Inch Five: A New Number

That's an exclamation point on the end! 

Last Friday, I turned 70.

70. 

That was a number, given my initial diagnosis of multiple myeloma (an incurable bone marrow cancer) in 2004, that I never expected to reach.

Ever.

And there have been major health issues since that initial diagnosis that made 70 unlikely. The initial stem cell transplants in 2005 that failed within 90 days? I learned years later that failure changed my prognosis to 18 months. Maybe.

70.

As with many cancers and other terminal illnesses, I have had many times, some chronicled in this blog and all in my personal medical notes, where my overall health declined and the myeloma increased.

70.

And let's not forget my spectacular non-cancer hospitalization in 2023, where I coded in front of my dear Warren, and my less spectacular but still splashy one in 2025.

70.

When I was diagnosed, Sam was 14. I hoped to live long enough to see him reach 18, so my ex-spouse would not be his sole custodian. Sam will be 36 this June.

70.

When I was diagnosed, Ben was just wrapping up his first semester of college. He is now 40, married to Alix for the past almost 16 years, and the father of Orlando and Ramona. 

70.

I never expected to live long enough to see (assuming they were in the cards) grandchildren, let alone the three (don't forget Lyrick!) we have and a 4th one (Warren's daughter) on the way.

70.

20 years ago this summer, Warren and I started to explore a relationship. We had a long, heartfelt, serious discussion (while eating homemade carrot cake in the lot at a grain elevator/railroad crossing in nearby Radnor) about my health. I knew I already loved him dearly, but did not want him or us to go any further without him hearing the scope of my health and my medical needs. Warren listened quietly, then said, "I'm already there for you as your friend. Why would that change?" He made it clear that our being a couple would only deepen that commitment. And he has shown that every single day since.

70.

My birthday (and the days leading up to and then the days after) was filled with texts and cards and emails and calls from all over. The April Justice Bus was the day before and I got birthday hugs from my colleagues. The Day itself included a front door chorus of former coworkers from Juvenile/Probate Court that our friend and neighbor (and judge) Dave had gathered and walked over to our house to sing "Happy Birthday." Later that day, our friend (and conductor and internally known trombonist) Jaime called me and serenaded me on trombone ("Happy Birthday," of course) and then was joined by his dear wife and mother-in-law to shower me with love and birthday wishes.

70.

Alice's Clay Contribution

Our neighbors on one side made me a loaf of "70 bread," and their daughter Alice made me a 70 in polymer clay. 

70.

Birthday Peeps! 

Our neighbors on the other side had me over for tea, Peeps, and a candle to blow out. That sash I am wearing? Dear friends from long ago Stockton days sent that, knowing I was not a "tiara girl."

Sparkly sash and all! 

70.

So here I am, at an age I never thought I would see, and savoring the sweet time.

70.

Time

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

16 years ago today, I penned my very first blog post. If I counted correctly, this will be my 926th post. 

925 posts behind me and 5844 days between that first March 17th and today. In those first early years, I was very prolific. After that, I seem to have hit a rhythm of 40-50 posts a year, except when I fell totally off the wagon and only posted 8 in 2021. (8? Eight? I still can't figure out 2021.)

A lot has happened in those 16 years: changes in employment, changes in family (Ramona! Lyrick! Orlando!), changes in health. Over these years. there have been losses along the way, most poignantly Aunt Ginger and dear Doug. 

Many other things have stayed the same. I am grateful beyond grateful that Warren and I still continue to share our lives and our home and our dreams. I continue to be very, very rich in friends.  I continue to give my heart to this community. 

If you had asked me back in 2009 when I first started writing if I thought I would even be alive in 2025, given my incurable myeloma, I would have been blunt: "No." (That answer would have based on what my body was doing, not what the statistics were. My longtime oncologist here, Tim, told me the very first time to ignore the statistics on life expectancy with myeloma and I always have.) 

But here I am after all. And here's to another year. Thanks for being with me for another trip around the sun! 

Looking Back

The 2013 book with the box of prompts

I have often chronicled my attempts to get back to and stay in the habit of writing on a daily basis. Writing writing, that is: essays, posts, poetry, that unfinished novel (well, more than one). And, in all honesty, my attempts run in fits and starts, depending on what else I am working on or involved with, what else is going on in the family, the Symphony, the community, the world, and how I feel physically. 

So many excuses, so little time, perhaps, but also so many other passions and commitments that I cannot just set aside.

Back in May of 2013, I blogged about one such attempt to write regularly using prompts. And I actually did it for a short amount of time. A very short amount of time. I don't know what happened to the box of prompts (well, I know they probably got tossed at some point). I do still have that notebook, however, and have dipped into it from time to time, including recently, trying to make sense of writing. Or life. Or both. In doing so, I have been flipping back through it and looking at the prompts I did write those many years ago.

I surely was rereading Dante's Divine Comedy at the time, or at least the first book, Inferno, because references to it and him pop up in a few of my 2013 prompt responses. I was dealing with the resurgence of the myeloma and the impact of new treatment on it. (Well, there's a familiar theme that I managed to tie into several prompts.) I wrote about walking and seeds and time. 

Time. Always time. Time is always threaded through my thoughts and my words. I certainly did not write in 2013 thinking that I would reread those words in 2022. But here I am and here are my words.

Below is a writing from that 2013 era. I allowed myself five minutes only to respond to a prompt; I have not edited it or polished it for today. The prompt was a quote by Alix Kate Shulman, "Amor fati goes the Latin proverb now tacked up over my desk: accept what is—literally, love fate."

***
Love fate? But fate is a wild card dealer. If this were Las Vegas, fate would be sitting in the dealer's seat, dealing the cards, no smile on her face, her hands flicking them silently and precisely to my seat.

No indication in her cold stone green stare what she has sent skimming my way.

So fate deals. Only this is the truth Tim told me years ago: You got one lousy card in your hand—myeloma. The rest look to be pretty good.

So what do I have? My kids, Alise, Ramona. David. Warren above all. A job, family, friends. Food & shelter. Laughter. Writing prompts. Being able to walk to work, to downtown, to the library.

Maybe it is not so hard to accept what fate has dealt. Or rather, what is. Love fate.

Maybe if I stepped away from the card table & opened both hands—stand outside, stand by the ocean, stand under the stars—then I love fate. I love what is.

Back to those stars, Dante's stars. I come out from my rant about loving fate and see the stars above.

****

My, oh my. 

Some things have changed: Alix, fna Alise, is my child-in-law. The grandchild count has gone up, the family has both expanded and contracted. I no longer work, but I still walk everywhere. 

And the sight of the stars still renders me silent and grateful.

And how it looks in 2022

October Money Review

As we start to wind down the year, I took a long hard look at my food dollars and did some calculating. Based on what we spent in October (keep reading), if we spent $175.00 and no more in the months of November and December, we would finish the year averaging $180.33 a month for all of 2019. That would be just above our goal of $175.00 a month for the year. We would have to spend no more than $140.00 in both November and December to bring the yearly average to $175.00. I'm not sure we will hit that mark.

As I look ahead to next year, one thing I am going to start calculating into our overall food costs is our eating out costs. I have been tracking those dollars for a few years, but do not count them in the $175.00 a month goal. The bulk of our eating out dollars directly relates to travel, especially Mayo and conferences, and performances, especially those in Mansfield when dress rehearsal falls in the afternoon, followed by a mid-evening concert. Yeah, some of our eating out dollars are just us taking the easy way out, and I still very occasionally have tea with a friend, but the bulk of the expenses are related to not being home. I will have to take a long, hard look at what we spent this year (and how much was strictly pleasure versus the travel/concert issue) and come up with some realistic targets for 2020. Just saying.

So what did October look like? In groceries (food), we spent $179.78, which, I am thrilled to say, included the reception we hosted after opening the Symphony's 41st Season. Back in April, I had budgeted $75.00 for the end-of-season reception and wildly overshot that amount, spending double those dollars. For this reception, based not in small part of on my notes of what worked and what didn't back in April, I spent a grand total of $67.38 for a wonderful reception (with a lot of leftovers)! So that revamping of our reception spending made a significant contribution to our overall monthly bottom line.

As for household items, our October expenses were a modest $5.18. Total spent in October? $184.96, $10.00 over the $175.00 goal. Monthly average for the year? $182.06.

As for eating out, our costs were not outrageous, but scaled up towards the end of the month because I had a conference in downtown Pittsburgh and the expenses were higher. (Most of the eating out expenses from Pittsburgh will hit in November and I will be reimbursed for much of my food costs, but it was still expensive.) Our eating out costs in October were $117.41, counting tips. That's pretty high for us.

One of those eating out occasions was due to my not standing firm on not eating out in a training session. Along with some close coworkers, I attended a lengthy training session through our local school district, with the training located in our downtown. As I always do with local training, I frugally packed my lunch. I had it with me. When the lunch break came, everyone started making plans to walk to different places downtown and done together. Everyone. I said "I brought a lunch." I got pushback. Then I said "Lunch is my most difficult meal to eat out because of where I'm at in my health" (a true statement). I got pushback. Loving, friendly, come-join-us pushback, but pushback all the same.

And I folded. I walked to lunch, I ended up sitting with some attendees I did not know well or at all but got to know a little (a positive), I ate very frugally ($6.00 with the tip), I took the planned walk to the library immediately afterwards so I could drop off the library book I had brought with me (a chore accomplished), and I ate the packed lunch the next day (so no waste). Was I better for joining the others? Perhaps. Certainly in the sense of getting to know attendees (all school employees) and sharing stories. That's always a plus. But I am nonetheless embarrassed that I let the peer pressure get to me. I'm 631/2 years old. I should be over this.

So that was October. As I noted in my last review, we did indeed miss Halloween. It snowed lightly in Delaware that night. (It probably snowed in Pittsburgh too, but I was inside.) According to a friend down the street, Halloween foot traffic was light as a result. So yes, I missed Halloween but I also missed sitting outside on a bitter night.

Since I missed Halloween here, I took great pleasure when pictures from the west rolled in:

All three of them, Ramona being the dinosaur posing! 

And in true Halloween fashion, the youngest of the trio didn't even last past the third house:

November is swirling all around us. We just ate the last of the lettuce (which I moved inside before going to Pittsburgh, knowing it would be getting cold while we were gone). And I will eat the very last 2019 tomato tonight. The. Very. Last. Tomato. We are joining Thanksgiving, not hosting it; I already have dibs on the turkey carcass. So we'll see where the dollars fall when we come out the other side.

Back

We have been back for one week, having arrived back in Ohio last Sunday. I just finished catching up my accounts and am wending my way through paperwork I'd shoved aside before leaving. I'll post my August figures in the next day or two, but dollars take a backseat to these short glimpses.

Here are my sons, preparing a meal together, all grown up:

And here is Ramona, running into the ocean, just on the brink of being seven and beginning second grade (school started while we were there and she had her 7th birthday the day we left):

Lyrick will be three at the end of this week:

And this guy? Almost seven months old, almost crawling, and has an opinion on everything:

For the record, he was thoroughly approving of his sister making peanut butter cookies.

It's always good to be back home, but, oh, how I miss them!

Small Moment: Isn't That The Point?

We are packing tonight for an early morning flight to PDX. As I noted recently, there is one grandchild I am eager to meet for the first time, and two others I am anxious to spend time with again.

The bag from three years ago

I am again bound and determined to pack small and light. Three years ago, I managed to pack clothing for a conference and a visit in a bag approximately 9 x 18 x 9 inches. I told Warren to get that one out for me for this trip as well. Sticking to a trimmed list, I packed away.

Okay, I got almost everything in that I wanted to get in. But dang, that bag was heavy. And tight. And...

Too Full.

I am also carrying my go-everywhere bag, and it too was weighted down, mostly with things that did not fit into the bag.

Clearly I had to rethink my approach.I thought about what was in it: a minimal amount of clothing (we will be staying with Alise's parents, so we can do laundry). Some photos that I want to put in Sam and Ben's hands, culled from my parents' thousands of photos. My Chromebook layered in between a skirt and a pair of shorts.

[An aside: Warren is packing a big carryon and a small person bag as well. But I don't want to weigh him down with my stuff. ]

I looked again at my list, looked again at the little bag straining at the seams. What could go? What did I not need to bring?

Or rather, what did I need to bring most?

Once I reframed the question that way, the answer crystallized. Other than clothes, what I needed to bring most was me. Me as in being mindful and focused on enjoying my children and our grandchildren and our family. Me as in leaving behind a basket full of stresses and worries that have dogged me all summer. Me as in "I want to savor this time." 

"I want to savor this time."  Indeed, isn't that the point of my going?

Exactly.

Once I answered that question, I knew exactly what to pull out. Out came the Chromebook. It can stay behind for ten days. My world won't come to an end without access to Facebook and email and headlines. (Warren is bringing his laptop so he can do some Symphony work, but I generally do not get on his machine.)

Once I removed the machine, the bag gave a sigh of relief and zipped easily. I, too, gave a sigh of relief.

And now I am ready to go.

July Money Review

Following the extravagance of May and the parsimony of June, our July grocery bills looked pretty darn normal. When I sat down yesterday to run the totals, I confirmed this: $184.20 for food, $4.00 for household items, total $188.20. Yes, we nudged over the $175.00 I am hoping for each month, but just barely. And our year-to-date monthly average came in at a cool $161.33.

Our eating out expenditures were $80.99, about half of which were meals out with out-of-town friends. (I only count our share of those meals, not the total bill.) That's a huge reduction (about 75%) from our June expenditures.

Clearly the anticipation of meeting us is just overwhelming. 

August is going to be a challenge to come in around $175.00. We will be heading west for time with family, including the long anticipated introduction to Orlando, who will be just past the six month mark when we finally meet.

Last year when we were out west, I counted the groceries I bought, even when buying for the whole family. I will do the same this year. Even shopping at my beloved Winco, which will keep the costs rock bottom low, adds up when buying for ten to twelve people.

The bigger challenge for the August grocery spending will be that, even though it is only August 4 while I write this, we have already spent $142.43 in food ($119.45) and household ($22.98).

No, we did not buy lobster. Or anything remotely resembling lobster. But we did spend money restocking some basics (toilet paper among those items). We also spent some serious bucks on meat: about $10.00 on chicken thighs and $50.00 on salmon (8.5 pounds, but who's counting?). The salmon was a whale of a sale for local salmon prices; I cut it up this morning and wrapped it to freeze in meal portions. In the quantities we eat, that's a whole lot of meals; the final count was 13. (The chicken thighs already met a similar fate.) That comes to $3.85 a salmon meal, incidentally. What with all of our purchases and the items already in the freezer, I said to Warren, "We really only have to buy perishables from now until we leave."

And that simplistic sentiment was not inaccurate until I realized we are buying zucchinis at a locally owned farm market because dad's zucchini plant might get something on it before the first frost. (Let's just say it was a bad season for dad and his garden.) Warren and I eat a lot of zucchini during the winter; we slice and freeze it in quart bags all through the summer and into the fall.

Oh, and the first sweet corn is hitting the local farm market too. We do not eat as much sweet corn (cut off the cob and frozen into quart portions) as we do zucchini, but still, there will be sweet corn purchases.

So who knows what August will look like when all is said and done?

In other financial arenas, July held some major expenditures, chief among them airline tickets (which I had been saving for). It held some unexpected medical costs when an unexplained fever sent me to Urgent Care, at which the doctor took less than five minutes to send me straight on to the ER. I have really good health insurance through my job with Delaware County, but it was still a pricy night. I have a modest amount of money in an account separate from my regular checking account, so I could cover the costs, but it made me acutely aware of the whole issue of financial sustainability.

Financial sustainability is something that is out of reach of about 43% of the US population. It is very roughly defined as having enough income to meet your monthly expenses, ranging from housing and food to transportation, without having to beg, borrow, or go without. While some of those Americans in that 43% are those who live below the poverty line, a large and growing portion of them are what sociologists, United Ways nationwide, and a lot of others of us now refer to as ALICE.

ALICE stands for Asset Limited Income Constrained Employed. ALICE is in every state. ALICE knows no geographic, age, ethnic, or racial boundaries.

ALICE is a topic near and dear to my heart for several reasons. One is that many of the clients who come to our monthly free legal clinic are in the ALICE group. Another is that this fall I will be presenting at a national conference on the topic of ALICE and the legal system: how do we make sure those without means have access to justice?

But the major reason I am so keen on ALICE is that I have been ALICE. If I were not married to Warren, I would be ALICE now. And but for the fact that Warren owns his house without a mortgage, we would likely be ALICE. I have close friends and family members who are ALICE. And they are ALICE not because they are lazy or profligate spenders, but because the reality of today's economy is that financial sustainability is increasingly impossible to attain.

So as I sat there in ER and the very nice staffer informed me that my ER cost would be $150.00 and how would I like to pay that, I was grateful I had the means to take care of it right then and there, without having to calculate wildly how many months I could stretch it out over (as I have had to do in my ALICE past). And it made me think of all those who come through those doors (or through the grocery line or to the landlord) who do not have that ability.

As I mentioned back in January, I knew 2019 would hold challenges. We are both starting to look at retirement "somewhere" in the future. I don't turn 65 until April 2021 and cannot retire until Medicare kicks in (assuming that such a thing even exists in 2021) but am starting to look at that date (assuming I don't die before then). Warren sailed past his 65th birthday, a huge relief for me knowing that if I did die while still employed by the County, he would have medical insurance. While we are just starting to kick around what-might-this-look-like? when we talk, we are aware that our financial situation will change significantly when we both step away from drawing a paycheck. Other friends in our age range are having the same discussions; we compare notes in letters and emails and conversations.

More to come.

But first comes our trip and these little ones:

Lyrick will be turning 3 next month. Ramona is on the cusp of turning 7 and starting 2nd grade. Her school got a whole new building built over the summer. I'm excited because we will be there to tour it at the open house and watch her head off on her first day of school, an experience we missed last year because of the strike.

Wonderful times await.

Numbers

My friend Mark is at 5 years post cancer diagnosis this week.

My new grandson Orlando now weighs 8 (8!) pounds and has finally awake enough to regularly reveal his deep, dark eyes.

And speaking of grandchildren, Orlando just passed the 4 week mark, Lyrick is now 2½ years old, and Ramona hit a whopping 6½ years old on March 1. Wowsers! 

If my grandmother Skatzes were still alive, this would be her 126th St. Patrick's Day. Grandma had a lot of Irish blood in her and always, always wore a shamrock pin, often pinned to the top of her apron, on March 17. I received her last one, a gaudy green rhinestone shamrock pin, decades ago.

I can't tell you how many books I have read so far this year because I'm NOT counting them, but it has already been a lot. Thanks to my library's wonderful practice of putting year-to-date savings on my receipt when I check out, I know I have saved $785.73 this year by using the library.  I also know that more than a dozen (12!) books, some from the library, some from friends, are waiting for me on the coffee table. 

Pie Day is January 21 (or thereabouts) and Pi Day is March 14. (Get it?) I did not observe Pie Day, but did unintentionally observe Pi Day when we had a friend to supper that night and served (what else?) homemade apple pie for dessert.

I'm particularly proud of that whole meal, in fact, because every single item consumed came out of the pantry or freezer, and I did not go to the grocery store for one item. Not one! Given that the (minimal) cost of the food that went into that meal had already been accounted for in earlier monthly food reports or was free, I tallied the cost of that meal at...wait for it...zero.

0! 

And this blog? 10 years old today, when I first opened the door.  For the record, this is my 710th post, all of which, with two exceptions, have been written by me. 

So happy anniversary to me! (And thank you, friend and fellow blogger, Ellen Rosentreter, for reminding me I was reaching this milestone.)

Small Moment

We have been clearing out stuff: old stuff, used stuff, discarded stuff, no-longer-needed stuff. Bags of stuff are piling up in my study to go to Goodwill sometime soon. Boxes of stuff are downstairs in the basement to exit to somewhere else.

As part of all this un-stuffing, Warren's son David, about to turn 29, came and went through boxes of his stuff: old toys and such in the basement and the contents of his bedroom closet, which has been packed full since I moved into this house over a decade ago.

David's stuff in his closet spanned from the years from grade school through high school. Old science fair boards, books, Boy Scout pamphlets, camping equipment, drumsticks from high school band, reports, a chemistry book. Stuff.

With his dad's input and my looking on, David sorted through it all, dividing the piles into "keep until later" (one or two boxes neatly packed and slid back into the closet), "take now" (a hefty pile), "give away" (several of the bags sitting on my study floor), and "throw away." It took a few hours, but in the end, the closet was usable and everyone was smiling.

I rescued a few items from the "give away" pile: two small stuffed animals to head west to Lyrick and Ramona. And I grabbed the Literature textbook from high school (from which year I do not know) because I love high school Lit texts (and still wish I could get my hands on the ones from my high schools years).

David pointed to the textbook and said there was a poem he used to sit and read over and over during class when he was bored (which he indicated was most of the time).

Really? Which one?

"Eldorado" by Edgar Allan Poe.

I flipped to the Poetry section of the book and found it. "Go ahead," I commanded.

David closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then quoted the first of the four stanzas:

Gaily bedight,
     A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
     Had journeyed long,
     Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

I applauded. "Well done, David!" I exclaimed. "Well done!"

Well done, indeed. This is, after all, someone who has never once indicated that he ever read, much less memorized, anything smacking of literature. Science, history, that kind of stuff? Absolutely. But poetry? I figured David was not unlike his father, who once searched on the map for Proof Rock in order to surprise me by traveling there (which still remains one of the all-time greatest acts of love my husband, who is a most romantic man, ever undertook, albeit unsuccessfully).

A lot of stuff exited that day. Afterwards, David exhaled loudly. "It felt good to get rid of all that stuff."

All that stuff and "Eldorado" too. Some days are made for keeping.

These Historic Days

Representatives Haaland and Davids embracing afterwards

On the 3rd of January, the 116th Congress was sworn in. This body has already received much attention as being the most diverse (in so many ways) Congress ever and there were many hand-to-my-heart moments fas I read about the new Representatives, especially the women elected to Congress.

Nothing moved me more deeply than the swearing in of two Native American women: Deb Haaland, New Mexico, a member of the Pueblo tribe, and Sharice Davids, Kansas, a member of the Ho-Chunk tribe. Haaland wore her regalia to her swearing in, signaling visually that the times they are a changin' indeed. I cried as stories popped up about them, about their swearing in, about the Native color guard present in D.C., about the hug (and tears) the two of them exchanged immediately afterwards.

On the same day, these photos popped up in my email from Mona, Alise's mother. She and Ramona were out shopping.

Here is Ramona with her beloved Nana:

And her is our granddaughter showing off her new hoops:

Ramona is a force to be reckoned with: bright, confident, full of energy. My father is a huge fan of hers. "That girl is going to be our first Native American president!" he will often exclaim.

He and I talked about the two new congresswomen and what it meant for this nation and what it meant to the tribes to have this representation. He repeated his prediction that Ramona will go far.

As the grandmother of two, soon to be three, Native children, I am grateful this moment has happened. I know that Ramona, Lyrick, and Orlando will face challenges in this country because of their ethnicities (all of them) and tribal connections (Montana Little Shell Chippewa tribe).

But I also know that a BIG door opened on January 3. 

Here's to their futures.

"Read GOOGY Eyes! GOOGY EYES!"

"GOOGY EYES!" 

I last caught up the book list just before vacation. We have been back over two weeks, and I am still recovering from that whole exhausting, wonderful experience. I slowed down while on vacation, but am regaining my reading pace.

So here's where I am since last time:
156. Happiness by Thich Nhat Hanh (this is one of two books I took with me on vacation; it is a small, beautiful treatise on meditation and (what else?) happiness)
157. Ten Little Dinosaurs by Pattie Schnetzler (Ramona's little cousin Lyrick adopted us as another set of grandparents and we adopted him as another grandchild while we were on vacation; this book was one that I read easily 30 times while I was there, often with Lyrick waving it and saying loudly and insistently "Read Googy Eyes, ganmaw! GOOGY EYES!" I figure any book I read that much, even a board book, gets listed; I read it enough times that if someone else read it and did not pronounce the dinosaur names [the scientific names] the way I did, Lyrick would shake his head and tell them so)

Lyrick, Ganmaw Apul and Googy Eyes 

158. LaRose by Louise Erdrich (Erdrich is a brilliant, gifted writer who does not write a false word; this novel explores an accidental shooting and the redemption of several lives in its aftermath)
159. Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by August Kleon (a quirky, impulse vacation buy while we stood in a FedEx storefront having sheet music printed; I may reread it in a few months and see what I think)
160. Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression—and the Unexpected Solutions by Johann Hari (this is a fascinating exploration of the author's own struggles with depression and his research into what some doctors feel causes depression: loss of connections in the community, in the workplace, in the home, in the greater world; it is a good jumping off place for some thoughtful discussion but read it with caution)
161. Jell-O Girls: A Family History by Allie Rowbottom (a feminist history, a family history, a story of love and loss and trauma by an heir to the Jell-O fortune)
162. The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King (back in the summer, we saw the documentary "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" about the life and work of Fred Rogers; this biography, not a film-related work, adds to the fuller picture of an absolutely amazing man)
163. The Garden Party by Grace Dane Mazur (this novel is what Anne Morrow Lindbergh's novella The Wedding Party could have been if she had been a stronger fiction writer; this takes place at the rehearsal dinner prior to the wedding of a couple from very different backgrounds)
164. My Abandonment by Peter Rock (I saw the trailer for a movie "Leave No Trace" earlier this summer and was intrigued enough by it to track down the underlying novel; this is a grim, dark work and I have to believe the film made it more palatable)
165. Clock Dance by Anne Tyler (thank you, Anne Tyler, for writing, and for setting Willa free at the very end to go to where she was loved and needed)
166. Squeezed: Why Our Families Can't Afford America by Alissa Quart (this book is about families and socio-economic challenges in today's America, as well as about broader issues of income equity, unstable job markets, living wages, and how we as a nation pay lip service to the notion that stable, healthy families are important)
167. Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters by Anne Boyd Rioux (this year is the 150th anniversary of the first blockbuster novel in the history of the world and Rioux explores the Alcott family, the writing of the book, its amazing publishing success, and why this is an important block in the wall of American literature, even though it is often overlooked as a "girls' book." As someone who has read Little Woman probably over 300 or more times, I get it)

My son Ben and I talked about Kindles when we were out there. He reads almost exclusively on Kindle, explaining how much he can carry around with him (true that). "I can get you one if you want, Mom," he said.

Not there yet.