I know i have mentioned this before but give Tales of a Tiller Girl by Irene Holland a read, you wont be disappointed...My true story of dancing in wartime London...Amazon sell it..

Oh, thank you, Barb!  What a lovely thing to say!  Well, full confession as to the downsizing of my library:  I have left my home & most of my belongings & moved into the home of one of my daughters.  I have 3 sons & 5 daughters:  8 in all.  This one has taken me in & is now my caregiver.  We are right on the water of the Chesapeake Bay.  It is beyond gorgeous here.  Look for Annapolis, & we are right there.

I have a small black photo book that is imprinted thusly:
Senior Net
20th Anniversary
1986 - 2004

Did we have a Bash to celebrate?  Was I there?  I do not remember, but the answer is probably PROBABLY!

Marilyne: (Nevercan find the darn Library here) Anyway posting this because one of our members said I might forward it to you.  It is a book recommendation I posted in Senior Learn. Anyway, the following:

I get the name wrong every time I try to tell someone about it.  It is Remarkably Bright Creatures.
The story is basically about a 70 yr. old widow who takes a job cleaning at a small Aquarium.  She works the night shift.  She is a very neat and tidy woman personally, and this shines through in the cleaning job she does there.  Everything has to be just so.  She says good night to all the aquatic creatures and the star of the aquarium is Marcellus, a 60 pound octopus.  I won't "spoiler" here about how she and Marcellus meet, but it is lovely, and kind of frightening.  The novel also has a family saga, which you may find perplexing, but might figure out most of it.
I realize this might sound off-putting to most of you, but I thoroughly, deeply enjoyed the entire book.  If you can get it from your local library, be sure and use the correct title, and the author's last name is Van Pelt, and get the large print copy if it is available.  Sorry to have led you in the wrong direction with the mis-titling of the book

Marilyne, do read this book, I think you will really enjoy it.  It is light, for the most part, and good for an up=lift that we all so dearly need.

I hope the Earthquake didn't dump you out of your easy chair?

Joanne

Joanne - "Remarkably Bright Creatures" sounds very similar to the Academy Award winning movie, "The Shape of Water".  It won the Best Picture Oscar, a couple of years ago.  I haven't seen it, so can't comment on it, but it must have been a good movie, to win the award?  Look it up on Google or IMBD, and see if the story is  the same or similar?

NO, not similar.  Movie was good.

I read SOUL OF AN OCTOPUS last summer & loved it.  The daughter I live with now has a copy of Remarkably Bright Creatures & I will now read it, too.  Soul of an Octopus is by SY MONTGOMERY.  No question about it, all living creatures have feelings.  Some have higher I.Q.s than others. I think we may have erred in our estimation of other species.  Most of us who have owned dogs and/or cats are full of remarkable stories, though!

I've also read "Remarkably Bright Creatures" and enjoyed it - although I couldn't imagine an octopus relating in that way - until I read MaryPage's comment about "Soul of an Octopus"!

I'm trying to finish several e-books before they disappear on the due date. One is "Skipping Christmas" by John Gresham and I'd have to be put on the wait list if I try to renew it.

Another is "The Giving Quilt" by Jennifer Chiaverini. It also takes place at Christmas. This one is part of a series about a Quilting Camp in a "mansion" that was built pre-Civil War. Some of the series are about quilts that were used to help escaping slaves as they went north. 
(No, I don't quilt but have enjoyed the stories).

Plan du Jour is to put out some Christmas decorations now that housekeeper has cleaned everything.  "Decisions, decisions!"

I come from a small town, Stephens City, Virginia, that was ever so much smaller when I was a child skipping off to school & passing the town name sign with the population listed beside it.  We stood at four hundred & some souls back then!  Just about everyone in town & around the state quilted back then.  Afternoons would find Grandma & the aunts in their comfy chairs with their "scraps" out sewing away.  We had a saying about idle hands back then, & this was their naptime.  And the scraps might have been something else once, but they were well planned for now.  We knew all the many tales about quilts & what meaningful stories they carried.  Army brat though I was, I spent a lot of World War II in that place just south of Winchester in my home state of Virginia.  My daddy was a Virginian & his daddy before him & his before him & so on into the ages.  Some of those old quilts were quite famous; not my kin's. but some others.

My DIL, who is the mother of all 3 Grands, quilts and do did her Mom.  Mom died last summer and more than 100 of her quilts were placed on the back of the pews at her funeral.

DIL likes to make "tee shirt" quilts. She has made one for each Grand using their particular school/sport/activities tees.

Oh, I do so love that, Callie!  Those quilts had so much of your mother's being in them!  She held each one in her hands, working away on it for days on end.  To have them covering the back of those pews on the occasion of remembering her life gave such a splendid silent tribute to her life.  Would that she could have seen that!  Would that I could have seen them there!  Do you have any pictures of her work?

It just a moment ago occurred to me.  You see, I used to speak Quilt.  As in the language spoken by quilters.  Never in life have I made one, though.

You did not "sew" a quilt.  At least, not in Virginia, you didn't!  You "pieced" a quilt.  Deed you did! And now I'll shut muh mouf,

MaryPaige, it wasn't my Mother. It was my daughter-in-law's.
My mother could probably sew on a button but it might not match the buttonhole  

I saw the pews but, unfortunately, I don't have a picture.

Tomereader, and everyone else who commented on The Soul of an Octopus:   I started reading it yesterday, and I'm fascinated with what I've learned about octopuses, so far.  (Not "octopi", as I would have said before).  I'm on the waiting list at the library for, Remarkably Bright Creatures, so I'll be getting it next, in large print. 

A big family Christmas party this weekend, (Saturday), so I'm looking forward to seeing my first grandchild and her family.  Born is 1977, so she turned 47 in September!   It brings tears to my eyes to think that she could possibly be that old . . . that so many years have passed.   
Well, I could go on and on about the passage of time, and how we change over the years.  I think about it a lot, and I wonder about the cycle of life?   Soon to find out what it all means?

Yes, Marilyn - shocks everytime I think of it that my youngest turned 65 - all the grands are in their 30s - but even more shocking - none of my grands are married!!??!!

Yesterday I finally received the book I ordered back in the beginning of October, Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion, AD 300-1300 by Peter Heather. Of course, the print is tiny, but, I wanted to get hardcopy on this one partly because of all the photos and such. Good thing I can read the small print with my new glasses. I really, really want to finish The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins, which I have recently been neglecting before, I tackle this book.

The Club has been at a standstill for a week. I will have to renew it at the library in a few days. My night reading, Iain M. Banks, The Algebraist has fared a little better but not by much.

Ah, the sun just cleared the low morning clouds. I mood brightener for sure.   

Which The Club are you reading MarsGal

Oh, yes. The one about Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, back in the 1700s in England. I've been trying to get to books that have been on my Library wish list the longest and are available right away. I had gotten the list down to around 64, but now it is back up close to  100

ah ha - thanks MarsGal should have guessed but there are several with the same title.

Mars,  I have a list too, but not nearly as long as yours!  I tend to read the  latest recommendations, and never get to the older books.   Right now I'm busy with the two books about octopuses - "The Soul of an Octopus", and "Remarkably Bright Creatures", recommended here.   Also I get sidetracked if there's  a movie adaptation, or any movie dealing with the same subject.   
I still intend to reread,  "A Redbird Christmas", by Fannie Flagg.  One of my favorites.  Also lots of old  Christmas movies still to watch this year.   

I am about to start Phases of Gravity by Dan Simmons. It is about a man who in quest to become an astronaut and his subsequent career, managed to alienate his family. Now he is trying to reconnect with his family. Seems a bit different for the guy who is famous for his Hyperion series. Also still reading Iain M. Banks' The Algebraist. This one is my bedtime read, but Oscar has been wanting snuggles up close and likes to lay on my arm(s) making it a little more difficult to read/turn pages. I might get a few paragraphs read before giving up or falling asleep on my reading.

Last night, I finally watched The Road. I really liked how they used a combination of B/W and color cinematography. What really caught my eye was the tunnel at the beginning of the movie. It is the old PA Turnpike tunnel, abandoned after the new tunnel was build to handle more traffic. I checked on where all the movie was filmed and sure enough, my memory did not fail me. In fact, the movie was filmed entirely in Pennsylvania. Aside from the old tunnel, the movie was shot in the Presque Isle Isle State Park (Erie), the Conneaut Lake State Park which is near Erie in the northwestern corner of PA, and Pittsburgh and surrounds.

It never ceases to amaze me how many abandoned or nearly abandoned communities we have just standing there decaying, meanwhile, developers continue to buy up valuable farm land to build new developments and businesses. I think I would like to see the government do more to encourage the clearance of and building of new structures on such places rather than taking farmland. And yes, I know it is more expensive to clear out and rebuild on those properties. If they keep at it long enough, we will become one huge dystopian slum and no food (except vat grown, etc) to feed almost anyone. Rant end.

MARS, Thanks for reminding me of, The Road. I read the book and thought it was great, but I've never seen the movie.  I just looked it up on IMBD, and see that it came out in 2009, which would be fifteen years ago!  I guess it got lost in my long list of "must see" movies.  Now I plan to watch it ASAP.

Interesting that you recognized the old tunnel at the beginning of the movie, as one you remember.  Also interesting that you have lots of old abandoned towns in PA,  that are left to decay!  I agree that there ought to be a law, and I think there must be a law here in California?  I've lived here all my life, and don't know of any communities in the State where that situation exists.    During the Gold Rush of 1849, lots of towns were build in the Sierra foothills, and then abandoned when there was no longer any gold.  Many of them have been preserved, and have become historical "Ghost Towns",  State Parks, tourist destinations, etc. 

Speaking of older movies,  a few days ago I watched a good one on TCM, from  1969,  The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,  starring Maggie Smith.  Watching it again after all these years, was sad, knowing that she died just a few months ago.  She was only 34 when she made that movie and would have turned 90, this month.  What a great actress she was, and deserving of all her many awards.

Marilyne, this is one of my favorites of Dame Maggie Smith on the Graham Norton show.

https://youtu.be/555rIkbbT84

Good, Marilyne. Then you can tell me how much different the movie is from the book.

Coal mining was a big industry here in Eastern PA. Much or all of it is anthracite which is a cleaner burning coal than bituminous. We also have quite a few iron mines. In fact, two maps I consulted show that most of the PA coal and iron mines are/were in a broad line running from Scranton down to almost the Maryland border. Also, there are some iron furnace ruins around (Cornwall Furnace and Pine Grove comes to mind) dating from the early settlers. Lots of money was made off the backs of indentured or immigrant workers. While there have been other strikes and fights against oppressive Mining Companies, the most vivid accounting, for me was about the Molly Maguires, a name you might remember as a Sean Connery film. As a cohesive group, they may or may not have actually existed. https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/molly-maguires-executed

The Pennsylvania State Archives has a long page of info about the Molly Maguires, the trial, and a list of the men allegedly involved with the group  including references numbers of trial testimony. https://www.pa.gov/agencies/phmc/pa-state-archives/research-online/research-guides/molly-maguires.html

Patricia, Thanks for the video link.  I enjoyed watching the interview with Maggie Smith.  Always interesting to me, that celebrities in Britain,  go shopping and wait in the check-out lines, and are treated no differently than anyone else.  I love the story she told about the little boy staring at her, trying to figure out who she was!   

That was a great link Patricia - found the version of Room with a View in which they are acting on Prime but cannot find for home viewing Tea with Mussolini which I would love to watch... anyone find it?

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=tea+with+mussolini&ia=web

Thanks Patricia - can't figure out the various outlets that appear you have to join and so may have to settle for ordering from Amazon a used DVD copy

A Christmas treat for you. A Child's Christmas in Wales read by Thomas Dylan himself. Oh, and cats are featured in the poem.

Fabulous thanks - love this story and Dylan reading it is a real treat