6 July 2004

I am eating a pecan roll from Wheatfield's. I didn't realize pecan rolls were regional, but last time I made a comment of this nature, somebody asked me if it was like a peanut roll, with nougat and all. No. You know how there are cinnamon rolls with white frosting and cinnamon rolls without white frosting? A pecan roll is in the latter category, but topped and/or lined with pecans. Mine is hot and gooey even on the second day: God bless the microwave oven.

I think that often, you know. The microwave, the dishwasher, the washing machine, all of it. People go harumph-harumph and claim that modern people don't really appreciate all the things we have. But I do. When I go downstairs with a basket to sort the laundry and attack Melvin the Laundry Monster (who, incidentally, thrives), I think, whew, I could be banging this stuff on rocks. I could be cranking away at the old crank washers. Yay. I'm not.

We didn't blow anything up this weekend. We had non-explosive fun. We lazed around eating bagels. We went to Shakespeare on the Green. We've been going since the summer I turned 8, I think. Maybe it was the summer I turned 9. Still: a long time. I haven't been to Shakespeare on the Green every year since, but whenever I can make it, I go. This year was "Richard III," complete with kachina-doll heads for the ghost scene. My mom relived my childhood by having to poke her giggling daughter while trying not to laugh herself. Don't know how many times she's had to do that in the last almost-26 years....

And speaking of which, we went shopping for birthday presents for me. We found some on-the-spot early birthday presents and some possibilities they might decide to get me when I'm not around, so that it's a surprise. In my family, we call this "playing point." It was not the most fruitful point-playing ever. Clothes this year stink, and may I ask, why on earth do some people think camouflage plus pink is a good idea? "There's nobody here, but if there was, it'd be a very femmey person"? Ah well. My birthday is a mere twenty days away. Less than three weeks. Are you ready for it? Have you got your softshoe number worked up? One of my special superpowers is to be able to see softshoe routines via e-mail text. It might extend to tap- or clog-dancing. I'm not sure. I suppose you can give it a try.

We found two boxes of my old books, and I think that's the last of them from the folks' house. They've got all sorts of things in them, E. Nesbits and the Pooh poems and the Oz books and more. I have to sort through and figure out what goes in the library and what goes in the basement; while I'm at it, I should put together the metal storage shelves we have downstairs and throw the books that aren't in the library or offices on some shelving so that they're a little more protected down there. Anyway, now I know what I don't have, including The Arm of the Starfish, which was what convinced me I didn't have stuff in the first place. I know I owned a copy of it, but I may have just worn the poor thing clean through. I also didn't find Peter Duck. It's okay, though: now I know I don't have them, and I can look for them. I know which Edward Eagers and E. Nesbits and L. Frank Baums are mine; I can fill in when I get the urge and see the missing volumes. Once I'm out of the birthday book ban and can visit used bookstores safely again.

I finished Mad for God, and it was an interesting microhistory of the Inquisition. Not the gruesome bits. Reread An Old-Fashioned Girl, because Peg Kerr was talking about it in a journal entry, and I had almost no recollection of what was in it. Went charging through Jo Walton's The Prize in the Game which is my favorite Jo Walton so far, although I haven't read the one with the Trollope dragons, so we shall see. I also read Alexandre Dumas fils's Camille, which I didn't particularly like. No swashing. No buckling. I knew that, but...eh. Lots of people behaving idiotically in conformity to society's demands. I have a hard time getting too worked up at the tragedy of that. I read some Christopher Fry plays borrowed from Pamela, and then I started Sherwood Smith's Crown Duel. Or else I read it and am now reading Court Duel, depending on whether you have the two-volume version or the one-volume version. I think it's perhaps not the best thing to give the omnibus the same title as the first volume. Then it's hard to indicate which you've read.

I was also not as thrilled with part one as perhaps one might hope to be. I don't like idiot plots, and I particularly don't like it when the main character is the idiot in question, and that's how I felt about it, and that's how I'm feeling about the beginning of the second part/book, too. I just flipped to the end, and kisses are being rained by the appropriate party on the appropriate party's hair, and may I say: hork. I'll finish it anyway, but honestly, "she hates him for no reason but truly they're going to be in luuuuuuurve" is among my least favorite of all plots. Beat me about the head and shoulders with a stick if I propose to write such a thing. A big stick. Perhaps with thorns on.

My godfather is supposed to be in town this week, and he's said that he wants to see me and the house. Which is lovely, except that I don't know when he'll be free and want to see me/house. It's a priority: he's in town rarely and for short time periods, and I love my godfather. So I don't want to fill up my schedule with other things, but I don't want to not get necessary appointments made, either. Also, housecleaning is not very high on my personal priority list, but if Dave's going to see my house for the first time ever (he never saw any of my apartments, either), then I want it to look nice. I want to not only get the detritus from the weekend away cleared up, but also get the most recent set of pictures hung etc. And doing all that before I do some particular pieces of work...just seems backwards. And just as I finished typing that, the phone rang. Dave is coming for a late lunch Thursday. Okay then. That's about right: I can get a few more urgent work things out of my hair and still have time to get the house ready for civilized company, or at least for my godfather.

And since those things are more urgent, I think I'd better get at them sooner rather than later.