Ozark Oddments: Simple Pleasures

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Simple Pleasures

Yesterday at the used bookstore I found a book I have been looking for since last December, when I happened upon it at the bookstore at the airport (in Houston? or was it Dallas?) and began reading a few pages of it while waiting (at umpteen dollars I was only briefly tempted to buy it) for my flight to Los Angeles. It appears to be a brand-new hardback for only $3.00. When I am finished I will donate it to the library so someone else may enjoy it too. He surprised me yesterday by coming in with the brochure from the “Center for the Performing Arts” and pointing out that the Wailin’ Jennys will be in concert there in April. I looked up and said, “Oh, can we....” and before I even finished he showed me a layout of the auditorium and where our seats are located. I am thrilled to the core. They are a wonderful singing group and I can hardly wait until I get to hear them. Clicking on segment 3 at this website http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2006/08/05/ will allow you to hear them if your computer is set up correctly. The song is “Long Time Traveler.” And today I figured out the secret, finally, to using liquid hand soap. I usually loose about 90% of each squirt. Now that there is barely 1/4 inch left in the bottom of the bottle, I realize one is not supposed to wet one’s hands before squirting on the soap.

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Thoughts to ponder

Most of us go through life so absorbed in the cocoon of ourselves that we rarely stop to consider the other. Of course, we think that we do; indeed, we may pride ourselves on our capacity for empathy; we may be considerate and thoughtful in our dealings with others, but how often do we stand before them. so to speak, and experience what it is to be them?--Domenica Macdonald

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, by Alexander McCall
Smith

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Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering -- because you can't take it in all at once. --Audrey Hepburn

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I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all, I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.--Agatha Christie

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Life can be wildly tragic at times, and I've had my share. But whatever happens to you, you have to keep a slightly comic attitude. In the final analysis, you have got not to forget to laugh.--Katharine Hepburn

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One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

"Two people... told me that the word "Christian" would turn people off. I wouldn't mind if to be a Christian were accepted as being the dangerous thing which it is. I wouldn't mind if, when a group of Christians meet for bread and wine, we might well be interrupted and jailed for subversive activities. I wouldn't mind if, once again, we were being thrown to the lions. I do mind, desperately, that the word "Christian" means for so many people smugness, and piosity, and holier-than-thoughness. Who, today, can recognize a Christian because of "how those Christians love one another"?--Madeline L'Engle, "A Circle of Quiet"