Midlife Musings

I have been a fan of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries since I read my first (highly abridged) when I was about 8. It was Hound of the Baskervilles, in one of those little squareish Treasured Classics that they sell for children. I was amazed as a young teen to reacquaint myself with Holmes and Watson when I received a copy of the complete series, a book I still have, mind you.

Today, though, I am not going to talk about a book. Instead, I am going to tell you about a new game! The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes contains 16 cases, plus a bonus. The game is suitable for ages 10 and up, being mostly based on hidden objects and other visual discrimination games. The historically accurate settings and characters are lots of fun as well. It was a relaxing few minutes, and although I beat the game and solved the case before the time expired, it was a little closer than I’d like to admit. Who knew tulips could blend so well into their surroundings??!!??

I’m intrigued enough to play again, and I imagine from the chorus of oohs and ahs that were coming from my elbow that I will be coerced into sharing my computer so that others can enjoy the game as well. I’m sorely tempted to re-open the game and try another case or eight, but I’ve been promising my kids a grand camping adventure for Memorial Day for six weeks now. It’s time to go pitch a tent. Well, two tents, we’re a big family, LOL!

Nice to meecha.

Okay, I’m late to the party, I know. In my defense, while I haven’t had my head buried in the sand this past ten years, I have been pretty daggone busy. When the HP books first rolled off the presses, I heard they were full of magic and “bad stuff”, and I took that at face value, and since there are so many good books in the world, I said the kids couldn’t read them until I did, and that is how the matter stood. They had plenty of other books to read, and so I did not make it a priority to get these books read.

Then TheClone came home, and she said they were good books. And the the youth pastor said he wasn’t going to advise for or against HP, but he did have a problem with people bashing HP and promoting Tolkein, because after all, magic is magic, if that’s what we are basing the bashing on. Hmmm. Now that was a thought right there. Clearly one needs to be discerning.

And then Country was ready for the next year of Ambleside and The Hobbit was on the assigned reading list. And I assigned it without blinking.

Uh-oh.

And so that is how I came to be reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I;m linking it so far, all the way up to page 38. In fact, I got mad at my dentist this morning for NOT keeping me waiting. So, please excuse my relative brevity here. I am trying to get my work all done so I can go read.

The other day at the library I picked up a book. Amazing, right? A book at the library? And honestly, it was more like a month ago, but I just finished it Sunday. Let There Be Clothes by Lynn Schnurnberger is a magazine-like book that covers the world of fashion from pre-history to 1990. (As an aside, is there really such a thing as pre-history? I mean, history is the story of the world, and what came before that? Nothing. And so what’s to tell? Nothing. So there can be no prehistory. OTOH, people sometimes use the term to mean before recorded history, but they always use it in the context of “during prehistoric times blahblahblah”, so they are recording what happened. Ergo, it’s not pre-history. D’uh)

I enjoyed the book, especially once I quit trying to read it word for word, and just browsed it like a catalog. There are numerous pictures on every page, and they are well labeled so you know exactly what you are looking at. It’s a fun read for someone who is into clothes or history or just knowledge for the sake of knowledge (that would be me, on all counts). I don’t think I’d buy it, but it’s a nice book nonetheless. And hefty, weighing in at 432 pages! Set aside a lazy Saturday, and give it a look, if your library has it.

Guess who has nothing to report on as far as books go this week? That would be me! Sorry! Cleaning! All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and Cass a dull blogger. I however, have a plan to thwart Jack and boring blogging. At least on Thursdays. I took that schedule of mine, and I wrote READ FOR 15 MINUTES on it in big red letters. Figuratively speaking of course

Pick up the nearest book. (I’m sure you must have one nearby.)
Turn to page 123.
What is the first sentence on the page?
The last sentence on the page?
Now . . . connect them together….
(And no, you may not transcribe the entire page of the book–that’s cheating!)

“I need to speak to your parent, dokhtar jan, he said when Laila opened the door.” And the village idiot came running with a knife and tripped and fell on it. “Then Babi’s face was white, and getting whiter, and he was looking at his hands, and Mammy was screaming, screaming, and tearing at her hair.”

Ok, I have no idea what the page actually said, because I’m not that far yet. But I really don’t see what could have happened between those two sentences, except for some disaster of monumental proportions, so that’s what I made up.

When somebody mentions “literature,” what’s the first thing you think of? (Dickens? Tolstoy? Shakespeare?) Do you read “literature” (however you define it) for pleasure? Or is it something that you read only when you must?

When someone mentions literature, I think of well-written books, the ones that draw you in and hold you captive until you are through with them, the ones you keep re-visiting, the ones you recommend to others. That includes some Dickens ( A Tale of Two Cities, for instance), but it also includes Gabaldon. The age of the book is not the deciding factor, it’s all about the writing. Therefore literature, as I define it, is definitely something I read for pleasure.

I will get to the Booking Through Thursday question in just bit, but I wanted to review a book for you first. I sat down this weekend with 10 Minute Organizing by Sara Lavieri Hunter. I was really hoping to get some good hints, and I did read the entire book, cover to cover. Those tips never materialized, I am sad to say. First, the woman must live in a house with two closets in every room, and I think her kitchen is the size of Miami. The only things she said to discard were old makeup and old computer files. I don’t know about the rest of you, but that’s not what I am drowning in over here. Everything else goes in it’s own cabinet or shelf. I can tell you from my own experience that there comes an end to the amount of stuff one can organize, and eventually the trash bags must come out.

Also, there were three chapters on parties: holidays, child and adult. The tips were pretty much the same, and I truly think these could be consolidated. When I got to the end of the book, I flipped it over and read the blurb about the author. She’s a mother of one. When I had one child, my home was spotless, too. And I had time to organize everything. Now, things are different, and I am all about the simplify.

The one tip I did pick up was that small notebooks were handy for planning things, and I had read that before, and it’s something I do now, and it truly does help. I even use notebooks to hold my to-do lists, as you know. It is a very rare thing for me to say that a book is a waste of trees, but truly, this one could have been condensed into a couple of magazine articles with no loss of information.

I told you I went to the library for books. I told you I bought magazines. I told you I had a bunch of stuff on my to-do list. So, to prove that this was true, and also because I thought it ought to be recorded for posterity, I took this picture. The camera was on my shoulder, so this is what I see on my left as I sit here at my desk. No wonder I have a headache at the end of the day, LOL!