Rhinoceros Failure?

Well, not so fast.  The rhinoceros  has gone back to grazing, no longer incensed at my failing literature.  Rats.  But I’ll push on; this book has got to be written.

During coffee hour in church this past Sunday, an acquaintance gave me a collection of those thin booklets a visitor can buy at castles and cathedrals in England. (She knows I'm an anglophile.) These are old ones printed in the fifties and sixties.  With them came a big road map of England, obviously used, probably from the same era.   (I really need to have a long talk with her about a long tour she must have taken; I lived in England from 1966 to 1968, and while I did a lot of exploring, she went to places - Knole in Kent, for example - I missed.)  I am looking forward to reading these booklets, which are very well written .  The texts are so very English, eloquent, understated, educated - unmistakable.  I am awash in nostalgia.

The builder of the building we live in made some serious errors and now the siding has got to be pulled off and the insulation replaced.  They’ve been working their way around all summer and now are outside our third-floor apartment, playing country music on their radios and doing a lot of extremely noisy pounding and ripping.  Today is the second day of work on our place.  Our cat is very nervous about it, sneaking knees bent around corners, requiring frequent reassurance, seeking refuge on our laps while she stares, all eyes, at the blinds-drawn windows.  She’s lying across my forearms as I type, purring.