Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Senior Citizens--and Bowker


April 21st was indeed Senior Citizens Day (shouldn't that have an apostrophe???), but what does that mean? Reagan called "upon the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities." How to do that?

Let's brainstorm. What's great about being a Senior Citizen? Medicare, that's a given. And, let's see. Arthritis? Nope, that's not a plus. Memory loss, hair loss? Nope. Age discrimination? The thought that's never far from your mind: every day you're still alive is one more day to deal with all of the above?

There are rewards. Grandchildren are the BEST prizes. Your reward for not killing your children, they say. We're celebrating the birth of a new granddaughter today! I can't tell you how elated that makes me. I'm hitting the baby stores VERY soon. (Since this is a public forum, I don't post kids' and grandkids' pix, but you'll have to trust me that there are NO babies cuter than my grands.)

Another one is not getting as excited about things as we used to. Lots of issues for younger people are things we've weathered. NBD, BTDT/GTTS. It makes for a more relaxed life.

Here's a biggie, though! You may know that I've been reviewing for Suspense Magazine for a couple of years. It's stretched me in ways I wouldn't have imagined. I am given books to read and review--I don't pick them. So, naturally, they aren't all books I would have gravitated to. But I've read such good books beyond my regular reading zone! Very fun! Even more fun is the news that Bowker (BOWKER!) is going to start using the reviews from Suspense! I'm not sure what the attribution will be, but we'll see. It can't be a bad thing. Bowker, IYDK, is the place every publisher gets ISBN numbers, the numbers assigned to every printed book.


(BTW, if you don't subscribe to Suspense, you need to fix that.)
((PPS, I usually research acronyms at either http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/ or http://www.urbandictionary.com/, but be careful with the latter if you're sensitive to, well, raunchy meanings of things.))

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