Wednesday Hodgepodge - 6/11/24

Joyce provides the questions, we provide the answers and everything is shared here.

1. What is one good thing you often take for granted? 

Drinking water that is fit to drink.  (And gas and electricity come to that).  It's rare that our supply gets disrupted.  I can't even begin to imagine what it's like in a war zone.

2. What's the boldest piece of clothing in your wardrobe? 

Umm have you seen photos of me, actually probably not as I don't enjoy having my picture taken, but you would note that my wardrobe is pretty conservative.  I'm not sure that there is anything in my wardrobe that fits the description "bold"!

3. Do you think common interests or common values are the key to people getting along? Elaborate. 

I think common values are more important.  If you don't agree on the fundamentals it's hard to find middle ground.  Whereas I think it's healthy to have some common interests but also different ones, especially when you're both retired and spend a lot of time together.

4. November 6 is National Nacho Day...do you like nachos? How do you like yours? Do you make them at home or only order out? 

Not a big fan.  Definitely don't make them at home.

5. Have you spent any time in Washington D.C.?  If so what did you think? If not, is that a place you'd like to visit? What do you think about politics as a career choice? 

Yes we spent a few days in Washington DC after my son's wedding in Vermont in 2014.  We did the touristy things but we liked it.

Unfortunately I think there are 2 kinds of politicians.  Those that actually want to represent the people of their local area and try to make a difference.  And if they manage to make their way up the ladder all well and good.  And then there are those who like the idea of power.  I'm glad that none of my kids have made it a career choice but if they decided to in the future I'd back them all the way.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

I'm preparing this on Tuesday evening to a background noise of fireworks.  It turned colder today so I'm glad I'm not out watching a display.  Even on my walk to the library in the later part of the afternoon I felt I needed a hat on as my head felt cold!  And now the clocks have gone back it gets dark so early.  Time to snuggle up under a blanket with a good book I think.

Book Review - Tell me Everything - Elizabeth Strout

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

With her remarkable insight into the human condition and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast of characters—Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and more—as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst, fall in love and yet choose to be apart, and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, “What does anyone’s life mean?”

It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William. Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known—“unrecorded lives,” Olive calls them—reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.

Brimming with empathy and pathos, Tell Me Everything is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers, illuminating the ways in which our relationships keep us afloat. As Lucy says, “Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love.”

I just love the way Strout writes. I can't really identify why, but she just has a way of drawing you into the story, even when there isn't that much of a story. Maybe it's the characters - she really gets inside their heads. Maybe it's the descriptions of the places and the time of year. I find it really hard to pinpoint but I just know I've loved reading her books.

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#SoCS - 2/11/24 - Chill

 If you want to take part in SoCS head here.

Today's prompt is CHILL

For a long time I thought a chill was something you could actually catch.  Like a cold, or even flu.  I was constantly warned about catching a chill if I went out with wet hair or just went out when it was a bit cold without adequate clothing on.

Which is, of course, nonsense when you consider that "chill" in that context would have been referring to the cold "feeling" of the outside or, if like me, you grew up in a house without central heating, also referred to the bathroom, a downstairs room with two external walls and a roof.  It was freezing in there during the winter.  The little electric heat bar around the light did little to warm the room.  In fact when very young I can remember being bathed in a tin tub in front of the gas fire in one of the living rooms which was much more comfortable until I outgrew the tub.

But the possibility of actually catching a chill is even more unlikely than catching a unicorn.  (Don't tell any young children that.) 

Language is a funny thing and still evolving.  Chilling, to older people like me, means cooling something down.  Putting something in ice, or the fridge or just an old fashioned larder. 

To a younger generation* chilling means to relax.  That's what I'm currently doing.  Chilling in front of my laptop composing this post.  Later I might (that's probably a definite) chill with a book or in front of the TV.  I need to conserve my energy as I'm babysitting 2 of my grandkids this evening and they do not know the meaning of the word chill in ANY form!  I might need to chill a glass of Prosecco.

* It seems I'm part of that younger generation as using chill in that context started in the 1960's just after I was born.  I'll take that lol.

Book Review - David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

David Copperfield is the story of a young man's adventures on his journey from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist. Among the gloriously vivid cast of characters he encounters are his tyrannical stepfather, Mr Murdstone; his brilliant, but ultimately unworthy school-friend James Steerforth; his formidable aunt, Betsey Trotwood; the eternally humble, yet treacherous Uriah Heep; frivolous, enchanting Dora Spenlow; and the magnificently impecunious Wilkins Micawber, one of literature's great comic creations. In David Copperfield - the novel he described as his 'favourite child' - Dickens drew revealingly on his own experiences to create one of the most exuberant and enduringly popular works, filled with tragedy and comedy in equal measure. This edition uses the text of the first volume publication of 1850, and includes updated suggestions for further reading, original illustrations by 'Phiz', a revised chronology and expanded notes. In his new introduction, Jeremy Tambling discusses the novel's autobiographical elements, and its central themes of memory and identity.

The only other book I've read by Dickens is A Christmas Carol. Which feels like a walk in the park compared to David Coppperfield. It's a tome of nearly 900 pages. I chose it because it's on the BBC 100 books list I've (very) gradually been working my way through but it also worked for one of the prompts for the 52 books 2024 challenge I'm trying to do this year.

There's no doubt that Dickens was a great writer of his time and I definitely want to have read some classics during my lifetime. My bookshelves are full of crime fiction and chick lit but there are a few classics on there, although not all have been read.

I did enjoy reading Copperfield but Dickens' writing is so flowery, especially during some of the speeches given and the letters written in the book that I did find myself skim reading a little at times. It was interesting to get a view of how the world was at the time and I enjoyed seeing how the story unfolded and then what became of the various characters. Soooo many characters to keep track of. I did start making notes of what happened in each chapter in an effort to keep things clear in my head but gave up halfway through as I was falling behind on my reading schedule - I had given myself a month to read the book and it took me that length of time.

Will I read more books by Dickens? Probably, but not just yet!

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