Booklist

I liked the idea at All Consuming of creating a reading list there and linking to this blog. After some very slow navigation around the site and many "site not responding" messages I managed to create a list. I copied his javascript and tried to post it. But I got an error message "Tag not allowed..." I'm not familiar enough with javascript to understand how to fix it. Sigh.

I sent Joe a link to FairEconomy.org-Six Things You Can Do to Protest the Tax-Shift Agenda. It's good to have friends who know what the Tax-Shift Agenda is. Interesting intern opportunities listed on the FairEconomy site. Too bad Maggy's not interested in economics.

Last night's bookclub discussion of The DaVinci Code was pretty spirited. Bettsie's a good discussion leader. She's thought about the questions and makes sure everyone participates to some degree. I'll have to do a bit of work for next month's discussion of Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion.

It's another of those beautiful sunny and leafy green days. I have an awful lot to clean up indoors. How can we have made such a mess since we got back from New York Sunday night? Then I should check the tomatoes for staking and do some weeding in the vegetable garden. It's a little chilly at the moment. So I don't mind working on the kitchen and such for a while. Maybe I'll still watch West Wing at 11:00 and by the time I get out to the garden it will be warmer.

We had a nice time in New York. Maggy met Cynthie and me at the Botanical Garden, despite the difficulty getting there 'cause the parkway was blocked off for a festival. I know she must have been tired after visiting with Jacqui the night before. But she was a good sport about looking at the gardens. She went to Staten Island Saturday night to visit friends and got back to Cyn's Sunday morning. So we went into the city for lunch and ran into the Gay Pride Parade. People in the parade were having so much fun you can't help enjoying watching. Stopped at Benetton briefly where Maggy bought a pretty yellow linen dress at 30% off. Well, actually I bought it for her to reward her restraint at only planning to buy two items -- the dress and a slightly funky black t-shirt.

Cynthie's garden looks really nice. The re-modeling of her work room in the basement is turning out really well. I took the crewel work I made for her years ago 'cause she's planning to change the colors in the room where she had it hung. I really liked the ceiling fan in her guest room. I don't know why it never occurred to me to put ceiling fan's in the bedrooms. But I think I'll do that now. We use box fans in the windows. Ceiling fans work better and look nicer. Maggy asked quite a while ago if we could replace the stupid 4' fluorescence and it's a good idea to replace them with fans.

Much as I'd like to do some web browsing now, I think I'll try to get some cleaning/organizing done.

Structure vs chaos

On some level I keep looking for "The 100 greatest books" or "The 7 Habits..." or some curriculum to speed my way toward enlightenment. But it always turns out that I don't really want to start with Aristotle right now. So I find myself spending time in some more or less random web search. I have a folder in my favorites list named "Things to read when I get around to it." And the contents of this folder are growing exponentially.

I don't know where I was when I bookmarked this link to Naomi Wolf. But this site has a list of "critical thinkers." As well as critical text, history, culture etc. So this morning I clicked on the first name in critical thinkers, David Brin, and followed it to his website. There I found discussions of his science fiction, his father's wonderful poetry, a social biology article about neoteny and more!

There's just not enough time to find and read all the interesting stuff. And certainly not enough time respond to it or correlate it. So, am I wasting time by skipping around? Am I doing this dragonfly thing of touching everything superficially?

Schedule (& some things about me)

The schedule I developed to maintain or confirm my sanity says that by 10:30 I should be finished with computer time, writing, showering, exercise and housework. But I'm not finished with any of those things. Face it, I'm still firmly entrenched in "computer time" with this particular moment counting as "writing." When I finish here I'll probably skip all the other things and go directly to "gardening." I've been browsing other people's blogs.

Things other blogs mention that are interesting:

What I'm reading: Three Junes. On my pending reading list: The Map that Changed the World and Mother Tongue. Recently finished: The Life of Pi, Passage to India and 100 Years of Solitude (all motivated by my book club) as well as The Secret Life of Bees, Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui ('tho it's a little embarrassing to mention that) and Sophie's World.

Something about me: I'm over fifty. Generally living alone in central New York, except that my daughter's living with me now. I've been lucky enough to have the past few months at home - no job. Before that I was the business director for a regional theatre. Since I left that job I've loved having time to catch up on house repairs and decorating, gardening, reading, photography, writing and dabbling with drawing and painting.

I recently rediscovered borrowing CD's from the public library. It's a great way to check out music I'd never think of buying and has led me to buy some things I'd never have thought of including Liz Story's Unaccountable Effect. The music I'm most knowledgeable about is classical, 'tho even there my knowledge is still pretty sketchy. The five CD's in my CD player right now are The Burns Sisters, Joan Baez, Anne Murray, Deanna Carter and Billie Holiday (Maggy just got that one for her birthday). The one I've enjoyed most recently from the library is Chris White & Cayuga Jazz.

Okay, I've got to get some things done. Maggy and I are leaving for New York at 6:00. I need to iron, pack, clean up, take care of the plants...

Thursday

I've spent a ridiculous amount of time making minor changes on my website. Substituting smaller picture to load faster. Tweaking margins, etc. I'm hoping to learn something from this primitive webpage so that eventually I can do something more creative. Of course, like this blog, the first thing I learned is that you really have to have something to say to make it worthwhile.

Firewood was delivered yesterday and I've stacked a couple of cords. It will dry quickly in this gorgeous weather. I wish I could have it all stacked before Maggy and I go to New York this weekend. But that won't happen.

It looks like Maggy and I have solved our Friday night dilemma by taking her car. So she can drop me off at Cyn's house and go on to Jacqui's. I just couldn't face driving into the city so late Friday night then back to Cyn's and I didn't want to let Maggy take my car. So besides solving the logistics, Maggy has to clean her car tonight to make it tolerable for me. Kind of two birds with one stone.

I promised Bill I'd work on clearing Lost Spring road at 2:00 and it's nearly that now. So I think I'll make one more stab at updating the Maggy page of my website before I have to go.

User IDs and passwords

After several days of thinking my password wasn't working, I found I was using the wrong user ID. For some reason I hadn't written it down where I ususally keep track of these things. And I hadn't used it often enough to remember it. I suppose there must be a system for creating memorable, yet secure, user IDs and passwords. But I surely don't have that system yet. Well, next time I forget, perhaps this post will remind me. But probably not. So I've written it down.

Life has been fairly beautiful here lately. The gardens look great, at least from a distance. The view out the window to the sunlit trees is gorgeous. I really should move the computer closer to a window. Or better yet, set up the laptop for online access.

Okay. So I don't have deep thoughts every moment of every day. Nor time to write them down when I do have them. The idea here is to form a habit of writing so there's some chance of eventually getting the ideas together with the chance to write.

Right now I've got to either put up new pictures on my website or go outside to enjoy and/or work in the gardens.