Recovering...

Since returning from the DC trip earlier this month, Hubs and I were both treated to a rich, bubbly flu and bronchitis mix. Ick. So things are a little slow around here just now.  Feeling somewhat better today, I was able to complete one set of family tax returns. Does not sound like much, but I'm on the road back...

Around and Beneath DC...

In Foggy Bottom, we couldn't figure out what this old thing was for.

Deep under ground, the intersection of a couple of train routes.

Funeral Service at Arlington Cemetery....

Random shots from DC. "Wheels Up": taking a photo of "our plane" after we arrived, I got another, lifting.

Entrance to Metro at Bethesda, MD. A 4-story assent? Doubles as bomb shelter if needed?

Childhood memory: we used to swim at the Ft. Myers pool as child in 1950's. This was the gate we used.

Poignant scene from a section of Arlington Cemetery with graves of the very young from recent wars.

Back view of Lincoln Memorial, across the bridge from entrance to Arlington.

 "Seeing Mr. Lincoln" (adjusted for fun) a little boy climbs the steps at the front of the momument.

I am an Eclectic Reader....

addicted to the escape provided by a good book, I always have one (or four) in progress. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss; modern Jewish-American fiction, a blend of post-Holocaust and narrative by bright young children. A young Jewish author in Nazi occupied Poland, inspired to write a manuscript by the young woman he hopes to marry, hands the book off to a friend who is leaving Europe for South America. The writer's intended is sent to New York by her family to escape Hitler; the writer himself is trapped, but survives in the forests thru the rest of the Nazi occupation. He is assumed to have perished like all the rest....then the plot gets complicated as 60 years later the book resurfaces. A wealthy man commissions it's translation from Spanish to English; the children of the young, widowed translator try to do a little match-making to make their sad mother happy again. The first-person narratives, especially by the elderly author, are touching, with shadows and echos of lost people woven into the story in unexpected ways.

Blog-Princess...

adjusted

New Photos and Adventures Next Week.

Meanwhile, I'm reading a novel called "The History of Love". It's a story about a book by that same title and it's writer and readers.  More on that later, as well.

The Book on my Night Stand....

Other Blogger friends of mine started a "reading blog", which I think is an excellent idea. I, myself, forget the
titles and authors of books I have enjoyed. It can only get worse as I grow older.  Am I "up" to maintaining a separate Blog for my reading? Maybe if I ever retire....?

So, for now, I will ocasionally mention the book I'm reading, along with a flash review. 

We will start from where we are: Rebecca Wells' first novel, Little Altars Everywhere. This is the first of the Ya-Ya Series; I have neither read "....the YaYa Sisterhood" nor seen the movie, so I come with fresh eyes.

It's a Southern-genre novel, told in first person, mainly children and the adults they grow into. So it automatically makes me think of "To Kill a Mockingbird". Story is told in fragments, at assorted times by various of the characters in the book. It's rich with Southern mystique and there is hilarious humor along with the suffering of a family adrift with alcoholic, dysfunctional parents.