Cats, Dogs and Nature Oh My!

So.. i neglected to mention quite a bit in yesterday's 1st blog post!  Therefore, will get right on it.  :)  My partner and i.. let's see.. i'll call him Sebastiano when i refer to him here.  He is, after all, a tall, dark and very handsome, though not Italian man.)  We have four cats who we adore with all our hearts.  Two were adopted from the local Humane Society, and two just 'found' us and decided they wanted to stay with us forever.  You see, i am an animal (all animals, birds, reptiles) lover to the core of my being.  And for the most part, a nature loving.. tree hugging liberal where politics are concerned.  S and myself love to make trips to southern OR and northern CA just to spend quality time with the big trees!  I get sad when i see, as i did yesterday, a train chug by with about 25 cars full of fresh, huge logs that were recently healthy, gorgeous trees.  Definitely not a fan of all those 'logging' shows on the history or discovery channel, etc.  But i won't get started (too much) on that now.  Every once in awhile on these pages you will see a liberal rant or 2, but i'll try to keep those to a minimum.  Although to me, remaining silent about things i feel are wrong in some way, is the same as condoning such things. And the older i get, the harder it is for me to remain silent about anything.  And i mean anything.  I was, once upon a time, a shy, meek and mild individual.  Those days are loooooong gone.  Life is too short to be silent too often.  I try to meditate about 20 minutes a day.  It helps keep me calm and centered.  And i am quiet during those times.  :D  Unless, of course, i decide to chant!

I am, as i maintained in yesterday's post, a voracious reader.  I read 3.. sometimes 4 books at a time.  Not exactly the same time, mind you.  I'm not Wonder Woman.  The 3 i'm currently reading are..

'The Rules of Civility', by Amor Towles
'Death Comes for the Archbishop', by Willa Cather
and
'A Good Hard Look', by Ann Napolitano

Reviews to come soon!  Occasionally.. or maybe more often than occasionally.. i'll review a book i loved that i read many years ago, or as recently as a year or a few months ago. Sometimes i read children's books because i love the stories and the illustrations.  Love to read glossy magazines like 'Vanity Fair' and 'Vogue'.  The ads are often my favorite things in those.  I find them fascinating!  I also love magazines like 'Orion' and National Geographic'!  I can't get enough of language, pages and stories!  Though i have some guilt when i look at books and realize they're made up of paper.. which is made from trees..  Alas, maybe that will be another post sometime.  Anyway, I'll keep you 'posted'... :)

And i'd also like to mention that the name for this blog was suggested by a well respected and much admired,  (by myself and many others)  former teacher of mine.  Don't know if he wants to be mentioned here, but he knows who he is.  Thank you Mr. S!

Sincerely yours on this last day of July, Two Thousand Eleven..

July 30, 2011

Well, here i go.  First blog post ever!  Not sure what i want to say here.. just signed up, and haven't had a chance to collect my thoughts.  Which are many.  Have a gazillion thoughts on books, baking, good food & wine, our 4 cats, our home outside of Portland, OR.  The list goes on and on and...  So this blog will mainly consist of my musings on all manner of subjects.  Whatever i feel like writing at any given time.  And since i don't think in complete sentences, my writing won't always have proper sentence structure.  So there.  Take a red pen to my pages all you want.  Won't faze me a bit!

More often than not, my posts will be about books.  Literary fiction and classics are my favorite reads. Occasionally i enjoy non-fiction or an excellent thriller.  Never 'self-help' books.  Ever.  Not that i don't need help now and then, but i never look in a book for that. I enjoy many first-time novelists, and obscure authors that i'm sure many of you have never heard of.  Hardly ever like books from the usual suspect 'best-seller' lists.  They annoy me.  Sometimes when i'm perusing the shelves in a bookstore or library, and i hear a patron or customer ask for a best seller.. (or a James Patterson or Danielle Steele novel).. wait! those are pretty much 2 and the same, i want to jump up and down and shout..'over here.. over here!  This book is AWESOME!'  But, since i'm not a lunatic, i remain silent.  So i'll be reviewing books often in hopes that someone out there will discover a new author.  Books that i feel sad that people are missing out on....

I also enjoy good food, and like to bake.  Although i'm making a serious effort to downize, so am not baking nearly as often.  Sometimes i use my paternal grandmother's recipes.. or recipes that i've collected myself over the years.  Sometimes i follow 'em to the letter.  Sometimes i tweak 'em a little.  Usually they turn out pretty well, but sometimes my experiments fail miserably.  I also enjoy a good wine every so often.. And i must admit, i experiment there sometimes too.  I buy a wine if i think it has a cool label.  :)  Sometimes that turns out well, sometimes, it doesn't.  So, anyhoo, more on my 2nd post once i've had a time to gather and organize my thoughts a little better..

Sincerely yours..  M...