Return Of The Book Quest

Ok. So about three years ago, I saw this list of 100 books that people were passing around Facebook to see how many they'd read. I consider myself reasonably well-read and was surprised by how many I had NOT read from the list, so I started to remedy that problem. You can read about the beginning of that quest here. It includes the list.


I have strayed from my quest, but decided to return to it this week. The reason? Our library isn't all that great. I'm trying hard to use it and love it this summer, but loving it is not always easy to do. They often (maybe even usually) don't have the books I'm looking for, so I decided that I should think about looking for different books. Books on the list. You see where this is going?


I finished Atonement, by Ian McEwan, this morning. It took me a little while to get into the story when I started it, but the ending is incredibly powerful, as is a lot of the middle. It is a story from the lead up to and very beginning of World War II in England. The central conflict is a lie that changes the paths of everyone enmeshed in it forever. I definitely recommend it and it illustrates perfectly the benefits of going through this list. I can't imagine picking up Atonement without the list. It has none of the characteristics that make me pick up completely random books and read them with no prior connection or recommendation. I'm usually drawn to a quirky title or book jacket (yes, I know I shouldn't judge, but I do!) and then find something on the leaf description that seals the deal.


I was debating between a few other books on the list, but then saw Neal Stephenson's Anathem on the shelf and felt compelled to reread it. Amazing book, truly. 


I know this post doesn't include the requisite picture of Darcy. We're stay-cationing at the house of friends this week and I don't have the card reader. Otherwise, I'd share a great picture of Darcy with a giant banana slug outside our house. But while searching for the original book-quest post, I came across this post with Darcy still in full curly-hair mode, so take a walk down memory lane and remember the younger, dinosaur-obsessed Darcy Jo.

An Old-Fashioned Fourth of July!

I'm not sure why, but it bugs Michael that Crescent City's independence celebrations are always billed as "old fashioned". Maybe he thinks that bounce houses and portable climbing walls weren't part of early 20th century Independence Days. He's probably right, but they no doubt had their equivalent.


Old fashioned or not, we had a great Fourth of July. Darcy and a couple of her troop mates marched in the Girl Scout contingent -- I was very proud of them all. They may be young, new scouts, but they kept up with the float in front of us over the whole course of the parade!

It was a smallish GS group that marched, but they got lots of cheers and the girls loved seeing their friends in the parade crowd. And what a crowd! Block after block of people five or six deep. The main viewing stretch is about eight or ten blocks, with another five or six blocks with fewer spectators. We were in the first third of the parade, so Darcy got to watch a fair bit of the parade, too. Then it was off to sample the afternoon fun.


Darcy hit the bounce houses before lunch and then waited -- reasonably patiently -- on line for quite a while to get to climb the wall:

She got to climb twice and did a good job! There was more fun in the park before we headed home, stopped by our neighbor's party, and then attempted some rest so we could make it to the fireworks with some remaining energy. We needn't have worried. Darcy still managed to run circles around everyone and every thing. Michael turned around for a minute and turned back to discover her at the other end of the beach watching "the pelican show", seven pelicans repeatedly diving for some kind of dinner. We set up right by the Pastels in the Park, part of the old-fashioned Fourth. They had been walked on a bit by this time of night, but still beautiful. This was my favorite:

The fireworks were wonderful, as always. Crescent City really does them well. It doesn't hurt that there are private fireworks shows (legal and illegal) all around you for an hour leading up the the real thing. Some of the illegal shows rival lesser municipal shows. Not ours, of course, because it goes on forever and includes many different kinds of fireworks. I suspect the whole thing is an environmental nightmare, but it is at least a beautiful one. Hard to get good photos of them, of course, so I'll leave you instead with a picture of our girl dancing around someone's sand castle while waiting for fireworks to begin: