Working in the Garden

Gabriel's Garden, actually -- the title of the Wynton Marsalis CD that's playing softly in the next room. Its about nine now on a bright Saturday morning, and life is good. We've just had breakfast -- my wife had some of the bread I made last week, while I had sausage and French Toast -- and, more importantly, we had the chance to just sit and talk. My wife observed, years ago, that if we don't do that frequently, I tend to get out of sorts, and she was exactly right. I don't even realize that I'm missing it, but I am, and when I get the chance to do it again -- to just talk, as distinct from communication for the purpose of transferring information --- it reinvigorates me. Things which had been beating my psyche down before now seem, if not manageable, at least less overwhelming. Possibilities exist, again.

I finished reading Reviving Ophelia last night. It did get better at the end, enough so that I told my wife that I wished the whole thrust of the book had been changed -- tell me in the first one or three chapters all of the things that can go wrong, and then spend the bulk of the book telling me how to identify them, what I can do. Don't spend the mass of the book scaring the hell out of me, toss in the occasional gratuitous comment about how much of this is men's fault, and then spend a couple of pages on how families can nurture, protect, and grow their daughters. That's the part I want!
That's not to slime the book, incidentally. I am glad to have read it, as it exposed me to concepts and attitudes that are alien to me. And I do wonder just a bit about my reaction to the part about it being men's fault -- I read some of it to my wife, and she didn't say that she agreed with me, which says to me 'Maybe there's something to this part -- not as much as the author implies, but something.' It's nice to have someone you can trust with that kind of question. I don't know many othe people I'd ask.

So now films have turned up of the Bushman's part in the pre-Katrina decision chain. I cease being amazed by the level of indifference and imcompetence displayed by the federal government (don't cry, Louisiana; your representatives were inept, too, just not so gloriously) before, during, and after that disaster. Someone should tell Bush (or his interpreter) that expressing dissatisfaction with results after is not the same as leadership before.

Today is the day we finish doing taxes -- at least, it's the day that we plan to finish doing taxes. Shopping, of course, and possibly my family will head down south to visit with relatives for the afternoon. I may come, or not; I'm not sure. I really would like to get a haircut, but its a bit of a hassle to do that -- the closest barber shop is about fifteen minutes from here, in a mall. I mentioned a few days ago what my original image of a 'comfort station' was -- I have roughly the same image of a barber shop. I think it should be quiet, softly lit, some good classical music playing, with talented, expert barbers who don't -- as these do -- yatter about the Oscars, or the mechanics of changing the oil on a 93 Ford, or whatever. I told my wife I'd pay more for a haircut at a place like that, and she laughed, cluing me in that for women, paying more usually does not mean you get a good cut at a good place -- and even when you do, you can't assume that the next cut -- from the same person, even -- will be a good one. Last night I asked my daughter if I should shave my head, and she cocked her head, looked critically at me, and said, firmly, NO. Too bad.....

I am almost done with Memoirs of a Geisha. Wish I knew of a decent mystery to read. I think the best mysteries I ever read were the Ellery Queen ones, mostly because they were straightforward, and because the author made a point to give you all of the clues, without any 'then a miracle occurs' moments, and at the denouement, he'd stop the book and say 'okay, now you know everything that Ellery knows; who did it?' Though I almost never got the answer, when I did find out, I didn't think 'Oh, that couldn't have been it'. Instead, they made sense. I've read some mysteries other than that which were okay (none occur to me, but I'm sure there were some), but not a lot. In fact, the major reason I picked up Geisha was that I tend to read just science fiction or non-fiction, and I wanted something else. Okay, I'm almost ready, again.