Friday, 1 July 2005

july to-do list

House and garden:

  • Paint porch swing?
  • Powerwash and stain insides of east and west fences, weather permitting
  • Hang blind at back door

    Garden

  • Stack kindling pile neatly; de-cherry-sprout and weed
  • Turn compost
  • Change bait in yellowjacket traps
  • Replace mineral block in swamp cooler
  • Mark dead branches of pear for winter removal
  • Get lots of vegetable pulp and coffee grounds (ongoing)

    Errands

  • Target: Stepstool for kitchen
  • Wild Bird Center: black-oil sunflower seed
  • Binders for instruction manuals
  • Find a teddy bear to sacrifice for Booboo's paws
  • New bird cage?
  • Artwork matted and framed

    Lisaism

  • The Alchemist, 6th
  • MAC, 7th
  • PSA, 10th
  • NAV, 15th
  • RSH, 18th
  • The Time-Traveler's Wife, 28th

    Reading:

  • Paolo Coelho, The Alchemist
  • Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
  • Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex
  • Audrey Niffenegger, The Time-Traveler's Wife
  • José Saramago, Journey to Portugal
  • Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
  • Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, All the President's Men

    Exercise

  • Bike to work
  • Bike to gym
  • Swim!

    06:06

    • bike

    Bike 8.3 miles. Swim 500 meters. Only 500, but I worked on pulling through my torso and breathing every other stroke.

    17:05

    all the president's men

    "Good title."

    The investigative reporting, the deductions, the willingness of some to speak but not others, the squirmy lack of commenting by more, made this fascinating reading. The thing is, it was published in February 1974, and closes with an address to the nation by Nixon in which he says he'll never leave his responsibilities. Wasn't it August of 1974 when he resigned before being impeached?

    Politics are dirty, sure, but I was grown before I knew that Nixon had been Eisenhower's vice president and thought that the outcome of the 1960 presidential election was false but didn't want to put the country through what it would go through 40 years later. So I didn't know how very much he wanted the presidency in 1968 and to keep it in 1972. Am I wishy-washy for simultaneously thinking "crook" and feeling a little sorry for him?

    Haitch gave me this book for my birthday years ago--2000, 2001? Every birthday I think I ought to read it. Knowing who Deep Throat was made it a little less mysterious, but not less intriguing.

    17:05