Radiant Packing

The packing continues in earnest preparing to decamp from our Charlton environs. My wife and a couple neighbors performed yeomen (person?) work yesterday by packing up the entirety of my wife’s vast and somewhat mysterious collection of sculptures and other assorted bric a brac. She spent most of the evening finishing off the dining room dishes which was no mean task. I was removing drapes and bathroom shelving, consolidating bed frames, and serving as a verbal punching bag about what a pain in the butt this move is turning into.

Wife in the Dining Room Last Night

We talked later and on some level this move is appealing to both of our vagabond natures cultivated over the many moves during our time in the military. It doesn’t make it any easier especially since we’re doing most of the work ourselves this time. It’s like a long suppressed itch is being scratched. The house seems more like that now, not so much a home as the trappings that made it so dissolve into boxes around us each day.

Emptying Out

When I finished my marathon read of The Goldfinch last week I found an old friend waiting for me in my Kindle reading list. Whenever a favorite author’s future work appears on Amazon I pre-buy it and it magically appears whenever it is officially released. Old friend John Corey, the creation of Nelson Demille, was waiting for me in his latest adventure, Radiant Angel. Corey, king of the wise cracks and double entendres, is a retired NYPD detective who now works for the diplomatic surveillance service. He’s charged with watching a Russian diplomat who may be trying to blow up NYC with a nuclear device.

The book had all of Demille’s usual cracking prose and Corey was at his humorous best as they take us through a very scary and realistic night on Long Island Sound. I actually stayed late at work last night just so I could finish the thrilling conclusion. Demille does that to me, especially when he serves up a John Corey adventure. If you’re a fan of Demille (and you’re missing something if you’re not) then you will thoroughly enjoy Radiant Angel. In yet another morale boost I found Stephen King’s latest waiting for me when I finished this book. June just keeps getting busier.