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.
  
  

Books: I only made it through 9 books this quarter. Sigh.

1. Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing. I had seen the movie, but hadn’t read the book before. The story has to do with a girl who is basically left on her own to grow up in a shack deep in a North Carolina marsh and spends her time exploring the marsh animals and plants. She meets a boy who teaches her to read and, after their relationship falls apart when he goes to college, gets involved with another local boy, who is a rich socially connected type. When he is found dead, she’s the chief suspect and much of the book concerns her trial for his murder. I thought the book was interesting and raised interesting questions about the divisions between the local people. But it was hard to like a lot of the characters.
   
   
2. Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman, Sounds Like Titanic. This is a memoir about the author’s time as a fake violinist, playing to a dead mike while CDs of the composer’s music play in the background. There’s a lot of humor, though the effect of the deception on her mental health also plays a significant role. Can you suffer from imposter syndrome when you’re making good money being an imposter? Recommended.
   
   
3. Susan Branch, Girlfriends Forever. For those who are not familiar with her, Branch writes silly books that are little more than the sort of tripe women’s magazines publish, full of “oh, how wonderful my girlfriends are” and “here are recipes for healthy meals mixed with ooey gooey desserts.” What’s even worse is that she uses fonts that are supposed to look like handwriting, making it hard to read. Don’t waste your time.
   
   
4. Andrew D. Blechman, Leisureville. What is life like in senior communities like The Villages in Florida and the Del Webb communities in Arizona? Apparently, there’s lots of golf, lots of sex (The Villages has the highest rate of STDs in the U.S.), and an insular group of residents who don’t care that the communities are completely under the control of the owners. Overall, interesting, but depressing.
   
   
5. Michelle Zauner, Crying in H-Mart. Zauner uses food (primarily Korean food) to structure her memoir about her mother’s death from cancer - and, of course, what life with her parents was like before that. The challenges of being a mixed-race girl in Oregon, combined with regular trips to Korea, were interesting. It wasn’t entirely relatable for me, since my mother would have been content to eat bland boiled chicken every day of her life. But I did relate to the intergenerational cultural struggle. I thought this was worth reading - and following with an excursion to my local H-Mart.
   
   
6. Alfred Lansing,Endurance. I’d read this book about Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance expedition at least twice before and it’s still just as good a read the third time around. The crew’s struggle to survive is terrifying and inspiring. Not everyone is cooperative all the time and Shackleton’s leadership skills are tested throughout the ordeal. And, while “the boss” gets a lot of the credit, I’m also thoroughly impressed with Frank Worsley. If you have any interest in exploration / adventure, this is a must read.
   
   
7. Shelby Van Pelt, Remarkably Bright Creatures. This is a thoroughly charming novel about the relationship between an elderly woman and the octopus at the aquarium where she works. The chapters told by the octopus are particularly entertaining. The backstory is that Tova lost her son when he was 18 years old. After her husband died of cancer, she is somewhat at loose ends. There’s also a young man searching for his father and a complicated series of events that lead to him finding connections, including one with Tova. It’s pretty implausible and the ending felt sudden, but it was enjoyable enough for me to overlook those flaws. Recommended.
   
   
8. Tim Butcher, Blood River: A Journey Into Africa’s Broken Heart. Butcher set out to recreate H.M. Stanley’s journey down the Congo River, starting in 2004. He gets motorcycle rides (and, later on, boat rides) from aid workers, U.N. staff, and missionaries. Somehow, he manages not to get killed along the way. He does, however, end up sick - probably with malaria. So he “cheats” a bit with a helicopter ride for one leg. Usually travel books make me want to go to a place, but not this one. An interesting read, yes, but beyond anything I’d want to risk.
   
   
9. Matthew Desmond, Evicted. My primary book club had selected this book, but the two leaders decided it was too hard to read and abandoned it. That’s really a pity because I found it pretty interesting. Desmond looks not only at the people living in low-income housing (and being forced out of it) but also the landlords and the people working for them. Joblessness, drug use, and single parenthood all play roles, but Desmond also addresses policy issues that exacerbate the instability of the lives of his subjects and suggests solutions. His research was primarily in Milwaukee, by the way, though he does give examples from other cities. There were some times I’d have liked more back story about some of the people. At any rate, I found it an interesting read, probably because my father worked on development for the New York City Housing Authority.
   

Movies: I saw two movies as part of the Washington Jewish Film Festival and two on an airplanes.

1. Next Goal Wins. I watched this on a plane because of my boundless love for Taika Waititi. It had gotten mediocre reviews, but I liked it quite a lot. The story (based on actual events) has to do with the American Samoa football (i.e. soccer) team, which had suffered a particularly embarrassing defeat against Australia ten years earlier. Thomas Rongen is the American coach who is hired to turn things around and he immediately gets into a conflict with Jaliyah, a transgender player. I was intrigued by the acceptance of a third gender (fa’afafine) in Samoan culture, something I was only vaguely aware of before seeing this. We also eventually see Rogen’s transformation - and get a satisfying ending, which goes beyond the sports aspect. Recommended.
   
   
2. The Catskills: This documentary was really sweet. There were segments about some of the more famous Catskill resorts, e.g. Grossinger’s, but also about the bungalow colonies. And let’s not forget the food! And the entertainment! (We had a neighbor who was a comedian on the Borscht Belt circuit. It was a great thrill to see his show, though I can’t remember if we saw him at the Homowack or the Concord or the Nevele.) My favorite parts of the (relatively few) weekends we spent at those hotels were rowing on the lake at the Homowack and playing miniature golf and pinball with the other kids my age, and those parts didn’t really get talked about. Basically, if you liked movies like Dirty Dancing or Sweet Lorraine, you’ll like this.
   
   
3. Shari and Lamb Chop: I had a Lamb Chop puppet when I was little, though I never really mastered ventriloquism. I have a running joke about my annual Shari Lewis Memorial Lamb Chop dinner for National Ventriloquism Week. (Scheduled for July 17th this year, by the way.) I’m sure Charlie Horse and other puppets had their fans, but Lamb Chop was the best. And this film was a lovely tribute to her and her puppeteer. I also learned lots of things about Shari Lewis that I’d never known, e.g. that her father was the official magician of New York City, using the name Peter Pan the Magic Man. And did you know that Lamb Chop is an honorary three-star general in the Marines? Anyone in my age group is sure to laugh and cry throughout this thoroughly charming movie.
   
   
4. Oppenheimer: The flight from Lisbon to Washington, D.C. is the perfect length for watching a long movie and still being able to get in a nap. While it was an interesting movie, I found it somewhat hard to keep track of all the characters. I also found the nonlinear chronology hard to follow at times. I suspect that was because an airplane was actually not the ideal place to watch a movie like this. Overall, it was interesting enough, but I’d liked Barbie better.
   
   

Goals: Sometimes the only way I know that I am making progress is that I know I’m not going backwards.

• I have a tentative plan for a westward circumnavigation, though I haven’t booked anything yet. I’m looking at Novemberish.
  
  
• I haven’t been to any new national parks yet this year.
  
  
• I haven’t made any progress on going through genealogy-related email.
  
  
• I’ve read 24 books, out of my goal of 80. I need to read shorter books.
  
  
• I’ve gotten a little further on organizing my bedroom, but still have a long ways to go.
  
  
• I’ve made a little more progress on one afghan.
  
  
• I still haven’t found my parents’ slides.
  
  
• I’d attempted to go to one AAA game, but it got rained out. I have another coming up and am hoping for the weather to cooperate. And I have an idea for a trip to go to 2 more.
  
  
• It’s been too miserable out to exercise.
  
  

I think this will get me caught up on everything up until this month.

I’ve been using the same format for my year in review entries for several years now. It seems to work. Note that I took off the Volksmarch category this time since it’s been a couple of years since I managed to actually do anything there.

2023 started out stressful with mail being stolen, including a check which was washed and used fraudulently and a credit card which had to be replaced. It all got resolved, but I could have lived without the stress. There was a lot of stress later in the year, with the incompetence of the person at the local Social Security office who sat on my Medicare application for over two months without doing anything. That took way too many phone calls to get resolved. And, of course, there was the whole Middle East situation to make 2023 the Age of Anxiety.

Fortunately, things were otherwise good during the year.

Books: I read 53 books over the year. 39 of those were fiction, 3 were poetry, and the rest were nonfiction. Only 3 were rereads.

Favorites included Our Ancestors Did Not Breathe This Air (a poetry collection by Muslim women at MIT), Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozu Adichie, The Ghostwriter by Alessandra Torre, and The Caxton Private Lending Library and Book Depository by John Connolly. I also read 6 novels by Dick Francis, whose books provide a reliable antidote to ones in which not enough happens to keep me satisfied. Favorite non-fiction was The Best Strangers in the World by Ari Shapiro. Least favorite book was Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.

I got rid of 39 books and have at least another 33 ready to go out.

In addition to my longstanding book club (called READ for Read, Enjoy, And Discuss), I joined another book club, Crones and Tomes, which was started by a friend from the puzzle world.

Other book events included the Moby Dick Marathon in New Bedford, Massachusetts, which was an amazing experience, and a talk by Ari Shapiro at Sixth and I.

Ghoul Pool: I finished 4th out of 14 players, with 220 points. People I scored on were Naomi Replanski, Steve Harrell, Bob Barker, Tony Bennett, Al Jaffee, John Goodenough, Robert Solow, Daniel Ellsberg, Sandra Day O’Connor, James L. Buckley, W. Nicholas Hitchon, and David Oreck.

Travel: In January, I went to New Bedford, Massachusetts for the Moby Dick Marathon. In February, I went to Tucson, which included going to Saguaro National Park and Biosphere 2, as well as winning some money at a casino. March included a trip to New York City to go to the symphony and the theatre and visit with a high school friend. April’s travel was to Connecticut for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.

In May I took a river cruise, which included going to the Kentucky Derby. The Derby arrangements were kind of a fiasco, but the stops at various small towns were a lot more interesting than I expected.

June took me to Svalbard, which featured amazing scenery, though the wildlife (or, more accurately, lack thereof) was disappointing. This was somewhere I’d wanted to go to forever, so I am glad to have had the opportunity.

In July, I went to Montreal for the NPL con. That also included eating a lot of Montreal Jewish food and following in the footsteps of Leonard Cohen. Later in the month, I leveraged off a genealogy conference in London to take a trip to Ireland (including a day trip to Belfast) and the Isle of Man. That included fulfilling a life list item by having a beer at the South Pole Inn in Anascaul. After the conference, I did a few more things in London, including side trips to Canterbury and to Ipswich and Sutton Hoo. Soon after I got back, I took a quick trip to New York City for Lollapuzzoola and theatre going.

LoserFest was in Philadelphia in September. Highlights included the Masonic Temple and the Magic Gardens.

In October, I took a quick trip to San Antonio for the annular solar eclipse, which was awesome. While I was there, I also did a day trip to the Hill Country, where I saw several sites associated with Lyndon B. Johnson, as well as visiting the town of Fredericksburg. Later in the month I went to Boston, mostly to go to a concert by Jonathan Richman.

I’m not sure if taking a day trip to Harrisonburg, Virginia in November counts as travel. But my trip to French Polynesia (Austral Islands and Aranui cruise to the Marquesas) definitely does.

Virtual travel talks I went to included one on Jewish Barbados and a few Travelers’ Century Club zoom sessions. There were also a few in-person TCC meetings.

Puzzles: I participated once again in the MIT Mystery Hunt as part of Halibut That Bass. I think the team worked particularly well together, but we had some issues with the way the hunt was structured, which resulted in our seeing only about half of the puzzles.

I was disappointed in my performance in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. I finished solidly in the middle of the pack and I wasn’t surprised to have trouble with Puzzle 5, but I left a blank square in Puzzle 3, which was sheer carelessness. I did worse at Lollapuzzoola 16 in August, because I failed to completely read parts of some clues in Puzzle 5 there. I blame jet lag from my trip just before that event.

As I mentioned above, I went to the National Puzzlers’ League Con in Montreal. Highlights included a couple of games by Cute Mage, as well as Rasa’s over the weekend cryptic.


Genealogy: I continued to volunteer as the Subject Matter Expert for a Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington Litvak Special Interest Group. I also went to several JGSGW virtual meetings. And, of course, I went to the IAJGS conference in London at the end of July / beginning of August. Aside from several interesting talks, the highlight of that was meeting a distant cousin.

Baseball: I went to a little bit of a Nationals game in May, but it got rained out. In September I went to the new Texas Rangers stadium (Globe Life Field), putting me back at having been to a game at every Major League Ballpark. I also went to two minor league ballparks to see the Aberdeen Ironbirds and the Fredericksburg Nationals.

Culture: I’m not a big television watcher but I kept Apple TV+ long enough to watch Schmigadoon and Schmicago, both of which were tremendous fun for musical theatre geeks like me.

In terms of movies, I saw 18 overall, 4 of which were in theaters, with the rest on airplanes. Favorites were A Man Called Otto, In the Heights, Blackberry, Cocaine Bear, Searching for Sugar Man, Barbie, and Remembering Gene Wilder. Most disappointing was Weird: The Al Yancovic Story.

I went to 5 Gilbert and Sullivan operettas at the G&S International Festival in England, with the best production being of Ruddigore. I went to two other operas, both by Jeanine Tesori (Blue and Grounded). I also saw two ballets and one modern dance performance, with the ballet of The Crucible being the most satisfying. As far as classical music goes, I saw the National Symphony Orchestra twice and was privileged to see Michael Tilson Thomas conduct the New York Philharmonic. The only popular music concert I went to was one by Jonathan Richman, who is always wonderful.

I saw 14 plays and 9 musicals, assuming I counted correctly. Favorite plays were All Things Equal (about Ruth Bader Ginsburg), The Lifespan of a Fact at Keegan Theatre, Selling Kabul at Signature Theatre, and The Pillowman, which is a Martin McDonagh play I saw in London. I also loved The Enigmatist, which is a mixture of comedy. magic, and puzzles and, hence, I consider sui generis. Top musicals were In the Heights at Next Stop Theatre Company, Signature Theatre’s production of Pacific Overtures. and Shucked and Kimberly Akimbo on Broadway.

Storytelling: I went to several storytelling shows, including one by my Grimmkeepers group. I performed in two shows for Artists Standing Strong Together, and also told at the C&O Canal Visitor Center with Voices in the Glen, at the Washington Folk Festival, and in a Better Said Than Done show at the Stagecoach Theatre. Some other shows I particularly enjoyed were Ingrid Nixon’s show about Shackleton and several of the performances at the National Storytelling Festival. And, of course, the Women’s Storytelling Festival (which I also emceed at) os always a highlight of the year.

On a rather different note, the Grimmkeepers discussions about the Grimm fairy tales continue to be enlightening and enriching.

Museums and Art: I went to 32 museums over the year. Highlights included the New Bedford Glass Museum, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, two exhibitions of miniatures (the Mini Time Machine Museum in Tucson and the Small is Beautiful exhibit in New York), the MIT Museum, the Virginia Quilt Museum, and the Museum of Failure. I also really enjoyed seeing the Book of Kells, the Manx Museum, and Sutton Hoo during my travels in July. My absolute favorite for the year was the Museum of Broadway.


Other Stuff: On New Year’s Day, my friend, Cindy, and I went to the Winter Lantern Festival at Tyson’s, which was impressive.

I went to various Loser events, including the post-Post Loser Party, the Flushes, LoserFest. I should probably count Poetry and Punchlines (a poetry reading associated with Light, which is a magazine of light verse) as a Loser event, too.

My crafting group changed to meeting on-line every other Thursday and in person at one members house on the weeks in between. I make it when I can. Similarly, I occasionally managed to get to my other (mostly) knitting group, which meets at the police station twice a month.

I went to a virtual organizing conference in September, which was moderately useful.

I played board games a few times a week, when I was home. Yes, sometimes I was home.

Goals: So how did I do on my 2023 goals? I went through maybe 10% of the photos from my parents and realized I have no idea where I put the slides, so I’ll give myself a 10% there. I did go to some sort of lecture or other formal educational event, either in person or on-line, every month, so I get 100% there. I get full credit (i.e. 100%) for taking 4 international trips. I finished only 1 craft project, so only get 33% there, though I did make progress on two others. I read 53 books, out of a goal of 75, so get 71% there. I get 100% credit for going to three new (to me) ballparks. I made it to at least one museum each month so get 100% on that goal. I only went to one national park, so get 33% on that goal. And I averaged significantly less than a half hour every day on housework, so I’ll give myself 10% there. Averaging things out, I’ll give myself a 62% on the year, which is not great but not terrible either.

Which brings me to goals for 2024:

• Circumnavigate the globe going westward. The backstory is that way back in 2000, I did an eastward circumnavigation, from Los Angeles to Russia via Germany by plane, overland through Siberia to Mongolia and to China, and back to Los Angeles by plane. I’ve got ideas for how I want to do the westward circle.
  
  
• Go to at least 3 national parks.
  
  
• Clean out my saved files of genealogy related emails.
  
  
• Read 80 books with a stretch goal of 125.
  
  
• Finish organizing my bedroom.
  
  
• Finish 3 afghans.
  
  
• Find and sort through my parents’ slides.
  
  
• Go to games at at least 4 AAA ballparks.
  
  
• Exercise for at least 20 minutes at least 3 times a week, with a stretch goal of at least 30 minutes at least 4 times a week.
  
  

Let’s see what the past three months brought.

Books:

Eleven books this quarter.

1. Donald E. Westlake and Brian Garfield, Gangway!. This is a caper novel about a New York gangster who is sent to San Francisco after upsetting his boss. He meets various colorful characters and devises a plan to rob the mint. It’s mildly diverting, but not nearly as funny, as I think it was meant to be.
   
   
2. Dick Francis, Dead Cert. This was the first novel Dick Francis wrote, or at least, the first published and was included in a three-in-one volume. Even back in 1962 he was writing exciting (but violent) novels. In this case, the death of a steeplechase jockey leads another jockey to investigate - and get caught in a similar “accident,” as well as a beating. There’s a romantic subplot, but the gist is about a corrupt taxi company manipulating races for money. If you like books with lots of plot, you really can’t go wrong with Dick Francis.
   
   
3. Dick Francis, Nerve. This book starts off with a bang - literally, in the form of a very public suicide by a jockey. This leads another jockey to try to find out what happened to him and to other jockeys who lost their jobs or saw troubling rumors spread about them. Of course, his questions prompt the same treatment to be tried on him. If you can handle a sinister and frightening story, with a mixture of violence ad psychology, I highly recommend this novel.
   
   
4. Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I read this for my Crones and Tomes book club. This is a memoir of Angelou’s early years, split between rural Mississippi, Saint Louis, and California. The most memorable incident involves her rape, at the age of eight. The bigger takeaway is that none of the adults in her life seem to know what to do with her and her brother. There really isn’t much in the story that suggests that she’ll grow up to be the famous poet and writer that she became. Presumably, that is covered in her other memoirs, but I wasn’t really left with a desire to read them.
   
   
5. Paul Harding, Tinkers. I read this for my longstanding book club (which is called READ for Read, Enjoy, and Discuss.) George Washington Crosby is dying and he reflects on his life, his father, and watch making. The father, Howard, is the most interesting part of this. He’s an epileptic who runs away from his family to avoid them putting him in a mental hospital. There’s an interesting episode involving his repeated encounters with a hermit who may have known Nathaniel Hawthorne. But, for the most part, nothing much happens and I found this a slog. (I also ended up missing the book club meeting, because I was in England and couldn’t handle the time zone difference.)
   
   
6. Carolyn Hart, From the Queen. The Mysterious Bookshop in New York publishes a series of novellas by various well-known authors. This one features Annie Darling and the Death on Demand bookshop. A thrift store owner has inherited a first edition of an Agatha Christie novel inscribed to the queen. When it’s stolen, Annie investigates. One of the hallmarks of the Death on Demand series is name dropping of mystery authors, which I find annoying, and it’s just as annoying in this shorter form. In addition, I didn’t find the solution particularly satisfying. Disappointing.
   
   
7. Dick Francis, Odds Against. Remember what I said about Dick Francis as a palate refresher? It was a relief to read a book with lots of action. This is actually a slightly unusual novel for him, in that the hero gets shot and doesn’t recover nearly instantaneously. And there’s a satisfying subplot involving a woman who was badly deformed by a fireworks accident in her youth. Of course, there are horses, too, as the plot involves the efforts to put a racetrack out of business in order to acquire its land for a housing development. As always, a good read.
   
   
8. Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation. This was another Crones and Tomes selection. I’d expected an analysis of the popularity of antidepressants, but what I got instead was a whiny memoir about her life with depression and how nobody could do anything to help her. Along the way, she self-medicates with cocaine, ends up in the emergency room, and screws guys who are just as fucked up as she is. Astonishingly, she still has friends and manages to get through Harvard. There are some moments of humor, but I can’t really recommend this to anyone over, say, 21. As for the prozac connection, it is what finally helps her, but then she rails against how many other people use it.
   
   
9. Shauna J. Edwards and Alyson Richman, The Thread Collectors. And this was a selection for the RnEAD book club. The story involves a Jewish soldier from New York and a runaway slave from New Orleans, both fighting for the Union Army during the Civil War. They’re both talented musicians and bond over both music and being outsiders. The thread reference involves the women in their lives. The black man's common law wife embroiders maps to help other slaves escape. When the Jewish soldier doesn’t write to his wife for a long time, she sets out to find him. I thought this was a pretty interesting book, but it does require a lot of suspension of disbelief.
   
   
10. C. J. Conner, Board to Death. A mystery set in a board game store? Sounds right up my alley. A friend bought this, read it quickly, and, while he liked the characters, thought it worked better as a (gay) love story than as a mystery. He passed it on to me and I pretty much agree with his opinion. The plotting was somewhat weak. And there was one paragraph that could have been an entry in the Buller-Lytton contest. A character in a book should never reflect on what they would do if they were a character in a book.
    
    
11. Dick Francis, Enquiry. Yes, I needed a palate refresher. Dick Francis always excelled at bringing readers into his world, with plenty of action. In this case, a jockey and trainer are warned off, i.e. forbidden from being anywhere near race tracks after being accused of cheating. The jockey is not taking this lying down. His investigation uncovers sexual scandal, business revenge, and mental illness. Recommended.
    
    

Movies:

No, I never managed to make it to either Oppenheimer or Barbie. But I did see 5 movies.

1. Cocaine Bear: This is exactly the right sort of movie to watch on an airplane. It doesn’t take much (if any) thinking but there was enough happening to keep me awake. Admittedly, it’s pretty gory, but it’s just outlandish enough for that not to bother me. I was actually disappointed to learn that the real cocaine bear died of an overdose, rather than still being out there roaming the forest.
   
   
2. Searching for Sugar Man: Sixto Rodriguez died just a few days before my flight home from London, so I couldn’t resist watching this documentary about two South African men who set out to discover what had become of him. They found a story worth telling, both for the music and the man. There’s a reason this movie won a lot of awards, including a Best Documentary Oscar. Highly recommended.
   
   
3. The Whale: I watched this largely because it was so controversial. The basic plot is that an obese and depressed gay man tries to reconnect with his daughter, who is, frankly, an evil psychopath. Yes, Brendan Fraser did his best with what he was given, but self-loathing doesn’t make for an interesting movie. I’m reminded of Tom Lehrer’s line that people who can’t relate should just shut up. In case you can’t tell, I hated this movie.
   
   
4. Golda: I went to see this because a friend wanted to take advantage of $4 movie day. The movie is somewhat mistitled, as it is really limited to the Yom Kippur war, while I expected somewhat more background about Golda Meir’s life. In particular, I thought her relationship with her assistant, Lou Kaddar, came across as strange. Still, Helen Mirren is a great actress and I found the movie interesting, though hard to watch.
   
   
5. El Método Tangalanga: American Airlines had a selection of movies in Spanish for Hispanic Heritage Month. My Spanish is not yet up to watching them on their own, but subtitles let me enjoy this Argentinian film. The basic plot involves a painfully shy man who is transformed by hypnosis, turning him into a different personality when he gets on the telephone. He makes a series of prank phone calls that cheer up his dying friend - and gets famous for them under the name “Doctor Tangalanga.” The outcome is somewhat predictable, but I still found this entertaining. What I didn’t know is that Doctor Tangalanga was a real Argentinian comedian (real name Julio Victorio De Rissio), who released over 40 albums of prank calls starting in the late 1980’s. This isn’t exactly a great movie, but it was diverting enough for a couple of hours.
   
   

Goals:

• Believe it or not, I actually started going through my parents photos. I tossed a lot of my mother’s travel photos, because I really don’t need pictures of places (most of which I’ve been to and have my own pictures of) or of people I don’t know eating dinner on cruise ships and the like.
  
  
• I’m going to count the IAJGS (Jewish genealogy) conference as my formal educational activity for both July and August. And the Get Organized conference counts for September. I’ve also continued studying Spanish with Duolingo and am now at a 336 day streak.
  
  
• I’ve taken 3 international trips. In June, I went to Svalbard. In July, I had a trip to Montreal, Canada. Then in July and August, I was in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Isle of Man, and England. I have plans for a major trip in December.
  
  
• I’ve finished one crafts project. I am not sure whether or not I will finish the afghan I’m working on. I need to find something small that I can do in a couple of days.
  
  
• I’ve only read 36 books so far this year. So reaching 75 is likely to be challenging.
  
  
• I did go to 3 new ballparks this year. I went to Leidos Field at Ripken Stadium (Aberdeen Ironbirds, High-A affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles) in May. This quarter, I added Virginia Credit Union Stadium (Fredericksburg Nationals, Single-A affiliate of the Washington Nationals), and Globe Life Field (Texas Rangers, MLB).
  
  
• As for museum exhibitions, I went to the museums in Longyearben and Ny Alesund on my Svalbard cruise in June. In July, I went to the see the Book of Kells and went to the Chester Beatty in Dublin, the Titanic Museum in Belfast, and the Manx Museum in Douglas, Isle of Man. In August, I went to the Tate Modern, the British Library, and the V&A in London and the Small is Beautiful exhibit in New York. In September, I went to the Eastern State Penitentiary, the Mutter Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art on my trip to Philadelphia.
  
  
• I didn’t add any national parks this quarter, so I still stand at one for the year.
  
  
• As for spending half an hour a day on housecleaning, ha ha ha!
  
  

On a related note, I checked off a life list item by having a beer at the South Pole Inn in Anascaul, Ireland.

I will get around to writing about the Women’s Storytelling Festival and the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and a bunch of other stuff. But, first, a quick review of the first quarter of 2023.

Books:

I read 14 books this quarter.

1. Fiona Davis, The Lions of Fifth Avenue: I read this for my book club and enjoyed it. It has two linked stories, involving the New York Public Library and book thefts. There are a lot of great details about the setting, but the stories really have more to do with women finding their own way, despite social expectations. Not all of it is plausible, but I liked the characters enough to be able to forgive occasional preachiness.
   
   
2. Herman Melville, Moby Dick: I’ve read this a few times before, but this time was special as I was following along during the marathon in New Bedford. The reading really brought out a lot of the humor in the book for me. I also found the energy of so many fans together to be engaging. Between the interesting characters (especially Queequeg) and exciting action, who cares if the science is dated? This is still the great American novel as far as I am concerned. Worth reading over and over.
   
   
3. Karin Kallmacher, All the Wrong Places: I didn’t know what this book was when I got it. It turned out to be a particularly smutty lesbian romance. There was some potential for drama involving the main character going to see her family when her father die, but she ran out pretty quickly to return to the arms of the ex-straight woman she works with. Not my sort of thing, but I’m not qualified to judge it.
   
   
4. Leslie Caine, Killed By Clutter This is a serviceable enough mystery, but nothing brilliant. The main character is an interior decorator who was been hired to declutter a hoarder’s house. I thought the book missed the mark on the psychology of hoarding, but the characters were interesting was enough to make that tolerable.
   
   
5. Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility: I know this is considered a classic, but I thought it was a total slog. All of the characters spend their time in a flurry of inactivity, moving around to stay in one another’s houses, listening to music, dancing, playing cards and gossiping. Pretty much nothing happens and I was bored stiff.
   
   
6. Nora Ephron, Heartburn: This is well-known as a roman-a-clef, about Ephron’s relationship with her second husband, Carl Bernstein. It’s still pretty humorous, though much of it seems rather dated in these days of “me, too.” Overall, a quick and entertaining read.
   
   
7. Nancy Atherton, Aunt Dimity Digs In: Lori Shepherd is going through a rough spot in her marriage. In the meantime, her visiting father-in-law has vanished and the ghostly Aunt Dimity has left a note that he’s in trouble. So, along with the neighbor’s daughter (and a couple of Aunt Dimity’s stuffed animals), Lori sets out to uncover some family skeletons. There’s a lot of suspension of disbelief required, but the characters are interesting and it’s pretty entertaining.
   
   
8. Ann Tyler, French Braid: This was another book club book. It’s 241 pages long and I spent 230 of those waiting for something to happen. Spoiler alert - nothing does. I prefer books with plots.
   
   
9. Karin Kallmacher, 18th & Castro: I debated whether or not to read this, since her other book was definitely not my type of thing. This one is set on Halloween in the Castro district of San Francisco. It follows several lesbian couples in an apartment building where some of them live. The most intriguing story involves someone who might be a vampire. But overall, I prefer my porn to be straight like me.
   
   
10. Our Ancestors Did Not Breathe This Air: This is a collection of poems by six Muslim American women, who met in McCormick Hall at MIT, which is the same dorm I lived in when I was there. The poems cover a wide range of topics, including family and belonging and being a woman in STEM. There was a lot that I found relatable. I’d first learned of this book because of an article in Technology Review and bought it pretty much right away. It’s a lovely collection and I recommend it.
    
    
11. Dick Francis, Driving Force: When you want a book with a lot of plot and plenty of action, you can’t really go wrong with Dick Francis. This one involved ways of tampering with race horses and multiple complicated motives. It’s an exciting read, even if parts of the plot aren’t completely convincing.
    
    
12. A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh: I decided to reread this because I came across it in a stack of books I wanted to go through. I’m with Dorothy Parker’s famous review of it. To wit, “Tonstant Weader Fwowed up.”
    
    
13. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americana; I mentioned this book previously, in the context of the Crones and Tomes group, which I read it for. Ifemulu is a young Nigerian woman who goes off to college in Philadelphia and has to grapple with what being black means in America. In the meantime, her first love, Obinze, can’t get a visa for the U.S. and goes to live an undocumented life in England. A lot of things happen along the way, but both of them end up back in Nigeria. It’s an interesting book and raisws a lot of issues about identity and belonging. Recommended.
    
    
14. Elena Gorokhova, A Train to Moscow: I read this for book club. It started out rather slowly, but the pace picked up a lot when Sasha (the main character, who wants to go off to Moscow and become an actress) finds the journal her uncle kept during World War II. (Or, to use the Russian parlance, “the great patriotic war.”) She succeeds as an actress, but her romantic life, involving a childhood friend who has become a Communist Party apparatchik, is less satisfying. I found the ending implausible, but I can’t think of a realistic ending that wouldn’t have annoyed me.
    
    

Movies:

I saw 4 movies this quarter, only one in a theatre.

1. A Man Called Otto: I had loved the book A Man Called Ove. And I generally like Tom Hanks as an actor. So this was worth going to see. I thought it was a very good adaptation, with the changes to Americanize it done well. Of course, I sobbed through half of it, but that was to be expected. Recommended.
   
   
2. In the Heights: This is the movie adaptation of the Lin Manuel Miranda musical about the aspirations of a group of people in Washington Heights and what happens when they hear someone bought a winning lottery ticket at the local bodega. I watched this on airplane and found it reasonably diverting.
   
   
3. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent: This movie (also seen on an airplane) was very very weird. Basically, Nicolas Cage plays a failed version of himself, in which he is desperate for money and agrees to go to a superfan’s birthday party for a million dollars. He gets recruited by the CIA to deal with a Mafia plot. There’s a lot of violence and a subplot about his relationship with his daughter. It wasn’t a brilliant movie, but it was diverting enough.
   
   
4. My Year of Dicks: I don’t normally watch many shorts, but I remember Pamela Ribon from the early days of on-line journals and it was nominated for an Oscar. I wasn’t really crazy about it. Basically I’m a different generation that doesn’t relate to the urgency of losing one’s virginity at 15. And I thought the conversation she has with her father was completely cringeworthy to me.
   
   

Goals:

• I haven’t really made a start on dealing with my parents’ photos and slides.
  
  
• I went to three lectures / talks (well, one was a storytelling show) in January, one in February, and three in March, so I am ahead of the curve there.
  
  
• I haven’t taken any international trips, but I have three scheduled.
  
  
• I am close to finishing a counted cross-stitch project.
  
  
• I have read 14 books so far, out of my goal of 75.
  
  
• Baseball season just started so I haven't gone to any new ballparks yet.
  
  
• I went to 2 museums in New Bedford and one locally in January, three in Tucson in February, and two in New York in March.
  
  
• I went to Saguaro National Park in February.
  
  
• I haven’t managed to spend a half hour per day on housework. I’m not very consistent, actually. I either spend 2-3 hours or do nothing.
  
  

Books: Twelve more books this quarter.

1. Colleen McCullough, The Thorn Birds. This was a best-seller back in the late 1970’s and was made into a TV miniseries. But I'd never read it before, nor had I watched the miniseries. It tells the story of the Cleary family and, in particular, the sole daughter amongst several sons, Meggie. She develops a relationship with the local priest, and that leads to inevitable troubles for both of them. I found the book absorbing, mostly in the “good beach read” mode. But I really wish that McCullough had not kept killing off characters I liked.
   
   
2. Ellery Queen (editor), Cops and Capers (reread). There are six stories in this anthology. “The Insomniacs’ Club” by John Lutz was my favorite piece, because it took an unexpected twist at the end. The weakest was “The Empty Birdhouse” by Patricia Highsmith, since it had a supernatural aspect that prevented actual detection. The main reason to read this book is that the stories range from 1935 to 1968, allowing for an opportunity to see the evolution of the mystery genre over that time period.
   
   
3. Elizabeth Friesland, Last Summer at the Golden Hotel. My book club was very divided over this book. I loved it, largely because it brought back amusing memories of the Catskills. My family didn’t spend entire summers at Catskills hotels, but we did go to the Homowack or the Nevele or the Concord for long weekends and the atmosphere of those hotels was captured very effectively in this novel. I also laughed out loud at his the millennial generation tried to modernize the hotel, including ideas like goat yoga. I suspect this book has a limited audience, but it was definitely up my alley.
   
   
4. John Gimlette, At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig. Paraguay is an interesting country, with a complex history, and Gimlette has several intriguing stories about that history, including controversial leaders, wars, and dangers ranging from piranhas to cannibals. Unfortunately, his writing is disorganized, making it hard to keep track of who’s who. At the very least, the book really needed an index.
   
   
5. Harold Robbins, The Pirate. A powerful Arab businessman, married to an American woman, exploits his oil wealth in ways that cost him good will with his family. There’s a lot of gratuitous sex and drugs, as well as a subplot involving terrorism. Overall, this is pretty trashy, but it did hold my attention.
   
   
6. Janice Nimura, The Doctors Blackwell. This was another book club selection. It tells the intermingled stories of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first American woman to get a medical degree, and her younger sister, who also became a doctor. Elizabeth came across as rather unlikeable, frankly, especially in her exploitation of Kitty, the young orphan she adopted and made into a virtual slave. While she fought for her medical education, she was hostile to women’s rights in general, which was particularly interesting as one of her brothers married Lucy Stone, who was particularly famous for insisting on retaining her name after marriage. Emily doesn’t emerge as clearly, but she did appear to be the better doctor. The book is not especially elegantly written, but it was interesting. I can’t help but wonder if people reading about our medical system 100 years from now would react with the same horror at the primitivism of our times.
   
   
7. Rose Fyleman, The Rose Fyleman Fairy Book. I admit I read this only because it was the shortest book of poetry in the room I had at the Library Hotel in New York. It’s aimed at children and full of cute little verses about fairies in the garden and the like. Overall, a silly waste of time.
   
   
8. Alan Armer, Writing the Screenplay: TV and Film. This was part of a box of books I got from one of my mother’s neighbors. I am not sure why I bothered reading it, since I have no real interest in writing a screenplay. It does seem to be a good, albeit dated, summary of basic principles, e.g. plot, characters, dialogue, business tips.
   
   
9. Silvia Tennenbaum, Rachel, the Rabbi’s Wife. Rachel is not your typical rebbetzim. She’s more interested in painting than in Sisterhood luncheons, for one thing. She’s also pretty sure her husband is having an affair with a member of the congregation. I came away with the feeling that the author was trying to be deliberately shocking, but all she accomplished was showing that Rachel was human.
   
   
10. Kinky Friedman, The Great Psychedelic Armadills Picnic. This was supposed to be a guidebook to Austin, Texas, but it is a good 20 years out of date. If you just look at it as more of a guide to Texas culture than a useful tourist guide, it’s pretty amusing with some laugh out loud moments. For example, take this quote: “Don't make the most common mistake non-Texans make when they come down here - confusing Amarillo with the armadillo. Amarillo is a town in the Panhandle full of people who don't like being mistaken for armadillos. They're very conservative politically. The armadillo is a gentle creature. It tends to be much more middle-of-the-road.”
    
    
11. Nancy Atherton, Aunt Dimity Digs In. I really enjoyed the first couple of books in this cozy mystery series. This one, alas, didn’t have enough actual mystery to be satisfying. There are still interesting characters and I enjoyed seeing Lori get more insight into the British village she and her husband have settled in. But a missing document and a robed figure seen near the vicarage just don’t compare to murder in my book.
    
    
12. Matt Haig, The Midnight Library. This is the next book for my book club. I really enjoyed the concept of a woman who has attempted suicide having time to go through books which place her in potential other versions of her life, each determined by one different decision she made. Living through these lets her erase regrets and gradually understand who she wants to be. I think all of us have sometimes wondered how our lives would have turned out if we’d made some different decisions along the way. Though, I admit, I don’t have any significant regrets, because I firmly believe that I made the best decisions I could knowing what I did at the time. At any rate, I think we’ll have a interesting discussion at our meeting a week from Wednesday.
    
    

Movies: I saw two movies this quarter, both in theaters.

1. Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song: “Hallelujah” is definitely Leonard Cohen’s most ubiquitous song, though I personally prefer “Dance Me to the End of Love” and “Who By Fire.” Of course, I am also old enough to remember “Suzanne,” which I associate with summer camp. Anyway, this documentary tells some about Cohen’s life, some about Cohen’s eventual success with “Hallelujah,” and some about other performers who are as well known for it (notably Jeff Buckley, who, apparently, some people thought wrote it. I thought one of the most interesting stories about the song had to do with its use in the movie Shrek, for which it had to be censored, because lines like “she tied me to a kitchen chair” really don’t fly in a movie aimed at children. I was also interested in the insights into Cohen’s life, which I didn’t really know much about. For fans of the singer-songwriter who I think of as the poet laureate of clinical depression, this movie is a must.
   
   
2. 3000 Years of Longing. A “narratologist” (really a folklorist at heart) who thinks she is self-sufficient encounters a djinn, who needs her to make the right wish in order to gain his freedom. And, oh, yeah, they are played by Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba, respectively. Of course, I found the whole thing enchanting. The Djinn tells her the stories of his previous masters and how he ended up trapped back in his bottle each time. There’s a fair amount of violence and lots of sensuality, but above all, there is storytelling. I knew I had to see this movie based on the trailer I’d seen a few weeks earlier - and I was right. Highly recommended.
   
   

Goals:

• I went to Nashville for the NPL con, to Niagara Falls for Loserfest, to New York for Lollapuzzoola and theatre binging, and to Cumberland, MD and Romney, WV for a train excursion. That was 4 trips which, added to the 6 I’d done earlier in the year puts me at 10, which was my goal for the year. (I have at least 2 more trips planned, too.)
  
  
• I am just short of 5/6 through my cross-stitch project. If I really am going to finish 2 cross-stitch or needlepoint projects, I’d better pick a smaller one for the second project.
  
  
• I’ve still done nothing about knitting or crocheting afghans, but I have reason to believe I will make some progress in November.
  
  
• I’ve done nothing about organizing photographs either.
  
  
• I have only about 4 non-crafts magazines to get rid of. I also have intentions to tackle at least some of the crafts magazines.
  
  
• I have a vague idea about a personal story, based on a recent memory I dredged up about my father having nightmares. I am not entirely sure this is an actual memory, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s really more a question about what we dream about and what we’re afraid to face in our dreams.
  
  I also did learn a third folktale, which I’ve only told once so far but think will become part of my long-term repertoire. Also, I did tell a science fiction story, which was a major stretch for me, and it went reasonably well.
  
  
• I haven’t really done anything about organizing my yarn stash, but I’ve thought about it, which should count for something. (And I have a specific reason to get rid of some yarn I know I’ll never use, so I expect I will make some progress in the next month and a half.)
  
  
• I’ve read 35 books (and will finish another one within the next hour or so.) So it’s just possible that I will manage to finish 75 this year, especially if I stick to shorter ones.
  
  
• As for language study, I’ve settled on starting with Duolingo and working on Spanish and Yiddish, though I have some reservations about their Yiddish dialect.
  
  

I have plenty of things to catch up on, but let’s start with the easiest to write. Namely, the quarterly updates.

Books:

1. Nancy and Benedict Freedman, Mrs. Mike. I’d read this book in my early teens, but had forgotten much of it. The story involves a teenager who is sent to western Canada because she has pleurisy and the cold dry air was thought to be good for her lungs. She meets and marries a Mountie and they go to live in northern Alberta. There’s plenty of action and trauma (e.g. one scene I had remembered involved a mother having to amputate her son’s leg after he got it caught in a bear trap) so it mostly makes for a good read. Some of the language dealing with the local villages is rather dated, which might be an issue for some readers. But I enjoyed this for the most part.
   
   
2. Paul Breines, Tough Jews. I had bought this book without reading the jacket blurb. I was expecting something about Jewish criminals - a subject I am interested in. Instead, it is focused on Jews in literature. And, specifically, those who fight back instead of quietly studying while allowing non-Jews to slaughter them. Basically, I hated the whole premise. Essentially, Breines has written an anti-Zionist screed, objecting to Jews being anything but scholars and merchants at the mercy of the rest of the world. Maybe he should read some history (or, at least, a newspaper) instead of suspense novels.
   
   
3. Tama French, The Searcher. This was for book club. The story involves a Chicago cop who has moved to a small village in Ireland. One day, a child shows up and asks him to look for an older brother who has disappeared. This leads to his investigating the disappearance and finding dark secrets in the village. The most interesting part of the story is not the crime aspect, but the relationship that develops between the policeman and the child. Overall, this was interesting, but a lot more violent than I’d have preferred.
   
   
4. Jaroslav Hasek, The Good Soldier Schwek Joseph Schwek is a rather hapless man who gets caught up in the Austro-Hungarian army during World War I. One source of his constant confusion is the multiethnic nature of the army. But the deeper question is whether he is a troublemaker or just an idiot. Mildly amusing, but not really my sort of book.
   
   
5. Christopher Buckley, Florence of Arabia. I’ve read several of Buckley’s books and they are very funny. This one was no exception. The plot involves a woman working for the State Department who tries to bring peace to the Mideast by empowering women in the fictional nation of Wasabia after a princess she had befriended was executed. She sets up a television station in neighboring Matar. She also has to deal with the machinations of the French and the eccentricities of her own team. This was a quick and highly entertaining read.
   
   
6. Elizabeth Scarborough, The Unicorn Creed. Unicorns speak in limericks? Who knew? This is mostly standard sword and sorcery, though at least the main female character is a rather domestic sort of witch rather than a fighter with a chainmail bra. There’s nothing particularly brilliant here, but it is a pleasant enough distraction.
   
   
7. Elizabeth George. The Mysterious Disappearance of the Reluctant Book Fairy. Mysterious Press has published a series of short mysteries with literary themes. This one involves a woman who can not only physically enter books, but can help other people to do so. This eventually leads to a very successful business. But there are consequences, so she seeks her own ultimate escape. I found this very entertaining and the length (85 pages) was perfect for the story. I will admit, however, that I did not get every single literary reference.
   
   
   
8. Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis. This is the autobiography, in the form of a graphic novel, of an Iranian woman who grew up during the revolution. Her family sends her to a French high school in Vienna and she struggles to fit in, leading to a particularly troubled adolescence. She returns to Iran, studies art, marries, and eventually ends up finding her own way in life. I found this thoroughly absorbing and thought that I learned a lot about Persian culture and history from it. Highly recommended.
   
   
9. Laura Lippman, The Book Thing. This is another of those slim volumes from Mysterious Press - only 42 pages. I’ve long admired Lippman’s work for how well it captures Baltimore and this is no exception. It also helps that The Book Thing, one of my favorite places in Baltimore, plays a major role in it, as the title suggests. Simply delightful.
   
   
10. James Thurber, My Life and Hard Times. I’ve read this at least a couple of times before. It includes some of Thurber’s best pieces, including “The Day the Dam Broke” and “The Car We Had to Push.” The latter has a particularly hilarious section about an uncle who died of the chestnut blight. If you’ve never read Thurber, this is the perfect starting point. And if you have read his work, this is a great way to sit down and visit with him and his eccentric family.
    
    
    
11. Dave Ramsey, The Total Money Makeover. I got this in a book exchange I did. Frankly, I am not the target audience for it, since I have no debt and plenty of savings. If you don’t understand living within your means, maybe this is of some use. I also think his take on investments is out of date, given current low interest rates. (I’d say just stick most of your money in a broad based index fund.) Blah.
    
    
12. Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half. This was a book club selection and was reasonably interesting. The story involves twin sisters, who grow up in a small African-American town where being light-skinned is highly valued. They leave as teenagers. One sister goes on to pass for white, while the other marries a very dark-skinned man and has a dark-skinned daughter, before returning to their home town. The daughters of the two twins end up meeting, leading to a lot of tension about what stories will come out. To further complicate things, the re is a trans man who the dark daughter gets involved with. It’s an interesting book, but there are a lot more questions in it than answers, so I didn’t find it completely satisfying. (Which also seemed to be pretty much the consensus of my book club.)
    
    
13. Paula J. Vester, At the Humming of the Wheel. This is a collection of folktales that are related to fiber arts / textiles in some way. They are mostly familiar ones, e.g. “Rumplestiltskin,” and “The Twelve Swans.” I was hoping for something less familiar (and, frankly, less European.) Not entirely useless, but disappointing,
    
    
14. Dick Francis, Blood Sport. If you just want to relax with a nice suspenseful (albeit violent) novel, you can’t really go wrong with Dick Francis. In this book, a depressed government agent is on vacation when his boss asks him to help a friend recover a stolen horse. He figures out the horse theft pretty quickly - and continues to solve a related earlier mystery. I’ll admit to being disturbed that our hero flies between the U.K.. and U.S. with a loaded pistol, which I don’t think was possible even in the 1960’s. But, frankly, who cares, when a book is this fast-paced an entertaining.
    
    
    
15. William Dalrymple, In Xanadu. This is exactly the sort of book I love. Dalrymple set out to retrace the route of Marco Polo from Jerusalem to Xanadu, crossing Syria, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and China along the way. There are legal and physical hardships along the way, but he tells interesting stories (e.g. tracing the story o the three magi to a Zoroastrian legend). He’s also very funny and highly quotable, so I ended up reading various excerpts to my crafts group. I finished this wanting to find everything else he’s written and devour it. Highly recommended.
    
    
16. Dr. Walter Robert Corti, The Sun. My parents had a series of thin illustrated books that were published by The Odyssey Press in the 1960’s. They’re quick reads, due to their length and illustrations. This is, of course, rather dated, but some of the illustrations (e.g. a series re: total solar eclipses) are still helpful.
    
    

Movies:

1. Cyrano: I saw this in a movie theatre with a friend. For those unfamiliar with the current adaptation, it stars Peter Dinklage, so the gimmick is not about the nose. Which comes out one of my favorite speeches from the play, but does provide an interesting twist. It is also a musical. Alas, I thought the music was uninteresting and didn’t, in general, do much to reveal character or advance the story. Overall, I thought the movie was just okay, which amounted to it being disappointing. (The friend I saw it with liked it quite a bit, however.)
   
   
2. The Quest For Sleep: I watched this documentary about insomnia on YouTube. There was a talk back afterwards with some of the sleep experts and a couple of the patients who were involved in it. It was moderately interesting, but I didn’t think it had much new to say. At least it didn’t put me to sleep.
   
   
   

Goals:

Let’s see how I’ve done on my goals for the year.

• I’ve taken 3 trips (one to New York, one to Boston, one to Connecticut and New York) out of 10. And I have solid plans for 2 more and fuzzy plans for 3 more.
  
  
• I’m almost 2/3 done with a cross stitch project.
  
  
• I’ve made a dent in the stacks of magazines.
  
  
• I’ve learned and told one new folktale. I have a good start on a new personal story.
  
  
• I’ve read 16 books, so am not quite on pace to finish 75 by the end of the year, but am close.
  
  

I have not, however, done any work on afghans. Nor have I done any organizing of either photographs or my yarn stash. Nor have I done anything about language study, largely because I cannot quite decide what language(s) I want to study.

Note my complete lack of goals relating to keeping up on writing here.

Yes, I am behind on things. I am planning to get caught up real soon now.

Books:

Thirteen books this quarter! That’s the pace I should be aiming for all the time.

1. Amos Towles, Rules of Civility. This was a book club book and I think those of us who voted for it did so because we’d all liked the author’s A Gentleman in Moscow so much. This novel had some moments, but was not nearly as charming as his other one. The story involves a young woman working as a secretary in New York who has a chance meeting with a man and ends up being thrown (along with her roommate) into the whirl of high society. She ends up juggling a literary career, several men, and her general zest for life. But nothing much really happens and, frankly, I didn’t think the book was very interesting.
   
   
2. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby. I read this in high school and didn’t particularly like it then. I decided to reread it because a couple of friends were discussing it on Facebook. I still didn’t like it. All of the characters are selfish and entitled. Gatsby's obsession with Daisy is creepy and not really adequately explained. Tom Buchanan is a bad husband - and a bad person, in general. And everyone else (especially Nick) is just hanging around partying with no depth. I was glad to have forgotten most of it in the past 45+ years.
   
   
3. Alexander McCall Smith, The Peppermint Tea Chronicles. It’s always enjoyable to spend time with the 44 Scotland Street characters. Dominica conspires to get Angus new clothes, Bertie and Ronald obtain a dog, Stewart appears to be embarking on a new romance, and Pat is definitely falling for Matthew and Elspeth’s new au pair. In other words, nothing major happens, but it is all very cozy and delightful. Highly recommended.
   
   
4. Janice P. Nimura, Daughters of the Samurai. This was another book club selection. It tells the story of three Japanese girls (originally five, but two didn’t stay long) who were sent to the United States in the late 19th century to go to school and bring modern education for girls back to Japan. This was a fascinating book and I learned a lot both about Japan and about the evolution of women’s education in the U.S.
   
   
5. Pete Hamill, Snow in August. This is a very strange book. The story involves an Irish-Catholic boy in Brooklyn who befriends a local rabbi, who has a complicated Holocaust-related history. He also incurs the wrath of a local tough guy, who beats him up badly. The writing is absorbing and I enjoyed reading this - up to the last couple of chapters, which takes a very strange turn that I didn’t find entirely satisfying.
   
   
6. Alexander McCall Smith, The Department of Sensitive Crimes. This is a new series, in a new genre, called Scandinavian blanc (to contrast with Scandinavian noir). The idea is to have a special police group that handles oddities. For example, a young woman’s boyfriend disappears, but he was actually imaginary all along. The book is moderately entertaining, but not really as funny as I think it was intended to be. I might read the next one in the series if I find it used, but I am unlikely to go out of my way for it.
   
   
7. Sally Rooney, Normal People. This was another book club book. The plot, such as it is, involves two people in a small town in Ireland who enter into a relationship, that sort of continues as they go to college. The woman has been abused and is a masochist, while the man suffers depression, partly related to his insecure social status. Both of them have other screwed-up relationships with other people. Overall, an unlikeable book about unlikeable people. I rarely say this, but I absolutely hated this book.
   
   
   
8. Sisterhood of Congregation Beth El, From Manna to Mousse. This is a congregational cookbook from the 1960’s. The recipes are predictably awful, with lots of prepackaged ingredients. There are also some that are unpredictably awful, like the one that uses baby food banana in a marinade for chicken. I find this sort of thing amusing, albeit unusable.
   
   
9. Dick Francis, Second Wind. A meteorologist, who often provides weather predictions to horse trainers, accepts an invitation to fly through a hurricane, and gets entangled in mysterious goings on on a Caribbean island. Like all Dick Francis heroes, he has remarkable powers of survival and recovery, bounding back from a couple of near-fatal incidents. At any rate, Francis is a reliable escapist author, with strong plotting and plenty of excitement. Recommended.
   
   
10. Dr. Seuss, You’re Only Old Once. I got this from a friend who is thinning his shelves. The silly rhymes and drawings are typical of Dr. Seuss. But I was disappointed to see yet another take on aging that is all about health issues. I will probably pass it along to someone else.
    
    
11. Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation. Yes, I know every else read this 20 or so years ago. Frankly, it didn’t tell me much that I didn’t already know. Low-wage workers are exploited, factory farming and meat processing are bad, etc. The pandemic has, of course, added new dimensions, but none of this was news even when this book was written. It’s still reasonably worth reading - just not the revolutionary work it was portrayed as.
    
    
12. Nancy Pickard, Twilight. Two people have been killed where a rail-trail intersects a highway. Jenny Cain agrees to look for possible solutions to improve safety, but has to fit this in with her efforts to put on a Halloween Festival for her small town charitable foundation. That’s all interesting enough and plenty of exciting and mysterious thing happen. Unfortunately, the conclusion is something of a cop-out.
    
    
13. Marcus Barbeau. The Golden Phoenix and Other French-Canadian Fairy Tales. I’m lucky if I find one or two tellable stories in a book of folk tales. This one, however, was excellent. I found all of the stories tellable, though there are a couple I am unlikely to bother learning. I have, in fact, already told one of them at a story swap. I also appreciated the chapter at the end that discusses the (mostly European) origins of the stories and where they were collected.
    
    

Movies: Only one this month, which was via an AARP free on-line Movies for Grownups showing.

1. Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day: Miss Pettigrew has been fired from her job as a governess and the employment agency no longer wants to help her, so she picks up a slip of paper and presents herself as a personal assistant to an actress. Surprisingly, they hit it off and Miss Pettigrew is swept up in a social whirl. She gets a makeover, sorts out her employer’s love life, and finds a romance of her own. I thought this was a charming movie and well cast (with Frances McDormand in the title role).
   

Goals:

I entered the Style Invitational 3 more times (brining me up to 5 out of my goal of 6 for the year). I even got ink for one of them.

I’ve read 30 books, out of my goal of 52 for the year.

I got another 4 stories (2 personal stories and 2 folktales) into tellable condition, so I exceeded my goal of 4 new stories for the year.

I still need to do a bunch of organizing tasks and do a used bookstore run. Sigh.

I continued not to see any movies during the first quarter of the year. I’ve watched plenty of videos on YouTube, but I don’t really count those.


As far as books go, here is what I read from January through March of 2021:

1. Kristen Hannah, The Great Alone. This was for book club and I thought it was an interesting novel. Set in 1970’s Alaska, it tells the story of the Allbright family, who become homesteaders in rural Alaska. The father, Ernt, is a Vietnam veteran, suffering from PTSD after his time as a POW. He is abusive to his wife, Cora, and their daughter, Leni, escapes in books and her friendship with another boy her age. There’s a lot of tragedy - much of it due to Ernt’s violent temper. I thought it was a good read, overall, though I found parts of it implausible.
   
   
   
2. Willard Manus, The Pigskin Rabbi. This tells the story of a young man who has become a rabbi to satisfy his family tradition, but who really wants to play football. He ends up becoming a quarterback for the New York Giants and the team plays up the Jewish angle with calls in Yiddish and team yarmulkes and so on. That could be amusing, but the book is also filled with rampant sexism, mostly having to do with a character nicknamed “The Hook” after the size and shape of his penis. I also could have lived without the extensive descriptions of football games. Eminently skippable.
   
   
   
3. Jeff Lindsay, Double Dexter. The Dexter series is probably better known in television form, but I find the books quite readable. In this one, Dexter is seen on one of his “play dates” and the guy who sees him tries to emulate him, planning to finish with Dexter as the victim. While I had figured out some key plot points I still enjoyed the breezy writing. If you can handle feeling sympathetic towards a serial killer, this is an enjoyable series.
   
   
   
4. Sarah Dunant, Fatlands. Hannah Wolfe is hired to take a teenage girl around London and investigates when the girl gets killed in a car explosion. Her father was a scientist developing animal feed and Hannah discovers some scary secrets about his work. Along the way to saving the day, she makes some incredibly bad decisions, without which there wouldn’t be much of a story. The book is diverting enough for what it is, but there are better mysteries out there.
   
   
   
5. Shakti Gawain, Developing Intuition. One of my mother’s neighbors had given me a couple of boxes of books and this was among those. It takes 150 or so pages to say, essentially, “relax, meditate, and trust your feelings.” I just saved you from having to read this.
   
   
   
6. Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman. I don’t usually read plays, but I am cleaning out books. I’d read this some 40+ years ago, but didn’t really remember much of it. For example, while I’d remembered Willy Loman confronting his failures and those of his sons, I had completely forgotten his rivalry with his next door neighbor, his affair with a woman in Bston, and (most surprisingly) his suicide plans. I found myself thinking most of all about how the world changed since this play debuted in 1949. Would Linda be working to support the family now? Would Willy and his sons be Trump supporters? I don’t think I could have predicted just how the American dream collapsed.
   
   
   
7. Alexander McCall Smith, La’s Orchestra Saves the World. This is a sweet story, set mostly during World War II. La is a young woman whose husband has committed adultery and died in an accident. She’s settled into rural England and manages to find peace and deep friendship (and possible love) with a Polish man who works on the same farm where she does war work by tending chickens. Only, he may not be exactly what he claims to be. While I enjoyed the book, I had some qualms about the ending which I found both preachy and implausible. Still, it was enjoyable to read.
   
   
   
8. Mark Kurlansky, Salt: A World History. I’ve read several of Kurlansky’s book and managed to sell my book club on this one. Like his other books, this is dense and full of fascinating facts about an everyday subject we don’t usually think about. I especially appreciated his worldwide focus, as he wrote about China and India (e.g. Gandhi’s march to the sea) and Africa (salt caravans to Timbuktu!), as well as the Western world. Everywhere, salt is a major economic driver and often the trigger for wars. There’s a lot here, from the first scientist to observe plants having sex to the scuba diver who herds tuna in Sicily being called the “big bastard.” It isn;t a quick read, but it is a worthwhile one.
   
   
   

As for goals I read 8 books (as noted above), entered the Style Invitational twice, got one story to tellable condition, and have under 2 classes to go on the Smithsonian world art history program. So, not too shabby.

The problem with catching up on things is that I never manage to do it in any sort of chronological order. Sorry for any confusion that causes.

Anyway, an easy entry for me to write is the quarterly one from the third quarter (July / August / September) of 2020. I was pretty busy during that time, trying to clear out work things in preparation for retirement, so there just wasn’t a lot of stuff.

No movies at all that quarter, for example. As for goals:

1. I did update my personal cell phone. But not my television, yet. I should probably count the printer purchase here, too.
   
   
2. I enrolled in the Smithsonian Certificate Program in Art History. (And you will be hearing more about that in the near future.) When I mentioned this to one of my friends, she decided to join me, which is nice because it gives me somebody to talk about art with.
   
   
3. I got 38 books out of my condo. I traded 33 at McKay’s and gave 5 to friends.
   
   
4. I entered the Style Invitational one more time.
   
   

And then comes Books:

1. Alexander McCall Smith, To the Land of Long Lost Friends. It is always pleasant spending some time with Precious Ramotswe and company. In this case, Mma Ramotswe is reunited with a childhood friend who had mistakenly been believed dead. This leads to her investigating a minister with a growing following. There’s also a very satisfying side story involving Charlie and his fiancé and his moral dilemma involving obtaining a suitable bride price. As always, the stories are handled with warmth and charm (and lots of rooibos tea). As always, a delight to read.
   
   
2. Ladies of the Church. This was the cookbook that the notorious frozen delight recipe came from. I remember the person who gave this to my mother as a better cook than her entries in this would suggest. At any rate, I passed it along to susandennis who noticed that the very first recipe in the book was for roach killer!
   
   
3. Ben Katcher, The Dairy Restaurant. I love Katcher’s illustrations and I love (Jewish) dairy food like blintzes and knishes. But I found this book rather dull, largely because of how comprehensive it was. I wanted more personal stories and fewer lists of every dairy restaurant in New York City and their addresses. I suppose this is handy as a reference, though it would need an index in that case. But it was hard reading and disappointing.
   
   
4. Beryl Markham, West With the Night. This was a book club selection, though I had been the one who had suggested it. Markham was an Anglo-Kenyan woman, who trained race horses, flew airplanes (including crossing the Atlantic from Europe to North America, which is the explanation of the title) and had numerous affairs with men. Her memoir is interesting, albeit not particularly reliable, and skips over her rather scandalous love life. It all makes for a good story, assuming one is willing to suspend a lot of disbelief. At any rate, it led to a good discussion at book club.
   
   
5. Iris Bahr, Dork Whore. The title is terrible, but actually makes a certain amount of sense. Iris is an Israeli woman who, upon completing her Army service, sets out to travel in Asia and lose her virginity. That quest explains the “whore” part of the title. What makes her a dork? Well, I don’t exactly have much respect for people whose food adventures in Bangkok consist of eating BLTs. She seems interested most in shopping and doesn’t appear to have much interest in local culture, though she does manage to make it to a few tourist essentials in Vietnam and India. I’ll save you the effort of reading this and tell you that she finally does the deed back in Israel.
   
   
6. Sarah Moriarty, North Haven This was another book club selection. It’s a novel about four siblings reuniting for a summer at their family home in Maine after their mother has died. The house is crumbling but they bicker over whether or not to sell it. There are a few interesting odds and ends in flashbacks, but not much actually happens. And the ending doesn’t follow from the rest of the book.
   
   
7. Mary Jane Davidson, Undead and Unemployed. This is the second of Davidson’t books about vampire queen Betsy Taylor. She just wants to sell shoes on the night shift at Macy’s, but someone is going around attacking vampires and she gets drawn into the matter. She continues her complex relationship with Sinclair as the minions of his rival, the late Nostro, seek revenge for his death. It’s all pretty silly, but an enjoyable diversion. And at least it has an actual plot.