I read two novels while I was at Ste. Anne's spa. This doesn't happen often because usually the books that are left in the minuscule "library" (read: three bookshelves) are New Age, think-beautiful-thoughts or meditate-for-a-longer-life kind of thing. But I found two novels by Willa Cather (1873-1947), (pron. gather - I'm telling you because I didn't know). I think I had read one or two short stories by Cather and had always meant to read her. After all, she won the Pulitzer Prize (in 1922, for "One of Ours"), and I've always known the title, but not the pronunciation of her novel, "My Ántonia" (1918). See that accent on the Á? You emphasize that as if you're saying "Anthony" and then end up with i-a each getting emphasis.

Well. So. I read "Lucy Gayheart" (1935) first, then "My Ántonia", and enjoyed them both. Cather's writing reminded me a little of Isaak Dinesen's style, with its precision and generosity, but it's much more dedicated to landscape and weather, which she describes beautifully. Then I came across her name after I came home, reading the New York Times book section, where a critic commented, in a review of someone else, that Cather's writing was ageless, that is, not exclusive to a certain age category. That's a good thing. I don't like sticking writers in a ghetto, as if they appealed only to a certain age and no one else should or could appreciate their work. I like to be eclectic in my reading and I'm sure writers welcome a wide-ranging audience.

Well, you learn something every day. Thank goodness for Wikipedia.

I'm back from my spa where I had, among other things, a therapeutic massage that relieved my pain. I just have to be careful not to cause it again. I was sitting wrong and too long, watching a Marathon of Blue Bloods in the bedroom where the chair is bad for me. My living room television now shows only talking lips and headless bodies so I have stopped watching it - in a better chair. You don't have to know all this but I have a friend who refuses to check my blog preferring a personal letter. (Since when isn't my blog personal?)

Anyway, what is interesting to me is what I learned from my masseur. He says he can tell just looking at people if they work at a computer and if so whether they're sitting right. (I sit right, fortunately - not by chance. I studied ergonomic practice and arranged my chair and keyboard to align my arms and hands and hips for minimum strain. My masseur says he can tell who watches their iPhones too much with their heads aimed down - very hard on the neck. Even young people are getting terribly strained doing that.

He also told me about some of the interesting training he took, working with infants and very young children, with adults with poor digestion, and with paraplegic athletes (for the Paralympics). Fascinating! And it's so much better for people to have their physical ailments adjusted rather than resort to pills, with all those side effects.

Apart from getting physically adjusted, I also got emotionally and mentally sorted out. I's very hard work, staring at a fire, and nice and warm and comforting, too. When I emerged from my cave, for meals or treatments, I was almost catatonic. Lovely.

I made lots of lists of things to do and think and read. Oh, and to eat and buy, plus people to nag, also care for and feed. I have now filled in (on paper) the 70-some days I must wait to latch on to the remaining round-the-world cruise I was planning on. It was to begin on January 10 and now it will not begin until March 22. Never fear. A blog will still be forthcoming.

Now I must write my friend. What will I say?