Twenty-two years ago 19-year-old Frank Mackey had plans to run away from Faithful Place, the street where he grew up. He and Rosie Daly, the love of his life, intended to go to London, to get out and away from their difficult lives where success is a rare commodity and hope almost nonexistent.

The fact that Rosie stood him up has colored every day of Frank’s life since then. Though he did leave Faithful Place long ago, he left alone. When Rosie’s suitcase, containing their ferry tickets to England and full of clothes he remembered from 22 years ago, turns up in an abandoned house in Faithful Place, Frank, now a cop, must deal with the fact that perhaps Rosie hadn’t stood him up at all. The discovery of Rosie’s suitcase leads to a fascinating look at the Dublin of Frank’s youth, at his family and Rosie’s, at the pull of the past in all our lives.

To be completely honest here, I listened to this book rather than read it. The narration by Tim Gerard Reynolds was excellent, and his beautiful, lilting Irish accent did much to put me in the story. I’ll definitely look for other audiobooks he’s recorded. It was a truly wonderful listening experience.

Tana French has written a startlingly complex novel of love and loss, of family and friends, of duty and serendipity, of past and present, all so full of emotion that it will stick with me for a long time to come. Her prose is gorgeous, her portrait of Dublin’s lower class so finely drawn I could feel myself there, watching the events unfold in the flats of Faithful Place. If you like police procedurals that are rich with character development like those of Louise Penny, you’ll love this book. If you like your procedurals leaner, more straightforward, like those of Michael Connelly or John Sandford, you’ll find this book slow going. But, in my opinion, it’s well worth the read, one of the best I’ve read this year.

John Gilstrap’s first book, NATHAN’S RUN, is one of my favorites from the early days (at least for me) of thrillers. I couldn’t put it down. The characters were beautifully drawn, the suspense was taut and the emotional content enormous. I wish I could say the same about this book, HOSTAGE ZERO.

The book opens with the kidnapping of two boys, ages 13 and 14, from a private school for the kids of unusual people. One boy is drugged and left for dead in a local park; he’s discovered by a homeless veteran who must decide whether to involve himself by working to save the boy, or let him die. It was a wonderful beginning, a great setup for some of the issues Gilstrap explored in NATHAN’S RUN, and I couldn’t wait to get into it further. The writing is smooth, the dialogue crisp, and though I think the middle section could have been cut significantly, it did keep my attention.

But ultimately, for me, this book lost its way. The plot moved from the extremely personal (the homeless vet and the boy) to the impersonal fodder of traditional international thrillers (the US government and Colombian drug lords). I nearly put the book down when the bad guys raped a young girl in a Colombian village — but I realized that I had expected the action to unfold as if the book were written for women. It’s not. This is a man’s book. Lots of action, lots of weapons, lots of killing of bad guys. If that’s your thing, you’ll love this mostly traditional thriller. My error was in thinking Gilstrap had written another powerfully emotional book like his first.

What Exercise I’m Doing Today: Yoga
What I’m Listening To: The silence of early morning

It snowed nearly seven inches yesterday and the world is white again. The pines are frosted with clumps of snow, though that icing will melt and fall soon as the deep green of the forest absorbs the sun’s heat. It’s the perfect example of radiation, one of the three fundamental methods of heat transfer, along with conduction and convection. Don’t think of radiation as something only related to uranium and radioactivity. Think instead of the warmth you feel when you lie in the sun or the temperature of your dashboard after your car’s been sitting in a sunny parking lot for a couple of hours. That’s radiation, too.

Back to the snow. Although everybody grumbles about the shoveling, the slick roads and the cold, we’re all very glad for the moisture. It will mean fewer fires this summer, less worry, and more greenery for my favorite deer to eat. Every spring, once the first flowers bloom, I carry all my family’s photos, in their hefty file drawers, down to sit by the back door. Just in case. Usually by August, when the forest floor begins to dry up and turn a crispy tan, I pack them into the trunk of my Civic. Just in case. The smell of smoke can awaken me in a heartbeat, and though Junior hates being stuffed into his cat carrier, it’s always ready for him. Everything else can be replaced–except my writing, which I back up onto a flash drive once a week all summer long. I carry it in my purse. Paranoid? Maybe, but fire is nothing to mess with.

The Black Hills have had a terrible outbreak of mountain pine beetle tree kills, and vast tracts of dead, brown trees spread across the hillsides of the southern Hills. We don’t have a huge problem here in the northern Hills yet, but it’s probably inevitable, no matter how many chemicals we choose to spray on our trees. My neighbors are planting spruce and hardwoods, reasoning that pines won’t have a chance in the coming fight with beetles. It’s discouraging. We love our trees and the creatures that live among them with us. But, as I spoke of yesterday, change is the only constant in our lives. Mountain pine beetles are causing immense change here, and I suspect that eventually we’ll have to learn to live with it.

But the snow is lovely for now. I’m going out to shovel soon. Here’s a photo of our back deck, yard beyond it. Even the birdhouse is covered with drifts. What do you think?

What I’m Reading: HOSTAGE ZERO by John Gilstrap
What I’m Listening To: EVIDENCE by Jonathan Kellerman (haven’t spent much time in the car…)
What I’m Thinking About: TAKING THE LEAP by Pema Chodron

Okay, I’m jumping from skiing (which was fabulous, by the way) into the realm of the spiritual. While I’m not a member of a specific church, I do spend a fair amount of time thinking about what I believe, and Pema Chodron’s excellent books, which are rooted in the Buddhist tradition, are always a help. My friend Karen Miller loaned one to me last year, and now I’m immersed in them.

One of the things Ms. Chodron speaks of extensively at the beginning of TAKING THE LEAP is “groundlessness.” Change, as we all know, is really the only constant thing there is. All of us are born, live our lives, age and die, and as we do, everything around us changes, too. We, as a species (and me in particular), tend to fight against change, and fight hard. We like our routines. We like our circle of friends. We love our families. Yet people move, our jobs change or disappear, our families fracture as children leave home or as parents divorce. Sometimes we have moments where we appear to have no foundation, nothing to grasp onto that keeps us rooted; those are periods of “groundlessness.”

For me, my most startling and significant period of groundlessness was just before my divorce in 1988. We had been trying to conceive a child for many years, all without success. I had always believed that I’d be a mother (and a really good one, of course), and my inability to conceive shook me deeply. My husband and I were having trouble aside from that, and when it was clear that the marriage was doomed, I realized that every one of my fundamental life patterns would be uprooted. I’d not only be single, I’d be living somewhere else, supporting myself, and who knew if my friends would turn out to be MY friends instead of my husband’s? And most important–I’d be giving up the hope of ever having children. That one pretty much flattened me.

Yet, as life often teaches me, change was good. I think it was good for my ex-husband, too. He was unhappy with me, remarried (happily, I think) and eventually had his own children, which would likely not have happened had we stayed together. I went on to a new career in engineering, remarried as well, and am now into yet another career–writing. I’m learning slowly that change is a GOOD thing, frightening as it can be, and I’m trying to be more open to it, more present in my life and less rooted in what I expect from the future, less rooted in the way things have always been in the past. (Two new recipes a month. Remember? Change is good!)

But some days it’s hard. When I stare at this screen and all I can write is crap to be deleted the next day, I wonder at my wisdom in trying to write the book I’m working on. But on some days, like Wednesday’s warm and sunny ski day, I love my life. I hope you love yours!

Today I’m indulging myself and going skiing. It’s been a terrible year for snow here, but the people who manage Terry Peak, the local ski area, know their stuff. They make “snow” nearly every night (when it’s cold enough, at least), and they shepherd the natural stuff so well that I’m always surprised at how beautifully covered the slopes are.

For me, skiing is as close as I’ll ever get to flying. It’s a fabulous feeling, floating down the hill, using edges and knees to stay marginally in control, the wind streaming tears off my face. I’m sure there’s a big old grin plastered across my face all the way from top to bottom, and I keep remembering a Zen ski lesson I had at Grand Targhee many years ago: “Be the ball,” the Zen skier told me. “Just look down the hill, imagine where a ball would roll, and follow that line.” Good advice.

I learned to ski when I was pretty young, back in the days of cable bindings, but really didn’t have a lot of experience with it until I was nearing 30. I did find then that alcohol helped with inhibitions, and so did lots of practice. I remember years when the snow was so bad the hill was predominantly ice, and if ski edges weren’t honed, hips were permanently bruised. Now I’m also wearing a helmet, too. Just in case.

I’m hoping to keep skiing well into my 70s. There are lots of ski places to visit, and though I’m in great shape now, who knows how long that will last? Jeff, my husband, skis, too, is a madman on the hill, actually, but he’s in graduate school now, which is a challenge for our joint ski days. So I’m off by myself today. It’s supposed to snow tonight and tomorrow, so maybe we’ll both be up at Terry Peak tomorrow. The year is winding down, and flying is so much fun!

So on the subject of cooking (the love/hate thing), I do want to share a recipe that I really love. I got it from my sister-in-law, Kate Brennan Hall, artist and designer extraordinaire, at Christmas in 2011. It’s quick to make, tasty and filling.

HOME MADE GRANOLA

4 cups old fashioned oats (not the quick kind)
1 cup sliced almonds
½ cup sunflower seeds (no shells, please!)
2 tablespoons canola oil
2/3 cup maple syrup (pure would be good, but I use the cheap store brand and it’s still wonderful)
¼ teaspoon salt (only if you use unsalted sunflower seeds)
1 cup mixed dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, cherries, whatever)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Mix the oats, almonds and sunflower seeds. Add the salt, canola oil and syrup and mix well. Spread evenly on a large cookie sheet and bake for 25 minutes, turning the granola once. Cool on a rack. When the granola is completely cool, mix in the dried fruit. Store in an air-tight container. Enjoy!

I’ve been eating this granola for over a year now and never get tired of it. Vary the fruit, add some unsweetened coconut, sprinkle it over ice cream or yogurt. It’s great! This is cooking I can enjoy.

What I’m Reading: OUTLANDER by Diana Gabaldon
What I’m Listening To: EVIDENCE by Jonathan Kellerman
Up Next: probably the newest Michael Connelly, BLACK BOX, for my mystery book club

I love to cook and I hate to cook. Do any of you have those same feelings? I’ve been cooking evening meals nearly every day for the last 43 years and it’s getting really old. Now that I’m not working 60 hours a week, I can take a little more time with it, but that somehow doesn’t make it more enjoyable. I find my eyes narrowing and my lips pressing together as I think, “What shall we have for dinner tonight?” I look in the freezer, check the cupboards and figure out something I can cook with what’s there. Chili. White chili. Spaghetti with marinara sauce. Stir fry with (you fill in the meat, vegetables). Sigh.

A couple of years ago I instituted, among many others, a New Year’s resolution to try two new recipes every month. I wanted to vary my cooking repertoire, expand my cooking horizons. And I do think that’s helped…some. I’ve found, especially on www.foodnetwork.com, a great set of new recipes. I’ve tried them out on friends when we’ve invited them for dinner, and have only had a couple of disasters, a few not-so-fabulous dishes. But the fact remains: if I don’t cook, we have to go out. It’s an irritation, a responsibility I’d love to give over to my husband now and then. He has no interest in cooking, though, and I can’t seem to force him to do it. If I die before he does, or (worse) become demented and can no longer operate a stove safely, we’ll end up eating cereal for the final years of our lives. Is that fair? After all the years I’ve put in—stir frying, baking, sautéing, stirring homemade soup, stew and chili—is that fair?

It’s clear that I need more than new recipes; I need an attitude adjustment.

Okay, here’s the politics blog. If you’re not into this kind of thing, avert your eyes. 

Here in South Dakota, the legislature meet for about two months every January/February, and this year, among many other things, they considered the Obamacare optional extension of Medicaid to an additional portion of the state’s population. There were committee hearings. The vast majority of testimony was in favor of accepting the federal funds that would pay for the extension of benefits to 48,000 South Dakotans who now have no health care coverage, and would pay for it COMPLETELY for the first three years. After that, the state would be responsible for only 10% of the continuing cost. The testimony in favor of extension was extensive and compelling; opposition included only two people testifying, and their points were these: Obamacare = socialism and “will the federal government have the funds to continue to pay for this after the first three years are over?”

We currently pay for health care for this uninsured group of South Dakotans, don’t we? They take their kids to the doctor when they’re sick; when they have accidents or get sick themselves, much as they hate to, they go to the doctor, too. If they can’t pay—and many of them can’t, either because they work two no-benefits minimum wage jobs or because their employer-offered health insurance is too expensive for their family budget—we pay FOR them. The important point here is that those of us with fewer resources usually wait to go to the doctor until the situation is critical, and then we use the most expensive kind of health care—the emergency room. Everybody who pays health insurance premiums now pays part of the bill for those emergency room visits, right? So why not allow those people the opportunity to use less expensive health care options—well child checkups, visits to doctors during office hours when costs are about a tenth the cost of the ER? Why not give them the option of learning about preventive care, where they learn habits that will keep them out of the emergency room to begin with? Everybody would pay less.

The South Dakota legislature, after hearing lots of testimony in favor of extension of benefits and two people against, voted NOT to extend this year. Instead, they will convene a summer study session to consider more facts. They did, in fact, kick the can down the road. They lost a year of health care for 48,000 South Dakotans because they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for it. Why not? I don’t understand it. Is it because they dislike Obama that much? Because they hate to see Obama have any sort of “win”? Is it because they believe these 48,000 citizens of their state are “freeloaders” instead of what they really are—the working poor? Is it because they believe we should all pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and those that don’t aren’t worth saving? I wish somebody would explain it to me in terms that make sense.

Yesterday I cleaned out the gardens, snapping off the dead branches of lavender and day lily, cracking the husks of basil stems into small chunks, and clipping the bone white stalks of snapdragons near the soil. It was nearly 65 degrees and very windy, but I watered the gardens anyway. The catmint had come apart like dust, motes of seeds flying everywhere in the breeze, and its leaves had disintegrated when I lifted the dead, dry sticks of its base branches.

Today it’s snowing. Not that slightly irritating snow that you can barely see (but that makes roads slick). No, today’s snow is fat and luxurious, full of moisture, floating and swirling with the slight breeze, melting on the driveway but sticking like frosting to the grass, trees and bushes. The deer were back for food this morning, before the snow, and I ran out of corn. I saved one cupful for the lame deer, who didn’t appear until after the others had wandered off, so I went to town to snag another fifty pounds. That’s what they eat each week, fifty pounds of whole corn. When I staggered in from the garage under the weight of that mighty sack, there were four yearlings, the smallest ones, waiting at the back door. It made me smile. I think they’re psychic. Here are two of them.

I have to admit: I’m sometimes completely flummoxed by technology. Perhaps it’s because I didn’t grow up with a home computer—hell, TELEVISION wasn’t widely available when I was born. More likely it’s because I’m not particularly engaged by 1s and 0s and making them perform in specific ways.

Last night I participated in a public discussion on e-publishing, hosted by our local city/county library. The library furnished both computer and projector so I could use PowerPoint, but either the computer or the projector timed out every minute or so, making a tremendous distraction both for me and for the audience. One of the other presenters, an incredibly talented young woman who is both a math teacher and a software developer as well as a writer, had to re-engage the system for me because I couldn’t figure it out. It was annoying, both from the distraction standpoint and the self-confidence one. (If you’re interested in the presentation, J. C. Phelps is going to post it on her blog, I believe: check it out at jcphelps.blogspot.com).

And here’s the other thing: I don’t have a smart phone. I don’t text. I should, I know. I think of myself as a life-long learner, but man! I don’t want to learn this! I’m not sure why I’m so recalcitrant about modern technology, but I need to work at changing my attitude. I remember sitting in my father’s tiny assisted living apartment about 15 years ago and his puzzled question to me: “What the heck is dot com?” Hmmm. Now, when the dot com revolution has changed our world in so many ways they’re indescribable, it’s hard to imagine somebody who has no idea what “dot com” means. Time to get with the program, I guess. Technology resistance, be gone!

The lame deer came for food this morning, along with the rest of the herd. I keep hoping that damaged leg will simply fall off, but I’m now thinking it may not, at least not for a long time. The deer himself seems healthy otherwise, but it’s painful to watch him hobble down into our gully, alone, and I wonder if he’s shunned by the other deer because of his disability. Is that too anthropomorphic a statement? I wonder.

Off to bake some goodies for my local political party’s spring fundraiser. I’ll probably write about that tomorrow, so those of you who avoid politics might wish to skip a day…