December is decompression. I’ve watched some movies, read a novel, spent time with family, shopped the seasonal sales, taken care of minor business related to West Texas Writers and FictionAddiction.NET and tried to recover from November’s adventure.
My family watched West Side Story. I don’t think that the children have ever seen a musical, and even though the Boy said the smootchy parts were boring they seemed to enjoy it.
I grew up listening to the Leonard Bernstein soundtrack on a record from my parents’ collection. I saw the movie once, but was too young to appreciate its social commentary and sarcasm.
A few months ago I purchased Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale through mail-order, but have only now made the time to read it. I expected contemporary, or perhaps literary, fiction; but was pleasantly surprised to find a Victorian-style tale of tragedy.
The book introduces us to a remarkably dysfunctional family, where each member is more tragic than the last. The narrative grips readers and pulls us toward an unavoidable and horrific ending. This one’s definitely a keeper.
I went to the department-store buy a new coat. I found a nice green one with a bit of fur trim around the hood – very warm. The store was packed with Holiday shoppers, and the lines at the registers were rather long. Standing in line I realized that I was repeatedly poking the purse of the woman in front of me with my coat’s hanger. Every time, she would grab her purse and adjust the shoulder strap. Eventually she moved to another line.
This put me behind another woman. After a couple of minutes, she jumped as if something had bitten her. My hanger was poking her in the rear.
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