves her torn plastic bag

Clawdia adopted this torn plastic bag last November, and she still naps on it quite often.  Why?  I have no idea, but she wrote about it HERE, calling it her "holey" bag.  When she tried to exit it one day through that handle in front of her, I had to cut the "handles" off.  Her head went through nicely — and her front feet — but the rest of her body got stuck, pulling the thing along with her as she walked through the apartment.  But it's hers, as she told the world.  Her very own possession.

The first Friday in February

Since 2002, the first Friday of February has been designated as National Wear Red Day in the United States.  Men and women are encouraged to wear red as a symbol of their support of women’s heart health.  I plan to wear a bright red shirt.  Will you join me?

Beginning ~ with a strange encounter

Beginning

On a gray, cold, soggy Tibetan plateau stood glaring at one another two white people — a man and a woman.  With the first, a group of peasants; with the second, the guides and carriers of a well-equipped exploring party.

The man wore the dress of a peasant, but around him was a leather belt — old, worn, battered — but a recognizable belt of no Asiatic pattern, and showing a heavy buckle made in twisted initials.

The woman's eye had caught the sunlight on this buckle before she saw that the heavily bearded face under the hood was white.  She pressed forward to look at it.

"Where did you get that belt?" she cried, turning for the interpreter to urge her question.

The man had caught her voice, her words.  He threw back his hood and looked at her, with a strange blank look, as of one listening to something far away.

"John!" she cried.  "John!  My Brother!"  He lifted a groping hand to his head, made a confused noise that ended in almost a shout of "Nellie!" reeled and fell backward.

Moving the Mountain ~ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 2015, SF (speculative fiction), 112 pages

This first book in Gilman's well known Herland trilogy delivers her program for reforming society.  She concentrates on measures of rationality and efficiency that could be instituted in her own time, largely with greater social cooperation — equal education and treatment for girls and boys, day-care centers for working women, and other issues still relevant a century later.  Yet Gilman also allows for technological progress:  electric power is the motive force in industry and urban society, power generated largely by the tides, wind-mills, water mills, and solar engines.

Herland is one of my favorite books, one I've read over and over.  So I bought the whole trilogy for my Kindle and have started reading this first one.  I shared a long beginning, but I think it's appropriate for this particular book.

UPDATE to correct your misunderstanding:

The Herland Trilogy does NOT start with Herland., which is the book Charlotte Perkins Gilman is famous for.  Here's the order:  (1) Moving the Mountain, (2) Herland, (3) With Her in Ourland.  When I read and re-read Herland (the middle of the three), I had never heard of the other two.  The middle one of the three was a favorite.  When I learned about the other two, I ordered the whole set for my Kindle.  I don't know yet whether I'll like the first and third as well as that middle one.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts

Book Beginnings on Fridays.

What I'm thinking about

1.  On the Crown Center bus ~ Iva, Betty, and Meredith on the left; Bonnie, Esme beside Jerry, and Shannon (in the back) on the right.  This is an old photo, but I'll be on the bus again today when we go to buy groceries.

2.  Another bagful of books ~ Risé invited me to go with her this morning to the last day of the sale of used books at the Jewish Community Center.  That's when we can fill a bag with books for five bucks.  I've written about the books I've stuffed into bags other years, like THIS in 2017, but I haven't been to their sale since I quit driving.  I'll tell you about the books later, probably over several days, a few books at a time.  I set this to post itself while we're book shopping.

3.  Punxsutawney Phil ~ Did you see my earlier post?  Today is Groundhog Day, so go back one post to see what I wrote.

4.  Einstein's cluttered desk ~ The photo on the right was his office on the day he died.  These are the words on the left photo:  "If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?" — Albert Einstein

5.  Survey about daily life ~ Do you need help...

... with using the telephone?

... with shopping?

... with food preparation?

... with housekeeping?

... with laundry?

... with transportation?

... with your medications?

... with your finances (budgeting, buying, banking, paying bills)?

6.  And then there's quality of life to consider, as Atul Gawande wrote about in his 2014 book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End.  I gave that one a 10/10 rating and highly recommend it.  A survey could ask questions about whether you are satisfied with your life, how you feel, whether you are involved in activities or not, whether you feel hopeless or happy.  Think about it.  How alive and involved are you feeling these days?  In answering some of their quality of life questions, I didn't just circle Yes/No as requested.  You know me, right?  I had to throw in a few remarks, as well.

7.  Do you often get bored?  NO, I don't think I've ever been bored, except in some business meetings.  😃

8.  Do you prefer to stay at home, rather than going out and doing new things?  YES, but that's because I'm an INTJ (introvert).

9.  Do you think it is wonderful to be alive now?  YES, but reading news of random rampages is not "wonderful."  (Neither, is reading about wars and violence.)

10.  Do you feel full of energy?  NO, not physical energy.  Mentally I have lots of energy, but my physical energy is slowing down.

11.  An alarming day ~ I set off alarms at the courthouse in my town back in 2009.  Why?  I told people it is because I am held together with baling wire. I actually WAS wired together after quadruple bypass heart surgery earlier that year.  The guard let me pass through after I showed her my scars from surgery.

Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day is today, February 2, 2023.  Will Punxsutawney Phil see his shadow?

Every February 2 since 1887, Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania has made his weather prediction.  If it's sunny and he sees his shadow, it's said we'll see six more weeks of winter.  If it's cloudy and he does NOT see his shadow, it's said to mean an early spring.

Okay, this is just a fun event for people in the United States and in Canada.  No, I don't really believe it.  On the other hand, has anyone ever done a study to see how accurate those Punxsutawney Phils have been over the 136 years?  I rather doubt it.

Is it spelled cancelled or canceled?

I noticed a couple of announcements side by side the other day, saying programs had been called off because of inclement weather.  However, one had cancelled (with two L's) and the other had canceled (with one L).  It made me grin, so I took a photo of the pair of announcements.  While canceled and cancelled are both acceptable for the past tense of cancel, the version with one L is more common in American English, while the version with two L's is more common in British English.  So both of these spellings are correct.  How do YOU spell that word?  I actually spell it with two L's.  Maybe that means I've read a lot of British literature in my life.

NOTE:  I googled "plural of the letter L" to see whether or not to use that apostrophe.  Huh, the plural can be L's or Ls (for capital letters), l's or ls (for small letters).  It seems more confusing to me to leave out the apostrophe, so I put it in there.  Notice that "ls" looks like capital i with a small s.  That spells the verb "is" and isn't what I want to say.

Two books I'm reading, finally

No Happy Cows: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Food Revolution ~ by John Robbins, 2012, collection of essays, 208 pages

With words like food additives and GMOs buzzing around, it's hard to know what's best to eat.  Robbins gathered and updated articles from his Huffington Post column along with newer material on the food revolution.  You have to know food to eat food, but what happens when food companies leave some facts out?  With commentaries on what we should and shouldn’t eat (and why), Robbins tells us about his undercover investigations of feedlots and slaughterhouse and gives us a look into the importance of working for a more compassionate and environmentally responsible world.

Dubliners ~ by James Joyce, 1914, short story collection, 174 pages

Dubliners is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914.  It depicts Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century, written when Irish nationalism was at its peak.  They center on Joyce's idea of an epiphany, a moment where a character experiences a life-changing self-understanding or illumination.

Though he's now considered Ireland’s greatest author and one of the most influential voices in modern literature, it took nine years for James Joyce to find a publisher for this debut volume.  Now it is regarded as one of the finest story collections in the English language.

(Different editions have different numbers of pages, but at least two are free for Kindle.)