Soon

They are all gathering in San Francisco for the wedding of the year. I've heard from my sister that her daughter and family have arrived. I just spoke with my sister-in-law that they are there from Virginia, as are her family from Kansas and Oregon. Adrian and I will be driving up tomorrow. All this because my eldest nephew, Mark, is marrying Trina on Saturday. Hurray. Pictures to come.

On Wednesday I went in to The Times (I really want to say that I went to work, but that is so not true anymore.) 10 of my friends are leaving IT because of a recent buyout offer. They had a party for the 10 before my lunch with Per and Tom. The picture on the right is of my cohort in most of my crimes, Dianne - supervisor of the group we worked closely with, Tech Support; Kristina is taking the buyout - manager of the IT Advertising group; and Bob is our CIO/Vice President. Bob gave a brief talk, mentioning everybody and wishing them good luck. He said they should come back to visit from time to time. After all, Peggy comes back almost weekly, maybe than can come by now and then. :)

Pinaki pointed out that we never got a picture together when we were together on Sunday. Therefore, the picture on the left. It was good to see everyone and have lunch with my friends.

I finished two mystery/thrillers. I couldn't get a picture of one. It is Tooth and Nail by Ian Rankin. I'd heard a couple of podcasts at the end of last year with mystery writers talking about how happy they were that Rankin has a new book out. I'm not sure why I thought this was his new book. It was a little out of date for something set in current times. I think it was the fact they didn't use cell phones as well as they should. Seemed like they were new. I didn't realize this was ten years old until I looked for the picture. It's a good mystery of this policeman genre. I like Rebus. He's very human. But I thought the book deserved a picture. I'd saved this picture from an article about the 10 best bakeries in Paris. I think it was Paris. If so, 10 best boulangaries is probably more like it. I can almost smell that bread.

I also read the book on the left, Bad Luck and Trouble. This is a series I don't think I've read before. Jack Reacher is the protagonist. He is an old special ops kind of guy who has gone totally off the grid. He is pulled back into an event with his old team. And really, that's it. Being off the grid is the most fun thing. Don't get me wrong. It's well written. I loved listening to it. His life and interaction with his old friends is the most fun. They are pulled into an event, which gives them lots to do and stuff to resolve. I'll look for other Jack Reacher books. I'm sure he's been involved with a lot of other events.

Being the Goat

What a fascinating book. Charlatan tells about John Brinkley, the king of flim-flam and junk medicine. His claim to fame was the use of goat testicles to cure all manner of ailments: impotency, prostate problems, decreased vigor due to age and, even, gray hair. He plied his trade (I almost said he practiced medicine, but that would be wrong) in the 20's and 30's. You would not believe what people would pay during the depression to have him slice them open to drop in slices of goat.

The story is also about the man who pursued him and tried to put him out of business, Morris Fishbein. Brinkley was an amazing man. Sure he was disreputable. He was also like the energizer bunny. No matter what Fishbein did, he perservered. He used new found marketing techniques and newly discovered radio to boost his fleecing ability. Silver tongued and wily. A good combination for the one who possesses it, not so good for the poor guy on the table.

The author wrote at the end about how those people were gullible, but we shouldn't read this and feel so superior. We have more safe-guards these days to protect us against our lesser natures, but we can still get caught by a late night flim-flam man in an infomercial.

Easter with Pinaki

Pinaki is visiting The Times from IBM in India. He is alone and I know how even the most resourceful among us can miss companionship when alone away from home. We decided to meet on Sunday and go where ever he wanted. The beach. I loved to go to the beach with my brother Jeff when we were in high school, but that was a long time ago.

It was a beautiful, hot day. I'm sure it was in the high 80's, low 90's, even at the beach. Pinaki saw a volleyball game as we walked to the shore and decided to join the guys. He's very good. Much better than his team mates, in my opinion. Do you see that lunge for the ball in the top left picture? It was fun to watch him hustling out there. The sand was blistering hot, but, you know, he's from India, for heaven's sake. What's a little heat among friends?

Neither of us were dressed to go into the water, but we both rolled up our pant legs and got a taste of the Pacific. Pinaki commented on how cold it is. Bad move. I droned on about the dropoff of the continental shelf, heat retention, on and on and on. But it's true. The water at the beaches on the West Coast is cold, no matter how hot the day is.

We drove north on Pacific Coast Highway. Traffic was horrible. Pinaki needed to get back to the hotel to do some work, so I cut across one of the passes that would take us to the 101. It reminded me of the road to Ooty, very curvy. It was two lanes, so that was an improvement and it didn't have any potholes (not thanks to our mayor, I'm sure) so that was an improvement. We got to see a lot of beautiful big homes along the way. Poor Pinaki heard one too many times about the people from the Tribune who went to Bangalore and asked to see the homes where the rich people live. India has not learned how to do this conspicuous consumption stuff. Oh sure, the maharajas and that ilk had palaces. But these huge houses were much more plentiful on our ride through the mountains. The hills were green, but the houses were not "green."

Moral Disorder

This is the book I read for the book club I didn't find. I did find the location today. Who knew that Vroman's had expanded to the other side of the movie theater? I do now. The sad thing is that I really liked this book. I would have liked to discuss it with a bunch of fellow readers. This tells a semi-autobiographical (it is persumed) story of Margaret Atwood, her life with her married lover, over-active sister and scientist parents. It is short stories that are about the same people. My favorite story was her fascination with an English teacher who helps her learn about reading poetry. It almost tells why book clubs are good. Sometimes the poet or the author has hidden meanings. Sometimes you get it, most of the time I don't. I wish I had her teacher with me when I was listening to this book. I enjoyed it on whatever level of understanding that I got to. I also liked that fact that she broke up with her boyfriend because he just didn't get the poetry thing. Been there.

I'm usually so caught up in reading non-fiction that I need a break to clear my mind. Mysteries and espionage are the usual suspects. It's difficult to find a novel without the help of a book club. But I've been reminded how much I enjoy them. I guess I need to take a look at The Times Book Prize nominees for fiction. They probably have some good stories there.

I'm listening to the podcast of this week's New Yorker. One of the articles is "Just the Facts, Ma'am", by Jill Lepore: Fake memoirs, factual fictions, and the history of history. That was interesting. And I've been thinking about incomplete histories and how easy it is to distort history (even unintentionally.) Two of my current history books have intersected. They are, of course, Mencken and Charlatan. Charlatan is about medical con men in the beginning of the last century, especially one named John Brinkley. Brinkley is pursued by an editor from the Journal of the American Medical Association, Morris Fishbein. Fishbein's confederate in in this pursuit is none other than H.L. Mencken. That is never mentioned in the very long book I'm reading about that man. Nor does the author mention that he is an A-1 hypochondriac. I am learning about his over zealous libido. So, the biography is not really distorted, it just doesn't cover this long chapter in Mencken's life. Or, probably more truthfully, how his life interesected with this very long chapter in Fishbein's life.

I spent yesterday at The Times, meeting with a bunch of people who are leaving due to the buyout. And one who isn't because David Hiller, the publisher talked with him and thought he should stay. Yes, that is a familiar story with a different ending. Many people are leaving at the end of next week. I'll be back next Wednesday to say goodbye. Then it's off to Mark's wedding. Woo-hoo!

Hello, North Dakota, Are You Out There?

Well, I had a frustrating night last night. I was joining a new book club and got the location wrong. I went to the great book store, Vroman's, instead of the Vroman's Annex next door. Reading is a wonderful thing, especially when done correctly. Read every word. That's my motto from now on. But I am Ms. Lemonade. Stuck with the lemons of scouring every inch of Vroman's and not finding one book club, I decided to look at travel books to peruse for my upcoming cross-country tour. They had books for every country in the world. As for the USA, the books covered USA in general, specific regions, then specific states and cities. There were lots of books. There was not one for the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin or Michigan. Not one.

So now I'm wondering what the heck is there. Not really. The Internet is a great tool. Karen and I have been learning a lot about those states already, but I really do like books. Even though most of my reading is done for me by a slew of nice readers, I like to have a book in my hand that I can draw on or pull pages from. Oh, I know, sacrilege. But when I travel, I don't like to carry heavy things if I don't have to.

I went to Amazon to get a picture for this blog and found this old travel guide and one for Montana, Dakotas and Wyoming. Perfect. Even more perfect was that they only cost 24 cents each. And $8.00 shipping, but that's nothing compared to the cost of the book when it was new. So, they will be here shortly. See, lemonade every time.

About Race

It's been a strange week. I am still plugging along, reading my Mencken biography. Yesterday he was really happy because Prohibition had been repealed. Today he is in hot water because he is appalled that some fine citizens of Maryland in 1932 decided to drag a man to a tree and lynch him. The man had shot his employer and was shot in his head in return. The shot shooter was dragged from his hospital bed and lynched. Knowing how brutal we were with criminals in that time, I imagine that these folks rushed to the inevitable conclusion of the preceeding events. The guy was guilty and would probably be hanged.

But, because he was black and had murdered a white man, he had to be dragged through town and lynched. Mencken was incensed and tried to get an anti-lynching law passed. He may have, if he had had Frankie D.'s support, but FDR could not alienate his Southern Democratic friends. The cartoonist at the Baltimore Sun, Edmund Duffy, drew this cartoon. You can bet that a lot of people did not like it.

Luckily things have changed completely by 2008. Politicians always do the right things for the right reason and a black man has no fear of not being treated fairly in the US. Oh, I forgot to mention that the lynchers waved American flags as they did their deed. God Bless that flag. 1932. That was a long time ago. 76 years. There are probably very few of us around who remember how things were then. NO, not me. Tsk. I bet my parents remembered that time. All the parents of people my age would remember that time. How many generations need to pass before that way of thinking really passes.

And does this hatred pass quicker for some people than for others? Hell, yes. Does it stay more firmly implanted in the psyche of those who were most deeply affected by that hatred? Hell, yes. I realized early in my marriage that I would never understand what it's like to grow up black in America. I'm not going to try tell anyone what I think that is like. And I'm not going to ask Barak Obama to explain it. Yes, Mrs. Obama might see that this is the first time she is proud of America, or whatever exactly she said. You live with hope that someday we will just get over it. But, unless you live with it, you shouldn't say how people who do should think. You really shouldn't.

Traveling

My sister and I are starting to think seriously about our drive to Virginia in June. We are both going to Alaska on a boat before we go. She will be going on a small boat with her husband and in-laws. I will be going on a big boat with my brother and in-laws. That we will both have fun is a foregone conclusion. Now we are planning what happens next.

As it stands, I will pick her up in Seattle, then we will drive through the lavendar states on this map, closely followed by the northern baby blue states. AAA has a program called TripTiks that we're both having fun with. We are plotting routes, reading about all the sites to see along the way. Once we have a rough outline, we'll be hitting other websites to fill in the details. Since planning is a huge element in my trips (I was going to say the most fun, but that isn't right,) I'm definitely having fun.

Which is a good thing. Since we called off the move, I've been having problems getting back to the rush of activity I enjoyed for that whole week. For a snail, I got a lot done in that week. I've become friends with the folks at Goodwill. I promise myself that I will spend more time in my garage next week. I keep finding pictures that my mother left behind. The only thing to do is unpack my scanner and make more CDs. Because there are BOXES of pictures out there after I thought I'd disposed of them all. Fat chance.

Of course, there was reading last week. I figured I needed a mystery after all that MacArthur and Better doctors. Blood from a Stone is from a new author. A new series if I wanted one. I believe this is the 14th or 16th in the series. It was okay. The only thing that would draw me back is the setting - Venice. Been there, done that. The best part of the book was thinking about traveling. It's been interesting reading these books set in places that I've been before. "I took the vaparetto past the Rialto Bridge to my apartment." I don't know the guys apartment, but the rest is familiar. Then I thought about the Genghis Khan book. I've never been to Mongolia or the Steppes of Asia or China. But I was in Delhi and when the author said the Mongols got as far as Delhi and turned around because of the heat and humidity, I smiled. I did, too. I'm not sure that my one traveling companion could be considered a horde, but my horde and I left town swiftly due to the heat and humidity.

Blood from a Stone is about conflict diamonds. But very loosely. The protagonist is a policeman, stuff happens, stuff is not resolved to anyone's satisfaction. Sort of like life.

This is also the story about The Times. The results of the latest buy out offer are in. I no longer have a way to see all the names of those who are leaving, but it would include my boss and a co-worker. And lots of people that I've enjoyed knowing over the years. I'll be going in this week to have lunch with a couple of friends and will try to learn the worst of the rest. The worst for those who remain is that the true owners will now truely try to get blood from a stone.

Old Generals Do Die

After reading about MacArthur in The Longest Winter, I had to read this book, American Caesar. And I have finally finished it. What a guy. What a pompous, delusional man he was. Manchester does a good job with this book. Of course, it is well written and thorough. You really understand what the man did and his reasons behind it. I actually think that Manchester liked him by the end. But by the end, MacArthur had mellowed. He never admitted that he was wwwwrrrrrong, but he did see the folly, for example, in using atomic weapons. At one point, he wanted to use a few tactical H-bombs on China. Just to get their attention, you understand.

We learn about his father's successes and perceived slights and his over attentive mother. His parents have a lot of 'splaining to do about what they did to Douglas' psychy. It's interesting that MacArthur's own son was equally doted on and he rejected all this to the point that he changed his name. He currently lives in NYNY, is a concert pianist, but nobody knows who he is beyond that. Thank goodness all that self-centered, self-righteousness stopped somewhere.

I found the writing about the Korean War period very interesting because I was just becoming sensate around the time it started. Don't you remember those first things you heard that you were able to understand? Even if I don't remember the Korean War, I do remember Eisenhower running for president and the build-up to that election. Did you know that Ike used to work for MacArthur? Do you think the prideful MacArthur hated how well Eisenhower did in WWII and afterwards? Darn near ate the man alive with jealousy. How could he be a god among men if that little twit from Kansas kept doing what he wanted to do? Run a Theater of Operations in the war, run for president, become president. How humiliating.

But this is more than just reading about his humiliation. Since he has the characteristics of so many powerful men, this is a good book for getting insight into how some of them tick. I kept thinking about current politicians as I read. I guess you could call this a horror story.

And for my between sections book, I read Better. This doctor also writes for The New Yorker. I had read an article in December about how doctors have found that making lists help them not make mistakes in surgery. This book is equally ancedotal with stories about eliminating polio from India, moving wounded men still cut open from shrapnel from Bagdhad to the US, the high incidence of C-sections in the US, and how hard it is to keep hands clean in a hospital. The stories are loosely tied together with a prescription for doing better. Loosely. That doesn't really matter. The stories are thought provoking. I'm always glad to know that the people who help me stay well are thinking of ways to do their jobs better.

Karen and I are planning our drive to the East Coast. I'm glad she is my traveling companion. She's just the right balance of adventurous and level-headed. She even likes to meander and poke around to see what there is in the Northern US. That couldn't be Better.

News

I talked (gchat) with my friend Teena this weekend and she said I should do a better job of keeping up my blog. If you know her, you know she never would have said that. I was telling her that I was preparing for a move to Northern California next month. Karen and Peter's apartment that I want to live in comes available at the end of March. It seemed logical to move. Adrian will move with me and keep the home fires burning when I travel to the East Coast.

Man, I was really moving. I hired the moving company and bought boxes. I've started packing. I've been going through the garage and transporting old stuff we will never use to Goodwill. And the trash can is getting things that nobody would ever want. Ms efficiency here. But I really failed to consider completely my son's wishes. Teena asked about his friend Emily. I'd thought about Emily and about leaving all my friends, but I thought that this moving business is tough. I don't want to leave DC in a couple of years and come back here to do this packing and schlepping. Yuck. Who knows how old I'll feel then? But I kept thinking about what Teena said and asked Adrian if he would rather stay. Well, duh.

So, Teena, thanks to you, we are staying here. But I will continue to clean out the garage and move things to Goodwill. The move has become Spring Cleaning and now Adrian is helping me. For some reason, he did not want to help with the move. When I get back from DC, we will have far less to do. At least, that's the plan for the moment.

Teena didn't write to help me decide about moving North. She had news of her own. She and Shinil are expecting. By my calculations, this all started after Teena got her first massage ever at the Leelah Palace. I could be wrong. :) But don't these two look happy? I'm happy. Congratulations to both of you. I'll be expecting pictures in September.

Zigzag

Agent Zigzag is a non-fiction book about a low life British crook who falls in with the Nazis for the sole purpose of working as a double agent for the British in WWII. It was interesting. I got a different view of the German spy machine. They weren't very effective. Actually, they were a bit like the early CIA - filled with upper crust men who didn't have the aptitude for the job, just breeding. What I liked best was that I heard again about Ian Fleming and his role in war time espionage. The body that was planted to wash up in Italy was also mentioned. The goal was plant information on the body that indicated the invasion of the continent would take place in Italy as opposed to Normandy. You may recall that I read about this in the stupid spy thriller I read earlier this year. What tosh. But now I'm interested in that dead man. A movie was made eons ago about him. It's called The Man Who Never Was. It is now on my Netflix list. There was a movie made about Agent Zigzag, as well, but it isn't in Netflix. This was an interesting story. He was a con man and grifter. Perfect for the spy world.

My friend, Dean, liked that I had read a J.A. Jance book last month. So I got another and read it next. I have another of those looooong books going on, American Caesar by William Manchester. He was so unbelievably repugnant in The Longest Winter, I had to know more. When I was reading Goodbye, Darkness by Manchester, I looked at his previous books and saw this one listed. I'm glad I'm reading it. He is a right nasty man and the book is fascinating; but it is very long and needs to be broken into bits. He is now in the Philippines at the dawn of WWII. He's made a mess of that, the Japanese bombers are on their way. I'm ducking under a table for a little bit before I get back to that horror.

Fictional horror is easier to take. Without Due Process is set in Seattle again. The detective even goes over to Mercer Island on the floating bridge. My dear friend Maureen lived on Mercer for years and I've been over that bridge a fair number of times. There is nothing improbable in this book, which is high praise. I like the protagonist and there are interesting things happening. What more can you ask for when you are trying to avoid Japanese dive bombers? So, Dean, this is the one about Gentle Ben being killed along with most of the members of his family. Why would someone kill this paragon among black male detectives? I'm not clear about why this is called Without Due Process, but I liked the book.

Biggest news is, I'm moving. The apartment we were planning to move to after my couple of years in D.C. is coming available in April. So, after a bit of deliberation, Adrian and I decided to move up there now while I'm still young. He will be staying there, closer to family and making new friends. I feel bad about taking him away from his friends and then leaving him in June/July, but we should get fairly settled before I leave. The thought of being up there is wonderful. The thought of dealing with all my cr stuff down here is daunting. Also the thought of leaving MY friends is sad. But I've already prepared myself for that since I will be living on the other side of the US for a while. Thank goodness for Gchat and email. I can even talk to my friends in India any time I want, so what's a couple of hundred or thousand miles among friends?