The Time Traveler's Wife

I'm trying to finish The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I'm on page 451 out of 536. Not much time left (no pun intended) for a plot twist that will make the effort worthwhile. This is only the second time I've read about time travel--(if you don't count H. G. Well's The Time Machine--which I probably SAW instead of read, anyway).

I was able to break a 3-year "reader's block" with time travel fiction after hearing Diana Gabaldon speak at a book fair in Edinburgh during the Festival (1999). I bought the first book of the Outlander series (published in Britain as Cross Stitch) while I was there. The book fit the atmosphere which was comprised of: the Military Tattoo; bag pipes playing day and night (we were housed at the University of Edinburgh during a bagpipe contest); Rizzio's blood on the floor at Holyrood House; and Scottish thistles grabbing my pant's legs as I climbed Arthur's Seat--from whence King Arthur will come whenever Britain needs him.

Worth Noting

Descriptive sentences from The Time Traveler's Wife. "A crow flies across the grass. Its shadow flies under it, and meets it as it lands under the window . . ."

Also a good phrase from The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society loaned to me by my friend Lydia a few weeks ago. Something about feeling like a tuba among the flutes. Nice.

Colin's "postage stamp"

I stayed up really late making prototypical art for postage stamps. My subjects were two of my husband's (Gary's) great nephews.

This is Colin, who is seven years old and in second grade. You would assume he was at least nine or older. It's easy to forget he's so young when you talk with him. He, too, was an artist last summer. Unfortunately, he tells me he no longer has time for art.

Patrick

This "postage stamp"prototype is of Colin's oldest brother Patrick, who's a mean banjo picker, just like his grandpa (Gary's brother Phillip). Patrick's near sixteen and going to be a heartbreaker.

Dick Cavett and The Strange Report

I just watched a clip from an old Dick Cavett show and am thinking how very much I liked the show back in early ‘70s when we lived in base housing on Otis AFB on Cap Cod. The other TV show we watched religiously was The Strange Report with Anthony Quayle as Adam Strange. The latter had been in the can for a couple of years before it aired stateside so there was no chance of it showing for more than one season. I remember the leather Chesterfield couches in Strange’s home and that his girl assistant (Evlyn) was pronounced EVE LYNN.

Pat Conroy

I’ve reached the age where everything I DO reminds me of something I've already DONE. I just read an excerpt of Pat Conroy’s new book and remember my father regretfully saying . . . about EACH Conroy book he read . . . “I’ve just read the book about that crazy southern family”. It always surprised me, as it did him, that he liked them enough to continue. He read some good stuff but was also a great fan of Zane Grey westerns. I stayed in Zane Grey’s house on Santa Catalina Island with David in the year before David died. Santa Catalina itself was interesting and Grey was a great fisherman.

Reading about Pat Conroy's newest book (after a 14 year hiatus) makes me want to visit Beaufort, SC.