2025*6 - LizzieD Relaxes into Books

Christmas at Grandmama's, 1956.....the little boys and Kaye (who managed to be in every picture I took that day with my wonderful new camera.)

READ IN DECEMBER

68. By Darkness Forged (third)
69. Howard's End
70. The Wizard's Cat
71. Death Served Up Cold (reread)
72. A Dangerous Funeral (reread)
73. Cuckoo's Egg
74. Jeoffry: The Poet's Cat
75. Penric's Fox

Into the House in December

139. Pay Dirt - Kindle Cyber-day deal
140. Kepler's Witch - Kindle daily deal through BookBub
141. Last Year - Kindle daily deal through BookBub
142. Black Salt Queen - Kindle deal
143. The Wizard's Butler - Kindle
144. Overboard - PBS
145. The True Game - AMP
136. Pimlico Plot - on the shelf for about 40 years
137. Butter - CHRISTMAS GIFT
138. As She Climbed Across the Table - CHRISTMAS GIFT
139. dot.dead - CHRISTMAS GIFT
140. The Mills of the Gods - Kindle GC
141. Europe at Midnight - Kindle since 2018

OPEN FOR READING IN DECEMBER


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: two more in a last ditch effort to get to 75. I might make it! Happy!

What a Good Reading Year!!!!

BEST OR MOST SIGNIFICANT OF 2025
Fiction
Demon Copperhead
The Starless Sea
Crooked Heart
♥♥♥The Remembered Soldier♥♥♥

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
Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles
Walking to Samarkand

MOST ENTERTAINING MOSTLY FOR FUN
Women in Black
Divergence
Floating Hotel
The Cold Cold Ground
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
Cold as Hell
Hello Beautiful
Light from Uncommon Stars
King's Dragon
The Hallmarked Man
Joe Country
The Impossible Fortune
The Wizard's Cat
Cuckoo's Egg

(Just in case somebody likes the quotations but doesn't want to go back a thread to get them, here they are again!)

EATING

How to eat like a child.
Spinach: divide into little piles. Rearrange again into new piles. After five or six maneuvers, sit back and say you are full.
Chocolate-chip cookies: half-sit, half-lie on the bed, propped up by a pillow. Read a book. Place cookies next to you on the sheet so that crumbs get in the bed. As you eat the cookies, remove each chocolate chip and place it on your stomach. When all the cookies are consumed, eat the chips one by one, allowing two per page.
~ Delia Ephron
(I like this woman except for the spinach, which I've always liked.)

Dinner at the Huntercombes' possessed 'only two dramatic features - the wine was a farce and the food was a tragedy.'
~ Anthony Powell

Seeing is deceiving. It's eating that's believing.
~ James Thurber

'Have you ever seen Spode eat asparagus?"
'No'
'Revolting. It alters one's whole conception of Man as Nature's last word.'
~ P.G. Wodehouse

Say. I'm most thankful that you launched this new thread. Your previous one slipped away from me. As did most other threads. ADD run a muck.

Hey, Bill. Glad to see you here - or anywhere else, really.

Happy new one!

Happy new thread, dear Peggy.

Happy new thread, Peggy!

>3 LizzieD: I see you're well into Crown of Stars! The Burning Stone is one interesting volume!

Happy new thread, Peggy! I answered your question about how I did with Wordle on your old thread.

>5 LizzieD: 'Have you ever seen Spode eat asparagus?"
'No'
'Revolting. It alters one's whole conception of Man as Nature's last word.'
~ P.G. Wodehouse

I always had a sneaking affection for Roderick Spode, AKA Lord Sidcup. (Love that it's an anagram for "cuspid" don't you?)

Imagine! They had *cameras* in 1956! Must've seemed like magic back in those dark, dreary days.

*skedaddles*

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy new thread and happy Wednesday to you.

>1 LizzieD: Ah, those were the days. Guns and football paraphernalia for the boys. You’ll make it to 75, right?

>3 LizzieD: Where are the short-and-sweet novellas? And, Stasia gave me her copy of The Warburgs 2 years ago.

>5 LizzieD: Love the eating quotes. I’m like you, and have always liked spinach. I like asparagus, too.

No errands in town today, a few in the house. Arsenal in the afternoon. A good day ahead. Leftover pie, too…

Wordle in 4 for me.

I love new threads because I get visitors whom I adore to follow in turn but often can't.

Welcome, Anita, Paul dear, Susan, Irene, Richard, and Karen!

Susan, I confess that I'm not as taken with *Stone* as with the first two. I have really enjoyed the medieval setting, and getting into the Aoi is not so attractive to me. Another large part of that is because Alain has always been my favorite character, and this book seems more concerned with Liath and Sanglant. (I think I've said to you before that the more into the world of fairy a book gets, the less I like it.) I won't stop though!

Irene, you make me feel better about using a list. I didn't today, beyond the used words. Had a choice of 2 unused ones and guessed wrong at word 3. Oh well.
I don't know how I missed V. Meager. I was certainly shattered by Kennedy's assassination my freshman year in college, so you'd think I'd have been paying attention the year before.

Well, Richard. I first met Sir Rodrick in footer bags, and that killed any sneaking affection I might have had for him. I NOW love that Sidcup is an anagram for "cuspid." Thank you!
1956 was quite a year. We had electricity and running water and heat and TV and cars and other stuff.

And, yes, Karen, 1956 was a year when little boys got guns and little girls got dolls unless we were like Nellie in "Jolly Old St. Nicholas" who wanted a story book because she thought dolls were folly.
I have one short-and-sweet novella so far that I haven't commented on. You can bet that more of those are coming up along with some quick mysteries. I'm pretty sure that barring disaster, I'll reach my 75.
We may want to read The Warburgs, or I definitely want to finish *Ws*.
I love and adore asparagus. We had a really good trench of them years ago. I'm not sure what intervened to force us to let it go.
Your Wednesday sounds great. My DH has gone grocery shopping, so I don't have to. Yay! I'll finish the third *Ish* of this least favorite trilogy today, and I'll try to comment on all three of them.

Wordle 1,628 4/6*

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COOKERY

Sir,
The hymn, "Onward Christian Soldiers', sung to the right tune and in a not-too-brisk tempo, makes a very good egg timer. If you put the egg into boiling water and sing all five verses and chorus, the egg will be just right when you come to Amen.
~ Letter in the Daily Telegraph, 1983

The proper way to cook a cockatoo is to put the bird and an axehead into a billy. Boil them until the axehead is soft. Th cockatoo is then ready to eat.
~ Anon, traditional, quoted in the Australian, 1954

Where there's smoke, there's toast.
~ Anon.

Life is too short to stuff a mushroom.
~ Shirley Conran

Do not make a stingy sandwich;
Pile the cold-cuts high;
Customers should see salami
Coming through the rye.
~ Alan Sherman

(I have more of those tomorrow, but I had to put the next ones in because I had never read them before.)

CALVIN COOLIDGE

...I do wish he did not look as if he had been weaned on a pickle.
~ Anon., quoted by Alice Roosevelt Longworth

He's the greatest man who ever came out of Plymouth, Vermont.
~ Clarence Darrow (Attrib.)

...simply a cheat and trashy fellow, deficient in sense and almost devoid of any notion of honor - in brief, a dreadful little cad.
~ H.L. Mencken

He is the first president to discover that what the American people want is to be left alone.
~ Will Rogers

How can they tell?
~ Dorothy Parker, on being told that Coolidge was dead (Attrib.)

>14 LizzieD: Life is too short to stuff a mushroom.
~ Shirley Conran

Sacrilege! Heresy! Burn the witch!

ELECTRICITY in '56! Only two years after Gutenberg invented movable type in '54! I had no idea....

>14 LizzieD: I find Alain the more interesting but I'm more invested in Liath. Alain is unusual and has less usual plot elements centered around him - you are in for some strange adventures.

Stuffed mushrooms are a delight and very much worth a simple stuffing. Portabello mushrooms are a plus for preparation and a minus for cooking time.

>3 LizzieD: Hopeless! Happy! That sounds like an absolutely Peggy-ish statement!

Happy new thread, PA!

Happy new thread, Peggy!

Happy new thread from me too, Peggy! I hope you have an excellent end-of-year reading stash to keep you going!

I'm amused by the Sidcup/cuspid chat. Sidcup is a part of south-east London, not far from where I used to live, and the thought of there being a 'Lord Sidcup' is hilarious (it's really not a very lordly type of place!).

(((((Peggy)))))

Congrats on keeping your streak alive.

I was fortunate - Wordle in 2 for me today. Breakfast in a few. Annual exam in ... 3 hours.

>14 LizzieD: I just listened to an audio clip of Coolidge, and even his voice justifies all the stereotypes.

Whoo! I'm here while it's still morning. I'm not sure how that happened.

Karen, the father of one of my best friends (the father was also a great friend of both of us) shook hands as a child with Coolidge, so I have a one degree of separation from the man!
Wow! Congrats on Wordle in 2 AGAIN I trust that your annual exam will go equally as well....a legitimate use of one of my most hated phrases!

Jackie, I am extremely well-stocked against the World Wide Book Famine that may hit at any time, much less this month's requirements.
Thank you VERY MUCH for the additional Sidcup info, which I take to be Sir Plum's intention. I hope you're a Wodehouse lover.

Thank you, Jim, you Faithful Founder!

>17 alcottacre: Stasia, you know. I yam what I yam.

Susan, I'm with you and Richard as far as stuffed mushrooms are concerned. I'm reading *BS* again, mostly because of our conversation. I also like Rosvita and have hopes for her and her brother ---- oh well. I'm old. His name escapes me, and I'm too lazy to look it up.

Richard, among Gutenburg's first printings were the Agatha Christie mysteries and Ivanhoe, which I was reading at the time. *smooch*

Wordle 1,629 5/6*

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FEAR (I stumbled on these trying to get back to EATING, and since they're Sir Plum, here we go.)

He cowered before Aunt Dahlia like a wet sock.
~ P.G. Wodehouse

The good old persp. was bedewing my forehead by this time in a pretty lavish manner. I don't know when I've been so rattled.
'Do you find the room a trifle warm?'
'Oh no, no, rather not. Just right.'
~ P.G. Wodehouse

FEMINISM (because it's next)

A woman who strives to be like a man lacks ambition.
~ Graffito

A woman's work is never done by men.
~ Graffito

Equality is a myth - women are better
~ Graffito

If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.
~ Postcard produced by the Center for Constitutional Rights

My father is liberated - he gave my mother permission to vote Labour.
~ Graffito

WOMAN (in kitchen: One man's meat is another woman's Sunday gone.
~ Mel Calman

Ah, you mentioned the World Wide Book Famine. I thought it had been forgotten. Makes it hard to give up my physical books, even after I've read them. Imagine what we would feel if our electronic books disappeared! Scary.

Happy December thread. I'm already thinking about January.

>21 LizzieD: Ivanhoe! Imagine the cheek, Walter assigning y'all his own books for literature class! *tsk*

>14 LizzieD: Aside from the starting word, our Wednesday Wordles were identical.

>13 karenmarie: I always thought I hated spinach growing up. We never had it at home because my father didn't like it, and the cooked spinach they served at school was awful. But when I was a young adult, I discovered you could eat spinach raw on salad, and that changed everything. As for asparagus, I'm with both of you. I love it.

>14 LizzieD: What a great set of quotes, both Cookery, but especially the ones about Coolidge. Got quite a few laughs out of both.
He is the first president to discover that what the American people want is to be left alone. I sure wish the current occupant of the White House would learn that lesson.

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

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Friday.

Yay for degrees of separation! I have 3 degrees of separation from Herbert Hoover. Bill’s maternal grandfather went to Washington DC, a businessman riding on the coattails of a farmers of NC visit in 1930. We have the framed photograph of the visit, HH in the middle, White House behind, all the farmers and Thad there, too.

Thanks re my two. Today’s effort was three. Our streaks are still alive.

If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.
~ Postcard produced by the Center for Constitutional Rights

Yes, and yes, and yes. Also, birth control pills would be free, morning-after pills would be free.

>24 atozgrl: We never ate raw spinach raw when I was growing up, Irene, but I actually loved the frozen block that miraculously became a flavorful vegetable. As part of the greens of a salad, raw spinach is good, but a WHOLE salad of them leaves me cold.

Happy Day! Greetings, Karen, Stasia, Irene, Richard, and Judy! You are all particularly welcome here. (((((((You All)))))))

Karen, good grief! We are 3 Sisters today. Irene, even though our starting words aren't as close as they used to be, our great minds often take us in the same direction. *grin*
If you like that quote, I think you really, really should read The Fresco by my old favorite feminist scifi writer, Sheri S. Tepper. Even though it's a later book, and she's yielding to her penchant for making up silly names, she carries quite a number of ridiculous doctrines-of-the-present day to their logical conclusions.

Ah, spinach, Irene and Karen. I will hope someday to serve you my spinach salad with broccoli (which I was never offered until my late teens but loved immediately), cukes, carrots, mushrooms, sunflower seeds, blue berries, cheese (blue for me, but I'll get whatever you prefer for you to add), and French fried onion crumbles with whatever dressing you prefer. I hope you'd find enough going on not to miss another kind of leafy green, Karen.

>23 richardderus: But Richard, of course we wanted to read our teacher's own work. He also let me read Jane Austen, so I was pretty happy. *smooch*

>22 ffortsa: I do still think about the WWBF, Judy. You have also hit on an under-worry. I've made sure that I have paper copies of my very most-loved books that I first read on the Kindle. I don't have Cutting for Stone, but I can get it. I don't have my Ishmael space opera, and I'm not likely to buy them in expensive pb. Besides, I've read my favorites so often that I can almost recite them. It's a gamble. As to the rest, I always wanted a library, and I have one.

Wordle 1,630 3/6*

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VEGETABLES
The local groceries are all out of broccoli,
Loccoli.
~ Ray Blount, Jr.

Vegetables are interesting but lack a sense of purpose when unaccompanied by a good cut of meat.
~ Fran Lebowitz

I have no religious or moral objection to vegetables but they are, as it were, dull. They are the also-rans of the plate. One takes an egg, or a piece of meat, or fish, with pleasure but then one has, as a kind of penance, to dilute one's pleasure with a damp lump of boskage.
~ Frank Muir

FEMINISM

These are very confusing times. For the first time in history a woman is expected to combine: intelligence with a sharp hairdo, a raised consciousness with high heels, and an open, non-sexist relationship with a tan guy who has a great bod.
~ Lynda Barry, cartoon

WIFE: Cooking! Cleaning! Why should women do it:
HUSBAND: You're right - let's get an au pair girl.
~ Mel Calman, cartoon

... the major concrete achievement of the women's movement in the 1970s was the Dutch treat.
~ Nora Ephron

... the women's movement hasn't changed my sex life at all. It wouldn't dare.
~ Zsa Zsa Gabor

Anyone can have the key to the executive washroom, but once a woman gets inside, what is there? A lavatory.
~ Germaine Greer

Is it too much to ask that women be spared the daily struggle for superhuman beauty in order to offer it to the caresses of a subhumanly ugly mate?
~ Germaine Greer

Emeralds! Aren't they divine? Jack gave them to me to shut up about Women's Lib.
~ William Hamilton, cartoon

It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.
~ Sally Kempton

>27 LizzieD: I have no religious or moral objection to vegetables but they are, as it were, dull. They are the also-rans of the plate. One takes an egg, or a piece of meat, or fish, with pleasure but then one has, as a kind of penance, to dilute one's pleasure with a damp lump of boskage.
~ Frank Muir

Considering how they were prepared at the time, no wonder he felt that way. Boiled to death, there's nothing left to taste.

I loved Mama's frozen spinach prep: heat a covered saucepan, chuck the brick of spinach in it with the zest of a lemon, cover and shake, put it on a trivet; do other stuff then, after a few minutes, chuck in half a brick of cubed cream cheese and grate a bit of nutmeg on, stir, and serve.

>27 LizzieD: Hmmm. I've never heard of The Fresco, nor even of Sheri S. Tepper. I guess that was all during my working years, when I completely lost track of sci fi and wasn't reading books like I used to do. I will definitely have to check her out. And The Fresco is going into the black hole, as Stasia likes to say.

>26 karenmarie: >27 LizzieD: Karen, in general I agree with you, I prefer my raw spinach in a salad with iceberg and other lettuces. But I have had some that were mostly spinach greens with other things added that were good. I have to say that Peggy's salad sounds great to me. Except for the blue cheese. I'll take feta instead, thank you very much.

>29 atozgrl: I have a shelf of Sheri Tepper's books. The True Game books and Marianne trilogy are the ones I re-read most often, I'd say they are the closest to late 20th cent fantasy. Other series are more SF.

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Saturday.

>27 LizzieD: Congrats on your three! I’m three again today, too.

I actually have The Fresco on Kindle AND in hardcover. I acquired both in January of 2023.

Your salad sounds perfectly wonderful. Yes, I’ll pass on the blue cheese. Mozzarella or, as Irene writes below… feta.

Nice quotes…

>28 richardderus: Your mama’s spinach recipe – yum.

>29 atozgrl: Yes to raw spinach, yes to feta.

>31 karenmarie: Plus it's scalable to an entire polybag of spinach. The juice of the lemon usually made lemon squares for dessert, but freezing in ice-cube trays seems like a good idea to me instead.

Ummm Ummmm, my WBL. That spinach recipe sounds wonderful and doable to me! Thank you! And yes, I grew up eating vegetables that were boiled until they were completely dead. I used to make a favorite lemon square recipe, but I don't make any desserts these days: I don't need them, and my DH doesn't handle them well. Give us both a bit of dark chocolate, one of Aldi's Belgian Butter Crisps, or an occasional Aldi coconut macaroon for me.

O.K., Karen and Irene, you shall have feta crumbles. My DH doesn't want to eat in the same room as blue cheese, but he tolerates it as I tolerate his salmon patties.

My favorite of Tepper's books, btw, is After Long Silence, is long out of print. Next is Grass, which is probably her best novel, and which develops what she started in *AFLS*. Susan, it's predictable that you and I would differ along the fantasy/scifi line of Tepper's writing. While I enjoy *Marianne*, I haven't read *True Game*. I also love Gate to Women's Country and really, all of them. I also love her mysteries, especially the Shirley McClintock series that she wrote as B.J. Oliphant.

Wordle 1,631 3/6*

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>33 LizzieD: I guess I'll hold out a faint hope that if you read True Game you'll like the books. They tie into Fish Tails, but while important for the resolution, not all that much emotional impact. My biggest gripe with Tepper is her deus-ex-machina way of squashing baddies. And from first reading I felt Gate to Women's Country got the biology seriously wrong. I keep meaning to check out her non-sf books, but, Oh! Shiny!

Oh, Susan. It's not that I don't like Tepper's fantasy, it's just not my favorite. Meanwhile, I have at least one of the True Game in ratty old mass pb. Amazon says I bought a copy of the trilogy in 2011, but I can't find it, and I didn't catalogue it. Have I hidden it from myself or was it lost in the mail or something else? The former is highly likely. I've looked for it before. Arghhhh!!!!!

How do you think that Tepper got the biology wrong? The selective breeding?

>35 LizzieD: Yes, the selective breeding would most likely not work well, but if it did would not lead to a stable population. Tepper has done some slower more cultural takes, Six Moon Dance, but it isn't her default.

The True Game I have as a book club HB along with The End of the Game. There is a Mavin omnibus, but I have the separate pbs.

>33 LizzieD: I do not care what anyone says...boiling vegetative things that didn't have to be dug out of the earth is a terrible idea, should never be done, and is a hanging offense. Seeds are different; rice/wheat/oats all go back into the earth, so they're treated like they came out of it.

I wasn't the biggest Tepper reader in my SFF glory days. Grass rings a bell, not sure why. I looked and it's not one of hers I've read...puzzling why it's ringing bells.

Anyway, I'm whipped after All the fiddly little reviews I did today. Night, Peggy me lurve.

Good night, Richard and Susan! I hope you both rest well.

I want to post this from my 2011 thread (hunting unsuccessfully for the time I bought the Tepper). I don't think I posted some of these student horrors the last time I did it. Anyway, I always think they're funny.

More from the pens of former students.....
English
"V is for Veterans Day. It is when your boyfriend or your husband brings you candy and flowers."
"To be athletic, you've got to have good ihandcornation."
"Last but not last,..."
"A group of girls started the kayoss."
"It's more like the Stephen Pillburg's version."
"---saying the same thing twis or rebeating the idea." (An ESL student, but I was often guilty of rebeating the idea.)
Latin
"Cabbage was used in rome to the cure of death, blindness & etc."
"Its strong power over the human body can take their being. i.e. This stuff can kill you."
"Roman marriag were sometimes held by Spelt Cake Ceremony, you eat a piece of spelt cake and your married for live." (I find this one a very powerful warning.)
"Minerva was the daughter of Jupiter. It is said that he sprained from her head."
"Roads were paved & runts were made by wagons."
"Venus was discovered in the ocean wearing a foam dress."

‘Morning, Peggy, and happy Sunday to you. Kind regards to your DH and skritches for the fur babies.

Congrats on yesterday’s 3. I barely scraped by with a 6 today but saved my streak.

I absolutely love the 2011 student quotes.

Good morning, (((((Karen))))). Happy Sunday right back to you and kind regards to Bill. Chuck your kitties under their chins for me - and Bill's too if he likes it.

Whew for your streak! I don't know whether I'm getting 3 karma to repay me for all those recent 5s and 6s or whether the balancing is yet to come.
Wordle 1,632 3/6*

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FEMINISM

Feminism is far, far from dead, but it is true that the movement has lost some of its zip. It was breezing along fine there for a while, with everyone all optimistic and fervent and charging around opening daycare centers, but things have undoubtedly slackened. Women seem scared and don't know where to look for guidance, since it seems as if all the leaders of the feminist movement have retreated into their individual lairs, emerging only at infrequent intervals to snarl. Very upsetting. but we mustn't blame our erstwhile leaders. They're tired. They've been slogging away for years and are sick of being called strident bull-dykes. Who can blame them for being out of sorts?
~ Cynthia Heimel, 1983

Nobody can argue any longer about the rights of women. It's llke arguing about earthquakes.
~ Lillian Hellman (Attrib.)

Maybe more later.....

>38 LizzieD: "Minerva was the daughter of Jupiter. It is said that he sprained from her head."

Welp, that one sure'nuff fits like a glove.

Sunday orisons, me lurve.

'Morning, Peggy! Happiest of Mondays to you.

Brava for Wordle in 3! It took me 4 today.

My dance card has steroid shots for back pain, grocery store, pharmacym reading, puttering, and etc.

Good morning, Karen and Richard!!! I wish you both a good Monday which sets you up for a good rest of the week.

I hope the steroid shots do the work again, Karen. I'm still having side-of-knee ache, which may or may not come from my back. I certainly fell hard on that knee once, and the weather seems to make everything worse. Friday night I tried 2 slow release Tylenol and had vivid, weird dreams. If the knee doesn't bother me during the day, I'll try not to take anything or 1 regular Tylenol at most. I believe that I still feel it doesn't have to be this way makes it take up a lot of focus and energy.

We are 4 sisters today, Karen. I don't know that I would have gotten it in 3 if I had paid more attention, but #2 was a stupid guess. I hate to do that.
Wordle 1,633 4/6*

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*smooch*, my WBL!

POLITICS - INSULTS

When they circumcised Herbert Samuel, they threw away the wrong bit.
~ David Lloyd George

Sir Alec Douglas0Home, when he was a British Foreign Secretary, said he received the following telegram from an irate citizen: 'To hell with you. Offensive letter follows.'
~ William Safire

... when political ammunition runs low, inevitably the rusty artillery of abuse is always wheeled into action.
~~ Adlai Stevenson

POWER

A friend in power is a friend lost.
~ Henry Adams

It is certainly more agreeable to have power to give than to receive.
~ Winston Churchill

Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
~ Henry Kissinger

Power corrupts, but lack of power corrupts absolutely.
~ Adlai Stevenson

>43 LizzieD: ... when political ammunition runs low, inevitably the rusty artillery of abuse is always wheeled into action.
~ Adlai Stevenson

I still get dizzy when I think of how the 1950s would've turned out with him at the helm.

‘Morning, Peggy. Have a wonderful Tuesday!

The steroid shots are a miracle. It’s night and day between yesterday pre-shots and this morning.

Tylenol gives you vivid, weird dreams? Oh my. I’m sorry about that. If I didn’t have Tylenol, I’d be in trouble. However, last week my GP gave me a prescription for Tramadol again because he and my cardiologist are really serious about me not taking NSAIDs. I don’t need pain meds so much right now, but it’s nice to have them in reserve.

Congrats on yesterday’s 4. I got it in 4 again today.

That David Lloyd George insult is fantastic. Not that I particularly want to think about the idiot in chief’s dangly bits, but was he circumcised? And can we therefore state that the wrong bit was thrown away, too?

Interesting twist on Lord Acton’s quote for Adlai Stevenson’s version.

The Library's on a delayed opening today because of the possibility of ice, but I'm still going to go to book sort and Virlie's. I'm assuming my cleaning ladies are coming, haven't heard otherwise.

>37 richardderus: Grass is the only one of Tepper's books that I have read thus far. I really would like to get to more of her work.

Checking in and wishing you a terrific Tuesday!

Hi, Stasia, Karen, and Richard! We're off to F'ville for a dental follow-up for my DH. Back after while to speak better!

Wordle 1,634 4/6*

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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 learn, stone, snipe, snide My rule seems to be "Given a choice of two, choose the wrong word."

(((((Peggy))))) I hope the dental follow-up trip for your DH went well.

Congrats on your 4, I got it in 3 today.

Today's a vet visit for Zoe - her annual exam. We're keeping the kitty door locked, although both Trevor AND an HVAC guy are coming over today. Figures.

The dental appointment was in and out; check-out took longer since he's to go back in a year for a final check, thank you, Karen. I'd have been thrilled with Wordle in 3 today, so congrats to you! ---but look!
Wordle 1,635 2/6*

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Stasia, I'm afraid that I'll find a lot of Tepper too long, especially my second and third tier books, but I hope to be mistaken. I enjoyed the other two in the *Grass* trilogy, but they weren't as good as the first one and only tangentially related to it. I hope to reread some Tepper too, and read the ones I've been hoarding like The Awakeners or the follow-ups of Plague of Angels, which was definitely second tier for me.

So far, Karen, it's only been 2 extended release that did it, and it's a noted if not common reaction. My hometown sister/friend Suze has the same reaction. I haven't taken anything for the past two nights and really can't tell a lot of difference in ache level or sleep patterns.
HOORAY FOR THE STEROIDS!!!!!!!!!!

Karen and Richard, Stevenson was truly a missed opportunity for the nation. I believe we would have been a lot better off going into the present day if we had elected him.

I'm thrilled to be getting into The Wizard's Cat, dedicated to me and the rest of his following, who have checked for it regularly for at least a year. Roni spotted it first. It is, of course, an urban fantasy, sequel to The Wizard's Butler which I reread at least once while waiting.

TELEVISION

Photography is going to marry Miss Wireless, and heaven help everybody when they get married. Life will be very complicated.
~ Marcus Adams, 1925

Television is the first truly democratic culture - the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what the people do want.
~ Clive Barnes, 1969

I've been in this business a long time. I was on television when it was radio. When I started people thought television was impossible, and a lot of them still do.
~ Milton Berle

Time has convinced me of one thing. Television is for appearing on, not looking at.
~ Noel Coward

It is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.
~ T.S. Eliot

>49 LizzieD: I am not sure when I will get back to Tepper, TBH, Peggy as I have about a billion things to get to before that (I am sure it is not a billion, but sometimes it feels that way!)

I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday, Peggy!

‘Morning, Peggy!

>49 LizzieD: Wordle in two. I am impressed. Congrats.

TV – my mom called it The Idiot Box, and she’s not wrong.

Another sort-of busy day. Massage, Walgreens.

Wordle took me 4 today, but I'm happy with my result.

>49 LizzieD: Photography is going to marry Miss Wireless, and heaven help everybody when they get married. Life will be very complicated.
~ Marcus Adams, 1925

I'd like to go back to tell him how right he was.

Happy Thursdaying, Peggy me lurve.

Happy to be here at last and find you before me, Richard, Karen, and Stasia!!!

I've had a mixed day - first a celebration of life for our neighbor who died a couple of weeks ago. I had to leave early to get to my only Christmas party in time - a luncheon for the study club. It was great! I enjoy the women no matter where I sit, and the food was yummy. Our program was presented by the son of a member, who got his PhD in underwater archaeology from Oxford. He had great slides and a couple of short videos. His master's project was a steamer on Lake Waccamaw at the turn of the last century. He found the boathouse and derelict remains of the Bahama Queen, and was able to determine that the wheel was in the bow of the boat and the links back to the stern's rudder, etc. That was fun because it is almost local. Then he worked on bringing up cannons, anchors, and other artifacts from Queen Anne's Revenge, Blackbeard/Edward Teach's flagship from Beaufort Inlet on the coast of NC in the early 18th century. He was skilled in using power tools by the time he worked on that project, and that skill got him into Oxford's Maritime Archaeology program in which he was able to work on the ruins of Heracleion in the Mediterranean north of Alexandria. His team worked on clearing and surveying a wrecked ship. That was my cup of tea with a hot, buttered scone. He hopes to be able to investigate downed WWII bombers in the South Pacific, which will also grab me since my daddy flew a B-24 in the Pacific Theater.
Incidentally, I put a daily deal on my Kindle the other day, Wild Blue in which the author presents his research on the B-24s' activity in Europe, using George McGovern's crew and their experiences with the plane. The first couple of pages describing the plane itself gave me chills. I knew it took a man with a lot of muscle to fly the thing, but I had no idea how primitive the conditions were. I'll hope to read the book soon!

Wordle 1,636 4/6*

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Hi Peggy!

What is the name of the man who got his degree in underwater archaeology? The reason I ask is that I know Linda F. Carnes-McNaughton, one of the authors ofBlackbeard's Sunken Prize: The 300-Year Voyage of Queen Anne's Revenge. She's the wife of one of my fellow book sorters, Kirk McNaughton.

He's Matthew Thompson, Karen. His business is Thompson Maritime Consultants. I won't see him again - or his mother - until this time next month, and I doubt that his mom would know her. That's cool though!

'Morning, Peggy! Happy Friday to you.

Thanks re Matthew Thompson of Thompson Maritime Consultants. I just fetched the book, but neither he nor his company are mentioned in the index, although I should look at the pages that mention cannons/anchors/etc. to see if there's a throwaway line.

Wordle in 3, only green today, Wordle Sister. Congrats on your 4 of yesterday.

Mammogram and visit with friend Jan at Taziki's on the schedule for today. Trevor will be here, too.

Checking in on you, Peggy! I hope you have a super Saturday. I will be reading chapter 15 in Wellington: The Years of the Sword today if all goes well. Kerry is off to visit Felisha and her family for the next couple of days.

>45 karenmarie: Herbert Samuel was the first Jew to be in the British Cabinet, so yeah, he was circumcised.

>58 ffortsa: That's a fact I didn't have, Judy. I don't know much about Lloyd George either.

I knew you'd catch me, Stasia. I'm finishing chapter 15 today, I hope. I've realized that I am going to have to hustle to get my 6 remaining of 75 by the end of the month. I hope that one of them may be *Well.*, but at this point, I'm not sure. Safe travel to Kerry with a wish for a good visit with Felisha and family.

Hope you're enjoying most of your day, Karen! I guess I'm sorry that Dr. Thompson didn't appear in the book. He was special in the recovery, or so it seemed to me, because his use of power tools let him free 5 cannons and beaucoups of cannon balls when a worker without one might spend days at least on just one cannon.

Whee! We're 3 Sisters again!!!! We were without Internet this morning for 'required maintenance' in the area. I'm glad to be back.
Wordle 1,637 3/6*

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LOVE

Love... the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock.
~ John Barrymore (Attrib.)

Love is like the measles - all the worse when it comes late in life.
~ Douglas Jerrold

He gave her a look you could have poured on a waffle.
~ Ring Lardner

Pride - that's a luxury a woman in love can't afford.
~ Clare Boothe Luce

Love is only the dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.
~ W. Somerset Maugham

Love is based on a view of women that is impossible to those who have had any experience of them.
~ H.L. Mencken

To fall in love you have to be in the state of mind for it to take, like a disease.
~ Nancy Mitford

Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it, and it darts away.
~ Dorothy Parker (Attrib._

>59 LizzieD: Love is like the measles - all the worse when it comes late in life.
~ Douglas Jerrold
+10000000000000000000001

Oh well, I suppose it's an old person's fault for being a fool after a lifetime of warnings given by experience.

*sigh*

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Saturday.

>59 LizzieD: I like the Mitford quote. Timing, after all, is everything.

Congrats on yesterday’s 3 – took me 4 today.

Good afternoon already, Karen! I get lazier and lazier, and unable to get up when the room is not as warm as bed is. Then there was changing the sheets and chopping things for the omelet and grinding the coffee beans, etc. Typical Saturday!

I don't know how I avoided the LOVE quotations this long. I have quite a few more to check out and copy or not.
Mitford knew.

Richard, oh yes. That is the first reason that I fell in love with Horace, my choice among the big 3 Roman poets.... Venus in the reign of Cynara, and he was only 50! *smooch*

Karen, we are 4 Sisters again. I puts um down as they comes to me, and today it was 4.
Wordle 1,638 4/6*

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LOVE

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea.
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.
~ Dorothy Parker

Scratch a lover and find a foe.
~ Dorothy Parker

Love is not the dying moan of a distant violin - it is the triumphant twang of a bedspring.
~ S.J. Perelman (Attrib.)

I can see from your utter misery, from your eagerness to misunderstand each other, and from your thoroughly bad temper, that this is the real thing.
~ Peter Ustinov

I can understand companionship. I can understand bought sex in the afternoon. I cannot understand the love affair.
~ Gore Vidal

Love is much nicer to be in than an automobile accident, a tight girdle, a higher tax bracket or a holding pattern over Philadelphia.
~ Judith Viorst

THE WIZARD'S CAT by Nathan Lowell

This one is so much fun! It doesn't have quite the freshness of *Butler* because it's the second book, and we know all but one of the characters. On the other hand, it doesn't have anything like the several pages of installing a computer network in the Shackleford House either, so that's a bonus. The Wizard in Danger section isn't as exciting either. That's really OK with me since that was my least favorite part of *Butler*.

Read The Wizard's Butler first. If you enjoy it, move on!! NATHAN LOWELL, DON'T MAKE US WAIT FIVE YEARS FOR BOOK 3!!!

HOWARD'S END by E.M. Forster

I have things to say about this book, but I don't have time or inclination right now to order them so that I can say them.

The streak continues, not with genius, but it continues.
Wordle 1,639 5/6*

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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 learn, since, sniff, sling, swing

Off to walk before it gets really cold!

>62 LizzieD: I can understand companionship. I can understand bought sex in the afternoon. I cannot understand the love affair.
~ Gore Vidal

Methinks the old queen protesteth too much....

*smooch*

Good morning, Peggy! Your temps aren’t much better than ours. Brrrr.

Congrats on your 5 yesterday. It took me 5 today, with a stupid mistake in the second word. I repeated a yellow.

I have Things To Do Today, of course, but hope to get a bit of reading in anyway.

Good morning, just barely, Karen! So cold! Poor creatures who have to endure outside!

We're 5 sisters today. Sorry about that but relieved to still have a streak of sorts. My mistakes were all genuine and not careless.

Wordle 1,640 5/6*

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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 learn, stout, comic, doggy, dodgy Bah!

Ah, Richard..... I gleefully watched Cavett take enough of Vidal and say, "Perhaps you'd like two more chairs to contain your giant intellect," followed by "....fold it five ways and stick it where the sun don't shine." Who says there wasn't memorable TV?

INTELLECTUALS (I think I've done these before, but I don't remember most of them.)

Lord Birkenhead is very clever, but sometimes his brains go to his head.
~ Margot Asquith

To the man-in-the-street, who, I'm sorry to say,
Is a keen observer of life,
The word "intellectual" suggests straight away
A man who's untrue to his wife.
~ W.H. Auden

To be honest, what I feel really bad about is that I don't feel worse. That is the intellectual's problem in a nutshell.
~ Michael Frayn

Everyone agreed that Clevinger was certain to go far in the academic world. In short, Clevinger was one of those people with lots of intelligence and no brains, and everyone knew it except those who soon found it out.
In short, he was a dope.
~ Joseph Heller

The learned are seldom pretty fellows, and in many cases their appearance tends to discourage a love of study in the young.
~ H.L. Mencken

People who refer to themselves as intellectuals are automatically committing a social crime and, also, usually an error.
~ Tracy Young

>67 LizzieD: I join you and Karen as 5 sisters today. Your "Bah!" expresses my sentiments exactly. And we had the same last 2 words again.

Hi, Irene! When I use this starter, it's only one letter different from yours, so I'm not surprised that our two great minds work down to the same last two words.

I continue to be of two minds about reading short books to get to 75 by the end of the year. I'm currently rereading a Shirley McClintock mystery that I had almost completely forgotten. I was thrilled to find her in 1997 when I was not hearing people who said what I was thinking about things in general. It's sad that those things are still mostly true. (I just read and won't go back for the exact quotation from an older woman who said that in the 50s, if you said anything about justice, people thought you were a commie. Now (1994) they think you're black, feminist, or gay.)

A copy of the 3 Tepper fantasies in an omnibus edition of The True Game arrived today. Amazon says that I bought a copy in 2010. I looked and looked and couldn't find it. Now I'm pretty sure that it was lost or canceled, and that I just didn't order it again until last week. Another entry in my Tepper collection, which is very close to complete.

>69 LizzieD: Actually, your current starter word has only 3 letters in common with mine. Your previous starter was an anagram of mine, so I wasn't that surprised when we went down similar Wordle paths. But the order of the letters in your current one is different enough from mine that it does surprise me. Especially at the 4-5 level guess.

ETA: I should also note that my 2nd and 3rd words were nothing like yours, so it's interesting to me how we both came to the same last two guesses.

You're right. I realized an hour or so ago that I was wrong. Better luck to us tomorrow! (I doubt that my 2nd and 3rd guesses would have occurred to anybody with half a brain. I used to ignore words with a letter used twice; now I can't think of anything else.)

>71 LizzieD: Words with letters used twice are tricky in Wordle. I used to ignore them too. Now, if I think of them, I'm afraid of using them too soon, because I want to find or eliminate more letters, and using a double letter sort of defeats that purpose.

>69 LizzieD: Enjoy the tepper!

‘Morning, Peggy! Brrrr again. Wishing you a lovely day.

I’ll jinx it, but I have surpassed my 143 day streak and am now at 128 days without a skunk.

I still occasionally watch Cavett’s interview with Janis Joplin. I need to look up the Vidal.

Book sort and Virlie's this morning, then Christmas cards.

Good morning - it still is - Karen, Irene, and Susan! All of you be more productive than I will be and enjoy your day!

Susan, if I decide to read short ones until the end of the year no matter how loudly the long ones are calling, I'll certainly read at least King's Blood Four. Or should I read the first *Maven Manyshape*? Hmmm.

Don't jinx yourself, Karen. Just keep streaking! Irene, you're right about the repeated letters, but today it worked for me although I guess using a word with for the third guess isn't really too soon, and today it worked. Anyway, I was happy to see a 4 again.
Wordle 1,641 4/6*

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ARGUMENT

Keep your temper. Do not quarrel with an angry person, but give him a soft answer. It is commanded by the Holy Writ and, furthermore, it makes him madder than anything else you could say.
~ Anon.

When people are least sure, they are often most dogmatic.
~ J.K. Galbraith

'Shut up,' he explained.
~ Ring Lardner

We might as well give up the fiction
That we can argue any view.
For what in me is pure Conviction
Is simple Prejudice in you.
~ Phyllis McGinley

My sad conviction is that people can only agree about what they're not really interested in.
~ Bertrand Russell

Consistency is a paste jewel that only cheap men cherish.
~ William Allen White

He knew the precise psychological moment when to say nothing.
~ Oscar Wilde

I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unreasonable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.
~ Oscar Wilde

I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar, and often convincing.
~ Oscar Wilde

I like talking to a brick wall, it's the only thing in the world that never contradicts me.
~ Oscar Wilde

(I love the Ring Lardner quote, but I always thought it was she explained and that she was Mae West.)

>75 LizzieD: 'Shut up,' he explained.
~ Ring Lardner

I thought it was Mae West, too, Peggy, so was initially bumfuzzled. Of course, it's Lardner, that huge cultural force who was read by literally everyone. He would've been well enough known to influence the country's conversation. That's how it got mixed in with Mae West.

>75 LizzieD: King’s Blood Four Even though the Maven Manyshaped stories take place earlier in the timeline, I think the introduction to the world works best from KBF.

>75 LizzieD: I have no problem reading short books to get to 75, because I frequently read long ones that mess up my count. Having just read Germinal, I'll catch up on my mysteries for a week or so. Although, I'm listening to an Archer Mayer one now, and it's not that short.

You're right, Judy. I had read one more than I thought, so I'm back on track to reread short and sweet to 75. I certainly read my share of tombstone tomes this year; I'd just rather be reading something else.

Thanks, Susan. I hadn't taken the time to figure it out. I just got the # books in an omnibus as I said. I have Mavin in 3 old mass pbs and since I had started *Song of MM*, I might go ahead and read it. Then I have another omnibus of the Jinian stories. (I see from the prices of the individual pbs that I should hold on to them.)

Ah, Richard. I'm glad there are 2 of us thinking that was Mae West. It certainly sounds just like her!

Wordle 1,642 3/6*

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CULTURE

One of the basic freedoms of the Englishman is freedom from culture.
~ Lord Goodman, chairman of the Arts Council, 1967

Culture is roughly anything we do and the monkeys don't.
~ Lord Raglan (Attrib.)

Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet it alone.
~ Edith Wharton

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

>79 LizzieD: Wordle in 3 for me too today. I put in the first word I thought of for my second guess, and surprisingly got almost all the way there. Today I paid for not liking double letters.

It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.
~ H.L. Mencken (Attrib.)
Unfortunately all too true these days.

>79 LizzieD: Yes, those paperbacks are rare.

>79 LizzieD: Cynicism - the intellectual cripple's substitute for intelligence.
~ Russell Lynes

My brain's still one-crutching in so I'll have to wait to respond to that. xo

'Morning, Peggy! I thought I posted over here yesterday, but apparently got diverted. I hope you have a wonderful day.

Congrats on your 4 and 3. I got Wordle in 2 today.

I need to get friend Karen's box o'books, including book I need to wrap, Tiny Nature then schlep it and 3 other boxes to the PO.

Reading and puttering and relaxing to reward myself for yesterday's busyness.

Good afternoon, Karen, Richard, Susan, and Irene! I am trying not to do anything today but walk some and make spaghetti sauce and read. I walked too much yesterday, I guess, and didn't have a good night. I need to text Brownie to see whether I can still support doing ibuprofen 3X3X3 to ease my back (whence comes the leg pain) back into its usual OKness.
I'm currently rereading a Mary McMullen mystery, which I tend to do to make it to 75 by the end of the year. I found one that I had skipped when I initially entered everything here. I always enjoy one or two MMs, but most of them follow a formula for the romance interest. It's a formula I like, but one or two are enough even though the mysteries are well plotted.

I hope you're already back from your PO run and tucked into house in jammies, Karen. CONGRATS on Wordle in 2 today. (See below)

Oh, Richard. Your brain on one crutch is better than mine strutting around unfettered except by encroaching age. *smooch*

Hmm. I'll have to check to see whether I put any on pbs, Susan, and take the offer back. My Mavins are in pretty good shape, but 9 and 11 are ratty, and I can't remember about the Jinian 2 that I have. I'm happy to have gotten most of the rest as they came out, and I think I may have everything she wrote except maybe an E.E. Horlak horror novel.

I guess that's always been true as far as it goes, Irene. We just see it more immediately and forcefully these days.

Wordle 1,643 4/6*

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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 roast, ruled, runny, rugby Oh! I rarely get only green and white patterns.

FOREIGNERS

Foreigners have a very roundabout and confused way of saying things. Here's how I cope. I am in a restaurant, and I want a piece of the delicious chocolate cake I see displayed on a shelf., 'Personality who bringulates les munchables,' I call, summoning the waiter. When he arrives, I give my order. 'If it does you please, transportez (trans-por-TAY) to moi's tablette one gigantical smithereeni de that chocolate cakefication avec as immense a velocité (vee-luss-ee-TAY) as possible.' And there you are!
~ Miss Piggy

PSYCHIATRY

Psychiatry - the care of the id by the odd.
~ Anon.

You go to a psychiatrist when you're slightly cracked and keep going until you're completely broke.
~ Anon.

A psychiatrist is the next man you start talking to after you start talking to yourself.
~ Fred Allen

Anybody who goes to see a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.
~ Samuel Goldwyn (Attrib.)

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Friday to you.

I hope you had a better night last night than the one before and hope Brownie gives you the go-ahead on continuing 3X3X3 ibuprophen.

The PO and other errands went well.

Congrats on your all-green Wordle of 4 yesterday. Took me 4 today.

Trevor, reading, and puttering are on the schedule for today.

>84 LizzieD: Psychiatry - the care of the id by the odd.
~ Anon.

mmm hmm

Tell me, how does that make you feel?

Heh heh heh, Richard. I'm odder than iddy, I think. You?

Afternoon, Karen! My eyes are shot and still fuzzy but clearer after a nap. I' not seeing here very well, so I expect I'll go without trying more for awhile. No reading yet unless it's on the Kindle with font set at 6 or higher --- but I'm not reading anything on the Kindle in my push for 75.

I cheated to get Wordle in 3 after trying at least 5 minutes for a good 3 guess.
Wordle 1,644 3/6*

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'Morning, Peggy! I hope your eyes are clear and that you can read today.

There's nothing pressing, but I do have one present to wrap for Bill. There will be 2, maybe 3 presents under the tree, unlike many years where there have been dozens. Sigh.

It's gorgeous here, 30F.

Congrats on your 3 - I got it in 3 today.

>87 LizzieD: I live among ids on legs. You're definitely odd not I'd, me lurve!

*smooch*

Oh, Richard! I do admire your way with words~~~ *GRIN* *smooch*

My eyes are clear and the goop has been melted and sent away. Everything is good. I've been reading some Cherryh, and everything is good here, as I said. I think it bears repeating!
We are 3 Sisters again. Hooray!

Wordle 1,645 3/6*

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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 roast, title, white I was surprised to see that neither #2 nor #3 was on the used word list!

A DANGEROUS FUNERAL by Mary McMullen

In the years that I'm very close to the 75 goal, I generally pick up a Mary McMullen mystery. (I think she wrote only stand-alones.) I know that I'm going to find a good plot and usually, a taste of romance. The romance is generally formulaic, but I like the formula every couple of years or so. The thing I really enjoy is the general ambiance of elegance. She wrote in the 70s and 80s, but her books feel like the 50s to me - the quietly, moneyed 50s.

In this one Kate Converse, an infant when her parents were killed and adopted by her father's best friend, has gone with her Converse family to the wake and funeral of the family patriarch at his house on Cape Cod. Uncle Phip was a dear as well as being the richest of his brothers. Their mourning is blasted when his cook/housekeeper tells the family that Phip was going to marry her, and one of them killed him to prevent the wedding.

>63 LizzieD: I need to finish the Ish series before I get to more Nathan Lowell!

I hope the eyes are doing OK today!

>90 LizzieD: I hate the arrogant autocorrect. "Id" is a word, stupid machine, not a contraction.

Looking forward to your words regarding McMullen. *smooch*

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Sunday.

>90 LizzieD: Congrats on your three. I got today's in four.

It’s official – I have absolutely nothing that has to get done. Except, of course, reading. Wonders never cease.

WHERE IS MY POST THAT WAS HERE WHEN I LEFT???? I thought it was here.

I spoke with joy at the presence of all 3 of you, Karen, Richard, and Stasia. I can't do it again now. AND I posted some quotations about - something....

Wordle 1,646 4/6*

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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 roast, solid, guilt quilt

I'll do better tomorrow, I hope.

>94 LizzieD: Maddening, that vanishing-post syndrome. I hate composing an entire sestina of graceful prose, then *pop*...vanishes into Urania's smirking maw. *sigh*

Better Monday than that, Peggy! *smooch*

>94 LizzieD: Seems like my posts disappear into the LT ether every now and again too, Peggy, so you are not the only one it happens to. . .

Have a marvelous Monday!

'Morning, Peggy! I hope you have a wonderful day.

I'm so sorry your post got lost. I've had that happen, and not wanting to recreate it is completely understandable.

It's a gorgeous day here, 34F right now.

Wordle also took me 4 yesterday. I guessed your 3rd word, too, before hitting on the right one.

Today's effort took me 4.

Stuff, reading, and Trevor coming over are on today's agenda. Possibly a grocery store run.

I'm trying again.....

Karen, I should have had 4 today too, but I missed my 4th guess when I looked at the used word list; when I looked back, there it was. Oh well. I was astonished when my third guess flipped. Enjoy your day! I should do a last grocery run to Aldi, but I suspect that I won't.

Hi, Stasia. It's possible, I guess that I didn't post it before I went back to write my comments about my McMullen mystery, but I don't think so. Marvy Monday right back to you!

Many thanks, my WBL! A sestina??? From one who doesn't care to read poetry? No graceful prose here either, but I'll keep my eyes peeled your way. *smooch*

Wordle 1,647 5/6*

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 learn, stony, gonif, condo, conch Oh well. I think I even remember when #4 was The Word.

GERMANY AND THE GERMANS (with apologies to my unknown and unconfirmed German great-grandfather)

... German - a language --- which was developed solely to afford the speaker the opportunity to spit at strangers under the guise of polite conversation.
~ The National Lampoon Encyclopaedia of Humor, 1973

They are a fine people but quick to catch the disease of anti-humanity. I think it's because of their poor elimination. Germany is a headquarters for constipation.
~ George Grosz

The Germans are like women, you can scarcely ever fathom their depths - they haven't any.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

German is the most extravagantly ugly language. It sounds like someone using a sick-bag on a 747.
~ William Rushton

A verb has a hard time enough of it in this world when it's all together. It's downright inhuman to split it up. But that's just what those Germans do. They take part of a verb and put it down here, like a stake, and they take the other part of it and put it away over yonder like another stake, and between those two limits they just shovel in German.
~ Mark Twain

Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.
~ Mark Twain

The German people are an orderly, vain, deeply sentimental and rather insensitive people. They seem to feel at their best when they are singing in chorus, saluting or obeying orders.
~ H.G. Wells

>94 LizzieD: Peggy, I'm sorry your post went missing. But the same thing happened to me just a few days ago, although I knew it at the time. I clicked Post on something I'd just written, and it completely disappeared into the either. Reloading the page didn't help. I just had to rewrite my post. Fortunately it was a short one. (And I know what a pain it is if you lose a long one. Those are usually too much trouble to rewrite.)

Wordle in 4 for me too on Sunday. And I had the same last two words as both you and Karen, so we really were Wordle sisters. I thought of both words and debated which one to go with at 3. Picked the wrong one. Wordle in 5 today. I remembered that condo had been used, though I wanted to try it at one point. But I had eliminated the D too. I got frustrated today and wound up checking lists by 4 and 5.

>98 LizzieD: I don't much care for most of those quotes about Germans, except the Twain ones. Twain is right. The hardest thing about trying to actually speak German are those split verbs.

We're getting ready to leave town to visit my DH's family, and I won't be back until after the holidays. I will likely be offline, so I'll go ahead and wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year now. I hope you and your husband have a great holiday season!

A very, very Merry Christmas to you and your husband too, Irene, with safe travel and a lot of family love for the holiday! Happy New Year too!!!!!

CUCKOO'S EGG by C.J. Cherryh

A legitimate book to have read in my scramble to get to 75 - a first timer, and probably the earliest Cherryh I've ever read. Another word or two about it tomorrow.

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy Tuesday to you.

>98 LizzieD: Congrats on 5? Dare I mention my 2? The first word I thought of had been used, so I found the only other word that had the last 4 that I had thought about. It hadn’t been used, so I seem to have been channeling the Wordle Gods.

Those quotes about Germans are cynical, and, remembering WWI and WWII, mostly true. However, some of the best coffee and desserts I’ve ever had were in West Germany in 1979.

Book sort and Virlie's, picking up a prescription and cash, cleaning ladies, grocery shopping and reading are on my schedule for today.

Good morning, Karen (and probably tomorrow morning before you get here again)! PLEASE mention your 2! In fact, shout it to the hills!!!! CONGRATULATIONS! I didn't even check my second guess, but I was happy to see #3 as the word itself.

Germans don't come off very well at the hands of the Penguin editors. I was caught in the memory of my dearly loved HS Latin and French teacher. We were warned not to sit in the first row in her class for when she started speaking German. I found German from the lips of my Swiss friend and Czech exchange student to be quite charming. I had a semester in college and liked it. And - as I said - the only clue to my grandmother's father was that he was a Setzer, a German name if I ever heard one, and sure enough, I have some German in my DNA. AND we have most charming Nathalie whom we know NOT to be orderly, vain, deeply sentimental and rather insensitive .... well, she may be orderly. Everybody is compared to me. (I hope that Irene reads this too.)
Wordle 1,648 3/6*

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 roast, flint, glint Hmmm. Had I only checked, I might have had it in 2 too.

Dear WBL, take care, take care!!
For book 74 I found Jeoffry: The Poet's Cat on my Kindle. I love the Jeoffrey section in Carl Orff's setting of the huge Christopher Smart poem, Rejoice in the Lamb. Smart was institutionalized as insane, but Dr. Johnson apparently thought this was unjust. I remembered the first half of this comment when somebody asked him how Smart was faring: "He insisted on people praying with him {kneeling in the street}; and I’d as lief pray with Kit Smart as any one else. Another charge was, that he did not love clean linen; and I have no passion for it.”
So far, I charmed.

POETS AND POETRY

I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I couldn't say.
~ Jean Cocteau

A true sonnet goes eight lines and then takes a turn for the better or worse and goes six or eight lines more.
~ Robert Frost

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

There is no money in poetry; but then there is no poetry in money, either.
~ Robert Graves

It's hard to say why writing verse
Should terminate in drink or worst.
~ A.P. Herbert

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

>102 LizzieD: 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

*snort*

I wish you a happy Yule, Peggy me lurve! *smooch*

...and as y'all celebrate don't forget:

‘Morning, dearest Peggy!

>102 LizzieD: Well, you know me very well since it’s ‘tomorrow morning’.

Friend Haika and I were on a train to Portugal in 1979, using our first-class Eurail passes. A prosperous-looking German couple thought they were safe speaking German but didn’t realize Haika was born in Germany and fluent. We had a good time speaking English, which they didn’t understand. They were quite vicious about American girls in jeans!

On the other hand, I am a fluent reader of German but not for understanding. I know the rules, and Haika complimented me on my German as I read from one of her books on the train to and from Portugal.

Given my dislike of free verse, I love the Robert Frost simile.

Good morning! Good Christmas Eve, dear Karen and dear Richard!!! I need to get cooking, so I won't load quotes today.

I'm sorry about the German rudeness. Did you insult them back in English????

Wordle 1,649 3/6*

🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟨🟨🟩⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 learn, plots, spool I don't think I've ever used a plural as a second guess, but it worked really well this time.

I'm about to make the stuff that won't add calories, WBL. Thank you for the reminder. *grin* and *smooch*

Happy Christmas, Peggy, to you and yours!

Merry Christmas, Peggy!

Merry Christmas, Peggy!

>106 LizzieD: I think we made fun of them in English, but I don't recall insulting them.

It's way too early to be up, but here I am.

Wordle in 3 for me today.

And here I am, way too late!

Thank you for Christmas wishes, Karen, Susan, and Jackie! It's been a very quiet one - unusually so. I hope that you are all celebrating with joy!

That's my wish for all of you 75ers - that whatever you're celebrating here at year's end is joyful!

Karen, I love you for the decent human being that you have always been! We are 3 Sisters for Christmas!!!
Wordle 1,650 3/6*

🟨⬜⬜🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 roast, prise, prism What luck!

Merry Christmas, Peggy! I hope you have had a wonderful day!!

Have a lovely festive season, Peggy

>110 LizzieD: It's never too late.

Boxing day *smooch*

‘Morning, Peggy! Happy second day of Christmas to you! (second, right?)

Congrats on yesterday’s Wordle in 3. It took me 4 today, but only because of the two logical answers I chose the wrong one.

Today will be quiet and recovery from yesterday's festivities.

Many thanks for Christmas and holiday wishes, Karen, Richard, Paul, and Stasia! It is the second day of Christmas and St. Stephen's Day and Boxing Day, so I send good wishes to all who celebrate it and a return of season's greetings to you, Paul!!!

It is also our wedding anniversary, #55. As I've grown fond of saying, I think that this marriage is going to last. We don't neglect ourselves!

Wordle 1,651 4/6*

⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟩🟨
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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 learn, tomes, sheep, speed I feel your pain, Karen.

>115 LizzieD: Many congratulations on your wedding anniversary, Peggy! It's a great time of year to get married (our anniversary is this coming Monday, the 29th. It'll be 18 years for us). I hope you have lovely memories of your big day 55 years ago, and make more memories today!

By the way, there's a new place to hang out! Come join me... https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/25017/75-Books-Challenge-for-2026

Thank you, Jackie! Congratulations on your first 18 years coming up on Monday!!!!
We enjoyed a quiet, normal day - always an occasion for thanks for two old introverts~

Thanks, Jim. I've joined, but I won't move in until the new year.

Wordle 1,652 5/6*

⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 roast, fatal, natty, match, batch 4? 5? Who cares?

Merry third day of christmas, Peggy me lurve! *smooch*

'Morning, Peggy! I hope you have a wonderful day. Kind regards to your DH and many skritches to the feline contingent.

Wordle in 5 for me today. Congrats on your 5 of yesterday and 4 of the day before.

It will be a quiet one here, although Jenna and Hwan are supposed to call in a while to give me a Rice Cooker 101 lesson.

Happy Third Day of Christmas for sure, Dear Karen and Richard! It is that. Our 10th grade 'preacher' preached this morning, so we were out in about 40 minutes. We did get to sing two carols, a thing for which I'm grateful. At least somebody knows it's still Christmas.

We're about to walk, but I've had time to Wordle and Connect. Always glad not to be skunked, Karen. I'm happy with the 4; a 5 is more usual for me than for you.
Wordle 1,653 4/6*

⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨⬜🟩
🟩⬜🟨⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 learn, toast, adopt, abbot #2 was dim, but I did at least rid myself of a common consonant. Oh well.

THE ARMY (I opened the book here, and I'm running out of topics.)

Colonel Cathcart had courage and never hesitated to volunteer his men for any target available.
~ Joseph Heller Catch-22 (That's a good catch.)

Einstein once said that any man who liked marching had been given his brain for nothing: Just the spinal column would have done. But I wasn't Einstein. Since most of one's time in the army is wasted anyway, I preferred to waste it by moving about in a precise manner.
~ Clive James

It's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an'
'Chuck 'im out, the brute!'
But it's 'Saviour of 'is country' when the
guns begin to shoot.
~ Rudyard Kipliing, 'Tommy'

When I first went into the active Army, you could tell someone to move a chair across the room - and now you have to tell him why.
~ Major Robert Lembke

When the military man approaches, the world locks up its spoons and packs off its womankind.
~ George Bernard Shaw

>121 LizzieD: Colonel Cathcart had courage and never hesitated to volunteer his men for any target available.
~ Joseph Heller Catch-22 (That's a good catch.)

A time now, thankfully, passing...now it's drones, missiles, satellites....

Sunday orisons, Peggy me lurve.

Right back to you, my WBL! May it be so!!!

PENRIC'S FOX by Lois McMaster Bujold

This is it. 75 read for the year with three days to spare. I have cured myself this month of caring about that arbitrary number. I either read more slowly or choose longer books than I did in 2010 when I joined the 75 Challenge, probably the former. Then I sailed past the magic number with no problem. Now I'm going to start monsters and read as many at a time as I want. So there.

Bujold is always a joy to read. I tend to want more Des, but Bujold does what she needs to do to make a nice, tight little mystery. I don't know when I'll move on to the next any more than I know when I'll move on to the next Goddard short story. In both cases I doubt that any omnibus is on the way, and I resent having to buy small dabs of continuing stories in a way that costs more than a normal book would. I'm not a Scot reared by a "saving" family for nothing.

>123 LizzieD: Congratulations on reading 75 books! And yes, Bujold is a reliable joy! A new P&D omnibus is on the way. Penric's Intrigues 4th collection

‘Morning, Peggy! Happiest of Mondays to you.

>121 LizzieD: Congrats on your 4. I got it in 3 today.

Heh. The Army. My dad got drafted in WWII. I only have one photo of him from that time:


Dad’s on the left, the writing is his on the back. Playing was an anomaly. He slogged all over the Eastern European theater, got wounded, and was on his way to the Pacific theater when Truman dropped the bombs.

>123 LizzieD: Congrats on getting your 75 books!

Trevor the Treasure’s coming over, and reading and puttering will be done.

>123 LizzieD: Congratulations on 75! So there, indeed. Freedom is wonderful.

>123 LizzieD: Merry 75ing. Happy that it worked out for the goal to be met by the day we all need to move to the new group. XO

Good afternoon, my dears. We've walked early, so I'm behind for a bit until I am free when we normally walk. My thanks for the 75 congrats, friends!

Richard, I have joined the new group, but I expect to stay here until the new year. I'll chase you down! *smooch*

Judy, I'd be even happier if I were not committed to two programs of sorts next week. I'll have to spend some (a lot?) of precious free reading time on them. Needless to say, this was not my original plan.

Karen, my first question was whether your dad played his way through the war. Wow! My uncle did as a mostly self-taught trumpeter in the Pacific Theater. He was in occupied Japan for a lot of his service, being young when he joined. I'm pretty sure I've told you my daddy's career, so I won't do it again. One of things I mean to read soon though is a book about the B-24, Daddy's bomber. The first couple of pages were totally chilling to me. I had no idea how primitive the conditions inside that beast were for an average of 8 hours per mission.
Congrats on your 3! I feel a little dumb because I had tried early to think of something to do with that second vowel and failed miserably. CONGRATS on the return of Trevor the Treasure, hereinafter known to me as TtT.
Wordle 1,654 4/6*

🟨⬜⬜⬜🟩
🟨⬜⬜🟨🟩
⬜🟩🟨🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 roast, inert, grift, fruit

>123 LizzieD:

'Morning, Peggy! Happy Tuesday to you.

>128 LizzieD: Congrats on your 4. I communed with the Wordle Gods this morning and got a 2.

It's book sort and Virlie's this morning. Two errands - the farm and garden store for black oil sunflower seeds and then Food Lion for a few things.

Morning, me lurve. I'm glad to see you're among the remainers.

*smooch*

Good morning, Richard and Karen!

Ah, WBL, I'm not only a remainer, but sometimes I feel like a remainder. This morning I got blood drawn for the full panel that Brownie wants. The phlebotomist was a good sticker, but the vein she found is on the side of my arm - a place nobody else has ever used - and because of the location it's bruised and sore.

I thought you might have gotten it in 2 today, Karen, because you had 3 letters from your fist word. Great CONGRATULATIONS! I'm very happy with my 3.
Wordle 1,655 3/6*

🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟨⬜🟨🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 roast, order, decor That used word at 2 was an unexpected bonus.

Teenagers

Cute teenagers exist only on television, I suspect. I know there are none in my neighborhood.
~ Robert MacKenzie
(All I have to say to that is that my DH and I still identify people as real Eddie Haskells.)

The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant - and let the air out of the tires.
~ Dorothy Parker

TEETH

POLLY: Why is it only teeth that decay ... You don't always go to the doctor's to have holes in your arms stopped up, do you? It's a flaw in the design.
~ Alan Bennett

... that dear little baby tooth, with a small tag attached, reading: 'The first bicuspid that little Willie lost. Extracted from Daddy's wrist on April 5, 1887.'
~ W. C. Fields

I taste the flavor of your thumbs
While you massage my flabby gums.
~ Ernest A. Hooton, 'Ode to a Dental Hygienist'

I've got a tooth that's driving me to extraction.
~ Charlie McCarthy

Wordle 1,656 4/6*

🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩⬜⬜🟩🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 roast, slurp, sheer, siren I chased the wrong consonant and then was less than brilliant.... average for me, in other words.

Off to choose my best of the best for 2025.

New Year greetings from Kuala Lumpur. My project is at least physically completed and an addition to the city scape.

Look forward to keeping up with you in 2026