Snow fell heavily for several hours yesterday afternoon. It was pretty as it fell and, not yet having absorbed city grime, still is. I was surprised to learn this morning that the official total was almost 6”/15 cm, but that measurement is taken at O’Hare Airport, thirteen miles inland. Here near the lake we had only an inch or two.
Walking through the nearby cemetery today I saw these geese. As I have noted before I have no sympathy for any geese who are too lazy to fly further south than Chicago. Even with global warming this is no place to spend a winter, and I won’t.
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Perhaps you will forgive an old man for wistfully remembering that women once called him beautiful. That was the word as opposed to the more conventional handsome. I did not take offense
I am under no delusion that I am what I might long ago have been, but I do like to believe that I am not yet grotesque, though that is exactly what I was for the past two weeks thanks to another treatment to remove potentially pre-cancerous cells from my scalp and face. This entailed applying a cream that is intended to attack only damaged cells, which apparently all of those on my face and scalp are. I was supposed to apply the cream for four weeks. I lasted eleven days at which point my head looked as though it had been slow roasted over a too hot fire, and felt worse.
The treatment was a success in that it removed a layer of skin which peeled and has been flaking off for several days. I have molted like a snake. Whether it removed enough, I do not know. That it removed all it is going to, I am certain.
If not beautiful, no longer grotesque.
I can again look myself in the mirror while shaving without being frightened.
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From Barry comes a link to a professionally made video about a paraplegic team that participated in the Race to Alaska. They finished, though with help from additional crew. In fact, some of the crew interaction, both seen and inferred, makes a good case for sailing alone.
I thank Barry for the link.
I thank Barry for the link.
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Last week one of the daily BookBub recommendations was REGENERATION, a novel by the English woman, Pat Barker, about treatment of neurasthenic patients during WWI. For ‘neurasthenic’ think ‘shell shocked’ or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. To many during WWI, including those in the medical profession, men with the symptoms were thought merely to be weak cowards.
I learned that the novel is the first of an eponymous trilogy. Oddly only the first and third are in Kindle editions, so I did what I rarely do anymore and bought a used hardcover copy of the trilogy via Amazon.
I have just completed the first novel which is largely based on historical characters, including Dr. W.H.R. Rivers, and the poets Siegfried Sassoons and Wilfred Owens. It is one of the most compelling novels I have read in a long time.
I’ve only just started the second in the trilogy, THE EYE IN THE DOOR. The third is THE GHOST ROAD.
All the novels justifiably received rave reviews and critics have said that the trilogy may be one of the true masterpieces of Twentieth Century British fiction. I won’t know until I finish them all, but so far I think that may be true.
The used copy I bought was once a library edition. I do not understand how a library could have ever let this book go.
