Finished books

First, a bit of 2009 catch up.

The last book of the year was Christmas: The Original Story. This book was a gift from my mother-in-law and made a great Advent read. I did feel a bit as if I were dropped into the middle of a lecture. I think in order to fully evaluate the author's arguments in this book, I would need to read her earlier book on temple theology. I'm not yet completely convinced of some of the assertions that are bedrock to her interpretation of the Gospel birth stories. I'd like to read her more completely developed arguments for those.

The first book of 2010 was Four Queens. This is a wonderful non-fiction book that reads like a novel. It's the story of four sisters, the daughters of the count of Provence, who grew up to become the queens of France, England, the Holy Roman Empire, and Sicily. The writing is great with lots of sarcastic asides.

A Garden of Thorns is a memoir of the son of Italian immigrants growing up in Dijon, France, during World War II. Dijon was one of the last areas of France that was liberated. It's pretty cheerful as WWII European memoirs go. Michael recommended this to me based on the opening chapter. The writing isn't strong in the rest of the book, but I had an extra interest in the story since we'll be visiting Dijon on our trip in April.

I just finished Vanished Smile. Another easy and yet fascinating read. Michael had to remind me once, or twice, or three times, that if he wanted he could read the book himself, so maybe I could finish this anecdote and then stop talking? Did you know the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911 and was missing for two years? Did you know Picasso was one of the suspects and appeared in court to answer charges?

Two things struck me as particularly shocking. One was that the king of France had the Mona Lisa hanging in his bathroom at Fontainebleau for years. Of course. Because all priceless masterpieces love heat and humidity.

The other was that it took several hours from the time someone noticed the Mona Lisa wasn't hanging on the wall before anyone alerted the authorities. The reason?

The camera was becoming an indispensable instrument in the creation, conservation, and reproduction of art, and Director Homolle was so enthusiastic about the new medium that he allowed the photographers unlimited access. Any contract photographer or curator could saunter into a gallery and remove a painting from the wall without making a formal request, obtaining permission, or informing the guard. Because the paintings were simply hung on hooks--not even the most priceless masterpieces were wired or bolted--anyone could take them down and carry them off. page 19-20

So, any other great books about France I should read between now and April?

We Made It!

We have officially survived Christmas week, but what a week it was.

First, the good news. The kids had a fun Christmas and thoroughly enjoyed their time off. I found that our new-in-2009 division of labor here at the inn did make for a less dreadful week for me. The weather was decent, with fresh snow several days during the week, although we had rain early on and high winds some days. And our guests were almost unanimously cheerful. That's a lot of good.

Now for the bad news. This was the week of facility issues. Here are the problems we discovered since December 23:
1. There was a crack in the fire wall of our oil burner which caused part of it to collapse, creating a pocket which resulted in an incomplete burn. And smoke. And, we thought, carbon monoxide. We discovered this on Christmas Eve, and the furnace repairman came out, removed the cracked firewall and said to keep an eye on it. We're still waiting for the replacement part to come in, but it has been burning cleaner.
2. Something is wrong with the draft in the wood boiler. We discovered this slowly, over several days of continuing carbon monoxide issues. It is now completely shut down (a fun process for Michael, that) and awaiting assistance from the company that sold it to us.
3. One of our leach fields appears to be failing. We discovered this on Saturday. Michael is still exploring solutions.
4. We had no cable at the inn for much of yesterday. Fortunately, the guests were understanding.
5. We had no Internet connection for most of yesterday. (This and the cable issue seem to have been caused by a power surge, although everything is plugged into surge protectors.) This is a much more critical issue than the cable, since people can book rooms online, and if we can't see what they are booking, it's easy for us to rent out the same room to someone who calls on the phone. I spent hours over the course of the day on the phone with tech support at our Internet service provider and our wireless provider, diagnosing the problem (the cable modem was not working) and trying to get the system up and running once the service tech connected the new modem. We got connection back yesterday evening, about 10 hours after it went down.

In the meantime, I've been coping by immersing myself in a TV show.