I won't have much to post today because I'm using this as a down day just to try and recover from my bronchitis, which is improving, plus recommended by the doctor that I saw yesterday. This is tough for me to sit still but I will abide. I still have 4 more novels to finish of the 10 that I brought along on my laptop. I hate to admit this, but now that I'm older I'm ready for confessions. I never read a book until I was out of college. Sure, I read textbooks but never read a novel or a book cover to cover until I was well out of college. So how did I get through college? Well Cliff Notes helped a lot. I was always a quick fix reader: Newspapers (sports, business, puzzles, front page, usually that order), Magazines (Sports based, Newsweek, USA Today) and that was about it. When on-line news became a reality, I was in heaven because it was all quick fix. That means I never read Huckleberry Finn, Treasure Island, or any of the expected classics you are suppose to read growing up. The first book I ever read cover to cover was Catcher in the Rye (no I didn't think is was a baseball story). I don't even remember why I picked it up and started reading it. It was like a whole new world opened up to me...my mind was so challenged and engaged I couldn't put it down. From that point forward, I couldn't read enough to satisfy me. It was if my brain was telling me that I had to catch up to the rest of the world, as if it were passing me by.
So guess what I'm reading on this trip? Huckleberry Finn, Treasure Island, Sound and the Fury, House of Seven Gables, Main Street, Of Mice and Men, Call of the Wild, Sun also Rises, Slaughterhouse-Five and Moby Dick.
I also have a dinner tonight with a lady that was so helpful to me when I was with Kaplan in Melbourne, Petra Eckerova. She is still with Kaplan and has moved to Sydney recently to continue her work in international recruitment. She is such a smart and intelligent lady. When I was in Melbourne she was my go to person to help me feel my way around, everything from local and education politics to suggesting places to live in the area. I always enjoyed seeing her smile and hearing her laughter everyday I was with Kaplan. So I feel I owe her a thank you and gratitude that I wasn't able to express back a few years ago.
We meet at an Italian cafe near my apartment and close to where she's lives. She still is bubbly and pleasant as ever, although I still hassle her about her smoking, "such a beautiful lady with such a nasty habit" I use to tell her and did again today. We have a very nice two hour dinner and enjoyed getting caught up on Kaplan in OZ and finding out what has happened to employees that I remember working along. After dinner I walk her to her main street to where she will walk back to her place. We promise to stay in touch. I joke I want an invitation to her wedding. She gives that great smile and chuckles as she walks down the tree lined park area back to her neighborhood.
I get back to my apartment, take my meds and settle down to finish Main Street.
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