Gregory of Tours The History of the Franks

This book was not on the list. But I picked it up because it's medieval history that's being taught and learned hereabouts, and the first two sentences of the preface read

"A great many things keep happening, some of them good, some of them bad. The habitants of different countries keep quarreling fiercely with each other and kings go on losing their temper in the most furious way."

And it sounded so much like our house just before dinner is served, that I decided to go ahead and read the rest of the book.
I was looking for some good informative nuggets about Clovis, Pepin the Short and Charlemagne with which to dazzle my children.
But this history of the Franks does not begin in the AD 400's or so as you might expect.  Because Gregory was a Very Thorough Historian.

And in his thoroughgoing desire to include all who might claim a part in the history of the Franks, he begins his study with Adam and Eve.
And then proceeds through all of biblical history, through the Roman conquest and early church. And that is how far I got last night. I'm 120 pages in, and learning heaps and heaps about faithful saints (most of whom were celibate, even the married ones) and still more heaps about the unfaithful barbarians who tormented them.

I am, at the same time, reading Steven Schlissel's book Christian Culture in a Multicultural Age, and next comes Marriage to a Difficult Man.....Jon wants me to be sure and mention that I have to read this book because I have no experience with this kind of marriage.  
So, that's where I am.

Catcher in the Rye...done

Well, I read The Catcher in the Rye over two nights. And I just have to say something like "HMMMM".
I really loved that book when I was 15 and was required to read it for Mr Walton's English class.
 And again at 19, I read it in contemporary American Lit. and I felt such a kinship with Holden Caulfield.
Just as I loved The Brother's Karamazov at age 19.
 So,  I have to say that, 28 years later, I am a different person.
I find myself reading these books with more impatience, asking
(aloud, in my semi-dark living room,  at 1am)
why these characters cannot make intelligent choices and simply get on with life.
I imagine some of my trouble comes from being no longer the teenager, but the mother of teenagers,
with a keener perspective of how quickly time passes and how foolish it is to waste it.

Sometimes I think I'm just no fun any more, but my verdict on Catcher is that while it's really well written,
and it really is,
and Holden Caulfield is indeed one of the most "real" characters I have ever encountered in fiction.....
this book is best reserved for the young, and only read with some good encouragement alongside about how precious youth is and how wise we are if we use the time to get ready to do something productive with life.
But having said that, I will not encourage my own teenagers to read it.
It's so hopeless....

I made a little slide show of our day......

Ideas and Opinions

I am just at the end of Einstein's Ideas and Opinions.
It's not what I had expected.
OK, this is going to sound like Patti's third grade book review.......but, here goes....
I'm surprised at how broad his view of the world actually was.
I think that I had assumed that so much of his time and energy was focused on "work" that he must have been somewhat isolated from much, or at least some, of the rest of life.
For those of us of sub-average intellect, it seems a foregone conclusion that anyone known for brilliance and super-human productivity must certainly be cutting corners in his social life and certainly couldn't have a spare minute to keep on top of current events.
But Albert Einstein was a very thoughtful and well rounded individual.  He reflects eloquently upon the events and personalities of his day with insight and compassion.
I love in particular that he mentions, several times, the importance of understanding how much each of us is dependent upon our society and community of fellow men for most of the advantages we enjoy in our lives, the books we read, clothes we wear, food we eat, freedoms we enjoy, ideas with which we agree, art, music.
I admire his very real understanding of our indebtedness to one another.

I have to say that I enjoyed the first two-thirds of the book more than the final portion.  This is because he got into  science toward the end, and I am no scientist. I had been so much enjoying his views on  everything else....
This book is one I would like to read again, maybe just keep it by the bed to read a little section here and there.  It's not ideally suited to a quick reading done all at one gulp.  This is because it's a compilation of many small articles and letters, each disconnected from the others.  But I found that many ideas were repeated or rephrased, reiterated in more than one place.

I'd say this is a book that should be on everyone's shelf just to give us all a good idea of what went on the mind of this brilliant, charming, frugal, humble, practical loner and genius.

Being careful how we talk to ourselves

My mother often told me that I should be careful about how I allowed my mind to wander, and that I should be always aware of how I am talking to myself.  She emphasized that I can give myself and everyone around me the positive or the negative spin on my circumstances.
 I know she was right, and that I have the option to either see my circumstances as good and helpful opportunities, or as annoying obstacles over which I must haul my old tired victimized frame.
Today, Nancy Wilson has a really good post on just this topic...right here.

I do still read now and then

Well, for a while to come, running will almost never be mentioned around here.

Mostly because I have to really hunker down and get finished with some books.

I have a few to report as completed, and maybe I will say something about them....

First I read this amazing book about the excavation and construction of the Panama Canal which is titled Path Between the Seas.  It was written by David McCullough, who wrote a really excellent biography of John Adams which apparently everyone on the planet but me has read.  He does loads of research, and I learned more than I expected about the politics of canals and canal building engineers, pandemic disease, mudslides, human oppression, and the ability men have to really persevere under adversity.  This might be my second favorite book of the whole bunch so far.....the favorite of all being, of course, The Making of the Atomic Bomb.  

Oddly enough, these two books were TOO BIG for me to have intelligently included in my list of 100 for the year.  The Atomic Bomb set me back so far I nearly despaired of ever catching up....and this one didn't help me make up lost time at all.

Then I also finished Amusing Ourselves to Death which is of course now 15 years old, and old news to everyone.  But I'd say read this one again.  It says all the things about which we all agree regarding television and screen based media rotting our brain and causing us to be unable to interact with or understand many forms of knowledge and art.  And that our endless hunger for entertainment has mastered us to such an extent that we willingly allow ourselves to be exploited by it.  And that the very skills that we should actively cultivate in order to enjoy a life of ongoing learning and inquiry are destroyed by too much screen time.  Lots and lots of "lightbulb moments" while reading this one.

And I read Becoming Conversant with the Emergent Church by DA Carson, as well.  This book is not easy to describe, at least not for me.  I think that I am uncomfortable discussing errors in the church which are currently in practice.  I understand that this is wimpy on my part.  I think that I have seen, on the internet, so much unloving criticism of some Christians by other Christians....and in such an unbiblical way, that I am fearful of joining in.

However, the Emergent Church is full of error.   And I understand that the errors which are stated by Emerging personalities  such as Brian McLaren are not minor errors.  They are errors about how we should handle truth, about how we are to understand our salvation, and about how we may present it to others, and how much difference of opinion may be tolerated in the church.  Carson explains these errors well, and he does so in a respectful and compassionate way....I was so grateful to him for that because it added a great deal to his credibility for me.  But this book is at times a bit beyond my understanding, and I would say it might be intended for pastors and seminarians.  Still, it did help me to understand some of what I see going on around me.  

Now I am starting Einstein's Ideas and Opinions, I read ten pages of it yesterday and couldn't tell you what it said.  I cannot seem to stay awake.  Hopefully this is temporary.  Daniel says it's because my "exerterator" is down because of all that running.  You can tell he is the son of a brilliant physician.    He explained further that my exerterator is located just above my gall bladder.....then he looked shocked as he remembered that my gall bladder was removed in March...he said " OH my Gosh, what if they took it out by mistake!" 

 I'm pretty sure they did.

Before I go completely silent on the topic of running, one more little item.
In the top right corner of this page there is a little link to "Running and Training Pages"  which is just going to be an ongoing log of training and running stuff for anybody who wants to look.  I would really love to have people running with me.
But I run in the dark hours of early morning, and nobody loves me enough to join me then.
But it would be fun to have someone who wants to keep a log on those training pages with me.  So if you are interested in training to run ANYTHING.....marathon, half-marathon, 10K, 5K, around the block, anything at all, and you would like to post your plan and your achievements on those pages, please let me know.
Just leave a comment on one of the posts over there or e-mail me at missyween(at)yahoo(dot)ca.

Regarding my question about marathon women who knit with a GPS

I almost forgot.....there actually was a middle-aged, knitting obsessed, marathon mom at my hotel.

I bumped into her at breakfast yesterday as she was hauling her wicker basket of knitting into the dining room, wearing her Marathon Number on her shirt.

And she had a really nice Garmin GPS watch on her wrist.

She's about my age, only smaller.

I overheard her saying that she has 2 grown children.

I was so delighted to see her.

It is Over

First off, thanks so very much to the many sweet people who left me such encouraging remarks.

I am so grateful for your kindness to me. I love having people in my life!

Now, here is my race day report.

The day was a big one.

It wasn't entirely the day I had hoped for, though it started out very well.

I was up at 4:30, eating breakfast at 6AM, then on a yellow schoolbus heading to the US border and then Buffalo at 7am, stuck at the border until 9AM because a Swede and two Englishmen did not have proper credentials.

Before the race started, all runners were well cared for in the warmth of the elegant Albright Knox Gallery, so we got to look at some beautiful works of art while we stretched and hydrated.

The race started a 10AM, on a sparkling clear morning.

Starting out, I felt very well, and it was a perfect day, and all indications were positive.

So I bounced along doing OK, shedding fleece jacket and gloves as the day got quite surprisingly warm. It was a spectacularly beautiful day.

And I was in the company of some really fun, friendly and very entertaining women.

Things were looking good.

We ran around Buffalo for awhile, and were well protected by the charming Buffalo Police and some wildly enthusiastic onlookers.

We ran across the Peace Bridge, which must have caused some delays and irritation for quite a number of border crossers, but it was no trouble at all for us. Nothing like the white-knuckle terror I had built it up to be in my mind.

Then we ran out to Fort Eerie, and headed up along the parkway which would take us all the way to Niagara.....just gorgeous on this perfect colorful warm fall day.

Now, you may or may not have read what I said in an earlier post ("Drawing Lines in the Sand"), about my right hip and the prospect that this marathon would cause me to lose the use of that joint.

I fully expected that my hip would do me the courtesy of hanging in there for me until the race was done. But it did not.

At mile 18, after a bit of minor discomfort (I love that word.....it is the medical term for "pain") I felt/heard my hip pop out of it's proper spot in the socket, as it has done once or twice before. Sometimes I am able to pop it right back in if I baby it a bit...so,

I walked and ran with it like that for two miles.

But at mile 20 or so, when I had a very clear view of the finish area across the water, my leg stopped swinging forward. I was praying and trying to think of everything that has ever helped me before. I know that getting on a bike and pedalling for a mile or so often sets it right where it should be, and I nearly grabbed a passing cyclist at one point. But getting on a bicycle in the middle of a race is cheating.

I was trying to move it forward, but the medical guy at mile 20 (or mile 23, according to Carrie's comment......) water stop pulled me aside and very warmly and kindly encouraged me to get some help. I don't know what his name was, but he was such a patient and considerate man, as I was kind of arguing with him that I could see the finish, and would like to just walk there. I could see the mist rising from the falls, it looked so close! The worst part was that I cried. I hate crying in public, I just wanted to kick myself, but my leg was useless.

Here is the heartbreak.....I went off and got my hip rubbed and iced, and afterward, I was able to walk OK. And I think I could have done those last miles at that point, but I was out of the race, and it was all over.

The interesting thing, at least to me, is the fact that I ran exactly to the point to which I had trained. I missed those long runs at the end of my training when I wasn't quite well, as I talked about in a sad post a couple of weeks ago. I had not run beyond 20 miles, and that's where my old body just stopped yesterday. It was all quite predictable.

{That means that if I get all the training runs in for June, I will have no trouble finishing.

So, that's my plan.}

I don't feel very inspirational today, but I do enjoy the great support I have received from lots of people. My family was just awesome, and so encouraging and positive.

And my precious mother and father in law even called me, at nearly midnight Norway time, to see how I had done. I thought that was the second nicest part of the day.

The very sweetest thing though, was seeing Jon and the kids craning their necks looking for me to cross the finish, because they expected me to do that. And when I came upon them from behind and told them my sad tale, they were so enthusiastic and supportive. They are such a gift to me.