1. Back in July, I started reading the list of books Leah Sottile posted in response to a NYTimes list of the Best Books of the 21st Century.
Sottile's recommended books are, without exception, dark, often chilling, always unsettling.
I've taken a few breaks from her list and wouldn't you know it! The books I've read that are not on her list have been -- well, dark, chilling, always unsettling.
That changed this week.
As a good luck with your recovery gift, Scott and Cate Shirk gave me two books. One is a collection of P. G. Wodehouse stories -- I know that anytime I want to read the best in comic upper class British nonsense, Wodehouse is always nearby. I love reading him and really loved the Jeeves and Wooster television series from the early 1990s.
I either hadn't heard of or had forgotten about the other book they gave me.
It was published in 1980, written by J. L. Carr, and its title is A Month in the Country.
I'm an old hand at reading, and back in olden days, teaching, books set in the country, in forests, in what many refer to as the green world.
The green world, in contrast to the busy rush and feverish pace of urban areas, is portrayed in these books and plays and movies as a place of retreat, refreshment, healing, a place to slow down and gain a better perspective on life.
So, was A Month in the Country such a book?
YES!
In short, it features a traumatized WWI veteran whose marriage is collapsing (or has it collapsed?). He leaves London to take a job in a North Yorkshire church restoring a medieval mural that exists underneath centuries of whitewash, candle smoke and grease, and other forms of grime.
So can meeting people in a rural setting, doing a painstaking job in a church, drinking in the smells and visual beauty of the Yorkshire countryside, and uncovering a beautiful mural provide solace, help heal a broken heart, restore happiness to a damaged soul and more?
The book is very worth reading to find out -- if you are into this sort of thing!
2. I'll double check later in the day on Thursday, but I'm taking it as good news that I haven't heard from the transplant team about the blood work I had done on Monday. I'm assuming that my medicine dosages should remain the same and the team, as I was, are pleased with how stable my numbers were this week.
I definitely will be double checking as to whether I am to stay on the once a week blood draw schedule so I'll know if I will be going in next week so I can have blood work done and pick up another book that's come in at Auntie's Bookstore and enjoy some good things at Great Harvest and Trader Joe's and maybe more....
3. On her way home from school, Debbie picked up a pack of four delicious sausages. I heated them up and, at the same time, sautéed a mixture of red and white rings of onion and added leftover basmati rice to the onions. We had bean salad in the fridge from a couple days ago.
Both of us added some Trader Joe's Chili Onion Crunch to our rice serving, giving it some heat and texture.
What a winning combination! Sausage, rice and onion, Chili Onion Crunch, and bean salad.
We'd never had this meal before and we were stoked as we dove into it!
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