There have been 3 short trips to NYC and a week in Provincetown. Of course there is work, exercise class, a sad visit with family (my 37-year-old nephew died of a heart attack), fun visits with friends and all of the other things life has to offer.
I've been reading a lot. Louise Penny is my current new favorite author. Her series about Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is riveting. While one can pick up any of the books and become immersed in a complete story, each volume also flows into the next and often the story line spans 2 or more books. She includes a lot of subtle humor. One of the characters has a pet duck and the duck's facial expressions are slipped in to the narrative. Do ducks have facial expressions?
As an undergraduate, I was a history major. I didn't know why I wanted to be a history major, or what I would do once I graduated, but I that's what I wanted. I think it was because I used to watch a television show called The Twentieth Century, a documentary hosted by Walter Cronkite. I was fascinated by that show. Later, once I started classes in history, I realized I was most interested in current, social history - not ancient history, though there are aspects of that I find interesting.
I'm also interested in the American presidency - hence being able to plow through all four of Robert Caro's volumes on Lyndon Johnson. Recently, I read Accidental Presidents: eight men who changed America by Jared Cohen. While the information in the book was very well researched, it would take someone like me - a committed Presidential geek - to read the entire book. I found Cohen's writing style a little confusing. I sometimes had to re-read paragraphs to figure out who did what to whom. Cohen uses too many pronouns when describing multiple people.
Another thing that drove me crazy was the front and back covers. There are partial portraits of the 8 Vice-Presidents who became President on the death (natural or otherwise) of the President. I could easily pick out Lyndon Johnson and Teddy Roosevelt since both have distinctive eyes. Some of the others I could glean from their pictures within the book. But there are a couple about whom I'm not sure. They're not placed in chronological order or alphabetical order. Why not list the names on the jacket flap?
Included within the narrative is a lot of information about the U.S. Constitution and what it says about Presidential succession. Since the way the President and Vice-President were elected 240 years ago was different than today, I found this part both confusing and fascinating. Not a lot of thought went into the subject originally (too much else going on, maybe), but the process has evolved over the years.
One issue had to do with Franklin Roosevelt when he ran for his 4th term. FDR was very ill. What if he died before being inaugurated? Henry Wallace was the Vice-President during the 3rd term; Harry Truman was Roosevelt's running mate for the 4th term. Technically, if FDR died before inauguration, Wallace would become President because Truman was not yet VP.
I'm glad I'm not the person responsible for making decisions like that. I'm perfectly happy sitting at my desk at the MLS office merging duplicates whose titles begin with the letter S.
