Monday, Monday

 Boy, have we had a lot of rain. Mostly the misty sort but heavy at times. I went to a chamber music concert last night: a pianist, a cellist and a singer. They did Brahms Cello and Piano Concerto Number One and some modern pieces. The President of the Society said the Trump Administration had cut 70% of funding to the NEA. What a travesty.

Heard a lecture about the diplomacy that allowed the US to win the Revolutionary War. 

Watching SLOW HORSES, LANTERNS, TED LASSO, and HIGH POTENTIAL. Also the series SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE from 1972.  

Reading KIN by Tayari Jones and A GUARDIAN AND A THIEF, Maga Majumdar (That might not be spelled correctly)

Still going to PT to try and walk better.  

The quilt is one of my friend Rita's. She is making me a Christmas quilt.  

What are you doing?  

FFB: POISON, Ed McBain

 

?

 I read this in 1988 along with many other 87th Precinct stories. I liked the way different cops were highlight along with Steve Carella. In this one, many of the men involved in the femme fatale's past are being poisoned. One of the detectives falls for her.

SSW: Lost Child, Joyce Carol Oates (from the New Yorker)

 I wonder if JCO holds the record for the most stories in The New Yorker.

We get most of the early part of the story through the eyes of a three-year old who is traveling with her scary father. Oates does a great job on making him threatening in a way that seems real.

He tells her to get out of the elevator on the 8th floor. But he doesn't follow him and that's the last time she ever sees him. She stands there for an hour and them is rescued and eventually ends up with an aunt. Her mother has apparently died. 

She never learns much about the circumstance of the death or where her father went. She carries this burden for the rest of her life.
 

Monday, Monday

 After finishing JOHN OF JOHN, I decided to read Stuart's first book SHUGGIE BAIN. It's another long one, but so easy to get into.That's a real gift.

Saw the movie THE WORK IN PROGRESS, which puts millennials and baby boomers together and tries to get them to exchange ideas. I think the real trouble is more about class than age though. Also rewatched ALL THE JAZZ. What a delight.  I also enjoyed MY Brilliant Career. 

Watching NO EXIT on Apple. LANTERNS on HBO. LAST MEAL on Tubi. TED LASSO on Apples. 

I went to a lecture on American women from the Revolution on. Our senior center has a lecture every Thursday night by college professor and other ones in the daytime. And many other activities including bus trips, exercise, art classes, music, book groups. discussion groups, card groups, etc. All this for $60 a year.  I also went to hear folk music one night. 

I am going to PT for my balance issues. I think it is at least partly related to the drug I am taking for AFIB. 

What about you?  

 If you will notice, your blogs are not updating. Trying to fix it. 

FFB-SIDESWIPE, Charles Willeford

 SIDESWIPE, Charles Willeford 

Following MIAMI BLUES and NEW HOPE FOR THE DEAD, Miami homicide detective Hoke Moseley abandons his pregnant partner and housemate, Ellita Sanchez, and his two daughters to manage his father's apartment complex in Riviera Beach, Florida. 
When the book begins he cannot even get himself out of bed. 

Stanley Sinliewicz, a Ford retiree spending a night in jail, does a favor for a killer named Louden, which results in his release from jail. The two then embark on an odyssey which can only lead to disaster.
Hoke soon finds the simple life is easier to envision than envelop. Coping with a job offer from the local police, a string of local burglaries, and a daughter with an eating disorder puts him back on the path home. Playing the disinterested father can only go so far. 
Like others in the series, SIDESWIPE is packed with action and humor. Elmore Leonard says no one writes a better crime novel than Willeford. Who am I to argue with that? Walter Mosley claims he reads Willeford for a break for the monotony of endless grimness. There is a real art to telling a hard-boiled crime story with this much humor.