What a Fortnight!

Sis had the flu and now she has pneumonia.  It's been a rough two weeks for her and, while she is on oral meds at home, she is still coughing and exhausted.  We have reassurances from school that she'll catch up--they'll adjust her assignments and excuse the absences with a doctor's note.  Right now, she's too tired even to contemplate work.  She's not even going to see her horse often, so you know she doesn't feel well.

And right in the middle of that, Bud started throwing up and missed a few days of school himself.  We thought he might be getting the flu, too, but we were all tested and are negative.  It just must have been some virus that thankfully we didn't all catch.  Now he's just jealous that his sister doesn't have to go to school, even if she's sick.

What else?  I think I have a whole list of things to mention (pardon the repeat from my email in some bullet points, Lambeth!)

• Did I ever even talk about Halloween?  Sis was Dean, from the tv show "Supernatural," one of the demon-and-monster fighting brothers in a show that crosses "X-Files" and "Buffy."  Bud was Dipper, from the animated show "Gravity Falls;" he's a code-breaking sleuth.  We went to the office Halloween party and then, night of, they had friends over for pizza and trick or treating and a huge candy swap at the end.  I love that they still want to trick or treat as teenagers AND that are neighbors don't seem to care about their age.
• About the same time, I had my own party:  a hygge party, based on the Scandinavian idea of coziness.  I had a few close friends over for a casual night of comfy clothes, Frito chili pie, hot buttered rum, almond cake, candles, fairy lights, and conversation.  And we all thoroughly enjoyed it.  I didn't rush around preparing, nor did my friends expect any sophisticated entertaining--we actually curled up on the couches under various afghans! I even gave them all fluffy socks and little candles.  Delightful!
• Our cat Hermione has developed arthritis.  She moves awkwardly and slowly, preferring little cat stairs to get on the bed or couch.  And she is always looking for warmth and so sleeps behind my knees in the bend in my legs, sits next to anyone on the couch, follows the sun patches around the house through the day, or curls up in her special heat-generating "poofs" (which have a layer of that silver-ish, heat-reflecting material they give to marathoners and people in crisis.)  Though, she can still "high tail" it for food or to chase the other female cat, Eris. To help Hermione out a bit, we're now giving her CBD oil, the non-hallucinogenic substance in marijuana (as opposed to TCH.)  They say it has a physical effect sort of like a warm bath; she does seem a bit more physically relaxed.  She has definitely relaxed a bit about Eris, so that Eris can now sleep on the big master bed during the day and was even curled up not too far from Hermione the other day (though definitely not touching.)  And our new Romeo is settling in, spending his days with Sis, who curls up in a big, soft, pink, fluffy blanket.  He even sleeps with her (which is good because Hermione won't let him on the bed in our room.)  he'll miss her when she's well, though at least he will have the blanket.
• We have a new street!  After a few years of widening pot holes and deteriorating asphalt, the street has been re-paved.  It's lovely, though we still don't have curbs.  I've got my fingers crossed for curbs so that the water doesn't erode my yard where it meets the road as it has for a few years now, creating a wider and deeper ditch that I have to specially mark so people don't trip (especially on Halloween!)  Good thing people don't walk around much, I suppose.  Because we won't ever get sidewalks!
• I am taking two classes at seminary (though, online) come springtime as I begin work on my MA of Religious Studies in order to become a board-certified chaplain.  One class is the history of Christianity, which will look at the different iterations (Ethiopian cave churches, Roman catacombs, evangelical tent revivals) from the early church to present.  I think it will have a lot of archaeology, which I especially like.  Second is "There's Something about Mary," which examines the different Marys of the Bible in a socio-historical and also (oh, the lingo) a "womanist biblical hermeneutics"!!!!!  The final project is to examine a contemporary representation of a Mary--I'm thinking Andrew Lloyd Webber's hippy Magdalene or the almost-Booker prize winner Colm Toibin's Testament of Mary, which depicts the Virgin as a depressed, isolated, and bitter older woman resenting her son's disciples.   I love school.  And I'm really excited to become a "real" chaplain.  Somebody needs to be there at hospice for people who aren't mainstream Christians (the Catholics have hospice covered!)--who are members of other religions, no religions, a mixture, unchurched, spiritual but not religious, atheists.  And I think I'm that somebody to offer solace and comfort (but not answers.)
• In preparation for our Thailand trip, I'm reading a book on the Buddha which answers a question I've often wondered:  why is there no single Buddhists sacred text the way there is the Bible or Koran?  Apparently, stories of Buddha were preserved orally and only written down later (hundreds of years later), but by competing sects who slightly altered the narrative, so that they don't really agree on a particular canon.  Add to that, even those manuscripts don't survive well--I think I read that the oldest extant Pali canon manuscript is only a few hundred years old.  Nothing like Dead Sea Scrolls.  And Buddhists don't quite see the texts as "in the beginning was the Word;" textual exegesis just isn't as central to the religion.  
• I watched the funeral of Bush 41 yesterday.  Solemn rituals and big, dramatic occasions always get to me, even if I wasn't quite mourning the late president.  The eulogies were informative--and entertaining in the way they lectured  #45 on character and charity and bi-partisanship.  I slightly remember Bush 41--I paid much less attention to politics then, but it was also less emotional, polarized, us vs them, angry.  I remember first getting riled about politics when Republicans kept trashing and attacking the Clintons, though if I think hard on it, I remember people not liking Reagan (though, much of that grew up afterwards.)  It's been downhill, civility-wise, since then.  Though I think it has also gotten dirtier--just look at Wisconsin GOP stripping the governor's office of power now that a Dem has defeated Republican governor Scott Walker--they didn't feel like he needed his power stripped when he was in office!  It's just ugly and there are few political remedies.  

• 

  Tulip stitch

  Even in the midst of all that, I have had time for my favorite hobbies.  I've crocheted blankets for a friend and a local fun-run raffle, even learning a new stitch, the tulip stitch.  I've been tangling as part of several online challenges, including Gratitangles 2018 and now 12 Days of Zentangle.  I love my meditative drawing practice.  I've also been reading more and have a book for downstairs, a book for upstairs before bed, and a book for the bathtub.  I've recently read a mystery featuring Fidelma, Irish nun-detective in 7th-century Ireland; the fifth and sixth Outlander books; a page or two of The Case for God, which is slow reading; the Buddha biography by the same author; and others I can't quite recall.  
• We've also been watching a lot of tv, with two sick kids.  They are working their way through a dozen or more seasons of Supernatural.  We enjoyed British comedian Sue Perkins's exploration of the Mekong River and especially love her on the Great British Bake Off (I think we are currently watching the newly-released season 3.)  Sis has started Outlander, though without the abusive sex parts.  Bud has a few animated series he's following, including Hilda-something.  I caught up with Grantchester, the Arrow, and can't wait to watch the second season of Mrs. Maisel.  We only have one tv plugged in right now and also use it for video games--they are all playing the new Pokemon game.
• I will delve into this at a later time:  I found proof that my ancestors on two branches of my family tree owned slaves. I have two partial names and the reference to four others. I always suspected as much, with many family members serving in the Confederacy and relatives having been in the south a century or more before the war, but learning it for fact has me overwhelmed and sad. I'm not quite sure what to do with this knowledge now....but I will do something. And acknowledging it has to be the first step.  I've joined a FB group, Coming to the Table, which connects descendants of both slave owners and enslaved peoples.  It's been informative, especially the resources page about reparations, financial and otherwise.  
• Sadness:  on our drive to the doctor's office on Tuesday, I hit an owl which flew up in front of my car. I never saw it coming, though I was going the speed limit; we just felt the thump and then I saw the round-faced, speckle-winged bird above my left headlight, flapping backwards. We pulled over but couldn't find it.  So it didn't die right there but somehow managed to leave.  My friends think this is a good sign; I'm a bit more pessimistic.  What chance does a bird, even a big one, have against a car?  Why did it have to be a beautiful bird of prey? I'm so sad.  (And no, I'm not ready to debate why it's sadder that something I like and is beautiful died vs. something ugly or not liked, like a snake. I know it's subjective and hypocritical.)
• Illusionists:  On Saturday, leaving Sis at home with what we then thought was the flu, we went to see a magic show on Broadway for Bud's Christmas present.  What a great show!  We especially liked the card tricks of Shin Lim, the mind-reading of Colin Cloud, and the sleight-of-hand of Darcy Oake.  In fact, Bud and I were both picked for separate tricks.  Colin Cloud read my mind!  He had me flip through a book and choose the top word on the left-hand page and remember it; he asked the same of two other audience members.  And then he "read" the word from my mind, "professional."  It really was astounding; and while I know there's a trick, I don't know what it is.  During his turn (we were seated very close to the stage in the second row), Bud was given an empty bottle in a box-inside-a-box to hold and then he chose a card out of a deck; later, of course, the card was in a corked glass bottle in the box-inside-a-box!  Now, the main "tell" that this was sleight of hand is that Oake did the same trick on Penn and Teller using the SAME CARD (5 of hearts) that Bud "chose."  I'm guessing it's a force of some kind but honestly neither Bud nor I saw it.  After the show and lunch at a nearby ramen place (Zen Ramen, not Sapporo because that dear old place has closed, forced out by raised rents), we went to Tannen's, the premiere NYC magic shop down by Macy's.  Bud had a great time conversing with the different magicians and seeing some of their tricks.  He bought a trick, a book, a beautiful Momento Mori deck, and a special card trick mat.  
• Thanksgiving:  did I mention Thanksgiving at all? We watched the parade in our jammies that morning, particularly liking that there were two female hosts (bye, Matt Lauer!!!)  And we liked the performance by the Prom cast, complete with kissing lesbian leads (it's about a girl who can't take her girlfriend to the prom so she enlists help!)  We bought tickets on the spot, to support the show and NBC for fairing the no-doubt controversial scene.  In the afternoon, we had Mama Teacher and her son over for muffalettas, snacks, conversation, and video games, since they were celebrating on a different day, just like we were. We all played MarioKart--and had a great time.  (Sis actually came down with a fever on that Thursday night but the clinic said on Friday that it was NOT the flu.  Harrumphf.)  We went to Goo's on Saturday, because he had been working at the hospital the other days.  I made Chex mix, the sweet potatoes, the green bean casserole, the cranberry-horseradish relish, and a lemon pie.  Goo did everything else, including a lovely charcuterie.  And Mama and her parents spent the day arranging and rearranging post-its in order to organize our trip.  In the evening after dinner, the kids and Goo played video games, including this fast one where you drum to the rhythm prescribed by the game, while making little characters dance to the music.  Very Japanese.
• BTS--Bud and I are still very much enamored of Kpop band BTS.  He practices their dance moves and I enjoy listening to the music in the car.  And we watch videos together sometimes.  When we were in NYC, for the magic show, we even went to the Line store, which sells BT21, a line of animated characters drawn by the members of BTS.  Bud got a few items, like J-Hope's horse character pillow and a key chain, and I even got a Koya (Koala, by RM) headband.  Yes, it's a cult.
• Reiki--and no, I didn't think of Reiki next because it is a cult (ahem)--I had my second Reiki  on Sunday, with the same teacher and students as last time.  This section added some words and hand signs, which really did make it seem more like an occult thing than the hands-on meditation did.  But there was also more references to Buddhism--"the light in me sees the light in you," connecting to your higher Self or buddhahood, and forget what else.  The next session has crystals and angels, but I think I'll stop here; crystals and angels and the Reiki grid which can create continuous Reiki without your participation just takes it all a few steps too far for me.  Hands on meditation that contributes to relaxation and peace, I can handle (though, true practitioners would see it more as aligning the chakra energy wheels than simple meditation.)  And I'm looking forward to using it with hospice patients, as just another modality for care and comfort.  I did try it on the kids when they were sick (mainly because they didn't want me to tell my teacher that they had said no!) and both were relaxed afterwards, as you would be lying still with your mom's hand on your head or shoulders or chest.  I did it on myself a few days later, when my neck was stiff from too much driving, and it did release the tension, just like mindfulness meditation releases tension in my mind.  It's all from the same place, I think.  
• In fact, I'll be going back to my PT soon to have her use her own therapy techniques (a unique combo of Western medicine and less scientific treatments) on the almost softball-sized scar tissue that has grown up in my lower abdomen and pelvic region from all the scars.  After consulting both my GI doctor and GYN and going through their tests, as well as talking at length with my caring and supportive GP, I decided that surgery isn't the answer for scar tissue which is pulling and pushing and causing regular discomfort; it'll just make more scar tissue.  I'm trying PT to try to break down some of the adhesions and meditation (particularly self-compassion from Kristin Neff) to assist my anxiety about the discomfort when it arises.  I hope it helps.

Whew, I think that's it for now.  I've blown through 30% of my laptop battery and a full hour of quiet between Mama's departure for work, Bud's departure for school, and now Sis's late arising.  Time to get up and get to the rest of my list . . . . 

Settling In

I can't believe it's been nearly two weeks since I posted last; that might be a record.

All is well.

Just busy.

School started and the kids are back in their routines.  Same teachers, same classmates.  That makes the transition into a new school year easier, if a little boring.  Next year, in middle school, will be exciting enough, though.

A few things have changed--the day of Girl Scouts, the timing of kung fu.  And Sis has radically changed her extracurriculars.  She has dropped piano, added horseback riding, and switched from figure skating to speedskating.  I'm so proud that she's trying something new, stretching herself, taking a risk.   I'm trying not to think of the real risks, as she suits up in helmet and kevlar neck protector!  But they take all the precautions, even have huge mats on the walls of the rink.  She was exhausted after the first session, which included more than an hour of conditioning--including hopping up the stairs and also doing crossovers up the stairs!!  But she hung in there and did it.  Then she spent about an hour learning the positions of speedskating and trying it out, all on special skates!  She really was pretty amazing!  A mom of a nationally-ranked skater said Sis would do well, that she was already taking to it quickly and she had strong legs.  She does like to go fast.

After she hobbled off the ice, we soaked her in Epsom salts and gave her some ibuprofen.  The next morning, she woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to go again.  She had horseback riding that evening, which also involves strong legs--with all the posting (essentially standing in the stirrups to keep weight off the horse).

For myself, I'm getting organized for our first GS meeting tomorrow and for historic house tours starting at the end of the month.  Hospice is ongoing; I'm with the same woman I visited in the spring and summer.

In addition to school and activities, the church year has also started.  It was nice to be back, after a bit of an absence in the spring when they canceled our early service.  Good to see friendly faces, important to reflect on September 11th.  I'm a lay minister, mostly in charge of meal coordination for people in need.  One of our summer recipients was up and about after extensive back surgery; she looked great! And I'm helping to teach a young member how to crochet.  I also signed up to be on the religious education steering committee. Meetings are before church, which is easier than weeknights.  There was also a book (re-)sale, at which we always find great items.  Mama got a book on the daughters of Genghis Khan.  I picked up The Hare with the Amber Eyes.  Sis picked up a few YA books.  And they chose for me a book on New England's stone walls.  I made an appreciative "ooooh" sound when they handed it to me, as Mama apparently predicted I would.  They all say I make that sound when I see an old stone wall (I love old stone walls.)  They say I make the same sound for raptors, butterflies, old houses--and a much gruntier sound for snakes!

Then we went for a delicious pancake and omelet breakfast, one of our favorite parts of going to church.

That's how the last two weeks have gone.  The temperatures have started to drop at night but are still warm for me during the day.  Our dogwood tree is already changing, though, most likely because of the moderate drought and stress of the extra heat.  I think we set a record on Saturday and will again tomorrow.  Ugh.  Bring me fall!

Our Fifth Honeymoon

It was our fifth annual "nano-honeymoon," our nickname for our getaway weekend without the kids, since we never had an official honeymoon (though, you could say our first 8 years--without kids--were one, I suppose.)  We've been to the same hotel near Union Square four times and then Block Island once.  We love the alone time, the break in routine, the relaxation and restoration, exploring both the familiar and the new.

The kids spent the very rainy weekend with their NYC grandparents, devouring a ton of Chinese food (both in restaurants and at home), visiting the beach when they could, and going to the movies.  They also spent some time playing computer games with their uncle, Goo, introducing him to Dragonvale.  They had a great time and were sad when we showed up.

We were a little sad to show up, too!  Re-entry into the world of chores, work, bills, and discipline can be rather harsh, but at least there were no hairballs all around the house when we got home.  We have a wonderful cat sitter who takes good care of the cats and house when we're gone.  She even made friends with our new cat, Eris.  And the tree work we had done came out just fine (our tree guy could only squeeze us in this weekend and we weren't changing our reservations.)  See, the electric company is brazenly cutting down many of the town's lovely huge trees because they are caught in the wires.  It's awful (the whole state has been razing trees along highways and state routes--it looks like another storm hit.)  And so, with hopes of saving the giant maple on the side of the house, which is officially a town tree, being on the other side of the sidewalk, we surreptitiously paid to have the tree trimmed and entwined or dead branches removed.  I hope it helps.  The tree looks shorn, but perhaps it won't be cut down, if the electric company ever gets to the secondary roads.

Okay, back to the fun part.

It was, as I mentioned, a wet, humid, hot weekend, which isn't our favorite, but we didn't have any firm plans and we could change activities as needed.  A combination of restaurants, walking, browsing, books, Harry Potter, doodles and Zentangle, flowers, and rainbows--just lovely!

Friday

Our first stop was Craftbar, one of Chef Tom Colicchio's restaurants, where we had reservations for a late lunch as part of NYC Restaurant Week.  Oh, it was so good--celery shrub tonic; my first of many mint ginger lemonades; cold sunchoke soup with a black garlic reduction; a delicious pecorino fonduta with honey, pine nuts, and crostini; a table salad; a perfectly seasoned and roasted Amish chicken breast with kale, fava beans, and pickled eggs; duck hearts with dumplings which Mama liked; a light and creamy vanilla parfait; and a divine chocolate peanut butter tart with peanut brittle and peanut ice cream.  Oh, and cappuccino!  Mmmmmmm!


We walked off the meal at the art supply store, Dick Blick, where I picked up more pens and canvases for Zentangle and Art Rocks; we also got two little books--642 Things to Draw and 642 Things to Write About--which we filled out off and on and a coloring book of Delft tiles which we used a set of blue colored pencils on.  We also made our first meander around the Greenmarket in Union Square.  At the heat of the day, we took a break in our room, a lovely back room in the Inn at Irving Place, in a  jewel-like 19th-century brownstone (a friend, seeing photos of the lobby, asked if we were staying in Downton Abbey!)  I loved the large mirror, grated fireplace and mantle, tall windows, fluffy duvet on the bed, high timbered ceiling, moldings, and wooden floors.  It's like being back in time.  But with air-conditioning, hot running water, electric lamps, wifi, and flush toilets.  (I'd never really make it in the past.)


At dusk, we walked the Highline, which I had never walked before.  It's a perfectly New York kind of garden, on the abandoned elevated rail lines.  I loved the dense plantings of the informal garden--black-eyed susans, the purple spiked gayfeather, and the lovely purple coneflowers--plus the water features (I waded one foot in!), the public art, the exposed rails, and the views of the city and river.  We got some refreshing treats from the People's Pops, blueberry with jasmine and grape with coconut cream.  The most unexpected part of the Highline were the three topless women walking around with a topless little girl and a topless man; and he was photographing the whole thing, particularly people's reactions.  Two of the women--women of color--seemed to relish the nude exotic stereotype of the female "other" by artists like Gauguin--with elaborate necklaces and translucent wraps (and she didn't have on anything underneath); they posed but didn't seem to undermine the historical paradigm at all. The Caucasian woman was voluptuous, the nice way to say overweight--with large sagging breasts that clearly breast fed and a stomach that's held at least one child--but she was subverting the Rubenesque stereotypes of languid, sexed big white women.  Plus she was cursing up a blue streak.  It was all very odd.  Especially because it doesn't seem to be illegal for women to be topless (cops came and went, actually throwing two skateboarders off the Highline.)  All of which is good, i.e. the right to be topless, but honestly I'm not quite sure I understood the point.  It wasn't particularly political or even performative art; if anything, it seemed like exhibitionism intended to shock.  And good ol' NYC barely batted an eyelid.  Everyone noticed but no one seemed particularly shocked or bothered.  I was intrigued but also a little . . . bored by it.


We went to nearby Chelsea Market afterwards, wandering the shops of arts and crafts (including cream-coloredlace in hoops, which I'm inspired to make, with a small crochet hook, a little like my mandalas), books, and food items.  We ate some delicious crepes--a lemon sugar one and a truffled mozzarella one--and some currywurst, plus some Fat Witch brownies and some chocolate orange peel from Li-Lac, which is a shop we had visited in the Village on one of our first city walks together back in 1994.  I liked the architecture--despite reminders of its role as abbatoir--and how it has been converted into a modern-day market.  And there were twinkle lights!  Also, lots of rainbows around town . . . .

We took a cab back to Union Square, grabbed some falafel with fixings (chickpeas, cabbage, beets, carrots, and garlic sauce) and another mint lemonade from Maoz, and headed back to our room for the night.  I just love walking through NYC.  I miss it.  But I know it isn't always easy to live there--so many people, traffic, expense, dirt--which is why we still visit.

Saturday
We slept in, til almost 10, and wandered over to brunch at Friend of a Farmer--toasted quick breads (lemon, banana chocolate chip, cornbread, zucchini bread) with apple butter; pumpkin walnut pancakes; chicken salad; and iced coffee.  Very tasty.  And I love the incongruity of the homey farmhouse decor--even pig and chicken plates! plus ingredients in jars, baskets, etc (looks like some of the cross-stitch patterns I have)--in downtown NYC.  But sitting chair to chair squeezed in together, you never really forget where you are.

After brunch, though not hungry, we wandered Bedford Cheese Market next door, picking up interesting things--buttermilk chocolate bar, orange blossom water candy, little pepperoncini sticks, chewy Haribo candies for Bud.  Our local grocery stores just carry the usual things, for the most part; if we want unusual international or epicurean food, we pretty much have Whole Foods.  I like the little markets of NYC.

Then we went to Forbidden Planet, which looks more and more like Hot Topics every year, with more toys of popular culture staples (Doctor Who, Marvel superheroes, Star Wars) than comic books and alternative culture artifacts than there used to be--but the air conditioning is better!  Strand Books was very crowded, typical Saturday afternoon, I imagine.  We browsed the art books and I picked up a Zentangle title which, according to Amazon, hasn't even been released here yet.  We also got a book about NY architecture.  The shop was clearly getting ready for the Harry Potter launch that night, with HP books and such around, including a "Hermione 2016" t-shirt.  We hadn't chosen where we were spending HP night.

We wandered our little neighborhood--the house where Washington Irving lived, the tavern "O'Henry made famous," and Gramercy Park, the last enclosed private garden in NYC.  I left a tangled Art Rock at the gate (I'd left another in the planter right outside our inn), after gazing at the formal garden inside.  Then we had a delightful walk through the Greenmarket; it was more packed with booths and customers than the evening before.  My favorite maple lemon mint tea, handspun and dyed yarns (picked up two skeins of cream to make some embroidery hoop hangings a la Chelsea market), artisanal garlic, and these gorgeous English garden roses with a dense sphere of petals, a light scent and delicate pink color.  I carried them around the rest of the day, as my own poesy, sniffing them as we went.  We stopped at Gothic Revival Grace Church, with its stained glass windows, faux stone plaster tracery, and a memorial to a parishioner who gave up her seat on a Titanic lifeboat for a woman with children at home.    We sat in Washington Square, looking at the surrounding buildings, the people, and the gathering clouds; Mama always remembers childhood summers there while Ma finished her PhD at NYU.


Next, lunch at Mario Batali's Otto, one of our favorites--outstanding spinach salad with ricotta salata and honey truffle dressing; roasted beets; crusty bread and thin breadsticks; delicious fusilli with sweet Italian sausage and escarole; pasta putanesca; and amazing desserts--a butterscotch pudding with coffee bourbon glaze and rosemary biscotti and a sweet corn gelato with polenta cake and corn crema.  Mmmmmm.  Mmmmmm.  And iced cappuccino.  We watched it rain outside while we debated our choices for the rest of the day.  We opted for some down time in the room doodling and resting, then another evening out, despite the rain.

I had fun with two new Zentangle books, including The Great Zentangle Book (which, according to Amazon, isn't out yet!) and Zendoodle, which together introduced me to Rubenesque and Geo-flower.  Love these new tangles!

After dark, we headed to Barnes and Noble for the launch party of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, billed as the eighth HP story (though it's a script to a West End play, not a novel, and was only written in partnership with Rowling, not her own original story.  Some fans don't count it as canon, we read in the paper at breakfast--along with reviews of the new Sharknado and the drop in ticket prices for Hamilton--but I'm not that picky, perhaps because it wasn't my childhood obsession (now, I'm much more adamant about who shot first in Star Wars); I look forward to a new installment, with her blessing.  There were a few different groups at the store--kids who are probably just now reading the novels; mid 20s who grew up with HP; and older fans like us.  There were also costumed characters (Snape, Trelawney, Hagrid, Dumbledore) and lots of store staff. We didn't need the wand making or face painting or photo ops--even Sis and Bud would have felt a little old for that.  But we did enjoy the owl show, with a live Ural Owl.  I hadn't seen one before.  We didn't need a copy of the book--ours came via Kindle at midnight, with hardback delivered Monday--but I bought a little snowy owl to carry around by way of a costume.  We popped over to the Book of Wonders party, totally prepared to buy a book for entrance, but it was so packed that we left.  It was too bad the kids couldn't be there, but they had chosen to go to their grandparents instead.  And we still all managed to have the book read in less than 24 hours!  More on that later.

In the driving rain, we stopped to pick up some Belgian food--sausage and stoemp (mashed potatoes and, in this case, carrots) plus mac and cheese, and a sugar waffle--which we ate in our room while we waited for midnight and the release of HP.  We both did some more drawing and some Dragonvale.  I'm on level 20 now.  Not bad for about a week of play.


Sunday
We finished reading HP on Sunday morning, a real page turner.  Nice to be back in that world and to see HP as a father.

We breakfasted downstairs surrounded by the lush decor of the tea room, with gorgeous pink roses leftover from a baby shower the day before.  Almond and chocolate croissants, Earl Grey tea, and the New York Times, with some drizzle outside.  An ideal city Sunday morning.  We popped back to the Bedford Cheese Market to grab sandwiches to go--a baguette with Chandoka Cheddar and Parma Cotta for me, tuna with gruyeter and pickled onions and eggs for Mama--which we snacked on in the car parked next to Gramercy Park.  We could admire the trees and surrounding buildings through our windows and sun roof.

And that was it.  We went to fetch the kiddos, stayed for awhile talking to everyone, and made it home with time for dinner and some down time before bed.  The cats were glad to see us and, though we loved our vacation, it was good to be home.

Beach Book

It's a week of early dismissals here, with school almost over.  I think we have a party every afternoon!

Yesterday, it was our Mother-Daughter Book Club meeting, which was held at a local beach.  And, yes, we did manage to discuss the book!  It was L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, which I had never read.  

And in truth, I didn't finish.  I started it late and the first several chapters were rather slow going.  It did pick up--with vignettes on Anne's life on PEI (Prince Edward Island.)  In fact, that vignette structure is very familiar from other "girl's" books such as the Little House series and even Little Women--the crisis at school, the crisis at the ball, the crisis at church, the crisis in the kitchen, etc etc etc.    Montgomery combines the lyrical and poetic imagination of her protagonist (the White Way of Delight, Dryad's Bubble, etc etc.) with a materialistic account of her surroundings--all those flowers, her "wincey" dress, various dress designs, the different types of tea sets, all the food (boiled pork and cabbage, raspberry cordial/currant wine) and richly drawn character studies.  I'm definitely enjoying it now and will finish it soon.

We did some activities, such as choose your own name like Anne wants to be called Cordelia.  I was "Meg" (from Little Women, also clearly feminine, which mine name isn't and it so bothered me as a child unable to find bookmarks or shoelaces or whatnot with my name and some pink, always rockets), Sis chose "Alex," and Bud was "Kevin."  (He was hanging around and so he got to choose a name, too.)  We designed the kind of dress Anne would like (with those puffed sleeves!) and tried to guess the nicknames she gave various land features.  And then the kids played a kind of red light/green light with one being Aunt Josephine.  

It wasn't PEI, but it was indeed a beautiful day at the beach.  The kids played in the shallows, finding hermit crabs and avoiding the razor-sharp clam shells.  I couldn't find any sea glass, just a bunch of rocks, no doubt from long-ago glaciers sweeping over the area and now coming down the rivers.  I also didn't find any arrowheads or the like (though I'm not sure I'd recognize stone tools on a beach) from the native inhabitants who used the site as fishing grounds, pre- and early-contact.  


I did find some nice stones and decided, last minute, to decorate one and leave it on the beach.  An Art Rock Drop . . . the kids and I have decided to leave several in various places this summer.  My first one, with just the Sharpies on hand, has the quote from Lin-Manuel Miranda's Tonys sonnet.

The full text of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s sonnet:

My wife's the reason anything gets done. She nudges me towards promise by degrees. She is a perfect symphony of one. Our son is her most beautiful reprise. We chase the melodies that seem to find us Until they're finished songs and start to play. When senseless acts of tragedy remind us That nothing here is promised, not one day This show is proof that history remembers. We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger. We rise and fall, and light from dying embers Remembrances that hope and love last longer. And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love; Cannot be killed or swept aside. I sing Vanessa's symphony; Eliza tells her story. Now fill the world with music, love, and pride. 

The Last Book

My hospice patient with dementia likes to be read to.  He doesn't really care what and so I picked up a Reader's Digested condensed volume with four stories--one was a romance, one a WWII thriller, something else I can't recall, and The Bear, a wilderness adventure about the duel between a huge grizzly and a hunter (I believe it is taken from James Oliver Curwood's The Grizzly King.)  I chose the last one, since he hasn't really liked discussing the war on previous occasions (he lost three brothers in WWII and served in Europe himself.)   So we've been reading The Bear.  It has long descriptive passages on the beauty of the mountains and the life of bears; occasionally, there is a big scene with the bear and the hunter.  My patient, who is usually too confused to comprehend what happens around him, has responded well and even reacted to and commented on the book.  He says he likes the way I read.

My other hospice patient, with Parkinson's disease, has trouble with her eyes and so I've been reading to her.  She had chosen Inge Auerbacher's biography I am a Star:  A Child of the Holocaust, which is a book for young people.  It is a harrowing story, but my patient, who is Jewish, has numerous books about the Holocaust and also Judaism on her shelves.

As I read to them both, I realized something quite profound:  these could very possibly be the last books they read, or have read to them.  Their very last books.

Wow.

What would I choose, if I could?  I've thought about it briefly and think, if I could choose, I would choose Little Women or Little House on the Prairie.  These are childhood books, familiar and comforting.  They are also easy to read aloud.  Through hospice, I've realized how some things just aren't meant to be read aloud--some poetry is very difficult--and the sports page just sounds stupid.  I might also enjoy Jane Austen or Charles Dickens, but I've known Louisa May Alcott and Laura Ingalls Wilder much longer.  Or Harry Potter--I forgot all about those books!  I could definitely hear those again or read them myself.

There is something about books being read by a person to another.  It's more intimate and engaging than all the televisions turned up so loud in nursing homes combined.  I can modulate my speed, I can pause, we can discuss; my patients know I'm talking just to them.  Audio books might be too fast, not tailored to the listener, easy to get lost in.  Though, I've never tried them.  And none of my patients have had audio books or even talk radio; some have music, but it's just filler.

So, what would you want to read, or have read to you, as your last book?

Book Club of the Blue Dolphin

The cover of the book I had

We hosted our Mother-Daughter book club tonight, having chosen Scott O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins.  Sis chose it because she likes survival stories.  She even read my copy, marked clearly, "Jamie, Fourth Grade."  35+ years old.

The book imagines the story of the experiences of a woman, named Karana in the book but Juana Maria in the historical record, who was actually left behind on an island off the coast of Los Angeles in the mid-19th century when her tribe went away.  Yes, the bones of the tale are real--she lived on the island alone for 18 years (no one came for her and the boat of her people went down with all aboard)--archaeologists think they've even found her cave!  She  was eventually brought to shore, where she couldn't communicate because no one spoke her language anymore, and she died just a few weeks after her "rescue" of dysentery.  Her cormorant skirt was sent to the Vatican and some of her other belongings were sent to a museum.

But the book deals with the time on the island, from the original events that led to her people leaving, to her jumping in the water to go back for her mischievous little brother, her brother's death by the pack of wild dogs, and her skills at making weapons, shelters, food, and friends of some of the animal inhabitants.  Karana survives visitors, a tsunami, serious injury, a leaky canoe during an attempted escape.  As we discussed tonight, she was resilient, resourceful, strong, brave.  She secured food, shelter, weapons, clothing . . . but also needed companionship (Rontu, Rontu-aru, the otter, the birds, and the visiting fox; it was because she was lonely that she finally left the island) and even beauty (the cormorant skirt, the necklace and earrings she made to match, even the abalone wind-chime type things.)

We also talked about what we would take if we were stranded on an island.  Sis said iodine to purify the water (I thought she was really clever to think of this.)  I wanted a pot with a lid and a tarp.  Many of us wanted knives and matches in a waterproof box.  Some wanted blankets or a first aid kit.  A few said "log cabin" or "refrigerator," laughing at missing the point.  I also mentioned wanting a book but couldn't quite decide--the collected works of Shakespeare are long and complex, but then I'd want a good dictionary to go with it!   But there were very few non-necessities (even the most religious among us wasn't going to take a Bible or the Book of Mormon.)  I'm not sure most of us would last very long, any longer than Karana laster when she got to the mainland.

As we discussed the book, we all worked on our own little woven Jute basket, just as Karana made baskets in the book.  Ours had a plastic frame that we wove strands of twine through, adding colorful beads.  Each mother and daughter made different patterns and color choices; some drew them tight to change the shape and one even made the twine pass across the opening to section off areas for different pencils!  It took us awhile to settle into talking while we wove, but eventually it was one great "basket bee."

We also ate two loaves of banana bread, a ton of popcorn, some Red Zinger punch (this time with gingerale) and then the kids ended the evening playing with the cats and then having lightsaber battles outside.  All in all, a very successful book club meeting.

Life Everlasting

“Don't be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don't have to live forever, you just have to live.” 

The mother-daughter book club met last night to discuss Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt.  I won't give away the big spoilers but will say that the book explores questions of the meaning of life and death and the meaning that death gives to life.

But the meeting wasn't all serious discussions--though, the majority of girls opted for the choice the protagonist Winnie Foster didn't make (except my Sis, and a couple, who agreed with Winnie)--we were treated to flapjacks, just like the ones Winnie enjoyed with the Tucks.

Even better, the hosts served them with buttermilk syrup!!  I had never heard of such a thing, but it is amazing, sweet deliciousness--all sweet creamy buttery-ness.  I bought buttermilk today to make some with pancakes later in the week.

Sis, during the discussion of life and death, said that if she could, she would grant Mr. P immortal life.  So sweet.  He is doing remarkably well, all things considered.  We put him on an appetite stimulant and he ate almost two small cans (which is what he needs to eat to avert liver failure.)  He is also moving more--he's been downstairs twice (he's here right now!)--and being more like himself. He has even made his usual "mac" sound that we haven't heard since before last Wednesday.  And he's been sitting on me and leaning up against me, even curling up in my arms.  It's good to see our Mr. P's little light shine brighter.

Of course, we recognize that he is at the end of his life.  Stats seem to say that cats with congestive heart failure--and 40% don't make it through their first episode--usually live just months (which makes sense--I think humans only live about 5 years?), so we know our time together is short.  But knowing this reminds us to appreciate every day.

Which, in many ways, was the lesson of Tuck Everlasting.


Buttermilk Syrup
via Six Sisters Stuff

¾ cup buttermilk
1 cup of sugar
½ cup unsalted butter (1 stick)
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla

In a medium sauce pan, combine butter, sugar, and buttermilk and bring to a boil. Once it's at a complete boil, let it boil for 1 minute. Take off heat and whisk in baking soda and vanilla. It will foam up during the boiling, and especially when other ingredients are added. Serve with your favorite pancakes or waffles. Best served warm.  Good on pancakes, fruit, with a spoon!

Book Club Review

We had a meeting of our Mother/Daughter book club last night and I realized it's been about a year since we started.  We've met about ten times, reading historical fiction, realistic fiction, fantasy, and classics.  The girls enjoy the relaxed gatherings, with some games and activities and always snacks, probably more than the books, but it's interesting to have their tastes stretched in reading books they might not otherwise choose.  And I get to re-read some of my childhood favorites and then learn about the next generation's favorites.

So far, we've read the following books, with some of the club activities (the ones I recall, anyway) listed in parentheses:

• Ronia, the Robber's Daughter (jump the chasm, draw a character, trivia contest)
• The Borrowers:  (build a Borrower's burrow, 20 questions withcharacter name taped to your back)
• Joshua's Song (tasted molasses, made newspaper craft)
• A Christmas Carol
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory  (chocolate tasting)
• The Magic Half--I think this is the only one we completely missed, due to surgery
• Frindle (make up your own "Frindle" word)
• Tangle of Knots (character charades, cake tasting)
• Nim's Island (watch the movie)
• A Wrinkle in Time (draw Aunt Beast, book Jeopardy!)

The more we read, the longer the list gets of things we'd like to read.  Ideas for the near future:

• Anne of Green Gables
• The Giver
• Tuck Everlasting
• The Children of Green Knowe
• The Little White Horse
• Island of the Blue Dolphins
• The Candymakers

Fall Fun: What We're Reading

Fall is such a wonderful time for many things:  baking, pots of tea, crochet, watching movies, walking outside, and reading.  And my pile of books just keeps growing.  To give you an idea of my current interests, I've got on my proverbial nightstand:

• Wake Up! I'm Fat by Camryn Manheim, whom we just saw in Spring Awakening (the kids were very concerned by the title, thinking it was rude.)
• Matilda by Roald Dahl, since we're going to the Broadway musical soon
• Tea Fit for a Queen by Lucy Worsley, a Royal Palaces historian
• How to Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness by Toni Bernhard, one of my favorite authors on Buddhism and mindfulness
• Perfect Pies by Michele Stuart, a local award-winning baker whose Australian pie is one of our favorites
• Exploring Midsomer:  The Towns and and Villages at the Murderous Heart of England by Chris Behan, showing actual locations used for one of my favorite shows, "Midsomer Murders"
• The Fairy Tale Girl by Susan Branch, whose watercolors I enjoy
• Voyager by Diana Gabaldon, third in the Outlander series (this one is actually on my Kindle, as is the one below)
• The Symbolism and Sources of Outlander by Valerie Estelle Frankel

The kids are blowing through several series.  Sis just finished re-reading various Percy Jackson books and hopes to start Egyptian books by Rick Riordan, starting with The Red Pyramid, soon; a new series based on Norse mythology just started.  Sis and I will be reading A Wrinkle in Time soon for her book club.  Bud is working his way through the Redwall books, trying to read them chronologically as they happen (not as they were written); I think he is on The Legend of Luke.  I sign their reading logs every night and they read so much that it's never the same book more than a day or two in a row!  I think they also have more than one book going at a time--the library books they get at school, the series books they carry back and forth, and the books on their Kindles, which we don't let them take to school.  So who knows what else they're reading these days.

Mama listens to Audible books.  She's been listening to the Maisie Dobbs books; before that, she was listening to Phryne Fisher books--yes, she's on a female sleuths in the early 20th-century kick.  (I've been reading those, too, but not at this moment.)

What are you reading?

A Trio of Treats

Yesterday, I finished off three books through which I have been working my way.  The first was a Twinkie read, Susan Wiitig Albert's Tale of Hill Top Farm, which is a delightful and simple romp through the Lake District with a fictionalized version of the author/illustrator, her new neighbors, and all of their talking animals.  It wasn't much of a mystery and talking animals are a bit precious, but I enjoyed the ambiance . . . I even learned about arval, or funeral, cakes, and other details of rural life at the turn of the 20th century.  I had started the book during my long test at the doctor's office and finished it off yesterday.

I also finished another book I had read at that long test at the doctor's office (I got tired midway and changed genres), Vivian Swift's watercolored memoir, When Wanderers Cease to Roam.  Swift, who had traveled extensively, settled down in Pelham, NY, and recorded both her observations of life in her village and reminiscences of her world travels.  I liked the little illustrations and her art journaling of types of mud in March and snowflakes in December and her "memoir in five moments" where she reflects on different times she's been on a beach or been in the rain.  And she likes cats.  I've been experimenting with different kinds of journaling, having recorded my days each evening or so for years and also learned more doodling.  It's best to read her book a page or two at a time, or just a month; I read too much of it in one sitting, which didn't invite close looking.  I'd actually discovered it because I loved Susan Branch's A Fine Romance, an illustrated memoir of her extended travels through England and readers recommended Swift.  Of the two, I still prefer Branch, but I plan to read Swift's memoir of France soon.

Lastly, I also finished Lisa Graff's A Tangle of Knots, which was our mother-daughter book club read this month.  I'd actually started it just a day or two before and had tried to read it during an insomniac bout but found it too complicated.  There are a dozen or so characters whose lives are, unbeknownst to them, entwined--I just got confused at 3 a.m.  But in the light of day, it was a great story.  Each of those characters (well, most of them) has a special Talent, which is almost a magical ability to do something--whistle, tie knots, hide between walls, knit, even divine a person's perfect cake.  There are even cake recipes interspersed between the chapters.

So when our book club met this evening, we sampled a few of the cakes.  Three, to be exact:  yellow cake with chocolate frosting, peanut butter cake, and lime pound cake.  Beautiful and delicious (I had a bite of each, smaller than my thumbNAIL, just crumbs really, and will be curious to see if I suffer for the gluten and dairy.)  The recipes are in the book--and on the author's website.  We also played a game at the end--guess your mom's perfect cake.  A couple of the girls guessed "nutcake," which struck me as funny, and none of them guessed correctly, and then Sis stood up and said, "My mom's perfect cake is orange chocolate."  And you know what?  She is right.  I guessed that Sis would be either chocolate molten lava cake or yellow cake with frosting--she clarified that the frosting would be melted chocolate chips.

Which we had just made yesterday!  We tested a GF (gluten-free)/DF (dairy free) King Arthur Flour yellow cake, made into cupcakes.  Wonderful!  And not just wonderful for GF/DF.  (Or I've gotten desperate in 2 weeks.)  I had mine with marmalade and Sis had hers with . . . melted chocolate chips. It was nice to bake together, which is one of our favorite shared pastimes.   Sis has been great about the whole restricted diet thing.

And it helps that there is cake.

Silence Has Fallen

We had piano lessons this morning and then got a deli picnic lunch.

We played our own Star Wars game for an hour or more, running around the yard defeating Ventress and Grievous, and then partying with Ewoks.

Then, hot and tired, I was ready to go inside.  So I said, "Kids, do you want to watch Winter Soldier or . . . check your Kindles?"

Today was the release date for the new Wings of Fire book (whose author Tui Sutherland we met a few weeks ago.)

They ran inside, tripping over each other, and have been silent ever since.

Golden.

Of This and That

Of Ice Cream and Kids' Books
Yesterday, we had the delightful opportunity to go to a presentation by children's authors Tui Sutherland (Wings of Fire series, Menagerie series, etc.) and Christine Taylor-Butler (numerous non-fiction and Lost Tribes series.)  The kids knew the former author very well from several of their favorite books--earlier, they'd both agreed that they liked her dragon stories more than Harry Potter!  We hadn't knowingly read any of the latter author's works (though we saw copies of a book on Pluto that I know we had) but were interested in her new series that involves lots of codes.

Sutherland intrigued the kids with stories on how she became an author (via publishing), how she works (late at night), and how she fleshes out an idea (sometimes with a character first, sometimes with the idea of a world, like Wings of Fire--draw a map, she advised!)  She showed lots of cover art, including book 8 in the dragon series, and generally encouraged the children's creativity.

Taylor-Butler, who is an MIT-trained engineer, also always wanted to be a writer but hadn't thought it was a paying "real" job until she was an adult.  She wrote close to 75 non-fiction books, often on contract with Scholastic, looking for what interested her in such subjects as American History, meteorology, etc.  Only later did someone ask her to turn a short children's book about a boy who thought his mother was an alien from Venus into a novel.  And now she's written a novel about codes, Lost Tribes.  She talked about existing codes--and kid's pages on the FBI, NSA, and CIA websties--and did a few scientific experiments (magnets and money, paper clips on water.)  She says she always bases science fiction on real science.  Our kids were fascinated.  Mama and I liked her, too, as she repeatedly said what a nerd she was . . . and proudly!!


We stood in short lines to meet both authors and take pictures, buying copies of Lost Tribes for the kids.  I teased Mama that she might need her own copy!

 Afterwards, we went to our favorite farm ice cream stand--we hadn't been in such a long time!  And it was as good as we remembered.  I couldn't decide and so got strawberry AND peaches & cream, sharing it all around.  Mama got Jersey cow (coffee ice cream with chocolate and caramel chunks); Bud, purple cow (raspberry ice cream and chocolate chunks); Sis, caramel swirl.  Delicious!!  They're planning all the flavors we can make this summer.

Of Slushies and Straight Swords
Bud had a local kung fu competition today, this time a mixed martial arts contest between teams at one of the local amusement parks.  Most of the other groups were karate--Bud said that there was a lot of breaking boards!--and some very young kids doing simple forms.  He did both his fist and straight sword forms as part of the large team performance.  And they came in second!  They were all very pleased.  Plus, there were slushies and fried dough and ice cream! And a rollercoaster that almost did Mama in.  A fun day out.  With a team trophy for langiappe.

Of Cake and Crochet
At home, Sis and I had our own fun today.  We started off with a trip to the craft store for supplies--my first drive out to the mall since my surgery (my longest drive yet!!)--and then picked up pasta at Sis's favorite Italian place (chicken fettucine alfredo for her, "pink" pasta with prosciutto for me.)  We watched a lot of "Doctor Who" and petted the cats.  Midday, we made Tex-Mex Chocolate sheet cake, which we shared with our neighbor who had been so kind to give us brisket yesterday (he's into smoking brisket these days--and we are the happy recipients of his experiments.  His sauce was better yesterday!)  Sis took some to his family and also to our friend Miss K, the teacher.   We watched more tv, with me finishing two un-edged crocheted afghans and Sis completing a thread art project.  Later, Sis told Mama that we had an awesome day!  Yay!


Of Pie and Puzzles
Well, not really pie but close . . . . Last week, we had a Cobbler-Off.  We made two kinds of cobbler:  pie-crust-topped mixed berry, based on my aunt's Dewberry Cobbler recipe, and a skillet peach cobbler from the Homesick Texan cookbook, with its more cake-like top.  Why?  One each for Bud and Sis!  And I was trying out the different types of crust.  I wasn't completely pleased with the peach, not fluffy or cakey enough.  I think I might still like the topping of Swedish Apple Pie best for cobbler.  Something worth playing with this summer.

Meanwhile, we started a new puzzle.  Mama is on a puzzle kick because she's been doing them with her team at work.  And so we've done a few here, including this multi-colored cupcake one which was challenging.  Mama and I like to do the border; Bud and Sis like to do the section they like the best, with or without the frame--this time they'd choose a color.  But some of the colors didn't vary enough to make it easy to put together.  But we like a challenging puzzle, made more so by the cats that kept sitting on them.  We finished it tonight, after a slow try-each-piece-in-each-spot approach for the last, most difficult cupcake.  I wonder what we'll do next?



Of NYCats and Connecticats

There has been some progress on the cat front.  The basement boys, Mojo and Mr. P, are definitely more comfortable, in fact even prefer, being on the first floor with us.  P sits in the cat tree near the front window, next to where I am on the couch (hence all the photos of him--that and he's easier to photograph than a black cat.  He sits there so much that the cover is beginning to fray--it's an old cat tree--Sis and I bought new furry fabric today); Mojo likes being on the couch, also wandering around (he's even been climbing the refrigerator and kitchen cabinets.)  And even when Hermione approaches, they either hiss or just ignore her.  It's rare that they race straight downstairs.  In fact, at least once, we put our "old" cats in the basement while we let the "new" cats have the top two floors.  Mr. P even slept with us!  But Mama says that in the morning, Albus and Hermione were crying, "You accidentally locked the wrong cats in the basement!"  They'd even pulled part of the frame of the small cat door off.  They were all so exhausted afterwards, that the four cats went to their usual places and slept all day.  Last night, we didn't even separate anyone.   They all lived.  And came together again today without much hissing.  It's nice.  Or at least as nice as it has been so far.  (We're still aiming for no hissing.)

Renewed Books

I got a Kindle while I was recovering from surgery--it was easier to hold than a book and I could also read it at night without a light, while Mama slept.

And I'm loving reading historical mysteries, which was my preferred genre before the kiddos.  A friend in grad school turned me on to them more than twenty years ago--she was a huge Anne Perry fan and so I started to read her Victorian mysteries, too (first the Thomas Pitt series, then Detective Monk.)  Slowly I branched out--medieval mysteries, Elizabethan mysteries, eighteenth century, Victorian.  I never really took to the ancient Roman ones, despite my background in classical studies.  At the height of my reading, I was probably reading 20+ different series.

See, I'm not a great reader of "literature"--I tended to read non-fiction for school and then these "twinkies" after school.  I've never been one to fret over the great American novel or the hot trade paperback.  And then, with young children, I barely read much for myself; I'd read to them.  But now that they're finally reading books like Harry Potter, etc., that interest me, they want to read on their own!

And I've rediscovered reading my mysteries.  It started when I began reading the books on which "Miss Fisher's Mysteries" were based--I just love Phryne Fisher and her early 20th-century Australia!  And reading was made easier by the Kindle--they are cheap and easy to get.  I'm reading through many of the favorite series I was reading a decade ago, picking up where I left off.  And I'm enjoying it immensely, going through a few a week.

Just wait til I catch up with all the new historical mystery series started in the last decade!

I don't even have to make room on my bookshelves.

-=-=-=-=-=-
Medieval
Margaret Frazer, Dame Frevisse series (15th-century England)
Caroline Roe, Isaac the Healer series (medieval Spain)

Elizabethan
Fiona Buckley, Ursula Blanchard series
Karen Harper, Queen Elizabeth 1 as detective!
Kathy Lynn Emerson, "Face Down" series with Susanna Appleton

Victorian
Barbara Hambly, Benjamin January (early 19th-century New Orleans)
Victoria Thompson, Gaslight series (early 20th-century NYC, with a midwife and a detective)
Anne Perry, both Thomas Pitt and Detective Monk series (London)

Other
Laura Joh Rowland, Sano Ichiro (17th-century Japan)
Peter Tremayne, Sister Fidelma (7th-century Ireland)
Bruce Alexander, Sir John Fielding (18th-century London)

Book Report

Okay, apparently this went around aeons ago, but I did it just the same.  It's a (weird) list of 100 books--that the BBC doesn't think people have read more than a handful of (could I make that sentence more awkward?)  I've read 44, which is more than I would have expected since I don't count myself a great reader.  Interestingly I read most of them either a) in school or b). with the kids!

And what I'm reading these days--historical mysteries and Outlander and hospice/death and dying books--aren't on the list!

Mine are marked with an X; Mama's with an asterisk.  We've overlapped in several places, which is perhaps not too surprising with our similar liberal arts educations (she has a liberal arts degree in computer science, not a BS.)

It's an odd list--the whole Bible and all of Shakespeare vs. Bryson's Notes on a Small Island?  Bridget Jones's Diary and Middlemarch?  Extra points for certain writers such as the Narnia series AND The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, plus all of Shakespeare and also Hamlet.  And lots of Dickens and Austen.  But no Homer or Virgil or Dante?  It's not just English lit (Les Mis, 100 Years of Solitude) or 20th century.  So why not Fielding?  or Henry James?  Or Twain?  Or . . . or . . . or? And Dracula over Frankenstein?

100 Books

100 Books Share

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

Instructions:
Copy into a new note Put an X next to the ones you've read. Include the number you have read in the headline and tag your friends!



*X1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
*2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
*X3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
*X4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
X5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 
6 The Bible (all)
*X7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 
*X8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell 
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
*10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
*X11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott 
*12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
X13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller 
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
*X16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien 
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
X18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger 
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
X20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
X21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
*X22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald 
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
*25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
X26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh 
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
*X28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
*X29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll 
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
*X34 Emma - Jane Austen
X35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
*X36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
*X40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
*X41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
X42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
X43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
X45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins 
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
*X48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
*X49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding 
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
*X51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel 
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
X54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
*X57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
*X58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley 
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
*65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
*70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
*71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
X72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
*X73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett 
X74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
*76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
X80 Possession - AS Byatt
*X81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens 
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
*X83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
X84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
X85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert 
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
*X87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
X88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
*X89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
*X92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery 
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
*94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
*95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Toole
*97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
*X98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
*X99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl 
*100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo