Sunsets, Stars, West, Wind
Five 11s
Eleven 5s
A half century and a half decade.
Two score plus a half score plus a quarter score years.
I can’t and never could drive fifty-five.
I was almost five when Apollo 11 landed on the moon.
Disappointed a woman hasn’t walked there yet.
I am starting to experience the opposite of time dilation.
Thanks to everyone who wished me well on my natal day.
And I’m back after a months-long blog writing hiatus.
To get my blood flowing and brain juices churning, I’m posting a ‘joke’ my husband sent me via email way back in November 2007 that I’ve been wanting to share (and put some place where I can find it in the future).
For my ‘Let’s clean out the pantry of nearly expired canned goods’ vegetarian (more or less) chili recipe, see my blog post from December 2010 here.
Warning: Stop reading now if you will be offended by some mild profanity and tasteless (pun intended) male commentary (from Judge #3).
Notes from an inexperienced chili taster named Frank, who was visiting Texas from the East Coast:
Recently I was honored to be selected as a judge at a chili cook-off. The original person called in sick at the last moment, and I happened to be standing there at the judge’s table asking directions to the beer wagon when the call came. I was assured by the other judges (Native Texans) that the chili wouldn’t be all that spicy, and besides, they told me I could have free beer during the tasting so I accepted.
The first snow and winter storm of Winter 2019 finally arrive the second Saturday of January. In my experience, that’s a delay of nearly ten days from when we usually have snow or a winter storm or if nothing else bitter cold below zero temperatures and wind chills. The snow we received was wet and heavy, perfect for making a snowman but not so great for my back when I went out to shovel the driveway.
Essays by Various Authors (see highlights below)
First Edition Published: 2001
Read in January 2019
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Excerpt from St. Martin’s Press Synopsis:
In Meditations on Middle-earth, sixteen bestselling fantasy authors share details of their personal relationships with Tolkien’s mythos, for it inspired them all. Had there been no Lord of the Rings, there would also have been no Earthsea books by Ursula K. Le Guin; no Song of Ice and Fire saga from George R. R. Martin; no Tales of Discworld from Terry Pratchett; no Legends of Alvin Maker from Orson Scott Card. Each of them was influenced by the master mythmaker, and now each reveals the nature of that influence and their personal relationships with the greatest fantasy novels ever written in the English language.
If you’ve never read the Tolkien books, read these essays and discover the depth and beauty of his work. If you are a fan of The Lord of the Rings, the candid comments of these modern mythmakers will give you new insight into the subtlety, power, and majesty of Tolkien’s tales and how he told them.
Meditations on Middle-Earth is a 2002 Hugo Award Nominee for Best Related Work.
If you read only one or two of these essays, I highly recommend Michael Swanwick’s “A Changeling Returns” and Donald A. Anderson’s “Tolkien After All These Years” – both of which brought tears to my eyes for very different reasons. The latter also added to my TBR by referencing many non-fiction titles not yet gracing my shelves.
“What he [Sean] heard was the same book I had discovered that sleepless night . . . the single best adventure story every written. As an adult, however, I found that during my long absence it had transformed itself into something else entirely. It was now the saddest book in the world.”
Michael Swanwick, “A Changeling Returns” p. 35
“From experience, Tolkien knew that there are only two possible responses to the ending of an age. You can try to hold on, or you can let go. … Tolkien’s vision of the combined horrors of the twentieth century ended with hope and forgiveness. This is a book of sad wisdom.”
Michael Swanwick, “A Changeling Returns” p.36-7
Continue reading “Book Review: Meditations on Middle-Earth (4 stars)”
On any given Sunday, you’ll find me awake before sunrise. Old, very old, habits die-hard. I embrace being a morning person. Only causes an issue when I want to toast in the new year since I generally turn into a pumpkin around nine o’clock. Today was no different from any other weekend.
Yesterday was Twelfth Night, the official end to the Christmas season. When Dickens was a youth, Twelfth Night was ‘THE’ biggest day of the winter holiday in England. Between his Christmas Carol and Prince Albert’s importation of German Christmas traditions (namely the Christmas tree), Twelfth Night began to fade out of fashion during Dickens and Queen Victoria’s lifetimes.
I did not stay up late celebrating or hosting a Twelfth Night party. I had servers to upgrade and test bright and early on January 6th, also known as Epiphany.
I woke up before my alarm (I almost always do this; my alarm only woke me up once in the last six months) and got logged in and ready to upgrade a server. It went much smoother than the last time I tried, right before Christmas, and I was done within 20 minutes (leaving an hour forty minutes of my maintenance window unused). Server patch testing took another fifteen minutes so I was done ‘working’ before seven o’clock, still before sunrise.
Most Saturdays you can find me hanging out at my local library over the lunch hour. While it’s true I do devour books, I curb my appetite so that my favorite hard-working librarians can grab a bite to eat and catch up on their reading. I’ve been volunteering for four or five years now and I look forward to those two or three hours spent helping patrons find their next great book or movie.
Today, within five minutes of getting started at the circulation desk for the first half of my shift, a mother and a cute girl with a rainbow of flowers in her hair arrived to collect her gift basket. The girl had won one the baking basket, one of eight gift baskets donated as prizes for the winter reading program. I overheard one of the librarians mention that collectively adults and children read over two thousand books this winter. I only contributed twenty-two to that total.
My January is fully stocked with reading, book clubs and even a lecture (on a book of course). Tomorrow, I start listening to the audiobook of A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles to discuss next Thursday, the 10th, at my local library here in Lansing. It’s going to be tight to get it finished before then since the unabridged edition is fourteen CDs long. That’s normally twelve daily commutes so I’m going to have to double-up on lunch listening and while on the elliptical.
To see what else we’re reading and discussing in 2019, please download our 2019 wall calendar here. You can also find the book covers in the right-hand pane of this blog under “Lansing Community Library Adult Book Group.”
Memoirs of an Imaginary Friday by Matthew Dicks
Between the Lines ~ First Fridays at noon ~ Westport Branch of KCPL
Citizen Science by Caren Cooper
Strangr Than Fiction ~ 7 pm Tuesday the 15th ~ Plaza Branch of KCPL
Best Book(s) read in 2018: The Murderbot Diaries (all of them) by Martha Wells
Best Short Fiction: The Martian Obelisk by Linda Nagata
Best Tome: Islandia by Austin Tappan Wright
Best Tolkien* Book: The Fall of Gondolin
Best Non-Fiction: Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss
I read one hundred and four (104) books of varying length in 2018. The longest book award goes to Brandon Sanderson’s Oathbringer (1,248 pages) but at least it was an ebook. The second longest book was only available in print and, at 1,013 pages, Islandia by Wright was heavy reading. Continue reading “My Reading Recap for 2018”
I once aspired to be a poet. During my teens, I filled journals and notebooks with clumsy rhymes, attempting to paint with words and emotions. But by twenty, all my misty dreams of meter and rhyme faded before the rush of life’s dawn. I can’t remember the last time I wrote something creative. Even this blog is just a non-fiction autobiographical day-in-the-life outpouring, for the most part.
My poetic wellspring may have run dry or perhaps my muse is MIA; regardless, I still appreciate a well written verse or stanza. I was reminded of this when I joined the local chapter of the Tolkien Society. We have read Unfinished Tales in the last year as well as The Story of Kullervo and The Children of Húrin, which I listened to the audiobook narrated by the late Christopher Lee (highly recommended). I scoured local second-hand book stores and found paperback editions for the History of Middle-Earth (it is not currently available in ebook editions) including The Lays of Beleriand. I listened to podcasts and learned about alliterative verse, which is best appreciated when read aloud (as is true of most poetry).
1918 … at “the eleventh hour on the 11th day of the 11th month,” an eerie stillness fell across the battlefields of Europe.
Armistice Day, officially recognized by President Wilson in 1919, is still observed throughout the world with many stopping for a moment of silence at the 11th hour of this day to honor those who brought about the end of the “Great War.”
In 1954, after the return of veterans from both World War II and the Korean War, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill rededicating Nov. 11 as Veterans Day and encouraged Americans to commit themselves to the cause of peace and to honor America’s veterans for their courage, honor, patriotism and sacrifice.
— Amistice Commemoration, National WWI Museum
