whoopsadaisical

I saw a box turtle crossing a highway this morning and my heart dropped. It’s that time of the year again.

If it’s safe for you to help a turtle cross the road, make sure to move them in the direction they were already going in.

If it’s a snapping turtle only touch the back 1/2 or 1/3 of its shell, you can pinch the carapace above their legs or put one hand on the plastron and one on the carapace (like a pizza box). Just don’t grab behind their head, not all snapping turtles are alligator snapping turtles and that’s a good way to lose a finger.

If you find a turtle on the side of the road that has been hit (even if it appears dead) please note your coordinates and check for local rehabbers. Turtles will survive things that no animal should. Even if it’s not survivable, they will stay alive and suffer a gruesome death without someone to help them go peacefully. Sometimes they look dead but aren’t. Either way, if you can bring them to someone to check them out and help, it’s worth it.

Nonfiction

The Price of The Ticket (borrow from IA)

The Fire Next Time (pdf download)

Notes of A Native Son (pdf download)

Nothing Personal (read on IA - not great quality sorry)

The Last Interview (pdf download) (only 10 pages!)

Fiction

Giovanni's Room (pdf download)

If Beale Street Could Talk (pdf download)

BONUS

Little Man Little Man (read or pdf download on scribd) (Baldwin's only children's book)

Go Tell It On The Mountain (pdf download)

Another Country (pdf and epub download)

Sonny's Blues (pdf download)

We're at breakfast and I was watching my betrothed eat and they said, "You've got that wide unblinking autistic vibe right now. You might unsettle the populace."

"No." Says the tuna, "Do you?"

"I have never seen it." Says the whale, "but deep in my body, I remember it."

"Why do you care," says the tuna, "if you will never see it."

"There are bones in my body built to walk through the forests and the mountains." Says the whale.

"They will disappear." Says the tuna, "one day, your body will forget the forests and the mountains."

"Maybe I don't want to forget," Says the whale, "The forests were once my home."

"I have seen the forests." Whispers the salmon, almost to itself.

"Tell me what you have seen," says the whale.

"The forests spawned me." Says the salmon. "They sent me to the ocean to grow. When I am fat with the bounty of the ocean, I will bring it home."

"Why would the forests seek the bounty of the oceans?" Asks the whale. "They have bounty of their own."

Last year I finally had an excuse to illustrate this simple little Tumblr story I've had bookmarked forever for class.

military service

sleep concern (?)

exercise (are they asking if I have a history of exercise?)

bike helmet (???)

From "More Than Just Recipes," at the University of Michigan Library blog:

"But in substance [A Domestic Cook-Book by Malinda Russell] was unique: then and now, the only known copy of the earliest cookbook by an African-American, published in 1866 in Paw Paw, Michigan. 

"In addition to recipes and remedies, the book features an introduction by its author, Malinda Russell. This brief account is an intriguing and moving glimpse into the extraordinary life of this second-generation freewoman born a generation before the end of slavery."