Merry Christmas

 

Happy Chrismas Eve

 

Monday, Monday

Ralph Nase. Boy, did I love that man. We are watching the electric train circle the tree. A very tiny space for it. I always had a doll in my arms. I believe I thought it was my job to keep them alive. 

 Weapons was an unusual movie, not what I expected until the last thirty minutes, which were terrifying. Much funnier than I expected--for a while. 

Sorry that PLURIBUS (Apple) is ending its first season this week. I really related to the central character. Just started a TV version of Anne of Green Gables. I have never read or seen it before. Off the Poirot kick. They run together after a while. I am enjoying Tony Shaloub's show on bread (HBO). Still rewatching  MAD MEN. No doubt for me it was the best show ever penned for TV. 

Hey, Kevin is taking me out to lunch today. What a great present.  

Reading The Correspondent by Virginia Evans I don't usually like epistolary books so it may not work. 

What about you? Done your holiday shopping?  

Friday's Forgotten Books: THE RETURN OF THE TWELVES, Pauline Clark

 The Return of the Twelves by Pauline Clark

Written in 1962, this was a book I read to my children. I usually chose books with a fantastical element since they didn’t choose such books on their own.

Together we read Tom’s Midnight Garden, Tuck Everlasting, The Indian in the Cupboard and so on.

The Return of the Twelves is a favorite.

Max finds a box of twelve toy soldiers in the attic. The soldiers come to life at night and Max eventually learns the soldiers were the playthings of the Bronte children who endowed them with a magical ability to come alive. (Branwell Bronte actually wrote a story about his soldiers called “The History of the Boys”).

Tying the story to a real and literary family was especially delightful to me and leads young (or old) readers to an interest in the Brontes. Highly recommended.

Short Story Wednesday, A Manual For Cleaning Women, Lucia Berlin

 

I have been reading at this collection for more than a decade. A great writer but the stories feel too similar to read all at once. "Mourning" is about a woman who cleans houses (mostly empty ones) for a living. Especially houses where people have recently died. She's cleaning the house of a black mailman in this story. His son and daughter arrive and they are trying to decide what to keep, what to give away. Their mourning becomes more palpable as they discuss various objects. The woman is rude to the cleaner; the man is kind. 

There are terrific stories but don't read them all at once.  

Jerry House 

Kevin Tipple 

TracyK 

George Kelley 

Monday, Monday

So cold, grocery shopping was a horror show. Ice is terrifying, big hulking chunks of it everywhere. And yet I was out three nights because in June it seemed like it didn't snow much in December or get this cold (-2). Did I mention I do not do well on ice. 

Saw the worst movie of the year, Ella McCae. Poor James Brooks. who financed this mess? 

Very disappointed in the Dick Van Dyke American Masters. Couldn't they use better talking heads to weigh in on his contribution to television than his co-stars who mostly said, he was a nice guy. What about  using TV critics instead of Martin Short? People who study it. 

Still loving PLURIBUS but it is not for everyone, I think. I can watch anyone go through their day in silence.  I find it endlessly fascinating. And the guy crossing South America is going to save us all.

Still looking for a great novel to read.  

What about you? Hope you are keeping warm and dry. 

                                    My mother and Josh and Megan circa 1975