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Published: September 28th 2006
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Dinner at Pen's
Penelope is seated at the far end of the table. 9/25/06 - 9/27/06 (Monday thru Wednesday) What Book Should I Read Next?
I’ve been an avid reader for as long as I can remember. In primary school I always looked forward to the new Scholastic Reader book catalog and the free prize if I convinced my parents to order nearly all the books offered that month. Once the order was place, I had to endure the difficult wait until the books arrived. In those days it was the Chronicles of Narnia (7 books), From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Tin Tin (does that count as reading material?), A Wrinkle in Time (and other M. L’Eingle publications), and the occasional Romona Quimby; too name just a few.
These days my reading material is more varied and I seem to always be juggling three or more books at a time. This week I finished one of my more recent acquisitions, The City of Falling Angels, by John Berendt. A book not so much about Venice but more about a single tragic event in recent Venetian history and the multiple related story lines that started centuries ago and are still in progress today. The book started out strong but
Just Finished.
The cover image is very similar to a photo I took on the Grand Canal. See the image on the screen. was quickly diluted and muddled along as the author changed from storyteller to hard-hitting news journalist.
My other books I’m working on are: The World Is Flat (nearly done with this one, taken a while) and The Architecture of Happiness (recommended read from another avid reader here in Auckland).
I’ve recently cracked open the old NZ travel guides now that the weather is cooperating and I have some free time to travel.
I’m so excited about my big travel plans over the Christmas / New Years break with Jen and Marcos. We’ve locked in our travel dates for our road trip in the south island (Dec 23 thru Jan 7). Still in the planning process but we did need to book our ferry tickets this week to confirm that we have a spot during the busy summer months. More about this adventure to come.
Monday night I was at Marcos and Jen’s place discussing our plans over a delicious lasagna dinner.
What happens Tuesday? Let’s say it together…. Quiz Night. One of the largest turnouts to date. I sat at a table of recent arrivals (less than 24 hours), most were from the UK and
a couple were from Germany. Yet to win a bar tab. We placed 5th, but were only 4 points away from the 3rd place team.
Wednesday night I went to my flat mates’ grandmother’s (Penelope) home for dinner. Penelope has a proper single family home in the suburbs. She loves her flowers and her yard was full of blooming jasmine, wisteria, and freesia. The fragrance from the garden found its way into the dinning and living room through open windows.
Penelope knows how to host a proper dinner. We started out with an assortment of cheese and crackers, wine (pinot grigio) and gin. Next came a dinner of roast and five different side dishes (Pen must have spent the better part of a day preparing dinner). We closed the evening out with ice cream and chocolate pudding.
Early on in the evening Penelope made me aware of the fact that she has a difficult time with peoples names and asked for my forgiveness if she referred to me by a name other than my own. By the end of the evening I’d been knighted with the name Robert; and I will always answer to that name in
Still working on this one.
I need to be in a very serious frame of mind to commit reading time to this book. her presence!
I’m up late enough tonight to watch the FOX Morning News program live. Fox is the only US news channel that free NZ TV plays. I’m surprised that such a liberal country has a conservative American news show.
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DPtDavid
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What Book . . .Next
Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice Nah . . . How about the Wizard of Oz ?