Here’s to a happy-in-her-new-job Sheila, an art-inspired Martha, a very busy Christina, and a pickled Jane! How very diverse my friends are, what a good mix of thoughts.

So what of substance can I add on this rainy June morning?

I wasn’t expecting this rain, and obviously neither were my husband and his brothers who just left for a day of golf. They are not the die-hard golfing types who would slosh after that little ball, umbrellas aloft, in a downpour, so I think they will find a 19th hole somewhere to talk a good game.

This is the kind of day when one wants to curl up with a good book, and I am into one right now–a novel called “Appassionata” by Eva Hoffman. It is about a concert pianist on tour in Europe and explores…maybe exposes is a better word…how the music she plays–its themes, its expressions, its demands, its passions–controls her life. Hoping there will be a harmonic resolution!

I just finished another that my son recommended I read, “May the Road Rise Up to Meet You” by Peter Troy, the story of life journeys of the Odyssean sort. Shortly into the book I knew why Drew had thought it was a book for me. A reader has to relate to a story, and this one seemed to have a personal pull; the author and I must have some mutual places that have special meaning to us. Among the settings important to his story were Chatham, the Civil War hospital in Fredericksburg, VA, the Susquehana River, and the town of Cooperstown, NY, and its Lake Otsego. It became my journey too.

I’m hoping that you might suggest some other good summer reads. Anyone?

Ellen