Back to real life?

For the past couple of weeks I've been coasting - blogging about the trip, shamelessly posting photos, or talking about fireworks.

Now that it's just about two weeks until that high school reunion, with its various responsibilities, I have to concentrate. Today I made some useful check-in lists for various events - making sure to print the information in good-sized fonts. Aging eyes and all that. I also recruited another classmate who is more than willing to help with last-minute arrangements.

What still has to happen is the reunion book. I have all the information, but must put it into readable form. Just last night I received an e-mail response from a classmate who probably isn't going to be able to join the gang in Idaho, but who articulates her musings and memories in a way that makes me wish others could do the same.

Tonight, at 9:30, it's actually beginning to get dark. While this may not be a surprise to you, it's a clear sign here that mid- summer is over - we're headed down a slippery slope that will end with days in December when the sun sets at 4:20 (if it has been out at all.) It's no wonder we all go a little nuts in May and June.

I fall back on reading. Anna Karenina is unexpectedly fascinating. Years ago, I couldn't get past Anna's self-destructiveness (behavior that was perfectly understandable given the time and her situation.) Now I am enchanted by the novel's expansiveness - its many parallel stories, offering so many views of life in Russia in the 1870's.

To read on the plane, I did take along a book called The Age of Revolution. It's polemical but well-written history, that really catches the attention when the author points out the main triggers for the French Revolution: (1) the drain on the treasury caused by French participation in the American War - i.e. our Revolution; (2) a series of bad harvests, and (3) a resulting precipitate rise in the price of basic foodstuffs.

219 years later, has anything changed?

At a Schipol bookshop, I encountered a Penguin 3 for 2 sale, where I scooped up enough books to keep me occupied for the rest of the trip. Best find was a book about Africa called Shadow of the Sun, by Ryszard Kapuściński. The book is intensely depressing, but so beautifully written that you can't stop reading. While I was in the middle of the book, the news on CNN was all about the non-election in Zimbabwe.