Then and Now

Mistress of the Art of Death has been on my Ipod since early March. Yes, ten months, languishing, being by-passed in favor of so many books. Why did I buy it? Why was I avoiding it? I think it must have been on sale. Audible sometimes puts books on sale and if they are under $10 and look at all interesting, I'll buy them. But why did I avoid reading this in favor lousy books like World Without End? I think I'd read something about it being silly, but after World, what could be silly?

Not this. I really enjoyed this book. It was written about a woman doctor who travels from Italy to Henry II's England to find out who has been killing children. Jews have been blamed and Henry likes the tax money he gets from the Jewish community too much to have them blamed for something they didn't do. You may recall how I hated World's inappropriate, anachronistic behavior. So, why would I like a book about a woman doctor in Medieval England? Totally wrong. But the book explains all this and the book holds together pretty well for its place in time. The author has a new book coming out tomorrow. What luck! I'll be looking for it on Audible.


Jeanne and I went to to see Charlie Wilson's War. I'd read this book a couple of years ago and was interested to see it on screen. First, it was fun to be out-and-about with Jeanne. She's been having a beginning of the year slow down at work, so we have decided to see all the movies we've missed. This was a good one to start with. It was a lot of fun to watch. And fodder for much discussion. First, the acting was good. The script was true to the book. You got a clear picture in the end that we did a miserable job with the wrap up to the Afghan war with Russia. The mess we left behind is now being ameliorated a bit by the man who wrote Three Cups of Tea.

The Afghans would have been in a mess if we hadn't become involved in supplying missles to the tribesmen. But we should do a better job of helping to repair what was damaged. That's what we did with the Marshall Plan after WWII. We realized then that one of the things that led to the war was leaving Germany devastated after WWI. George Marshall wanted to do better the second time around. It worked. If it had been done now, we would have sent in Halliburton, they would have become rich and the countries we were trying to help would have bombed us years ago. That's just my opinion. :)

Conquerors

I've been reading Genghis Khan for some time. When I went on my last trip to India, I'd filled my Ipod with lots of books. I've been reading them whenever I need mobility, which doesn't seem to be often these days. So my trip from the beginning to the ending of this book has been slightly longer than the time he spent conquering the whole world. It's an amazing story. His family lived on the steppes of Asia. This is not hospitable land. But somehow he managed had the brilliance of understanding human nature and the ability to rule the countries he conquered to bring China, Russia, Afghanistan and Persia under his umbrella. He never stayed in any of those countries; he loved the steppes too much. And, holy cow, he was brutal. They just seemed to be at that time. One guy had silver poured in his eyes and mouth. This was an honor. He knew he was going to be put to death. There was some symbolism in the silver thing.

He did not conquor India. Why not? It was too hot. He got to Delhi and couldn't stand the heat and humidity. Whoa, I was with him there. I think you need to be born in India to really appreciate that climate. I watched the movie based on the book I read last month, The Namesake. The movie is capitalized. I wonder why. Anyway, great movie. I loved the acting. As you may recall, the story is about Gogol Ganguli, first generation Indo-American and his family. There were scenes of the family back in Calcutta visiting their family. I told one friend that when I saw it, it was almost like being home. Oops, I guess Bangalore is not home. But it did remind me of being there.

The father tries to convince his new wife that America isn't so bad. They have gas all the time (and electricity, no doubt) and people don't spit in the street. He didn't mention the urinating beside the road. It is very clean in America. She soothes herself by making Rice Crisipies with all manner of Indian spices and peanuts. We all

crave the taste of home when we are gone.

I also read my last Swedish detective novel, One Step Behind. Two interesting things in this one. First, the detective is suffering from diabetes but doesn't want to admit it. As one who is pre-diabetic and not wanting to admit it, I enjoyed all this. I'm very lucky not to be where he is, but his feeling are familiar to me. Second is that there is a detective in the book named Lundstrom. That is my maiden name. Every time I heard that name, I chuckled. Fortunately, he was not a doofus. As for the mystery, it was more logical than the one that dealt with South African apartheid. That was a silly premise. This one was about killing people who are happy. I'm sure we've all wanted to do that from time-to-time.

Lovely visits this week. First with Jeanne and Rachelle and their spouses. It has been raining here in SoCal and Rachelle and Jack live right below the highest, most travelled mountain pass in the area. It closed that night and caused all kinds of delays in reaching their house. We all lived. It was great to see everyone.

Then we had to say goodbye to one of the directors of IT, Joe. He's moving back east to be close to family. I hope to contact him when I get back there. You can never know too many Irishmen. People came to his party who had left The Times 5 or 6 years ago. We had a good time, despite the sad occasion. There have been a lot of changes at The Times since I left. None are good, this one is very not good. Oh well.

Friends Without End

Friends from the HelpDesk and the Editorial Systems group meet once a month at some restaurant somewhere to talk about old times and old Times. This month we had a large group at a very noisy restaurant. They are Tom, Dean, me, Jim, Jackson and John. Even though we couldn't hear each other very well, we had a good time. We could have stayed all night, but Dean, John and Tom started to talk about bands and I saw Jim's eyes glaze over. I guess we had beaten the new dead horse, the recently departed editor at The Times, to death; although it seems that the Publisher had already done that. It just gets more exciting. I'm always happy to be included in the group. They obviously needed a female presence. I hadn't seen Jackson since before he left The Times a few years ago. He and I were first to arrive. I walked up and sat next to him. I'm sure he thought he was being picked up. Maybe next time.

I finally finished the puzzle. See how it's almost totally sky? Maybe not totally, but it sure seemed like it. The picture on the right shows the extra piece that was in the box. Just below that is the empty spot, missing the piece it replaced. Just an added challenge, I guess.

When I was at the movie on Friday with Maggie, I found incense sticks. My sandalwood carved elephant is really an incense holder. I didn't know that when I bought it or I would have bought incense at the same time. I was lucky to find some. I got sandalwood. That is chandan in Hindi (I suppose.) My dear friend in India is also Chandan. Now I think of him when it burns.

I've been reading World Without End. Poor Adrian gets to listen with me, since I'm listening from my computer, not my Ipod. He asked what the time period for the book was, so I looked it up in Amazon. Then I started to read reviews. One was irate that the dialog was so current and that the women were quite liberated for the age. Adrian couldn't agree more. He thought it was pretty silly. Then I read another review that complained about the gratuitus sex scenes. I agreed, they were all pretty juvenile and I do mean all, because there are many. I felt like I was reading a current book about pre-teen angst. In other words, I hadn't been enjoying the book but couldn't put my finger on why. So I decided to finish the first section (there are 6!) to see if it got better. But it became apparent that the reviews and Adrian were right. One review called it a Book Without End. It was wrong. This book has ended. Too bad. That's got a pretty cover.

It's Not a Race

I'm happy that nobody is timing how long it's taking me to finish that jigsaw puzzle. And there is nobody to yell at me for hogging the dining room table forever. Pshew. It is almost done, but since it is half sky, I could be at it until I finish yet another book. All puzzle workers know that the sky is the worst part.

I did finish The Perfect Mile. It's about the men who broke the 4 minute mile and their subsequent race against each other. That event was really called the Miracle Mile, according to Wikipedia. How did anyone know anything before that wonderful invention? When we were kids and asked our mom one of our interminable questions, she would tell us to go "look it up." We had the Encyclopedia Americana that was nearly tattered. It's so much easier today. Go "Wiki" that.

I had to check Wikipedia because it was taking a while to get to that big race. I had to know who won. Considering that I'm a pretty inert turtle, it was interesting to read about these very dedicated runners. It isn't just about the men, it's also about the sporting world in the 50's. I remember Avery Brundage and his stranglehold on amateur atheletics. There were complaints about starving (or highly undercompensated) athletes and Avery's crew who lived well while traveling around the world for sports. This is a very interesting, well-paced book. And as I learned, pacing is everything.