2025*4 - LizzieD Relaxes into Books

We live in my DH's family home. When we painted in the late 70s, he said that he'd always wanted to do a picture on this wall. I said I'd love it. He was just getting a start carving decorative decoys and other birds, so that explains the inspiration for the picture and the birds on the Baby Bear. Ooops. I neglected to mention that we covered it with a wood panel sometime in the 90s that is still there. The Baby Bear is long gone too.

READ IN JUNE
32. Full Share
33. Britain AD
34. Double Share
35. I Hear the Sirens in the Street
36. Captain's Share (reread)
37. The Starless Sea
38. Owner's Share (reread)

Into the House in June
63. Shadow of the Silk Road - AMP
64. Like A Mighty Army - AMP
65. Wolves of Eternity - Kindle deal through BookBub
66. Death in the Spires - Ditto
67. Greek to Me - PBS
68. The Starless Sea ✔
69. Shadow Country - AMP
70. The Ill-Made Mute - Kindle
71. Close Quarters - PBS
72. Blue Lightning ✔
73. In the Morning I'll Be Gone
74. Klara and the Sun - Kindle daily deal
75. The Archive of the Forgotten - PBS
76. Britain in the Middle Ages - AMP
77. The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Kindle deal
78. The Cloud Roads ✔ - Kindle

READ IN JULY
38. Owner's Share (Reread)
39. Blue Lightning
40. The Cloud Roads
41. Crooked Heart
42. Purity in Death
43. Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles
44. Hello Beautiful
45. The Frozen People

Into the House in July
79. A Prayer for Earthrise - Kindle freebie
80. Crooked Heart ✔
81. Dead Water ✔
82. The House on Vesper Sands
83. Defiance - Amazon
84. Old Baggage - Kindle deal
85. V for Victory - with Kindle Rewards
86. Augustine of Hippo - AMP
87. The Long Song - Kindle deal through BookBub
88. Lightborne - AMP
89. Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded - AMP
90. The Immeasurable Heaven - Kindle
91. The Frozen People ✔

READ IN AUGUST
46. Defiance
47. Light from Uncommon Stars
48. Dead Water
49. Fugitive Telemetry
50. Tuyo
51. Other People

Into the House in August
92. Light from Uncommon Stars ✔
93. The Correspondence of Shelby Foote & Walker Percy - AMP
94. Portrait of a Thief - PBS
95. Other People ✔
96. Fugitive Telemetry ✔
97. Tuyo - Kindle ✔
98. The Remembered Soldier ✔
99. Thin Air ✔
100. The Tears of Things - Kindle deal through BookBub
101. The Complete Wilson and McLeish Mysteries - Kindle deal
102. Is That a Fish in Your Ear? - Kindle deal through BookBub
103.Winter of Ice and Iron - PBSwap
104. The Mountain of Kept Memory - PBSwap
105. Wellington: Pillar of State - AMP
106. Stealing the Mystic Lamb
107. King's Dragon - AMP ✔

OPEN FOR READING IN AUGUST


I'm silly, but it wouldn't look like my thread if Life: A User's Manual were not in place; same is now true for The Warburgs *sigh*. At the moment this is what I'm actually reading now, with less *Schism* and more of another thing or two. Hopeless!

What a Good Reading Year!!!!

BEST OR MOST SIGNIFICANT
Fiction
Demon Copperhead
The Starless Sea

Nonfiction
Evening in the Palace of Reason
Britain AD
Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent
Out of Istanbul
Everything to Lose
Finding the Mother Tree
The Lost Girls

MOST ENTERTAINING MOSTLY FOR FUN
Women in Black
Divergance
Floating Hotel
The Cold Cold Ground
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
Cold as Hell

Happy new thread, Peggy!

Happy New Thread!

Happy new thread, Peggy!

Happy #4 dear Peggy. xx

Happy new thread!

Hello Peggy. Happy Tuesday, happy new thread.

>1 LizzieD: Your DH’s talents are many and varied. Is this on a wall I would have seen?

>2 LizzieD: I’m supposed to be reading Klara and the Sun for July’s book club discussion. I’ve read the first … 8? … pages. Sigh.

Wordle in 4 for me today.

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread, Peggy :)

Wordle in 4 on Monday, in three today.

What a lovely wall painting!

Hey hey hey!! New thread. Excellence and happiness, and so on and so forth.

I love the trouble (?) of starting a new thread because it brings kind visitors. Thank you for coming and speaking, Nathalie, Jim, Karen, Anita, Paul, Irene, Roni, and Susan!
I'm glad that some of you like my DH's painting and carving. Karen, it's the dining room wall behind the wood panel and pine cone wreath. I got the Kindle deal on *Klara/Sun* and just read a page or two. I'll probably like it more than you do....

Wordle 1,466 3/6*

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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, title, elite

So hot! We did maybe a quarter of our walk late today - after 8:30. I was glad to come on in. I wish I thought this would be the hottest day of the summer. *sigh*

WORK

Work was like cats were supposed to be; if you disliked and feared it and tried to keep out of its way, it knew at once and sought you out ..."
~ Kingsley Amis

"Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment."
~ Robert Benchley

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
~ C. Northcote Parkinson

'Morning, Peggy. Happy Wednesday. I hope you can stay cool.

100F/110F heat index for you. Somewhat hotter than we will be, but not by much. Gads.

Wordle in 5 today.

One of my favorite quotes about work:

If You Want Something Done, Ask a Busy Person To Do It.

Happy new thread, Peggy!

Hi, Mary and Karen!

I'm off to get a haircut - YAY - and then buy a few groceries. I'll at least be cool if I can make it out of the parking lots.
I agree about the busy worker, Karen.

Wordle 1,467 4/6*

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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, minor, oomph, comfy I've taken to a second word list for the last one for lack of patience. It's getting so that I need to announce on my own when I've found it alone.

>1 LizzieD: I cannot wait to see it in person! lol

>3 LizzieD: At the moment I'm exploring what I think I will actually read next. I know that feeling!

Happy new thread, Peggy! I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday!

Oh, Stasia. You can't see it in person unless we tear out the panel that is covering it, and I don't believe my DH would do that even for you!

Hmmm. I'm itching to read something different even though I like everything I'm reading now. I need more hours in my day with less sleep. No reading today, in fact: I got a haircut and shopped for groceries. At 3:00 as I was headed home, the bank's temp sign showed 102°. It didn't get a lot hotter than that because we had some cloud cover come in. We haven't had any rain yet, but every degree we lose is a bonus right now. Hope you're staying cool!

New-thread orisons, Peggy me lurve...stay cool, calm, and collected (in other words, indoors, drunk, and air conditioned).

'Morning, Peggy! Looks like it will be a tad cooler where you are, which is a surprise.

Wordle in 4 for me today.

Coffee now, and eventually cake.

Good morning, Richard and Karen.
I'll have to wait until after I see audiologist #2 in just a bit before I can be cool or calm. I doubt that I'm ever collected. I'll wish the same to you though, WBL. *smooch*

We got good cloud cover yesterday afternoon with no rain, but it was very cool this morning when we walked. It is heating right back although not over 100 today, DG!

Wordle 1,468 4/6*

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🟨⬜⬜🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, noire, error, effort I might have thought of the right word at 3 if I had been patient. Instead, I used a used word just to try to pin one letter down. I'm not complaining.

I KNOW WHY KAREN IS EATING CAKE!!!!!!!

Happy new thread, Peggy.

Happy Friday and happy weekend, Peggy!
Wordle in 5 yesterday and in surprising 2 today (Friday) !
For once I guessed the correct option.

Yay for the haircut! I’m having my hair cut a bit shorter on every visit at the hairdressers, but with these temps I should probably shave them off to “almost bald”.

'Morning, Peggy! Happy Friday to you.

I was glad to read on RD's thread about your successful visit with audiologist #2. Congrats. I do not know anything about hearing aids.

Wordle in 2 today.

Friday orisons, Peggy me lurve. *Baaa*

Good afternoon, Richard *petting WBL's wly head*. Karen, Nathalie, and Beth!!!!!

I've pretty well decided to try the aids that the tech and I decided on yesterday. After all, I do have 6 weeks free trial, and I think they're the best I can do in town here and maybe anywhere else.

OOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo! 2! Nathalie and Karen, you are obviously the BEST!!!!!
Wordle 1,469 3/6*

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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, clang, plain I will say that it's a word I've used many times before hoping to nail down a letter or two.

Later!

>19 LizzieD: I guess I misunderstood. I thought it was at your home and I will (hopefully) see you again in February.

I am continuing on with Cyteen and it has gotten better for me the further along I have gone. I am better than halfway through now.

Have a fantastic Friday!

>28 alcottacre:................ I am confused, Stasia, but I'm glad that Cyteen is getting better for you. Keep reading!

The wall painting is in our very own dining room, hidden since the 1990s by a wood panel that will not come down. I didn't realize that we had a picture of the painting, and that's why I was glad to find it.

I would have ordered the aids today, but one of my Group of HS friends, has just gotten her new ones, and I wanted to know how she's getting along. Serendipity! She has hers from the same company that I am going to use. She said that they are so comfortable that she was in the shower washing her hair this morning before she realized that they were still in. Sounds good to me. I want Graham to look over the literature too before I commit, and he's hard to pin down. Monday will be fine.

I ran out of my guessing luck and needed all 6 today, when it could have been a 3. Well, at least the streak is still going.

Hi Peggy! Happy Saturday to you.

I'm glad you got a testimonial re the hearing aids. You're right - Monday's soon enough.

Wordle in 2 again for me. The Wordle Gods are smiling down upon me.

Good Wordle Day, Karen and Nathalie!!!! Our niece and nephew subscribed to NYT online and got a couple of free subscriptions, one of which they gave to us. That's exciting. They dropped my Wordle record again, which is not. Oh well.

Keeping the streak is good, Nathalie. 2 AGAIN is amazing, Karen!

Wordle 1,470 3/6*

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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, storm, stump I'm happy.

>32 LizzieD: Hi Peggy! Wordle took me 4 today. I had the right pattern with 3 of the letters in place at 2, but it was a guessy, guessy day for me today. I kept picking the wrong word. I could have had it in 2 if I had thought of the right one first.

The hearing aids sound encouraging. I hope it works out and you can get them soon.

And I hope you are surviving the heat. I wish it would break here, like it has in the northeast.

'Morning, Peggy! Happy Sunday to you and your DH.

Wordle in 5 for me today, could have been 4 but I guessed the wrong one of two options.

Reading, puttering, possibly making chicken for dinner.

I used your birthday present plus a bit of Ammy credit to buy a book I've been interested in - Tasting History by Max Miller. It arrived last night, and I'm pleased with it.

>32 LizzieD: Sunday *smooch*

I am going to be insufferable...more insufferable if you listen to some around here...because I crossed two major milestones this month: more than 100,000 views on my blog in June, and more than 1,000,000 views since 2013.

Yes, this is me bragging. I think I'm entitled, those are numbers I never thought I'd ever achieve. And it happened when I needed the boost the most, as we're being AI-slopped and enshittified into what the tech scum hope is submission.

Not working on me, I doubt on you either, and I'm hoping on few 75ers.

Good afternoon after church, Karen and Irene! I've now had my second cup of coffee and will be good here for about 15 minutes until cat feeding.

Karen, I'm thrilled to hear about the MM book. I have the Apicius Roman cookbook, but that's the only introduction to ancient food I have access to. (garum is ghastly) Hope you enjoy it.

I have one more question for my friend, and then I'll set the hearing aids in motion, Irene. thanks for good wishes!

Wordle 1,471 4/6*

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, trunk, dotty, witty Without looking I'd say that Karen and I had the same choice, and I guessed right. Luck!

NAMES

Said Jerome K. Jerome to Ford Madox Ford,
'There's something, old boy, that I've always abhorred.
When people address me and call me "Jerome",
Are they being standoffish, or too much at home?"
Said Ford, 'I agree'
It's the same thing with me.'"
~ William Cole

"Marie-Joseph? It's a lovely name! It just sounds silly, that's all."
~ Dame Edna Everage

"Now why did you name your baby 'John'?
Every Tom, Dick and Harry is named 'John.'.
~ Sam Goldwyn (Attrib.)

"'Yossarian? Is that his name? Yossarian? What the hell kind of name is Yossarian?'
Lieutenant Scheisskopf had the facts at his finger tips. 'It's Yossarian's name, sir,' he explained."
~ Joseph Heller, Catch-22
(That's a good catch. I need to reread it.)

"No good can come of association with anything labelled Gwladys or Ysobel or Ethyl or Mabelle or Kathryn. But particularly Gwladys."
~ P.G. Wodehouse

I love names and collected some good ones at my woman's college in the 60s.

>35 richardderus: We cross-posted or whatever you call it when you slip your greeting in while I'm still typing!

CONGRATULATIONS, RICHARD!!!!! Those are amazing and auspicious numbers! I had no idea how even to begin to quantify what you do, but you've done it! *pat,pat,pat* and *smooch, smooch, smooch*, my WBL!

A1 (!) Be Wary and Resist!

THE STARLESS SEA by Erin Morgenstern

I was completely charmed and captivated for at least the first 200 pages. I felt as though EM had given herself permission simply to write and write in every direction her creativity carried her, given her characters and where she chose to put them. I was happy to follow along, much as I've followed imaginative children in the past who make up the rules of the game as they go along and keep adding and adding and adding. The thing is though, that adults - even childish adults like me - eventually tire of the game and want something else. By 300 pages I wanted the something else, and the last quarter was sort of a slog, a honeyed slog but a slog nevertheless.

I thought I cared about the characters but decided eventually that I didn't really. Was I supposed to be connecting on a deeper level to insights about change or some other philosophical consideration? I didn't. Mythology or analogy or fairy tales don't get so cluttered with the layers and layers of details. On the other hand, I gave the book four stars for the beauty of the fantasies in the Harbor while I was still charmed and enchanted.

>38 LizzieD: I think I may have liked it a bit better than you did, but then I gave 3.5 because 4 is for books I really like while feeling they lack originality or don't flow well or have some significant flaw.

Wordle in 5 on Sunday (again needed all the guessing options) and back to my normal 4 today.

Woke up a bit grumpy because it’s Monday and I got almost no sleep with the heat, but your name quotes made me grin.
Living in Italy, I had to do with 2 programmers for a project, one called Maria, the other Giuseppe. Then Maria went on maternity leave and was replaced by a Giuseppe Maria. They are all much younger than me and from the South. You might also find strange variations of English names like Maikol for Michael.
My own name was very unusual back in 1971 in a small German village and I heard some strange pronounciations, also from teachers. French and Russian names were in fashion then, the alternatives for my parents were Nicole or Natascha (the German version needs the c for the sh sound).

Wishing you a good start into the week!

'Morning, Peggy! Happy Monday to you.

>38 LizzieD: I'm sorry this book went downhill for you. Honeyed slog isn't a ringing endorsement, is it? And not caring about the characters is really the death knell on a book for me. I usually abandon books once I reach the "I don't really care about these characters" stage.

Less viciously hot today, but unless I get thank yous written, addressed, and stamped, I'll be staying in all day.

>38 LizzieD: It was a magical read for me, one that transported me; I never wrote a "proper" review of it because I loved the way it made me feel, though not so much the nuts and bolts of the storytelling. She got better at that with The Starless Sea but nothing can give me the chills that I got on first exposure ever again.

Always the way, innit.

Dear friends: Richard, Karen, Nathalie, and Susan, I will come back to you because I appreciate your visits!

I've ordered the hearing aids!

Wordle 1,472 3/6*

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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, bling, blink LUCKY AGAIN!

>43 LizzieD: Hurray for the hearing aids! I did exactly the same thing with my second and third Wordle guesses today.

'Morning, Peggy!

I'm glad you ordered the hearing aids - your DH must have given his stamp of approval. When do you get them?

Congrats on yesterday's 3. Today took me all 6 guesses.

Off to book sort and Virlie's, then the grocery store and pharmacy's drive through.

Here I am again. Good morning!

Wordle in 3 today.

>38 LizzieD: I liked that one, but I loved The Night Circus so Morgenstern had set a high bar with me to begin with. I really need to re-read her stuff at some point. I am glad to see that you enjoyed at least the first part of the book, Peggy.

I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday! I am finishing Cyteen today :)

WHAT?????

I spent a good 30 minutes today speaking to everybody and replying for the second time - since I lost my first effort when Cousin Catharin called 2½ hours early for her visit yesterday, and now it's not here???????!!!!!

I swear, I can't do it again. I love that you visited, Stasia, Karen twice, Irene, Richard, Nathalie, and Susan. I'll try to start over tomorrow.
I doubt that I'll copy all the SEX comments that I did today, but I guess I might.
I will put today's Wordle up since I can get to that easily.

Wordle 1,474 4/6*

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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, noire, prink, incur

I'm back, and still disgusted to have lost my long post. The one thing that I thought yesterday might amuse you. When somebody asks me, "Do you like to read?" I will now reply, "Do you like to breathe?" There.

SEX
(As you might guess, there is more than a page of these. I'll copy some from time to time.)

Famous ones ~

"It doesn't matter what you do in the bedroom as long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses."
~Mrs Patrick Campbell

"Is sex dirty? Only if it's done right."
~ Woody Allen

"To err is human - but it feels divine."
~ Mae West

Wordle 1,475 4/6*

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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, minor, pouch, poppy

"To err is human - but it feels divine."
~ Mae West

I know it's not possible but I feel she was my *actual* grandma. She's only two months older than the elder of my two actual grandmothers. *sigh* in another timeline, permaybehaps.

Hi Peggy, this has happened a lot to me lately, also from preview, and the reply function hasn’t even been opening any more. I started copying longer posts elsewhere before posting them.

Found all the last wordles, but usually needed 4-5 lines. As our first word has the same letters, I also started some with a blank line, and once even a blank second one.

Happy Friday! :)

'Morning, Peggy! Happy Fourth of July to you.

>49 LizzieD: Love the quotes about sex.

>49 LizzieD: and >51 Deern: I wouldn't try this on a cell phone or even possibly a tablet, but I use a laptop w/oversize monitor and wireless mouse. I keep a Word document open and minimized at the bottom of my taskbar and type merrily away. I highlight everything I've written, and paste it into a message here on LT. It's saved my sanity quite a few times.

Wordle in 4 today.

We're not doing anything special for the Fourth.

Happy Independence Day to all my American compatriots. We hung our flags today sadly and defiantly without much hope in the short term except for enough left at the end of this to be able to build back better than we were. It's now looking as though we were pretty good. We're certainly less free than we were this time last year, and we haven't been brave in a long time.

Hi, (((((Karen)))))! I rarely have anything important enough to say to justify that much care and time. I was frustrated yesterday when I wanted to speak a lot and just couldn't bring myself to try it a third time.

Hi, (((((Nathalie)))))! Well, in fact, I had copied that first post, so I guess I had tried posting it three times. Anyway, it's all gone now. I also had 2 blank rows recently, I think. Today, it was mostly blank mind, so I got some help.

Hi, Richard, my WBL! An affinity for Mae West, eh? I think I shared some basic attitudes more with my grandmothers (and I had both of them) than my parents. I appreciate more and more how amazingly kind and happy my childhood was. *smooch*

Wordle 1,476 4/6*

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🟨⬜⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, noire, reeve, curve

SPOONERISMS from the man himself, Rev. W.A. Spooner, Warden of New College, Oxford (mostly apocryphal)

"Kinquering Congs their titles take."

"You have deliberately tasted two worms and you can leave Oxford by the town drain."

"Yes, indeed; the Lord is a shoving leopard."

"We all know what it is to have a half-warmed fish within us."
*****************************************************************************************************************************
My worst before a class of 11th graders (16 and 17 year-olds) was to spoonerize "Huck Finn."

>53 LizzieD: *oops*

*chuckle*

I'm glad someone somewhere had a happy childhood. I'm no longer sad I didn't because the brutal shock of the scum risen to the top at this passage in time would feel even worse if I'd ever believed anyone with or in authority had my best interests at heart.

"Luckily" I didn't.

*baaa*

Checking in on you for today, Peggy. I hope you and G have a wonderful 4th!

>53 LizzieD: It feels like a sad Independence Day today, Peggy. Neither my DH nor I felt like flying the flag. I don't recognize the country we've become. My one solace is seeing Tillis stand up to the mango monster this week. I hope you had a good Independence Day in spite of it all.

I did enjoy the Spoonerisms.

‘Morning, Peggy. Happy Saturday.

>53 LizzieD: We haven’t hung a flag out in perhaps a decade after our last one got shredded in wind and we had to retire it. Less free, less brave. Sigh.

I love the spoonerisms and am still gleeful about Huck Finn.

>56 atozgrl: Tillis stepping up is a lot too late, although I think he did reach across the aisle several years ago. I refused to let him get my dad’s WWII medals for me several years ago, and my friend in Montana knows former US senator Jon Tester. His office got them for me, and I received them within a month of asking, sent to me in a manila envelope with Tester’s authentic signature for franking in the upper right.

I got skunked in Wordle today. I am not pleased.

On the upside, I have a plan for the bird feeders since I can’t keep a hummingbird feeder where it currently is because the squirrels have taken it down 3 times recently. I can also move the suet feeder because same effing rodents are eating the suet again.

Well, Irene and Karen, I confess that I wrote Tillis a thank-you email for his vote. Yes, he was way too late, and no, he wouldn't be happy in what is going to pass for a Senate, so he wasn't really sacrificing his career. But he did value the country over his career, and he did vote to impeach the second time, and he did prevent the Ernie whose name escapes me from being appointed appointed AG (?) in D.C. (I am so up on the time.) I thought he deserved some recognition.
As for the flag, I don't want a perfectly good symbol appropriated for about everything I don't believe in, so I'm still claiming it, whatever passers-by might think.

Good for you, Karen, for getting your father's medals some other way though!

Hi, Stasia. I don't think our 4th was any different from any other day. I normally want to read something historical or biographical in appreciation for the country, and I didn't do that yesterday.

Hi, Richard. Ooops, to say the least. I was surprised at how quickly the glee died though - at least to my face. They called me "Insane __________", rhyming last name anyway - at least until they found out what I was asking them to learn was what was expected for the SAT or AP Language or college English+.

Wordle 1,477 5/6*

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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, gleam, ankle, paled, baler What a mish-mosh! I did that one for myself except for checking used words. Sorry it skunked you, Karen. I wasn't pleased either.

>58 LizzieD: I've been meaning to write a note to Tillis myself, and haven't gotten around to it. Yes, it's late and on the "not enough" side, but at least he did finally stand up. And he also stood up for Ukraine early this year.

Dang, I did better with Wordle than either of you today. I got it in 3. I had the vowels in place at 2, and had eliminated all but two places for the L. I decided to try it in the middle, wanted to also use an R, and thought of the right word right away, though I did double check against the 2309 list before entering it. I was a bit lucky today.

Well, Irene. It may feel like luck to you, but seems to me that you worked through it logically, and that's always a win - especially when you do it in 3!!!

BLUE LIGHTNING by Ann Cleeves

Forewarned of the climax by a careless reviewer, I had put this one off for a couple of months. I finally finished it today. It's a worthy addition to the Shetland series, but I don't know what readers gain by the killing off of a main character. Since I knew it was coming, I was less angry at Cleeves than I was at Susan Hill for killing off Freya in the first *Simon Serrailler* book Boo and Hiss anyway.
Read the good reviews on the book page if you haven't yet gotten to this one.

>60 LizzieD: Linda (@laytonwoman3rd) also finished this book recently and, like you, was annoyed by the plot development. Here's what I posted on her thread:

I can't remember whether you've watched the TV series, but from the beginning Jimmy is a widower, Fran having died earlier (and I believe it was cancer, not a violent act. So when I started reading the books I thought well that's interesting, I wonder how this will play out. I suspected Fran would die but certainly didn't expect it to happen the way it did and it was quite a gut punch.

The spoilers are safe for you to read, now that you've read Blue Lightning.

'Morning, Peggy, and happy Sunday to you.

I didn't even realize there was such a critter as TS Chantal, and yet here it is, drizzling and overcast.

Wordle in 4 for me today. The word is not on the list of 2,309 words, and therefore I had to take a leap of faith when it was one of the only ones that made sense.

Rainy day puttering and reading planned, nothing else.

Good morning, Karen and Laura! I skipped church because the center of Chantal was to pass over us just at church time. I didn't want to get trapped in the flooded parking lot or have to wind my way home trying to avoid flooded streets. I thought I could watch the service in real time on fb, and that didn't happen. I could easily have gone because it was not a deluge. Oh well. The leisurely breakfast was nice.

Oh well, again, Laura. I haven't watched the series. I'll read more to see whether I can figure out why Cleeves thought this particular murder was necessary

Wordle 1,478 4/6*

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⬜🟨⬜🟨🟩
🟩⬜🟩🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, manta, aorta, atria My nose is out of joint because I didn't think that plurals were allowed. I guess it's only the ones with "s". Boo. Also hiss.

SPEAKERS AND SPEECHES (There are almost as many of these as there are of SEX.)

"An after-dinner speech should be like a lady's dress: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to be interesting."
~ Anon. (... and a good thing too)

"He's a man who is never lost for a few appropriated words."
~ Anon.

"Speeches are like steer horns - a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between."
~ Liberty

"I stand up when he nudges me. I sit down when they pull my coat."
~ Ernest Bevin, Labour politician

"I do not object to people looking at their watches when I am speaking - but I strongly object when they start shaking them to make certain they are still going."
~ Lord Birkett, MP and lawyer (Attrib.)

"Spontaneous speeches are seldom worth the paper they are written on."
~ Leslie Henson

>63 LizzieD: Oh sorry Peggy. I forgot you hadn't watched the series. I'm glad you've had a leisurely, if heathen-ly, Sunday morning. *smile*

I don't know that I will watch the series, Laura, so no harm done. In fact, streets did flood a little (we got a bit over 4"), so I was just as glad that I stayed home.

>65 LizzieD: The rain hadn't gotten this far north this morning, so we went to early service. I took my umbrella and rain shell just in case it started while we were there. When we were leaving, I didn't see any rain, but then we stepped outside and the drops were starting, so I did open the umbrella. We almost avoided it. Fortunately we didn't have to go anywhere else today. It came down pretty hard for a while.

>63 LizzieD: I needed to go get some help after my third Wordle guess today, because I was having trouble thinking of anything that would fit. As I said over on my own thread today, I'm sure it's not a word I've ever used. I don't know if I've ever even seen it used. I'm with you on the Boo, Hiss.

‘Morning, Peggy!

I underestimated Chantal.

>63 LizzieD: I’m glad you stayed in to avoid flooded parking lots and streets. We got around 7” of rain. Two tornado warnings and 3 flash flood warnings, too. Our power is still out, and the generator is running like a champ. The Haw River crested at 4’ over flood stage, and lots of roads are underwater. Staying in for sure.

Congrats on yesterday’s 4.

>66 atozgrl: Irene, I’ve never heard of a ‘rain shell’. I think of it as a waterproof jacket, and I have Bill’s Mama’s Totes (officially called a teddy coat!) that now fits me.

Wordle in 4 for me today.

Good morning, Karen and Irene. I found out last night after I came by here that y'all had gotten slammed. Our river is way out of its banks today with more coming from up your way, I expect. The rest of the dead mimosa in Mama's backyard came down at some point, waterlogged not blown, I think. I hope the power is back on quickly, Karen. I need to check my other friends and relatives up your way.
I'm not sure about a rain shell either ---- are you talking plastic or cloth, Irene? (I'm really happy that regionalisms still exist!)

LOOKEEEE --------
Wordle 1,479 2/6*

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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, stilt

SPEAKERS AND SPEECHES

"I wasn't allowed to speak while my husband was alive, and since he's gone no one has been able to shut me up."
~ Hedda Hopper

"Why don't th' feller who says, 'I'm not a speechmaker,' let it go at that instead o' givin' a demonstration."
~ Kin Hubbard

"A toastmaster is a man who eats a meal he doesn't want so he can get up and tell a lot of stories he doesn't remember to people who've already heard them."
!~ George Jessel

"The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public.
~ Sir George Jessel, industrialist and Justice of the Peace

"When audiences come to see us authors lecture, it is largely in the hope that we'll be funnier to look at than to read."
~ Sinclair Lewis

"A speech is like a love affair. Any fool can start it, but to end it requires considerable skill."
~ Lord Mancroft

"A speaker who does not strike oil in ten minutes should stop boring."
~ Louis Nizer

>68 LizzieD: "A speech is like a love affair. Any fool can start it, but to end it requires considerable skill."
~ Lord Mancroft

Applies to All writing, really; endings are HARD.

>68 LizzieD: We didn't get slammed. We had one heavy line come through and otherwise some off and on lighter rain. All the heavy stuff was west of us.

Wordle in 2 for me too today!

>67 karenmarie: >68 LizzieD: Rain shell is what my DH calls them, so I've picked up the term. It's a rain-proof jacket with a hood, shorter than a coat. I'm not sure what the fabric is, Peggy, something technologically advanced, but I got it at REI years ago. I guess I'll have to see if the label says anything.

Checking in on you, Peggy! I hope you and G continue to stay safe!

‘Morning, Peggy!

It’s gorgeous out here today. I wasn’t able to see if our creek had come out of its banks because I was lazy. The trees have completely blocked my view of it unless I go beyond the pasture fence. It's probably back in its banks now.

I love all the quotes, but especially

"A speaker who does not strike oil in ten minutes should stop boring."
~ Louis Nizer

>70 atozgrl: I am west of you, Irene, and of course we did get slammed. You lucked out.

Wordle in 4 for me today.

Book sort, Virlie's, grocery shopping! Nothing like having to be out in 97F/105-109F heat index.

Back from funeralizing with old family friends and neighbors. I'll be back, but at least I did the Wordle.

Thanks for coming and speaking, Karen, Stasia, Irene, and Richard! I'll speak again later when my mens is more compos.

Wordle 1,480 4/6*

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🟨⬜⬜🟨🟨
🟨🟨⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, aware, racer, dread

'Afternoon, Peggy.

I'm sorry you had to funeralize yesterday and hope that you're having a good day today.

Wordle in 4 for me.

Well, I didn't come back yesterday, and I appreciate your checking on me, Karen.
It was good to see a lot of the family at the funeral, but I learned that only friend Edward is left in our generation. His next brother up died sometime within the last few years. He's the one I knew least. Also, a nephew who had joined his brothers and cousins working bees with my DH committed suicide in '23. That was a real shock. That was enough, but the service didn't suit me either (I don't think it was designed for my approval). Our interim "preached" a eulogy, a thing that other Presbyterian ministers haven't really done in 20 or 30 years. It made me feel itchy.
We did spend a little time with Edward, who has increasing dementia but is looked after as his diabetes is also controlled in an assisted living facility. He was recalling my grandmama's biscuits, which were dense and substantial. He said he still felt he had some left at his core. We also laughed at the Robco-isms that he used to collect. I think I've quoted "brown new Colorado pants" and "Terry Carter pipes" and "eat up with Oscar Berosis."

I'm glad to be home today!

Wordle 1,481 4/6*

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🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟨🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, exile, vowel, novel

More later, I hope!

>75 LizzieD: {{{Peggy}}}

Getting old is deffo not for sissies. *smooch*

‘Morning, Peggy. Happy Thurdsay.

I hope your doldrums are easing, but completely understand if they’re not, based on what you wrote about the funeral. Sadness all round, it seems to me.

Oooh, oooh, do you have your grandmama’s biscuits recipe? Regardless, I’d love to have it if you're willing to share it. I’ve just recently done a deep dive into family recipes for Kolaches and spoke with my Aunt Joyce about them the other day about 2 family ones and her third family one. Kolache filling recipes, too. I’ve got 2 cans of sour cherries coming to me via Amazon soon so I can make Cherry Kolaches using the recipe my aunt used and her cherry filling recipe.

Congrats on Wordle in 4.

Wordle in 3 for me today, with a lucky guess.

Cherry kolaches, oh, my. I have sour cherries...

OH my indeed! Hi, Linda and Karen!!! I have Bing cherries but no sour ones. I guess I've never eaten a kolache. Grandmama threw stuff (pretty literally) on her dough tray and made biscuits every day of her life until she made nothing. They were not the light, fluffy biscuits that everybody including me wants now. White flour, buttermilk, lard, a bit of salt, overworked. Grandmother was the one with the light hand for pastry. Think boiled chicken and pastry that was always tender. She was a do-it-like-I've-always-done-it cook too. She tried to teach Mama, but Mama's were never the same.

Congratulations on your Wordle in 3 today, Karen.
Behold!

Wordle 1,482 5/6*

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, minor, gummy, dumpy, jumpy

I'm sleepy. Nap calls for 20 minutes or so! Then it's set chicken cooking for salad again and feed the cats.

Oh! Happy Nicola Tesla Day!

Also, (sorry, Richard) Happy National Kitten Day!

>79 LizzieD: *gaaak*

I just downrated a book a half-star for having the temerity to suggest, IN WRITING, that...them...are to be regarded as acceptable companions for humans. Appalling! Where are the AI overlords?!

Sour-cherry kolaches...mmmmmmmmmmmmm

Oh, my poor WBL! There! There!

I just learned that it's also National Clerihew Day - a fact that should make us all happier.

Here are a few from the man himself. I'll post a few more tomorrow.

Geoffrey Chaucer
Took a bath (in a saucer)
In consequence of certain hints
Dropped by the Black Prince.

The only occasion when Comte
Is known to have romped
Was when the multitude roared "Vive
La Philosophie Positive!"

"Susaddah!" exclaimed Ibsen,
"My dose is turdig cribson!
I'd better dot kiss you
Atishoo! ATishoo!"

When Alexander Pope
Accidentally trod on the soap,
And came down on the back of his head -
Never mind what he said.

What I like about Clive
Is that he is no longer alive.
There is a great deal to be said
For being dead.

~ E.C. Bentley

I'm learning things over here today. I had never heard of either kolaches or clerihew, so I had to go look them up.

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Friday to you.

I hope today is less doldrum-y. My daughters are coming over, but it’s bittersweet because they’re coming to fetch more of Jenna’s things to pack for Washington. They’re leaving on her birthday, less than a month from now.

Hmm. Interesting recipe. That’s a similar recipe to what I have for biscuits – just the ingredients. I use self-rising flour and Crisco instead of flour and lard, but still. The amount of flour determines how many biscuits come out and although I’ve written the recipe down for 3 cups of flour, I never measure anymore and just put stuff in a bowl. Mix, roll out, cut, bake at 425F, brush with butter.

Thanks re my Wordle. I love words that have J in them for some reason.

Such an auspicious day! Nicola Tesla, kittens, and clerihews all have their own day.

>78 laytonwoman3rd: I remember being able to buy sour cherries at the grocery store although I don’t remember ever using them. Now they’re sort of a specialty item, at least out here.

>81 LizzieD: Love those clerihews.

Wordle in two for me today. Pure luck.

Hi, Irene! I had looked up kolaches before - not your everyday Southern treat! Clerihews have been with me for a long time. I associate the Clive of India one with the Martial epigram translated "I do not love thee, Dr. Fell...."

Glad the daughters are coming today for whatever reason, Karen. I didn't know when the departure date might be but thought it had to be soon for Hwan to be set for the fall semester. *sigh*

Oh! I forgot the baking soda, which I'm pretty sure Grandmama used/

Happy Wordle in 2!!! I'm pleased with my 3 --- first time in a long time.
Wordle 1,483 3/6*

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🟨🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, drank, brand

CLERIHEWS, continued . this time from W.H. Auden (All of these so far have been from Willard Espy's Almanac of Words at Play.)

Henry Adams
Was mortally afraid of Madams;
In a disorderly house
He sat quiet as a mouse.

Lord Byron
Once succumbed to a Siren -
His flesh was weak,
Hers Greek.

Dante
Was utterly enchanté
When Beatrice cried in tones that were peachy:
Noi siamo amici.

When the young Kant
Was told to kiss his aunt,
He obeyed the Categorical Must,
But only just.

Joseph Lister,
According to his sister,
Was not an alcoholic:
His vice was carbolic.

AND Espy preferred this one, unattributed, from The Lancet

"Mamma, Mamma!" cried Joseph Lister,
"Pray tell me what's inside that blister."
Which people thought a lot of fuss
To make about a little pus.

For your further entertainment, here's an article from the LA Times about a local doctor in 1986, that our niece was inquiring about this morning:

Norma Jean’s Fans Set to Pig Out
When Norma Jean makes her entrance this weekend at a black-tie affair--in a pink tutu, white feather boa and rhinestone earrings--she won’t be an ordinary partygoer.

“She’s really just a gorgeous animal,” said Dr. Raymond Sattler, a Lumberton neurosurgeon and Norma Jean’s owner.

Norma Jean is a 600-pound pig who favors Godiva chocolates, lobster and champagne.

More than 200 people were to gather at the Ramada Inn Saturday night for the affair--complete with string quartet and big-band dance music--to honor the red-haired hog.

(WE were not on the guest list!)

‘Morning, Peggy! I hope the eye shots went well, and that you’ll be back in fine reading form today.

>84 LizzieD: Congrats on 3 for yesterday’s Wordle.

Love the clerihews.

The daughters came, brought back my favorite Pyrex baking dish and a few Tupperware containers from when I sent leftovers home, looked through boxes, took stuff, brought down 18 boxes of books (7 mine, 11 Jenna’s to go through), and left. Sigh.

Wordle in 5 today.

Wow, Karen. That was some day for you all. It's nice to get dishes back, I'm sure, but maybe not the reason for them. Boxes of books in the attic - oh mercy yes!

Thanks, and look at me Wordling in 3 again today right by myself. I'll pay for it. I used 2 words that I always expect to be on the used list. Lucky me!

Wordle 1,484 3/6*

🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, whole, exile

CLERIHEWS (I like them!)
Some from EHB again

The one thing Cleopatra
Never could abide was a flatterer.
When Anthony compared her to Thais
She knocked him right of the dais.

It was a rule of Leonardo da Vinci's
Not to put his trust in princes.
Pleading was of no avail;
They had to pay up on the nail.

Sir Humphrey Davy
Abominated gravy.
He lived in the odium
Of having discovered sodium.

Somebody sent Dean Swift
An ounce of strychnine as a gift.
He took about thirty five minims
While writing about the Houyhnhms.

The sermons of John Knox
Teemed with disapproval of frocks.
There was no acquiescence by him in
The Monstrous Regiment of Women.

Enough!

>86 LizzieD: LOVE the clerihews! Lots of guffaws for me today. Thanks!

Karen O

>86 LizzieD: "The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women" is easily the weirdest thing I've ever had to read.I think it was Cultural Anthropology, but why that horrid thing I carry no memory of. Mostly I remember it for "monstruous" not "monstrous" and falling down the rabbit hole of why that word needed to exist at All, ever (that causative suffix is in desuetude for a reason).

'Morning, Peggy, and happy Sunday to you. It's glorious here, not horribly hot yet.

Wordle in 2 for me today. Some logic applied to the lists, some luck, too.

Book Club this afternoon to discuss the abandoned-by-me-at-56% Klara and the Sun.

I will be baking Lemon Refrigerator Cookies, starting as soon as I finish a bit of breakfast.

Oh yum for lemon anything!!! Back from church, Karen, with congrats for your Wordle in 2 yet again! You're making this a habit!!!
Enjoy book club. I started and put down *Klara*, but I expect to read it sometime.........really.

Richard, I just checked the "monstruous" and found that I hadn't miscopied, so for once the mistake wasn't mine. *smooch*

Hi, Karen! I'm glad that you've enjoyed my current mini-obsession!

Wordle 1,485 4/6*

⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟨🟨⬜⬜🟩
⬜⬜🟩🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, noire, ozone, gnome I had to use a list, having tried pn but forgotten gn. Can't complain.

LAST OF THE CLERIHEWS FOR AWHILE

One of Henry's peeves
Was that Anne of Cleves
Was cold
To hold.
~ J.C. Walker

Good Queen Bess
Said English sanitation was a mess.
Sir John Harrington cried: "I agree!"
And invented the W.C.
~ Allen M. Laing

The venerable Bede
Could read.
It's a pity he couldn't spel
As wel.
~ Lakon

When Charles II
Beckoned
Nell
Fell
~ Ruth Silcock

Edward the Confessor
Was not in any way an Aggressor;
Some who were afterwards King
Were much more that sort of thing.
~ Silvia Tatham

Poor old Wagner
Was not a good bargainer.
He once sold an opera four hours long
For a song.
~ R.L.O.

Mozart
Could never resist a tart.
In the ordinary way
He ate seven or eight a day.
~ Stanley J. Sharpless

>90 LizzieD: "Monstruous" is almost always miscopied, Peggy, the word is unused since 1600 because it's ponderous, precious, and the worst kind of snobbish. Doesn't keep it from being accurate and correct, but no surprise it's miscopied looonnnggg before thee or me got to quoting the Knox nonsense. And nonsense it deffo was.

*smooch*

'Morning, Peggy! Happy Monday to you.

We both put down Klara and the Sun. I don't anticipate continuing or even restarting it, but you never know. It's on my Kindle, currently at 56% read.

The Lemon Icebox Cookies came out well. Labor intensive, of course...

Wordle in 4 for me today.

I'll be at the Library from 10-12 helping Eliza appraise donations to the Friends to find ones that should be up-priced.

Back home, there are books to look at downstairs and boxes of things Jenna does not want upstairs. Sigh.

From The Clerihews of Paul Horgan:

Wilhelm Friedrich Nietzsche
Was inclined to be preachy,
Like all heavy thinkers,
And most heavy drinkers.

Onward! Upward!

>92 karenmarie: Yippee for getting through Jenna's things and appraising books for the next sale. Wish I could get up there for it, but we both know I won't.

I thought I was through with the CLERIHEWS, but you've set me going again. Here are some more by the man himself. I know I saw one about Nietzsche that I'll look for again in a minute. Love Mr. Horgans's. Thanks for it!!
ETA: I can't find the Nietzsche one, but I'll try again later.

John Stuart Mill,
By a mighty effort of will,
Overcame his natural bonhomie
And wrote Principles of Economy.

Edward the Confessor
Slept under the dresser.
When that began to pall,
He slept in the hall.

George the Third
Ought never to have occurred.
One can only wonder
At so grotesque a blunder.

Sir Christopher Wren
Said, “I’m going to dine with some men.
If anyone calls,
Say I'm designing St. Paul's.

Oh, WORDLE! I used help that didn't help much. It didn't recognize the target as a common word, but my little streak continues.

Wordle 1,486 6/6*

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
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⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜
🟩🟩⬜🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 I knew that guess 5 had been used, but I was desperate!!!

>93 LizzieD: George the Third
Ought never to have occurred.
One can only wonder
At so grotesque a blunder.

I so wish Ben Franklin had seen that one, he'd've loved it!

Monday *smooch*

>93 LizzieD: These were the best clerihews yet! I accidentally saw yesterday's Wordle here on LT yesterday, so I didn't do the puzzle and broke my streak. We were busy, so I might have forgotten to do it anyway. Today's Wordle took me 5.

Hi, Irene and Richard! I don't know why it took me so long to find the website with these particular ones. I liked them too.

I need to read a good bio of Franklin and also to tie together the pieces of his autob. that I've read over the years. Instead, I indulge in easier entertainment. Oh well. *smooch* right back, my WBL!

Sorry about yesterday's Wordle, Irene. You did better than I did on today's. NYT reset my record when our niece gave us one of her online subscriptions. No great harm.

THE CLOUD ROADS by Martha Wells

This fantasy is nowhere nearly as good as Murderbot. It feels like fantasy from a decade or 2 ago but with a shape-shifter as a hero. Moon has been forced to hide his identity in groundling communities until another of his kind rescues him and takes him back to his own colony. For the first time Moon learns what he is, and he is a form of Raksura that is valued highly. The colony, however, is in grave danger from the villains, and the rest of the book involves Moon's doing his part to save Indigo Cloud and determine whether he has a place with them.
MW can certainly write, and it was pretty good, but I wasn't swept away as I had hoped to be. I see that there are 7 more in the series, so I'm betting that they improve.
(A personal is that I think I should be able to understand why a title is perfect for a book. I kept getting this title wrong, and not sure yet why MW chose it.)

>96 LizzieD: It's fifteen years old, so no surprise it feels old-fashioned, Peggy me lurve. It's not MB, in any way and not better for it.

*smooch*

>96 LizzieD: How funny, I've recently pulled Benjamin Franklin: an American life off my shelves, and I hope to read it for the quarterly Reading Through Time challenge. I felt like it was about time I got to a Franklin bio.

>96 LizzieD: The Cloud Roads and sequels were my introduction to Martha Wells and why I read All Systems Red within months of it coming out. It's a very different sort of story, although the outsider viewpoint is a common element. I can't reassure you that the books improve really, but I enjoyed the series, not expecting anything like Murderbot, as I liked spending time with Moon exploring his world.
Going back to books before The Books of the Raksura, I had the same feeling of not as good as until Murderbot & then Witch King.

Hi Peggy! Happy Tuesday to you.

>93 LizzieD: Yay for more clerihews.

>96 LizzieD: I have Franklin’s Autobiography and the Isaacson book but have read neither.

Wordle in 3 for me today, a seriously lucky guess.

Book sort/Virlie's. Small grocery store run, home. Thunder is rumbling in the distance, and I'll take my rain jacket 'cuz I'm so sweet I'd melt in the rain.

You, of course, are much sweeter than I am, so be much more careful of the rain than I'll be.

Oh, Karen, you are seriously sweet in a good, healthy way!!! I know I repeat family stories here; they give me a lot of pleasure. Feel free to skip this one.
My daddy came home to see us when I was born. He said that his first thought when he saw me was, looking at my mouth, that if I was ever caught in the rain, I'd drown. Then he looked at my nose again, and thought, "No. If she's standing up straight, she'll be all right."

Karen and Irene, maybe we should plan to read the Isaacson bio together??? I'll get far behind, but if you're game for it, Irene, you set a starting time!

Susan, I like Moon too. I'm not going to be in any hurry to pursue him, but I might try Witch King, especially since the sequel is coming out this year. I do wish I had read Raksura when they came out; I'm sure I would have been very pleased.

Richard, I'm pretty sure you won't be watching the adaptation of MB. I won't either. I know that MB has to look human, but I'm not sure how anybody could do that authentically. Giving the role to a male actor is a turn-off for me. *smooch*

Wordle 1,487 4/6*

⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, wurst, hoist, foist I absolutely could not resist trying #2 even though I knew it wasn't going to be helpful.

CLERIHEWS - the last unless I just can't help myself -

It was a weakness of Voltaire’s
To forget to say his prayers,
And one which to his shame
He never overcame.
***
Dante Alighieri
Seldom troubled a dairy.
He wrote the Inferno
On a bottle of Pernod.
***
Daniel Defoe
Lived a long time ago.
He had nothing to do, so
He wrote Robinson Crusoe.
***
The meaning of the poet Gay
Was always as clear as day,
While that of the poet Blake
Was often practically opaque.
***
Edgar Allan Poe
Was passionately fond of roe.
He always liked to chew some,
When writing something gruesome.

~ E. Clerihew Bentley

>101 LizzieD: Hmmm, we could try to do a shared read. But I actually want to pick up Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer first, having been inspired by the May American Author's Challenge of Pulitzer Prize Winners for History. And we're hoping to take a vacation soon, so my reading schedule will probably be disrupted for a while. I might not get to Franklin before September.

I didn't do as well on Wordle today. I had the exact right pattern with the last four letters at 3, but it took me 5 to hit on the right word.

‘Morning, Peggy!

>101 LizzieD: I love the story of your daddy and his first thoughts about your mouth and nose.

I can’t promise to read the Isaacson bio, but clue me in if you and Irene decide to read it.

Wordle in 3 for me today.

I’ve been up since 4 a.m., so hope to get a nap or two in. Fortunately I have no errands or obligations today.

Checking in to let you know that I finished Blind White Fish in Persia this morning. My thoughts are posted on my thread.

>96 LizzieD: Sounds like I can safely skip that one.

Have a wonderful Wednesday, Peggy!

Hi, Friends! Happy to see you here!

Stasia, I'll be over to check out the fishy one. I suppose I should have considered it for this month's nonfiction challenge. I'm sorry to tell you (so I'll explain on your thread) that you're likely going to want to skip the Weber *Safehold* series too. Not me.

Hi, Karen! My daddy was as funny as his daddy, and that's saying a LOT!!! Get a nap - or TWO!!!!

Hi, Irene. I'm not eager to jump on the Franklin just yet, so if you decide to read it in the last quarter, let me know. I am committed that giant first volume of the Wellington bio right now and didn't know how I was going to swing another one. Maybe by that time, Karen will be moved to join us - or we'll all wait.

Well -------- Look at me! I'm not sure how that happened.
Wordle 1,488 2/6*

⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, nervy

LAST WORDS (All Attrib.)

"Die, my dear doctor? That's the last thing I shall do."
~ Lord Palmerston

"If this is dying, I don't think much of it."
~ Lytton Strachey

"Either they go, or I do."
~ Oscar Wilde, of his new bedroom curtains)

CYNICISM

"Cynicism - the intellectual cripple's substitute for intelligence."
~ Russell Lynes

"A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin."
~ H.L. Mencken (Attrib.)

"It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake."
~ H.L. Mencken (Attrib.)

"A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."
~ Oscar Wilde

Hi Peggy! Happy Thursday to you.

I sure would like to have met your daddy. Wordle in 2… brava!

I particularly like the HL Mencken quotes.

Wordle in 5 for me today, what with alphabet soup and all.

I am probably having lunch with Rita the Librarian today. She tends to cancel last-minute. I’ll go in to appraise books for the Friends, regardless. Eliza is overwhelmed and after book sort on Tuesday, she pointed out some of the boxes to appraise and said I could come in any time. A bigger hint never existed.

>105 LizzieD: On behalf of the Cynical American community, I herewith enjoin you to refrain from using our recruitment materials in a pejorative context. It materially harms our strong and vibrant recruitment efforts among the disenfranchised and depressed.

*smooch*

Oh dear, Richard. I didn't think it hurt recruitment efforts for us to laugh at ourselves (with raised lip of course).

Hi, Karen! I got help with Wordle or I likely would have run out of tries before I got it at all.

News to all and sundry who may visit here..... Lightning hit a tree across the street yesterday afternoon and fried our modem and router. As you see, we got replacements quickly, and I'm back in business - such as it is.

MY HEARING AIDS ARE HERE! I'll have the first fitting on Tuesday.

Wordle 1,489 4/6*

🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, vocal, zonal, modal Guess 4 was the only possible word that hadn't been used, but without help at that point, I would have been skunked.

CROOKED HEART by Lissa Evans

What a super book for me to read right now! Germany is bombing England, and children have been evacuated from London. Noel, at ten, is pretty much twice orphaned. His parents died when he was four, and his godmother, who reared him with uncommon good sense, has also died. Noel is small, limps from a bout with polio, and is uncommonly smart. Vee Sedge is a young widow, supporting her mother and lumpish son, who takes Noel in with a plan in mind. Noel, who has learned to look at the world logically and with a heart, improves upon the plan, and the two work together.

It tugs at the heartstrings without sentimentality. It has moments of sudden one-laugh-out-loud humor. I loved it and have put the sequel, V for Victory and a sort of prequel, Old Baggage on my Kindle already.

>108 LizzieD: The Wordle gods were with me today because I had the right letters in position 2, 4, and 5 after my second guess, and with all the many possibilities, the first word I thought of was the right one, so I got it in 3 today.

That was the good news. The bad news in the world is the defunding of public broadcasting after they already passed funding. (Take backs are not fair.) And now Colbert is being cancelled, as of next May. By far the best late night show. Boo, hiss on Paramount/Skydance. Kowtowing to the dictator.

>105 LizzieD: Benita told me that I could count it for the Nonfiction challenge despite the lack of Blind White Fish, lol.

>108 LizzieD: Do you need to read the first book before you read Crooked Heart, Peggy?

‘Morning, Peggy! It’s a beautiful Carolina blue sky day, gonna be hot, hot, hot and humid, humid, humid. Sigh.

>108 LizzieD: Wow on the lightning strike and fried router and modem. I am glad you’re back in business.

Congrats on the hearing aids!!!!

Also, congrats on your Wordle in 4 yesterday. My today’s Wordle is 4.

I might go out for a bit today, primarily a brief run to the grocery store. Then again, I might get lazy and wait ‘til tomorrow. *smile*

Checking in on you, Peggy. I hope you have a fantastic Friday!

Thank yous for the check ins, Stasia, Karen, and Irene!

Stasia, I have the fantastic Friday in the making with plans to READ except for minimal maintenance. I think I now have all the books that deal with Mattie, Noel, and Vee or Mar. Correct me if I'm wrong, please! (I just finished Crooked Heart!)
Also HOORAY for counting those blind white fish --- As a child I saw them in the Linville Caverns, except my memory is that they no longer even had eyes, those white fish who lived in complete darkness.

Oh Wordle! I rejected The Word several times before it was all I had left. I had certainly never heard of one, so behold!

Wordle 1,490 4/6*

🟩⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, logos, louis (I think it was French coin?), loris I had to use help to confirm it. How did you two know the word, Mesdames Wordle Divas?

Back later!

>108 LizzieD: I really enjoyed Old Baggage so I should probably read this one too...but I'm getting so much older so much faster than you are that I might not have time.

Yay on the hearing aids! I hope they do their job perfectly.

*smooch*

>113 LizzieD: Well, you did better with Wordle today than I did. It took me 5, and I had to start looking up possible words (after getting the first two and the last letter). I'm not sure I've ever even heard of it before.

I was here late yesterday and was too tired/forgot to comment on the lightning strike. I'm glad it was across the street and not a direct hit! I'm a bit surprised that you got everything replaced so quickly, but happy that you did. I'm hoping for a calmer weekend for you.

Many thanks, Irene, for good wishes! My DH realized tonight that the lightning took out the motion light at the front of Mama's house, so he'll have another project for tomorrow's heat. It was a terrifying pop all right! Hooray for Spectrum!

Richard, I see that I didn't say that Mattie is the godmother in Crooked Heart, so you might want to push it up your priority list. She is almost always present in Noel's mind, and one of my joys in the book involves a brief conversation he has with somebody who knew her.
*smooch*

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Saturday to your and your DH AND your seven kitties.

>113 LizzieD: I did not know yesterday’s Wordle word – I used spreadsheets and the internet to find it.

Wordle in 3 for me today. I did end up going to the grocery store yesterday, so the kitties are not chewing my ankles for canned cat food.

Today’s puttering and reading.

Canned cat food is much better for the kitties and you than your ankles! I looked at images of yesterday's puzzle word and figured you might have seen the cuteness before in your scrolling.

At least I got my 4 on my own today even if I was dense. (Congrats on your more aware 3. Pronunciation will get me about 99% of the time.)

Wordle 1,491 4/6*

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🟩⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, scrim, spork, sword

Off to do minimum maintenance and feed cats when what I really want is to finish the last 10 pp of *In Death 15*. Which will I do first? I'll never tell.

>116 LizzieD: PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

A wicked changeling has taken our dear Peggy's place. The evil miasma of book-concupiscence the changeling wafts should be avoided entirely, or you will suffer the terror of treasure-depleting greed I was subjected to.

Flee while you can!

Poor, poor WBL. Would you rather not know? The subject is now closed in any case.

PURITY IN DEATH by J.D. Robb

Woo hoo for number 15! If I should survive to read 3 a year for the next 10 or 11 years, I might read all that I own, but I certainly would not finish the series. This would be a really good one unless, like me, you have trouble with a computer virus, spread by email, that infects the receiving computer but also its operator. Using subliminal (I think; the explanation is understandably vague and rushed) sounds and lights the victim's brain swells over several days until it more or less explodes in the head. The perpetrators are a vigilantes that call themselves Seekers of Purity. The victims are the slimiest of schoolyard drug dealers, child porn producers, sex traffickers. The seekers are not bothered by collateral damage (!). Eve and her team, including self-proclaimed computer genius Jamie Langstrom now 17 from book 5, *Ceremony*, must deal with the virus and track down the killers. They do.
Meanwhile, some satisfying developments in personal relationships keep me sure to go back for more. Later.

Happy Sunday Peggy!
I’m still somehow holding on to my Wordle streak, but today there was another “phew” (which could have been a 3 with better guessing).

I’m making great progress with the spelling bee, got to genius level three times in one week without help. Just throw any letters together and every 4th or so dadaistic combination will be on the list. That streak ended yesterday, but still “yay”.
The connections however are hopeless. Some days ago there were sporty, baby, ginger and scary and they didn’t form a group - and I was so proud to have spotted 4 Spice Girls.. :D
Anyway - thanks to leading me to those “early morning waking up my brain while having my coffee” activities.

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Sunday to you.

>118 LizzieD: Let’s see… my guess is that you finished In Death 15. Congrats on Wordle in 4.

>120 LizzieD: Book 15 of 60, #61 due out in September. Only 45 to go, with at least a new one added each year until Nora decides to end the series. *smile*

Wordle in 3 for me today. It will be an indoor day, what with 96F by this afternoon.

Sunday, Sunday, can't trust that day...or wait...was that some other day? Well, no matter, it's Sunday today so I'll mistrust the one I'm with.

Back eventually, I hope, but I thank you, Richard, Karen, and Nathalie, for brightening my thread while I'm not here!

Wordle 1,492 4/6*

🟨⬜🟩⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, clary, plaid, blank

Richard, I think I've been told that living in the moment is good, so by all means mistrust Sunday while you have it! It has been too hot for too long, and we have another couple of months of it. I'll say no more - except that I did think of you when I was reading the L. Evans book. I couldn't get over "jewellery"; just count all those extra letters! *smooch*

Hi, Karen. I'm not sure how you missed my few words about #15. Just as well, I expect. I have nothing beyond the heat and trying to concentrate on finding any remnants of paganism in folklore of the Brit. Isles. I should have finished yesterday, but it didn't work that way and won't work that way tonight.

Nathalie, I have never tried spelling bee, but I'm not surprised that you hit genius level. I love being in touch with a person who uses "dadaistic" in general conversation! I can do connections - except when I can't. The one I don't even try any longer is strands - a real waste of time.
I'll take the credit for leading you to the games if they don't make you late for work!!!

'Morning, Peggy! Happy Monday.

I thought I properly understood your comments about #15, guess not. I admit to being agitated and more upset than even usual as it gets closer to August 2nd when Jenna and Hwan drive to Washington, so will use that as an excuse.

Anyway.

I got skunked in Wordle today, so my 15-day streak has vanished.

Dearest Karen, I know as well as a childless woman can know. It matters not at all, but I don't write those comments under the all caps title until I've finished a book - not that anybody cares. The "Later" meant that I won't read #16 anytime soon, so I was the one who was misleading.

Once again, I plan to do nothing. I'm expecting an AMP book (Richard's Lightborne, in fact) to arrive today. Tomorrow - the hearing aids!!!!!!!

Wordle 1,493 4/6*

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟩⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, trick, titty, tizzy I just can't resist my urge to be cute. Sorry about the skunk, Karen.

DWIGHT D> EISENHOWER

I doubt very much if a man whose main literary interests were in works by Mr Zane Grey, admirable as they may be, is particularly well equipped to be chief executive of this country, particularly where Indian affairs are concerned.
~ Dean Acheson (Attrib.)

I haven't checked these figures but eight-seven years ago, I think it was, a number of individuals organized a governmental set-up here in this country, I believe it covered certain eastern areas, with this idea they were following up based on a sort of national-independence arrangement and the program that every individual is just as good as every other individual ...
~ Oliver Jensen, "The Gettysburg Address in Eisenhowerese"

Eisenhower is the only living Unknown Soldier
~ Robert s. Kerr

If I talk over people's heads, Ike must talk under their feet.
~ Adlai Stevenson

The General has dedicated himself so many times, he must feel like the cornerstone of a public building.
~ Adlai Stevenson

Oh, for the good old days!

>127 LizzieD: The first, and far superior, president who was "one of us" so he got elected for talking the people's thoughts in words they could understand.

*sigh*

It's not the way to run an empire.

Agreed, Richard, and thanks for the smile lifter! *smooch*

THE PAGAN RELIGIONS OF THE ANCIENT BRITISH ISLES: THEIR NATURE AND LEGACY by Ronald Hutton

I'm glad to have read this at last. It was not exactly what I was hoping for, but the title is an exact description. RH starts with Paleolithic figures and moves from age to age, describing the items, the carving and drawings, the tombs, all accurately without speculating on what they might have meant to the people who created them. Having read Britain BC fairly recently, I was not so much interested in the first hundred or so pages as he guided me through megaliths and barrows and causewayed enclosures (!), and developed passage tombs as I might have been otherwise. I was happy to arrive in the Iron Age when they left written history. Again, RH described and did not speculate, and so on through the book. My overall takeaway is that we know and are unlikely ever to know very much at all about ancient pagan religion.

If it hadn't been obvious before, RH's purpose in writing is made clear in the final chapter as he carefully cites the earliest examples of the beliefs claimed as ancient remnants passed down by followers of all kinds of neo-pagans. They are not ancient. RH does this more respectfully than I would have expected of an academic. His point is, for example, that Arthur was never a living person, that the Arthurian legends reflect nothing of the times in which he is supposed to have lived, but that the stories themselves continue to have all the value they have always carried in their romance, beauty, and depths of human meaning. In fact, he dedicates the book to the Clan of the Oak Dragon, whose intelligence and spirituality he respects while demonstrating that their assumptions about the age of their doctrines are wrong.

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy hearing aids day!!

>127 LizzieD: I love the Ike quotes, esp. the first one.

>128 richardderus: Love it, RD.

>129 LizzieD: I was hoping for an inexpensive copy of this book because it sounds fascinating.

Wordle in 4 for me today.

Thank you for good wishes, Karen! I'm equal parts excitement and nerves. I will be disappointed if I can't adjust to the things.

Yep. And now we wish for an executive entity who could read Zane Grey.

If you haven't found a copy, Karen, I'll be glad to lend you mine!

Good normal Wordling for you! Luck for me!

Wordle 1,494 3/6*

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟨🟨🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, grunt, burnt I guess that's valid for USA because of the name of the color.

WRITING (IF I've used these before, I apologize. I'm enjoying them this time anyway.)

I love being a writer. what I can't stand is the paperwork.
~ Peter De Vries

I write when I'm inspired, and I see to it that I'm inspired at nine o'clock every morning.
~ Peter De Vries

The tools I need for my work are paper, tobacco, food and a little whiskey.
~ William Faulkner

The ideal view for daily writing, hour on hour, is the blank brick wall of a cold storage warehouse. Failing this, a stretch of sky will do, cloudless if possible.
~ Edna Ferber

Cut out all those exclamation marks. An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own joke.
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

>131 LizzieD: Ah, Fitgerald! That laconic son-of-a-bitch! Never once exaggerated or played up a scene!

Dispense with absolutes! They're never correct, even when they're right!

Good morning Peggy, loving the writer quotes.

How are the hearing aids working?

Ended my 68 days wordle streak today :(
Great start followed by the guessing game with way too many options . Not really unhappy about it, it started being stressful.

>120 LizzieD: Woo hoo for number 15! Indeed! Glad to hear you enjoyed your latest installment.

Hope all is going well with the new "ears." Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Thanks for checking in, Stasia, Nathalie, and Richard!!!!

Hearing Report follows -----

Most of my fears about wearing the things evaporated in the first five minutes of having them on. I'm still a bit aware of them, but I don't think it will be long before I'll accept them as normal. They are easy to handle, and I need to explore what's available with the app on my phone. (I don't know that I want to answer calls with them or use them to listen to streaming, but I may make use of the Fit-Bit-like application.) At the moment I can't tell a lot of difference. They are set at 80%, and I do hear some sounds that I was losing before. For example, tap tap tap when I text, Molly's "crinkle purr." more bird sounds and clearer understanding of my DH when we walk. (He says it's the first time he's ever wanted to be fluent in another language - like Spanish or Farsi or something else that I don't know so that he could confound me. Ha Ha) Anyway, they'll up the capability over the next few weeks until I'm getting 100% of what I need.
Bonus for the one aspiring to lose vanity: they are invisible under my hair.

I know that Wordle stress, Nathalie. After the first loss of a good streak, it's easier. Again, I was lucky with my starter and with having the used list, and pronunciation didn't fool me! More writing coming!
Wordle 1,495 3/6*

⬜🟨🟨⬜🟨
🟨🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, tamer, water

I forgive Fitzgerald everything else just for the "Presbyterian nymphs" in *Gatsby*, WBL. I'm also always tickled by "absolute" objections - no way you can make them true, which of course, you know.

WRITING

Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.
~ Gene Fowler

Nothing you write, if you hope to be any good, will ever come out as you first hoped.
~ Lillian Hellman

For forty-odd years in this noble profession
I've harbored a guilt and my conscience is smitten.
So here is my slightly embarrassed confession -
I don't like to write, but I love to have written.
~ Michael Kanin

There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
~ Somerset Maughm

Alexander Woollcott says good writers should never use the word 'very'. Nuts to Alexander Woollcott.
~ H. Allen Smith (Attrib.)

There's nothing to writing. All you have to do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.
~ Red Smith

>135 LizzieD: Nothing you write, if you hope to be any good, will ever come out as you first hoped.
~ Lillian Hellman

Awomen. What an undeniable truth.

*smooch* for your wondrous new hearing aids.

>135 LizzieD: Hurray for the hearing aids! I'm glad that they are working so well for you.

Love the Writing quotes. The Maugham gave me a good laugh.

Great news about the hearing aids, Peggy! Reminds me of my 12-year-old self wearing glasses for the first time and realizing trees have leaves ha ha.

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Thursday to you.

I had a post ready yesterday, but got diverted and didn’t post it.

>135 LizzieD: I’m so glad they’re working out so well. Yay for being invisible under your hair. Congrats on Wordle in 3.

I love the quotes.

>138 lauralkeet: I needed glasses by age 8, Laura, didn’t get them ‘til I was 11. I remember having to walk to the chalk board in front of class to read what the teacher had written. Humiliating much?
Wordle in 4 today.

Many thanks for visits and good wishes for my magic ears, Karen, Laura, Irene, and Richard!

I did get the glasses I needed at 8, Karen, and was amazed at the leaves on trees too, Laura - and everything else I had been missing. I got contacts at 13 and fumbled them in and out for months with many tears, frustrated and pained, before I got the hang of them. I was determined to go into high school without glasses though, and I did. I'm sorry you didn't get yours when you needed them, Karen. It was a handicap for sure!

Wordle 1,496 5/6*

⬜🟨🟩⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, grave, plane, amaze, quake Lucky again although it doesn't look like it.

WRITING

'He's supposed to have a particularly high-class style: "Feather-footed through the splashy fen passes the questing vole"... would that be it?'
'Yes,' said the Managing Editor. 'That must be good style. At least, it doesn't sound like anything else to me.'
~ Evelyn Waugh, Scoop

Novel-writing is a highly skilled and laborious trade of which the raw material is every single thing one has ever seen or heard or felt, and one has to go over that vast, smouldering rubbish-heap of experience, half stifled by the fumes and dust, scraping and delving until one finds a few discarded valuables.
~ Evelyn Waugh

No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft.
~ H. G. Wells

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.*
~ Oscar Wilde

Ambrose isn't a frightfully hot writer. I don't suppose he makes enough out of a novel to keep a midget in doughnuts for a week. Not a really healthy midget.
~ P.G. Wodehouse

The secret of popular writing is never to put more on a given page than the common reader can lap off it with no strain whatsoever on his habitually slack attention.
~ Ezra Pound

*I always think of my favorite Bible professor reflecting on her time at Yale Divinity School. She and her friends were enjoying coffee one afternoon when the following conversation ensued.
"Just think. While we've been sitting here Kenneth Scott Latourette has written a chapter in his next book."
"Yes...... and Roland Bainton has written a page in his."
"And Richard Niebuhr has written a sentence, erased it, and is now thinking about writing another one."

And I ------- I am enjoying Hello Beautiful, a perfect book for summer reading!

'Morning, Peggy! Stay cool, enjoy the increasing benefits from your hearing aids, read good books, and etc!

Wordle in 6 for me today. I was happy to avoid a skunk.

Indoors and reading/puttering for me today.

Jenna and Hwan will be coming over on the 30th to celebrate Jenna's birthday. That will be the last day to see them before they leave on the 2nd, although they'll be back in NC and staying at our house the 13th-16th to get their cat and tie up a few loose ends.

Hello, 6 Sister. I did with luck get it to the lucky point at 5 that only one choice remained.

We walked, and I'm definitely indoors from here on out. It's time to feed the cats, so I'll just say that I'm glad that you're celebrating Jenna's birthday with the daughters and very glad that they'll be with you a couple of days in just a couple of weeks. *sigh*

Wordle 1,497 6/6*

⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟨🟨
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟨🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, noire, hover, coder, roger, gofer I'd never have willingly guessed the word, but it was the only unused possibility that I had ever heard.

HELLO BEAUTIFUL by Ann Napolitano

This book was perfect for me at this time, so I gave it all 5 stars. If I had read a list of the events in the sisters' lives, I would have thought soap opera and never have touched it. It read like life. It's flawed, but so is life; so am I.

The four Padavano sisters immediately recall the March sisters in Little Women although Julia and Sylvie argue about who gets to be Jo. William Waters isn't Laurie either, but his entrance into the family changes all their lives. In fact, *HB* is really William's story as he learns to accept love and love himself as much as he loves other people. The sisters' love for each other is idealized, or maybe I'm simply envious of never having had that variety of love as an option. I'll tell you one thing though: I love this book.

ETA: As I think more about the book, a particular thing I appreciated was AN's look into how a couple of children accommodated their parents' weaknesses, leading to weaknesses of their own. I also appreciate that in the children those ingrained habits of being could eventually change.

>140 LizzieD: Novel-writing is a highly skilled and laborious trade of which the raw material is every single thing one has ever seen or heard or felt, and one has to go over that vast, smouldering rubbish-heap of experience, half stifled by the fumes and dust, scraping and delving until one finds a few discarded valuables.
~ Evelyn Waugh

I can't help thinking of Pinky in Brighton Rock when I read this. Where'd Graham Greene scrape him up from? And why? Napolitano the days away, sweet friend, and relearn the skill of not listening when it's prudent.

Good afternoon, Richard! Oh my. I've read very little Greene, and *BR* is an unread one. I'm leaving AN behind, and I don't know that I'll return to her. Sometimes once is perfect. *smooch* for the rest of the day!

WRITING

Writing a play is like smashing that (glass) ashtray, filming it in slow motion, and then running the film in reverse, so that the fragments of rubble appear to fly together. You start - or at least I start - with the rubble.
~ Tom Stoppard

If you caricature friends in your first novel they will be upset, but if you don't, they will feel betrayed.
~ Mordecai Richler

A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. This is too much of a temptation for the editor.
~ Ring Lardner

Contrary to what many of you might imagine, a career in letters is not without its drawbacks - chief among them the unpleasant fact that one is frequently called upon to sit down and write.
~ Fran Lebowitz

One thing that literature would be greatly the better for
Would be a more restricted employment by authors of simile and metaphor.
Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts,
Can't seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have to go out of their way to say that it is like something else.
~ Ogden Nash

'Morning, my dear! Happy Saturday to you. Ugh. Triple digits for you, and nasty heat index. Stay safe and cool.

I'll be running a few errands later this morning to avoid the later in the day heat.

Wordle in 4 for me.

The new bookcases are all properly filled. 173 books. Huzzah. J&H have packed the UHaul pods, which are being picked up today on their journey to Kent, WA. It's Jenna's last day of work.

>144 LizzieD: Contrary to what many of you might imagine, a career in letters is not without its drawbacks - chief among them the unpleasant fact that one is frequently called upon to sit down and write.
~ Fran Lebowitz

I don't get this, never have. Why is it so awful to write? Hard, yes; sometimes hideously painfully hard; but NOT writing? Unthinkable.

No more Napolitano, okay. I'm just not her best reader so it's perfectly comprehensible to me. *smooch*

I'd say that you are one of the fortunate ones then, Richard. I'd like to write, but the little I do here is enough for me - sometimes too much. I also doubt that what I have to say would be worth the trouble of working at it. That's the way I felt about playing the piano too. I will say that I'm my most authentic self when I'm practicing, so I haven't been that since before the pandemic. It is work, hard and painful - sometimes physically (I once played a piece that called for glissando on the black keys; my fingers bled) - but now that I will never perform again, the doubt doesn't really apply. I can be happy producing the sounds for my own ears, but it's going to take a long, long time for me to regain even part of what I've lost.

I trust you're home already, Karen. We did walk early enough to be OK. I still haven't tried to pick up Molly Mama, and Graham can't even touch her, but I think we're going to have to figure out a way to give her a break. These days and days of extreme heat are really bad.
Hooray for 173 books nicely shelved!!!!!! Oh my. It's really getting close. You know I'm praying for you all!

Wordle should have been 2 today, but I needed another 45 seconds to make the better guess and check it out on the used list. Most times, like today, I'm so happy to have thought of an unused possibility that I plug it right in.
Wordle 1,498 3/6*

⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, vaunt, haunt

FOLK Music

A folksinger is someone who sings through his nose by ear.
~ Anon.

A folk song is a song that nobody ever wrote.
~ Anon.

I was involved in the Great Folk Music Scare back in the sixties. When it almost caught on. It was close for a time, but fortunately ...
~ Martin Mull

FLIRTATION (Look how times have changed.)

Flirt: a woman who thinks it's every man for herself.
~ Anon.

George Moore unexpectedly pinched my behind. I felt rather honoured that my behind should have drawn the attention of the great master of English prose.
~ Ilka Chase

She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of women to proclaim ownership).
~ O. Henry, 1910

She's been on more laps than a napkin.
~ Walter Winchell

>147 LizzieD: She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of women to proclaim ownership).

This made me sort of laugh and sort of cringe. I do remove hair from my husband's lapel (or whatever the shirt or jumper equivalent is), but that's so I can recycle a joke I'm proud of: "You've been seeing that grey bombshell again, haven't you?" Tee hee. I should be on the telly.

I'd watch you, Jackie! Thanks for the visit. If my DH had more hair, that's one I'd use for sure.

‘Morning, Peggy! Ugh to another day of awful heat and humidity. Stay safe and cool.

>147 LizzieD: Love the quotes, especially the one by O Henry.

>148 Jackie_K: Very clever, Jackie!

>149 LizzieD: Even though Bill’s remaining hair is still red, his beard is gray. And, for some reason, my genetics have decided that at 72 I am not even remotely close to gray.

Congrats on your Wordle in 3. The Wordle gods were looking kindly down upon me today, so Wordle in two.

Off to watch Arsenal play Newcastle here in the US in a ‘friendly’ game.

Good afternoon, Karen! I hope both teams are playing as well as they can for the match.

My red-haired friend Rosalie hasn't greyed either. At 80 she is just less bright. Anyway, I love both of your heads! I don't often look at my hair in back, but I know it's getting grayer. Mama was salt and pepper for years before she was snowy white. I just hope that nothing yellows like my paternal grandmother did although I'd like the snowy whiteness if I were given a preference. (I have a bunch of stuff that I'd prefer more, given the opportunity.)

WHOA! Congrats on your 2 today!!!! I'm very happy with 3.
Wordle 1,499 3/6*

🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟨⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, ogler, whole

PROPOSALS

Boy: Don't you understand? I want to marry you. I want you to be the mother of my children.
Girl: But how many do you have?
~ Anon.

HE: I'd like to marry your daughter.
FATHER: Have you seen my wife yet"
HE: Yes, I have. But I prefer your daughter.
~ Anon.

FATHER: The man who marries my daughter will get a prize.
Claud: Can I see the prize first?
~ Gyles Brandreth

(And then there was my college friend's father who said to her fiancé 'You know, you're not getting any prize when you marry our Annie.')

>151 LizzieD: I hope Annie's fiancé took the prize and never gave it back. What a rotten thing to say!

Sunday *smooches*

>152 richardderus: Wasn't it? We wondered how she turned out as wonderful as she did.

*smooch*

>151 LizzieD: Wordle in three for me as well today. I almost had it in 2; I was off by one letter. I guess I should have checked the used words list.

Annie's father was mean! Or was he meaning to be humorous?

Hey, Irene. I don't think he was being humorous. I think he was being mean and judgmental and petty.

Congrats on your 3 too. I'm happy to have them when they come.

>155 LizzieD: In that case, he sure was a poor excuse for a father.

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Monday to you.

Oh yes, we all have a bunch of stuff that we’d prefer more than what we have.

Thanks re my Wordle in two – today’s is four. Congrats on your three.

Oh my. Your friend’s father… not a nice man, not a loving father.

Ugh to your triple-digit temp and triple-digit-plus-10 heat index today. Another one of those “Stay cool and safe” days.

Hi, Irene and Karen. Agreed about Anne's father.

We've walked, and I hope we are both back in for the day. We got .4" of rain yesterday afternoon and cooled down to 80° immediately. What a relief! I wish we could count on that happening every other day this week. I have soft-gel supplements coming in the mail today, and I expect them to be one giant pill. In need them, and I haven't seen them at the local pharmas. *sigh*

Karen, we're averaging out, I think.
Wordle 1,500 3/6*

⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟩⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, spina, savvy I thought of it earlier but didn't use it because of that doggone double v. Oh well.

DESPAIR (It's a sign of the times that I hesitate to post this one. I don't take depression lightly.)

He's turned his life around. He used to be depressed and miserable. Now he's miserable and depressed.
~ David Frost

Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression
~ Dodie Smith

Bingo uttered a stricken woofle like a bull-dog that has been refused cake.
~ P.G. Wodehouse

DIETS

I've been on a constant diet for the last two decades. I've lost a total of 789 pounds. By all accounts, I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.
~ Erma Bombeck

Those magazine dieting stories always have the testimonial of a woman who wore a dress that could slipcover New Jersey in one photo and thirty days later looked like a well-dressed thermometer.
~ Erma Bombeck

I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems to me that they are wonderful things for other people to go on.
~ Jean Kerr

Diet Tips
Never eat anything at one sitting that you can't lift
Always use one of the new - and far more reliable - elastic measuring tapes to check on your waistline.
~ Miss Piggy

>158 LizzieD: He's turned his life around. He used to be depressed and miserable. Now he's miserable and depressed.
~ David Frost
...or, me under the current kakistocracy.

Good hibernating by the a/c day, me lurve.

>142 LizzieD: Yeah, I really need to get Hello Beautiful read. Thanks for the reminder, Peggy.

Have a terrific Tuesday!

‘Morning, Peggy! Kind regards to your DH and skritches for the kitties.

>158 LizzieD: Congrats on your Wordle in 3. I don’t take depression lightly. I take one med a day for it. *smile*

Diets and depression are two things I’m way too familiar with.

Hi, Karen! Diets and depression, and there they were on the same pages of my quotation book. *sigh* My daily pill to lower stress is actually prescribed for depression. I've dealt with both and know the difference. *sigh* and *smile* because apparently that pill keeps my heart hardened (else, how could we live with Gaza and being unable to throw $ at it at the very least?) and my brain stupid. (((((Karen)))))! Love and kind regards to yours.
My WBL, I'm relatively sure that you have medication too. I wish you might keep your mind and sensitivity intact without feeling the hurt of them. *smooch*

Hi, Stasia! I hope you're doing better today!!!!!!

Wordle 1,501 3/6*

⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
🟨⬜🟨⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, awoke, omega I consulted a list again.

BABIES

It is pretty generally held that all a woman needs to do to know all about children is to have some. This wisdom is attributed to instinct ...I have seen mothers give beer and spaghetti and Neapolitan ice cream to children in arms, and if they got that from instinct the only conclusion possible is that instinct is not what it used to be.
~ Heywood Broun

Training a child is more or less a matter of pot luck.
~ Rod Maclean

A bit of talcum
Is always walcum.
~ Ogden Nash

The baby wakes up in the wee wee hours of the morning.
~ Robert Robbins

AWARDS

I don't deserve this, but then, I have arthritis and I don't deserve that either.
~ Jack Benny

Nobel Prize money is a lifebelt thrown to a swimmer who has already reached the shore in safety.
~ George Bernard Shaw (Attrib.)

'Morning, Peggy! Happy Wednesday.

I take a pill for depression. It helps. Not always, and especially not right now of course, but I shall bounce back soon.

Another hot one, for sure, but I don't have to go out in it, so there's that.

Love the baby and awards quotes. I'm always fond of Ogden Nash.

Wordle in four today, congrats on yesterday's three for you.

We are 4 Sisters, Karen. I would never have gotten the word in 4 without the list, I don't think.

Our walk was a bit cooler because we had nice rain again late yesterday afternoon. I'm GRATEFUL!! Vicky called to reschedule my hair appointment, so I won't go until tomorrow. Suits me.
Magic ears are still good. I used to set the audio streaming volume at 24, and now anything over 17 is really loud. Woo Hoooo!
I'm still taking a break from *Claudius* and am now watching the Kiera Knightley *P&P*. It's my least favorite, but Rosamund Pike and Judi Dench - YAY!!! And, of course, KK has a lovely neck, which I'm not using as a euphemism for bosom!
Speaking of euphemisms, I can't tell you how badly "unalive" sets my teeth on edge. Of course, I don't even like "passed away" or "passed" unless the latter is Jeanne Robinson Don't Send a Man to the Grocery Store.

Wordle 1,502 4/6*

⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟨🟨⬜⬜🟩
⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, sarky, unsay, assay

ENTRANCES AND EXITS

Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.
~ Stephen Leacock, 'Gertrude the Governess', Nonsense Novels 1914

I have nothing to declare except my genius.
~ Oscar Wilde, arriving in Customs in New York, 1882 (Attrib.)

And closing the door with the delicate caution of one brushing flies off a sleeping Venus, he passed out of my life.
~ P.G. Wodehouse

In this matter of shimmering into rooms the chappie is rummy to a degree.
~ P.G. Wodehouse

There came from without the hoof-beats of a galloping relative, and Aunt Dahlia whizzed in.
~ P.G. Wodehouse

There was a flash of blonde hair and a whiff of Chanel No. 5 and a girl came sailing in, a girl whom I was able tp classify at a single glance as a pipterino of the first water.
~ P.G. Wodehouse

>162 LizzieD: I don't deserve this, but then, I have arthritis and I don't deserve that either.
~ Jack Benny

Put in gout, and that's how I feel every time someone says something nice to me.

I'm not on psych meds anymore, thank goodness, but plenty plenty others. My experience with a teeny dose of levothyroxine is that it is a HUGE help regulating my emotional affect.

I'm still ickysicky from last night. Off to see if the belly want me to nap or if it demands entertainment.

>151 LizzieD: Hi Peggy! I've been falling farther and farther behind, but now I've had the pleasure of all these quotes. Terrific, funny, concise.

Regarding hair, I too wouldn't mind white. I envy my younger sister's snow white hair, which looks lovely on her. So far my mousy brown still persists in growing out, so I redden it every few weeks. Jim once referred to me as 'prematurely red' - it's probably on schedule now.

‘Morning, Peggy my dear.

>164 LizzieD: We’re always Wordle sisters, of course, but being Wordle sisters with the same number of words is even better.

I’m so glad your magic ears are still good.

Unalive doesn’t set my teeth on edge but I always have to do a double-take when I see it. I prefer using the word died or dead – I used to use passed away, but you’re right, it’s a euphemism.

Great quotes, especially Wodehouse. A rummy chappie makes me chortle.

Wordle in 4 for me again.

After the whirlwind Jenna & Hwan visit yesterday, I'm ready to do a bunch of nothing today.

I'm thinking about you every day, (((((Karen))))). I think I'll text, and then I don't.
We're both dragging today. Showers threatened at walk time, so we didn't walk, nor did the showers appear.
Wordle surprised me today, so we don't match, but we balance. *grin*
Wordle 1,503 3/6*

🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, girly, frill You can follow the thought path from 2 to 3.

Hi, Judy! I am so behind everywhere that I can't think about it any longer. I do miss you when I don't visit. Obviously I'm having a lot of fun with this quote book.
Ah - mouse brown. My college roommate and I once had a classmate say to us, "I don't see how you two get along. You're so brassy, Betti. And, Peggy, you're so mousy." I said, "---- you, you ----." Betti said, "Gee, I don't know what you're talking about."

Richard, I hope you're a LOT better this morning. Any added distress is just way too much distress! *smooch*

AMERICA AND THE AMERICANS

And remember - you can't spell AMERICA without the M and the R in Humor.
~ National Lampoon

Is the US ready for self-government?
~ Graffito, New York, 1971

Americans like fat books and thin women.
~ Russell Baker

He held, too, in his enlightened way, that Americans have a perfect right to exist. But he did often find himself wishing Mr Rhodes had not enabled them to exercise that right in Oxford.
~ Max Beerbohm

The American language is in a state of flux based on the survival of the unfittest.
~ Cyril Connolly

I don't know much about Americanism, but it's a damn good word with which to carry an election.
~ Warren G. Harding

Husband (to wife) The egg timer is pinging. The toaster is popping. The coffeepot is perking. Is this it, Alice? Is this the great American dream?
~ Henry Martin, Cartoon in the New Yorker

America - a country that has leapt from barbarism to decadence without touching civilization.
~ John O'Hara

>164 LizzieD: My take was that "unalive" was used in contexts where dead/death/kill/killed would get the post deleted and then became it's own thing. Annoying as hell, and there should be a better way to address online abuse and promote content heavy communication which may contain trigger words.

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Friday to you. I hope you have a wonderful day.

Wordle in four for me again today. Congrats on yesterday’s three.

Zoe is being an emotional support animal – someone mentioned that she was probably an ESA instead of being needy. I’m the one who is needy. Her butt is touching the left side of my keyboard, she’s completely on top of my Kindle and a nonfiction book I’m going to start today, and looking like a loaf. *smile*

There was an extra fee associated with having a cat at the daughters' new apartment complex that was, frankly ridiculous and simply a ploy to get extra money - having to get the cat certified with the complex's vet UNLESS it was an emotional support animal. Hwan quickly got Tsunami certified as an ESA, thus saving the ridiculous fees. There was still a cat fee for signing the lease and $35/month for Tsunami. Zoe is not certified, but she is certainly doing the job.

I will take some books that I’ve appraised for the book sort team to the Library and ah, just perhaps, might look at donations to see if any are calling my name. After that a Chiropractor’s visit, then home.

>168 LizzieD: Thought-provoking quotes, thanks for sharing.

I'm glad that you have sweet Zoe, (((((Karen)))))! Pet a cat, especially a purring cat: slow heart rate; lower blood pressure.
I'm glad that you have things to do today. Thinking about you!

Good for Hwan for thinking fast! They're charging for one cat???? I guess I can see a refundable deposit if there is cat damage to the place at the end of the lease, but $35/month sounds extortionate to me.

I join you today, Wordle Sister!
Wordle 1,504 4/6*

⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟨🟨
🟨⬜🟩🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, groan, annoy, banjo

I had no idea how "unalive" started, Susan. Not to be disrespectful or insensitive, but that neologism triggers me.

WASHINGTON

Washington - Hubbub of the Universe
~ Anon.

There's nothing so permanent as a temporary job in Washington.
~ George Allen
(How long ago was that?)

I love to go to Washington - if only to be near my money.
~ Bob Hope

When I first went to Washing ton, I thought, what is li'l ole me doing with these ninety-nine great people? Now I ask myself, what am I doing with these ninety-nine jerks?
~ S.I. Hayakawa

Washington is the only place where sound travels faster than light.
~ C.V.R. Thompson

THE FROZEN PEOPLE by Elly Griffiths

Another series by favorite EG, and it's a departure in some ways. Ali Dawson is a 50 year-old police woman, doing very cold cases through very secret government sponsored time travel. In this first book she's sent back to 1850 to find out for a present day government minister whether his great-great-great(?)grandfather was a serial killer of women.

At some point between a third and half through, I didn't want to put it down. Somewhere in the second half, I couldn't put it down. Griffiths is her usual charming self, and I didn't pick up enough clues to solve the mystery before Ali.

>171 LizzieD: Not to be disrespectful or insensitive it's got nothing to do with people's choice...it's because tech scum designed another stupidity into an algorithm that hid content with the word "dead" in it on some social-media sites like TikTok and Instagram. The kids invented "unalive" to talk around the stupid tech scum.

*smooch*

Just catching up!

Happy weekend reading :)

'Morning, Peggy!

Wordle in three for me today, congratulations on your four from the day before.

You know the rest...

Good morning, Karen! I'm happy to be a 3 Sister with you again. I absolutely used the first two words sometime lately - last week? - for another word with the last 4 letters. Doggone it, I didn't think of the more common unused possibility this time either. Peace for the rest.

Hi, Anita! Happy reading right back to you. I wish I had more done to offer here.

Good morning, Richard. I feel that probably a third of my vocabulary consists of trigger words for somebody. I do hate that tech scum have so much power over us. (Teaching American lit to high schoolers in the early aughties, I HATED not being able to search for Moby-Dick or Emily Dickinson on my school network.) Nevertheless, I hope to have a good day - it is in the 70s here. That's a miracle for early August. Hope you have a very good one too.
*smooch*

Wordle 1,505 3/6*

⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, vaunt, daunt

HAUGHTINESS

Aunt Dahlia can turn in a flash into a carbon copy of a Duchess of the old school reducing an underling to a spot of grease, and what is so remarkable is that she doesn't have to use a lorgnette; just does it all with the power of the human eye.
~ P.G. Wodehouse

Ice formed on the butler's upper slopes.
~ P. G. Wodehouse

SNOBBERY

And there is...that rich man in Chelsea who is so snobbish that he will not even drive in the same car as his chauffeur.
~ David Frost and Anthony Jay

A certain amount of judicious snobbery is quite a good thing, besides being amusing.
~ A.L. Rowse

He found it very difficult to admit that there were any Royalties whom he did not know personally. The nearest he ever came to it was in saying of the King of Saxony: 'I knew him very well - by sight.'
~ Bertrand Russell

Dear Miss Manners,
If you had a single piece of advice to offer a couple who want to break into society, what would it be?
Gentle Reader,
Don't bother.
~ Judith Martin

High society is for those who have stopped working and no longer have anything important to do.
~ Woodrow Wilson

I sat next to the Duchess at tea;
It was just as I feared it would be:
Her rumblings abdominal
Were truly phenomenal,
And everyone thought it was me!
~ Woodrow Wilson (Who knew???)

>164 LizzieD: There are times when I find "died" to be too direct, stark, and painful. I couldn't bring myself to use the word just this past week when talking about Ryne Sandberg. I had to use "passed away."

I join you as Wordle in 3 sisters today. Enjoy the improved temperatures!

>175 LizzieD: A certain amount of judicious snobbery is quite a good thing, besides being amusing.
~ A.L. Rowse

Words I live by.

It's most pleasant here as well. I'm deeply grateful to the weather goddesses for the little break...be sure to tell them I said thanks when y'all have the next ice-water tea.

New thread tomorrow with my first ecstatic warble in who-whupped-the-cat incoming. You might like the read but it is *steep* so ask the lib'ry is my advice. *baaa*

Checking in on you, Peggy!

Hi Peggy, just passing through to wish you a happy Sunday. Most wordles in 4 lately, also today’s.

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy 70s Sunday to you. A nice respite from the dog days of August.

>175 LizzieD: I thought I recognized the name A.L. Rowse – I have two books by him on my shelves, not yet read - Four Caroline Portraits: Thomas Hobbes, Henry Marten, Hugh Peters, John Selden and The Elizabethans and America. And the Wilson quotes, especially the limerick…

Wordle in 3 for me today.

Hi, Karen. I have not one book by Rowse, but his name is vaguely familiar.
Hope your day was good, and that you've heard from the daughters who are, I hope, at their second overnight stop. I'll do my best to check you thread. I have no idea where the day went, but the weather was still delightful for early August, so I enjoyed whatever it was!

Nathalie! I think of you often, but your thread has gotten intimidating to a laggard visitor. I appreciate your stopping by though, and as you see, Wordle was a 4 for me too today.

Hi, Stasia! I hope you're well along with the rest of the family! Hard to believe it's August, and I do believe you have a trip coming up!

Oh, Richard! Hello and *smooch* for my WBL!

Irene, I'm so glad that you left that thought here, and sorry that you needed that self-comfort. I tend to be dogmatic and need reminders that others come from different emotional places with equally valid POVs.

Wordle

Wordle 1,506 4/6*

🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, lurch, lupin, lumpy

DEFIANCE by C.J. Cherryh

I am in general a great Cherryh fan and especially of *Foreigner* and *Union/Alliance* universes. That said, I'm a bit depressed that I have finally caught her and read the last *Foreigner* so far. How I hope for more!!

That said, I am for the first time less than enthusiastic about this entry. She always spends too much time in her main character's head for my taste, but I have accepted that as "my taste" and not a great fault in the writing. I did appreciate new depths in Atevi politics in the South and West and Cajeiri's new maturity and judgment. However, there was too, too much repetition. When Bren, even mentally and physically exhausted, spends a paragraph musing on the desirability of rooting out the Shadow Guild (the overall objective of at least the last four books) in the build-up of the final action, I have to say that's not my taste, that's Cherryh, not in good shape herself and not being well-edited. I'm sorry to say that even the action rush to the end was not quite the pulse-pounder that I've been accustomed to expect. That's not to say that it's a bad book. It's certainly not, but it's not close to her best either. *sigh*

Now I wait with the rest of Cherryh fandom, a little anxious for the next one to appear. Meanwhile, I've been itching to reread the series, and I'll do that when the yen gets too urgent to ignore.

>181 LizzieD: Everyone has their own way of doing/thinking about things. For me, "passed away" just has a softer feel to it, and it helps me.

Wordle in 3 for me today. My first two guesses didn't get me much of anything, so I tried a word that I hoped would help me find more letters, and it turned out to be the answer today. It always surprises me when that happens.

'Morning, Peggy! Happy Monday to you and your DH. Skritches for the 7 felines.

Wordle in four for me today. New thread started. Way too many things on the to do list for today.

J&H on their way to Omaha.

Happy Afternoon back to you, Karen! Also to Bill and safe travels for your daughters! And under-chin strokes for Zoe and Wash!

I have so much that I need to should do today, and I'm pretty sure that I won't. I just got a promised copy of *Uncommon Stars* (Why now?) and the beginning has me flipping pages eagerly. Then, I just spent some time narrowing my READ list for the best of the first half and put that up. Next, even before the cats, I need to write a word or two about Defiance. I don't have time to be an adult!

Back to the Wordle see-saw, Karen. Irene, we're 3 Wordle Sisters today. Second word is my second word when the first one fails completely. Then the word just came to me, pretty much your experience too.
(I will say that if I used "passed away," I'd feel that I was belittling, demeaning, the significance of that mystery. I'll remember you though when I hear other people use it and hope that they are as thoughtful as you are.)

Wordle 1,507 3/6*

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, minor, rigid

Have a marvelous Monday, Peggy!

>184 LizzieD: Monday orisons, Peggy me lurve. I'm hoping you're not closer to passing, away or out, than yesterday. *smooch*

>184 LizzieD: Goodness, that's not my feeling for "passed away" at all! How interesting that we all have such different reactions to language.

My 3 in >182 atozgrl: was yesterday's puzzle, but I did get it in 3 again today. Nothing on my first guess, but my usual second word when I don't get anything on the first try gave me the first and fourth letters in place. There may have been only one possibility at that point, but it sure took me a while to figure it out.

I know, Irene. That's why I wanted to be sure you know that I value you and your opinion!

Well, Richard, I must say that we are all a day closer, but I didn't feel hustled along today. *smooch*

Same to you, Stasia. (You know that I was joshing you on your own thread, don't you?)

>188 LizzieD: A day closer is, well, I'm thinking it's welcome on the one hand and not so exciting on another. On the third hand, I'm confident today's not The Day.

Good enough, no? xo

Richard, I must quote a favorite Latin student whose low economic status and severe dyslexia didn't slow her down a minute. She couldn't spell Latin though, so learning a common phrase a week was about impossible for her.

What is the state motto of NC? Conga gonna sum........It is what it's going to be - always There we go. Persevere and Thrive, WBL! *smooch*

Wordle 1,508 3/6*

⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, stuff, stork I spent LOTS of time thinking of already used words.

POETS AND POETRY

Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.
~ Don Marquis

The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.
~ W. Somerset Maugham

Having considered the matter in - of course - all its aspects, I have decided that there is no excuse for poetry. Poetry gives no adequate return in money, is expensive to print by reason of the waste of space occasioned by its form, and nearly always promulgates illusory concepts of life. But a better case for the banning of all poetry is the simple fact that most of it is bad. Nobody is going to manufacture a thousand tons of jam in the expectation that five tons may be eatable. Furthermore, poetry has the effect on the negligible handful who read it of stimulating them to write poetry themselves. One poem, if widely disseminated, will breed perhaps a thousand inferior copies.
~ Myles na Gopaleen

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.
~ Robert Frost

Vers libre: a device for making poetry easier to read and harder to write.
~ H.L. Mencken

The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.
~ W. Somerset Maugham

...well, what can one expect from a closeted Old Boy...

"Conga gonna sum" is...well...not much like the words but spot-on the definition of the real motto in feel. *smooch*

>188 LizzieD: Yes, I do know :)

I hope you are having a terrific Tuesday!

‘Morning, Peggy. I started a post yesterday, then must have dropped the ball.

>190 LizzieD: Congrats on the Wordle three two days ago. Love the quotes. I guess I truly do not ‘get’ vers libre, with the exception the American free verse poet E.E. Cummings, who shares pride of place with Shakespeare's sonnets for me.

>191 richardderus: I went down the rabbit hole of W. Somerset Maugham, not exactly sure I like him. I only ever had Princess September and the Nightingale by him on my shelves, and it was gone before 2018.

Wordle in three for me again today.

>193 karenmarie: Had I ever met him in person, I suspect I would have disliked him quite thoroughly.

I've read Maugham's The Razor's Edge, The Painted Veil, and The Moon and Sixpence. Do have some other of his works, dating back to my ute (and hence in rough shape). Having just completed Wild Thing: a Life of Paul Gauguin, I'm tempted to look again at Maugham's fiction based on Gauguin's time in the South Pacific.

A visit from Bill - Wow! Likewise visits from Richard, Karen, and Stasia - Wow! Wow! Wow! I'm rich!!!!!

I read *OH Bond* in high school - like I understood it at that time. As I recall, that's what I wrote about for whatever essay-based test I did; I don't think SAT had an essay section that early, but that's what I think it was. Anyway, it was good enough to get me into my little Presbyterian college with a scholarship. What did I just read that Willy was included as a character? It was kind of based on one of his short stories, and I skimmed that too at the time. Oh yeah! It is The House of Doors. LIKED that book!

Karen, one of the few books my DH ever gave me was Cummings's complete poems early in our marriage. That was before he learned what a fool I was for books.

A good day to you all!!!!!!

Wordle 1,509 3/6*

⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, sonar, groan I know that #2 had been used before and has a rejected letter, but it was very helpful, and I was never going to get THE word in 2.

POLITICS AND POLITICIANS

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull. This is not always easy to achieve.
~ Dean Acheson

Politics - the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other.
~ Oscar Ameringer

The politician is an acrobat. He keeps his balance by saying the opposite of what he does.
~ Maurice Barrès

Here richly, with ridiculous display,
The Politician's corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintances sneered and slanged,
I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.
~ Hillaire Belloc

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.
~ Sir Ernest Benn

I always wanted to get into politics but I was never light enough to get in the team.
~ Art Buchwald

>196 LizzieD: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.
~ Sir Ernest Benn

Perzackly! Nothing ever works because The World℠ is astoundingly complex and deeply interrelated, and everything we do is affecting everything we don't as well as collapsing the this and rotting through the that...and on and on world without end.

Sorry guys but I am a huge fan of Maugham. He was an excellent storyteller and his short stories in particular are masterful. As a human being not quite so sure but I am not all that sure it matters much to me either.

As to his views on poetry, well I could have predicted RD's hearty agreement on the superiority of verse over prose!

At to Mencken's view on "vers libres" I think he should have said "it makes poetry easier to write but harder to understand."

I like Salvatore Quasimodo's quotation the best :

"Poetry … is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal which the reader recognizes as his own.”

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Thursday to you.

>196 LizzieD: Bravo for your DH. I had my copy of The Complete Poems of E.E. Cummings before I joined LT.

Cummings sisters! Wordle Sisters! Bibliophile Sisters! And etc.

Wordle again in three for me.

Glad to see you here, Paul, and I'll agree with SQ's (of whom I had never heard) definition of superior writing in any form although poetry feels more immediate to me. I have no quarrel with either side of the vers libre argument. Rhythm is the thing, and I think that each poet writes in the way that most frees him and disciplines him to produce his best - or when he is inspired, better than his best.

Back to politics, Richard, I'm sad to agree, but some things work better than other things. I would dearly love to see the working things, the things that value people, prosper. *smooch* (I like the Ron Howard, or not, explanation of what it means to be liberal.)

Off to feed the cats, but Hooray for more Sisterhood, Karen!
Wordle 1,510 3/6*

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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, vocal, coral

>198 PaulCranswick: To be crystal clear for others: I intended to imply that an English public-school (snootiest possible US private school, Choate or Hotchkiss) Old Boy would understandably praise poets because in his effete undereducated overdeveloped aesthetics Poetry Is God-Tier because the Greeks did it. I do not at all in any way, shape, form, or fashion endorse, support, or even condone this attitude. I don't even like the way the Greeks did buggery, with little boys. Plus their alphabet looks ugly.

Quasimodo the poet! Forgotten he existed, still think of Hugo's hunchback when the name comes up.

>200 LizzieD: What did Ron Howard say about liberalism? I'll go look later on.

What are you feeding the c-a-ts to? Are there pictures, he asked eagerly?

Politics is in no way through with us yet. The lie of AI being in any way "I" is going to cost the world trillions in disaster remediation.

Can't wait.

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Friday to you, your DH, and the lovely kitties.

>200 LizzieD: Congrats on your 3.

>201 richardderus: … their alphabet looks ugly. Shaking my head at that one, RD.

Wordle in 4 for me today, my dear.

I’m looking forward to a day of reading, small bits of adulting, and puttering. I really, really need to try to read The Awakening for my RL book club meeting on Sunday.

Well, (((((Karen))))), we are 4 Sisters again. I'm a bit bummed because the word is one of my favorite "when all else fails" stupid guesses, and I didn't guess it at 3 this time.

Oh, Richard!!!! I write very pretty Greek, I'll have you know - probably better than my English cursive. As to the cats, I laughed out loud. Pictures indeed!!!! No, dear WBL, "cats" is the indirect object in that acceptable sentence in colloquial usage. It does give paws to such a sentence as "We hope to have the family for supper next week." If you didn't find the Ron Howard post, I can find it and put it here. It's just a bit long though. Oh..... Here it is.

Wordle 1,511 4/6*

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⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩
⬜🟨⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, noire, fiche, imbue

SATIRE
What arouses the indignation of the hones satirist is not, unless the man is a prig, the fact that people in positions of power or influence behave idiotically, or even that they behave wickedly. It is that they conspire successfully to impose upon the public a picture of themselves as so very sagacious, honest and well-intentioned. You cannot satirize a man who says, "I'm in it for the money and that's all there is to it."
~ Claud Cockburn

WIT
Wit ought to be a glorious treat, like caviare; never spread it around like marmalade.
~ Noel Coward.

It is better in the long run to possess an abscess or a tumor
Than to possess a sense of humor.
People who have senses of humor have a very good time,
But they never accomplish anything of note, either despicable or sublime,
Because how can anybody accomplish anything immortal
When they realize they look pretty funny doing it and have to stop to chortle?
~ Ogden Nash

>204 LizzieD: Wit ought to be a glorious treat, like caviare; never spread it around like marmalade.
~ Noel Coward.

From a man who made a life and a living out of the inauthenticity of Wit, I say he's a Sage for the Ages here.

I too wrote very pretty Greek for years. His name was Alexandros.

If one is of an Assisian turn of mind, I have family for dinner every day...Brother Bull, Sister Hen, Cousin Carrot....

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Saturday to you. It is absolutely gorgeous out here with the Carolina blue skies even if it’s 82% humidity.

Congrats on your Wordle in 4.

Amazing Reddit post. Thanks for posting the link.

Love and appreciate the quotes, too.

Oh, Richard, I'm greeted with giggles again this morning. Thank you!
I draw the line at Cousin Carrot (and I trust the saint did too)...... It puts me in mind of the only short story that I ever conceived and never wrote. Actually, it would have been better as a *Twilight Zone* episode. An earnest young man becomes a vegetarian for all the common reasons; then, vegan. Then one day when he pulls up a carrot from his garden he hears it shriek. Last frame: he's salting his little toe Erysichthon-style.
In case you can bear it after that confession, *smooch*.

Good afternoon, Karen! I'm glad that you enjoyed the Ron Howard post. On fb "they" say that he didn't write it. Whatever. If he agrees with it, I'm good.
Congrats right back on Wordle, and I hope we're at least 3 Sisters today. I couldn't think, so I cheated to some purpose for the word in 3.
Wordle 1,512 3/6*

🟨⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, slang, nasal

>207 LizzieD: I wonder, as I so often do, how "They" know or think they know if Person X wrote something. Absent a byline or a public dis/avowal I just assume it's an attribution and quit thinking about it.

Being a resolute omnivore is often cause to wonder what the experience of other beings is. We must All kill to eat, eat to live, and even drops of water got trillions of living things in it so drinking isn't "guilt"-free either.

At least your PoV character is sensibly starting small.

Off to massacre, errr, masticate Cousin Carrot.

>208 richardderus: The first comment on the link that Peggy sent has the note as to who really wrote it, with a link to Snopes that I haven't checked, so I presume that's why they know that the quote was originally misattributed to Ron Howard. I also assume the misattribution was widespread. However, it is very well said. I'm going to save it somewhere.

>209 atozgrl: I suppose the sign of my cynicism metastasizing is that I doubt even the comments casting doubt!

‘Morning, Peggy! It’s gorgeous here. Carolina blue skies making me happy just to look outside!

Congrats on yesterday’s 3, today it’s 5 for me.

What an interesting short story plot. Your mind, as always, fascinates me.

Here just long enough to thank Karen and Richard for coming by and post today's Wordle of which I am proud.

Wordle 1,513 3/6*

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟨⬜⬜🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩least, north, minty No lists except used word list!

Irene, I see that I didn't speak to you on my short visit yesterday. I originally saw that Ron Howard list on fb and didn't bother to read the attribution, but I also didn't bother to find it again without Google. Like Richard, I tend to mistrust the doubt in both cases; I just like the clarity of it and agree with most of it.

We are still a bit overcast this morning, and that allowed us to walk most of our normal weather walk. Yay! It's humid though and will be back to normal but not outrageous August by Wednesday.
Btw, if anybody still happens to have crepe myrtle blooming, have you paid attention to the scent. Here's our experience!
Purple crepe myrtles send out a faint, pleasant scent on the breeze if you catch them right. White crepe myrtles are sniffable close to the blossom but simply smell green. But our pink crepe myrtle, up-close and personal, smells like roses. In fact, it's the scent I remember from Yardley's 'Red Roses' from my youth. We only just discovered the fact lately since our only pink tree has come back in this wetter summer, having mostly died in the drought some years back.

Wordle 1,514 4/6*

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🟩🟩⬜🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, stony, sotto, south

LIGHT FROM UNCOMMON STARS by Ryka Aoki

I loved this book! If verbal creativity is a matter of putting together disparate concepts, RA is a creative genius. This book has violins and music, a demon and souls bargained away for eventual Hell, a queer transgender girl at the center, aliens, a lot of Asian food, and donuts! I kept waiting for it to fall apart, but it never did. I took away a half star just because I thought it could have been a bit tighter, but I loved all of it.
In fact, my only real dissatisfaction had to do with a favorite character, Lucia Matias, a luthier with the talent of her family going back generations, who was not entrusted with the family secrets because she was a woman. I was unhappy that I was asked to accept that she was in cahoots with Tremon without much direct explanation. Did she find that her father and grandfather had worked for him? He came into her shop once, and then Shizuka didn't ask her to make the dogwood ringer bow because she felt that Lucy was too close to TP..

To quote Roni, "The ending is real escape fiction!"

>213 LizzieD: I wish I'd had the experience you did, Peggy me lurve. I've cudgeled my brain, looked up the date I borrowed it from the library (29 September 2022), re-read the sample...nothing.

I might as well be looking at Greek. I wonder why.

Hmmm. Do I remember correctly that you aren't particularly interested in classical music, Richard? She got a bit carried away with what authentic music does for my taste, and that is part of what tightening it would mean to me. Otoh, we don't have to agree. You've had plenty of reading experiences that I couldn't share. *smooch*

>213 LizzieD: I don't understand why you would "mistrust the doubt." There's so much stuff on social media sites that is spread around and misattributed. It happens all the time. (And in fact, doing that disrespects the original author and might be a violation of copyright.) In this case especially there's no reason to "mistrust the doubt" when the first comment on the post mentioned the correct source and provided a link to Snopes. The original poster actually went ahead and updated his post to show the correct person who originally wrote it. The title of the post referring to Ron Howard wasn't changed, but I assume that's because he couldn't change it. (As I'm not a Reddit user, I don't know.) Snopes is a reliable fact-checking source, which has been around since well before the Trump insanity arrived in 2015. We used to use it at work. Here's the link to Snopes that provides the correct information about the original author of the "I am a liberal" essay: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ron-howard-i-am-liberal-essay/

Wordle in 3 for me, and I'm very upset with myself because I should have gotten it in 2 today. Brain wasn't working.

We will be hitting the road shortly, so I will be away for a while. Have a great week!

>213 LizzieD: I liked Light from Uncommon Stars quite a bit, and had a great deal of fun exploring and recognizing the almost familiar neighborhood in which it's set.

‘Morning, Peggy!

The two Crepe Myrtles I can see from the Sunroom windows are almost completely past their seasonal bloom. There are a few blossoms, but they are 35 feet up. Ours are both a deep pink, as is the one on the other side of the house.

>213 LizzieD: You just enticed me with Light from Uncommon Stars. It’s on Kindle Unlimited so what the heck – no harm no foul, right?

>217 quondame: Our family moved from Hawthorne to Diamond Bar in 1967, which is, of course, in the San Gabriel Valley. The locale is actually one of the reasons that I downloaded the book. Classical music, too, of course.

Wordle in 3 again for me today. I’ll be heading off to book sort, Virlie’s, and the grocery store for a few things that Jenna requested I have available when they get here tomorrow.

Hi, Karen, Susan, and Irene!!! Glad to see you all here.

Karen, I hadn't thought of your CA connection being a reason for you to read the book, but Susan makes it clear that that part will work for you. Also easy on/easy off with KU!

Irene, I do use Snopes, but I just wasn't interested enough to pursue it this time. Thank you, though!

Wordle 1,515 3/6*

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🟨⬜🟩🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, armor, nomad 3 3 Sisters???

(((((Peggy)))))

Wordle in 4.

Another day to get organized for the daughters + cat. Rainy, overcast. Not a bad day at all, actually. I don't have to go out for anything, so there's that, too.

Hooray for not hanging out! If I don't grocery shop, I don't know what I'll eat today. I look forward to no rain this early afternoon though.

As to Wordle........being who I am, where I am, I had never heard of today's word. This is yet another reason that I appreciated words being picked at random. Obviously, I checked out a list in the end.

Wordle 1,516 5/6*

⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟨🟩⬜🟩⬜
⬜🟩🟨🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, bench, redid, eerie, kefir

YOUTH

Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life.
~ Lord Asquith

The youth of the present day are quite monstrous. They have absolutely no respect for dyed hair.
~ Oscar Wilde

To win back my youth ... there is nothing I wouldn't do - except take exercise, get up early, or be a useful member of the community
~ Oscar Wilde

>221 LizzieD: To win back my youth ... there is nothing I wouldn't do - except take exercise, get up early, or be a useful member of the community
~ Oscar Wilde

I wouldn't want Youth back for anything! A youthful body would be a nice thing to have...my own, not another's...but unless I get to keep all this hard-won, painfully acquired, sweated and suffered over knowledge, not a damn chance I'd accept the curse of returned youth.

Stay cool and get fed by professionals...order in. *smooch*

Totally agree, my WBL! I don't even know that I'd want a young body; a healthy 50 year-old one might be nice. Since that's not happening, I agree with my cousin that our genes suggest that we may be here a relatively long time, and it's good to have as much of that time being as healthy as possible.

Heh. I ate. My DH did some grocery shopping, but I really, really should go tomorrow - if it doesn't rain.......

DEAD WATER by Ann Cleeves

I am becoming a fan of Jimmy Perez. I thought this was a pretty good mystery too. I had pinpointed the killer but had no focused idea about motive. I'm not a great fan of the 'He looked out the window and suddenly realized how it could have been done,' or 'He told Sandy to ask her 3 questions," (and we hear the first 2 with their answers but not the 3rd) school, but mystery writers have done this at least since the golden age, so I can't fault Cleeves.

As always, I want to go to the Shetland Islands but not in winter. Plenty of people have written real reviews, so I won't. I will read the next one in September!

>223 LizzieD: I'm not a fan of that trope either, Peggy. I know it builds suspense but it also invests the detective with some kind of superpower and I just don't buy it. But that doesn't stop me from reading lol.

>223 LizzieD:, >224 lauralkeet: I'm more angered by the girl/woman in jeopardy trope, but that one's irritating too.

Morning Peggy me lurve, hope all's well...we had a thunderstorm last night that really cleaned out the humidity. I do love a thunderstorm! *smooch*

I'm glad I'm not alone in that irritation, Richard and Laura. I'm more angered with the stupid/careless/arrogant girl/woman who puts herself in jeopardy trope, but maybe I see fewer of those since I don't read straight romance..... (Laura, I think we talked about this with the Clare Fergusson series.) I don't think I'm less tolerant than I used to be, but maybe. I know that the Blooberg announcer, whom I call Charles Gasp, drives me nuts; he always would have. (Sorry. I just walked away from him.)

Wordle 1,517 4/6*

🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨⬜🟨🟨
🟨⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, clone, linen, knell Not my brightest effort

APPEARANCE

You look rather rash my dear your colors don't quite match your face.
~ Daisy Ashford

... an individual whose appearance was so repulsive I had to have my mirrors insured.
~ Miss Piggy

It is only the shallow people who do not judge by appearances.
~Oscar Wilde

ARCHAEOLOGY

An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have; the older she gets, the more interested he is in her.
~ Agatha Christie

>225 richardderus: oh yeah, that's another annoying one, RD. Totally agree.

>226 LizzieD: You look rather rash my dear your colors don't quite match your face.
~ Daisy Ashford

As I wear blue, grey, and green most times I report myself extraordinarily pleased my complexion doesn't match my clothing.

>227 lauralkeet: ...and triple if the jeopardy's sexual. *snarl*

Happy you're keeping well, Peggy me lurve.

Good afternoon Peggy!

>226 LizzieD: Six for me today… my effort was less bright than yours.

Love the quotes, especially Dame Agatha’s.

Good morning, Peggy! Happy Friday to you. Kind regards to your DH. Hello to the kitties.

Wordle in 4, my daughters are safely asleep upstairs along with their cat Tsunami. Bill's still asleep, so it's quiet for now.

Good afternoon, Karen! Hope the daughters will be home soon and that you will have a brilliant afternoon and evening with them.

Wordle 1,518 4/6*

🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, levin, lever, level Now, THERE is a pattern. I wish my brain didn't go peculiar places first, but then I wouldn't have the amazing pattern, and Karen and I wouldn't be 4 Sisters!

HECKLERS
Twelve Heckler Retorts:

*If there's ever a price on your head - take it!
*Why don't you go down to the morgue and tell them you're ready!
*Tell me, is that your lower lip or are you wearing a turtle-neck sweater?
*You've got a fine personality, sir - but not for a human being !
*When he was born, his father came into the room and gave him a funny look. And as you can see, he's still got it!
*You're the sort of person Dr Spooner would have called a shining wit!
*Will you please follow the example of your head and come to the point!
*That reminds me of a very funny story - will you take it from there, Sir?
*Why don't you move closer to the wall - That's plastered already!
*I'd like to help you out - tell me which way did you come in?
*What exactly is on your mind? If you'll excuse the exaggeration?
*You've got a wonderful head on your shoulders. Tell me; whose is it?

Anon.

(I smiled at 3 or 4 of theses. Hope you will too.)

>231 LizzieD: You're the sort of person Dr Spooner would have called a shining wit
Dr. Spooner was a man of great, if muddled, erudition. Let now phase pramous men.

May hen!

>233 LizzieD: LOL

Starting the day with a laugh...wonderful giftie, Peggy!

Always with you, Richard. My thanks for your visits. *smooch*

Wordle 1,519 4/6*

⬜🟨🟨⬜🟨
⬜⬜🟨🟩🟩
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, prate (sort of dumb), haute, matte Not the best but all mine.

PERFUME

Perfume is a subject dear to my heart. I have so many favourites: Arome de Grenouille, Okéfénôkée, Eau Contraire, Fume de Ma Tante, Blast du Past, Kèrmes, Je Suis Swell, and Attention, S'il Vous Plaît, to name but a few.
~ Miss Piggy

OH MY GOODNESS!!!! I just found this paper from a 12th grade honors student in 1997. Bless his heart, he was a talented visual artist, and his junior English teacher had encouraged him to take honors English although I don't know why.

I think this was probably his research paper since it's typed. I'll give you a paragraph a day for a few days. Laugh or cry as you're disposed to do.

"Kim", Rudyard Kipling

First of all, about Mr. kipling, he was born in the town of Bombay in 1865. He was the son of an highly aristocratic Indian Professor of Art or Architectural Sculpture. There he was brought up in the highly care of the native people or sometimes nurses. They taught him a form of religion or worshiping known as "Hindustani", and the native background of this dispicable learning, which must have extremely haunted this poor boy, while growing up in this weird town. That also may be one of the important reasons and resources why he later perhaps wrote the book, Just So Stories. I think it was at the age of six, he was apparently sent to school in England, called Westward Ho!, the scene of fairly good humans of basically the same background. Around the year of 1883 he finally returned back to India. Their he embarked on a career of journalism, writing the news stories as well as the tales and kindly ballads that must have began to make his reputation known around the world. After nearly seven whole years he at last moved back to England. So therefore he kept going back and forth to different places.

>231 LizzieD: Love the Heckles. Induced multiple smirks, so thanks for that. Is this from your personal collection? Or a published collection?

‘Afternoon, Peggy.

Daughters and cat are currently enroute to Chicago, then to SeaTac, then home. They’ll get there late tonight.

It’s been a whirlwind visit, most of their time being spent working on their old apartment. We were Hotel Hengeveld this time, but we’ll see them again this year under calmer circumstances.

Wordle in 4.

Time for reading and a nap.

Wordle in 3 today, nothing to do today except watch Arsenal play Manchester United at noon. Daughters and cat arrived home safe and sound last night.

Glad that the daughters and cat are home safe. I wish them well, (((((Karen))))).

Wordle 1,520 2/6*

🟩⬜⬜🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, lousy That second to last word limits possibilities immediately.

Off to walk in the almost-too-hot!

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Monday to you.

>239 LizzieD: Thanks re the daughters and Tsunami the cat. He was already exploring the apartment as soon as they got home in the middle of the night. Congrats for Wordle in 2.

Wordle in 3 for me today. Off in 20 minutes for the Friends of the Library Board Meeting, then backtrack to Siler City to pick up the new prescription lenses in my backup pair of glasses, which will become my primary glasses.

I will then wash 79 of Jenna's socks. I went through the clothes Jenna’s left behind and that’s most of them, I think. There might be a few more hiding in the Guest Bedroom or in the pile of clothes I put in the hall the other day. Major excitement. Fortunately, I do not have to match them into pairs, as Jenna never wears matching socks. Hwan only wears matching socks, but they’re compatible in so many other ways. *smile*

>223 LizzieD: You remind me that I need to get back to Cleeves soon! It has been a while.

Have a marvelous Monday, Peggy!

>240 karenmarie: Never wears matching socks! How creative!

Good morning, Judy, Stasia, and Karen - three of my favorite women for sure!!!

I'm so creative and free that I never once conceived of not wearing matching socks. Zuleika Dobson inspired unmatched earrings years ago, but never socks!
Congrats on your string of 3s, Karen. We're 3 Sisters again. I wonder when Irene gets home.... and need to visit Nathalie.
Hope you're about home. I went after we walked to mail a letter and pick up what I hadn't gotten at Aldi on Friday, so I'm late here.

Hope you have something cool planned for today, Stasia! You too, Judy.
As to Cleeves, I'm reading one a month with the Shetland group, and I need to post on that thread.

>236 weird_O: I completely missed your post, Bill, and I apologize. All these funnies come from The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotation that I dug out of a book pile while looking for something else. The continuation of the Kipling paper is from one of my sadder high school pupils.

Wordle 1,521 3/6*

⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
🟨⬜⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, snore, issue

HUSBANDS (oh dear)
'Small band of men, armed only with wallets, besieged by a horde of wives and children.
~ National Lampoon

I've been asked to say a couple of words about my husband, Fang. How about 'short' and 'cheap;.
~ Phyllis Diller

Husbands are like fires. They go out if unattended
~ Zsa Zsa Gabor

He tells you when you've got on too much lipstick,
And helps you with your girdle when your hips stick.
~ Ogden Nash

A husband is what is left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted.
~ Helen Rowland

Men are horribly tedious when they are good husbands, and abominably conceited when they are not.
~ Oscar Wilde

Second paragraph "KIM", Rudyard Kipling

Furthermore, people have frequently assumed that the book, Kim were read as if it were only another children's book. But, in my opinion, I beg to differ, mainly because I barely understood what I was reading and trying to comprehend. It was such a difficult book to learn and do research.

I've been asked to say a couple of words about my husband, Fang. How about 'short' and 'cheap'.
~ Phyllis Diller

She was somethin' wasn't she? Those OTT outfits and her wacky laugh...she was always a fun comedian to watch.

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Tuesday to you, your DH, and your kitties.

>242 ffortsa: She almost broke me when she started doing this when she was about 11 or so… I still can’t bring myself to do it. She has a HS friend who she saw a lot while they were both in college in Wilmington NC. He is OCD. If she was cranky with him but still at his house to visit, she’d wear one footie sock and one knee-high sock to mess with his mind.

>243 LizzieD: I’m with you, Peggy – I cannot conceive of not wearing matching socks. Thanks of my string of 3s – it’s 3 again for me today.

Love the quotes. I have a gorgeous slip-cased edition of Kim. It should not be surprising to you that it’s still unread.

>244 richardderus: I love Phyllis Diller calling her husband Fang. Loved watching her. My favorite quote has something to do with seeing a rainbow over the playpen because so any of her kids were in diapers at the same time.

I’ve got book sort and Virlie’s this a.m., pharmacy and bank and ladies after. THEN I can breathe.

>245 karenmarie: ...she DID have six of them...not inconceivable....

Heh Heh Heh - Richard and Karen on Phyllis!!! Thanks!

Karen, you may want to wait to read Kim as you see how difficult the whole thing is. My heart breaks for that young man. He was a wonderful artist, and I think he had always snowed his English teachers with the way he was able to decorate their rooms with illustrations of whatever fiction they were reading. (*SNOW* Now we all know how old I am!) Unfortunately, nobody had helped him improve his reading and writing before he hit me, and that's what I cared about. Had I realized what he lacked in the 2 weeks that it was legal to change his schedule, I would have moved him back to a regular class. On the other hand, he was not alone, but he was unwilling to work on the language skills.
We're 3 Sisters again! I confess that my jaw dropped when my guess was correct.

Wordle 1,522 3/6*

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, noire, rowdy

HOUSEWIVES

No one knows what her life expectancy is, but I have a horror of leaving this world and not having anyone in the entire family know how to replace a toilet tissue spindle.
~ Erma Bombeck

There was no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse.
~ Quentin Crisp

(My own theory is that after a few months, dust forms a protective layer over horizontal surfaces and do-dads, and that's a good thing.)

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing
Is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.
~ Phyllis Diller

I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes - and six months later you have to start all over again.
~ Joan Rivers

KIM

On a more positive note, Kim can be read as a uniquely modern source of the twentieth-century charm and marginality. Although, Kim lived in a life of distraught and confusion, he always managed to amaze his fellow associates and friend of the Arabian Nights. The only thing about that was the missionaries and along with secretaries of highly societies could not see the beauty and originality of it. Kim's nickname was called 'Little Friend of all the World'. In the ladder part of the book, Kipling had personified and wrote about "the woman who looked after him insisted with tears that he could wear European clothes or garments. But, Kim found out easier to slip into Hindu or her type of religious clothing".

>247 LizzieD: I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes - and six months later you have to start all over again.
~ Joan Rivers

It makes me chuckle despite my possession of two vacuum cleaners for my ~150sq ft. (One has an electric beater bar to get more suckage of the ruggage.)

I'm with you, Richard. I managed to suck most of the backing through the rug in Mama's living room by using maximum suckage. Of course, it was a very, very, very old wool rug.

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Wednesday.

Congrats on 3 sisters. Today’s Wordle took 4.

>247 LizzieD: Ah, yes, housework. When I was young and lived alone, I actually liked it. It always gave me a sense of satisfaction. I still get a sense of satisfaction with a clean house, but I have to pay for it.

>248 richardderus: I have 3 vacuum cleaners. Two are necessary, one, a Dyson, was a colossal waste of money.

Off to Sanford this a.m. to set up an appointment for another spinal injection. This one has finally started wearing off.

>249 LizzieD: None of my vacuum power is expensive because there's no point. I'll be damned if I depend on trying to get housekeeping to pick up stuff I drop or track in but I'll happily do it myself.

Good morning, Richard and Karen. The only thing I hate worse than housework is vegetable gardening in the summer. I'm a slut. I'd like a clean house too, and we wouldn't be condemned if social services came to call, but I begrudge every second I spend cleaning. My DH does it much better than I do, and even when he's only straightening a room, it looks better than when I do it. I remember a morning spent with a group of women straightening the tables at the local thrift store. One woman followed me around and straightened what I had just straightened. No talent there.

I wish you didn't have to make an appointment in person to get an appointment, Karen. That's one thing that I object to in current medical practice. Maybe you'll find something tasty for a lunch treat!
I'm trying to catch up with your Wordle 3-roll. I had the better word today.

Wordle 1,523 3/6*

🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, loamy, llama

TOM SWIFTIES (All anonymous as every Tom Swiftie should be)

'Doctor, I keep thinking I'm a gun,' the patient declared repeatedly.

'I'm only a cartoon character and can always be erased,' said Mickey Mouse self-effacingly.

'I'm simply not a nice girl,' she whispered tartly.

'I've gained over fifty pounds,' he explained roundly.

Welcome to the annual teetotalers awards banquet,' the MC began drily.

'Why, that chicken has no beak,' the man pronounced impeccably.

(I like that last one, but I think our group could do better than most of the rest of these.)

KIM

A man in the story by the name of Ralph Waldo Emerson called Kipling one of his friends and confidant. He had assumably told Kipling that we was well on his way to excellence and constructed fame. He also commended him on the book, Kim which I'm summing up, now. The final thing Mr. Emerson had told Kipling was that in the beginning he didn't have much faith in him, but always knew he could overcome the pain and terrible lively-hood which he had growing up in that type of environment and culture. Surely though, Kim afterall still lived with torment and constant nightmares of horrible experiences he kept dreaming of and fantasizing in his mind, when he was just a child in India. Terrible childhood memories have had a long and never-ending impression on him. In the long run Kim would hope for a better out look on life in the future and which soon get better for him.

FUGITIVE TELEMETRY by Martha Wells

I didn't say anything about this happy interlude? I LOVE MURDERBOT! I've been hoarding the last two because I don't want to run out, but I was called to read this one last week. Murderbot maintains the essential MB character while moving out in the community to work with station security on a murder, a very unusual occurrence on Preservation and Preservation station. Of course, MB is the one who solves the mystery in order to be sure that a GreyCris agent isn't among them. GOOD STUFF!

>252 LizzieD: Like you, I'm hoarding my last unread Murderbot until a new one's announced. I'm so glad it's being adapted because new audiences will discover the books!

The Tom Swifties are funny! My dilation has left me with a lingering headache so i'm trying to be sparing with screen time. Heated eye mask time helps, too.

*smoochings*

(((((Peggy))))) Happy Thursday.

Not quite so hot here today. Overcast. No outside-the-house errands, but some things I’d like to do inside in addition to reading, puttering, and updating spreadsheets/Lightning Round.

Wordle in 3. Congrats on your 3 yesterday. Love to see all green.

Hi, Karen and Richard! I'm always happy to see that you have both been here. Good day all around!

I trust that the headache is gone, and that you are dry in the eye, Richard! If delaying publication makes the next Murderbot splendid, I'm happy to wait!

I love to watch those greens flip too, Karen. I'm a little unhappy with myself since the word today is one I often think of on down the line, but it didn't come to me today until 4, as you see.
Wordle 1,524 4/6*

🟨🟨⬜⬜🟨
🟨⬜🟨🟨⬜
⬜🟨⬜🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, tiled, flute, extol

I feel a nap hovering, so I'll be back later to give us our daily giggle or smile or whatever.

Checking in on you for today, PA. I hope you have a fantastic Friday!

'Morning, Peggy!

Wordle in 3. Ooh, all yellows, then 5 greens for yesterday. Brava.

Chiropractor and lunch with friend Jan on tap for today.

Dropping in to wish you a wonderful weekend!

I can still wish you a good morning, Anita, Karen, and Stasia! I wish you may all have a happy day where you are with smooth sailing and a big helping of joy!

Anita, you're mighty nice to come by here!

Karen, your day sounds grand. Wow! All yellows/all green! I don't think I ever saw that. My jaw dropped at today's offering.

Wordle 1,525 3/6*

⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
🟨🟩🟨⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, tardy, ratty

OLD AGE

Doctor: You're going to live to be eighty.
Patient: I AM eighty!
Doctor: What did I tell you?
~ Anon.

We think he's dead, but we're afraid to ask.
~ Anonymous Committee Member of 79 year-old Chairman of House Committee, Washington 1984

I used to dread getting older because I thought I would not be able to do all the things I wanted to do, but now that I am older I find that I don't want to do them.
~ Nancy Astor, on her eightieth birthday

I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am.
~ Bernard Baruch

I have my eighty-seventh birthday coming up and people ask what I'd most appreciate getting. I'll tell you: a paternity suit.
~ George Burns

One of the life-friends just sent the group this word and definition: LETHLOGICA - the inability to recall a word you know.....

KIM

To basically sum up this British novel on "Kim", it was an very magical, mystical, and magestical outcome sturring up with danger and excitement. Kipling's one of many books was so intriguing because of it's nature with the life back then in India and also in England. I have greatly learned about the British Empire and the exotic home of the kings and princesses. Kim was naturally born eager of love and desiring intrigue of a thirst for the unknown that destined him for the absolute adventure and dangerous paths for somewhat of destruction and irresistable joy of exploring the world and the unknown lands of the universe. His absolute kindness and touching friendship with an mysterious lazy holy man leads to a fantastic quest for the lost enchanting river of the arrows, which was near England in the high class community.

>259 LizzieD: I used to dread getting older because I thought I would not be able to do all the things I wanted to do, but now that I am older I find that I don't want to do them.
~ Nancy Astor, on her eightieth birthday

One day I *must* write that review I owe of What Would Mrs. Astor Do? as she is quite clearly my ancestress.

Have a healthy, happy weekend, Peggy me lurve. It was a gorgeous summer day here. I'm achy from Erin's atmospheric shenanigans but in good spirits because...well...I deserve to be. *smooch*

'Afternoon, Peggy! I hope you're having a wonderful day.

>259 LizzieD: I love the quotes, especially the one by George Burns.

Arsenal, puttering, reading, etc.

Wordle in 5.

Good afternoon, Karen and Richard, my dears! I have just finished brunch and my second cup of coffee. I hit it just right today and wish I had made more.

Yes, please, to your reading of Mrs. Astor, WBL. *smooch* Good spirits are a happy choice when we're able to make it! *smooch* again

More quotes to come, Karen. Today having nothing to start was a bonus with Wordle.
Wordle 1,526 3/6*

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, minor, union

Glad you like George Burns; I'll add another.

OLD AGE

I'm at that age now where just putting my cigar in its holder is a thrill.
~ George Burns

Old age is life's parody.
~ Simone de Beauvoir

Very, very, very few
People die at ninety-two.
I suppose that I shall be
Safer still at ninety-three.
~ Willard R. Espy

Being an old maid is like death by drowning, a really delightful sensation after you cease to struggle.
~ Edna Ferber

I don't feel eighty. In fact, I don't feel anything till noon. Then it's time for my nap.
~ Bob Hope

You know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.
~ Bob Hope

Seventy is wormwood
Seventy is gall
But it's better to be seventy
Than not alive at all.
~ Phyllis McGinley

"Kim" (This was crammed at the bottom of the page in longhand.)

Kim was a very unique book. In it's own way and it was one of the more difficult and painful books I believe I've ever read. I really didn't ever read British novels that very often, but this was an knew experience for me to read "Kim". Rudyard Kipling too me, in my own words or thoughts would be "hard-working", brave, loyalty, and extremeley sensitive about his works. I have also gotten some of his poems and games on the other sheets, if you would like to see.
From Rudyard Kipling on the Internet!!!

That's all. The author was the kid who confronted me at the end of the semester.
Kid: "Why did you fail me in English?"
Liz: "You didn't turn in but about three assignments the whole semester."
Kid: "I know, but I didn't think you'd FAIL me!"

>262 LizzieD: You know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.
~ Bob Hope

Not to mention the immense amount of paperwork for the environmental impact of that much burning. I ignore birthdays so I won't have to do All that stuff. Saves on wax cleanup too.

Heh, RIchard! I love my own birthday. I also love birthday cake but without candles.

TUYO by Rachel Neumeier

Checking back in with a Wordle in 2!!! today and all three Pips (which so far are really easy, but I guess that will change soon when people got used to the rules?).

Have a great Sunday!

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Sunday to you. It’s a gorgeous day here, clear Carolina blue skies. High will be 84F, currently 76F/80% humidity.

>262 LizzieD: Coffee – elixir of the gods. I’m just pouring my second cup. Congrats on your 3 in Wordle.

Naughty George Burns…

Kim boy and confronting you… I wish I had a highlights reel of your best ‘chats’ with students and a separate highlights reel of you and school administration.

>264 LizzieD: I’m with you about my own birthday, too. No candles on b-day cake anymore. Doesn’t your DH make pound cake for you for your birthday?

>265 Deern: Two for me today, too, Nathalie!!!

Happy to see you, now that I'm finally here, Karen and Nathalie!
I don't know about Pips.
CONGRATULATIONS to BOTH OF YOU on that Wordle!!!!!

I'm irate about Wordle. I already had the word on my list, so when nothing else was acceptable and I started plugging in already used words, I didn't get to that one. Wonder how that happened since the fault is obviously mine.
Wordle 1,527 X/6*

⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩 least, snore, swore, smore (I couldn't believe that this is apparently a real word now), score, shore Hiss and also Boo.

I found that I needed to say to these kids, "You have to do the work I assign. If you do not, you will get a zero. Let's look at what one zero does to a good average." They still didn't believe me. I don't want to see the end of public schools, but I do want people to wise up. My experience with a private school was no better. I had a parent ask me in the last half of the second semester to start the class over from the beginning. His kid was ready to work, but he didn't want his son's self-esteem demolished by having the rest of the class so far ahead of him. Unbelievable!

OLD AGE

A man's only as old as the woman he feels.
~ Groucho Marx

Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.
~ Groucho Marx

One of the many pleasures of old age is giving things up.
~ Malcolm Muggeridge

Senescence begins
And middle age ends
The day your descendants
Outnumber your friends.
~ Ogden Nash

Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven't committed.
~ Anthony Powell

The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists the circulation of the blood.
~ Logan Pearsall Smith

The greatest problem about old age is the fear that it may go on too long.
~ A.J. P. Taylor

MRS ALLONBY: I delight in men over seventy, they always offer one the devotion of a lifetime.
~ Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

>267 LizzieD: One of the many pleasures of old age is giving things up.
~ Malcolm Muggeridge

I adore giving things up now. It feels like a victory. I wish I could tell thirty-three me how good it feels.

New-week orisons.

‘Morning, Peggy, and happy Monday to you.

>267 LizzieD: I’m so sorry about the alphabet soup.

I rarely interfered with Jenna’s schoolwork and teachers. The time I remember best is when she had read Gone With the Wind in 7th grade and they had standardized on-line quizzes to test the kids. Jenna failed the quiz. It was ridiculous, looking for details even I couldn’t remember. I worked with the teacher so that Jenna could write a book report to replace the quiz result. She got an A on it. I still have it here on my laptop, just looked at it, and am still proud of what she wrote.

I love all the quotes.

Wordle in 3 for me today.

Today's a medical day - steroid injection in my spine, bi-annual visit with my cardiologist. Reading and puttering, too, of course.

Good morning, Karen and Richard!!!!!!

We're 3 Sisters, and I'm still wondering why I already had the word on my used list.
Good for you and Jenna's teacher. Obviously, the quiz was not built for a novel as big as *GwtW*. Very good for Jenna! It's really not a YA one.
Hope your steroid injection is as effective as soon as the first one was, and that your cardiologist praises you! You deserve it!

Richard, I thought the Muggeridge quote was profound and true on any level you cared to apply it to. And look at the Wordle target today! *smooch*

Wordle 1,528 3/6*

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟨⬜🟨⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, tumor, mirth

Writing checks. Back sometime!

'Morning, Peggy! Kind regards to your DH and I hope the kitties are all doing well.

The injection appointment went well and the pain is significantly reduced. I'm not surprised, but am almost always surprised at how quickly steroid injections kick in for me.

Ugh - I lost track of time an missed the cardiologist appointment. She's down to one day a week, and unless she agrees to overbook for me, I'll have to wait 'til December. The other cardiologist in the practice is not accepting my cardiologist's appointments. The scheduler said she'd try to get me something sooner with one or the other. if not, my backup plan is to visit my PCP.

Congrats on your Wordle in 3.

Took me 4 today.

Dropping in to say hello. I'm back and slowly working my way through the threads. I know I won't be able to catch up on them all, but I did manage to read through what's here. I hate that you had the Wordle snafu; and hoping that's the only time that happens. Have a great Tuesday!

Thank you for visiting, Irene and Karen!

Irene, thank you for Wordle sympathy. I had to use the extra list today at the fourth try, but I am Karen's 4 Sister. Glad to have you back!

Karen, I'm thrilled that your injection is like magic for you. Somehow, I believed that the worse a steroid shot hurt, the more effective it would show itself to be. I'm more than happy that that is not true for you! I am sorry about your missing the second appointment. I'm off this afternoon to have my 1-month follow-up with my magic ears tech. I want to try a smaller wax guard in my right ear, but otherwise, I think everything is wonderful. We had a conversation on our walk this morning with friends who were driving past, and I could hear the softer-spoken woman even when she was talking with her head turned away from me. YAY!!!
Karen, I won't contaminate your thread with this, but I heard this morning that our Commander in Chief with the cares of the world on his shoulders tweeted or Xed or posted on his own social media that Cracker Barrel should not change its logo. This apparently carries the same weight with him as his firing of the Cook woman from the Fed. What a guy!

Since I'm speaking of politics, I'll note 2 things that I keep waiting for my radical left-wing commentators to say:
1. I'm sick that Newsom has to resort to the same gerrymandering as the Republicans. WHY doesn't anybody note that he is asking for only 5 more Democratic seats rather than going them one better?
2. (I did hear a commentator on BBC say this but no American.) We talk about Russians taking territory from Ukraine. WHY don't we talk about the people who live in the territory, whose lives will be totally changed if the world allows this to happen?
Then end.

Wordle 1,529 4/6*

⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
⬜🟨🟨⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, crake, paean, annex

SOCCER (For Karen)

The centre forward said, 'It was an open goal - but I put it straight over the crossbar! I could kick myself!' And the manager said, 'I wouldn't bother, you'd probably miss!'
~ David Frost

(Italian defender) 'Tardelli's been responsible for more scar tissue than the surgeons of Harefield hospital.'
~ Jimmy Greaves

Look if you're in the penalty area and aren't quite sure what to do with the ball, just stick it in the net and we'll discuss all your options afterwards.
~ Bill Shankly

6. Some people think football is a matter of life and death... I can assure you it is much more serious than that.
~ Bill Shankly

Maybe Napoleon was wrong when he said we were a nation of shopkeepers. Today England looked like a nation of goalkeepers...
~ Tom Stoppard

Football is all very well as a game for rough girls, but it is hardly suitable for delicate boys.
~ Oscar Wilde (Attrib.)

Checking in on your new thread - and you. Did you behave yourself while I was gone? No? Glad to hear it, lol.

>273 LizzieD: Football is all very well as a game for rough girls, but it is hardly suitable for delicate boys.
~ Oscar Wilde (Attrib.)

*blink*

Well...hard to argue, I suppose. It doesn't really sound like Miss Oscar, somehow, not quite snide enough I guess.

Have a lovely Tuesday, regardless of heat or other obstructive event. *smooch*

>273 LizzieD: I join you both as Wordle in 4 sisters today. I also wound up using a list at my fourth try. I am getting lazy.

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Wednesday to you.

>273 LizzieD: I’m glad your magic ears are allowing you to hear soft-spoken voices. I looked at Mark’s thread a while ago and he mentioned the ridiculous attack on Cracker Barrel. Unfortunately for them, they’ve now lost me as a customer forever because they caved to the idiot in chief.

Your other political comments cause me to sigh big time.

Congrats on Wordle in 4. Yellows to 5 greens is always fun to see.

Ooh, thank you for the soccer quotes. Love every single one of them.

Wordle in two for me today, but it’s only because of my first word.

I have all day to read, putter, nap, and etc. No need to even get into my SUV, much less go anywhere in it.

Good morning, Karen, Irene, Stasia, and Richard!!!
Irene, I get tired of Wordling sooner now and also have less time to think about it. That leads to the second list. Today, I didn't need a list to make it in 4.

CONGRATULATIONS, KAREN, on your 2!!! That wouldn't have been guaranteed to me even with your first word.

I can't let the absurdity of the Cracker Barrel thing go. It occurred to me that obviously the Leader of the Free World eats there when he drives between Washington and Florida. *groan*
Haircut this afternoon! I'm glad you can stay at home for a day. Glad you enjoyed your quotations!

Stasia, I have been as bad as I get --- I've ordered another couple of books AND eaten a CookOut burger and onion rings. What a life! Glad you're back.

Richard, I thought that was a pretty obvious comment attributed to OW too, carrying none of the usual small gasp of amusement, mild outrage, and pleasure that is his hallmark for me. Maybe it generated more when he is supposed to have said it. *smooch*

I'm about to finish this F. Partridge diary, years 1963-'66. I think I've said that these were my college years, so I'm enjoying that aspect of it. I find something worth quoting and mulling over on almost every page. She was totally social during this early part of her widowhood although she was also working on a translation or an index or something of the sort all the time. She notes high points of conversations, and I'd have loved talking with her; we'd have found enough to agree and disagree about to let me lose my diffidence and expand my thinking, whatever I might have done for her.

Wordle 1,530 4/6*

⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
🟨🟨⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, union, otter, tower

MEETINGS

I met Curzon in Downing Street from whom I got the sort of greeting a corpse would give to an undertaker.
~ Stanley Baldwin

Meetings ... are rather like cocktail parties. You don't want to go, but you're cross not to be asked.
~ Jilly Cooper

Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.
~ J. K. Galbraith

The Law of Triviality. Briefly stated, it means that the time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved.
~ C. Northcote Parkinson

(((((Peggy)))))

>278 LizzieD: Congrats on your four yesterday. It’s four for me today.

Oh no! Ordered books AND eaten a CookOut burger. That used to be one of my favorite lunches when I still worked in Sanford. Plain hamburger with LT, onion rings, chocolate shake, and so many ketchup packets. And although it always sounded awful to me, my boss would send one of the department minions out occasionally and bring back pineapple shakes. They were actually quite wonderful.

I never liked attending meetings that I didn’t call. It was always fun/a challenge to follow my agenda yet allow people to brainstorm and get the synergies going. I still don’t like attending meetings. Think Friends of the Library Board Meetings and book sale planning meetings.

I haven't had breakfast yet, but since I had to check for some info, I came online, DID WORDLE, and then came here to brag.
I'll be back later.

Wordle 1,531 2/6*

🟨⬜⬜🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, split

>280 LizzieD: ...you did Wordle...? But that diagram shows a "two-step solution" and you don't do those. ::confused::

*smooch*

>280 LizzieD: ????? Richard, I do those when I can. I'll grant you that I do it in 2 less often than Karen, but I do it and have done before. I did it today. *beam* and *smooch*

>279 karenmarie: Karen, I don't need a shake, so I won't try the pineapple offering. Besides, it does not sound tasty. I always get their cheddar-style burger: the burger, cheese, bacon, grilled onions. That makes me even worse, doesn't it?
I'm glad for your 4. We circle each other on the Wordle-go-round. How nice for me to think of an ordinary word today rather than one of my normal impossible ones!
As to meetings, I always think how much I would have appreciated my cousin, who came to teaching from business. At his first faculty meeting, he grew weary of the jabber about nothing pertinent. He went up to the principal at the podium and demanded, "Where are we on the agenda?" Principal pointed. Chip pointed to the current speaker and said, "You. Be quiet. That has nothing to do with the item in hand." He sat down to applause.
After they moved to the Triangle, at his next school, the principal came in early in the second week of classes with a sheaf of papers, and this conversation ensued.
Prin: You're not teaching the state objectives?
Coz: No.
Prin: Why not?
Coz: They're inadequate. They don't include what students need to know and they don't ask enough of them.
Prin: These are copies of the emailed complaints from parents I've gotten so far this year. (Separating a good third of them from the rest) These are about you..... WAY TO GO!

CHARM

All charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others.
~ Cyril Connolly

Charming people live up to the very edge of their charm, and behave just as outrageously as the world will let them.
~ Logan Pearsall Smith

Beauty in a woman you notice; a charmer is one who notices you.
~ Adlai Stevenson

All charming people , I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction.
~ Oscar Wilde

CHEESE
Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
~ G.K. Chesterton

Cheese. The adult form of milk.
~ Richard Condon

Cheese - milk's leap forward to immortality.
~ Clifton Fadiman

>282 LizzieD: Cheese. The adult form of milk.
~ Richard Condon

Curdled; rancid; odd-looking and smelly; but delicious.

hmmm

*smooch*

>280 LizzieD: I figured you were going to get Wordle in 2 today. It took me 3, because I guessed SPILT first. I was so annoyed when I saw the yellow letters after my second guess, because I could have gotten it in 2.

>282 LizzieD: I love that story about your cousin!

Hi, Irene. Total luck with the Wordle today. I would have guessed the word you did if it had still been in the hands of the Brit, but I guessed that the NYT woman might not use that spelling. Mostly luck.
You KNOW about faculty meetings!!! Chip is my hero. He came to teaching late, but that's what he was born to do. I loved it when he was talking to one of my students at a dinner celebrating NC's top soccer players. (He coached soccer at his HS). The kid said, "I like Mrs. McLizzle, but she's hard." Chip looked at him and said, "What's your point?"

Hi, Richard! The smellier the cheese, the better it tastes!!!!!

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Friday to you, your DH, and your kitties. Of course, they don’t know what day of the week it is, but what the heck.

>280 LizzieD: Fantastic! Congrats.

>282 LizzieD: I love it – Wordle-go-round.

Love your Coz.

Charm and cheese… both worthy. I’m so grateful that I’m not lactose intolerant. I eat much less cheese than I’d like to these days, but when I do I’m in seventh heaven.

>284 atozgrl: I guessed the other word first, too, Irene.

>285 LizzieD: Ooh. Mrs. McLizzie, love it. Great comeback by your Coz, too.

Two again, for me. I'm channeling the Wordle Gods.

>286 karenmarie: Yep, Wordle-go-round...... CONGRATS ON YOUR 2 AGAIN, (((((Karen)))))! No blockages in your channel!

I love my coz too. He's the closest thing I have to a brother.

In fact, the last set of kids did call me Mrs. McLizzle. I always had a nickname that I knew about. I'm sure I was called a number of other things too! (Ms. Mac, Smiles, Ms. Mag or Maggie, Insane Mc____, Ms. McLizzle)

Wordle 1,532 3/6*

⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, bract, graft Quite a bit of luck here too!

>287 LizzieD: I look forward to your thoughts on Partridge...what a life! So much terrible painful loss, but really interesting to learn from because of the circle she moved in.

Friday well, Peggy me lurve.

(((((Peggy))))) Happy Saturday.

Yay for your all-green Wordle yesterday. Those seem especially gratifying.

I'll be puttering, reading, updating spreadsheets and Lightning Round, and etc.

Wordle in 3 for me today, not all-green, alas.

(((((Karen)))))!!!!!
All-green is pretty, isn't it? I'm happier with today as we continue to ride the Wordle-go-round, and congrats to you on your 3.
Behold!!!

Wordle 1,533 2/6*

🟨🟨🟩⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, elate

I made dal yesterday and have only to cook the brown rice before I can enjoy my lunper - or whatever you call the second meal of the day at 4:30 or 5:00. I am thrilled to have learned how to make brown rice fluffy, and I love its slightly nutty flavor with heavenly dal, which becomes tastier the longer it lasts.

Here are my thoughts on FP, Richard! *smooch* to fine grazing for my WBL!

OTHER PEOPLE diaries (1963-1966) of Frances Partridge

I dreaded to read this volume of FP's diaries. As Richard has said, she has just suffered terrible loss. Her husband Ralph, a first generation Bloomsburian had died in November of 1960. Their son Burgo, newly a father, died in August of '63 at only 28. The first half of these diaries is painful to read. FP says that she would commit suicide except that she lacks the courage. I imagine that she had too much life force ever to kill herself, and she does bit by bit begin to make and enjoy a new life.
She and Ralph were always social, but these four years are taken up almost completely by hosting and visiting and traveling. She was always interested to record the gist of conversations, but that's especially true in this diary. She knew fascinating people; once I said that she must have known every literary figure in England, and that's almost true. (She and a friend had a conversation after they had both read The Waste Land, which neither of them understood. FP says, "T.S. Eliot..... didn't he write the Four Quartets?)
I also greatly enjoyed her travel notes. She and Eardley Knollys rented a house in Orla, Italy for a month together. She and Kitty West traveled to Russia together, and she traveled in Turkey with Raymond Mortimer. These are all old friends to the readers of her diaries so far. Other old friends died in these four years, notably Clive Bell and Eddy Sackeville-West. Still others, most importantly Julia Strachey (Gowing) her friend from childhood, present problems. FP records her reactions and impressions to all of this and uses her time to work as a translator and sometime indexer and to play second violin in an amateur orchestra. At times she is an essayist worth reading, and I love her and find her transparently revealing both strengths and faults. A reader probably needs some knowledge of Bloomsbury and certainly needs to find the people involved fascinating to read her whole 6 volumes. I'm one of them.

MEN AND WOMEN

Men don't make passes at female smart-asses.
~ Letty Cottin Pogrebin

God created man, and finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a companion to make him feel his solitude more.
~ Paul Valéry

A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.
~ Oscar Wilde

Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.
~ Oscar Wilde

Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. that is the difference between the sexes.
~ Oscar Wilde

Men play the game; women know the score.
~ Roger Woddis

>290 LizzieD: A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.
~ Oscar Wilde

...as millennia of successful marriages have proved, the bonds of matrimony are so heavy it takes a team to carry them.

*baa*

Happy Sunday Peggy!

I also had some good Wordles last week, no 2s, but some 3s. I was annoyed with today's which could have been a 2 but turned into a 4.

‘Morning, Peggy! Have a wonderful day and continue to enjoy the cooler temps.

Ooh, I’m impressed with your Wordle in two yesterday. Took me three today.

I really love brown rice although I haven’t made it in quite a while. Yay for Dal Seconds.

The Men and Women quotes are interesting. It makes me want to read more about Oscar Wilde. I found a Kindle edition of The Ballad of Reading Gaol that was $0 and is now in my catalog.

Whew. I'm finally here and happy to see that you were too, Karen, Nathalie, and Richard! Thank you! Hope you are all having a restful/restorative Sunday!

Karen, we are 3 Sisters! Nathalie, I rejoice with every 3, but I do well know the frustration of a possible 2 going wrong.

Good turn of phrase, my WBL!

Karen, I'm afraid that the only Wilde I really "know" is *Earnest*. I used to love to teach it and watch the HS seniors tune in and laugh. (Yay also for dal 3rds and 6ths! I always think I'll freeze some, and then I eat it all before I can.) Big YAY for this gorgeous weather!!!!!

Wordle 1,534 3/6*

🟨🟩🟨⬜🟨
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least, fetal, petal I puts 'em down as they comes to me, and it's most often not smart.

>294 LizzieD: I join you all as 3 sisters today! I'm with you on Wilde; "Earnest" is really the only one I know as well. I've got a Wilde bio that I haven't read yet. One of these days.

'Morning, Peggy. Happy Monday. Happy holiday.

The weather is absolutely gorgeous again today.

Three for me in Wordle today, congrats on your yesterday's three.

I'll be puttering, working on my statistics and Lightning Round, reading.

ABSOLUTELY UNREAL!!!!!!!

Wordle 1,535 1/6*

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 least MY word is THE word. I never thought it would happen.

I do believe this is enough to make me start a new thread.

Good morning, Karen and Irene. Enjoy your holiday and labor not at all if you can help it!

>297 LizzieD: Fantastic! Of course, now, you'll have to start with a different word, won't you? Or not, if it's useful. I've been using the same one since I started playing--my daughter scoffs at that, but ask her how often I beat her!