Into every life, a little rain must fall!

Hope you've been enjoying the strange weather.  I keep saying to myself that all the rainy days mean that the fire hazard is not as bad, so that's a good thing (the eternal optimist!).  My "Space-opoly" game from the library is really benefiting from no sunny days because I have a lot of time to read.  The last book I read (the space said "read a book by an author of Asian descent") was Kazuo Ishigura's The Buried Giant which takes you along on a journey made by an old couple in the Dark Ages in England.  King Arthur is dead and England is split between Saxons and Britons, and Axl and Beatrice decide to leave their village (Beatrice is angry because the other villagers feel she's getting too old to have a candle in her house) and go to visit their son who lives in another village.   Everyone seems to be having trouble with their memory, including Axl and Beatrice.  They want to remember things but there is a strange mist over the land that seems to affect their ability to access the past.  As they went along, I started to wonder whether they even had a son, or if that memory was false.  They meet knights and warriors, both Saxon and Briton.  There are ogres and pixies and dragons and castles and mysterious forests and Axl and Beatrice struggle along through it all.  It is a very strange story and one I might not normally choose to read (I am not a big fan of fantasy, but then, I had this book here in my library, so something made me buy it!) but Kazuo Ishigura is a wonderful writer and the mystery and magic of the book will stay with you for a while.

I landed on "Shuttle to the past" next and so I am reading a novel about Aaron Burr, who, you probably know, killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel.  I don't have the Disney Channel so I can't see the musical, "Hamilton" but I am interested in the history (and don't know a lot about it) and this seemed like a good alternative.  There really is a book for everything!

One of the things on my "to do" list is to paint my office and I have been thinking I might do a mural on one of the walls.  Daisy and I often walk to a creek near our house -- the town is full of creeks! -- and I thought the trees and the rocks and the stream might make a nice background to my office work.  If it doesn't turn out, no one really goes into my office except me, so no harm done.

Here is a craft from the New York Times that might be fun, if you're looking for something to do.  The only trouble is you need a newspaper!  Good luck finding that artifact from a lost time!
Here's the link:  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/11/at-home/how-to-make-newspaper-beads.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage&contentCollection=AtHome&package_index=2