Finished reading: The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis š This is a nice piece of historical fiction about books and libraries.
Finished listening to: A Fistful of Charms (The Hollows, #4) by Kim Harrison š. I give up on most book series after two or three installments, but this urban fantasy series still has my interest. It helps that my library has the entire series via Libby.
Red-winged blackbirds returned to our feeders today. Iād better stock up on sunflower seeds.
It took three separate parts orders and some creative modifications, but our thirty-year-old clothes dryer no longer sounds like an elementary school heavy metal band.
Finished reading: I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong š This is an excellent book by one of the best science journalists around. It concerns the closer than intimate relationship of plants and animals with their microorganisms. Bacteria are not just in us and on us; in a lot of respects they are us.
Stories
My wife and I had dinner this past week with a couple who we had met recently. This was something that we hadn’t done for several years.
Why is it unusual? One reason is we are introverts. We do enjoy meeting people in small gatherings, but you will rarely find us in settings where there are lots of folks. We don’t have the opportunity to meet many new people, and we don’t make much of an effort to do so. We also live in a rural setting. It is easy for us to go several days without speaking with anyone other than each other. We’re not hermits. We have children, grandchildren, and close friends who we see often. We volunteer in nearby communities and attend a local exercise class where we met our new friends.
It was good to spend an evening with some genuinely nice people who we knew nothing about. We shared our story and listened with interest to theirs. We are all at a point in our lives where there are more milestones behind us than ahead. The stories were much more complete than when we met people in our younger days, and this made them more satisfying to me.
It is one of those gray winter mornings where I can’t tell where the earth ends and the sky begins.
It’s -22Ā° F at our place this morning. That’s the coldest we can remember.
We went to a production of “A Christmas Story” by the Lewiston (Idaho) Civic Theater. The music, choreography, and acting were excellent.
Finished listening to: Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison. This is a well-written and performed urban fantasy. šš
Finished reading: My Man Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse. This is a classic collection of short stories. Every one of them made me smile. š
We received the holiday catalog from the Vermont Country Store. I don’t think there was anything in it that wouldn’t have been there 50 years ago.
I rescued a young hawk that accidentally flew in the door of my workshop this afternoon and couldn’t figure out how to leave. Fortunately, I was wearing gloves, and it let me pick it up. I released it outside apparently unharmed. It’s hard to say, but I would guess it was a sharp-shinned or goshawk.
As I was doing the morning chores I had the full moon setting in one direction,
and sunrise in the opposite direction.
It looks like lawn mowing season is over.
A peaceful scene out our front window this morning.
A pair of nighttime plum aficionados in our orchard.
Nice sunset tonight.
Gopher vs. human. The eternal contest.
RSV and covid vaccines are in my arm. The covid vaccine effects were much milder than the previous 4 boosters. Now for the flu shot next week and I’ll be ready for winter.