Do Not Seek HIDE

What do you follow a really good novel with? A pretty mediocre mystery, of course. I understand Lisa Gardner is a writer of good mysteries, but this series doesn't appear to be up to her best work. Please don't read this if the thought of harm to children upsets you. You don't actually read about the dark deeds, but if you have a good imagination, you don't need to read the details.

The story is about a father who appears to have protected his daughter against an unknown evil when she was a child. Now the father is dead and the daughter is caught up in the results of this protection. The plot line is a little shaky, the characters are sort of interesting (faint praise if I ever heard it,) the resolution is hurried and jumbled. It's understandable, but hurried.

What this book is particularly good for is keeping you entertained while starting a new jigsaw puzzle. This puzzle is not as hard as the last one. There is lots of color and activity. I'm actually very good at this, seeing where the pieces go. This is a comfort as Alzheimer worries lessen every time I see where a piece goes.

I had dinner with Dan and Karen on Friday. Okay, dinner and beer. Dan left the Helpdesk a couple of years ago. He just got a job with the Unemployment Office as one of their Veteran helpers. He helps veterans find work. He was full of good job hunting information. This would have been very helpful to me if I was looking really hard for a job. I've been out of work for two months. I have ten more months of pay before I have to start bringing in some extra money. My friend Tom, from the Book Awards, is now the "oldest temp in New York." He just finished with a part in a play. It sounded like fun. Tom's even older than I am, as amazing as that seems. He's started a whole new life in New York after leaving The Times last year. Way to go Dan and Tom. You give hope for this old lady.

NObody's Fool

Oh, this was such a good book. It helps that I saw this movie with Paul Newman about 20 years ago. He played Sully, Don Sullivan, a 60 year old man with a bad knee. Does that sound familiar, or what? He is haunted by a horrible childhood and bad decisions that he made ever after, based on that childhood. That part is not similar to me, but the book is so well written that I could still feel his pain.

It's just a slice of life in a upstate New York town. I read some of the reviews in Amazon. One said that this is a dying town where people go "through the motions of life." Isn't that an odd statement? They seem to be doing all the things that we people who are living in towns that aren't dying do. They love, they die, they work, they try to get out of work. They enjoy each other's company, they have pasts that haunt them, they have futures that seem bleak or promising. The thing about this book is that the characters and locale are so well drawn that you know these people. You actually know more about them than the guy at the next desk whom you've known for the 30 years you sat at your desk.

I wonder if the writer envisioned a Sully as beautiful as Paul Newman. I think so. Everybody is charmed by him. He does pretty stupid things, and they still love him. He rents an apartment in the home of his old school teacher and has for the past 20 years. She was played by Jessica Tandy, just before Ms. Tandy died. There are probably a dozen central characters whom you get to know very well. The time period of the book is pretty brief. It starts at Thanksgiving and ends on New Year's Day. In a town where people are making the motions of living, a lot happens in such a short period of time. As a different Amazon review rightly says, this is more character-driven than plot-driven. There are very interesting characters driving this book. I don't think I'll miss them, but I'm glad to have been with them for a while.

The 22nd

I get books from Audible. Oh, you already knew that. :-) I pay a fee and get two new books each month. The 22nd of every month. I'm already reading 3 books that seem to go on forever: a book about Mencken (half way through this hard cover book), a book about the Middle Ages (over half way through this book on my Ipod), and a book about a small upstate New York town (almost done.)

Yet, when the 22nd came around, I was doing the Snoopy happy dance. I'd been putting books into my wish list all month, waiting for that moment. Okay, I don't buy just 2. I get two really expensive books that are charged against my credits and a few little cheap books to fill in my needs.

I really hate to shop, but I'm a great buyer. And my happy feet just can't stay still when the 22nd rolls around.

Definitely, Maybe, Probably Not

Today is my mother's birthday. She loved to take pictures of flowers and flowering trees and grandkids. When I saw this tree flowering in the Ralph's parking lot in the middle of February, I had to take a picture for Mom. Definitely, happy birthday, Gram.


I am reading a very long book. Can't reveal it until it's done. I decided to slip in another book between Audible sections. This little mystery, Improbable Cause, is a new series to me. It is a police procedural. The protagonist is a Seattle cop. My college room mate has lived in Seattle for a long time. The streets and neighborhoods were familiar to me. An obsessive-compulsive dentist is found dead in his office. Everyone who ever knew him is a suspect because he was one nasty dude. Pretty standard for the genre, but I enjoyed it. For me, this as a definite maybe.

Jeanne and I have started a weekly tradition of seeing a movie and eating and talking. This has been great. I really like being with her. Bob has started teaching his evening ESL classes again, so it's girls night out for now. I had grossed Jeanne out last week with In Bruges. This week we went romantic, Definitely, Maybe. We both agreed that it was too long, a bit pointless and more Probably Not than the other options. I had thought In Bruges was so wonderful because the writer directed the film and didn't ruin the words. Well, the guy who wrote Definitely, Maybe also directed it. And it's a bit of a mess. I've seen it with a lot of authors and forgot what I noticed. Some authors start out with good editors and write really tight books. Then they fire the editor because what do they add to the process anyway?

James Clavell wrote King Rat and Shogun, both great books. Then his books started to be overly long and flacid. Where did that editor go? Tom Clancy wrote Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising, both griping thrillers. He must have changed editors shortly after that, because his books became improbable and, hum, stupid. Jack Ryan saving Prince Charles and giving marital advice?! Give me a break. Sometimes great writers need an editor. Sometimes great screenwriters need a different director. And sometimes they just aren't great to begin with.

I have been cooking vegetables in all kinds of ways, just to get more of the things into my body. There was the cream of broccoli and spinach soup, yum; stir-fried vegetables with tofu and noodles, yum; and puff-pastry wrapped asaparagus. Woozer. We had this appetizer at the IT Christmas party and they ran out of them when I went back for seconds. Aren't they pretty? And very easy. Yep, I'm having fun.