Posted by Adrienne on March 31, 2010 under Photos | 
In the midst of the concrete of Wall Street in downtown New York City, there is a splash of green and color:
Trinity Church used to be the tallest building in the area, but it is now dwarfed by the skyscrapers of the financial district. Its churchyard still has the old graves and green grass and trees, but it is now surrounded on all sides by busy streets and the air is full of the sound of honking horns. Go inside, though, and it becomes a sanctuary of quiet. If you are in New York, be sure to experience it!
Posted by Adrienne on March 26, 2010 under Soccer, Sounders |
Seattle Sounders FC has officially started the 2010 MLS season. And they did it in style, with a 2-0 win against the expansion Philadelphia Union. Goals came in the 12th minute from Brad Evans, and in the 43rd minute from Fredy Montero, so it was a repeat of The Montero & Evans First Kick Show - last year was the first episode.
With our tickets in hand, our scarves around our necks and well-rested voices ready to give our Full 90, we made our way down to Qwest Field. Unlike last year’s opener, when rained threatened but never actually showed, we got a good dose of precipitation that kept up throughout the match. While you could see a bit of it on the telecast, you really didn’t get the full effect at watching on your couch at home. This wasn’t “Seattle rain,” – that light misty stuff that you can easily ignore – this was rain for reals, coming down hard and fast and thoroughly soaking everything. (My poor scarf is still wet, even 10 hours later!) No overhang for us this year, like we had last year; our [season!!] tickets are in the upper Brougham End, section 124, so we were right in the thick of it all: the rain and also the singing, chanting and scarf-waving.
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Posted by Adrienne on March 24, 2010 under Photos, Soccer, Sounders |
Tomorrow is the start of soccer season, with the Sounders taking on Philadelphia at Qwest Field. We will be there, with our scarves held high, singing the official anthem of the Sounders, Perry Como’s “In Seattle”
The bluest skies you’ve ever seen/are in Seattle/And the hills the greenest green/in Seattle/Like a beautiful child/Growing up, free and wild/Full of hopes and full of fears/full of laughter, full of tears/Full of dreams to last the years/In Seattle, in Seattle!
COME ON YOU SOUNDERS!!
Posted by Adrienne on March 17, 2010 under Photos |
It’s Saint Patrick’s Day today, and as I looked through our pictures, I found this one. It’s a striking monument, even among the many that dot Gettysburg Battlefield. It is the Memorial for the Irish Brigades:
Many Irish immigrants came to the United States at about the time of the Civil War because of the Great Famine. Some of them joined the Union army and fought at Gettysburg. This statue, which combines a Celtic cross and an Irish wolfhound, remembers four brigades. Someone left a small Irish flag at the bottom.
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Posted by Adrienne on March 12, 2010 under Books |
I’ve been reading fantasies lately: one stand-alone novel and two that are the third volumes in trilogies. I do like a good fantasy! Something that’s set in a different world and has a bit of magic in it, like these:
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
The Last Unicorn is one of those books that, at some point during the reading, I realize that there’s a lot of symbolism/metaphor stuff going on, and I’m not really getting it. Those kinds of books are always slightly disappointing to me; I’d rather have a story – especially a fantasy like this one – work on multiple levels where repeated readings reveal the symbolism rather than having it be so obvious at first.
In any case, the story follows the titular Unicorn as she searches the land for the rest of her kind, who have disappeared. On the way, she meets Shmendrick the Magician and Molly Grue, a woman with no special powers. There’s a witch, an evil king, and a magic spell, along with the powerful Red Bull – in short, it’s got a lot of the regular ingredients for a fairy story. It just didn’t seem to go anywhere and I didn’t care much about the characters. If I want a fairy story in future, I’ll read Farmer Giles of Ham or Stardust before picking this up again.
The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The world is dying. The ash is falling more and more often, burying the crops and the roads. The mist comes during the day now instead of just at night, and it kills. And Vin is hearing voices in her head. Is she insane? Is she the Hero of Ages? Can she save the world?
The final book in the Mistborn trilogy, The Hero of Ages wraps up the story very neatly, even explaining some of the mysteries in the first and second books. It was a great final act for the story, wrapping up the stories of all of the characters I had come to like (and even a few that I didn’t care as much for). And the surprise at the very end was a real shocker that I wasn’t expecting at all. I’ll definitely want to read this series again, after a few years have passed, when I’ve hopefully forgotten most of the details – I want to be surprised all over again!
The Darkest Road by Guy Gavriel Kay
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
7 months after starting The Darkest Road, I have finally finished it. When I first started the book in August ‘09, I had just finished reading the first two books in The Fionavar Tapestry and was ready to find out what happened to the characters, even though I had begun to lose interest just a bit in book 2. For some reason, I didn’t finish The Darkest Road and it came due at the library, so I had to return it. And it sat there on my Goodreads list, taunting me, waiting for me to pick it up and finish it. So I finally did!
Once I started reading this third volume in the story of Kim, Jennifer, Dave, Paul and Kevin, I had a hard time remembering why I had lost interest. Fionavar is a rich world, full of history and myth, and also under siege by the forces of evil. The five friends fit in to these myths in surprising ways, and the story climaxes in several places, each with a major choice to be made by a character. It was all quite gripping and fascinating, even though I did quite often think of The Lord of the Rings.
Would I recommend this trilogy? If you are into fantasy, particularly the very epic fantasies, like Tolkien, Goodkind and Eddings, then yes. Be warned that the second book does bog down a bit, and the beginning of the third book doesn’t help much until several chapters in. If you stick with it, though, you will be rewarded with a great payoff, even if you are strongly reminded of other fantasies you’ve read.
