"I have been but little in," said Ninian hastily...

Dammit!

I was off to my sister's for the weekend. Late, of course, because I fell asleep in the afternoon when I meant to be doing some pre-trip errands, went off to do them and wasted an hour on one because the shop closes at 1pm on Saturdays (!!??) Hurrying to get my stuff in the car for the 3-hour drive, I trip on the front steps, spill all the presents I was taking my sister and nephews, and wrench my ankle. It hurts, but I get  in the car and try driving anyway. After half an hour, I realise that there's no way I can drive for three hours--it's either a sprain or a bad strain. Turn around, and of course it now takes me nearly an hour to get home because there's some godawful jam on 95. Bloody hell.

The cats are being very solicitous, but every once in a while they insist on stepping on the ankle, which hurts like hell. They look very offended when I shout.

I'm beginning to feel snake-bitten about travel.

First off, a link to some photos of recent events.

Not many, sadly, but a few from the birthday visit my nephews and their mums paid me in March, and then some photos from the trip The Teacher and I took to see a little of Philadelphia and to visit the aforementioned nephews and their mums on Easter weekend.

So, because there is too much to explain, let me sum up.

Things are going very well with The Teacher and me. I don't think it's giving anything away to say that we are both thoroughly in love with each other. We spend more time together, at this point, than apart, and we have yet to run into any "hitches or vexations" as they say in the Land of Green Ginger. Well, one or two small hitches, perhaps, but nothing serious. We've gone from marvelling at how much we have in common to noticing the important ways we are different and rejoicing that (at least so far) we are not finding any that pose problems. Mostly we do a lot of rejoicing, as both of us have found, to one extent or another, that we find the other to be, no someone who wants to change or "improve" us (a deadly danger), but someone who makes *us* want to change, or at least to be the best person we can be. I find myself less nervous, less prone to anger, more generous, more patient now that she is part of my life. More than the number of books we've both read or movies we've both loved or ideas we've both been moved by, we find places we want to go or experiences we want to share. And the simple but ineffable pleasure of being with someone who loves you as you are and cares deeply about you... it's such a very nice place to be.

We had a very nice trip to Philadelphia, where she had lived for several years. There's a great deal more to see than we saw, so I for one would love to go back. We spent a couple of days visiting my sister The Deacon and her family in New Jersey. They quite liked The Teacher, and the feeling was mutual. We got back just in time to race around cooking a Passover dinner for some friends, which went quite well, on the whole, even it it started a little late (only 8 pm this time, really!) We've been to a couple of DC United games, to the movies (to see Jane Eyre, which we both liked--I felt it did rather well at capturing the book), and we've started to plan all sorts of things to do together, including several trips and expeditions. I've introduced her to some of my favourite restaurants and to some telly (Slings and Arrows was a big hit! thank you again Christy!)

I should wrap up, as I need to get home and make dinner for my sweetie (who does the washing up, a very nice bargain for me, I think!)

I've finished several books and books on tape lately; no time to review them now, but hopefully I will later on.

The Zimmerman Telegram and The First Salute, by Barbara Tuchman (10/50 and 11/50)
Unnatural Death and The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers (12/50 and 13/50) re-reads
A Cluster of Separate Sparks by Joan Aiken (14/50) re-read
China Road by Rob Gifford (15/50)

Books "in progress":

The Grand Scuttle: The Sinking of the German Fleet at Scapa Flow in 1919 by Dan Van der Dat
Theoretical Criminology by George B. Vold et al.
Understanding China by John Bryan Starr
Red Branch by Morgan Llewellyn
Through a Howling Wilderness: Benedict Arnold's March to Quebec, 1775 by Thomas Desjardins
Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid

Apologies to all my LJ friends for not reading, commenting, or posting much myself of late. Things are going swimmingly with The Teacher, and life is busy in other arenas, so I've had very little spare time. I'm hoping I will have a little time this weekend to catch up with all the other things I've been neglecting, including posting about books I've finished recently (including a negative review of a Barbara Tuchman book, words I thought I'd never say), notes on recent gaming and research, some thoughts about future plans, and much happy burbling about The Teacher, including an account of our trip to Philadelphia, her first meeting with my family in New Jersey, and our joint and rather high-speed effort to make a Passover dinner for some of my friends (which came out, all things considered, rather well).

More, as they say, later.

I realised the other day that not having my parents around makes Christmas very...disconnected for me. It was one holiday we almost always spent together, and if we didn't, we still exchanged gifts. I love giving people presents, and without them or a wife to shop for, I kind of get lost somewhere in November. And I miss the rituals of Xmas at their house, the things that made it really magical for me, including the tree (even if, yes, Chris, I didn't always help decorate it :-), the midnight service at Bruton Parish, sitting on their brick hearth as the fire died down and you knew it was time to be going to bed (only to sneak out later and put out presents for everyone.)

So I was hunting around for a movie to watch tonight that would be about family, and I picked Gurinder Chadha's What's Cooking? It doesn't look so far as if it's going to be a great movie, but it's fun and has a number of actors I know and like: Alfre Woodward as a harrassed daughter in law who is on the hook for things out of her control, Julianna Margulies (yum!!!) as the lesbian partner of a Jewish-American woman whose parents (Lainie Kazan and Maury Chaykin) are definitely not comfortable with her relationship with their daughter, Joan Chen as a Vietnamese woman caught between her parents' love of tradition and discomfort with America and her kids' desire to assimilate in America. I love GC's films, and somehow I've never seen this one before.

It's not It's A Wonderful Life (which I'm very fond of--my sap tolerance is high) or Comfort and Joy (my favourite depressing Xmas movie) or Love, Actually (my favourite romantic Xmas movie). But there's plenty more holiday, and tonight I'm not feeling totally in the mood for sap, and I couldn't take either of the other two, not tonight. There's Scrooge, too, in the Spoor Xmas Movie Collection, but that will save for another night.

The ancient Roman ragout I tried making was a but odd, but not bad--spices, ham, leeks, and apples, with "dumplings" (meatballs, essentially) of pork. I wilted some spinach and added garlic as a side dish and had some more of the Holiday Shiner. After dinner has had time to settle, I think I'm having the spotted dick for dessert, with some cream. It's tinned spotted dick, but that's way better than nothing, Sadly, no Xmas pud this year, but that's probably just as well where the ever-expanding waistline is concerned.

Now, back to the movie! Sleep well, y'all!

I had a very nice holiday with my NJ relatives.( Read more... )A short list of the birds we saw( Read more... )

I noticed that one of my friends has started posting a note of thankfulness every day in November (leading up to Thanksgiving, I assume). I think that's a grand idea, and I know I can be awfully negative sometimes, so I'm thinking I'll try it. Hopefully it will work better than my 30 days of poems, which crashed and burned.

For the first post of November, I think I will be thankful for Theo and Simon, my two wonderful nephews, who will be three years old this Saturday. They are wonderful--smart, funny, sweet, and tremendously cute.

I'm also thankful for my nieces, Sarah, Audrey, and Kamalia. They are very different people, but each of them brings something really special to the world. And Sarah has also brought us the joy of her son, a sweet little guy named Peter.

And of course, I am grateful for my sisters, Cornelia and Victoria. We haven't always been close, and we haven't always agreed about things, but they are my sibs, and I love them very much.

In memoriam

Nathaniel Burton Paradise, Second Lieutenant, US Army
302nd Infantry, 151st Infantry Brigade, 76th Division
American Expeditionary Force, 1917-1919

Kenneth Franklin Spoor, Master Sergeant, US Army
US Army Air Corps
China-Burma-India Theater, 1942-1945

And my thanks and respect to all my friends and colleagues and their comrades who serve and protect our country. It's been too often repeated as a political slogan or a facile declaration of jingoistic patriotism, but it's still true: freedom is not free, and ours is purchased, in part, by the toil and hardship, and too often of late, by the blood and bodies of our fellow citizens. God bless them, and God bless the United States of America.

My nephews have graduated from calling me on their Elmo phones to calling me on a real cell phone (they got hold of my niece's mobile and hit one of the speed dials).

They grow up so fast! (They're only two...)

On a recent walk around Denver's Fort Logan National Cemetery, I am struck, not by the lives cut short by war, a tragic consequence of military service, but by the long lives of many who served and the great blessings they brought to us. I imagine them, like my parents, young people who leveraged their country's investment in them to transform America. Veterans raise expectations, not just for themselves, but for their children and their children's children, and, in the process, for us all. I imagine the Fort Logan vets as entrepreneurs, teachers, police, firefighters, doctors, nurses, builders, engineers, and even lawyers. I imagine them as mothers and fathers. I see the life you and I live as defended and enabled by their ideals.

Jim Thomas on Huffington Post

Today I will be remembering my father, Kenneth Franklin Spoor, and his brothers Don and Jack, who served in World War II, and my grandfather, Nathaniel Burton Paradise, who served in World War I.