I just finished ANOTHER really good book. It is "Await Your Reply" by Dan Chaon. It is about identity theft, and while that is the plot, it is really about people. As usual, I like a book with good character development. Boy, does this one have that, plus a "keep you guessing until the last page" plot. It is actually three inter woven stories.

And the other interesting thing to me was the setting. The base is western Nebraska, where I used to live. It was a bit of memory lane to talk about some of those old places.

Other than that, it is turned into a new season, fall. And it seems to be happening overnight.

I just finished reading a really good book by E.L. Doctorow. "Homer and Langley" It is about two brother, one who was gassed in the trenches in WWI and one who is blind. It tells about their lives with the background of the 20th century.
I like the place were they tell about banks buying out other banks. They say the banks become new banks and never improve.

I feel like this is new years eve. I have been thinking about all the things that have happened in the last year. I became a grand mother to two teenagers and a baby.
I traveled to Boston. I am going to Thailand.
I get to help do day care for my little Evelyn.
I have my health including my eyesight and my hearing.
I have friends and family who love me.
I have old friends and new friends.
I have plenty of money for my needs and some for my wants.
Somethings have made me sad. The worst was seeing a dog being given away at a garage sale because the owners were losing their house.
Last week, I tried to help the dog catcher catch a dog who was scared and running around because the owner had dumped her out.

So these are the things are not so good. I have closed three banks in the last year: my insurance agent has retired: my car dealership has closed and three people I know have lost jobs there.

I was almost struck by lightening and my plants got hailed on. I had to go to the dentist and I hated it. My car needs some work on it and my doctor is no longer seeing patients.

I think my good list is so much better and LONGER than the changes list.

Besides, except for the lightening and hail, all these things are changes for me and we had a minister who always said, "change is a chance for growth" even though I hated it when he said that.

This last year, since last July, 08 has been a time of change for me.

I have become a grandmother of a baby and last May 08 became a grandmother of two teenagers. )

I just finished reading a powerful book, The Snakehead, by Patrick Raddon Keefe.
It is specifically about the smuggling of human beings into the US for profit from China and generally about smuggling people all over the world.
It is very upsetting to me to think how some people exploit others, but it also helps me understand Grandpa Lew and some of his attitudes that I didn't understand before.
But since it is upsetting I don't want to write about it right now. I need to digest it a little.

I want to add from the Roadshow: the picture of the men with swords was a scene from Kabuki theater.

antiques roadshow

Wow, what fun. My sister and I went to the Antiques Roadshow in Denver. We didn't make it on TV, but had a good time and did get to see some of the celebs. I took two pictures that Jon and I had bought when we went to Japan. I bought the pics in the Gion district of Kyoto. The appraiser told me the picture of the samurai warrior was definitely from the 19th century and was of the utagawa school. She said it was probably once a part of a set of three. She said it was worth about $75. It does have some mildew damage. She was not familiar with the artist. On each picture, the artist's name is in the letters with a red circle's. The other picture is from about 1910 and she was familiar with the artist. It is worth about $110.Both pictures are original woodcuts. She said the framing was really good.
I also took a poster that I bought in a poster shop in Prague. The appraiser asked me if I was Cheque and that he was. He wanted to know what I paid for the poster ($3) and said that was good as it was a copy. He was familiar with the work and said the original would be worth about $300 and the copy I had about $25.