Oh, Huck

Maybe I wrote about this, or maybe I just Gchatted to my sister about this. Audible must have been offering a reduced price on books because my iPod is now filled with classics. One of these was Huck Finn. You may have read or heard the controversy about an educator who has published an altered edition of this book. He took out all the Southern bastardizations of Negro and substituted slave. He did this because civilized people don't use that word. It's ugly when White people say it. It's ugly when Black people say it. And it's ugly when we read it to ourselves.

I had to stop reading this book at one point. Of course, someone was reading it to me. I just couldn't stomach it. That doesn't mean I haven't said the word. When I was living at Los Robles and Reg had his two sons over for a weekend, we were all sitting around the pool and chatting about lots of stuff. It was a lovely evening as I remember. Until. I mentioned that I was reading this book and talked about what it had to say.We must have been talking about school. I thought it was an interesting concept if only because it made me realize that "the" word was about a place in society. It had morphed into a state that any person could find him/herself in. The boys were appalled. I have never uttered that word again.

So I'm all for doing something that makes Huck Finn easier to read. I'm not sure slave is the answer. As the guy on the Daily show said, the new edition exchanged an adjective with a job description. He also said that skipping over the language that was used at the time Huck Finn was written is like not reading all the parts of the Constitution, no matter how stupid they were. He was 3/5 behind reading the whole thing. I somehow finished the book. It took a lot of internal discussion to convince myself that this was history as well as fiction. And a darn good story about a wily boy.

Happy New Year

The new year finds my friend Per still mending from his wound that was discovered in May. Yes, eight months. He should have held out for the baby because he would have known then that it would all be done in February. It's a good thing that he is such a techie guy. He is showing me how he can watch his home TV while recovering from a bit of plastic surgery in a nursing facility. Soon he will be happy that he opted for a whole and complete body. It's just that soon keeps moving.

I've also been needling, of course. For a little while it looked like my lady had a speech bubble filled with talk of flowers. I don't know what the other blank space represents. Maybe her heart was filled with flowers as well. I think I get a little too close to the picture to see how pretty it really is. That light color behind her head is just slightly lighter green. It looks more interesting here.

I've found a great new-to-me series, The Dresden Files. I got Side Jobs, a compilation of short stories and soon learned they are about a wizard. Yuck. Then I talked to my friend, Tom, about them. He really loves these books or likes them despite their wizardness. So I finished that book. Very good. And now I've finished the first book in the series, Storm Front. It's great to have a new series. My brother, Eric, was telling me how sad he is that none of the authors who write his favorite series has published a paperback recently. He doesn't like wizards either. But I hope I talked him into trying just one of these because it could give him a buffer until new books come out in his series.

Eric recommended The Great Game to me. It seemed that this was a good book for paper, so I received it this Monday. Adrian co-opted it and I hope to read it soon. It's the history of Afghanistan and Adrian seems to be enjoying it. In fact, I think he's finished it. I should be able to get my hands on it soon. I've just finished The Spoils of Poynton while waiting. Something tells me this is the other end of the world from the Middle East. One woman is totally consumed by love of the treasures she's brought into her house. Those are the spoils of Poynton, which her son will take over once he marries. The book tells a lot about the place of women in society at that time and about the rules of society at that time. Very interesting. I'm so happy I grew up in a time when more options were open to women. I have a feeling that there are still rules. Lots of rules.

And here is my lady as she stands this morning. There are still tiny spots that need filling in in the upper left flower bed. But she is looking much closer to completion.

She's Got a Face

Not Tara, although she does have a face. And who didn't see that line coming? Adrian and I drove up to the Bay Area for Thanksgiving. We stayed for two days with my sister, Karen and her husband, Peter. On Tuesday we went to the DeYoung museum to see the late Impressionists. That was good. All the paintings were from the D'Orsay in Paris. That's my favorite museum in the world, yet I hadn't seen many of these paintings, especially those from the Navi group. Hum, probably not the way that's spelled, but I kept reading the names in that Avatar sing-song I've heard in previews. These Navi's were painters. Particularly interesting when viewed with a sing-song chant going on in your head.

We then went to lunch with Tara. I haven't seen her in far too long. She is looking so happy. It would be nice to see her more often. We decided that Adrian and I would be back the first week of March. Maybe a quarterly visit. I'd let Adrian pick our driving music. This time he picked The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. Loved it.

Thanksgiving was spent at Mark and Trina's house. The company was great, the food was good, and the entertainment was exceptional. I wonder how we are going to top that next year? By then, they will have moved to a new house and will have many other new things going on. It should be fun to see. They are wonderful hosts. Among the many guests was Maggie's new dog, Lila. I'd read about her being a bit shy and sometimes a little poopy. She was shy, but she was a sweet puppy. Very well behaved. I thought it was sweet that Mark and Trina knew that she might have a nervous reaction, but still wanted her to be there. Mark had a great old dog, Rascal, who he took everywhere with him. He said that he would be the last person to not let a dog into his place. Sweet. Actually, it would have been fun to see Lila and Rascal together.

Okay, so here's the lady with the face. Adrian asked me what is taking so long, because I work on her most days. We counted the stitches. 5800. I told him 100,000. I exaggerate. Still, 5800 is a lot. Sometime it goes fast, like that deadly dull black you see on the right side. But that's only after you've counted the squares to get the various shades of green in before you lay on the green/black combo. I don't see this sucker being done before March.
But doesn't she have a beautiful skirt. There's a streak down the left side that was driving me crazy, so I just wound it down so I don't have to look at it all the time. What the heck. What I find fascinating is how the symbols on the instructions can equal spikey leaves and flowers. You'd think you could see this before it's on the canvas, but I don't. In fact, I have to stop, step back and look closely to see how the garden is taking shape. Pretty.

I've been trying to get through Laura Hillenbrand's new book, Unbroken. That should be an easy thing because she is a great writer and Louie Zamperini is a fascinating man. But we know from the beginning that he spends time in a Japanese prison camp and it almost breaks his boundless confidence and joy. I'm at the part now where he is about to go to the dreadful prison camp. It's so hard to watch - read - listen to suffering or unjustified abuse. You may recall that I had the same problem with Zeitoun. You may not know that I have yet to see a Viet Nam war movie. Actually, it's getting to the point where I can't watch Obama giving an inch to those stupid Republicans. I just HATE seeing bad things happen to good people. So what have I been listening to instead? Old time radio. I've subscribed to a Great Detective series from old time radio. Even though the detectives keep being knocked out and beaten, I know this isn't real and no brain cells died in the taping. 150 hours of detective stories later, I'm caught up on the previously podcasted shows. Luckily, I have 17 books on my iPod that I can read before I learn the details of that prisoner of war camp. Maybe the lady will be done by then.

Thrilling

I have been stitching my lady's skirt this past week. It was so easy to ignore it and work around her. The green stuff is done mostly in half cross-stitches. I call those slashes (/) which are half the work of cross-stitches (x). But milady's skirt is filled with little x's. This series of photos shows the progress. The picture in the middle shows what the canvas looks like in the late afternoon, which happens earlier every day. It is impossible to see where I'm stitching at that time of day, but the shadows are pretty.

It looks like I'm just about half way through the skirt. What a pleasure it will be to see all it's subtle shading. Three of the different colors I'm using are combos. Pale purple blue with pale peach; pale purple blue with pale pink, and pale purple blue with white. You can barely tell the difference when you look at them in the needle. It isn't until they all clump together that the picture becomes apparent.

I've just finished the new Camel Club book, Hell's Corner. The hero has assumed the name of Oliver Stone, as you would know if you'd read any of these books. He has a kinship with another of my favorite "reads", Jack Reacher. They are both incredibly capable men. Oliver, however, must be 70 or close to it. He gives hope of eternal virility to aging baby-boomers. Jack is younger and has few to no close friends. He is eternally on the move. Oliver lives in a cemetery. Now that is firmly planted. And he has great friends. Both men right horrible wrongs. Jack usually straightens up towns as he wends his way across the US. Oliver saves our government from doing stupid things. I was going to say that I don't know why they don't just put him in charge of the CIA or some other alphabetic agency. But we all know the answer. He's a doer, not a bureaucrat.

Bless the doers, who make my stitching fly.