Type A, Much?

I don't know when I became such a fan of letterpress, but I can't imagine life now with out it.  Bison Bookbinding (distributed via Parnassas) is awesome and tonight in perusing their site I found this gem and I'm even more im-"pressed".  Bison, I didn't know we shared a mantra.  Cheers!

Thunder and Lightning

It was a dark and stormy night and you have the choice of three books to bring into your tornado storm shelter.  Which items do you choose?

Keep in mind that all reading will be done with the frequent siren interruptions of your brand new weather radio* purchased four hours** before the first sirens.

Oh, and you had that bright idea to install a tornado app on your phone.  It's slightly out of sync with your weather radio so you get double the random warnings.

In the event of power outage, you have three sources of light:

• Flashlight #1 with batteries that may have been replaced (were they???) once since the 2007 gift.  You have one spare battery.
• Flashlight #2 purchased day 0 of impeding storms.  You will only realize later that because it's cute and LED, it will only give you 1.5 hours of light on the three batteries.  You have one spare. 
• One LED bike light which you never got around to installing on your bike from Christmas 2012.  It is the most fun because it pulses but reading with it might be a bit of a bear seizure.

Your safe room is hot because of course it's not ventilated.  Between the noise and the heat, concentration is a challenge.

Luckily, there is room for one tiny chair so you don't have to sit on the floor.  

In two hours, you've been able to leave the safe room for a period of 45 minutes (not consecutively) but you managed a quick dinner thanks to Boca.  

What do you choose?

*Health note:  I think one should have to have a heart test before the purchase of one of these radios.

**Consumer note:  If you've been through one of these before you will pay up to 200% markup...so I've heard.

My selections:

• Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (electronic version at 95% battery) that I began during my last weekend trip.
• State of Wonder by Ann Patchett which is still in progress because I didn't want to carry a book on the plane.  
• Mosby's Memoirs and Other Stories by Saul Bellow a lovely treat sent from a friend, hard copy, not started.  

If I have time to read all three, please send reading water.  

Be a Part of It

Happy Saturday to our half-marathoners, yogis, wedding attendants, and readers! Hope you have a wonderful day!   I plan to see a lady about a little Liberty.

Lolly Lolly Lolly, Get your Adverb Here

Discovery of this article literally figuratively made my day.

'Literally' figuratively destroyed by program to remove the word's misuse: A new browser plug-in displays all instances of the much-abused adverb as its traditional opposite. It's a figurative blast via The Guardian

Download Me

Two out of Three Ain't Bad

One of the few acceptable reasons for a 3:30 am alarm is an extra night in Chicago.

An upside* to a middle seat is the warm comfort of two strangers surrounding you while you read The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber.**

A consolation to an indirect flight via Atlanta is the book and cafe shop in Terminal B called Cafe Intermezzo. Surrounded by walls of various paperbacks, little wooden tables and chairs fill up the interior. It's my favorite place for an au lait or cappuccino and a croissant if you have an hour to spare.

* I'm stretching for this one. There really are no consolations to a middle seat. None. Unless you are giving either the aisle or the window to your love as an act of unconditional devotion or as a trade-in for a foot rub.

** Let's be realistic. The book is 32 pages. That's enough reading for the ORD tarmac territory if you're lucky.  It's a good read, but a tiny bit short.

I Didn't Hear a Peep

"For Children: You will need to know the difference between Friday and a fried egg. It's quite a simple difference, but an important one. Friday comes at the end of the week, whereas a fried egg comes out of a chicken. Like most things, of course, it isn't quite that simple. The fried egg isn't properly a fried egg until it's been put in a frying pan and fried. This is something you wouldn't do to a Friday, of course, though you might do it on a Friday. You can also fry eggs on a Thursday, if you like, or on a cooker. It's all rather complicated, but it makes a kind of sense if you think about it for a while." 

- Douglas Adams, Salmon of Doubt

Author's note: I had a fried egg on a Friday.  I think I'll think about it for a little while.

Queue for a Read

I'm starting to build my book list for spring and need to catch up on the GBC reads in addition to a few that I've been gifted.  Here's the latest queue in case you've missed it:

APR: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafron

MAY: Your choice of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen or Death Comes to Pemberly by P.D. James

JUN: The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida (translated by KA Yoshida and David Mitchell)

JUL: The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King

AUG: The Goldfinch (start early, it's a big book!) by Donna Tartt

Have a great week!

A Running Joke

3 weekends, 4 races, 1 photo

Last year I said I would never again run two consecutive half-marathons.  It was tiring, it was mentally draining and I didn't have much fun.  Also, it was tiring.  (That point needed a second mentioning.)  I ran one more race after the last half (a hot 10k) and then tried my legs at water-skiing only to find that after a few times up, my legs still weren't warmed up enough for a side split.  

[Pause for physical therapy]

When I started running again, I found myself surrounded by the most amazing group of people who didn't care how long it took me to run a mile or four.  They knew my emergency contacts and talked me through breathing exercises as I began like I did in 2006, one step at a time barely moving.  

[Winter interlude and a crazy girls' trip with a half marathon]

I was running and laughing.  I found that time wasn't the focus, it was the friendships.  Slowly over the odd beer and training runs, I found my March and April heavily scheduled and I spent more time at home, running with people I loved and admired.  I had already selected my goal race, but under the influence of reading water and friends who are Iron Athletes, I signed up for a few more races.  "Training runs" they were called. 

I ran the first "training run" in the pouring rain side by side with a pacer so I wouldn't go out too fast.  With a mile to go, I felt like I had a little left so I ran ahead and when I had crossed the finished line, I saw that I had beat my best time (PR) by one minute.  I had not set out to do this but I suppose the lure of getting rid of the soaking wet shoes was too great.  

I ran my HILLY goal race with the sole aim of beating my 2013 time.  I did this by nearly five minutes and shaved another minute off the previous weekend.  With the help of one of my dear friends pacing me, I have a new PR.

So this weekend's agenda was back to back races for a 32.6 mile challenge.  Saturday morning I was excited but Saturday afternoon I did reflect that racing decisions made over reading water are perhaps not the most sound idea. I finished both, pacing a friend yesterday to her first half in a year, and scoring a rather nice beer stein for the accomplishment of dual racing.

This morning, I'm still riding a little runner's high.  I don't feel terribly bad, just extremely thirsty, after the three week adventure.

I'm not a "race report" kind of girl, but my point, in writing this, is "never say never" kids.  

You are stronger (and crazier) than you think you are.

Running Down a Dream II

It's a double race weekend for me which means there is a fair amount of napping and hydrating today before the final morning jog tomorrow.  [Feet on a pillow has never felt so good and I want to hug the person who invented compression sleeves.]

Tomorrow afternoon I'll have a date with a book, some reading water and a cheeseburger.  See also: long nap.

Hope your weekend is a great one!

Seize the Today

Happy Friday from the Poetry Foundation and Billy Collins:


Today
Billy Collins

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.

Bottle of Red, A Bottle of White

It was a treat to spend part of Saturday sharing glasses of reading water with GBC P@1ge and GBC K@y.  A planned outing and an impromptu meeting made me feel just as home as the song with a different state in its name that European strangers frequently try to sing to me while traveling.  (Who knew Lynard Skynyrd had such an international following?)

This week has been mainly talking about books but not reading, eating great food but not sleeping, running lots of miles but not swimming,

Here's to planning the next adventures while not losing the present.

Love in a (Grain) Elevator

Most especially if you are from a small place whose name makes use of the word "Shed", "Duck", or any other four letter noun followed by either "town", "ton" or "ville", take a few minutes and read this NYT book review on Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolaus Butler.  Jonathan Evison and the accompanying video that is absolutely worth three minutes three seconds of your life will get you to add this title to your reading list.  Wisconsin gets a special nod.

Piping Hot

A few weeks ago, I was lost in Space (Center).  Hope you find yourself lost (in a good way) this weekend.

"Like most astronauts, I'm pretty sure that I can deal with what life throws at me because I've thought about what to do if things go wrong, as well as right. That's the power of negative thinking.”

Chris Hadfield, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

Space and Rockets
March 2014

Primed for Amazon

Sunday evening post-ride, post reading water, and post hop scotch [who knew a three year old and a centipede chalk drawing could bring on the wrath of the knees and quads?], I was ready to settle into the next read (with elevated feet).  I grabbed the first book on the shelf at arm's height (see previous comment regarding knees) that I had not tackled and now I'm a monstrous ten pages into State of Wonder by Ann Patchett.  I did not remember that I had an autographed first edition and was pleasantly surprised to see Ms. Patchett's neat script.

It is so nice to hold a book again after the last few e-reads.