Friday, January 31, 2020

Not a Shoe Shopping Weekly Link Round-Up




Last week marked my last appointment with Dr. K at John C. Lincoln's Wound Care Clinic. When that four-layer compression bandage was cut off and my leg revealed, everyone's first reaction was "Look at that skinny leg!" It's been so long since I've had a skinny right leg that it still looks strange even a week later. I was instructed to wear a double layer of a compression product called Tubigrip and that a nearby lymphedema clinic would be calling me to set up an appointment, then away I went.

On the way home, one of my first thoughts was about footwear. You see, I had to buy a pair of Crocs and modify the right shoe so it would fit around that huge compression bandage. You can see the triangle I cut out of the shoe in the photo.

Alas, when I got home and tried on my "normal" shoes, the right one still wouldn't fit, so the flowery Crocs remain my best buddies. Fortunately, I'm not related to Imelda Marcos (you young'uns might not catch my reference), so I won't be going on an immediate shoe shopping expedition.

How's my leg doing with the change of bandaging? It's still skinny, I'm happy to say, and I'm even more thrilled to report that this week will be the first time in I don't know how long that I'll be enjoying TWO non-medical excursions. One is a trip to The Poisoned Pen to see author Joe Ide, and the other is a trip to the zoo. Yippee! Yahoo! I'm charging up camera batteries and making sure everything is ready. Even though I'm so thrilled that I can barely sit still, I know I need to exercise caution. After each event, I need to come home and put the leg up. I'm also looking forward to that first appointment with the lymphedema clinic. I want to make sure this leg is pool ready when it's time.

Now let's head on out to the corral for those links. Head 'em up! Moooove 'em out!


►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄
  • The office is the pivotal new terrain for thrillers and gothic fiction.
  • This artist turns old CDs into stunning animal sculptures instead of throwing them away. 
  • Author Lee Child on why he never plots his novels.
  • A proposed book banning bill in Missouri could imprison librarians.
  • An ex-librarian and a bookseller plead guilty to stealing rare texts worth $8 million from a Pennsylvania library.
  • How the government came to decide the color of your food.
  • "Reading changed me": Prisoners at Jessup Correctional Institution are being inspired by books, from Obama to Outlander.
  • Two states. Eight textbooks. Two American stories. American history textbooks can differ across the country, in ways that are shaded by partisan politics.


►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄


►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄
  • Stray dogs may understand human signals, too.
  • Coyotes are poised to infiltrate South America.
  • A Japanese photographer captures a shy-at-first baby meerkat and its family in twenty-three pictures.
  • The Cornell Lab has a What Bird Are You Most Like? quiz. (I'm an American Kestrel.)
  • Angry geese interrupted a golf game by chasing an alligator down the course. (I know from experience that you don't want to mess around with an angry goose.) 
  • Eight species at risk of extinction in Arizona due to Trump's border wall construction.
  • An unusual urban bobcat has been spotted in Washington, DC.
  • A study found that "rollie pollies" (AKA pill bugs, woodlice, etc.) remove heavy metals from the soil and protect groundwater. How many times do we humans need to be shown that everything on this planet is here for a reason?)

►Elly Mae in Australia◄
  • Air-dropped carrots might be a temporary answer to a threatened wallaby's prayers.
  • Meet the team of dogs rescuing koalas injured in Australia's fires. 
  • Wombats are the heroes of the Australian fires, sheltering animals in their burrows.
  • How Patsy the Wonder Dog saved her flock of sheep as bushfires raged.


►The Happy Wanderer◄
  • Why Montana inspires so many great crime authors.
  • Aussie firefighters have saved the world's only groves of prehistoric Wollemi Pines
  • Attention Bibliophiles: These book towns should be your next vacation stops.

►Fascinating Folk◄
  • Forensic artist Betty Pat Gatliff, whose facial reconstructions helped solve crimes, has died at the age of 89. Here's what the New York Times had to say.
  • Barbara Neely, the activist-turned-crime writer who inspired a generation.


►I ♥ Lists & Quizzes◄



That's it for this week! Don't forget to stop by next Friday when I'll be sharing a freshly selected batch of links for your surfing pleasure.

Have a great weekend, and read something fabulous!


16 comments:

  1. Glad your leg is healing well. Love those crocs by the way.

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    1. Thanks. I wanted something that would stand out! LOL

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  2. Look at you! Styling with those Crocs - and I do understand the Imelda Marcos reference - ha! Seriously, so happy that your leg is better, that you're getting to go out to the PP and the zoo. Take care - elevate that leg when you get home and get some good reading done. LOL

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    1. As soon as my 100+ photos are downloaded, I'm heading for Leg Elevation Station #1! LOL

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  3. Love the Crocs! Mostly, I'm so happy to hear that your leg is doing so well, and that you're starting to get back to a normal life. That is fabulous news! I couldn't be happier for you. Now, I'm going to go check out those gold coins, but it is great to hear your news!

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    1. Thanks, Margot! It's wonderful to no longer feel as though I'm a prisoner.

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  4. So glad your leg is healing and you're on the next step (pun intended). And I like those crocs, too.

    Thanks for the links. I see so many to read. Must read about the wombats and the Missouri book banning. Librarians? Really? Some of the best people.

    And the book links, always my first to read.

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  5. Congratulations on the leg improvement! And lucky you, getting to see Joe Ide - I have plans to see him at an event in March, and hope to have Hi Five read by then (library willing ...). Count me as another who got the Imelda reference, by the way. Enjoy your weekend, and thanks for the links!

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    1. I love Ide's sense of humor, although a couple of older ladies in the audience didn't approve of some of the language in his book excerpts that he read!

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  6. Well, I finished the excellent second book by Jess Montgomery, The Hollows. I laughed and cried and cheered on the two women protagonists. Women's liberation comes to Ohio in 1926. And the research done by the writer is amazing. I'm glad to know it, although some of it is shocking.
    So now we have to wait for a year for the next book! Hard to do.

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    1. Yes, it is. I hadn't realized that there was a WKKK. Had you? (Please don't mention it by name in your reply to prevent any sort of spoiler.)

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  7. No. I did not know and I was trying to avoid spoilers. I not only didn't know, but I didn't know it existed in every state. And the connections to other groupings shocked me. I have to do research.
    I emailed Jess Montgomery at her website. Hope I get an answer.

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    1. I was dumbfounded. Then I sat and thought about it for a few seconds and wondered why I was so shocked.

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  8. Shocked that the WKKK existed and in every state? Or that it was linked to those other two groupings. I read about it more. I do know some history of one grouping post Civil War and during WWI and some bad events related to it. I may email.

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    1. All three. I was blissfully ignorant. I've since done some research on the subject.

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