It All Starts With a Hole Weekly Link Round-Up

 

 

I bought this house in 1981. At the time, my mother lived with me, and money was tight when it came to home improvements. Then the years passed, and my mother just wasn't in the mood for remodeling disruptions. When she died, I didn't have any money to spare. 

 

For the past twenty years or so, Denis and I have made significant changes to Casa Kittling, but one of the last things to change was a certain wall in the kitchen. We've been socking money away like crazy, and now that Denis is more ambulatory with every passing day, we decided the time had come to get work on the kitchen done. Besides, it was only going to help both of us with regard to our various health problems.

 

The problem was... me. The people I bought the house from had some interesting ways to do home improvements, and I'd had to correct more than one of them. I knew that one kitchen wall with the three weird cubbies was hollow, but what was it hiding? Something had to be very wrong for them to block off a healthy chunk of kitchen real estate. 

 

Denis and I contacted our go-to remodeler. I insisted that an exploratory hole be cut into the wall to see just what was behind there before any more work was done. Claude the remodeler was hoping that D.B. Cooper had stashed a few bags of money behind the wall. We can all dream, can't we?

 

What was behind the wall? About two-and-a-half feet of empty space back to the original wall of the house. Who in their right mind would block off that much space in what was a small kitchen to begin with?!? There has to be more to the story, but that's where I'm going to leave you as Claude and his team demolish the bad and then work their magic. We've already had so much dust raised that it set off the smoke alarm, so it should be interesting.

Here's another photo for someone special. It's a glimpse of my offrenda that I put up for Dia de los Muertos this year.

 Enjoy the links! 

 

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• For some reason, these fascinate me: watch a record-setting 750,000-piece domino run.
• How traveling booksellers spread literature throughout ancient Greece.
• The birth of an immortal literary character: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
• When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle opened a psychic bookstore.
• This illustrator reveals Disney princesses with realistic body types.
• Solving the mystery of the Seated Man.
• How do the books we read change our brains?
• Amazon has changed the Kindle eBook return policy, ended lending between Kindle users, and more.
• Behind TikTok's boom: a legion of traumatized, $10-a-day content moderators.
  

 

►Book Banning & Censorship◄

• Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft has proposed a new "Protection of Minors" rule for libraries.
• Read this article written by students about the Texas Independent School District removing books from a high school library. They do a better job than most of the "professionals".
• GOP gubernatorial nominee (Pennsylvania) Doug Mastriano argues for books to be banned... but says it's "not a book ban". Huh? 
• Robert Judge has been re-elected president of the Lafayette Parish (Louisiana) library board. Oh oh. 
• Huntsville (Texas) residents push back after the city removes a "Read With Pride" display from the public library. 
• "This isn't just happening in a few places anymore": There are efforts to ban books in Western New York State schools. 

 

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• A superhighway of ancient human and animal footprints in England provides an amazing snapshot of the past.
• An elaborate Anglo-Saxon hall where kings and queens dined has been discovered in England.
• The mystery of the princes in the tower could finally be solved-- with help from King Charles. (It's going to take me awhile to get used to "King Charles".)
• From mythology to history? Archaeologists have found the sanctuary of Poseidon on a Greek hilltop.
• A couple in England found rare coins worth over $800,000 while renovating their kitchen floor. (Well, that's a renovation that paid for itself...)
• What a Spanish shipwreck reveals about the final years of the slave trade.
• Ancient Maya salt makers worked from home, too.
• Human remains may have revealed the site of a medieval friary in Wales.

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• A newfound whale species that lives exclusively in U.S. waters may already be on the brink of extinction.
• An endangered wolf prized for its genetic value has been found dead in New Mexico. 
• Clementine, the Texas hero hound, won the Dog of the Year Award at the 2022 ASPCA Humane Awards for supporting stressed firefighters. 
• Wow-- this trail cam captured a candid moment when a wolf family struck a majestic pose. 
• Screaming monkeys, "headless" penguins, and face-planting zebras take top honors in the Comedy Wildlife Awards. 
• How birds alerted firefighters to a carbon monoxide leak. 
• Meet Jellybean, the chihuahua who loves to run marathons. 

 

►The Wanderer◄

• Meet nature's apex regenerator: the mighty baobob tree.
• Is there a market for edible cactus in the United States?

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Doctors who write thrillers: a long literary tradition.
• Jane and Anna Maria Porter, the forgotten sisters who pioneered the historical novel.
• Cormac McCarthy's life in writing.
• Virago founder Carmen Callil was a powerhouse who changed the publishing world for the better.
• Barbara Kingsolver on taking lessons from Doris Lessing, being inspired by John Steinbeck, and why she can no longer read J.D. Salinger.
• His agent says that Salman Rushdie has lost the sight in one eye and the use of one hand after a brutal attack in New York state.

 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• Seven facts about N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn.
• Bookish tote bags for your next library haul.
• Ten experimental feminist books.
• The vast wealth of Appalachian literature.
• The fifty scariest books of all time.
• Twelve books about exclusive clubs and secret societies.
• Fourteen books about impressive real-life women.
• Twelve books to read if you loved The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry.

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