I'm not at Big Sur this weekend. Instead I'm coughing my way around the house, wishing I had a good book to read. The dog is disgusted with me. No beach trips, a few feeble throws of the ball, endless sleeping. Meanwhile, some sixty friends and family are cavorting at the river. Without me. They will undoubtedly return home and tell me what a wonderful time everyone had.
It's not all bad. Time has shifted from tripping through at an alarming pace, to a slow lugubrious crawl. Pokey. I have lots of permission to do nothing. I scan Tony Robbins on "the importance of making decisions." I try to decide: should I get more to drink? Move outside? Nap now or later?
Books stack up at my feet. Usually when we give a party, I move the stack to some other location. One Christmas I moved a stack into my office. The next Christmas I entered my office, stack in hand, only to discover the previous year's pile. I'm not currently pleased with the offering at my feet. I go survey other stacks. Dismal. Fact is, I don't much want to read any of these books. Obviously books I think I might like to read someday should be shuffled back into the system. Start fresh. Clean slate.
“You should never try and teach a pig to read for two reasons. First, it's impossible; and secondly, it annoys the hell out of the pig!” -Will Rogers
Dan Kimball's book, They Like Jesus but Not The Church--insights from emerging generations, has been at my feet for several months. Actually liking Jesus but not the church isn't solely the province of emerging generations. Why does every generation think they invented the wheel? The problem, consistently, through the ages, is all those people in the church--and the ensuing structures and strictures. For lack of anything better to do, I skim the book. His concept of the church bubble is apt: People in the church primarily socialize with each other, so people outside the church don't have much opportunity to hang out with Christians. Certainly when we were highly active in a local congregation, the bulk of our social activities happened in and around the church. The only non-Christians we regularly socialized with were the ones in the church.
Now between Toastmasters and The Word Shop, we've popped the bubble. I have all four corners of the grid covered: churched believers, unchurched believers, churched unbelievers, unchurched unbelievers...
Actually, I just have friends. Three to be exact. (I just joined facebook.)
"You gotta have swine to show you where the truffles are." ~Edward Albee
For our 25th anniversary I checked out a half dozen Rummer Godden books from the Library and hauled them to Cabo San Lucas. I decided for our 40th anniversary trip to Santa Fe I wouldn't lug a suitcase full of books along; I'd have faith that good books would show up along the road. Our hotel had a room encouragingly called The Library. It had only two small shelves of scrungy and disappointing books. I contemplated suggesting that for a small fee I'd refurbish their library. Do you think I could create a business refurbishing libraries in upscale hotels?
Before we left our Santa Fe Hotel to go to a casita in the country, I lost faith and bought a Dunning mystery and Abbey's Desert Solitaire. They were half price, but not as cheap as at The Word Shop. Turns out I'd already read the Dunning. Fortunately, our casita came up to snuff: four shelves of books including Rummer Godden's The Peacock Spring. Perfect for reading while listening to the peacocks, who strutted around outside amidst the poodles and the bunnies. We got fresh ranchita eggs--cook your own--for breakfast, some of which were dusky blue inside.
"The sparrow is sorry for the peacock at the burden of his tail.~Rabindranath Tagore
A collection of Rosamunde Pilcher short stories also caught my attention. "By the best selling author of The Shell Seekers," it said all over the cover. Not bad! When I got home I discovered we had The Shell Seekers, $1. I don't usually read books from our Romance shelf but I enjoyed it. Next I tried her Coming Home--but gave it up a quarter way through. (Possibly a symptom of HamThrax is that all books become unattractive.) Lynn tells me we're getting a box of Debbie Macomber romances as soon as the guys working on the road let her park closer to the store. Come & get 'em.
“Education is the process of casting false pearls before real swine”~Irwin Edman
Meanwhile, I just got a beautiful DTM plaque from Toastmasters International. What are you supposed to do with these things? They're obviously designed to impress somebody and the dog only gave it a cursory sniff. If I stick it in my office window with the other TM trophies, the spiders will just use it for low income housing. Consider this a DTM poll: What did you do with your plaque?
"I've got a lot of ham in me." ~Lionel Barrymore
This newsletter is pretty desultory. A big boar. Probably I'm not as well as I think I am. Like when I went resolutely to The Word Shop on 9/11 to pay bills. This great act of faith had many returns--returned bills that were missing key ingredients like the address, the check, the stamp...
“There are too many pigs for the teats” ~Abraham Lincoln
Next year Big Sur Camping and Crawdad Society dates are June 24 - 28. I intend to be there--so don't except to get out of singing Second Story Window two years in a row.
Blessings,
Alliee +