Yep, That's It

So this is what Ann told me.

Jeremy was reading to the boys from the children's version of the Book of Mormon. (Stories are shortened and include pictures.) They were at the part where Laman and Lemuel are angry with Nephi because he insists they keep trying to get the brass plates from Laban. They're murmuring, and they're trying to do harm to Nephi.

An angel comes, straight from heaven. He stops Laman and Lemuel and gives them a talking to, no doubt. I don't know how much is in the children's version.

Anyway, this angel comes. They, Laman and Lemuel, see him. They hear him. But as soon as the angel leaves, they start in again with their murmuring and their threats.

I don't know if Jeremy asked a question. Ann didn't say so. I think what Charlie said was just his honest and immediate response.

He said, "They don't have anything in their hearts." He's nearly four.

Reading

My fond hope is to find a book that does not have those helpful book group questions at the end.

Rain Rain

Standing on my driveway a few minutes ago, I heard the thunder roll across the whole sky, from right above my house clear over to the airport. I went in . . . for safety. And then, the sky broke apart, I think, and poured rain like we seldom see here.

I went out to the deck and watched and said aloud, "Could it possibly rain any harder?" The answer came within a few seconds, "YES."

Now it's finished. Brief. Violent. Like there was no time for a gentle rain. The sky just had to get it dumped in a hurry.

Still Here

I’m trying not to see the elephant in the room, trying to carry on as if it weren’t there, here. I don’t know if I can. It’s big.

I don’t want to write about the elephant. I wrote a word or two about it in my small hand-written journal last week. Didn’t help. Didn’t make the elephant go away, which is what I want. Life without elephants. Because I have to say that Life, note the capital L, presents sufficient difficulty for me without elephants, without my having to step around an elephant--or plow right into it.

I did take some measured steps towards it recently, touched the actual elephant a couple of times, if gingerly. Maybe it's friendly, I must have thought. But no. The beast was unmoved and remains unmoved. See. I’m writing about it, which is what I did not want to do. But it's still here, and at this moment, I can hardly see anything else in the room.

I wonder if elephants left unattended just go away on their own. Or do they destroy the house? I wonder.

Speaking of Books

This blog is not a book review blog. I was going to write about D-Day, which we commemorate today, its 65th anniversary, and I have read an article about a Spanish spy, codenamed Garbo, a double agent, whose existence few know of but whose contribution to D-Day and its success was crucial.

But I also have books on my mind today, having spent much of yesterday reading.

The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich. That's what I'm in the middle of. I chose it because I know her writing, and it's good. I read Love Medicine; I've read other stuff of hers. This novel is like a mosaic, with chapters or whole sections narrated by the character under scrutiny, so to speak, in that section.

The book I just finished, Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos, is a mosaic. And now that I've read it I see it's also a sequel . . . to her first novel, Love Walked In, which I have not read.

Belong to Me is a Desperate Housewives type, written with the author's hope--I'm guessing--to be movieized. Not that the writing is poor. I mean, I did finish it and liked it, sort of. She writes well, and she knows things, which is not always true with young writers. I did not like or find necessary to the story or character development the use of "four-letter word" profanity by nearly everyone in the book, no age discrimination in its use, or any other kind, I'd say. Is that really a selling point? One thing I liked about it: good names.

The book was an airport bookstore purchase, which means total guesswork on my part. Yes, I did read it, but I have given it away.

This book, The Plague of Doves, is by an author with 14 novels, poetry, children's books, short stories to her credit. That meant, for me, that the book promised to be really good. I can't say it is, and I have to complain that it took a turn into total . . . I don't know what. Just into things and characters I could hardly stand to read about. Stuff, although I skimmed and skipped, I hope to eventually forget but haven't yet.