Sheba

I wanted to introduce you to my buddy, Sheba. She is a gentle soul and is a recent addition to the household of some dear friends, who because they live in a city at some distance are not graced with my presence as often as either of us would like. I want to visit them as well! Honest. She's still a puppy—well more like a teenager, full of energy and mis-placed enthusiasm. This is one her quieter moments.

Currently reading…

' "Kindness," said Erica, to her father's head groom, "have you anything laid by?"

Kindness paused in his checking the corn account, shot her a pale glance from a wrinkled old eye, and went on with his adding. "Tuppence!" he said at length, in the tone one uses instead of a spit. This referred to the account, and Erica waited. Kindness hated accounts. "Enough to bury me decent," he said, having reached the top of the column again.

"You don't want to be buried yet a while. Could you lend me ten pounds, do you think?"

The old man paused in licking the stub of his pencil, so that the lead made a purple stain on the exposed tip of his tongue. "So that's the way it is!" he said. "What have you been doing now?"

"I haven't been doing anything. But there are some things I might want to do. And petrol is a dreadful price." The mention of petrol was a bad break.

"Oh, the car is it?" he said jealously. Kindness hated Tinny. "If it's the car you want it for, why don't you ask Hart?"

"Oh, I couldn't." Erica was almost shocked. "Hart is quite new." Hart being a newcomer with only eleven year's service. Kindness looked mollified. "It isn't anything shady," she assured him. "I would have got it from Father at dinner tonight; the money, I mean; but he has gone to Uncle William's for the night. And women are so inquisitive," she added after a pause. This, which could only refer to Nannie, made up the ground she had lost over the petrol. Kindness hated Nannie.

"Ten pounds is a big bit out of my coffin," he said with a sideways jerk of his head.

"You won't need it before Saturday.…"

"And what made you come to Kindness?"

There was complacence in the tone, and anyone but Erica would have said: Because you are my oldest friend, because you have always helped me out of difficulties since I was three years old and first put my legs astride a pony, because you can keep my counsel, and because in spite of your cantankerousness you are an old darling. But Erica said, "I just thought how much handier tea-caddies were than banks."

"What's that!"

"Oh, perhaps I shouldn't have said that. Your wife told me about that, one day when I was having tea with her. It wasn't her fault really. I saw the notes peering through the tea. A bit germy, I thought. For the tea, I mean. But an awfully good idea." As Kindness was still speechless. "Boiling water kills most things, anyhow. Besides," she said, bringing up for support what she should have used for attack, "who else could I go to?" '

Josephine Tey
A Shilling for Candles

The book is another of Tey's non-typical mysteries and Erica is one of my favorite characters in all of literature. She's so richly drawn that I almost feel that I know her from somewhere. Great stuff.

Currently listening to…

Live: An Evening with the Mel Brown Quartet
Tony Pacini —Piano
Dan Balmer—Guitar
Ed Bennett—Bass
Mel Brown—Drums

This is a quartet that communicates well. I really enjoy the combination of standards and originals that work like standards. Tony has really matured as a player. He always had chops, but is beginning to understand the art of under-statement. Dan Balmer has always been one of my favorite players from his time with Tom Grant and stints as leader and side-man. Ed and Mel are solid as always.

On a side-note: One of the great thrills of my musical career was trading fours with the great Mel Brown. That was something I'll never forget.

Connectivity

I joined Facebook on Wednesday morning so I could view a friend's photo album. Since then I've been connecting with old friends at a break-neck pace. I feel I haven't even scratched the surface. Every time I scan through a friend's list of friends I see faces that I remember, and the flood-gates of memory open up.

I remember the conclusion of a night of high stakes pinochle when we discovered that Nathan had parked his car in the middle of a frozen puddle. After 20 minutes of pushing, Brian and I were about ready to give up on him and make him walk home (even if he froze to death on the way—what on earth was he thinking when he parked there?) when Nathan said cheerfully, "Hey dudes, maybe I should take the parking brake off."

Then there was the time that Krista and I hijacked Jane's stuffed animal and left a ransom note with the following message: "We have your whale and you’re not getting it back! Leave $1,000,000,000 dollars in unmarked bills in a suitcase in the bandstand in Central Park, (take a left by the ducks), and don’t look back. Don’t contact the police. We are too clever to be caught...so don’t even try...Yours sincerely, Alan and Krista"

In this process of discovery, I have made two major realizations:

1. I am so blessed to have had wonderful friends in every chapter of my life.
2. My mistake has been to close the previous chapters of my life too readily.

I have always enjoyed new challenges and new horizons. I just need to savour more richly the friendships that I have in each chapter and keep them alive until the last chapter (and have them correctly indexed in the appendix).

3:42

Trying to find that stillness
In the watches of the night,
The light evades; there is no peace.
Some things can't be found by searching,
They can only be found by waiting.
Be still and know.
Be still.

Advent is past (or is it?). Lent is almost upon us, but I'm still waiting for Advent. And as Inigo Montoya says, "I hate waiting."

Public health announcement

" 'Hullo, Clarence,' said Gally. 'How are you feeling now? I've been thinking about that cold of yours, and I'll tell you the stuff to give it. You want to take a deep breath and hold it as long as you possibly can. This traps the germs in your interior, and not being able to get fresh air, they suffocate. When you finally exhale, the little sons of guns come out as dead as doornails and all you have to do is buy a black tie and attend the funeral. But what profits it to get rid of germs,' he went on, a grave note creeping into his voice, 'when at any moment you are going to have a super-bacillus like Connie at your throat?'

'Eh?'

'That's what I came to tell you. I think you will be receiving a visit from Connie shortly.'

'Oh, dash it!'

' I know just how you feel.'

'She's back then?'

'With her hair in a braid. And they tell me she is considerably hotted up. I haven't seen her myself, but Beach, who had an extended interview with her, describes her as resembling a gorilla roaring and beating its chest and preparing to rip the stuffing out of the citizenry.' "

Pigs Have Wings
P.G. Wodehouse

So I had one of those short-lived bugs that comes on quick and departs just as fast. I felt miserable for 24 hours or so, but after a couple of days of gradual improvement I'm doing fine, (at least as fine as is possible under the circumstances). I still have the occasional sneeze of monumental proportions, but that is nothing to go by. That's really an inherited trait. My father could stop milk production in neighboring counties when he sneezed. Cows would just stop in their tracks at the sound of distant thunder and refuse to move until the storm had passed.

Currently reading…

"'Income tax!' cried Lord Emsworth, staring like a war horse at the sound of the bugle. Pigs and income tax were the only two subjects that really stirred him. 'Let me tell you—'

'I haven't time to listen,' said Lady Constance, and swept from the room. These chats with the head of the family nearly always ended in her sweeping from the room. Unless, of course, they took place out of doors, when she merely swept away.

Left alone, Lord Emsworth sat for a while savouring that delicious sense of peace which comes to men of quiet tastes when their womenfolk have had their say and departed."

Pigs Have Wings
P.G. Wodehouse

I can always rely on Plum to bring a smile to my face. I just got a collection of the complete Mulliner stories at Powell's Books, (the best bookstore in the world), and I'm looking forward to have that as a backup to my main book for the evening reading.