Gunnar's Winner!

Over on the Tote Bags 'n' Blogs site we discussed (well, I ranted, but other people discussed) books to read on vacation. And I said Gunnar would pick a winner from among the comments.

He chose Maryciao (aka Mary) who offered the suggestion of Dancing With Joy -- a book of poetry that, with a title like that, cannot possibly be a downer.

To illustrate this, Mary offered the poem Blossoms by Li-Young Lee from the book:

"O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard"

Sounds wonderful to me. That's what I like about the books I've read -- they are an orchard that I carry within me. They nourish my heart and my mind and my soul.

Gunnar says they nourish his, too.

Thank you, Mary, and thank you to everyone else who participated.

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Happy First Birthday, Ellie!

The trouble with dusting

Dusting is no bad thing. Let me say that up front.

Dusting blinds is, if not entertaining, at least mindless and usually (but not always) there is a view to behold behind the dust cloth.

Dusting pictures is trickier because you pick them up and look at them -- and then you remember where you were when that happened, and how young your youngest looked then (Was he only twelve? And sitting at a bar on a Caribbean out island! Good heavens). And you do that, say, times twenty odd pictures and you've frittered away a whole afternoon.

You have some very good reminiscences, but it is

• a. not getting the book written
• b. not getting the room ready for George the school teacher turned painter
• c. making you want to go to the Caribbean again. Also to Barcelona and Vienna and Scunthorpe and St Erth and Fermoy and all the other places in those photographs.

Worse, there is dusting bookshelves.

It wouldn't be bad if you could just dust the shelves, but you have to take out the books and open them. Not to dust them, of course, but to see if that scene you remember in Jill Mansell's Perfect Timing is as good as you remember it being.

And it is, and so you stand there reading it. And then you go sit down and read it because it's swept you right up in the story again and you can't not read it.

Until finally you need to go put the dogs out. And call George and tell him maybe next week the room will be ready to paint.

And then you have to go back to dusting because there are several more shelves on that particular bookcase and unfortunately they are all "keepers" or you wouldn't have kept them, would you?

But maybe you could get rid of a few of them. Of course you have to read them first to be sure you were ready to part with them.

Which is why I hate dusting.

What about you?