fauxklore

I will write my 2025 Year in Review in a few days. But, first, let me catch up on what I’ve been doing.

I scurried around to get out of the house for my first trip of the year, which was late on the afternoon of New Year’s Day. I didn’t quite finish everything on my to-do list, alas, so I resolved to just ignore that I’d be returning to even greater chaos than usual. I had no issues getting to DCA. My flight on American up to BOS was delayed about a half hour, which was no big deal since I’d opted to stay at the Logan Airport Hilton that night. In the morning I took the Silver Line to South Station (which is still free from the airport) and got the newish train to New Bedford. I actually had to change trains in East Taunton, but it was just across the platform. When I arrived in New Bedford, I got a Lyft to my hotel. While it was not particularly far, the sidewalks hadn’t been cleared from snow a day or two before and my backpack was heavy.

I stayed Friday night at the New Bedford Harbor Hotel, which is a reasonably short walk to the Whaling Museum. The room was perfectly adequate, though the soundproofing could have been better. I had time for a short nap before walking over to the museum for the opening dinner (which is pricy, but good for meeting people). I found it interesting how many people hadn’t read a lot of literary classics before reading Moby Dick. (If I remember correctly, my gateway drug was Daniel Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year.) Most of the people at my table were from New York, but there was one guy who came all the way from Vancouver. Anyway, the speaker, Dr. Joe Roman of the University of Vermont, talked about the positive impact of various environmental laws on whale populations. Apparently, some countries (e.g. Japan) had expressed concerns that preserving whale populations would diminish the fish populations they relied on for food. His studies (which focused on whale poop) showed that actually the fish populations increased with the whale populations.

The hotel breakfast was pretty mediocre, with no hot food. But it was adequate and I was able to store my backpack overnight. The actual marathon started late in the morning on Saturday, with several people reading Excerpts. The official opening was at noon (8 bells!) with Regie Gibson, poet laureate of Massachusetts proclaiming “Call me Ishmael.”



I had been lucky and won the lottery for a ticket to the Seamen’s Bethel for Father Mapple’s sermon. I’d been in the building before (many years ago), but it was still amazing to see the sermon acted out. And, yes, everybody stood and sang “The Ribs and Terrors in the Whale.”



On my way out, I got a picture of Herman Melville’s pew.



The reading continued up on the third floor of the museum, which was very crowded. I later heard that approximately 3500 people attended some part of the marathon. (This was, by the way, the 30th Moby Dick Marathon in New Bedford. The first one ever was in Mystic, Connecticut, and I do need to get to that one some day.)

I’d also been lucky enough to get a seat in the theatre for Chapter 40, which is done as a play by a local theatre group. The song “Yankee Whalermen” is still stuck in my head.



The reading continued overnight in the theatre. Senator Ed Markey read via video. I had gotten a reading slot (reader #102) off the waiting list. The whole marathon is available on YouTube, but if you just want to hear me read, you can do so in the second (of three) videos starting a little after 2:45.



I listened to more reading for a while after I was done, but I also had to take breaks to obtain coffee. The previous time I’d gone, they sold snacks and drinks all night, but they didn’t this year. They did have coffee and tea available free for a while but ran out. I spent some time chit chatting with other attendees. I went back into the theatre and may have dozed off for a while. (After the marathon was over, I did go back and read the sections I had missed.) Eventually, they did start selling food again and also served free malasadas (Portuguese fried dough) which are really better if eaten still warm.

They shut down the theatre and people went back up to the third floor, but there were also several overflow rooms which were less crowded and, hence, more comfortable. The actor who read the final chapter was very good. The Epilogue is brief and was received with thunderous applause. They gave out bags to the hardy souls who had spent the whole day and night. There was a poster (which I declined, as it would be too awkward to carry home), but also a book of pictures, a bumper sticker, and some stickers.

Overall, this was an excellent weekend. I’d been to the Moby Dick Marathon before (in 2023) and I found this ran even more smoothly, despite the crowds. I still consider the book to be THE Great American Novel and find new things in it every time I read it (or hear it read). This experience is, in particular, a great way to appreciate Melville’s humor. For example, I know many people dread Cetology (the chapter describing whales, which is horribly inaccurate scientifically) but this was an audience that was able to laugh along with it.

I walked back to the hotel and retrieved my bag. I decided it was worth taking a Lyft to Providence to avoid having to either go all the way to Boston and back out by train (which would take over 3 hours) or to wait nearly 5 hours for the direct Peter Pan bus. I’ll write about that part of the trip in a separate post.

Birthday:Moving on to what I did in September and so far in October. First of all was my birthday. I’m now 67.

A Few Things I Did in September: I took two trips which will get their own blog posts. Alas, my needlework group conflicted with one of those trips and with Yom Kippur, so I only made it to one meeting. I saw the movie Guns and Moses (which I already wrote about in my quarterly update on books, movies, and goals) at Tyson’s Corner and browsed an Indian clothing store while I was there.

Dinner With Friends: I went to dinner with friends from Flyertalk at the end of the month. Note to self: the pizza at Fireworks in Clarendon is better than their other menu offerings. The fish sandwich was okay, but fish sandwiches should really come with cole slaw, not potato chips.

High Holidays: I went to High Holiday on-line services at Fabrengen, mostly to save the hassle of dealing with things in the city. I generally try to find some interesting take away every year, particularly for Yom Kippur. This year, my takeaway was this quote from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel at the August 1969 Liturgical Conference in Milwaukee, which was in a footnote in the machzor (prayer book):

Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods. The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision.”

Damn Yankees: I did a bunch of theatre going on one of my trips, but still saw two musicals when I was home. The first of those was Damn Yankees at Arena Stage. I’d talked my friend, Cindy, who was entirely unfamiliar with it, into coming along. While I’d seen the movie version and listened to the original cast recording a gazillion times, I hadn’t seen a live performance of it before. Anyone who knows me at all knows how I feel about a certain pinstriped baseball team (who I was very happy to see lose to Toronto after beating up on my Bosox, but I digress), so it’s no surprise that I love this show. This version was updated, to the early 2000’s and the Source of All Evil in the Universe was playing against Baltimore, not Washington, presumably to make it feasible for the two teams to face each other in the World Series. Anyway, the score has some iconic songs - especially Heart and Whatever Lola Wants, but I think the real highlights of this production were Near to You and A Man Doesn’t Know, both of which I found very moving. I can’t ignore the choreography which was excellent, though I still think the song Who’s Got the Pain? is useless filler. All of the performers were excellent, and I want to particularly note the singing of Quentin Earl Darrington, who plays the aging Joe Boyd, and the dancing of Ana Villafañe as Lola. I should also mention that they had the Orioles mascot come out and lead everyone in Take Me Out to the Ball Game after intermission. But the Orioles don’t actually do that. For some ungodly reason, they sing Thank G-d I’m a Country Boy instead, which is just wrong. Anyway, the show runs through November 9th and you should go see it if you possibly can.

By the way, we had dinner after the show at 54 Noodles Bar, a new Vietnamese restaurant near the Waterfront metro station. The spring rolls and pho were both very good and the service was efficient enough. I’m likely to eat there again in the future.

The Turn of the Screw: The other musical I saw locally was The Turn of the Screw at Creative Cauldron, which has moved to a new location, still in Falls Church. I read the novella it’s based on long ago and remembered it being creepy, but unsatisfying, with the key issue being that there is no resolution as to whether there are actual ghosts or the governess is losing her mind (with the children possibly manipulating her). This version added another twist, as it implies that the boy may have been sexually molested by the valet. (I should note that Cindy did not interpret things that way at all.) I was also unimpressed with the acoustics of the new space. On the plus side, the uncle (whose song I’d Rather Not Know was the best of the evening) was played by local favorite Bobby Smith and it is good to see him back on stage after several months recuperating from a terrible car accident.

October So Far: My book club met this past Wednesday night and talked about The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams. I loved this book, as did most of the other people in the book club, though one person couldn’t get through it. I posed a question that I thought would make for good discussion, namely what books you would put on a list that you think everyone should read. Unfortunately, nobody else took the bait. (For what it’s worth, my top choice would be Alice in Wonderland, which is the best book ever written about pretty much everything.)

Story Swap: The monthly Voices in the Glen story swap was held over zoom tonight. I ran through a story I am planning on telling next weekend at the Washington Folk Festival. The highlight of the evening (in my opinion) was Margaret’s recitation of Christina Rosetti’s Goblin Market.

Shameless Self Promotion: The Washington Folk Festival is next Sunday, October 19th at Glen Echo Park. I’ll be on the Storytelling stage from 3:30 to 4 in the afternoon. My blurb is “Spare Change - Join Miriam Nadel for tales of transformation and metamorphosis from around the world and across time.” There’s also plenty of music and dance. It’s always a good time.

Celebrity Death Watch: BeBe Shopp won the 1948 Miss America pageant. Joan Bennett Kennedy was the first wife of senator Ted Kennedy. Mike Greenwell played left field for the Red Sox from 1985-1996. Tommy Price was the drummer for Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. John Lodge performed with The Moody Blues and wrote the song I’m Just a Singer in a Rock ad Roll Band. Diane Keaton was an actress whose film roles included Annie Hall. Tony Fitzpatrick was a collage artist. Sandy Alomar Sr. played second base, primarily for the California Angels. He also had two sons who were successful baseball players - Sandy Alomar Jr. and Roberto Alomar. D’Angelo was a neo-soul singer-songwriter.

Mel Taub created the Puns and Anagrams puzzle in The New York Times. This is not quite as complex as a typical cryptic crossword is. But, as a person who loves puns (and, as far as I am concerned, the more atrocious the better), they were always fun to solve.

Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt was the chaplain for the basketball team at Loyola University in Chicago. She was the subject of numerous newspaper articles about being a superfan and even became the subject of a bobblehead. She was on my ghoul pool list and earned me 24 points, which includes the 12 point uniqueness bonus. I was, frankly, surprised that nobody else had her on their list, since she was 106 years old.

I had some irritating travel experiences in August, which I’ll get to shortly. Other than that, I had a couple of meetings of my on-line crafting group, where I continued working on my Tunisian crochet afghan. I also had my long-standing book club, where we discussed The Wedding People by Alison Espach. And I had a follow-up Physical Therapy appointment, where I got promoted to a stronger resistance band and told that I don’t need to come back.

The first weekend of the month was Geostock, a big party that my friends in Superior, Colorado throw approximately annually. It’s named that after our host, whose username is Geo on the MUD we met on umpty-ump years ago. He and his wife, Momerath, are excellent hosts and, aside from on-line friends, they bring in colleagues (current and past) and neighbors and so on. The festivities start Friday night, so I had planned a morning flight so I would have time to do something touristy and check into my hotel before going over to their house.

Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and Miriam. United did notify me early in the morning of a two and a half hour departure delay, which I assumed was related to the thunderstorms the previous day. At least it meant I could get a little more sleep. I took the metro to IAD and got lunch at the Turkish Air lounge before going to the gate. But then came an additional 4 hour delay. To make a long story short, the flight (which was supposed to leave at 8:50 a.m. left about 6 p.m. They announced on-board that the delay had been related to TSA at LAX being closed when the aircraft arrived there so the flight crew couldn’t get to the plane and they had to get another plane from SFO. I did get compensation (a credit for a future flight) and the email for that said it was a mechanical delay, so who knows? Anyway, we eventually arrived 9 1/2 hours late. It took me about an hour to pick up my rental car (which is, alas, par for the course in Denver) and road work made the drive slower than normal. But I got to my hotel safely and collapsed.

In the morning, I got breakfast at the Walnut Cafe (a long-time favorite of mine, with excellent blueberry corn bread). I spent part of the morning reading and relaxing. In the afternoon, I went over to Lafayette to get together with a college friend for coffee (well, actually tea) at a cafe in Lafayette. We had 45 years to catch up on! If only I’d known she was in Boulder years ago, since I used to go there on business trips more or less weekly.

I did make it over to the party in the late afternoon. It was great seeing people who I don’t see regularly, some of whom I’ve known since somewhere around the mid-1980’s. There is something wrong with the rotation and revolution of the earth, based on the ages of so many people (and especially friends’ children. How do babies turn into actual human beings?) Anyway, there was the usual mix of good food and interesting conversation. A particular highlight was seeing our hosts’ son show off the euphonium he plays in his school’s marching band. (He plays the slide trombone as well. But that’s not suitable for a band that doesn’t just march in a straight line where you can put the trombones at the front to keep them from killing other musicians. I hadn’t thought about that before and I now find the song “Seventy-six Trombones” from The Music Man vaguely disturbing.)

I also learned that my friend, Marcia and her husband, who have lived in Colorado for a long time (first in Colorado Springs and more recently in Denver) finally got too tired of dealing with snow and are moving to Phoenix. I first met her at a Usenet party in Portland, Oregon and we used to get together in San Francisco frequently to go power shopping.

We used to always go to Le Peep in Boulder for brunch on Sunday morning, but they had the audacity to close. We had made plans for another place, which turned out to be temporarily closed due to flooding. We ended up at Tangerine in Lafayette, which was very nice once I managed to find parking. I got a special that included a delicious omelet with a peach and chili pepper jam.

My flight home went more smoothly. We actually landed at IAD 20 minutes early, but we had to wait 33 minutes for a gate. At least I had five days at home to recover.

I’ll get back to the catch-up soon, but quarterly posts should be more timely, so here goes one.

Books:

Only 7 books this quarter, alas.

1. Agatha Christie, The Man in the Brown Suit. I’d read this long ago but reread it for my travel book club. The plot involves a young woman who sets out to solve a mystery that starts in London and takes her to Southern Africa. It’s as much a romance as a mystery and does have a bit more “had I but known …” than I’d prefer, but it was still entertaining. It’s also the first appearance of one of Christie’s lesser known recurring characters, Colonel Race.
   
   
2. Jasper Fforde, Early Riser. Set in a future where people hibernate through the winter (so, sort of like my condo), a young man is recruited to be a Winter Consul, watching over the sleepers. He is specifically charged with investigating an outbreak of viral dreams involving a blue Buick, but there are other nefarious goings on. I wanted to like this book but it didn’t quite work for me. I think the problem was that there were a lot of cultural references, mostly to Welsh things, that I missed. I did, however, really like some of the folklore Fforde created for this. For example, there’s a creature called the Gronk who likes to fold clothes and listen to Rodgers and Hammerstein songs.
   
   
3. Talia Carner, The Third Daughter. I read this for my long-running book club. The story involves a teenage girl who is trafficked to Buenos Aires under the guise of marrying a wealthy Jewish man. Instead, she spends five years in a brothel, where she learns about Tzvi Migdal, the pimps’ union, and gets involved in Baron de Hirsh’s organization which is trying to bring them down. It’s clear that Carner did a lot of research and the result is a satisfying (but disturbing) story.
   
   
4. Marcia Cohen Ferris, Matzoh Ball Gumbo. This book covers the history of Jewish life in Charleston / Savannah, New Orleans, Atlanta, the Mississippi Delta, and Memphis, with an emphasis on food. That includes a lot of non-kosher food, though there are discussions of kosher shops and delis and caterers. There’s also a lot of interesting material about the relationships between African-American cooks and the Jewish families they worked for. I had no desire to make any of the recipes included, but the book was worth a read, particularly for people who (like me) have a lot of Southern Jews in their family trees.
   
   
5. Giles Milton, Nathaniel’s Nutmeg. This is an interesting account of the economic battle between the Dutch East India Company and the Brtish crown over the island of Run. Nathaniel Courthope played only a minor role in this, but I guess alliteration helps marketability. The end result of the spice wars was Holland getting Run, essentially leading to controlling the Spice Islands, and the British getting an insignificant island named Manhattan in exchange. I thought this was a really interesting book and I think the members of my travel book club enjoyed discussing it.
   
   
6. Bill Bryson, The Road to Little Dribbling. Written in 2015, Bryson set out to revisit some places he had written about in Notes from a Small Island, as well as explore other parts of Great Britain. It’s very funny much of the time and often enlightening as Bryson records trivia about the some of the places he visits. Thoroughly delightful.
   
   
7. Sam Haines, 100 Curses on Trump and Musk. Sam Haines is a pseudonym used by Martin Berman-Gorvine for his humorous writing. This is a collection of Jewish curses (all in English, with many translated into Yiddish.) Many of them are just adaptations of familiar curses, e.g. “He should turn into a chandelier, to hang all day and burn all night.” My favorite was “May he turn into a centipede with ingrown toenails.” Mildly humorous, but overall this should have been much funnier.
   
   

Movies:

I saw two movies in theatres and 3 on airplanes this quarter.

1. The Penguin Lessons: This movie is based on Tom Michell’s member about his experiences teaching in Argentina during the 1976 coup. He rescued a penguin from an oil slick in Uruguay and brought it back to the school, where it helped Michell overcome his disillusionment with the school. There’s also the political situation in Argentina at the time to deal with. While it was advertised as a comedy, it won’t feel like one to anyone who knows anything about the history of Argentina. I recommend it, but bring plenty of tissues.
   
   
2. Eephus: I admit to being shallow. I went to see this movie entirely because of my boundless love for Bill “Spaceman” Lee, whose participation in it was heavily advertised. The expectations that were raised were, alas, unmet. In short, they gave the Spaceman pretty much nothing to do. He shows up mysteriously, pitches one inning, and disappears just as mysteriously. The movie is really about the friendships between men as seen in a final game before a ballpark in a small New England town is going to be demolished to make room for a new school. If you go in with that in mind, the movie isn’t terrible. But I was there for the Spaceman and I wanted more than 3 minutes of him.
   
   
3. A Complete Unknown: I had intended to see this in a movie theatre but never got around to it. So it was a natural choice to watch on my flight to Athens in June. It was reasonably interesting, but, sheesh, I didn’t realize Bob Dylan was such an asshole.
   
   
4. Conclave: I watched this on my flight back from Greece and found it very interesting. It was, of course, timely given the recent papal conclave. I found the political aspects very interesting. I also thought it was particularly well acted, which is hardly surprising with Ralph Fiennes in one of the starring roles. I did, however, find one aspect of the ending pretty unconvincing.
   
   
5. The Persian Version: I had some more time on my flight back from Greece and was getting a bit tired of reading. I’m not entirely sure why I chose to watch this semi-autobiographical film by Maryam Keshavaraz. It’s pretty weird. The main character, Leila, is a lesbian who ended up getting pregnant from a one night stand with her gay male friend. This leads her to try to reconcile with her mother and along the way she learns her mother’s story. There’s a lot going on and it’s sometimes hard to follow, but it does have funny moments and I liked the music, which includes a Persian version of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”
   

Goals:

My plans for a westward circumnavigation are progressing, but I haven’t booked anything yet.

I have tickets for 2 minor league baseball games.

I am about 2/3 of the way along on one crafts project.

I’ve read 18 books, so I am behind on my attempt to get to 80.

I still need to find the box with my parents’ slides.

I did find the last version of my life list so I should be able to update it soon.

My efforts to learn to read Hangul are progressing very slowly.

I’ve not really made any progress on organizing my genealogy files. Nor have I really done anything about going to any national parks. I had good intentions regarding cassette tapes but didn’t get further than taking out two to listen to before deciding on their fate.

In short, I’m behind, but, hey, I’ve been busy.

I am fairly sure this is the latest I have ever done a year in review. Let’s just say that I’ve been crazy busy. Anyway, here we go in the same format I’ve used for several years now.

The worst thing that happened in 2024 was the whole fiasco with the HVAC leak in late June / early July. Which turned out to be due to a blockage from a line in a unit above mine, so didn’t involve as much money as it might have, but it was still very stressful.

Beyond that, there was also some medical stuff. Having cataract surgery was actually a really good thing. It was quite miraculous the morning after the first eye was done when I could read titles of books across the bedroom without putting on my glasses. (The second eye also went well, but that was a less dramatic change.) The knee issues that I had later in the year were also a big deal. Let’s just say I have good days and I have bad days. Getting old sucks.


Books: I read only 36 books in 2024, which is pathetically few for me. That was 14 non-fiction books and 22 fiction books. Favorites were Sleeping With the Fishes by Mary Janice Davidson, Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, Sounds Like Titanic by Jessica Chiccehotto Hindman, Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, and a couple of Dick Francis mysteries. The worst book I read during the year was The Naked Face by Sidney Sheldon, a suspense novel full of racism and homophobia.

I didn’t manage any used bookstore runs over the year, though I did give away 4 books. I have at least 60 waiting to go out.

I belonged to three book clubs, one of which has disbanded.

As for book-related events, I went to the Moby Dick Marathon in San Francisco in October and even read one chapter (Chapter 8, The Pulpit).

Ghoul Pool: I finished 6th out of 14 players with a final score of 117 points. People I scored on were Jimmy Carter, Daniel J. Evans (unique), Shannon Doherty, Janis Paige, Jean Malaurie (unique), Bud Harrelson (unique), and Faith Ringgold (unique).

Travel: My only international trip of the year was to Portugal (Porto and Lisbon) and the Azores in May / June. But I had plenty of domestic travel. I went to New York City in late January / early February. Then to Salt Lake City in late February / early March for Roots Tech. The total solar eclipse took me to Bruceville, Texas (near Dallas) in April, including an Israeli dance camp. Also in April, I had an overnight trip to Richmond for the Virginia Storytelling Alliance gathering. In May I went to Colorado for RhinoStock (a memorial for a friend) and also had a quick trip to Indianapolis to go to a baseball game, which unfortunately got rained out. I flew back to Dallas in July for the National Puzzlers League con, adding on a train trip to Oklahoma City to go to a baseball game. In August, I went to a Jewish genealogy convention in Philadelphia, and added in a couple of days in New York City for Lollapuzzoola (and theatre going, of course). And in October, I made a quick trip to San Francisco for their Moby Dick Marathon.

Genealogy: I’ve continued mentoring members of my local Jewish genealogy society on Lithuanian Jewish genealogy. As I’ve probably mentioned before, when I was starting to do genealogy research, other people helped me, so I feel happy to be able to help other people.

In February, I went to Roots Tech, which is a large genealogy conference held annually in Salt Lake City. The most interesting thing there was the presentation on using DNA from an old envelope - amazing, but not ready for the general public yet. I also went to the IAJGS convention in Philadelphia in August, at which I finally got to meet a cousin in person, as well as doing some volunteering.

Baseball: As I mentioned above, I had a failed attempt to go to a minor league game in Indianapolis (damn rain!) but a more successful game experience in Oklahoma City in July.

Culture: I went to 10 musicals and one non-musical play. My favorites for the year were Tick … Tick .. Boom at the Kennedy Center, Harmony on Broadway, Soft Power at Signature Theatre, and Suffs on Broadway.

I saw 7 movies in theaters and two on airplanes. Favorites were Next Goal Wins, Shari and Lamb Chop, and My Penguin Friend.

Storytelling: I performed in a Better Said Than Done show in February and emceed at the Women’s Storytelling Festival in March. I told a story at the Artists Standing Strong Together New Year’s Eve storytelling show. I went to several local story swaps (some in person, some over zoom), as well as zoom story swaps in Los Angeles and in Ottawa, Canada. I saw a friend’s storytelling show as part of Artomatic. And I participated in several discussions of Grimm fairy tales.

Museums and Art: I went to an exhibit of Dorothea Lange’s photos at the National Gallery of Art with a friend (and looked at some other art in the museum afterwards). I saw a Judy Chicago retrospective at the New Museum in New York City. I went to much of Artomatic. And I went to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas and the American Banjo Museum in Oklahoma City.

During my trip to Portugal, I went to a stained glass museum in Porto, the Museo Nacional de Azulejo (National Tile Museum) and Oceanario (aquarium) in Lisbon, and the Museum of Myths and Legends in Sintra.

Other Stuff:

I participated in Lollapuzzoola (a crossword contest) in August. I played board games, sometimes with the National Puzzlers’ League, sometimes with people I know from the loser community. I also went to other loser events, including a few parties and a couple of brunches.

I went to Kochavim, an Israeli folk dance weekend (in association with the eclipse).

I did a tour of M&S Schmalburg’s fabric flower factory (via the New York Adventure Club).

I attended a few lectures in the Leading Jewish Minds at MIT series (over zoom). And I went to a reception for MIT president Sally Kornbluth.

I’ve probably forgotten something or other among this, but it was a weird and stressful year. And I think that compared to normal people, I still did a lot of things.

Goals: So how did I do on my 2024 goals? Frankly, not very well. I did not circumnavigate the globe going westward, though I did map out about half of a general plan for doing it, so I’ll give myself a 5% on that goal. I didn’t make it to any national parks. I also did nothing about cleaning out my saved files of genealogy emails. I read 37 books out of my goal of 80, so I get only 45% there. I did make some progress on organizing my bedroom, but I don’t have a good metric for that. I’ll estimate that I accomplished about 50%. I finished just about 2/3 of one afghan (out of a goal to finish 3 afghans) so I’ll give myself 22% on that goal. I still haven’t found my parents’ slides. I made it to one AAA ballpark (Oklahoma City), and had an attempt at going to a game in Indianapolis, which got rained out. So I’lll get 25% on my goal of 4 AAA ballparks. I did fairly well on exercise the first part of the year, but my knee injury meant that I did very little from August on, so I’ll give myself a 60%.

So, overall, I’ll give myself a rather pathetic 23% for the year.

Which brings me to goals for 2025:

• Circumnavigate the globe going westward. I think I have a plan for somewhere in the October / November time frame.
  
  
• Go to at least 4 minor league baseball games.
  
  
• Finish 4 crafts projects.
  
  
• Read 80 books, with a stretch goal of 100.
  
  
• Finish going through my parents’ photographs and slides.
  
  
• Revisit / update my life list.
  
  
• Organize genealogy files.
  
  
• Go to at least 3 national parks.
  
  
• Learn to read Hangul (Korean writing system).
  
  
• Sort through cassette tapes.
  
  

Errands: I have been been absurdly distracted on all attempts to get caught up on things here. The first half of August was just errands, with dealing with things like updating insurance (because the company I had used for years decided to pull out of Virginia) and trying to make some plans for where to focus some decluttering efforts. It doesn’t help that a couple of friends call me to chat when they are trying to procrastinate on doing their housework.

Local Theatre Going - Nine: The only halfway interesting thing I accomplished in the first half of August was seeing Nine (the Maury Yeston musical) at the Kennedy Center as part of the Broadway Center Stage series, which is a scaled down minimally staged series. I like the score for the most part, though there are some songs that annoy me. (Fortunately, one of the ones I really dislike, “The Germans at the Spa,” was omitted altogether. And my favorite song from the show, “My Husband Makes Movies,” was done well.) The two most interesting things to note were that: 1) nearly every time I go to the Kennedy Center, I run into somebody I know. In this case, there were 5 women from my Chavurah there. And, 2: I had decided to go last minute and got a rush ticket at the box office for $38.50 for a center orchestra seat, which was a great deal given that the list price was over $100.

Book Club: Oh, wait, I did also have a Crones & Tomes book club meeting. We discussed Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. I think I had an advantage reading it since I’m familiar with Appalachian Virginia and a late friend was Melungeon so I felt like I knew more about the cultural milieu than some of the other people in the group. On the other hand, I’ve never read David Copperfield (and I am not really big on Dickens.) Overall, I found it interesting, but it was too long and my wrists hurt getting through it.

IAJGS Conference: Later in August, I took the train up to Philadelphia to go to the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies conference. This was supposed to start with going to a baseball game (Phillies vs. Nationals) but I had a stupid accident. The conference was at the Sheraton, but I had decided to spend Saturday night at the Marriott, which was a bit cheaper. I got out of a taxi, grabbed my backpack and was putting it on, when I somehow stepped backwards onto the curb and tripped and fell, injuring my back. This was very painful. It was also not helped by an alarm going off at the hotel at 12:30 a.m., though that proved to be nothing major (aside from sleep deprivation). Anyway, I moved to the Sheraton in the morning, which was more convenient for the actual conference sessions. I didn’t think
I was badly injured, so I managed to limp through the conference.

As for the conference itself, here’s a brief list of presentations I went to:

Monday


• The Mess of New York City Vital Records - I was already pretty familiar with the work that Reclaim the Records has been doing, but this was interesting.
  
  
• Researching Small Landsmanshaftn Synagogues - this should have been interesting, but there wasn’t really enough detail.
  
  
• JRI-Poland Luncheon / JRI-Poland Annual Meeting. The luncheon talk by Andrew Carroll about his activities collecting war letters was particularly intriguing, though not especially relevant for me. I also liked that they’d seated people by what part of Poland their families were from, so I could chat with other people who had roots in Lomza Guberniya.
  
  
• BOF: Vinius District Research Group - good general discussion
  
  
• Landscape of Dreams: Jewish Genealogy in Canada - I’m still trying to figure out some details on how my great-uncle got to Canada (and then on to crossing the border to Buffalo).
  
  
• JewishGen Annual Meeting - mostly various awards. I was pleased to see that they named a new award series after Dick Plotz (who was a friend from both the puzzle world and the genealogy world).
  
  
• The Ron Arons Game Show Night - Jewpardy! is always a fun activity, but I was exhausted halfway through.
  

Tuesday

I’d planned to go on (and paid for) a morning walking tour, but my back was not in any condition for that, alas.


• The Importance of Memory in Building a Jewish future - Mostly an overview of the holdings at YIVO
  
  
• Litvak SIG Meeting - the annual catch-up of what is new.
  
  
• Holocaust Compensation and the United Restitution Organization - Since I am fairly sure both my father and grandfather got reparations money, I need to spend some time delving into these records
  
  
• Genealogy Death Match - This is another game show, featuring two people competing over whose records go further back. Old people like me are at an obvious disadvantage.
  
  

Wednesday

I had again planned on another walking tour, but was still not up for that. Sigh.


• Entering Eretz Israel: Getting Around Government Limitations - This covered legal possibilities during both the Ottoman Empire and the Britihs Mandate. I was particularly interested in learning about religious grounds for immigration, since I’ve been told my maternal grandfather studied at a yeshiva in Petah Tikva.
  
  
• When Traditional Genealogy and Genetic Genealogy Collide - I think everyone gets frustrated over people who expect either one path or the other to “cousin hunting” to be the be all and end all to solving genealogy mysteries. Unfortunately, this talk didn’t really come to an answer.
  
  
• BOF: Tracing the Tribe - Tracing the Tribe is definitely one of the better Jewish Genealogy groups on Facebook. This was an interesting and amusing talk by one of the moderators of it.
  
  
• Jewish American Life Beyond New York: The Industrial Removal Office, 1901-1917 - Most of this was focused on the East Coast, Midwest, and Great Plains, so was not particularly relevant for me, though there was some discussion of cities like Atlanta (where a large branch of my father’s family settled). There was, alas, not really any discussion of the Pacific Northwest, where my earliest immigrants from Lithuania to America went. Still, there are some sources I should check out.
  
  
• Gala Banquet - Arthur Kurzweil was the banquet speaker. He spoke well enough but didn’t really say anything I didn’t already know.
  
  

Thursday


• Letters Have Wings: Digitizing, Annotating, and Exhibiting Family Letters - I was volunteering as a session manager for this session. This had some good material about how to preserve and document family letters.
  
  
• Jewish Gen Belarus Research Division Meeting / Jewish Gen Belarus Research Division Luncheon - There was some material about the history of Belarus in light of the 1905 Russian revolution, but not a lot on good resources.
  
  
• Mentoring - I spent a couple of hours helping people find some Lithuanian data. I always enjoy doing this, since I benefited a lot from other people helping me when I first started doing genealogy.
  
  

Overall, the conference was reasonably useful though being injured was annoying. I traveled onward to New York on Friday. I will write about that in the next entry.

I also did some things in July. I will spare you details about home repairs and household paperwork.

Fourth of July: Aside from dealing with condo woes, described in a locked entry, I went to a friend’s house for holiday socializing. That incl I uded dinner - and the inevitable smoke alarm going off as the steaks were grilled - and lots of good conversation, as well as sitting out on her balcony to watch fireworks. Lots of fireworks, since Kathleen lives in Crystal City part time for now, though she’s giving up her apartment in October to live full time in her house in South Carolina. You can’t see the DC mall fireworks from her apartment, because part of the building is in the way, but there are a lot of fireworks in Maryland (and some in southern DC) which you can watch. And, of course, there are lots of planes taking off and landing at DCA also. Overall, it was a nice evening, despite my being stressed out over my AC woes.

The Flushies: A few days later was The Flushies, one of the two big Loser parties of the year. (The other is the post-holiday party in January.) There was the typical potluck array, to which my contribution was cheese and crackers (and some leftover hummus) because I was going away right after the party. There was plenty of good conversation, followed by the awards to various people for their accomplishments. Judy Freed won Loser of the Year. Her inkblots included this particularly brilliant take on a bad idea with the book title Self Esteem for Dummies.

Big-D Con: This year’s NPL con was in Dallas. It is worth its own entry, which I will try not to be so bloody slow in writing.

Book Clubs” R.E.A.D. discussed Mad Honey by Jodi Picot and Jennifer Finley Boylan. It was an interesting book with great pacing and, surprisingly, everyone liked it. The Travelers’ Century Club read The Curious Case of William Baekeland by Harry Mitsidis, which has to do with a con man who ripped off a lot of extreme travelers, including TCC members. It was an interesting book, but not particularly well-written, in my opinion.

Speaking of TCC: The book club meeting ended a while before the monthly virtual exploration, which had to do with Fernando de Noronha and the Falklands. I’ve done a fair amount of reading on the latter, but I really knew nothing about the former except for its existence. Bottom line is that it looks very appealing, though it is also expensive and possibly a bit too resorty for my tastes, since I’m not a lie on the beach and do nothing sort of person.

This past weekend was our chapter’s regular lunch meeting. There was plenty of wide-ranging travel conversation. I particularly enjoyed talking with one of the new people, who appears to have similar tastes to mine.

Bad News: My brother had a heart attack. Apparently one artery was 100% blocked, while the other two were 60% blocked. They put in a stent in the blocked one and he goes back to the doctor this week to learn about the way ahead. He said he feels okay and he is home and resting.

Good News: I got some resolution on the household crisis. It turns out that there was a clog in the main drain clog, so it is the condo association’s responsibility to pay for repairs related to it.

Eye Have Really Good News: I had my second cataract surgery last week. It went well. My vision was still blurry the next day when I went in for my follow-up appointment, but cleared up by the next day. Really, these intraocular lenses are quite miraculous. As for the surgery, I remember being more conscious than I was for the first eye, but the only specific thing I remember them doing was cleaning my eyelashes. And there were some purple, green, and yellow blobs, presumably due to the laser dissolving the cataract.

My post-Portugal life has been busy and a bit stressful.

Bionic Miriam, Phase 1: I had cataract surgery on my right eye about two weeks after I got home. My friend, Kathleen, drove me to and from the ambulatory surgery center. I had a bit of a wait while they asked me a lot of questions, often more than once (by different people). I know I was awake, but the only thing I really remember was that I saw Escher-like tessellations against a background of changing colors as the surgeon was using the laser to destroy the cataract. I didn’t feel any significant pain, just a little bit of scratchiness. I spent most of the afternoon and evening sleeping on and off. In the morning, when I took off the eye shield, I was astonished to see clearly out of the operated eye. That is, I could read the titles of books on the top of the stacks on the floor without putting my glasses on. Anyway, the surgeon had left me a voicemail that everything went well and that was confirmed at my follow-up appointment the morning after the surgery.

In the meantime, there are lots of eyedrops and I’m still under restrictions about not lifting anything over 30 lb and not bending over. Fortunately, my friend Kim came over to help me with the laundry, since I wouldn’t have been able to get it from washer to dryer and from dryer to the back of the sofa without bending.

Other Stuff I’ve Done: I had my usual meetings - the monthly Litvak genealogy mentoring session, two Needles and Crafts zoom get-togethers (which includes people working on their projects and book discussions), a Better Said Than Done board meeting to work on casting for next year’s Women’s Storytelling Festival, the monthly Voices in the Glen story swap (at which I told “Ida Black,” a ghost story involving an actual tombstone that I photographed in Maine some years ago), a Grimm Keepers discussion of “One Eye, Two Eyes, and Three Eyes,” and a Loser Brunch at a Mexican restaurant in D.C. Re: the latter, I should note that my preferences for variations of that cuisine in the U.S. is New Mexican (e.g. Santa Fe), California second, and Tex-Mex third, with the mid-Atlantic region about 199th, just above New England. I missed a second Grimm Keepers meeting (re: Snow White) because I badly needed a nap. Oh, there was also a JGSGW meeting with a talk about some complicated immigration situations in the post-World War I era.

I also had a couple of book club meetings. Crones and Tomes discussed Remarkably Bright Creatures which was enjoyable. And the TCC Book Club discussed Blood River: the Terrifying Journey Through the World’s Most Dangerous Country . I’ll write about both of these (and other books in my quarterly update, which should get done in a little over a week.

I had a routine dentist appointment. My dentist retired (largely because of her back problems) and I’m not sure how I feel about her replacement.

Finally, I played board games over zoom at least 4 times. (I might have missed writing one down on my calendar.) Er, yes, I do keep busy.

Still to Write About: Home annoyingness. Travel planning. Why is decluttering so bloody hard? A couple of sets of blog prompts. The quarterly update.

Here’s an attempt at getting all caught up before doing too many things again.

Celebrity Death Watch: Steve Lawrence was a pop singer and actor, best known for his collaboration with his wife, Eydie Gorme (who died in 2013). David E. Harris was the first African-American to be a commercial pilot (for American Airlines). Barbara Hilyer wrote about feminism and disability. Eric Carmen was the lead vocalist of The Raspberries. Bernard Schwartz was the CEO of Loral Space & Communications for 34 years and the largest donor to the Democratic Party from 1992 to 1996. Jim McAndrew pitched for the New York Mets from 1968 through 1973. Angela McCluskey was a Scottish singer, who performed both as a soloist and as part of The Wild Colonials. Air Force General Howell Estes III served as the commander of NORAD and the U.S. Space Command from 1996 to 1998. James D. Robinson III was the CEO of American Express for 16 years. Thomas P. Stafford was a Gemini and Apollo astronaut and one of the 24 astronauts who flew to the moon. Vernor Vinge was a science fiction author. Barry Silver was a lawyer, politician, rabbi, and abortion rights activist. Mike Thaler wrote and illustrated roughly 200 children’s books and was best known for his 37 books of riddles. George Abbey directed NASA’s Johnson Space Center from 1996 - 2001. Gerry Conway was a drummer for a number of bands, as well as a member of Pentangle and of Fairport Convention. Lou Gusset Jr. was an actor, probably best known for his role in An Officer and a Gentleman. Barbara Rush was an actress, best known for It Came From Outer Space and the television series Peyton Place.

Christopher Durang was a playwright, best known for Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You and Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. John Barth wrote post-modern fiction, notably Giles Goat-Boy. Lynn Reid Banks wrote the children’s book The Indian in the Cupboard. Lori and George Schappell were the first set of conjoined twins to identify as different genders. Clarence “Frogman” Henry was an R&B singer. Ken Holtzman pitched for the Chicago Cubs, including pitching two no-hitters. Ben Eldridge was a banjo player and a founding member of The Seldom Scene. Bob Graham was a U.S. Senator from Florida from 1987-2005 and had been the governor of Florida prior to that. Carl Erskine played for the Dodgers in both Brooklyn and Los Angeles and was the last surviving member of the “Boys of Summer” of the 1950’s. Dickey Betts was a guitarist and a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band. Roman Gabriel played football for the L.A. Rams. Terry Anderson was a journalist, who was best known for being held hostage by Hezbollah for 6 years. Mike Pinder was a founding member and original keyboardist of The Moody Blues. Paul Auster was a prolific writer, who had over a dozen novels published and edited NPR’s National Story Project.

Laurent de Brunhoff wrote approximately 50 books in the Babar the elephant series, which had been created by his father, Jean de Brunhoff. He also wrote children’s books about other characters of his own creation.

Peter Angelos was the majority owner of the Baltimore Orioles from 1993 until his death in March. He strongly opposed the move of the Montreal Expos to Washington, D.C., which I’ve never forgiven him for.

Richard Serra was an artist, known primarily for large-scale abstract sculptures.

Daniel Kahneman was a psychologist and behavioral economist and won a Nobel prize for his work in the latter field. His book, Thinking Fast and Slow was an influential best seller.

Joe Lieberman was a U.S. senator from Connecticut and Al Gore’s running mate in the 2000 Presidential election. His biggest political mistake, in my opinion, was his opposition to including a public option in the Affordable Care Act. I will note, however, that the influence of the insurance industry in Connecticut was probably the primary driver for that.

Larry Lucchino was a baseball executive for the Baltimore Orioles, San Diego Padres, and (most importantly, of course) the Boston Red Sox. He led the Orioles to one World Series championship and the Red Sox to three. He also played a major role in the construction of both Camden Yards and Petco Park, as well as initiating the renovation of Fenway Park.

Jerry Grote was a catcher for the Mets from 1966 - 1977. Notably, that includes 1969.

Peter Higgs was a physicist and got a boson named after himself. He also got a Nobel prize.

O. J. Simpson was a football player and got away with murder. But you didn’t need me to tell you that. Interestingly, Frank Olson, who cast O.J. in several Hertz commercials, died just a few days after he did.

Trina Robbins was a comic book artist and wrote extensively about women in comics.

Robert MacNeil was a journalist and television news anchor. He was best known for his public television collaboration with Jim Lehrer.

Faith Ringgold was one of my favorite artists and I feel privileged to have been able to see a couple of retrospectives of her work. I particularly liked her story quilts, such as The French Collection. She was on my ghoul pool list and earned me 13 points.

Whitey Herzog managed the Saint Louis Cardinals throughout the 1980’s.

Alex Hasilev was one of the founding members of The Limeliters. Their records were on frequent rotation in our house when I was growing up.

Non-celebrity Death Watch: Dick Plotz, whose NPL nom was Geneal, died in early March. In addition to being a puzzle constructor and having organized the NPL con in Providence, he was very involved in Jewish genealogy and offered me some helpful tips when I started my own research.

I knew Ed Gordon from Loserdom. He was part of the group that I play Code Names with frequently. And he attended Loserfests in both Niagara Falls and Philadelphia. He was also a Scrabble player and active in Mensa. I’m glad he was able to take a 20 day cruise and see the eclipse shortly before his death.

Nancy Schuster was a crossword constructor, editor, and tester. She competed in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament from its very beginning and, in fact, won the first ACPT. She also served as a mentor to a number of other puzzle people.

Leading Jewish Minds at MIT: Barry Posen gave a talk about Israel’s Response to October 7th. He attempted to summarize the range of choices in how to respond. Unfortunately, he essentially summarized the possible responses as bargaining vs. annihilation, which is a misleading choice of terms in my opinion. Most of the history between Israel and Hamas (between 2008 and 2021) was based on bargaining after some precipitating event. The result was something of an equilibrium, largely because nobody saw any acceptable alternative. The problem is that there is less and less reason to trust Hamas. A counter-terrorism strategy, which essentially means killing Hamas leadership, is complicated by the urban nature of Gaza. The other aspect is what political outcome is desirable. That essentially leads to a goal of destroying Hamas as a military entity, which is what he said he meant by annihilation but most people would not characterize it that way. Overall, I was left primarily with despair.

Book Clubs: I missed the Travelers’ Century Club book club meeting this month, since I was at the VASA Gathering. But I made it to both other book clubs. Crones & Tomes discussed Where the Crawdads Sing, which I thought was an enjoyable enough read, though I wasn’t convinced by the last third or so of it. (I had seen the movie previously, by the way, and thought it was pretty true to the book.)

READ had a discussion of Sounds Like Titanic, which I thought was brilliant. This is a memoir about working for an ensemble that is essentially faking their performances while a CD plays in the background. I think it does help to have some background in music. And a little knowledge of geography wouldn’t hurt. (One person thought that her family moving to Virginia meant that they left Appalachia!) I’m a little more sympathetic to the person who thought the author was whiny, but not to the person who didn’t understand why she took the job, apparently having failed to grasp that she needed money to pay for college. Anyway, it was definitely compatible with my sense of humor. How could I not love her description of her job as “Milli Violini”?

VASA Gathering: As I mentioned above, I went down to Richmond for the Virginia Storytelling Association Gathering. Thanks to Jessica for driving and Jennifer for coming along. We stopped in Careytown for dinner at a Thai restaurant and then headed to the hotel for the gathering. The Best Western was in a heavily industrial area, across from the Philip Morris plant and, while the room was okay, it was pretty basic and much of the staff was not particularly amiable.

Anyway, Friday night featured a story swap. There was enough time for everyone who wanted to tell and there was a wide mix of stories. I told a story from Afghanistan about an illiterate lion, which went over well. Some of us went to the bar to chat for a while. Maybe it’s a matter of being old, but how do people not have a go-to drink that they always order at a bar? (For what it’s worth, I’m a gin and tonic gal.)

My biggest annoyance with the hotel was that breakfast wasn’t included and the yogurt parfait and English muffin I got were overpriced. And they were slow to refill the coffee in the lobby.

The morning started with an inspirational talk by Clinton Atwater. That was followed by a talk by Jessica Robinson about the business aspects of storytelling, which covered a lot of ground and had a lot of lively discussion. Lunch was included with registration and the pasta they served was pretty good, as was the tiramisu for dessert. After the VASA business meeting, we returned to the meeting room for a workshop with Loren Niemi, who focused on reimagining how we tell traditional stories. That was interesting (and gave me a few ideas) but he needed a lot more time than he had. Finally, there was a story swap, including feedback, which also needed far more time.

Overall it was worth going to. Of course, the real highlight was getting to see some people who I don’t see very often. (And meeting some new people.) Anyway, the traffic coming back wasn’t too terrible andI got home at a reasonable hour.

A Few Story Swaps: Right after getting back from the VASA gathering, I went to the monthly Voices in the Glen zoom story swap. We had a fairly small group, but it was still fun. I told a very short story about what a clever man asked for when the prophet Elijah offered to grant him a wish to thank him for his hospitality.

The next day, I got together with a few other people from Voices in the Glen for an in-person story swap. With Pesach approaching, I told a story based on my father’s explanation of the crossing of the Red Sea. Since Dad was a civil engineer, Moses had to file an environmental impact statement.

And on Sunday, I went to a zoom swap put on by Community Storytellers in Los Angeles. I told a story I hadn’t told in a while, which mostly has to do with things my father used to say and what I really did and didn’t learn from them.

Grimm Keepers: This session’s discussion was of “The Pink,” also known as “The Carnation.” I think that every single time we meet, our discussion includes the phrase “what a strange story!” In this case, one of the strange aspects is how few things a boy who has the power of having anything he wishes for come true actually does wish for. There was also a lot of discussion about the significance of poodles in German folklore. At ay rate, the discussion left us with a lot of unanswered questions.

Board Games: I have mentioned before that I play board games (almost always Code Names) on-line with a few friends at least a few times a week. We recently realized that our first session of doing that was on 27 April 2020. It was a great way of getting us through the social isolation of the pandemic and it’s continued to be a great way to socialize.

Please Don’t Analyze This Dream: I had a dream the only detail of which I remember is that it involved a character named Tutsi Tu Bruskin. Bruskin is one of my ancestral names (specifically, my paternal grandfather’s mother’s family name) but that doesn’t provide any enlightenment.

Pesach: We’ve just now finished Pesach and I’ve had my traditional post-holiday pizza. I was fairly lazy about cooking this year and, hence, ended up having a lot of string cheese, grapes, matzoh with orange marmalade, and other monotonous foods. Oh, well, it’s only 8 days,

A Few Brief Comments About University Protesters: I think that the correct way for universities to deal with the protests is to focus on enforcing the community rules with respect to “time, place, and manner.” In particular, violence against anyone should be punished, as should blocking off access to particular places. For example, one of my particular concerns about what has happened at some campuses is protestors who have blocked access for disabled students, which is a violation of Title VI and can (and, in my opinion, should) result in the loss of federal funding if it is tolerated. The most difficult of the criteria is “manner of protest,” but I think any civilized person should agree that calls for murder is unacceptable. There are definitely some cases which have crossed that line, e.g. the Columbia student, Khymani James, who published a video in which he said, “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” Students holding up posters with slogans like “go back to Poland” are both anti-Semitic and ignorant. (Roughly 12% of the population of Israel has Polish-Jewish ancestry. And over 90% of Polish Jews were massacred during the Shoah.)

My other comment is that I wonder how many of the students pushing divestment from everything associated with Israel are using iPhones or used Waze to find routes to campuses, Do any of them use RSA public key encryption? How many of them eat cherry tomatoes or have websites using wix.com?

We’ve gotten through the first three months of the year, so it’s time for a quarterly update.

Books: I got through 15 books in January through March.

1. Nell Painter, Old in Art School. I don’t remember who recommended this to me, but I talked one of my book clubs into it. The idea of a woman retiring from a prestigious academic career (as a historian) and enrolling in art school was interesting. She wrestled with how the art world saw age, femaleness, and blackness. She also has to deal with aging parents and a history book she was writing. She claimed she was doing this for fun, but it didn’t seem very enjoyable.
   
   
2. Dick Francis, 10 Lb. Penalty. This novel is about a young man whose father has him leave horse racing to help with a political campaign that turns dangerously violent. The father wins his campaign and the son goes off to university and a career on the business side of horse racing. There’s an evil man trying to manipulate a lot of politicians and a sleazy reporter who stirs up dirt. Overall, this is a typical Dick Francis novel - violent, but absorbing.
   
   
3. Len Kruger, Bad Questions. I probably wouldn’t have read this tween boy coming of age novel if Len weren’t a friend of mine. The plot involves a boy whose father dies by suicide, resulting in his mother relocating them to another neighborhood. A former teacher offers to help him put a hex on some people. Then two of those people on the hex list die in a car crash … Overall, reasonably good reading.
   
   
4. Richard Russo, Straight Man. This novel, set in a small college in rural Pennsylvania, is mildly humorous. The funniest bit involves the chairman of the English department threatening to kill a duck every day until his budget demands are met. Unfortunately, he’s such an asshole that I found this book irritating and was ready to throw it into the Potomac.
   
   
5. Craig Rice and Ed McBain, The April Robin Murder. McBain is, of course, best known for writing the 87th Precinct police procedurals. Craig Rice wrote screwball comedic mysteries. This book from 1958 leans towards the latter as two young men show up in Hollywood planning to make it rich in the film industry. They get scammed right off and then a murder occurs in the house they may or may not actually own. This isn’t at all plausible but it is amusing and very entertaining. It also has this wonderful zeugma: “She was blond and slender and delicate-looking and extremely gorgeous and she didn’t look a day over thirty-two. The pearl -handled revolver in the fist of the gentleman with her didn’t look a caliber over .32.”
   
   
6. Bob Payne, Escape Clauses. This is a collection of travel stories, mostly focused on islands. The destinations include the Maldives, Bora Bora, Robinson Crusoe Island, Martinique, both the Arctic and Antarctic, Greece, and others. Many of these trips were paid for by Conde Nast Travel, where he was a contributing editor. I generally prefer more focused narratives, but this was entertaining enough.
   
   
7. Mary Janice Davidson, Sleeping With the Fishes. Fred is a mermaid. But she’s allergic to seafood and gets seasick on boats. When the High Prince of the Black Sea shows up, she’s torn between him and a marine biologist she works with at the New England Aquarium. They set out to investigate contamination in Boston Harbor. There’s also a very steamy side plot involving her boss and her best friend. Trashy in the very best way.
   
   
8. Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry. Wow! I loved this book about a woman dealing with sexism in science in the 1950’s and 1960’s. She gets involved with another chemist and they adopt the greatest dog ever. He dies and she discovers she is pregnant, which leads to her getting fired. Eventually, she finds a new career hosting a cooking show and using that to teach chemistry lessons. I admit some of it is implausible, but I loved the characters (for the most part) and I highly recommend this book.
   
   
9. Dick Frances, Wild Horses. Thomas Lyon is directing a film, based on a real life death twenty odd years earlier. What does this have to do with a deathbed confession by a family friend? And who has attacked the movie’s star and tried for Thomas with unusual swords? As usual, there is lots of action (some of it horse-related) and lots of violence. Also, since this is a Dick Frances novel, it’s a good read. I’d gladly go to see the finished movie if it existed.
   
   
10. Isaac Asimov, Murder at the ABA. This was a surprisingly dull mystery, set at a booksellers’ convention. Asimov himself plays a role but the actual fictional detective is another writer as his stand-in. The murder doesn’t happen until 80 or so pages in and the motive is unconvincing. And I really did not care at all about the detective’s opinions of every woman he meets along the way. Don’t bother slogging through this.
    
    
11. Osa Johnson, I Married Adventure. Osa was a teenager when she married Martin Johnson and it wasn’t long before they set off to the South Pacific to photograph “cannibals” and, later on, exotic animals. They made films of African animals (with the help of large numbers of porters), which brought them some success, but not much money. This was an interesting read and reiterated my desire to visit the Osa and Martin Johnson Safari Museum in Kansas.
    
    
12. Susan Vreeland, Clara and Mr. Tiffany. This is a novel based on the life (and letters) of Clara Driscoll, who played a critical role in the design of the famous Tiffany glass lamps. Having seen several of the lamps at the New York Historical Society, I was intrigued by the back story, including Mr. Tiffany’s refusal to employ married women. The book also touched on questions about the lives of immigrant women and on the labor movement. I enjoyed the insight into the lives of late 19th / early 20th century women in New York. Recommended.
    
    
13. Laura Lippman, AnotherThing to Fall. Laura Lippman’s mysteries have a strong sense of place, with that place being Baltimore. In this one, she also uses her knowledge of television production (via her husband) as Tess Monaghan is hired as a bodyguard / babysitter for a young actress. When a young woman on the production team is murdered, Tess uncovers a complex (albeit implausible) story. A good read.
    
    
14. Rory Stewart, The Places In Between. Stewart walked across Afghanistan (from Herat to Kabul) in 2002. This was a physically challenging and dangerous journey, in which he was dependent on a number of contacts to help him. He acquired a dog along the way, which didn’t make the trip any easier. Nor did the limits of his language skills. In general, this was interesting and scary and definitely not a trip anyone would want to copy. There are some interesting places and people along the way, but interesting isn’t always a good thing.
    
    
15. Mary Janice Davidson, A Wolf After My Own Heart Lila Kai has bought a house in an odd community - but how was she to know that her neighbors were shifters? Some of the characters work for the Interspecies Placement Agency, charged with protecting orphaned or displaced shifter children, including a particularly adorable werebear who insists her father could not have been killed in a plane crash because he has called her. There’s also a romance story, with just about the right level of steaminess to it. Overall, this is fun, despite some darker back stories.
    
    

Movies: Only one movie this quarter.

1. You Can Call Me Bill. This is a pretty weird movie, essentially an extended interview with William Shatner. It’s pretty much a stream of consciousness monologue about Shatner’s attempts to balance the jobs he needs to survive financially against his more serious ambitions. His philosophic musings, including a long section on his desire to become a tree after he dies, are more unexpected. I was surprised about how little he said about his personal life. And I don’t think his ability to make fun of himself came through. (If you’ve never seen it, I particularly recommend the movie Free Enterprise.) Still, there was a good mix of film clips along with the monologue and I think most fans of Star Trek (and his other work) will want to see this.
   

Goals:

I haven’t made any specific plans for circumventing the globe going westward, but I have ideas. Probably around late October.

I’ve got a tentative plan for one national park and ideas about others.

I’ve made no progress on genealogy email archives.

I’ve read 15 books, so I am behind the curve on getting to at least 80.

Hmm, re: my bedroom, does glaring at the clutter count?

I’m between 1/2 and 2/3 done with one afghan. This is not as minimal an amount of progress as it might seem, because I have other afghans in various states of progress.

I have not yet located my parents’ slides.

I have a reasonably good plan for one AAA ballpark and reasonable tentative plans for two others.

I have not been very regular about getting much exercise, sigh.

It would probably help if I looked at my goals more than every three months.