Yours 'til Niagara Falls

Reading, Weeding and Spinning

 I've been nibbling at Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Mineral, Miracle for a couple of months, but this weekend I seriously began to read it.  I'm really enjoying it.  I also plan to spend some time on the companion website.  It's been a very long time since a book has really made me take a hard look at how I am going through life.  The last book that made me reflect to this depth was Julia Cameron's Artist's Way .  Anyhoo... Animal, Mineral, Miracle is the story of Kingsolver and her family as they endeavor to eat in a responsible, sustainable and delicious manner.  Kingsolver's 19-year-old daughter and husband also contributed to the book with interesting essays and recipes.

  I alternated chapters with weeding duty in the garden.  Here is a picture of my sage. Some varmint ate my cucumber right to the soil line. Happily, it is not to late to replace it.  Along with the weeding, the book inspired me to use an eggplant recipe included in the chapter entitled "Late June".  It was good. 

Yesterday it rained all day.  I was watching a movie and spinning my natural fleece mix from the Happy Family event at Raveloe last March. I really debated the question "to ply or not to ply".  I finally decided to ply two singles together.  It's enough yarn to make a pair of gloves and I have just the pattern in mind.

 

I watched the Clint Eastwood movie Grand Turino this afternoon.  I liked it, which surprised me because I generally don't like Clint Eastwood (Space Cowboys being an exception). I wish I could have seen some close ups of the Hmong needlework on some of the actors.  Beautiful stuff.

This coming week marks the end of the school year.  Whoopeee!!!!!!

Summer Reading

Now that I've made up my mind about the Kindle (for the time being, that is) I made a big whopping Amazon book order.  It should tide me over for the summer.  I got two Persephone Classics, Kitchen Essays and Someone at a Distance.  I also ordered An Omnivore's Dilemma, which I've been meaning to read for a while. I felt compelled to get the fourth Maisie Dobbs mystery because I love reading all the books in a series.  I also got a book about regional cooking.  The last one was a bit of an accident because I meant to get the book which was written using essays written during the Depression about food.  We'll see if it's a keeper.

One oddball thing I do is to save up change for a while and then take it to one of those change-counting kiosks in the grocery store.  The ones around here give you the option of getting a coupon good for different retailers, Amazon being one of them.  If you choose this option you don't pay the 9% counting fee.  Anyhoo... I have a smallish candy tin that usually holds about fifty bucks in change and that really takes the sting out of ordering.  I also choose the cheapskate free shipping which generally takes ten days or so.  Which neatly corresponds to my last day of school.  Happy Reading!

P.S.  My day began with a fright.  I went to use my not-all-that-old hairdryer and something was horribly wrong with it.  Smoke and sparks shot out of it.  If I had had it up too close to my lovely tresses, I'm sure it would have been an awful scene.  Lucky me!

P.S.S. That picture at the top of the post is not really me, in case you were wondering.

I Heart Discards

 One of the many things I love about the end of the school year is when the librarians weed out books.  I am a major discard pile fan.

Over the years I have snagged hundreds of wonderful books.  Among them are the Edith Flack book How to Make Dolls for Fun and Profit. Today I scored a book of poetry by Iris Murdoch.  Why it was in an elementary library I'll never know, but it is illustrated with very pretty woodcuts of birds.

I've got a nice collection of Golden Book nature guides and some classic picture books.

This year I got a real laugh when I picked up a book and thought to myself, "Well, this one is ancient".  When I checked the copyright date, it was one year after the year of my birth.  Joke's on me! 

The Kite Runner

 Last night I had the privilege of attending a Distinguished Speaker lecture at he University at Buffalo.  The guest was Khaled Hosseini, the author of the Kite Runner. He is a powerful speaker and had a lot of insights into the situation in Afghanistan.  The Alumni Arena  is a large venue and it was about two-thirds full.  Dr. Hosseini mentioned that he had never spoken to such a large group.  The University had handed out 5,000 copies of the Kite Runner to the student body, so a good number of students attended.

My biggest surprise of the evening was when the author told us that the book took a year to write, most of it composed in the early morning as Dr. Hosseini was a practicing physician at the time.  After he completed the manuscript he needed an agent.  He sent it to thirty agents.  It was rejected by twenty-nine.   

As an aside, at one point during the lecture, I looked over to the rows of spectators below me which were, for the most part high school and university students.  About three-quarters of these young people were busy texting through the whole lecture.  They all had those elaborate phones with the keyboards.  The screens were bright enough to be a distraction in the darkened arena.  I don't even know what to think.  Speaking to people in my age cohort, we have come to the realization that this behavior is not considered to be rude.  I'm not sure I will be able to adjust to this. 

A Rave Review for Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (the Novel)

Tonight I finished reading Winifred Watson's Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.  I had seen the film starring Frances McDormand just a few weeks ago.  I loved the movie, but I'm so glad I read the book after seeing the movie.  The story was really modified for the screen, but very pleasing in its own way.  But the book is head-and-shoulders above the movie.  I polished it off in a couple of days, rationing the chapters so it wouldn't end too quickly.  The main character could be described as Mary Poppin's adventure-seeking sister.  Liquored up.  And feeling frisky. This novel makes me very curious about the other titles offered by this publisher, Persephone Classics.

Sweet Golden Books

I happened on a sale today and bought 15 Little Golden Books.  None are vintage, but the copyright dates range fron the early 50's to the 80's.  They published a pretty good variety of authors and illustrators.  Eloise Wilkin, Richard Scarry anf Garth Williams are among my favorites.  My intent was to take one or two of them to create a spiral-bound notebook with a variety of found papers.  I have all the ingredients.  Which book must fall under the cruel blades of the scissors?  Stay tuned.

Julie & Julia

I finished reading this book today.  The author is Julie Powell whose current blog is called What Could Happen?.  The link is: http://juliepowell.blogspot.com/  (Typepad's posting editor continues to taunt me and I am unable to properly link the way the old system let me)  I liked the book on a lot of different levels; as a food lover, as a Julia Child love, as a blogger, etc.  The premise of the book is that a woman is looking at turning 30 and feels as though she needs to expand her life.  She decides to go through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  She documented the year-long project on her blog.  The experience was then put between the covers of a book and, to top it off, it is currently being made into a movie.  In addition, Julie went from a job she didn't particularly enjoy to being a full-time author.  All of this has taken place in the past five years. P.S. Please ignore the "search inside" logo - I swiped the picture from Amazon.

What Would You Bring?

A new meme courtesy Mags of Smartymags.  In the unlikely event that you were stranded on a desert island for an undetermined length of time, what five books would you take along with you?  Think Robinson Crusoe.  Think Gilligan. I took a while to make my list.  The criterion I kept coming up with involved having something which would take a considerable amount of time to read and material which would help me survive on the island.  So here goes:

1.  Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery.  My favorite of all-time,  I've re-read it almost every summer that I can remember.

2.  The Bible.  I'm not a daily reader of the Word, but it is endlessly fascinating and inspiring.

3.  Babette's Feast by Isaac Dinisen, aka Karen Blixen.  I love the story.  The one problem with this is that the description of the dinner served might make me wild with hunger.

4.  The Foxfire Book - whichever one gives the most salient information regarding survival on a desert island.  It has always baffled me that none of those charming people who are on those "survival" type television shows read up on this sort of thing.

5.  The best poetry collection I can get my hands on.  (I'd love suggestions)  I subscribe to the Writer's Almanac so I get a daily poetry fix.  The thing about poems for me is that they can stick in your mind and give you a chance to analyze them.

I want to tag some folks:

1. Anyone who is in the mood to make a list.

2. Mags of Smartymags

3. Becky of Green Eyed Knitter

4. Tracy of Twisted Blossom

5. Laura of Little Orange Kitchen

6. Leigh of Love Leigh Things