I am back from the lake, now, driving four days and getting in Saturday evening. It was a fine drive, even not counting the worry about fires, none of which appeared on the way. The time in Wisconsin was fine, too. I am going to rethink my LJ habits before starting up again. As for now, I will be random.
I got to the lake safely. Very green and wet out here, with many downed trees, including quite a few on my land. One huge maple down in the lake. I have had one big storm, but otherwise the weather has been beautiful. Water table high. One mouse caught in a trap. Lots of reading.
I became intensely proud of my asthma, just as I was to become proud of my Jewishness and proud of my sexuality. Taking an aggressively defiant stance on qualities in myself that others might judge to be weaknesses became one of my most distinctive character traits. Still is, I suppose. Stephen Fry
Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house. The plainest row of books that cloth or paper ever covered is more significant of refinement than the most elaborately carved etagere or sideboard. Henry Ward Beecher
The library smells, a combination of Lily of the Valley cologne, damp wells, library paste and wet wool snowsuits, were as distinctive as the smell of my childhood home. Judith St. George
No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. She will not want new fashions, nor expensive diversions, or variety of company. if she can be amused with an author... Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
My grandmother was born on this day in a Swedish field in 1878. That makes her really old, though she died in 1971. I can't even figure out how old she would be. I do remember standing by her when she was hand washing dishes, about 60 years ago. I asked her if she wanted to live to be a hundred. She wasn't interested in doing that. It surprised me.