Sizzle

I’m getting there. Sizzle is almost done. But I’ve been shawl swatching, so Sizzle’s temporarily taken a back seat. It’s all blocked out. It’s even dry. All I need to do is sew up the sides and weave in the ends.

Bourne

I’m not sure how it came up. Oh wait. I remember. Dave was telling me the other day that our good neighbor Bob has the more recent Bourne trilogy, the one with Matt Damon in it, and he offered to lend it to us since we haven’t seen it yet. Well, I’ve seen most of the first movie, but not all of it; Dave hasn’t seen it at all. That’s when it came up that I haven’t read those books yet.

I know. Can you believe it? When my cousin Jim died, among other things, I inherited his collection of Robert Ludlum books. He had a ton of them. I read most of them in the following year, and desperately wanted to read the Bourne Trilogy. But the first book, The Bourne Identity, was missing. He’d probably lent it to someone. Jim was like that. He liked to share good books. All of his Ludlum books were hard cover. Mostly they were book club editions, but still. I wanted to get a hard cover copy of The Bourne Identity. I looked everywhere. I lived in San Francisco back then, and there are some great book stores there. I went to all of them. No one had a hard cover copy of The Bourne Identity. Actually, most stores didn’t even have it in paperback. It was immensely frustrating. Since I couldn’t find it, I went on to other authors. But when I went somewhere new, went to a book store I hadn’t been in before, or even one that I had, I looked. And looked. Finally, one day, when Dave and I were in Pismo Beach, we were at this tiny little used book store. It was an awesome little store, actually. I hope it’s still there. Anyway, she had the book! In hard cover. I didn’t care that the paper jacket was taped to the inside of the book with masking tape. I didn’t care that it was torn. I didn’t care that there was… stuff… on some of the pages. I wanted that book. So I bought it.

But by then I was immersed in some other author’s work. And the years went by, and I never picked it up. Until this week. Just a day or two after Dave and I had that discussion I was in need of a new book to read. I went straight to that ratty old copy of The Bourne Identity on the shelf. I knew exactly where it was. Well, I knew exactly where it had been. Oh yeah. That’s right. We moved it. Found. I’m screaming through it. I forgot how much fun Ludlum is to read. Gripping. Edge of your seat stuff.

Every time I pick up the book to continue reading I think of my cousin. Though this particular book never belonged to him, I’m only reading it right now because of him. Thank you, Jim. I wish we could sit down and talk about it. Maybe we will one day.