A Reader's Life

Being West Virginian: Part Two

2012-02-01T22:26:00.000-08:00

With my apologies to Forgotten Bookmarks.com, I found this remarkable note in a used book:
The envelope was addressed to "323 Brush Run".

"I am very sorry for knocking down your mailbox. I was very upset when it happened. I did not even think about stopping at your house. I was so upset I was in tears. I was afraid I was going over the hill.
"Here is a new mailbox and numbers. Again, I am very sorry."

How many people would have done this, and how many kept on going, thinking they hadn't been seen?

Only in West Virginia?

I finished the Pete Hamill book, Downtown: My Manhattan, this morning, reluctantly. I didn't want it to end. I'm sure there are hundreds of books about New York, but this one, written by a newspaperman, was so good it made me wish I'd been there to see the immigrants coming from all over the world to start new lives, the neighborhoods, vaudeville, Winchell, Broadway, the Flatiron building, the towering skyscrapers . . . fascinating. Not to mention the new words gleaned from its pages - Saturnalia, praetorian, spaldeen . . .I forgot for a while I was in my living room. Some trip!

The temperature has been in the 60's and the ski resorts here have to make their own snow to stay in business. None for me, thanks. Those two treacherous days in January when everything was coated in ice are all the winter I need. We'll see what the groundhog says in the morning, though. And maybe they'll show that movie.

I think our new favorite show "Wind at my Back" is about to end, and we've seen most of the Waltons, so it's a good thing spring is on the way. We'll need some new activities. I'm going to miss John-Boy, though. If the Waltons were taking place, now, John-Boy would have a blog, Olivia would have a career, and the kids would be texting instead of talking at the long dinner table. Um, I think I prefer it the way it is.

Have a great week!

Becoming Grownup

2012-01-25T23:25:00.000-08:00

It's one a.m., and Hubby and I are just now going to bed. We can do that, though, because there's nobody to tell us not to. We're grownups.

Slowly, insidiously, we're turning into our parents. There's a Reagan calendar on the wall and an American flag in the front yard. The television is on 24/7. We don't listen to the radio; who can understand the words of those songs? Our favorite singers have all gone to Branson.

We watch the Dow Jones rise and fall religiously, though we haven't any investments to speak of. Our favorite shows are reruns. We like Andy and Barney, Ben Cartwright, Larry the Cable guy, and John-Boy.

Over time, the lines have blurred. He likes Lifetime movies; I like CSI. Once when I was gone, he watched my soap and told me about it. We share the same barber. I finish his sentences; he reads my mind. If we go out, I know when he wants to leave.

Sometimes he drags me outside to look at some phenomenon of nature - a meteor shower at 2 a.m., bright red cardinals perched in a snow-covered apple tree at Christmas, a once-in-a-lifetime view of a comet, or walnuts falling after a frost. Thanks, babe.

Being grownup? It's everything I thought it would be, and more.

The weather here is great. We've only had a couple of snows, and temperatures have been in the 50's for the last week or so. And spring is only 53 days away. How is it in your neck of the woods?

For those who like New York, especially if you read the Jeremiah's Vanishing New York blog, Pete Hamill, one-time editor-in-chief of the New York Post and the New York Daily News, has written a book called Downtown, My Manhattan. (2004) Hamill chronicles the ages of Manhattan "from its tooth-and-claw infancy through two centuries of metamorphosis -- through one man's eyes and memory". Whether you have been to New York, or only viewed it through television and books, you have to admit it is fascinating.

Somewhere, crocuses are blooming and seed catalogs are waiting. Think spring!

A Turkey Tale

2012-01-18T20:55:00.000-08:00

Ever since fall, we've been seeing a flock of 18 to 25 turkeys roaming through everyone's back yard, looking for whatever, and we've enjoyed watching nature close up. It had to have a downside, and this was it:

My brother-in-law puts out some corn for the turkeys, and the other morning he and his wife were at breakfast, when suddenly the electricity in the house went off. Searching to find the cause, he looked out to see the electric wire hanging off the pole and a downed turkey nearby, part of the flock that had flown in to eat. The turkey turned out to be okay, though, but he had some explaining to do when the repairman arrived. Only in West Virginia?

Hubby and I are enjoying our latest discovery, a Canadian series called "Wind at My Back" on INSP (the inspirational channel that also gives us "Little House on the Prairie" and "The Waltons"). It's not new, but it's new to us, and people here have been talking about it, so we checked it out, and liked it. Like the Waltons, it takes place in the 1930's, during the Depression. Very enjoyable on a winter day, and a nice change of pace from the soaps. Since our cable was downsized, we've been looking for good shows to watch and this is one of them.

Am I the only one who loved the classics we read in English class in high school, thrilling romantic novels like "Ivanhoe", and Thomas Hardy's "Return of the Native", "Silas Marner" "A Tale of Two Cities", "Macbeth", and the like? At my book sale I have a big display of the classics, but it's hard to drum up interest in them these days. There are a few diehard classic fans like me, but for the most part, it's all James Patterson and Nora Roberts. Yuck. Give me Thomas Hardy anytime.

Poet and memoirist Mary Karr says "Reading is socially accepted disassociation. You flip a switch and you're not there any more. It's better than heroin, more effective, and cheaper and legal."

I'm escaping this week in a memoir by Meredith Hall, called "Without a Map". Hall describes her expulsion from school in senior year when it was discovered she was pregnant. Giving up the child for adoption, she left home and traveled the world, mainly on foot without a map (thus the name), searching for herself and her lost youth. Maybe our grandkids will read this one in English class someday. On a Kindle, probably.

Our friend at Forgottenbookmarks.com had a lot of water damage in his store and lost many valuable books and also a collection of things he finds in books and writes about so interestingly. I will appreciate "my" books even more when I work this Friday, and I wish him well.

See you next week . . .

Being West Virginian

2012-01-11T21:57:00.000-08:00

We're just barely into winter and have only had one real snow. The ditches that weren't cleaned even once last year are hidden under leaves and beer cans, waiting to gobble up automobiles when roads turn icy. We called the State Road several times, but they never made it out. There's a jagged pothole on the corner we have to straddle, but when the snow covers it we'll have to guess where it is.

Deer hunting is over and the trail camera is back from the woods, filled with 290 pictures of all the deer, raccoons, turkeys and squirrels that made it through hunting season by the skin of their teeth (do turkeys have teeth?) and lived to see another year. Christmas decorations are under the bed, except for a few I used to make a Christmas corner to remember it by.

Our Mountaineers won the Orange Bowl football game in Florida a couple of weeks ago by a score of 70 to 33, setting all kinds of records. We are proud of them, but Jay Leno made a joke that their football score was higher than their ACT scores. Oh, ha ha, Jay. We're used to that kind of talk around here, and don't let it bother us. We don't watch him, anyway. At that hour of the night, we're usually in bed resting our blistered bare feet. Maybe next year Santa will bring us some shoes.

A couple of guys are trying their best to live up to our reputation, though. A new street sign was put up the other day and four hours later, a man was seen twisting it out of the ground and racing off with it in the back of his pickup. Nice going, buddy. Here's your sign . . .

And coming back from town today, we rounded a curve and there was a car smack in the middle of the road, talking to a guy in another car. He beeped his horn repeatedly at us as we approached, as if to say, hey, I'm in the middle of this road talking to my buddy, so back off. Hubby made it clear he wasn't going to do that, and the guy reluctantly pulled over into his own lane and left. Funny part is, there was a big parking lot right next to them they could have sat in and jawed for hours. Here's your sign, too, guys.

Jay would probably be surprised to hear that Hubby and I watched Masterpiece Theater last Sunday and enjoyed it. It is a series called Downton Abbey, starring Maggie Smith, about the folks in an English manor. Part of the Abbey has just been turned into a convalescent hospital for wounded British soldiers, so everyone is extra busy. There are a couple of love affairs going on at the same time. It will be fun to see what develops.

On a vintage episode of the Waltons the other day, West Virginia's David Selby (whose I.Q. is beyond reproach) played an art teacher who became smitten with Olivia, the Walton mom, who was attending an art class he taught. I'd forgotten how handsome David was in the 70's, probably around the time he played Quentin Collins in the Gothic soap, Dark Shadows. Here in Almost Heaven, we're as proud of David as we are of the WVU football team. Go Mountaineers!

I gobbled up Fancy Nancy's (Captionsbest) new book, Snippets II, in a night and it gave me all kinds of new ideas. Did I mention she is my new role model? Nothing stops her when she gets an idea. Thanks for your book, Nancy! Enjoy your snowless, pothole-free winter!

See you next week!

The Guns of December

2012-01-04T19:10:00.000-08:00

It's safe to come out now.

The New Years Eve guns are tucked safely back in their racks, and we're none the worse for the shooting that ensued at the stroke of midnight. The new windows are intact. The decorations have been put away and Christmas cards have been logged in a book, along with the master list and its revisions. The newsletters are in a special folder. The Christmas treats have dwindled down to three chocolate-covered cherries and four candy canes. We never did learn to make a decent pan of fudge, but have a couple more recipes to try, so maybe next year there will be fudge.

I didn't make any resolutions. Did you?

We watched the Rose Bowl parade Monday, and right at the end of it, there was a float honoring Roy Rogers, who would have been a hundred years old. A hundred palominos with their riders preceded the float, and suddenly I saw a horse fall, legs flying every which way. The camera quickly moved away from him, and nothing was said, so I wondered: did I really see it? A check of the Internet this morning confirmed it; there was even a youTube video. Something had spooked the horse, and the rider was thrown off. He got back up, limping a little. A scary few seconds.

The Minimalists this week threw out a challenge; try not to buy anything unnecessary for one year. I think I can do it; except for phone minutes and printer ink there's nothing I need. But if I were to spend money, there are these tempting items from the Japan Trend Shop (www.japantrendshop.com):

The Electric Nose Lift, $99.00. Reshape your ho-hum nose in only three minutes a day with electric vibrations.
Anti-wrinkle Glasses, $60.00
Face Exercise Mask, $98.00
The High-Tech Snore Stopper pillow, $409.00 (plus $63.00 shipping!) The pillow detects your snore and answers back with a light vibration. There is also an external audio jack to record your snores, in case you think family members are lying to you.

Even though there's no doubt these products would make me better looking (and rested), I'm afraid if I buy them, the Wall Street Protesters will be at my door, thinking I am in the 1%, not the 99, so the smile lines and the family nose will have to stay. I'll keep that address handy, though, just in case.

I wish you all the best in the new year. Excuse me; I have to go now and write "2012" on all my checks before I forget. See you next week!

Stretching Christmas

2011-12-28T21:20:00.000-08:00

There's a garland on the wall with ornaments hanging from it, containing the names of all of us, (I stole this idea from Days of Our Lives), including the new babies. Christmas cards frame the door between the living room and kitchen. A small tree dripping with candy canes changes colors constantly. The counter-tops are loaded with chocolate, fudge, cakes, oranges, home made bread and nuts. Christmas is over, but we're not letting go.

It was the Christmas nobody wanted. The hype started right after Halloween, the songs, and then Black Friday with the stories of brawling and pepper spraying as people fought over toys we'd never even heard of. No one felt like shopping, or wrapping. But we got it done somehow.

The cooking was only so-so. Pumpkin pie sloshed into the oven; fudge didn't harden. We disagreed on how to cook the ham. Dinner was almost an hour late. But somehow, when we sat down, magic happened. From the Grinchiest grownup to the smallest child, Christmas spirit arrived. And it's still here.

Now the work is done, and all that's left to do is relax. The Jingle Bell barking dogs are gone from the radio. The lights are still on in the neighborhood, and should be for a few more days. So I wonder: how long can we stretch it out? Through egg nog, Dick Clark and football games, at least, maybe longer. Pass me another chocolate-covered cherry, please.

Today we mark the passing of a true movie star. Cheetah, the ape friend of Tarzan, died at the ripe old age of 80. You remember Cheetah; he was the one without a loincloth.

As if the Forgotten Bookmarks book that I got for Christmas wasn't enough, yesterday in my mail there was fellow blogger Fancy Nancy's (Captionsbest) new book, Snippets II, "short, snappy stories" that entertain, educate, and inspire. The lady has spunk. I bet she can even make a decent pan of fudge.

The Given Day, by Dennis Lehane, the author of Mystic River, "unflinchingly captures the political and social unrest of a nation caught at the crossroads between past and future." It is the story of two families, one black, one white, in Boston in the early 1900's, of poverty and anarchy, corruption, and tragedy (the Spanish influenza epidemic; the great molasses flood of 1919; the police strike when crime ran rampant in the streets). A stunning book.

See you next week! (Are your guns loaded for New Years Eve?)

A Wrinkle in Time

2011-12-21T21:28:00.000-08:00

I've been reading a lot about Minimalism, and have come to one conclusion: we spend the first half of our lives accumulating possessions, and the second half gradually discarding them until we arrive right back where we started from.

Shakespeare described it best. I can't believe I'm saying that, because I've never liked the guy. But he really nailed it in his essay about the different phases of life, with all the world a stage, and the men and women merely players, beginning with the infant, then the schoolboy, the lover, (sighing like furnace - my favorite part), and eventually, leaving the world just the way we came in, minus the iPods, the flat screen TV, the Mercedes-Benz, and everything else we thought we needed. I find that oddly comforting and here's why:

I began married life with a little money saved up from an office job, a stack of 45 r.p.m. records (mainly Elvis), a stuffed elephant, set of Blue Willow dishes, some books by Robert Louis Stevenson and Rod McKuen, an old wooden radio, Royal manual typewriter, a best friend forever, and a Bible.

The money went for the down payment on a house. Over the years, all but a few of the dishes were broken; the typewriter finally wore out and was replaced by a computer. The records became cd's. My best friend and I lost touch. Things got complicated.

Life is simpler now. My friend and I reconnected and it's almost like it was in high school, except now the conversations are about grandchildren instead of the cute Geometry teacher down the hall. I found some Blue Willow dishes at a yard sale, and have most of the old 45's on tape where they don't take up so much space. I still love Stevenson and the Rod McKuen poems. The wooden radio works as well as ever and there's an Oldies station that plays a lot of Elvis. The Bible gives good advice, so who needs Dr. Phil? The wrinkle in time put me right back where I belong. So put another nickel in the jukebox and play Hound Dog for me, okay?

The spelling gremlins strike again: A book store advertises "Gifts, Cards, Stationary." Too bad; I was hoping to take some of those home.

Wally Lamb must have read our high-school diaries, because he knows what makes girls tick. In his first book, She's Come Undone, he follows Dolores Price through her teenage years after having lost her innocence at thirteen. A funny, tragic, John Irving-like story, well worth reading.

Merry Christmas! See you next week! (Don't buy too much stuff. . .)

Unsung Heroes

2011-12-14T21:35:00.000-08:00

It's almost the end of the year, so Hubby and I have been purging and decluttering. Lots of unneeded paperwork going into the shredder; a stack of glossy catalogs to the trash. Now we have some breathing room. I'm reading up the books I brought home or borrowed from the daughters, a thorough reading if they're good; a quick page-skim if they're not. I've found quite a few gems I didn't expect to like.

Time is rushing on, and there are Christmas cards (not holiday cards) to send, a home cooked meal to plan, and presents to buy. One of the Christmas miracles is that somehow it all gets done.

In the midst of this, there was a retirement party today for our librarian. The fact that she didn't want any hoopla didn't stop people from coming with gifts, cards, and flowers, and our mayor, quite a personable guy, even issued a proclamation, complete with therefores and whereas, in honor of her service to the town. We will miss her, but we had only borrowed her for a few years. Somewhere there is a family, a little blond-haired boy in particular, who will be glad to have their mother and grandma all to themselves again and not have to share her with the rest of us. Enjoy!

I heard today that the presidential gold dollars are being discontinued, due to the high cost of producing them. Too bad; they would have made a nice collection. So I guess I'll never get the Reagan dollar I was waiting for. I'll have to be satisfied with the stamp. Do you think Rick Perry looks a little like Reagan? I do.

The weather is nuts. 40's and 50's here; snow in Arizona. What's up with that?

Before you shop until you drop, read the Minimalist's blog. It's a real eye-opener.

Michael Popek works in the family business. No, not that business; he works in a used book store. And he's found so many interesting things in the books he decided to write his own book, called Forgotten Bookmarks. (It's a blog, too.) Wish I'd thought of it first. I found a recipe for Mamie Eisenhower's fudge (page 166) and figured if it was good enough for Ike, it was good enough for me. Yummy!

See you next week . . .

To sum up . . .

2011-12-09T03:50:00.001-08:00

So the other night my blog would not post and I needed to switch from Internet Explorer to Google Chrome. It took all night to download with my slow (Luddite) dialup, and a flannel shirt draped over the computer screen, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Did I mention I hate technology?

Here's a preview of what you missed on Wednesday:

"I found a new fax machine at Amazon. I'd been looking at it all week, deciding whether or not to order it, and when I finally did, guess what? The price had been reduced by $35 from the day before! Maybe I should get two.

A few days of rain finally turned to snow today. It's lovely with the Christmas decorations. My neighbor has a giant lighted star on his roof. And he didn't fall off that roof and into the cellar stairway like the guy down the street who's laid up now with a broken leg. A tilted ladder and a bucket of tar tell the rest of the story.

Jeopardy whiz Ken Jennings wrote in his blog today about world globes. I still have one Hubby gave me for my birthday eons ago, and it's irreplaceable. Of course, it's outdated and some countries - well, they're just not there any more, and a whole crop of new ones have come along. But there's something about the sound it makes when you tap a fingernail on it, and the feeling of running your hand over the Appalachian mountains or the Rockies can't be topped by Google Earth on a computer screen. Some things are timeless.

When I popped into the library today, a children's group was meeting, and they began singing along with a recording of John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads". Some of them were too little to even know what it meant, but they still knew the words. It's not the official state song, but it ought to be.

We rented the movie Water For Elephants, and I think it compares well to the book by Sarah Gruen. Hal Holbrook, Robert Pattinson, and Reese Witherspoon do a great job, and so does the elephant.

Don't forget the lunar eclipse on the 10th and meteor showers on the 14th, and in between, heartwarming Christmas specials on tv. Unless you don't like heartwarming. I do."

We had our annual library dinner Thursday night at a nice restaurant. It was great and I ate too much but still had a doggie box of food to bring home to hubby, who also loved it. One of the best parts was when my boss gave me a gift that still amazes me -- the new Forgotten Bookmarks book. I've been wanting to read it, and she had no idea. She's a keeper.

See you next week - won't I, Blogger?

See you next week! (I hope)

Are We Having Fun Yet?

2011-12-09T03:34:00.001-08:00

I downloaded the Google Chrome hoping it will solve my problem of posting on the blog. Let's give it a try . . .

Gone, But Not Forgotten

2011-11-30T21:22:00.000-08:00

Luddite: a person opposed in principle to technological change.

In the movie "You've Got Mail", Meg Ryan's boyfriend (I think it was Greg Kinnear) is a newspaper columnist who does his writing on an old electric typewriter, not a computer. He even buys an extra typewriter exactly like the first, just because he likes it so much. I know it's silly, but I liked my ten year old Sharp plain paper fax machine that much, and now that it's officially D.O.W. (dead in the water) (literally!) all I can think about is getting another one just like it.

Oh sure, the paper jammed now and then, and I'd have to open it up and pull out the wrinkled mess, and it always had a hum. The copy key stuck if I gave it anything but the lightest of taps. It wasn't perfect, but I liked it and now it's sitting over in the Queen Anne chair wondering what it did wrong.

When I get a new fax machine, I'm going to make a plastic cover for it, in case the roof leaks again.

Today is the seven year anniversary of the day Ken Jennings lost on Jeopardy. He lost on a question that even hubby and I knew the answer to, but then we're older and have more life experience than he has, and that counts for a lot. It's one of the perks. If there are perks.

There's a chill in the air that makes one think of shopping and Christmas cards. In the center of town some of the businesses have adopted light poles and decorated them with colored bulbs and garland and candy canes. The Christmas parade is Saturday. There's a big buck contest on the local television station, and a can of gas for the snow blower in the woodshed. I guess we're ready.

Through Many Windows, by Arthur Gordon, is a feel-good book of twenty three short stories, many from fifty years ago or so, that will make you smile and desire to look for more out of life. I read it in an evening, it was that good. Mr. Gordon has written for all the major magazines and for Guideposts.

See you next week!

You Don't Have to Call Me Darling, Darling

2011-11-23T23:29:00.000-08:00

I've been listening lately to an Oldies country music station. I don't think much of the new stuff, but anything by Merle Haggard, George Jones, Johnny Cash or Glen Campbell gets my attention.

In her book A Walk in the Spring Rain, Rachel Maddux said there are only two country songs, the fast one and the sad one. It's kind of true. David Allan Coe parodied he'd written the perfect country song when he sang these lines from "You never Even Called Me By My Name":

"I was drunk when my mom got out of prison, and I went to pick her up in the rain, but before I could get to the station in my pickup truck, she got runned over by a d---ed old train . . ."

He was joking, of course (I think) but sorrow and regret are key in a country song. And these always stop me dead in my tracks: The Loser's Cathedral, and My Elusive Dreams, by David Houston; My Old Yellow Car, by Dan Seals; Run For the Roses, by Dan Fogelburg; Things I Wish I'd Said, by Rodney Crowell; Farewell Party, by Gene Watson. Before I know it, I'm draped over the radio like a sixteen-year old, inhaling the sadness. The pumpkin pies can wait.

The leaky roof returned with a vengeance yesterday, as the temporary patch sprung a leak after two days of rain, and before I noticed it, the phone/fax machine was sizzled. Hubby noticed the funky smell it gave off as he came in the door. I've dried it out, but I think it's done for. It was ten years old, so I guess it's time to dig a hole in the back yard and then look for a newer, spiffier one. But maybe I'll write a song about it first.

Before we stop teaching cursive writing in schools, consider this news item from Wheeling, WV:
"Bad penmanship dooms robber. Police are searching for a would-be bank robber whose attempt failed because a teller couldn't read his handwriting. They say the teller couldn't make sense of his note and asked him if it was a joke. The man became frustrated and left." Somewhere out there, there's a future bank robber who needs help with his penmanship. Are we going to deny him that?

One Sunday Morning, by Amy Ephron, is ". . .a captivating tale of wealth, society, and scandal set in 1920's New York and Paris". Ms. Ephron brings to life the era of Prohibition, the Jazz Age, and New York high society, when women were testing their new freedom, and yet the slightest indiscretion could ruin a life. A small book, but a good read.

Happy Thanksgiving! See you next week. We'll compare diets.

When Mother Nature Comes Knocking

2011-11-16T20:56:00.000-08:00

Usually I have only nice things to say about the weather here in Almost Heaven, but the other night someone decided it was our turn. A nasty windstorm blew in from the West and flipped our front porch roofing neatly up on top of the house as we slept, and when Hubby rose, poured a cup of coffee, and eased into his recliner, he sank into a swamp. Next thing I knew, there were bowls on the living room rug, and he was shaking water out of his calculater and wallet.

Thanks to a neighborhood carpenter, the roofs were soon under temporary wraps, and the insurance man (who was getting ready to start a deer hunting vacation) had done his part, and soon there will be a new porch roof.

Really, Mother Nature?

From Harrisburg, PA comes this opening line: "Some people are just shellfish."
"State police say a trailer holding more than 16 tons of seafood was stolen over the weekend from a central Pennsylvania truck stop."
I like to think they've been released back into the ocean to live carefree lives. Except for the crabs, who will always be crabby . . .

It's been two months since my hmm hmmth class reunion in Rhode Island, and no booklet has arrived in the mail, filled with those lies we all write every ten years telling everyone what we're doing, and describing our fabulous jobs. So today I was curious enough to Google the reunion, and guess what? There was a YouTube video of the classmates who attended, and their names were at the bottom of each picture. They looked great.
Oh sure, Mother Nature and her husband, Father Time, have given us a few smile lines and a love handle here and there, (thank goodness for name tags), but all in all, we're doing okay. There were even some teachers in attendance. Mr. Butler, if I'd known you'd be there, I swear I would have made the trip. I credit the salt air - and legally purchased sea food - for our longevity. Here's to the next ten years!

Kees Popinga is the chief clerk of a ships' chandlery in the northern Dutch city of Groningen, a man satisfied that his life is the best one possible. Then it all blows up in his face. His employer turns out to have been cooking the books, and is fleeing the country.

Popinga becomes unhinged, and commits a murder, and from then on, he plays a game of cat and mouse with the police, racing toward destruction, in Georges Simenon's book, The Man Who
Watched Trains Go By. If all you know of Simenon is his light and airy Inspector Maigret mysteries, you have a treat coming.

See you next week!

The Perfect Lead

2011-11-09T22:40:00.000-08:00

Many years ago, when I fancied myself as a writer and sent off articles to the local paper at least once a month, the new young editor there noticed, and invited me to the newspaper office to visit. As I was leaving, he fished around in his desk and brought out a little booklet: "How to Write the Perfect Lead". First lines are important, he said. You have to grab the reader's attention right away. He was just another kid. Just another bush leaguer. Just another wide-eyed, 18-year-old with a lump in his throat, a knot in his stomach and a dream in his heart.

Corny? A little. but it makes you want to read on. And today there was the "perfect lead", in an article on Michael Jackson, by Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald:

"Once upon a time, there was a boy who channeled the gods. He invoked them through his feet, moving without friction across the gleam of a thousand stages."

It took me back, to young Michael singing "Ben", and the beautiful "Gone Too Soon", "Thriller" and "Billie Jean", wowing us with his rare talent. We'll miss you, Michael.

Do you have a shoebox full of little pieces of paper containing things that amused you when you read them, facts you need to look up someday, quotes that moved you? I do, and once in a while I fish around in there and find something like this, from a nature show about insects: "Being able to spray highly concentrated vinegar out your bottom is a great defense." Indeed.

A used-book sale coup: Last week I found all six installments of Stephen King's The Green Mile. Together. What's next? An encyclopedia without one volume missing? And today, while waiting for a bus, I looked up from my bench and discovered a new little antique shop. It's called Curiosity Cupboard, and sorry, mystery lovers, there were no killer gremlins or man-eating Venus flytraps inside, just some lovely antiques, at reasonable prices. My new Minimalist lifestyle won't let me buy anything, though. If I did, I'd have to throw something else away, like a ratty sweater or the binoculars that only work on one side. Baby steps. . .

See you next week!

Life -- The Way it Was

2011-11-02T22:52:00.000-07:00

I spent the last couple of days reading Life magazines from the 1940's that were donated to the book sale and it's been a revelation. Hubby and I have been watching reruns of the Waltons that for the past few weeks have revolved around the World War II years. The whole town, it seems, played a part in the war effort, whether it was joining up, collecting metals, rationing, or entertaining the enlisted men. Patriotism was at its peak, and the pages of Life reflect that. Even the ads are patriotic. The man of the forties was red, white and blue from his Wildroot Creme Oil hair tonic right down to his Florsheim wingtip shoes. I don't see that now, and it's too bad.

Speaking of ads, how in the world did Victoria's Secret get my address? They're barking up the wrong tree here.

Is it "barbecue" or "barbeque"? Make up your minds.

My caller I.D. today registered a call from New York. Maybe the Wall Street protesters looking for new recruits? I don't answer unfamiliar numbers so I guess I'll never know. The last time I protested anything was when our kids' schoolbuses had to drive over an unsafe bridge. We won that battle and got a new bridge and our pictures in the paper to boot. Don't tell the Wall Street protesters, though. It's too cold to go.

Hubby and I are snacking on the leftover Halloween candy. There were some sprinkles so Trick or Treat traffic was light. We enjoyed it, though. I heard there was a woman who gave out hot dogs and hot chocolate as treats, and she was very popular. What's better than hot chocolate on a chilly October night?

Did you ever think of running away to join the circus? Jacob Jankowski did, and when he is shuttled off to a nursing home at age 93, with his children griping about whose turn it is to visit, he recalls and relives those marvelous years in the book Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen. It's a keeper.

See you next week!

Pat Boone and the Boomers

2011-10-26T21:41:00.000-07:00

Hubby and I were shopping for essentials in Rite Aid the other day, when an old Pat Boone song, Moody River, came on the radio. Rite Aid, like many stores, plays the oldies because they know there are people like us shopping and want us to have a pleasurable experience. They know modern music would send us screaming out into the parking lot holding our ears. And what better epitomizes the fifties than Moody River, with lyrics like          'Moody River, your muddy water
                                Took my baby's life'
We loved those tragedy songs, and can name them instantly and sing most of the words. It takes us back.

All in all, it's a great time to be a Boomer. The world is our oyster. There are more of us than ever before, and everyone wants our business. There are special boomer cell phones with large numbers, easy-to-learn computers, cheap Internet providers, antique stores, car cruises, campgrounds, and diners springing up on every corner. There are car phones that talk to us, late-night radio shows, and cable channels like Lifetime, Hallmark, and Inspiration featuring shows from a kinder, gentler era.

Eat your hearts out, kids.

Next week begins the third year of my blog. There have been a lot of changes in my life since this started. For one thing, two new babies have arrived in the family, and, I suspect there will be more. Hubby and I have changed and mellowed, and learned and done things I never expected. I have a journal, and a new pen habit I'm trying to curb, and the medicine cabinet is filling up with vitamins. And so it goes.

Signs that make me scratch my head:
This one advertising a spaghetti dinner given by Knights of Columbus:
                           YOU WON'T GO AWAY HUNGARY
(Hey, what did Hungary ever do to you?)
And this one, at Dairy Queen, which is about to close for the winter:
                            LAST WEEK
                            HOURS 2-8
(Fine, but what about this week?)

Among the stack of books on my nightstand waiting to be read: Marcia Clark: Her Private Trials and Public Triumphs, (the O.J. Simpson trial), Driving Blind, by Ray Bradbury, (my favorite Sci-Fi writer), Relic, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Don't Sing at the Table, by Adriana Trigiani (author of Big Stone Gap, and one of my favorites), and John Irving's Last Night in Twisted River. Good stuff.

Have a great week!

It's the End of the World ---- Again

2011-10-19T22:50:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder - remember back in May when the end of the world was predicted for May 21, and then, when it failed to happen, the guy said he was mistaken, and it would actually be October 21? It's almost here (Insert Twilight Zone music).

If the world does end, I've wasted a lot of time the last few days cleaning my house. It seems that now my vision is normal, suddenly I notice there are cobwebs everywhere, and fingerprints and grunge. The windows all need washing, so we can keep an eye on those mischievous neighbors, and watch deer and squirrels in the back yard. The kitchen floor could stand a good scrubbing. Don't even ask what's behind the sofa - you don't want to know. Suffice it to say I'll be busy for quite a while - unless the world ends on Friday.

It seems that more and more often these days we pick up the paper to find that someone we knew quite well has passed away. And frequently that person was important in our lives, but guess what? We never told him/her. And we wish we had.

Late night talk show host Jimmy Fallon does a bit on Friday nights where he writes a thank you note, puts it in an envelope, licks and seals it. Maybe I could do something like that.

First would be relatives. We don't see them often enough, but we know they have our backs. Mom, you are the glue that holds the family together. Shirley and George, you are the missing parts of me. Cousin Julia, you are my role model.

Shirley, Cathy, Kathy, Nina, and Bob. You made working for you a joy. Hubby, daughters, grand and great grandkids, you are the reason I get up in the morning.

Erma Bombeck, Andy Rooney, Garrison Keillor, Sharon Randall, Rod McKuen and Tom T. Hall, the things you write save my life every day. Thank you all.

It's October, the best month of the year. Well, except for the ladybugs. There are colored leaves everywhere, and homemade applesauce in the crockpot. Coonhounds are baying, squirrels are burying walnuts all over the lawn, and the benches and picnic table are covered with their shells. There's a Jack o'lantern on the back porch, a pile of quilts and a sackful of books for the cold nights, and Waltons reruns every day after Jeopardy and Wheel. (Thank you, Earl Hamner.) And, oh yes, pumpkin pie is just around the corner.

See you next week!

Headlines

2011-10-12T21:48:00.000-07:00

Do you ever read those strange headlines when connecting to the Internet? Tonight the one that caught my eye was "Family lost in Mass. corn maze calls 911 for help". It turns out they were only 25 feet from the road but didn't know it. I've never been in a corn maze and this sounds like a good reason not to.

Another strange story was this: "Three hospitalized when pot brownies served at funeral". This one took place in (surprise) California, and the brownies were a tribute to the deceased by his friends. Only they neglected to tell the guests, some of whom were in their 80's.

A young couple who needed money for their upcoming wedding stole copper from electric poles, but it only netted them $18.

They were caught and the cost to replace the copper was $400.

A man who was attacked by a deer that came into the house while the door was open, was forced to defend himself with a shovel, killing the animal. Why he had a shovel in the house wasn't clear, but I bet he was glad he did.

Lastly, a woman was trapped between her bed and the wall for four long days until finally she was missed and police were sent to look for her.
Have any of these ever happened to you? Consider yourself lucky.

There have been plenty of romantic songs written about satin sheets, and none at all, that I know of, about flannel sheets. But at this time of year, with a cold rain bringing down the leaves and wind whistling through the crack under the door, nothing feels better, after fighting your way out of a corn maze, than diving into flannel sheets and falling asleep to an oldies radio station. It's one of the perks. Pull the bed away from the wall, though, just in case.

The Color Orange

2011-10-05T22:43:00.000-07:00

It's October, so orange is everywhere. That suits me just fine, since my birthday is two days away from Halloween, and I love the fall colors. I probably mentioned before that my room/office is painted orange.
I think I like orange so much because when my cataract was at its fiercest, all colors seemed dull, so I was constantly trying to brighten things up. The girls took to giving me orange dishes and thingamabobs for birthdays and special occasions. I live for Halloween peeps. Now that I can see clearly again, I won't be constantly looking for a new bright thing, but orange will always be special to me. A note: I never thought of using orange ink, but now that someone has mentioned it, I'm on it.

Isn't it funny that the day I wrote about Ogden Nash, another blogger did, too, and there was an Ogden Nash question on Jeopardy. I guess I'm really on the cutting edge, huh?

Since I've been wandering around without my glasses, I wonder: how long does it take before you stop reaching up to push them back on your nose? I feel really dumb when I do that. Actually, I will have to get reading glasses in a couple of weeks, but meanwhile I'm enjoying the freedom.

On the 9/11 anniversary, I re-read the beautiful article, Meet Me in the Stairwell on the Internet. I'd read it ten years ago when it was first written, and wondered if it would still be here. It was. If you've never read it, Google it. It's beautiful.

Wonder if Pilot pens makes an orange one.

Susan Fletcher has written a coming-of-age first novel, Eve Green.
Eve is an eight-year old girl when the book begins, living with her grandparents after the sudden death of her mother. And there is a mystery about her birth that time will unravel as she returns to her mother's birthplace. A young girl comes up missing. Is this part of the mystery, too?

Our fellow blogger, Fancy Nancy, is working on a second book filled with her experiences, insight, and neverending optimism. I'm looking forward to reading it when it's done. She is a positive role model (and fellow Rhode Islander). You go girl!!

See you next week . . .

Color My World . . .

2011-09-28T21:37:00.000-07:00

. . . bright orange, sky blue, sharp black and white . . . in other words, fabulous!
Where have all the colors been hiding? Oh right, under my cataract.
And everyone who said the surgery was nothing, was right. It was nothing.
Why did I wait so long?
I hope your world is as bright and sparkly as mine is today.

The Blogging Wife

2011-09-26T20:52:00.000-07:00

I'm a day early this week because I'm scheduled for cataract surgery in the morning. Hubby has stepped up to the plate and volunteered to administer eyedrops. Thanks, buddy; I owe you one.
I wrote this poem for him:

Life With a Blogging Wife
(with apologies to Ogden Nash)

Having a blogger at home means that nothing is private

My life is no longer my own and I may not survivate.
I might as well travel around with a full camera crew
because someone is watching and listening whatever I do.And people are pointing my way and shaking their heads

over something she's written that I had forgotten I did.

When I think of the days that my life was my own, in this house

not fodder for strangers from out of the pen of my spouse

then I wish that the object of my everlasting devotion

would jump in the ocean.

     Ogden Nash was a New England writer who is famous for his witty poems and limericks. He wrote for the New Yorker magazine and for himself, and in 1952 published a book called Verses From 1929 On. You may have read some without knowing who the author was. Like this one:
     The Panther
The panther is like a leopard,
Except it hasn't been peppered.
Should you behold a panther crouch,
Prepare to say Ouch.
Better yet, if called by a panther,
Don't anther.

Or this:
     The Germ
A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than the pachyderm.
His customary dwelling place
Is deep within the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my poppet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ.

     I had fun reading this one. Nash's poems are timeless.

See you soon!! (and more clearly, I hope!)

A Twenty- First Century Love Story

2011-09-21T22:00:00.000-07:00

They met -- if you can call it that -- on the telephone. He was an enterprising young Boston Irishman, working his way through college by selling a little-known discount long-distance service; she was a big-hearted mountain girl raising three children on her own.

It was her twenty-ninth birthday and the only thing she had to show for it was a broken marriage and a cracked window, the result of a spur-of-the-moment backyard baseball game. With nothing to lose but loneliness, she listened as he talked, then he listened as she talked, and they talked and listened and wrote passionate love letters all through the Appalachian spring.

Come July, she boarded a Greyhound bus for Boston, with a suitcase full of dreams and a heart full of hope. At the last stop, she bought a picnic basket, red checkered tablecloth and two long-stemmed blue wine glasses. She was waiting as he stepped off the train. But alas, without a telephone line between them, they had nothing, nothing to say.

The long awkward day passed. He caught his train and she her Greyhound, and that was that. Or so she thought. Back home, she sadly spread the red checkered tablecloth on the living room carpet and poured a diet soda into one of the blue glasses. The telephone rang; she almost didn’t answer it. Then a thousand miles of wire sang out her name.

They were married in September, long distance, at a discount rate she obtained by signing up with the new phone company, and will honeymoon -- well, sometime -- they’re not sure just when. He still has college classes, she has Little League, and after all, if something works, why change it?

If you could only have one book, which book would it be? (The Bible, dictionary, and Leonard Maltin's movie guide don't count; those are necessities.) I have a slim paperback I've read so many times I've worn the covers off. Whole chapters are stuck in my memory, right next to the Robert W. Service poems. It's called A Walk in the Spring Rain, by Rachel Maddux (1966), the story of a middle-aged urbane, sophisticated woman who comes to West Virginia with her professor husband, and falls madly in love with the mountains - and a mountain man.

I donated it to book sales a few times and bought it back again. It's been on my shelf in four houses. It was made into a terrible movie (picture Anthony Quinn with a hillbilly accent) that I'd just as soon forget, but the book is pure gold.

See you next week . . .

He Did it His Way

2011-09-14T22:11:00.000-07:00

So there was West Virginia's Landau Eugene Murphy, dreadlocks and all, looking as unlike a Las Vegas lounge singer (think Frank Sinatra) as you could imagine, and still winning this summer's America's Got Talent. Of course, he sang "My Way" as his final song of the competition, and he nailed it. He brought Piers Morgan to his feet, and all the Almost Heaven detractors to their knees. Thank you, Landau, and good luck. We're proud of you!

A thunderstorm was raging, but just as I sat down at the computer, it moved on, thank goodness. I don't enjoy being near electricity gone out of control when I type. My hat's off to Texans for surviving more than 70 days of over-100 degree temperatures this summer without whining, not to mention fire and drought. What next: pestilence? Good things are long overdue for them.

One of the perks of the 21st century is I can go to my library's online catalog, search for a book I want to read, see if it's in or out on loan, and even put a hold on it. If the book is at a cooperating library, mine will even arrange an inter-library loan, and all I need to do is pick it up. What's nicer than that?

Sometimes I miss the old card catalog, though, and leafing through the 3x5's to find what I was looking for. And I liked the card taped to the back page of the book, with the names of all who'd read it. Sometimes I found my own name there. In Rhode Island, where I grew up, my name was still in the backs of books from half a lifetime ago. It's gone now, though, I guess.

Do you like a book with a villain? I mean an honest-to-goodness, black-hat-wearing, handlebar-mustached bad guy? If you do, you'll like Jack Higgins' The Eagle Has Landed, a fictional, based upon truth, story of a plot to kidnap Winston Churchill. It will have you on the edge of your chair.

Have a great week!

West Virginia's Got Talent

2011-09-07T21:50:00.000-07:00

Our guy has moved into the Final Four on America's Got Talent. He's the only singer who hasn't hit a sour note yet. Good luck, Landau!! We're rooting for ya.

The deer woods seem to be missing their deer, but the raccoons and turkeys don't seem to mind, as they ham it up for the trail camera. Not to worry: fishing was great this summer and the freezer is full. The garden is winding down, but it produced plenty of vegetables to carry us through the winter.

The long, hot summer seems to have vanished, and folks who fly south in the winter are making travel plans. They'll have plenty to talk to their neighbors about, what with the heat wave, earthquake, and hurricane Irene. Thank goodness that's over.

According to the news, not only have we trashed up our home planet, but the telescopes and cameras have recorded tons of space junk floating around out there, and there is even trash on the moon. Job seekers, are you interested in this one?

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." ---Groucho Marx

I've been decluttering, and thinning out the books on my shelves. Some I once thought looked interesting, on further examination, turned out not to be, some I speed-read, a couple were passed on to someone who'd like them more than I did. If I wanted to know how a book turned out, I read the first and last pages. In doing this, I found one I did want to read, The Circus Fire, by Stewart O'Nan (2000). It is the story of the great Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey fire that occurred in Hartford, Connecticut in the summer of 1944. Eight thousand people were trapped inside the Big Top tent, and when it was over, 187 men, women, and children were dead. That there were not many more deaths was a testament to the bravery of those who helped others escape, often at the cost of their own lives. It is a stunning, heartrending read.

The Teddy Bears Picnic

2011-08-31T23:05:00.000-07:00

If you go out in the woods today
You'd better not go alone
It's lovely out in the woods today
But safer to stay at home

For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain because
Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic.

This song has been used on kid shows for years -- on television, and before that, on the radio, where it was the theme song for the Big Jon and Sparkie Show. I'm thinking about it today because here in Almost Heaven, we sometimes place a trail camera in the woods, around hunting season, um, just to see what's afoot. (Fetch the skillet, Granny. Pa's bringing home a possum!) And what did we see on the camera today? Raccoons! Half a dozen of them, looking for all the world like fat teddy bears ready for a picnic. They will be fun to watch, and they're safe here; even though their meat is said to be low in cholesterol, no one eats it nowadays. And coonskin caps have been out of style since Davy Crockett went off to Washington.

It's September, the month when we finally get to open the windows and doors and give the air conditioner a rest. The birds, with their beautiful songs, though, have mostly gone, except for the wired-up hummingbirds, but in the evening there are crickets and frogs to serenade us. Hurricane Irene took the heat with her as she swung up the coast on her mission of destruction, and we are enjoying the milder temperatures, at least until we get the frost that's not so far away, now that it's September. The pesky flies seem to have left. Slugs have arrived, but I think I can outrun them.

The WV guy who sings like Frank Sinatra has advanced into the finals on America's Got Talent (with my help), and tonight we got to see and hear Susan Boyle, who is still going strong, with two platinum albums, after her win a couple of years ago on the British version of the show. Fabulous!

Do you believe in ghosts? Author Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife) does, and writes convincingly about one in the book, Her Fearful Symmetry (Scribner, 2009). Julia and Valentina Poole's Aunt Elspeth has died and left them her London apartment, which is next to the huge Highgate Cemetery. But is Elspeth really gone? Not quite. But you'll have to see for yourself. Meanwhile --

See you next week!

Shaken, Not Stirred

2011-08-24T23:15:00.000-07:00

Apparently the gods were angry with us yesterday and decided to give the eastern U.S. a good shaking. I didn't feel the quake, but both daughters did, and it was very unsettling. We seldom experience earthquakes here in Almost Heaven.

It had been a stressful week, with a family member in the hospital (feeling better now), too many appointments on the calendar, too much haggling over the phone. Life gets that way sometimes. The quake wiped away all the clutter, and reminded me that nature is in control, no matter how important we think we are.

I hear the Washington monument was damaged. That's going to be tricky to repair. First the stone face falls off that mountain in New Hampshire, and now this? Sock it to us, Mother Nature.

There was a cartoon in a recent New Yorker magazine. A man and a woman stand in a room, its only furnishing a bare light fixture hanging from the ceiling. The guy says, "I've simplified my life by converting all my possessions into one gold brick." I've visited a minimalist web site and found it very tempting. I think I could do it, but I'd have to keep some essentials, like the wing-back comfy chair, some favorite books, my file folders full of cartoons and newspaper columns, pictures of the grandkids, Van Gogh's Sunflowers, and all of Tom Hanks' movies. For a start. It's a work in progress.

The audio version of Emma Donoghue's Room, told in the voice of a five-year old, was so compelling I have to read the book, too. Nothing says minimalism like living for years in an 11-foot square, chain-link reinforced, soundproof garden shed, and trying to make it a home. An unforgettable read.

See you next week . . .

Eat Your Heart Out, Charlie Sheen

2011-08-17T21:28:00.000-07:00

You've been replaced on your television show, Charlie, and I am now a winner. I won a monetary prize in the adult reading club drawing at our library. We were allowed one entry for every five books we read, plus additional entries for completing quizzes and a crossword. My tiger blood is surging in its veins at the thought of it. Won't my mom be impressed?

We are enjoying America's Got Talent, especially the Piers Morgan bashing, which is probably partly put on for our amusement. Piers can be insufferable, though, and when he is, fellow judge Sharon Osbourne has to hit him over the head with her rolled-up papers, but if he likes an act, he says so. It's worth waiting for. Tonight the cast of the award-winning musical Les Miserables appeared on the show, and sang "One Day More", from the end of part one. It was fabulous. Even Piers thought so. At least he didn't buzz them.

Last week I wrote "use to" in a sentence, and later it didn't look right. Should it have been "used to", I wondered? I looked it up on a site called Grammar Girl, and according to her, if I precede it with the word "didn't", as in didn't the summer use to be longer?. it's okay. But if there is no didn't, then I'd need to add the "d" (for past tense), onto "use", and say the summer used to be longer. Thanks, Grammar Girl. Hey, are you related to Grammarlady.com, my former adviser?

"To five-year-old Jack, Room is the world. It's where he was born, it's where he and his Ma eat and sleep and play and learn. At night, Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where Jack is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits. Room is home to Jack, but to Ma it's the prison where she has been held for seven years."
Room is the latest offering by Irish author Emma Donoghue, and when I read about it in my Daedolus book catalog, I had to have it. Checking my library's website, I found the book was loaned out, but there was an audiobook. It promises to be chilling and maybe even disturbing. I'll let you know.

See you next week . . .

In Our Fair City

2011-08-10T22:36:00.000-07:00

(Photo borrowed from Times-West Virginian)

Our fair city really is one this week, as the second-largest fair in the state has arrived. This is the time when scattered families reunite, braving the mud, showers, and bugs to get a look at that handmade quilt, topknot chicken, horse pull or strongman contest, and sample the deep-fried vegetables, funnel cakes, and fresh lemonade. The town is buzzing.

Our summer reading group at the library is ending. I only read ten books in the two months that went by so fast, but they were ones I probably wouldn't have noticed had I not been searching for good reads to add to my list. Can you believe school starts next week? Didn't summer use to be longer? I seem to remember endless days of exploring, reading, and blueberry picking (and selling) as a child.

I missed my soap the last two days because our cable now has to go through a box and I've been unable to get the VCR to record when I'm not home. And if I were home, then I wouldn't need it. I think (according to the Internet) I have to set the VCR to record Channel 3 and then leave the television on channel 12. Or something. Meanwhile, I'll have to be satisfied reading the updates on the soap's website. (sigh) It's not easy being technologically challenged.

Now that the reading group is over and I'm reading just for fun again, I found a fantastic book -- I know it will be -- by Audrey Niffenegger, who wrote The Time Traveler's Wife. That was the amazing story of a man who traveled uncontrollably through time, always managing to find his wife, though he never knew what age she would be when they met. I think this new one has a time travel theme, too. It's called Her Fearful Symmetry. Can't wait to jump in. Should be a good read while enjoying a warm tomato sandwich and some berry cobbler.

See you next week!

These Are a Few of my Favorite Things . . .

2011-08-02T22:50:00.000-07:00

I went to the city the other day to exchange a pair of sandals that had a defect. It took me two trips because I didn't realize I needed my drivers license to do it, and I wasn't the one driving so it was at home. Also at home was my picture of the new grandbaby, and people wanted to see him. I should be drummed out of the ranks of grandmas for that. As soon as I got back I laminated the picture and put it with my drivers license, and won't leave home without either again.

The sandals are called Faded Glory. The tops are baby-soft leather and the bottoms are hollowed out to cradle a foot comfortably all day. I will be wearing them until the snow flies, maybe longer. Also I picked up some refills for another favorite thing, my Pilot G2 pen, which was out of ink. The refills are less than half the cost of a new pen, so it's worth picking through the giant wall o' writing instruments to find them.

Does anyone know if there is a master list of blogs by subject? Think of all the gems that must be out there waiting to be discovered. Occasionally I find one I like by accident, or pilfer through someone else's blog list, but I wonder what I might be missing. I found a website that featured WV bloggers, and hoped to be included in that group, so I clicked where it said they would read, rate, and possibly recommend my blog. Guess what? There was a nonrefundable charge of $50. Wazzup with that?

Call me crazy, but when I like something, I'll shout it from the rooftops, for free. The blogs I like have stood the test of time:

Fancy Nancy (Captionsbest), you are a lifeboat of optimism in a sea of whining. Scriblets, without you I'd never have known about the beauty of Japan, the bicycle tree, or the shouting vase. When you write about Southern authors, I can almost smell the magnolia.

I've only seen New York City through the dusty windows of a Greyhound, but Jeremiah's Vanishing New York makes me feel like a homesick native. Mike Todd (Just Humor Me) writes of marriage and new parenthood, reminding me how the world looks through a child's eyes. I like to kick off my sandals and check in on these friends every evening. There's always something new.

See you next week!

You Can Take the Girl Out of Rhode Island . . .

2011-07-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

Breathes there a man with soul so dead
Who never to himself has said
This is my own, my native land . . .

Even after being away for more than half my life, my ears still perk up when I hear "Rhode Island", and suddenly I know how the Man Without a Country (did you read that in school?) must have felt. I don't remember what treasonous crime he committed, but his punishment was to spend the rest of his life aboard one ship and then another, and never to hear "United States" again. At first he didn't mind, but then he began to listen for those words, and miss them.

Don't get me wrong; I love it in Almost Heaven. The people here are like no other place on earth, and I've achieved and experienced things I never would have in my former home. But I still get sentimental when I hear that accent, with the dropped "R", or when Matt and Meredith talk about attending college in Providence, or the local newspaper has a story on Richard Hatch (the 'Survivor' winner, not that cute guy from 'Battlestar Galactica').

Sometimes the Food Network chef visits a chowder and clamcake place I used to go to, and then there's that dancing cop directing traffic. I get to claim WVU basketball player Joe Mazzulla twice, because he lived in my old home state and then my new one. So naturally when I found The Memory of Running, by Ron McLarty, in a book catalog, and found it took place in R.I., I had to read it.

Usually when a book is set in a place one has lived in, it's apparent right away that the author threw a dart at a map of the U.S., picked out a few names of towns from an atlas, and proceeded to write his story. But this guy was good. He knew about Hope Valley, a town my friends and I had spent some time in, watching sandlot baseball games, and lots of other small towns that probably aren't even in the atlas. At one point, his character honeymooned in North Conway, New Hampshire, where I spent a weekend with some co-workers and my old gym teacher. The guy has done his homework.

Somehow I missed the fact that a man from Logan, WV, is on America's Got Talent. But I saw him last night, singing a Frank Sinatra song, and voted for him, and it worked. He's in the semi-finals.

We have a new grandbaby. Welcome, baby George!!

See you next week . . .

Please Turn Down the Victrola

2011-07-20T22:23:00.000-07:00

Hubby and I were watching a commercial for some new electronic device, and when it ended, we both said, I wonder what that is. We like to think we are in touch with the times, but this thing has us stumped. I think we might be hopelessly behind.

I know my Tracfone is lame, as is the disposable camera and the VCR. Our television is connected to a cable, not a dish. The radio plays the latest tunes, but is 35 years old. And our music collection consists mainly of cassette tapes and 33 1/3 record albums, mostly country.

The computer is fairly new, but even it is attached to a phone line. No Wi-Fi here. We pay our bills by mail, the old fashioned way, buy groceries with cash, and read books without the benefit of a Nook or Kindle. Is there any hope for us?

Supper tonight was a bounty from the garden: yellow crookneck squash, fried zucchini slices, and crisp cucumbers drenched in buttermilk dressing. The garden is holding up under the heat, and tomato sandwiches are bound to be right around the corner. Some things are timeless.

While looking in the library for books to read for our adult summer reading program, I found this one that actually is for young adults, but somehow ended up in the regular fiction aisle. It is Darkhenge, by Catherine Fisher, the tale of a girl, Chloe, who fell from a horse and has spent the last three months in a coma. Meanwhile, archeologists find a mysterious buried circle of trees that is a portal to the Unworld, where Chloe's spirit dwells, trapped in a forest of resentment of her own making. Only her brother, Rob, can figure out why, and find a way to reunite her spirit and her body. Darkhenge is dark and scary, and enchanting. Thank you, adult reading program, for sending me in search of interesting new books.

See you next week . . .

Oh, Poppycock!

2011-07-13T21:44:00.000-07:00

Watching my favorites get voted off America's Got Talent just reminds me of my also-ran from last year, the flamboyant Prince Poppycock, aka John Quale. Before there was Lady GaGa, there was the Prince. His powdered wig, wild costumes, and beautiful operatic voice made that summer. An update: he's still doing personal appearances in Hollywood, L.A., Florida, and even Venice, Italy (eat your heart out, Piers Morgan!). Shouldn't NBC, with its famous peacock logo, put him in a reality show?

The state of Indiana apparently decided last week that schools can decide for themselves whether or not to teach cursive writing, a skill I can't imagine living without. Not that I'm any good at it, but shouldn't we at least know how?

I always had trouble distinguishing the cursive capital "T" from its copycat "F", and the written "Z" is so unlike the printed Z that even Zorro wouldn't recognize it. Cursive "J" and "Q" are too similar for my taste, but I like the unashamedly pot-bellied capital "D" and "G", who look like they've just enjoyed a ten-course meal.

My initial, M (I was born with three of them), and its neighbor, N, have wings, along with V and W, fairly flying off the page. Yes, I do like handwriting, and, OMG, texting will never take its place.

We haven't gotten around to buying one of those newfangled cameras, so I still send pictures off to be developed. But I may have to stop, because my last batch is lost somewhere between Almost Heaven and Maryland. So I talked to a representative of the company, Octavia, who asked me to describe the pictures. Of course I couldn't remember, so I winged it and said umm, grandbaby, birthday cake, flowers in the yard, etc, the usual reminders of family life. I hope you can find them, Octavia. Oh yeah, try to line up another job, okay? Yours is about to go the way of cursive writing. . .

Brooklyn, by Colm Toibin, is a sweet story of a young Irish girl, who emigrates to post-World War II America. Heartbreakingly lonely at first - she knows no one except the parish priest - she bravely carves out a life for herself in her new home. Even Piers Morgan would like this one.

See you next week!

Going Into the Closet

2011-07-06T21:42:00.000-07:00

While many folks these days are coming out of the closet, I, contrary as always, am thinking of going in.

No, it's not like that. It's just that I found an article in an old Country Living magazine featuring an office with computer desk built into a bedroom closet, and think it's way cool. (I'm allowed to say "way cool", because I'm of a certain age, but don't you try it.) The closet is lined with pegboard, (as is mine, coincidentally), handy for holding supplies and file folders, and the whole thing is hidden by two folding doors when not in use. And then the room could be more of a bed-sitting room and less of an office.
Something to think about.

Have I mentioned how much I like berry cobbler, especially when it's warm and waiting for me when I come home?

And speaking of food, Shop Smart, the shopping magazine from the publisher of Consumer Reports, released this shocking information: Since it's impossible to harvest and process food without a few "creepy crawlies" going along for the ride, the FDA sets tolerance levels for what are termed "naturally occurring defects". For example, a 24-oz. container of corn meal can have up to 13 insects, 745 insect fragments, and 27 rodent hairs. Isn't that nice to know?

When Adriana Trigiani (Big Stone Gap, Big Cherry Holler, Milk Glass Moon, Lucia, Lucia) wrote Very Valentine, it was hailed by the critics as "Sex and the City meets Moonstruck". And now there is a sequel, Brava, Valentine, in which her character, Valentine Roncalli, discovers a long-buried secret, a family scandal. Valentine is nothing if not resourceful, though, and she'll work it out. I'm looking forward to seeing how.

Have a great week! Grow your own produce.

The Neverending Story

2011-06-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

Well, not quite neverending, but it did take me a whole two weeks to read Ken Follett's World Without End, and oh yes, I enjoyed every minute of it. Think Gone With the Wind with a dash of Les Miserables thrown in for good measure, except instead of the Civil War or French Revolution, you have the great Plague.

Instead of Scarlett and Rhett saying goodbye with Atlanta burning in the background, or Marius and Eponine at the Barricades, there are Caris and Merthin climbing to the dizzying heights of the cathedral spire, buffeted by winds, the past behind them, and the future full speed ahead. It is Follett at his very best.

The raspberries and blueberries are ripe, and that means cobbler. The garden is producing, too, lots of lettuce, cucumbers, onions, and radishes. So whose idea was it that the tomatoes don't come along until around August?

Have you heard that the Pope is tweeting now? I can't believe the guy is ahead of me here. I suppose he has apps, too.

Also I read that the English have discontinued the use of apostrophes on their signs. I'm a staunch believer in the apostrophe, when it's used correctly, that is, but I'll have to get used to it. Will the dotted "i" and the crossed "t" be the next to go?

Thomas DeBaggio, who was diagnosed with early Alzheimer's at age 57, passed away in February, at 69. After learning of his illness, he wrote about it in two books, Losing My Mind, and When it Gets Dark, in which he chronicled the steady progression of the disease in a way that is touching, courageous, and informative, sometimes darkly humorous. In a world without end, it's good to know what we're up against.

Have a great week!

Thatsa Lotta Books!

2011-06-22T22:04:00.000-07:00

Kansas City Public Library Parking Garage Wall

I saw this on television tonight and it was so amazing I had to Google it and show you. Wouldn't you love to have a wall like this in your town? There are 22 books in all, like Fahrenheit 451, Tale of Two Cities, Catch 22, Charlotte's Web, Romeo and Juliet, with glass-enclosed stairs at each end. Remarkable!

I'm not a morning person, and I felt bad about it until I found Mr. President, a large (coffee table) book from Time-Life that shows the human side of our Chief Executives. "Silent Cal" Coolidge liked to sleep at least ten hours. Even after a full night's sleep, he would take a two-or-three-hour nap after lunch. Mencken said his chief feat . . . was to sleep more than any other president.

Thomas Jefferson was a quiet man who only made two speeches while in office, his two inaugural addresses. He preferred to spend his time writing or reading, sometimes wearing run-down slippers. John Quincy Adams rose every day at five, read his Bible, and then went for a nude swim in the Potomac. Once somebody stole his clothes, and he had to ask a boy to go to the White House and get him another set.

The American presidents were human, just like the rest of us.

Clarence Darrow once said, "When I was a boy I was told that anyone could become president. I'm beginning to believe it."

I've read more than 600 pages of my thousand-page book (Ken Follett's World Without End). I can barely put it down. But I do, at least long enough to watch America's Got Talent, and The Voice. And of course to weed the flower beds (ick) and whatever else needs doing. The weather is fabulous, unlike many areas of the country (we have room for you), and the flowers are lovely. I can't take credit for them; they're either wildflowers or came from the greenhouse up on the highway. Some were gifts from the kids. Put it all together, it spells summer. Enjoy!

See you next week!

There's a Song in my Head

2011-06-15T22:44:00.000-07:00

A friend told me the other day that she has a song stuck in her head and it's driving her bananas.. I won't tell you what song it is because then it would drive you there, too, just that it's a jingle from a popular commercial containing a phone number I'm sure I'll remember long after all other memories are gone.

There must be a special compartment in the brain for annoying songs that keep you awake at night, probably right next to the one with embarassing high school moments. During the day, Life blocks them out, but alone at night in a darkened room, they come out to haunt you.

Falling asleep, your house becomes a house you once lived in, the door opening onto the lawn you played on as a child, the steps your father built cascading down to the driveway. Your children become your sister and brother. The schoolbus comes and you miss it. In school, your locker refuses to open. You've forgotten the combination again. So you walk, without books, into a classroom -- the wrong classroom -- and everyone has a laugh at your expense.

Later, you find yourself on top of a tower, with no way down. If there are stairs, they trail off into nothingness. Falling, you wake up. You've spent another night trapped in the storerooms of your own brain. That's why there are books.

A book, unless it's a frightening one, eases the transition from wakefulness to sleep, carrying you gently into the good night across a green Thomas Hardy meadow, a South Pacific beach, or past a covered bridge on a river in Iowa, until at last it slides from your fingers and you snuff out the light. Thank goodness for good books!

The library's adult reading program is under way, and my first selection is a nice thick one, Ken Follett's World Without End (2007). It's over a thousand pages and I know I should have picked a smaller one, but I couldn't resist. Follett writes all kinds of books, but I think he's best when writing about the distant past. This one is the follow-up to The Pillars of the Earth, which I read earlier this year, so of course I had to have it, even though I had just finished reading his A Place Called Freedom yesterday. The guy is that good.

This is what a reviewer said about Daniel Wallace's first book, Big Fish: "Big Fish is the life of Edward Bloom, told as a series of legends and myths inspired by the few facts that his son knows. Through these tall tales -- hilarious and wrenching, tender and outrageous -- William begins to understand his elusive father's great feats, and his great failings. This utterly original novel teaches us about mythmaking and joke-telling, truth and redemption, death and life." This is a short book, full of sad and funny stories, that will remind you of your own parents and how you probably never really knew them, a good book to read as you drift off to sleep.

See you next week!

Author, Author!

2011-06-08T23:00:00.000-07:00

We had out-of-town guests over the weekend, my nephew and his wife, who were on a tour of covered bridges which are apparently plentiful in the area. (So how come nobody ever made a movie about ours?) And it seems I'm about to be related to an author, because Bill has written a book on the subject that will hit the presses in September.

I give my dad part of the credit, because, though words weren't his business (he was a landscape gardener), he read the dictionary in his spare time, and would introduce to us interesting new words at the dinner table. I think his love of words trickled down to his grandson. I'll tell you more about the book when it comes out. Good luck, Bill!

Oh yeah. Christmas shopping this year will be easy.

Opera singer Giorgio Tozzi passed away a week or so ago. He was, among other things, the voice of Emile DeBecque in one of my favorite movies, South Pacific, where he dubbed the songs of Rossano Brazzi (sigh) including "Some Enchanted Evening". I assumed (wouldn't you?) that Tozzi was Italian, but it turns out he was from Chicago, and his name was originally George.

As if I needed an excuse to read more, on Monday our library starts an adult summer reading program. Guess who was first to sign up?
It comes with a nice tote bag, and you keep a list of the books you read. I do that anyway, so the only difference will be I'll be reading current books instead of the old ones like A Little Princess. I can get back to those later.

Just Beyond the Firelight, by Robert James Waller (1988), is a collection of short stories and essays, many of which appeared in the Des Moines, Iowa Register. Like "Ridin' Along in Safety with Kennedy and Kuralt", when he rode the Wabash Cannonball on Bobby Kennedy's ill-fated 1968 campaign tour. In another chapter he rides a canoe down the Shell Rock River, hoping to discover the real Iowa. If all you know about Waller is that covered bridge book, there's more. Much more.

See you next week!

One of Those Days

2011-06-03T22:23:00.000-07:00

I hear that an asteroid came very close to earth yesterday, as close as the moon is to us. It could have been bad, and I think it explains how my day has been, a little out of whack..

You know how they tell you to keep your passwords in a safe place? I put mine in one before my Georgia trip, and it is a very safe place, indeed. I just wish I could remember where it is.

I tried to comment on a fellow blogger's remarks about Japanese comics, but Blogger would not recognize my I.D. so I couldn't say that I had read the first two Barefoot Gen graphic novels, and found them wonderful, though horrifying.

The French Open pre-empted my soap.

And tonight I cooked a pizza WITHOUT removing the cardboard circle, something I've never done. It wasn't bad, but it could have been. I blame the asteroid.
Anyway . . .

Did you see the first America's Got Talent? The second act was a great guy singer, who got halfway through his song right before the sound went off and stayed off until a few minutes before the end of the first hour. (The asteroid again?) If he keeps it up, he could be IT.

The garden is doing great, weather is WOW, as our meteorologist likes to say, hubby brought home new solar lights for the walks and two comfy porch chairs, and pruned the bushes around the house, including the one with a bird nest inside. Oops. Sorry, Mrs. Bird. Glad you came back.

For those of you who have a secret passion for The Secret Garden, as I do, a customer let me borrow another book by Frances Hodgson Burnett, called A Little Princess. It is the story of Sara Crewe, a little rich girl at a London boarding school, who suffers a sudden reversal of fortune, leaving her at the mercy of a cruel schoolmistress. Expect a happy ending, though. Ms. Burnett never disappoints.

See you next week!

We're All Still Here . . .I Think

2011-05-25T22:37:00.000-07:00

So now the guy who predicted the coming end of the world on May 21 says he was mistaken about the date, and the Rapture now is scheduled for October 21.

Alrighty.

I was pretty sure he was wrong when I woke up the next morning, still in Almost Heaven, but just to be sure, I called my daughter, and she was still here, too, so that clinched it. She wouldn't miss an important event like that.

Oprah had her farewell show today, and some of the late-night comics kidded that she postponed the Rapture so her show could go on as scheduled. I'll miss Oprah. The girl has a lot of common sense.

The days and weeks of nice weather are flying by. Most of the yellow spring flowers have gone, and the pinks and purples are here -- rhodedendrons, cosmos, iris . . . The baby robins left the nest in the woodshed, and isn't it funny how much like humans they are? The first one flew straight as an arrow to the top of the hill, joining his mother on the lawn. The next one struggled a little, fluttering down to the ground, up onto the arm of an Adirondack chair, down again, then set off on foot towards the others, lost his way, came back to the chair, finally joining them about 20 minutes later. Bird #3 opted to stay in the nest, and have his dinner delivered. Oprah would know how to set him straight.

Our newspaper, which already did away with the Sunday funnies and TV guide, now has been missing its weekend crossword puzzle for the past three weeks. And the price went up. Is that fair?

Today I purchased the 18th gold presidential dollar, Ulysses S. Grant. I found this poem in an old book, and realized this is the guy I want to vote for next election:
     . . . God give us men! A time like this demands
       Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands,
       Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
       Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
       Men who possess opinions and a will;
       Men who have honor; men who will not lie;;
       Men who can stand before a demagogue
       And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking;
       Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
       In public duty and in private thinking;
           (from God Give Us Men, by Josiah Gilbert Holland, 1819-1881,)

See you next week!

Georgia on My Mind

2011-05-19T21:55:00.000-07:00

I am posting a day late, but there's a good reason. Hubby and I just got back from visiting his older sister and her family in Georgia, where we were fed, entertained, and spoiled rotten. Thank you so much, Ethel, Tammy, Lee, and Teddy. It was great to see you all. Thanks to Ethel for the tour of Carrollton, great cooking, and especially for the two pictures of Hubby as a kid. Awwwww. . .

I was surprised to find the weather chilly down south. The shorts and sunglasses I packed were not needed, and a coat would have been welcome. Naturally, the weather improved just as we were leaving.

Coming home, we passed the scenic overlook where we stopped one day in 1996 to admire the Hale-Bopp comet. Remember it? If not, you're out of luck, because it won't be back until the year 4385.

While I was gone, my computer was safely tucked away in an undisclosed secure location (think underground missile launch pad in a James Bond movie, or Jack Benny's vault), and tonight when I returned it to its shelf, reconnecting it was quite a challenge, not one I want to do again soon. Maybe next time I leave, I'll hire a babysitter.

Thanks to Roni and the other ladies in the Carrollton library. Your book sale is great, and so is my new library tote bag.

Among the new Georgia books are these: Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees; Peter Mayle's The Vintage Caper; By the Light of the Moon by Dean Koontz, and, best of all (I think), Best Tales of the Yukon, by Robert W. Service, where you find poems like this:
. . . Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven,
which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley
with the green stream streaking through it,
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence?
Then for God's sake go and do it;
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.
--- The Call of the Wild

See you next week!

A Foul-Spelling Situation

2011-05-11T20:25:00.000-07:00

The grammar gremlins are at it again. According to the daily paper, a West Virginia woman has been indicted by a grand jury on several counts of animal cruelty after a barn and surrounding area where dogs were kept was reported to be "filthy, wet, and horribly foul-spelling".

In Rhode Island, a contractor had his tools stolen, and the owner of a rental place offered him the use of some replacements, free, for as long as he needed them. "I was flawed by that", said the contractor. Actually, in Rhode Island, floored is pronounced that way, so it's only half wrong. But keep an eye out for those pesky gremlins!

Remember the days when you wrote a business or personal letter by hand, using your very best penmanship? Penmanship that you practiced for hours in class and also at home? Fuhgeddaboutit! Cursive writing is becoming a lost art, what with computers, Blackberrys, texts and tweets.

I can't say I'm sorry, because no matter how I tried, my abc's never rose above the level of henscratch, so a computer is a Godsend for me. My mother and a good old friend still write real letters, though, and I will treasure them forever, along with milk bottles and shaving brushes.

Today in the yard that was just mowed a couple of days ago, there were oodles of buttercups. How they came up so fast I don't know. The big white azalea we brought over from next door is blooming like crazy. Rhododendrons and peonies on the hill are ready to pop, while the trilliums on the rocky road to the general store have already come and gone. The frog and fish in the pond are out of hibernation. The robin has fixed up her usual nest in the woodshed, and warns me away if I come too close. We've even had a homemade rhubarb pie. Oh yeah, and it's almost time for "America's Got Talent"! Does it get any better than that?

Jimmy Carter has spent the years since his presidency writing books, among other things, and has turned out to be good at it. (No gremlins here.) His tribute to his mother, Miss Lillian, titled A Remarkable Mother, (2008) is a fine example. From girlhood to her nursing career and marriage, and her years in the Peace Corps in her seventies, she lives up to the title of his book. When I finish it, I'm sending it to my mother. With a handwritten note.

See you next week!

Hello Out There

2011-05-03T22:22:00.000-07:00

Show of hands: how many think there are aliens out there who want to converse with us?

If so, they're out of luck, because astronomers at the SETI Institute in San Francisco report that a steep drop in federal and state funding has forced the shutdown of the Allen Telescope Array, a field of radio dishes resembling huge dinner plates, that have been awaiting the call from intelligent life out there.

Disappointing, I know. Now if the aliens want to make contact, they'll have to come in person. So leave the light on. Some years ago, I sent my name to be placed aboard the Cassini spacecraft which went in search of interplanetary life. Nothing has come of it yet, but if I hear from anyone, you'll be the first to know.

It's spring in West Virginia, and that means wild turkey season, and also the season for ramps (like onions, only smellier), and the tasty morel mushrooms. The morels look like little haystacks and are delicious simmered in butter, maybe with a slice of turkey and a hot cup of ramp soup. Now that's good eatin'!

Have you seen NBC's new show, The Voice? A little like American Idol, and America's Got Talent, but with a twist: the judges have their backs to the contestants so looks don't count. So easy a cave man could win it. Or an alien.

If you liked Carroll O'Connor in All in the Family or In the Heat of the Night, you'll like his autobiography, I Think I'm Outta Here, (1998), a witty, introspective, sometimes heartbreaking memoir.

See you next week!

The Winds of Change

2011-04-27T22:40:00.000-07:00

There are tornadoes all over the southeastern U.S. tonight, about 130 of them at last count. Parts of Alabama and Georgia have been hit, whole towns turned to rubble, and it all seems to be heading our way. Usually the mountains protect us from terrible weather, and I hope that continues. Tomorrow we will call relatives and friends down South and hope they're safe.

It was erroneously reported the other night that the last typewriter factory, in Mumbai, India had shut down. But the next day there was a correction. It wasn't the last; there are still working factories in China, Japan, and Indonesia. Whew.

Even though I no longer own one, I hate to see the typewriter go. It's just one of many familiar items being blown away by the winds of change. In fact, the Huffington Post produced a whole list of them: landline phones, VCR's, paper maps, encyclopedias, film cameras, travel agents, bookstores . . .

The thing is, I'm still using most of these, and don't want to stop. I still have a big Polaroid camera, though I'm not sure if they make the film cartridge for it. I like my VCR and wristwatch, my cassette player, real books and snail mail letters -- written in cursive. You'd have to pry the second season of NYPD Blue on VHS from my cold fingers. Yeah, it's like that. Someday I may be an iPad and eBook girl, but not yet.

According to my Bravenet counter, I had a visitor last week from Sri Lanka. Could it be Nadia, the techie who restored my phone service to me? Sri Lanka, I read, is about the size of West Virginia, but with around 21 million people. Whoever you are, have a great week and remember to watch the British royal wedding. If you miss it, let me know. I'm taping it on my VCR.

Three Bags Full, by Leonie Swann, (2005) is a different kind of mystery. A shepherd is murdered and his sheep set out to find the killer. They have an advantage; George, the shepherd, used to read them detective stories. You will never look at sheep in quite the same way again.

See you next week!

Singing the Praises of Nadia

2011-04-20T20:49:00.001-07:00

It took a week, but my phone problems were finally resolved. After talking to half a dozen people, today I found the one who knew what to do, and after following her instructions to the letter, and punching in a lot of numbers, she had me try making a call, and it worked! Her name is Nadia, and Nadia is my new best friend.

Katy Perry would say "Baby, you're a firework", Charlie Sheen would call her a goddess. If you see Nadia, in whatever part of the world she lives, wish her a happy day.

Did you see the TVLand awards the other night? It was fun to see the casts of the old shows together again: Family Ties, Facts of Life, the Cosby Show, and Welcome Back, Kotter, with John Travolta's Sweat Hog character, Vinny Barbarino (Up your nose with a rubber hose!). The shows are timeless -- and not one person in them has to put up with a cell phone.

When my phone service was terminated (my fault), I was given a new number, that didn't work, and then another new number that did. Now I need to forget my old number, but after all the cross -word puzzles, game shows, and quizzes I've done to improve my memory, I don't think I can. What I can do, though, is write 99 times on the blackboard of my mind, "I will never again let my phone card expire"!

Oh yeah, Nadia is in my will.

Adriana Trigiani (Big Stone Gap, Milk Glass Moon) is an expert at writing about New York life, as well as life in the mountains. In her book, Very Valentine, her character, Valentine Roncalli, once again has to choose between a sophisticated New Yorker and a man from the old family home in Italy (no stinkin' cell phones there!). I don't know how it ends; I'm saving that for later.

See you next week!

Can You Hear Me Now?

2011-04-13T22:08:00.000-07:00

I was two days late buying a new phone card, and when I did, and tried to add minutes, it was too late: my phone had been deactivated. I tried unsuccessfully to reactivate it on the computer (two times) and on the phone (once so far). I paid 19.99 for a piece of paper with a pin number on it, so even though hubby had a suggestion about what to do with my cute little phone, I nixed it. My Yankee upbringing won't let me toss away 19.99. But now I'm thinking: maybe since I'm having this trouble, I'll get one of the newer, cooler camera phones, put the minutes on it, and donate this one to--something or other. I'll sleep on that .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The weather is beautiful, the big greenhouse has arrived in town, and gardening is in the air. Not so fast, though. We know there will be a freeze sometime in the next couple of weeks; there always is. So the planting can wait. Meanwhile, there's trout fishing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I was organizing my life the other day, and came across a page in my address book with the names of paints we've used here;, saved, presumably, in case anything needs touching up. And I got to wondering who is responsible for all those catchy paint names like Jackrabbit (blue-grey), Banana Peel, Mo Better Blue, Forest Light (pale green), and my favorite, Halloween. The last one is in my office, and I must say when the sun hits it, it is glorious. October is my birth month, so I'm partial to fall colors. I guess I could write and ask the company, but somehow I'd rather picture a guy in a little out-of-the way office, wearing a visor and sleeve garters, sipping stale coffee and eating a bologna sandwich while reading James Patterson, when he's not thinking up names like Mouse Back, Dorian Gray, and Death by Chocolate. If I'm wrong, and it's a computer, don't tell me, okay? It'll ruin the fun. . . . . . . . . . . It's National Library Week, and videos are free (hooray), so I have Riding the Bus With My Sister to watch later. I'll let you know if it's as good as the book. Have a great week!

Winning

2011-04-06T21:54:00.000-07:00

According to today's news, a company connected with Charlie Sheen has applied for trademarks on some of the words Charlie uses most, like "winning", "tiger blood", "goddesses", and the like, so I guess I should use them now, while I still can.

When Charlie speaks of "winning", he means stomping on the people he thinks have done him wrong. It has a different meaning for me: Winning is my husband complimenting me on a good meal. It's a sunset, a rainbow, a hillside covered in daffodils, an explosion of forsythia. It's writing a perfect poem, attending a meeting and knowing just what to say. It's finally getting your favorite old movie on tape and knowing you can watch it any time you want. It's a surprise gift from a friend, finding a book you searched for for years, a drive in the country when nothing on the car rattles, a bird singing his heart out on the rooftop of the garage next door, or watching a grandbaby stand up for the first time and then look around to see if everyone is watching. That's winning, Charlie.

On a silly note: Have you seen the new PEZ candy containers of Prince William and Kate? They will be auctioned on eBay, with the money going to charity, So maybe "winning" is having your likeness turned into a PEZ.

For Rachel Simon, winning was taking a year away from her busy schedule to really get to know her mentally retarded sister, Beth, who fills her days riding buses, getting to know drivers and passengers, and living a full, rich life in spite of her challenges. Ms. Simon writes about it in her book, Riding the Bus With My Sister (2002). Simon comes to the conclusion that we are all riders on the bus, and on the bus we are all the same.

See you next week!

Solid Gold

2011-03-30T21:03:00.000-07:00

Today I picked up the Andrew Johnson gold dollar at the bank. It actually came out in February, but I guess I was too busy to notice. They began making the dollars in 2007, four a year, and Johnson is number 17.

I'm not big on history, but to me, some presidents are more golden than others. Ike was golden, just because he's the first president I can remember. J.F.K was golden, no matter what your politics, because, well, he just was, that's all. Roosevelt, though before my time, still makes my heart thump. Jimmy Carter, while retired, is always out there trying to make a better world, and writing flattering books about his wife and mother. Golden. And then there's Reagan.

Today was the 30th anniversary of the day Reagan was shot. I can't remember what I was doing, like I can with J.F.K., but I recall the event, how he laughed it off later, and the day he came home, wearing his favorite red sweater, and went on with his life. He was always the same guy I saw on television when I was a kid, the handsome boy-next-door in the movies, the lifeguard, the real life hero. So tonight I Googled and read the goodbye letter he wrote to all of us when he learned of his Alzheimer's. He was truly golden.

The new reality show, "Coal" debuted tonight on Spike TV. Hubby and I watched it with interest, and thanked God he never worked in a coal mine, especially a low-coal mine. There are so many reality shows out there now, we can know a little about almost everything.

If you remember the polio epidemic of the 1950's, or even if you don't, you will like Elizabeth Berg's book, We Are All Welcome Here (2006). Berg tells the story of Paige Dunn, who contracted polio during her last month of pregnancy, spent three years in an iron lung, and is raising her 14-year-old daughter, though paralyzed. A work of fiction, the book is the direct result of a letter from a woman who actually grew up under those conditions, and thought her mother's example would make a fine book. It does.

Daffodils and forsythia are blooming, and onions are in the ground. We are debating whether to plant peas again (my achy breaky back votes no), or make the ones we have in the freezer last until next summer. Whaddya think?

See you next week!

Would You Mind Always Wearing a Name Tag?

2011-03-23T21:12:00.000-07:00

The last few days I've seen a lady on the various talk shows named Heather Sellers, and she is a prosopagnosic. For those who don't know (and who could?) this means she cannot identify people by their faces. The wiring of her brain won't let her. She must rely on other clues: voice, walk, hairdo, the spot where she sees them every day . . .and hope they don't discover her secret.

Maybe you've experienced this a little bit when a loved one suddenly changed his appearance, or showed up in a place you'd never expect him to be. You might have been embarrassed to not recognize him instantly when this happened. Now imagine it occurring all the time. And imagine the relief of writing a book about it (You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know) and not trying to hide it any more. Good luck, Heather.

Now that the e-reader twins, Kindle and Nook, have come along, advertisers are trying to make us diehard book lovers feel guilty. I like trees as much as anyone (maybe more: I've done everything but throw myself in front of a huge sycamore on our hill that I love but hubby swears is going to fall on the roof someday), but I also need the feel of a real book in my hand. Is that so wrong?

Today I was listening to an audiobook, The Long Goodbye, by Patti Davis, about her dad, Ronald Reagan, and the Alzheimers that claimed him. It was beautifully written, and beautifully spoken, but it only left me wanting to READ it. In my mind's eye, I could see every sentence, the end of each chapter and the first letter of the next, complete with its fancy curlicue. I'm sorry, Green people, but I think I'm going to have to order it. As long as it's not made from a sycamore tree. . .

See you next week!

I Had Charlie Sheen's Love Child

2011-03-15T20:48:00.000-07:00

That got your attention, didn't it? Sorry to disappoint you, but it's not true. Here's why I said it:
So (I saw a girl on tv who started every sentence with the word "so". It was catchy.) So I noticed I had a new reader and he/she had found me while Googling the phrase "Sorry wrong number". I'm guessing they were looking for the movie of the same name, but what they got instead was a blog entry I'd written some time ago, about telephones. So then I thought: I'll title this week's blog with the name of a currently famous/infamous person who gets Googled a lot and people will find me by mistake and maybe they'll stick around. Naturally, that person was Charlie. (Sorry, Charlie)

The new windows are in, and they are fabulous! The old windows let in noise, ladybugs, ice, rain; the new ones are a cozy, attractive barrier to all those things we want to keep out. We are snug as bugs in a rug. Now if I could do something about the freaked-out robin who keeps attacking my back door glass. . .

The local lakes were stocked this month with brown trout and rainbow trout, and some found their way to my table. Thanks, babe. . .

I like this song by Christina Perri:

Who do you think you are?
Running 'round leaving scars
Collecting a jar of hearts
Tearing love apart
You're gonna catch a cold
From the ice inside your soul
Don't come back for me
Don't come back at all
Who do you think you are?

Yeah, Christina! That's telling him!

If you've ever thought of writing, you'll like Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott (1995). The New York Times called it "Superb writing advice. . . hilarious, helpful, and provocative". Ms. Lamott remembers -- and will make you remember -- the good and bad times, heroes and villians of life, parents, the kid who had it in for you in third grade, and make you want to write it down in a book -- or maybe a blog. If you want to borrow my title, go ahead. Charlie likes the publicity.

Welcome to the Future

2011-03-08T21:46:00.000-08:00

It finally happened. The future my high school science teacher predicted is here. It's been a long time coming.
I still remember sitting in a comfortable pull-down seat in the school auditorium, used only for special occasions, and being wowed, as only a 16-year old can be, by his sneak peek into the future. We would communicate with our loved ones via television screen, invisible heat rays would cook our food, dishes would be automatically cleaned, food scraps eliminated, houses warmed by solar heat. We would travel by space ship to nearby planets. And it's all happening.
Okay, there were supposed to be robots. I don't have mine yet, but I know they're out there. I see them on television all the time, assembling cars, performing delicate surgery, basically taking over our jobs.
We've traveled to the moon, Mars, and seen the back side of the sun. Our ovens clean themselves. We captured the wind, sun, and water and made them work for us. Geothermal heat from underground warms some of our houses.
Millions of us have our own communicators: iPhones, iPads, computers with cameras. Purchases are made with plastic cards instead of cash. Commercials advertise strange products that leave me scratching my head. What in the world is it? Do I need one? Should I buy it now, or wait until next year when everyone else is tired of it and the price comes down? Is the backside of the sun that different from the front?
What am I doing here?????

Weather permitting, tomorrow our house will have new windows: double glass, insulated, tight-fitting replacements for the ancient worn out aluminum contraptions that let in the wind and spiders. I'm looking forward to viewing the world in a fresh new light.

Today I Googled myself just to find out what others see, and discovered I have a new namesake (just when I thought I was one of a kind) who is the principal of a middle school somewhere, I'm not sure where. My hope now is that my old classmates who are planning our something-something reunion, find her name and think she's me. Won't they be surprised at how far I've come? Oh yeah. You can bet she wasn't sitting at home tonight watching Larry the Cable guy. . .

When life, and your lack of robots, gets you down, try reading Post Secret (2005) by Frank Warren. Warren had the idea to ask people to mail him postcards containing a secret -- a fear, regret, confession, humiliation or desire they'd never shared with anyone. He posted the cards on a website, which overflowed into a book. Some are funny, many scary or tragic. All will touch your heart. They did mine.

See you next week!

Baby, You're a Firework

2011-03-02T20:56:00.000-08:00

My fingers are crossed. The world has been a warmer place since that groundhog didn't see his shadow. We have had a couple of nice days in a row, and outdoor work has begun. The yard was strewn with branches from the last windstorm, but some robins are here, and I swear the grass is greener. Also, daffodils are up. Can spring be far behind?

The fish pond has a frog that may/may not be alive. I guess only time (and warmer weather) will tell.

It's been years since I listened to anything but country music, with occasional forays into opera or musical theatre. But lately I've been hearing pop songs on television, and enjoying them. So this week I looked up the top ten hits in popular music and made an effort to listen to some. A few had titles so gross I ruled them out right away, but most are quite nice. Like "Just the Way You Are", by Bruno Mars:

When I see your face
there's not a thing that I would change
'cause you're amazing
And when you smile
the whole world stops and stares for awhile
'cause girl you're amazing
just the way you are.

Who wouldn't like hearing that? 'Firework' by KatyPerry was neat, too:

Baby you're a firework
Come on, show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go "Oh oh oh"
As you shoot across the sky. . .

Not a doo wop or a dum dum diddy in the lot, and I like them anyway. But I'm not giving up Alan Jackson.

Note to eBay sellers: if you're trying to sell a photograph, make sure people like me can't left-click on it and print it out themselves- for free. Just sayin' . . .

Today was Rhode Island's 375th birthday. If you see a Rhode Islander, wish him a happy day.

I have one of those touch lamps in my 'office' (daughter's bedroom before she moved out), and the last couple of days it's been lighting on its own. Should I be alarmed? I don't believe in ghosts, except maybe when I've read one too many Dean Koontz novels.

If you like your humor in short bursts like I do, you'll enjoy Mama Said There'd be Days Like This (1995), by Charlene Ann Baumbich. With each essay only three or four pages long, you'll find yourself reading them while getting dressed, cleaning the house, eating breakfast, and then putting off the work to read just one more. Thanks, Charlene.

See you next week!

Tomato, Tomahto, Potato, Potahto . . .

2011-02-23T19:15:00.000-08:00

Everyone has his or her own grammar gripe that sets his teeth on edge, or sends him screaming into the night. In my case, it's the words nevertheless and nonetheless.

All my life, nevertheless stood at the beginning or the middle of a sentence, while nonetheless brought up the rear. But suddenly, there is nonetheless, as big as life, starting the sentence off or following a semicolon in the middle: 'The sun shone brightly; nonetheless, the air was cold.'

I think Webster agrees with me, because he defines nevertheless as a conjunctive adverb, like however and therefore, but says no such thing about nonetheless. So would nonetheless please step to the end of the sentence where he belongs? Thank you.

Other words that annoy me are snuck (sneaked), drug (dragged), dreamt, and ain't, even though Brian Williams said "snuck" on the evening news last week. Ain't should only be heard in blues songs, and drug makes my hair positively stand on end. Even in West Virginia, I should never have to hear a sentence like, "I dreamt that I shot a buck out of season, drug him to my car, and snuck past the game warden. Ain't I clever?" Perhaps, but irritating, nonetheless.

Just wondering --
Can the government really take away our incandescent light bulbs? And then, will they take away our books, too, since they're responsible for the loss of so many trees? Although, if the light bulbs go, I won't be able to read the books anyway, so it won't matter, right?

Georges Simenon, born in Belgium in 1903, wrote over 400 books (eat your heart out, Danielle Steel), dealing with mystery, murder, and the human heart. The Murderer, (1937) records the spiritual disintegration of a doctor who has killed his wife and her lover, guilt gradually corroding his personality, making us feel horror and pity at the same time. This would be a good read while you still have your incandescent bulbs to see by. And then write a letter to your congressman.

Have a great week!

On the Wings of a Dove

2011-02-15T22:00:00.000-08:00

The temperature has been above forty for several days (thanks, Punxsutawney Phil!) and today I knew how that dove from Noah's ark felt when he was released to search for dry land and had to return to the ark over and over again, finding none. Finally, he did not return. I walked off our hill and downtown to the little general store, and the snow and ice had all melted except for a couple of spots. Hallelujah!

By the way, even though the Bible advises us to "be wary as serpents, but as harmless as doves", I have to say that not all doves are harmless. The ones in the bird feeder on the front porch are sometimes quite crabby.

More catch phrases I'm tired of:
* Have a conversation
* On my watch
* Take it to the next level

Although I confess to being a bit of a Luddite (a person opposed to technological change), yesterday my daughter sent, somehow, from her cell phone to my computer, a picture of the great-grandbaby, now six months old. His two-toothed smile lit up the screen -- and my day. So, okay, a little technology is a good thing. But if you've been watching Jeopardy the past two days, you know that there is now a computer called Watson, who is knocking the argyle socks off ex-champions Brad and Ken. The finale is Wednesday, and after that I imagine Watson plans to run for president. I'm not sure that he couldn't do the job.

"There is nothing better than a good friend, except a good friend with chocolate." -- Charles Dickens, in Pickwick Papers.

Spartina, by John Casey (1989), is the story of a Rhode Island fisherman who is willing to risk everything, including a hurricane, to make the dream of owning his own boat come true. (Spoiler: he probably should have had a land-seeking dove on board.) Excuse me; I need to go find some clam chowder now. Talk among yourselves.

See you next week!

Is it Chocolate Day Yet?

2011-02-08T23:15:00.000-08:00

I really haven't earned it, don't deserve it, and my waistline definitely doesn't need it, but Valentine's Day is next week, and I'm dreaming of -- mmmm -- chocolate. Chocolate covered blueberries, Andes candies, Hershey kisses, marshmallow chocolate-covered hearts, and then some chocolate cake washed down with a steaming cup of -- yup -- hot chocolate. Oh yeah.

Our newspaper has cut way back on its comics, but so far, still carries my perennial favorite, Mary Worth. Mary has a few years on her, but she keeps up with the new technology. Except when it comes to reading. Mary refuses to consider an electronic book reader, even when her boyfriend, Jeff, teases her and calls her a a Luddite. Atta girl, Mary. Have a chocolate.

Did I mention February is Library Lovers Month?

Random thoughts:

All the utilities, etc., have tried for months to persuade me to go paperless, and I've resisted. But after two and a half months of trudging through the snow to the mailbox down on the corner, it's starting to appeal to me.

High-speed internet has finally reached my neighborhood, just when my mind slipped into low speed.

The Steelers lost the Super Bowl, our basketball team isn't doing well, either, and pretty soon the baseball team will disappoint me again. I don't know why they call it sport. . .

Our incandescent light bulbs are due to be phased out in 2013. Don't tell anyone, but I have a good supply in the basement. Ours will be the house with the spinning meter. . .

My (never mind which one) class reunion is coming up this fall. I think I have a zit.

Thought for the day: Every time I close the door on reality, it comes in through the window.

(But maybe not if I pile a big stack of books there)

Happy library lovers month!

Til the Storm Passes by

2011-02-01T20:42:00.000-08:00

We're not supposed to be a part of the storm that is sweeping across the country tonight, except for some wind that's predicted, but still I'm uneasy. There are strange thumpings which I assume to be the rain sliding the snow and icicles off the roofs. Everything that could have blown around has been picked up and put under cover. There's plenty of gas for the generator if we need it, and extra loaves of bread in the freezer. So the plan is, to burrow under the covers and hope whatever comes, is over by morning. And maybe the groundhog will give us good news.

On the bright side, the stock market closed at over 12,000 today for the first time since June 2008. For once, there was a good reason to clap and smile, and even swing from the chandeliers, at the close of trading. How now, Dow Jones!

Today was spent going through files and throwing out unnecessary stuff, and organizing some drawers. The result was a big trash can full of papers, and the file folders ready for this year's accumulation. It was fun reading through the newspaper clippings and newsletters, receipts for cool things we bought last year, magazine articles, plans for birdhouses, etc. and deciding what to keep and what to toss. According to my list, I read 85 books in 2010, down from 100 the year before. I always like closing the door on an old year, (that includes filing that pesky income tax!) and getting on with the new. Do you?

February 6 would have been Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday. I hope the Turner classic movie channel shows some of his old films. I especially loved "King's Row".

Whether you agreed with his politics or not, you had to like the guy. This story illustrates one of the reasons why:

"A bus pulls in and a young woman gets off. She sets off down the street. A man follows her. Suddenly, he is on her. She feels a gun in her back, and he tells her to drop the purse and suitcase. She has only three dollars and offers that. The man grabs the purse and suitcase. Then, the hero appears in an apartment window two floors above the street. "Leave her alone," he shouts, "or I'll shoot you right between the shoulders." The mugger drops everything and flees. The hero descends the stairs and comforts the lady in distress.
The man was Ronald Reagan . . . and the scene was real."

See what I mean?

Here's hoping the storms, floods, cyclones and volcanoes miss you, your stocks continue to rise, and Punxatawney Phil does not see his shadow. Happy February!

Random Thoughts in Winter

2011-01-26T20:36:00.000-08:00

I'm officially sicker of winter now than I was of summer six months ago. Yes, it was lovely for a while, especially at Christmas, with the colored lights glittering on the snow. (Some of the lights are still glittering . . .how about it folks? Isn't it time to put those away?)

By the way: When the weatherman says there's an outside chance of a possible snow shower, put the snow shovel by the back door. Just sayin' . . .

Right when we were starting to see bare road, along came a new storm, with Hollywood-style snowflakes the size of golf balls. And it wasn't the nice, fluffy snow we've had til now. This stuff is like lead. I was undaunted, though, and cleaned the walks and paths easily (take that, AARP!!), and am none the worse for wear. This evening the electricity, cable, and phones were off briefly, but came back in time to watch the Bones marathon. Thank goodness.

I think I may be watching too much television, but in this weather, what's a girl to do? Is it wrong that Oprah, Kathie Lee and Hoda are my new BFF's? (best friends forever) I wake up with Matt Lauer and fall asleep with Dave Letterman. In between I cook with Rachael Ray, take a ride in the Cash Cab, do some Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe, work a crossword puzzle with Pat and Vanna, and the next day it's the same thing all over again. I was even watching Kate Plus Eight, until I realized I was only tuning in to see Kate's hair.

The Kardashian sisters are oddly interesting, and thanks to two months of bad weather, I know them much better than my own neighbors. And I don't have to slog through the slush to visit them; they're all right in my living room.

Oh boy. How many days until spring?

On a Night Like This, by Ellen Sussman (2004) is the compelling story of two former high school classmates, who meet again as the result of a class reunion, but perhaps the timing is way off. He is pining for the wife who walked out on him; she has a serious illness - and a teenage daughter to provide for. In the beauty that is San Francisco (no snow there) they might just find what they are both searching for.

See you next week...

You know you're in West Virginia when. . .

2011-01-19T23:51:00.000-08:00

You know you're in West Virginia when:

1. The videos your family watches on the computer are from the trail camera in the woods.
2. You have at least one room with an antler wall.
3. When giving directions, you tell people to turn right where the mine used to be.
4. Your fantasy football game would be WVU vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers.
5. WVU would win.
6. Out-of-staters ask where exactly in Virginia you are located.
7. At least one ancestor was a bootlegger.
8. Lunch consists of pepperoni rolls washed down with Mountain Dew.
9. The baby sports a camouflage onesie.

And last but not least:
10. You know you're from West Virginia when you spend every day with the nicest people you've ever met in the prettiest place on earth. Ssshhhh . . .Don't tell anyone, though. It's our secret.

"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library." --Jorge Luis Borges

I recently acquired two books authored by native West Virginians. One is City Boy, Country Heart, (1993) a "marvelous, meandering mosaic of misty mountain memories" by John Kincaid that will make you smile no matter where you hail from. The other is Once to Die, by Scott Burgess (2001), a novel of a young man, Steve Thomas, who departs this earth prematurely (he thinks), but surprisingly returns in the body of a troubled woman, for a second chance at life. And I have only eleven pages left to read, so ---

See you next week!

Blogger,Thy Name is Narcissus

2011-01-12T20:25:00.000-08:00

The other day I heard someone compare bloggers to Narcissus, a beautiful but heartless youth in Greek mythology who couldn't tear himself away from his own reflection in a pool, where he finally died and was reborn in the spring as a beautiful flower.

That's just silly. But still...blogging is pretty heady stuff. Where else but on a blogger website could our 'deathless prose' be published instantly, day or night, as often as we choose to create it, and read worldwide by people from all walks of life? Even AndyRooney doesn't get that.

You might be a narcissist if:

1. You have ever considered turning your blog into a book.
2. You print out copies for family members who don't have computers --and everyone on your Christmas card list.
3. You wake up at 2 am to use the bathroom, and check the computer to see how many readers you had during the night.
4. When you find someone who has your blog on his reading list, you can't resist clicking on your own link.
5. You hope to go global, and get a reader in Australia or Hawaii, even though you have no idea what interests Australians or Hawaiians.

If you come across anyone who fits this description, let me know. I'll be down at the reflecting pool.

Last week would have been Elvis' 76th birthday, so there were Elvis movie marathons on some of the television networks. My favorite was "Kissing Cousins", where Elvis played the part of an Army guy who traveled to his kinfolks' mountain village to persuade them to sell land to the Army for a missile base. He was surprised to meet a distant cousin who looked exactly like him, but with wavy blonde hair. In their scenes together, one cousin faced one direction and one the other, which is the way a scene was shot back then when an actor played two parts. The movie was fun, and now one of the songs is stuck in my head:

"Life's a playful puppy, you can grab by the scruff
And if you live every sec', what the heck, once is enough."

One of the rescued Chilean miners, (Chi! Chi! Chi! Le! Le! Le!), Edison Pena, attended the birthday celebration at Graceland. Though he speaks little English, he helped to keep up the morale in the collapsed mine by singing Elvis songs. Hey, it's always worked for me.

Odd Hours, by Dean Koontz (2008) is one in the suspense-filled series of books about Odd Thomas, a heroic, endearing, mysterious character who senses disaster ahead, and tries to stop it. I'll be looking forward to reading the rest.

See you next week!

The Sound of a Resolution Breaking

2011-01-05T20:23:00.000-08:00

What is that sound I keep hearing? The Polar ice cap cracking and melting due to global warming? The election losers slamming their car doors and leaving Washington for home? Sarah Palin firing a deer rifle at her intrusive next-door neighbor, who's writing a book about her? Nope.
It's the sound of New Years resolutions being broken, all over the world. But who hasn't broken any? Me, because for the first time in my life, I didn't make one.

Not that I couldn't stand improving. I need to lose a few pounds. I should read less and exercise more. I ought to cook something that doesn't require a can opener. The freezer is bulging with summer vegetables, apples, berries, and rhubarb for pies, and venison and sausage, that with a little effort could be whipped into delicious home-cooked meals.
I should watch fewer crime shows and more public television. The Sopranos would get along fine without me. So here's the deal. I resolve -- at least by next New Years -- to think about it. Definitely.

The last two weekends, the local paper has been without its Sunday funnies. Instead, there was a single black and white page with a few comics, most of which were reruns.
I called the newspaper office Monday morning, and spoke to a person who said the Sunday comic section was being discontinued, and didn't seem the least bit apologetic about it.
No Sunday funnies? After a lifetime of reading and enjoying Rex Morgan and Mary Worth, Peanuts and Blondie, Beetle Bailey and Garfield the cat? Sometimes I would come into the kitchen on Sunday morning and find a single-square comic with my name on it that had reminded hubby of me, and I'd slap one up on the refrigerator that was exactly like him, but I guess we won't be doing that any more. I can read the comics in color on the Internet at night, and even print them out, but it won't be the same.
I suppose the change has to do with money; everything does nowadays. But a Sunday paper without the comic section? I just don't see the point.

Stress Free Living, by Dr. Trevor Powell, is a big shiny self-help manual, guaranteed to teach you to deal with the relationships in your life in a thoughtful and productive way. One chapter deals with the differences between passive, aggressive, and assertive behavior. Having read this, I can handle the case of the missing comics in one of three ways:

Passive: Oh please, give us back our comics. Sometimes that little Charlie Brown kid with his football is all that keeps me sane.

Aggressive: Listen, Buster. The Sunday comics are an American institution, and it's your responsibility to deliver them to us, and it wouldn't kill you to throw in a TV guide while you're at it. There are other newspapers, you know.

Assertive: (recommended) Perhaps a survey of the readers would tell you what features they care about most and least, and you could make a decision based on their answers. They would appreciate being part of the process.

I just hope they don't pull away my football.

See you next week!

My Christmas Card List

2010-12-28T21:00:00.000-08:00

Chances are your name wasn't on it. But that's just because I don't know your name, right?

Especially if you're a thousand miles away reading blogs at midnight like I do (hey, it's more fun than watching ships go through the Panama Canal!)

I hope your Christmas (or whatever you call it in your neck of the woods) was merry (unless you prefer cranky) and your New Years (New Year's is everywhere, right?) is the great beginning of something fun, educational, and fulfilling. And warm.

Take care . . .

Saving Mary Worth

2010-12-22T20:36:00.000-08:00

My hometown newspaper decided this month to replace a few of the comic strips with newer, hipper ones. I hate it when this happens because I'm loyal to mine, especially Dr. Rex Morgan and Mary Worth. Rex is forever tall, dark and handsome, and he and his wife, June Gale, who started out as his office nurse, have successful practices and still find time to save the world. Mary Worth is the comic strip equivalent of Betty Crocker; she grows younger all the time, as from her swanky apartment at Charterstone, she dispenses sage advice, and has saved many, many relationships, including her own, when she flew overseas to find her boyfriend, Jeff, who had fallen ill, and return him to the U.S.A. So naturally, I look out for these two old friends. And I'm not the only one. There is always a flurry of letters and emails if their comics are threatened.

Mary was missing for only one day, thank goodness, but meanwhile, I Googled her, and found a website which carries the strip daily (whew), just in case. We all can benefit from Mary's wisdom, and she, occasionally, needs our support.

In my search for minimalism, I try to get rid of unnecessary baggage, but while Christmas shopping, I came across a collectible Wrigley's gum tin, about six inches long, with a hinged lid. It was packed full of gum that I don't chew, so everyone is getting gum for Christmas this year. Did I mention we were lucky enough to find another Shirley Jean fruitcake? Last year I raved about it being the only fruitcake I really like. No one else wanted any, so we didn't have to share.

Tonight while looking through eBay, I finally found a record I've searched for since the Seventies. Records are making a comeback now, what with all the new high-priced combination phonograph/radio/cassette/cd players on the market. I'm excited to get the record -- and happy it doesn't take up much room.

Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett, has enough history, romance, treachery, war and chivalry to take your weary mind off Christmas shopping and wrapping and bill-paying. And at 973 pages, it should take you well into 2011.

Here's hoping the holidays and new year are good for you. See you next week!

Newsletters, I Get Newsletters . . .

2010-12-15T21:35:00.000-08:00

I spent the last couple of days signing and addressing Christmas cards. I ran out of stamps twice, and left notes for the mailman to bring more. The air was frigid, and snow has been on the ground since the first of the month, so I really didn't want to go out, and he's good about it.
I've thought of discontinuing cards, but we enjoy getting them so much it makes up for the aching back, eyestrain, and yes, the price of postage. Come on, we only hear from these people once a year, so it's worth the effort, right?

I always hope to get a card with a personalized note, and if there's a newsletter, I'm in seventh Heaven. No matter how much fun columnists make of them, I love newsletters as much as -- um, as much as flannel sheets on a cold night, Elvis singing Blue Christmas, almost as much as Tom Hanks playing the oversized toy piano in the movie "Big". So keep those cards and letters coming, okay?

It takes a special person to be a good librarian. You have to love books, which is easy, and you have to like people even with all their quirks, which is hard. You have to put up with folks like me day after day, and still have the energy to devote to a family. We lost our friend Carol unexpectedly last night, and I can't imagine the library without her. It will be a sad and quiet place.

See you next week . . .

Multiplying Maggies

2010-12-08T20:14:00.000-08:00

We are locked into a pattern of snow and cold that's supposed to last through next week, at least. But that's nothing compared to the 39 inches that fell in Syracuse, so I can't complain. A new set of snow tires, and I think we'll make it through.

Does it seem as if the weather reports are getting much longer? By the time they divide the state up into counties, draw in the cold fronts, colorize the areas with the worst storms, trace the air currents across the country and into the Atlantic Ocean, and rattle off the highs and lows for the next seven days, my tired brain has totally tuned them out, and when hubby comes into the room and asks, "What's the forecast?", I have no idea.

I phoned my elder daughter today and in the course of the conversation, asked "What's Maggie (her ten-year-old) doing?" Multiplying, answered her mom. Huh? It turned out that Maggie, who is being home-schooled, was at the dining room table working on her math.

Multiplying? If only she could. Then all the world would have a Maggie --- cute, cheerful, generous and kind, unable to hurt any living creature, not even a spider. Maggie loves the color purple (the paint, not the bestselling book), and will sing for you, with gusto, the Kingston Trio's old hit, M.T.A., from the time Charley gets on the train, right before the unfair fare increase, until his wife hands him a sandwich through the open window as he rides forever beneath the streets of Boston, the man who never returned. A curious song for a ten-year old to know.

My mom celebrated her 39th birthday - again - today. I caught up and passed her long ago. I don't know how she does it, but she's making the rest of us look bad. Happy birthday, Mom!

A. J. Jacobs has read through the whole Encyclopedia Britannica. He has spent a year living the way men in the Bible lived. He wrote about it in his books, The Know-It-All, and The Year of Living Biblically. And now in his third book, My Life as an Experiment, (2009) he goes even further, doing things like catering to his wife's every whim, practicing total honesty, living by George Washington's strict moral code, and outsourcing his work to India. The results are hilarious. It's a book best read alone. Otherwise, your snickering and sometimes outright guffawing will get on everyone's nerves and they might put you on the neverending train ride with Charley.

See you next week!

Say it in Pig Latin

2010-12-01T21:44:00.000-08:00

Since I've been reading about journals, I decided to start one of my own. I have a Pilot dark green G2 pen, some quotes, newspaper clippings and cartoons, and a fresh notebook from Walmart. I didn't buy the $15 journal I found on Amazon; it seemed like too big a commitment for someone whose New Years resolutions rarely last more than a day.

The last time I wrote my thoughts on a daily basis, I was in high school, falling in love every other minute, so of course I wrote my diary in code in case Mom happened to find it. Now that I'm grown up I guess I can forget the shorthand, French, and the ig-pay atin-lay (that's Pig Latin to you) I used to keep my secrets.

I'm not sure what kind of journal I want, though- - daily events, meditation, self-improvement, literary? Should it be funny? No one else will be reading it, so how much effort should I put into being funny just for me? Nevertheless, my horoscope yesterday plainly said, "Why not start a journal if you haven't done so already? This will give your ideas a place to gather and can become a starting point for further reflection." So be it.

Move over, Pepys. I'm journaling.

We had our first serious snow today and there were fender-benders everywhere. We've laid in a supply of groceries, and there are the canned goods in the basement, so all that's left to do is don our Snuggies and wait for spring. We may go out occasionally for milk and bread.

I found a blog the other day called "Forgotten Bookmarks", written by a used-book seller, all about the treasures he finds in books, and identified with it right away. There is a bulging folder at our library booksale, full of things like unused stationery from a Bermuda motel, wedding announcements, a post card from Cesar Chavez, prom photos, and a note for the bread man who once went door to door, requesting "a white cake and an apple or cherry pie". "Forgotten" even had a recipe for "Mrs. Eisenhower's fudge" that I plan to try. If it was good enough for Ike, it's good enough for me. Besides, it will warm the kitchen while the snow is blowing outside.

Garrison Keillor's Good Poems is a collection of the poems he reads on his daily NPR show, "The Writer's Almanac". Read them with Garrison's voice in your head, and wear your Snuggie. The shoveling can wait.

See you next week!

Pardon My Grammar . . .

2010-11-24T19:56:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that in my last post I said less people are using telephone books, when it obviously should have been fewer people.If I'd only opened up the Warriner's English Grammar and Composition (Copyright 1948) on my desk, there is a whole paragraph devoted to fewer, less.

I always notice grammatical errors in books and magazines -- unless they're mine, that is. I can read a paragraph of mine over and over without noticing that I've used the word antidisestablishmentarianism twice in one sentence. But then, our language is so full of confusing choices like further, farther, shall and will, hung and hanged, who can blame us if we slip sometimes? For example, Is it dreamed or dreamt? Daphne duMaurier began her novel, Rebecca, with the sentence "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderly again." Does that mean all the years I've been eating creamed corn, I've been eating creamt corn? Have I screamed or screamt? Are you screaming right now?

Today was mostly spent cooking the Thanksgiving goodies. I've lost my skill at pie crust (some say I never had it), so this year we bought Sara Lee frozen pies. Just pop them in the oven, right? All was fine until I decided the pumpkin was a little underdone and decided to put it back in for a few minutes next to the bread pudding. The thin little piepan bent as I was sliding it onto the rack, and crust and pumpkin slid out, covering the bottom of the oven and running down into the broiler. I spent the next couple of hours cleaning the stove and clearing smoke from the kitchen. Maybe it's true that "nobody doesn't like Sara Lee", but somebody doesn't like the flimsy little pan. Just sayin'. . .

Have you seen the new reality show "Sarah Palin's Alaska"? In one episode, Sarah & family were fishing for salmon while, a stone's throw away, two brown bears fought. In another, Sarah and her husband climbed Alaska's Mt. Denali. The view is always breathtaking, and no matter what your politics, Sarah is fun to watch. I bet she makes a mean pumpkin pie, too.

I've been reading lots of blogs about journals. A journal is a way of noticing the world around you, writing down the events of the day and how they affected you. It's supposed to make you more aware of your surroundings and your place in the world. Kind of like a blog, except a journal looks nice on a shelf. If I had one now, I'd write about my pie disaster and how I didn't let it get to me. I just hope to God I don't drop the turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving! See you next week. . .

The Age of Innocence?

2010-11-17T20:49:00.000-08:00

According to my blog roll, three of my people are traveling, and I'm a little envious. Fancy Nancy, Johnny, and Scriblets are all posting from the road these days. Which reminds me, I need to look into that Jack Kerouac book. . . Have fun, guys!

Did I mention that my used copy of 'South Pacific" from Amazon.com only cost 56 cents? Plus a small shipping fee, of course. You can't beat that. Of course, it puts me one more possession away from becoming a minimalist. But I have made progress. Oh, I'm a long way from two suitcases and two boxes, but this week hubby and I ridded ourselves of some possessions and rearranged two rooms that were cluttered. I love the new pegboard walls in my closet. There's still a waffle iron under the bed, though, and by rights it should be gone, since we haven't used it in at least two years (now that there are Eggos). I'm not giving up, though. If I could just stay out of the Thrift store . . .

I smile every time I hear people talk about Baby Boomers and the Fifties. Before Elvis and rock and roll, they say, there was an innocence. No one mentions that there had recently been two world wars and a depression, and long before "Love Me Tender" hit the charts, little kids sang a rousing song called "The Caissons Go Rolling Along". (Caissons were two-wheeled wagons used to transport ammunition during WW I.) There was an air raid siren downtown and the neighbors were building bomb shelters in their back yards. So maybe the Fifties weren't so innocent after all.

Speaking of Boomers, in Jimmy Carter's book, "The Virtues of Aging", he talks about some of the perks of being grown up. Here are a few of mine:

Your kids have become your best friends
You can stay up as late as you want (I'm doing it now)
No one scolds you for eating half the pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving eve
Old clothes become fashionable again
You know the answers on "Jeopardy"

This week I read that Verizon is thinking of doing away with phone books -- the white pages anyway. They say that with more and more cell phones, and the Internet, less people are letting their fingers do the walking. I guess that's true, but I hate to see them go. What is baby Blake going to sit on until he's old enough to reach the table?

Julie and Julia, by Julie Powell, is the story of a New York girl who feels her life is going nowhere, and decides to cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering The Art of French Cooking, and blog about it. She acquires some loyal readers (and possibly a stalker), learning about herself in the process. Cooking would be a good way to stay warm in these blustery November days - unless you're lucky enough to be on your way to Florida.

Have a great week!

The Minimalist

2010-11-10T21:18:00.000-08:00

Hubby and I went for a walk in the woods today. It was a beautiful Indian summer afternoon, just right for an adventure. Having lived right down the street as a child, he knows his way around the woods, and led me to a spot where a beaver has been chewing down trees and dragging the branches into the creek, which he has pretty well dammed up from shore to shore. He has gone too far, though, having half-cut one tree in a clump of five or six that lean over some power lines by the roadside, and now I think he'll have to go before he fells it completely, cutting off the electricity in the neighborhood. Maybe they'll relocate him somewhere away from us. Amazing the damage one of those cute critters can do . . .

Last week the evening news carried some stories on simple living, and interviewed a fellow named Kelly Sutton, a self-professed minimalist, whose goal (and he's almost there) is to live out of two suitcases and two boxes. His blog is called The Cult of Less. All his documents, banking, photos, music, and anything else that can be digitalized are stored on his computer (with remote backup, of course). Books are read on a Kindle. Instead of acquiring things, he wants to acquire experiences. It's very tempting, but definitely not for everyone. Or at least not me.

It's possible I could scan the contents of a dozen picture albums onto my hard drive, but could I really live without those well-worn pages, the family photos handed down, baby curls, birth certificates with the children's inky footprints, the years of notes from my husband, the birthday greetings, grade school art work, and all our report cards? The newspaper columns from Erma Bombeck and Bob Greene, Andy Rooney, and Cokie Roberts, the front pages with Presidential inaugurations, royal weddings, and stories of local boys who went to war or became famous athletes. . .

Could I take down the 8x10's from the wall, the cat painting, the framed yarn-and nail bird portraits the girls made in Scouts, the van Gogh Sunflower print, or throw away the stuffed animals and papier-mache dog, obituaries, stamps, and Becky's opera glasses? I could record an Elvis album on my MP3 (if I had one), but it wouldn't be the 33 1/3 album my brother-in-law wore out on an aircraft carrier during the Cold War. As for the Kindle, I like a book I can hold in my hand, a signed copy, if possible, one with notes the last reader wrote to hmself, and a recipe tucked between the pages. A minimalist, alas, I will never be. Especially now that we have the Internet.

Recently, I went looking for a recipe, took a wrong turn down the endless halls of Amazon.com, and ended up with South Pacific, a movie I'd somehow never seen. It was mesmerizing. Think Rossano Brazzi, suave, European, (I don't care if his voice was dubbed), and Mitzi Gaynor, slim, wearing those flattering clothes from the Forties, on an island, singing Some Enchanted Evening. Why, it's enough to make a grown girl swoon (do girls still swoon?). Too late now to protest "I only came here for a turnip recipe!"

Me? A minimalist? Never. Pass the champagne, Rossano.

I Approve This Message . . .

2010-11-03T20:55:00.000-07:00

I guess it's safe to come out now. The politicking is over, at least for a while, until the start of 2012 campaigning. The last clump of mud has been slung, the last automated phone call made, the last red, white and blue postcard arrived in the mail. All that's left to do is clean up the confetti and remove all the roadside signs. Let's get right on that, okay?

Our gov here in the mountain state has now become our senator in Washington, and who knows where he'll go from there, and I see that the new Chief Executive in R.I. is the son of the guy who was governor when I lived there. I like that.

Congratulations to all the winners. Make us proud!

Today I heard the perfect country song on the radio. It went like this: I'm falling in love as she's walking away; and my heart won't tell my mind to tell my mouth what it should say. Maybe someone should write a sad country song for the election losers.

Am I the only one left who doesn't own a cell phone? Okay, I have a tracphone I keep for emergencies, but that's just one step above chiseling on stone, compared to the modern instruments of communication which have changed our lives.

If I try, I can still remember when we had company in the house and talked back and forth to one another about books or movies or politics, and didn't sit hunched over a little plastic square with our thumbs doing the walking. Or strolled down the sidewalk noticing the beauty of nature and saying hello to people we met, instead of carrying on a loud conversation with the thing clipped to our ear. No ringtones disrupted the preacher's Sunday sermon, teenagers didn't text each other from across the room concocting ways to get away from us, no dads jumped up from Thanksgiving dinner to solve a problem at the office. Are cell phones really a necessity or just a novelty?

Sometimes when work, life, or politics get too stressful, I relax by reading YA (young adult) books. This week I read The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney, the story of a teenage girl who discovers that she was kidnapped as a child, and Canyons, by Gary Paulsen, the best (I think) young persons' author around. The Cooney book has about three sequels, which I want to read sometime. No hurry. Thanks to amazon.com, they'll be there when I'm ready. Meanwhile, the grandkids can read these - if they can tear themselves away from their cell phones.

Have a great week!

P.S. Don't expect even an automated phone call from your candidate thanking you for your vote. He's already moved on. Don't worry, though. He'll be back for the dedication of the new bridge named for him.

It's Been a Very Good Year . . .

2010-10-27T21:34:00.000-07:00

A year ago tonight I was shivering in my slippers, sending my voice out into the blogosphere for the first time. It's been a great year. I've never read so much, noticed so much of life around me, wondered about so many things, or met so many nice people -- especially you!
If my Bravenet counter can be believed, there have been readers from the four corners of the U.S., Japan, India and even Russia. I love that, and I've enjoyed reading your blogs every bit as much as writing mine. What do you say we all meet on top of the Empire State Building on New Year's Eve? Oh wait. That didn't work out well for Cary Grant. So, see you on your computer screen next week?

Is there anything prettier than October in the Northeast? Yesterday we got the tail end of the storms from the Midwest, and this morning the skies were overcast and below that was fog. About nine o'clock or so I suddenly looked out and there was a wide slit opening between the clouds and the fog. Bright sunlight popped out from the slit and shot straight through the middle of the house. It was so powerful I couldn't look at it. The next thing I knew, the clouds and fog were gone without a trace and the sky was bright blue. They must have thought me crazy when I walked down the road to the mailbox and stood staring up through the yellow leaves to the blue sky overhead, taking pictures all the way. God bless October!

Today they announced that Scott toilet tissue will be going "green" by eliminating the cardboard tube from the rolls. They won't roll as smoothly, but it will mean less product going to the landfills. First the incandescent light bulb and now this? Maybe I'll save a few of the tubes and reuse them. Paper towels will probably follow suit. I have a half dozen paper towel tubes that I cut open and slipped onto wire hangars for hanging dress pants, but all in all I guess the tubes are something we can live without.
All the utilities would like us to go paperless, by sending our bills online, and then withdrawing the money from our bank account. Nice try, guys.

The weather has turned warm and the ants are back - and the dandelions. The garden has been cleaned out and made ready for next year, and some crates of Bartlett pears are ripening in the basement between sheets of newspaper, almost ready for canning. They're delicious this year.

Apparently fall is a good time to publish a book because there are book signings all over. Show of hands: how many out there are writing a book? Think about attending a book signing by a local author and buying his book. And in turn maybe he'll buy yours. It's worth a shot.

Have a fun Halloween. See you next week!

Peeps Roasting On an Open Fire . . .

2010-10-19T20:43:00.000-07:00

Hubby and I were working on a project in the kitchen two days ago, when we heard sirens coming up the street. He had lit the outdoor wood furnace that afternoon, so my first thought was someone had mistaken its chimney smoke for something worse. But a look out the front window showed us it was a house fire a couple of streets over. Smoke and flames roared up to the sky and it was truly scary.

It could have been worse. People had moved out of the house just the day before so there were no injuries, thank goodness. On the news that night were reports of three other fires in neighboring counties, one of them fatal, and we were given the usual warnings about space heaters, wood stoves, smoke alarms, and such. Good advice for the month of October.

My granddaughter and her daddy tried roasting marshmallow peeps over the fire pit one day. It seemed like a good idea, but the inside became way too hot and dangerous. Don't try this at home.

These days it seems I spend a lot of time, especially late at night, reading blogs. And lately I've been wondering what it would have been like if our forefathers had had them. Would Lindbergh have "tweeted" as he flew his small plane up among the eagles over the Atlantic Ocean? Lewis and Clark could have had a great travel journal, along with Hemingway and Jack Kerouac, and I would have sat at my computer every night reading "Travels With Charley".

Eleanor Roosevelt would have made good use of the Internet as she wrote her daily column "My Day". She always embraced new ideas. And what about Pepys' diary?

Patton would have loved tweeting.

Romeo and Juliet could e-mail each other late at night, when their warring parents were asleep, and maybe become BFF's (best friends forever) instead of doomed star-crossed lovers.

If you look over to your right, you'll see a link to John DeRosa's blog. He's been traveling the country visiting all the state capitals, and his pictures are breathtaking. Thanks, John, for taking us places we'll probably never see in person. Bon Voyage!

Garrison Keillor, who hosts A Prairie Home Companion on NPR Saturday evenings, also writes a weekly newspaper column called "Old Scout", and some of the columns have made it to the Internet. If you like his slow midwestern style as much as I do, and the stories he weaves, pull up a chair, grab a cup of pretty good coffee and a Powdermilk biscuit, and see what he has to say and how he says it. It's good reading, honestly. Would your BFF lie to you?

Have a safe week. Eat your marshmallow peeps cold.

Chile in October

2010-10-13T21:22:00.000-07:00

I spent the day in Chile today, a place I formerly knew nothing about, watching the 33 trapped miners being rescued. It was exhausting.

I didn't intend to spend the whole day with CNN; it just happened. I turned it on before breakfast, doing a little housework during commercials, fixing and eating meals, doing laundry, picking up apples in the yard and putting them over the fence, scheduling a repairman for the lawn mower, and before I knew it, it was almost midnight and the miners were safely out. (Insert the Chilean national anthem here.)

I admire the courage and brilliant planning it took to pull this off. Did I mention that some of the planners were from WV? Great job, guys. Chi Chi Chi! Le Le Le!

The Chilean national anthem is a little trickier to follow than "O, Canada" was during the Olympics.

How to win on Jeopardy:

Memorize the state capitals, the presidents, and the Kings of England - and Sweden. They come up surprisingly often.
Read Shakespeare even if you hate him.
After your first win, don't let Alex's flattering go to your head. It's a jinx.
Bone up on the table of elements, the Greek alphabet (even if it's Greek to you), opera characters and Roman gods.

Moby Dick, Herman Melville, 1851.

Waiting For Godot is a play about two guys waiting for another guy who never shows up. Why it's so famous, I'll never know, but Jeopardy loves it.

I'll be here at home, cheering you on. Chi Chi Chi! Le Le Le!

See you next week. . .

Snow on the Mountain

2010-10-06T20:57:00.000-07:00

According to the weatherman, there is snow at the ski lodges already. If that is so, why are my soap characters still going sleeveless? I unearthed my winter jacket a couple of days ago, and believe me, it feels good.

It was bag day at the local thrift store, and for eight dollars I loaded my plastic trash bag with sweaters and corduroys in fall colors. An unexpected bonus was a big display of books selling for a dollar a bagful where I found these treasures: Spartina, by John Casey (takes place in R. I., my old home); Just Beyond the Firelight, stories and essays by Robert James Waller; Jack Kerouac's On The Road - somehow I've never read it; Iron John, by Robert Bly ( his poetry is excellent, too); Big Fish. by Daniel Wallace (I loved his book Ray in Reverse); and The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, by Alexander Smith. And Fathers Are People Too, a book of essays by a guy billed as "the male Erma Bombeck". Erma even praised him on the front cover. Lucky stiff.

Speaking of essays, I was in a conversation about a grandson who's having trouble with them in school and I actually said, who ever writes essays in their adult life anyway? Duh, me. . .

An R.I. guy was the big winner on "Wheel" tonight. Yay!

I find myself watching non-local television channels just to avoid the political ads bashing our state candidates. Won't somebody please take the high road? I could happily support a guy who actually has a plan instead of just a bag of insults.

See you next week. . .

Miss-filed

2010-09-30T20:01:00.000-07:00

A while back a telemarketer called trying to sell me a fancy appointment book and was surprised to find me not the least bit interested. How did I keep track of my appointments, he wondered. When I said I simply write them on my calendar, you'd have thought I told him I chiseled them in stone on the wall of my cave.

I try to be organized. But it doesn't work for me. I have a file drawer overflowing with owners' manuals, organized alphabetically. It should work, but somehow it doesn't. There are too many choices to make. For example, the telephone manual. Do I file it under Cell phone, Telephone, or just plain Phone? Should the lawn mower go under L, or M? Chain saw or just plain Saw? I have a fifty-fifty chance of being right, but somehow I always look in the wrong file. And I need to find that warranty so I can see that it ran out yesterday, or worse, that I forgot to mail in the warranty at all.

The address book is just as confusing. It's organized by last names but sometimes I can't remember the last name so some people are filed by their first name, and those on their second or third marriages have to be cross-referenced. Doctors and lawyers are filed under their profession, since I usually can't remember their names at all. Which reminds me...I have a new doctor. Now where on earth is that chisel?

I was glad today to be far inland, with the rainstorms raging up the Eastern states, and hope all is well with you coast-dwellers. We got just the right amount here in Almost Heaven, enough to fill up the creeks and cisterns, but you had more than was needed. Time to towel off and curl up with a good book like The Girls, by Lori Lansens (2006). It is the extraordinary story of conjoined twins Rose and Ruby Darlen, a work of fiction, but compelling, beautiful, and funny.

See you next week!

Out in the Hurly-Burly

2010-09-24T19:55:00.000-07:00

It's not very often you find an error in a book these days. They are proofread many times before being published and errors are found and corrected, but there was this one: "He stepped out into the hurdy gurdy of the crowd..."

Huh?

A quick double-check in my dictionary confirmed I was right. He didn't step into a barrel-organ, which is what a hurdy-gurdy is; that would be tricky. What he stepped into was the hurly-burly (turmoil, uproar) of the crowd on the sidewalk.

I can see how the mistake happened, though. There are several similar-sounding terms, all beginning with the letter H, enough for a category on Jeopardy. Besides hurly burly and hurdy gurdy, there is herky jerky, hocus pocus, helter skelter, harum scarum, and hoi polloi. It's enough to give you the heebie jeebies.

I wonder if the hurly burly on the street had anything to do with people rushing out to buy the soon-vanishing incandescent light bulbs. Partly because of people going green, sales of the twisty little energy-saving bulbs are up and Edison's have declined, so our old light bulb will go the way of the wind-up watch and the licked stamp. I think if I get to the stores quickly, though, I can stock up for the next twenty years or so (unless the energy police find out and make me give them up. It's worth a try.

It's almost October, my favorite month, and now that the weather is finally cooling down, I'm planning some vacation moments (not a whole week at a time) visiting unfamiliar libraries, dining out, and touring the antique telephone museum nearby, and possibly (oh yeah) attending a chocolate lovers festival. If you're out and about, I may see you.

Have a great week!

Oh, Poppy-cock!

2010-09-15T20:13:00.000-07:00

My favorite, Prince Poppycock, did not win America's Got Talent, in spite of the fact I voted for him ten times. (Gee, I hope that was a toll-free number . . .) And neither did the little opera girl. Instead, the million dollar prize went to a hip young guy with an earring and a hat. I personally think he couldn't carry a tune in a barrel, but that just shows I'm over the hill, because my dad used to say the same thing about Elvis. I get it now, Dad.

I have a picture of my parents on the dresser. At least they told me it was their picture and I believe them. My dad is wearing a polo shirt, neatly pressed cuffed pants, and saddle shoes. I never saw Dad wearing saddle shoes. By the time I came along, he was always in work clothes, work boots and a cap, except for graduations and weddings, so who is this debonair guy with thick curly hair and his arm around my mom? He might have had good taste in women and shoes, but he was wrong about Elvis. He's still the King.

A couple of unintended puns: A television ad for a new hospital says it's "on the cutting edge".
And a game show host asks a contestant who's a reporter how her newspaper is doing, because so many papers are folding. . .

If you liked the book "84, Charing Cross Road", in which New Yorker Helene Hanff strikes up a corespondence and friendship with a bookseller in London which continues for years, you will like "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society". A writer, Juliet Ashton, receives a letter from a member of the club, and is soon wrapped up in the lives of the people of Guernsey and their stories of the island under German occupation. It is a joy to read.

Have a great week!

America's got -- Prince Poppycock!

2010-09-08T19:39:00.000-07:00

We're nearing the end of the long, hot summer. All the television shows are reruns of reruns. My baseball team is in the cellar -- worse, the subcellar. The lawn is burned.

The frogs are gathering at the pond for a last hurrah. Maybe they'll eat the caterpillars that are eating the walnut trees. The fairs have ended and the country music singers gone home to their wives and kids. My sandals blew out and when I tried to buy replacements, the shelves were filled with nothing but sensible fall shoes and boots.

What's left? Why, America's Got Talent, of course. It starts out with hundreds, even thousands of acts, and has dwindled down to four. And Prince Poppycock is the wackiest, with his stockings, curled white wig, heavy theater makeup, pursed lips, fake eyelashes, and falsetto voice. But boy, can he sing. And then there's the little girl who does opera like a miniature Sarah Brightman. This is good stuff. And hey, it beats watching the Bones reruns.
Popcorn, anyone?

Most of the garden vegetables (the ones that survived the heat) have been packed into jars that fill one corner of the basement, and the apples, grapes, and berries made into sparkling jellies. I can't take credit for any of this, but I will help to eat them. it's the least I can do.

If you read and enjoyed Jack Finney's book Time and Again, you will love its sequel, From Time to Time, written 25 years later. (Or did he write the sequel first, then go back in time and write the original?) Our hero Simon Morley travels through time once again, to try and stop an American tragedy. He makes the journey seem so easy I'm tempted to return to my high school days and even a few scores, but with my luck I'd probably get stuck in an endless gym class dodge ball game (did you know it's been outlawed?), and never know who won America's Got Talent, so I guess the classmates are safe. For now.

See you next week!

Sorry, Wrong Number

2010-09-01T21:37:00.000-07:00

I was watching an old Law and Order the other day, and Jack, the District Attorney, offered the use of his phone to a guy who'd just been arrested and needed to call an attorney. The phone was an old black desk model, and it made me think with a shock just how much things have changed since that episode first aired.

It's becoming rare these days to find someone who doesn't carry a cell phone around in his pocket and use it often. People call to tell us they're on the way over, and they call again when they reach the driveway, and once more when they're on the doorstep. Even the President has a cell phone. And what a phone it is.

Instead of Jack's heavy black model that could be used to fight off bears, today's cell phone is a compact little number that is part radio, camera, weather station, calculator, GPS and address book, and for all I know, a meat thermometer. People think nothing of forking over a hundred dollars or more for something so tiny it even clips on the ear, leaving their hands free but giving the impression they're talking to themselves.

Being hooked up to a phone comes with a price. Caller ID will help to avoid that old classmate who won't leave you alone, but there are still telemarketers to deal with. And lately I've been getting calls from politicians and decision-makers asking for my advice on running this country. The country has been doing fine without me all these years, but now that the going's getting rocky, they expect me to jump up off the bench and help out the team. How scary is that?

Thanks for the vote of confidence, guys, but the last time I had political aspirations was in the Kennedy era, when we were all young enough to believe anything was possible.

I'll be rooting from the sidelines, though, ready to pour the Gatorade over the head of the fellow who figures out the answers to all our problems. Call me when that happens, okay? You have my number.

The B. S. Factor, by Arthur Herzog, (1973) is a humorous and yet enlightening book about how people who want to control us (like telemarketers?) cleverly infiltrate our minds. If you've ever wondered why you bought that set of encyclopedias, the cd's with the hits of the fifties and sixties (or was that just me?), or voted for a candidate because he used a certain catch phrase or wrapped himself in an American flag, you've been hooked in. Got milk?

See you next week!

Sunday Nights at Seven

2010-08-25T19:50:00.000-07:00

Picture this.
It's about 150 years ago, midwinter, at the old family manor in the English countryside, and you're snowed in.

In a couple of days, a team of horses will break through the drifts, bringing a wagonload of laughing, burly men with shovels to dig you out. But until then, you're on your own.

You could explore the attic and risk running into the ghost of Uncle Edgar, or ask the housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, for a late-night snack, but instead, you go to the library down the hall with the creaking door, flickering gaslight, and overstuffed chairs, and take a book from the shelf, maybe a book your great-grandfather once enjoyed, or one you read as a child. You blow the dust off the top (got to fire that housekeeper), and tiptoe to your room in the west wing, climb into the big four-poster bed, and begin: "Call me Ishmael . . ."

Fast-forward to 2010. The power is out. No soaps, no Monday night football, and no computer. Wouldn't that dusty old library be great to have right now, minus the dust, the housekeeper (she hates you anyway), and Uncle Edgar's ghost? But the house is too small.

I made a mini-library out of a couple of shelves in the computer desk, and placed there The Velveteen Rabbit, for baby Blake; The Borrowers, The Chronicles of Narnia, and a Nancy Drew mystery for Maggie; Treasure Island, Hatchet, and Robinson Crusoe for the boys; and my favorites, Jane Eyre, Rebecca, and Gone With the Wind. There are nature poets like John Masefield and Robert W. Service to let us know what we're missing outside, and Erma Bombeck and Andy Rooney to make us laugh at ourselves.

Even a library as tiny as mine wouldn't be complete without a Bible, atlas, and dictionary (French and Spanish, too, for those foreign words that come up so often in literature). And finally, in case Uncle Edgar decides to show up, The Invisible Man.

Sock it to us, Mother Nature.

Many years ago, never mind how many, when television was just an idea in an inventor's head, there was radio. It had everything television has now, and you didn't have to sit down to enjoy it. You could wash dishes, or iron (I'll explain ironing to you someday) or bake a cake while listening to soaps, westerns, dramas, mysteries, and comedy. And the king of comedy was Jack Benny. After he died, his daughter Joan found a manuscript he'd begun, added her memories to it, and called it Sunday Nights at Seven. Whether you remember Jack or not, it's worth reading.

See you next week!

The Dregs of Summer

2010-08-18T20:36:00.000-07:00

This morning there was a break in the intense heat we've been having, and as I walked and looked around outside, it was easy to see that, in spite of the temperatures in the eighties still predicted for the next week, summer is coming to a close.

Only yesterday the rocky road off our hill was lined with daisies, with their smiling faces and petals that shyly asked if we loved them or loved them not. And now they are gone, and in their place are the fearsome touch-me-nots. Veering off the path here would be a mistake.

Oh sure, there are yards and yards of dainty Queen Anne's lace, but frankly, Queen Anne's lace is standoffish, maybe even snooty.

Halfway down the hill to the country store were all kinds of sweet berries we made into jam, but now rises up only the blood-purple poison pigeonberry, or "pokeweed". No jam here.

The yard is just as bad. The perennials are on their last legs, er, stems. The leaves have turned spotty and brown, but it's either put up with them until the frost, or take the hedge trimmers to them. The tall coneflowers are still nice-looking, but every wind blows them over and they're a frightening mass of bees. I don't need that.

I'm sure I heard a locust today.

Oh, Summer, we hardly knew ye. . .

The Reporter Wore Petticoats (2010) by Dr. Abigail Elizabeth Reynolds, is the inspiring story of Elizabeth Fitzgerald, born in the 1800's, who became a journalist, an Abolitionist, and a participant in the Underground Railroad. Elizabeth is a fictional character, but the times and the conflicts are real and they will make you want to learn more about the Civil War era.

Enjoy the remainder of your summer. See you next week!

Computers Have Dog Days,Too

2010-08-12T19:48:00.000-07:00

Who would have thought? As the dog days of summer drag on, even the computers are a little off their mark. This one would not let me post last night, and Fancy Nancy (Captionsbest) reports hers is misbehaving as well. Mine has not been the same since our Internet switched us to a new, "accelerated" service, for which it charges a couple more dollars a month. I thought accelerated meant faster, doesn't it? Not! Oh well, at least it takes my mind off the relentless heat wave. . .

Last Friday we welcomed a new little member to the family. Blake Caleb is the newest leaf on our tree, and how did we ever manage without him? Let's see if I can put his picture here (hope his mom doesn't mind). Hey! it worked! Awww...

Are you watching the summer show "America's Got Talent"? We are thoroughly enjoying it, especially the ten-year old girl who sings opera like an angel . I hear she already has a contract, no matter whether she wins or loses. I am getting a real kick out of watching Howie, Piers, and Miss Sharon.

Maigret and the Informer (1971) by Georges Simenon, follows police superintendent Maigret of Paris down the trail of a murderer. As usual, Maigret has an idea who the killer is, and only needs to find a way to trap him. Simenon's mysteries are the light, clever kind, not like the ones on Bones and Law and Order that keep me awake nights. When it's too hot to sleep, a Simenon book is just what the doctor ordered.

See you next week!

Sunny With a Chance of Yellow Jackets

2010-08-04T19:43:00.000-07:00

It's August and we are deep in Dog Days, which I used to think was a West Virginia thing, but it actually goes back to the time of the ancient Romans, who used to sacrifice a brown dog (sorry PETA people) at the beginning of them to ward off bad luck.

According to Wikipedia, dog days run from early July until late August, when Sirius, the dog star, rises and sets about the same time as the sun. For the Romans, it was a time when "the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid." Oh. That explains a lot.

Hubby is never languid, though, and has been gardening and canning for weeks, while I do yard work (what's wrong with this picture?). He's the smart one, though, down in the cool basement kitchen, while the sun beats down on me. And so far all I have to show for it is a killer tan, a weedless mulch bed and a blown-out sandal. Shades of Jimmy Buffet.

If you see the President, wish him a happy birthday for me. (And thank him for fixing the leak.)

Our fair is in progress, so naturally the weather has turned stormy, as it does every year. All day the heat will be scalding, with yellowjackets in the lemonade. and then in the late afternoon, a mad thunderstorm sends everyone running for cover. But that cools things off, and then we resume our strolling, visiting the horse barns, and saying hello to people we've not seen since last year at fair time. Not a bad way to spend a summer day.

Einstein's Dreams is a small book with big ideas. In his spare moments (maybe during dog days), Einstein thought about time, and the possibility that it might not be what it seems. It may stand still or speed up or even go backward. We might repeat a period of time over and over again without knowing. Or know, but be powerless to stop it. An old woman could wake up one morning with her white hair turning brown, wrinkles disappearing from her face, and a spring coming back into her step. This book will challenge everything you think you know about time.

Have a great week!

The Jinx Diaries

2010-07-28T21:01:00.000-07:00

Oops! Did I jinx the Jeopardy contestant from WV? The very day I praised him, he lost. But losing with $105,000 in your pocket isn't really that bad, is it?

Have you ever thought you might be a jinx? I wish I had a nickel for every time I've left the dishes in the sink and plopped down on the sofa to watch my favorite baseball team that was having a great inning, and saw the game suddenly turn sour. Or left the room briefly during a losing game, only to hear the roar of the crowd at an unexpected home run. I know the chances of my having anything to do with it are miniscule, but so are the odds of being struck by lightning or winning a multi-state lottery, and look how often that happens.

I can never watch live figure skating; I have to wait for the replay. Cakes fall when I pass by the oven. If I praise the car, it fails to start next time. I still hear Natalie on The Facts of Life groaning, "the Fates!" Remember Jonah, who almost caused the sinking of a ship he wasn't supposed to be on and was thrown into the sea and swallowed by a fish? It's like that.

Just to be on the safe side, until I'm sure this jinx thing is only a coincidence, I'll not mention my favorite baseball team, Nascar driver or contestant on America's Got Talent, and I'll steer clear of trains, planes, and the Block Island Ferry. It's the least I can do.

An Unfinished Life, (2004) by Mark Spragg, is a story of love, loss, friendship, and the healing power of the human spirit. It was made into a movie starring Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman, and Jennifer Lopez. Rent the movie for the beautiful Wyoming landscapes, but read the book.

See you next week!

The Pioneers Had it Made

2010-07-21T20:32:00.000-07:00

I spent most of the last week on the phone, ordering parts, calling to say we'd received the WRONG parts, re-ordering, scheduling repairmen, and doing all the things that make 21st century life fun, and I 'm telling you, no matter what the history books say, our forefathers had it easy.

Say they were traveling west and the covered wagon broke down. Did they spend half a day arguing with the manufacturer, describing the problem, pressing buttons, listening to awful music, and discussing extended warranties? Nope. They parked the wagon, tore it apart, and used the boards and canvas to build a cabin. Problem solved.

If attacked by masked bandits, they simply shot them, eliminating any chance of identity theft. Should a horse go lame on the way to town (assuming there was a town), they didn't check to see if there was a recall on that model, or call a tow wagon. They shot the horse and bought another one later. Trust me. They had it made.

Have you seen the guy from West Virginia on Jeopardy? Today was his fourth win, and he's earned over $100,000. WV guy, you're making us look good!!

Are you as tired as I am of the catch phrases "step up", "step it up", and "step up to the plate"? And how about "take it to the next level"? Aaaghhh...

Strange signs I've seen around town:
We are changing our brand of gasoline. Please bare with us. (Um, no thanks.)
Unload bottom of shopping cart first. (Huh?)
And in the newspaper: "Ark. forecasters issued four flash flood warnings." (And Noah was the only one who listened?)

You've probably heard of Robert Frost's more famous poems like The Road Not Taken and Nothing Gold Can Stay, but have you read the one about blueberries? He writes:

"You ought to have seen what I saw on my way
To the village, through Patterson's pasture today;
Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb,
Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum
In the cavernous pail of the first one to come!"

Or the humorous "Brown's Descent", about a man who lost his footing in the snow on top of his mountain farm:

". . . He reeled, he lurched, he bobbed, he checked;
He fell and made the lantern rattle
(But saved the light from going out.)
So half-way down he fought the battle

Incredulous of his bad luck.
And then becoming reconciled
To everything, he gave it up
And came down like a coasting child."

Can't you just picture him? If you like poems about nature, Frost is your man.

Have a great week!

My name is Michael and I'll be your server

2010-07-11T20:39:00.000-07:00

I have been exiled from the Internet for the last week or so. Here's what happened:

One night I turned on the computer and dialed up the connection. The home page appeared, but when I tried to click on it, I was informed in bright red letters that my bill was delinquent. This never happens, because the account is paid automatically by a credit card. I figured it was a mistake and would soon be corrected, but I was wrong.

An information box appeared in the center of the screen. I could see my emails peeking out from behind the box but no amount of clicking would make it leave. I would press Escape and jump past it for a few seconds, but it would pop right back up, like the villain in a really bad video game. Night after night I called the help desk and talked to pleasant people who speak with heavy foreign accents but all have names like Michael, Matthew, or Michelle. They would listen to my story and assure me that everything would be fine within 24 hours. It wasn't. To my credit, though, I never ranted, raved, or threw the computer through the nearby window. Okay, I ranted a little.

Finally,after talking to the credit card company, the problem was solved. The villain in the video game was -- me. In true dunderhead fashion, I'd forgotten to validate the new card I received a few weeks before.

It's good to be back.

The heat wave was finally broken by some much-needed rain. Last night I went to sleep with the window wide open, listening to the splashing of the fountain in the fish pond and a dog barking somewhere far off, and woke in the night chilled. It felt good to dive under the covers. This morning we picked and canned green beans. The big rabbit hanging out by the garden hasn't eaten too many.

Jack Finney, who wrote Invasion of the Body Snatchers, is the author of a science fiction book, Time and Again (1970), the story of Simon Morley, who is chosen by a secret government agency to travel back in time. In 1822 New York City, he meets a girl, and together they unravel a mystery. It's not your usual time-travel book; this one will hold you spellbound. And I just learned today that there is a sequel. . .

Have a great week!

Top Ten Reasons I Love My Blog

2010-06-30T20:02:00.000-07:00

1. I always have a letter for my mom.
2. It's my place to go every Wednesday night.
3. No more rejection slips in the mail.
4. It appears in print instantly.
5. Gives me an excuse to read more books; I'm not goofing off -- I'm working!
6. I meet some great fellow bloggers.
7. Hooray! I'm not the only one who likes Robert W. Service.
8. My blog keeps me sane. If I am sane...
9. Didn't Garrison Keillor start this way?
10.A comment from a reader really makes my day.

The peas from the garden are all shelled and put up, thank goodness. I can't take credit for it; my aching back gave out early on, and hubby finished them himself. I owe you one. Babe...
The weather has been perfect and we've had several great home-grown meals already. Eat your heart out, Paula Deen.

There is blueberry jam for sale in the auto parts store.

Our senator, Robert Byrd, passed away this week at the age of 92. He was a fine, hardworking, patriotic man (and a great fiddle player). I consider him personally responsible for bringing the state out of the dark ages to where it is now (okay, John Denver helped).
Byrd's name is on schools, highways, and bridges all over. I doubt we'll ever see his like again.

James Hilton wrote about another memorable man in his book, Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1934), the story of a wonderful English schoolmaster who would live on in the hearts of his students all their lives. A great read.

See you next week!

The Happy Prince

2010-06-23T20:56:00.000-07:00

Before C. S. Lewis, before J. K. Rowling, or Dr. Seuss, or Walt Disney, there was Oscar Wilde. You may know him for his books, The Importance of Being Earnest and The Portrait of Dorian Gray, which have been made into popular movies. But before those were dreamed up, he wrote fairy tales.

I first read them in a set of blue books my mother kept in a bookcase behind the living room door. Each book featured the works of a single author. and my favorites were Robert Louis Stevenson and Wilde. When I mentioned the books to her years later, she barely remembered them. She'd never had time to read them; she had us.

But I had long hours each day, between cleaning my room in the morning and drying dinner dishes at night. There were no iPods then, or cell phones or video games, just time to sit up under a tree away from the others, reading and dreaming and wondering where the occasional passing train was bound. And the Happy Prince was the saddest thing I ever read, the story of a golden statue who looked out over a city from the top of his tower, saw the misery in people's lives and tried to change it.

The blue books were somehow lost when we were grown, and for years I searched for that story, not even remembering who wrote it. One day I walked along the sidewalk while on vacation in my home town, and there was a bookcase full of unwanted books being sold for ten cents each and right in the middle was the Happy Prince. I have it on my bookshelf now and just the other day I came across another copy, and that is next to it.

I still don't have an iPod, cell phone or video games, and the trains have gone, but I have had years of adventures in books. Thanks, Mom.

Reading Like a Writer (2006) by Francine Prose professes to be "a guide for people who love books and for those who want to write them". It might even inspire you to take pen in hand (well, mouse in hand) and begin your own story. Who knows? Some young reader might be sitting under a tree one day reading YOU!

See you next week...

A Trivial Mind

2010-06-16T21:03:00.000-07:00

My husband and I are big fans of Jeopardy, and we're often very successful at answering the questions. That's because he has a practical mind and I have a mind for trivia. Between us, we make one well-rounded contestant.

Ask him anything about World War II battles, inventors, explorers, or geography and he will know the answer. Me, not so much. My mind is too full of useless information.

Thanks to my Reader's Life, I know things I've no business knowing about clothing: (bodkins, jodhpurs), and neckties: (Ascot, Windsor knot, Four-in-hand). Whole epic poems are stuck in my head. They are worthless but refuse to leave and make room for something useful, like the names of the Presidents or kings. The kings would be simpler to memorize if they weren't all named Henry, James or George. Why couldn't they have been given alphabetical names, like hurricanes?

Geography would be a lot easier if countries would only stay put. There used to be a catchy song about Istanbul and Constantinople. The song is still stuck in my head but Constantinople is gone. Same for Burma. Africa and The Soviet Union keep playing the name game and it's been years since Scotland appeared on a map. I know it's still out there somewhere, though. Maybe my husband will show me where it is if I tell him the name of Eleanor Roosevelt's dog.

This week we bid goodbye to Little Orphan Annie, who's been around for 86 years. Annie has been in danger in places all over the world, maybe even in Constantinople. If I'd known she was leaving, I'd have probably paid more attention. Annie, we hardly knew ya...

See you next week!

Goodbye, Grandma Horton

2010-06-09T20:55:00.000-07:00

If you ever watched the Soaps, even if it's been years, you probably remember Alice Horton, played by Frances Reid, on Days of Our Lives. For over forty years she was the wife of Dr. Tom, Grandma of Julie and Hope, Mom of Mickey and Bill, and friend to everyone. Frances Reid died in February, but 'Days' has waited until now for Alice to make her official exit. There will be flashbacks from the 60's (most of which I will remember) and lots of the old characters coming to say their goodbyes. The next couple of weeks will definitely be a tearfest.

Meanwhile: to cheer us up after the sniffling, there is my summer television favorite, America's Got Talent. Howie Mandel is really making me laugh...

We've been eating lettuce and onions from the garden, and the peas are nearly ready to pick. A pea sheller would be nice to have when the time comes, so I went online and found a pattern for a homemade one on the Mother Earth News website. It consisted of a pine block with a hole drilled through and the point of an X-Acto blade sticking down into the hole. You push the pea, rounded side up, through the hole and the blade cuts open the pod, sparing the peas on either side. Yeah, right. Except the pods are too big and too crooked to make it work. Nice try, Mother Earth. Thank goodness there are thumbs...

Today I read Suncatchers in My Windows, by Odessa Snyder (1992), a book of essays, many of which were published in newspapers. Ms. Snyder is a farm wife and schoolteacher, mother and grandmother and her stories are just the kind I like: simple and heartwarming. I bet she can even make doughnuts like Alice Horton. A good read.

People have been singing the praises of Amazon's Kindle. Will it replace books some day? Not for me; I like the look and feel of a real book in my hand, especially an old one. How about you?

See you next week!

I Need a Rhyme For Obama...

2010-06-02T19:29:00.000-07:00

Is anyone collecting the new gold dollars? Four have come out every year since 2007. We are on number 14 now, and I'm excited because next comes Buchanan and then Abraham Lincoln! The coins make nice gifts for children when there are duplicates, they are very popular at Easter egg hunts, and, doggone, they just feel good in your pocket. Sometimes cashiers aren't familiar with them, though, and are a little leery of accepting one.

The other day, I accidentally deposited my new gold dollar on the bus, mistaking it for a quarter. Luckily, after a phone call my dollar was returned to me. That's why I vote for the levy every year, folks.

For years, I've been working on a poem that would help me memorize the presidents, and today, while adding the current president's name to the poem, I realized it's going to be tough to rhyme. Any suggestions?

All my books have been read, even the last, an Andy Rooney 3-volume collection. (whew) And then today I found something at the booksale called the Rainbow Study Bible, in which every verse is color-coded according to its content. Purple for God, green for Love, blue for Salvation, silver for History, etc. It is beautiful, and I think that will be my next book. Not that I haven't read it before, but there's always more to learn.

Christopher Morley (who wrote the Haunted Bookshop, remember?) said this: "Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do."

See you next week!

The Haunted Bookshop

2010-05-26T20:22:00.000-07:00

I thought that would get your attention! The Haunted Bookshop was a book I read a few years ago by Christopher Morley, in which a couple of spies exchange secret messages by placing them in a seldom-read book in an old English bookstore.

If the thought of an old English bookstore like, say, the one at 84 Charing Cross Road, makes you smile, you might like this book: They Call Me Naughty Lola (2006). No, not me! I'm talking about a book filled with those hilarious personal ads from the back pages of the London Review of Books. This one, for example: "I'd like to dedicate this advert to my mother, who is responsible for me still being single at 36. Man. 36. Single. Held at home by years of subtle emotional abuse and at least 19 fake heart attacks." Or this one:"Woman, 56, seeks dependable significant other who doesn't mind listening. Must like cats and darkness."

In true British fashion, the advertisers put their worst foot forward, describing themselves as short, fat, ugly, with big feet, bad breath, and a face only a mother could love. You'll like this one.

Only two books from my stack remain to be read and I'll be caught up. So today was the day to get a little sun, polish my toenails and make cookies. The cookies, of the no-bake variety, were a flop. They didn't harden, even though I followed the directions to the letter. Still yummy, though.

Reader. F, never mind age, seeks good cook. Keebler elves will be considered. Send samples.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

2010-05-19T19:28:00.000-07:00

My stack of unread books is getting smaller and is now down to 13. I think if I read very fast and don't bring home any books this week I can finish these. There are already two empty shelves that can be used for something else. I'm so excited because the yard is beautiful now and it will take some work to keep it that way. There are irises and daisies blooming in the front flower bed and cosmos, columbine, and love-in-a-mist along the side. The rhododendrons on the hill are in full bloom, and peonies (they are called 'pineys' here in the mountain state) are ready to open. This is the time we usually get a heavy storm that breaks them down, though. I see that tornadoes are threatening in the midwest, and hope the residents and their flowers will be safe and sound.

Tonight we watched a funny new cop show on Fox called "Good Guys", starring Tom Hanks' son, Colin. Of course he's not Tom (says one who watched Forrest Gump for the nth time last week), but the guy is good. It will be one of the new summer programs and will be fun to watch after pulling dandelions all day.

No light reading this week. My book of choice was The Cholera Years (1967 and 1982), a history of the U.S. cholera epidemics in the 19th century. And now I'm reading Bruce Barton's The Man Nobody Knows which is the story of Jesus and his disciples, originally written in 1925. Barton writes in a Max Lucado, you-are-there style that's easy and entertaining. I'm looking forward to it.

See you next week!

What happened to Wednesday?

2010-05-13T20:11:00.000-07:00

Has anyone seen a little Wednesday? It must have gotten lost because I always post on Wednesday, and suddenly in the middle of this afternoon I realized it was Thursday and I'd completely forgotten my blog (oops!).
That's a good thing, though, right? it means I'm so caught up in spring that time is flying. There are weeds to pull (especially those pesky dandelions), flowers to plant, gutters to clean and baby birds in the nest. And now, having finished my book, The Heaven Tree Trilogy, by Edith Pargeter, 899 thrill-packed pages, I can direct my attention to those things.
Heaven Tree is the story of a young stone mason living in the 13th century, and takes place in England, Wales, and France. There is enough royalty, chivalry, treachery, love, hate and revenge to satisfy the most ardent fan of historical fiction.

Today we had lettuce from the garden. The hardy plants are doing well, and in a few days the danger of frost will be over and we can put in the rest. And then I'll need some good zucchini recipes. I have a feeling it's going to be a bumper crop.

Lucia, Lucia, by Adriani Trigiani (Big Stone Gap, Milk Glass Moon) is the story of a beautiful Italian girl living in Brooklyn, who is not at all interested in marriage to the nice, unexciting boy next door. She wants a career. At least until she meets the man of her dreams. Then she is caught between love for her family, responsibility, and heart-stopping romance. It's a keeper.

See you next week!

Ten Reasons My Mother is Cooler Than Me

2010-05-05T10:05:00.000-07:00

It's almost Mothers Day and I want to give my mom something I've never given her before. So here it is:
Ten reasons my mom is cooler than me:

She is a positive thinker, even though she taught us as children to always expect the worst, that way anything else would be an improvement.
Not afraid of planes - or escalators
Survived a world war and a depression without getting depressed
Keeps in touch with the family, not with e-mail or tweets, but by writing letters
Is equally skilled at cooking ratatouille - or raccoon
Plays a mean piano
Doesn't smoke, drink, or gamble; doughnuts are her only vice
Never needed a gym or spa - kept in shape by carrying water, carrying babies, hanging clothes, and handing out hugs
Has never had a life coach, guru, mentor or therapist. Her self-help book is her Bible.
Always shines the spotlight on others, not herself.

Happy Mothers Day, Mom! We love you!!

If the Hostas Are Freezing, Can Spring Be Far Away?

2010-04-28T22:35:00.000-07:00

The flowering trees are in bloom, the hills are covered with trilliums, and tender little garden plants are spreading their leaves, so of course, there's a frost. Last night we covered everything, but tonight we're letting Nature take its course underneath a pretty full moon. Good luck, growing things! My fingers are crossed...

In a quest for interesting blogs, I've discovered two neat ones. Scriblets, and Vanishing New York. Scriblets has just moved back to the U.S. after twenty-some years in Japan and writes fondly of all things Japanese and a passion for fountain pens (remember them?), inks, journals, books and poetry. I can almost smell the cherry blossoms.
Vanishing New York is just that, a saga of wonderful little stores and businesses gradually being replaced by condominiums, never to be heard from again. Remember Meg Ryan's little bookstore, Shop Around the Corner in the movie You've Got Mail? Yeah, it's like that.

The stack of books I've yet to read has diminished from 40 to 13. Okay, I took a few back (Shakespeare) and gave away some I could live without. There are still a couple of good spy novels, some biographies, and my favorite, essay/humor such as Andy Rooney's The Most of Andy Rooney, 760 pages. Hubby bought me an early Mothers Day gift, a Victorian-style cushioned wicker rocker, which waits invitingly in a sunny window, beckoning.

Was it necessary for the rocker's assembly instructions to state: not to be used as a stepladder?

My friend Fancy Nancy (Captionsbest) has ended her winter sojourn in Florida and is returning to Rhode Island, which I hear is lovely this time of year, now that the floodwaters have receded. Enjoy your stay, Nancy! We'll be checking in...

The Next Blog . . .

2010-04-21T19:58:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed when reading a blog that at the top of the page you can click on "Next Blog" and jump right into someone else's life? Tonight I had a couple of free hours, and started doing that.
There were a lot of young couples showing off pictures of their cute kids to friends and family. I like a cute kid as well as anyone, so I read some of these. Some bloggers are deeply religious; others, just the opposite. Many are downright vulgar. How do they get away with that?

Some blogs are in foreign languages that are fun to try to decipher. I can't make heads or tails of Chinese, though. Some contain poetry that doesn't make sense to me, but then my tastes run more to Robert W. Service or Edgar Guest. I found a guy who chases and photographs tornadoes. Cool. There were bloggers from Australia to Liverpool (I saved that one in my favorites) to Kuala Lumpur,wherever that is.
Try it yourself next time there's nothing good on tv.

It's almost vacation time, except I'm not working this year, so technically I shouldn't need a vacation. And the last time I took one, I came down with something horrible and wished I was back home. I'd still like to take a week and hole up in a Motel 6 (preferably next to a Starbuck's) with a stack of good books and a sack full of junk food.

You know you're reading too much when you walk by some leaf-covered, mossy, overgrown stone steps and know there's a mystery up there. Maybe like the one I'm reading now, called The Ghost Writer, by John Harwood (2004). This has been on my bookshelf for a year. I guess I've been saving it. It's filled with old English houses, ghosts, mysterious portraits, hate and revenge. All the things that make a Reader's Life worth living, right? I could say more, but I have to get back to it now.

See you next week!

You Know it's Spring When...

2010-04-14T20:08:00.000-07:00

Allergies start to act up.
You move the furniture back to where you moved it from last fall.
You break out the summer clothes but nothing fits so you diet all week and only lose one pound.
You stare at the expensive veggies in the produce aisle like a child at a toy store window.
You give up hope of ever growing Kate Gosselin's hair and get your usual summer trim.
Someone gives you a bunch of ramps and you have a ramp breakfast, complete with fried potatoes, ham, kielbasa and eggs. You avoid people the rest of the day.
And finally, you know it's spring when it's National Library Week! (April 11-17)

It must have been spring when Jane Merchant wrote this:

I want a hill to live on, lone and high,
Because when I was small I used to lie
Out on a hill at evening, watching stars.
I didn't care a bit which one was Mars.
I couldn't find the Dipper or the Bear
Or anything my elders said was there,
And why I should I couldn't understand.
It was enough to lie there and expand
Till all the stars were shining into me
And I was all the stars that I could see
In all the endless acres of the night.
That was the best of living. That was right.
The worst was going in to sticky gloom
And having to shrink myself to fit a room.

My book this week is A Tangled Web, by Judith Michael, about identical twin sisters who trade places for a week, as a joke. Suddenly, one is killed in an explosion on a yacht (or is she?) and her twin is left alone to live her sister's life.

Enjoy National Library Week! The dandelion-weeding can wait.

Just Wait Until Next Year

2010-04-07T21:01:00.000-07:00

Our WVU basketball team made it into the Final Four, but then were defeated. I'm an old Red Sox fan from way back, though, when the Yankees always beat us in the clinch, and our mantra was "Wait 'til next year". And it finally worked out for them, so cheer up, WVU fans. Our day is coming!

WV native David Selby (Quentin from 'Dark Shadows') appeared on Cold Case yesterday. He always seems to pop up just when I think I've lost track of him.

It must be spring because I bought summer clothes, and now I have to lose that same five (okay, ten) pounds that I gain every winter. Sigh...

I'm finally getting around to reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis. It is quite wonderful, and I don't even feel silly about reading it, because Lewis wrote to his god-daughter, Lucy, that he knew she was too old for fairy tales, but someday she'd be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. So there.

Next time life gets too crazy, I'm going to Narnia.

A Wow Day

2010-03-31T22:06:00.000-07:00

Our local weatherman is fond of saying 'a wow day' and today was definitely one. While my old home state of Rhode Island was breaking out in floods, we spent the day outside in the beautiful weather here, planting peas and onions, and cleaning up trash on the road. I even took one lemon tree outside. It's been losing its leaves and needed a dose of sun. Do you know the feeling?
The greenhouse has made its appearance at the shopping center, in time for Easter flowers, and it won't be long before we're shopping for plants. Not too soon, though; last year we planted early and then cold weather came back with a vengeance.

Did you remember that Tuesday was Vincent van Gogh's birthday? What would we do without his sunflowers?

In the summer of 1981, a group of blind people were invited to a Buckingham Palace garden party. Helping the Queen to entertain her guests was Lady Diana Spencer, a few days before she became the Princess of Wales.
Someone who was there saw her pause to chat with the blind visitors and then slip off her engagement ring so that they could all handle what others were able to see.

Speaking of gardens, thank you Google Search for finding the name of a movie I saw years ago and couldn't remember. It was Tom's Midnight Garden, about a boy who has to stay with relatives in an old English house, while his brother is sick with measles. He is lonely until one night he discovers that when a grandfather clock in the hall strikes thirteen, he can open the door to a beautiful garden and a friend to play with. And thank you Amazon.com, for selling me the book for only a penny (plus shipping).

See you next week!

Things I Worry About at 3 a.m.

2010-03-24T20:03:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wake in the middle of the night and think, we are living on an out-of-control spinning ball of dirt and water that is trying its best to kill us. But then the sun comes up and everything is okay. And it could be worse. I could be having that dream about high school gym class. A lady in her 60's told me she still dreams about trying to open her school locker and forgetting the combination. I didn't have the heart to tell her she'll never remember that combination, and even if she does, the books won't be there, and she'll go to the wrong class and then miss the schoolbus going home and have to walk, except she won't know the way . . .

Today we made horseradish sauce. We dug up the roots that have been growing for two years, washed, peeled, chopped, and fed them to the food processor, mixed in some water and salt and vinegar and mayonnaise. I made the mistake of looking down into the food processor and wished I hadn't. The stuff could be used as tear gas. Oh yeah, the sauce is delicious on bread or a cracker. And it will be even better on a hot roast beef sandwich. Eat your hearts out, readers (or let the horseradish do it for you!)

Last week a customer in the book sale brought me stacks of New Yorker magazines and the New York Times and the London Review of Books, so I've been happily curled up clipping cartoons and reading articles and poems and those hilarious personal ads in the LRB. In between yard work, of course. Yes, I know the superstition is not to do yard work before Easter, but the snowstorms really left a mess. And speaking of Easter, someone gave us some goose eggs. They were delicious, and I'm thinking they would make great Easter eggs, too.

See you next week!

Car 54, Where Are You?

2010-03-17T20:43:00.000-07:00

Just as I had had my fill of crime shows for the evening and was about to start my blog, the house was suddenly bathed in light as a police car went around and around the block looking for someone who had possibly entered a car that was not his own. This isn't that kind of neighborhood, at least not the last time I checked. Is it?

There are floods in North Dakota and power outages in Jersey, but here in the Mountain state we're enjoying balmy 65-70 degree temperatures. Hey, we deserve it after the massive snows in February. A couple of new businesses have opened up in town since the last time I was there.

My poetry book is done-or will be as soon as I find the right paper, some cardstock for the cover, get copies run off, and decide which of two covers to use. The plain white copy on my desk looks good but probably wouldn't stand much handling. Oh yeah, Robert Frost has nothing to worry about.

Someone told me about a great oldies radio station, 740 AM, from Canada. Tonight when I turned it on, (it only comes in at night) the second song I heard was by Edith Piaf, one of my favorites. If you haven't heard of her, she was the lady on the record the soldiers were playing on the doorstep in Saving Private Ryan, as they waited for the enemy tanks to come down the street. Fabulous!

Congratulations to our WVU basketball team who are the Big East champs, and to Coach Huggins, and especially my guy, Joe Mazzulla from Rhode Island. Thanks for your help, Joe!

Did you know that Thomas Jefferson wrote his own epitaph, and nowhere did he mention that he'd been president. That's humility. "Great men forget themselves. That is why they are remembered by others."

See you next week!