Bibliographic Try-Outs

Gainesville

It was fun having Doug here. He was on his way to a week-long conference in Clearwater. The place he loved to eat when here, The Sovereign, is no more-- bought out the end of the year, all the staff fired, everything to be different. This is a terrible loss to all of us. What's really annoying is that when Doug was here in October, he and Bill decided for once to eat somewhere else (Outback) and so missed a chance for one last great meal there. Anyway, we couldn't get into Bonefish last night so went to Hops. It's better as a lunch place than a dinner place, though.

Got errands done yesterday, including getting my hair cut, finally. At least it will be decent for the formal dinner Friday night and California next week.

Today they started working on replacing the roof. Was awakened early (for me) by loud banging. It went on all day long along with booming, scraping, crashing, thumping, and sawing. The cat was a nervous wreck, and I wasn't in much better shape. It is supposed to be done by the end of the week, if the weather continues to cooperate. I wish this could have been put off until next week, but it's one of those things you have to do while the doing is good.

Bill was very late getting home, which made dinner later still. I made a sesame turkey cutlet thing that was pretty good. Bill has decided that the tomato dill relish I made for last Saturday's fish is the universal topping for everything-- he had it atop the cutlets as well as the spaghetti squash I'd intended. It was pretty good stuff, I must admit.

The new Fine Cooking came today. Haven't had a chance to even look at it yet, and certainly won't have a chance to cook in it until I get back.

I'm on a Tanq Ten kick. It makes heavenly see-throughs. However, I don't like olives in them-- even the magic olives tend to overwhelm the botanicals, so that should slow down my consumption of them a bit. Good thing, since I'm running low.

Am auditioning books to take on the trip. (B&N was part of yesterday's errands.) Just now it's between Kim Stanley Robinson's Antarctica and Julian Barnes' Arthur and George. I'll probably bring them both, but need to decide which one to keep with carry-on. If neither has grabbed me by Tuesday, I'll bring Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines, something I've been meaning to get back to for many years, and which just spoke to me again this past week.

But what's really absorbed my interest is Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, a fabulous graphic novel I've been dying to read since it came out, and which Sandy had recommended highly. It was amazing. I was completely drawn into it from the very first page, and immediately started reading it again when I finished. Wow. Just wow.

Not sure I'll be able to help with your email FL list problems, Mom. I'm no good with Yahoo lists. It looks like your Blogger problems are solved now, though.

Here's a thought: Why don't you buy yourself some new clothes instead of thinking you have to sew them? You can order them from catalogs too, although a bit of trial and error is necessary to get the sizes right. I'm always seeing things in catalogs I think would look great on you.