Nora Ephron

 At the end of I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections Kindle edition, there is an Acknowledgement that tells of author, Nora Ephron's death on June 26, 2012. She was 69 when she wrote this. I related to the chapter titled: The O Word. She wrote about losing 2 inches, gaining 10 pounds and not being able to lose even one pound. 

Yes, I lost 2 inches of height and gained 16 pounds. I work to lose 5 pounds only to gain 2 pounds. She talks about life feeling like a lottery. Living in a senior apartment complex, I visualize a huge roulette wheel wondering whose number will come up. 

Nora died from pneumonia brought on by acute myeloid leukemia. Leukemia, a blood disorder ~ an imbalance of white/red blood cells. Rather like my own mantle cell lymphoma ~ my cancer relating to lymph nodes, but affecting my white/red blood cells (due to chemo?) I was down to 80 pounds and wonder if Ms. Ephron lost weight due to her cancer. 

"If this is one of the last days of my life, am I doing exactly what I want to be doing?" She also wondered if she knew what she should be doing. She did not mention illness; as we advance in years we become more of death looming large in our future.

I  enjoyed the first chapter of the memoir. I mostly bored with the next chapters about becoming a journalist. It picked up again when she wrote about aging, technology, lists of 25 Things she could live without, and more. She also wondered if she knew what she should be doing. Me too. 

It was a good read, except for the name dropping of people whose names I did not recognize. I learned things I did not know about Nora, such as writing the screen play for two movies I enjoyed ~When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle. I would recommend the book for anyone who walks in a room and forgets what they wanted. Or searches in purse for keys, while holding the keys in her hands. 

I wonder if men have those senior moments.

When I Was a Slave

 When I Was a Slave are selected narratives from a WPA project. At the time, former slaves were 80+ years old. It is interesting how each person interviewed focused on different memories from their days held captive in the south as plantation slaves. Some focused on their living quarters, their work, their meals; others on their slave masters/mistresses. One slave recited exact amounts of items buried to prevent northern soldiers from stealing the valuables. 

However could anyone remember that the slave master's household had 3 silver salt and 3 silver pepper holders, 94 silver teaspoons and so on. Perhaps that slave had helped bury them or kept the inventory for the masters? I suppose if the owners had boxed sets of silverware, like my mother had, they would know how many of each utensil fit in the boxes.

Some slaves sang the virtues of their owners ~ they were well fed, well-dressed, decent housing. Others said the opposite. One man said that slaves who glorified their masters were lying. Hard to imagine a world where men felt justified in buying, selling, owning other people. The owners felt slaves were mere animals to be beat into submission. Sad and horrifying. 

***

Above is a copy of my Goodreads review of When I Was A Slave: Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection edited by Norman R. Yetman Reading this book is how I learned that the slave cabins had dirt floors.

I wondered, later, why none of the interviewed slaves mentioned Outhouses. Or did they dig holes, bury it, as modern day hunters are told to do? 

Embers On The Wind

Embers on the Wind was an Amazon Prime free Kindle First Read. I was close to quitting reading beyond the first chapter which made no sense. Glad I stuck it out. The novel got better or more interesting as I progressed. 

This was more of a hard read than a good read. The story shifts between time lines and characters, and ghosts. I am still not sure who Louis was, what happened to him or his relevance to the story. Too much jumping back and forth to easily follow the storyline.

One chapter seemed to be a verbatim repeat of an earlier chapter told from the perspective of a different character. Or maybe it was told be same character at a different time? Switching back and forth between 1800s and 2000s would be okay. What was confusing was shifting between 1850, 2019, 1839, 2018, 2015, 1989. (I made that up, but that is the gist of it.)

Author, Lisa Williamson Rosenberg, covers subjects including the Underground Railroad, interracial marriages, biracial children, ghosts and senaces. Imaginative, if confusing story.

***

Above is my Goodreads review of Embers on the Wind. When I write a Goodreads review I do not tell much about the story as the blurb does that. Plus some reviewers go into detail. Too much! And no Spoiler Alert!

Ladies in the present time want to stay at an Inn that was once a part of the Underground Railroad, as mentioned in previous post. The story was confusing, due to being unable to remember if I was reading about the original events happening to the Freedom Seekers, or a character relaying the story to another in recent time; or yet again, the very present time when ladies visit the Inn. 

Is the Sentence happening in, say, 2019, or did it happen earlier, then talked about later. Ha, hope that sentence is not confusing. It was quite an interesting story, if only it was not so hard to follow.

Slave Quarters

 https://www.yahoo.com/money/no-ones-renting-slave-quarters-011508599.html

Ironically, I recently read a fiction novel about ladies wanting to stay at a former Underground Railroad house turned Inn. They preferred to call runaway slaves or escaped slaves, "Freedom Seekers." Of course, slave owners were the ones who gave those escaping the truancy the names.

The fictional characters wanted to contact their ancestors' spirits, via seance or simply connecting by being there. In the story, there was a root cellar where people died due to a fire. Also a woman gave birth, in the house, killed the man trying to capture her to take her back to slave farm. She then killed herself.

Of course, the article says the cabins are former slave quarters. I would need to know more. The one or two room cabins mostly had dirt floors No electricity, no indoor plumbing. Some had fireplaces, for heat and cooking. Those slave quarters had to have some serious remodeling in order to be suitable for rentals. 

Who, in today's modern society would rent a shack for their vacation!

I do want to read more of the comments.