I can’t think of too many places I’d rather be writing this Sunday’s salon than my current location: my lounge chair situated on our back deck. These are the days that make the bullshit of the -13 degree temperatures with the -30 wind chills that we dealt with during this winter worth it.
There’s nothing better than that first time venturing back out onto the deck after such a winter. It’s glorious.
OK, yeah, sure … I admit that there are other more exotic places in the world, but right now on this almost 80-degree perfect weather Sunday with an occasional gust of a breeze and my daffodils in bloom and Don Draper back in my living room this evening and my kids getting along, this corner of southwestern Pennsylvania is as pretty close to heaven today as you can get.
It’s not, of course. Just several miles east of here, the Murraysville community is reeling from this week’s events at Franklin Regional High School where a 16 year old student stabbed more than 20 people. It has shaken many of us in the Pittsburgh area; we know none of us are isolated from this sort of thing and this week brought that reality and the powerless feelings ever so closer to home, once again.
My kids have been talking about the stabbings a little bit. It has come up in their classrooms and in conversations with their friends. As somewhat of a distraction from that and other things, we went to the movies earlier this morning and caught a 10:45 am. matinee of “The Muppet Movie: Most Wanted.” We’re big Muppet fans in this house and although the sequel was, as even The Muppets themselves admit, not as good as the first movie, there were enough fun moments to make it worthwhile. There’s a great very brief-don’t-blink-or-else-you’ll-miss-it cameo by Josh Groban, which I loved and the song “I’m Number One” will speak to anyone who has been in the position to someone who gets all the credit for your hard work.
In bookish news, I’ve been feeling somewhat behind in … well, everything. I have a bunch of reviews and posts that I want to get written, and I can’t remember when I last sat down with a book for a long chunk of time. Next to me here on the deck is my current read, Mrs. Poe by Lynn Cullen, so I’m hoping to make some more headway with that this afternoon.
Something I did read – and finish this week was Colum McCann’s new short story “Gone,” which is now available as a Kindle Single. I will, as you know, read anything that Colum McCann writes; he could write the Yellow Pages and I would devour it. (With this, I made the mistake of starting it at lunchtime and I didn’t have enough time to finish it; don’t be like me and do that.) When a child with special needs goes missing, McCann gets to the heart of parental guilt, anguish, and self-blame.
I’m also reading Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens with my son as part of a school project (and listening to the audio book in the car, to try and stay ahead of the game). That deserves a whole separate post, which I’m hoping to get to soon.
As I mentioned in my previous post, my friend Melissa Luznicky Garrett published her 7th novel yesterday. Year of the Snake is the third book of hers that I’ve had the honor of editing. On the back cover, I give this endorsement:
“In Year of the Snake, Amelia embarks on a year-long journey of self-discovery and, in the process, learns what it’s like to truly fall in love. In her seventh novel, author Melissa Luznicky Garrett proves her own growing versatility as a writer. With madcap plot twists and delightful surprises,Year of the Snake wraps the reader tightly around Amelia, Mason and Desmond and keeps one guessing about who will be Amelia’s ultimate choice. A light romantic read, it’s impossible not to look more closely at our own lives to discover what stories are inside us that are just waiting to be written.”
Now I’m off to spend some time with Mrs. Poe and perhaps a glass of wine. Here’s to good books, and to spring finally being in bloom. (At least for today, until it becomes 45 degrees again later this week.)
Such is spring in Pittsburgh.
