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.