Weather in the Tries:
Would you believe Saturday got up to 70 in the Tries????Woot! Woot!! It appears that our lowest this coming week will be 36, and several days in the low 60s! We do have winds, now, but that’s okay. March winds and April showers. And flower beginning to bloom 😉
How to Help Ukrainians:
You could send them the A Team (see below for more /snark/) but a more realistic thing is to read Nicholas Kristof’s substack article, How to Help Ukrainians. He has some very good ideas and knows of what he writes. If, for some reason you can’t open the article, please let me know through the Contact Form, and I shall do what I can. Nicholas Kristof, for those of you who don’t know him, is a long-time journalist, and spent many years trotting about the globe, in some very dangerous places.
Do you re-read books?
Do you? Which ones call you to read again and again, and why? I re-read books, different books for different reasons. Here are some I re-read.
Dune (the ones) by Frank Herbert. It’s been a long time since I’ve re-read those books, but they are my “thumb sucking” books. When I’m really stressed, I grab the first one, Dune, and stack the remaining six (I think it’s six, I’m too lazy to get up and count right now for a total of seven Frank wrote. I curl up with a cuppa, and get totally lost in another world, another galaxy, another culture. When my uncle was in the hospital and I couldn’t visit him because I was snow bound (believe me, you do NOT want to drive in Seattle where there is snow on the streets!) I talked to him daily and read all seven (or six) books in a week. Yep, I was stressed. I have no idea how many times I’ve read the books, but it’s a lotta times. I’ve also seen all the Dune movies, including the latest in 3D!!!
Wizard of the Pigeons by Megan Lindholm. Oh, wow, I bet it’s every couple years that I read that book. It’s one of my mostest faves of all times. It’s the story of a homeless Vietnam veteran in Seattle. I guarantee, no matter what you think of homeless people, if you read that book, your thoughts will change. I’ve even been known to send pitches to movie directors, etc. This vet is a Vietnam vet, but he could be from any war.
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach. This is another one I read often. Like, once a year, or every other year. I love the story, but really love the sayings. I have memorized many; perhaps, not word for word, but the gist of them. “Happiness is a choice. It is not always an easy choice.” Another fave, “Here is a test to see if your mission on earth is finished. If you’re alive, it isn’t.” I don’t know if Bach is Buddhist or not, but his books have been read and enjoyed by Buddhists, by Christians, by Atheists, and by Nones, etc. I just learned he is a direct descendant of Johann Sebastian Bach! you can learn some amazing things by going down the www rabbit holes 😉
And, just in case you’re interested, my idea of Heaven is an expanded version of the Library of Congress. The largest library in the world!
So, do you re-read books? Why? Which ones? Leave a comment, please.
The Congressional Team A plus some obviously needed help?:
I see the A Team I proposed last week, comprised of Lindsey Graham (a US Government trained killer), and the hotshots, Lauren Boebert, Margery Taylor Greene, Josh Hawley, and Maddi Cawthorn, did not go to Russia to take care of the problem. Perhaps they need to add a few more to their team? Give it a snazz up the name? How about The Congressional Team A? And call on Rafael Edward “Ted” Cruz, Paul Gosar, Louie Gohmert (also a US Government trained killer), and one or two other volunteers?? If they are going to call others to violence, they truly should put their money where their mouth is, or in this case, their weapons where their mouth is. Yes?
Vlad the Invader has let it be known that if the US or any other western nation sends arms, etc. to the Ukraine he will take it as a Declaration of War against him. He is asking China for arms, etc. Should we let him know what we think?
Photo of the Week:
This is (or was) the Library and staff in front of the Borys Lavrenyouv Reginal Library for Youth in Kherson, Ukraine. Click photo to go to article.
Books: Remember, if I finish a book, I review it at Rainy Day Reads
My Viking Vampire —by Krystal Shannan. OMG! This is a paranormal romance with all the shiny pink parts. Our two protagonists are a young human woman who has been terribly abused by her ex, and a thousand-year-old Viking Vampire who rescues her. Not for the faint of heart. But a heckuva romp! Calorie-free brain candy. If I thought Sanctuary existed, I think I’d have to go to Texas just to visit! I gave it 5 Stars.
Have been reading some other books. Water Chasing Water —by Koon Woon. Am enjoying Mr. Woon’s poetry. Have followed him for years, but this is the first book of his I’ve read.
Am also reading Collected Poems —by Federico García Lorca. Great fun. The left side (even numbered) pages are in Spanish; the right side (odd numbered) pages are in English. It will take a while to get through this one. But oh, my, do I love his poetry!
Earworm of the week: The Tango: Vaccine – A Randy Rainbow Song Parody
Quotes of the week: from Quotemaster
“I can’t imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.” —C.S. Lewis
“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again there is no use reading it at all.” —Oscar Wilde
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” —Hasruki Murakami
And there you have it. The brave dog and I have made it through another week, and hope you have, too. If you didn’t, please leave a comment and tell us why not. Sammy sends pupkisses to you all. It’s OK to accept them—I wiped the slobber off each one individually. 😉
I absolutely reread books. That’s why when I moved I had 79 boxes of them. Sometimes it’s because I enjoyed the story, but usually it’s because I like spending time with the characters. I read each Craig Johnson mystery at least twice, the first time for the plot and the second for the characters and nuances. Sometimes I’ll pick one up at random just because I want to spend some time with Walt and company. I do the same with Tony Hillerman’s books and some of Dick Francis’s books. He doesn’t have repeat characters, but I especially like some of his one-time characters. I also read REBECCA periodically and WHEN THE LEGENDS DIE about once a year. Another frequent repeat read is THE MUSIC OF WHAT HAPPENS, which I think is out of print.
One question though, if we hadn’t survived the week, how would we be able to talk about it in the comments? Or does automatic writing work with computers? Wait, that’s two questions.
When I was sixteen, I discovered the first volume of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and the only Tolkien book in our town’s library. This was decades before I found anyone else who had heard of the author or his work, but I was transfixed by Tolkien’s descriptions of nature, incidental to the book’s adventures. Though something I’ve never seen mentioned, they seemed to me to reflect the Puget Sound lowland woods and gullies that surrounded our place. I read the book yearly thereafter, into middle age.
The Library of Congress might well be Heaven; perhaps Jorge Luís Borges’ “Library of Babel” would be Hell, or at least Purgatory: https://www2.math.upenn.edu/~deturck/isp/the-library-of-babel-by-jorge-luis-borges.pdf
Hi Lenora: No, I don’t re-read books too often, at least not any more. I did once upon a time. But there are so many good writers out there these days, plus I’m a news junkie (I think I told you that was what I did for a living). So there’s plenty to read these days. I subscribe to the NYT, Wash Post, Seattle Times, the Yakima Herald-Republic, the New Yorker, etc. And I’d love to add my two-bits about the war, but there isn’t room in this space for what I think, except to say it’s heart-breaking and wrong, wrong, wrong, and I want to see “Vlad” perish slowly and horribly for what he’s doing! Enough… By the way, I once worked with Frank Herbert at the Seattle P-I. Also Tom Robbins. Interesting dudes!
Some day we’ll have to talk. I retired from The Boeing Company, where Jerry Pournelle worked at one time. Seattle has some very interesting people. Thanks for the comment. See you on Zoom… 😉