Reading Sets You Free

Reading Sets You Free
(Image from Blue Cereal Education)

Yes, it does set me free. It always has.

Amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic, books keep me from being "locked down." I don't care if the books are in the hard copy form of actual physical books or if they are electronic. As long as the words are there. As long as they take me some place and show me a thing or two or twenty-seven.

Many of my friends  are working jigsaw puzzles. Thousands of pieces puzzles. They rescue them from the backs of closets. They retrieve them from storage units. They order them online. They share them back and forth and back again. They have preferences: puzzles about travel, puzzles about cats, brightly colored puzzles, oddly shaped puzzles.

I can't do puzzles. I have a cat. My Kočka, would no doubt love for me to work jigsaw puzzles -- on the dining table, sans 24-hour guard.

He plays with things. Carries things around. Loses things. He probably doesn't think he's "losing" things. The only thing he loses is "interest" in those things he carries around.

Kočka is an unusually smart cat, but words in books are beyond him. In fact, the books themselves hold no interest for him. And because my e-reader, unlike my cell phone, does not respond to his touching the screen, he's not interested in it either -- soooo, he leaves them alone.

Consequently, I may lose my place in whatever book I'm reading, but I won't lose the book, be it hard copy or electronic.

Our public library is closed for the foreseeable future. You can go online and put books on hold. Hard copy books you pick up curbside. It goes like this. They send you an email when the books you want are available. You park in the designated area at the library, call them to tell them you've arrived and open your trunk, then get back in your car. They bring your books out in a brown paper bag and put them in your trunk. You get out and close your trunk and go home. (Kinda puts you in mind of receiving contraband, doesn't it?) No face-to-face contact. Minimal risk of spreading Covid-19. Or you can download the books you want to your e-reader with absolutely zero chance of spreading the virus. Either way, it's free.



This week I finished Diane Mott Davidson's Tough Cookie, a cozy mystery, one of Davidson's series featuring the caterer sleuth Goldie Schultz. Her books are set in Colorado and are liberally sprinkled with recipes. 

Of course, I have to interrupt reading to prepare this recipe or that. The only thing is, even though her books are set just up the hill from where I live, I still have to amend them for cooking at altitude. At a book-signing, she explained that she has a professional change the recipes so they work at sea level.



And then I read Fredrik Backman's Britt-Marie Was Here. Let me just say, if it's a Backman book, it's worth my time. He writes people I know and philosophy I understand.

         

                   "A human being, any human being at all, has so perishingly few chances to 

              stay right there, to let go of time and fall into the moment. Explode with passion.

                    A few times when we are children, maybe, for those of us who are allowed 

              to be. But after that, how many breaths are we allowed to take beyond the con-

              fines of ourselves? How many pure emotions make us cheer out loud, without
              a sense of shame?
                     All passion is childish. It's banal and naive. It's nothing we learn; it's 
               instinctive, and so it overwhelms us. Overturns us. It bears us away in a flood. 

               All other emotions belong to the earth, but passion inhabits the universe."

Those two books, I downloaded on my e-reader from the library. 

My next book was Nevada Barr's Liberty Falling. Several years ago while my Daddy was still living, one of his care-givers brought me a grocery bag filled with Nevada Barr books. For those of you not familiar with her work, she writes murder mysteries, a bit more action-packed than Davidson's. Barr's main character is Anna Pigeon, a Park Ranger. Each mystery is set in one of the National Parks. This one takes place at The Statue of Liberty National Monument, Ellis Island National Park, and in New York City's Manhattan.

Remember the old James Bond movies, back when they included not only flash/bang/chase scenes but actual dialog. And that dialog was snarky?  Like when Bond was on the dance floor with a beautiful woman and he saw reflected in her eyes an assassin aiming at him. He spun her around so that it was she who was shot. He danced the victim over to a chair, gently sat her down in it and said to a bystander, "Do you mind if my friend sits this one out? She's just dead."

Barr laces her high energy action with the same kind of humor. At one point, Anna ascertains that a fellow Park Ranger, though injured, is not in danger of dying and she must go ahead and save the day. 


Barr writes,

"Anna squirmed under the Dumpster and retrieved Andrew's gun. A Glock 9mm, a good weapon. She chambered a round. 'I'll be back,' she promised. Arnold Schwarzenegger had said the same thing in Terminator 2. It sounded more convincing with the accent."

And a few pages on:

"Regardless of how divinely inspired, New York frowned upon unauthorized persons shooting people with borrowed guns. Anna spent seven hours with three different law enforcement agencies giving statements, defending her
actions, accepting congratulations, being bullied and drinking bad coffee. Drowning in polluted salt water was beginning to seem like the good old days."



Despite the current administration's hurry to "reopen," the simple fact of the matter is Covid-19 is here to stay. Until there is a safe and effective vaccine, those of us in an "at risk group" or who interact with people in such a group should continue to stay home when possible, observe six-feet social distancing and wear masks when away from home, and wash our hands often or use hand sanitizer.

And do whatever we can to limit cabin fever -- work jigsaw puzzles, read, watch old movies, dance in the laundry room, sing in the kitchen, paint, bake, write, take online ukulele lessons -- make our own happy!

Y'all stay safe.

The Crown -- A Review

Kočka watching The Crown

My cat Kočka paid little or no attention to the second season of the Netflix Original series The Crown. In fact, he only watched a small portion of one episode. In this episode a large contingent of soldiers accompanied by bagpipes marches ahead of the queen as she proceeds to Balmoral, her castle in Scotland. Kočka has a thing for bagpipes. They will draw him from wherever he is in the house. He also loves Celtic Woman. Perhaps he was a Celt in one of his previous lives.

The Crown created and written by Peter Morgan and produced by Left Bank Pictures and Sony Pictures Television for Netflix, is a biographical drama about Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain. (Please note: drama not documentary.)

Claire Foy plays Elizabeth, for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. Matt Smith plays Philip. He is probably more famous for being the eleventh Doctor in the long-running BBC series Doctor Who. (My daughter's favorite Doctor!)

The first season was about Queen Elizabeth's life beginning with her marriage to Prince Philip in 1947 and running through 1955. The second season begins in 1956 with England's problems in Egypt and runs through 1964.

I watched that first season and enjoyed it thoroughly. So much so, in fact, that I looked forward to the second season with great anticipation. It filled Downton Abbey's place in my television viewing life quite nicely. If you pay attention, you'll see several actors from Downton.

Both seasons of The Crown are filled with opulent homes and furnishings and, what to me were unusual and on occasion mean-spirited, formalities that the Royals had to live with.

I probably know more about Elizabethan English history than I do about modern British history. I may have been alive during Elizabeth II's reign so far, but I've been much more vested in American goings-on than in Britain's. So I knew little of Britain's colonial activities in the Middle East.

The second season covers times that you'd think I'd remember, but I guess I wasn't paying attention.

What I know of British activities in India and Israel/Palestine during the late 40s is more than they discussed in the series at all. I suppose because the series actually focuses on Elizabeth's own activities and those political crises were in her father's time rather than hers.

It's interesting to me to realize that the woman I always thought of as 'grandmotherly' and 'dowdy' with her purses and hats that looked like a hydrangea on her head wasn't always all that old. Of course in the 60s when I was paying attention to the Brits, it was the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Twiggy. Politics and royalty figured not at all.

And I don't remember the Kennedys going to England. That must have been during his "ich bin ein berliner" visit to Germany.

In the scene when the Kennedys are first introduced to the queen, one thing especially caught my attention. Someone in the scene said sotto voce as though shocked "she didn't curtsy." That struck me as particularly odd. Why would they expect a woman who was not a subject of the queen to curtsy?

And I certainly don't remember the Kennedys having the kind of relationship with each other that this series portrays. No spoilers here. You'll have to watch for yourself. But the portrayal of Elizabeth's reaction to President Kennedy's murder, brought tears to my eyes. I'd never before even considered how people outside the U.S. reacted to that horrific event.

The writing and acting throughout both seasons is excellent. And the directing ... I was especially taken with the use of silences in the dialogue.

I don't know how historically accurate the series is. I do think it would be interesting to know what the British Royals think of it. Some of them don't get the rosiest of treatments.

The thing for me is that The Crown is a good story, well told. And if it's not exactly all true, that's okay. I certainly won't hold any of the real people to the historical fiction I enjoyed binge-watching.

And by-the-bye the video of the making of a crown during the opening titles is fascinating.

Cat Toys -- Flash Nonfiction

Kočka

Kočka, that's my name. I've been told it's Czech for cat. 

I first came to live with these people in the hot time almost two years ago. I was very small and very sick. I don't remember much about it, but I've heard stories.

"Heat stroke," the man told the young woman who found me. He said to bathe me in cool water.

She asked him what she should do with me then. She said she couldn't keep me because they already had three cats.

He said, "Take him to the animal shelter." But his woman said to bring me by their house first.

They didn't have any pets and that woman wanted me to stay with them.

"Happy Father's Day, Dad," the young woman said, handing me to him.

                           

When I was little I'd let them hold me some. I never did like pettin'. Mostly I'd rather play. Not with fancy, store-bought toys. I don't know why humans bring those things home. Personally I prefer used drinking straws, or wine corks. I like twist ties. And I like those plastic packing straps.

Once I found a toy mouse. Nobody knows where it came from.

My favorite toy was always the little foil balls that the man made for me. Sometimes I could get him to play fetch. He usually got tired of throwing it down the stairs before I'd get tired of bringing it back to him. 

I also liked to bat those balls underneath the cook stove. Then if I sat and looked expectantly at the stove, eventually one of the humans would notice. Humans are so much fun to watch. They'd get a long stick, hunker down, and fish around under the stove until they retrieved the foil ball. And sometimes there's not even a foil ball under there!

I like the man's fish tank, too. I've never caught one but if I jump at the side of the tank they swim away really fast. I've checked that tank out from every angle. Haven't found a way in yet.

                           

One day the man said "Let's go to the pet store and get some fish."

I'd never heard of rescue dogs or adoption events, but that's apparently what they were having at the pet store. My humans brought home two puppies. They didn't get any new fish that day.

Lily's the one with feathers and Cooper's the smooth-coated one. They like to wrestle and play chase. They are the best cat toys ever.

#atozchallenge

Monkeydo -- Nonfiction

Image from emery.edu

"Did you sleep well?" my husband asked.

"I did," I said. "After I put the cat out of the bedroom."

"You got us a bad cat," he said as he fished around under the cook stove for cat toys. Finding none, he wadded up a bit of aluminum foil and proceeded to play kick ball with Kočka. And fetch! Who ever heard of a cat playing fetch?

But that's not what I come here to talk about. (A corruption of a line from Arlo Guthrie's slightly more than 18 minute long song Alice's Restaurant. If you haven't heard it since you were a rebellious teen in the 60's click on the link, lean back, inhale, and enjoy. If you've never heard it, then you should. And if you think you don't have eighteen plus free minutes, you definitely should.)

What I did come here to talk about is words.

At 6:14 this a.m. my phone sounded, waking me to let me know I'd gotten a new email. Apparently I had been working on a writing problem while I slept, because I awoke with a much needed monkeydo. (You probably have the same bemused expression my husband had when I used that word to explain how successfully I'd slept. And by-the-bye, bemused pronounced bih-myoozd, is an adjective meaning bewildered or confused. It has nothing to do with the word amuse unless, of course you see it in a blog post exploring words as a means of entertainment.)

When you write, you need believable reasons for characters to say or do what the plot needs them to. That's a monkeydo. Or if you need them to be in a particular place or situation, getting them there is a monkeydo. Else you have a deus ex machina.

I don't know where the term monkeydo comes from, but I don't think I coined it myself. Which brings me to terminologicalinexactitudinarian. That's my favorite word. I googled it to use in this post. And Oh my god! this is what I found

Writers sometimes think about big words... - Claudia Weber Wagner ... 

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?id=427583950611349&story_fbid...

Writers sometimes think about big words -- and I don't mean terminologicalinexactitudinarian -- today I mean justice. Check out my latest blog post....

That's right. The ONLY thing Google brought up on that word was me. How many times have you googled something and it only brought up one? Much less that one being you. Talk about feeling important! I'm still smiling like the proverbial Cheshire Cat.

Now that wasn't my first reaction. My first reaction was that I must have misspelled it the exact same way I must have misspelled it in the said reference listed by Google. I thought it was a term coined by Winston Churchill, one of my favorite word-coiners. (Terminologicians?) So I connected it to his name and googled again. This time I got "about 4,050 results." Here's one:

terminological inexactitude - definition of terminological inexactitude in ... 

www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/.../terminological-inexactitud...

OxfordDictionaries.com

Definition of terminological inexactitude in English: Share this entry. email cite discuss ... Origin. First used by Winston Churchill in a Commons speech in 1906.

Now I must question my whole understanding of the word. I don't think I made it up, nor did I make up the story wrapped around the coining of the word. I'm sure I heard it somewhere -- The Dick Cavett Show, my humanities class at Central State, one of the Muppets on Sesame Street. And the context sounded so Churchill.

The story was that the politicians in Great Britain's House of Commons are not allowed to call each other 'liars' so . . . . Apparently the part of the story about using that word in Parliament is true. I googled it.

And one more thing, which has nothing to do with this post other than I got it when I googled "words images." Isn't the picture at the top of this blog beautiful?

Kočka -- Czech for Cat

Kočka is the Czech word for cat. It sounds like coach-ka, emphasis on the first syllable. My mother's father's family emigrated to the U.S. when there was still a country named Bohemia. It, along with Moravia and a bit of Silesia, is the Czech Republic today.

Kočka the good kitty.

He waits for me at the bottom of the stairs while I'm in the laundry room. That is, he waits, unless I've failed to properly close the door so he can't push it open and get in with me. It wouldn't be such a problem if he did, but he can get into the unfinished crawl space under the house. Who knows what's in there. It may not be safe for him. Dragons maybe.

He comes when his Dad whistles. (I can't whistle.) He plays fetch as long as his Dad will toss his toys. He's figured out that the light and numbers come on my cell phone when he touches the screen. And his Dad got him an app to play on the tablet. 

    

                  

                Kočka came to live with us in August         A few weeks later he had grown. Of course,

                of last year. Here he is with his Dad.           not as much as it looks here. It's all a matter                    The same Dad who really didn't want         of perspective. My husband didn't age this

                a cat. "Cats belong in the barn."                   much in  those few weeks, either.                                         We don't have a barn.                                   This is my Dad.

                                                  

Our one-eyed cat.

He practices lurking incessantly,

and ambushes anyone who walks by.

   

Though he never expresses an interest in going outside, he loves to look outside.
He watches the birds at the bird feeder out back and cars and rabbits out the front.

The man, who didn't want a cat, brought in a box of snow 

so the cat he didn't want would know what snow is. 

Kočka was not impressed.

You might find him anywhere.

He knows he's not supposed to be on the table so he hides.

     

 Though not very well.

  See that cat on the lower shelf of the entry table? And the glass vase?  

Once there were bare branches in that vase. Long, but thin. Smaller in diameter than my little finger. Maybe a little bigger than a pencil. In dishes made by my potter son are piled origami cranes folded by my daughter. They bear signatures of our guests and the dates they visited. And they used to hang from the branches. How Kočka kept from knocking the vase onto the floor when he pulled the branches down, I do not know.

And the masking tape strategically placed sticky-side-up on the top shelf? Kočka doesn't like sticky stuff stuck to his lovely long fur.

It didn't always work though. My plants have been banished to a back bedroom until my husband can build a cat-fence to block access to the entryway. Kočka won't be able to watch out the front door any more. But, you know what? I don't care.

                                            So devil                                                 or Angel

   

He's our Kočka.