Read With Me! Some November 2019 Thoughts.

I spent November attempting to once again complete the National Novel Writing Month challenge of writing 50,000 words. This amounts to an average of 1,667 words each day. While that may not seem like much, keeping that average every single day for thirty days gets to be daunting. I've managed to do it in 2016, 2017, and now in 2019. I didn't get there in 2018 (fell short by about 10,000 words), and I didn't make the goal in 2015 or 2013, which was the year I first tried it. Since I failed so miserably that year, I didn't even attempt it in 2014, but then I reminded myself that I only really fail when I don't try.



I also roped my creative writing students into doing this challenge; however, I only asked them to attempt 15,000 words over the course of the month. Two of them achieved the goal, and I am quite pleased with that outcome. Getting teenagers to commit to something like this is pretty hard, and then to have them embrace it enough to actually do it is a huge accomplishment for them as well as for me.

The novel I have been writing isn't yet complete despite those 50,000 words added to it. I had actually started it years ago, but I got bogged down with all sorts of things while writing it, and I abandoned it for a while. I took advantage of this yearly challenge to make myself try to get somewhere with it because the story had been sitting in my head for years demanding my attention. The story, though, still needs to be completed -- as of now it has about 66,000 words in it --  and then it will need a lot of rewriting. One thing at a time, though. The gist of it is this: a middle-aged woman buys a motorcycle and inadvertently finds herself caught up in solving the mysterious death of the bike's original owner.

Now, if you happen to know me, you will see a bit of autobiographical information in that short summary. I am middle-aged. I bought a bike a few years ago. It had a previous owner. That, though, is where the autobiographical part ends and the fictionalized part begins. My protagonist is a high school principal (o.k., I teach high school). She meets and begins a relationship with another biker. (o.k., I met my guy that way). But that's it, I swear! They say -- write what you know -- and I know high schools, what it's like to be judged as a solo female rider, and the joy of meeting a kindred spirit to share those rides with.

Anyway, one day I'll actually finish this story, and it, along with the three other complete novels I've written these past few years, will be out there for anyone to read. Whether I end up sharing them the same way I did with The Clearwater House and with State of Georgia . . . and Other Writings remains to be seen. The goal is, and always has been, to be traditionally published someday, but time will tell.

As far as reading goes, I spent November mostly on Walden by Henry David Thoreau. I read this with the advanced English class I teach to high school juniors. While I've only required them to read a portion of it, I read the whole thing. I will address the mind-blowing experience it was for me in a later blog post. Let's just say that I regret not reading Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson with greater attention sooner in my life.



Each year, I attempt to read 50 books. Most years, I manage to read that many, but doing so often means I'm spending the bulk of my Christmas vacation time reading a few to complete my reading challenge. While I don't mind that, I much prefer that I happened to make that goal at the beginning of November when I finished reading A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. Since then, I've read three more and am in the process of reading about ten others.

This is the earliest I've completed my personal yearly reading challenge since I began doing it in 2007. At the end of 2006, I decided to begin a reading journal, and since then I've tracked my reads in that journal as well as on the Goodreads site. While some people scoff at both the need to create a reading challenge and the need to record the books a person reads, I have found that both add to my reading enjoyment.

Keeping the journal allows me to record my private thoughts about each book, and it prevents me from inadvertently re-reading a book I don't really want to re-read. The challenge is just for me. I'm very happy that I have already read 53 books in 2019 and that I will end the year having read 55 or more. When full retirement hits and I can dedicate even more of my time to reading and writing, I will up that goal to 75 most likely.

Here are five of my favorite reads from this year aside from Walden mentioned above:

 









I look forward to finishing the book I'm writing, to reading many more great books, and to sharing a few things here with any like-minded people out there.

Roam With Me! Nashville and Asheville -- July 2019

In July, I took a road trip with my honey, and we went to Nashville, TN, as well as Asheville, NC, and a few places in between. Our main reason for visiting these two areas was to see if we liked them for potential retirement locales. We more than liked the Nashville area -- we loved it!

Here are some of the reasons we may very well retire in the Nashville area.

First and foremost -- the climate. We are both so tired of Nebraska winters. While the Nashville area still sees a little bit of snow, that's all it sees -- a little bit.

Second -- there is a thriving literary scene with numerous bookstores, libraries, writing events, etc. These photos were taken in Books at Cummins Station where the books tower toward the ceiling, Parnassus which is co-owned by Ann Patchett, and McKay's where they offer shopping carts to load up on your choices from the thousands of used books available.

Third -- aside from the literary events, there are many cultural events to suit anything we may be in the mood to attend. Naturally, there are musical events happening all over town, but there are museums, live shows, sporting events, stand-up comedy, parks, and on and on.

Kim outside one of the many bars on Broadway in downtown Nashville. Every single bar has live music spilling out onto the street. It's crazy and it's loud!

The Tennessee Titans stadium viewed from across the Cumberland River.

A life-size replica of the Parthenon in Athens -- located in Centennial Park. It's the only to-scale replica in the world.

Fourth -- motorcycle riding and golfing can be year-round activities instead of relegated to the few fickle summer months in Nebraska. We kept a sharp eye on the roads in Tennessee, and we were pleased to encounter very few potholes and almost no haphazard patch jobs. The roads were smooth and would make for excellent riding. The golf courses stay open all year round and only had to close twelve days last year due to poor weather.

The greens at the Hermitage golf course northeast of Nashville.

See how smooth the roads are!

Fifth -- we love trying new restaurants, and there are so many in and around Nashville that we could keep busy for years simply visiting a different one every week. In downtown Nashville, we ate at Sambuca in the Gulch area. It's pricey but really delicious, and the serving sizes are spot-on. I had the hickory-smoked prime pork chop, and Kim ate the shrimp and crab linguini. We even had room for dessert, so we shared a scrumptious cheesecake sopapilla. There, as in many of the downtown restaurants, we enjoyed live music while we ate -- the night we were there a blues trio was playing. Another day, for lunch, we ate at Peg Leg Porker BBQ. Basically, we just stumbled upon it, having no idea it was one of the most popular eating establishments in the Gulch area. My favorite BBQ meal, though, was at Martin's Bar-B-Que Joint in Mt. Juliet, about twenty minutes east of Nashville. I had the brisket tacos. Yummy.

Sixth -- there is a wonderful 55+ active community in Mr. Juliet that we visited to see if it was to our liking. It definitely is. Wonderful amenities including an indoor pool with dedicated lap lanes and a large outdoor pool, a small lake, walking trails, a fitness room and indoor walking path, a lending library and beautifully landscaped areas everywhere. It may or may not end up being our retirement haven.

I'd swim here every day if we lived here.

How fun do those paddle boats look!

Seventh -- the natural wonders that surround Nashville and abound throughout Tennessee. It's just a pretty state with so many trees, lakes and mountains that there's something pretty to see everywhere you go. We even happened upon some elk!

Simply gorgeous scenery.

This is a view of Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park taken from behind the capitol.

Eighth -- Nashville is the capital of Tennessee, so whatever a person needs in a governmental capacity can be found here, and it draws events like the state fair and major conventions.

Tennessee's Capitol.

Ninth -- Nashville has proximity to many other great places. It's one of two states in the U.S.A. that is bordered by eight different states (Missouri is the other one), and since it's a narrow state, it's easy to be in any of those other eight states in a short amount of time. Additionally, it's only a nine hour drive to the Gulf coast or to the Atlantic at Charleston. You can also drive back to Nebraska in a day as well, so Nashville is ideally located for many future road trips.

Tenth -- it makes a great place for friends and family to visit as well, and if we end up there, we look forward to the memories we'll make with whomever comes to visit. There's just so much to do in and around Nashville that we'll always be able to find something fun to do with anyone who visits.

Asheville, North Carolina, is an easy drive from Nashville, and it was another town I wanted to check out as a possible retirement destination. While we enjoyed our visit there, we both decided it wasn't the town for us as far as living there goes, but we'd definitely go back to see more of what it has to offer. 

The highlights of our time in Asheville were our visit to the Biltmore estate and seeing Thomas Wolfe's boyhood home and memorial as well as his cemetery headstone. My words and photos can't do justice to the behemoth that is the Biltmore estate, so I'll just share a few of my favorites.

I love the gargoyles!!

The Biltmore library was my favorite room, of course.

The chandelier in the main staircase is amazing.

Can I please have this lovely writing desk?

The indoor swimming pool in the basement. No water -- I might have jumped in if there had been any!

That's a 179,000 square foot house! It's the largest privately owned home in the country. You really have to see it to believe it.

Surprisingly, Wolfe isn't the only literary great buried in Asheville's Riverside Cemetery. O. Henry is also there, which is odd since he's not from Asheville.

This life-size cutout of Thomas Wolfe is to show that he was a tall man.

The house his mother used as a boarding house and where he spent some of his childhood. The house where he was born was only a few blocks away, but it no longer exists.

Beautiful books that belonged to Wolfe's father.

O. Henry's real name.

We also took a drive from Asheville back into Tennessee to see Johnson City and the fossil site at Gray. The drive between Asheville and Johnson City was beautiful.

Tennessee definitely stole our hearts. Hopefully, we will return soon -- perhaps to live there, perhaps for just an extended stay. Either way, I look forward to going back.

Roam With Me! Harvard, Cambridge and Boston -- June 21-22, 2019

A few months before our trip to Boston, I reached out to a man who works for Harvard and politely asked him if he'd speak to my daughter about the college and its graduate program for her to consider in the next few years to complete her dream of becoming a paleontologist. Honestly, I thought he might shrug me off and suggest I take her on one of the group tours, but he didn't. He was very receptive to meeting with her. I won't give his name or his role at Harvard, but he's a very important man in the science department, and he not only graciously agreed to meet with her, he also treated us wonderfully during our visit with him.

This special meeting was part of my birthday gift to her, and she definitely enjoyed visiting with him and learning about how the grad program at Harvard works. It's really something, that's for sure. He also gave us each caps with the science department logo on them, and he gave us a special tour of classrooms, labs and graduate student work areas. He also walked us into the Museum of Natural History which is connected to the zoology and anthropology museums as well. He made sure to steer us toward the special exhibit of mind-blowing glass flowers, and he pointed out his favorite fossils. I've sent him a thank-you gift for his time, and I'll never forget his amazing office with a glorious view of trees and open space in front of the museum.

Here are some photos of our time with him and of wonderful displays in the three attached museums.

I took the following photo as proof that Harvard, arguably one of the premier universities in the world, uses blackboards and chalk!! They took my chalkboards away years ago, and I still miss them. If Harvard insists on blackboards, then I think they should be put back in public school classrooms, too. Smart boards, be damned. Give me a good old chalkboard any day!!

There are three massive whale fossils hanging in the main room of the zoology museum, and they've been hanging there for over one hundred years! Crazy.

The following photos show some of the glass flowers as well as the information signs about them. Truly mind-blowing that all of them are made out of glass and all made over one hundred years ago. We later saw small sea animals made by the same father and son duo displayed in the Museum of Science (photo below). It's so hard, even when looking at them up close, to fathom that these are made out of glass and that they were made so long ago and have survived this long, too.

The room in which they are displayed is quite large, and there are many cases like these simply full of every imaginable type of flower and grass.

The following photo is of a Day of the Dead ofrenda in the anthropology section. I took a few since I teach Spanish, and I share information about this Mexican tradition at the end of October every year with my students.

This is just part of Harvard's campus. It's quite pretty. We didn't wander around much of it, though, as we were hungry and needed some lunch.

After we walked through the above gate, we found a restaurant which was also a pub, so I ordered a local beer called Clown Shoes Mango, and it was delicious. If you happen to know if that beer is available outside of the Cambridge area, leave me a comment below. Thanks.

Then, since I am a well-known book and book store addict, we visited Harvard Book Store, which was established in 1932. Wow! What a nice store. It's well-arranged and beautiful. Naturally, I bought a couple books, and I took many photos. As we were paying, the cashier noticed my Nebraska Writers Guild t-shirt and asked if I was from Nebraska. When I answered in the affirmative, he said they used to have a store book buyer from Broken Bow. I suspect that was his only familiarity with Nebraska, but at least he knew a little about it. Harvard Book Store is one of the 50 book stores depicted in the box of post cards I'd bought the day before in Trident Booksellers in Boston (see earlier post), so I was thrilled to visit another of those 50 (and I'll soon visit a fourth in Nashville). It is quite worthy of being considered as one of the best book stores in the world. Here are some photos:

Soooooooooo pretty!




























Behind Harvard Book Store is Grolier, which claims to be the oldest poetry store -- around for over 90 years. It's a very small store, and we looked around for a bit but didn't buy anything. I did look specifically to see if they carried any of Ted Kooser's books, but they didn't. I was a little disappointed because, even though he's a Nebraska poet, he was the U.S. Poet Laureate as well, so I really think a store devoted to selling only poetry collections should carry at least one of his books.

We also visited Raven Used Books which is only a few blocks away from Harvard Book Store. Then it was time for an ice cream break, so we stopped at J.P. Licks and had what I'd consider to be some of the best ice cream I've ever had -- however, a few days later when we were in New Haven, we went to Clark's Restaurant and had pizza, a taste of birch beer (which we'd never heard of before but is basically New England's version of root beer but clear in color), and truly delicious ice cream that put the ice cream at J.P. Licks to shame. I noticed, though, that J.P. Licks had been voted the best ice cream by Boston Magazine for 2017 I believe it was, so don't get me wrong -- it was definitely good, but Clark's ice cream was better.

Then we took another long walk, so we could walk along M.I.T.'s campus as we returned to our hotel. Here are a few photos.

As we walked back along the Charles River, I took another photo of a building whose top floors had been shrouded in fog the day before when we'd toured Boston.

As we passed under the Longfellow Bridge (which we'd crossed yesterday from above), we were quite surprised to find a whole line of trophies on display on the ledge. Apparently, it's an odd, yet cute, Cambridge tradition to leave trophies here. 

My daughter had never eaten at the Cheesecake Factory before, so we went there for a pre-birthday supper. Our food was really good, but our meal was ruined by the extremely loud fire alarm going off repeatedly. The place was quite full, and when it first went off, we looked at each other with concern and wondered if we should leave, but the servers quickly went around telling everyone it was fine and that it happened sometimes. Finally, it stopped and people applauded. The reprieve was short-lived, though, and once again our ears were assaulted by the loud alarm. This happened repeatedly for some time, so we asked for to-go containers. I had mentioned to our waitress that it was the eve of my daughter's birthday, so during one of the alarm-bell lulls, she and a few others brought a small dish of ice cream and sang to her. She was not greatly amused by the singing and thought I'd put the servers up to it, but our waitress came to my defense and assured her I hadn't. I did get a smile out of her before our ears were assaulted once again and we beat a hasty retreat.

The next day was her actual birthday, and we went to the Museum of Science which was near our hotel. Then we grabbed an Uber because my feet were quite sore from the two full days of extensive walking, and we went to the New England Aquarium. This would have been a wonderful place to visit, but we were there on a Saturday, so it was simply much too crowded. The inner tank is four stories high, and there is a spiral path that encircles it to the top. We also took in a movie about great white sharks at the IMAX. Imagine our dismay, though, when we entered the lobby only to find that the theater's fire alarm was on the fritz, too!!! It emitted an ear-piercing continuous shrill noise, so we waited outside a bit until shortly before the film began. Fortunately, the alarm malfunction was contained to the lobby only. Phew.

The above photo is of some sea creatures made out of glass that I mentioned above. A few look a little obscene, right? Ha, ha. 

Above is my daughter, the birthday girl and future paleontologist.

Seaside in Boston. The sun was quite intense, and she was yelling at me to hurry up and take the darn photo!

My one regret is that we didn't have time to get out on a boat. I would have liked to go on the whale watch excursion, but it wasn't meant to be this trip. Clearly, one can only do so much in just three days in Boston and Cambridge, and I think we managed to get a lot of great things in during those days. A future trip may need to include a full week or more because I'd like to return to some of the places -- the bookstores, naturally -- and I'd like to see more of the historical side of Boston that we didn't get to see.

I'll leave you with three photos from our short visit to New Haven, Connecticut, where we visited the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural Science -- which will be closed all of 2020 as it undergoes a complete renovation. The first is from that museum, and the following two are from Clark's which I mentioned above. That's not Sprite or 7-Up in her glass or even sparkling water. It's birch beer, and it's delicious!