Little Missy Is Not All That

This is written with mixed feelings. I had a job for a week and they did not like my work. At least, that's what I assume. Nobody ever told me why I wasn't working a second week on this assignment. The job was filling out forms and putting packages together for people who had left / were leaving the firm. Mind-numbingly boring work. Lower paying work. But it was work.

Was I too slow? Was I too inaccurate? Don't know. Ms. Linsay wrote me an email and told me that I wouldn't be returning. Can't wait for Monday to say I'm sorry. But deep down, I'm pretty happy. That was a miserable job with a pack of 20 somethings. Kind of depressing, but I think I'll get over it.

I've heard about this series about Inspector Dalziel. This is the first book I've read about him and it's about his death - The Death of Dalziel. Let me tell you one of the true joys of listening to books; I now know his name is pronounced DL. Forget every letter inbetween. He's a cop in Yorkshire and his right hand guy is Peter Pascoe, who solves this mystery. It was a good introduction to the series.

American Lightning is supposed to be about the crime of the century. It's a very good book, but I wouldn't give the crime that elevated stature. The story is about a lot of Americans living in the 1910s. During that period anachrists blew up The Times building. I'd read a book about this 40 years ago by Adela Rogers St. Johns. Her father was Earl Rogers. So here are all the noted people in this book:

• Harrison Gray Otis - publisher of The Times. Reactionary. Swindler. Helped bring water to LA so he could sell it.
• Harry Chandler - his son-in-law. Business man, slightly less money-grubby than Mr. Otis. Their building was blown up because of their anti-union stance in a time of high militancy in the labor movement.
• D. W. Griffith - Biograph Pictures director. Not sure why all this about early movies was in the book. Movies went from one reelers to full length movies during this time. Mary Pickford and the Gish sisters are in the book; D.W.'s womanizing is here. But really, not that relevant.
• Clarence Darrow - Defended the bombers. This was interesting, before the Scopes' Trial. He was trying to move from good causes to more lucretive trials. He was tried for tampering with a witness during the trial. Earl Rodgers defended him - to a point. Then he defended himself.
• Billy Burns - Burns Detective Agency. He tracked and found the bombers.

And I won't tell you who the doers were. This was an enjoyable book. I think Ms. Rogers' biography, The Honeycomb, told about the bombing a bit more thoroughly, but it's hard to remember after 40 years.

And now I have time to plan for Adrian's arrival next Thursday. Hurray!! We are going to the North Carolina shores next week.

What a Coincidence!

The Secret Scripture was a nominee for the Times' Book Prize in fiction. Sebastian Barry also is shortlisted for the Booker prize from time to time. He's a fabulous writer. Every character and thought has its reason. Sometimes books do go on with superfluous stuff. This book is set in the Sligo area of Western Ireland. The reader does great accents and you could tell when people were from other areas in Ireland. Well, Barry gives some help to her because he points out the different accents.

The book is based on an old woman's diary of sorts, a priest's written accounts, and a doctor's writings or analysis of her sanity. She is over 100 and is in an insane asylum that is about to be torn down. Since she has lived for 100 years, you get a little Irish history. Other than that, this is a well-written melodrama. I was a little off-put by the huge coincidences near the end, but not fatal. Not bad after all that Obama-Bush-Nixon reading I've been doing. The coincidences in their lives can be dangerous or were dangerous to other living creatures.

Started a new temp job today. As always, my laptop wasn't ready. I got to fold letters and put address labels on envelopes. I do work hard for my money. At least I could see that this work was too mundane for regular employees to bother with. And I got to listen to my book while attaching stickers. Great.

Follow Me

We went to see Peter, Paul and Mary last night at Wolf Trap. What we saw was Peter and Paul and a couple of old, sick guys playing backup. Mary is very ill. Mary is also the heart of that group so we left at half time. It wasn't all bad because we went to a place called Tap and Vine by the house to have an apres infirmary brew. I've been wanting to try the place and it looks like it could be a good hangout. When we got home I went to Itunes and downloaded some of the songs I missed at the concert. Follow Me was just one. Another was Hush-A-Bye.

When I was in India we played a game where you had to sing if you didn't perform whatever task you were assigned. I wouldn't do it because Adrian asked me, when he was about 4, not to sing to him at night anymore. I've been reticent about singing ever since. The song I loved to sing to him was Hush-A-Bye. Besides not being able to carry a tune, I also couldn't remember all the words and sort of made them up as I went. He hated that. Now I will listen to it all the time and sing it to him when he comes out for Labor Day week. :)

Someone else who required following was Mr. Cheney. With a net. If you don't believe that we were tricked into voting for Bush after reading Greatest Story Ever Sold, you may believe that we were tricked into agreeing to attack Iraq on the flimsiest of conceits after reading Hubris. We know all this. Some of us wouldn't have voted for Bush under any circumstance and some of us wouldn't believe his and Cheney's stories about Iraq unless one of them walked into a nerve gas cloud. Not that it wouldn't have helped. That's it for me, though. I just can't read any more about the duping of America. Aren't you lucky.

Finding a Balance

Finding a balance in my life is very difficult. I love to have quiet time, like the nearly two weeks at the beginning of August. But money is an issue. Surprise. So I worry when I don't have a lot of work booked on my calendar. It always feels like I will never work again. I worked for Gary again this week. But then there was nothing on the horizon.

But, joy of joys, my Kelly rep whose job it is to keep those jobs rolling in got back from maternity leave last Friday. She is so good for me. I told her how her replacement did nothing for any of the Kelly temps. Big virtual tears. So happy she is back. I just got a two week assignment. That means I will work for 3 weeks in August. That is exactly how I like it. That is balance. The best part is that Adrian is coming at the end of those two weeks. Yes, that is a perfect balance.

Finished a book by a new author, The Garden of Evil. I think it was on sale at Audible. It's kind of my new mystery genre - Italian detectives. This one takes place in Rome and involves art big time. The focus is about serial killers and Caravaggio. I enjoyed the complex characters and the insight into the art of Caravaggio. I could almost see the paintings. Fortunately, the violence was not as graphic as the art descriptions.

Julie, Julia and Katie

I believe in Chick Flicks. Julia and Julie was one of those. Katie is leaving on Wednesday to live in Hawaii. She suggested we see this movie. The movie was a lot of fun, I laughed many times. The previews for upcoming movies were all things I would like to see. It was an all around enjoyable experience. But the best was spending an afternoon with Katie. She is such a sweet young woman, very thoughtful about spending time with everyone before she leaves. I know that we will miss her.

As to the movie, I love to cook, I have a blog; where is my movie? Oh, yea, totally different subject matter. I wouldn't like to be Julie. What a self-involved creature. I guess we all are, but they don't make movies about all of us. Best part of the movie? The love story between Paul and Julia. I'm glad they both lived so long. His last few years were very hard on her because of illness, but it seemed like they had a love that endured through all the difficulty. Lovely. The movie made me want to find a good man, but more than that, to cook something with butter. We don't do that anymore. Sigh.

Nixonland

I sort of finished this book. I listened to the last segment as I was going to bed last night and finished it after I woke up. It played most of the night. I'll be re-reading for the rest of today. It's full name is Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America.

He makes a very strong case for how the fracture occurred and how we continue to be fractured. As always, I expect that whatever we think we just invented, relating to human nature, has been around forever, but we didn't have the bandwidth to learn about it. Did mass murders occur in the past? Yep. Planes crash? Terrorists attack? People die of cancers and plagues? Sure. So this fracturing may have gone on long before now. But that just accounts for the information that gets to us about events or issues.

This bandwidth goes both ways. You can now email, tweet or blog your malodorous misinformation. Or your stories about the books you read. What I think happened about the time of the rise of the supremely paranoid Nixon was that information gathering and dispersal was just taking an exponential leap. That's why it's not going to get any better. I guess what we need to do is to learn how to adapt to information overload.

I was just out watering and saw a happy little bee-like creature pollinating our flowers. Since all this "just letting you know/scare mongering" was on my mind, I began to think about Africanized Killer Bees. What ever happened to them? Maybe they adapted, lost their killer ways and are out taking the place of all the honey bees that are dying. Yep, information overload.

On The Other Hand

Pshew! This Nixonland reading is moving my emotions all over the place, so here's a little light-weight book I read recently. I like Robert Crais. He is a cutie. Indigo Slam is okay too. One of those "stuff happens" books. What more can I say?

Got my hair bobbed yesterday. I didn't know whether to smile or cry when I saw the haircut. My Beverly Hills hair stylist used to joke about the San Marino matron look. So when I saw my current do and realized that it was just that perfectly blonded, perfectly underturned little bob, I was kind of taken aback. But I like it. So I just smiled. And that dark honey color that all us Arlington matrons enjoy looks just right on this old head.

Do you know that the radicals of the late 60s and early 70s were just as belligerent as those clueless healthers are at their town hall meetings? Bet you knew that. Maybe what those grey-hairs in the audience who are screaming idiocy need is Dana. He can give you a nice honey blond hairdo that will make you smile just a little. Then we can sit down and chat over a nice cup of tea. We've never been very good at skipping the rhetoric and just talking. I'm bobbed, blonded and ready. Anyone? Anyone?

Message to Do-Gooders

Don't scare the Republicans. Their handlers will make up stuff to get them even more scared. They will see darker, hidden meanings in every good thing you do. How do I know this? I'm 1/4 of the way through Nixonland. This is the story of Richard Nixon from the beginning of his political life to his downfall (I hope, I hope, I hope.) Everyone must read history - ancient, midevil (sorry, never knew how to spell that, but I am in the middle of a book about Nixon,) and current. You have to know what happened and why. Don't trust anyone to tell you. Don't trust just one book. Read. Read a lot.

Does anyone remember how I thought that Manchester book about US history from 1932 to 1972 did a disservice to us lovely flower children? Rick Perlstein does a much better job. We weren't too lovely. We were what was scaring all the coots. Why was it that when America was at its peak did we decide (we being the young, blacks and women) to turn everything upside down? Because we could. I don't mean that in a bad way, I mean it in a good way. There weren't many places in the world where you could change things so drastically by speaking up. We just did it too loud and too all at once.

Which brings me to now. They are scared again because things are changing. We are feeling unsteady because of the market collapse and people losing their jobs. And we have a type of person in the White House that we've never seen before. No wonder Obama is leary about making all the changes at once. Let's wait on the things we can wait on. Life is long, he'll get to them. But uprighting the economy and getting healthcare to all people is really important. And look what the Reps are doing with those two things. I'm going to be 62 tomorrow. That means I'll soon be the age where I'll be euthanized and my parts shipped to poor black kids in Harlem.

All I've got to say is breath and read. Inhale, read, exhale, read. Oh, and think. Let's not forget that.

Gandhi and Churchill

Why India is on my mind. My reading of the two parts of Churchill's biography left me without WWII and India. Gandhi & Churchill filled in one part of the missing link. The author isn't crazy about either man. I can understand. They weren't the spotless heroes they seem to be.

I enjoyed reading the history of the countries. And getting a different perspective on what England did to/for India was interesting. I wouldn't, however, recommend this to anyone who isn't going to read a lot of other opinions. One thing is known for sure, England never left a country in good shape. That is paraphrasing Karen, but she is so right. No wonder Churchill wanted to keep the Empire together. They could sweep their issues under the rug better.

Dark Stuff

Okay, I don't just read incredible non-fiction. Into every literary diet a little mystery must fall. Two of my recent adventures to the dark side are Dark Harbor by Stuart Woods and The Defector by Daniel Silva. Dark Harbor is a routine little mystery that tells you it is good to have money. If that wasn't already apparent to you, it also tells you who the doers of the deed are well in advance of the end of the book. Actually, he doesn't tell you, but, just like the money thing, this is obvious from the first time they are seen and maybe before. It's well written, so this wasn't a tedious adventure, but it could easily have been.

Love Daniel Silva. Or should I say that I used to love him. This is getting to be like Ludlum. Very formulaic. Now he's added a new twist of just ending the darn things. I almost thought the tape was broken, but a different voice comes on and says goodbye (in different words.) That and the fact that I don't listen to tapes anymore.

Then I looked on Amazon and other readers noted the same thing. This seems to be a ploy to get you to read the next book. I'm not going to. The cute little art restorer and his wife can just go off on a new adventure without me. The best part of this book was that it was on sale at Audible. I don't feel as cheated as I would have if I'd used one of my precious credits or more of my precious dollars.

That Potter Boy

Eric and I went to see the new Harry Potter movie. Enjoyed it. But then it made me want to re-read the last book in the series, The Deathly Hollows. Since I left my cds of the book in South Pasadena, I had to actually read it this time. There is such an advantage to having paper. If your mind wanders, it's easier to find the place in the book that you last remember being totally concious. And, as lovely as his voice is, you don't have to listen to Jim Dale's interpretation of things.

It was good to read it, I'd forgotten some and some was a little unclear on previous reading. Good heavens, a lot of stuff happens. I told Per I was re-reading. He and Tom and I would always suck up the next book as soon as it came out. Per had read this one first and kindly told me how it ends. I hate suspense. He wrote me one of his favorite lines, I'm sure, "Not my daughter you bitch". I just wish I had a daughter so I could say that more often. But then I'd have to know a few bitches to make it all worth while. After seeing Helena Bonham Carter as the yuckiest looking Bellatrix imaginable, I think I'll be happy with the friends that I have.

And I want it on record that I don't like Ron on the screen or in the books. He is the most thoughtless representation of maleness on record. How did Rowlings come up with him? I wouldn't like to meet the boy that she modeled him after. Sure he has an inferiority complex due to his brilliant brothers and best friend. He should.

The Campbells Have Come

Kevin, Natalie and Margaret came to Arlington a few weeks ago. Natalie grew up around here, her parents still live in the house 4 blocks from our house. What a coincidence. They did a lot of stuff while here. We were lucky to see them at dinner at Eventide pictured above. Then we went to dinner at John and Edith's to have great ribs and talk.

Kevin came over to check out my new abode before dinner on Sunday. Eric was thrilled to have a fellow techie to show his project to. Kevin and Cindy talked about the Sony e-reader, Kevin's work project. Cindy has a lot of good ideas and needs for a portable method for reading everything. I just got to show him the gardens and my room. Not nearly as interesting. But I loved seeing him. And his charming woman folk.

While Kev was here, he and Natalie went to Baltimore and took the Wire tour that Adrian and I failed to take. He left and the three generations of women went to New York for a very girly adventure. American Girl, Little Mermaid at the theater, and art museums. When they got back from there, they did a little local travel then went to the beach. So busy. All this was done while I was working. Now all are at home. Resting.

Filling the Black Hole

I try to read a variety of books. But the variety is not too wide. I've been fascinated by quantum physics, string theory and the stuff the universe is made of. This probably started when Tom and I read E=MC2, The Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation. Then I read Einstein's biography, The Elegant Universe and about 6 other books with related topics. This subject is pretty hard for me, but the more I read about it, the easier it is to understand.

Leonard Susskind wrote The Black Hole War just for me. It isn't way over my head, it doesn't talk down to me. And, best of all, it has a sense of humor. He explains everything clearly. I don't know if it helps that I've heard it several times before, but I'm thinking that it does. Susskind is brilliant. He thinks up the answers to questions on the way to major conferences. Big answers to big questions, like how to prove that Black Holes don't suck up everything on their way to imploding. How "information" is actually allowed to seep out of them.

Information in this sense is everything/anything. You and I are information. Ink spreading in a vat of water is information as is the water molecules. They call it information instead of stuff. That would have been my word. Susskind and his associates had a huge disagreement with Stephen Hawking about this information escape. One of the fun things about the book was his attempt to prove his theory to Hawking and Hawking's associates. Or cult members. Fascinating. Tom, you should read this.

How Do You Mend a Broken Heart?

This is the trunk of the weeping cherry tree. I guess the tree found out that Cindy did not like its trunk. Remember? The folks who sell these trees decided their natural trunks are too fragile so they graft the beautiful top to a sturdy bottom. Just not too sturdy. Somehow the trunk was damaged and the rot spread to its heart. Then it started oozing sap. It must come out. We'll see what gets planted in its place. We're thinking of crepe myrtle.

Iraq

Arghhhh. Reading Churchill and Gandhi. How did I miss in all those Churchill books I read that he helped set up Iraq after WWI with the help of Lawrence of Arabia? Peter O'Toole has a lot of explaining to do. Churchill didn't want to spread his army too thin, so he hung on to India to help supply soldiers. Arghhhhh. In the game of Chutes and Ladders for my esteem, Winnie just took a nose dive down a very long chute.

Oh No We Didn't v Yes We Can

What can an ardent liberal like me say about the Bush years? What could I say that wasn't said by Frank Rich in his over-the-top story of Bush's time in the White House? The Greatest Story Ever Sold is just what every ardent Dem thinks about those years. In other words, this book is just a tad biased, way snarky and a delight to read. Just remember that there might be another side. Maybe. Nobody is spared. Actually, nobody is spared. So the Dems aren't portrayed as perfect paragons either. Kind of deer caught in headlight simpletons. I could go along with that because there is no excuse for letting those eight years happen.

Rich was a one-time theater critic for the New York Times. I'm glad he decided to try his hand at political reporting.

Richard Wolffe was given complete access to Obama during the 2000 election so he could write this book. Of course, they didn't know the outcome all along, but Obama and his folks knew that this was historical stuff, even if he lost. Renegade is what the Secret Service called the candidate. Sounds kind of Mavericky to me. Which is pretty odd because Obama is just a middle-of-the-road lawyer/project manager who wants to manage the project of uprighting a collapsed country.

Reminds me of a news story I read about a bunch of Republicans meeting to try to figure out what their thoughts were on foreign policy. Kind of developing an alternative to the White House, which is a good thing for them to do. Too much criticizing without giving alternatives whenever someone else is in control. True of both sides. Anyway, they are having their discussion and criticize the Dems as being "do-gooders." I hear that all the time. But this time I stopped and wondered what the alternative is to being a do-gooder. Think about it. Bad doer? Evil doers? Hoodlums? Selfish bastards? What does it say about you if you sneer at doing good?

So this is a book about a heavy-weight do-gooder, trying to repair the damage done to America. :) I think Wolffe would object, because he tried to be even-handed.

These are both really good books. I can't think of one of my Republican friends who would agree. That's okay. I'm not going to read any of Anne Coulter or Glenn Beck's books either. It just hurt my fingers to type their names.

Thinking of India

There a lots of Indian restaurants and stores in Arlington. Sadly for Eric, I'm not crazy about Indian food. There is one spice that I don't care for. Wish I knew what it is. One of the stores has a display of wall hangings made of old saris. At least, the ones that are sold in Bangalore are supposed to be made from old saris. They are stunning. I still think how much I would like one, but then, they are expensive and I don't really have a home to hang it.

Poor Cindy had to listen to me mooning over how lovely all the saris were and how beautiful all the women were in India. You've all heard that before. The clothing was vibrant. One woman at IBM was always dressed in fabulous saris and pant outfits. I can never remember what those are called, even though I had one made for me. Sowmya has an excellent eye for fabric. So, she was on my mind after spying the wall hanging in the Indian store.

Who should write just a couple of days later? Sowmya. She is doing well at IBM. They take good care of the good people who work for them. Even if someone, like tribune, decides to end their contract with IBM, the employees need not worry. A new spot is found for them. Lovely. We didn't have a lot of time to chat or I would have asked her about her now old marriage. She was married a couple of months after I left Bangalore. This means they have celebrated their second anniversary. If she is like Teena, that means a big party with the family. I'm sure she looked stunning for the party.

August!

This is what happens when you work all but two days in a month. I know, most of you work every day in a month. How do you do it? I've enjoyed every day. One of the assignments was with a super guy. He's a VP and a retired Lieutenant General, fought in the Viet Nam war. We had a great discussion about that, as you can imagine. We were the opposite on every issue, but we got along famously. The rest of the time was with my regular Senior VP who has a doctorate in Electrical Engineering. I get along with those kind of guys too. He is a lot like Eric in his general demeanor. But he talks a lot more, in meetings and on the phone. We don't talk that much to each other. Who knows what he did when we were both young. I know that now he dyes his hair, marries a lot and is easy to work for. I guess that's enough.

The garden has been riotous. These are the dahlias that Cindy picked up at the farmer's market. They took forever to bloom. That honking big flower on the bottom of this picture was a bud for weeks. Who knows what inspired it to pop out. But now it has a lot of friends on that very sturdy bush.

So much to write about. But I was telling Cindy that I thought I'd try to write something every day instead of once a month. You will have to wait to read about how to mend a broken heart, about visitors from California and the hundreds of books I've been reading. I don't go back to work until August 14. I'm pretty sure I have 12 more thoughts to catch up on.