Today. :-(

Well, I usually blog on Wednesday and Saturdays, but today was one of those days when everything goes wrong. 

I won’t bore or depress you with the list, but there were also some good things like chats with good people. I’ll try to do better and post something as usual on Saturday.

Silly Sunday

Words of Wisdom and Warning:

Whether you call it a sofa or a couch, don’t brush your teeth with it.

Time

Time

It seems like Christmas was a very short time ago, but February will start in less than a week.

Years, months, days, morning, noon, and night are caused by the rotation of our planet and its journey around the sun. But weeks, hours, minutes and seconds are human inventions. 

The Romans originally named the months after their dietys and powerful people. Their calendar year began with March because that’s when Spring started. The months were alternating 30 and 31 days. 

But when Augustus became Caesar and had a month named after him he wanted it to be as long as July, the month already named for Julius Caesar. So he took one day from the February, the last month of their year, and added it to August.

Of course February usually only has 28 days instead of the 29 in leap years.

Let’s enjoy it while it lasts.

ASL Book

I used to work at California School for the Deaf and raised three Deaf foster kids. I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area most of my life.

I was thrilled to read You Don’t Know everything Jilly P by Alex Gino because it perfectly portrayed what the culture in that area is like. 

The story is about a hearing girl who has a Deaf sister and becomes friends with a Deaf boy through an internet chat group. 

Things have changed a lot since I worked at CSD. The internet didn’t exist yet and the school was in Berkeley instead of Fremont. The book shows today’s culture in the area perfectly.

Alex Gino is a skilled writer and made me care about all the characters as the story unfolded.

The book will help readers understand differences while carrying them along with a dramatic plot. And they might even learn a little ASL (American Sign Language.)

Silly Sunday

Silly Sunday words of wisdom and warning

If your nose runs, don’t chase it.

Stories

When I was a kid my grandfather lived with us.

Every day when we came home from school he’d tell us stories about his life in San Francisco in the 1800s and early 1900s.

We’d hear about the newly invented game of base ball, the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, and how he heard the detective who caught the evil Black Bart tell how he did that.

And Gramp would play his five-stringed banjo and teach us to sing old songs from that time.

Often we’d wish we could just go out and play, but now I’m so glad I got to hear all his stories.

I wish I could tell my grandkids about his stories and things that happened in my own childhood, but they don’t live near me. And they’d probably rather play video games anyway.

Do you share stories with people in your family?

Words of Wisdom and Warning

Here's my silly post for the week.

Never peel an elephant.

Mystery

Yesterday I heard a faint, high-pitched sound that seemed to be coming from the ceiling.

 It was too soft to be from a smoke alarm, and every time I moved under one of the alarms the sound seemed to be coming from another direction. 

I followed it around the house, but always heard it coming from somewhere other than where I was standing.

It was driving me crazy!

I asked a neighbor with mechanical skills to come in and help me find it, but he was hard of hearing and couldn’t hear it at all.

The sound continued for several hours.

Finally I decided to sit down and read, hoping that would distract me from the frustrating sound. My dog jumped up onto my lap and the mystery was solved!

The sound was coming from the collar she wears to keep her from barking. Normally it emits a sound only dogs can hear if she barks, but the slightly lower sound is to let me know the battery is low.

I removed the battery and replaced it with a new one and the sound was gone.

Whew! What a relief!

Snared

It’s a good thing last Saturday was a rainy day and I didn’t have to go anywhere because when I started reading Snared, Escape to the Above I couldn’t put it down.

I love the creative concept of an underground fantasy world where the residents have never seen the light of day.

The characters seem real, and I felt like I was experiencing the adventures Wily Snare must  deal with.

This book must be the first in a series but, unlike some series books, it has a satisfying conclusion.

I look forward to reading the next book by Adam Jay Epstein.

Words of Wisdom and Warning

I've decided to post short things in this category every week as long as I can think of some.

Here's the first one: Do not put bananas in your ears.

Apology

Apology

I blogged twice a week with almost no exceptions for many years. But, lately, I’ve often been remiss in posting anything to my blog.

Between moving, unpacking, and the holiday season, writing blog posts became lower on my To-Do lists. 

I’m sorry if anyone has missed my posts, though I’ve still been active on Facebook. And I’ll try to get back to blogging about three of my favorite things, words, books, and kids, soon.