Tuesday, April 29, 2025

A Happy Wander!

An enjoyable time for all at Mary's home.  We feasted on pasties, green pizza,  salads and strawberry shortcake.  Reflecting our movie theater theme, Judy Bell brought Milk Duds and I brought popcorn.  Nobody went home hungry!

Our book was "Virgil Wander" by Leif Enger, a captivating and whimsical novel which took us to small town upstate Minnesota.  Full of humor, it viewed several aspects of life; its meaning, its heartaches, its second chances for redefinition, its forgiveness.  Life not unlike that here in Entiat.  The small town movie theater was a replica of the Ruby Theater in Chelan; this story seemed so familiar.  I wrote several pages of quotes in my notebook and found this novel left me full of optimism for mankind.  

"...I admire....your solitude.  I never imagined such luxury."

"The surface of everything is thinner than we know.  A person can fall right through, without any warning at all."

"Your tribe is always bigger than you think."

"Everyone wants to start again....Why are we here if not to grow!"

Monday, March 24, 2025

Enjoying the "Luck of the Irish"

We enjoyed a lovely meal and evening at Judy Bell's home, complete with Irish music in the background.  The one day everyone gets to be Irish and enjoy green and Irish cream!  Chris brought a photo album of an Irish adventure to help us "set our scene".  A delightful time with pleasant conversion.

Our read this month was "The Library at the Edge of the World" by Felicity Hayes-McCoy.  It is "an empowering story about the meaning of home and the importance of finding a place where you truly belong".  About a whole community that connected in a web of mutual support.  One of those fell-good stories which we all enjoy, filled with lovely prose.  

"But a librarian should know better than anyone how written words, moving through time and space, could change a person's life.....for millennia, written words had conveyed dreams, visions and aspirations across oceans and mountains....She was part of a process that stretched across distance and time."

Judy shared this St Patrick's Day blessing:  "May your pockets be heavy and your heart be light; may good luck pursue you each morning and night."

Tuesday, February 18, 2025

"As always it was delightful to “break bread” with all of you.  The wonderful soup, the various breads, broccoli salad, and other tempting items made a full dinner.  The conversations, the discussions the books brought up, the warm fire and community information passed around - made our time at Judy’s special."   -Judy Bell 

 "He feared he would be stuck forever in that winter...."  War is declared and everyone's lives are forever changed.  One young man, training to become a doctor, learns that "what constitutes illness in war is not the same as peace....Since when was our goal to cure them?  It's to return them to the front....Patch and send....He had worked under the magical assumption that when he stepped away the misery abated"....But disease of the mind "seemed as something different, unrelenting....No wound at all, at least not one you could see...."  The doctor finally is sent home but "the dreams pursued him.  'I thought returning from the front would ease these troubles; unless there is a battle I don't yet understand."