Abraham Lincoln: A Life

Abraham Lincoln (running for office): "If elected, I will be thankful.  If beaten, I can do as I have been doing, work for a living."

I finally finished that book of Polish history, but it turns out that the History Meetup is next Friday instead of today.  Oh well, better early than late! (It could have used better editing: I noticed some spelling mistakes.)

The subject of next month's History Meetup will be Lincoln's America, so I've started reading Thomas Keneally's Abraham Lincoln:  A Life.  That's another book in the Penguin Lives series--like Paul Johnson's book about Napoleon--by the Australian writer who did The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and Schindler's Ark.  It looks like another good read.

I'm always interested in reading about Lincoln.  I wish my mother were still with us so I could tell her how he "dropped a brick" when he came to someone's door and asked "Is Miss Rodney handy?" ("Handy" could mean at hand, but it could also mean a fast girl...) Or how he came to a party and said, "Oh boys, how clean those girls look!" Mother was interested in Lincoln too, and felt sorry for his unstable wife.

Last night at opera rehearsal we met our stage director for the first time.  She had each of us say his name and something interesting about him:  all I could think of at that moment was how good I am at Candy Crush Saga!  Then she divided us into four groups and had us do exercises like I've done in acting class, like throwing around an invisible ball.  We're going to be human maze rows in The Marriage of Figaro. (I have a feeling it won't be your normal opera production...)