Last Day of the Year Varia

 Today's post is going to be a mix of things. This year was a mix of accomplishments, successes, and defeats, negatives, and several incompletes, and continuances.

In no particular order, I'll attempt to say something about them as I think of them. The positives will begin with a plus (+) sign; the negatives will begin with a minus (-) sign; and the incompletes and continuances will be marked with a question (?) mark.

+ This year I read 101 books! An all-time high. A large part of that is because I belong to three book clubs, two of which began this year. Several books were either small young adult or children's books of 100 pages or less, but I read them because of a recommendation of a friend. Several were re-reads, especially my favorite mystery series. I haven't counted the fiction/nonfiction breakdown yet, but I think it will be roughly 60/40.

- Healthwise, it hasn't been the best. I've had celultis twice, one resulting in a trip to the ER and a two-day stay in the hospital amongst COVID patients. I had a small surgery on my left ear to remove a cancerous growth caused by the sun many years ago. And just earlier this month I had two molars taken out. One was loose and was going to fall out besides having a small decay which was rapidly getting larger. The other was what was left from a root canal years ago and needed to go if I am to have a partial denture put in (another story). My knees continued to weaken this year. I avoid stairs if I can. But my diabetes numbers seem to be doing a little better. I have my annual scope of my bladder for my 2011 cancer next week. I've been cancer-free since 2017.

- Because of COVID and my knees, I had to give my volunteering at the Stonewall Jackson House as well as the Lexington library. 

? I'm still trying to write, but the computer gods aren't working with me. I can't write longhand anymore to any extent. My hand shakes too much. And the laptop is so old it takes 30 minutes or more to open up usually. And then, it often just freezes so I have no other choice except to shut it down for another day. My writing goes back and forth between a mystery I have been working on for over a year and a memoir of sorts that I have just begun in the last three months. But neither is doing well because I spend most of my thinking about how to get the computer to work.

+ At least I'll have a good dinner - crab cakes, shrimp cocktail, and scallops. And there's watching "When Harry Met Sally" again almost yearly since about 1990. I know I missed it in 1999 when I was sick with the flu and watched Y2K come in around the world with Peter Jennings. 

+ And of course, a big positive was the birth of our fourth grandchild, another girl, named Serenity. I think we're finished now - two boys, two girls.

+ Anyhow, Happy New Year!

Mind Wandering

The title represents what I have been doing this past week after Tuesday's book club meeting. Between settling down to choose my book for next year, thinking about posts for Facebook, to watching too much political theatre, I can't seem to settle on anything to read, post, or watch with regularity. I have decided on a stylistic photo to use when I don't have any for a particular post (remember, I told you that I don't like posts without a photo - sort of like a room without a window).

When I look at it I am reminded of the first Indiana Jones movie when he flies to Southeast Asia. It shows a drawing/photo of a Pacific Clipper Seaplane heading west over a map/globe. I am going to use this whenever I don't have any other specific pictures to use.

All this writing and I have not yet been able to settle on anything to write about. So it's lunchtime. I'll eat and get ready to venture out into COVID Land with my mask on for my annual eye doctor. 

Talk to you later. Stay safe. 😷

"Prepare to Gird Your Loins"

Recently we were watching the film, The Devil Wears Prada, one of our very favorite movies - though any film with Stanley Tucci is in falls into that category - and Tucci's character is warning that Meryl Streep's character is on the proverbial warpath by saying, "Let's go, everyone, prepare to gird your loins!"

I've often heard the phrase and thought it meant to get ready for a verbal or physical battle of some sort and we would be playing a part. I was close. Dictionary app defines it as

"prepare and strengthen oneself for what is to come"

Looking further, I found this online:

 

So now you know. Pretty cool, yes?

Repairing

I have spent considerable time repairing the last post. This new update on the blogsite has given me problems. Anyhow, it's fixed now so hopefully, you can read what it was supposed to say.

I'm going to read now. I might get back to writing today.

From Malcolm to Ian

This week I decided to get back to my writing; my novel that is. So I dug out my notebook I used in July 1993. 27 years ago. So sue me. I had writer's block.

I had actually begun making notes about a WW2 mystery involving Rudolf Hess, Nazis, and conspiracy. Why did he make his flight to England in 1941? They say, "write about what you know". Well, at that time I was heavily into researching everything about Hess. And archaeology. Why not add some Indiana Jones?

Who was going to be my main character? Since Hess crashed in Scotland (near Glasgow actually) I decided that the hero of the book would be Malcolm Kincaid.

And why "From Malcolm to Ian? 

Simple. When I began writing again this year, I started over. Completely over. About a man who owned a store consisting of old books, globes, and maps in the New York Catskills. He was an Army veteran, widowed, and had a grown daughter, and a border collie. 

And he liked single malt scotch whiskies. You see his ancestry on his father's side was Scottish, whose family owned a distillery. Hence, I named him Ian Kincaid, completely forgetting about Malcolm until I pulled the notebook out this week!

Long story short, I am staying with Ian and the Catskills. I've moved on - at least for now - from Hess and WW2. But who knows, maybe someone will show up at his store with a flight map of Hess's route to England on that fateful night in May 1941.

Stay tuned.

Fooling Around with Fonts

I'm writing in the evening just for some fun. If things look a little different it's because I just began typing with the default font that is set for the blog. Since there is no checkmark near the names of the various fonts I can't tell. I'll just have to experiment. Here's the list typed in the font in normal size:
(What do you think? Does this look the same as the first paragraph? I'm going to copy it and put it in alongside the first paragraph.)

Ariel
Courier
Georgia
Helvetica
Times
Trebuchet
Verdana

What do you think? Does this look the same as the first paragraph? I'm going to copy it and put it in alongside the first paragraph. Yes, it is Times Normal.

Why am I doing this you might ask? If you really want to know, go back and read some of the earliest posts - before July 2018- when I lived in Lexington and I was posting every day. I was doing a lot of experimenting. I don't know why I settled on Ariel Normal, which I have been using until now, but lately, I feel crowded when I am typing. So I am going to experiment again if you don't mind.

This is Verdana Normal. I like this. It feels more open and airy. And slower. What does that mean? When I was using Ariel it felt as if I was speeding along. Not so with this font.

This is Helvetica Normal. Slightly smaller, but still open.
This is Aria Normal. Pretty close to Helvetica. More jammed up.
This is Trebuchet Normal. Too small.
This is Courier Normal. Too light; almost like I'm running out of ink. It's spread out, but small.
The last one is Georgia Normal. It's probably the darkest one, but still too crowded.

I'm going to out Georgia and Verdana against each other. First Georgia, then Verdana:

Yesterday we had a Zoom virtual meeting for our book club. We had 8 persons online.
Yesterday we had a Zoom virtual meeting for our book club. We had 8 persons online.

I think I'm going to go with Verdana Normal for a few posts.

Book Review: The Mirror & the Light

Well, I finally finished it. 754 pages. Over 7 weeks. What a slog of a read. But it was well worth it. Hilary Mantell's third novel in the trilogy about Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII is the best of the three. It's been several years since I read the second, "Bringing Up the Bodies" and before that, "Wolf Hall", the first. All three were terribly long in pages, and all three took a while to read, though this last one took the longest.

The main reason it took me so long, besides being a slow reader in the first place, is the way the author writes. Not only does she use language that is similar, but not exactly the same, as that was used in dialogue in the 1500s in Tudor England, but she also has a distinctive way of writing dialogue. Whenever she was writing dialogue that involved Cromwell, his name was not used. In fact, his name was often omitted in the prose. She used the pronoun "he". I had to pay attention or I would find myself going back over sentences to see who was talking to whom. But after about 400 pages, I began to get the hang of it. 

Another thing that made it slow going was that most of the characters in the story had more than one name that would be used. Charles Brandon was the Duke of Suffolk, while Thomas Howard was the Duke of Norfolk. And many of the women were referred to similarly, but then also as the wife or daughter of some dual-named male. Fortunately, there was a six and a half page "cast of characters" at the beginning of the book that I found myself using repeatedly until about page 700.

The best part of the story was the last 50-60 pages when Cromwell was taken to the Tower of London and interrogated before he was beheaded in July 1540. The dialogue between Cromwell and his interrogators for the king was the best writing of the novel. Sometimes serious and threatening, sometimes sarcastic and even a little humorous, I found the give and take spell-binding.

I also took the time to look up some of my notes and read about a little more background about some of the characters and certain subjects and topics as well as some words I didn't know. 

 As you can see I didn't do too bad; just 3 sides of two 3x5 cards. Sometimes I use three or four cards for much smaller books. One thing I noted and went off to read more was after about two-thirds of the way through, I began to notice a similarity between Henry VIII and our current President. I was wondering if I was the only one to notice that. So I Googled it and found that...well, let's just say you might want to Google it yourself.

A final note: You don't have to read the first two to enjoy this third volume, but it is well worth it to read them if you have the time ( and who doesn't these days!).  

Staying Home

It's been 14 days since I have been out. Fourteen days since my last physical contact with a person other than my wife. It's been 14 days since I last worked at my volunteering at the Stonewall Jackson House. It's been two weeks since I have driven a car - the Saturn to be specific. I've been out of the house five times - twice each of the past two Wednesdays to take the trash can to the curb in the morning and recover it in the evening. Each of those "trips" take about 45 seconds. The sixth time was longer - I took a 25-minute walk last Friday around the neighborhood. That's it - 28 minutes of outside exposure!

Now I can't blame the coronavirus on this completely. I could go out and walk more. I could drive around the neighborhood or go get a drive-thru coffee down the road. I could even drive to Subway or MacDonald's or some other fast-food place to get lunch instead of eating my homemade sandwich. I could. Yes, I could. It's just that I don't want to. I've lost my motivation to go outside. But that is not the worst of it.

I'm beginning to lose my motivation to read and write. I'm currently reading six books more or less. I say that because I haven't reached that spot in any of them that I normally do in my reading that one grabs me and I rush to finish it. Then I will continue to read the other five until another gets to that "rush to the end" spot. I'll keep on doing this until I have two left and then I replenish the reading pile back to 5 or 6 books again. As I said, I've not reached that point and don't feel like reading many times at all.

As far as writing is concerned, you easily see when I last posted. There were many times I said to myself, "Self, you need to write about _______ . But I didn't. I am hoping that by writing this post that it break up the log jam, or brain freeze, or whatever it is that is preventing me from doing what I normally love to do.

Well, what do I do all day if I don't what I normally love to do? I watch a lot of CNN about the coronavirus. I sleep a lot during the day because I don't sleep well at night. I play games on my phone -usually Sudoku and a crossword daily. I visit the social apps I belong to like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Probably too much sleeping and social apping. The Sudoku and crosswords keep my brain sharp.

Well, I've done it as my granddaughter likes to say. I wrote today. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Book Reviews

I've been thinking recently about writing book reviews; specifically, writing ones on books that I read. I find when I have read a book I rush to Goodreads to change the status from "Reading" to "Read", then give it a star (1-5) rating,  and then ensure that the reading starting and ending dates are correct, but then I stop. It asks if I want to write a review and always I opt-out. I don't want to take the time. I also don't want to try to write a review that tries to be as good as the ones I read on the site. Though I do remember writing one once  - can't remember the book - and it got a favorable comment.

I currently have three books, one fiction, and two nonfiction, currently waiting for a written review. All good books, but I haven't even started the first one yet. It's as if I don't want to take the time from my reading, to write about a good book that I enjoyed and let others know. So there they sit, on my desk, waiting to be looked at a final time before they each return to dusty confines of a bookshelf. Heaven forbid!

Ironically, I just am starting a re-read (as if I even have enough time to read the books I haven't read the first time!) and that is about...wait for it...BOOKSHELVES!

Nifty cover, right? It looks like a four-volume boxed set, but no it's just one hardback. The author is a very good one; I have his "The Pencil" and a few others. But I decided to add this to my current reading. "What am I reading?" you ask. Well, see for yourself.

Finally, as you can see, I have gotten away from writing any book reviews again...