A Thankful, Grateful & Blessed Weekly Link Round-Up

 

Most of 2022 has not been kind to us residents of Casa Kittling, but that doesn't matter. The year seems to be ending on a high note, and I couldn't be more grateful.

 

Denis and I trundled over to Target for our Covid booster shots on Wednesday. It was a gorgeous day for an outing, and I noticed more than one motorist smiling as they saw Denis in his motorized wheelchair and me on my scooter as we went down the street. Every once in a while I had to succumb to temptation and put Esmeralda in high gear to run a few rings around Denis. He called me a rude name, but I just laughed. It had been so long since I'd been inside Target that I almost didn't recognize the place. We managed not to buy anything and then came straight home. 

The outside of Casa Kittling looks a bit strange now. Tuesday, two people came and took away the Jeep. Growing up in the American car culture as I have, it's a painful decision to get rid of your one remaining vehicle, but it was time. The Jeep was instrumental in so many adventures, in so many memories, but although it was equipped with a lift for my scooter, it could not accommodate Denis's wheelchair, too. We jumped through the city government's hoops and can now use Valley Metro's Dial-a-Ride and ParaTransit services, and those will be able to get us to almost everywhere we want to go. (They won't be able to get us to our beloved Wildlife World Zoo, but we'll figure something out.) Our needs changed, and our transportation had to change, too. Besides, the money we save on car insurance, gasoline, and upkeep will come in handy!

Did we sell the Jeep? No. Denis has what I call Goldilocks Syndrome. When something goes wrong, he starts accumulating helpful devices until he finds the right one. With all the misery involving his back, this house had lots of mobility devices that were no longer being used because Goldy had finally found the right ones for him. Yes, we could've sold the manual wheelchair, the three-wheeled walkers, and the Rollator as well as the Jeep, but it didn't feel right to me. My mind kept returning to the clinic where I had so many therapy sessions. Many of the people I met there could not afford the equipment they needed and that their insurance wouldn't pay for. That's just not right, so I let Google do the walking and then asked Denis his opinion of what I was thinking of doing.

The two people who came Tuesday not only took the Jeep but they also took with them the excess mobility equipment. They were representatives from the Arizona Chapter of Paralyzed American Veterans. What's more, the woman practically turned cartwheels when she saw my craft room. She asked me what I liked to make, and when I told her afghans, she could've turned another cartwheel. I know many of you probably think I'm nuts to make so many afghans, but I'm thrilled to say that I now will be knitting them for paralyzed veterans. 

Denis is a veteran of the Royal Navy, and I have many generations of military men in my own family tree (father, grandfather, great-great-great grandfather, uncles, cousins...), so I can't tell you how happy it makes me to be able to help this organization.

No matter how many speed bumps life puts on the road I travel, I still feel so incredibly blessed. 

Enjoy the links!

 

 

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Peterborough (UK) libraries offer amnesty on fines to recover 22,000 missing books.
• This made me laugh: Has this Piet Mondrian painting been hanging upside down for 77 years?
• Accumulated memory: Ken Burns on the intersection of individual intimacy and national narrative.
• What are forgotbusters? The blockbuster books that time forgot.
• Is there a cure for information disorder?
• Colonialism birthed the zombie movie. (Just so you know-- I have an irrational fear of zombies. Go figure.)
• The biggest fails in license plate history.
• Alexander the Great's library was the first step toward the internet.
• Amazon is adding Goodreads ratings to book listings.
• Good news! Malaysian author Shamini Flint's popular Inspector Singh mysteries are getting a television adaptation. (I hope we get to see it here in the U.S.)

 

►Book Banning & Censorship◄

• Why read a book when you can ban it instead? Inside Florida's Clay County School District.
• For crying out loud... There are NOT two sides to the Holocaust! 
• The Wilkes County (North Carolina) school board has given school superintendents greater authority to remove books from shelves. 
• The Prince William school board (Virginia) is considering parental consent for school-wide book readings. 
• Hilliard (Ohio) parents call on school leaders to review and remove some books from libraries. 
• Faulkner County (Arkansas) Coalition for Social Justice held a student walkout at Conway High School. 
• Concerns linger for libraries after mixed election results. 
• The 50 most banned books in America. 
• Keller (Texas) schools ban books about trans and nonbinary people. 
• The Michigan Library Association is defending a library that was defunded over LGBTQ books. 
• PEN America has found that in the state of Missouri alone schools have banned nearly 300 books since August. 
• A small town librarian spoke against censorship. Then the dark money came after her.
  

 

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• The ruins of an ancient Roman watchtower-- the first of its kind-- have been unearthed in Morocco. More from Smithsonian Magazine.
  
• A 2,000-year-old Roman road has been discovered in Worcestershire, England.
• Extremely rare 500-year-old textiles sewn by Elizabeth I recently turned up on the UK's Antiques Roadshow.
• See the face of an 18th-century "vampire" who was buried in Connecticut.
• An ancient Roman villa-- complete with central heating-- has been discovered in UK farmland.
• Did ancient humans use echolocation?
• A metal detectorist stumbled across a Viking treasure hoard in Norway.
  
• "Tupperware" unearthed in Italy is 1,600 years old and reveals more about day-to-day life in ancient Rome.

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• How far can ducks migrate in a day? About 2,000 miles. (Why did my arms cramp after reading that?)
• What an elephant's brain reveals about its trunk. 
• This made me laugh: An owl stole a child's hobby horse and flew around the neighborhood with it. The bird looked just like a witch on a broom. 
• Speaking of those birds, a new owl species has been found, and it has a haunting screech. 
• Polar bears are gathering in Canada, and you can watch them live. 
• Migratory birds in North America are shrinking as their wings get bigger. Climate change is to blame. 
• Magic the miniature therapy horse is the newest member of the Ocala Police Department. More (including a video) from Laughing Squid.
  
• A blue whale's daily intake of microplastics weighs as much as a small person.

 

►The Wanderer◄

• Why don't we have world's fairs anymore?
• How the quest for wild chocolate could help save the Amazon rainforest.
• Chicxulub Crater in Mexico is the world's third largest impact crater and where the fate of the dinosaurs was sealed.
• The oldest plant genome on record came from a Stone Age watermelon that grew in the Sahara.
• Read your way through Dublin.
• A museum in Massachusetts has returned Wounded Knee artifacts to the Sioux tribes.
• A history of the "Pittsburgh potty".
• The magic of London.

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• On Paul Newman's taste for literary adaptations.
• The Canary Girls and the World War I poisons that turned them yellow. 
• The real warriors behind The Woman King film. 
• Dr. Patricia Bath, the trailblazing doctor who revolutionized cataract treatment and saved the sight of millions.
• Dolly Parton has received the $100 million Courage and Civility Award from Jeff Bezos. She just tries to put her money where her heart is. (I love this woman.) 
• D.M. Rowell's path to writing a Native American mystery. 

 

►The Best of 2022 Lists Are Arriving◄

• Kirkus Reviews: The Best Fiction Books of the Year.
• Kirkus Reviews: The Best Mysteries and Thrillers.
• Kirkus Reviews: The Best Book Club Fiction.
• Kirkus Reviews: The Best Historical Fiction.
• BookPage: The Best Books of 2022.
• The National Book Award winners were announced.
• The Amazon Editors' picks for the Best Books of 2022.
• Time releases the 100 Must-Read Books of 2022.

 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• The best (and worst) covers for We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
• Four books to try to understand why children kill. 
• Seven entertaining books about Agatha Christie and her characters. 
• Mysteries and animal rescue: a reading list. 
• The cutest book sleeves for all occasions. 
• Sixteen of the best crime dramas of all time. 
• Six French mystery and thriller novels to broaden your horizons, mes amis.
• Eight World War II novels about books and libraries. 

 

That's all 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.

 

Stay safe. Stay healthy. And don't forget to curl up with a good book!