Birds and book, day 346
I've got as far as pulling out my address books and making a list of names of people to whom I intend to send Christmas cards. It is, I must say, this sort of activity that can be stealthily distressing and I find myself understanding people who complain about the holidays being hard. Former in-laws with whom I'm no longer in contact, the various listings for my mother, assorted couples who have split since I wrote their names in my address books, people with whom I used to be close whose addresses are now a decade out of date, the sister-in-law who I never really knew who has just died. I look at my brother's name, linked with hers, and worry though I'm quite out of touch with him as well. It's nothing personal, some of this anguish; it's more just that there is such pain out there. I can't remember what undoubtedly foolish science fiction story or movie the line appears but somewhere some alien creature asks how humans can stand the loneliness of existence. And Christmas seems to bring that into relief.
Or maybe I'm just stalling on figuring out who gets the penguins and who gets the mouse cards.
In brighter news, elijah_brown obligingly picked up a copy of The New Yorker "Cartoons of the Year" issue. I'm hoping to memorize "Damn it, Flopsy, you've cost me another bust" because that sounds like a line that could be useful.
I also finished Full Dark House last night and have moved on to the far lighter (and known quantity) The Wind in the Willows. Don't get me wrong: I liked FDH fine but it was a little more gruesome than I'd anticipated with feet being cut off and people being sliced with razors. At least I think someone was sliced with a razor: I got to "...he saw the slim shine of the cut-throat razor..." and jumped to the next paragraph. The whole business of telling a story set both in 1940 and 2003 with the main characters both promising yet eccentric young men and legendary and still eccentric old men was fine and I liked the subtle (or not so subtle) methods the author used to signal which decade it was. I could see reading more books in the series, if it is a series, in order to see how the friendship is developed, assuming it is; they seem to have become fast friends pretty much immediately. I guess that happens in wartime. I was quite taken with the Appendix "Notations Made by Mr. Arthur Bryant in His Account of His First Case with Mr. John May," possibly in part because I've spent too much time with an impossible index the last few days: "Norwegians, anaemic condition of," "Cheese, See Skittles," and "Ginger people, use of by Germans during blackouts" would fit right in.
Birds
dark-eyed juncos
house finches
house sparrows
American goldfinches
black-capped chickadees
yellow-rumped warblers
northern flicker
Anna's hummingbird
robin
crows
starlings
pigeons
ducks
Barrow's goldeneye
cormorant
(And, hey, because this just is a gloom-tinged post, what is it with death and carnage on the Tweeters list? Is this normal? I can deal with the "and then the owl/raptor ate the starling/field mouse/its young" emails but could there please be an end to the reports of birds killed on highways because they're too dazed to get off the pavement?)
Book
Full Dark House (page 356)
The Wind in the Willows (page 26...preparing to call on Mr. Toad)
Or maybe I'm just stalling on figuring out who gets the penguins and who gets the mouse cards.
In brighter news, elijah_brown obligingly picked up a copy of The New Yorker "Cartoons of the Year" issue. I'm hoping to memorize "Damn it, Flopsy, you've cost me another bust" because that sounds like a line that could be useful.
I also finished Full Dark House last night and have moved on to the far lighter (and known quantity) The Wind in the Willows. Don't get me wrong: I liked FDH fine but it was a little more gruesome than I'd anticipated with feet being cut off and people being sliced with razors. At least I think someone was sliced with a razor: I got to "...he saw the slim shine of the cut-throat razor..." and jumped to the next paragraph. The whole business of telling a story set both in 1940 and 2003 with the main characters both promising yet eccentric young men and legendary and still eccentric old men was fine and I liked the subtle (or not so subtle) methods the author used to signal which decade it was. I could see reading more books in the series, if it is a series, in order to see how the friendship is developed, assuming it is; they seem to have become fast friends pretty much immediately. I guess that happens in wartime. I was quite taken with the Appendix "Notations Made by Mr. Arthur Bryant in His Account of His First Case with Mr. John May," possibly in part because I've spent too much time with an impossible index the last few days: "Norwegians, anaemic condition of," "Cheese, See Skittles," and "Ginger people, use of by Germans during blackouts" would fit right in.
Birds
dark-eyed juncos
house finches
house sparrows
American goldfinches
black-capped chickadees
yellow-rumped warblers
northern flicker
Anna's hummingbird
robin
crows
starlings
pigeons
ducks
Barrow's goldeneye
cormorant
(And, hey, because this just is a gloom-tinged post, what is it with death and carnage on the Tweeters list? Is this normal? I can deal with the "and then the owl/raptor ate the starling/field mouse/its young" emails but could there please be an end to the reports of birds killed on highways because they're too dazed to get off the pavement?)
Book
Full Dark House (page 356)
The Wind in the Willows (page 26...preparing to call on Mr. Toad)