The Flaw

I got to hear the band of my friend John on Sunday. They are Murphy's Flaw and they play bluegrass. They also have way too many people for the little stage in this coffee bar. John is 2nd from the right. He's the banjo player. They also had two mandolin players, two guitar players (one is a guest from Nashville), a fiddle player, a bass player and a Dobro player. They were very good.

A few months ago, The Flaw fell to pieces. Many of the band members left. Poor John was left without an outlet for a month or two. But he is resourceful and a good banjo player, so he was able to draw a whole new group to him. They seem to have a lot of fun playing together. After an hour they had a commercial break. The young mandolin player sang the credit express dot com song. Cute. Then he and the visiting guitar player did a few numbers together.

Fun evening.

Do you ever re-read your books? The thought never crosses my mind because I can't see these books. But I've been spending too much money on audible books purchased outside my monthly credits. So I've been browsing my "library." I have well over 300 books. It's been fun looking through them to select a "few" to put on my iPod. That and Per convinced me to read a real paper book by a real Norwegian writer. I don't know which surprised Adrian more - Paper? Norwegian?

Aftermath

They were still sawing on the weekend. No rain, no winds, just preventive measures. Can you see it? The big tree had grown all around the overhead wires that run down the street. After many hours of sawing limbs, they had to leave little plugs of tree that had grown around the wires. You can maybe see the big one in the upper middle of this picture. There are several smaller ones as well. Deferred maintenance. If the trimming had been done regularly, the big limb might not have brought down wires on Tuesday and would not have brought repair folk to clean up the mess for the rest of the week.

What we all needed was the good man, A Zeitoun, of New Orleans. He is late of Syria and a very busy construction entrepreneur. Married to an American who has converted to Islam, father of three daughters and a step son. He stayed behind during Katrina because he had been through too many storms to be afraid of this one. He rowed his old canoe through the streets after the levee broke, helping many people along the way. He also came in contact with those sent to protect the city. Major failure of effort. Major disappointment of attitude.

Okay, that's what I read before I got mixed up with the audio. I thought I was in the first half, knowing I had only one more chapter to read before moving on to the second half. Instead, I'd opened the second half and went to the last chapter. It was there that I found that Zeitoun had been arrested at his own house, put in jail and made inaccessible to his wife. He was mistreated in many ways I won't know, released and the arresters refused to give him back his wallet with his driver's license and immigration papers. Money was stolen from him and all his friends who were arrested with him. By whom? The only people around were the military and the police. Disgusting. His wife was devastated and changed forever. He still loves New Orleans and The United States.

The worst part about the story is that it is true. I won't go back to read the bad bits that I missed due to my error. My faith in the goodness of people is fragile enough. I will have to be satisfied that the Zeitoun's are good people. The bigoted, inept, scared people responsible for helping New Orleans upright itself are now in Haiti. I live in fear.

What is the balm that soothes the savage breast or the mind troubled by the failure of some people to be civil? Mystery!! Fiction!! Calgon, take me away from the reality of life. Ms. Grafton takes me away in the Undertow. Good book, perfectly diverting. Kinsey Milhone is still trying to figure out her relationship with her family. Her landlord is still a sweetheart. Plenty of stuff happens. Perfect balm for Zeitoun. Before I leave that, just let me say that Zeitoun is very well written. I just have a low tolerance for intolerance.

I've gotten a lot done with my needlepoint. Pictures another day.

It's Raining, It's POURING

Surely everyone has heard that it is raining in California. People are worried about the third of our seasons - fire, rain, mudslide, drought. I don't worry because I live on a very little incline and haven't had a fire in some time. However. the weather gods found a way to trifle with me.

First, a huge branch from a tree two apartments up hill from me fell down last night. Once again, fate was kind to me and the branch missed my car. They are sawing it into bits in front of our garages just below my apartment. You can't really see in the picture above, but they taped off the street on the other side of the power pole. One of the wires is down. It doesn't affect my electricity, thank goodness. The men worked on it last night until about 1:00. See just below my window. They had flashing lights and very loud tools going all night. Thank heavens for sleeping pills.

Had lunch with Per and Tom yesterday at The Times in that sad, deserted building. But the company was great. Laughing and talking, just like old times. Then I left so they could go back to work. The elevator got stuck just before the 4th floor. I didn't panic! In fact, I calmly called for help and it came in about 5 minutes. It was an old friend! I told him that I stopped the elevator just so I could see him. Man, I miss that place and all my friends, both there and gone. The funny thing is that I kinda miss BAH in Northern Virginia. Nice to have friends everywhere.

It's All Relative

When I was thinking about why I haven't read more lately, all I can think is - It's All Relative. I had a surprise visit from one of our Canadian relatives, Michael. No, I won't tell you his last name because I didn't see it, just heard it and it's Polish. So, here's how it works: my Dad's older brother had 11 children; the fourth child is/was Connie; she is the mother of Michael. They live in Jasper, Alberta. If you ever consider going up to Jasper to hike or explore, you must stop at the bungalows on the Athabasca River. Adrian and I stayed there when he was 7. It is truly beautiful. And now it is very green, in the best sense. They have won several awards for this.

Michael is a true hockey fan, and minor league referee. He decided to spend the off season at the bungalows watching hockey with his referee friends. He went to San Jose and Manhattan Beach with the sole purpose of seeing a few games. While here, he called Jeff, got my number and we hung out for the day. It was just starting to rain, so I mostly let him out at places and drove around for a while. We went up to Griffith Observatory, which I haven't been to in about 30 years. But I found it! And we went around Olvera Street, Little Tokyo, Chinatown, that beautiful old train station, and Hollywood Blvd. All in the rain. We also saw three accidents on the freeways.

It was fun. We just had 27 years to catch up on. He should be getting home any minute now.

The needlepoint is progressing. Above you can see the top half just before I finished it. I've been having a heck of a time with the cat's face. I made a mistake somewhere and I will probably have to tear it apart. But I decided to work around it to see what thread I have left.

The picture below is the beginning of the bottom part. The top is done except for the outlining and adding the names of the books. They are very cat oriented.

It's been raining cats and dogs here so maybe it's appropriate to make a cat oriented needlepoint. I've realized that it is hard to listen to really dense books while doing counted cross-stitch. I started Richard Dawkin's book, The Greatest Show on Earth. It's about evolution. He uses really big words and if I'm not paying close enough attention, I get caught on the word. I'm usually thinking how unusual it is to hear the word and then start thinking about it and that one sentence more than hearing what happens next. So I've put off serious non-fiction for the immediate future.

Which leaves me Robert Crais. Audible had a sale on this book, so I snapped it up. And snapped up reading it. It's only 8 hours long. Crais reads it. Very good. The protagonist is his tough detective, Joe Pine. I really like him. He's not as goofy as Elvis Cole. Goofy is good now and then, tough is always good.

Cats and Books

I've made some progress on my "Cat on a Hot Wood Bookshelf" needlepoint. It helps that my routine consists primarily of listening to books and sewing. Yes, I've gotten out of the house. I walk to the mailbox to return Netflix and I still get out on Saturday to stroll the farmers' market. Man I love that place. The berry vendor knows me well. The brussell sprouts vendor knows me and the middle eastern food vendor sure as heck knows me. I'll take my camera next week to get pictures of those guys.

But most of all I sew. I love the way that the sun shows through on the bottom picture. It's been beautiful here lately. In the 70's every day. You may know this if you watched the Rose Bowl or the BCS game. BCS? Whatever that game is called. Did they talk about how gorgeous the weather was? I did watch the Rose Bowl Game. My niece graduated from Oregon. So it was fun to have the Ducks in town. Another niece married a true blue Ohio fan. I'm sorry that I don't know if he is a graduate, but I do know that they love the Bucks. So it was a lot of fun to watch the game. Julie is not a football fan, Tyler is a huge fan. So the game ended as it should as far as our family is concerned.

Here's a picture of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. This book is coming out in the US in hardcover in May. How the heck did Per get a copy of the audio book?! As I mentioned before, don't even try to read this book if you haven't read the other two. It is great for wrapping up every single thread (and we know how much I'm into thread these days) but it would be way to confusing to start here. May! Way to go Per!

I finished The Strangest Man about Paul Dirac while sewing. The world's strangest man came after the world's strangest woman (the girl with the tattoo.) He was strange. Brilliant and troubled. He was very instrumental in developing equations that helped further the study of quantum physics. He even started some thoughts about String Theory. But mostly he was weirder than shit. AND he married a woman that would have driven any sane man crazy. Fortunately he was a bit crazy before she came into his life. Don't you agree, Mr. Dirac? "Yes." Would you like to expound further on her antics? "No."

Good book, but it was too long. Maybe because I've read a lot about the scientists who were around at this time - Bohr, Oppenheimer, Feynman, Einstein - I know a lot of the source material. And he uses all of it. Even Segre's great book about Faust in Copenhagen. It took forever for this poor man to die. He emigrated from England to Florida (!) near the end of his life because his caustic wife hated Cambridge. She was Hungarian, thought the folks in Cambridge were too dull so she moved them both to Florida! And for the last part of the book we are all stuck in Florida, dithering with a barely articulate man as he declines. I get that he was strange. I understand his contribution to science. But I also understand that you don't have to include everything you know in a book.
I'm half way through Sea Swept by Nora Roberts. I knew I would need something light, because I have a few heavy books on my iPod. So I bought this book on sale. Perfect. It's part of a trilogy that morphed into a trilogy +1. I can see where this will be going, because there are three brothers and a soon to be brother. No, I won't explain. But I can see how the books grew to four. Very light. Just perfect after a case of heavy Dirac. I like her writing. So far a lot of oogling and schmecking, but no bodice ripping. Well, maybe my shirt has shredded just a tad, but I'm sure it's because I've been sewing so diligently.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest

And needle-pointed like crazy. You can see in the following pictures how the needlepoint is growing. It's so involving when you have a good book in your ear.

Per gave me something to listen to after he heard that I have been listening to The Strangest Man about Paul Dirac. It's a very good book and it's very much stuffed with quantum physics. I'm liking it, but Per thought I should try something lighter. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest is the last book by Stieg Larsson. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was the first in this series. I'm not sure that Per was really aiming for lighter, but he certainly did please. Great series and it just builds from book to book. They are certainly not stand alone. I wouldn't follow this nearly so well if I hadn't read the first two.

And speaking of building, here's the needlepoint Monday - Wednesday:

You can almost see the cat.
Ah, cat is coming into focus and he is obviously on a book shelf.

Oh, can you see that there is a shelf below? Just the beginning of another book starts to appear.

Cat on a Bookshelf

Sometime before I moved into this apartment I started a needlepoint and had another one in reserve.That poor thing sat through a lot of years and got very dingy. So I decided to give it a quick burial and start the new one. This is a cat lying on a bookshelf. After two days and buying a new pair of up close glasses, this is what I have - part of a book, part of a shelf and a little tiny bit of cat. It was pretty funny. I couldn't even thread the needle while wearing my other glasses. It's fun to watch this thing change slowly. I'll keep you updated. I have a feeling that I'll be reading even more books. Little Dorrit has been hanging on my iPod for a while. Love this Dickens fellow, but he was paid by the page. Lots of characters, lots of plot. Some of the plot was relevant to today. Like how much nicer it is not to always be chasing a buck. How the best thing you can do is care about other people. And how you can't trust bankers to always do the right thing. The Dorrits were thrown into a poor house at the beginning of the book. Another character finds himself in there at the end of the book. This was really good. The reader was fabulous. One character cannot control her words, they just flow from her in some sort of mind dump. He did that so well. When she comes into a room, you know you're in trouble. What I like is how Amy just listens and pulls out the thought. That must have taken a lot of patience and practice. Those are, by the way, both P words that make your mouth look lovely when you say them. Just ask Mrs. General.

Not so good were the cupcakes I made today. I was making a brownie cupcake from Epicurious. Some of the comments were about how oily the recipe was. Others loved it. And now I understand how all of that happened. You are supposed to use chocolate chips and unsweetened chocolate. I decided to just use bittersweet. Didn't read the directions carefully enough so I melted all that chocolate. I should have melted 1/2 cup of the chips and saved the other 3/4 cup to fold in later. Oops. So all those people who were complaining about puddles of oil in the cupcake pan should have read the recipe better.

On the other hand, the Bailey's Mint Chocolate Chip cupcakes turned out pretty good. I did what someone else did - I used mini chocolate chips and folded some into the frosting. I made large ones for Adrian's game group on Sunday and little ones for me to taste and to send the rest to the Monday game group. These must be guys who will eat anything because they are getting the oily brownie cakes. Viva young men's stomachs.

As always, LIG. Happy New Year.