Book Challenge Update–84

I have read the 84th book for the book challenge. It was This One Is Mine: A Novel by Maria Semple.

This book is about a Los Angeles man, David Parry, a record producer, his wife Violet, who was a television writer but is now a stay at home mother to baby Dot, and David’s sister Sally, a diabetic failed ballerina. Violet is bored with life in the Hollywood hills. David has a rather regulated life and she is quite frankly bored. On a trip into Los Angeles to get Sally a birthday gift, she meet Teddy, a drug addicted bass player who is down and out. He has Hep C and has nothing to offer Violet. He has a girlfriend but Violet is inexplicably drawn to Teddy. She fixes his car for him and starts to meet him at the golf course and other places around town. She cancels a yoga retreat weekend that she had arranged with David to be with Teddy. She has an affair with Teddy and buys him gifts which she doesn’t give him but carries around in the trunk of her car.

David begins to suspect there is something going on when Violet backs out of the yoga retreat weekend. At first he is angry but during the weekend, he finds peace. He becomes centered and more loving towards Violet.

Sally wants to get married. She meets Jeremy, a local sportswriter who handicaps games. She sets her sights on him. She seduces him. She tries to get him to propose before he gets offered a job on television. But that doesn’t work out. Eventually he does propose. But he is very socially backward. Sally decides to declare personal bankruptcy to get rid of personal debt that she incurred from a previous boyfriend.

Sally’s wedding is being held at David’s and Violet’s home. Teddy’s band is playing at the wedding. Sally’s old boyfriend is invited to the wedding. Jeremy doesn’t want to get married and tells Violet. Sally tells Jeremy that she is pregnant so the wedding goes ahead. David realizes that Teddy is Violet’s lover and decides to divorce Violet. Sally’s ex-boyfriend sees Violet’s gifts to Teddy in Violet’s car and steals them to pawn them.

Sally reads an online article about Asperger’s syndrome and realizes that Jeremy has this disorder. She is afraid that her baby will have this disorder too and aborts the baby and divorces Jeremy. She then discovers she has Hep C. She doesn’t know how she could have contracted it. Teddy is admitted to the hospital. His Hep C is bad. Then Sally realizes that Teddy used one of her syringes at the wedding and she contracted Hep C from him. David and Violet reconcile at the hospital. Violet realizes she loves David.

What happens to Teddy?

This was a wacky book. These were wacky characters. David was a saint. Violet was out of her mind. Sally was a manipulator who got what she wanted only to find out she didn’t want what she thought she wanted. But they all ended up rather content in the end.

Daily Prompt–Might As Well Jump

What’s the biggest risk you’d like to take — but haven’t been able to? What would have to happen to make you comfortable taking it?

Photographers, artists, poets: show us JUMP.

There is a big risk that I’d like to take, but I need another person to take that risk with me. I can’t take it alone. That is to fall in love and get married again. Well, maybe not get married again, but to fall in love anyway.

I have been married twice and have had several affairs in between my marriages. Needless to say, all these marriages and affairs have not been the “never-ending” love affair that I am looking for. My first marriage was to my college sweetheart. We married right out of college. Our daughter was born four years into our marriage and we divorced two years after she was born. Then I had a two year affair with a very nice man I met through friends but he didn’t want to be tied down with children and I of course had my daughter so we parted. Then I started an affair with a musician who was 10 years my junior. That was a colossal mistake. It lasted 3 years. We broke up when I couldn’t stand his immaturity any longer. Then I focused on raising my daughter for the next few years. Finally I married my second husband and moved to Texas. It was not a happy marriage but I was determined to stick it out. for some unknown reason. The marriage lasted 9 years and then he ended it. It was devastating to me, even though I know it was for the best.

So my track record is not good. But I would like to find someone that I could have a relationship with and find common ground with. I would like to find love at this stage in my life and have someone to share my life with. It would be nice to have a marriage, too. This is the risk I would like to take now.

Any takers?

Climbing Out Of The Depths

Reblogged from Black Box Warnings:

The latest chapter of my life began about 20 years ago. That is when everything started to really fall apart.

On the surface, it looked like I was starting over. I had just moved from my home of 40+ years in New York State to Texas to marry a co-worker whom I had known for 18 years. It should have been a joyous time.

Read more… 1,428 more words

I posted this on Black Box Warnings this morning. It isn't like my normal posts. But it explains why I am like I am.

Daily Prompt–Shape Up Or Ship Out

Write a letter to the personality trait you like least, convincing it to shape up or ship out. Be as threatening, theatrical, or thoroughly charming as is necessary to get the job done.

Photographers, artists, poets: show us UGLY.

The personality trait I would like to talk about is my inability to get enough exercise. The title of the post got me to thinking about how little exercise I get. And I’d like to tell myself to start getting more exercise. Shape up, Maire, or ship out.

I do get a little exercise. I walk my dogs every morning for about a half an hour. They enjoy their walk. They each get about 15 minutes a piece. That gives them time to do what they have to do and I get to walk around the townhome complex. But that’s really the only exercise I get. I used to go to Tai Chi classes but for some reason (I don’t remember why), I stopped going. I was going to sign up for yoga class this spring and summer and never got around to it. Maybe I will make it a priority to sign up for the fall yoga classes. I really should. I’m not getting any younger. I do need to exercise. I’m lucky that I’m mobile.

I like to walk. My morning walk with the dogs is pleasant. I really hate the heat, though. I wish I could swim. I’d use the pool at my apartment complex, although it’s not big. I could splash in it. That would be exercise. But it’s still hot out there.

I guess I will will really made an effort to go to yoga class when the fall schedule comes out. It might conflict sometimes with my tutoring and with court dates for CASA, but I can work around those. I have to do something for exercise, I know. I have to stop being so sedentary. I sit at the computer and I read and I drive for most of the day. That’s bad for my bones. And bad for my depression. I know that. I need the exercise. So I resolve. To sign up for fall yoga classes. Shape up or ship out.

Daily Prompt–Bookworm

Tell us about the last book you read (Why did you choose it? Would you recommend it?). To go further, write a post based on its subject matter.

Photographers, artists, poets: show us WORDS.

This prompt contains a spoiler alert. In order to write about the last book I read and to tell you a bit about it, I have to preempt my Book Challenge Update, my book review that I write when I finish a book that I have read for my book challenge.

As most of you know (or maybe you don’t know but I’ll refresh your memories), I have set myself a book challenge. I have challenged myself to read 150 books this year. As I finish a book, I write a review of the book and post it under the heading Book Challenge Update. I keep several reviews in stock to use when I don’t have a daily prompt to post so the review I post is not always the very last book I’ve read.

The last book I read, the review of which has not yet been posted, was Silent In The Grave: A Lady Julia Grey Novel by Deanna Raybourne. I had read this book several years ago but decided to reread it because I’m into Victorian period mysteries at the moment. Lady Julia is a widow who discovers that her husband may have been murdered. A private inquiry agent named Nicholas Brisbane who was an acquaintance of her husband comes to her and tells her that her husband had come to him with threatening letters that he had received. Lady Julia and Brisbane embark on a quest to discover who sent the threatening letters and who would have wanted to murder her husband. They later find evidence that her husband, Sir Edward, was in fact murdered. But in the process of investigating his death, Lady Julia and Brisbane are drawn to one another. So there is an element of romance, albeit with much tension.

There are many characters involved in the novel. Lady Julia comes from a family of ten children and an eccentric father, Earl March. Her brother Valerius who stays with her in Grey House has won a raven in a card game. The problem is that the raven is the property of the Queen and was stolen from her by one of his friends. The raven is now ensconced in Grey House and no one knows how to return it to the Queen. Lady Julia’s sister Portia, also a widow, causes scandal to the family when she takes a lover, who happens to be another woman. An elderly aunt, affectionately nicknamed The Ghoul, moves into Grey House to “help” Lady Julia during her mourning period. Even the servants are interesting. There is Magda, the Gypsy laundress. Lady Julia’s maid, Morag, is surly and does only what she wants to do. The butler Aquinas speaks fluent Italian and was an acrobat. He also has an uncanny ability to anticipate Lady Julia’s wishes. Sir Edward’s cousin, Sir Simon, also lives at Grey House. He is ill with a failing heart and is not expected to live much longer. Lady Julia and her staff are nursing him. And then there is the lovely courtesan Hortense Bellefleur, a friend of Brisbane, who becomes a confidant of Lady Julia and a special friend of Earl March.

This cast of characters contribute to a lively plot as Lady Julia and Brisbane investigate the murder of Sir Edward. Things become complicated as Brisbane becomes ill with migraine headaches. Then the two discover hidden secrets about Sir Edward’s life and the investigation becomes dangerous. In the end, Lady Julia’s very life is threatened.

So I’ve given you a taste of my review of the book in this post. You will probably read the Book Challenge Update for this book in a week or so. It was a fun book. I’ve gone on to the next book in the series this weekend. I had trouble putting it down. Lady Julia has become a special friend to me. She’s been away too long.

Six Word Saturday

Six Word Saturday

Waiting For The Rain To Come

To go along with the Word Press Daily Prompt today about what one does on a rainy afternoon, I am firmly ensconced in my home (well, I do have to go out to vote at some point). I’m waiting for the afternoon rains to come.

Our weather pattern for the past two weeks has been such that rain in the form of thunderstorms have rolled in from the west and south every afternoon. Today it looks like they may show up rather early. It is rather overcast today. The Weather Channel radar shows storms out to the west. I guess I’d better go out to vote sooner rather than later and hunker down to my reading in the rainy afternoon. That’s what I wrote in the Daily Prompt.

That’s what I do on a rainy afternoon–read. And that’s what I’ll be doing today when the rains come. It will be a lovely afternoon and evening. The rain clouds don’t look to be too violent, no reds and yellows on the radar map, only green so far. Perhaps the reds and yellows will arrive in the afternoon with the thunderstorms. I’d like a gentle rain. That would be nice. Reading to the sound of the pitter-patter of the rain on the window. What a lovely way to spend an afternoon.

Note: This is my 1,400 post. A real milestone for me, I think. Quite a few. Not too many memorable, unfortunately. At least this one’s nice.

Daily Prompt–Sing’ In The Rain

Safe inside, toasty warm, while water pitter-patters on the roof… describe your perfect, rainy afternoon.

Photographers, artists, poets: show us RAIN.

How appropriate for the weather we have been having here in San Antonio, Texas for the past two weeks or so! We are in a very strange weather pattern for San Antonio and all of south Texas. We have hot and sunny days, but then the afternoons tend to cloud over with storms coming in over the mountains of Mexico and up from the Gulf coastal plains and we have thunderstorms around 5 pm to about 10 pm every evening.

Sometimes they come even earlier and we have a rainy afternoon such as we’ve had several times this week. Today is supposed to be one of those days. A nice rainy afternoon. I hope not as rainy as our western region had the day before yesterday when they received 4 inches an hour and 8 inches total and had massive flooding in the border towns. Shade of our 10 inches rainfall several weeks ago! That was a bit much.

No, a nice gentle rain would be nice. However, we usually have thunderstorms, not nice gentle rains. But a rainy day nonetheless would be conducive to my favorite pursuit–reading. I would hunker down with my Kindle Fire™ with its paperwhite screen and read my selection of books that I’ve chosen. I have a number that I’m currently reading. Yesterday I was engrossed in a Lady Julia Grey novel that I had read previously that I am rereading and I did not want to put down. I stayed with it most of the day instead of moving on to other books. I made great headway into the novel. Great for an overcast day.

Today I have to take the car in for service before the rains come, but then I shall plop down on the futon with my books and wait for the rain. The rain and I are good friends. My daughter is highly annoyed about the rain. She wants nothing more than to lay in the sun by her pool and the rain is making that impossible. She should just give in and read a good book like me while this weather pattern holds. That’s what I will be doing, snacking on dried apricots, and living in the 1887′s with Lady Julia Grey and Nicholas Brisbane at Bellmont Abbey solving the latest murder.

Book Challenge Update–83

I have finished the 83rd book for the book challenge. It was Death in August: The First Inspector Bordelli Mystery by Marco Vichi.

Inspector Bordelli is stuck in Florence for the hot month of August while most of the city, including his friend Rosa the prostitute is at the beach. He has a mystery to investigate. A wealthy woman, Senora Pedretti-Strassen has been found dead in her villa. At first it seems that she has had an asthma attack but a closer examination shows that she did not take her asthma medication but it was poured into her mouth. And the bottle of her medication has the top firmly screwed on. She was found with her hands grasping her throat as if she couldn’t breathe.

Bordelli conducts the investigation into her death and finds she had two nephews who think they are inheriting her estate. Unfortunately for them, she left all her money and the house to a sister’s convent. But he suspects the nephews anyway. But they seem to have a good alibi. They were miles away at the beach in a bar and dancing when she had the asthma attack. And she was allergic to a very specific type of pollen found in South America. How was the murder committed? Bordelli sets off to the beach to interrogate the two brothers and their wives and meets a woman to whom he is attracted.

Back in Florence, Bordelli meets with Senora Pedretti’s brother Dante, a mad inventor who explains about her allergy. Bordelli likes Dante and invites him and other to a dinner at his home that is catered by his friend Botto, a former inmate. Everyone has a wonderful time but ends up a little drunk.

Bordelli keeps pondering how the pollen from this South American plant could have gotten to Senora Pedretti. But while he is talking to his friend Rose about cats, he realizes that he knows how the pollen was transmitted to the woman. He brings in the two brothers and their wives and keeps them there all night until one breaks. The pollen was rubbed into the fur of Gideon, Senora Pedretti’s cat, who came into her room every night at 9 o’clock from the garden and rubbed against her. Then later the brothers came in and put back her medication (which they had previously removed), put some in her mouth, but firmly screwed on the cap. The doors were left locked so it seemed that no one had broken in because they had keys and came after the time frame of the murder.

Bordelli gives Gideon the cat to Rosa who wants a cat to care for.  And Bordelli is now promoted to Chief Inspector, though he doesn’t want to move into a new office. And he has learned that his shy cousin Rodrigo has a girlfriend. He wishes he did.

Five Question Friday

Its Friday!!!  That means another installment of Five Question Friday.  As always, feel free to answer the questions for yourself in the comments below.

1. What do you appreciate most about your children’s Dad?  My daughter’s dad was faithful about taking her for her visits each week and also spent time time her on weekends and in the summer. He watched out for her in high school (he was a teacher at her high school). He tried to talk sense into her when she needed someone to talk sense to her. He always provided financially for her. He kept a good relationship with me. He was a good dad.

2. Do you always wear your seat belt?  Absolutely. The car doesn’t go anywhere unless EVERYONE is buckled up.

3. Do you dream and do you remember them? Yes, I dream and often I remember them. It might be just snippets of the dream but I do remember the dreams. I often write them down in a journal.

4. What is one thing you swore you’d never let your kids do before having them, that you have now changed your ways about?  I can’t think of anything that I swore I’d never let my kids do but then I let my kid do. It was more that I’d let my child do things that I wasn’t allowed to do.

5. If you could be granted one wish, what would it be? I’d like to have enough money to send my granddaughters to the colleges of their choice. I know going to college is going to be a struggle for them so I’d like to be able to help them out.

 

Daily Prompt–In Good Faith

Describe a memory or encounter in which you considered your faith, religion, spirituality — or lack of — for the first time.

Photographers, artists, poets: show us FAITH.

I have been a spiritual person for most of my adult life. I believe in God and attended church most of my adult life. I am now a Muslim and attend weekly services at the masjid. But there was a time when i felt the presence of God very near to me. That was when my mother was dying.

My mother was in the hospital in Utica, NY. She had been admitted a few days before Christmas complaining of neck pain. She had rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis. The doctors were unsure what was causing her severe pain. They were doing tests but she was in pain and not getting better. I had come to visit from Albany, NY the day after Christmas and could see that she was not good. She was lapsing in and out of consciousness. A neurologist was called. An MRI was done. They thought they saw a mass on her spine near her neck. It could be cancer. They sent me home.

As soon as I got home, I had a message to return. My mother had taken a turn for the worse. They didn’t expect her to live much longer. We had a do not resuscitate order for her, per her wishes. I got back in my car and raced back to Utica. When I was about half way there, through my tears, I felt very peaceful and realized my mother had died. I knew she was finally at peace and out of pain. I knew she was with God. I could feel the presence of God. I slowed down to a normal speed because I knew that she was already gone.

When I reached the hospital, I learned my mother had indeed died at about the time I had felt the peace come over me. My sister and my mother’s best friend were with her when she passed. She was not alone. She was finally at peace. She was without pain.

I planned my mother’s funeral with the sister from my mother’s parish. We selected the Bible readings that were meaningful to me and my mother and the hymns that were special. I especially chose a psalm that talked about being raised on the wings of eagles. I could picture my mother being lifted from her pain on the wings of an eagle in heaven.

This was not the first time that I have felt close to God. But it was one of the strongest feelings I have had. The entire experience of my mother’s death was made easier because of my belief in God. My belief in God is so important to me. It was then, and it still is today.