Years ago now (15? something like that) I woke up one rainy night to the sound of water dripping. None of the faucets was the culprit... No, it was the ceiling in the library, leaking in multiple places. And the library was at its absolute worst at the time, with all the shelves full and stacks of books everywhere on the floor. 2 AM and we're hauling books down the hallway at top speed. Lost a couple dozen, but only a couple dozen; it could have been much worse. (And kept a lot with minor water damage, which remind me of that night whenever I look at one.)
For lack of anything better to do with them while the roof and ceiling were being repaired, we did indeed box every one of the books up. (Thousands.) Stacks of boxes were easier to deal with than stacks of books.
I said to Ann, if you ever want to move, we have to do it now, because we'll never box all this stuff up again.
We're still here.
And I meant to use my full name, as you could logically think it was the Bone creator who was here recommending fantasy novels to you.
I'm utterly fascinated by the Harry Potter series (and yeah, my daughter turns 10 this year) -- the first book is clearly a children's book. The current one ... is no longer a "children's book". The books seem to be maturing as Harry does. Which is an astounding thing, to me: the narrative style parallels Harry's worldview. Or so it seems to me.
This is what stuck me about Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain, back when I read those (as an adult). The Book of Three starts things off nice and Hobbit-like, but by the end of the fifth book, The High King, I was reading with horrified tears.
I don't hear Alexander mentioned much lately; I really recommend these.
"Hootie," eh?
My stepfather always used the longer version, "hootey-pooter."
Teresa--
You suffer a catastrophic computer crash, then a violently ill road trip...and you bounce back with an item as winning as this one.
Any time, this piece would be delightful. This week, it's awe-inspiring.
Paula--
I haven't been down to Fells Point so I don't know the status of any specific businesses, but I did hear that many of them expected to be open on Saturday.
I'm in Baltimore, on higher ground. I had no basement flooding (which I can get in a regular rainstorm), a broken tree branch that hit the car parked next to me instead of mine -- but no power for about 18 hours. So, two out of three.
The biggest problem I had was driving this evening with a lot of traffic lights still out. These become officially four-way stops. Well, forget that...pretty dangerous at all those intersections.
Re the story of Susannah and the elders being "modern" or "timeless," there is a version from 1955 set in Appalachian Tennessee which is apparently about McCarthyism, and much bleaker than the original. It's Carlisle Floyd's opera _Susannah_; I have a version by Kent Nagano with Cheryl Studer as Susannah Polk, and I really like it.
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