Tuesday

Today I have been fairly busy. First, Fred casually remarked “Did you notice we are down to one piece of gingerbread?” He was referring to the home-made gingerbread I cut into small squares and then freeze. Three seconds in a microwave brings them back to freshness again for those who don’t like frozen cake. {I like frozen cake!} So, first, I made gingerbread from scratch. I have been adapting the recipe each time to our taste buds and we still want more ginger The recipe says 1 tablespoon of ginger {and less of cinnamon and nutmeg} so this time I used one-and-a-half tablespoons of ginger. Next time I will add two.

Since today is Tuesday, I was going to tutor Robin at 1 pm at the library but first I had to make her a worksheet so I did that about an hour before I went out. Then, I printed out two copies, put the answers on the second one and then headed out. We spent most of the hour going over what should and should not be included in the summary of a magazine article and once she had really got it into her head that her opinion is not part of the summary, she did a good job.

I really like Robin. She is an adult woman disabled from a car wreck in which she received a traumatic brain injury {TBI} and I got to know her when I worked in the library. She has to a large extent, recovered from the TBI but she has a speech defect { in addition to the TBI, her throat whas crushed in the accident} and she has to work hard at speaking slowly and being understood. She is divorced and shares custody of her two children with her ex. They live with him but spend a lot of time with her and she and her ex are on really good terms. Anyway,we went over her summary and then she went back to the parts of speech. She has a test tomorrow on verbs and nouns and if she doesn’t rush, she should do well. I see her again tomorrow at 3 pm.

Later this evening, I went to the book club meeting at the library. We were discussing Brick Lane by Monica Ali and I was pleased that most of the women had enjoyed it because it was my suggestion. Since I am new at this, I didn’t realize that she who suggests the book gets to start the discussion but, hey, I just leaped into it and told them how I had come to read this book {picked it up at the airport in Gatwick} and after looking at the first page, bought it because even though it is not one of the two genres I usually choose from {mystery or science fiction},I was hooked into it by the end of that page which is one of my definitions of an interesting writer. I made the comment that I felt the end of the book was rather rushed and we were off… Very intense discussions followed.

If you want a good read with interesting characters, let me recommend it. It is the story of two sisters from India. One is sent to England to an arranged marriage to a man twenty years older than she is, and it is her life we know of in detail. The other one stays in Bangladesh and marries for love and her life we know of by letters to her sister in England.

Now, I am home, it is about 10:30 pm and I am heading to bed.

Until later…