The Wednesday HodgePodge (December 7, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. How are you all doing on this first Wednesday of the last month of 2022? I’m still struggling quite a bit. I might share a bit about this at the end of my post. After all, I’m participating in the Wednesday HodgePodge and the last question allows for us to insert a random thought. Let me get to the first five questions first though.

1. The Hodgepodge lands on National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. Have you visited the memorial? Any desire to do so? Have you visited other WW2 sites and memorials? Do you think we do a good job of teaching current and younger generations about the events of WW2? Do you think it matters?
I have never visited the Pearl Hahrbor memorial, as I’m not in the United States. I’m not sure about any other WW2 sites or memorials either. I mean, yeah, I was born in Rotterdam, which was heavily bombed during the German invasion of the Netherlands, and I did see the memorial statue many times. Not sure about any museums if that’s what’s meant.

I do think teaching the younger generations about WW2 matters. I’m not sure how well of a job we do, as I’m not even sure how well-educated I myself am and I’m not considered “younger” anymore by most standards.

2. Many books, both fiction and non-fiction have been written with WW2 as the setting. Is this a ‘genre’ you gravitate towards? Share with us a book (or two) you’ve enjoyed that is set in some way around WW2. If you’re not a reader, how about a movie?
I don’t really gravitate towards this genre, honestly. The only book I can think of off the top of my head is Anne Frank’s diary. I loved it when I was a teen, but didn’t fully comprehend the horrors Anne and her family lived through at the time.

3. According to Better Homes and Gardens Magazine there are seven popular color trends for the holidays this year. They are- red and white, Victorian blue, pops of pink, rich shades of green, rainbow hues, black and white, and nostalgic retro colors. Are you ‘trendy’ when it comes to holiday decorating in 2022? How so? Does your tree have a ‘theme’?
No, I’m not trendy at all. In fact, my staff put up my Christmas decorations that I had left over from last year yesterday because I’d completely forgotten. I don’t even have a tree, as the cheap one I bought last year consumed huge amounts of batteries.

4. What’s a current trend you buck?
I have absolutely no idea what’s even currently trending, so no clue.

5. What’s your favorite chocolate something?
I don’t honestly care for actual chocolate. Give me white chocolate, which isn’t real chocolate, instead. If I have to go with something that has a trace of actual chocolate in it, I’m going with a Knoppers cookie bar. These are chocolate-covered waffles with nut cream inside of them.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
We celebrated St. Nicholas at the care home on Monday. I chose not to join my fellow residents in the living room, but I had my treat and presents in my room. For presents, I had a pair of socks and a chocolate letter. I initially thought I found the socks ugly and, while they are a bit on the large side for me and I wouldn’t personally have bought socks with prints on them, my husband convinced me the colors do look good together. They’re blue socks with tulips in various colors (mostly pink and orange) on them. I also got a little rhyme with my presents, as is customary with St. Nicholas. I liked that best.

Books I’d Add to My Personal Library

Posted on by Astrid

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday is about books you’ve read that you’d add to your personal library. What is meant are books that you don’t own a physical copy of and wish you did. Well, I can’t quite use physical books, as I can’t read print and Braille books are very clunky. However, there are still books I wish I owned that I borrowed from the library. Here goes.

1. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I read it in its Dutch translation in one of my last years in primary school and, though I didn’t enjoy it that much at the time, I’d love to read the original English right now. My father read it in English at the same time that I read it in Dutch.

2. Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne. My father read my sister and me the best Dutch translation by Nienke van Hichtum. This yet again isn’t a book I’d necessarily want a physical copy of, though that’d be nice, but I’d love to read it in its original language.

3. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I read this in my senior year of high school. Though I easily accessed it online back then, legally or not I’m not entirely sure, I would love to own a copy.

4. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Hannah Green. I borrowed this one from the UK’s National Library for the Blind and actually read it as a physical Braille book. Back then, you could send Braille books free of postage anywhere and the NLB offered its service to international customers. Bookshare, the U.S.-based online accessible book service, at the time didn’t, which was the main reason I used the NLB. I loved this book.

5. Planet of the Blind by Stephen Kusiisto. Another book I borrowed from the NLB. I loved how much I could relate to Kusiisto’s experienfce, going blind gradually from the same eye condition I suffer from.

6. Aspergirls by Rudy Simone. I had this book as an eBook, but lost it when I moved from Adobe Digital Editions to the iBooks app on my iPhone. I didn’t actually finnish this book, but would love to.

7. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I read the first book in this series in its Dutch translation at age twelve. Though I really don’t think I’ll ever read the other books, as they get really weird or so I’m told, I’d love to have a copy of this one.

8. All of Astrid Lindgren’s books. I don’t know whether they’re available in English, so I’d go with the Dutch translations.

9. Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. I read it in Dutch when I was about thirteen, but I borrowed it from the library back then. I’d love to own a physical copy of both the original Dutch and the English translation.

10. Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet. This was an intriguing autobiography by a man with Asperger’s. I read it in its Dutch translation before I had access to many English-language books and would love to own a copy of the original English.

Which books would you add to your personal library?