Author: abbiejohnsontaylor

Novel Touts Value of Knowing One’s Culture #Thursday Book Feature

Pigs in Heaven: A Novel

by Barbara Kingsolver

This is the sequel to The Bean Trees, which I reviewed here a couple of weeks ago. Taylor and her six-year-old adopted Indian daughter Turtle are living happily in Tucson, Arizona. While vacationing at The Grand Canyon, Turtle sees a man fall into a spillway. She and Taylor alert the authorities, and the story becomes national news.

As a result, Taylor and Turtle are asked to appear on the Oprah Winfrey show. In Oklahoma, a lawyer for the Cherokee Nation, after seeing Turtle on TV, questions the validity of the child’s adoption, which occurred three years earlier. When Taylor learns of the lawyer’s suspicion, she and Turtle hit the road. Her mother, who lives in Kentucky, travels to Oklahoma to visit her cousin and plead their case.

Parts of this story could have moved along faster, but otherwise, I was riveted. On cold winter nights, without leaving my recliner, I traveled through desert heat from Arizona to Nevada to Washington State and finally, to the small town of Heaven, Oklahoma. From a Las Vegas coffee shop, where we meet a waitress with a Barbie obsession, to a Cherokee ceremonial dance in Oklahoma, the author drew me into her story. Although the ending was satisfactory, I would like to have seen a few details resolved. Otherwise, this second novel by Barbara Kingsolver is a good story.

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Blizzard #Poetry

Snow falls
in swirls of white,
covers the quiet town,
and not a speck of brown
graces the night.
Wind calls.

Dark sky
over new snow,
no moon to light the way,
no sign of coming day,
as swirls of snow
fly by.

In town,
cars slip and slide
through icy streets of white.
All through the silent night,
the snowflakes hide
the brown.

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The above poem was published in the winter 2020 issue of The Avocet. Click below to hear me read it.

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If I Can’t Have You #Monday Musical Memories

Although I didn’t see the movie until much later, I loved the soundtrack from Saturday Night Fever when I was in high school. During the spring of my junior year, while traveling with the concert choir to a music festival, I first heard selections from this album when another student played it on the bus.

That summer, my grandmother gave me my own copy on cassette for my birthday. I took a disco dancing class at the YMCA and practiced moves in my bedroom while listening to it. The tape eventually broke, as most cassettes do. Now, I ask Alexa to play the album on Amazon Music.

The song I’m featuring today was a favorite among the girls in my class. It rings true for me now that my husband has passed. If I can’t have Bill, I don’t want anyone else. Besides, I’m too old and set in my ways to reorganize my life around a man. I’m taking a break from singing and giving you the original movie soundtrack version, sung by Yvonne Elliman. Enjoy!

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On Living with Blindness #Thursday Book Feature

Insight Out: One Blind Woman’s View of Her Life
by Mary Hiland
Copyright 2019.

From the author of The Bumpy Road to Assisted Living comes a compelling memoir about living with blindness. Unlike most memoirs, this one isn’t told in chronological order. Instead, each chapter covers a particular facet of the author’s life.
She describes her childhood and talks about how she dreamed of being a dancer on Broadway. She shares how that dream was dashed when she was diagnosed with legal blindness at the age of eighteen as a result of retinitis pigmentosa. This degenerative disease had been progressing throughout most of her life.
As an adult, despite this diagnosis, she cross-country skied, biked, and hiked on a regular basis and participated in a variety of entertainment groups as well as Toastmasters and other organizations. She even formed some groups of her own. She describes, in great detail, her experiences and adventures.
Other chapters cover college, getting married, finding a job, parenting, being a grandparent, and how she acquired a succession of guide dogs. She also discusses some myths and misperceptions about blind people and gives advice to others facing vision loss. In an afterword, she shares, for the benefit of her children and grandchildren, memories of relatives who influenced her as well as her legacies. The book includes journal entries, letters, articles, and photos.
I met Mary several years ago through Behind Our Eyes, an organization of disabled writers, of which I’m president. Unlike her, I tried a few of the physical activities in which she participated, fell once or twice, and gave up. I admire her courage and determination. Anyone reading this book will be enlightened and educated.

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TMI Tuesday January 7th 2019 #Blog Tag

What is the most useless thing you know how to do? Stamp my feet.
Do you use sex to relieve stress? How? No.
What sex act or position did not thrill you until you tried it? I haven’t had much experience with sex. My late husband Bill was the only man in my life, and he turned out to be impotent.
What is the most unusual but fun sexual encounter you have had? Because of Bill’s impotence, I had no unusual sexual encounters. But I enjoyed snuggling with him in bed, our arms entwined, our heads resting together on one pillow. You can read more about us in My Ideal Partner: How I Met, Married, and Cared for the Man I Loved Despite Debilitating Odds.
What is something that can happen in the middle of sex that will make you put on your clothes and walk out? I can’t imagine why I would walk out on sex unless it was something I didn’t want to do. But Bill did. During the day once, he asked me to try sex with him because he thought he could do it this time. I was distracted because I’d been in the middle of something and had to drop what I was doing. So, my heart wasn’t in it, and Bill could tell. He finally gave up and walked out in disgust. I vowed that next time, I’d put aside whatever was on my mind and throw my whole heart into it, but there was never a next time.

Bonus: What was a random compliment that someone gave you that really stuck in your memory? “You’re an inspiration to others.”

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How about you? To participate on your own blog, click here. If you don’t have a blog, you can leave your answers in the comment field below if you dare.

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Don’t Start Up Your Apple Computer

Don’t Start Up Your Apple Computer #Monday Musical Memories

I wrote this little ditty in the 1990’s when I had an Apple computer. I loved my Macintosh with its extremely robotic-sounding synthetic voices that read everything to me and told me what I was typing. It met my needs, or so I thought, until 2005 when I saw my late husband’s Windows computer. But that’s a story you can read in My Ideal Partner: How I Met, Married, and Cared for the Man I Loved Despite Debilitating Odds. But I digress.

Anyway, you’ll recognize this tune as a World War II classic that was performed by The Andrews Sisters. But back in those days, email, the Internet, and Apple computers didn’t exist. So, I thought it necessary to incorporate different words to reflect the times. Enjoy!

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