2000? Never again! 40? Sure. Why not?

The day before yesterday Frank and I just completed this 2000 piece jigsaw puzzle. It is the biggest we have ever done. We kept at it and, for the most part, there was enough detail that it was a lot of fun – until we had only sky left. We estimated that the sky was about one sixth to one seventh of the puzzle or about 300 pieces. Doing an all blue 300 piece puzzle is very frustrating and the clouds were no help whatsoever. But we were being companionable and felt a sense of accomplishment when that last piece clicked into place. That is the same with the later years of a marriage – there may be a bit of frustration but mainly you feel companionable and accomplished.

Yesterday Frank and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary. We did it quietly without a lot of fanfare. We took Alex bowling as usual for a Sunday. Early evening we went out to dinner in casual clothes at Strizzi's, a restaurant in downtown Livermore. Here we are in a selfie. See? We are keeping up with technology.

It was Franks's idea to bring along our wedding album and page through it as we waited for our meal. I was initially a bit embarrassed but it turned out to be a romantic and nostalgic thing to do. We ate outdoors in gently warm, balmy weather just as the sun was setting, with a couple glasses of Beringer White Zinfandel and it was... well it was just plain nice!

Forty years with the same guy... Would I do it again? I sure would!

Ponder Post: What Alice Forgot

Alice falls off a stationary bicycle during an intense spin class at the gym, hits her head, and gets a concussion... accompanied by a decade's worth of amnesia. She truly believes she is at a point in time ten years earlier when she is pregnant with her first child and is madly in love with her husband. He and she are painstakingly and lovingly in the midst of renovating a vintage house together and ecstatic about the birth of their baby. But where are they now? The book What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty highlights how much of our daily interactions, fears, and attitudes hinge on our past experiences. Take away those experiences and we just may be an entirely different person.

This is the third of Liane Moriarty's books I have read. I gave The Husband's Secret high praise and five stars and The Hypnotist's Love Story a paltry two stars so I wondered where this novel would fall on her spectrum. Alice's daily challenges of interfacing with people and events – without a clue as to the backstory influencing them – were amusing, revealing, surprising, and a bit alarming. The aplomb with which she handled people and situations, often while being blindsided and plagued by self-doubts, was admirable. The characters are well portrayed. Their angst and struggles and joys and pleasures seemed real and understandable to me. The method of conveying the characters inner thoughts and feelings to the reader, in the form of letters and journals was effective and did not seem contrived.

What Alice Forgot gets four stars from me. It probably deserves four and a half stars but I couldn't muster up the computer symbol for that. This novel is not quite up there with The Husband's Secret but pretty darn close. This book raised several interesting topics for consideration. Just how much does a person change in ten years – not just physically but in attitudes and emotions as well? How big a role does communication play in a relationship? Children change a lot and go through phases but can this continue into adulthood? How strong an influence can friends and acquaintances exert? Can someone get a "do over" in life, kind of like George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life? This is definitely a prime selection for a book club to read and discuss. It was very thought provoking and I enjoyed it immensely. I read it continuously Sunday afternoon through Sunday evening until I finished the whole thing the same day! Now that's a good book!

Ponder Post: Self Portraits

Last week Frank and I consolidated our mobile phone accounts to both be on Verizon. I transferred my old white cell phone to him and I got an iPhone6. It is a bit bigger than the iPhone5 so the screen is easier to read but I am glad I did not get an iPhone6+ which would have been too huge to fit in most pockets. Talking on it would have been like holding a tablet to my ear. Because I wanted a white phone again, I selected a pretty blue protective case so Frank and I can tell our cell phones apart at a glance. I selected a calm blue screen saver and it looks so serene. I just wanted to show it off so I took a photo of my new cell phone with my Lumix digital camera.

This made me realize that a cell phone, unlike its user, cannot take a picture of itself. If a cell phone could take a picture of itself, would that be a cellfie?

I pondered this because coincidentally, just the other evening, Frank I learned a crucial fact from watching Jeopardy. The Eleventh Edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary added "selfie" to its official list of words in 2014.

Definition of SELFIE:
an image of oneself taken by oneself using a digital camera especially for posting on social networks

What technological marvel will be next?