Emancipated!

Well, kids, it's all open water from here. I officially did my last work as an attorney on July 31, and as of August 1 I am retired. I knew I would feel relieved,  but I had no idea of the weight I would immediately feel lifted. 

 And the Emancipation Period has started off with great fun. My college friend Moe (whom you may remember from her helping me move from California to Washington) came up for a visit, and we ferried over to Port Townsend to visit some other college friends. We celebrated my "graduation" (as one friend kept calling it), took long walks, ate mexican food, and binge-watched Ted Lasso which one had never seen. Such fun, and I kept realizing that I didn't have the worry about work lingering in the background. When one is used to carrying a load, however tidy, it does feel good to put it down.

Moe and I returned home and yesterday headed off to Deception Pass State Park at the north end of Whidbey Island. It is truly one of the most beautiful places you could ever see. 

 

There are miles of hiking trails on both sides of the water, and one led us to a spot beneath the bridge. You can see Moe on the lower left, which shows the scale of this impressive structure.

 

 

We had lunch on the other side of the bridge, at a local institution called The Shrimp Shack. 

We highly recommend the popcorn shrimp.

From there, we roamed around the town of La Connor for a bit, which quilters know as the home of the Pacific Northwest Fiber Arts Museum. We did not have a lot of time, so skipped that in favor of a stroll through town and a bit of poking around in shops.

But our ultimate destination was back to Deception Pass for a boat tour, hosted by Deception Pass Tours. (I am well aware that taking a commercial tour in a state park is a very "retiree" thing to do -- but it was fantastic.) It was a perfect day for a boat outing, as it was unusually hot but clear and calm. 

Oh, the blue water and blue sky.

We saw a lot of wildlife, even from our distance. Harbor seals swimming along...

 Basking on the shore (look closely, they blend in with the rocks) ...

 

Even napping on a marker buoy. 

 

 We saw porpoises leaping, salmon jumping, and bald eagles perched in the pines just watching us go by.

Our tour guide pointed out an egg yolk jellyfish. I'd never heard of them, let alone seen one. 

It was perfect summer adventure. And on a random Wednesday!

I think I am going to have a hard time remembering what day it is. That might be a very pleasant problem to have. 

I hope your summer is going swimmingly, friends.

July pleasures

Good morning, friends, and happy July 4th weekend to you! 

It is a gorgeous weekend here. Last year at this time, when I’d just moved to the island, I was warned that June would be solidly cool and rainy (which it was) and summer would begin on July 5th, as dramatically as if a summer switch were flipped on (which it did). This year, though, June was a mix of drizzly, overcast, and clear sunny days, so it has felt like summer was easing in earlier and more gradually. This holiday weekend has been ideal. I’ve been watching early morning kayakers and mid day water skiers on my little lake, and I’ve had perfect late afternoons on the deck with a book and a cold drink. This feels just the way summer should be.  I apologize to my friends in Sonoma County, who have been sweltering through a heat wave. 

This week has been about home stuff. My wanderings have been limited to a few trips off island for medical appointments (my hand/wrist fractures are healing nicely, thank you, and Miss C’s eyes have been checked and new glasses are on order), with a bit of furniture shopping thrown in. 

I decided that I have been dissatisfied with the family room because my Healdsburg furniture is just too big and too dark for the space.  After much online perusing, I came to a vision I wanted to have in the room and I’ve been excited about creating it. No, this photo is not the vision, but it has that comfortable airiness I’d like to achieve. (This is from the beautiful home of blogger Kari from Thistlewoodfarms.com.) But gosh, the furniture offerings in stores are so beige! And gray! I’ve found sofa and chair shapes I quite like, but the fabric offerings are so drab. Even with leather, the options are extremely limited. I’ve found upholstery options I like online, but I’m quite apprehensive about ordering a sofa or chairs sight unseen and, more importantly, “unsat.” Amazon, Home Depot and other inexpensive furniture options make me wonder about long term durability with daily use. 

I will digress to ask if any of you have had actual good experiences with a white or cream couch without having to do weekly slipcover washes. I’ve looked at Pottery Barn couches but I’m wary. We spend a lot of time in the family room so the furniture gets heavy use. We occasionally eat in front of the tv, and yes, I’ve been know to spill my coffee or red wine. The dogs are not on the furniture, but they have been known to rub against it, and I don’t like the thought of grimy streaks around the sides and edges of white furniture. Sigh. So I’m researching and poking around.

Meanwhile, I’ve made exciting progress in the sewing room. I’ve been struggling with my well-loved portable design wall which works great in some situations, but has been constantly in the way in my funny room. After a bit of research from quilters who have had happy results, I ordered felt tiles from Feltright.com. The tiles come in lots of colors and shapes and the site even has a design area where you can plan out your design and audition colors. I ordered a variation of their “Quilter’s Star” design in light gray and white. I wanted something neutral that would not compete with whatever pieces I had up, but that would also look good when it was empty. The tiles arrived on Friday, and on Saturday I went to work sticking them up. 

The trick is to start with a level block and work from there. And voila, finished wall! 

These tiles are smooth so pieces need to be pinned. But I did that before anyway, as I’d had too many times of finding a carefully laid out design in bits on the floor after the dogs had rushed by the portable wall.  Look, here it is in use already! 

And what is that work in progress, you ask? 

It is a kit quilt I bought a while ago on a big sale, because I love how the star blocks have a firework-ish look to them and it just looked so fun and festive. The pattern is called “Holiday Americana Merry Making,” designed by Jocelyn Ueng of It's Sew Emma, and it’s available as a kit here. Don’t let all the triangles daunt you. The blocks go together quickly with half square triangle units. Here is where I am as of this morning: 

Perfect 4th of July weekend sewing! 

Later today I expect to be out on the deck with the novel I’m reading, The City and the City by China Mieville. It is an unusual story about a murder that has been discovered in a place where two cities overlap and are, for political reasons, treated as invisible to each other. The novel has quite an interesting premise, and is billed as science fiction, fantasy, crime, and speculative fiction. Miss C actually told me about it after she’d listened to an online review, and I was sufficiently intrigued to borrow it from the library. If any of you have read it, I’d be interested in your thoughts. 

In case you are worrying about the baby bunnies in my yard, I am happy to report that my lawn has been fully mown and no baby bunnies (or parts thereof) were found along the way. I expect to see them scampering about one morning soon. 

 

Adventures at Cottontail Cottage

 

Feeling summery? That little quilt part was a collaged hat that I made long ago for one of those art quilt group projects where each person stated a subject and 2 colors and then everyone made something meeting those requirements.  I think this was “hat” and orange and yellow. Frankly the blocks were so varied in each set that I thought the resulting quilts (for those who assembled them) were pretty strange. But I did like this little block and the challenge was fun. Anyway, it says summer to me, so here you go. 

It's been another one of those odd months. No surprise, really, after losing my dad... so much emotion to process, so many tasks to handle, plus work and life and all. But summer is here on Whidbey Island, and I'm enjoying remembering summer - the early morning bell from the summer camp across the lake, the distant sound of children playing, the very long dusky summer evenings. 

I have made yet another discovery about life here on the island. I've written about the abundance of bunnies on the south end of the island, and there are quite a few that hop around my yard in the early morning. Well, between my several trips to California and his own travels, my lawn mower guy (“the Lawn Ranger”) and I were not able to connect and as a result my lawn has grown and grown and grown. It is now more a wildflower/grass prairie. Quite pretty in its own way. Here is Rosie roaming in the grass.

 

 

But a few days ago, Rosie came to me with something in her mouth. I thought it was a pinecone. No, it was a teeny baby bunny. ACK! Luckily Rosie is a gentle soul and retrievers have notoriously soft mouths -- so she didn't bite or maul it, and it was obviously alive but so newborn that its eyes weren't open yet. I carefully scooped it up and off I went to see if I could find the nest.

 

I did not take this picture and this is not my nest, but I post it here to show what one looks like.

It took a lot of hunting, but I finally found the spot I think it might have been -- there were some tufts of fur around a burrow sort of hole, so I placed the baby in there, bent some grass over it, and hoped for the best.

When I checked the next morning, there were no bunnies in sight and the burrow was empty. So I hoped that mama came and found her baby and took it to safety. 

Unfortunately, later that day, after I'd restricted the dogs to another area of the yard, Rosie came to me with that look in her eye.... which means something in her mouth. Yep, another baby. Also alive. I did not know where it came from but took it back to the original burrow, hoping, hoping.

 

 

 

I've now put stakes around the bunny area and am keeping the dogs on leash in the yard at all times. Research tells me that babies become independent in about 3 weeks, so I will hope that by then the dogs can roam freely without finding any surprises. 

Big lesson learned? Keep the lawn mowed down SHORT at this time of year, so the bunnies will nest elsewhere. Incidentally, when I read up on bunny nests, one expert said that they often nest in yards of homes with big dogs -- because the mama knows it is safer and there are less likely to be more dangerous predators like cats and raccoons. Smart mommy bunny, eh?

I really do enjoy seeing the bunnies about and have thought that I'm living in a Cottontail Cottage, but the possibility of the dogs disrupting babies in their nest is not something I want to do every summer.

 

 

Meanwhile, there was this. In May, when I was on my way to California to see my dad, I stopped to get breakfast -- and I tripped and fell in a parking lot. I had what I now know is, in medical terms, a FOOSH -- "fall on out-stretched hands." My hands were scraped and definitely sore but I felt around and nothing felt seriously hurt, no sense of anything broken, so I cleaned myself off and continued on my way. Once I got to California, my sister and I were absorbed with my dad and his care, so I just took advil and did some icing from time to time. Well, fast-forward to two weeks later when, back home, my dr suggested xrays of both hands and wrists. Turns out I have a small fracture in one hand and a bone bruise and soft tissue injury in the other. I came away with a splint on one and instructions to wrap the other wrist when it was sore.

 

So - good news was nothing serious, no surgery needed, nothing displaced, etc. (Yes, friends, you are right, I broke my wrist LAST March in a similar FOOSH fall. But that was way worse.) This has mainly been inconvenient -- and I have learned that having something wrapped on BOTH hands makes me very very cranky. VERY CRANKY. I am at the tail end of healing, so that is good. But sheesh. I know that both falls (last year and this) were when I was seriously tired and distracted and stressed, and probably paying less attention to my feet than I should have been, but I'm still boosting my vitamin D and have a bone density test scheduled for next month. I don't want to do this any more. 

 

 The other good news is that with the left hand pretty functional, I was able to resume quilting on my longarm!

One more random thing making me happy. I was in a Barnes and Noble in California and came upon this insulated metal tumbler from Rifle Paper company. I love their pretty patterns so it came home with me. It keeps my morning coffee very hot so I can linger on the deck, and it makes me happy every day.

What’s making you happy these days? 

 

Out and About

 Well, finally! Work has subsided a bit and I've had the time and energy to get out into the world to have fun! A good friend has been staying on the island for a bit, so we've taken the opportunity to spend some time together. Last week, we met up in Coupeville to have an early dinner at another favorite waterside spot, the Front Street Grill. That picture up there is the view from our table, looking across Puget Sound toward Camano Island.

 Coupeville is known for its Penn Cove mussels -- in fact that water is Penn Cove, really. Anyway, that is what I had -- very fresh mussels cooked in a sauce of Whidbey's blackberry port, shallots, and garlic. Totally delicious.

Dori enjoyed some gorgeous crab cakes and a salad. And yes, we celebrated our time together with a glass of champagne. 

This weekend, while Dori was still here, we decided to go roaming. So we headed straight north off of the island to poke around the town of Anacortes. Driving off of Whidbey Island took us over the Deception Pass bridge, which is an absolutely stunning bridge over Deception Pass. We did not stop for photos as both sides of the bridge were mobbed with cars and tourists walking over the bridge, but I can assure you that it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. And it's not just me ... Deception Pass was recently ranked as one of the top five most beautiful state parks in the US.

It's a narrow bridge so I was paying strict attention to the road and traffic. But Dori got this picture out of her window. Did I say that it was gorgeous, clear-blue-sky day?

Anacortes is a seaport town, probably known most widely as where one gets the ferry to the San Juan Islands. The old downtown area had cute shops and restaurants in old brick buildings -- lots of interesting art galleries and shops featuring decor and antiques and fun items. I enjoyed poking around a bit in Fabrics Plus, a small but well-stocked fabric store that seemed to have anything anyone might want. It is always good to know the most accessible sewing/quilting resources.

We stopped for lunch at The Secret Cove, a little spot tucked around a corner among boat yards. The view was fabulous.

The food was... fine, really. Nothing fantastic, but the view made up for it. Did you notice the snow covered mountains?

We decided that the day would not be complete without a stop at Greenbank Farm for a slice of Whidbey pie. I will confess that I prefer other desserts to pie, but I can attest to this being the best pie I have ever had. Ever. We choose local marionberry pie, a la mode, of course.

 It was a lovely day. A great friend, gorgeous scenery, and good food. We covered a lot of conversational territory and laughed a lot. Dori and I met in law school and have known each other for over forty years, and yet we never run out of things to talk about. Isn't that the best kind of friendship? So it was a very therapeutic day, indeed.

After dropping Dori back at her mom's house, I took back roads home, and as always was struck by the surprise of such beautiful views. 

 One more thing... this week I got talking with a guy in a local shop. The conversation turned, as if often does here, I've noticed, to what brought each of us to Whidbey Island. "I've just always had a thing about islands," he said. "and I just knew I wanted to live on an island." "Yes!!" I think I actually yelped with pleasure when he said that. It is exactly how I have felt, and he is the first person who has had ever expressed that same thing. Me, I trace it to the novels of Elisabeth Ogilvie that took place off of the coast of Maine, but who knows. 

I am just always so happy to here. And isn't that exactly how one should feel about one's home?

One of Those Weeks

  

 Well, friends, it has been one of THOSE weeks. You probably know the kind. Way, way, WAY too much work. A lot of things around the house that need to be done, but no time to do them. Clouds of dog hair wafting around the floor. Laundry needing to be done. Christmas stuff needing to be put away. And that cranky, tired feeling of being laden with too much stuff rolling around in my head.

So I will start with a highlight from yesterday. I had a list of errands to accomplish (recycling center, grocery store, etc.). But I'd not eaten before I dashed out, so I decided to treat myself to breakfast out, and I stopped at Whidbey Donuts. 

 

This little cafe and donut shop is maybe 5 miles from my house, behind the field where the weekly farmers' market takes place in spring through fall. It was raining yesterday, and it turned out to be the perfect spot to sit, relax for a bit, and enjoy a yummy breakfast.

I was taken with the donut art all over the restaurant, which I will have to inspect on future visits. 

And although I did not stop to take a photo, the breakfast was delicious. Scrambled eggs, bacon, and -- surprise - a grilled donut. A novelty experience, to be sure. They had cut a plain glazed donut in half, sort of hamburger bun style, and put it face down on the grill for a bit so the surface was crispy.

Google tells me that this is a THING. If you go look, you can find recipes and images of sandwiches and desserts featuring grilled donuts. Who knew.

 

Anyway, it was a nice morning break. I've been reading Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid, so sitting, sipping my coffee, nibbling my grilled donut, and reading was a perfect pause. 

The novel, by the way, is quite enjoyable. The author has said it is loosely based on Fleetwood Mac, and is about the relationships between various band members as they become famous in the 1970's. It's told in an ongoing interview style that makes for interesting reading, as each character tells his point of view which is often quite different from the view of other characters. A movie is in the works, I hear.

One of my errands was a stop at a local appliance store to search for a replacement gas range. The one above (excuse the fingerprints and grime) is what came with the house and what we have been using since then. But on Thanksgiving, issues became apparent -- mainly, the vague smell of propane gas ALL the time in the kitchen. After various repair visits and gas line inspections, it was determined that the range had a leak in a part which was no longer available, so the range would have to be replaced. 

Along the way, I did get better acquainted with two neighbors who helped me pull the range out and shut off the gas line, which I greatly appreciated. I've also learned that the propane gas smell is from a substance called Mercaptan, a harmless chemical in and of itself which is added to odorless propane gas so any dangerous leak can be detected. I can not tell you how many times the gas company people have said the word Mercaptan to me over the last several weeks.

I will spare you the story of "how I lived without an oven or stovetop" from Thanksgiving to early January (which would include a deeply moving segue into the agony of not being able to bake the ritual Christmas cookies). Suffice it to say that I have become a lot more familiar with the benefits of my Instant Pot, and have used my crockpot, toaster oven, and microwave oven a whole lot. I can also report that in a pinch, Walker Shortbread will make a reasonable substitute when you are desperately craving the family traditional  holiday shortbread. 

I now have an excellent replacement range on order which is expected to be installed next week. Turns out that the tricky part was not choosing a gas range; it was finding one that would be available sometime before March. 

Oh, one more thing. See how that range up there has two ovens? I thought that might be a handy feature, and it turned out that the top part (broiler and shallow oven) worked fine for a lot of things. But if you're tall, like me, and pulling a casserole dish or roasting pan (say, with a big ol' turkey) out of the lower oven, then you are pretty much down on the floor ... with two dogs eager to investigate and thrilled to have delicious smelling food right at their snout level. So the new range will have one normal oven, with the typical storage drawer at ground level. I can hardly wait.

Meanwhile, in another break from work, last weekend I loaded another small quilt top onto the long arm. I have no idea when I made this. I vaguely recall that I had a small assortment of fabric that I'd bought because the prints were just too charming to pass up. Look at those pink clamshells! And the abstract seaweed print on white! And the little whale tail on navy blue! And starfish! Somewhere along the way I decided that I'd mix in some other things and cut them into equilateral triangles for a someday baby gift or donation quilt. I still love these fabrics and the unusual pink-navy-gold color combination. 

 So yesterday afternoon (instead of dealing with the laundry, dog hair, and Christmas decor) I started in with the quilting a bit. I like the quilting to emphasize the part of the quilt I really like -- and I realized with this, it was the triangles themselves. Plus I thought I needed to ease back into ruler quilting with something that is not too challenging. So, quilting straight lines to emphasize the triangles is now under way. 

If you've never quilted with a ruler, on the longarm you hold the ruler down with your left hand, and guide the machine with your right, keeping the ruler foot gliding along the edge of the ruler. I had forgotten how easy it is to just veer off away from the ruler, so what should be a straight line turns into a strange arc heading off for parts unknown. I've already had to do a bit of ripping. Ah well, it's what this practice is for. 

So, there you have it. The week ahead promises to be another crazy work week, but I now have the knowledge that I'll soon have a working stovetop and oven back in the kitchen. Plus Miss C is quite intrigued at hearing about grilled donuts, so I suspect there will be a return visit to Whidbey Donuts sometime soon.

Happy January to you all, friends!

 

Always More to Read

You might remember that a while ago I came upon a flyer announcing that Nancy Pearl was going to speaking in Langley. I got all of my work done and sent off, so I was free to trot off on Thursday morning to see her talk.

Nancy Pearl is a retired librarian from Seattle. She has become known for her love of reading and her talent and at recommending books to others. You can read all about her here on Wikipedia. I didn't know that she started the concept of having a whole city read the same book -- "Seattle Reads" -- which has been adopted by any cities around the country. I knew her from her interviews on Public Radio, and from a few books she has published with lists of book recommendations.

Beforehand, I got my official Sno-Isle library card, giving me access to the Snohomish and Island County libraries. Isn't that a great name? Sno-Isle sounds like a magical wintry island where you can snuggle in, drink hot chocolate and read all day. 

Nancy Pearl's talk was held at the local arts center, and the place was packed. It was wonderful to be in a big room full of avid readers. It looked to me like a lot of book club groups had come together. As a newcomer to Whidbey Island, it was heartening to look around and see people who love books and reading. Will one of them become a friend, some day? This talk was Nancy's 25th talk in Langley, and the woman next to me had been to every one. 

 

The talk was about some of the best books that Nancy has read over the last year. Conveniently, the program included the list of titles and authors Nancy would be discussing, and people (including me) took notes to remember the ones that sounded most appealing. It was a delightful talk, and Nancy seemed like someone you'd want to just sit and talk books with for hours. 

She talked some about paper books vs audio books vs e-readers. Nancy has no prejudices against any of the formats. There was a bit of discussion about how a book/ebook is a dialogue between book and reader, and an audiobook becomes a conversation between author, reader and narrator. It is certainly true that audio book narrators can make or break a listening experience. (I recall one I tried to listen to awhile back where the narrator kept pausing or changing her intonation as if the sentence had ended...but it had not. It was very disconcerting and I stopped listening because it was just too distracting.)

And speaking of stopping, Nancy Pearl has become known for her "Rule of 50" which she has now adapted. Her view is that life is to short, and there are too many great things to read, to waste time on something you are not enjoying. Hear, hear! So her rule is this: You should read 50 pages and if you are still not involved or enjoying it, stop. (Her exception was if you are reading for a book club, keep going...  because then you have made a commitment to the other club members.) She also added: you are reading a mystery, not enjoying it much but reading only because you want to know who did it, for pete's sake go look at the end, and then walk away. Her new amendments are: if you are over 51 years old, subtract your age from 100 and that is how many pages you should read. For example, if you are 65, subtract 65 from 100 and you need only read 35 pages. And, she added, if you are 100 then you can judge a book by its cover and read however much or however little you choose.

Isn't it funny how we need permission to stop reading a book? For the longest time, I felt like I had to read to the end if I started it, and felt horribly guilty if I stopped midway. Some years back I let go of that, but I appreciate having a librarian's permission to abandon ship at will. 

Some of Nancy Pearl's previous Langley talks are posted on Youtube, so you can listen, get a flavor for her, and get some past book recommendations.  She's done a Ted Talk, which you can watch here. And she has done a bunch of "Book Lust with Nancy Pearl" author interviews on Seattle Channel, which you can find on Youtube also.

You want to know what Nancy Pearl recommended, don't you? Here are a few of the ones I noted:

  What Just Happened: Notes on a Long Year by Charles Finch

        A non-fiction diary of one man's experience of 2020 and Covid lockdown. Nancy said she didn't want to relive 2020 but the book was wonderful. You can see her interview with the author here. 

Revenge of the Librarians by Tom Gauld

    A collection of cartoons about books, writing, editing, reading. You might recognize his style from his New Yorker contributions. I went straight to the bookstore afterwards and bought this. I need more cartoons in my life. And it's delightful. 

 The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin

    I had read this and really enjoyed it. It's the story of Lenni, a 17 year old terminal cancer patient, and Margo, an 83 year old woman, who are both hospitalized and meet in the craft room. They realize that their ages total 100 years, and they decide to paint images of their lives, one for each year, so when they are done they will have a collection of 100 paintings. I thought it was lovely, poignant, and not (surprisingly) not depressing.

 Thank You, Mr. Nixon by Gish Jen  

    I really want to read this. It is a series of linked short stories, about different generations from the same family. The publisher's blurb says: "Beginning with a cheery letter penned by a Chinese girl in heaven to “poor Mr. Nixon” in hell, Gish Jen embarks on a fictional journey through U.S.-China relations, capturing the excitement of a world on the brink of tectonic change."  This especially interests me. Caroline was born in and adopted from China, and our beloved guide when we were in China, Chen, was the (then very young) Chinese diplomat responsible for coordinating Nixon's travels through China. There is a Nancy Pearl interview with Gish Jen on Youtube.

The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont 

    I have seen this book in a lot of places, and figured it was one of the many sort of derivative historical fiction pieces that seem popular right now. Nancy Pearl's comments about it made me want to read it, and I just got it from the library. If you're an Agatha Christie fan, you probably know that there is a real mystery about Christie's life about an 11 day period where she simply disappeared. To this day, no one really know what happened, and there is much speculation. Christie's husband was having a very public affair, and when Christie disappeared it was feared that she had killed herself. She was subsequently discovered, alive, checked into an inn under the name of the mistress. This is a take on that 11 days, told from the perspective of the mistress. Nancy recommended it highly, so I'm giving it a go. But before I start I'll watch Nancy's interview with the author, here.

 

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 

    This was on my "to read" list so I am looking forward tot his even more. You might know Gabrielle Zevin from her delightful novel, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow traces the lives of two friends from their meeting as young students, to their decision to create a computer game together, to what happens after that. According to the publisher, "two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality." Nancy raved about this and said you do not have to know about or like computer games to really enjoy this book.  

Still Life by Sarah Winman  

    I'd not heard of this but it sounds intriguing. Based on Nancy's recommendation, I've added this to my To Read list. Here is the publisher's description:

"Tuscany, 1944: As Allied troops advance and bombs fall around deserted villages, a young English soldier, Ulysses Temper, finds himself in the wine cellar of a deserted villa. There, he has a chance encounter with Evelyn Skinner, a middle-aged art historian who has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the ruins and recall long-forgotten memories of her own youth. In each other, Ulysses and Evelyn find a kindred spirit amidst the rubble of war-torn Italy, and set off on a course of events that will shape Ulysses's life for the next four decades."

After the talk, I wandered over to Langley's charming independent bookstore, Moonraker Books. I bought the Tom Gauld book of cartoons there, wandered a bit  -- so many tempting books! 

 

I ended my outing at Crabby Coffee, where I sat next to the fireplace, sipped a latte, and perused Tom Gauld's bookish cartoons. 

It was a wonderful way to spend the morning. And now I will appreciate Whidbey's rainy and chilly weather even more, because it is the perfect weather for snuggling in and reading.