Thursday, February 11, 2021

"Cast Away in the Cold"

Book donated to the store ^
 
I'm glad to be getting a ride to work this morning from HM, who rented a car to officiate at a wedding yesterday.

HM came home last night in such a good mood, having been of service and around happy people in love. The two brides were young women from the Philippines--only their family in attendance, all wearing masks. (A Catholic family, but a relative told HM that the Philippines is pretty LGBT-friendly.)

I see many of you bloggers are having similar cold fronts. Cripes!
 
At least cold fronts aren't so bad in this late wintertime:
Daylight has extended to ten-and-a-half hours.

One of the things I love about my low-population neighborhood is that the snow stays pretty clean. My old neighborhood, within hours the snow was filthy with car exhausts.
And the new double-pane windows make a huge difference. The old windows rattled in the wind, and you could feel the cold leaking in.
One way and another, I'm happier here.

SweePo is standing in my bedroom window, wearing an acrobatic unitard ^ from the jointed doll.
(Btw, Cash got tired of being in that jointed-doll's body and has returned to her own.)

Some more photos from Cast Away in the Cold:


 
Aaand... a bit of silliness I set up at work (and posted on our social media):

7 comments:

  1. I love that "Cast Away in the Cold" book! The cover and illustrations are beautiful. Have you read any of it? So often those old books LOOK nice but they're kind of tedious to read!

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  2. Here's my questions:

    Why is John Hardy so inadequately dressed? I know he wasn't expecting to tumble off and ice flow...but where's his hat, mittens, jacket, scarf? Had someone already thrown off a ship for mutiny...or napping?

    Why are the librarians in Houston MN so mean and how much would 5 cents (hey, I just noticed my keyboard doesn't have a cent key) a week be at today's prices? Did they get to use the fines for lunch money? I bet you could get a nice meal for 10 cents.

    Is that supposed to be a stuffed raccoon? I saw real raccoon tracks on my sidewalk the last time I shoveled. I was tickled because the raccoon had chosen to cross the street using the cut through I shoveled out of the berm, rather than cross over it.


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  3. SweetPo looks nice and warm in the suit. The book looks interesting.

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  4. What a book to turn up now! Love your compilation too.

    It is such a relief when a neighbourhood is kept clean...people are beginning to keep the verges and streets clean here, at last!

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  5. Great book for the cold right now! Today we are at -1 and a wind chill of -18!

    And still another week of cold to go!

    Regarding the library rules (which I wonder what the year was): libraries haven't always had the number of books that we have so for one to be out longer than 2 weeks might have been unusual and a hardship for other students. Perhaps the high fine was to encourage people to return the books in a timely manner. Also I doubt many patrons were giving money to libraries to purchase other books. Theft of books at that time was also quite high so the fines were most likely used to replace books.

    Reading about Carnegie and the establishment of public libraries is quite fascinating. If he hadn't done so, would we have public libraries? What he proposed in the early 1900's was quite revolutionary although not always equal. If you look at the monies requested by states for their libraries, one can see which states took his donations quite seriously.

    Until 1969 my first library was in an original Carnegie building.

    Kirsten

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  6. ps: upon further reading women's clubs were mostly responsible for getting libraries into communities. Women's clubs were believed to have started between 75 and 80 percent of the public libraries in the US according to Wikipedia.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman's_club_movement_in_the_United_States

    Kirsten

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  7. STEVE: I agree with you--old books of this type are usually dreadful reading, so I didn't even try reading this one, which looks par for the course.
    But great illustrations & cover!

    BINK: Ha, ha, inquiring minds! :) You will just have to buy the book to answer the mystery of the ill-prepared for Arctic exploration!

    Five cents must have been a high fine indeed. I remember my father said they paid a nickel to go to the movies in the 1930s-40s...

    The book cover is a stuffed raccoon, the donated fur-object is some sort of... gopher gone rabid???
    Who knows.
    That's awesome the raccoon used your track. :)

    GZ: My old neighborhood was among the most densely populated in the city, so it almost impossible to keep clean, due to CARS. Ergh. Cars are dirty.

    RIVER: SweePo loves her new acrobat suit! And yes, she says she's toasty warm.

    KIRSTEN: I sometimes think about how precious books used to be when I am throwing unsaleable volumes into book-recycling!

    We have a couple Carnegie libraries in the city too--I love them!
    Yes, fascinating history.
    Maybe this summer I'll make a point to take the girlettes on Carnegie outings and photograph some details...

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