Son, you must take my word/If there's a God in heaven/He has a silver Thunderbird

[rolanni]

So, I'm home and unpacked. 

For students of feline behavior, I can report that I was not in the least snubbed.  Scrabble, in fact, ran to me the moment I came in, declaiming loudly.  I believe the gist was something on the order of, "I had to run this entire establishment by myself for a whole month!  You take over now!"

Mozart and Socks were more low-key, but have conspired to keep me pinned down most of the day.

What part of the day was not taken up with various Triumphant Return activities was taken up with bill-paying and the sorting through of paperwork.  Yanno?  I just did a whole month where the only thing my brain had to think about was. . .story, and characters, and what-happens-next; which is apparently my comfort zone.  Arithmetic hurts.

Actually, I used to contend that arithmetic hurt when I was a kid.  Nobody believed me, of course, but I may actually have been telling the truth.

Anyhow -- home, and settling in.

Just in case you were worried.

Comments

Maine State Library

[catherine ives (from livejournal.com)]

Don't know if anyone watches Book TV on weekends on C Span. Just watching a piece on the State Library of Maine in Augusta Maine. One collection of books is by authors with a connection to Maine. Can be the author lives in Maine like Stephen King. And his son Joe Hill (is it?)who no longer lives in Maine but the library still claims him. The Libe tries to get the books signed. I'd imagine Lee and Miller are there......Pride of the collection is a first edition of the Book of Mormon, five thousand copies printed in 1830. And you can ask to see it. They'll get it out of the safe for you. Very very few kept in libaries. Also a book you can't see: the hand written diary of Martha Ballard ( I believe I've got the name right) a ME midwife just after the American Revolution,. Also a hand written copy in book form which the copier called "A Midwife's Tale". the librarian on TV says the book is really interesting. Don't know how one could read it though. Maybe it will get a modern copy published now that it has been on national TV.

Re: Maine State Library

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

A Midwife's Tale has been published recently, by which I mean within the last 15 years. I have it around here somewhere. It was interesting, but very. . .rough-edged. I was put in mind most of those stiff so-called "primitive" paintings.

I'm pretty sure at least some of Martha Ballard's diaries have also been republished, because I read one volume. I'm not certain that I own that one.

In any case, you ought to be able to find them used.

The Maine State Library is awesome.

Re: Maine State Library

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

And I'm wrong. A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, based on her diary 1785-1812, by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, is what's on my shelf -- excellent book. I was riveted.

The other book -- the primitive novel -- I don't find on the shelf, and for the life of me I can't remember the title, or much about it, saving how wooden was the prose...Oh. And that the midwife froze to death because she was crossing the river after the ice had rotted, coming home from a call -- possibly one in which she performed an abortion. I'm not certain of the last point, but that was the kind of book it was.