books — Page 160

Coping

November 4, 2015 at 8:25 am by Claudia

I’ve been so exhausted at night that I fall asleep by 10 pm at the latest and wake up around 5:30. Much of that is emotional exhaustion, but I’m sure some of it is due to the time change. Going through all of Mom and Dad’s things, sorting and making piles of photos and memories – this goes to the grandchildren, this goes to my cousin, this goes to the daughters…all of it is necessary but hard. And I’m determined to do as much as I can while I’m here.

11-4 princess pirate

Princess Pirate, complete with skull and crossbones sunglasses – part of his treat bag from school. I think he looks like a British rock star. Quite a bit of swagger, don’t you think?

That’s my furry nephew, Max, in the background. I love all my nephews.

Reading for any length of time is still difficult – it’s hard to lose myself in the pages of a book, though I long to. I have my library book with me – Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling) and I read about 5 or 10 pages at a time, but then, my mind wanders. And that’s not due to the book, which is excellent. And no, I’m not worried about bedbugs in my library books. I read that recently on some blog – can’t remember where. For heaven’s sake, passing along that twaddle is ridiculous. It’s not that it never happens, but that it hardly ever happens. I remember when all sorts of articles were being written about this supposed outbreak a few years back. It has, in fact, been shown that it’s more likely to find them in furniture at the library than in books. Or furniture in a motel. Or furniture in a waiting room. Or displays in stores. And even then? Rarely. I never worry about that and I stay in a fair amount of motels and hotels and, like everyone, shop in stores. They’re simply scare tactics. And then, inevitably, they’re used to try to sell a product. Don’t let that kind of fear-inciting keep you from your local library. Books are to be checked out and used and touched and enjoyed. Libraries are there for all of us and are an essential part of our culture. They need our support.

There’s so much of that kind of fear mongering that goes on, whether it’s through pharmaceutical commercials, political campaign tactics, advertising, or irresponsible news and media coverage and it’s even more prevalent with the 24 hour news cycle and the internet. I find it very troubling and I find it even more troubling that a segment of our population automatically believes anything they’re told.

Hey, I’m tiptoeing onto my soapbox. That’s a good sign, given what the last week has been like.

11-4 obsession scarf

No, you’re not seeing things. For the first time in about two years, I’ve started an Obsession Scarf. I got this yarn last time I was down here but I didn’t do anything with it. When I was packing, I grabbed some hooks, thinking that it might provide some meditative comfort. But I didn’t get a chance to start it until yesterday. It took a little bit of time for it all to come back, but it’s like riding a bike; the rhythm and moves are still there.

I need to find a new pattern, though. I’m making two of these scarves. Maybe I’ll put them in the long-on-hiatus Etsy shop; who knows?

Don’s CD is back in stock, by the way.

I have a list of things to do today. Calls to make, financial accounts to check, the sort of things that need to be done. So, I’m off.

Happy Wednesday.

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Chatty on a Rainy Sunday

October 25, 2015 at 9:16 am by Claudia

More fall color for you, courtesy of our trees:

10-25 along the woods

10-25 silver maple

The silver maple.

10-25 shed

10-25 backforty

10-25 silvermaple2

It’s raining today, so a lot of these leaves will be on the ground by the end of the day.

I’ll miss them.

10-25 honeybees

• Do you remember our honeybees?

They lived in our catalpa tree and we co-existed peacefully for years until a couple of years ago, when some aggressive bees infiltrated the community. It became impossible to get within twenty feet or so of the tree without a bee dive-bombing us or the dogs. We sought the help of a beekeeper, but we ended up leaving them alone as it was late fall at the time. It ended up resolving itself as the colony died out during the winter, so we covered all the access holes with screening material.

This year, they reappeared again toward the end of the summer, squeezing in through an opening at the top of the screen. They weren’t aggressive, so we were thrilled they were back. A good sign. But since the first hard freeze, I haven’t seen them. I have to research it, but something tells me that might be normal.

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• Once again, I’ve been waylaid on my way to reading All The Light We Cannot See by the arrival at my local library of a book I’ve long been waiting for. I’ve been on the waiting list for this for a few months – long before it was officially released on October 20th. In fact, this is the book I saw in Barnes & Noble when I was in Manhattan on Tuesday. I held off buying it because I knew I was in the queue and thought, given the number of copies of the book in our Inter-library loan system and the number of holds, that I just might get it by the end of the week.

Sure enough, I got an email yesterday and practically flew over to the library to pick it up. I’m happily ensconced in the world of Cormoran Strike as written by Robert Galbraith (J. K. Rowling).

• I have a link you might be interested in. The New York Times had a great interview with Terry Gross, longtime host of Fresh Air on NPR. I think she’s the finest interviewer out there. I started listening to her when I was in grad school in Philadelphia in the early eighties and she was still local. She didn’t go national until a few years later.

I’ve always felt like I was in the secret, you know? Even then, I was gobsmacked by her interviewing skills. Here’s the link.

• One more link for you today and that’s to an Instagram account. Reader Margaret tipped me off about this one, Megillicutti. Melissa has the most incredible collection of McCoy Pottery – easily 3 times the size of mine and I’m in love with all of it, as well as her decorating style, which is right up my alley. She loves vintage, so much so that she sells at flea markets. She has a great sense of what to buy. She lives in the Chicago area.

I spent part of the afternoon yesterday going back through a lot of her posts. They are eye candy of the best kind; real, lived-in, not trendy (thank god) and beautiful. She’s got a lot of followers and it’s easy to understand why.

Happy Sunday.

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Manhattan: Coaching, Book Reading, Book Buying

October 21, 2015 at 9:29 am by Claudia

I’m late to my laptop this morning.

Blame it on this:

10-21 lee child make me

I read it on the bus to NYC yesterday. I read it on the way home. I read it in bed last night. And I read it this morning. I’m getting very close to the end. But, as with all good books, I don’t want to race through the final pages. I want to savor them.

Because I know the final pages will be unputdownable (my new word) and I also know that it will be another year until a new Jack Reacher adventure arrives in the bookstores.

Tom Cruise? What were they thinking??? Don’t answer. I already know. They were thinking box office.

I got into Manhattan a little early yesterday and I had to walk from the bus station to East 59th Street, which took me up expensive Fifth Avenue, past Bergdorf Goodman and Tiffany and the Plaza. Along the way, I stopped at Barnes & Noble because who can resist a bookstore? Not me. I saw many books I wanted, but didn’t bite. Except for one: Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes. I read about it last year and tried to get a review copy but I was too late, it had already been published. It takes place in Detroit, which always draws me in because it’s my hometown. While browsing in the Mystery Section yesterday, I remembered the book and tried to find it, but I wasn’t sure of the author’s last name or even the title. I figured I’d see the last name and find it that way. No go. I finally resorted to signing on to NetGalley on my phone so that I could find the rejected request for an advanced reader copy. Ah, Beukes! As sometimes happens, it wasn’t under mystery but it was under literature.

Like I need another book on my To Be Read pile.

Anyway, it was a lovely day and I was on the edge of Central Park, but had no time to explore it. People were everywhere, as you can imagine, and I find I am always amazed at how many wealthy people there are in this part of Manhattan. You can see it in the clothes they wear, in the way they carry themselves. And there are many, many wealthy tourists. Where does all that money come from?

And then there’s me, in jeans and sneakers, wearing a sweater and a funky jacket that’s more than twenty years old. More like twenty-five.

My coaching session lasted twice as long as I had planned and was a difficult one, and I was hungry and dehydrated when I left the theater but, you guessed it, I had to walk about 25 blocks back to the bus station in order to grab the next scheduled bus, so I grabbed something to go and ate it on the bus. New York is lovely, or can be, but I’m usually racing through it on my way to and from some point in the city.

10-21 red leaf

We have about a gazillion leaves to rake over the next few days. They are everywhere. Did I mention I don’t like raking leaves? When you’ve got as many trees as we do, it loses whatever appeal it has very quickly. And we don’t even tackle the back forty.

New post up on Just Let Me Finish This Page with some links for your reading pleasure.

Don’s CD is back in stock at CD Baby. You can either click here or travel over to my sidebar and click there.

Happy Wednesday.

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Coping

Chatty on a Rainy Sunday

Manhattan: Coaching, Book Reading, Book Buying

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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