Book completed

Last night I finished this month's book club book: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. It's about life in the Belgian Congo in the early 1960s and after, for an American missionary family: a dad driven by his own personal demons, a mom who passively goes along with things for a while, and four very diverse daughters, three teenagers and a younger one. I'm kind of surprised that I wasn't even aware of this book until our last book club meeting, as it's evidently very well known.

The point of view characters are the mother and the daughters. I was impressed with the author's skillful decision to make the self-centered and vain daughter's perspective every bit as entertaining to read as the others, in two ways - by shocking us with the depth of her ego and indifference, and by amusing us with her failed attempts at being pretentious with her vocabulary.

I'd have to say the book made a lasting impression. I recommend this one.

Snow day #5

First, some sad news. This evening I came home to learn that R's dog Thor, who is about a month shy of 11, has some kind of fast-growing tumor, and tomorrow D. will get to see him for the last time. Since D. has known him since age 7, I'm sure this is a big thing for him. Sad!

Today I was still pretty worn out. I figure it's the combination of (1) completing two grant proposals in the space of one month, (2) dealing with all the discombobulation of excessive snow and lots of time without power, (3) just having gotten over a cold, and (4) the unusual physical exertion of all that snow-shoveling.

I did manage to make it downtown for the 85th anniversary alumni concert for the youth orchestras. It was fun, and we had a delicious buffet afterwards from Cafe Soriah. I was joined by one of D's clarinet teacher's students, a senior citizen who's both a biologist and a Presbyterian minister, and after we finished eating we tracked down Dante, another of the clarinet students, who is now a junior at the university, and whom I'd especially hoped they'd get to play in the alumni orchestra. He was off eating on his own but seemed quite happy to talk with us, and he invited both of us to his recital a week from tomorrow. His sister is studying Japanese at the UO.

I didn't slip on the ice today - I was very careful - and I wasn't in any other accidents either, but it was a close call. When I was driving north on Willamette St. to the concert, a car started pulling out into the street from a business, clearly not seeing me. I shrieked and swerved into the median lane, and they must have noticed me then and slammed on the brakes. I continued on my way, watching in the rear view mirror, as they sat frozen in place for a minute or more. Bleh. People are really stressed with the snow.