Going to try to keep this going.....

Monday, December 21, 2009

Books! Books! Books! I have an addictive relationship with books. I think my "to read" pile (s) is down to about 59 now. It is a very provocative time of year with all of the "Top 10 of 2009" and "Top 100 of 2009" coming out. I am practicing great restraint at the moment, being quite responsible about the lists and simply saving them.

I made sort of a resolution about a month ago that I would only buy one book after I have read five from the pile. It is feeling pretty harsh at the moment. To be more precise, at the moment I am feeling that if I want to buy books, I don't know a really good reason not to. Except that I have 59 that I "had to have" and haven't read yet. But it isn't like I am going out and beating up old ladies or robbing convenience stores to get the money to buy books. Sticking to my resolution, I would have to read 125 books to buy the ones on the "Top" lists. Ha! I'm an amateur. I only have 59!

I have a sponsor in my Book Buyers Anonymous group, a group of two. Actually, she is my good friend and neighbor and she understands this addiction very well. In fact, she gave me a Barnes & Noble gift card for Hanukkah and, double in fact, as I write this she is out shopping at the aforementioned Barnes & Noble. So I think I am flying solo at the moment. Actually, if all truth be told, she is shopping with the gift card that I happened to also get for her for Hanukkah.

Reading the weekly New York Times Book Review section is painful. But they don't even have to be new books. Yard sales are another temptation. Everyone is selling books at yard sales. I have a public library two blocks from my house that I never go to. Usually when I want a book, I don't want to go on a waiting list for it. And I definitely can't put it on my pile and expect to return it in two weeks. There is an aspect to all of this that I fortunately am not afflicted with. One of my friends' elderly aunt would only read new books as "you never know but someone might have been reading it in their bathroom." She's right. You just never know.

Oh, actually there is one missing in the pictures. Actually there are three missing from the pictures. I am breaking my usual resolve and reading two at a time.

That's right, Nick. Nick gave this to me about two years ago to read and I am just starting it. I am actually finding it interesting although, like I said, I am just starting it. It is basically about how the Pentagon was in no way prepared to deal with or look at a world after the Cold War. All of a sudden the Cold War was over and now what? It is about how our country had to learn a new way to deal with the rest of the word. As it was written in 2004 it is somewhat dated but still interesting....so far. As a reader of pretty much only fiction, it is impressive to me that it is holding my interest. On top of it all, I think I have a friend who is involved in just what this analyst is writing about.

I read Stieg Larsson's first book....."The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and really enjoyed it. Then when I read that he had written three books, this one being the second of the three, submitted them to his publisher and then, at the age of 32 commited suicide, I was intrigued enough to want to read the last two books. So this is the second book I am reading at the time.

"Under the Dome" is in Liz's room but it is stuck in my mind. My friend (sponsor) read it and couldn't put it down. I became disinterested in Stephen King a long time ago when it seemed he just got too weird but I am definitely interested in this. The dust jacket is intriguing in itself, no writing whatsoever on the back or the inside flaps. No synopsis of the story, nothing. Blank.

I don't understand people who don't read.

October/Yankees and the Magic Bean

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

The end of September. The summer has passed so quickly as does all time any more. Is it the same for everyone.....a part of our culture now? Fast moving, rapidly changing? Or is it part of getting older and the sense you are on a speeding train? Whatever it is, it feels like October today. Time to take out the air conditioners, close up the windows, change to the winter bedding, reverse the ceiling fans, change out the summer clothes for winter clothes......and it won't be long before we put away baseball for another season. But hopefully we still have some exciting times ahead of us in Yankee Stadium. We will be at the last regular home game tonight and here's hoping that we will see most of the regulars playing. We're just waiting on the Tigers now so the Yankees can decide on the playoff schedule.

Tthree months ago Janet brought me her bean plant that needed some help, probably more light. The vines were all wound around a stick and needed more space to grow. There had been a few blossoms on it. I put it in full sun and unwound the vines as carefully as I could but lost most of them as they were so fragile. The few that were left were wrapped around a trellis behind the plant and the plant was well tended to for the rest of the summer but I watched it struggle and finally fade too far to come back. Finally I gave up and pulled it all out of the dirt only to find one bean....one very big bean....hidden in the vines. I left it on the porch to dry out and then opened the pod and there were five magic seeds. Let's see what next year brings.

Technology

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

This has been so very frustrating. I am trying my best to link this blog to my FaceBook page. I want to write the blog here, publish it and have it appear on my wall. Apparently it is appearing on the walls of the three people who are following me but it is not appearing on mine. I want it to just look like an entry when it is posted on FB.

It is that very frustrating feeling that you know that it is a matter of one little click, just one, a nanosecond, so close you can feel it but you simply can't find it. My computer savy niece and I spent an hour on the phone today trying to find that needle in the haystack with no luck.

A few days ago I was able to link FB to Twitter but now I have to remember to put my status in the Twitter box and send it.

How much information is too much information? How many places is too many to put our latest thoughts, ideas, rants? Does anyone really care? What is this all about anyway?

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Could it be?

I think I got it! I don't know if I can replicate it. I think I will give up if it doesn't work.

Another test

Yes, yet another test.

Suspicions

Monday, September 28, 2009

Where is the line between just interesting and suspicious? I walk my dog just ab0ut every morning across the City Island bridge. For at least a year in 2001 every morning there was a man in the small park just before the bridge. He was either sitting on a park bench or leaning against his car. I knew it was his car because he sat in it if the weather was bad. He had a cup of coffee and often was smoking a cigarette. A nice looking guy, in his early 50s, dressed nicely. Every morning he was there watching the skyline of Manhattan. I don't think he ever missed a day. I don't remember if he was there on September 11 but he was gone on September 12 and has not been there since. I wonder every morning what he was doing there and why he never came back.

It was a different time. I never thought much of it, just a guy having a morning cup of coffee, looking out over the water.

For three mornings now, I have seen what looks like a hired car drop off two guys with backpacks. They are getting out of the car on the other side of the City Island bridge where there is nothing but woods, nothing. They have the option to walk back to City Island but why not have the driver take them to CI? Going the other direction, Orchard Beach is about one mile away and there is not another thing for another four or five miles any direction.

Like I said, it is a different time.