Tom

 Tom sent me a link to a site where there are pictures of him jumping off the Auckland Harbor bridge in Australia.  I was so thrilled to see these

Laurel jumped too but I don't have pictures of her.  They are very brave!!!

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Pearl Buck

 I read several Pearl S. Buck books when I was a young adult and always enjoyed her writing.  I knew absolutely nothing about her life until I read  this piece by Garrison Keillor.  I wanted to share it:

Pearl S. Buck was born in Hillsboro, West Virginia (1892). Her parents were Christian missionaries, and she was raised in China from the age of three months. She said: "I spoke Chinese first, and more easily. [...] I did not consider myself a white person in those days." She was tutored in the mornings by her mother, but spent the afternoons with her beloved Chinese nurse, who told her stories and took her to visit friends, where young Pearl listened to women gossip. She played with Chinese friends, joined their parties, and hid her blond hair underneath a hat.

She married an agricultural missionary. They lived in northern China and then Nanking, where she taught English literature. In 1920, she gave birth to a daughter, Carol, who had a severe developmental disability. Her husband did not know how to cope with Carol and withdrew from his family. At times, Buck doted on Carol, desperately hoping that her condition would improve. And other times, she was frustrated and embarrassed by the girl, who would scream and cry for hours on end. She said, "Sometimes I can scarcely bear to look at other children and see what she might have become."

By the winter of 1927-28, Buck was living in Shanghai, and she was unhappy. Earlier that year, they had been forced to evacuate their home in Nanking after a violent skirmish called the Nanking Incident — among those targeted were white foreigners, and their home was destroyed. She had just completed the manuscript of her first novel, working in her own private space in the attic, but the only copy was destroyed by looters. The Red Cross sent them to Japan with nothing but the clothes they were wearing, and they lived there for seven months before moving to Shanghai. 

Her husband returned to Nanking for work, so she was left caring for the children, sharing a run-down rental house in Shanghai with two other families. Her marriage was deteriorating. Her salary was tiny, and her husband forced her to sign it over to him and then ask for an allowance. She knew that the only hope of giving Carol long-term care was in the United States, but her husband didn't want to leave China. She realized that she might end up responsible for Carol and that she had to figure out a way to provide for her.

So she returned to writing, not out of passion but as a way to earn money. She had written a few stories here and there, and the novel that had been destroyed, and she felt it was her best chance of earning a living. She found an old trade magazine in a Shanghai bookstore, and it listed three literary agents, so she wrote to all three. Two of them told her there was no market in America for Chinese subjects. 

The third, David Lloyd, agreed to take her on, and remained her agent for 30 years.

In 1929, Buck took Carol back to America to find her long-term care.

Touring institutions depressed her, and although she found a place she liked, she said that leaving Carol was the hardest thing she did in her life. She took out a loan from a member of the Mission Board to afford the care. At the same time, her first novel, East Wind, West Wind (1930), was accepted for publication by John Day Company. Her agent had sent it to 25 publishers, and John Day was the last on his list; if they refused it, he was going to withdraw the manuscript. John Day's president and publisher, Richard Walsh, later became Buck's lover, and eventually her husband. 

She started writing her second novel, The Good Earth (1931), as soon as she got back to China, and it took her just three months. Buck was floored when it was chosen by the Book-of-the-Month Club and she was sent a check for $4,000 — with that money she could pay for several years of Carol's schooling. The Good Earth sold nearly 2 million copies in its first year of publication, and was the best-selling book of 1931 and 1932. She earned more than $100,000 dollars in a year and a half, and put $40,000 toward Carol's care. 

She won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1938.

~ Garrison Keillor

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Amazing cakes

You really need to see this movie: https://fb.watch/mQuIr_gLCN/ (I hope you have Facebook to get it) I hope Lacie is able to see it. She's becoming a cake decorator.

& & & & &

Ned harvested his "big" tomato yesterday. I discovered there were actually THREE big tomatoes growing (2 still green). He cut the tomato he picked and we each had 2 pieces in our salad. It was so delicious! Just like the tomatoes I remember from my childhood (the ones I used to make tomato sandwiches with).

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Sunday Stealing

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. This feature originated and published on WTIT: The Blog. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves.

Stolen from Storyworth

    1. Did you ever have a commercial you really liked?
There are some commercials I like, but I can't think of any specific one at the moment.

    2. How did you learn to ride a bicycle?
My father taught me, I think.

    3.How did you celebrate your 21st birthday?
Walt took me for cocktails at the Top of the Mark Hopkins hotel in San Francisco.

    4. What fascinated you as a child?
I was always fascinated by dogs and horses and read every book I could find about them.

    5. What was one of your favorite playground games?
When I went to the playground, I usually went into the building and played Jacks.

    6. What things matter most to you in life?
Family, of course.

    7. If you had to go back in time and start a brand new career, what would it be?
I'd probably be more serious about writing.  Or I'd choose some sort of career that would give me a retirement when I retired, rather than the jobs I had, which were not "careers."

    8. What do people get wrong about you?
They think I'm very sociable, when in fact I'm quite shy.

    9. Do you believe that people can change? Why or why not?
Definitely.  If you want to change and are willing to work at it, you can change.

    10. What is some of the best advice your mother ever gave you?
"This too shall pass."

    11. If you could see into the future, what would you want to find out?
If Trump is going to spend any time in jail!!

    12. How has your life turned out differently than you imagined it would?
With 5 kids, I expected to have a lot more than 2 grandchildren.  And I expected I would spend a lot of time with my grandchildren, not just see them twice a year and have essentially nothing to do with them.

    13. What is the longest project you have ever worked on?
Each of the Lamplighters history books took about two years to complete.

    14. What have been some of your favorite restaurants through the years?
I love The Dead Fish in Concord, where you can get wonderful Dungeness Crab.  There is also a great restaurant in San Francisco called Thanh Long where  they have great crab.

    15. What is one of the best shows you've ever been to?
Oh so many!  For concerts there was, of course, Judy Garland's Carnegie Hall concert and then I saw Joel Grey in concert at the Fairmont hotel and that was fabulous.  In musicals, I loved Phantom of the Opera in London and watching Paul as Winthrop in two different productions of The Music Man in community theater.  As for drama, a community theater production of  Grounded was one of the most memorable I've seen.

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Saturday 9

 

Welcome to Saturday: 9. What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love memes, however, and here is today's meme!

Saturday 9: Workin' for a Livin' (1982)

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) Huey begins the song by telling us some workdays feel like they will never end. How was last week for you? Did it drag or did it fly by?
I didn't notice.  It didn't seem to drag, but it didn't fly by either.

2) He sings that his car payment is due. Think about your personal finances. Do you pay most of your bills manually or do you more often take advantage of automated bill pay?
Walt pays most of our bills.  The bills I pay I pay automated.

 3) Huey Lewis achieved a perfect score on the math portion of the SAT. Did you take SATs and/or ACTs? Were your results anything to brag about? (If they were, go ahead and let us know!)
It was so long ago I don't remember.  I did OK, I remember.

4) In his role as District Attorney for Essex County, MA, Huey's grandfather Hugh Cregg prosecuted high-profile murder cases. Do you enjoy watching or reading courtroom dramas?
I prefer the crime solving dramas, but courtroom dramas are OK.  I'd like to see a case solved the way all of Perry Mason's cases are.

5) Huey no longer performs because he has an inner-ear disorder that prevents him from holding a vocal pitch. Of your five senses -- hearing, sight, smell, touch and taste -- which is the strongest?
I think none is strong, but of the five, taste is probably the strongest.  I wear glasses, have hearing aids, have lost the ability to smell many things.

6) He is a fan of fly fishing. Did you do any fishing this summer?
I have never gone fishing.

Since this Monday is Labor Day, the holiday established to celebrate the American worker … 

7) Approx. 10% of Americans are self employed. Have you ever been your own boss?
Most of my life I've been my own boss at least in part of my work, as a medical transcriptionist for a psychiatrist for 30 years, as a cake decorator for about 5 years.

8) According to Monster.com, 50% of workers have left a job to get away from a boss. Are you one of the 50%?
Oh yes, definitely.  An attorney I worked for was so bad that I finally quit.

9) Farmers feel the impact of extreme weather events. Have you ever had a job that required you to be outdoors most of the time?
No

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My Month in Pictures

 This is for a SwapBot swap and are some of my favorite photos taken this month:

I didn't actually take this, but I love the picture.

It's my granddaughters visiting Australia.

My daughter-in-law's birthday hat.

My office.

Not exactly a favorite photo, but people who think I live an organized life need to see this.

We haven't had guests in months...perhaps years...so I was thrilled when Natalie dropped by for a visit.  

Ned's birthday guitar, gift from our son-in-law.

Our garden with its 4 cherry tomatoes.  Next year we'll plant more!!!

Ned harvested his crop of tomatoes...four cherry tomatoes.  We each got one.

My three kids.  I love how close they are  to each other.

I love taking pictures of Walt sleeping with Bubba sleeping in his lap.

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A mystery

 A big, heavy package was delivered from Amazon yesterday.  I couldn't think what I had ordered except a few pair of slacks, which were supposed to have been delivered by August 23.  I couldn't imagine why the box was so big and so heavy.

As I started to open it, I realized that it was cold and I found two big bags of ice-like substances, which explains why the package was cold...but what was the actual package??

I finally got through all the packing and found a lovely heart shaped box of Godiva chocolates. There was no note other than "I hope you like your gift."  Near as I could figure, the "gift" had come from Amazon, but why?

I checked my orders to see if perhaps I had inadvertently ordered it (though I don't have a clue how I could have done that), but there was no order for chocolates on my record.

I put a note on Facebook, hoping that someone on FB had sent it and would own up to it, but all the comments I got were to just go ahead and enjoy the chocolates (which I was doing!)

I gave up trying to figure out where it came from, but later in the evening it occurred to me that perhaps my swap partner for the "Happy Mailbox All Month August 23" had sent it.  It was a swap where you send "something" (letters, gifts, etc) once a week for the month.  I had received several things from her and the month was over, but I took a chance and wrote to her.  And yes, she sent the candy.  She said she had written a note, but Amazon didn't include it in the package.

It's kind of sad that I figured it out because it was fun wondering where this mysterious gift had come from, but I'm glad that I did, so I could thank her.  Sadly, I was eating too much of it, so sent the box up to Ned and Marta's apartment and told Walt if he wanted chocolate he could get it from them.  But what I had eaten up to that point was delicious.

___________________________________________________________________________

PHOTO OF THE DAY 

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