One thing this rotten winter has given me back is the desire to read again.  For weeks about the only reading I could do was the Kingston paper and the weekend New York Times - the Times took me all week.  Anyway, the other day I picked up a book because of a review I had read in NY Times on it.  The review was on a book of short stories and referenced an earlier edition of short stories Birds of America and I thought I have that book somewhere.  I remembered taking it to Cape Cod with a whole pile of books that I just never got to.  Anyway, I found it and am enjoying the stories and her writing.  I just finished one about a woman taking a trip to Ireland with her mother to kiss the Blarney Stone - something Chrissy and I did 30 years ago.  What a risky thing to do, climb spooky, curving stones stairs up to the top of the castle, all opened, no roof, then lean backwards, clinging to two iron rods and kissing a stone, after hundreds of others before us.  The local boys told Chrissy  and me "don't worry, we clean it off every night for the tourists" and we knew they didn't use water.

I stopped reading at night quite a while ago, and as I have told you Timmy and I listen to audio books  at night.  Something about being read to is very relaxing and takes one back to childhood memories of snuggling close to Bucky while she read to me about Curious George.  We are currently listening to Lemony Snicket's stories  of the Baudelaire orphans.  Before this we had listened to the Hunger Games and the last one gave me bad dreams.  So we went back to something more innocent and although the orphans go from bad to worse, it makes me laugh out loud sometimes.  The Wide Window had Aunt Josephine in it, and she was afraid of everything.  Don't touch the door knob, it might shatter and cut you, Don't stand near the refrigerator, it might fall over and crush you.  Bucky was like this too, nothing was safe, everything had a hidden danger, so I would nod in agreement, giggle, and take another sip of fundador. 

So that's the way the days have been passing, back with my nose in a book, and the sorrowful, wretched life of the orphans to put me asleep.