How About Some Books?

A reading update: I'm adding a lot of books over on the right. I've changed the formatting so that the list shows 25 books at a time and I rarely add more than that at a time. But no worries, if something I read is particularly good (or bad or disappointing), I'll mention it here.

Shades of Grey - A new book from Fforde. I liked it a lot...perhaps not as much as the Thursday Next books but better than the others I've read.

Traffic - Fascinating book. You'd wonder just how interesting a book abut traffic might be...the answer is, very.

Going Bovine - Wonderful YA book. The main character has a form of Mad Cow disease...and yet the book is funny and hopeful.

Matilda Savitch - I really liked this book, though I want to re-read the end and see if I really did read what I thought I read. Intriguing book, though.

The Lock Artist - Loved this one. The main character is interesting and sympathetic, even if he is a criminal and expert safe-cracker.

The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag - Yay! Flavia de Luce is back and as feisty and persistent as ever. Great fun, though occasionally the author's non-Englishness peeks through.

I should also mention The House on Fortune Street and Horns. The Margot Lovesey is still sticking with me, weeks after reading it. And Joe Hill continues to follow in his father's footsteps, filling his shoes very nicely, thank you.

I've also read about eight of the Fables series of graphic novels. Rachel has the thriteen that have been published so far, so I have a few left in front of me.

Early Stop For The Easter Bunny

The Easter Bunny seems to have made a practice run at my house! I went out this morning and my yard was full of yummy colors.


Indulgence sock yarn, looking like a bowl of jelly beans. This knits up with little Fake Isle stripes between solid stripes and the colors are so pretty and spring-like.


Misti Alpaca Sock in colors that look sort of brown here but are, in reality, very bright and cheery.


Miss Babs in a glowing orange with a separate tiny skein of shocking pink for the heels and toes. Sizzle!


And some Zitron Fundus in pretty stripes.

And no. I lied. It wasn't the Easter Bunny. For the first time in weeks, I managed to spend some time up at the Black Sheep on Saturday and this time I took my gift certificates with me. I spent one of them to offset the price of these goodies. Still have two more under my hat.

The Zitron was on sale and is destined to be a Red Scarf, though it is, perhaps, pushing the boundaries of "red." But it is smooshy and soft and should make a nice cuddly reddish scarf.

The Miss Babs yarn was in two buckets...one full of large skeins and one full of the heel and toe colors. So much fun to mix and match.

In the interest of clearing the house out a bit, Mr. Pointy Sticks and I took two cartons of old records down to Record and Tape Traders last evening and sold them for $69. A little sad to see some of them go...old Carole King and Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell...but really? We hadn't listened to them in years...years and years and years. So they're gone now. We still have cartons and cartons of classical albums...guess they'll get donated to the book sale in Charlottesville or the Goodwill.

We are thinking that we could take a trip to Charlottesville one of these weekends and drop off records, stay overnight at that hotel down on the Mall...the Omni, that's what it's called, visit some used bookstores, have dinner with some cousins....that would be fun. Strange, maybe, being back there in a hotel instead of in my Mom's house, but it could be nice.

Heh, and we could stop at Foods of All Dollars on the way home for the obligatory trip to the candy aisle.

(Checking the Omni...lots of weekends already booked and yikes, it ain't cheap.)

Bragging

I've added a new link over there in my Favorite Places list. It's the blog of one of my favorite people. You guessed it....Rachel. She's started a blog for her art work.

Chaos Never Diets

I wish I had her talent.

What Did I Promise You?

Lookie, pictures!


Here is the March red scarf. I love this scarf...it's soft and drapey and fuzzy. I hope its future owner likes it as well.


And here's the one I started for April. It's a little bit of a fancy rib. Hard to see because the yarn is pretty textured, but it's squooshy and nice.

Home Is The Sailor, Home From The Bay....

And the parents, home from Em Aye.

We took Rachel back to Hampshire to finish out the spring semester. Took three days this time and spent Sunday in Amherst, taking RR to Whole Foods and doing a little shopping in Amherst proper. I feel as though I should have left notes of apology for the people in the hotel rooms on either side of us, as I had several fits during the nights where I thought I might possibly be ejecting pieces of lung. Home on Monday in the pouring rain and back to work on Tuesday. Thinking about it, I perhaps should have taken Tuesday off, as I am still dragging and that day was sort of hard to get through. But got through it was.

I finished my March Red Scarf on the way home on Monday and started the April scarf a little early. Pictures to come.

Pardon Me, But That's Not The End Of Your Expertise...

Had a lovely moment this morning when I woke up and realized that I was barely wheezing at all. Mr. Pointy Sticks even checked to make sure I was still breathing, I was so quiet.

Anyway, I stayed home from work today as I was already taking the afternoon off for my appointment with Dr. H., the nice man who does my colonoscopies. (Well, that makes it sound like I have one done monthly...I was really going in to see him to have the entrance conference (so to speak) for my second one.) He started to shake my hand and I said, "Oh, better not...I have pneumonia at the moment. I'm on antibiotics but still..." and he said, "Yeah, I hear you wheezing." We chatted for a while and he told me that I don't have to have my colonoscopy next month, as I thought, but that I can put it off until January, based on new guidance from whatever organization gives out colonoscopy guidelines. "Good news," he says, "Right?" "Well, yes," I said, "but you know, they really aren't that bad." "They aren't!" he agreed. "Spread that around!"

So I am spreading that around. If you are 50 or over, get yourself screened. It's no big deal, you'll have the best nap in the world, and you'll get peace of mind. Do it!

He started to walk me out and said, "Wait. Step in the exam room. I want to listen to your lungs." Not the usual end he concerns himself with but okay. He put his stethoscope up and said, "Oh yeah, they're crackly, all right. You didn't go to work today, did you?" And when I said no, I hadn't, he said, "Don't go tomorrow either." (So I called my boss and told her that and she said "Good! I was hoping you'd say that.")

That Nasty Backstabber

Rolf the Cough, the traitor, has transmuted to, you guessed it, pneumonia. I felt so awful last night. I couldn't get a breath...was actually feeling sort of panicked. So, though it seemed somewhat better today, I thought I'd better get myself checked out. So off we went to Patient First. One chest x-ray later I'm sent home with cough syrup, prednisone and antibiotics. Whole little goody bag. Here's to feeling better someday!

Arrival

Rachel's train got in at 6:30 this morning.

And were her loving parents there to meet her? No, actually, they had fallen asleep and she had to call us from the station...

In our defense, Amtrak's systems had broken down and, the last time we checked (around 4:30 a.m.) they had no idea when the train might arrive.

Ain't travel wonderful?

Evil Parents

So, the kid's spring break runs this weekend to next. "Take the train!" we said. "It runs right from Amherst to B'more...no changing in NYC...saves us time...won't take much longer than being in the car! Be a sport!"

"Sure," she said, "but do you think maybe you could drive me back so that I could send some stuff home?"

"No problem," we said, "Oooops, the Friday train is sold out. How about Saturday?"

"Okey-dokey," says she.

The train was supposed to be in by 9:30 p.m. It's now about 1 a.m. and where is the daughter? Sitting in the train in Penn Station, NYC. Because of all the rain and wind, the power is apparently out all over northern NJ...including the train tracks. So there they sit. No word on when they might get moving again. No estimate on when they might be getting into B'more. (Though it probably won't be any earlier than 4 a.m.)

I was talking to a nice Amtrak employee a bit ago and he said that they thought they were about to get power established again when an electrical pole collapsed. Which is going to require cranes to get it raised again.

Sigh.

I wonder if Rachel will be speaking to us by the time we have to take her back to school next week.

I Have Been Knitting

In addition to the interminable sleeves of Rachel's sweater, I have been churning away on other stuff.

I made a hat for my brother.


It's Jared Flood's Turn-A-Square hat. I modified it by adding, at my brother's request, a fold-up brim. A quick knit...took me less than a week with other stuff on the needles.

And I've started my March Red Scarf.


It's less pink and more red than it appears here. I'm doing seed stitch, but working two rows before changing my knits to purls and vice versa.

Other than that, not much worth mentioning. My cough still lingers. I'm thinking of naming it...Rolf the Cough.

Mr. Pointy Sticks and I are watching, courtesy of my co-worker Elizabeth, the first season of Mad Men and enjoying it greatly.

I am reading Dan Simmon's Carrion Comfort but I keep taking breaks for other books.

We made a roast chicken this evening which was okay but made me miss Rachel.

And now to bike!