15 March 2004

Paul Douglas the Weather Guy makes me laugh. Not only does he try to predict the weather for more than a day in advance -- it's March, mister man; just admit you don't know already! -- but then he comes forth with statements like, "March in Minnesota is an acquired taste." Heh. Just cut off the first two words, weather dude. March in Minnesota is an acquired taste, but somehow mosquitoes the size of your head in 90 degrees and humidity so thick that the ducks don't know when they've landed, that's something everyone is born to love? Twenty-below-plus-windchill is a passion people pick up immediately? No. Just admit it, Paul Douglas the Weather Guy: Minnesota is an acquired taste, like coffee or avocados.

I do happen to love coffee and avocados. But I recognize that not everyone will.

I finished Fudoki yesterday and liked it better than The Fox Woman -- fewer kimonos, is the silly thing. But it was strange: I think this would have been more my kind of book if it had been not quite so well done. Here's my problem: Kij Johnson's concept of cats' internal lives is that they don't much question things that don't seem to concern them. Which seems reasonable enough...it's just that a cat-woman character then doesn't question her surroundings in some ways that I find interesting. Consistent and well-done, and yet less satisfying to me personally. Ah well; I hear her next book will be monkey-themed, and that could hardly help but be curious. I then read Doris Egan's Guilt-Edged Ivory (and yes, that's guilt and not gilt), because I'm in the mood for something light, and because then I can return it to Stella on Saturday, and because I'm going to have to renew my library books anyway this afternoon. Now I'm on to Miss Read's Miss Clare Remembers, which Natalie recommended as part of my WWI reading.

Also on the agenda for today: figuring out what I'm making for dinner tomorrow for sure, getting the groceries for it, getting my back fixed, and making this cough go away so that we can actually have company for dinner tomorrow. Stupid cough. Also I have a book to write, some crits to do if I get to them, and some cleaning, and that kind of thing. But there's always that kind of thing, and there's not always a fixed back. So that's today.