Jun 27, 2005 by Naomi.

There is a wealth of philosopy in Nora Roberts novels. An example : Kathleen, an anthropologist, was asked for her philosophy and she said, “Life is like a mustache, it might be terrible or pretty, but either way it tickles.” Sometimes one has to laugh right out loud. Nora herself says, “Love and magic have a great deal in common. They enrich the soul, delight the heart. And they both take practice. Now isn’t that the truth?

Linda Lael Miller uses unusual descriptions of characters that makes you wonder if you were poleaxed. A housekeeper…”could almost be as fierce as Geronimo himself, and just as likely to stake a man out on an anthill if he crossed her once too often.” Linda writes of fiesty women.

Stella Cameron pictures a fight. “Tom got two good fistfuls of Marry’s hair and pulled while he kicked the man’s slack belly as if it were a feather bed for jumping on.”

Debbie Macomber, Joan Johnston, and dozens of others are entertaining with descriptions the likes of which you may never have heard before.

On the face it appears I lean toward women writers. I can’t read everything so I choose those that offer good writing and revealing metaphors. I do submit to lesser writing now and then and enjoy adventure with Lamour’s “The Last of the Breed.” His sentences aren’t always well formed, or could have been - as he often says. His plot moved me along and as with the other authors mentioned, his book is worth a reread.

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Jun 27, 2005 by Naomi.

A blog is an opportunity to practice writing. I’ve kept a daily journal since 1970 but it is private and no one will puzzle over my sentence structure or spelling. A blog should have a coherent thought and sentences, relevant or not. Richard Dawkins’ in “The Ancestor’s Tale” talks of written history and mentioned knowing very little about the 8 grandparents he can remember. That reminded me how little I remember of my mother’s parents, the only grandparents I knew. I have no excuse for not leaving some written record for my grandchildren. It doesn’t take much to kindle memories.

My screen saver is a slide show of photos from albums in my archives. When sister, Ruth, and I played cards several weeks ago, a photo of brother, Emil, and I came on screen, standing on the frozen lake where we lived in 1939 with the farm buildings in the background. We were carrying our lunch pails on the way to school. Boy, oh boy, did that bring up memories! - of the Halloween fire that caused the move, the one room school at the end of a mile walk, playing with snakes at recess, and as with my life, memories go on and on.

While those are subjects for written articles, this is not the place. Watch, not for history but, for MYSTORY on http://www.sherer.org

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Jun 27, 2005 by Naomi.

Watching backyard wildlife is time consuming and I don’t have the opportunity to stay by my kitchen window very long but when I saw a scruffy tailed red squirrel galloping in a frantic pace along Lorraine’s (my neighbor) eaves I was curious to know what the animal was trying to do. It would go to the corner and look down at the holly bush recently trimmed several feet below the eaves. It retraced its steps and looked across to my fir tree from which several days ago I had also cut a branch that hung above Lorraine’s sidewalk. My Douglas fir is three feet from my line and the branches spread more than twenty feet in every direction. The lowest one is level with Lorraine’s eaves but not anywhere near.

Our houses are about 40 feet apart according to city ordinance set over fifty years ago. A spacious distance to be sure but that squirrel has for months been making its way from a chestnut tree in Lorraine’s backyard across her roof to my fir tree and then across my roof to chew on the developing nuts growing on black and English walnut trees near my front door (with branches overhanging my roof). The squirrel appeared to be puzzled about the change in distance and seemed unsure about making a drop into the holly bush. Holly leaves are prickly and I wouldn’t want to grab one for my safety net. Well neither did the squirrel. After many pacings, the animal judged the distance to a higher limb of the fir tree to be its destination. And it jumped.

Red squirrels cannot fly. They cannot even glide like the so called flying squirrels that sail over distances many times their body length from a high perch to a lower one. This red sqirrel, with a scruffy tail, appeared to fly. It jumped across to the fir branch and scrambled to get to the more solid footing on the tree trunk. I left it there contemplating whether it was safe to go to the ground and cross the yard to its destination or go to a higher branch and leap to my roof.

Whatever its choice, I know it got there because scraps of nut casings were scattered on the ground.

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