Reading: The Bassumtyte Treasure, again. Faith and Treason, because why let this great Stuart gossip go.

Moving: walked 2.7 miles

Listening: in the middle of Victoria

12 October 2001: Orsay

The real reason I am reading The Bassumtyte Treasure is that I watched an "A&E Classroom" show on Mary Stuart tonight. It turned out to be really basic stuff, though it asserted she miscarried Bothwell's twins, boy and girl, though I'm pretty sure it's not certain even whether the sporing was a singleton or a double, let alone the flavors. Anyway, The Bassumtyte Treasure is a lot shorter than Antonia Fraser's biography or Margaret George's novel. So I read it. Also it's as elementary as the A&E production. The really cool thing was that some of the minimal video footage (besides stills and talking head historians) included a familiar pleasure garden. "Mmm, looks like Chenonceau," I thought, just before the camera panned south over the donjon and the château. I was there, I was there! Also there were images of Notre Dame, where she married Francis I. I was there, I was there! Poor thing, though. If Henry VIII'd had his way she'd've wound up just as prematurely widowed. Bunch of in-breds.

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I talked to my mother the other day. She told me she is taking another course of Bible study and she just loves it. I asked her what the class is focusing on right now and she said Exodus. I asked, "Are you learning to leave places?"

And guess what? She laughed! I am so proud.