24 September 2002

Teresa Nielsen Hayden has a link from her weblog to a Helsingin Sanomat story about how the East Timorese might be taught Finnish. Hee. Go East Timor! You know you want to. Everyone else is...well, okay, no one else is doing it. But it would be a novel experience for the East Timorese to be trendsetters. I'm sure of it.

So last night Mark and I were on our way out to supper, and I spotted a Humvee. I hate Humvees. "Can we please never, ever own one of those things?" I said. "What if it's a post-Apocalyptic future?" said Mark. "We might need it to fend off the bad guys."

"See, that's one of the advantages of moving home," I said. "If we move home, we can have Aaron to fend off the bad guys, and we won't need a Humvee." "What if Aaron needs a Humvee?" asked Mark. I shrugged. "I never said Aaron couldn't have one. Just that I don't want us to have one. But if we've got a ravaged landscape already, I think Em could drive the Humvee." Then I sat there, humming and thinking happily to myself about who we would have around if we moved home and the world as we know it came to an end, and how Em could drive around the ravaged landscape in the Humvee. I know it sounds a little, well, you know, but we've got some Apocalyptically useful friends and family members. It's nice.

Then I thought of something alarming. "Uh-oh." Mark, obligingly, asked what was bothering me. "[Friend]. I wouldn't want to leave him out of our post-Apocalyptic compound of cool people, but I really, really, really wouldn't want to spend the end of the world with him." "He could be the caged beast-man we let out whenever we needed to fight the intruders," suggested Mark, and it was a good suggestion, so my post-Apocalyptic visions were cozy, happy ones again.

Other than that, we attempted to eat at a local Italian place, but they displayed no interest whatsoever in serving us, or even in bringing our water, and their menu was really boring. So we left and went to the Olive Garden, and everything there was adequate, and we talked about big ol' epic series and slower-than-light space travel. And then we wandered in Border's and bought nothing and ogled many things, and we got fruit leather and edamame and came home.

Without finding five bucks, even.

The post office thwarted my grandparents and me again yesterday, but at least I got some rejection letters and some junk mail. And I worked on the book -- woo! More book today! Woohoo! -- and read Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States Since 1850 and finished City of Cain, and I just barely started A Continent of Islands, which is Mark Kurlansky's book about the Caribbean. So. It should be an interesting day, with my own book and a book about the Caribbean by Kurlansky, who is very cool, and I've been thinking some more about my grant proposal. Stuff to do, stuff to do, stuff to enjoy doing.

And I have my morning juice! It's right here at my left hand. We bought it on Sunday, but Mark could only find a huge vat o' juice, so we couldn't fit it into the fridge until after lunch yesterday. The juice is back, and perhaps the rest of my routine will follow with it. I hope yours is pleasant as well.