An Active Weather Week

 It's been a real active weather week. It's snowed twice since last Sunday, and last night/this morning it began a freezing rain. I had to go out this morning to clean the car so that Lisa could go to work.

I only hope that it's not so bad that she doesn't have trouble coming home. I'll go out ahead of time and make sure our driveway is safe.

Sunday is forecasted for clear, but more trashy weather Monday.

Got Vaccinated!

 Got my second Pfizer shot this morning. No real problems getting there and into the facility next to the hospital. The organization was better than the first shot, but there were still a few areas that could have been done better. It probably didn't help that both 1st and 2nd shots were being given.

We stopped at McDonald's on the way home. I got a  sausage egg McMuffin with egg and cheese; haven't had that since COVID began. And a medium coffee. I always like their coffee.

A Facebook Post

The following is a Facebook post about my library and books that I posted this evening. I thought I'd copy and paste it to my blog. Enjoy.

A very good friend posted a comment earlier on my page referencing my books and what I have actually read. He asked "...How many of the hundreds of books have I actually read." After I replied to him, I felt all of you deserved the same answer.

First of all, my library is not in the hundreds as he suggested; it is between 2-3 thousand separate books. About 80-90% are nonfiction. I have read a part or all of the majority of them. Sometimes, it is only the introduction, preface, afterword, and the first chapter or two. My plan is to return to it later. Often, I will stay with it and adjust my current reading list (5-7 books). About 50% of the fiction falls into that "read" category (reading the first couple of chapters). Not included are the books I take out from the library, which are mostly fiction. I buy very few books anymore. Before COVID, I stalked old bookstores and library book sales.

I read every day. As I said before I generally read anywhere from 5 to 7 books at a time, with only 1-3 being fiction.

I hope this helps to explain my "bibliomania" passion. I post the pictures of my books just to try to instill a passion for books in others. Thanks for reading.

 

Miscellany

This is a catch-up post. January was not a good month for my blogging. I spent most of it reading. I had two book clubs last month, one just beginning and the other after a month's break.

I also DID get my first COVID vaccine shot - Pfizer - and had no problems. I am scheduled for my second shot next week, the 10th, in the morning. 

We had our first significant snowfall in two years on Sunday. We got about 4-6 inches. Fortunately, the complex has a superior snow removal company and we were clear by late morning. No new snow is expected in the next week (good for the forecast for getting my shot next Wednesday).

Our B&B book club resumed well. We had a good discussion on "Marrow and Bone", a fiction book about a road trip through 1989 Poland. While I thought it was only okay, several enjoyed it. Honestly, I really don't get most of the fiction I read for this club. But I do like the nonfiction. We only have four this year so it will be a struggle. 

Our first meeting of the Mysterious Book Club was last week. We have seven members and six showed up. Our seventh has COVID and didn't really feel well enough to attend (virtually/ Incidently, both clubs are meeting virtually). My friend Dave and I started the club, so Dave selected the first book, a post-WW1 Scotland Yard series. It's a favorite of both of us so we had high hopes. 

Unfortunately, I don't think it went that well. Maybe it was because three of the members were new - three of us came from the B&B club - and might have been intimidated. We meet again in March (we meet every other month) so we will see how it goes.

I also re-read the last Inspector Rutledge again. It came out last February as they all do. I always re-read the last one in preparation for the next new release which comes in February. I've already pre-ordered it from Barnes and Noble. It is due to be released on February 16.

So my fiction is over for a short time, and I have decided to make a push to finish Wilkie Collins' A Woman in White. It was written in about 1880 or '86. Collins is called England's Edgar Allan Poe. He began the mystery thriller in England. 

It is over 600 pages and I still have about 190 pages to go. I began it last May! But it has been easy to drop off and pick back up again. Hopefully, I can finish it before my Rutledge gets here.

As I said - I didn't get much done last month except reading.

Morning Things

 The morning began well. 

I had an email from my primary care doctor informing me that our local hospital will begin COVID vaccine shots next Wednesday. I went online and signed up. I get mine at 8:10am, Inauguration Day! It's the Phizer vaccine, so I'll get my next one three weeks later. That puts me one day after my wife who got her first one this past Tuesday. She got the Moderna, so she has to wait four weeks.

Then I watched the news and It made me depressed, sad, mad, and then fed up, so I turned to English soccer. My team, Tottenham, is currently in fifth place, so that didn't help my disposition.

This past Tuesday we had our first meeting of the new year and we had 10 of 14 people show up (virtually). Most enjoyed the book. I began reading next month's book this morning. It is labeled historical fiction, so it's based on a true story. Sounds interesting.

It takes place in 1739 South Carolina and is the story of a 16-year-old girl who manages the family's three plantations making indigo ink. I don't anything about making indigo, so it should be interesting.

Finally, I got a text from my wife who is working this morning about 10 miles away. She said it was snowing heavily where she was. I went to the door and looked out. There was a small dusting on the ground, but only wetness on the street and walkways. It was barely snowing here. Thirty minutes later I decided to take a picture for the blog. Here's what I got.

Excuse the lack of clarity; the window did that. In any case, the snow was gone.

Two Books a Day

I have been posting on Facebook for the past week or so, some books from my library. I usually post two in the morning, together in one photo, usually with a connection of sorts. Then I post again in the afternoon another two. Most of the time I say nothing about the books, letting the titles and authors speak for themselves. 

If someone asks a question or comment, I respond. Some of the books I've read; some I intend on reading. I don't differentiate. 

Here is one of my old bookcases I bought At Corfe Castle in England in 1971. I paid $5 for the pair. Solid walnut. This is where I get a lot of the books I post.

The Man Who Wrote A Page A Day

 Today is the beginning of a new year. The day that many decide to make resolutions. The day that many decide to try new things or stop old things. I have been one of these - in each category - for many, many years. I don't know how many times I was successful, but I do know that I failed more often than I won.

I was thinking over the last few days about what I accomplished during the self-imposed isolation caused by COVID. I am still trying to come up with a few other than I got more reading done (52 books this year). But if you look at sheer numbers. I am down from 2019 (65). Fewer, but many were longer and more difficult to read. And I tried to write a novel. Which brings me to the title of my post today.

Jim McCahery was a friend who taught foreign languages at Xavier where I worked. He was also a published author. The one pictured above is actually his second of a series. I loaned the first one to another teacher and it was never returned. The series is about a retired woman who was a radio star in the '30s and '40s and is now a gardener of flowers. And she solves crimes.

But the purpose of this post is not to tell you about the book or series, but to tell you a little about what Jim taught me about writing. Jim and I would often find ourselves in the faculty lounge at the same time. I guess we had similar free periods. I don't know how the subject first came up, but I mentioned to Jim that I had always wanted to write a novel.

Jim had many things that he passed on to me, but I have forgotten most of them. That's primarily because I never had the discipline to consistently practice them. But the one thing I do remember was his method of producing a page of written story each day.

Jim would come home from school each day at about 3:30 pm. If it was light enough outside he would do some gardening first. Otherwise, it would wait until the weekend. When he sat down to write his goal for the day was first to edit the previous day's page of output. Then he would put it aside. Next, he would write that day's page but without any real editing. He found he could do this in less than three hours. That was his schedule.

I tried it, but my schedule couldn't accept it. First, I didn't get home until after 7:00 pm in the evenings. I had a wife and two small children (Jim lived with a partner, but had no children). I had my running that I was addicted to as well, and that had to be fitted into my schedule. So it never worked. Truthfully, I probably never let it work for me.

Jim died before he could finish his third book. After that, I lost any built-in incentive to keep writing. This was in the mid-1990s. I've tried to start writing again several times, but all have been failures. During the COVID shut-down, I have done some outlining for a book. If I had conscientiously been writing, I could have had over 300 pages done by now.

So I am going to give it a try. Starting today. Each day. I will write periodic reports, truthful reports, here in the blog to keep myself motivated.

Wish me luck!