Back home, George finished his concerto. It was just as he planned—daring, razz-ma-tazz, and dazzling. 
    It was a musical kaleidoscope of America’s melting pot.
    Rhapsody in Blue is what it was named. 

                                 from The Music in George’s Head:
                      George Gershwin Creates Rhapsody in Blue
                                            written by Suzanne Slade
                                          illustrated by Stacy Innerst
                                                   Calkins Creek, 2016

    One hundred years is a long time in anyone’s book, but 1924 faded into 2024 when Baron Fenwick began his performance of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue at the Canton Symphony on November 23.
    Paul Whiteman, a prominent band leader, commissioned the work in 1923 to be performed in honor of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday the next year. Whiteman wanted a concerto-like piece for an all-jazz concert, but Gershwin told Whiteman that he didn’t have enough experience, enough knowledge, or enough time to complete the work. George Gershwin was 26 years old.
    Then, during his regular billiard game, Ira (Geroge’s brother) interrupted them to read from an unsigned article in the New York Tribune. It said that George was working on a jazz concerto for Whitehead’s February 12 concert. It seemed that Whitehead’s arch-rival wanted to steal the idea of an experimental concert. With that info, Whitehead convinced George to pen the piece.
    We can’t know how Gershwin sounded as the soloist at his premiere at Aeolian Hall in New York City on February 12, 1924. Gershwin hadn’t even written down the solo piano sections until after the concert was over, and it was not recorded. 
    George Gershwin played by heart. And with heart.
    Frederic D. Schwarz said that Ross Gorman, the clarinetist who played the glissando that opens the piece, meant it to be a joke for George Gershwin, but Gershwin loved it. 
    The rest is history, living history.
    Schwarz continues in his American Heritage magazine (link above) that the glissando has become as instantly recognizable as Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
    By the end of 1927, the piece had been performed by Whitehead’s orchestra over 80 times. His recording sold a million copies.
    Leonard Bernstein recorded “Rhapsody in Blue” in 1959 and again in 1976. 
    And in 1984, 84 pianists clad in pale-blue tuxedos, fronted by a bevy of dancers in flowy light blue gowns and backed by an orchestra in white, performed a spectacular, if abridged, version of Gershwin’s iconic American music at the opening ceremonies of the Los Angeles Olympic Games. Here’s a link to find it on YouTube.
    When Baron Fenwick took the bench of the grand piano on stage of the Canton Symphony last Saturday evening, he did so with exuberant enthusiasm, energy, and expertise, but no music. 
    Just like Gershwin, the music was in his head, too. 
    Fenwick delivered the masterpiece by heart and with heart. His standing ovation lasted several minutes while I hoped for an encore. But he left us wanting more.
    At only 29 years old, he’s won major piano competitions, played in important concert halls, and has had a concerto dedicated to him.
    While I’m not a stranger to classical music, I’m a fan and nowhere near an expert. 
    The day after my experience in Canton, I attended my grandson’s percussion performance where I was introduced to several avant-garde works by mostly young composers and traditional instruments performed in new ways. One performer used a bow to strum the pipes of her vibraphone.
    My very talented grandson played a new-to-me instrument, the water phone. It is an uncommonly-used musical instrument invented by an American, Richard Waters, in the late 1960s. It’s an idiophone, a metal instrument that produces its sound by creating resonance either by lightly striking it or bowing it. 
    Inspired by kalimbas, African thumb pianos, Waters continued experimenting by adding water to the base and was satisfied with the eerie, haunting sound his instrument produced. Nowadays, the shallow base is usually filled with water which amplifies the sound, and according to Waters, “bend[s] tones and create[s] water echoes.”  Here's a picture and a little more information.
    My grandson bowed a water phone in a piece called “Gasoline Rainbow,” composed by Adam Silverman in 2009. After the concert, I asked my grandson how he learned to play it. “Mostly by feel,” is what he told me. He’s right, of course! The thinnish bronze rods welded to the stainless steel bowl are of different lengths but not specifically tuned to a particular scale of tones. 
    Listen to a demonstration here. Scroll down to “What [does] a Waterphone sound like?”
    The grands and their parents are coming for Thanksgiving. I’m sure we won’t hear any waterphones, but I’m looking forward to listening to all the new piano pieces they’re learning. And maybe a preview or two from my younger granddaughter’s musical, Annie. 
    My older granddaughter is a violist. I’ll probably have to wait to hear her until we travel to Maryland next month.

I just started reading The Women by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 2024). According to the blurb, it’s more than a war story. It’s about sacrifice, commitment, idealism, and courage. More next time.
             Be curious! (and listen to the song in your heart)    

    When Mary was twenty-four, she made 
another amazing discovery!
This creature didn’t have legs.
Or flippers.
It had WINGS!
Mary had unearthed a prehistoric flying reptile called a pterosaur.
                   from Dinosaur Lady: The Daring Discoveries
                        of Mary Anning, the First Paleontologist
                                           words by Linda Skeers
                              pictures by Marta Álvarez Miguéns
                Sourcebooks eXplore/Sourcebooks Kids, 2020

    I thought maybe one of my kids would be fascinated by dinosaurs, then I thought maybe one of my grandkids would be, but no. I learned all about Thomas the Tank Engine, cars, mushrooms, construction vehicles, fairies, and Teletubbies, disasters at sea, and weather, but no dinosaurs.
    We read lots and lots of books, but not about dinosaurs, real or imaginary.
    So I got pretty excited when I heard about the missing link bird fossil discovered in São Paolo, Brazil in 2016, and reported on again just last week. Paleontologists have been working on this marvelously intact fossil since its discovery. 
    Because birds’ bones are so delicate, this find is extremely rare. Most bird fossils are crushed by time, and the weight of what falls on top of them practically squashes them into two dimensions. 
    Although the soft brain tissue has been lost to time, historical evidence and previous knowledge allowed scientists to piece this fossil together with “remarkable detail.” Newsweek Magazine reported that modern technology has enabled scientists to “digitally reconstruct the bird’s skull and brain…”.
    The discovery bridges the period between the Paleozoic Era, when vertebrates and land plants first appeared, the Jurrasic Period of dinosaurs, and our own modern birds.
    Navaornis hestiae, named after its discoverer William Nava, is a new species. It lived from about 15 million years before the mass extinction of the dinosaurs until tens of millions of years after the oldest pterodactyls, those bird-like dinosaurs, flew above them. 
    Luis Ciappe, a curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, says of the discovery, [It’s a] "relatively small bird, something the size of between a pigeon and a starling. It would have been an active flier, fully feathered.”
    Researchers CT scanned the bird’s cranial cavity to accomplish the digital reconstruction of its brain. The portion of the cerebellum that controls flight in modern birds is not very well developed in Novaornis hestiae but, Chiappe continues, “features of the inner ear are greatly expanded, suggesting it used an alternative means of coordinating balance and flight.” The cerebrum, associated with higher level cognition, “is much larger than the bird-like dinosaurs that came before and almost as large as modern birds.”
    Their presumed “cleverness” probably helped these “transitional birds” find food and shelter and encouraged the development of their social structure. It “represents a species at the midpoint along the evolutionary journey of bird cognition,” says David Field, the Strickland Curator of Ornithology at Cambridge's Museum of Zoology in the same Newsweek article.
    The study of paleontology can help us moderns understand our own physical world. Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin both demonstrated that life during common time periods is more similar than life in similar geographic areas. That is, new species develop more readily over time than across miles.
    Studying fossils, one might say, is irrelevant (or should be) in these days of fraught politics and Climate Catastrophe, but that is precisely why paleontology is crucial.
    Adapted from the PLOS blog (Public Library of Science), Paleontology helps determine 

• the evolutionary identity of living and extinct organisms
• cause-and-effect relationships (how things actually change under different conditions)
• how rare events experienced in the past shed light on what our future may hold
• the relative magnitude of change in today’s world and how best to understand it

    Figuring out a fossil’s anatomy, developing critical thinking skills, and determining cause and effect are all crucial pieces of science that transfer to many aspects of our lives. Besides, dinosaurs are cool.
    Again from PLOS, “[the] parallel between the relevance of life’s history and the relevance of our cultural history is a good one. When paleontology is reduced to cataloging the weird things that once were, it instantly becomes as irrelevant to our own time as cultural or political history would be, if it were reduced to a list of things that once happened.” (italics mine)

I’m reading The Witches of Willow Cove by Josh Roberts (Owl Hollow Press, 2020). It’s his debut about a small town, being the “new girl,” and witches. Roberts combines the Salem witch trials of the 1690s with modern girls turning that magic age, 13. Spooky without being scary and modern yet drawing on history, this one is a highly readable tale with a touch of mystery. 
                           stay curious (and learn from the past)

Hana practiced every day, just like Ojichan. And every day her brothers [complained] about the horrible noise. 
    [The day of the talent show arrived and Hana remembered Ojichan’s advice, “Do your best, dearest Hana.”]
                                   …
    “This is the sound of a mother crow calling her chicks,” she said. She placed the violin under her chin, held her bow in position and played three squawky notes.
    “This is the sound of my neighbor’s cat at night.”
                                    …
    Finally, as the last sound effect trailed away, Hana tucked her bow and her violin under her arm. “And that,” she said to the audience is how I play the violin.”
    Then she took a great big bow.
                               from Hana Hashimoto, Sixth Violin
                                         written by Chieri Uegaki
                                           illustrated by Qin Leng
                                             Kids Can Press, 2014

Please note: In light of the results of last week’s election, I just signed up for BlueSky Social. After this post, I have decided to stop posting on Twitter (X). You can still find my old posts there, and I am continuing to post here on my website, www.ShariDellaPenna.com/blog, my FaceBook page, and now @sharidellapenna.bsky.social, too. I hope this is easy for you. Thanks, as always, for understanding.

    I have resiliency bred into my DNA. 
    First, a little history. Catherine the Great established the Pale of Settlement on Russia’s eastern border in 1791 and forced the whole Jewish population to move there. Pogroms began some thirty years later. Organized by the Crown, mobs looted, burned, and murdered Jews living in small communities in the countryside. (Think Fiddler on the Roof)  
    When Nicholas I, Catherine’s grandson, came to power in 1827, he conscripted young Jewish boys, as young as twelve years old, to twenty-five years of mandatory military service. Not a typo. Twelve years old, twenty-five years of service. 
    Then, in 1881, when my gram was a baby, Tsar Alexander II was assassinated. According to most accounts, the Russian government used his murder as an excuse to target the Jews even further. 
    In 1903, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a cruel and vicious document created by the Tsar’s secret police force, was published and widely distributed. It might have been the first bestselling “fake news,” and it led to the massacre and exile of hundreds of thousands of Jews.
    In 1903, in Russia, against this violent, unstable, chaotic environment, my great-grandmother had the audacity to bear a child. Three years later, Gram brought my three-year-old grandmother to find a better life here in the USA. 
    My father’s parents also grew up in the Pale of Settlement. The planet was in the midst of World War I in April 1917 when the US declared war on Germany. My dad was born a mere 3 months later in Schenectady, NY. 
    Unbeknownst to anyone, a virulent flu would be unleashed less than a year later. The flu killed more people than even the “war to end all wars.”
    Grandmothers on both branches of my family tree uprooted themselves to start over in a land of strange food, strange customs, and a strange new language.
    They did not move away from fear, anxiety, and scarcity (although they did that, too). They moved toward a chance for safety, freedom, and hard work that would lead to financial security for their families. 
    My mom and I would have a discussion sometimes when I was growing up and when I was grown. Mom was a “bootstraps” kind of woman. “People just need to gather their bootstraps and pull themselves up,” she would tell me. 
    “What if they don’t have any?” I’d counter.
    “Then they best go out and get some. Your grandparents never asked for a handout.”
    Yikes. But, on some level, I understand. They were resilient.
    To research resiliency, I listened to a TED talk given by Lucy Hone. (Look it up by typing in her name and her title: Three Secrets of Resilient People.) 
    She says her three strategies are not automatic and even though they are easy to learn, they are not always easy to implement.
    1.  Resilient people, she says understand that sh*t happens. They know that suffering is part of life, and terrible and tragic incidents happen. And they happen randomly. Resilient people don’t often ask “Why me?” That doesn’t matter. Entitled people, quite a large amount of people today, believe that good is the norm. Resilient people know the exact opposite is true.
    2.  Resilient people are really good at focusing their attention on what they can change and somehow accept what they can’t. 
    This is a vital and learnable skill of resilience. Resilient people don’t ignore the negatives, they have worked out a way of focusing on the good. Resilient people look for things to be grateful for. A recent scientific study showed that after six months, people who named three things they were grateful for each day showed a higher level of gratitude and happiness and a lower level of depression.
    Science tells us we are better off when we make an intentional, deliberate, and ongoing effort to tune into what’s good in our lives.
    3.  Resilient people ask themselves, “Is what I’m doing helping or harming me?” They ask the question many times throughout their day. By asking, we bring an intention to our decisions and give ourselves control over our decision-making.
    Resilience is not a fixed trait. In an article posted at InBrief: The Science of Resilience (find it on YouTube) we learn that our genes determine where our center of resiliency is. Optimism and pessimism are two ends of a continuum. Some of us have the propensity to be optimistic, some pessimistic.
    We all fall somewhere between the extremes. 
    Our environment and our life experiences, combined with the ways we react to them, are highly individual and highly interactive.  
    My grandmothers taught me to move toward the future. Lucy Hone reminds me to be grateful and stay conscious of my thoughts and behavior.
    She says, “It is possible to live and grieve at the same time.” 
    I say we have to.

I’m reading Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth by Noa Tishby (Free Press/Simon and Schuster, 2021). It is very readable, clear, and concise. My “history lesson” came from Ms. Tishby. 
   Be curious! (Take time to grieve. Then, take stock and act.)

munch, crunch, munch, munch, crunch, gulp.
They ate and ate and ate and ate and ate and ate and ate and ate and ate and ate and ate and ate
until all the popcorn was gone.
Later that night, Mama and Papa Bear came home. 
“Wake up!” they said. “We brought you a present.”
“What is it?” asked Sam.
“Popcorn,” they replied.
                                                       from Popcorn
                             written and illustrated by Frank Asch
                                       Parents Magazine Press, 1979

    Everyone who knows me knows Halloween is not my favorite holiday. I mentioned costumes a little bit last week. I didn’t make my kids’ costumes, but I’m not a Scrooge, so to speak! I used to buy candy. Of course, I bought the kind I liked best, chocolate, what else? But I’d get in Weight Watcher trouble with all the leftovers. Seemed a shame to toss something so delicious, but I didn’t want to wreak havoc with my daughters’ dental health (or my weight). 
    So I took the candy to work.
    Leftovers became a perpetual problem until I thought outside the chocolate box.
    One year I gave the trick-or-treaters pencils, unsharpened of course, for safety’s sake. As you probably guessed, that was not my greatest idea ever.
    The next year I gave the kids those tiny cans of Play-Doh. That was better, but some of the leftovers dried out before my girls finished playing with them. 
    Then I thought the kids might like something longer lasting than a Twix or Laffy-Taffy, or even Play-Doh. I went to the bank and turned a ten-dollar bill into a couple of rolls of nickels. 
    The kids were happy and for once, I liked the leftovers. I increased the “treats” gradually until this year, I gave my trick-or-treaters each a one-dollar bill. Full disclosure, I usually only get a few kids. The number was three this year, so even though the seventeen dollar bills are bulky in my wallet, I don’t mind. 
    I solved my problem, but still think (dream) about the chocolate. 
    Cocoa prices are in extreme fluctuation right now largely due to the effects of the current El Niño weather pattern. A recent report by Luker Chocolate notes “[t]he high temperatures and low humidity are especially negatively impacting Ivory Coast and Ghana, which together supply about 70% of the world’s cocoa supply.” 
    Luker Chocolate is a Fair Trade company. They strive to support their growers by compensating them equitably. They are proud of their sustainability. The company works with farmers and community members to raise awareness about their own environment. Their action involves direct intervention to prevent deforestation, protect water sources, and promote agroforestry designs. 
    But in most of the chocolate industry, child labor is heavily exploited. According to Deutsche Welle, a German-owned public international broadcaster, “child labor remains a problem in cocoa farming.”  Despite decades of promises to curtail child labor, a new study shows it has actually increased. 
    In Ivory Coast and Ghana about 1,600,000 children work in the industry. “On every second cocoa farm there, children as young as five have to pitch in instead of going to school.” Because they are small and can get to hard-to-reach areas, children are used for the most dangerous work, weeding and harvesting with machetes.
    Mars, Nestle, and many other chocolatiers worldwide, have been promising for over 20 years to end the worst forms of child labor. 
    They keep missing their goals. 
    A revised target in 2010 announced a reduction of child labor by 70% by 2020. Missed again. Richard Scobey, president of the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) and industry spokesman, claims the goal was too ambitious. 
    The same DW article states, “Cocoa fetches a little over $2,000.00 per pound, which is half the price it fetched in 1970.” 
    For each $1.09 spent on chocolate, about 14 cents goes to the farmers. Chocolate manufacturers receive 42 cents, and retailers (including the taxes they collect) garner 51 cents.
    In 2023, Ghana and Ivory Coast got together and required buyers to pay a premium of about $400/ton. Scoby said, “[t]his [increase] will generate $1.2 billion in additional revenue for cocoa farmers.”
    Whether the farmers actually realize a living wage remains to be seen. Today, the average cocoa farmer in Ivory Coast earns 78 cents/day. The living wage is $2.51.
    To help alleviate the problem, try clicking on the good trade. It’s a list of 11 Fair Trade chocolate companies with their links. Endangered Species Chocolate is sold at Target.
    I solved my trick-or-treat leftovers problem with some leftover dollar bills. At least in the short term, my problem is solved. 
    Chocolate is a different story. Fair Trade chocolate is more expensive. That’s a given. But it is better for the environment and hopefully better for children and the farmers. It might be better for my waistline, too. After all, if it needs to cost more, which it does, I’ll need to buy less. 
    Maybe I’ll eat less, too.

I’m reading Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (Random House, 2008). This winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is a loosely connected group of short stories revolving around a retired schoolteacher in a fictional town in Maine. Olive appears, but not always as the main character, in each chapter’s vignette. Altogether, it’s a sad story of the mundane yet simple joys and sorrows everyone experiences, the lyrical language sings brightly in beautiful contrast.  
                                   Be curious! (and trade fairly)

    “We make magic clothes. Only clever people can see them,” said Slimas and Slick.
                                     .   .   .  
    “Open the royal gares,” ordered the Emperor. “Let the royal procession begin!”
                                    .    .   .
    “…Ooh,” said the boy. “The Emperor’s got no clothes on!”
                                    .    .   .
    “I can’t stop now… I am the Emperor.” So he held his head high and walked on.
                           from The Emperor’s New Clothes
                          written by Hans Christian Anderson
                                              various illustrators
                               accessed on YouTube 10/28/24
                                               Mrs. Owl’s Stories

    Mom was not big on Halloween. Neither am I. When the kids were small, I dressed each of them in a white pillowcase. I measured and cut out the eye holes and saved the little “ghosts” from year to year. 
    A few years ago, I found an old pillowcase in the stack of pillowcases that tend to accumulate in the linen closet. Scratching my head a little, I opened it up to find two little eye holes. After a wistful chuckle, I cut it up into rags. Yes, I’m still using them.
    When my younger daughter was in high school, one of her friends told her about “The Village Store.” She asked me to take her there. We browsed past a stack of dusty record albums, some toys in various conditions, and racks and racks of clothes, sorted by color then by size.
    I nudged my daughter aside so no one would be embarrassed by what I wanted to tell her.
    “I think these clothes have been worn before,” I said as close to under-my-breath as I could.
    To my utter surprise, she laughed. “That’s the kind of store this is,” she explained.
    “Oh,” was all I could muster. In those “olden” days, I was the one who didn’t understand. About being practical. About how to purchase quality merch. About why all of it was and still is important. It was the 1990s, and everyone should have known more about what happens when we throw things away. That our “away” is someone else’s “here.”
    Whether I learned something from my daughter that day or whether I took my own time figuring things out, I’ve never been much of a consumer. I buy as little as I can. My clothes are old and so are most things in my house. When I need a new outfit or pair of jeans or a jacket, I check first at my local consignment shop. I also go to second-hand stores. I buy the best quality I can so it will last. 
    Big box stores and even department stores are full of clothes from far-away countries like China, India, and Bangladesh made by people who are usually not compensated fairly or treated well. 
    It’s an entire industry with a name: Fast Fashion. Like fast food, fast fashion is all about making money for the factory owners as fast as they can. The workers, the store managers, the customers, and even GoodWill and Salvation Army outlet stores all have a stake in the products. And so do the oceans, but more about that in a minute.
    According to an article in Vogue's online newsletter, April 24, 2024, fast fashion is not so much a “thing” as a way of manufacturing, marketing, and selling clothing. 
    When the Industrial Revolution was in full swing, from the 1700s to about 1840, new technology like the spinning jenny (1764), the power loom (1784), and the cotton gin (1793) made the textile industry more efficient. Fewer workers were needed to create more product faster. As clothing became less expensive, more people could afford to buy more and more, creating more demand. Because the items were not made as well, and because they used inferior materials, they had a shorter life. 
    And to ensure this loop, the industry created fashion fads. Think bell-bottoms and blouses with shoulder holes and ripped-on-purpose jeans. Fads usually appeal to a particular demographic and the sense of shared identity wearing the “in thing” reinforces its hold. It’s the perpetual tension between being part of a group while still maintaining our individual style. 
    Then the fad evaporates and we need the next new thing. Of course, the old stuff is tossed or donated to show up again, a little shoddier and a little less expensive. Then it’s landfilled or ends up disintegrating to its micro-plastic self in the ocean and eventually our food supply.
    An article in Forbs.com notes that “[o]n average Americans buy a new piece of clothing every five days” and “90% of our clothing is thrown away before it needs to be.”
    But what if the solution turns out to be easy? What if some of those new pieces of clothing we buy every five days are sustainable, long-wearing, and classic? Enter Slow Fashion. Just like fast fashion, it’s a thing, too. 
    The Pretty Planeteer lists companies that sell slow fashion and provides links to their websites.
    Check out Conscious Life & Style’s website. It is easy to browse and includes lots of information and choices. The categories in their catalog include everything sustainable, from furniture and storage containers, beauty products and perfume, to dishwasher detergent and, of course, slow fashion items.
    I won’t be designing any Halloween costumes this year, but I’ll spend some time on Conscious Life and Style. I saw a package of dishwasher pods I’d like to try.

I haven’t finished Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller (William Morrow, 2024), but I’m enjoying it so far! 
             Be curious! (and live as sustainably as you can)

From all over the pond, they came swimming by dozens.
Whole families of turtles, with uncles and cousins.
                                           from Yertle the Turtle
                    written and illustrated by Dr. Seuss, pseud.
              Random House Books for Young Readers, 1958

    Remember the spotted lanternflies from a few weeks ago? (Seeing Spots 9/24/24) They are still a problem, but with cooler and downright cold weather coming, we’ll get a reprieve while they overwinter in their egg cases. 
    But other invasive species are in our midst. High on the list are those cute little red-eared sliders. The very same turtles we used to buy at Woolworth’s for a quarter or 50 cents. The plastic pool with its ramp up to its plastic palm tree was an investment. It cost more than the turtle did but could be used again and again.
    My brother and sister and I had several baby red-eared sliders. Usually keeping only one at a time, ours didn’t live very long. We buried them in the backyard, one by one. They were all named Oscar. I don’t know why.
    But for those who actually know how to take good care of them, a red-eared slider that starts out the size of a silver dollar could grow up to be the size of a dinner plate in five or six years. 
    And that’s where the problem begins. A turtle that size requires a large tank. Fifty gallons at minimum, but 75-100 is ideal. The turtles like to swim and bask, too, so a water feature needs to have a dry, rocky complement. A heat lamp to substitute for the real sun, a filtering system to keep the water clean, and a variety of fresh and canned (jarred?) food (we provided our Oscars with strawberries, raw hamburger, peeled grapes, and turtle sticks) makes for an expensive “habitat.”
    My younger daughter was in middle school when her dad and family decided to get a Dalmatian. Since no one was playing with their turtle anymore, she asked to bring him home when she returned from her visit. We kept Eric, a red-eared slider, for a couple of years and watched him grow to the size of a bread-and-butter plate. He only had a 20-gallon tank, and we had to clean it almost every day to keep the smell under control. He liked the running water in the bathroom sink and wiggled his feet when I brushed his tummy with an old toothbrush.
    Lots of people keep their turtles until they can’t or won’t take care of them any longer. I suppose the logical place to take them is a local body of water. A pond in a nearby park, a slow-moving stream, or a little, fresh-water lake sounds humane. And that’s what most people do. 
    But red-eared sliders, like most invasive species, out-proliferate the area’s natives. Food becomes more scarce or more plentiful throughout the food chain. Insects, plants, even small fish become red-eared-slider food, while algae are allowed to proliferate unchecked.
    The day came when we knew we had to say goodbye to Eric. I didn’t want to just send him off to fend for himself. Would he know how to find food? New friends? A calm spot in the pond? 
    We took Eric to the same pet shop that had, several years before, sold us the 20-gallon tank and a bunch of fish to swim in it. He slipped into the turtle tank easily and never looked back. I’m sure he moved to a new forever home and made lots of friends. 
    So, I suppose I’ve always been an accidental environmentalist.
    According to Keith Gisser from Herps Alive Foundation, the only way to control the red-eared slider population is to euthanize them or take them to an animal sanctuary. He runs one in South Euclid, Ohio, where I grew up, but more are needed.
    Red-eared sliders are only one of a growing number of invasive species. The Burmese python (native to Myanmar, India, and lower China) got into Florida’s Everglades in a similar fashion as red-eared sliders and, “since 1997, have eaten most of the raccoons, opossums, and bobcats [in the Everglades].” Also, according to the same article, USGS (United States Geological Survey), “Marsh rabbits, cottontail rabbits and foxes effectively disappeared.”     
    IUCN (the International Union for Conservation of Nature) uses a science-led approach to inform policy to support conservation action all over the world. You can see the scope of their work on their website. 
    In 2017, they conducted a study of invasive species and found that “during the past 200 years, the number of new invasive species increased worldwide…” This is cause for concern because, just like the red-eared slider, other species can become dominant in their new location. Invasive species proliferation is the major cause of biodiversity loss and “the most common threat responsible for extinctions of amphibians, reptiles, and mammals.”
    Plants can become invasive species, too. Kudzu is native to Japan and southeast China. It was brought here on purpose to show at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. Thought to be a beautiful ornamental, it has sturdy vines and its blooms smell sweet. It was planted abundantly throughout the South to control erosion. Once established, it can grow a foot a day. 
    Lots of species arrive accidentally in the soil of transplants, among pallets of produce, toys and other imports, or even on our clothes or shoes. 
    According to the USDA NISIC (National Invasive Species Information Center), some ways to control these pests include 
    mechanical: mow, chop, build barriers             
    biological: introduce native predators
    chemical: spray pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides
    cultural: encourage native plantings and domestic pets
    manual: pick off those Japanese beetles and stomp on spotted lanternflies
NISIC, though, tells us the safest way to manage invasive species is by prevention. 
    Of course it does.

My book club decided on Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller (William Morrow, 2024). I haven’t started it yet, but from the flap copy, it’s a “… wildly entertaining satire about a smaller Southern town, a pitched battle over banned books, and a little lending library that changes everything.” I can’t wait to get started.
                                   -—Be curious! (and live local)

We can explore the farthest reaches 
of space. And looking back, we can 
see how we are changing our planet. 
It is a beautiful, fragile place--
worthy of protection.
                                     from We Are Better Together
                                              written by Bill McKibben
                                            illustrated by Stevie Lewis
                     GoodwinBooks/Henry Holt and Company, 2022
    
    Before my grandparents left Eastern Europe’s pogroms, my grandfather was a farmer. Baba (we called my dad’s mom) was a gardener. 
    They left terror and chaos behind for the chance to find peace in a new land. 
    Grampy worked hard to start his own business. Baba worked hard to sew her garden. 
    “You could make a broom handle grow!” Mom would tell her with a mixture of awe and admiration.
    When Grampy finished work one long, hard day, he was flabbergasted to find the portulacas. Baba had planted them in the grassy strip between the gravel tire paths in their driveway. He had thought the yard was already full.
    But no. Now every square inch of her yard was a garden. Flowers in the front yard. Vegetables and two fruit trees in the back. 
    I’m sure Baba did not think she was performing Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) when she tended her bountiful gardens.    
    No one person can solve the complexities caused by decades of human greed, ignorance, and 400.3 million metric tons of plastic. 
Repairing the world is a monumental task.
    But the peace Baba found in her gardens radiated out to all she touched. Including me.
    Most of the time, I feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of repairing even a small piece of our Earth. 
    Where can one person begin? My solar panels and hybrid car, my compost bin, and the gallon of shower-water I save every day for my plants, my recycling efforts, especially those, I do to soothe myself. 
    People working alone cannot get the job done. Even working with Gd, and by that I mean trying my best to make good decisions and following through with action, still seems like too little, too late. Most of the time.
    Then last week, I read a quote by Angela Davis in What if We Get it Right?: Visions of Climate Futures. (Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. One World/Random House, 2024.)  “You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.” 
    I’m learning about organizations that already exist to push back on the forces that exacerbate our Climate Catastrophe. Citizens Climate Lobby is non-partisan, but as it states on its website, “[CCL]..works to create the political will for a livable world…” I joined our Ohio chapter a couple of years ago.
    President Biden and VP Kamala Harris launched the American Climate Corps in September 2023. As of April 2024, thirteen states have created their own state-level Corps.  Here's the list.
    From its webpage, “[t]he American Climate Corps will mobilize a new, diverse generation of more than 20,000 Americans…[and create] pathways to high-quality, good-paying clean energy and climate resilience jobs in the public and private sectors after they complete their paid training program." Similar to FDR’s projects in his “New Deal” and JFK’s Peace Corps, the American Climate Corps mobilizes a new generation. 
    New generation? Definitely not me. Then, when I was looking for a book to provide a quote to open this post, I found Bill McKibben’s book. We Are Better Together. It’s addressed to kids, but when I looked just a tiny bit deeper, I discovered that Bill McKibben started Th!rd Act, an organized group of people who have grown up, finished working in their chosen career, and are now in their own third act. Here's what Th!rd Act has to say: “Our seasoned generation holds unparalleled power to enact real change. Using our life experiences, skills, and resources, we unite to tackle the unfinished work of our lifetimes and ensure a safe and stable planet for generations to come.”
    In 2008, Bill McKibben, along with a group of university friends, founded 360.org. It has since grown to include working groups in almost every country in the world. From their website, “[our] work leverages people-power to dismantle the influence and infrastructure of the fossil fuel industry, and to develop people-centric solutions to the climate crisis.” 
    I did not inherit Earth-wisdom from my grandparents, only the love of working with nature and enjoying its beauty and looking for peace. 
    Political activist Simon Rosenberg, reminds us, “do more, worry less.” But Earth does not play politics. She depends on us to help her survive.

    I have not come to the end of The Goldfinch (Donna Tartt, Little, Brown and Company, 2013), but I’m close enough to give you a summary. When Theo Decker’s mother is killed by a bomb set off in an art museum in New York, he’s left to fend for himself. Circumstances take him to Las Vegas and back on a cross-country trip that mires him in the underground art world. Recommended. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2014.
    In case you are wondering, Theo’s mother’s favorite painting, “The Goldfinch” is a real painting. Art historians believe it survived its own explosion in 1654, which killed its artist, Dutch painter Carel Fabritius.    
                             -—Be curious! (and do a little good)

    Then Ricky’s Robot carefully closed the rocket ship. With one mighty toss, the Robot sent the ship sailing safely back to Jupiter.
                           from Ricky Ricotta’s Mighty Robot vs.
                           the Jurassic Jackrabbits from Jupiter
                                                written by Dav Pilkey
                                             illustrated by Dan Santat
                                                  Scholastic, Inc., 2014
                                             (read on Libby 10/5/24)

    In the real world, mighty robots like Ricky Ricotta’s do not fly rockets to Jupiter (or anywhere else), although since 1958, NASA has “overseen more than 1,000 uncrewed missions into Earth’s orbit or beyond.”
    This Thursday’s lift off of NASA’s Europa Clipper has been postponed due to the expected landfall and massive cleanup Hurricane Milton will leave in his wake. Milton is expected to reach the Tampa area Wednesday night into Thursday morning.
    When the Europa Clipper launches for Jupiter in a couple of weeks, it will join the ranks of uncrewed NASA missions. Its task is to investigate whether Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, is capable of supporting life. Scientists have discovered strong evidence of an ocean of liquid water under Europa’s icy surface. Here’s a link to the mission’s preview page. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij1wOLJE_g8 
    Europa itself is about the size of our own moon. It was discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. The Europa Clipper is not NASA’s first trip to Jupiter. From 1995 to 2003, NASA’s spacecraft, Galileo, discovered strange pits and domes on Europa. Some of them have since formed into ridges over 300 feet high. Scientists point to this as evidence that Europa’s ice layer, up to 15 miles thick, may be slowly churning. The denser, colder ice sinks and the lighter, less dense ice rises as it warms from heat generated by Europa’s core.
    Even though Europa has a scant amount of oxygen in its atmosphere, scientists using data from the Hubble Space Telescope found evidence that Europa might be “actively venting water into space.”
    In November 2019, an international team headed by NASA researchers announced that water vapor had been detected above Europa’s surface. The Europa Clipper will fly through the plumes and analyze their contents. 
    The Clipper will travel for five years to reach Europa, 1.8 billion miles from Earth. Several more years will be spent doing over 50 flybys, getting within 16 miles of the icy surface. As stated on space.com, the Europa Clipper will gather critical information “to investigate whether the conditions on Europa can support life.”     
    It is widely thought in the scientific community that for life to exist, water, chemicals, and energy are necessary.
    Though the probability of water on Europa is extremely high, the Europa Clipper will verify that. Certain chemicals such as carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, must also be available. Astrobiologists, scientists who study the origin and future of life, believe the right chemicals are present on Europa, too. Europa Clipper will try to verify that, too.
    Every form of life, from single cells to cetaceans, requires energy to survive. On Earth, we use energy from the sun. But if there is life on Europa, it would live in its ocean where the liquid water is, but where the sun’s energy won’t reach. Scientists propose that chemical reactions will support any life that might exist. 
    That’s a fascinating thought.
    One important human trait is our ability to think. As soon as kids can form the word, they ask “Why?” 
    About everything. 
    We wonder what the Big Bang sounded like and why life slithered out of the muck.
    We wonder how water flows like magic from our kitchen taps and how music taps into our emotions.
    Poetry is memorable not only because of the words a poet uses. We remember a poet’s words because of how we feel when we read them.
    Since we humans are always trying to attach meaning to events, Ada Limon, America’s Poet Laureate, was asked to compose a poem for the Europa Clipper. NASA gave her three parameters:

• the poem needed to relate to the Europa Clipper mission
• it must be understandable to readers as young as nine years old
• she could use no more than 200 words

    Ms. Limon reminds us of the mysteries in nature, the beauty, perplexity, joy, grief, and purity of wonder, with the words in her poem “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa.”             
​    The poem is engraved on the side of the Europa Clipper. It is a tribute to Ada Limon, to poetry, and to the quest for knowledge that helps humans find the drops of water that unite us all. 
    You can hear her read her poem on NASA’s YouTube’s page. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgWbeDNPD6o

I’m still reading The Goldfinch. Next up for me is Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller (William Morrow/HarperCollins, 2024). The Goldfinch is long, so … I’ll get to Lula Dean when I get there.    

I’m taking a week to continue processing my take on the world.
Here’s what’s rumbling around in my brain:
    Hurricane Helene 
        and the devastation to property and land
        and the lives lost
        and the clean-up
        and the various responses I’ve heard
    The beginning of post-season MLB 
        and why did the Athletics’ move from Oakland to Las Vegas
    Free speech 
        and why it is legal to lie in political ads
        how do political polls reflect (or not) reality
        should we pay attention to them
    President Carter’s 100th birthday
    Why doesn’t the mainstream media call Hamas and Hezbollah                        
                illegitimate terrorists?    
I’ll get my priorities in order by next week (I hope)!

I’m reading (re-reading) Pulitzer Prize-winner The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (Little, Brown and Company, 2013). It’s the story of a young man who tragically and unexpectedly finds himself an orphan after an explosion in an art museum. He’s thrust from poverty into luxury when wealthy friends take him in and from a childhood of petty theft with a “friend” into the midst of a dangerous underworld when he discovers the little painting he kept as a memento of his mother is regarded as a stolen masterpiece in the art world. Recommended

           -—Be curious! (and try not to become overwhelmed by world        
                            events)

    Cody loved all animals, big and small. but she had a special, tender place in her heart for ants. They were so serious! They worked so hard!
                       from Cody and the Fountain of Happiness
                                      written by Tricia Springstubb
                                         illustrated by Eliza Wheeler
                                             Candlewick Press, 2015
   
    When my brother was very young, he caught a caterpillar. I suppose he wondered how it moved and so he separated all of its eighteen segments. He was a smart and curious child who grew into a smart and curious adult. 
    Mom found most of the segments in his pants pocket before they went through the washer and dryer. I learned a couple of things just by watching and listening.
        1. Empty all pockets before putting clothes in the wash.
        2. Be respectful of all life.
    While Mom did not scream (she was not a screamer) or punish my brother for harming nature (she knew he was curious and sensitive), she did talk to all three of us about how important it is to protect those beings more vulnerable than us. We took the lesson to heart.
    I still take insects and spiders, and one time I shooed a baby squirrel, outside. Just this past Sunday morning, we were visiting my daughter and her family when she went into the kitchen to refill our coffee cups. She did not scream either, but I detected a note of urgency when she called me to “come see something.”
    My husband used a paper cup and an index card to escort a large Charlotte to her more suitable living space, outside. All of us lived to tell the tale.
    It might make one feel powerful to squash a bug, but what good can that accomplish?
    Turns out, plenty. Especially if the bug is a spotted lanternfly. When I learned that my very own Mahoning County, Ohio, is under quarantine, I wanted to know more.
    Despite their name, they aren’t good fliers. Lanternflies are plant hoppers indigenous to Asia but are now found in Japan, South Korea, and the United States. While they’re not dangerous to humans in an overt way, they don’t sting, bite, or burrow under our skin, they are a threat. Spotted lanternflies infest crops including soybeans, grapes, apples, and stone fruits.
    Besides feeding on the crops, the ODNA (Ohio Department of Natural Resources) warns that both nymphs and adults “produce copious amounts of sticky, sugary liquid known as honeydew.” The honeydew is attractive to ants, flies, and wasps. It can also be colonized by “sooty mold,” a fungus that can ruin grape and hops harvests and decrease photosynthesis.
    While they suck up the sap from over 70 kinds of trees, spotted lanternflies love the invasive Tree-of-Heaven best, themselves an Asian import. The trees are extreme pollen producers with extensive root systems so are difficult to eradicate. Penn State Extension Service has lots of information here. The trees were brought to the Philadelphia area in the late 1700s as a valued, unique, fast-growing ornamental shade tree. They can grow to 80 feet and up to six feet in diameter.
    As of this week, at least 17 states are infested with the spotted lanternfly. People in quarantined areas should look for evidence of the bugs before traveling to another area. Here's information with pictures from the USDA to help us identify their various stages.
    If you see one (or many) report the sighting to your Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).
    Find contacts from the USDA APHIS and click here to find your state’s form.
    Click here to find information from the National Plant Board for each state.
    According to an article from CBS News last year, authorities from the USDA encourage people to “do whatever they can to stop the pests from spreading.” 
    Spotted lanternflies do have a few natural predators. Praying mantises eat them. Chickens and cardinals have been seen eating them in Pennsylvania. Two species of wasps are being studied to see if they will eat the pests, but so far, the spotted lanternflies reproduce faster than any of their predators can keep them in check. Hence the government urges us all to stomp. 
    Beware, though, warns the authors of an article from Axios.com. Some native insects look similar, to even some moths and beetles.
    Beginning in August 2020, the Audubon Society asked its community to “post photos of birds, other insects, and spiders eating the spotted lanternfly.” Thirty-three different species have been seen “chowing down.” The Society is currently researching whether “there may be a way to encourage native wildlife to eat more bad bugs.”
    You might remember my brother’s caterpillar adventure. I used it to introduce the cicada invasion of last May (Truly Buggy May 14). I related the story very differently, though, and decided to keep both versions. Memory is a tricky thing. 
    It appears the lesson, All Life is Precious, is more important than my brother’s adventure. 
    But bopping dangerous bugs, even if they are beautiful, may not be such a bad idea.

    My eleven-year-old grandson recommended Freewater by Amina Luqman-Dawson (Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown and Company, 2022). Winner of the 2023 Newbery Award and the Coretta Scott King Author Award, it is an historic fictional account of two children who ran away from their plantation into the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and became part of a Maroon community. Although Freewater is not a real community, it is “[l]oosly based on a little-mined but important piece of history… [A]n inspiring and deeply empowering story of survival, love, and courage.” from the publisher. Recommended by me, too!
                                      -—be curious! (and observant)​