Category Archives: Uncategorized

And the good news is…

Weather in the Tries: Friday was our first day in what seemed like forever, to be above freezing. It was freezing when I went to bed Thursday night and 40 when I got up on Friday. Now we have rain on the schedule, and a few more freezing days coming. I really don’t mind the cold, though Sammy does. Poor guy. But we both aren’t fond of the rain. I know we need it, but it always seems colder when it’s damp/wet out. And not too much rain, this is the desert, after all.

And the Good News Is…

…I’m not pregnant! Yaaaaayyyy!!!! Fear leapt and grabbed me about the throat when I saw a blue line AND a pink line on the test strip. The second immaculate conception? Fraternal twins? Then I remembered (thankfully, I still have some memory left and it kicks in every so often) I sneezed on the strip, I didn’t pee on it. Phew!

So, the rest of the news is, I am just about coming off my isolation for covid. Being fully vaxxed and boosted, I’ve not had severe symptoms. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have known, but one of my breakfast buddies called me Tuesday afternoon to tell me he’d tested after he got home (he got a test kit at breakfast) and, he was positive. I checked with a doctor who told me to wait a couple of days before I tested (I isolated those days) and lo and behold, the blue line ONLY meant I was good to go, but I had a pink line, too. The lines do not mean twins (thank whatever gods you choose). Only covid. Well shucks, I survived Basic Training, so I can survive anything—war, pestilence, childbirth, &c, but damn! I’m too old to raise more kids. So today is my last day of isolation, and then as long as I feel okay, I can go about my business, with my good, filtered mask firmly upon my face. Remember we wear masks not so much to protect us, but to protect you!

Other than being a tad more tired than usual, I really feel pretty good. No fever, no aches or pains (I also had my old fartess flu shot a while ago). I am sooooo grateful for all the years the scientists worked on the base of what became our ‘short order’ vaccine, and the National Guard of Washington for sending their medics to jab thousands of people, two different times. And the pharmacist for the 3d jab.

One of the things I remembered while sitting in my car waiting after the first two, was how good Medics are with needles. I can almost always tell if a pharmacist spent time in the military by the way s/he gives shots. They are the best!

Sad news on Friday: Sidney Poitier died at age 94. He was one of my favorite actors. I never saw him in a movie that wasn’t wonderful. The obituary I read compared him to Harry Belafonte, and the author made a statement that Belafonte had more sexual magnetism than Poitier. Oh, no. No, he did not. Belafonte’s was a bit more ‘bad boy’ due to his singing, but Poitier was the boy next door, the quiet man, the thoughtful and intelligent man. the man who made me laugh with his quiet humor. Rest in Peace, Mr. Poitier, you are sorely missed.

Photos of the Week:

When I took this photo, it was darker than it appears, and I thought those were geese on the ice. Nope, they’re gulls. The ice is melting, but there’s enough there they spend the night on it. The geese ‘raft’ out in the water. The ice is pretty safe, if a cat or coyote tried to get them, they’d get an unwanted bath!

Books: Remember, if I finish a book, I review it at Rainy Day Reads

Finished a marvelous new book of poetry, The Tiger Poet: New & Selected Poems —by Amit Dahiyabadshah. I urge you to buy and read the book, but I know not all of you like poetry, so please go to this link and watch/listen to Amit perform his poem, The Tiger’s Last Will and Testament. It is powerful. He performed it for a tv station in his country (India) to use as a fund raiser to save the tigers. Reading Amit’s book will give you joy, sorrow, and a wonderful trip through parts of India. You may order this book from the big box store, or from the publisher, Jules’ Poetry Playhouse.

I am also reading Murder at the Mission by Blair Harden. It is another book about the killings at the Whitman Mission. It’s an interesting book, and Harden brings a much different perspective to the myth that grew out of it—that most of what we think we know was lies told and perpetrated by the Reverend Henry Harmon Spalding.

Reviewing: I sent my review of Amit’s book to my publisher, in India, and the next thing I know is he wants me to review some of the books in his stable, and sent me one to that end. That makes an old lady feel pretty darn good, ya know? I read the book, short with 43 pages, sent him the review, and he asked if he could send more. And he’s paying me for them!

TV:

Was all set to watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show the other day. I looked forward to it. Have never seen it. Today my Favorite Daughter asked me how I liked it. Dohhh, I totally forgot about it. So, it’s there someplace. Now, why didn’t my memory kick in for that?

Movie:

My neighbor and I were going to see Matrix: Resurrection on Thursday, but you know who mucked those plans up by testing for covid ;-). If it’s still here next week, we’ll try to get into a matinee. There are few if any people in the matinees.

There has been an ad on Facebook for a few days, and today I checked it out. I so love plastic. Y’know, you never pay for anything, just give numbers and… Yes, I have ordered the complete set of Studio Ghibli’s childhood movies. I’ve seen some of them and have totally loved each one of them. Some I’ve seen more than once. Yes, Auntie Lenora has (obviously) entered her second childhood. Or maybe third? Fourth?

Quotes via ELLE https://www.elle.com/uk/life-and-culture/a31891185/coronavirus-quotes/:

“sometimes I wonder if all this is happening because I didn’t forward that email to 10 people.” —from champagnetastehome

“I’m not buying a 2022 planner until I see the trailer!” —from ivf.ninja.mama (LG: I updated the year)

And there you are: my exciting news. I’m NOT pregnant!!! And by the time you read this I’ll be almost through with my complimentary dose of Covid! The snow is almost gone, and Sammy sends pupkisses to everyone who had a hope and a prayer for that.

Happy Twenty Twenty-Two!

4 Replies

Weather in the Tries: Trust me. You don’t want to visit right now. Wait until May. Unless, of course, you like single digit temperatures.

Didja notice I didn’t up put a post last week? I figured you wanted a break as much as I did.

I had a marvelous Solstice. Received all sorts of goodies—wine, cookies (they were yummy), some jam, a bookmark, and five books. A friend has a homemade fruitcake for me but said it’s too bitterly cold out for me to fetch. She has it resting in her freezer waiting for me. Wanna know how cold the last week was? It didn’t get above freezing, and the wind chill took the temps down another ten to fifteen degrees.

Did you know that two thousand years ago, in the Mediterranean countries, the Solstice was on what became known as 25 December? Lo and behold! Thank you, History Channel.

There are many different traditions to ring in the New Year. I hope you took advantage of at least one. I had black eyed peas! Had planned on making my version of Hoppin’ John, but due to the ice outside, I didn’t go to the store for more black eyed peas which are not peas at all but are beans. I had some chili mix with black eyed peas in it, and made a mess of beans for New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, and a few more days, too. Fortunately, beans freeze well ;-). Eating black eyed peas on the New Year is supposed to bring wealth and prosperity.

Speaking of wealth and prosperity, my short story, Fly Away Woman has been published by Quill & Parchment. I think I get just as excited when something of mine is deemed good enough by an editor to be published as I did the first time I sold a poem or a story. Rejection letters don’t hurt as much, though. I realize it’s my work being passed on, not me 😉 At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

Mark your calendar! I am featured reader 12 Jan at Yakima Coffeehouse Poetry. This will be a zoom affair, and if you’d like to attend, please email or PM me a few days prior so I can get your name and email to the keeper of the Zoom Room. I’ll be reading about 15 minutes. It starts at 7 pm PST.

From the Mail Bag:

Okay, it’s not from a bag, it’s from my email. I received an email from ACME Termite Inspection Co. (I used to own a house) And as my eyes are old, and I was in a hurry, and you know how emails get truncated… I read “ACME Termites Welcome in 2022” Nope, that’s not what they said. On the second, and third, look I saw it correctly. (Wonder if the Road Runner is moonlighting???)

Photos of the Week:

Took these a couple days ago. This one is the day before the ones following it. As you can tell, it was snowing. Note the horizontal white line off to the right of the island. Those are not round rocks–thats a squadron of white pelicans. The darks dots in the water are geese, ducks, coots, and or cormorants. If the egret was there, I couldn’t see her against the snow. Oh, a Great Blue Heron may be there, also.

Took this one about 5:30 the next morning. Don’t know if that’s dew that is freezing in the air, some sort of snow, or what. It was very fine, more drifting than falling and glittered like diamond dust.

Same basic view as first one, the fog is rising from the Columbia River. Pasco, the town on the far shore has “returned.” It was taken a few minutes after sun-up.

This is later in the day, and I’m petty sure that’s hoar frost on the trees and shrubs on the island. The Columbia is on the other side, the slack water on this side is frozen. This was taken about 4pm when the sun shined and the thermometer read 16F.

Books: Remember, if I finish a book, I review it at Rainy Day Reads

I read and reviewed 75 books last year, the last being State of Terror by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny. Political Thrillers aren’t my genre of choice, but this was a hard-to-put-down read! I also re-read a book I’d read earlier, The Queen’s Weapons (Book 11 of the Dark Jewels) by Anne Bishop. I think I enjoyed it more the second time through because as I read, parts of it weren’t as “tense” as I’d remembered. The trouble with Anne Bishop’s books is I can’t read them slowly. Too much good stuff going on and I gotta read them and get to the end and be sure everyone I’m emotionally involved with is alright. 😉 If you’re curious, I have 584 books currently listed on my review blog. So, if you’re wondering what to read next, have a look. Complete with typos.

Speaking of books, do you have a published book you’d like to sell? I’ll gladly show it once here, then list it in the Bookstore (see tab above). Contact me for the information I will need.

TV:

Lord love a duck! I actually watched Christmas movies on Hallmark Mysteries and Movies. And read. Trust me, reading was better.

I went online to see if I could buy the K-Series, Navillera, and I could, so I did. I now own two of my favorite K-Dramas. Poetry (a movie) and Navillera (series). I need to get Departures, a delightful movie from Japan. I ordered it once and it came but was only compatible with Euro players. Now, I know someone who can tell me how to fix my player to play the others. But then, I didn’t, so I returned it. I just bought a used copy I found online. Including tax, still less that $15.00. I coulda bought a new one for $55 plus tax.

New Year’s Quotes compliments of brainyquote:

“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.” —Oprah Winfrey

“What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others.” —Diogenes

“I never worry about being driven to drink; I just worry about being driven home.” —W.C. Fields

The Brave Dog (and believe me, having to go out into the ice and snow to pay homage to the Grass Gods takes bravery when you’re a small dog with no body fat!) and I wish you all a marvelous New Year. Remember, as Walt Lee said via his Brother Sherman cartoon, “Thou shalt find joy in each new day, even if thou must search until sunset!”

Merry Holidays!!!

1 Reply

My Winter Letter to one and all:

Merry Holidays!!!

Whatever or Whoever you worship this Solstice Season, do so with gaiety, reverence, joy—whatever is appropriate to you and the deity/deities you worship. I hope it’s a time of Great Joy, even in this time of Covid.

I am still writing, mostly poetry. Had the marvelous opportunity to see & hear a new (to me) poet, thanks to the wonders of Zoom—Arthur Sze. I became enthralled with his work and ordered the book they were selling before the reading was over, The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (from the last 5 decades of his writing) and have seen a marked change in my poems. I hope for the better ;-). And for those of you who know me, here is the shocker of all, I bought a Hardback, with 521 pages of poetry! (Last year’s purchase of Lucille Clifton’s Collection out did it, though. She had 720 pages in that book!)

I have been asked to be the featured reader for the Yakima Coffeehouse Poets in January (I think it’s the 12^th). If any of you are interested in attending via Zoom, please let me know. I will be reading from my books and newer poems. I’m hoping I can attend in person, if so, we will also be zooming to the audience who can’t make it. Then, again, it may all be zoom. Hello, Covid, and welcome to my neighborhood.

Speaking of my poetry, I am pleased to tell you that my latest book, The Bride’s Gate and Other Assorted Writings has two offerings that have been nominated for a Pushcart this year—the poem, “Mary Oliver Wants to Die When It’s Raining,” and the short fiction, “Dream Time.” Since the book is a collection, it also has “Russell Fehmer’s War,” a short story I wrote in homage to the old tv show, Soldiers of Fortune staring John Russell and (Fehmer) “Chick” Chandler. That story was nominated a few years ago. I loved that show. I was a freshman in high school when my mother remarried, and we moved to Seattle where I became a 9^th grader in Junior high. Now, many thought that being a ninth grader I was top tier, but I thought of it as a demotion. I’d been a freshman in a REAL high school Ah, the vicissitudes of teenage life & angst.

Anyhow, I hurried home after school to watch, and escape into, Soldiers of Fortune. I now own the series, and I must admit, it doesn’t hold up nearly as well as, say, Columbo. Still, I had a teenaged crush on the two actors. 😉

The photo on my card is one I took at sunset. I just thought it was a nice photo. With no religious significance. I don’t even remember when. The poem, Darkness Framed, on the other side of the page, was published in Quill & Parchment in October 2021. Alas, I don’t have a photo to illustrate the poem.

Wishing you all the best for this marvelous Holiday Season, and remember, if YOU don’t want that fruitcake, you can always send it my way. Not, mind you, that I need any more calories, but I’ve never, ever, met a fruitcake I didn’t like.

With Love, Hugs, and a gazillion Pupkisses…

Photo on Card:

Poem on back of Winter Letter:

Darkness Framed

—by Lenora Rain-Lee Good

Darkness hides the fallow meadow,
the trees naked of leaves,
until the motion detector
catches a deer in its lens;
what was hidden
is now seen in ghostly colors
bleached by bright patio lights.

The timer clicks inside and the walls
no longer soft purple of twilight
now reflect the blinding white of
sun-stroked winter’s snow.

No coverings at the glass,
the white walls frame the stark
landscape of night in muted colors.
The deer, alien to my world, and I
stare one to the other and wonder
if we’d really like to trade places.

Books Read This Year:

74 and reviews begin on http://lenoragood.blogspot.com

My ten most Favoritest:

Humans of Climate Change —by Kaden Hogan NF
Thinking About Thinking —by Margaret Randall NF
Reparations Now! —by Ashley M. Jones P
The Glass Constellation, New and Collected Poems —Arthur Sze P
Relax and Enjoy Your Food —by Craig Good NF
Magnified —by Minnie Bruce Pratt P
frank: sonnets —by diane seuss P
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents —by Isabel Wilkerson NF
Occoquan —by Gary Worth Moody P
Taro —by Blue Spruell F

NF = Nonfiction P = Poetry F = Fiction

My 10 most Favoritest (mostly Netflix) Movies & Series:

Hospital Playlist —Korean series
It’s Okay to Not Be Okay —Korean series
Chocolate —Korean series
Itaewon Class —Korean Series
Navillera —Korean Series
Home to Heaven —Korean Series
Sense8 —US Series (Same people who brought us Matrix)
Lucifer —US Series
My Octopus Teacher —Netflix Documentary
Paper and Glue —MSNBC Documentary

Winter Holiday Quotes

(from https://chatbooks.com/blog/holiday-quotes)

“May your walls know joy, may every room hold laughter, and every window open to great possibility.” —Mary Anne Radmacher

“Winter, a lingering season, is a time to gather golden moments, embark upon a sentimental journey, and enjoy every idle hour.” —John Boswell

“Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it’s Christmas.” —Dale Evans

Sammy sends pupkisses and I send hugs and smiles and affections to you all.

Auntie Lenora and Sammy Brave Dog

Weird Laws of Physics

4 Replies

Weather in the Tries:

Hoo Boy — the lows will be 30 down to 26. The highs will be 34 to 45. No wonder a lot of animals hibernate. I think I’l like to be a bear, I could get my fill of fresh salmon and berries, and then go sleep it off all winter, to wake to spring sunshine and warmth.

Weird Laws of Physics:

Okay, it may not be physics, it may be a weird law of nature, or a weird law of an old God somewhere. I truly don’t know. If you do, please enlighten me in the Comment section.

I’m sure you’ve noticed when with another person and he yawns, you can’t help yourself, you yawn too. And more often than not, tell him to stop doing it. If the room is full of people, it doesn’t take long for everyone in the room to start yawning. Why? Surely, we aren’t all suddenly wanting a nap, or are we?

This sort of falls into the category of, “An interesting thing happened on my way to the Forum.” Oh, wait, it’s been so many years since I’ve been to the Forum I can’t remember. It was for sure, B. C. (before children). I was writing a text to a friend and wrote: “…pleasures of any size always expand when acknowledged. One of those rules I’ve never understood. Kinda like yawns. Once someone in the room yawns, everyone has to take a turn.” (A funny, as soon as I wrote the word ‘yawn,’ I had to yawn.) He responded that he did too. Several in a row. Once for each yawn typed. As did I. (yawn)

Did you just yawn, or want to? I had no idea I was susceptible to yawning just seeing the word, let alone typing it.

I looked up Yawn Contagion, and the answer is, nobody knows what causes it. People who study that stuff have all kinds of ideas, but no solid, cast in bronze, answers. Everything from mirroring to evolution, that if one person does it, it must be good to do, so everyone does it.

Ann Rice:

The gothic queen dies Saturday night. I believe it was from effects of a stroke she suffered. I enjoyed the books I read by her, except the Lestat books. My three favorites were and are, Ramses the Damned, Feast of All Saints, and Cry to Heaven. I understand she and her son, Christopher Rice wrote a sequel to Ramses the Damned that is due out next Spring. I can hardly wait.

Entertainment:

TV: MSNBC: Watched a delightful documentary, Paper and Glue. Even if you don’t normally watch that channel, check out when they will replay it again, or go online and see if you can find it. It’s about an artist named JR and his art is very large photos. He started as a graffiti artist in Paris. He has brought communities together, helped men in US Super Max prisons. It’s just a great 2 hours. You will feel better for having watched it than not.

Books: Remember, if I finish a book, I review it Rainy Day Reads

I’m a little over halfway through Humans of Climate Change: A Cultural Journey to Explore Climate-Change Impacts, Solutions, and Hope —by Kaden Hogan. This is a fascinating book, and no matter what you think of Climate Change, I think this book would interest you.

Auntie Lenora’s Bookstore:

Please note, my Web Guru (I have a hard time calling her my Web Mistress because as you well know, Auntie Lenora does NOT like arachnids, and web builders remind me too much of the 8-legged critters. BTW, I have a rule, if I see one inside my house, it’s dead; if I see one outside in their house, I step around it, maybe photograph it, but I respect their home and by golly they should respect mine!) Anyhow, we have a new tab on the page: Bookstore, and if you have a book you’re written for sale, I’m happy to put it up there with all the information, such as how many pages, how much money (incl s/h if you ship). The ISBN so they can get it from their local bookseller if they want.

Quotes of the Week: from https://www.inspiringquotes.us/topic/3683-yawning

“A Yawn may not be polite, but at least it’s an honest opinion.”

“A yawn is a silent scream for a coffee.”

You may have noticed your Coffee Break Escape is a tad later than normal today. That’s because a very good friend of Auntie Lenora sent her a manuscript to read and comment on, and she was soooo excited about reading it she forgot to schedule it last night. It’s really Sammy Brave Dog’s fault—he is falling down on his chores and will have a sit-down with HR either later today or tomorrow to discuss. And isn’t that a shame, so close to Winter Holidays and all 😉 Happy Shopping!

Sorry, Wrong Number

2 Replies

Weather in the Tries:

Hoo Boy! I expected cold this past week, and the Weatherperson gave us warm, and winds. This next week will be cold. Maybe. I dunno. Lows in the low 30s, highs in the upper 30s and 40s. Maybe. If the Weatherperson was sober when s/he looked at the computer. How does s/he know? How do I know? Does anyone care?

Sorry, Wrong Number:

In reading some of the news, I came across a story about someone dialing a wrong number, it was one digit off her sister’s number, and she kept getting a stranger. They became friends over the phone, and after twenty years, met. A nice, feel-good story. It got me going down memory lane. Like many people, I no longer have a land line, and in the last few years, I quit answering the phone if I didn’t recognize the name or number of the caller. But sometimes wrong numbers can be fun.

Years ago, a very old gentleman kept calling me, at first by mistake, and then I think on purpose. My number was one digit off from his daughter. I lived in a relatively small town, and discussed it with a friend, and she knew the guy. Old, almost blind, and crippled with arthritis. His wife was old, but not as old as he, and I think she was totally blind. He was great fun to talk with.

I grew up in Portland, Oregon. We had four elementary schools with Olympic regulation-sized swimming pools. I learned to swim in one of them. When Mom and I moved, our new phone number was one digit off from another school’s pool. We got lots of strange calls, but the one I loved the best was some woman called and identified herself as Johnny’s mother and she would be there in fifteen minutes to pick him up. Please tell him. Then she hung up, before I could tell her I wasn’t the pool. I thought about calling the pool, but she was so self-important I didn’t. Sure enough about thirty minutes later she called back, angrier than the proverbial wet hen. Johnny hadn’t been ready and waiting when she got there! When she stopped talking to breathe, I told her she had the wrong number, and told her the correct number. She asked me why I didn’t tell her the first time, so I told her she hadn’t stopped talking long enough to tell her before she hung up. I believe the pause was one of those “pregnant pauses” we hear so much about.

One time, my phone number was a recycled one. It had belonged to a Taxi Company, but they went out of business. Of course, the phone number was by the phones of the ER receptionists, the truck stops, and various other places. I got some really great calls on that line, from long haul truckers who wanted a ride to a hotel to people who were in the hospital with loved ones and needed a ride home. Fortunately, each one was kind enough to remove my number. And then, we had an Arctic Express come to town, and dump over a foot of snow on us, in a very short time. Seattle just isn’t geared for that kind of a dump. Fortunately, it came at night, after the majority of worker bees were home.

I lived out a ways, and on my drive to work every day, I passed a university agriculture station, and that night of the snow, a woman called and told me she wanted to schedule a pick up for her husband who was Professor at the college and he couldn’t walk that far in snow. She started to give me detailed instructions as to her house, I told her I knew which one was hers, and described it, and told her I passed it every day on my sojourn to and from work, and that I wasn’t a taxi and I wasn’t going to work tomorrow, and I doubted any taxis would be out, to turn off her alarm and enjoy having her husband home an extra day.

The last wrong number I received for the Taxi Company was the next morning. A young lady called to order a cab. Uh, sorry, wrong number. She started to cry. How was she going to get to work? She’d just started a new job, and… The buses weren’t running, she couldn’t get her car out of the garage, and by now she was really crying. I suggested her boss would understand. Call and leave a message on her voice mail and go back to bed and enjoy her extra day off. Happiness is new telephone books with old numbers deleted.

Of course, when the phone rings in the middle of the night, one answers it, usually with adrenaline pumping—which kid is in trouble? Who died? Etc., and so forth. One number I had must have belonged to a couple of party girls, because I couldn’t convince the men who called at midnight and later, they had a wrong number. I finally put a message on my answering machine that said something like, “If you’re calling Jane Doe, she has moved out of the area, and no longer lives here. If you’re calling Lacy Doe, she too, has moved.” Then I turned the ringer off on my bedroom phone and started sleeping better. The messages the angered people left were pretty funny—not by intention.

I think it’s fortunate that caller id came out, at a glance or a listen, we no longer need to answer wrong numbers. What great chuckles, though, are we missing?

Photo of the Week:

Entertainment:

TV: Nothing.

Books: Remember, if I finish a book, the review is posted at Rainy Day Reads.

I have finished one full length book this week, Out of Violence Into Poetry by Margaret Randall. A marvelous book by a woman I wished I’d met when I lived in ABQ. I’d love to have a coffer with her and her wife.

I also finished two delightful chapbooks: The Light on Sifnos by Barbara Quick and Sin is Due to Open in a Room Above Kitty’s by Morag Anderson. All three are worth your investment in both time and money.

Auntie Lenora’s Bookstore:

Two books, both repeats, to consider for Winter/Christmas gifts:

A picture containing text

Description automatically generated

and

A picture containing text, building, outdoor, sign

Description automatically generated

You know these are both good books because a. they are advertised in Auntie Lenora’s Bookstore, and b. they both state on the cover they are Good. 😉 And, yes, in the interest of full disclosure, we are siblings.

Quotes of the Week: from: http://www.classicmoviehub.com/quotes/film/sorry-wrong-number-1948/page/1/ Henry Stevenson was played by Burt Lancaster in the 1948 movie, Sorry, Wrong Number.

Henry Stevenson: You can’t live on dreams forever. Waiting only weakens you and your dream. My motto is: “If you want something, get it now!”

Henry Stevenson: “Besides, what does a dame like you want with a guy like me?”

Wow, another week has passed us by. Sammy Brave Dog has faced the dried puppy brain eating zombies down, and most are gone now, looking for less ferocious puppies to tackle. And I’m about to get my wee gifts mailed tomorrow. I hope. Tuesday at the latest. Have a grand week, enjoy December while it’s here, and remember, it’s less than three weeks until…… 😉

Nothing in Particular

Auntie Lenora’s Bookstore

2 Replies

Weather in the Tries:

This next week highs will go from 45 to 57, with lows from 27 to 43. We’ll start the week with patchy freezing fog. Can you say, “Black Ice”? I’m sure we’ll get drizzle, a few drops of rain, and sunshine. Thursday will be 50 with a chance of rain—a good temp to avoid, stay in, and eat. 😉

Auntie Lenora’s Bookstore:

I decided to start a new feature this week: Auntie Lenora’s Bookstore. Come in, browse around, bring your cuppa, bring your snacks, buy books. Auntie Lenora’s Bookstore is never closed. Are you a night owl? The store is open at 2am. You can even come in your jammies. 😉 (please be quiet, ok? Auntie Lenora is a light sleeper.)

As you probably know, I have many friends who also write, and since the Winter Solstice, by whatever name you call it, is coming (oddly, it comes at the same time every year), I thought I’d give you some ideas for Solstice Gifts. Of course, they are books. I put a call out to the writers on my list and have some nice responses which you will see below. If you have a book you’d like to show, feel free to contact me. I see no reason why Auntie can’t operate her bookstore whenever a new book arrives, do you? 😉

My contribution to the National Day of Gluttony:

I’ve been invited to a friend’s home for dinner this coming Thursday. Because I have a sweet tooth, I am taking dessert. I am taking The BEST Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake in a 9×13 pan with a gingersnap crust and Plimoth Plantation’s Slow Cooker Indian Pudding. It isn’t as sweet as the cheesecake, I will have enough bourbon sauce for cheesecake and pudding, as well as enough whipped cream for both, so people can have their choice of toppings. I thought the Indian Pudding would be a nice tribute to the indigenous people, but guess what? It was made by the Pilgrims. They didn’t have as good a supply of wheat flour, so couldn’t make their beloved Hasty Pudding so they they used the local ingredients, cornmeal, and improvised. Yummmmm. Unfortunately, they didn’t go home when the meal was over, and are still here today. Since the uniform of the day is blue jeans and tee shirts, I’m going to wear my pink tee bought special for this occasion.

My neighbor is doing turkey and dressing, and oh, does he do them well! Yummmmmm. And I know what his secret ingredient is. Between the turkey and dressing and desserts, Auntie Lenora will not go hungry. Honest. Trust me. And someone is bringing a pecan pie. No, Auntie Lenora will not leave the table hungry. Have you ever heard of the Groaning Board? There shall be one on Thursday to hold all our food.

Some more good news for a change: Oklahoma decided not to indulge in legal blood lust, and the Guv commuted Julius Jones sentence to life in prison. I do not believe in the death penalty, ever. Though I admit there was one man I wished dead and did not cry when he died in prison. In fact, he was trying to stay out of prison to die at home, but Fate and I intervened. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving chap. But, if states must have their blood lust, then why don’t they go back to the old-time bit of using a firing squad. It’s quick, and over before pain has a chance to register, unlike the modern methods of suffocating them in a gas chamber, boiling them in an electric chair, or burning them from the inside out with chemicals, or maybe or maybe not breaking their neck with a rope? At any rate, in this one case, Kudos to Oklahoma!

Entertainment:

TV: nada. Requires more concentration than I have at the moment.

YouTube: I found a fascinating video, about an hour on Korean street food, primarily making dumplings, which I love. No talking, at least not much, and it’s in Hangul, so I couldn’t understand it anyhow (well, I did understand “Thank You,” (kam sa ham ni da) but that was all). Very entertaining. Makes me want to visit Korea. Not someday, but right now! Of all the Asian countries I’d like to visit—and I’d like to visit all, Korea is #1! I love dumplings and stuffed steamed breads (Hum Bao in Chinese).

Books: Remember, if I finish a book, I review it at: Rainy Day Reads

Their War —by Julie Pham, PhD. I saw Dr. Pham on a zoom discussion talk about her book and ordered a copy before the end of the show. It is primarily interviews with South Vietnamese military veterans and their recollections about the war and American participation. I found it fascinating to get their side of the story.

Started Murder at the Mission by Blaine Harden. A new history of Dr. Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and their mission near current day Walla Walla. A topic of fascination for years.

Also reading two books by Margaret Randall. One is poetry, Out of Violence into Poetry. The other is Thinking About Thinking — Not Quite Essays.

Got to a point in The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates where I had to stop. Pretty intense, especially considering Jim’s passing. I’ll get back to it. It is beautifully written and his debut novel.

Books require concentration, too, but easier to go back a page or three to reread.

Music: Have you heard The HU? They are a Mongolian heavy metal band, and a lot of fun. I love Wolf Totem and there are English lyrics. Surely there is a Native American heavy metal group out there someplace. I think it would be great fun to have a video of HU and Lakota meeting. They also incorporate the Mongolian throat singing into their music. There is another group, Hanggai, that plays more traditional rock and Mongolian fused together that I was just introduced to.

Auntie Lenora’s Bookstore:

If you have a book you’d like promoted here, please let me know. You may email me at my personal email, or use the Contact Me form if you don’t have it.

by Diane Helentjaris:

Poems of forging an American life. In 1910 Anastasius, in defiance of his father, immigrates from Greece to the United States. Diaspora speaks powerfully of the aftermath. Poverty, wars, miscommunications, new roles for women emerge. The family struggles to bridge the challenges of time and distance in the age before modern technology knit the world together. The word “diaspora” comes from the Greek term for “to scatter.” Today new immigrants scatter across the globe. Diane Helentjaris, in her debut chapbook, shares the story of one of the many immigrants who went before them. Poetry lovers – teens and adults – with an interest in family, justice, immigration, women’s history, and modern Greece will enjoy this strongly themed collection.

Here’s one of the five star reviews:

This year, 2021, is the bicentennial of the Greek War of Independence, and what better way to celebrate it than with poetry about Greece.

These poems touched me to the core, and I enjoyed reading every one of them! They evoked strong images in my mind of the poet’s Greek past, as she shares nostalgic memories of her family members. Each person in the poems felt so alive.

ASIN: ‎ B08YXZDLQ

ISBN: 9798721584541

Diaspora is available on Amazon as a paperback or in an electronic version (Kindle). Signed copies are available for $10 which includes shipping and handling. To buy a signed copy, message me through my website www.dianehelentjaris.com.

by Mark Fleisher:

Each book is $15 plus $3 for s/h if ordered from me (signed copies, of course). The books are also available from the giant behemoth retailer whose name is that of a very major South American river. Copies will not be signed — unless Jeff Bezos is available.

Reflections: Soundings from the Deep

ISBN: 9781940769905

“Narratives weaving no-nonsense poetry and prose tales while at times throwing readers a stream-of-consciousness curveball.”

Intersections: Poems from the Crossroads

ISBN: 9781940769547

“Hammers home the futility of war while tenderly exploring family and relationships with a lyrical, image-filled style.”

Moments of Time

ISBN: 9781940769295

“Recalling youthful years in New York City, the horrific inhumanity of Vietnam, a major personal loss, and finding new life in an unfamiliar place.”

Mark’s emails are: markfleisher111@gmail.com & markflleisher333@gmail.com

by Mary Freericks:

I have an M.F.A. in poetry from Columbia University.

I have four volumes of poetry memoirs. They are self-published and available on Amazon.

“Blue Watermelon,” “Cheer for Freedom,” “Furs for a Vegetarian,” and “Green Eyes.” The last two were published 2020.

“Furs for a Vegetarian” focuses on her artist mother, Sonia Avakian, who studied with Kandinsky in Moscow. She escaped starvation and the communists through marriage and her move to Iran. After Papa’s unexpected death she took a Victory Ship with her two sons and daughter to the U.S.A.

Price: $15 paper back plus shipping of $4.00 if ordered from Mary.

ISBN: 978169385512.

“Green Eyes” is a love story set on the East Coast joining together of an American-German heritage civil engineer with an Armenian-Russian graduate in the arts. They share love, raise sons, travel, till tragedy strikes. The poetry is joyful, sensual, heart rending.

Price: $15 paper back plus shipping of $4.00 if ordered from Mary.

ISBN: 9798649872775

If you would like a signed copy please contact Mary at maryfreericks@yahoo.com

I think it goes without saying but all prices above and shipping/handling are for the USA. If you live overseas and would like a copy, you can probably order it from that certain large company named after a rather large South American river–and get it from your country or area.–Auntie Lenora

Quotes of the Week:

“You see, bookshops are dreams built of wood and paper. They are time travel and escape and knowledge and power. They are, simply put, the best of places.” —Jen Campbell

“I love walking into a bookstore. It’s like all my friends are sitting on shelves, waving their pages at me.” —Tahereh Mafi

And there it is. Another week come, another week gone, another Coffee Break Escape, and the Winter Solstice (and all the marvelous holidays associated with it) gets closer and closer–you know, like it does every year. Sammy Brave Dog is ignoring the whole thing. He really prefers foods on time and a warm bed to snuggle in. He’s happy.

James “Jim” Walter Fiscus

Dune Again

2 Replies

Weather in the Tries: Oh, yay! We are back to PST. Spring forward, fall back. I just wish ‘They’ would choose a time and make it all year long. Daylight, Standard, or split the difference! Sorry for the rant. Most of our days will be in the mid to upper 50s, one day with a 40% chance of rain, and the overnight lows from 34 to 43. Yep. Fall has done fell.

Dune Again:

Remember last week when I reviewed Dune, and asked if any of you, or your friends, had seen the movie but not read the book and if so, did the movie make sense? Well, Craig Good (my brother) reviewed Dune 2021 on Letterboxd and indeed, a friend of his saw the latest movie, and had not read the book, and had no trouble following the story. I haven’t seen it again, but I hope to, soon, though the 3D version seems to have left the area so I’ll have to contend with the regular movie. Oh, well. It will give me a good comparison.

Do give Craig’s review a read-through. He brings a totally different element to his reviews than I do to mine. He’s worked in the industry for a long time—like, his whole adult working life 😉

News Again:

A week or two ago, Mary MacCarthy was questioned about human trafficking while she was traveling with her bi-racial daughter, Moira. A lot has been said but the one thing I’ve missed is the relief, the gratefulness of the airlines personnel who flagged the mother/daughter for possible trafficking. They were already in grief over the death of a family member, so weren’t acting “normal” when they boarded. They were quiet. For whatever reasons, they set off alarms, and those alarms were acted on.

It must have been a horrible thing, both for Mrs. MacCarthy as well as her daughter, who can be heard crying off camera. But at least the flight crew who reported it, and the cops were trying to protect the child from a nightmarish fate, if in fact, she had been kidnapped and was being trafficked. Now, if it was simply a brown skinned child with a white skinned woman, so of course there had to be something wrong with that picture, then it is not okay. Not okay for the flight crew to have thought that, and not okay for the cops to have acted on it. And if that’s the story, then shame on them all and may they lose some pay over it. Lots of pay. Enough to make them hurt.

But if it was not racial profiling, if they were in fact concerned for the child’s welfare, then hats off to them for thinking of the brown-skinned child and trying to save her. The world will be a much better place when we all have tea colored skin!

Photo of the Week:

Visited a friend last weekend, and there was a squirrel who played in the back. The poor thing was so camera shy, I never could see/shoot more of his face than what I got here. Not sure what the plant behind him is, but he sure loved playing, searching for foods in that one spot.

Entertainment:

Book: Remember, if I finish a book, I (eventually) post a review at Rainy Day Reads

Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans —by Melanie Mitchell

My book group chose this book. It’s not one that would have normally found its way into my stack of ‘to read’ books, but I wanted to give it an honest try. I believe it was about halfway through chapter 5 that she snagged me. She talked about her time in school when she got zero on a math page of problems. She had the right answers but hadn’t proved her work. By golly, that happened to me, too. Only I got 50% for having the correct answers. After that, I had to prove my work, show that I knew how to get the answer. And I had to do it algebraically. Some of the most fascinating parts in the book was looking at two photos of the same object. In one, the computer guessed correctly in the identical looking one, it was way off. If the picture was of a dog, it would be a dog in one and an ostrich in the other. But they looked alike. Well, no, not quite. Someone had sabotaged the second identical photo by moving/deleting a few pixels just enough to through the computer off. A stop sign might have a couple of pixels added/deleted that the human eye couldn’t detect, but the computer could, and it might read it as a speed sign instead of a stop sign. Not so go on a self-driving car, eh?

Anyhow, I’m going to give her 5 Stars when I post my review. Ms. Mitchell took a subject in which I had no interest and wrote about it in such a way I finished the book early. By the time I finished, I realized I did have an interest in it. Oh, not enough to rush out and take college level courses in it, but I now have a better understanding of AI, and find it less frightening (that seems too strong a word) than I did before.

Quote of the Week:

“Forget artificial intelligence – in the brave new world of big data, it’s artificial idiocy we should be looking out for.” —Tom Chatfield

So, Gentle Readers, another week has come and gone, and you know what? Winter Solstice is coming. Yes, it is. Honest. Trust me. And with it an array of holidays from several different religions. If you know the person is a member of one, by all means greet them appropriately, but if unsure, Happy Holidays covers Kwanzaa, Christmas, Solstice and at least a dozen more. And remember, the Solstice is the Reason for the Season. The nights will get shorter, the days longer, and our politicians can mess with our minds and sleep cycles once again when it’s time to turn our clocks ahead an hour.

Happy Halloween (a day late)

Coffee Break Escapes with Auntie Lenora

Short readings for short times

Category Archives: Uncategorized

And the good news is…

Happy Twenty Twenty-Two!

Merry Holidays!!!

Photo on Card:

Poem on back of Winter Letter:

Books Read This Year:

My ten most Favoritest:

My 10 most Favoritest (mostly Netflix) Movies & Series:

Winter Holiday Quotes

Weird Laws of Physics

Sorry, Wrong Number

Nothing in Particular

Auntie Lenora’s Bookstore

James “Jim” Walter Fiscus

Dune Again

Happy Halloween (a day late)