Sunshine award

Thank you, Rajeev Kumar at Requesting Truth for offering me this award – it’s meant to recognize “bloggers who positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere”. And that’s not a bad description of what I want to do – hopefully entertain you readers out there as well – but it is so cool to be told someone thinks I’m succeeding.

(As an award winner, there are a few rules to follow: Thank the person who gave this award and write a post about it. Answer the questions below.Pass on the award to 10 fabulous bloggers, link their blogs, and let them know you awarded them.)

Questions:

Favorite Drink – good strong black coffee!
Facebook or Twitter – I’m on Facebook, but don’t use it much
Your Passion –  helping people, writing, singing (maybe not well, but loud), talking, cooking, reading – you know what? Just about everything is interesting, and worth being passionate about. (Maybe those are the top six, though. Tonight, at least.)
Giving or getting presents – welll…getting 😉
Favorite Day – Sunday
Favorite Flowers – Daylilies, because they come in so many colors and just come up every year and bloom for weeks without being pampered. Snapdragons, because they’re such an odd shape and once you plant them they keep flowering and flowering until the frost gets them. Peonies, because they’re big and sweet smelling and once you plant them they’ll come up every spring for forty years or more and give you lots of gorgeous flowers with no fuss. We do have a theme going here, don’t we?

Few blogs that deserve this prize
Lucid Gypsy
Chittle Chattle
Implicado
Chronicles of Illusions
Scribbles
Inside Out Cafe
Huffygirl’s Blog
ziggyshortcrust

Three-book third sentence Thursday

(What is Third Sentence Thursday? Open the book you’re reading to a random page. Post the third complete sentence on that page. Add a few comments about the book.) I started playing with Third Sentence Thursday last week, and I’m still reading multiple books. It seems like it’s in the spirit of the game to include – what else? – three of them.

The Summoning God, Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear, p. 237:

“‘What do they do with them after they’re cooked?'”

On page 237, we’re in the present-day part of the plot. (Another, parallel, story is happening among the Anasazi about 800 years ago.) “Them” and “they’re” refers to dead babies – bad enough – but the first “they” in the sentence are witches among the native peoples of the U.S. Southwest. And the young archaeologist who’s the unheard other half of this conversation is becoming convinced that he himself has been witched.

God Has a Dream, Desmond Tutu, p. 46:

“How do you tell your little darling that she could not go because she was a child but she was not really a child, not that kind of child?”

Archbishop Tutu is talking about raising children under apartheid in South Africa, and how impossible it was to explain to his little daughter why she couldn’t go play on the nice swings. He goes on, in this chapter (God Loves Your Enemies), to describe various hateful things that people have done to one another. But how can we move forward and not be trapped forever in pain and anger? Truth and reconciliation are called for. By God, and by practicality.

The Case of the Dangerous Dowager, Erle Stanley Gardner, p. 54:

“‘Let’s see if he’s got those IOUs.'”

Notorious lawyer Perry Mason is trying to settle his client’s gambling debts…but the manager of the casino is sitting at his desk, in his private office, shot dead. The casino’s co-owner Charlie Duncan has turned up at the most awkward possible moment and seems to suspect Mason. At the moment, Duncan wants an assistant to take Mason away and search him. (Mason has burned the IOUs and is busily chewing up the ashes mixed with a wad of chewing gum.) And what happens next?