Today's the Day!

Day 251 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project, and today's the day!  The day of the screening of Living Downstream, a documentary based on the book by Sandra Steingraber, which many people are now reading in its second edition, or will be soon, as Babbitt's is selling copies of the book at the screening!

Here is a link to my earlier blog entry on this, with some details.

So far I am reading the foreword to the second edition and then the source notes and end matter (like Bob, the great reader, who sometimes reads endnotes first) as I read the first edition a few years back, and then I will revisit the  whole book in light of the documentary, hoping all the ways of seeing and receiving the information help make it indelible.  I remember how Steingraber's excellent writing made all the complex science so clear!

I have my Great Books Foundation blue and yellow cloth book bag to carry the book with me to today's events.  It is big enough to hold the other books I am carrying, too: 11 little Beatrix Potter books for Phyllis's grandbaby and Favorite Poems, Old and New, selected by Helen Ferris and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard, for that same grandbaby!  I will deliver these at church and then head over to the....

....fabulous local food brunch at Medici, as a sweet and generous woman who cannot attend has given me her ticket.  I will get to eat fresh, healthy, and, one dearly hopes, not-polluted food grown on local farms, and perhaps brush elbows with the author and filmmaker.

My tote bag will be lighter on the walk home, with just Living Downstream in it, by then signed!

And perhaps I will stop by Babbitt's on my way, to visit the new tiny kitty!  Yes, Brian was out in the country, I think in the book van on a book buy, when he saw a teeny tiny kitty walking down the center line of the road.  He picked her up, she has her shots, and she will be living at the bookstore for 6 weeks.  In our laps by day and in a crate by night.  And we have two large sunny picture windows, so we will set up various soft places for her there, too, for when she decides she is safe enough to venture out of a lap.  I see major dusting and cleaning in our future, so she will be absolutely certain what is a litter box and what isn't.  And, by the way, what is a scratching post and what is a stack of books on the floor.  I see major shelving in our future.

Because she is a stranger, some of us want to name her Camus....but the boss is not convinced.  So her name is TBA.  For now.  (I'm calling her a she, but I don't know what she is.  Maybe she's a he.  Our little stranger has arrived to help us celebrate LGBT History Month, too!)

And, for those of you who read "An Empty Nest" yesterday, daughter had fun at homecoming dance and is home and still asleep.  And we had Skype time with son!