We're going on a road trip

Can you hear me whistling, humming, singing?  We're getting out of here THIS WEEKEND.  We're going to Balboa.  We bought new tires at Costco.  We had the timing belt replaced, the oil changed and the transmission fluid flushed.  Our car is ready.  We're ready.  Sam and Sarah are leaving Saturday and staying one night in St. George.  We're leaving Sunday and meeting them in Las Vegas.  Yippee Skippy.  They're staying in a Weston Hotel in Newport Beach.  We're staying in La Quinta in Santa Ana for $59.00 a night.  But hey, who are the retired geezers?  At this point, I'd sleep in my car.  Can you hear me yodeling?

Library books

I get my books at the library these days, because whereas I once had discretionary funds, I seem to have them no longer.  Wordy, but you get the point.  It makes me feel claustrophobic to be without funds.  I want to drive off in my car to Mexico, but I'd have to sleep in it as well.

Anyway, I go to the library and pick books the way I used to when I was a kid:  by the Holy Ghost.  Here's a list from the last few weeks:

GILEAD by Marilyn Robinson.  I recognized her name and knew she could write and I was not disappointed.

DICTATION by Cynthia Ozick.  Very literary and academic.  Four stories.  If I'd known that I wouldn't have taken it, because I prefer novels.  One story had Henry James and  Joseph Conrad meeting socially at James's house.  She did a fine Henry James imitation.

A SIGHT FOR SORE EYES by Ruth Rendell.  A well-written mystery.  She must have been close to Marilyn Robinson.  I didn't know a thing about her, but find out she's British and well liked.

DIVE AT CLAUSEN POINT  by Ann Packer.  I couldn't believe the ending.  I was so annoyed with it and the protagonist.

THE MAIDENSTONE LIGHTHOUSE by Sally Smith O'Rourke.  Just a sick romance/mystery, but I got hooked with the plot.  It had a cheesy lighthouse cover on the front.  I should have known.  Sally Smith O'Rourke is really a woman and her dead husband who used to make up book plots together and she has written them up since he died.  Boo hoo.

Ann Dee Hale loaned me THIS IS WHAT I DID which I thought was an excellent YA novel.  I especially liked the way she incorporated silences.

I also check out a half dozen house design books when I'm at the library, because those are my favorite picture books. 

Cry for Help

Get me out of here!

Reading journals

Tom is teaching the memoir and imagination class at BYU, and he's also substitute teaching two or three times a week, so I offered to read the journals for him.  What strikes me is that everyone, and I do mean everyone, feels like a slacker half the time.  We are uncommonly critical of ourselves.  

This must be human.  What is pathetic is that it never goes away.  You get older, but you're still a slacker.  It hardly matters what you've accomplished, there's always room for self-criticism. 

 Did cave people feel this way or is this what we call civilized thinking?  Did cave people stare at the stars and think, "Geez, I spent way too much time looking at the fire this week," or I should have been killing a tiger instead of cave painting.  I'm such a caveman."

Anyway, the writers in Tom's class are so earnest and young and worried about their standing in the universe.  It's a bittersweet read.