Frank Rich is not immune to the same spin that he faults the current administration for--sometimes labeling the press lapdogs for following the party line too closely and sometimes lauding it for sniffing out the real story--but since I agree with him, I liked this book, his investigation and analysis, very much.
Plus I like Grover Gardner as a narrator. First among my many complaints about audible.com is not enough George Guidall. Apparently double-G initials indicate quality narration.
Ken Jennings is less annoying than Bob Harris was in Prisoner of Trebekistan. His favorite verb is "pore" (though my mock-a-Mormon reflex wants to say "tithe." Also he uses the Gilbert and Sullivanism "very model of a modern major" what-have-you twice, and a limit of once per book that's not about "The Mikado" should be regulation.
I bought a pumpkin (because the squirrels ate mine) on Monday (instead of the weekend because of my back) and didn't carve it (because of my back) and then today when I got home it was 35 and I didn't feel like sitting on the cement sidewalk touching cold pumpkin guts. So intead of candle-lit jack-o-lantern and outside light, the markers of This House Open were a plain pumpkin and outside light. I wanted to say "universal" sign of "This House Open" the way Hawkeye (or Trapper) mocks Frank for deliberately misunderstanding a surrendering soldier: "Don't you recognize the international sign for 'touchdown'?" but of course trick-or-treating is no more universal than American football, poor old universe.
Because I did only survivalist grocery shopping on Monday at Whole Foods, I didn't get candy: Hallowe'en essentials full of high-fructose corn syrup are not on its shelves. On the way home I stopped at a regular supermarket whose shelves looked like Mother Hubbard's cupboards. I grabbed something that looked like Hershey's miniatures, but of course good stuff like that (well, 75% good because of Mr. Goodbar) was gone. They were milk chocolate with different nuts, except the substitute for Mr. Goodbar "I suck the most" was white chocolate.
Well, that could have meant only that I wouldn't eat the stash myself, which is fine, except that I was expecting Stick and his parents assume that he could be, as his mother is, allergic to nuts. So I set out a banana to give to him, hoping that, at two, he wouldn't realize what a cheat that is.
Stick was my first guest and definitely the cutest (no surprise). He was a lion, and when his father asked him to roar, he would say, at normal volume and in regular tone, "Rore." No growling, no gnashing of teeth, no need to warn Lucy and Susan to plug their ears. But still, insanely cute. Of the nine kids who came to the door, only two had hand-made costumes. I find this very sad. It's the costumes, the Eureka moment of realizing what I was going to be and figuring how to make them with whatever came to hand and the excitement of a parent finding the box the right size, that I remember.
But I didn't tell anyone to get off my lawn. (Maybe only because I don't have any lawn.)