three recent reads...

so in between having guests for lunch and getting a bunch of household work done (new light fixtures and outside outlets) and various other things- I found time to get some reading done- and caught up with several books that I have been looking at on the shelf for quite some time (ahem...maybe even longer than that- LOL)

enjoyed these first two and am enjoying now The Interestings which was popular a while back (I may be the only person who has yet to crack open that copy of Da Vinci Code - LOL) 

anyway- I can recommend all three of these books- 

The Dead Beat is non fiction and is about those who write the obits and excerpts a number of fabulous gems from various obits of the famous, the not so famous and the unknown...published in English language newspapers (mostly here in the US and in the UK)

from the blurb this could be mistaken for chick-lit but it was much better written and a deeper exploration of the ups and downs of being married and what it takes to live with someone for decades... (and not kill them- LOL)

and here is what I am reading now and loving- only about 100 pages into the 500+ but it is going fast! a good sign!

and here is one I got more than half way through by sheer force of will and then decided I could call it complete - as I said to Phil, this would have been better to read the cliff notes- waay more information than it could take and still be an interesting story - and despite its good review (however many years ago) it just couldn't hold my attention to the finish....

so on we go.... this is our last very busy arts/culture/sporty week for this winter - with the opera last night, the wine walk tonight, Itzhak Perlman on Saturday and the Cards on Sunday - then CBGB at Bern's on Monday and Asolo (second to the last play for the season) on Wednesday... busy week and soon it will be the farewell tour of our favorite restaurants before we head up north.... so stay tuned...

catching up with reading

so during the time between the holidays when things were relatively quiet I caught up with a bit of reading- when I wasn't finishing my blog from the latest trip or doing the massive photo scanning project. so I have some book reports to give-

I last posted in August about my desire to finally get around to reading the paper books in my home- in this blog entry-

http://semifreelife.blogspot.com/2014/08/a-retirement-project.html

and just as we headed off to Italy I had finished the fluffy but fun Rococo-

and I brought a few book-books (as opposed to e-books- LOL) down with me- and have plenty more - some of which I may consider shipping next year as this does seem to be a way to whittle away at that goal... but since I have been south I have read the lengthy but excellent (took me three weeks to do it) Girls Like Us.  A fabulous work about the early feminist era and three iconic women songwriters. Recommended for all and HIGHLY recommended for those of you who may be fans of one or more of these women....

then I turned my attention to two books my reading friend Mick passed along - they were both by Nancy Mitford and originally published decades ago- I found the first one The Pursuit of Love mildly amusing and decided to go along and do the second, Love in a Cold Climate as well.  I am so happy I did because I can HIGHLY recommend Love in a Cold Climate- it is a little gem of black humor and satire that should not be missed! It was absolutely perfect... and I loved reading it.

then I went on to Crazy in the Kitchen, one of the ones I sent down and which has been sitting on my shelf in Chicago so long I don't even remember why I bought it. But I am happy I did- a memoir- about the author's growing up with immigrant grandparents and an exploration of how their history ultimately became her history... with an emphasis on the part food (or lack of food) played such a major role in shaping several generations lives.  Extremely well written and very very touching. Also recommended.

and now I am on to - A Perfect Red (from the shelf at home) - not sure how this one will be but I do remember I bought it because it was well reviewed...

so I will get back to you on that later- however since classes start next week and I am taking 3 this term I may not read this one in a just a few days as I did the last two... but if it is good- it won't take long...

a retirement project

So when I retired - I did it in stages of a sort... in June 2010 before I began this blog I went to part time (this was the month my sister died at 54 and it had a big effect on my outlook about what is important in life) - and I thought - oh, with all this "free time" I will get some things done around the house... LOL LOL LOL

really? that was four years ago and the one closet I did manage to organize (well, it is actually a closet under the eaves on the third floor of our house, so you can really only count it as half a closet because it is only four feet tall- LOL) is now a mess again and I never got to any of the others (not that we even have that many closets because our house has ten times as many steps as it has closets- literally) We live on a city lot 25 feet wide and 100 feet long so our house is very very narrow and tall... basically there are two room per floor except that the first floor is all open and has three "room" areas: kitchen - living - dining... but I digress. I am still four years later on the closet clean out phase having done less than one closet...

another project I started was scanning all my family's old old photos - when I had all my own photos done years back at a hi speed scanning place (more than 15,000 photos) they wouldn't take odd sizes (read that older sizes and they wouldn't take "copyrighted" photos - read that one as professional photos like wedding or studio portraits) - that left me with probably another 1500 photos to scan on my own... they fill up a post office size plastic bin- and are a "winter" project that has now moved south...LOL  Oh and I wanted to get my recipes scanned (about half done) and get my six large lateral file drawers full of files cleaned out- zero % done...

You might think - WTF does she do with all her time? Because 9/30/11 I finished part time and went fully retired (except for consulting work) and then 12/31/13 I gave up consulting too (it was getting in the way of life- LOL!) - and if you read the blog regularly you will know what I do with my time- the important stuff... travel travel travel, take lots of photographs, blog about the things I do, go to the theater, explore new restaurants and old favorite ones, go to museums, go to concerts..... for a year I decorated a new winter home (and built at least thirteen pieces of furniture - LOL)

but still there are those unfinished business items nagging away at me- the scanning, the closets and THE BOOKS (LOL) I have always been a reader and e-books and Kindle are a real boon to those of us who accumulate books.  However- I have lots of unread books (the "I'll get to it later" books) around the house and those too were targeted for when I had time...   When we moved into this house (two bedrooms-six closets) from our old place (five bedrooms-thirteen closets) we donated literally hundreds of books to libraries (a guy in my office was on a local library board in exurbia and was thrilled to take them) but still... many things remain yet to be read- on shelves scattered around the house...

so- of late I have been working on the cellulose fetish (as our son Jeremy call it) style books - and this week I knocked off two of them despite having company and being out of town and blogging about last week's travel - so I do feel like I am making headway... here are the two I have done this past week-

Laura Rider's Masterpiece is really funny - a black comedy of manners that has something for everyone, a hero who sees space aliens, a torrid affair in Indian themed motels in rural Wisconsin LOL, an oblivious aspiring writer and an NPR host whose mid-life crisis creates the laugh out loud funny narrative.  An excellent beach read (no doubt you read it on the beach something like ten years ago when it first came out - LOL)

This book was one I bought because I love love loved his A Spot of Bother which was one of the funniest books I have ever read and one I can highly recommend as a "must" read! This one not so much- it is painful to read - the central character and narrator is an autistic boy who wants to find out who killed the neighbor's dog and as a result discovers much about his world and his capability of dealing with life in the process of emulating detectives he knows from books/movies/TV...  your heart goes out to the kid who has such a difficult time with every little task due to his condition but it isn't a "light" read. So unless you have a burning desire to get into the mind of a person suffering from autism I would give this one a pass.

and I did finally finish Craig Ferguson's Between the Bridge and the River which was extremely entertaining in specific passages and mostly funny throughout but lacked a truly cohesive narrative (IMHO) so I left that one behind in the hotel room in Portland last week...

not sure what's up next, but I have lots to do before I head to Duluth on Tuesday so maybe nothing until I get back--- these retirement projects can get so overwhelming- LOL.... who has that kind of time? but it can and will wait- because if there is one thing my sister's death taught me it was to focus on today... and what I want to do TODAY... so today I am going to say goodbye to cousin Iddo and send him off with best wishes for a return to the US soon and for him and all his family in Israel to be safe and then I will start thinking about packing for the upcoming DART trip and whatever else shows up - shows up... grateful to be here and to be able to do pretty much what I want when I want to...oh, and have I mentioned lately how much I love being retired? Now four years away from the day to day grind of the office, I barely think about all those decades... and that is the way it should be for retirees like me (and in two weeks my husband will be retired as well!)

looking forward to the Maritime Provinces in August/September and Italy in October and returning to our winter place in November.. life is good!