Saturday Night Fractions

One-half frozen pizza
One-quarter reading water
One-third of a book

Wholly content.

Word Up

Postcards Near the Edge
(of my table)

Happy Friday!

The OED is adding new words to bindings.  Here's a fun little Guardian quiz to test your knowledge.  I hit seven out of ten so a few of my word choices are now validated.  (I'm not sure if that's a good thing.)

Two Ferns

The Kindle App is brilliant for the last minute flight with hardly any time to pack.  This scenario resulted in my starting We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Fowler.  I'm a few months later than the GBC with this one and am probably the only reader in the group who didn't guess where the plot was headed with Fern.  I'm just over the halfway mark and wondering what's happened to Lowell.  (Don't tell me.)

Since starting the book, I've also not been able to shake the title Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls.  It's another book turned movie and I think one of the earliest titles to make me cry from reading (and watching the film).

Icing on the cake

It's been a cake month.

Various celebrations have landed a number of desserts on my table (which means extra miles on my shoes). This NPR segment left me wanting cake for breakfast, for purely scientific research of course.

Happy birthday to you.

Grace Land

Walking in Memphis
June 2014

Summer in the south:  heat, the occasional lethargy, and the season I will add ice to beverages which include tonic.  The June book club was an intimate gathering and by all accounts, delightful.  As I'm enjoying breakfast for dinner with a side of reading water, the GBC meal of  roast chicken, stuffed eggs, and the assorted salads is awakening my appetite.  The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida was the book of the month and GBC P@1ge reports an interesting discussion.  The Beekeeper's Apprentice is next up for July.  

Hope you have great weekends ahead and find ways to escape the heat.  I recommend running through the fountains.

My Cup Runneth Over

One of the most awesome things about working for a multi-national firm is the turn of conversation for events which occur on a four year rotation.  For the last week instead of running, kids, and lunches, it's "the schedule".  Who is playing who and when and how and where are you watching?  Button downs are replaced with jerseys and everyone has extra coffee.  

If you've never lived with a soccer coach and/or don't understand the fuss about a ball rolling across a green field, here are a couple of books lists which might inspire your inner "goal.":

Top 5:  The best soccer books by Charles Boehm

The 5 Must Read Books on Soccer by Joshua Robinson

13 for 15

Thirteen weekend musings that may or may not be related to books or trips around the sun:

* Never underestimate the power of someone handing you a cup of coffee

* Full moons and Friday the 13ths are great combinations for good things

* If you find yourself without formal shoes for a formal dress occasion, wear the pink Converse.  

* Sometimes the best present is an impromptu off-Broadway performance of a recent film for a party of three in a foyer.

* Reading water is always a good gift.

* So are puzzles

* Even late planes are good planes.

* Croquet is under-rated.

* Cookies are a good gift

* Surprisingly, so are small painted pieces of plaster in a Ziploc bag

* My ipod will always select a David Gray song within the first three songs of a new shuffle

* If you play the piano, play it often.

* Sing

Hope you had a great weekend and made good progress with this month's reading!

Spot On

I love the photo included in this Guardian article remembering Eric Hill, creator of Spot the Dog, who has died at age 86.

Hill had said about Spot: "When he shows excitement on Christmas Day and cries 'Yippee', that's me in there. I love the character, he's my buddy and I'm at ease with him."

Thank you Mr. Hill for such a memorable character.

Be at ease today.

Star Bright

One of today's fun moments was trading favorite lines of The Fault in our Stars with GBC P@1ge and discussing traditional highlighter versus the electronic bookmark.  I can't wait to see the film.

She read the book in just over a day.  I think it took me a bit longer but it was a tender break during my Christmas holidays.

I hope you had a great weekend and got a good look at the stars.

The Band Elwood, The Band

The Ryman,
June 2014

This Friday photo brought to you by:

• a 10 person band
• hearing your name shouted across a parking lot five minutes after arriving to the city
• free parking as a result of the above
• one desperation hot dog, three reading waters, a soda, and caramel corn (though maybe not in that order)
• an opening act which reminded you of Hardly Strictly (without the Solvang Strand)
• feet with dancing blisters
• four hours in the car for four hours not in the car
• a 2:00 a.m. Hey Jude singalong and a 7:30 a.m. conference call
• choosing memories over spreadsheets

Have a great weekend!  Happy reading! 

Summer Dusk

Red clay
Seeds soon hay
Biking through the fields

Ear high corn
Cotton not yet born
Ground still not tilled.

Gentle breeze
Blowing through trees
My lips are sealed.

Sun starts to set
The clouds move west
This is how the heart heals.

A List Serve

As I am sipping my reading water and perusing the list of books I should "pack" for my upcoming adventure, I found a link to this Guardian list for Holiday reading.  The five authors have assembled a list of Fiction (legitimate summer reads), Crime (maybe, but I am traveling alone for part of the trip and really would like to sleep at night), and Nonfiction (a bit too serious for my summer reading however Levels of Life by Julian Barnes seems a book I shouldn't try to escape).

How are you doing on your summer reading?

Just a Swinging

Here's hoping the Friday photo inspires some weekend rest.

The lone hammock
Outside of Atlanta, GA
June 2013

Don't Panic

25 June 2013

Dear Banana Republic,

I am a big fan of your Non-Iron Fitted Long Sleeve Cotton Shirt.  For the 2014 Spring Collection, might I suggest that you consider including a water absorbent option for the career-minded female who after an eleven and a half hour day would head to the pool for her Endurance workout only to discover that she was not quite equipped for her long swim session?  I think this would be a very big seller, particularly in pink.

Sincerely,

A voracious reader who was clever enough to reference Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy to a forum of 107 yogis under a rocket but didn't manage to remember her towel*

*"A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough."
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"  http://www.towel.org.uk/

As Old As you Feel

Once you're a few lines in, you'll understand that this piece doesn't really need an introduction:

At 52, Not Too Old for a Debut Novel by Edward Kelsey Moore in discussing his The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat.

I learned to bike in my 20s and swim in my 30s so I don't think you're ever too old for anything...well, perhaps a couple of things that Moore mentions.

Star Struck

Tonight I stood outside on the cool grass and scanned the night skies looking for movement and trying to recall long-ago learned constellations and star names.*  For a brief two to three minutes, I also watched the International Space Station speed over Earth.  From my vantage point, this tiny, bright moving "star" represented dreams of childhood, dreams of humanity, and I felt at the same time both large and small in this Universe.  It was magnificent.

I hope your weekend has provided inspiration and joy in unexpected ways.

Aside:  I took college Honors Astronomy so I could share class with a cute physicist.  

To Fit the Bill

GBC P@1ge always has the most enticing summaries of book club so I've again used her words below.  I wish I could have been there on the porch.  I've overdue a seat between a couple of you.

It may have been the last al fresco dining opportunity for several months, so our host did good by us and got us outside for a lovely, late spring dinner (after light snacks around the kitchen island of course--it wouldn't be book club at Bill's without that!). As always, Bill prepared an incredible dinner with Tuscan chicken, saffron rice, ratatouille, Rugby salad and a green salad. Topping it all off for dessert--a gelatin salad. Light. Refreshing. Fun.

Now, of course, those words describe dinner, but not The Roundhouse. While the book was well liked and elicited a lively discussion, and the author did insert moments of great levity, one can't describe the book as "light". It was a great coming-of-age/crime novel that also educated us on some Native American history and folklore. I'm happy to pass my copy along to anyone who didn't get a chance to read but wants to.

Summer and higher temperatures are right around the corner, so it's a good time to find a shady spot outside or a comfy chair inside with the air conditioning and read our upcoming selections.

UPCOMING SELECTIONS:

July 16: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn 

August 20: YOUR CHOICE A BOOK BY DONNA LEON: some of her titles include Friends in High Places; Fatal Remedies; or Willful Behavior

September 17: A Summons To Memphis by Peter Taylor

October 15: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

November 19: The Price of Justice

Don't Skipper Ahead

I'm fairly certain someone gave me Lucky You by Carl Hiaasen as it is not a novel I can recollect purchasing.   I remember JoLayne (as people who have capital letters in the middle of their names do hold a special place in my heart) and I remember laughing as I read it.  I didn't break the spine, so I must have enjoyed it.

The recently published Bad Monkey had a pretty fine review yesterday in the NYT.  Ms. Maslin notes the novel isn't serious and there will be loose ends, so readers, this likely won't make our Top 100 list from Sunday.  Nevertheless, it will make my summer reading list.  Ever since my real-life Alaskan Whale Watching Tour turned stormy 3-hour Gilligan's Island rough weather where I took pills from strangers boat survival ride with Captain Hook*, I can't resist a crazy boat story.

*Two hooks actually.  True story.

Russian Through

Happy Father's Day greetings - I hope you all had a very fine day.

From The Guardian, this list of 100 Greatest Novels of All Time, should keep you busy.  After you have recovered from your flashback to high school English class, how many have you read?  I think I'm just over a quarter (thanks to my Russian writer reading phase).

How ever did I miss number 89, The Periodic Table?

Giddy up

Today I went horseback riding.
My horse's name was Lovey.

GBC P@1ge asked me if I believed in signs.
I think the answer has to be yes.