I Think

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Watched a segment of ABC TV news just now. It told of Bob Villa, of This Old House fame. He has been refurbishing Ernest Hemingway's home in Havana, working along with Cuban workmen. Now I want to see it more than ever.

Hmm, I've read a book in the past year that used the house as part of a plot involving someone who stayed there when he was away. I'm almost positive I can find it on my bookshelf, will let you know. I'll mail the book to you if you are interested. Now to remember the author.

I would appreciate it if you would send it to me. I can mail you postage if you tell me how much.

I have visited Ernest Hemingway's home in Havana.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/20/americas/hemingway-cuban-home/index.html

Found it, it's a Philip Kerr novel, If The Dead Rise Not. It's set mostly in Germany in pre war and war years and then in Havana, starting on page 281. I guess it's silly to send it unless you like thriller novels. The house and Hemingway are mentioned but I don't want to reread to find it as the house is just part of the stage, where a character lived circa 1954, ending at p. 417. It amused me though when I was reading it. I had the book in my go to goodwill stack (I'm trying to cull).

I just caught up with your comment, and I'd be glad to send it. I'm a little slow getting places but Diane and I often go for a snack right by the UPS Store. By a clerical error, long story, I actually have too many stamps right now, figure I can cover it. (I asked for 3 stamps and the kid at the register gave me 3 packs...and I haven't tried to return them yet.)

It's okay. Thanks, but I likely would not read it, based on that description. I appreciate your generosity.

The short story on the TV news showed some crumbling places they were fixing up.

Today, for the first time in more than a week, it did not rain. I was able to get out in the yard. I may do some mowing tomorrow. Depends if it is dry enough. Even Rocky only went out when he had to.

My rules of life.

1. Eat no dogs
2. When cooking give your mate the nicest portion
3. Do for others.
4. Don't expect others to do for you.
5. Take charge of your own health
6. Try to answer antagonists with logic and humor. In a pinch, anger and sarcasm will do
7. Vote even if you have to hold your nose
8. Stand against perpetual wars
9. Take time for yourself where you can relax and ignore the world
10. Love friends and family in adversity as well as good times

I find it interesting that most of my threads do not get that many views and responses unless they are political. Some I started a week or more ago have less than a hundred views and no replies. This thread gets relatively few replies also. However, in the past 24 hours it got slightly more than two hundred views. I wonder what makes one thread get that many lookers in and virtually none on others that often should hold the most interest.

I think some views are searching bots, not that I know anything about bots.. so that it's not all a2kers looking; I read that somewhere on a2k.

I understand that, but why this thread and not some others that get none?

Woke up to a non functioning coffee pot (it's broken). I have bought lots of them over the years, because no matter which brand it is they either don't work the second time you use them or they break after a relatively short time of normal use. Pardon me while I go off and curse.

The counter models keep getting bigger and uglier. I know those single cup
makers are very popular, but they take up even more space and then there are all those individual flavor cups that also require storage. Well anyhow, that how I'm seeing those appliances. The last time we stayed in a hotel the room had one of those single cup devices. They offered Starbucks coffee, and I learned I don't like Starbucks very much, tastes burned to me. I know many folks are addicted to it, I just haven't developed a fondness for it. But on the other hand, I have avoided spending a pot load of money on 'coffee'.

I love my coffee. Doesn't have to be fine and fancy. HEB store brand is just perfect. I have never had Starbucks so I won't be downing it here, but I don't understand how people can be gotten to spend that kind of money.

Me too. However, after years of drinking the stuff in the Navy it has little effect on me. I can have a coffee and fall asleep.

I've a cheesy small coffee maker, just to start the whining: it asserts that it makes 12 cups, a bit of false bulletining as it is more like three or four. Maybe it makes 12 demitasse cups.

Alternately, I've a beautiful small espresso maker, stove top type, easy peasy and you don't actually have to use real espresso beans. This was a salvation army nab by me. I think of it as a kind of art, re the design.

I've mostly had small kitchens and even the one time I've had a normal sized one, I used it small. That was a wonderful house, had a waiter's dummy (with no rope via the attic remaining, but the delivery space, that did have a door, was good for storage) and a cooler, open to the northern California air, including car fumes. But I basically can't smell, so it didn't matter, and the air up there was generally good to great anyway, in a small port town. I put my parents' hexagonal table in the middle of the room and made bread there or made arancini there or much else or tossed groceries or mail to rest there.

Just remembering now - the kitchen's fairly narrow counters had small hexagonal tile. The wall tiles were "railroad tile".

I relate to that - at one point, forget exactly when, probably university and rest of my twenties, I drank coffee at close to any hour, and, as you say, no effect (she says, while snoring).

Navy coffee. Drank it by the gallon. Ours tasted like the hulls of coffee beans and a sponge was discovered in the pot and had been there a really long time. I didn't care. My finger for holding cups was as bent as a bos'n's finger.