Simple thoughts

My dear aunt Edda died early this morning, surrounded by her whole family and siblings.

Now we all have another beautful angel in Heaven looking over us.

I’m sure her immense love will guide us here on earth.

   A Maiden’s Grave - by Jeffery Deaver

Deaver has become well known for building his novels around topics that you want to know more about but have never had the time to delve into. The Man very kindly does the research for you and drops factoids here and there, but never gratuitously. So it is that when, in A MAIDEN’S GRAVE, a school bus carrying students from a school for the hearing impaired is hijacked by a trio of murderous escaped convicts, the reader learns much more than sign language. There are some pretty ferocious political and cultural differences within the hearing-impaired community, and even some class differences based on impairment etiology. Deaver does a masterful job of bringing these out within the subtext of his story, and making them matter as his story unfolds, without tearing and straining at the plot fabric. That one fact alone would make A MAIDEN’S GRAVE a masterful work.
But…but…there is a lot more to this novel than the hearing-impaired subtext. When it is learned that the bus has been hijacked, and the students kidnapped and held hostage, the politics involved in the containing and resolving of the situation have enough plot lines for an entirely separate novel. Arthur Potter is the FBI’s very best point man in the area of hostage negotiation. Potter approaches every hostage situation as a homicide in progress; those responsible must be apprehended and the damage contained. The jurisdictional disputes among federal, state, and local authorities, even when the line of authority is at least theoretically clear, function more to endanger rather than protect the hostages.
What is so remarkable, however, is Deaver’s ability, in the midst of jurisdictional chaos, to plausibly create an improbable love affair from afar between Potter and Melanie Charrol. Charrol is a teacher of the hearing-impaired, and one of the hostages. Though she and Potter have never met, and have seen each other only from a fleeting distance, they begin, incredibly, to work together to resolve the situation and to save themselves — and each other. The result is a tale of suspense and, yes, romance, that is somehow rendered believable. I doubt that anyone but Deaver could ever carry it off.

This week I want to share with the S&T community something I’ve always had in my bedroom. It’s a sort of a silk/cotton bobbin lace made with the “tombolo” tecnique, very old, that I keep on my bureau.

It has a long story, but I’ll try to make it short. One of my father’s aunt was very poor and her family sent her when she was just a little more than a child, as a maid in a big and wealthy family nearby. The old mistress of the house liked her so much that when the girl got married, she gave her this runner as a wedding gift (it was part of her own dowry).  I liked it so much that when I got married, my father’s cousin (the daughter of the maid) gave it to me.  I guess it could be dated back at mid ‘800.

Thanks for taking a look at what I had to share.

No, not the american city, even more known around the world after the beautiful movie by Jonathan Demme and the amazing song by Bruce Springsteen.

No, I’m talking about a cheese, the king of this recipe for “penne” with shallot and red and yellow peppers. Tried last week at some friends’s home, yummy and light.

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about 3.2 kilometres (2.0 mi) west of Amesbury and 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) north of Salisbury. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones and sits at the centre of the densest complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred burial mounds. Archaeologists had believed that the iconic stone monument was erected around 2500 BC, as described in the chronology below. However one recent theory has suggested that the first stones were not erected until 2400-2200 BC, whilst another suggests that bluestones may have been erected at the site as early as 3000 BC (see phase 1 below). The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. The site and its surroundings were added to the UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites in 1986 in a co-listing with Avebury henge monument, and it is also a legally protected Scheduled Ancient Monument. Stonehenge itself is owned by the Crown and managed by English Heritage while the surrounding land is owned by the National Trust. New archaeological evidence found by the Stonehenge Riverside Project indicates that Stonehenge served as a burial ground from its earliest beginnings.The dating of cremated remains found on the site shows that burials took place there as early as 3000 BC, when the initial ditch and bank were first dug. Burials continued at Stonehenge for at least another 500 years.

The short incipit above is just a glimpse about the site and its origin (even tough some say we don’t know yet exactly why it has been built) I’m sure anyone has heard about it at least once, so no need to say more about it.

I will only add that being there at last, it was pure magic! You can feel lot of energy going through yourself, looking across the fields surrounding the site, and daydreaming on how it would have been back then, when the place was alive and breathing………..

I was way too young to remember when they brought it up, but the emotions and feelings I felt when they knocked it down, are still in my heart.

Just to remember a day in our recent history.

The right attitude to rain - by Alexander McCall Smith.

The Right Attitude to Rain is the third of the Sunday Philosophy Club series of novels by Alexander McCall Smith, set in Edinburgh, Scotland, and featuring the protagonist Isabel Dalhousie. It was first published in 2006.

When friends from Dallas arrive in Edinburgh and introduce Isabel to Tom Bruce – a bigwig at home in Texas – several confounding situations unfurl at once. Tom’s young fiancée’s roving eye leads Isabel to believe that money may be the root of her love for Tom. But what, Isabel wonders, is the root of the interest Tom begins to show for Isabel herself? And she can’t forget about her niece, Cat, who’s busy falling for a man whom Isabel suspects of being an incorrigible mama’s boy. Of course Grace and Isabel’s friend Jamie counsel Isabel to stay out of all of it, but there are irresistible philosophical issues at stake – when to tell the truth and when to keep one’s mouth shut, to be precise – and philosophical issues are meat and drink to Isabel Dalhousie, editor of the Review of Applied Ethics. In any case, she’s certain of the ethical basis for a little sleuthing now and again – especially when the problems involve matters of the heart.

Another chance to share something we treasure with the blogging friends taking part in Cindy’s Show & Tell. Please, visit her site fo more to see.

This week I want to share with you a travelling clock that belonged to my father-in-law. It originally was given to him by one of his aunts, who had a longtime companion who used to travel a lot for work. The guess is he bought the clock in England during one of his many trip there (if anyone recognize this item, please would you tell me? thanks).

The exterior is black silk hand-embroided with silk flowers and ornamental pattern

The interior is silk too, a plain white.

Thank you all for looking at my family treasure.

Stuffed yellow peppers with Basmati ricewith ginger, corns, pachino tomatoes and tuna. Sublime!

 Last sunday it was time for some artistic moment. Me, daughter M, her best friend A and her sister F, went to an exhibition about futurism. If you’re not aware of what futurism is, take a look at what Wikipedia has to say about it.

The exhibition was held in the beautiful Magnani Rocca Palace, with an amazing garden

For more about the pieces shown there see here because obviously it was absolutely forbidden to take photos.

It was a very relaxing time, after visiting the exhibition, walking through the garden, but it was soon too dark and cold. But we knew that at home something hot was waiting for us…….and I even finished to read Mr Obama biography.