Before long, our vegetables grew. Some were big and lumpy. Some were thin and green and covered with bumps. Some were just plain icky yellow. They were ugly vegetables.
                                          from The Ugly Vegetables
                               written and illustrated by Grace Lin
                                                   Charlesbridge, 1999
                                            read on Hoopla (6/5/26)
                                     Triangle Interactive, LLC, 2018

    The vegetables Grace Lin wrote of (in today’s quote) are supposed to look like that. They are Chinese vegetables that the main character’s mama cooked into delicious soup and traded for beautiful flowers with the neighbors. There’s a whole list with pictures in the back matter.
    In our quest for perfect produce and pristine packaging, many of us have no idea of the waste those habits generate.
    Here’s the definition of food waste from Feeding America: “Food waste is perfectly good, safe-to-eat food that gets thrown away instead of eaten.” It includes not only the food itself that gets tossed, but considers the resources used to produce and transport it and even cook it. 
    According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s website.
    “[F]ood waste is estimated at between 30-40 percent of the food supply.” In 2010, that corresponded to “approximately 133 billion pounds … of food.” (I do not know why the government is still publishing 15-year-old data on its website. That’s a subject for another day.)
    In 2015, using 2010 as a baseline, the USDA set goal of cutting our food waste by 50% by 2030. That’s only four years away, and the clock is ticking.
    According to Retail Track Systems (RTS), the United States wastes 120 billion pounds per year (325 pounds of waste per person). My math says that’s only 13% less than the USDA’s 2015 figure. Thirty-seven percent to go, with 2030 just around the corner.
    As a result of this food waste, hungry people are not getting all the food they need.
    Good food is being discarded needlessly.
    Methane is being produced by food rotting in landfills, and our landfills are filling up.
    RTS claims the biggest reason, by far, to explain why so much food is being thrown out, 80% of those 120 billion pounds, is confusion over labels. “Labels like “sell by”, “use by”, “expires on”, “best before” or “best by” are confusing to people — and in an effort to not risk the potential of a foodborne illness, they’ll toss it in the garbage.” 
    More reasons: 
    We’re impulsive about our buying choices. 
    Food is plentiful and relatively inexpensive compared with the rest of the world, so it’s under appreciated. 
    We bring home doggie bags and don’t feed the dog or ourselves with the leftovers.
    We need education about home composting. Community omposters can be “a thing.”
    Restaurants and grocery stores need an easy and convenient way to donate extra food.  
    Wasting food wastes the water and energy it took to produce it, cook it, and deliver it.
    The problem is big and, well, ugly, but many states are working on solutions through legislation encouraging government/citizen co-operation.
    New companies have grown up with reducing food waste policies included in their the mission statement. Misfits Market is one of them. 
    “We have a two-pronged mission here at Misfits Market: to provide affordable access to healthy food and to fight the food waste crisis.”
    Abhi Ramesh launched Misfits Market in 2018, after he visited an orchard near his home and noted how many apples were being tossed because they were too big, too small, or a little odd-looking. He found out that across the entire supply chain billions of pounds of high-quality food is discarded “mostly because traditional grocery stores only want perfect-looking food.” (Misfits Market) 
    Mostly, I think, customers want perfect-looking produce (or grocers think they/we do.)
    I’m guilty of choosing the greenest celery, (is it really more nutritious?) the the reddest red, and plumpest, roundest tomatoes. I like smooth-skinned potatoes, they’re easy-to-peel, even though I hardly ever peel them any more. 
    And it’s hard to lose that habit. I don’t choose veggies past their prime or hard peaches or soft apples. But a two-legged carrot? A conjoined pepper or strawberry? Why not?
    Those veggies are not the only ones you’ll see if you order food from Misfits Market. They source from organic farmers who generally avoid using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. And sometimes they plant too much.    
    From their website, “Every order helps fight food waste, support small producers, and challenge the way Big Grocery does things. Each week, our customers help rescue an average of 500K lbs of food that would have gone to waste or lesser outcomes.”
    I was curious enough to sign up. There’s a $35 minimum order and a large selection to choose from. Boxes come every week, unless you choose to skip a week or cancel altogether. My first box will come tomorrow. I’ll let you know.    
    Their food may be ugly, but in the most beautiful way.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver(HarperCollinsPublishers, 2022) is Kingsolver’s answer to David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens. She writes for a new generation who are well-aware of our society’s ill treatment of the downtrodden mistake makers. Demon’s survival skills pair with his dead father’s good looks, athletic ability, and red hair to keep readers rooting for him as he works his way through the underbelly of our popular culture. Is a re-read of DC in my future? Not sure!
    -—Be curious! (and try an ugli or ugly fruit or veggie)

Tom had to count the pans 
so that they would have enough
cake for an elephant.
Ginger said that 134 should do it.
But it was not easy to bake 
134 Pound Cakes.
(Plus, they had to bake 
for all those monkeys!)

                                     from The Elephant’s Birthday
                                          written by Cynthia Rylant
                                         illustrated by Janna Mattia
                        Simon & Schuster/Simon Spotlight, 2025
                                     (Accessed on Libby 5/31/26)

    I love elephants. They are big and heavy. They are substantial. They’re gray, so they go with everything. And those ears! And Dumbo. And Horton. And Elmer. And Piggy’s friend. Have you read Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (Algonquin Books/Workman Publishing, 2006)?
    And when I read Why Elephants Weep: the  Emotional Lives of Animals by Jeffrey Moussaief Masson (Delta, 1996), I understood on a gut level that animals (and I am sure plants, too) are sentient beings. 
    And, it’s not the elephants’ fault that Thomas Nast used one to represent the “Republican vote.” Nast called it “large, strong, and dignified” in his political cartoon published in Harper’s Weekly in 1874. He also mentioned elephants are “unsure of [their] own weight, plodding through planks representing [their] own party platform” (The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History). 
    Nast continued using the elephant to represent Republicans throughout the 1870s and 80s. It caught on and stuck.
    I have some costume jewelry and a t-shirt with an elephant on them, but I’m not wearing them for now. I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.
    But all that is way beside the point.
    A new baby elephant was born at the National Zoo two months ago, on Ground Hog Day, and now, she’s ready to meet her public.
    Last November, I wrote “When Elephants Run—in Kenya” (11/25/25), to show farmers who used elephants’ natural fear of bees to protect their land. But, elephants are not naturally fearful, and this new baby elephant is used to humans.
    Although scientists classify elephants into 3 distinct species, African savannah elephants and African forest elephants share many similarities. Their differences are “cosmetic.” Savannah elephants are larger than their forest relatives. Their tusks are longer and curve outward while the tusks of forest elephants are straight and downward pointing.
    Elephants are the largest land animal by far. The average weight of an adult elephant is six tons. Measured from their shoulder, they stand about 11 feet and span between 19-24 feet from trunk to tail. The next largest land mammal is the white rhino at 2-1/2 tons and only about six feet tall.
    African forest elephants are critically endangered. Due to poaching for their luxurious ivory tusks and habitat loss, the forest elephant population has declined by approximately 95% in the past 100 years (Global Conservation.org). African savannah elephants are endangered, too.
    So are Asian elephants. Their trouble comes in three areas and all are human related. 
    Roads, buildings, and farming give elephants a double whammy. First, elephants lose their land to human development and farming. Using grazing ground for farms makes humans and elephants adversaries. And we all need to eat to survive. 
    Second, intersecting their migratory paths to build roads and expand cities creates isolation and fragmentation for the elephants,… making it more difficult for them to find food, water, and mates, leading to a decline in overall population health (International Fund for Animal Welfare, IFAW).
    Finally, poaching.
    But, elephants are a keystone species, crucial stewards of their environments. They disperse seeds, promoting vegetation. They clear trails and paths, making way for new forest growth. Their grazing helps control certain plant species, providing natural fire control. 
    In India, elephants serve as a strong spiritual symbol protecting home and family. They attract good luck, abundance, long life, and wisdom.
    Elephants are deeply revered as sacred animals to followers of Hinduism.
    They are known for their intelligence, emotional complexity, social structure (females live in related groups of six or seven, led by the eldest, called the matriarch.) The matriarch provides stability and determines ranging patterns for the rest of the family. She leads the herd to food. All the females help raise the calves.
    A female Asian elephant is pregnant for 18-22 months. That’s almost 2 years, the longest gestation of any living mammal. It takes a long time for a baby to develop to such a great size. At birth, they weigh in at about 200 pounds and about three feet tall. A baby elephant can stand within minutes of being born. Two hours later, they’re walking.
    But the pregnancy is long for another reason. Elephants are intelligent. An elephant’s brain is similar in structure to a human’s, but about three times as large and has three times as many neurons. And development of that complex brain takes time. 
    Elephants know what a pointing finger means. They can recognize themselves in a mirror. They exhibit compassion. They help injured members of their herd. They show grief when a family member dies. They sometimes cover a dead sister, mother, or aunt with leaves as a sort of burial.
    And now, after nearly 25 years, a baby Asian elephant was born at the National Zoo in Washington, DC.
    In captivity and in the wild, it’s not unheard of for a first-time mom to reject her baby and that’s just what Nhi Linh did when her baby, Linh Mai, was born. 
    But the team at the National Zoo had two years to plan for every contingency. As a result, Linh Mai is well-cared for by humans, she has an adopted elephant “auntie,” and has access to the rest of the herd.
    Here is a link to five 1-2 minute entertaining and informative videos from the Smithsonian about Linh Mai. 
    Elephant lives are constantly threatened. Populations are in decline. According, Act Big, Live Small fewer than 50,000 Asian elephants are living in the wild. About 15,000 (unverified number) in captivity. 
    Welcome, Linh Mai, number 15,001.    

Next on my reading list is a re-read of Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper/HarperCollins, 2022). Find a progress report here next time.
                                   Stay curious! (and elephantine
                                              in your compassion)​

    “I can’t read this,” [Kayla] says. “There aren’t any vowels in most of the words,” [she] says. “You can’t make words without vowels.”
                  from  King & Kayla and the Secret Code
                              written by Dori Hillestad Butler
                                 illustrated by Nancy Meyers
                                   Peachtree Publishers, 2017
                                   Recorded Books, Inc, 2019
                               accessed on Hoopla, 5/25/26

    But it turns out that you can write words without vowels. You can even write them without letters. My dad could, and he taught us kids to, also. Daddy was a radio operator in the Army/AirCorps in WWII. He wouldn’t speak about his time in the Army other than telling us he learned and used Morse code. 
    Daddy gave me lots of practical knowledge: how to parallel park, the definition of antidisestablishmentarianism, how to ride a two-wheeler, but one of my favorites was the Morse code alphabet. 
    I memorized the dots and dashes (dits and dahs) but now I only remember …___… (SOS).
    Back in the day, I taught some of my friends the code so we could tap out “secret” messages. It was pretty slow and not very quiet. Teachers didn’t like it and most of the kids gave up pretty quickly, too. Pig Latin was much more acceptable and most of us got really good at it.
    
    Samuel Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872), before he became interested in electronics, was an artist. He studied in the US and abroad. In his House of Representatives, he painted over 60 different people and paid careful attention of the building’s architecture. The painting is housed in the National Gallery of Art. 
    His portrait of Marquis de Lafayette hangs in the Governor's Room at New York’s City Hall. 
    His best known work, Gallery of the Louvre, is a composite of 38 miniatures of Morse’s favorite artworks, copied from the originals. In 2012 it was exhibited at the National Gallery of Art, and is on loan to the Harvard Art Museums until 11/1/2026. 
    In 1838, Samuel Morse famously attached his name to an alphabet he devised to use with his telegraphic machine. Six years later, in 1844, Morse demonstrated the telegraph to the US Congress. His code is how we remember him. 
    He’s credited with inventing the machine, too. His original patent application (1830) is archived at the National Museum of American History, part of the Smithsonian Institution.
    In short, Morse code is a standardized series of dots and dashes used to represent letters of the alphabet. According to Military.com, some telegraphers could transmit up to 84 words per minute tapping out one letter at a time (30-35 was the average).
    During World War II, the US military recruited Native tribal members to serve as “code talkers,” blocking the Nazis from decoding sensitive messages. Tribal language speakers who were also fluent in English sent messages in least 14 Native languages. You can find out more at the National WWII Museum's site.
    A remarkable incident occurred “in the 1960s when US Navy Commander Jeremiah A. Denton, Jr. was shot down and captured in North Vietnam. Months into his imprisonment, he blinked the word "T-O-R-T-U-R-E" in Morse code during a TV interview that his captors permitted” (Military.com). 
    Continuing as the international standard of telecommunication even after one hundred years, Morse code was becoming obsolete. In 1999 it was formally replaced by satellite technology.
    The universal distress signal, SOS, was established in 1905 and was used until the US Coast Guard stopped monitoring the signal in 1995. In 1999 the system was formally replaced with newer technology.
    In international Morse code, SOS, IWB, VZE, 3B, and V7, can all be used to form …___…, but guess which is easiest to remember! Especially in an emergency!
    SOS is a backronym. It doesn’t stand for anything, really.
    From MerriamWebster.com, an acronym is “a descriptive phrase … made to conform to a pronounceable name.” But in the animated film Over the Hedge (2006), the word “Steve” is mentioned before it became short for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement. "Steve" is a backronym.
    And so, “SOS” came first. It became Save Our Ship or Save Our Souls, a backronym, after it was already in common usage.
    Originating in German government radio regulations and adopted in 1905, SOS is still recognized world over as a standard distress signal. Spelled out, the letters SOS read the same left-to-right, right-to-left, right-side-up and upside-down. 
    Emojis, codes, and inside jokes are all shorthands for communication. And much more convenient than smoke signals, traveling with long, memorized passages, and signal flags. But time changes all things. Only what is important, easy, and effective remains.
    I think Daddy would agree.
No book review this week. Sorry.
                 -—Be curious! (and watch out for each other)

    “What’s wrong with us?” Nancy asked Bree when they were back at the clubhouse. “Everybody else is making money.”
    Bree was sprawled on the beanbag chair. “We just have to figure out what we’re great at that nobody else is.”
                           from Nancy Clancy Seeks a Fortune
                                         written by Jane O’Connor
                             illustrations by Robin Preiss Glasser
                                        Harper/HarperCollins, 2016

    Although Daddy surprised us kids one time with a Perry Como 45 record and a brand-new hi-fi to spin it on, he was not what anyone would reasonably call spontaneous. He was thoughtful and considerate, which is not always the opposite of spontaneity.  
    That is to say, what happened next was not typical “Daddy behavior.” He came home from work one day in September, 1960, and piled us all into the car to try out a new restaurant. He must have told Mom or she would have been in the middle of serving a home-cooked meal as he pulled in at 6:00. 
    It was not only Daddy’s new idea about dinner, it was a whole new concept in eating. Fast Food. McDonald’s, it was. After the Golden Arches were added, but before Ronald made his marketing appearance. So off we all went for the 30 minute drive.
    There was only one hitch. Mom didn’t like ketchup. Her burger had to be special-ordered which took longer. The point was fast, and Mom’s burger was not fast. “But it’s fresh,” she never failed to mention. And maybe it was.
    Okay, two hitches. Daddy liked to keep his car clean. We did not eat in his car. Indoor seating was not a wide-spread McDonald’s “thing” until 1968, so we ate at a picnic table in front of the building.
    The first drive-thru was added in 1975. When a decline in sales (prompted by an Army rule stating that soldiers had to stay in their cars or on base while wearing fatigues) an enterprising franchisee designed a sliding drive-up window. The idea caught on fast. A drive-thru in the Oklahoma City restaurant netted a 40% increase in sales.
    Between the popularity of two-car families and people spending more time in their cars, the fast food business grew, well, fast. 
    To the detriment of our health, we Americans are the #1 consumers of fast food in the world at an average of 18 meals per month. According to All About Burgers, “[t]he average American consumes about 3 burgers per week. McDonald’s serves around 75 million burgers daily, which accounts for a significant portion of the 50 billion burgers eaten each year in America.”
    Now backtrack to 1954. Ray Kroc, a milkshake machine salesman, approached the McDonald’s brothers, who were running a successful BBQ joint in California. He brought his Multimixer and a full load of energy, and sold them not only the Multimixer, but himself, as well.
    Kroc became their franchise agent in 1955 and opened his own McDonald’s, the first one east of the Mississippi River, in 1955, too. 
    In 1961, the McDonald brothers sold their company to Kroc for $2.7 million. 
    Ray kept the name, but focused on uniformity and streamlined the menu. He standardized all procedures for every task from product (McDonald’s only uses Russet Burbank potatoes from Idaho for their fries, everywhere in the world) to prepping, cooking, serving, and cleaning up.
    When he died in 1984, Ray Kroc left his $500 million fortune to his wife, Joan. By the time of her own death in 2003, she had grown the fortune to $3 billion. 
    And she was a philanthropist’s philanthropist. 
    Over $200 million went to NPR who set up the Joan B. Kroc Legacy Society to manage the largest bequest in public radio history.
    The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies located on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, supports about 400 colleges and universities around the world that offer peace study programs of one kind or another. From its website “[p]eace studies [is a recognized discipline which] has a literature (books and journals), an active base of scholars, an established curriculum, and a pedagogical tradition that includes classroom teaching, experiential learning, internships, and international study…Kroc Institute faculty are experts in a variety of disciplines and can speak engagingly on diverse topics related to conflict, violence and strategic peacebuilding efforts.”
    The Salvation Army was Joan’s largest beneficiary, almost half of her fortune. In 2023, twenty years after her death, “26 grand, state-of-the-art Kroc centers have opened” throughout the US and our territories. AP News reports “1.2 million people belong to Kroc fitness centers, and over 3 million people annually are served through a wide variety of other programs, including job training, theatrical performances, and afterschool care.”
    While the McDonald’s Corporation does not continue to support Joan’s philanthropic agencies directly, and Franchisees are not obliged to contribute to them, either, Joan’s legacy includes not only the funds she donated, but her example of “giving big” as a lesson to all of us.
    The McDonald's Corporation supports Animal Welfare, Climate Action, Eliminating Deforestation, Providing Sustainable Packaging, and “reducing by 90%” the amount of “conventional virgin plastic” in their Happy Meal toys. (info from McDonald’s Corporation website here and here.)
    All that “giving back” makes me feel good about McDonald’s Corporation’s leadership role in causes I also believe in. But I still won’t buy their food. Well, maybe a milkshake now and then.
​
I just finished reading When Tomorrow Burns by Tae Keller (Random House Books for Young Readers/Random House Children’s Books, 2026), a story of three friends who found a book of prophecies. Told in alternating points of view, including a tree, the friends grow apart, make bad decisions, and live with the consequences that ultimately bring new understanding of themselves and reconnection to each other. Recommended.
                          -—Be curious! (and give yourself a break
                                               today. You deserve it!)

They’ll make a route from here to there
with careful planning everywhere.
The team will build it, load by load:
A SUPERHIGHWAY, MEGA ROAD!
              Construction Site: Road Crew, Coming Through! 
                               written by Sherri Duskey Rinker 
                                           illustrated by AG Ford
                                           Chronicle Books, 2021

    On Tuesday, October 24, 2017, my husband and I started out on a 5,825 mile trip to the Southwest US. We were gone 19 days. (I’m counting the last day because we arrived back home at 8:21 pm.)
    We started out with a full tank, a load of curiosity, and an empty journal, and headed for Route 66, the best way to discover the nebulous “West.”
    After meeting old friends for breakfast in St. Louis, our first stop was the Gateway Arch, conveniently located on the Mother Road, herself.. We worked our way from there to the Rte 66 museum housed in a new library in Lebanon, Missouri. We found dinner in Stroud, Oklahoma, at Tammy’s Roadside Roundup Cafe. 
    Across the Texas panhandle to Amarillo then Sante Fe., New Mexico. Except for the Georgia O’Keefe museum, everything was cotton and cattle. 
    Oil rigs next to silos and a 10-mile wide wind farm that included at least 100 windmills. Then Taos. We visited an Earthship community in Tres Piedras, NM. It’s a self-contained community that generates its own electricity, water, food, and companionship. Click the link to see Earth and her Earthlings enjoying each other.
    Cottonwood after cottonwood after cottonwood tree glowed gold at the bottom of Rio Grande del Norte, a gorge just a little smaller than the Grand Canyon.
    Viewed ancient petroglyphs in Petrified Forest National Park.
    Speechless with the wonder of beauty at Grand Canyon. 
    Flagstaff and Sedona with their breathtaking views of mountains at 7,000 feet of elevation.
    At the Phoenix Botanical Garden we learned that both Gila and gilded woodpeckers carve holes in saguaro cacti 15 to 25 feet high for their nests. The nest holes don’t hurt the cacti. The plants ooze out a liquid resin that hardens to protect themselves while providing a firm base for the nests. 
    Cacti mature at about 40 feet and don’t start growing arms till they’re at least 50 years old.
    We crossed the Carefree Highway on our way to the Hoover Dam and Lake Meade, then found Rte 93, the Joshua Tree Parkway. The trees are ubiquitous along the roadsides for miles.
    A switchback road took us to Oatman, AZ and back to Rte 66. Oatman was a mining town: copper and silver, mostly. Now it’s famous for its burros. The ones roaming the streets today are descendants of the working burros that pulled miner’s equipment. They eat hay you can buy from the general store. One dollar for a lunchbag sized package. The town holds a naming contest each Spring when new babies are born,. (They all looked alike to me!)
    Stayed in Boulder City, NV, just outside Las Vegas. Walked around the town and saw lots of statues commemorating Hoover Dam. 
    Finally, 3,373 miles from home, we arrived at Zion National Park. Walked several easy trails before heading to Bryce Canyon. 
    At 7,777 feet, we woke up near Bryce Canyon to 39 degrees and frost. By the time we saw the Hoodoos, the weather was warm and sunny.
    We took the loooong way to Moab, Utah, and had to stop for two cows in the road.
    Arches National Park might be the most beautiful place on Earth. 
    Every bend of the road delivered an astonishing view. 
    Zion. All in Utah. 
    November 9. After traveling 4006 miles, we turned toward home. 
    Mesa Verde’s Cliff Dwelling tours closed for the season the day before we arrived, so we  explored the area where the Ancestral Puebloans lived before they moved into the cliffs, and viewed the cliff dwellings with binoculars across a canyon. A good reason to return.
    Lots of snow as we crossed the Continental Divide in Colorado.
    After a night at the  Wigwam Motel, incredibly shaped like a cement wigwam, (not much room to move around and the bathroom mirror was on a slant to accommodate the inside wall), our home called a little louder.
    We blew past the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas, the Oz Museum in Wamego, Kansas, and Harry S. Truman’s Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri.
    Whew! Home, 19 days and 5,825 miles later.
    Legislation for building public highways was first introduced in Congress in 1916, but it wasn’t until 1925 that road construction finally began. In summer of 1926, the road received its official numerical designation. The planners intended U.S. 66 to move southwest to connect Chicago to Los Angeles, “a principle east-west artery.” The road would connect main streets of rural communities to urban communities providing much needed “access to a major national thoroughfare.”
    The road was used by farmers to transport grain and produce to the big cities, and by 1930 truck traffic rivaled the rails. Called the Mother Road by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath (1939 novel, made into a film in 1940), the name stuck. Over 200,000 people migrated from Oklahoma to California during the Dust Bowl years (1933 to 1939) earning Route 66 its symbol as the “road to opportunity.”
    Young Army captain, Dwight D. Eisenhower, saw the need for improved roads as the world ramped up to World War II. Between 1941 and 1945 the US government invested about $70 billion to build new military training bases out West, primarily around LA and San Diego, and move soldiers there.
    After the War, store owners, motel managers, and gas station attendants rose to the challenge of meeting the needs of growing numbers of travelers and people re-locating from the cold winters of the North to the “barbecue culture” of California. And in 1946, Nat King Cole released “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66,” written by former pianist with Tommy Dorsey and ex-Marine captain, after he moved from Harrisburg, PA to California, Bobby Troup.
    Under Eisenhower’s direction, the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 provided the finances needed to pay for our Interstate Highway System.
    By 1970, nearly all of Rte 66 was bypassed by modern four-lanes, and by 1984, the final section was bypassed by I-40 at Williams, Arizona. (See National Historic Route 66 Federation for more history of our Mother Road.) 
    Although we were not on Rte 66 our entire trip, lots of the road passed under our tires. 
    What a beautiful country!
I just finished reading Whale Eyes: a Memoir About Seeing and Being Seen written by James Robinson with illustrations by Brian Rea (Penguin Workshop/Penguin Random House, 2025). It’s the fascinating story of a boy whose distorted vision turned him into a documentary filmmaker. His inspirational journey was guided by his mother and his own determination, grit, and curiosity about how the world really works. Recommended.
                          --Stay Curious! (and travel by armchair
                                   till the price of gas goes down)

Good morning!
I'm a new poll worker and heading out to work! so no blog post today.
Please vote. Primaries are important, too!
​See you next week.

John Coltrane…wrote music
which, in his hands,
became swirling, leaping, tumbling 
sheets of sound.
That’s what he called it.
                              from John Coltrane’s Giant Steps
                      written and illustrated by Chris Raschka
                      Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books, 2002

    My oldest grandson is studying music, learning to excel on his instruments (percussion includes a lot of different instruments), learning different aspects and genres of music, and learning to manage his time as well as whatever else we all learned as we moved toward independence.
    He and the rest of his class are all working toward their college degrees in music. Music majors can specialize in performance, composition, music theory, the music industry, music technology, music education, music history, and music therapy. 
    Last weekend his four-piece jazz combo played outdoors in Columbus. They’re not professional yet, though to my untrained ear they sure sounded like it.
    I used to think jazz was an either love it or hate it music style. That is, when I tried to listen. My musical experience taught me to be an active listener. I tried to anticipate where the melody was going and how it would get there. I looked for patterns in the rhythms. I even studied a little music theory.
    But none of that prepared me for jazz. Jazz is improvisational. Jazz sings its own melodies and builds its own rhythms.
    The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival began on April 23 and continues through May 3, 2026. It’s huge, and that’s probably an understatement. You can find out about this year’s festival here. Click the menu bar to find the musical lineup, view local crafts for sale, learn about New Orleans’s culture, and visit the Food Heritage Stage to watch some of New Orleans best chefs demonstrate how they prepare their cuisine.
    From the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation's website, I learned that the Jazz Fest began in 1970. According to their mission, the foundation “promotes, preserves, perpetuates, and encourages the music, culture, and heritage of communities in Louisiana through festivals, programs, and other cultural, educational, civic, and economic activities. 
    It’s grown in scope, importance, and funding during its first 55 years. The foundation is supported by grants, donations, and events (all listed on the link).
    The word jazz is a slang term from the 1860s and and referred to pep or energy. Unlike classical music, pop, show tunes, or contemporary, jazz depends on improvisation. A jazz standard, typically a familiar tune, is interpreted through solos, a call and response pattern, and a band’s particular style. Solos are generally made up “on the spot.” The piece becomes something new. Every time it’s played and heard. 
    A good jazz band plays well together, anticipates where the lead musician is going, and follows the direction of each soloist. 
    In the early part of the last century, New Orleans had one of the most diverse populations in the South. Jazz was born of a blend of African, French, Caribbean, Italian, German, Mexican, Native American, and English music traditions and styles. It evolved and developed spontaneously by blending the syncopated rhythms of ragtime with the soulfulness of spirituals and the blues.
    Jazz is uniquely American. It’s individual, continually changing, and always spontaneous, even when it’s rehearsed.
    The most common subgeneres of jazz include Bebop, Latin, Fusion, Cool, and Swing. Beginning in the 1930s and 40s, the combination of percussion, brass, saxophones and her incredible voice made Ella Fitzgerald’s Swing easy to listen to and hard to sit still for.  
    Fitzgerald bridged into Bebop that grew from Swing. Its complex harmonies and rhythms begged for improvisation. Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk and Ella were Bebop masters. 
    Latin jazz came into its own in the 1950s and remains popular. Fusion jazz emerged in the 1960s alongside rock-n-roll in all its variety. Fusion jazz pushes the  boundaries of everything new. 
    It’s Cool jazz, though, that music researchers are discovering is jazz with health benefits. 
    According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, listening to music can lower anxiety and blood pressure, ease pain, and improve sleep quality, mood, mental alertness, and memory. 
    Music has structure. Our brains compute the relationships between notes to make sense of the chords, rhythms, and melodies. Research from the National Library of Medicine (part of the National Institutes of Health, NIH) has shown that, among other genres, instrumental jazz is easier to interpret, especially without the layer of lyrical language, so is more soothing to listeners,.
    A study done by the New Orleans Musicians Assistance Foundation (part of The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival) says Cool jazz’s “innovative riffs, cool tones, and complex rhythms can bring natural relief for mind & body.” Listening to jazz, the article continues,  improves our focus, creativity, and even our immunity. “Listening to jazz for 30 minutes boosts immunoglobulin A (lgA), preventing [viral and bacterial] infection.”
    So for my health (and enjoyment) I’ll kick off my shoes, pour my favorite beverage, find a comfortable seat and wait for the smooth, cool sounds of a piano, saxophone, or violin to accompany the songbirds in my backyard. Join me?

I’m reading a young middle grade novel, Appleblossom the Possum by Holly Goldberg Sloan and illustrated by Mary Rosen (Rocky Road Books/Penguin Young Readers Group, 2015). Geared for readers in about 3rd through 5th or 6th grade, it’s the story of a baby possum, trained up with her twelve siblings in the ways of the world by their mama. Appleblossom is more curious than careful, though. When she falls down the chimney of a house full of humans, she puts her acting skills and accidental friendship with the girl of the house to great use in a warm and funny read. 

      On a sticky and sunny Sunday in the summer of 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland did something rivers should never do.
                                KABOOM!
    No one was surprised, surprisingly. It’s burned before, people said. It’ll burn again.
    Which was true. Since 1886, it happened thirteen times. In 1912, five people lost their lives. And the 1952 fire caused over a million dollars in damage.
                       from The Day the River Caught Fire
                                written by Barry Wittenstein
                                 illustrated by Jessie Hartland
                            Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
                            Books for Young Readers, 2023

    I disagree with Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, when he alludes to humans’ need for a little magic to make the world right. We don’t need magic. We need information. We need encouragement. And we need determination. That combination makes magic.
    When William Shakespeare was born (April 23, 1564) the Thames River was so polluted that you could smell its stink for miles. In 1969, the Cuyahoga River was so polluted that it caught fire and became part of a movement. The 1969 fire was not the Cuyahoga’s first fire. It was not even the worst one. (See quote above)    
    After the fire was put out, Clevelanders went back to work or home or school, 
    But in the wake of the monumental impact of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (Houghton/Mifflin, 1962), a quiet movement had begun.
    “[T]he times, they were a-changin’.” 
    Time Magazine published an article about the fire in March, 1970. In December, 1970, the Cuyahoga River fire was highlighted in a cover story in National Geographic titled “Our Ecological Crisis.” 
    When Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin visited Santa Barbara, California, in 1969, a massive oil spill had just ravaged the coast. Attention to the harm being done to our environment became his priority. 
    On April 22, 1970, under the leadership of Senator Nelson and his aide Denis Hayes, an environmental activist, the United States celebrated our first Earth Day. “An estimated 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. (earthday365).
    On December 2, 1970, Congress established the Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948. 
    First passed in 1972, The Clean Water Act has been amended several times. Through tighter restrictions, our water (and air) have become cleaner.
    In 2019, fish caught in the Cuyahoga River were deemed “fit to eat,” but after rollbacks in the first Trump administration, on August 25, 2020, the river caught fire again. Storm drains allowed sewage, toxins, and fertilizer to flow into the river during heavy rains. The 2020 fire started when a fuel tanker spilled its flaming contents into the river after a traffic accident. 
    An article in GreatLakesNow.com (2/13/24) reports that it depends on who you ask and what their standards are to determine if the fish you catch are safe or not.
    Until Lee Zeldin was confirmed as the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on January 20, 2025, many stabilizing measures had been working.
    We need our governmental leaders to make and enforce laws and standards that protect us and the environment.
    We need environmental scientists, climatologists, and geneticists. They ask questions they think they know answers to, just to discover if they actually could be wrong. After all, it’s really effective to learn from our mistakes. Scientists have shown us that we continue to make many, and many dangerous mistakes. They show us that we human beings have had a profound affect on our environment, especially in the days and years since the Industrial Revolution.
    It is hard to convince people of that profound affect.
    Denial has taken hold especially in the time of Trump. The concept of denial is well-understood, well-documented, and much written about. We can be in denial about our own mortality or that of a loved one. We can be in denial about how the hot-fudge sundae we ate last night really affects our weight-control efforts. We can be in denial about a drinking or drug habit. According to psychological research, the enormity of the problem does not allow our brains to process its reality. 
    Here’s how the thinking goes: “It’s only one straw. The ocean is vast. My one straw won’t matter in the whole scheme of things. And I'm tossing it in the trash.” But somewhere down deep, we know the fallacy of this kind of thinking. It’s the cumulative effect that matters. 
    The fact of climate change is easy to deny. It is just too big to wrap our heads around. And millions of people are climate change deniers.
    Try to imagine, though, that our Earth will suffocate/drown/blow away or burn up if we don’t acknowledge climate change and start working diligently toward solutions. Together.
    So what is the solution? Just like any huge problem or project, we must break it into smaller, more achievable goals. We need to tell our government officials that we are concerned about our planet. We need to make collective decisions that will benefit all of humanity and all of our shared earth. We all need to be involved on whatever level we can be.
    With so much chaos, it’s difficult to focus on one enormous problem for an extended period of time. So much is so necessary.
    Mother Nature is nothing if not fair. She responds harshly to abuse, but is abundantly forgiving when we treat her with love and generosity.
    Let’s take one day off from worrying about wars, ICE detentions, and mass shootings. Let’s promise Mother Nature for just one day that we’ll be more cautious, more care-full, and more grateful for her gifts.
​    Happy Earth Day!

I’m reading Inheriting Edith by Zoe Fishman (William Morrow, 2016). Maggie’s former employer (she cleaned the house) died unexpectedly and left Maggie her house and everything in it including her 82-year-old mother. This one’s full of laughs, heartaches, and a two-year old. Recommended.
                      Be curious! (and plant a tree, or hug one)

And just trying to move the cabbage wears you out. So you take a long snooze.
And dream about sharing your cabbage with others.
                       from The Cabbage Seed’s Colossal Secret
                                    written by Karen M. Greenwald
                                          pictures by Alejandra Ruiz
                                     Tilbury House Publishers, 2026

    I love flowers and veggies and nurturing them in my small garden, even though I’m not very good at helping them grow. Their ground is a mixture of good garden soil mixed with home grown compost. Their water is drawn from our hand-pump-accessed well. 
    I talk to them and keep them company on a chair nearby. Sometimes we all listen to music or a story played on my Libby app.
    But mostly, they’re on their own. To enjoy the sunshine, weather, and pollinators. I’m on the lookout for the bad bugs and chase those away as best I can.
    If we’re all lucky, they will thrive throughout the whole growing season. Sometimes I even collect seeds with the intention of sewing them the following spring. Sometimes, I even do.
    This afternoon I caught a short blurb on the radio about a local seed library in Kirtland, Ohio, near Cleveland. Since it began 2-1/2 years ago, the Native Seed Libraries of the Holden Arboretum and the Cleveland Botanical Garden has been helping holdenfg.org (Holden Forest and Garden, HF&G) live its mission to “[connect] people with the wonder, beauty, and value of trees and plants, to inspire action for healthy communities.” 
    This year, their Seed Bank opened to the public in several locations throughout the greater Cleveland area. on January 19. Three free packets of native seeds are available per visitor to “community members, gardeners, and educators.” I’ll post hours on FaceBook and whether seeds are still available when I can reach someone (They’re closed on Mondays).
    “Native plants play a critical role in supporting pollinators, restoring habitat, and strengthening our region’s ecosystems,” says Kim Lessman, Seed Bank Manager at HF&G. “By making locally sourced native seeds freely available, the Native Seed Library empowers residents to be active participants in conservation, right in their own backyards.”
    Several branches of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County are pick-up sites for free seed packets from the Ohio State University (OSU) Extension of Mahoning County. Packets include carrot, lettuce, or sunflower seeds with instructions. Here's the flyer.
    You can find local seed banks with a Google search, just make sure you check the site carefully. Most are outlets for Cannabis.
    And buried deep in the permafrost on Spitsbergen, a Norwegian island in the Norwegian Sea about halfway between Norway and the North Pole is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. It was expressly chosen for its remote location, far from war and terror as well as natural disasters. 
    It was opened by the Norwegian government in February, 2008 to preserve seeds from around the world to protect biodiversity in areas that may experience devastation of one kind or another. 
    From Norway’s government site,“[t]he vault hold the seeds of many tens of thousands of varieties of essential food crops such as beans, wheat and rice. These seed samples are duplicates of seed sample stores in national, regional and international gene banks.” 
    The Vault holds 642 million seeds, and has the capacity to reach 2.5 billion. Grains make up 69% of the holdings, 9% are legumes. The rest are a “wide variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and other plants [i]ncluding hallucinogenic plants such as cannabis and opium. 
    Seeds are usually tiny. Some are just small, but so many seeds (in their containers) need about 31 x 88-1/2 feet (9.5 x 27 meters) of space arranged in a rectangle divided into three long halls. See photos of the interior and the exterior.
    In February, 2026, the facility accepted its 69th deposit since opening on February 26, 2008. It now holds olive seeds for the first time, and accepted a total of 8,880 seed samples from 12 countries. Two of them, Guatemala and Niger, are first-time depositors. 
    The purpose of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is to safeguard duplicates of seed samples from as many countries as possible to ensure the world’s future food supply. It backs up the over 1,700 world-wide gene banks which are vulnerable to natural disasters, war, and poor management and or lack of funding.
    Securing crop diversity allows researchers, plant breeders, and farmers to adapt agricultural practices to the climate crisis and reduce environmental deterioration making sure we can feed ourselves adequately. 
    They develop new and more resilient crop varieties that are nutritious, tasty, and environmentally sustainable.   
    From Karen Greenwald's author’s note in today's quoted book, I learned that she based her story of the colossal cabbage on a real 9-year-old girl whose real 40-pound cabbage fed a soup kitchen’s 275 hungry people, inspired a whole town, and launched Katie’s Krops, an organization that nurtures, trains, and supports young Gardners nationwide. Here's a link to Katie’s Krops FaceBook page.

I’m still reading The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. I borrowed a copy from a friend, but needed to return it to her at my halfway mark. The reserve list from the library is thousands strong, which tells us a lot about the book. The main character is so well-drawn that I’m sure I’d recognize her if we could meet. Her friends, neighbors, authors, and others she writes to are just as real to me. It’s amazing how much we can learn about ourselves and others through fictional letters!
                    -—Be curious! (and remember to thank a farmer)

Let’s make music
Let’s have fun.
It’s music time
for everyone.
                                        from Let’s Make Music
                                  written by Alexandra Penfold
                                illustrated by Suzanne Kaufman
                        Random House Children’s Books, 2024

    Before I retired, we children’s librarians all had several trainings on language development and the process of learning to read. They were based on cutting-edge research analyzed by professionals at the American Library Association and brought to staff librarians across the US. 
    “What is the most important activity parents can do with their babies to help them learn to read?” That was my interview question for a new position at the Library    .
     Sing was my spontaneous but logical answer. I hadn’t thought of it before, but it made instant sense to me and I guess the administration, too. I got the job. 
    I was to be the liaison between the library and the community: parents, caregivers, and preschool teachers. I would share the research and demonstrate how children from birth to age 5 acquire language and the ability to read.
    ALA dubbed their program “All Children Ready To Read.” Our library renamed it “Baby Brilliant.” 
    I’ve always loved the sound and music of language and loved sharing that with young parents, preschool teachers, and little kids.
    Singing has words (real ones and nonsense, made up ones), playful or complicated rhymes, steady or complicated rhythms, and an endless variety of melody, all aspects of language children need to be familiar with before they can sound out words and attach meanings to them.
    But music and especially singing is so much more than its various parts. It is inextricably linked to our emotions and moods. 
    An aspect of music I wondered about for a long time was the seeming contradiction between the melodies of most “break-up” songs and their lyrics. Broken-hearted lovers sing songs in up-beat major keys. Why?
    Various sources I studied explained how the quick, happy-sounding tunes that convey sad lyrics help listeners feel less alone in their grief, more connected to others going through similar circumstances. Experiments have shown that the happy-sounding music overrides the sad story, so lots of times as we sing along, toe-tap, or head-bop we actually begin to feel better, less alone. 
    Some examples to remember or look up on Spotify or Pandora include Elvis’s “Return to Sender,” or Neil Sedaka’s “Breaking Up is Hard To Do,” or Gary Lewis and the Playboys singing “This Diamond Ring.”  
    Nostalgia and catharsis are two important feelings brought up by break-up songs. Our longing for the past and using music to help us relive some of our most difficult times can lead to a release emotions that have been building up. 
    Singing is even more effective than just listening. From the first note we sing, a chemical symphony begins within our brain. 
    OperaNorth, an organization from the UK, lists several reasons why singing is good for us.

• Singing releases endorphins, serotonin, and dopamine, chemicals that boost our mood and make us feel good about ourselves.
• Singing requires us to breathe, helps us increase our lung capacity, and engage the muscles around our ribcage.
• Breathing properly and with more awareness is good for releasing anxiety and helps transition us to a state of rest and relaxation.
• Singing can help improve mental alertness, memory and concentration. Singers focus on multiple aspects of music at once, engaging many areas of the brain simultaneously. 
• Music is a powerful tool used to spark memories during dementia care, often long after other forms of communication have become more difficult.
• Singing with other people helps build connections and feelings of togetherness. 
• Singing in a group can boost our confidence and fire up our self-esteem. 
• Good posture is a key factor in hitting the high notes. We naturally stand taller when we sing.

    Val Bastien in VoiceYourselfSinging (10/5/24) says, “Beyond the chemicals, singing allows for profound emotional release.” 
    My dad had a wonderful tenor voice. He liked all kinds of music, with words and without. I loved to listen to him sing. 
    Mom’s voice was strong, but not so much “on key.” She wanted to sing in tune, but must not have been able to hear music that way, so she couldn’t reproduce it. That didn’t matter to me, though. 
    She taught our Girl Scout troop lots of songs. There must be some trigger in some (or maybe even most) people that allows them to hear pitches in tune, in standard intervals, regardless the tones actually demonstrated. We girls always sang in tune, even though Mom couldn’t really teach us the “right” notes. I’m a little bit fascinated by this phenomenon but haven’t found a helpful explanation, yet.
    Singing (mostly in tune) helps me perk myself up when I’m driving home from a long-ish trip. I crank up the volume and sing along. I know lots of oldies.
    It must be the endorphins and serotonin and dopamine. 
    
I just started reading The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Crown, 2025). According to Anne Patchett’s blurb on the back cover, “Virginia Evans shows how one woman changes at a point when change had seemed impossible.” I expect it to be emotional, internal, and thought-provoking. I hope I’m right. I’ll let you know.
                              Be curious! (and belt out your favorite song,
                                         with reckless abandon, and friends)