le carre

Nobody writes like le Carre'. His books are slow and detailed. His characters have a depth you don't often find in this genre. And he always makes his subtle point. International drug companies or the threat of Islamic extremists. Or the threat of our defenders on all things Islamic. The book takes place in Hamburg, a place that le Carre knows well. He was assigned there by the British Secret Service until he was outted by Kim Philby. Even though that was ages ago, he stays current on the issues confronting us today. I'd say this is a must read, but you have to be willing to accept a slow revealing.

And now just a little note about a wonderful dish I made last night. Sauteed chicken legs, then onions, shallot, and garlic. Deglazed with cider vinegar, then added cider and chicken stock and a cinnamon stick. Cooked for half an hour and added butternut squash and an apple. Wowser. Cindy said it was like autumn. Yep. We had it with the last of the summer corn from the farmer's market. In fact, almost everything was from the farmer's market.

Surprise Visitor

I love my family.

My dear nephew, Kevin, was wily enough to bring a princess into the family, a princess and her queen mother. Okay, so Natalie will never accept Maggie/Margaret as a princess. (But she is wearing a crown in this picture.)

Natalie was in town this weekend to attend her 5th high school reunion, or one of those numbers. I was in the car with Eric and Cindy, going to see the new DiCaprio movie when she called and said she just had a little time in her crammed schedule for a visit. I almost leapt out of the car. Tsk. It was great to see her. And Eric and Cindy had a date without a third wheel. It was an excellent compromise.

Beau Geste

Long ago, before July 2004, I rented books through Books on Tape. They would send me boxes of tapes or Cd's, I would listen and share with my friend Tom, then one of us would send the tapes back in those boxes. It was perfect for me. I never owned any books that I had to shelve or take to Goodwill. But then they went out of the book leasing business. They directed us to Audible.

With Audible, you buy the digital book that is downloaded to your computer. You can listen at your computer or create your own Cd's. Or you can do what I did at that time. I bought an IPod Nano and started my downloading career. In four years I have read hundreds of books. I was just looking at my Audible Library. There are 669 items or segments. A few books have six segments. A few books have only one segment. All of those segments have been loaded on my little Nano which is then stuffed into my pocket or attached to my car's tape deck. But on Monday, I began to sense a disturbance in my life force. The Nano was playing the wrong book when I clicked on an item. Then it thought it was always being recharged when it never was being recharged. When I did recharge it, it wasn't healthy enough to take more than a sip of the current. So, while I was at work on Wednesday, I ordered a replacement. The old Nano still doesn't know that it is about to be decommissioned. The new one is smaller and cuter. Isn't that always the way.

The last book that I read on the old Nano was Beau Geste. In a beautiful gesture, it worked hard to let me finish it, even though it thought I was reading The Portrait of a Lady. Geste was made into a movie with Gary Cooper as the beautiful Michael Geste. There are no pictures of the book. I think it must be out of print. The book was written in 1924 by P.C. Wren. Wren says that he was once in the French Foreign Legion, but there no record of that. What he did do was spend a great deal of time in the part of India that is now Pakistan. He certainly knew a more exotic life than most Englishmen of his time.

Most of the book takes place in England. Three brothers are caught up in the theft of a blue jewel, stolen from their beloved benefactor. All three flee to the foreign legion and Saharan Africa. It starts as a mystery and the mystery is only resolved in the last few pages. The book is well written and I enjoyed most of it. The commandant of the fort they are assigned to is dreadfully cruel. I find it very hard to listen to brutality, even when written by a genteel Englishman. Skipping ahead is difficult when you can't see the words on the page. But the volume control still worked okay on the old Nano, so I could enjoy the book.

My new Nano arrives today. It is 8gb instead of 2gb. I may get to put all my podcasts and music on the Nano with my 11 books. Yippee. This is all good, because next Thursday I am going to Vermont and New Hampshire. I'm going alone, so there will be a need for lots of stuff to listen to.

Nothing to Lose

We all know that I am working at Booz Allen every Wednesday until I'm not. A couple of weeks ago I worked the other four days for a different woman in that office. The picture on the right is of Kim, on the left, and Crystal. Crystal is the woman I'm temping for on Wednesdays. She is learning how to do more techie stuff on those days. Kim is the delightful woman who has been there every day. She works in a different group, but sits next to Debbie, the woman I temped for on those four days. Confusing? Just know that these woman have helped me a lot as I get to know more about the BAH culture. Isn't that a fun company? It's either Booz or BAH.

Eric and I took a drive to Appomattox Court House Thursday and Friday of last week. There are a lot of places that I want to see when I'm in Virginia. It's a little difficult to decide where to go first. And there is the question of whether Eric needs to go with me each time. One of my goals was to see where the Civil War ended. Adrian and I had visited Fort Sumter when he was six. He says he remembers that. I'm sure what he remembers most is getting a bit sea sick on the boat over to the island.

I decided that I needed to see where the war ended. I'm not sure if this means that I won't be visiting any more battlefields or not. Is the war over for me at last? I have seen a lot of battlefields; not even most of them, but certainly the most well known. So it was good to see this place. Appomattox Court House is the name of the town. It is the county seat for Appomattox County. Poor General Lee was leading very hungry and weary men at this point. No matter which way he turned, events turned against him. Supplies were late or lost. Troop movement was slowed or delayed. Union soldiers moved more quickly than he expected. He realized that he could do nothing else. He had to surrender his men.

He sent one of his men to find a place for him to meet with Grant. The Court House itself was closed. Most buildings were closed because of the battles going on just across the fields. Finally they found the McLean farm. Mr. McLean had fought in one of the first battles of the war and then moved to this quiet country-side to get away from it all. It came to him instead. The surrender was signed at these desks. Grant sat at the one on the left. Lee sat at the one on the right. US (Unconditional Surrender) Grant was not so mean with these terms. I guess he got that nickname someplace else. He was very generous to the Southerners. So now, that war is over.

I have always wanted to go to the Cumberland Gap. Must have read too much about Daniel Boone in my youth. Eric said it was too far. Next time, I will go by myself. It is at the south western most corner of Virginia. We only got as far as Roanoke. Then we took a drive up the Blueride Skyline Parkway Drive. It is very lovely. I say the leaves are starting to turn although most were still very green. We saw deer; in fact, Eric almost hit one that bounded at our car. These fellas on the right were moving a little more slowly. We got to watch them lope on the other side of the guard rail until they made a break for the other side of the street. Just enough time for me to get out my camera.

The next day we went for a picnic on the Potomac for people from Cindy's office. It was a beautiful setting. You can almost see the pair of kayakers in the picture on the right. There was also fishing from a row boat going on in the inlet just to the right of this scene. Bucolic. We ate fair barbeque and listened to the young folks from the office. These people do interesting work. One gentleman is moving to Huntsville to continue his work with the military. I don't remember what he does, but he's been doing it for many years. Now they've moved everything to Huntsville. He seems very excited about the prospect. I could understand starting a whole new life in a new state. I hope his is just temporary, too, but he did mention selling and buying houses. Yikes.

Eric and I listened to a book on our drive. It's a little difficult to pick a book that two people will listen to and enjoy. But I had found out that Eric likes the Jack Reacher books by Lee Child, so that made the choice easier for me. I bought the newest book so I knew he hadn't read it already. This was Nothing to Lose. These books are becoming more than a little formulaic and they may be off my list for good (or until I go driving again with Eric.) I think Eric might be ready for some other writer in the genre as well. In another book he and I had listened to, one man sort of owned the town. Same here. Different convoluted subplot, but basically the same. We listened to the whole book, well, almost the whole book. We only had an hour left. I listened to that part the night we got home and shared it with Eric as we were going to the picnic. He kept asking detailed questions, beginning with Why. We both started to laugh, because there is often a very tenuous Why in these books. I finally had to say, "Because it's Reacher." Not a very good reason. Jack can still beat six men and not get a nick. But even that gets old. So there was nothing to lose, listening to this book on our drive. Just a few brain cells.