kmkat and her kneedles

Muttering through Mother's Day.

1. 537 :: is more than 400
2. Horizon :: line.
3. Episode :: seizure.
4. Character :: -driven.
5. Crossed :: town bus.
6. Shipping :: charges.
7. Jump :: Whoopee Goldberg.
8. Bowling :: Lebowski.
9. Grumpy :: Old Men.
10. Them :: Us.

 

I celebrated my own Mother's Day yesterday -- spent pretty much the entire day in my recliner reading, watching Netflix, drinking coffee/soda/wine (as the day progressed), and knitting. This is Smokey's weekend to work (always with the night shifts) so when he is home he is tucked up in his bed with two dogs and a cat and a box fan for white noise. Today I might be productive. Hard to say, really. 

 

Reading: 
A few weeks ago I read a piece in The Nation by Deborah Kopaken Kagan about her experiences as a woman author and how she was demeaned by the publishing industry. I was so inspired/enraged by her experience I clicked over to bn.com and bought all four of her books to read on my iPad. (I also clicked over to her website and sent her an email telling her what I did; she emailed back that it made her cry.) Anyhow, I want to recommend her books. She came from an ordinary middle-class background, graduated from Harvard, moved to Paris, worked as a photojournalist covering a lot of gritty stuff (ex., she went into Afghanistan alone during the Soviet-Afghan war), eventually married, had three kids, started to write. The woman has lived more in her 40-odd years than a dozen other other people put together. I highly recommend her books, especially Shutterbabe (memoir) and The Red Book (fiction). Her collection of essays, Hell Is Other Parents, is pretty damned good, too.

Yesterday's book was Odds Against Tomorrow by Nathaniel Rich. I had read the first 60+ pages in fits and starts and was not particularly engaged by it, but yesterday I decided to give it a chance to pull me in. Which it did, in spades. Protagonist is a quant who specializes in the odds of disasters; the 3-person consulting firm he works for makes him rich. Then a real mega-disaster hits New York City -- essentially Hurricane Sandy plus Katrina -- and his life changes. Some of the scenes were lifted straight out of the news stories of Katrina. Good book, four out of five stars.

Last night I startd NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. Creepy as hell, that one. I follow the author on Twitter. He is currently on tour for the book and every day posts photos of readers attempting to kill him in various ways.

 

Knitting:
I am enjoying having several projects to hand at all times. A hat, a pair of socks, the top-down set-in sleeve sweater, a scarf of the same yarn as the hat. They are strewn about my chair in various stages of doneness. When I sit down there is the delicious feeling of What shall I pick up this time? Project monogamy, begone!

Stuff:
Remember the humungous external hard drive? I have moved most of my data files over to it and gone into my most-often used programs to direct them to that drive for files. Two programs have me stumped, though: Excel and iPhoto. I can deal with the former, but iPhoto is being a bugger. I have searched through all its menus and preferences and cannot find a place to tell it where to store its files. My internal 160GB hard drive has 76GB of photos. It would be nice to get them all moved and backed up. All suggestions welcome. (I started to email Younger Son yesterday to ask him but got distracted, had to reboot, lost the email, yada yada. So I'm asking y'all.) 

No photos popped into my head to illustrate today's post. Here, in honor of Mother's Day, is a gratuitous one from 1984 of me being a mom to Elder Son.

Life is random, why not me?

1. Baked :: Alaska.
2. Excited :: to go.
3. Print :: out of,
4. Obstruct :: -ionist.
5. Bladder :: full.
6. Matrimony :: wedding.
7. Car :: many.
8. Reconstruct :: Civil War.
9. Lenses :: contact.
10. Best for last :: save it.

* * * * *

I got to thinking about John Sandford and his Virgil Flowers novels because I noticed a new one had come out, Mad River. Love John Sandford, love Virgil Flowers. Maybe not quite as much as I love Lucas Davenport of the Prey series, but close. Couldn't remember which of the books I had already read so I requested all of them (five plus the newest one) from the library. Have been reading them one after the other, kinda like 350-page potato chips. Just started #4 AND got the email that the newest one is waiting for me at my local library.

Heaven.

Edited to add: the reason I like Sandford's novels and characters so much is that they are the most intelligent but down-to-earth ones I have read, amen.

* * * * *

Speaking of books.

I sit on the board of trustees of the regional library system, which is currently embarking on its [latest] long-range planning process. Members of the board were tasked with visiting all the libraries in their respective counties and chatting with the directors about the services they get from the regional system. On Friday the other board member from our county and I visited four municipal libraries and had four wildly varying discussions. Wildly varying in a good way, mind you -- their experience in the library system ranged from 1 to 29 years and their education/library size/community demographic varied almost as much.

It was an interesting and informative and fun way to spend a day. Which is good because next Wednesday we are going to do it again with four different libraries.

* * * * *

I liked the yarn I knitted the fingerless gloves out of so much (it's been sitting in my stash since 2007, why haven't I used it before?) that I decided to make myself a hat from it, the Twisted Toque from 60 Quick Knits. 

Fail.

Sorry, I should have taken a photo to show how terrible it looked. If you scan the projects in Ravelry you may notice that on some, the non-stockinette portion of the hat sort of... sticks out. Mine looked like the one in the link but much, much worse.

Ribbit.

In hindsight, I think the problem was that the pattern was written for Cascade 220, which is a light worsted, and I knitted it from a plump worsted. Perhaps if I had gone up a needle size all would have been well. 

But we shall never know because I am NOT knitting that pattern again.

So there.

Not that I am bitter or anything...

 * * * * *

(something I commented on another blog that seemed so revolutionary and astoundingly awesome that I had to include it here)

The possible long-term effects of global warming have been endlessly reported upon, but the day-to-day effects have been downplayed. I have concluded what the latter means for us in the northern latitudes is that our weather will change more quickly than we are used to. The past few weeks, with fronts blowing through seemingly every other day, are what have convinced me of this. Makes sense meteorologically, too -- globala warming is basically just more energy in the atmosphere = more volatile weather.

Kinda fun, actually. Every morning is a new surprise. Can I go into town minus hat/scarf/boots or will I need long underwear and three pairs of socks? 

* * * * *

Have any of you been watching House of Cards on Netflix? I started last night, got annoyed in the first 30 seconds*, so annoyed in the next three minutes* that I stopped watching. I eventually went back and am now ready to start episode 2.

But it is not nearly as good as the British original with Ian Richardson, imnsho. I blogged about that once twice before. When Kevin Spacey delivered that line -- You might very well think that. I could not possibly comment -- I actually groaned. He is a great actor, don't get me wrong, but this whole thing seems kinda flat compared to the original.

I will continue to suffer through it, though ;-)

* They broke a primary law of good writing/movie-making: show me, don't tell me. When FU kills the dog, that is showing; when he expounds to the camera to give every bit of background information we may need, that's telling.

 

Ten on (two-fer) Tuesday: the mystery edition.

My Ten Many, Many Favorite Mysteries.
What can I say? Mysteries have been my preferred reading since discovered #1, below.

1. Agatha Christie. We had many of these in paperback when I was growing up. I started reading them when I was about 12. Have read them all, many more than once.
    
2. Dorothy Sayers. Lord Peter Wimsey was awesome, but Harriet Vane ROCKED! Have read them all multiple times.
    
3. P.D. James. Another classic. Have read them all. Twice.
    
4. Arthur Conan Doyle. Ditto, but more than twice.
   
   
5. Other authors whose books I used to seek out: Dick Francis (horse racing & murder), Lilian Jackson Braun (cozies; "The Cat Who..." series; Koko and Yum Yum and Qulleran), Donald Westlake (murder/crime mixed with humor; not a series, just a book a year... forever), Elmore Leonard (best writer of dialogue EVAH), Emma Lathen (murder mysteries about banking and finance -- how could I not read them all?), Sue Grafton (A is for [etc.]; the R book was so boring I gave up on her), J.A. Jance, but not any more. I have Moved On.
    
6. Patricia Cornwell. She deserves an entry all to herself. Her first five or ten books were excellent, but eventually those morose and self-destructive characters got boring. And depressing.
   
   What I read now:
    
7. John Sandford. Lucas Davenport Prey series is my hands-down favorite of all time. Also the Virgil Flowers ("That damn Flowers.") series and the Kidd series; excellent. Then Sandford wrote an espionage novel (don't remember the name). It was so awful I couldn't believe it was the same guy writing. He needs to stick to crime. But a new Prey or Flowers or Kidd book is always cause for rejoicing.
    
8. Jeffrey Deaver. The author who can pack the most plot twists into the last fifty pages of a book.
    
9. Tana French. Go read one of her books and you will be hooked.
    
10. Kate Atkinson. Ditto.
     
11. Steig Larsson. Of course.
     
12. Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell. Books written under the first pseudonym = excellent. Books written under the second = excellent but so unnerving I can only read one every five years or so.
     
13. P.J. Tracy. Techie mysteries set in Minneapolis.
     
14. Carl Hiaasen. Humor, satire, and murder in south Florida. There is a lot to satirize in that locale, and he does it masterfully.
     
15. Jonathan Kellerman and Fay Kellerman. I have read all the Alex Delaware books, but I like her Peter Decker/Rina Lazurus series better.
     
16. Susan Wittig Albert. Herb-themed cozies set in the Texas Hill County. 
     
17. Others where I read one book and liked it enough to seek out others by the same author: Markus Sakey, Chelsea Cain, Julia Spencer-Fleming, Dennis Lehane, Tess Gerritsen, Harlen Coben, Alex Kava, Nelson DeMille, Greg Iles, Terri Persons (set in MN).
     
18. Others I read, but this is the B-list: good enough to invest the time to read but not stunning. William Kent Kruger (all set in northern MN), Janet Evanovich  (Ranger or Morelli -- you choose), Lee Child (Jack Reacher is every man's fantasy alter ego, imnsho). 
     
19. Others I prefer to consume in audiobook format: Michael Connelly, Stephen Cannell, Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. 

I could go on (and on and on) but I won't. ::collective sigh of relief::

Reading.

During tax season I didn't read much, but I did listen to several audio books.

Before I went back to work I read a couple mystery novels by Kate Atkinson, One Good Turn and When Will There Be Good News? They are in the Jackson Brodies series and set in Scotland. The weird thing is that as I read that last one, I knew I had seen it on PBSMasterpiece Mystery. And I had, just didn't remember that the main character was Brodie. Atkinson is an excellent writer; the first book of hers that I read was Case Histories and was recommended on someone's blog. (Whoever you are -- Kym? CarrieK? -- thanks!)

First, I finished listening to all five books (so far) of A Song of Ice and Fire. Started that endeavor in September, finished in February. What a trip!

    

After that series, anything else was a bit of a let-down but I soldiered on. Cuz I am brave like that.

First came The Amulet of Samarkand, the first book in the Bartimaeus trilogy by Jonathan Stroud. Fun book, dry humor, magic and demons abounding. I didn't realize until after I finished, but it is a YA book; I think that speaks to the fact that it is an intelligent YA book ;-) I have the second book of the trilogy, The Golem's Eye, from the library but I'm having trouble ripping it to my iTunes -- disc 13 of 14 keeps locking up my computer. DRM? Perhaps...

(Which reminds me, I need to delete Amulet from iTunes. I don't *steal* audiobook contents, I *time-shift* it to when I want to listen.)

Next was Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian. I probably won't continue with the series. It was a good story but I know I missed a good three-quarters of it because at least that much was in 1800-ish nautical terminology. Learned a couple new words: there were specific sails called "royals" and "lateens". I have since used that second word in Boggle. Someone who is more conversant with maritime jargon than I would love this series.

I started The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett (#2 in his Discworld series) but somehow didn't get hooked into the story, so I put it aside and listened instead to Good Omens by him and Neil Gaiman. That one was a lot of fun.

I listened to Pavane by Keith Roberts, an alternate history set in late 20th-century Britain where the Roman Catholic church rules the world and has done so since Queen Elizabeth I was assassinated in 1588. There is no electricity, only steam power, and long distance communication is accomplished through a network of human-powered signal towers. Interesting concept, well-written.

Real history came back in Eric Roberts's In the Garden of the Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin, an account of the Dodd family, whose father was appointed ambassador to Berlin in 1933, only a few months after Hitler came to power. The intimate and detailed descriptions of Goehring and Goebbels are fascinating, as was the entire audiobook.

After tax season was over I continued to listen to audiobooks. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett was... awesome, the best book I have read/listened to in a long time. If you haven't read it, do so. My book group is going to read it in September, and I will read the analog version then.

Right now I am listening to A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century by Barbara Tuchman. I have wanted to read it since I saw her interviewed on the Dick Cavett show when the book came out in 1978, but I also knew that I probably would get bogged down and lose interest. Audiobook is the way to go in such a situation! I must confess I do not listen to every word, just drift along with the reader. I don't care about the specifics of which count married his daughter to which king's nephew, but I love getting a mental picture of what life was like then, both for the nobles and for the commoners.

Last week I downloaded the Kindle edition of Ann Shayne's book, Bowling Avenue to my iPad. When I started reading I thought it might be a little too much chick-lit style for my taste, but then I got hooked. Next thing I knew it was 2am and I was halfway through the book, loving the characters and the story and the setting. I can recommend that one unreservedly.

Go. Sign.

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:

 
Ensure that every child in America has access to an effective school library program.
Every child in America deserves access to an effective school library program. We ask that the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) provide dedicated funding to help support effective school library programs. Such action will ensure more students have access to the resources and tools that constitute a 21st century learning environment. Reductions in school library programs are creating an ‘access gap’ between schools in wealthier communities versus those where there are high levels of poverty. All students should have an equal opportunity to acquire the skills necessary to learn, to participate, and to compete in today’s world.

 

The librarians need 5,083 5,074 5,073* more signatures on this petition…

wh.gov/Wgd

via http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/

* The first number was how many more signatures were needed when I first went to the website. Between then and when I went back after verifying my account via email, 9 more people had signed. Then I did.

Books and reading. And libraries.

I read at least 58 books in 2011; "at least 58" because I know there are a few missing from this list.

 

TITLE	AUTHOR
Case Histories	Atkinson, Kate
At Home: A Short History of Private Life (audiobook)	Bryson, Bill
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail (audiobook)	Bryson, Bill
Dead End Gene Pool: A Memoir	Burden, Wendy
Fool Moon: Book 2 of the Dresden Files (audiobook)	Butcher, Jim
Grave Peril: Book 3 of the Dresden Files (audiobook)	Butcher, Jim
Heartsick	Cain, Chelsea
Sweetheart	Cain, Chelsea
Soulless (The Parasol Protectorate 1) (audiobook)	Carriger, Gail
Changeless (The Parasol Protectorate 2) (audiobook)	Carriger, Gail
The Alchemist (audiobook)	Coelho, Paulo
The Poet	Connelly, Michael
Cathedral	DeMille, Nelson
Vanished	Finder, Joseph
Dress Your Dog: Nifty Knits for Classy Canines	Fredens, Sys
Hit by a Farm: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn	Friend, Catherine
The Goblins of Labyrinth	Froud, Brian
The Graveyard Book (audiobook)	Gaiman, Neil
American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition	Gaiman, Neil
American Gods (audiobook)	Gaiman, Neil
Same Kind Of Different As Me	Hall, Ron
Star Island	Hiaasen, Carl
The Knitting Circle	Hood, Ann
Through No Fault of My Own: A Girl's Diary of Life on Summit Avenue in the Jazz Age	Irvine, Coco
Full Dark, No Stars	King, Stephen
Breathless	Koontz, Dean
Iron Lake	Krueger, William Kent
My Fair Lazy: One Reality Television Addict's Attempt to Discover If Not Being A Dumb Ass Is the New Black; Or, A Culture-Up Manifesto	Lancaster, Jen
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (audiobook)	Larsson, Stieg
The Stone Angel	Laurence, Margaret
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine	Lewis, Michael
Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street	Lewis, Michael
A Storm of Swords: A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3 (audiobook)	Martin, George R. R.
A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1 (audiobook)	Martin, George R.R.
A Clash of Kings: A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 2 (audiobook)	Martin, George R.R.
Deception	Mina, Denise
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer	Mukherjee, Siddhartha
21 Essential American Short Stories	Pockell, Leslie M.
Knitting for Dogs: Irresistible Patterns for Your Favorite Pup -- and You!	Porter, Kristi
The Complaints	Rankin, Ian
Theater Geek: The Real Life Drama of a Summer at Stagedoor Manor, the Famous Performing Arts Camp	Rapkin, Mickey
Silent in the Grave	Raybourn, Deanna
Vintage Baby Knits: More Than 40 Heirloom Patterns from the 1920s to the 1950s	Rengren, Kristen
Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas (audiobook)	Robbins, Tom
The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry	Ronson, Jon
The Men Who Stare at Goats	Ronson, Jon
Sarah's Key	Rosnay, Tatiana de
The Blade Itself	Sakey, Marcus
At the City's Edge	Sakey, Marcus
Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading	Sankovitch, Nina
One Was a Soldier: A Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mystery	Spencer-Fleming, Julia
A Dark Matter	Straub, Peter
Shoot to Thrill (A Monkeewrench Novel)	Tracy, P. J.
Moon Over Manifest	Vanderpool, Clare
The Tale of Halcyon Crane: A Novel	Webb, Wendy
Passage	Willis, Connie
Fire Watch	Willis, Connie
Night of the Grizzlies

.

Found at: The Eclectic Bookshelf (thanks to Chris for the link)

The 2012 Support Your Local Library Challenge is being hosted by The Eclectic Bookshelf.

The guidelines are as follows:

1. Anyone can join.
    
2. You don't need a blog to participate. If you are a non-blogger please leave a comment with a link (if you review elsewhere) to your review or with the book(s) you read.
    
3. Audio, ebooks (some libraries allow ebooks to be checked out), bound books are ok. I would have included graphic novels, but I don't cannot read those so it is a moot point.
    
4. No re-reads.
    
5. Create a sign up post and post the link in the linky.
    
6. Challenge goes from January 1, 2012 - December 31, 2012.
    
7. Levels:
   * Level 1 - Read 12 library books
   * Level 2 - Read 24 library books
   * Level 3 - Read 36 library books
   * Level 4 - Read 37+ library books
   

I already read at least 50 books/year, almost every single one from the library, so I am not going to sign up for this. But supporting your local library is A Very Good Thing, especially in these days of tight municipal budgets when some folks question the needs for libraries.

I encourage you to sign up for this challenge at whatever level is comfortable for you. Knowledge is a good thing; we all need more of it. Please go forth and investigate your library!

 

Neil Gaiman stopped by my blog and left this video.

Oh, all right, fine, he didn't really stop by MY blog. I stopped by HIS blog and grabbed this video.

Spread the word! Give a scary book for All Hallow's Eve!

I'm back (again).

We spent nine days on the North Shore (of Lake Superior) in the mini-mini-motorhome, returning on the day before Labor Day, and it was glorious. I have some photos but am currently too lazy to upload them. Be assured, though, that I knit my little fingers to the bone -- finished three projects (photos to come), started two more (ditto) -- and had a great time doing it.

Before we left home, however, I bought myself a little prezzie.

It all started when I read a Gizmodo post abuot how the Motorola TouchPad was such a great deal for $100* (originally $400+). I was in WI when I read it and Smokey was in Minneapoils, so I emailed and sent him on a quest to buy me one. It turned out, however, that Motorola had recalled all the unsold ones from Best Buy the week before. There were none to be had. ::sob::

After much thoughtful consideration I decided that an ebook reader that was compatible with my library's ebooks would do the trick, and a trip to Wal-Mart and $139 plus tax later I had one of the El Cheapo Nooks in my hot little hands. 

[digression] I tried to find a photo online of the aforementioned El Cheapo model, but nobody puts a picture of THAT poor thing online. All I could find were color Nooks and Nooks whose screen didn't quite look like mine. So you will have to settle for the image above; inadequate, but accurate. [/digression]

I immediately bought the tenth anniversary edition of American Gods by Neil Gaiman from Barnes & Noble, my choice for my book club's November read, and downloaded two ebooks from our library consortium. It turns out  that there is a very limited selection of ebooks from the library, but I did manage to find a couple that appealed as vacation reading. (Cathedral by Nelson DeMille and My Fair Lazy by Jen Lancaster, for those of you who are counting.) 

If you know of any other sites for  free, Nook-compatible books, please sing out in the comments. Thank you in advance.

* I have since read that Motorola was surprised to discover what a great demand there was for a $100 (or $150, if the buyer wanted 32G instead of 16G of memory) tablet computer. They rethought their previous decision and subsequently decided to offer a few more TouchPads at the clearance price. In October. We shall see. In the meantime, I've got my Nook to keep me warm read.

 

Amusements.

To me, vacations are a time to knit and read. How can I stand the excitement, you ask? Don’t try this at home, folks – I’m a professional.

Reading.

 

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
Feed by M.T. Andrewson
Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
A Dark Matter by Peter Straub
The Compassionate Carnivore by Catherine Friend
Vanished by Joseph Finder
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America by Thomas Friedman*
CO₂ Rising: The World's Greatest Environmental Challenge by Tyler Volk
Night of the Grizzlies by Jack Olsen
Children of the Sun: A History of Humanity's Unappeasable Appetite for Energy by Alfred W. Crosby 
Earth, The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming by Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn
Oil on the Brain: Adventures from the Pipeline to the Pump by Lisa Margonelli

Heh. Can you guess what I was obsessed with when I chose my vacation books?

So far I have read Vanished (suspense novel, supremely mediocre) and Night of the Grizzlies (nonfiction account of two 1967 fatal grizzly attacks in Glacier National Park; recommended by soxanne; glad I didn’t read it before we went to Glacier last year) (headline in Thursday's local paper: Man Killed in Grizzly Attack in Yellowstone National Park. Eeep.). The top three paperbacks are all sci-fi, the other is probably horror; all excellent, non-demanding amusement. I started The Compassionate Carnivore – by the same author as Hit by a Farm – before we left home. It is a nice blend of humor, introspection, and ethics; I might be able to handle it. The others, mostly nonfiction, may be too much for my vacationing brain.

On the audiobook front, so far I have listened to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Steig Larssen. I had read or listened to all of them before but wanted to do it again in one continuous string; #2 and #3 are really one story. Then I listened to A Study in Emerald read by the author, Neil Gaiman. That was a short one, less than one hour.

I just finished Grave Peril, #3 in the Harry Dresden series. I heartily recommend listening to the audios of this series. The read has the sexiest voice on the planet, plus he reads them as though he were telling the story over a beer the day after it happened. Much more enjoyable (again, imho) than reading them.

* Last night I couldn't fall asleep so I grabbed a book from my stash -- in the dark -- and a headlamp to read until I got sleepy. This was the one. Friedman is such a wretched writer and egoist that I made it to page 32, skimming large parts, before my eyelids drooped. Success!

Knitting.

I brought along enough knitting projects to sink a battleship.

The Lace Shawl of Doom  Delight for BGFE.

 

This is coming along swimmingly. I have finished the first chart and am ready to start on the border. That simple statement belies what lies ahead, though; the pattern warns that most of the knitting is in the border, plus chart 2 is altogether different and appears far more complicated than chart 1. Stay tuned.

Fast Forward, for the Red Scarf Project.

 

This is currently about two-thirds done but was put on hold when I took up the Lace Shawl of Doom again. Nice pattern, nice yarn – I’m using Louet superwash merino worsted left over from my kimono sweater.

Palindrome, also for the RSP.

 

Notice how well-defined the cables are? Not. The yarn is Drops Alpaca Sport, luscious stuff but not at all suitable for good stitch definition. I have since frogged that effort and am instead doing a mistake rib pattern that works much better with the yarn. It is also nice mindless knitting :-)

 

Actual color is somewhere between the two photos, orangey-red like the second but darker like the first.

Sock for me.

 

This was to be my fall-back project, the one I would carry into restaurants, etc. Instead the mistake rib scarf has become the take-along. That’s okay; I’m not dying to have the socks done. Yarn is some OnLine Supersocke 100 Circle Color that was on sale at Webs last year.

These last two projects got packed to come along when I was apparently on drugs and in a fantasy daze, thinking how awful it would be if I ran out of knitting projects. The chances of either of them even getting cast on during this tripe is roughly... zero.

Yarn for a narrow Montego Bay scarf for me.

 

Worsted weight silk from Alchemy.

Yarn for Braided Glory for me.

 

I was thrilled to match this yarn with a pattern. The yarn is 1600+ yards of Brooks Farm Acero, a sport/DK blend of superwash wool, viscose, and silk. It is not enough to make a sweater for me and has been yearning for a pattern for several years. I think it will be perfect for this shawl, although the pattern will use only about half of it. I am not wild about wearing shawls, but this one seems like it will stay in place without fussing.

As I typed that, the vision of a short- or three-quarter-length sleeved lace cardigan came into mind. Lace takes less yarn than stockinette, right? And I am now lace-qualified, right? I may need to investigate that. I have some other, not-enough-for-a-sweater yarn in my stash that would work for the Braided Glory, actually better than the Acero. Stay tuned.

Ten on Tuesday, the reading edition.

Oh, boy, books and reading! This will be fun.

Ten Books I Would Recommend To A Friend

1. Winterdance: The Fine Magic of Running the Iditarod / Gary Paulsen. This is my favorite book EVAH! It is funny, spiritual, and amazing.
   
   
2. The Prey series / John Sandford. Best, most intelligent police procedurals I have ever read. Characters and dialog are so real you can see and hear them in your mind. Set in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and regions within driving distance. Start with the first one and read them in sequence because there is real character development.
   
   
3. Emperor of All Maladies : A Biography of Cancer / Siddhartha Mukherjee. I read this recently and found it fascinating. It reads like a suspense novel -- I didn't want to put it down when I got sleepy because I wanted to know what happens next.
   
   
4.  Ripped : How the Wired Generation Changed Music /  Greg Kot. Another fascinating read for anyone who occasionally -- or frequently -- downloads music or obtains it in some non-DRM manner.
   
   
5. The Tortilla Curtain / T. C. Boyle. We read this in my book group several years ago, and it still haunts me.
   
   
6. Five Quarters of the Orange / Joanne Harris. Same author wrote Chocolat. I loved this book, set in rural France during WWII. Have listened to it twice and read it once.
   
   
7. The Song of Fire and Ice series / George R.R. Martin. A Game of Thrones, the first book, is now an HBO series. I have listened to the audiobook -- four of them, very long -- twice. Book five is due out... soon. Medieval fantasy, but with richly developed characters. I adore this series, will probably listen to it again later this year.
   
   
8. The Exception / Christian Jungersen. I wrote a post about it. Have read it twice. Disturbing.
   
   
9. Infidel / Ayaan Hirsi Ali. An Ethiopian woman's story of how she ran away from her homeland and a forced marriage. Author is now a member of the Dutch Parliament.
   
   
10. The Stand / Stephen King. My favorite of all his books. 

Free reading.

Three stories from the Bordertown series.

Free.

On the net.

Go.*

Read.

(Image at right shamelessly lifted from the linked page in hopes of luring you over there.)

* This has been a not-paid-for advertisement written in hopes of winning one of three [purportedly magical] prizes.

Random is the best I can do.

I keep a list of the books I read each year, and a few years ago also started keeping a list of the ones I started and gave up on. For the first time ever, my list of "Did Not Finish" is currently longer (10) than the ones I actually finished (9). As might be true of any such list, the DNF is more reflective of my mood when reading than it is of the quality of the books. Right now, while doing taxes and consequently brain-dead after 8 pm, I find that it is the rare book that I can actually read and comprehend. I have finished only one book, a thriller, since I started work on February 7. Apparently a job is the enemy of literacy -- in my case, anyway.

* * * * *

A friend emailed this to me, and it touched my heart. Googling revealed that it was first published here.

Things here in Sendai have been rather surreal. But I am very blessed to have wonderful friends who are helping me a lot. Since my shack is even more worthy of that name, I am now staying at a friend's home. We share supplies like water, food and a kerosene heater. We sleep lined up in one room, eat by candlelight, share stories. It is warm, friendly, and beautiful.

During the day we help each other clean up the mess in our homes. People sit in their cars, looking at news on their navigation screens, or line up to get drinking water when a source is open. If someone has water running in their home, they put out a sign so people can come to fill up their jugs and buckets.

It's utterly amazingly that where I am there has been no looting, no pushing in lines. People leave their front door open, as it is safer when an earthquake strikes. People keep saying, "Oh, this is how it used to be in the old days when everyone helped one another."

Quakes keep coming. Last night they struck about every 15 minutes. Sirens are constant and helicopters pass overhead often.

We got water for a few hours in our homes last night, and now it is for half a day. Electricity came on this afternoon. Gas has not yet come on. But all of this is by area. Some people have these things, others do not. No one has washed for several days. We feel grubby, but there are so much more important concerns than that for us now. I love this peeling away of non-essentials. Living fully on the level of instinct, of intuition, of caring, of what is needed for survival, not just of me, but of the entire group.

There are strange parallel universes happening. Houses a mess in some places, yet then a house with futons or laundry out drying in the sun. People lining up for water and food, and yet a few people out walking their dogs. All happening at the same time.

Other unexpected touches of beauty are first, the silence at night. No cars. No one out on the streets. And the heavens at night are scattered with stars. I usually can see about two, but now the whole sky is filled. The mountains are Sendai are solid and with the crisp air we can see them silhouetted against the sky magnificently.

And the Japanese themselves are so wonderful. I come back to my shack to check on it each day, now to send this e-mail since the electricity is on, and I find food and water left in my entranceway. I have no idea from whom, but it is there. Old men in green hats go from door to door checking to see if everyone is OK. People talk to complete strangers asking if they need help. I see no signs of fear. Resignation, yes, but fear or panic, no.

They tell us we can expect aftershocks, and even other major quakes, for another month or more. And we are getting constant tremors, rolls, shaking, rumbling. I am blessed in that I live in a part of Sendai that is a bit elevated, a bit more solid than other parts. So, so far this area is better off than others. Last night my friend's husband came in from the country, bringing food and water. Blessed again.

Somehow at this time I realize from direct experience that there is indeed an enormous Cosmic evolutionary step that is occurring all over the world right at this moment. And somehow as I experience the events happening now in Japan, I can feel my heart opening very wide. My brother asked me if I felt so small because of all that is happening. I don't. Rather, I feel as part of something happening that much larger than myself. This wave of birthing (worldwide) is hard, and yet magnificent.

Thank you again for your care and Love of me,

With Love in return, to you all,
Anne

* * * * *

You may have read / seen / heard about the gas main explosion in Minneapolis on Thursday. I missed it entirely, having been back in Wisconsin for meetings on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. If I been in Minneapolis I would most certainly have known about it; the site is about 1.5 miles from our house.

Caution: this video was made, apparently, by a young man with a limited vocabulary; his commentary is definitely NSFW. But it is the best video I found on YouTube. After the young man's initial comment, he spliced in some audio from a local radio station, which includes an announcer who doesn't know how to pronounce Nicollet (NICK-o-let, not Nick-o-LET).

If you don't want to watch the video, here are some choice screen shots of cars that were parked close to the site.

The melted stuff reminds me of that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when they open the Ark of the Covenant and the Nazis' faces melt.

To orient you, here is Google's shot of the area looking north toward downtown. The orange star marks the approximate site of the blast, the orange arrow points to the tree that is no more, and Cub Foods, a large supermarket, is outlined in red. Our house is somewhere off to the upper left. I think the man who took the video was standing on Nicollet Avenue, initially up between 58th and 59th Streets, and later, after the fire was out, near 60th.

 

The freeway at the right , I-35W, is one of the busiest in the country, and the explosion occurred near the end of the morning rush hour. It is amazing, considering the neighborhood, that no one was injured.

All Hallow's Read.

A new tradition, invented exactly a week ago by Neil Gaiman (pictured at right), is All Hallows Read. Stephen King and Joe Hill (SK's son, also an author of scary stuff) and The Huffington Post are already totally on board with it. 

NG says:

I propose that, on Hallowe'en or during the week of Hallowe'en, we give each other scary books. Give children scary books they'll like and can handle. Give adults scary books they'll enjoy.

A book-giving holiday! A new book-giving tradition! Awesome! Of course, as authors, Gaiman and King and Hill have a vested interest in promoting the sale of books, but NG specifically says "...new books or old or second-hand..." so I forgive them completely. Besides, my take on Gaiman, having heard him speak and read his blog faithfully and heard/seen him interviewed many times, is that he is a genuine and humble and thoughtful person who is more interested in getting people to read than in selling his own books. So there.

Somewhere on his blog I read a comment from a person -- a mother, I think -- who said that one year she bought a sh!tload of R.L. Stine books at Goodwill or some such and handed them out to trick-or-treaters. More awesomesauce!

We don't get trick-or-treaters here in the rural woods so I cannot partake of that last idea, but I am thinking deeply about what scary book I can give to whom.

How about you?

 

Good reads.

I have had a good run on reading lately. Three Four really good ones in a row. My books; let me tell you them.

Ironically, since I don't particularly care for historical fiction, two of these beauties were set in 14th century England -- priests, The Plague, and everything.

A few weeks ago I read somewhere on the web -- probably Neil Gaiman's blog, but, really, it could have been anywhere -- that if a non-science-fiction-reading person wants to read a science fiction book to see what all the fuss is about, s/he should read Connie Willis's Doomsday Book. Being a person of obedient temperament (hah!) I followed that advice and requested it from the library. Turned out to be good advice; I enjoyed the book a lot. It is set in mid-21st century, from whence an Oxford student is sent back to 1320 via the University's time machine thingy. An epidemic breaks out in the present, paralleling the plague in the past. Willis is a well-known and prizewinning sci fi author -- I had read To Say Nothing of the Dog a number of years ago and enjoyed it, too. Both of these books employ time travel from the mid-21st century to the past, the latter to both 1940 and 1888. Both books are also well-written, engrossing, with endearing characters, and are bouncing good reads.

Next up was Ken Follett's sequel to Pillars of the Earth, World Without End. Follett loves to write gargantuan epics (redundant much, Kat™?) and this is no exception. He doesn't necessarily write great literature, but his books -- and I have read half a dozen or so over the past 40 years -- are always engrossing and highly readable. This was no exception. It is slightly over 1,000 pages long, and I was a bit intimidated by that length, mainly because I have nine other books from the library to read, plus one and a half books for next month's book club, and did I really want to spend all that time on just one book? But I did, and it was good, and I recommend it.

After reading those two books I feel that I am fairly well-informed about the bubonic plague, at least from the view of 14th century folks. Which is not nearly the same as current knowledge, but there it is.

 
Last night I grabbed The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club by Gil McNeil for my bedtime reading. This was at 11pm or so. An hour and a couple hundred pages later I glanced at the clock and recoiled in horror -- it was 3am and clearly I was not going to be able to finish the book before sleep. Damn, it was so good, and I didn't want to put it down! (But I did.) I awoke at 9:30 this morning, picked up the book, and finished the last 150 pages.

Most knitting novels teeter on the edge of trash, imho, with way too much of "...she fingered the soft yarn and dreamed of wearing a beautiful shawl in a meadow of daisies yada yada yada" and not enough of plot development, decent writing, character development, and, for want of a better word, realism. Not so this one. The heroine is a recently widowed mother of two boys, aged ~5 and ~6; anyone who has every birthed a boy can identify with the constant challenges they present. Realism: check. She takes over a smalltown yarn shop that her grandmother has run for decades and modernizes it (with Gran's full approval -- we should all have such a grandmother). Realism: good enough. There is no claim that she suddenly makes the shop so profitable that she can vacation in the south of France, just that she appears to be able to make ends meet comfortably. She makes new friends, has a satifying one-night fling, knits (natch), and generally copes with life. One could quibble with the fact that this one woman is friends with a network news anchor (female) AND a major movie star (female) AND a world-renowned photographer (male), but one wouldn't want to pick nits about such an enjoyable and otherwise well-written book. Her mother and inlaws and the local PTA president are proper a$$holes but she deals with them all splendidly and satisfyingly.

Several things endeared this book to my heart. First and foremost, the author has completely mastered the art of the sentence that goes on for nearly half a page and reflects a delightful sort of stream of consciousness narrative and whose rhythm is perfectly balanced with sentences of a more conventional length. I found myself thinking in those elongated and looping sentences after finishing the book; much fun. Second, the dialog between the heroine and her friend Ellen and with, really, every other adult in the book, is so charming and witty and warm that dammit! I want her for my friend so I can be charming and witty and warm, too. Third, she meets the challenges presented by those two active little boys so realistically -- often patient, sometimes exasperated, occasionally on the verge of an Atomic Mommie Meltdown -- that those scenes could be part of a parenting textbook.

Oh, as I was writing this post I remembered the last audiobook I listened to -- The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson. Bryson* is gently hilarious as he recounts growing up in Des Moines, IA in the 1950s. I found myself LOLing in the car when listening. Read it or listen to it, you will enjoy it.

* I am pretty sure I am distantly related to Bill Bryson (by adoption). My adopted mother's maiden name was Bryson and her family was from Iowa. That's enough for me -- clearly, Bill and I are related. Once, before the advent of the internet, I wrote him a fan letter about one of his books -- A Walk in the Woods, iirc -- and mentioned our possibly being related (with the disclaimer that I wanted to make no demands on him, just to be able to brag about our distant cousinship in casual conversation). He actually wrote back, thanking me and saying he had forwarded my letter to his brother, who was the family member interested in such things.

No pictures. Let's talk books.

Still on vacation. Weather beautiful. Drove through Glacier NP yesterday; glaciers not impressive. Global warming triumphing.

The laptop that might allow me to post photos is working again (yay, Smokey!) but refuses to accept photos from my camera (boo, Microsoft!) or to go online (boo, generally!). I'm typing this two-fingered on Smokey's netbook, sitting at a table on the patio of the campground office and taking advantage of their wi-fi. If you are really, really good I'll post a photo someday of how picturesque this spot is.

Instead, I'm going to tell you about the books I brought along. A couple of you asked about them; I deliver :)

The Missing by Tim Gautreaux. I was reading this before I left but was not finding it terribly interesting. It's not a bad book, and it is well-written; no idea why I was so lukewarm. Once I gave up on it, the pace of my reading picked up.
Nemesis by Jo Nesbo. Police procedural translated from the Norwegian. Coincidentally, the NYTimes book review mentioned this author in its recent article about publishers' mad scramble to find more Scandinavian mysteries to follow up on Steig Larsson's three best-sellers. This one was okay, a bit depressing, 2-1/2 stars out of 5.
Black Water Rising by Attica Locke. Another ho-hum murder mystery, 2-1/2 stars. I tend to agree with the Washington Post review at the linked Amazon page.
The Last Child by John Hart. Another 2-1/2 stars; I had to read the Amazon synopsis to remember it, even though I read it last week. The 13-yo protagonist was not believable to me.
The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston. Started it, decided I didn't want to read a novel whose narrator is such a loser. But it did seem entertaining; I may try this one again.

Those are the ones I read, or at least tried to read. Still TBR:
Just Kids by Patti Smith. Memoir.
The Innocent by Harlan Coben. Coben's books are always good.
Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA by Maryn McKenna.
Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn. Murder mystery set in South Africa in the 1950s.
The Odds by Kathleen George.
The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman
Muse and Reverie by Charles de Lint  I am just starting this author's books. (Thanks, Chris!) I like his writing  -- urban fantasy at its best.
Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher.

A couple books to help out the vacation knitting:
Knit One Below by Elise Duvekot.
Knitting from the Top by Barbara Walker.

And finally, just for fun -- not. I am the chair of the governing committee for the county-owned nursing home, and I felt the need to learn as much as I can.
Planning for Long-Term Care by United Seniors Health Council
The Complete Legal Guide to Senior Care: A Plain English Guide to Making Sense of the Residential, Financial, and Medical Maze by Brett McWhorter Sember
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Long-Term Care Planning by Merilee Driscoll

There you have it. Now it is time to stop writing about books and go read them*. TTFN!

* For those of you at home keeping score, we have been on vacation for ~3 weeks and have 1 week left. I brought along 18 books and have read 5. What is wrong with this picture?

More random.

Censorship: it's as American as, well, censorship.

From boingboing.net:

"A music-industry speaker at an American Chamber of Commerce event in Stockholm waxed enthusiastic about child porn, because it serves as the perfect excuse for network censorship, and once you've got a child-porn filter, you can censor anything:

'Child pornography is great,' the speaker at the podium declared enthusiastically. 'It is great because politicians understand child pornography. By playing that card, we can get them to act, and start blocking sites. And once they have done that, we can get them to start blocking file sharing sites.'

The venue was a seminar organized by the American Chamber of Commerce in Stockholm on May 27, 2007, under the title 'Sweden -- A Safe Haven for Pirates?'. The speaker was Johan Schlüter from the Danish Anti-Piracy Group, a lobby organization for the music and film industry associations, like IFPI and others...

'One day we will have a giant filter that we develop in close cooperation with IFPI* and MPA. We continuously monitor the child porn on the net, to show the politicians that filtering works. Child porn is an issue they understand,' Johan Schlüter said with a grin, his whole being radiating pride and enthusiasm from the podium."

IFPI's strategy on porn.

* IFPI = International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. From their website:

"IFPI represents the recording industry worldwide, with a membership comprising some 1400 record companies in 66 countries and affiliated industry associations in 45 countries. IFPI's mission is to promote the value of recorded music, safeguard the rights of record producers and expand the commercial uses of recorded music in all markets where its members operate."

* * * * *

I just finished reading this book. It was absolutely fascinating -- I read until 2 a.m. two nights in a row because I was so enthralled.

Markopolos was a quant -- a numbers guy in the securities industry -- who figured out after five minutes analysis (5 minutes!) in 1999 that Bernard Madoff was a fraud, either doing a type of trading that is illegal or, more likely, running a Ponzi scheme. Markpolos's boss at the investment firm where he worked wanted him to reverse engineer Madoff's trading strategy so they could duplicate it. They were losing clients to Madoff and wanted to be able to compete with him. 

From Amazon/Publisher's Weekly:

"Markopolos, the whistleblower who filed five unheeded complaints against Ponzi king Bernie Madoff over nine years, has produced an astonishing true-life whodunit set amidst the personalities, plots, and international intrigue of Wall Street. Having collected damning information on money manager Madoff -- the respected co-founder of NASDAQ who ran the largest financial scam in history -- since 1999, Markopolos's work as a chartered financial analyst and certified fraud examiner, aided by an industry journalist and two colleagues from his days as a derivatives portfolio manager, lays bare the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a tragically inept regulating agency that 'didn't give a rat's ass about protecting investors,' and seemed to consider Madoff 'just another guy cutting some corners.' Realizing he had not one but two powerful opponents -- 'Madoff and this non-functioning agency' -- Markopolos refused to give up, despite fearing for his life and his family; accordingly, he transmits his team's determination and fascination in contagious detail. The hows and whys of Madoff's eventual arrest, Markopolos's subsequent appearances before Congress, and the carnival of press coverage makes a satisfying conclusion to this strange epic; Markopolos also includes complete documentation of his formal submissions to the SEC, plus his recommendations for much-needed reform at the agency."

Part of my fascination with this story stems from my professional history. I was an auditor for three years and by sheer chance ended up specializing in the securities industry. After that I spent seven years at a regional financial services firm. This was back in the 1980s and things have changed since then, but enough has remained the same that I recognized the industry I was acquainted with. Plus, after I had finished the book, I realized that a number of my tax clients probably had invested for years in one of the funds that had >$1 billion *invested* with Madoff; the head of that fund committed suicide two weeks after Madoff was arrested.

If you have any interest in the world of finance and/or fraud and/or government regulation -- or you just like a good thriller -- you should read this book.

* * * * *

This video brought back memories. Back in about 1987, when #1 Son was 2-1/2, he loved Labyrinth. He must have watched it 50 or 100 times. Srsly.

He would put on a pair of tall black dress winter boots with 1" heels that I had then (the boots were knee-high on me; on him they came up to his crotch) and carry some kind of stick to be a scepter/wand, just like The Goblin King. He would stand in front of the TV and [attempt to] sing along with "the baby song", all the while wiggling his butt and dancing back and forth in an imitation of TGK. I especially liked it when he would yell "Quiet!" at the goblins, right along with David Bowie.

Smokey sent this YouTube video to #1. We are waiting to hear if he remembers anything of those days.

* * * * *

Speaking of sons, #2 Son is, even as I type, hosting the No-Hater Rolling Dance Super Bike Mega Party 2010.0. Perhaps you remember the N-HRDSBMP2K9? Apparently that one was such a success that he is repeating it.

As you can see in the photos in the linked post, one Saturday night in last October he and about 20 others rode their bikes together through light rain and partied and danced (under bridges, where it was dry) until the wee hours. This time? As of some time last week there were already 248 people signed up to attend.

He got a parade permit from the City of Minneapolis, just in case.

* * * * *

On the knitting front, my multicolored striped top-down raglan now has a yoke, two sleeves, and a few -- say, 3 -- inches of body. I will definitely have it ready to wear by next winter. I hope to be able to wear it if necessary when we go camping near Glacier National Park in June.

Currently, I also have the second sock of two different pairs OTN and am having great fun making log cabin felted potholders for the Friends of the Polk County Libraries to sell this summer. I also have committed to at least one hat for a Relay for Life in fund raiser in June. Progress on all projects is being documented photographically. Stay tuned.

Saturday sky and stuff.

That, my friends, is today's Saturday sky as viewed through my OPEN sunroof today. Seeing a blue sky through an open sunroof -- in February -- may not be a big deal in California or Arizona or Texas or Alabama (I'm looking at you, Yarnhog and Cookie and Squish and Carrie and Elizabeth) but it is cause for great rejoicing here in northern Wisconsin. We still have 100% snow cover (except for roads and sidewalks that have been cleared) but the sun was warm enough today to go parka-less. Yee-haw, yew betcha!

* * * * *

Have you read Driftless by David Rhodes? He is a Wisconsin author, and I heard him speak today in a nearby city as the kick-off event for that community's Big Read.

I had just finished the book last weekend, having followed the recommendation of someone in my book club, then got an email on Tuesday announcing today's author event. Serendipity scores! 

I loved this book. Great story, captivating characters, excellent writing. The further I got in the book the more it became evident to me that this author had thought about things. A lot. It seemed that every other sentence had something in it that demanded me to put the book down and spend the next day mentally chewing on it.

The author published a couple books years ago, then spent the last 20 years on a wheelchair as the result of an accident. He said today that it took him ten years to write Driftless. Yep, he thought a lot.

Anywho, I recommend the book. If you read it, let me know what you think.

The event today was held at the St. Croix National Scenic River Visitor Center. The visitors center is a beautiful newish building near downtown and right next to the river and surrounded by native plantings.

 

 

 

There was a good turnout for the event.

 

The author was low-key and friendly.

And, as always, the hand-knits made a good showing.

 

 

How we decide.

I finished this book last night. The author describes the neurological bases of our decision-making processes. There is the prefrontal cortex, which is the rational, analytic bit, and then there are the emotional bits, whose names I don't remember except for the amygdala. All the bits interact, they argue, sometimes they help us make the best decision, sometimes not. But the whole thing was utterly fascinating to me. 

A couple years ago I read Hardwired Behavior: What Neuroscience Reveals About Morality. (Confession: I didn't finish the book; it was a tougher read than the one I just finished.) Both of these books present recent research showing how brain physiology relates to behavior. I'm oversimplifying, of course, but you get the idea. The effect of both books is to, once again, make one reflect on the relationship between scientific knowledge and religious and moral beliefs.

Like I said, fascinating.

Another day, another $60.

Sixty dollars is what I get paid for attending a committee meeting. Today was the second day of testimony in the hearing. Tomorrow will probably be the rest of the testimony, and Friday the committee will deliberate and decide. As secretary of the committee I will write up the minutes of that meeting and document our decision. Whatever that is.

Sixty dollars is really not much, but it keeps this elected official stuff from feeling entirely like volunteer work. I should have put my checks into a special account and dedicated it to a special purpose. Maybe next year.

Tonight, though, is Fun Night. We have a free dinner and overnight stay at the Native American-run casino near us. The hearing session today adjourned unexpectedly early, at 2:30 instead of 5:00, so Smokey and I were able to drive to the casino a couple hours earlier than we expected.

Right now he is off somewhere, presumably feeding the slot machines, and I am taking advantage of the free wireless internet. In an hour or so he will come fetch me for dinner, after which he will return to the slots and I will return to this comfortable room to enjoy knitting, cable TV (we do not have that at home), The Graveyard Book on my iPod, and Lolita in the paperback analog version. It will be an exciting and satisfying evening for all.

Let me tell you a little bit about Lolita. I am trying, bit by bit, to at least attempt to read all the books that are classics, or famous, or that for some reason I feel that I should have read. I cannot remember now why I clicked on Lolita in the library catalog to request it, but I am enjoying it. Surprisingly, it is funny! There are plot twists that make me laugh at their irony or incongruity.

Edgar Humbert Humbert is an admitted pedophile who lusts after pre-pubescent nymphets. But not all pre-pubescent nymphets; he is only attracted to the ones in whom he senses a certain evil, a certain seductive allure. If you are old enough to remember 1981, think of Brooke Shields in that infamous Calvin Klein ad. That kind of nymphet.

So after various escapades and a failed marriage and some lightly touched-upon interludes in sanataria, EHH comes to America. He takes a room in the house of a widow who just happens to have a 12-yo daughter, Dolores. He lusts after Dolores, whom her mother calls Lo. EHH transforms that name into Lolita and devises a brilliant plan: he will marry the widow, who lusts for him, in order to be near Lo. However, Lo acts suggestive and seductive around him, and her mother is jealous. After the wedding she sends Lo off to summer camp. EHH is heartbroken but tells himself he can wait until fall when she returns from camp.

Then the mother tells him that she is going to send Lo directly from summer camp to a boarding school, from whence Lo will eventually go directly to college! EHH is devastated.

He contemplates murdering the mother but cannot bring himself to do so.

She snoops in his desk and finds his diary, in which he has written of his feelings for Lo. Wife is disgusted, tells him she will not allow him ever to see Lo again, yada yada. She is writing letters, presumably telling her friends or relatives of his despicable character and desires, but when she leaves the house to mail the letters she is hit by a car and killed.

Whee! thinks EHH. She's gone! Lo is mine!

He persuades the various friends and neighbors and officials not to contact Lo at summer camp with the tragic news. Once he has taken care of any necessary funeral arrangements, he will drive there to tell her himself.

All goes as to plan. He picks her up from summer camp, telling her that her mother is sick, in a hospital, and will need an operation. Lo is fairly indifferent to this, as she and her mother fought most of the time anyway. Eventually he tells her that her mother is dead. No reaction.

EHH and Lo travel the US for a year. He drugs her so he can feel her up at night (he considers himself honorable because he makes no attempt at penetration.) She seduces him, he discovers he is not her first lover, but he continues to lust for her. Although EHH now has his heart's (and other bodily parts') desire, she turns out to be not nearly as much *fun* as he had expected. She is moody. She is petulant. She is childish. She is greedy. She is manipulative.

The year of traveling reminded me so much of The Ransom of Red Chief, the short story by Mark Twain [edited to correct] O. Henry, that it made me laugh out loud. I'm only a little over halfway through the book, so I can only imagine (actually, I cannot imagine) what will happen next.

The book is so different than what I expected. When I finish it I must re-read part of Reading Lolita in Tehran so that I can understand what they are talking about.

* * * * *

Smokey just walked in. Time for dinner. He is $102 ahead right now. Yay for the luck of The Bear!

The Last of Her Kind by Sigrid Nunez.

My book group read this in September. Unfortunately, the discussion was just a couple days after my ankle surgery so I missed it. I had read about half the book when I put it aside after the ankle break and found it intriguing. Then it got buried under the slew of mysteries and other brain candy that I read during my convalescence, but I pulled it out a couple nights ago. I was a little leery of trying to pick up a book I had dropped over a month ago, but as soon as I read a paragraph I was completely immersed in it again.

A plot summary from Publishers Weekly, via Amazon.com:

When Georgette George and Ann Drayton meet in 1968 as freshmen roommates at Barnard College, Georgette marvels that her privileged, brilliant roommate envies Georgette's rough, impoverished childhood. Through the vehicle of this fascinating friendship, Nunez's sophisticated new novel (after For Rouenna) explores the dark side of the countercultural idealism that swept the country in the 1960s. Hyperbolic even for the times, Ann's passionate commitment to her beliefs—unwavering despite the resentment from those she tries to help—haunts Georgette, the novel's narrator, long after the women's lives diverge. In 1976, Ann lands in prison for shooting and killing a policeman in a misguided attempt to rescue her activist black boyfriend from a confrontation. The novel's generous structure also gracefully encompasses the story of Georgette's more conventional adult life in New York (she becomes a magazine editor, marries, and bears two children), plus that of Georgette's runaway junkie sister. Nunez reveals Ann's life in prison via a moving essay by one of her fellow inmates. By the end of this novel—propelled by rich, almost scholarly prose—all the parts come together to capture the violent idealism of the times while illuminating a moving truth about human nature.

I remember the sixties, although I was slightly too young and way too rural to really partake of them until the seventies. This book does a remarkable job of recreating certain of the ethos and conflicts of the period, plus it has fascinating characters. I recommend it.