February blahs

"In spite of Hegel, the Victorians were not a dialectically minded age; they did not think naturally in opposites, of positives and negatives as aspects of the same whole.  Paradoxes troubled rather than pleased them.  They were not the people for existentialist moments, but for chains of cause and effect; for positive all-explaining theories, carefully studied and studiously applied.  They were busy erecting, of course; and we have been busy demolishing for so long that now erection seems as ephemeral an activity as bubble-blowing"--The French Lieutenant's Woman

It's February, and not much has been happening.  But Wednesday was warm enough to go out on a walk!

My sister gave me a hot air fryer for my birthday, so I've been looking up recipes that use it. (We've already made French fries with it.) You can make doughnuts with a lot less fat...

Last week John P. and I saw Steven Spielberg's West Side Story remake.  It was good, not great:  the original just had a bit more pizzazz. (It still had a truly great score.) Afterward we ate Middle Eastern food at a place with great rice!

I'm halfway through The French Lieutenant's Woman.  It's quite complex in a "postmodern" way, seeing the Victorian era through a decidedly 20th-century prism.

I've started reading Thomas Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilization for my History Meetup.  It's about the Dark Ages period when classical learning survived by being transcribed in Irish monasteries. (The first chapter discusses the Roman Empire's fall and points to how the tax-collecting curiales class got squeezed between higher government demands and stiffer taxpayer resistance.)

Here comes 60!

"I wish you hadn't told me the sordid facts.  That's the trouble with provincial life.  Everyone knows everyone and there is no mystery.  No romance"--The French Lieutenant's Woman

Not much to write about just now.  With the cinemas reopening, I can go to the movies again and have more to discuss...

Saturday is my 60th birthday.  I don't feel like much of a do:  I bought a small cake, and we can eat McDonald's. (You know you're getting old when...)

In the big snowstorm last week, our snow shovel got swiped off the front porch, so I trudged several blocks to the hardware store to buy a new one, and that one got stolen too!  We got a third one, and now we keep inside.  Funny that today's snowstorm didn't materialize...

I finished reading The War of the Three Gods, and now I've started John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman for my book club.  It reads almost like non-fiction!

I still haven't tried that Wordle game, but I think I'd be good at it...