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.

Oops, Now What

I can't believe I read the whole thing! Yet, since my last post, I have read all of Louise Penny's mystery series. There are 5 all together and after reading the last one first, I hungrily dashed through the other 4. And now it's over. Please, Ms. Penny, please, please, please, write the next one soon.

I was listening to one of them while in bed on the 24th. It was very cold for South Pasadena, I think in the 50's. I kept debating about what I should be doing instead of being warm and listening. Then the reader talked about making split pea soup with a ham bone. That got me out of bed. I was at the counter of the Honey Baked Ham store in no time. I bought the smallest ham they had, honest. It was 11 pounds. For two people. Tsk. To make matters worse, I bought a smoked turkey breast because I started to think about how much I miss turkey. Tsk.

Thank goodness for the freezer. The ham bone, much of the ham and most of the turkey are tucked away for future use. The big plan now is to make red beans and rice for New Years with that ham bone. It's supposed to bring you good luck. And don't we need some of that?

Actually, I've been doing fairly well on the luck side of things. I started jury duty on the 28th and didn't have to go in for the first two days. We'll see if my luck holds for the last two days. I'm not sure how many trials start the day before New Year's Eve and on New Year's Eve. I'm guessing not many, but you never know about those lawyers.

I also found time to finish The Brothers Bulger. I didn't know that Howie Carr was some conservative talk show host from Boston. But I'd already paid the money to him, so I decided that I might as well read it. Not bad, but not very interesting either. I guess it would mean a lot more if you actually lived in Boston. The story takes place from the late 70's to the early 90's. What I learned was that the FBI was terribly corrupt in that area. In order to get rid of the mafia, they turned a blind eye on their Irish snitches. One of those was Whitey Bulger. The other brother was the president of the state senate. I totally believe the part about giving jobs to everybody and their dog and retiring with a huge pension. What I really didn't care for was the run down of every little action the brothers took. Boring.

Not boring was When you are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris. He reads this series of random stories. For once, I'm glad to hear the author speak. He does have a little whiny voice that might be irritating, but it is droll. His observations are hilarious. I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy the last few segments of the book about quiting smoking, but I did. He and his partner move to Tokyo so he can do this. Like all his stories, the main topic is not what the story is about. Or it is, but there are 50 other main topics thrown in. His inability to learn Japanese, Japanese customs, lots of stuff.

When he is in the Japanese class he tries to learn how to obfuscate. The Japanese people are far less direct than Americans, so learning how to say something without really saying it is quite a knack. While reading about this, I kept thinking about the last time I was on jury duty. A couple of Japanese tourists were mugged by a local hoodlum and the police went to Japan to get an ID. The other members of the jury couldn't figure out why the victims didn't say absolutely that the picture they selected was absolutely the doer of the deed. Culturally, it was never going to happen. And I was never going to convince the other jurors of that fact. So maybe it's better that they don't call me in this time.

A Christmas Gift

Let me be the first to admit that I am not a voluntary Christmas celebrant. This is the one bad thing that I will lay at the feet of The Times. For more years than you can imagine I had to work on holidays. This means that Adrian had to be prepared for Santa to show up on any door step where he might find himself. Santa might come days early or late. Poor child must have guessed something was afoot before he could really start believing in the magic.

When I got out from under the yoke (misspelled as yolk. I can't get that image out of my mind, so I thought I'd put it into everyone else's mind) of work, I would spend Christmas with Mom and Dad and then Mom alone. We didn't have any traditions to disrupt (thank you, Times) so we kept them company. I remember one strange Christmas spent on the Queen Mary. Actually, that was pretty interesting, but Mom was becoming a little more unsure of life by that time.

And now it's just the two of us, so we are spending the time in our undecorated apartment doing what we do best, cooking up a storm. And reading. I just got the most wonderful present, a new mystery series. I read the last book in the series first, A Brutal Telling. It is set in a village south of Montreal, just above the Vermont border. The plot is intricate. People are complex. Fabulously written. My only warning is that you should really start at the beginning. I am now reading the first in the series. I have the second waiting on my iPod. The only danger I see here is that I may read them too fast and get to the end of the short series before she plops out a new book. That would be sad because I know I will be sad when that happens. Until then, I will just enjoy an expected Christmas present.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good read.