March 2, Sunday afternoon -- Reading Elizabeth Gilbert

At the edge of Dolores Park in the Mission District, basking in the sun.....spring is finally here! I'm still wearing a hat, but, oddly enough, my baby brother (a fifteen-year-old "super reader"), back home in arctic Montana insisted on a hair cut because it was getting hot. I looked the weather up online, expecting some sort of abnormal heatwave--it was 39 degrees, and not Celsius, either.

Reading Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Tomorrow she'll be making Dr. Seuss hats with a group of 3rd - 5th graders to celebrate Read Across America Day with the after school program that she runs at Grattan elementary in Cole Valley. Grattan is known as a "green" school. They have gardens....and they even have a meditation hut!

For the after school program she just bought two books--Island of the Blue Dolphins, by Scott O'Dell and Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson.

This morning she just finished reading Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, which she got from her brother for Christmas. She enjoyed it thoroughly. She hadn't read it since high school and found it interesting to read from an older perspective.

Her favorite book of all time--The Gift, by the Persian poet, Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky. Her brother introduced her to the book and, since then, she's given it as a gift about seven times. It's love poetry to the creator.

She and her brother share similar taste in books. He was a religion major and traveled around India. They like pop-psychology, self-help, East meets West, everyday Buddhism.

Have fun with the hats!