Henry House

I just finished this book called "The Irresistible Henry House". It was about a practice baby and his life growing up. Apparently, back in the day, Home Economics programs at certain colleges (like Cornell) included a "Practice House" where women would care for a baby. The baby was supplied by the local orphanage and the women would each live in the practice house for a week at a time and learn how to do everything involved with raising a child and running a home. There was an instructor living in the house full-time. After the end of the school year, the baby would be returned to the orphanage, supposedly a prime candidate for adoption...since they were so expertly raised and must be the perfect little children.

What they found in the end was that these children actually had problems bonding with parents because they had such a revolving door of caretakers in their early life. This novel asks how one of their lives might have turned out because of this.

I thought it was a really interesting book and I loved that he went to work at Disney Studios on Mary Poppins. Then he went to London and worked on Yellow Submarine. To me, the best part of the book was living vicariously through him in different decades. I have felt many times that I was born at the wrong time in history. I love reading books that give me an idea what it might have been like to live at another time...whether that be good or bad. I want to experience that slice of life. That is one reason I like period pieces and noir.

At the same time I was finishing up this book, I had to drive to L.A. for work and I popped in a new audiobook. I like to listen to a book when I travel and then finish it by reading the actual book. I thought I was safe because I'm #3 on the waiting list for the book version of "The Postmistress". I've had the audiobook for a while so I listened to it on my last trip. Of course, I am totally into it and now I have to wait for these other San Diegans to return their copies of the book so I can get one. Come on already!

I don't like reading 2 different books at the same time because I find myself confusing them. For instance, there are similar characters in both "The Irresistible Henry House" and "The Postmistress". It's the personalities that I find similar so, as I listened to "The Postmistress", I kept thinking about Henry House. Oh, wait, he's not in this story. Ugh! I guess I could read a completely different type of book. For instance, skip the fiction and read a biography or dog training book. Only, I just want to read "The Postmistress". I don't know if it was the woman narrating the book or the actual way it was written or both, but I really like the flow of the words. It is beautiful. And, once again, it is a slice of life from a different time and place.

I am happy to be so excited about reading again. I turned away from it for many years but now I am embracing it whole-heartedly.

Dignan's Arch Enemy

Don't know why he started doing this...

The Force

I think Dignan has watched too many "Star Wars" movies. He will stare at me with such intensity that I think, at any moment, my snack will float out of my hand and into his mouth. He must think so too. Alas, the Force is not with him.

LOST

I don't know what possessed me to watch the LOST series finale twice. What a cryfest. I watched it alone last night and basically cried through the entire 2 1/2 hours. This morning, the eyelashes on my right eye were stuck together. My eyelids were so puffy, I could barely open my eyes...and that was after my miracle MAC eyecream.

I watched it again tonight with Matthew and we were both blubbering idiots. It was so happy and so sad. I will really miss that show.

I wanted a mind-blowing time-twisty ending but I got something completely different. At first, I was a little shocked, maybe a little let-down. Yet, I still feel satisfied, just in a different way.

Modern Family, May 19th

Oh my gosh, I love that show "Modern Family". It is so hilarious. I love Cam the best but they are all great together. If you watch it, the Hawaii episode was especially sweet because of Phil. He's usually a bit of a dork but he really came through that time.

Anyway, it got me missing my family. I've been having that feeling lately, partly because I've also been watching Parenthood and partly because I think I'm having a mid-life crisis. Seriously, what will I have to show for my life? I have nothing creative to contribute to the world and I have no kids. When I am old, who will be there for me? I guess it's all coming to the surface because Matt and I have been thinking of our wills and I realized that the only people that will be there for us to pass on our life savings will be siblings, nieces and nephews. That's really sad. I'm not saying I want to have kids just because of that but I still feel a little bit like maybe I missed something. It's too late for me now because I'm too set in my ways but I hope I didn't make a mistake.

Anyway, I loooooooove my nieces and nephews and I also love Stephanie's daughter, Emily. I live vicariously through them. I wish I could see all of them more often to get a real sense of their growth but I get what I can. You'd think I'd see Emily more than my relatives because she lives down the street but that's not the case. Stephanie is always busy and she does a lot with her other friend, Michelle. I actually think I see my nephews, Eli and Lucas, the most and they live all the way up in Ventura.

I think I'm also feeling a little lonely. You know, I moved down to San Diego because I could keep my job by moving down here and it wouldn't have worked that way if Matt moved to L.A. However, once again, I'm just hanging out with my boyfriend's/husband's friends. I don't have any friends of my own. I know that they will become "my" friends also eventually but I'm not there yet. I have Stephanie but she is spending so much time with her other divorced friend that I hardly see her. I don't blame her but I feel like I have no one else. I have always had a hard time making friends and I just find it impossible now. I should take up some hobbies outside of the house but I don't know what to do. It's not so much that I'm lonely for other people because I'm someone that could probably live on a desert island and be fine. It's just that I feel worthless. I'm contributing nothing to the world and no one, except Matthew, would even notice that I'm gone.

Geez, I sound suicidal. I'm not. I could never. Like I said, it's a mid-life crisis.

It doesn't help that Lost is ending this week. It is really upsetting to me for some reason. I love that show and I will really miss it. Hmmm. Is it that I feel an attachment to the characters and I feel I am losing them...just more friends that I won't have anymore? I don't know. I'm just feeling nostalgic about the whole thing, like it is an important show in television history and it is ending. You know, I never watched the last "M*A*S*H*" for the same reason. I cried every time I thought about it and I was afraid of the ending. I guess I could watch it now.

So, family is the word in my head right now. I'm looking forward to seeing them all this summer. I just wish my brother, Will, would join us. I don't know what's up with him. He is really secretive about his life and he won't come to family gatherings anymore. It's very upsetting. However, he does respond when I email him, asking if he's still alive. So, that's something.

May 2nd

"Today is the first day of the rest of my life."

When I fail at my resolutions, this is what I say to myself and I just start again.

So, it's Sunday and I don't do my normal workouts on the weekend BUT I worked my a$% off in the backyard today so it counts in the active category. 4 1/2 hours and I'm exhausted. My body is so tired that I can't relax. It was worth it, though. Every time I look out the kitchen window, I feel a sense of accomplishment. We have a lot more to do but it looks SOOOOO much better. The mint has been reigned in, rosemary cut into cute little rounded bushes, sage cut back and my fig and grapefruit trees are no longer being engulfed by weeds. Also, my strawberries are out of control. I planted 2 little plants last year in my strawberry pot and they didn't do much of anything. They died off and I thought that was the end of them. Then we had all that rain this year. Now both plants have come back and one of them has produced about 30 strawberries. This is a plant that was in one of those tiny little "balconies" that jut out of a strawberry pot. I couldn't believe it. I wish I had planted more strawberries last year. So, I bought more this year and I can only hope that I'll have a good crop next year.

I guess all of that also counts as something constructive. Oh, Matt got the base of the roof on our patio cover last weekend so I've been dying to decorate the patio. I never thought it would be so hard to find a grey outdoor rug. I saw one in the Crate and Barrel catalog which is the problem. Now that I know it exists, I want it. Nothing else will do. I searched and searched for cheaper alternatives and haven't had any luck. I know I'm going to end up buying the one at Crate and Barrel. It's $400. Ugh.

I also wanted 2 big pots and some palms to go on either side of the patio. I had an idea in my head and I almost got what I wanted. The problem is that big ceramic pots are REALLY expensive. We chose smaller pots and I like the ones we got but they were still $75 each on sale. That's actually a good price and they have a more modern shape so it's hard to find that style. I did find some palms but they are a little smaller than I had envisioned. Now that they are planted and in place, however, I like them. Of course, I want flowers now and more pots. I fear this will become a new obsession.

I'm about to go do something enjoyable. I'm reading "The Talented Mr. Ripley" right now. I've seen the movie so I picture Matt Damon, etc. while I'm reading. It's not a big deal but I wish I didn't know what was going to happen. At least, the next novel in the series will be surprising.

Oh, I read "The Big Sleep" before this. I started it as an audiobook on my drive to LA last month and I totally loved it. I have to read more Raymond Chandler because he is a genius at description. I didn't pay much attention to the story itself because I was so focused on the words and phrases. Fantastic! Apparently, I need to read Dashiell Hammett as well.

Eternity (by James Joyce)

This is my favorite description of eternity. It's from the book "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" which I have never finished. I've read it many times but I always get to the same point and then stop. Luckily, this passage is in the portion that I read and re-read. I love it.

You have often seen the sand on the seashore. How fine are its tiny grains! And how many of those tiny little grains go to make up the small handful which a child grasps in its play. Now imagine a mountain of that sand, a million miles high, reaching from the earth to the farthest heavens, and a million miles broad, extending to remotest space, and a million miles in thickness; and imagine such an enormous mass of countless particles of sand multiplied as often as there are leaves in the forest, drops of water in the mighty ocean, feathers on birds, scales on fish, hairs on animals, atoms in the vast expanse of the air: and imagine that at the end of every million years a little bird came to that mountain and carried away in its beak a tiny grain of that sand. How many millions upon millions of centuries would pass before that bird had carried away even a square foot of that mountain, how many eons upon eons of ages before it had carried away all? Yet at the end of that immense stretch of time not even one instant of eternity could be said to have ended. At the end of all those billions and trillions of years eternity would have scarcely begun. And if that mountain rose again after it had been all carried away, and if the bird came again and carried it all away again grain by grain, and if it so rose and sank as many times as there are stars in the sky, atoms in the air, drops of water in the sea, leaves on the trees, feathers upon birds, scales upon fish, hairs upon animals, at the end of all those innumerable risings and sinkings of that immeasurably vast mountain not one single instant of eternity could be said to have ended; even then, at the end of such a period, after that eon of time the mere thought of which makes our very brain reel dizzily, eternity would scarcely have begun."