"There is no frigate like a book . . ."

Since 2019 began, I have been reading a lot - and posting very little!  For one thing, I read the entire series of Inspector Gamache books by Louise Penny - all 14 of them! (actually I read the last 6 in 2019 - the first 8 in 2018) I will not review them separately, but I will say that they make a lovely list of books to have at your bedside! (Literally or figuratively!)  Everyone I have recommended them to has loved them - and I have discovered that many, many other people have discovered them without me! A big thank you to Phoebe for persisting in encouraging me to read them!

I picked up Under the Wide and Starry Sky at the Book Rack in the dollar bin.  The woman wrote Loving Frank, a fictionalized bio of Frank Lloyd Wright, and I thought this might be a good way to learn about Robert Louis Stevenson. And it was. But like Loving Frank, it is not great literature, and even drags in places.

 

One of my home/hospital students needs to read this, so I read it too. I didn't think I read it, but passages seemed very familiar - perhaps they have been quotes somewhere. 

It is a compelling piece of holocaust writing - but very spare. Seems like a good place to start - thus it seems appropriate for students.

 

Hannah recommended this - and it is excellent! I would like to see this book become compulsory reading for high school students - everyone needs to know the true story of slavery in America - and this book goes a long way towards achieving such a goal.

 

Found this in the dollar bin too - and thought that maybe short stories would be good for our book group to tackle - and these were enjoyable but not exceptional - and would need to be discussed as a body - thus it wouldn't be a shorter assignment.

There are a good example of female, Southern, regional fiction - in case you cared.

Also read The Word Is Murder by Anthony Horowitz - a pretty good murder mystery, but I am actually a little tired of murder mysteries. The author has written the screenplays for the BBC production Endeavor - which I love!

Also read Unshattered by Carole Decker - about a woman who contracts sepsis after an emergency c-section and loses her lower legs, her left hand and her vision! It is a good read.

So now I'm caught up. 

And I need to choose a book for book group for next month.

And where did January and February go??

Well, if I post nothing else this month - and it's highly likely that it might come to that - we will at least have noted the Ides of March! Originally done way back when - as in when we lived in Butterfield Arms in Salt Lake City in 1973!!

Ronnie Horton's birthday is the Ides of March - and so we decided to celebrate by re-enacting the assassination of Julius Caeser. 

And thus a tradition was born!

 

We used to have an Ides of March party every year - the guest list grew - and shrank - and grew again.

 

Some years it was an extended FHE activity.

 

And there are lots of stories to tell about how kids and grandkids reacted to the activity.  My favorite is the year Dawn came when she and Harry were just engaged.  After we finished, she said, "That was short - I thought it was much longer."

She had assumed we would be doing the whole play!! (We have long had an abridged version we use.) 

I was impressed that she had come willing to do the whole thing!!

 

Soon it got to be too much - for lots of reasons - and so we don't do it anymore.

But we love the memories!

marching forth

There are almost no Terrill birthdays in March - in fact, until Noah married Taylor, who brought along Keesa - for which we are grateful - there were none - but now we do have Keesa to celebrate.

 But we also have Pi Day - and except for the fact that I am committed to losing 20 pounds - mostly for health reasons - I really feel bad about baking a pie to celebrate.  Although for the last several months, when I have made a lemon meringue pie - actually the only kind I make - I have given it away - and contented myself with licking the pan. 

That may again suffice. 

When you retire, the pool of people who celebrate Pi Day shrinks considerably.

 

And the Terrills used to be famous for celebrating the Ides of March -  with a lavish dramatic production - here, here! But we no longer do that either. For lots of reasons - one of the major ones being that it got too big for our house - and I wasn't up for managing a larger venue.

So we content ourselves with fond memories and FB posts with old photos!

 

Not being a teacher usually means I don't think about celebrating St. Patrick's Day either - but I do send cards - of course. And I have a nephew with a birthday that day - and it's on a Sunday this year - so maybe I will wear green - I did buy a fun St. Patrick's day scarf - I can wear that.

 

Arrghh - Jury Duty occurs with maddening frequency - this is in Alhambra though - so maybe won't be too bad. I will let you know. And I do believe in participatory government - so I need to put my money where my mouth is!

 

I have not flown a kite in a gazillion years - perhaps it will be windy.  Perhaps we will think of doing it. Or perhaps not!

 

And it's good to look forward to Easter!

 

And General Conference.

Not too bad after all!

56 years ago at this time!

So, 56 years ago at this time, I was a recent high school grad who was working at Century Records Manufacturing in Saugus, CA.  It was a job - and actually an interesting.  I was the expediter at a plant that manufactured phonograph records. 

LA Unified used to graduate students each semester - and I was a January grad. I had been accepted at BYU, but not until September. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I didn't consider going up mid-year. Probably I couldn't afford to. I had a scholarship but needed housing and eating money.

Some time I ought to blog about my experiences at Century Records - before they had a name for it, I was the victim of sexual harassment - but I didn't even tell anyone - I assumed it was the way life was.

My education wasn't only at school!