** I should have noted this yesterday, but yesterday's post was my 7200th here at kellogg bloggin'. Has this blog entered War and Peace territory? 🤣🤣🤣
1. I have a notebook at my side when I read so I can jot things down to remember. My notebook is getting a real workout as I start reading War and Peace. The names of the Tolstoy's Russian characters are unfamiliar to me and the relationships within and between families is complex enough that I need to write down their names, a few character traits, and their place in this world Tolstoy is creating.
It's slow work. I'm thirty pages into War and Peace and it's taken me about three hours or so to get this far because I've read, reread, taken notes, read endnotes, and read translations into English when characters speak in French. French, by the way, was spoken prominently in Russian elite circles. It was the language of diplomacy, aristocratic culture, and European civilization.
What I've read so far takes place in Petersburg, a city only a hundred years old at the time of this story (the start of the 19th century). It's named after Tsar Peter the Great and in its architecture and other cultural ways, the city reflects Peter the Great's ambitions to make Russia a European power, to undo its previous isolation from Europe, and to refine its reputation and image as a barbaric country.
(I'm having flashbacks to the course I took in 1974 in Russian history at Whitworth and to the carefully curated image the USSR worked to convey through their remarkable pavilion at Expo 74.)
I enjoyed this slow concentrated effort to get myself firmly rooted in this book and I'm expecting that as these characters' stories develop, as they become more familiar to me, my reading pace will pick up.
2. Ed called me mid-afternoon and wondered if I'd like to get together for a beer at The Lounge.
I did want to and not only looked forward to getting caught up on what's been going on with Ed, but looked forward to drinking a couple of Bud Zeros combined with Bloody Mary mix.
We had a good time and enjoyed Cas joining us from time to time for stories and good laughs.
3. First thing this morning, I picked up a curbside order at Walmart. It included a small box of hot chocolate packets. I've been yearning for hot chocolate, but have regularly forgotten to put it on my grocery lists over the last several weeks.
Tonight, I made myself a cup to enjoy while I worked on and completed the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle.
I was a little bit concerned that the hot chocolate might keep me from sleeping, but it didn't.
In fact, when I went to bed and returned to reading Every Day I Read, I only lasted a few pages before I conked out.
Correction: When I first posted about Every Day I Read, I thought the title was Every Day Read and interpreted as a command. I got the title wrong. Now I have it right!
Every Day I Read
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