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Tuesday Reading Kaffeeklatsch: 8/3/21
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My birthday is August 19th also!!!!!! I always took it off from work ever since I worked for these miserable accountants who never acknowledged birthdays and actually tried to make the day more miserable. I'm retired now but I always celebrate my b'day with a special dinner and family or friends. Happy August.....my favorite month!
My Daddy (21st), my brother (5th) and my niece (9th) all have August birthdays. When I was a child, August was the month when my Daddy would usually get a week (sometimes 2) off work and we'd go on vacation ... usually camping, but a couple of memorable trips to California or (in 1962) to the Seattle World's Fair. Despite personally being long out of school, and having no children with school demands, I still think of the calendar in terms of the academic one. So August means looking forward to the start of a new year!
I just wanted to say happy beautiful birthday to all the birthday girls! May this be a year of strengthening and a connection and of love.
Raine wrote: "My birthday is August 19th also!!!!!! I always took it off from work ever since I worked for these miserable accountants who never acknowledged birthdays and actually tried to make the day more mis..."Clearly you are a superior person! I don't know anyone else who actually shares the same day. Although my youngest sister's best friend's wedding Anniversary is August 19th. Clearly a good luck day filled with good omens as they are still happily married 25 years later.
My dad's birthday was August 7th. Many friends are Leos with late July or early August birthdays. Being dairy farmers, there was no such thing as a day off or a vacation. If you could not get there between milkings, you didn't go.
Happy Birthday to all August "babies" :)!@Theresa--I am not a heat loving person, either, and refuse to pay to go to a beach on principal since they are all free access in my home province (but more reasonable summer temperatures).
I hope you have a lovely birthday, even if it is going to be quieter than usual.
@Raine--I hope you have a lovely birthday as well!
I just remembered something else about August - the County Fair for my home county always happened in August. That meant entering all kinds of things through 4-H and winning all kinds of ribbons, even a trophy for my baking skill. My mother did flower arranging in competitions for the Grange (think a farmer's labor union/social organization) which were conducted at the fair. Also, August was the month Dad and Mom would drive into Southern PA and get bushels of peaches that Mom and I would spend days canning and freezing.
I dream about those peaches - you'd bite into one and the juice would drip down your chin and soak your shirt. Those were tree ripened of course.
August always means to me, the harvest of the garden. The tomatoes are ripening, and boy are they delicious this year. Cherry tomatoes are the biggest(Plumpest) I have every seen, and boy are they sweet.Happiest of Birthdays to all the August babes!
Happy Birthday to Theresa and Raine and any I may have missed!August the height of the summer. Many vacations when I was a kid. Also the fair and I was in 4H like Theresa so entered baked goods and vegetables as well.
My Summer garden did just a quick spurt this year and is now being laid to rest. Many Farmers markets to visit to make up for that.
I'm getting my retirement groove on. Planning to go through some read books which I saved and donate some to my library.
Theresa, my family would go to Seneca Lake and get peaches, lovely. We would go to Pennsylvania around Canton to gather blueberries, I seem to recall it was in July, but could be wrong. such great fun as a kid. My dad had a bear story that he told us everytime before we went.
Booknblues wrote: "Happy Birthday to Theresa and Raine and any I may have missed!August the height of the summer. Many vacations when I was a kid. Also the fair and I was in 4H like Theresa so entered baked goods a..."
Canton for blueberries - I believe it! We lived only a couple of miles from the PA border near the State Game Lands near Warren Center, and that's where we went to pick blueberries -- there were so many bushes and so loaded! I suspect that was towards the back end of August.
August was also blackberries - that's when the blackberry bushes by the pond would be loaded with fruite - enought to make a couple of blackberry pies and have on one's cereal in the morning.
Garden would be popping out tomatoes like mad - and we would have nursed leaf lettuce along all summer (cut it near the ground rather than pull it up) so that we had BLTs to die for. Also squash and bell peppers. Sweet corn would appear near the end of August, more September. Mom and I spent a lot of our time in August putting up produces for winter. June and July were for jams - strawberry and raspberry.
There were very specific months for garden produce. If it was an 'early' variety -- it meant maybe it came 2 or 3 weeks ahead of the rest. Of course, the garden only went into the ground over Memorial Day weekend.
I should mention that picking blueberries on the State Game Lands was I believe illegal .... we snuck under fences after crossing some fields to do it. We'd meet all our neighbors doing the same thing.
Theresa wrote: "I should mention that picking blueberries on the State Game Lands was I believe illegal .... we snuck under fences after crossing some fields to do it. We'd meet all our neighbors doing the same ..."
And probably one of those neighbors was the Sheriff, or a Park Ranger?😄
Joanne wrote: "Theresa wrote: "I should mention that picking blueberries on the State Game Lands was I believe illegal .... we snuck under fences after crossing some fields to do it. We'd meet all our neighbors..."
Well, all were volunteer firemen at least. 😁
Theresa wrote: "Joanne wrote: "Theresa wrote: "I should mention that picking blueberries on the State Game Lands was I believe illegal .... we snuck under fences after crossing some fields to do it. We'd meet al..."
🥰
My granny and I use to blueberry pick in the State Parks when we traveled north during the summer...good memories. She never brought a bowl. She just lifted up her ever constant apron and when it was full we stopped. I wore no apron, so i had a bowl.The year Natalie was born Adam's father (don't ask me how he smuggled them, I still wonder about that) brought us currant, blackberry and gooseberry saplings from his yard in Poland. Large yields this year. Still picking the blackberry's, the others were "early crops"
Joanne wrote: "My granny and I use to blueberry pick in the State Parks when we traveled north during the summer...good memories. She never brought a bowl. She just lifted up her ever constant apron and when it w..."We had metal buckets. Small when we were lityle but good sized as we hit our teens.
Love the berry cuttings from Poland...
Theresa wrote: "I just remembered something else about August - the County Fair for my home county always happened in August. That meant entering all kinds of things through 4-H and winning all kinds of ribbons, e..."There was a farm stand on the road from Nichols to Owego that must have been quite near your farm. I'm thinking the name was Van Winkel or something like that, does that ring a bell? so weird that we grew up only miles from each other in a sparsely populated area and became city girls in different parts of the country only to meet up here!
I do love the sweet corn and tomatoes in August. We had blackberries around this time also. In the Upper Midwest, even though it may be warm in August the nights tend to cool off more than in June or July. In August I am usually relieved that hot weather won't last much longer, and I always liked "back to school". It was weird after being in college, grad school, being a teacher and having kids in school, when there was finally no "back to school" for me.
Robin P wrote: "Theresa wrote: "I just remembered something else about August - the County Fair for my home county always happened in August. That meant entering all kinds of things through 4-H and winning all kin..."Yes! Van Winkel! Of course, we never needed to visit farmstands when I was growing up as our vegie garden was massive and we had apple and pear trees.
After we all grew up and Dad was a widower on the farm, living alone, he stopped growing any garden except a few tomato plants. Then he would visit Wyles' farmstand just on the north side of Owego. That was a 4-H/Cooperative Extension connection, as Frank Wyles was the Cooperative Extension agent for the county. Mighty good produce and the best sweet corn hybrid ever developed. I think it was called Sweeter Than Honey.
Truly is something how we ended up connecting as we did. Just shows how small the world really is.
For me ... down in southern Texas ... summer was all about watermelon! Sometimes Daddy would take me down to the farmer's market to get a "black diamond" melon. The farmer would cut a small wedge out of one to hand out a sample. SOOOooo sweet!We would also go to Fredericksburg TX to buy a bushel of peaches, and the family would spend a weekend peeling, slicing, packaging and freezing them.
Book Concierge wrote: "Despite personally being long out of school, and having no children with school demands, I still think of the calendar in terms of the academic one. So August means looking forward to the start of a new year! .."I work at a university, but I love the quiet of fewer students in the spring and summer, so I don't want to new school year to come! (Especially this year, but for (somewhat) different reasons... or maybe additional reasons.)
My mom's birthday was Aug 2. And sadly, coming back around to work, August also means things ramping up as we get ready for the return of students.
And today is the last day of my holidays. More coming, but not until December.
LibraryCin wrote: "My mom's birthday was Aug 2. And sadly, coming back around to work, August also means things ramping up as we get ready for the return of students.
And today is the last day of my holidays. Mor..."
I live in the Columbia University neighborhood that also has Baruch College and Manhattan School of Music. We love the summer quiet of no students...no lines at stores, we have restaurants to ourselves, etc. It is shocking when they all start swarming again in mid-August.
However, after 18 months of no students as all schools went virtual .... the locals are delighted to be welcoming back the students! They breathe such life into the neighborhood.
Theresa and all, I happened on this quote today about the first week of August. Thought you might enjoy it!"“The first week of August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after.”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/2854...
It is from Tuck Everlasting
Oh, I love that quote BnB, thank you for sharing it!
Great quote that perfectly describes "the dog days of summer."
I found it in my twitter feed this morning and thought it worked perfectly with our discussion yesterday. Serendipitous!
I an guessing my preference for fewer students being around aligns with my preference to work in the back away from the bustle of all the students!
We picked blackberries, which literally grow like weeds where I grew up--not the little dewberries, either, and larger than any I have seen in the eastern part of the states. My mother made pies and jam, and later my dad might used some in wine or cider or something (I can't remember what types of alcohol they fermented as one of his hobbies for a while. I don't like the taste of alcohol, so didn't partake.) We had a bush in our yard large enough to do all of that. After we all left home and the grandchildren were mostly grown (most of them), he got rid of it, since it kept trying to encroach in his vegetable garden.We also picked and ate red huckleberries and salmon berries that grew wild, but never in bowls or buckets.
SALMON BERRIES
RED HUCKLEBERRIES
Happy August and Happy Birthday to all the August babies! August is my birth month too (6th). When I was younger August always meant long days down at the shore swimming and relaxing. I have finally gotten both doses of the vaccine (had to be timed right with my MS medication). Having to wait kind of threw me onto a tail spin. I'm not sure why, it really was no different for me. I've basically been hiding out at home for the past year and a half. Now i'm finding out that no one's certain how effective the vaccine is in people on my medication. Oh well, I feel like I've done the best I can under the circumstances. Everyone I'm in contact with has been vaccinated for a while so hopefully that helps.
Well this August meant a move for me. My boyfriend and I have moved from Texas to Alabama. We drove in on the first. It was a pretty good move, but we did hit a storm coming through where we were down to 45 MPH at one time. He had a better experience moving the camper this time since he got sway bars for it. So we are here for the next 3 months and I'm looking forward to exploring the area. I did find my favorite fast food restaurant, though...Krystal's. I haven't lived around one in years. LOL!
A year ago, our local Senior Center started a book club on Zoom. (Still seems weird for me to be participating at a "senior" place.) We were going to finally meet in person this month and have snacks. But as the coordinator, I made the decision, along with the activities director, to remain on Zoom. Our local level of cases has been going up and there's a good chance many of our participants have health issues. Disappointing but it's actually been going well on Zoom. Our August book is Behold the Dreamers, which works for our Cultural tag.
This thread popped up for me, as I follow TOR books-it is an interesting article on a problem(??) most of us have: TBR pileshttps://www.tor.com/2021/08/05/maybe-...
Cheryl wrote: "Happy August and Happy Birthday to all the August babies! August is my birth month too (6th). When I was younger August always meant long days down at the shore swimming and relaxing. I have finall..."Happy birthday! Also, it's great that you were able to finish your vaccines with all that you have to work around.
Joanne wrote: "This thread popped up for me, as I follow TOR books-it is an interesting article on a problem(??) most of us have: TBR pileshttps://www.tor.com/2021/08/05/maybe-......"
I periodically go through and cull my unread books. I usually give away books after I read them except for a few. I also cull my Want to Read on GR, which are books I don't own but that look interesting. I still have literally hundreds, though.
I have found that my tastes change and books I acquired years ago may no longer appeal to me. Also if I give away a book and later want it, I can almost certainly get it from the library.
Joanne wrote: "This thread popped up for me, as I follow TOR books-it is an interesting article on a problem(??) most of us have: TBR pileshttps://www.tor.com/2021/08/05/maybe-......"
Interesting. I like this quote Last year, I bought more books than I’ve bought for a long time. Getting mail was one of 2020’s greatest small joys—getting book mail, doubly so. How true was that!🤣
I have zero guilt or concern over my massive TBR. But I have in the past and will in the future purge books that I have lost a taste for, as my tastes and interests evolve. For example, many years ago I acquired a number of mysteries set in academia because I so enjoyed some I had just read by various authors like Robert Barnard, Edmund Crispin, and Amanda Cross. But I lost my taste for those academia setting mysteries long before I ever read them. So I purged them.
Then there are books you look at and think "what was I thinking"? That happens a lot on my GR Want To Read which I go through from time to time and remove entries.
Cheryl wrote: "Happy August and Happy Birthday to all the August babies! August is my birth month too (6th). When I was younger August always meant long days down at the shore swimming and relaxing. I have finall..."Happy Birthday!
Sounds like you, like all of us, are managing your life during COVID as best you can. That is all anyone can do.
Hoping you have one fantastic birthday.
So speaking of the tbr, the book I just finished I purchased when Borders closed in 2011. I still have more of those.Ten years after, I enjoyed it.
Booknblues wrote: "So speaking of the tbr, the book I just finished I purchased when Borders closed in 2011. I still have more of those.Ten years after, I enjoyed it."
I have quite a few of those...and ones bought when favorite indie mystery book stores closed their doors.
I'm sure one of the books I read for Regency came from when Borders was closing!
Play Book Tag
Books mentioned in this topic
Behold the Dreamers (other topics)Tuck Everlasting (other topics)
Authors mentioned in this topic
Robert Barnard (other topics)Edmund Crispin (other topics)
Amanda Cross (other topics)
What's August mean for all of you, pre-pandemic and now during pandemic?
For me, August is my birthday month - the 19th -- and is usually filled with dinners with various friends, surprise cards and packages arriving by mail, lots of FB greetings on the day, and outings to the theater. Maybe play tourist for a day or two in NYC. One memorable birthday friends and I took the Circle Line Tour around Manhattan then went to dinner. It was a blast!
It never ever means vacation. In the past, when I was still doing real estate transaction work (prior to November 2020 when I said 'ENOUGH!'), summers, especially August, were professinoally extremely busy. No time to take off work. Plus I hate travelling when everyone else does and I hate hot weather. I also am so not a beach person.
Also, something I've never understood: people who get all bent out of shape if they can't take their birthday off from work. I just don't get that. It's certainly never been a thing anywhere I worked. In fact, I almost always had a closing on my birthday and I'd tell the clients that meant extra special good luck and happiness in their new home. That's always been true too.
Plus, I made sure everyone in the office knew exactly when my birthday was so that there would be cake and a gathering and drinks and a card. Having a birthday in the dog days of August was always something that pulled everyone into the conference room to celebrate and eat cake.
Alas, no office parties these days. Last year I celebrated with Scrabble in the Park with Bloody Marys and my friend Liz. Masks and all. We are going to a restaurant this year -- Refried Beans in Washington Heights, known for great Mexican food and superb margaritas.