New quotes: wise advice listed on BuzzFeed

Comparison is the thief of joy.

Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.

Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans.

Be the person you needed when you were younger.

At the Movies

Yesterday I went to a movie.  On the spur of the moment I decided to see "The Good Liar."  So off I went to the Edwards Theater, bought my ticket, chose my seat and settled down to see the movie. 

 After an endless list of previews, the movie began.  I enjoyed it, but I would have enjoyed it more had it not been for the man two seats from me.  About a third  through the movie, I heard a strange sound.  At first I thought it might be sounds effects but that didn't make sense at that point in the story.  Maybe it was a noise from the theater, but no.  Then I looked to my right.  The seat next to me was empty, but next to that, the man on the end of the row had his head down and was snoring--not just a gentle snore but a huge, loud snore over and over again.  On my other side was a enjoying their popcorn.  I looked past them to see if there were empty seats around us.  The man turned to me and whispered, "Something wrong?"  I pointed to Snoring Guy.  He nodded and after a few minutes left his seat.  Shortly after that a young man who worked at the theater appeared in the entrance.  The man beside me waved his hand.  The worker came up to our row, woke Snoring Man and whispered something to him.   He sat up, stayed awake for a while, then resumed his nap.

I wondered who would pay more than $10 to take a nap?  I wondered if I should say something to him when we exited the row, something like, "I hope you enjoyed your nap," perhaps adding, "I didn't."  But that seemed rude and possibly dangerous.  You never know about people these days.  So I left quietly. wondering where he went next.

What would you have done/said/thought?

More Quotes from BuzzFeed

Don't practice until you get it right; practice until you can't get it wrong.

In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.

Make time for planning.  Wars are won in the general's tent.

Hate is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies.

We have two lives, the second being when we realize we only have one.

Do not regret growing older.  It is a privilege denied to many.

All those days that came and went--little did I know that they were life.

Books, Authors and More

The JCC Book and Arts Festival in Houston was last week.  "So many books, so little time..."

I first saw Gloria Steinem.  She appeared at Temple Emanu-el.  Her session sold out long before the Book Fair.  The sanctuary was packed--2,000 people attended.  I noticed that some women brought their young daughters.  She has a new book out:  The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off. Pro: She's still going strong at 85! Con:  A lot of what she said I'd heard before. I was most impressed that during the Q&A, several 14 year-old spoke up.  The next generation is coming along!

My next evening was a documentary on the making of Fiddler on the Roof.  Fascinating, and of course, it contained some of the iconic songs.  Since I just saw the musical in New York a couple of weeks ago, I am singng Sunrise Sunset and If I Were a Rich Man in the shower.

Next was Karen Armstrong speaking at the Progressive Forum.  A former nun, she is one of the most respected writers on world religions.  She was interesting and also quite amusing at times.  Her book, The Lost Art of Scripture, was given out.  It may take the rest of my life for me to read it: it's about 500 pages (no pictures!)

Lori Gottlieb spoke about her best selling book Maybe You Should Talk to Someone.  She was a great speaker and her book sold out.  It's about several patients in her therapy practice as well as her own sessions with a therapist during a difficult time in her life.  It's on my TBR list.

Finally, I saw The Simon and Garfunkel Story which featured two guys dressed as Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel (A.G. had those blond curls).  Their background, how they got into music and of course, some of their best-loved songs like "Sounds of Silence" and "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" were featured.  It was fun.

To complete my literary week, my book club met this morning to discuss An American Marriage and have brunch at Bellagreen.

Now I'm ready to get back to just reading at home.

 

quotes for the week

Last week BuzzFeed asked readers to send in the wisest advice they'd ever heard.  Here are some answers:

"The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion."

"We judge ourselves by our intentions, but we judge others by their behavior."

"Don't take criticism from someone you wouldn't take advice from."

"Learning from mistakes is one of the best ways to learn, but there's no reason those mistakes have to be your own."

     More from BuzzFeed next week.

Saving the Environment Way Back When

Note:  I copied this from a friend's Facebook page.  I hope you enjoy it.

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environment,.
The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days."
The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."
The older lady said that she was right our generation didn't have the "green thing" in its day. The older lady went on to explain:

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.

But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day. Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable besides household garbage bags was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags.

But, too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then. We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.

Back then we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts. Wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days.
Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.
Back then we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana.
In the kitchen we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us.
When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.
Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power.
We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blade in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the "green thing" back then.
Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the "green thing."
We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.
But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then?
Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person. We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off... Especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smartass who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much.

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quotes for the week

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.

Thoreau

By bedside and easy chair, books promise

a very swift and silent release from this world into another,

with no current involved but the free

and scarcely detectable crackle of brain cells.

John Updike

Even an ice cream parlor--a definite advantage--does not

alleviate the sorrow I feel for a town without a bookstore.

Natalie Goldberg

Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head

instead of one's own.

Arthur Schopenhauer

The best moments in reading are when you come across something--

a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things--

which you had thought special and particular to you.

Now here it is, set down by someone else,

a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead,

and it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.

Alan Bennett

Books of October

No, even though I used to write romance novels,  I was not the person who suggested this book for my book club, but I was intrigued by the title.  It's both cooky and strange--the story of a young girl's coming of age and finding love interspersed with chapters from her favorite book, The Pirate Lover. And, oh yes, she's aided in her quest by her deceased sister and--get this--also by her deceased dog, who wears high heels in the afterlife.

I was attracted to this book because, face it, I'm an elder.  Why I read the whole thing, I'm not sure.  The author is a geriatrician and her premise is that the majority of doctors have no clue about treating elderly people but are focused on curing illnesses without attention to the patient's quality of life.  She's probably right about that, but the book might have worked better as an essay.  It was very long and redundant and also pretty depressing.  My one-sentence description above tells it all.