The Baboon Congress

No E for Me

68 Comments

Today’s guest post comes from Madislandgirl.

Like many Baboons, I am a reader. I almost never leave home without something to read in hand, the local librarians know me on sight. Finding a new author I enjoy is like making a new friend. I have raised a son and heir to be a reader too.

But at least for the foreseeable future, we won’t be investing in an e-reader. Yes, there are great features on the various models-you can make the font change, you can take notes, look up words and most tempting of all, you can be carrying around over 100 books in the physical space of one book-no mean consideration in a household that is chronically short of shelf space and long on book bags with torn seams from carrying around too many books.

When you check out an e-book from the library, you never need to worry about returning it on time or losing it, it simply disappears when it is due. For my friends whose hands now have trouble holding books over a certain size, an e-reader is a gift from heaven. All great stuff, but we aren’t getting one.

I’m not even tempted. In fact, the only reason I have done any research on e-readers is to write this piece. The reason I give is that I just don’t want one more thing that has to be “charged”-I’m bad at remembering to do it, and can only imagine the screen going dark, just as I am getting to the best part. But I know that isn’t the real reason.

The answer came to me while sitting next to a fellow fencing mom, both of us reading away, she on her e-reader, me with my book. I glanced over and my unbidden thought was, “I don’t want to do that!” What would I be missing if I were doing what she was doing? Why is important to me that my hands as well as my mind know what I am reading?

I like the covers of books. When I go to the library, I tend to use the computer to direct me to the general area I am interested in, then I stand before the shelves and scan for something interesting. My hunter instincts have been honed to identify at a glance which non-fiction books are probably meaty affairs, which are too thin to be satisfying, which are going to be tougher than I want to chew on right now. In fiction, the publisher has often gone to great trouble to design a book’s appearance to let me know what kind of reading experience I can expect. I am greatly grieved when I find I have been deceived.

The book I was holding on the night of my epiphany had an embossed dust jacket that was a particularly good tactile experience. The graphic layout depicts a quilt border I might someday like to make, and the author’s name is in gold letters. It must be rather grand to see your name on a book cover in gold letters. Inside the cover are the end papers. I love end papers. In the case of this particular book, the end papers show quilt blocks from the story that could easily be crafted into a real quilt. Other favorite end papers have maps of the locale of the story, or genealogical charts of the families in the story. The marbled endpapers of old books are often almost meditative in their undulations of color.

I suppose it is possible that e-books include endpapers, but they would look like just another page, and you would have to click or scroll to them, just like any other page. It’s just not the same.

Then there are the “bragging rights”. I suppose there may be some advantage to being able to read Fanny Hill in public without having the whole world know it, but if you are the sort of reader my son is (and I am), you kind of want the world to know if you are reading War and Peace, and not the latest installment of Diary of a Wimpy Kid. A friend who is often on the light rail purposely seeks out books with titles like The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse, just for the amusement of her fellow travelers.

I thought this might just be a generational thing, but as the son and heir has not so much as suggested we get an e-reader, I asked him what he thought. He had no interest in getting one, so I asked him why.

“I like the ‘bookness’ of a real book. I like turning the pages, clicking to turn the page would be so lame.”

Not to mention, scrolling through pages makes me nauseous, flipping through pages doesn’t.

And where do the readers of e-books look for misplaced Important Pieces of Mail?

Do you have a favorite book cover? Is it an accurate indicator of what is inside?

68 thoughts on “No E for Me”

  1. In 1963 I was traveling home by train from Chicago for Christmas. I was doing a boring piece of assigned reading for Sociology I. The U of Chi made a point of assigning the great works of the past in intro courses of a subject. So I was reading Emile Durkheim’s classic 1897 study, which is considered the definitive model of how sociological studies should be done. But boring! So I was reading it at night on the train when I was bored anyway. I could not figure out why I was getting odd looks from passing passengers and those seated nearby. It was a bright read book with great big white letters on it that said SUICIDE.
    I am not swearing not to buy one, but I do not want a reader for reasons sort of like yours.

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  2. I was going to put up Loudoun Wainwright’s “Last Man on Earth” which contains the line “I hate that letter E.” But I could not find it and have to run. Maybe someone else can. Good day.

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  3. That’s a great and thoughtful blog post, MIG, even though I’m not sure I agree with you and the S&H. Of course, I thrill to the tactile, visual and olfactory delights of paper books. I have one signed by Barack Obama and one with a sketch in it done for me by the original illustrator. You can’t do that with an e-reader. (Obama’s signature is way cool, btw.)

    But as a writer, I have a different slant on this. My conversations with people who have e-readers is that which “platform” a book is in (on?) ultimately isn’t a big deal. My daughter, a book addict, is scarcely aware of whether she is reading a book on an e-reader or on paper. A book is a book even if it is on “tape” or a DVD or DC. A book is a book, and it is the magic of the words that counts. As a writer, I fervently want to believe that.

    When a writer has done his or her job well, the reader feels like a child being carried by a father. There is that wonderful sense of security and anticipation as Daddy throws you up over his shoulders and takes you to places where you have never been. Conversely, if you are in the hands of a weak writer, you never get comfortable or feel safe as he struggles to get you to where he wants you to go. For me, a person who worries endlessly about words, it isn’t the paper but the words that carry the magic. My love affair is with the words, not the physical object carrying them. But that isn’t to say that MIG is right: books–the physical thing we call books–can be really cool!

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    1. It’s true that words have the same value and impact no matter where and how you see them. I’ve seen graffiti on walls that affected me and made me think. I do think the whole reading experience changes drastically when it’s a digital thing rather than a physical one, though, and for me personally, it’s not a positive change.

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    2. I’ve wondered why there’s a stigma around words read on a screen as opposed to those on a paper page. I’ve been told I sometimes spend too much time on the computer and not enough in the “real world”… I read articles, catch up on world news, listen to inspirational speakers, research “cool stuff”, make discounted purchases online, etc. No one would voice concern if I was seen reading a book or newspaper, attending a workshop, out on a shopping spree, or even watching some mindless dribble on the television. What gives? Am I missing something here?
      That being said, I’ve had no desire for an e-reader… I still like turning the pages.

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      1. Stigma? You bet. There is a stigma about many things associated with computers, such as “cyber friends” and so forth. Sometimes folks scold us for not making purchases from brick ‘n mortar stores instead of using the convenience of shopping online. I’ve resisted the siren call of e-readers too, mostly because it suits my budget and lifestyle to buy used paperbacks of many books I read. As some have noted, you can loan out a copy of book on paper. But I expect to own an e-reader before long for use in special situations.

        Some criticism of the products and advantages of modern technology has a tinge of Luddite thinking, and sometimes I feel those who romanticize older ways of doing things come close to bullying those who prefer modern products and services. I try to keep an open mind, listening to celebrations of the smell of real paper while noting the convenience of downloading a text. It isn’t always easy.

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  4. I’m in the camp of those who want or need to feel the book in my hands and turn the pages. And I figured out just the other day: the reason I keep some books is just to show them or loan them out to people. Can’t really do that with an e-book.

    I have a 1951 edition of Winnie the Pooh (belonged to Wasband), looks like it’s an inexpensive hardcover, but you’re right, mig, the end papers are a map that includes the 100 Aker Wood, Owls House, Pooh Bear House, the Sandy Pit where Roo Plays… I will look on my downstairs shelves and check back in later.

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    1. That’s so funny – I love the Pooh stories and have several different versions of them, including a French one I picked up at a secondhand shop in Paris. Can’t read it, but it’s still awesome. I was almost going to name the cover of one of my older Pooh books as my favorite! 🙂

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  5. Love, love, LOVE this post! 🙂

    I am so with you RE: the value of the “real book” experience over the e-reader experience. It takes away so many pleasant elements of reading when it’s digital and not physical. You mentioned the tactile and visual factors, and I would add the smell…ever walked into a library and noticed the smell of the place? Books acquire that as they age, and it’s a characteristic that I find endearing. I’d miss it if e-readers took over (not to mention how much I’d miss libraries if physical books became obsolete) .

    This speaks a bit to my love/hate relationship with digital music as well. Though I have embraced that a bit more enthusiastically, I miss vinyl albums, especially their cover art and liner notes. The effort that used to be put into them, and the part they used to play in the whole musical experience, has been lost, and I think that sucks.

    As for my favorite book cover, it’s hard to say, but it might be the cover of The Little Prince. It didn’t necessarily tell me a lot about the story or make me want to read it before I read it. But after I read it, and it became one of my favorites, that simplistic illustration on the cover became so powerful and poignant to me.

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  6. i will have to start looking at bookcovers. it has made subconcious impact so far i guess. i like good ones but i find the cover is usually covered with a dust jacket and all the new paperbacks ahve such formula covers it bothers me. i am thinking about a thin book with a bad cover that i love is being there by jerzey kozinsky. same thing with tom wolff the painted word a couple shinny little books you wouldnt give a quarter for at a garage sale if buying by the pound or for publishing prowess, but they get your brain working just right and i ike not having to worry too much about screwing up a book cover or smudging a page with peanut butter fingers. i like having a wall full of hard copies but i do like carrying an 8 gig memory stick with 3 peoples lives on it. costco has 3 8 gig memory sticks on sale for 24 dllars today. unbelievable. i dont need the e reader it works on the phone on my laptop on my wifes ipad. it is nice to be able to listen to your 12,000 tunes and choose from 1/2 a library including all the classics on a cloud you have access to just a click away. i still have a wall ful of l’ps that i love to search through and read the album covers like the old days but i am not ready to declare the new technology as replacing the old. just updating and making it pocket ready.
    i will try to remember a book cover or two.
    wind in the willows when i was a kid had a nice feel.
    what i do notice paper choice. great fat paper with the torn edge rather than smooth is my favorite. nice big tactile paper that is like construction paper in your fingers is a huge high for me. i will read a bad book on good paper just for the page turning

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  7. Good morning to all. I like book covers with art by an illustrator, especially line drawings or wood cuts. The first example I could put my hands on is a reprint in 1990 of Cache Lake Country by John J. Rowlands with illustrations by Henry B. Kane.

    Veryln Klinkenborg is responsible for having this book reprinted. I like books where people share their experience of living in or exploring the North woods and this is one of the best of these that I have found. The line drawings show woodland scenes and diagrams of homesteading tools and techniques. They go with Rowlands story of building a cabin and living in the wilderness. Kane was his friend who lived nearby. The cover shows two men in a canoe with water fowl swiming near them.

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  8. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    I’m in the indecisivve middle. In the last few years I’ve gone nearly entirely to audiobooks just due to the time demands in my life. It is the only way I can read at all–usuallty at the gym, walking or in the car. However, I also find I love old style books, especially antique ones. And when I am on vacation I love to read either e-books or bookie books.

    I just love to read. Period.

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    2. I’ve been trying to think of a favorite book cover and I cannot come up with one–another thunder from the fence. I think I love them all.

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      1. Jacque, I think the books your mom wrote, and that you illustrated, merit a mention here. I don’t think the charming illustrations and personal touch would translate adequately to a digital format.

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  9. While I prefer a paper book in my hands, for many of the reasons mentioned, I do own an e-reader and find it useful and sometimes a preferred technology for select titles. Books easily found on Project Gutenberg are good fodder for my e-reader – a bonus with some of those titles is that they included scanned images of the original illustrations. Books on Project Gutenberg are books that are in the public domain, so it’s a great way to stock up on those “books you should have read” without guilt about when and how you read them. Nice to have a few of those with me when I’m traveling in case I finish whatever it is I was reading when I left home. I have been slow to come to audio books – I have a hard time thinking of them as “reading” when I’m really “listening.” This is not to say that it is an inferior way to experience a book, but it does mean I am somewhat selective in my listening, choosing books that lend themselves to being told as an audible story – especially ones where I won’t mind the voices sounding like something different than what I have imagined in my head (Sissy Spacek brought fresh dimensions to “To Kill a Mockingbird,” but it took my awhile to warm to the narrator for “Catching Fire.”).

    As for a favorite cover…gosh, I don’t know. I love the Garth Williams illustrations on the E.B. White books, Pooh is of course a fave, anything Maurice Sendak…there are some grown up books, too, that have great covers. What leaps immediately to mind, though, is a cover more memorable than “favorite” – and one that enhanced the “feel” of the book, quite literally. When McSweeney’s published a novelization of “Where the Wild Things Are” (based on the movie screenplay, both written by Dave Eggers), the did a special edition with a faux fur cover. Holding a fuzzy book while you read the story was strange and satisfying – and I don’t think I would have liked the book as well with a plain paper cover (being a fan of the original picture book, the novel expands in ways that can be off-putting – thought I was able to appreciate the novel in its own right, quite separate from Sendak’s original work).

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  10. i have a christmas shopping bag for daytons department stores that was a copy of the polar express cover. the big paper bag with the rope twine handles. i ran across it 15 or 20 years ago and carefully de creased the bag and opened the seams it turned into a 18 x 40 poster that i imeadiatly had framed and put in my kids room and every time i saw it i heard the voice.”: At one time most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed it fell silent for all of them. Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound. Though I’ve grown old the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe.” good cover

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  11. Although I think content is more important than form, I do love beautiful books. Lucky for me one of my friends is a wonderful bookbinder, so I get not only to look at their collection of bookbinding texts with lovely illustrations, but I get to see her art (Jana Pullman, teaches at the MN Center for Book Arts). Wish I could afford her services! I have a number of favorite illustrators/cover artists: Kinuko Craft, who does amazing paintings in a Pre-Raphaelite style; Thomas Canty, colder than Craft, but a beautiful, rather Art Nouveau style all his own; classic Rackham and Dulac, of course; and then there’s the artist who illustrated my edition of The Earthsea Trilogy (back when it was a trilogy), Robin somebody:

    http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?131551

    I think I would only get an e-reader if I traveled a lot. I spend far too much time staring at a computer screen to want to do much more of it on my off hours, and paper feels restful.

    BTW, the gang and I went to see “The Hunger Games” this weekend. Excellent adaptation, I recommend it. Be warned that there’s lots of shaky-cam during fight and chase scenes, but it serves to disguise some of the violence of the book, so we didn’t mind as much as we might have. Definitely looking forward to the sequels.

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    2. Husband and I took a couple of bookbinding classes from Jana Pullman about 10 years ago and they were great. Today we checked again to see about a refresher course and the fees have gone waaaaay up. She’s your friend! You’re so right, she’s incredibly skilled and talented and a class from her is worth every penny. You will learn a lot.

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    3. I’m an admirer of the chap books MCBA publishes. I gave the Louise Erdrich one to my sister as a gift years ago. Wish I had the sort income that would enable me to be a collector of them.

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  12. Thanks, mig, for the gentle but effective reminder that I really, really, really need to devote some serious time to dusting. (*sneeze*)

    First I’ll mention a book of essays by Anne Fadiman, At Large and At Small, a little book that has the look of an old-fashioned children’s book, which it is not. The cover illustration is a whimsical drawing of an owl attempting to catch a dragonfly in a butterfly net. The end papers feature dozens of entomological drawings of butterflies, moths, and other winged insects, each with a number next to it, so I imagine there is a key somewhere.

    I also have a volume of collected works of Oscar Wilde that has marbled end papers and gilt page edges. Ooh, shiny.

    Like Jacque, though, I’m a middler. I spend an hour a day in a medical device, during which time I have the use of only my left hand (I’m right-handed), and my e-book reader is a good companion. I can easily hold it with one hand with my thumb positioned over the Next Page button. Although the tactile experience of page turning is a plus, I don’t miss it terribly when I start reading. The screen of the e-book reader is a little window into a world, and after a time the frame of the window just recedes and there is only that world.

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  13. thanks crow girl. i had some contributions coming form my house to the 150 million dollar opening weekend for hunger games. remember when star wars broke 100 milion about 8 weeks into its run. but i think movies were less then. what does it cost to go to theater now? about 150 dollars a ticket? that would mean 1 million people went this weekend . thats a lot

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  15. Mig, love this post! It’s a conversation we’ve had often in our home because my Husband did book design for many years till the publishing industry took a tumble around 2001 only to slowly re-emerge with a new technological bent. When you can’t see the cover, smell the paper, turn the page, it’s sensory deprivation. I agree that the content is paramount, but the cover is that critical first impression. I know it saves trees, but for me there’s nothing like the feel and look of a “real” book. The content is the message, and the cover is the doorway.

    My latest (of many) favorite covers is one Husband designed last year for my friend Mary Desjarlais’ first novel, “Dorrie LaValle”! Very exciting for her (and for her friends). It was a privilege and treat to read the manuscript as she wrote and rewrote, offer our feedback and watch the entire process of writing/publishing through the entire interminable journey. Imagine her horror when having turned her baby over to the publisher, they sent her a series of trite cover designs from hell. It didn’t seem that they’d even read the manuscript. I’m especially remembering one nightmarish lavender design that totally mischaracterized the story not to mention being ugly as sin.

    Friend asked Husband to take a swing at it and the outcome was a wonderful synchronistic collaboration created from two old photos – a vintage photo of another friend’s grandmother (Jewel Gaspard) as a beautiful young woman with an enigmatic smile, and an old barn in the background (from Husband’s mother’s childhood farm near River Falls). The cover captures a haunting sense of 1920’s rural hard times in Minnesota, the young woman’s face so restrained and mysterious. I think it’s a wonderful cover, perfect for “a Minnesota story of moonshine and murder”. Also very generous of Mary to let us participate in our various ways in her creation.

    If you google “Dorrie LaValle” on Amazon, you can see the cover 🙂

    PS I’m not crazy about audio books either even though I spend lots of time in the car. My attention wanders momentarily and I miss a phrase or sentence and can’t just rescan it with my eyes. I’ve realized that I take information in better with my eyes than my ears. I like to reread paragraphs as I’m going along or page back to check something out. It’s too hard with audio books.

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    1. Favorite old covers skip back to childhood just like most of you — Winnie the Pooh, The Little Prince, Wind in the Willows, the OZ books, the Little House series — maybe I’m remembering the illustrations as well as the covers, but it doesn’t matter — in my mind’s eye the stories and pictures are one and the same.

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      1. Thanks (on Bill’s behalf)! It meant a lot to be part of it in some small way, Bill more than I was. Some of us got to read and have an advance peek, give feedback on sequencing and stylistic things, sifting through family photographs… Fun for us 🙂 and I have such great admiration for her to have accomplished this. How many of us have a secret dream to do just that?

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  16. No book or cover has ever been so loved by me as the one my grandmother gave to my mother when she was just a little girl…. a 1930 version of A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson & illustrations by Clara Burd. There was something magical about that book and it became my “special place” where I could hide out for hours at a time. I’ve since passed the gem on to my daughter who now reads the verses to her daughter. They just don’t make ’em like this anymore: http://www.verdeantiquesandrarebooks.com/ecommerce/books/1930-a-child-s-garden-of-verses-illus-by-clara-burd.html

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        2. haha, LiSP… I’d completely forgotten about this until you posted it! 🙂
          I’ll try not to let Bullwinkle muddy the little idyllic childhood memory I’ve got going on!
          Thanks for finding this…

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    2. We’ve been reading to our 2 yr old granddaughter since early days and one of her favorites has been “Now We Are Six” (AA Milne). The other day Husband found her sitting quietly on the stairs, asked what’s up, and she recited “Halfway Down the Stairs”. My father would have melted to hear that since he read Pooh stories and poems to us every night 🙂 I’ve also been singing her to sleep with Japanese folk/children’s songs since birth and the other night she told me she loved “Jamanese” songs and sang along with a perfect Japanese accent. What a girl; we’re putty in her hands.

      I believe we’re all storytellers at heart and a child’s earliest stories color her world view for life, whether or not she understands it at the time I notice it more in my granddaughters than I did when I was chasing my own two from morning till night. Grandparenting is great 🙂

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  17. Part of the problem I have with e books and many other digital things is that I have many years, I’m 70 years old, of experience with the technogology that came before digital. I don’t want to take a the time to learn to use much of that digital stuff.

    I can see that e books could mostly replace paper books and do away with much of the need to do a lot of printing and other things that use up a lot of our resources. Even if e books become the main way of publishing, I think we could still have some paper books that are carefully maintained and carefully circulated and shared by people who enjoy them. Also, we should at least maintain some collections of paper books as part of our heritage.

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  18. There is a pretty little book called Kitchen Gardens: A year-’round guide to growing and using herbs and vegetables. (Actually, it’s Betty Crocker’s Kitchen Gardens…M/i>, but I had actually forgotten the Betty C. part) – it has the prettiest cover illustration by Tasha Tudor on the front, and a grid of 16 herb drawings on the back… a soft green, and the T. T. illustrations throughout. I’ve NEVER ACTUALLY USED THIS BOOK, but can’t let it go because of how pretty it is.

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    2. Huh.Who would have thunk that Tasha Tudor would have illustrated a Betty Crocker cookbook (or, for that matter, that Betty Crocker would have a cookbook about kitchen gardens)??? Although, I have seen a Betty Crocker cookbook that Peter Spier illustrated, so I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised.

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  19. MIG just wrote to say:

    Word Press still hates my guts, so I cannot answer back to anyone on the Trail directly. I imagine if I worked at it, I could figure out the work around, but I have a couple of things going on that mean I need to not spend too much time on the computer.

    I’ve personally got no beef with e-readers and can see all of their wonderful qualities, and am glad if they give access to reading to people who might not otherwise have it.

    Audio books are my faithful companions when I am working away on a project, love them too, but I sometimes will go to the library and look at the “hardcover” of the book, to see what I am missing in terms of the cover and endpapers.

    I should do that with The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which I just re-listened to a couple of weeks ago. I doubt I will ever actually READ that book, as the recording is so very wonderful.

    It was really fun to read everyone’s comments and perhaps better that I am not budging in.

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    1. Catherine, an idea out of left field: WordPress seems to care about email addresses. Maybe you could create a new email address to use here, such as a free and quick one at Yahoo. I use a Yahoo email address for facebook only.

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      1. I don’t think the e-mail address you use even has to be a working one. Just make up anything and give it a try. WordPress is deeply mistrustful of those it knows, but unquestioning with those it has never met before. Go figure.

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  20. II love books, but I wonder what will happen to all the books we have in our house when we kick the bucket. Will our children want all those tomes, and will they have room? On the other hand, I worry that I would lose an E book thingy too easily and it wold cost a lot to replace. I am in a quandary.

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    1. EBook stuff can be stored on a hard drive (1(100 bucks) on carbonate deal or in the cloud (50 a year) do its there and you can file it all away until you need it. Photos music movies tv series video games all that stuff that bogs down you laptop can be stored and pulled up only when you need it

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  21. Ah, a topic near and dear to my heart! I never wanted an e-reader, but my parents got me one for my last birthday. They said they were tired of moving all of my books. I can understand, as I have moved SO MANY TIMES, but I rarely use it. I prefer to read my real books 🙂 I start using it, then I think of a book I want to read and I find it on my bookshelf. I already own all these books, so I’m not going to buy them again in e-format. That’s just dumb. Plus, I love the feel and smell of paper books. There are just so many pluses to real books compared to e-books.

    As for book covers – one of my favorites is from a kid’s book, Heckedy Peg by Audrey and Don Wood. The illustrations are amazing! I read that book many times when I was younger, just to look at the pictures. I also enjoy The Polar Express. I loved the book, and I enjoy the movie adaptation of it as well. Sometimes, the movies are just as good as the books. I would love to see The Hunger Games before it leaves theaters 🙂

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  22. I could never choose just one favorite book cover. I’ve been known to buy a copy of a book I already own because it is a nice hardcover with a good, illustrated jacket as compared to a paperback book or a hardcover book with no jacket/no illustration on the cover. My enjoyment of a book is definitely enhanced by the pleasure of an aesthetically pleasing cover and/or illustrations within.

    Here is one of my favorites: http://tinyurl.com/chrujs5

    And one more, because it’s so hard to limit myself to just one example: http://tinyurl.com/cvfzyfe

    I have many, many other favorites…I think both of these evoke a sense of what the book is like. I do own or have read some books that rather comically have a very different cover than what the book is about. One is about an 11-year old girl and the cover shows a man and a woman together and they’re not doing much physically, but there is certainly the implication that they are romantically involved. I’ve never been able to figure that one out.

    As far as e-readers, i enjoy real books more. But I did buy myself an e-reader, because I may have to do some serious downsizing in the next few years. If I can replace some of the books that don’t mean so much to me in their physical form with an e-book version, that will make my life that much simpler. I hope to buy an e-reader for my mom, too. She has macular degeneration but can still read large print books – but it’s rather limiting to only be able to read the few large print books at the library or what I can find for her secondhand. And she has limited space in her apartment and will only have less space if she has to move to another living arrangement.

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  23. I also wish you a happy birthday BiR and a happy homecoming to PJ!I also wish you a happy birthday BiR and also wish a happy homecoming to PJ!

    And I don’t want to fail to compliment MID on providing a very good guest blog today.

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      2. Happy birth day BiR, hope it was grand.

        I made it home at 3 PM this afternoon, happy, overwhelmed, and pooped. Today’s x-rays revealed that the fractured humerus is healing nicely, so no surgery required; what a relief! Instead, outpatient physical therapy will commence later in the week. Having WordPress difficulties to add to the frustration of one hand typing, so will keep this short.

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