Thursday Tidbits

Posted on October 12, 2017 under Thursday Tidbits with 2 comments

Lochiel Lake

I’m starting to think that Thanksgiving might be my favorite holiday. Lots of family around, great food, no presents or crass commercialism to deal with and the beautiful Fall colors. My Monday column was about reasons to be thankful. I received a very good response. Someone added their own reason to be grateful: having coffee with friends. That is truly one of life’s great pleasures to just sit and chat with a good friend with your hands curled around a cup of hot java.

I want to add one more reason to be grateful at the tender age of 66. I am eternally grateful for “ the power snooze.” Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I could nod off for exactly 15 minutes in the middle of the afternoon and wake up completely refreshed. I’m thinking about calling the Vatican to report a miracle.

I did one of my India presentations yesterday for the ROMEOs. The acronym stands for “ Retired Old Men Eating Out.” They meet a couple of times a month to share food and fellowship. They also bring in guest speakers. And speaking of India, I have started the process of getting my Indian visa again in hopes of going back sometime in November. I have also been invited to volunteer in Tanzania ( East Africa ) and will need a visa for that as well.

With 321 days of sun in Southern India, I decided to pick up some transition lenses that turn dark automatically. This will eliminate the incessant putting on and removing of sunglasses. You all know what a fashion maven that I am ( NOT! ), so choosing a set of frames is a bit of a crapshoot. I tried on several pairs and I wondered if the ones I chose, would look good on the runway. I was assured that they would. Except the sales person misunderstood me as I was talking about the tarmac at the airport! Thanks, T.C. for your help.

And speaking of India, just giving you a heads up that Fr. Abhi Anand from Varanasi, India is going to be giving a talk at the library later this month or November about the “ Railway Children of Varanasi.” I spent Christmas Day with these children ,who were abandoned by their families at the train station in Varanasi. I’ll keep you posted.

“ Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana.

History was not my strong suit in university. Spades were!  My knowledge of WW11  is sketchy at best so I decided it was high time that I get with it. Sometimes I can be an “ all or nothing person” so as I stared at the spine of “ The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich “, at a bookstore in Halifax, I wondered about the wisdom of reading a 1200 page tome as a primer on the war. I think I threw my back out just trying to get the book to the car! Anyway, I decided to try and read 50 pages every day. Doesn’t sound like much but those of you who have read this, know that every page is filled with scads of fine print at the bottom of the pages which need to be fully read to give the preceding words some context.

I was astonished to read about the rise and fall of Adolph Hitler. One line jumped off the page. Hitler said that “ it was time to make Germany great again.”

Have a great weekend.

Advertisement