My Middle Name is Patience

Cowell Smokestack, July Book Round Up, Pt Reyes Seashore

The Cowell Smokestack is no more. I'll never be able to find my house from Mt Diablo again.

The demoliton, beginning, middle and end. Whoops, no end picture. Between not having my camera and the iPhone scrambling the pictures (why does it do that? Why? It's really annoying). (Hey! I found my camera cord! Yippee!)  

The end will come. I promise.

Hmm. Oh, the June book update. Is it really already July? I've got to start writing these as I finish the books.

Regions of Germany by Dieter Bose (L) 2005. I picked up this book as a direct result of reading 1632 by Eric Flint - I know nothing about the 17th Century and less about the German provinces.

Margaret Pole: Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership by Hazel Pierce (B) 2003 273p. A girl can only go so long before returning to the 16th Century and England.  Margaret Pole, a woman who had more right to the crown than Henry VIII did, whose brother was executed when Catherine of Aragon came from Spain to marry Arthur, still formed a great and lasting friendship with Catherine, was a loyal friend and godmother to Mary, Henry & Catherine's daughter (and not say, Mary Tudor, Henry's sister that my gorgeous Alice Starmore sweater was inspired by), a landowner and power in her own right (due to the death of her husband, a marriage that for all intents and purposes seemed to be quite happy). If she hadn't tangled w/Henry VIII over property rights - 15 years worth! She might not have made herself quite so disagreeable in his eyes and ultimately sent to the Tower and executed as a dowager of 67. Maybe. Henry VIII strikes me as easy to offend, especially when you have something he wants.

Dissolution by CJ Sansom (HB) (M) 2004, 400p I've had this on my TBR shelves since 2004 (hence the hardback bit) but I was disappointed. Matthew Shardlake isn't as smart as he thinks he is and despite all his own flaws and circumstances, only too willing to believe the mores of his times.

Mallory's Oracle by Carol O'Connell (L)(M) 1994 286p My new favorite heroine, Kathy Mallory is rescued from the streets at the age of ten (she says eleven) by Louis Markowitz, New York City cop. His wife immediately falls in love with the child and they raise her as their own. But Mallory (as she insists everyone, including Louis, call her the day she becomes a policewoman) has been badly emotionally damaged as a child. (Not physically, of course. She's the requisite angelic blonde with amazing computer skills and physical prowress.) The series follows her as we discover what happened to her as a child (not in this book) and how she gradually grows a soul. (Website has spoilers.)

Paradise by A L Kennedy (L)(N) 2004 286p. Wow, what a wallop. Amy of Knit Think (whoops, wrong reviewer! Sorry! [name deleted] Ex Libris had posted a review and I had to read it, if only because of the quote she cited.  We follow Hannah, an unrepentant drunk. Her justification, her story, is both mesmerizing and flat out horrifying. Why she searches for oblivion, how she deals with the day to day reality of frequent blackouts - her view that reality is a story that she tells herself, oh, it has to be read to be understood. But that said, I feel that I was given a tour, an apalling but thorough tour, through the mind of an alcoholic.

Breakup by Dana Stabenow (M) 1997 242p. Back into the arms of Kate Shugak. It took me a bit to process the death in the previous outing but it was handled well. Breakup, aka, Spring, a time of new beginnings in Alaska, or maybe more of the same amplified. Kate has more on her plate than usual, what with two bear encounters in the first few pages, a plane crash and a body turning up in the thaw a scant three miles from her homestead.

The Man Who Cast Two Shadow by Carol O'Connell (L)(M) 1996 336p. Mallory on the hunt for the killer of a woman at first thought to be Mallory herself. The act that set the murder into motion would have never occurred to me so the murder was a mystery until the denoument. Don't fall in love with Nose, the cat.

Killing Critics Carol O'Connell (L)(M) 1997 400p. Oooh, I thought that Nose was heartbreaking (albeit thankfully ambiguous). The murder victim and the eventual........well, not the killer. The killer was awful but the eventual discovery of the...accomplice, I suppose, was heartrending.

Jumper by Stephen Gould (L))(SF) 1992 352p. I've got to pick up the DVD, I have a feeling I'll like Hayden Christiansen better as Davy Rice than Stephen Gould's Davy came across in my imagination. A wee bit too weepy and clingy but it's not as if the boy doesn't have good reason. And oh, how I wish I had his ability.

The Stars Are My Destination by Alfred Bester (L)(SF) 1956 197p. I didn't love this one as much as I thought I would either but it sure was a wild entertaining yet thought provoking ride.

The Uncrowned King: The Sensation Rise of William Randolph Hearst (L)(B) 2009 466p. Provincial mouse that I am, I expected this to take place in San Francisco and San Simeon. It appears the boy had a life before and after the Examiner - one as a newspaper editor to be reckoned with in New York with his recently purchased Journal. He went up against such luminaries as Joseph Pulitzer and Charles Anderson Dana. I learned that I knew nothing about yellow journalism or the Spanish American War. I didn't even realize the Spanish American War was over Cuba. Gah.

Death Masks by Jim Butcher (L)(SF) 2003 378p. Harry Dresden! I knew I hadn't read Jim Butcher's last Harry book, Turn Coat, but I didn't realize I was missing three in the middle. This time out, Harry is facing a duel with a Count in the White Court, looking for the missing Shroud of Turin and tangling with various folks on both sides of Good Guy/Bad Guy.

Stone Angel by Carol O'Connell (L)(M) 1998 400p.  Mallory finally confronts the demons of her childhood and we find out what happened.

The Ministry of Pain by Dubravka Ugresic (L)(N) 2005 257p. Any book that starts with a poem from Marina Tsestaeva starts out on the right foot. It's an uncompromising look at Tanja Lucic, an emigre from the former Yugoslavic states, who has landed a teaching postition, and her students and their "new" life in Holland. Bleak, sure, but the author has an eye for phrasing and description.

I'm sure you'll all be happy to know, California, land of sunshine and movie stars, is broke and will be issuing IOU's.

I'd like to throw out every last legislator, Republican and Democrat alike.

Dudes, it's not your party, it's your STATE.

We're stuck with an extra 3 billion dollars of debt, thanks to the missed budget deadline.

I love that the special election, when we told them to find the money someplace other than police and firefighters, the elderly and the children, they read as "Oh, the voters don't want to decide" and not "Morons, some things have to be spent".

I mean, of course, other than their nifty car allowances and per diems.

Oooh, this just in. State parks can revert back to Federal holdings if the state doesn't keep them open so Angel Island and the top of Mt Diablo will stay parks. Hurray for the Feds!

(pictures: Cowell Smokestack from the top of Cowell Road, the view from the deck of the Pt Reyes Lodge, Pt Reyes beach, the trail to the Whale Watch at Pt Reyes Lighthouse, Point Reyes Lighthouse. Do you see that walkway down to it? THIRTY STORIES. Darn. It's not open on Tuesdays. It was Tuesday.)

(also pictured: the Trellis Lace washcloth and what Adrie calls my Fair Isle Finger Cot. See? Knitting. That's the stole, the stole that appears to be 50 inches wide. How long does that need to be to be a rectangle when it grows up?)

Hez says "This mouse looks tough but he sure is lazy. Is he a California legislator?"

Baths and the Beach

Hezekiah got a bath last Thursday!  She seemed somewhat distraught about the whole process.   Luckily, she didn't roll around in the dirt after I left for work, she settled for glaring at me balefully from the nice hot cement walkway.

By the time I came home, she was dry, clean and sassy. She might not have enjoyed the process but she loves the outcome.

I'm attempting project monogamy on the advice of Cookie and so only took Mom's stole to the beach.

There is no discernible progress.

I might have cast on too many stitches and it'll be a ginormous stole. Good thing I found more skeins.

I did KIP quite a bit. On the beach. At the lodge. By the Bay. More at the lodge. There was a really sweet garden in the back and there must've been five hummingbirds there at all times, along with chickadees, finches and.....y'know. Birds. Chirpy cute birds.

This may be the only photgraphic evidence of my two day trip to the Point Reyes Seashore. There's no cell phone reception there (at least not for my iPhone - AT&T) so consequently, I kept leaving it behind (and also let it die). I did bring the camera but I still can't find the camera cord. Bah.

The beach was wonderful. Deserted and cool.

Oh, here's a handy beach tip. If your sunscreen says it expired in 11/07, it probably won't work. My face, feet and shoulders are fried. Luckily it's not a bikini kind of beach (not that you'd catch me in a bikini these days) so my rolled up jeans and tank top meant that I could still sit and lay down. Very important on vacation.

We drove up the Tomales Bay to eat at The Marshall Store in Marshall. Well, we actually drove up the coast and ran across The Marshall Store, which was a stroke of luck. They had the best oysters and fish tacos and cheese........if they hadn't been closed Tuesdays, we'd've gone back to slurp oysters on their bar overlooking the bay.

(Picture cadged from their site.)

 On the way home we stopped and had a picnic lunch at Samuel P Taylor Park. There was a visiting group of maybe fifteen 7 to 9 year olds that were wading in the river and tracking a water snake's progress. (Alas, it was a snake in the water and not a figment of their fervid imagination which meant there was no way on God's green earth I was going to take my shoes and socks off and wade in the water myself.)

Some of my blood tests came back. Other than having iron levels that are fluctuating from low to practically zilch, I seem to be okay.  I had an ultrasound yesterday that the tech pronounced good. (inner organs, not pregnant! As if. )  I've got two more tests to go so cross your fingers for me.

Wow. Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson both dead today? 

Ten on Tuesday

Before I read everyone else's and cadge their better list,

Ten on Tuesday

Ten Things You'd Bring On A Deserted Island:

How long am I on this deserted island? Does it have electricity? Decent housing? A deserted library? Yarn store? No wonder I don't do these. So many variables. Assuming that I'm shipwrecked, for say, a month and it has a decent deserted cabin/cabana/quaint mansion sans pythons etc, I'd take:

1. My pillow

2. Hezekiah

3. Books. The rest of series or a classic I've always meant to read? War & Peace?

4. Knitting. Finally I could finish Mom's stole and Dad's cardigan. This should hold me for months. In fact, I shouldn't be allowed off the island until I'm done.

5. My linen and hemp stash. It could come in handy for fishing nets and new clothes & it's always good to knit from the stash

6. Coffee. (A place without Starbucks? Hard to imagine)

7. a huge brimmed hat

8. sunglasses

9. the new iPhone coming out this week

10. a big beach towel

NCIS tonight! Repeat, of course but at least it's the latest season. Hawthorne premieres tonight at 9pm on TNT. Pardon, I meant HawthoRNe. Oh for pity's sake. I do like Jada Pinkett Smith though. Too bad Mental is opposite it. For a show that looked peculiar and silly, it's turned out to be pretty good so far.

Other than Burn Notice and The Closer, that's about all I've been watching other than NCIS repeats. Oh! Anyone else watching The Next Food Network Star? I love that show.

Knitting continues on WIP's, all for other people, all interminable. How is it possible to knit for hours and have nothing to show for it? I'm not even frogging. Just knitting and knitting and getting nowhere.

Currently readingThe Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, after finishing Jumper by Stephen Gould. I have a feeling for once, I'd like the movie better.

Should the Weather Veer 30 Degrees in a Single Day? And other questions.

Stefanie at So Many Books tagged me with a meme. Oh, the horror.

Rules: Try to answer the following questions, and leave your answers in the comments section. If you feel like it, create ten questions of your own with multiple choice answers and ask people to see how well they know you. Tag five others to do the same.

Hmm.  I seem to have either made one answer correct, or one answer wrong, somewhat randomly. (Possibly all answers are  wrong or right...and not mine.)

1. I am currently working…
   a. On an assembly line
   b. as a life coach
   c. as a tax preparer
   d. Working? I'm independently wealthy. That's why I have so many FO's and books.

2. I was born and raised in…
   a. Birmingham, Michigan
   b. London, England
   c. Oakland, California
   d. Swift Current, Saskatchewan

3. I have a sibling who occasionally puts in his/her two cents in the comments of this blog. My sibling’s name is…
   a. Timmy Rooch
   b. Ezekial
   c. my sister in law
   d. Justin Timberlake
4. The bookstore where I spend most of my book budget is…
   a. Clayton Book store
   b. Amazon
   c. Half Price Books
   d. I never buy books
5. I have …
   a. a stash (of yarn) that you would just die if you saw
   b. a library that will one day topple and crush me
   c. a secret crush on ___________
   d. very little patience
6. I sometimes read books on a…
   a. crowded highway
   b. whim
   c. Kindle
   d. peaceful ocean voyage 
7. My favorite food is …
   a. coffee
   b. lima beans
   c. peanut butter
   d. salmon
8. One of my favorite activities is…
   a. Activity?
   b. knitting
   c. Rearranging books on bookstore shelves
   d. Wandering around in an aimless daze at the mall
9. I also enjoy…
   a. gardening
   b. racquetball
   c. skateboarding
   d. reading
10. One of my favorite television shows is…
    a. NCIS
    b. Burn Notice
    c. Supernanny
    d. SG1

I'm tagging Elspeth at KniTV, Purling Dervish, Shut Up & Knit, Latitude 61 Land of the Midnight Sun and Chartroose at Bloody Hell, It's a Book Barrage. (ooh, terrible week to tag Chartroose. As if timeliness mattered. ;)

Bridget at The Ravell'd Sleave picked up today's Booking Through Thursday and I had to try it myself. First fifteen, off the top of my head:

1. The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

2. Loose Change by Sara Davis

3. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

4. The Periodic Table by Primo Levi

5. The Cinderella Factor by Barbara Tori

6. Bleak House by Charles Dickens

7. The Unmade Bed by Francoise Sagan

8. Gospel by Wilton Barnhardt

9. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

10. Who By Fire by Diana Spechler

11. Catherine of Aragon by Gerald Mattingly

12. Benton's Row by Frank Yerby

13. Hell is too Crowded by Jack Higgins

14. 1632 by Eric Flint

15. Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb

You can see that I have a vast and edumacated palate.

Speaking of - Burn Notice is back on tonight! 9m, USA followed by Royal Pains (proceeded by a repeat Bones at 8pm on FOX.) Sadly there are NO repeats of NCIS tonight. I might have to read.

News of My Demise Shouldn't Be Much of a Surprise

Or: How I Survived Two Weeks of Pain. I don't know how really ill people can stand it. I'd give you the TMI version but suffice it to say that one week I was doubled over in agony and the next week I had the most awful non-migraine headache ever. I never thought I'd miss a migraine but at least w/a migraine I'm out in a dark, soundproof room and it lasts maybe 3 days tops. This headache was sufficient to make me wish I'd never been born but not enough to stay home from work, especially with the IRS looming over a client or two.  

Unfortunately the IRS was all I could handle a day. I dragged myself out of bed, dressed, worked, came home, went to bed, rinse and repeat. I missed concerts, birthday parties, two friends from out of state, two weekends - the Maker Faire! Grrr!

New month, new health. I'm back to my regime of exercise and good eating and maybe it was my iron plummeting that caused the headache (it was something like 12 when I saw my doc which is why I've got a gastroenterologist appt coming up). Cross your fingers it works this month.

I was watching Unwrapped: Deep Fried  Monday night (what? Doesn't everyone?)  and it ocurred to me how mind numbingly dull it must be to work on an assembly line. As much as my job fries me (hahahaha), it's good to think. (Although I'm sure you can't totally zone out - easy way to lose a finger/arm/limb/etc).

Also I really want to go to the Minnesota State Fair and eat a deep fried candy bar.

Books read in May:

1. Suits Me: The Double Life of Billie Tipton by Diane Wood Middlebrook (L) (1998) 326 pages. Wow. Her life as a man was both easier and harder. Just goes to show how dumb gender stereotyping is.

2. The Periodic Table by Primo Levi (1975) (233 pages). Excellent, excellent book by a chemist who lived through the Nazi regime and told about it in this charming novel/autobiography.

3. Cattery Row by Clea Simon (L) (2006) 238 pages. Music and cats, what's not to like? And the ending is fabulous.

4. 1632 by Eric Flint (L) (2000) 597 pages. I really liked this time traveling geo-shifting tale although it's sent me on a binge of historical background digging. My knowledge of 17th century Germany is vague at best.

5. Blood Will Tell by Dana Stabenow (L) (1997) 257 pages. Another mystery w/Kate Shugak. I was seriously bummed by one of the character's death in this book. So much so that I haven't brought myself to pick up the next in the series yet, but that won't last long.

6. Her Husband: Hughes & Plath-A Marriage by Diane Wood Middlebrook (L) (2003) 350 pages. Hmm. Maybe they were a match made in - - poetic justice.

7. A Concise History of Germany by Mary Fulbrook (L) (1990) 263 pages. Nice background on Germany! It covered too little of the early centuries, which is what I was interested in and too much of WWI and beyond but very helpfu.

Now that I'm done with Mary Tudor, I'm at a bit of a loss. Okay, what I really should be knitting is my Dad's cardigan and my mother's stole but they are boring. Notice how even after knitting this repeat eleventy billion times, I can still manage to muck it up (by the cast on edge). It's a design feature. I used to have two skeins of the yarn too and now I can only find the one. I'm hoping the other is somewhere in my stash.

Mary Tudor, she is finis.......mostly

Well, almost. She needs her buttons sewn on and I got bored weaving in ends before plunging her into her bath (I wove most of the ends in while knitting - except the sleeves. They have a lovely fringed effect)  but other than that? Done!!

Much thanks to Marina, who sent me a picture of a sample she knit of the mitered corner along with a chart - it turns out I'd neglected to do the picking up of stitches on BOTH right and wrong side rows. Thanks also to Joan and Lorraine for their help.

There's still one more update to come - when the buttons are on, but the knitting? She is done. I had a bump on the road to progress when I put in nine buttonholes for eight buttons - I knew I shouldn't have picked her back up Saturday night while watching Suspicion, but oh well. It worked as a swatch for the buttonholes  - typically horrid - but serviceable. Too bad the mitered corner with the buttonhole is going to be the side that shows - it's wonky, but oh well. (Second picture of the corners is the buttonhole miter.)

TV: Law & Order: Criminal Intent and In Plain Sight on Sunday nights. The season finale of 24 tonight, which I'm going to miss because I'm going to see my niece unwillingly sing opera, much better than finding out how Jack saves the world this time, don't you think? The season finale of NCIS is tomorrow (Tuesday) night. Cross your fingers Ziva doesn't die or get deported and we're stuck with that flirty chick Jules. Even Abby fell for her! Feh.

Chuck was renewed! Yes! The Dollhouse got the nod too. I really hate how CSI:NY ended, killing off one of the characters is getting so cliched. Like Lost. No one is safe.......unless it's Jack or Kate, the two I'd really like to see die. I didn't actually watch Gray's Anatomy closely enough to realize they did the "which one will die?" bit either until Opal filled me in. (Okay, I admit I was expecting Izzie to die and I didn't feel like bawling my eyes out so I basically had it on as background noise).

Wow, the big networks have dreck on their schedule for summer. Give me cable. The only thing that looks good to me is Glee, and I refuse to figure out why.

Reading: After The Periodic Table I thought I'd go for something light so I picked up Cattery Row by Clea Simon, one in the series about Theda Krakow, music journalist and Musetta's mom. Theda is on the trail of catnappers and kitten mills and it had a fabulous ending. She waffled too much about her love life - the proverbial struggle between the Good Man and the Bad Boy but that's probably aggravating just to me.

Currently reading - and loving - 1632 by Eric Flint. It's the first in his Ring of Fire series, a small West Virginia coal town is flung back in time 400 years to 1632 and smack into the middle of the Thirty Year War in the Germanic principalities. I'm sorry to report that I know practically nothing about this piece of history even with my half German descent. I love that it's unabashedly pro United States and that we're the good guys. I also love that the originally rallying cry was for the United Mine Workers of America.

Hez sez: "Geez, you're finally done with my blanket? It's been exhausting watching you all these years. Wait. You're not casting on another member of the English royalty are you? I give up."

Have a good week!

Mitering Mary Tudor

I've joined a reading challenge! Eco-Challenge at Chris' Book-a-rama. I like that the rules say between 1-5 books and I can justify my choices with a spirited debate. Starts May 1 through Sept 30th.

I've gone from saying "Cool" to saying "Excellent." Not so much in a Ted & Bill Adventure way but more in a mad professor style. What I want to know is why? Am I going to start cooing  "darling" soon?

In knitting news, stupid mitered corner. Evidently you're supposed to pick up the edge stitches of the body and miter the corner of of the buttonhole band while you're attaching it.

Somehow, I don't think this is right.

She has a "marked stitch" at the end that I read as it's knit together with a picked up stitch from the body but then I still have only the one marked stitch and I'm supposed to be adding five stitches to the band. Shouldn't there be slipping in there? And picking up of more stitches?

It's the mitering one side and picking up the edge of the already knit part that's confounding me. I can miter a corner while I'm knitting the whole thing but half done? Argh. Any suggestions? (Not including setting it on fire. I'm too close to being done).

READING: I've been reading The Periodic Table by Primo Levi - I ran across it in a used bookstore Thursday night and it’s just fabulous so far. It’s the semi autobiographical novel of his life as an Italian Jewish chemist up to and during WWII (so far) and he’s done the fascinating twist of sectioning off pieces of his life using various periodic elements as the anchor to those memories.

                    Monday

Is anything sadder than a train
That leaves when it’s supposed to,
That has only one voice,
Only one route?
There’s nothing sadder.

Except perhaps a cart horse,
Shut between two shafts
And unable even to look sideways.
Its whole life is walking.

And a man? Isn’t a man sad?
If he lives in solitude a long time,
If he believes time has run its course,
A man is a sad thing too.

–Primo Levi
January 17, 1946
From Collected Poems
Faber and Faber, London, 1988.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE BROTHER! *

Isn't he adorable? He may be a wee bit older now.

Angie,  holding her specially imported nutmeg thyme unless she hates the picture, in which case that's a random organic gardener at a high end Farmer's Market in a San Francisco hotel lobby. (It could happen.) (No pictures of me until I reach my picture taking weight again (doubtful) but especially since I had a lovely salivary gland **infection and my face was puffed up (well, half of it) like a .......puff fish.)  Angie was nice enough to be seen in public with me anyway. Lots of public. Cable cars. Cheesecake Factories. Street walking. Irish urchins. Tasty Salted Pig Parts.

She came bearing gifties. I showed up late. Check out those stitch markers! [Edit: Hey! What happened to the swag pic? Gah.] Sweet! That's a kitty cat face on the button/pendant at 6 o'clock in the picture. Too cute.  But I did provide cable cars and Bay Views and considering it was 94 degrees when she landed in San Francisco, a pretty nice wind chill factor for strolling the wharf. Okay, it was a wee bit chilly but I'm not the hardy Midwesternenne. 

She was knitting while waiting for me but no knitting commenced once I got there. We almost attempted Urban Knits Studio....

Other than Not Working, Wining and Dining about the City, what have I been up to? Not really catching up with everyone, I'm sorry to report. (Like you can't tell.)  I will! Eventually. I keep getting distracted by the almost finished Mary Tudor

(which reminds me, GET OFF THE COMPUTER AND FINISH KNITTING THE BUTTONBANDS YOU LAZY SOW).

Ahem. What was I saying? Oh yes.Knitting. Hiking and sightseeing and nature. Friends and family. Reading. Mindless television watching.(C'mon, it's me. There will always be mindless television watching.) Let's just say that Chuck had better get renewed and Tony Almeida better have a really, really, really good reason. (Pictures: the trail is Phillips Loop in theRedwood Regional Park, click here, Bay Area Hiker for pictures and some other hike info in the area. The other is the playground of the elementary school in Canyon.)

OTOH, TV appears to be breaking up with me (the old; it's not you, it's me). You don't believe me? Life on Mars, cancelled. Life on the bubble. The Sarah Connor Chronicles killed Derek Reese (Brian Austin Green),  effectively killing my interest in the show. (OMG, is that how old he is? Urgh.)

NCIS.Ziva loves Tony - does Tony love Ziva? And who IS that guy?  No, not that one. The other one.

Gray's Anatomyis making me cry for Izzie. I hate Gray's Anatomy. Why do I have to watch it? Why?

Being Erica. I want to be Erica. Well, I want to be me but getting to do what Erica does. (The link has video so it is not a stealth surf).

Knittin Brit in WI sent me her copy of House at Riverton complete with the English spellings and a bookmark direct from The Totnes Bookshop in Devon. I can't decide if I'm more charmed by the bookmark or the book, which was a pretty riveting read considering the pace is stately and the book is long.

Okay, okay. I always want to know What Is Going On  & the suspense was making me crazy. I stayed up until 2am finding out the last of Grace's secrets. I managed not to read the ending but at 599 pages? Amazing. Sometimes the endings are baffling but in this case it would have spoiled the book and it was such a good read it would be a shame. B+ 

Cute kitty sighting. Like a baby Nerissa (who is basically a baby herself.)

Other April reads:

Dog Days and New Tricks by John Levitt. It's Louie I love but Mason is hard to resist. A jazz musician in the City fighting Black Magic? Swoon.

Play with Fire by Dana Stabenow (5th in the series) Do not read this one if Christian fundamentalists make your blood boil or you are a Christian fundamentalist. It's a pretty compelling psychological mystery exploring relationships, religion and racism in Alaska. I heart Kate Shugak (and she would cringe to hear/read that). Of course, it's really Mutt that I love best. I'm sensing a trend. (I might have peeked ahead to see what's in store for Mutt and while she's okay, there were some other twists I did not see coming. Relax, Chris, I haven't read them out of order. (It hurts her [thumps chest] HERE when I do that.)

I've just started Suits Me: the Double Life of Billie Tipton by Diane Wood Middlebrook. She's written a bio on Ted Hughes that I wanted to read when I ran across Billie Tipton. Can you imagine? Having to live life like that in such utter secrecy? Famous to boot.

Finally finished Lover of Unreason: Sylvia Plath's Rival and Ted Hughes Other Doomed Loveby Yehuda Koren. (I keep writing Tom Hughes. Shades of old As The World Turns?) Assia starts out so spoiled and selfish it's hard to feel any empathy for her but by the end of the book, I almost admired her. If she had only had the self reliance that would have let her stand on her own she might have been a true force. As it was, she was something to be reckoned with but felt she was nothing without a man. And, naturally, a particular man. Too bad she and Sylvia Plath decided on Ted Hughes as that man.

Crow Goes Hunting by Ted Hughes

Crow Goes Hunting

Crow
Decided to try words.

He imagined some words for the job, a lovely pack-
Clear-eyed, resounding, well-trained,
With strong teeth.
You could not find a better bred lot.

He pointed out the hare and away went the words
Resounding.
Crow was Crow without fail, but what is a hare?

It converted itself to a concrete bunker.
The words circled protesting, resounding.

Crow turned the words into bombs-they blasted the bunker.
The bits of bunker flew up-a flock of starlings.

Crow turned the words into shotguns, they shot down the starlings.
The falling starlings turned to a cloudburst.

Crow turned the words into a reservoir, collecting the water.
The water turned into an earthquake, swallowing the reservoir.

The earthquake turned into a hare and leaped for the hill
Having eaten Crow's words.

Crow gazed after the bounding hare
Speechless with admiration.

*It is still April, right? I'm not too late! For me. Happy Birthday!

** Swine flu. THIS is a level 5? What, there are 28 levels? What colors are they? Geez.

  The steek is off center because I didn't know you're supposed to add and end on the edges not the center to leave three or four fully knit stitches to crochet & cut the actual steek on. I could probably just hack right down the middle of the Jamieson's Shetland it it'd be fine. Maybe.

Look! A collar! And facing the right direction too. (I managed to get left and right confused and knit about a quarter of the collar inside out first. There was a picture but my iPhone likes to scramble the picture order which is then compounded by being upside down or sideways,  then the thumbnail pictures being the size of a........well, a thumbnail and I can't quite figure out what they are when I go to upload them.)

She has both her sleeves and is only lacking her buttonbands.

You all might want to say what you need to say to your loved one and prepare for The End, I'm pretty sure when I finish, it's the final sign of the apocalypse. Darn. I have more sweaters I want to knit.

The palm climbing cat isn't Hez but her cousin, Nerissa. Evidently she's taught her sisters the trick too. It's a jungle out there.

Pimping for La and Quarterly Book Reviews

Doesn't that title sound both street and stuffy? Schizo.

First! Pimping for La:

About the club: The website is The Mean Girls Yarn Club

Sign-ups begin April 3, 2009 

La being Laura Wilson-Martos: blog is Fibercrack'd

Store is Dizzy Blonde Studios  Ravelry ID is KnottyLa

Ravelry Group is Dizzy Blondies

Her cohost in Mean-Girl-ness, Bobbie Bowles, store  KnittyKnitterton's House of Awesome, Ravelry ID is KnittyKnitterton and her Ravelry Group is House of Awesome 

• First shipment goes out in June

• Shipments will go out every other month for 1 year

• The cost: $150 for the entire year, payable either in 1 lump sum, or in three $50 installments. This includes shipping.

• Membership will be limited to 50 people.

• The colorways are to be club exclusives.

• Never to be sold by us.

• And it’s all super secret until you get your installment.

• Feel free to guess to your black heart’s contents.

• There’s actually a theme within the theme.

• Each skein will come with a little something COLLECTIBLE attached to the band, and an additional little something extra.

Please continue to Save the Words

keleusmatically: in a demanding manner. 
 

You Are "alt"

Some people might find you to be strange, mysterious, and even a bit off putting. You tend to be drawn to and influenced by alternative lifestyles. You're definitely not normal. Once people get to know you, they realize you're interesting, intriguing, and very intelligent. You have a lot of knowledge stored in that big brain of yours. Most of it is useless knowledge, but some of it is very useful.

What Keyboard Key Are You?

Once they get to know me? Ridiculous. To know me is to love me. Shamelessly cadged from Purling Dervish.  Eons ago.

Books read since the dawn of time beginning of January:

1. Liberation: Being the Adventures of the Slick Six After the Collapse of the United States of America.  Brian Francis Slattery (2008) 299 pages - I liked this book even though it has its flaws but this paragraph alone would have sold me: "...the employees of the library made a spontaneous pact to defend it as soon as the police force stopped working, and now they just live in the building. They hauled beds into the offices and corners of the huge reading rooms, put plaid couches against the marble walls. An army of cats patrols the halls, has litters on the stairs. She imagines that some of the librarians are fulfilling a long cherished fantasy."

This struck me. It never really occurred to me how true this is: "He now understand that this expectation of progress applies only to young nations, for most of the planet lives among the ruins of dead empires: Angkor Wat, the Great Zimbabwe, Rome, the Mughal palaces."

The writing style is reminiscent of Thomas Wolfe. John Fowles, Tom Robbins.

Zeke Hezekiah one of the six. What a fabulous name! Hez concurs. There's also the New Sioux, slavery reinstituted. The Aardvaark using his real name once he's King of New York. Assassins, dot com, The Vibe, Dr San Diego and the Americoids (and Felix Purple, the bus driver).

2. Who By Fire by Diana Spechler (2008) 343 pages. Quotes:

"Musically, Arbahim sounds sort of like a Hebrew-speaking version of the Grateful Dead, but lyrically, I guess they're more like Whitney Houston, not that I would share that analysis with Todd."

"Kind of selfish, isn't it? " I didn't mean to say that, didn't want to get into it with Yosi. But I was suddenly throbbing with rage. "We apologize three times and if we haven't been forgiven we have permission to feel forgiven? What if what we did was really bad? Three apologies can't always be enough. A million apologies might not be enough for some transgressions. Now that you've apologized to three times to Janie's father, do you honestly believe that you're absolved? Honestly?"

Oh boy. Brutal but with familial love. Ripped, damaged, torn, bound. Religion, mindless sex, blame, guilt. This was a pretty darn good book. Go read Bookfool's review for a well written coherent review of this book (and more).

Hmm. Apparently I've taken up free association book reviews.

• The Magicians and Mrs Quent Beckett, Galen L SF 2008 499. A little too heavily drawn from Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. The previously mostly Elizabeth Bennett character (Pride & Prejudice) morphs oddly into Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Not a half bad fantasy world though. I hope he writes more.  

• Confessions of an Economic Hit Man Perkins, John L NF 2004 250. Oh man. He had an unusual perspective on corporate culture in other countries but for someone so revolted by it, he sure didn't mind making the money or blaming others who couldn't have possibly had a clue or done a darn thing. A little too Illuminati and One World Government for me, the author was just too self serving to be believable, but.......an excellent read all the same.

  Index to Murder by Jo Dereske pb M. Helma Zukas, librarian. A lovely antidote of common sense after reading John Perkins.

  Anne Neville: Queen to Richard III  by Michael Hicks, pb B 2006 243 I admit it, I think Richard the III was framed by the Tudors. History is written by the victors after all. His Queen had a fairly eventful life all on her own. She was married to the actual heir to the throne first and I don't mean Edward, Richard's brother either.

• The Post American World by Fareed Zakaria L NF 2008 272. I had no idea I was so US centric. Fascinating. Explains a bit more about our current recession woes even before it happened.

  Fool by Christopher Moore  HB F 2009 336. Oh sheesh. I wanted to like it, a take off on King Lear? By Christopher Moore? With the witches of MacBeth thrown in (Parsley, Sage and Rosemary. Do not ask about Thyme) among other Shakespearian touches (footnotes!) But the unending relentless mindless sex stuff just wore me down. I felt like someone's disapproving maiden great aunt. It's just so........mindless. Constant. He does warn that it's a bawdy tale. Bawdy, my eye. Bawdy is fun. This was verging on cretinous. Go read A Dirty Job.

  Uncommon Reader Bennett, Alan pb F 2007 128 Excellent, excellent novella about QE2 discovering books. Highly recommended.

  House of Wits: An Intimate Portrait of the James Family by Paul Fisher,  L B 2008 669 Everything I never knew about Henry James and his family. Now I'm desperate to learn more about Alice James, his sister. Despite Henry James, patriarch, being such a free thinking man in public, he certainly had old fashioned ideals.

  Good Germs, Bad Germs: Health Survival in a Bacterial World by Jessica Snyder Sachs L NF 2007 273 pages. OMG, scary! Scary and at the same time, fascinating. Explains quite thoroughly why antibiotics fail, how bacteria has gotten the upper hand and why you should never skip a vaccine.

• A Cold Day for Murder, Fatal Thaw 1993 208,  Dead in the Water 1993 224 and Cold Blooded Business L M 1994 240 by Dana Stabenow, follow the cases that Kate Shugak, an Aleut of Alaska takes on. I can't believe I've never read this series before but I love seeing Alaska through her eyes and Kate herself is a woman I admire.

  Paths Not Taken L UF 2005 272 and Just Another Judgement Day HB UF 2009 263 by Simon R Green, the latest installments in the life of John Taylor, son of Lilith and the day to day goings on in Nightside. One of my favorite guys. How to Write Gertrude Stein  1931. I ran across this my old fashioned way of finding books, by perusing shelves in a bookstore. It occurred to me that I'd never actually read anything by Gertrude Stein and in fact, could only attribute to her the famous quote about my hometown, Oakland CA "there's no there there." The book reads something like that quote. Lover of Unreason: Assia Wevill, Sylvia Plath's Rival and Tom Hughes Doomed Love Koren, Yehuda. Still reading..... The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America by Bill Bryson, L NF 1989 Just picked up as a light hearted antidote to the current work mode but it's not exactly what I had in mind. I absolutely loved his delightful A Walk In the Woods but The Lost Continent? while it's occasionally pretty funny, it seems a lot more mean and mean spirited than I can take right now. I'm taking odds - can Marina finish her eight sleeves before I finish my second sleeve on Mary Tudor? (The answer for those of you who don't know is, heck yeah she can. But I have hope).