Three good books to read tonight!

I met Jonathan Katz at Goddard Goddard in Plainfield VT in 1964, the year I graduated from high school. He tooled around in a new blue Corvair.

     The car was written up, along with other cars, in Ralph Nader's "Unsafe at Any Speed."

I last saw Jonathan when he and his wife Suzie summered in a lovely home in Upper Black Eddy, PA.  I drove down while everyone in the car yelled at me.

Do this, do that, don't do that. Don't worry, I did a great job driving.

Then, one foggy Pennsylvania afternoon, I get an email....

Jonathan P Katz has been awarded a doctorate degree from Goddard College, which you may watch here.

He's always been a wiz with electronic equipment. When he did comedy skits here in Philly, he played a song with his - mandolin? - called Pussycat Polka. He penned a lot of tunes.

***

Scott made this scarecrow.

And I made postcards today.

This is an old Sunbeam hair dryer I used to blow-dry some acrylic paint.

My neighbor Julien Dinerstine and I met when I was running down the hill, my blond braids flying, of my neighbor Linda.

Julien was walking Roxie, the big dog, and - ach! almost remembered the name of the lil dog. I didn't see him and I heard someone say, Hi Ruth.

What, I thought, someone knows me?

After I explained my plight, Julien said he'd bring me his mom's old hair dryer. He took soooo long that in desperation I put the two huge punkin paintings in the oven and by the time he got here, they were dry.

But I needed it for one other pumpkin for Terry Pointer.

 How would I make one more punkin?

Raced over to Scott's house next door where he has a drawer-load of greeting cards. I found two blank matching pages, stapled em together and cut out a punkin shape.

Then raced upstairs to type up the address on the front and a saying on the back.

The house was littered with scraps of paper but I was pressed for time.

The Abington PO closed at 4 pm, altho the Huntingdon Valley was open until 5.

Where, I wondered, is the Abington. Aha, I said, It's on the way to the church.

Off I flew sans seat belting myself in.

When I got there, Stacy said the various post offices wouldn't be able to tell the front from the back.

C'mon,, Stacy, I said. You people are smart. I've done this many times before.

  Reminded me of the incredible escapes Edith Hahn made in her quest to remain alive during the Holocaust. Finished this excellent book this morning, a gift for Dan's 39th bday which I can now present to him in the original B & N plastic bag.

Am not reading anything now so I went to the Upper Moreland Library

and checked out three new books. I paged through the one about the Koch Brothers, which read very well, and also the new book by Kazuo Ishiguro -  (I must read the Guardian article about how he wrote a book in four weeks - and also a set of psychotherapy tales by Irv Yalom.

I cannot wait to climb into bed and read.

Amber, the librarian, at the libe, told me the bed is her fave place to read, b/c it's warm. Me, too. I told her the difficulty of leaning against the wall - I don't have a headboard - and she suggested I stack it with cushions, which I will. I'll use some of the many blankets I have.

Told her I've gotta think of a topic for my novel. I no longer wanna write about a Holocaust survivor.

At one point she was telling me about her new kitten, who is tethered in the back yard. He knows nothing about cars. Once he escaped, ran in the street, and lay under a parked car. Her other two cats are streetwise.

In the kitchen when I cook I'm nearly done with

       It's quite good and not at all sad. Read about it here.

Am gonna 'like' it on FB.