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Reading Slothfully
I was told in elementary school that I only could read at half the speed for success in college. Oh well, one benefit of slow reading is you get to live with the characters a longer period of time. I read in a vain attempt to better understand people. At my other homes, I'm known as a spouse, pop, guy in the choir, physical chemist, computer/web dilettante and child-care provider. In theory, I'm a published author, if you consider stuff like Quenching Cross Sections for Electronic Energy Transfer Reactions Between Metastable Argon Atoms and Noble Gases and Small Molecules to count as publications. I've strewn dozens of such fascinating things to the winds.
Currently reading
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
The Spirit of the Border
Ramona the Brave (Ramona, #3)
The Underground Man (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)
Delilah of the Snows
Mrs. Miniver
Betsy-Tacy Treasury (P.S.)
A Christmas Carol
The Way Some People Die
Envy of Angels
A Bear Called Paddington
My spouse was throwing out the books we had for our kids quite some time ago. I guess she figured we'd never get the chance to read them to our grandson. Perhaps not. Whatever, I snagged a few before I took the rest to church to be sold at the annual church "Faire". Ordinarily, I don't read dead-tree books anymore, but now and again, I can make exceptions, right? Anyway, this is the first in the Paddington Bear series. It seems that Mr. and Mrs. Brown are at the train station with their daughter, Judy. They see a small bear in a corner, and he seems to be lost. He is very polite and he tells them that he's come from "darkest Peru". The Browns take him home to live with them. They name him Paddington, after the train station where they found him. [For a few months, I lived in a place in London that was only a couple of blocks from Paddington Station. My daughter was born at St. Mary's Hospital, also just a block or two from Paddington Station. Obviously, we have "family" connections there. 😉 ]
So, Paddington becomes a fixture in the Brown household, a household that also has a son, Jonathan, and a housekeeper, Mrs. Bird. The problem with Paddington is that he is unschooled in the ways of the world. So he always finds a way to make a mess of things. But always an adorable mess, and always a mess that can be turned into something nice. So, we get lots of chuckles at his antics, and re-experience, for a short time, the joys of being 8-years old again.
