Busy...Kinda Sorta

I've been keeping busy. Birding, finishing up the Halloween packing, putting out the little bits of Autumn/Thanksgiving, weeding the back yard, taking short trips in search of shatterproof BROWN tree ornaments [I saw them last year, but couldn't remember where. I found 'em! At Hobby Lobby], a small amount of birding and even smaller amount of walking. I also ordered a Halloween themed metal sign that had MY NAME on it so to speak. You see, I saw it on The Cranky Crow's blog and went out on Amazon. Found it. Ordered it. According to the seller's tracker, it will be arriving on Friday. I also received a book [I ordered it from Barnes and Noble...cheaper by about $10. Amazon charges an arm and a leg for shipping and handling these days plus tax as Barnes and Noble doesn't charge but tax.] It was delivered, and I read a few chapters already. Can't wait to get deep into the first of the promised trilogy. It's by the author who wrote the best seller WICKED which is now a Broadway musical. Wicked series of his books, I have them all. This one, "The Brides of Maracoor" is about the girl with green skin...Elphaba's granddaughter. Elphaba, for those who don't know, is the wicked witch of the west in Wicked [wizard of oz]. Also, I was glued to FOX Sports this past week for the World Series. Of course, I was rootin' for Houston for the pennant, but wasn't all that disappointed that the Braves won. At least it was a Southern team instead of the east and west coast this year. Let's see, what else? Oh ya, Bud and I set up our jig saw puzzle table for a few weeks. We will tear it down again just before the company comes for Christmas. Cold weather has set in for a while...cold for US. Today as I type this up the wind is strong, had a few raindrops fall and the temp is not supposed to get above 50°. That's downright bone chilling cold for here. If you don't live here, I could compare our temp to the northern side of USA to about 30-35°. Seriously. I know, I grew up in Colorado where the winters are below freezing for days/weeks. This cold is a whole lot different. Anyway, since I'm typing this up on Thursday afternoon to publish tomorrow morning, I best get back to doing chores. I think I'll make some hot steamy potato soup with crusty bread, salad, and for dessert warm apple crisp sounds good.

One more thing, I'll share what little I have for Thanksgiving decor in my next post.

 

Gregory Maguire Wizard of Oz books for adults:
The Wicked Years
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1995)

This is the book that started it all! The basis for the smash hit Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Gregory Maguire's breathtaking New York Times bestseller Wicked views the land of Oz, its inhabitants, its Wizard, and the Emerald City, through a darker and greener (not rosier) lens. Brilliantly inventive, Wicked offers us a radical new evaluation of one of the most feared and hated characters in all of literature: the much maligned Wicked Witch of the West who, as Maguire tells us, wasn’t nearly as Wicked as we imagined.

Son of a Witch (2005)
A Lion Among Men (2008)
Out of Oz (2011)

Bestselling author Gregory Maguire’s remarkable series, The Wicked Years, comes full circle with this, his fourth and final excursion across a darker, richer, more complex landscape of “the magical land of Oz.” Out of Oz brilliantly reimagines L. Frank Baum’s world over the rainbow as wracked with social unrest—placing Glinda the good witch under house arrest and having the cowardly Lion on the lam from the law as the Emerald City prepares to make war on Munchkinland. Even Dorothy makes a triumphant return in Maguire’s magnificent Oz finale—tying up every loose green end of the series he began with his classic Wicked