OUTLETS
So, other than the routine activities such as our daily walk on the boulevard and the treadmill in the afternoon, what do we do to break the sameness of days?
The Chief Penguin has always been the household baker. It used to be desserts, but since retiring, he’s dedicated himself to experimenting with different kinds of flour to create tasty oatmeal bread with molasses, healthy bran muffins with a touch of orange marmalade, and multi-day adventures resulting in lovely round loaves courtesy of a famous Parisian recipe. The house smells toasty and warm, and his oven products are both beautiful and satisfying. We can’t possibly eat all this bread—some loaves go into the freezer for another day and some he gives away.
I, on the other hand, have been caught up in condo association business, writing notecards to my granddaughters and others, and reading for pleasure. I have two stacks of new books in the den in addition to the stacked bench in the bedroom. Plus, I always have a stash of unread titles on my Kindle.
But my newest diversion is Scrabble GO on my iPhone. The original Scrabble app which I liked a lot is no longer available. This new app has lots of prizes and incentives which I personally find very distracting and unnecessary. But you can play multiple games at a time and they tend to move quickly. When someone takes a turn, you get a tone and then you can play your turn. At one point, I had six games going simultaneously! Scrabble GO quickly eats up any extra time on your hands!
NOVEL PLEASURES
Secrets of Nanreath Hall by Alix Rickloff
For a change of pace, I read this historical romance set in Cornwall, England, in 1913 and 1940. Anna Trenowyth, a Red Cross nurse was injured at Dunkirk and, mostly recovered, has been assigned to a grand estate, Nanreath Hall, now turned into a hospital. It also happens to be the former home of her late mother, Lady Katherine Trenowyth, and a place she has never visited before nor had any contact with the family there. Anna is curious about her relatives and her mother’s youth, and the novel alternates between the 1940 present and Lady Kitty’s escape from her proper upper crust family to a wild affair with a dashing young painter. Morris is good on the gritty details of nursing war injuries and the nightmarish aftermath of surviving in battle while serving up an intriguing stew of family secrets.
The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
This title is this month’s selection for the book group here. I put off reading it for several weeks because I thought it would be extremely depressing. But, it’s a moving story of one man’s determination to live long enough to have a life outside the concentration camp. Lale, a Jew from Slovakia, is smart and knows several languages and thus, he’s given the higher status job of tattooing numbers on the incoming prisoners. His schedule and his assignments provide him with more opportunity to move around the camp. He takes risks to confiscate jewels and money left from murdered Jews which he uses in exchange for food for others and himself. Attracted to a young woman, Gita, he vows that he will one day marry her.
Based on real people and portraying horrific events, it is yet an inspiring and uplifting novel. Morris uses Lale’s powers of observation and his quiet determination to keep a distance between the reader and the horror. It isn’t exactly detachment, but a matter-of-factness that keeps one from drowning in emotion. ~(JWFarrington)
LOCAL TAKEOUT
This small restaurant in a strip mall on Cortez Road in Bradenton is one of our favorites for lunch or dinner. I am especially fond of their curries and had a yen for one, so I ordered online and specified our desired pick-up time. It wasn’t curbside, I had to go up to the entrance; consequently, I put on my fabric mask for the first time and waited, with two tables between me and the server, while he checked on the order. It was already bagged and hot. The curries were in tall plastic containers, the rice in the usual Chinese takeout boxes, and some steamed veggies in a square foam box. Everything was still hot when we opened the bag at home and, it was so delicious!
