I just lighted my Halloween pumpkin and am waiting for the first trick-or-treaters.

Rainey and I drove down to Stanford University today to see the Richard Diebenkorn exhibit at the Cantor Museum.  What a lovely space!  In the lobby, Deborah Butterfield's cast bronze horse sculpture is astonishing.  It looks exactly as if it were made of pieces of driftwood.

Rainey (Lorraine Sykes) is such a dear friend.  We walk once a week and never tire of talking about books we have read.  She turned  me onto a  WONDERFUL book--a novella--by Alan Bennett, called The Uncommon Reader. 

The story is about how Queen Elizabeth--in a gesture of politeness-- borrows a book from the mobile library that visits Buckingham Palace for the benefit of the staff.  In spite of herself, she gets hooked on the world of reading and the story is about how reading changes her.  It's marvelous, and there are some great book references. 

At one point, the Queen's guards find the book she has hidden in the cushions of her state carriage (she was reading the book on her lap while riding through the crowds and waving automatically.)  The guard explains that they were afraid it was a bomb and that they confiscated it--perhaps even to blow it up. 

"But," says the Queen, "it's Anita Brookner!"  Fans of Brookner (I've read everything she's written and just checked out two from the library to re-read) know that her books have female characters who are deeply introverted and spend most their time ruminating on such things as a past kiss from a lover that happened fifty years ago--in a word, she is the least subversive author Bennett could have chosen! 

Anyway, I have been thinking for the past week that I wanted to share this book on my blog, so now I can move on!

This morning I saw a CNN segment about people who are obsessed with the election.  One man had sent in a self-made video of himself talking about how obsessed he was.  He goes home right after work and turns on his computer.  "My wife is real mad because she says I never listen to her.  There's a lot of things she wants me to do around the house.  A few months ago, a tree fell on the back of our house, and I haven't gotten around to dealing with it yet."  Wow, I love it.  Now, that is obsessed.