Recommended Short Reading

If you have never read Etgar Keret, you should!

I would recommend "Suddenly A Knock on the Door", a short story that will have you laughing out loud and also "Lieland", a short that is funny and a bit tender. Both are quirky, just like Keret himself.

I SO love this man's writing style!

The link above takes you to Keret's own web site. From that site you can click on a link to Selected Shorts where you can hear four of his stories masterfully read, including the two I recommend above, as well as a brief introduction to two of them from Keret himself. Or just click on this link to go directly to the Selected Shorts site to listen. Click on the underlined "Listen" next to "The World of Etgar Keret." You won't regret it even if you only listen to the first two.

Happy reading/listening!!

Three-Legged Blues?

Well. It isn't quite this bad.

Three-Legged Blues by Jane Hirshfield

Always you were given
one too many, one too few.
What almost happens, doesn't.
What might be lost, you'll lose.
The crows will eat your garden.
Weeds will get what's left.
Your cats will be three-legged,
your house's mice be blessed.
One friend will take your husband,
another wear your dress.
No, it isn't what you wanted.
It isn't what you'd choose.
Your floors have always slanted.
Your roof has paid its dues.
Life delivered you a present—
a too-small pair of shoes.
What almost happened, won't now.
What can be lost, you'll lose.

"Three-Legged Blues" by Jane Hirshfield, from Come, Thief. © Alfred A. Knopf, 2011

I"ve got the blues. Not, thankfully, the blues described in the poem above -- my floors aren't slanted, I don't have any three-legged cats, my husband hasn't run off with my best friend, & etc. But boy, am I blue!!

I have felt it coming, that slow slide into the dark. It has come early this year, and I'm just about tired of putting up the struggle to fend it off. It's probably the weather we've had for the past few weeks. Maybe it's my age.

Last winter just about did me in. I felt like I was hanging on by the tips of my fingernails. By the time springlike weather came I was panting from exhaustion. The rains were bad for a while but always there was the realization that it was warm, it was spring, there was at least some sun. Then the debilitating heat came.

I have never been able to handle heat. I go around in shorts and short sleeves in 50° weather unless there's a cold wind blowing. I crank the air conditioning down to 60° whenever I feel I can get away with it. The heat kept me from doing things outside the way I would have liked to do. Then we had a couple of really nice weeks. Moderate temps, sunshine, warm breezes. Is that all we're going to get?

The past two weeks have been mostly rainy. Yes, the sun peeks out sometimes; we've had a nice day here and there. But it doesn't seem to be enough for me. I am grouchy and easily irritated. I can feel my blood pressure rise at the teeniest bit of annoyance. I want to sleep all the time. I feel exhausted after I've been up for just a little while. I ache. I have days where all I want to do is read, followed by days I can't bring myself to pick up any book. I'm just not interested. I log onto Facebook several times a day because after I log on, I just don't care to be there. So I log off and come back later. Still not really interested.

I have to make myself pick up the phone to call my Mom.

It's the winter blues. And they're coming early.

And I don't like it.

Book Recommendations

A couple of books that I highly recommend:

GHOST IN THE WIRES: MY ADVENTURES AS THE WORLD'S MOST WANTED HACKER by Kenneth Rufo, published by Little, Brown, & Co., August 2011

and

A FIRST-RATE MADNESS: UNCOVERING THE LINKS BETWEEN LEADERSHIP AND MENTAL ILLNESS by Nassir Ghaemi, published by Penguin Press, August 2011 (It's especially interesting what he says about such leaders as Obama, Bush Jr., Blair, Lincoln, King, and Kennedy.

Both are extremely interesting reads!!! Links are to a couple reviews.

No, not exactly "Summer Reads", but they were what I was in the mood for at the time! :)

The Buses are Back on the Road Again!

Our local schools were back in session today, so I had to remind myself NOT to be on Allison Lane at about 2:30 this afternoon when the high school kids get out!
Of course, Eler Beth and I started back two weeks ago, but it has been on a very, very limited basis {grin}. Neither of us has really been in the mood for school to start. After a July of relentlessly constant triple-digit temps and heat indices, our August started out unusually cool. This week we're getting back into more normal temps, however. This is August the way August should be, and I'm glad my girl doesn't have to ride a bus or sit in a classroom on these kinds of day.

Eler Beth is a Sophomore this year!! She'll have her driver's permit soon, and she cannot wait. I'm kind of excited about it myself. When I turned 16 you could take your written exam at any time, and you were allowed to take your driving test 30 days after passing the writen one. But having turned 16 in April I opted to wait until July, so that my best friend (whose birthday was in June) and I could take our driver's tests the same day. Things like that were important back then. :)

Speaking of best friends, I have really been enjoying the Facebook Group "You know you're from Breckinridge County if...." I've been reminded of a lot of things I had forgotten, and I found out a few things I hadn't known in the first place. I've been thinking about writing some posts based on some of the FB posts on this group. I've become reacquainted with some friends from High School, and I was pleased to see a post by my best friend's daughter who is now about 26.
Thomas' truck went down last week, and our favorite mechanic is stumped. They're going to do a bit more digging, but I'm thinking of calling Click and Clack on Saturday. lol I see a purchase of another truck in our very near future. I am, at this time, taking Thomas to work at 4 a.m. every morning. If I could get my system to learn to get to sleep a bit earlier each night, I could handle this very well. But right now it is hard to take him to work, get a bit more sleep, and then get up to so some morning schoolwork with Eler Beth. I want to be on a full lesson schedule next week, though, so I'd better figure something out.

Well, I guess that's it. Watch out for those Yellow Buses!

My Uncle Sam Roberts

I should have posted this last month. One of my mother's younger brothers died in June. It was not unexpected. Back in May the doctors had given him only weeks to live, mostly from complications from diabetes, but also I believe from some heart problems. He was a life-long smoker, but was otherwise in fairly decent health until about a year ago. He died at home, with my mother and their brother Carl there when he breathed his last.

Sam was #6 of my maternal grandparent's 9 children. There was one brother between him and my mother, a brother I never knew because he died when I was just a baby. But Uncle Sam I'd known all my life. He was a newspaper man, an excellent photographer, a Little League coach, and a confirmed bachelor. He could play several instruments very well, wrote lyrics and music, and had a beautiful singing voice that was a bit growly and smoky. He and his brothers used to perform for WAVE-3 radio in Louisville back in the 50s or 60s. My mother has some pictures of them in the sound studio, and I particularly remember one of Uncle Sam in front of one of those old-fashioned microphones. Uncle Sam was born with a missing vertebrate in his neck, so he always looked like he was hunching his shoulders.

I attach here his obituary. Please click to read the write-up that his long-time editor and friend, Donn Wimmer of The Hancock County Clarion, wrote in his honor, and a story written by Sam that The Clarion published back in 1982. There are also a couple more pics of him in the article.