A solo day today or 'je suis seul'.  Practising French, can you tell?  Fail more often than I succeed but the beauty of Duo is it doesn't matter.  Keep going until I feel I have some kind of handle on it and then go on to the next lesson.  Sometimes I get through without a mistake, not often.  Next lesson?  Verbs:  etre/avoir. 

Just finished reading a Dean Koontz book, Dark Rivers of the Heart, published in 1994.  Hard to read.  Kept stopping to do something else to assuage some of the building dread.  His protagonists in all the books I've read come out all right in the end.  Even so, he's a master at making me fear for them.  So I do dishes or a French lesson or check out the radar (storms to the south).  Then when I've girded my loins for the next chapter (or next page!) I have another go.  Have started keeping his books.  Don't know that I'll ever reread then.  His main characters are all the same man.  Even the dog in this book, Rocky, is a canine version of the same man (with an overlay of timidity caused by early abuse).  The men are soft-spoken, gentle, self-effacing, yet strong and talented.  Their talent might be discovered as a result of their adventures during the book or they might be brought to those adventures because of their particular talent.  In any case, they are likeable, normal yet incredible.  The women too. 

My bathroom book is My Happy Days in Hell by the Hungarian György Faludy.  Started it before and then put it aside.  Although he describes well those tumultuous terrifying days of the Nazi invasion of France and the attempt at escape by him and his small band of characters, I found him so unsympathetic that I didn't care much whether he made it or not.  He cheats on his wife with all the emotional upheaval  he would bring to eating a pickle sandwich.  It never seems to occur to him that he is behaving badly.  He only exerts himself to avoid getting caught so as to avoid a scene.  Anyway, I've picked it up again, have reread the first part and am about to embark with them to the shores of Africa.  Still don't like him much despite him being a famous poet.  Suppose I should respect his brutal (to himself) honesty.  He doesn't gild the lily and make out that he is a better man than he is.  Even so his male arrogance is difficult to stomach.

Having a dice day too.  Just told me to do yoga.  Thought I'd take the day off but put it on the list along with blogging, bathroom cleaning, french lessons and leaf raking.