Then and Now

Mistress of the Art of Death has been on my Ipod since early March. Yes, ten months, languishing, being by-passed in favor of so many books. Why did I buy it? Why was I avoiding it? I think it must have been on sale. Audible sometimes puts books on sale and if they are under $10 and look at all interesting, I'll buy them. But why did I avoid reading this in favor lousy books like World Without End? I think I'd read something about it being silly, but after World, what could be silly?

Not this. I really enjoyed this book. It was written about a woman doctor who travels from Italy to Henry II's England to find out who has been killing children. Jews have been blamed and Henry likes the tax money he gets from the Jewish community too much to have them blamed for something they didn't do. You may recall how I hated World's inappropriate, anachronistic behavior. So, why would I like a book about a woman doctor in Medieval England? Totally wrong. But the book explains all this and the book holds together pretty well for its place in time. The author has a new book coming out tomorrow. What luck! I'll be looking for it on Audible.


Jeanne and I went to to see Charlie Wilson's War. I'd read this book a couple of years ago and was interested to see it on screen. First, it was fun to be out-and-about with Jeanne. She's been having a beginning of the year slow down at work, so we have decided to see all the movies we've missed. This was a good one to start with. It was a lot of fun to watch. And fodder for much discussion. First, the acting was good. The script was true to the book. You got a clear picture in the end that we did a miserable job with the wrap up to the Afghan war with Russia. The mess we left behind is now being ameliorated a bit by the man who wrote Three Cups of Tea.

The Afghans would have been in a mess if we hadn't become involved in supplying missles to the tribesmen. But we should do a better job of helping to repair what was damaged. That's what we did with the Marshall Plan after WWII. We realized then that one of the things that led to the war was leaving Germany devastated after WWI. George Marshall wanted to do better the second time around. It worked. If it had been done now, we would have sent in Halliburton, they would have become rich and the countries we were trying to help would have bombed us years ago. That's just my opinion. :)

Conquerors

I've been reading Genghis Khan for some time. When I went on my last trip to India, I'd filled my Ipod with lots of books. I've been reading them whenever I need mobility, which doesn't seem to be often these days. So my trip from the beginning to the ending of this book has been slightly longer than the time he spent conquering the whole world. It's an amazing story. His family lived on the steppes of Asia. This is not hospitable land. But somehow he managed had the brilliance of understanding human nature and the ability to rule the countries he conquered to bring China, Russia, Afghanistan and Persia under his umbrella. He never stayed in any of those countries; he loved the steppes too much. And, holy cow, he was brutal. They just seemed to be at that time. One guy had silver poured in his eyes and mouth. This was an honor. He knew he was going to be put to death. There was some symbolism in the silver thing.

He did not conquor India. Why not? It was too hot. He got to Delhi and couldn't stand the heat and humidity. Whoa, I was with him there. I think you need to be born in India to really appreciate that climate. I watched the movie based on the book I read last month, The Namesake. The movie is capitalized. I wonder why. Anyway, great movie. I loved the acting. As you may recall, the story is about Gogol Ganguli, first generation Indo-American and his family. There were scenes of the family back in Calcutta visiting their family. I told one friend that when I saw it, it was almost like being home. Oops, I guess Bangalore is not home. But it did remind me of being there.

The father tries to convince his new wife that America isn't so bad. They have gas all the time (and electricity, no doubt) and people don't spit in the street. He didn't mention the urinating beside the road. It is very clean in America. She soothes herself by making Rice Crisipies with all manner of Indian spices and peanuts. We all

crave the taste of home when we are gone.

I also read my last Swedish detective novel, One Step Behind. Two interesting things in this one. First, the detective is suffering from diabetes but doesn't want to admit it. As one who is pre-diabetic and not wanting to admit it, I enjoyed all this. I'm very lucky not to be where he is, but his feeling are familiar to me. Second is that there is a detective in the book named Lundstrom. That is my maiden name. Every time I heard that name, I chuckled. Fortunately, he was not a doofus. As for the mystery, it was more logical than the one that dealt with South African apartheid. That was a silly premise. This one was about killing people who are happy. I'm sure we've all wanted to do that from time-to-time.

Lovely visits this week. First with Jeanne and Rachelle and their spouses. It has been raining here in SoCal and Rachelle and Jack live right below the highest, most travelled mountain pass in the area. It closed that night and caused all kinds of delays in reaching their house. We all lived. It was great to see everyone.

Then we had to say goodbye to one of the directors of IT, Joe. He's moving back east to be close to family. I hope to contact him when I get back there. You can never know too many Irishmen. People came to his party who had left The Times 5 or 6 years ago. We had a good time, despite the sad occasion. There have been a lot of changes at The Times since I left. None are good, this one is very not good. Oh well.

Friends Without End

Friends from the HelpDesk and the Editorial Systems group meet once a month at some restaurant somewhere to talk about old times and old Times. This month we had a large group at a very noisy restaurant. They are Tom, Dean, me, Jim, Jackson and John. Even though we couldn't hear each other very well, we had a good time. We could have stayed all night, but Dean, John and Tom started to talk about bands and I saw Jim's eyes glaze over. I guess we had beaten the new dead horse, the recently departed editor at The Times, to death; although it seems that the Publisher had already done that. It just gets more exciting. I'm always happy to be included in the group. They obviously needed a female presence. I hadn't seen Jackson since before he left The Times a few years ago. He and I were first to arrive. I walked up and sat next to him. I'm sure he thought he was being picked up. Maybe next time.

I finally finished the puzzle. See how it's almost totally sky? Maybe not totally, but it sure seemed like it. The picture on the right shows the extra piece that was in the box. Just below that is the empty spot, missing the piece it replaced. Just an added challenge, I guess.

When I was at the movie on Friday with Maggie, I found incense sticks. My sandalwood carved elephant is really an incense holder. I didn't know that when I bought it or I would have bought incense at the same time. I was lucky to find some. I got sandalwood. That is chandan in Hindi (I suppose.) My dear friend in India is also Chandan. Now I think of him when it burns.

I've been reading World Without End. Poor Adrian gets to listen with me, since I'm listening from my computer, not my Ipod. He asked what the time period for the book was, so I looked it up in Amazon. Then I started to read reviews. One was irate that the dialog was so current and that the women were quite liberated for the age. Adrian couldn't agree more. He thought it was pretty silly. Then I read another review that complained about the gratuitus sex scenes. I agreed, they were all pretty juvenile and I do mean all, because there are many. I felt like I was reading a current book about pre-teen angst. In other words, I hadn't been enjoying the book but couldn't put my finger on why. So I decided to finish the first section (there are 6!) to see if it got better. But it became apparent that the reviews and Adrian were right. One review called it a Book Without End. It was wrong. This book has ended. Too bad. That's got a pretty cover.

It's Not a Race

I'm happy that nobody is timing how long it's taking me to finish that jigsaw puzzle. And there is nobody to yell at me for hogging the dining room table forever. Pshew. It is almost done, but since it is half sky, I could be at it until I finish yet another book. All puzzle workers know that the sky is the worst part.

I did finish The Perfect Mile. It's about the men who broke the 4 minute mile and their subsequent race against each other. That event was really called the Miracle Mile, according to Wikipedia. How did anyone know anything before that wonderful invention? When we were kids and asked our mom one of our interminable questions, she would tell us to go "look it up." We had the Encyclopedia Americana that was nearly tattered. It's so much easier today. Go "Wiki" that.

I had to check Wikipedia because it was taking a while to get to that big race. I had to know who won. Considering that I'm a pretty inert turtle, it was interesting to read about these very dedicated runners. It isn't just about the men, it's also about the sporting world in the 50's. I remember Avery Brundage and his stranglehold on amateur atheletics. There were complaints about starving (or highly undercompensated) athletes and Avery's crew who lived well while traveling around the world for sports. This is a very interesting, well-paced book. And as I learned, pacing is everything.

Retirement

I have been very retired lately. This is a fun place to be. I've had dinner with friends and have plans for future dinners with more friends. I've been cooking like crazy; mostly just the regular, but I've tried a couple of new recipes. The new goal is to learn how to shop. You don't have to shop for the week. It's probably better to shop for a couple of days. That's different. I've been trying to do two things: cook everything I buy and use more vegetables. I know that first one sounds funny, but I am horrible at buying out the store.

And I've been working jigsaw puzzles while I listen to my books. When we used to have Thanksgiving at my mother's house, I would cook and my siblings would put together a jigsaw puzzle. It was always one of my family's favorite things to do together. Remember, I was born before TV. We didn't have a lot of money, so we didn't have many puzzles. We worked one so many times that we started to work it upside down. Yep, we be crazy. Now, I get to work the jigsaw puzzle without "the boys" hiding the last piece. Karen and I worked Palmer's Christmas puzzle. It was a mystery and we wanted to help him get the puzzle done so he could solve the mystery. Not. His mother, my niece Julie, made us stop so he could do it. Spoil sport.

My current puzzle is very difficult. I may read a lot of books by the time I finish it. I finished another Swedish detective book, The White Lioness, and I'm still only 1/4 done with the puzzle. The book is about a South African who goes to Sweden to perfect a skill he could have perfected anywhere in the world. That stretched my belief system more than a little. I understand that Mankell likes to include things that are happening elsewhere in the world. He may have stretched a bit for this connection. However, I liked it in the end, which is a good thing because I seem to have bought 2 Mankell books. I think they were on sale. This book was written just before the book I read earlier. This case was the reason he went a little crazy, which is where I found him in the last book. The book was written in the mid-90's. I didn't understand why they are just now showing up in Audbile until I realized that they were written in Swedish and have just recently been translated. Duh. The wits are not becoming any sharper with retirement.

A Month of Books

Two 12 hour train rides will give a person plenty of time to listen to books. Plus, I worked a jigsaw puzzle while listening. Plus, I listen when I do all housework other than vacuuming. That's just a little too noisy. That does give a person plenty of time to read all type of books.

I read Stone Cold becaue friend Per said it was as good as the other Camel Club books. The Camel Club is a bunch of social misfits who band together to fight espionage and crime around the White House. Too bad not in the White House. They are well written and have good plot lines. I enjoy the often improbable events that take place and find that I really care about this group of men. It now includes a woman and her story has been interesting. If you like mysteries, this is a good series.

I'd heard a lot about The Taste of Conquest. It's about 3 cities that were involved in conquering the world, in large part in search of spices. The 3 cities are Venice, Lisboa and Amsterdam. The spices were in Indonesia, India and South America. Pepper, cloves, nutmeg and cardamom were king in those days. I always think of European cooking as being bland, way back when, but it appears that was only true for poor people. If you had money, you spent a good deal of it to buy way too much spices for your food. This book put me totally off spices. I think I could almost smell them as they were being discussed. It is interesting how food drove people to jump on ships to find new paths to far off places. And thank goodness. Where would we be without this desire. The book was a bit long and rambling. Or was it the train ride?

Protect and Defend is from another of my favorite series. Mitch Rapp is a CIA agent and this improbable plot has him working in Israel and Iraq and Iran is involved and things blow up and people are brutalized (sorry) and the good guys win. I don't know why these books are satisfying to the curious mind. Maybe these curious minds need to rest every now and then. These "snatched from the headline" pot-boilers are always harder to put down than some histories and biographies. Embarassing. But I do like this series.

the namesake is a charming book. It's a story of an immigrant Indian family and the trials of its first generation son, Gogol Ganguli. The writer explains how the parents coped with a totally different environment in the early years of their marriage. As one who has only a small taste of living in the alternative world, I could really feel for this family. Then poor Gogol feels out of place with his funny name that is neither Indian or American. He's a little too embarrased, but remedies it all by changing his name somewhere along the line. It's really his story and his attempts to find a place to fit in. I will only give a way a little to say that he finds it when he reconciles his yearnings with his parent's understanding of their world. I'm glad he ends up in a good place, because I liked Gogol.

There are some books that should really be pamphlets. I'm not sure if Lincoln's Spymaster was a doctorial thesis. I've seen those things get totally out of hand and become books that are actually sold. I'm afraid that was the case with this book. As you can see, I always go to Amazon to get the pictures for my blog. While I'm there, I look at the reviews to see what other people think. This book only has one review! Was that his parents? The subtitle of the book is Thomas Haines Dudley and the Liverpool Network. So here's the whole story. Dudley was a member of our government in Liverpool during the Civil War. He hired people to find out if the South was buying ships to act as blockade runners or fighting ships. England was not supposed to be selling this type of boat to the South, but they did. They wanted the South to win so they could buy cheap cotton. And you know how gentlemanly those Southerners were. What was not to prefer over the crass Northerners with their dour Calvinist spirits and money-grubbing ways? So Dudley had spies, gatherered information to sue England to stop and sometimes succeeded. {stiffled yawn.} To make matters worse, the author write pages on his thesis and then says everything all over again in the body of the text. Arrrrggggghhhhh. The war wasn't this long.

I didn't save the worst for last on purpose, but I certainly did. Why did I buy this book? It was as offensive as the one I deleted without reading, but there were signs this was going to go wrong early and I failed to react quickly enough. If I had, it would have been dumped after we first ran into the charming trio of Peter Ustinov, Ian Fleming and David Niven. Yes. Them. In WWII, before the heighth of their fame. They are an agonizing subplot of this poorly written piece of damp pulp fiction. I understand from looking on Amazon that this was co-authored by father and son. Maybe dad is getting old and needs help thinking of plots. Well Mr. IV should find another line of work. Please don't buy this book or any other that IV has put pen to.

Oregon and Iraq

Monday, 12/24, I took the train up to Berkeley, then drove north to Eugene, Oregon the following day with sister Karen and her husband Peter. The train ride was long, but the drive was great. The Siskiyou range is a formidable barrier. There was a lot of talk about chains for the tires. We were lucky enough to just see snow, lots of snow, but never had to pull those chains out of the trunk. I kept thinking about my friends in India who surely haven't seen snow unless they have gone to the Himalayas. But chains? What the...? We wrap chains around our tires so they won't slip on the snow and ice. But who am I to tell anyone that? I've never seen chains; in use or off the car. SO, snow beautiful, but not educational. Pshew.

Our goal was the home of niece Julie, her husband Adam, and kidlets, Palmer and Torin. Julie is holding the beautiful mask that Kevin and Natalie got them in China. Julie cooked a great dinner and then presents were opened.

The next day we went to the local science museum. We had a great time inside. But before we did, Peter and the boys played with the hit toy of the season. It was a missle launcher that propelled these objects when you stomped on a bulb. Too cute. They couldn't play with it in the house, at least not the missle part. Torin was "poofing" everything in sight. Very clever.

While they shot off rockets, mother and daughter chatted about the joy of raising two boys. Or something like that. It was pretty cold out there, but we would have stayed for hours except it started to drizzle. Maybe they were discussing the weather.

I had sent the family stuff to make and decorate cupcakes. Can I just say now that not everything turns out like it's supposed to. We had a lot of fun doing this and the cupcakes tasted good, but they were all over the baking sheet we put under the silicon cupcake holders. And the frosting was too stiff to hold all the pretty decorating stuff I'd sent.

But we had fun. And that was the whole thing. Everyone got something to lick, spoons, paddles, bowls. That was always a favorite part of baking when I was growing up. The tradition continues. I hope Julie make more perfect cupcakes in the future with frosting that is stickier.

We stayed at a bed and breakfast that I found the first time I went up to visit Adam and Julie. It's called The Campbell House. Very cute. I had the littlest room with the tiniest bathroom. Just what I like. This was my view from my bed every morning.

We drove back on Friday and then had all my older brother's children over for dinner on Sunday. We had another wonderful day. Karen and I perfected a chicken dish that I first made in India and then attempted in Eugene. It was okay in Eugene, but we added my favorite smoked paprika in Albany. Best of all was the company. Tara is married to Ivan and he is a great addition to the family. You can see how happy they are together. Mark and Trina are neck deep in planning their wedding. We decided on the wedding present. Very cool. Chris and Gabriella are a tight couple. She is so lovely. She wore the pashmina I gave her for my birthday. It looks fabulous on her. I wish I had that flair. Great evening.

And I've been reading. Next blog will be about all that, except for

this last one. My friend Maggie sent me a picture of her son, Matt, who is a seabee in Kuwait. He is the leader of those men on their bellies. I wonder if he was my own sweet boy would I have "enjoyed" reading The Assassins' Gate as much as I did. It starts with explaining who those damn Neocons are then takes us to the first election. Along the way is some pretty discouraging history. How'd we do that, folks? How'd we let those fools run our country? How'd we let them send brave men like Matt to do such a thankless job in the cesspool they created. Poor Iraqis. Poor us. If you have the stomach for it, this is a great book.

Happy New Life!!!

I left The Times on 12/21/2007. I'd come slightly over 30 years earlier as a part time Customer Service Operator in Circulation. I needed part time because my son was very young. My husband Reg kept an eye on him while I worked those few hours. I found I was good at talking to people on the phones. We weren't able to solve many problems, however, because we had NO control over the delivery of the newspaper.

I learned a lot about The Times during that period. I became a supervisor and we all got to go out with carriers to throw newspapers and visit delivery spots to learn what agents had to deal with. Newspapers get to them very early in the morning. They assemble and bag the papers, check route lists and get the papers out by the biggest deadline at the paper, getting the paper on the driveway of our readers before 6:00 a.m. That department was eventually outsourced, but I had left years before. 10 years was long enough working with angry subscribers.

After that, I went to work with the telephone operators in Telecommunications. I learned a lot about the paper, but I mostly used my brain with my son's life. It didn't require much of my brain to work. In the last year there, I got to work on special projects. I helped put together a phone book that still exists. That was pretty fun. It was there that I learned that I was really good with computers. But while I was touring France for the first time, they eliminated my department. I learned a lot from the experience, especially about using all resources. A cool job in the Human Resources department was available and I got it. I still remember my horrible interviewing skills. Luckily, Jeanne could see through the "who cares" attitude.

I went to manage the Learning Center. That department grew hugely while I was there. We acquired the task of teaching all computer classes from, of all places, the HelpDesk. I set up a training center, hired a company to teach the classes and managed that process too. I even taught a couple of classes. We would go to the different printing plants to the satellite learning centers I set up there. I learned everything about printing the paper while there. My post was the San Fernando Valley plant. I'd go there once a week and learned all about web breaks and bundling the papers.

More fun was taking over the Summer Jobs Training Program. We hired young people from the community who had "high potential and low opportunity." I would eventually hire all the people who came into the program. We organized employees as mentors and supervisors to these kids and monitored their activity. We had classes and learning center time for them. We had a special orientation that was always a day of fun in the mountains. We also set up brown bag lunches so interns could learn about all the different jobs at The Times and the training or education needed to get those jobs. Was this the best job ever?

It was a magical few years. But one thing I've learned at The Times is that nothing stays the same. It was even before Tribune that Times Mirror decided to strip the Training and Organization Development department. My fabulous boss chose to leave instead of lead a stripped-down department, all the good stuff was eliminated. In my view, another department was worse than outsourced, it was keelhauled, thrown on the trash heap. I have never met a stupider group of people than those who made that decision. I limped through with them for several months until the HelpDesk picked up this Survivor from her raft.

I've been at the HelpDesk for over 7 years. And now its been outsourced. On the day I left, Sam Zell bought the Tribune Company. It looks like more fun things are around the corner for this great newspaper. I always said I wanted to leave before I closed down the newspaper instead of just a few departments. Does the sell count? I'm going to count it. It's quite a record.

My friends threw a great party. Clif and Idalia above helped see me off. Many more pictures are on my Picasa web site.

http://picasaweb.google.com/pnorman811

When you leave the day before Christmas vacations, you don't get a lot of people at your going away party. That was okay with me. I'm too old to have too many people around, it confuses me. I was happy to see all who came by to say good-bye. Harriet gave me a lot of things to help me emulate my wonderful experience in first class. Cute. And many contributed money to see me on my way. It came in handy on my trip north. Thank you all. And thank you all for a wonderful life at The Times.