I'm listening to a new CD right now: Panic at the Disco's second album, titled "Pretty. Odd." From the 2 or 3 songs I had heard on the radio from their first album, they came off as musically interesting but kind of, well, snotty -- forgivable, since they were teenagers just out of high school at the time. If not for the recognizable voice, I might have thought this second album was the product of a completely different band. The songs move in directions from rock to folksy to a very harpsichordish ballad. I am particularly fond of tracks #1, #2, #5, #8, #13 and #15 (that's a lot, I know, but they're good!). I highly recommend it as somewhat eclectic rock. These kids are talented; I hope to hear more from them in the future.

Listen to "Nine in the Afternoon"


In the world of literature, I've just finished Colleen McCullough's The First Man in Rome. This hefty tome (896 pages) of historical fiction details the military and political career of historical figure Gaius Marius (157 BC - 86 BC) alongside the history of Rome during his lifetime. It sounds dry, but it was actually quite fascinating. It just took me ages to get through because there is so much detail -- not to mention learning Roman naming conventions, which are at first very confusing, and keeping track of the many, many characters. I think I've just learned more about ancient Rome than I ever learned in school -- which isn't difficult, since it was probably nothing. Although I've finished the body of the story, I'm still working my way through the 94-page glossary (slightly dry, but it is helping to round out my understanding of the Roman world). Oh, and there are six more books in this series, so yeah. Wish me luck.

Remember the SVH/size 6 business I posted about a few weeks ago?

It turns out that the series is being rereleased, with updates to reflect the tastes of 21st-century teens.

And guess what? Oh, I know, you've already guessed: The twins are now a "perfect size 4."

I've scored another free book from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. This makes 5 for me now, yippiee! I feel spoiled.

Hope it's good.

Who remembers reading the original Sweet Valley High paperback series?



In the first chapter of every book there was a quick recap/rundown on Elizabeth and Jessica and their family, including physical descriptions of them, many reprinted nearly verbatim from previous books in the series. The twins are described as golden-haired, blue-eyed and being "perfect" size 6s (note that last). As we all know, youth are highly impressionable, and these past 20 years I've been carrying size 6 in my subconscious as an ideal -- only recently have I actually become conscious of its origin.

What's interesting is that I now wear a size 6, but I don't feel "perfect." I feel mostly healthy, perhaps with a few unwanted bits of pudge I try vainly to conceal, but not remotely perfect. Ignoring the arguments against defining perfection in women's body shapes and sizes, which is a whole other debate, here's what I'm wondering now:

Were those bits intentionally thrown into the books to provide teenage girls with a healthier standard? Clever.

Or were teenagers actually pleased as punch to be a size 6 in the mid-1980s? If that's the case, comparing them with today's fashion-conscious teenagers and, indeed, most young actresses (both of whom make me feel slightly ill), things have changed.

[I disliked having to use arbitrary terms like perfect, standard and ideal in this post, but I couldn't find a way to avoid it.]

Sigh, sigh, sigh.

I'm in the middle of World Without End, and it's got me completely captivated. So what do I do? LEAVE IT AT WORK! Aaaaaaaargh! I'm terribly disappointed in myself. Worse, I keep thinking about it and looking forward to reading in bed later on, only to remember that it isn't here. *shakes fist*

In unrelated news, Jonas' car is busted. He's fairly certain he knows what the problem is and is actually going to attempt to fix it himself, but it's been too cold recently to perform auto repair. We've been more or less carpooling for the last week, which has not exactly been convenient now that he doesn't work in EP anymore.

Soooooo. I made beef pasta and mushroom soup tonight because I saw it on the Betty Crocker recipe of the day, which has been one of my RSS feeds for some time but up until today I'd never been sufficiently enticed into trying one. It was beefy goodness.

Yesterday morning as I was driving to work it was -17°F. No joke. I was surprised and thankful that my poor little car managed to produce some heat for me.

Flickr Stats can be a source of amusement. A few days ago, someone viewed one of my photos of a plate of spaghetti and broccoli. Their search terms had been: joy alive oil chomp model. WTF? I can't even begin to imagine 1) how those terms applied to my photo, and 2) what they were really looking for.

World Without End arrived for me at the library. This means I have some serious reading ahead of me. It's 1,000 pages long and only a 2-week loan.

For those who aren't familiar with it, WWE is the sequel to Ken Follett's earlier work, Pillars of the Earth. Or so I thought. Today I saw a newly republished PotE, redesigned to complement WWE, and the bottom of the front cover said: "The prequel to World Without End." Huh? So if I write a book, and then write another book that takes place in a time period following the first, the first book becomes a prequel? That stinks suspiciously like a marketing ploy, especially given that PotE was recently chosen for Oprah's book club.

I just scored another free advance reading copy from LibraryThing! This is my 4th, and I feel lucky reading some of the discussion threads in which some folks say they haven't managed to get any yet.

It seems an algorithm is used to match a potential book against the contents of users' libraries, and those who score the highest get the book. There are a few other factors, like whether you read and reviewed any previous books you received, and possibly some other things. The 4 books I've "won" so far have been a little all over the board: historical fiction, a mystery/detective/crime novel, a memoir, and the one I'm expecting now is also a memoir, but from Darfur, Sudan.

In any event, this is what I'm looking forward to now (please excuse the ugly Amazon image):

The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur

*waves a little flag that says: YAY!*

From the little I've seen so far, BookMooch is one of the more fun and useful sites for book lovers I've discovered in a while. But beware, gentle reader, if you're unable to bear the thought of parting with a single book -- ever -- this site is not for you.

Two days ago I signed up and indicated I had an advance reading copy of Have You Found Her to give away. Right away the next day I had an eager individual desiring my copy, and today I sent it to her for less than $3 via media mail. For inventorying the book, I received 0.1 points; for sending it, I received 1 point. Now I can request a book I'd like from another user, which costs 1 point. Essentially, it's a world-wide book-trading service, but no money exchanges hands.

I initially signed up because I haven't been sure what to do with the ARCs I've received from LibraryThing after I've finished reading them. Now this kind of makes me want to get some books out of storage to review and decide whether they're still worth keeping, or whether I should release them to another happy reader.

I spent most of the morning lounging around, first reading then at the computer working on my webpage redesign. Jonas called in the early afternoon and said he'd swing by home and take me to the dentist so we wouldn't have to meet with two cars afterward. He was on his way to Dad's work so Dad could give his car a once-over. Incidentally, Dad thought the car looked great and couldn't find anything wrong with it at all. Yay!

My dentist appointment was for 3:30pm but I got dropped off about ten after. I was sitting in the waiting room for no more than one minute before I was called in. They seemed really slow -- there was no one else in the waiting room besides me. Without going into the cleaning, poking and scraping details of my visit, I'll just say it went great. No cavities, no concerns. Yay, again! Unfortunately, when I was done and called Jonas, he was back at work as some crisis came up. It was only about a mile away, so he ran over quick to pick me up, but then we had to both go back to his work. I sure am glad I had a book in my bag to read, since it took about two and a half hours! I was slightly annoyed, since I had been initially going to drive myself to the dentist anyway and could have avoided all this, but I did get some reading done and it was relatively quiet and peaceful in their conference room. I'm now less than 200 pages away from finishing ...And Ladies of the Club. Go me.

Finally, around 7:00pm Jonas came to retrieve me from the conference room. He warned me that he still had some things to do tonight, but could do the rest from his computer at home. We picked up some Culver's. I need to stop eating those delicious chili cheese fries, or else I'm going to get sick of them and then be pissed about it.

I spent the rest of the evening working on my webpages. It's kind of slow, but I wanted to redo each page individually. Overall, they look cleaner and simpler. I guess this will be v3.0 -- v2.0 was unveiled in 1998, and v1.0 back in 1995. I wish I'd kept a copy of that first one, it kind of sucked. :)

I'm not really a shoe girl, but last week I bought a pair of shoes/boots (shoots?) that I am in LOVE with! They are the type of half-boots that, if you are wearing pants that cover their tops, look like boots, although they really only come up to a few inches above the ankle. They are black and zip down the inside. Having not been a shoe girl, I haven't really been a heel girl either, but the heels on these are about an inch and a half -- not really that big, except all my other shoes are basically flat-heeled, so I've had to get used to wearing them all day at work with that little bit of extra weight being carried by the front of the foot instead of the back. But they are great! I love prancing around in them, much to Jonas' bemusement. :)

Currently reading at work: Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain

Although Dad had Thanksgiving this year, I decided to buy a turkey too and cook it up for just me and Jonas. I'd only done a turkey once before, so I could certainly use the practice. I bought the turkey Wednesday night and decided to cook it on Sunday since I was pretty sure it wouldn't last through the week.

Sunday morning I got up and gave Jonas a shopping list for Rainbow. He was more than happy to run some errands for me in his new car. (Funny how that works, isn't it?) In the meantime I made the scalloped corn, since it was something I could reheat easily later on. This is THE BEST scalloped corn recipe ever!! I found it at Allrecipes and took it to Dad's and it was a hit, and it was so easy to make I think I will file it under "Easy Things to Make for a Potluck." After the corn went into the oven Jonas arrived with the rest of my ingredients and I made the cranberry sauce -- another easy recipe that took all of 10 minutes!!

Since I had already completed two of my dishes for our belated Thanksgiving dinner to be held later in the evening, we went out for a spin to do some shopping. I had a gift certificate for Borders from last year's birthday so we went down to Lyndale and picked out some books about pregnancy. I couldn't think of any other book I preferred to buy before the gift certificate would expire, and I guess now we'll be prepared whenever the time comes. :) Now I've got to hide the books so nobody spots them lying around by accident -- just what I need is for visiting parents to start getting ideas!

Later on after we got home I threw the turkey in the oven and started the rest of the meal. In addition to the turkey, corn and cranberry sauce, I made stuffing (in a pan), gravy and garlic mashed potatoes. With the exception of part of the turkey which might have gotten slightly overdone, everything turned out great! I had to laugh when Jonas noted afterward that I'd cooked the turkey upside down without even noticing. Despite the inverted turkey, I feel more confident in preparing an extensive turkey dinner, so I think we'll host next year.

This year we are planning to host two Christmases, and I think we are going to do a Swedish julbord. I'm sure some of the dishes will cause some noses to wrinkle among my family, but I think it will be fun and I know that Jonas misses the traditional Swedish Christmas spread.

I had my annual physical yesterday, so I got to leave work for a few hours in the afternoon to do that. It went OK -- that is, nothing appears abnormal. She did decide to do a blood test for anemia on the spot because she felt I was kind of pale, so they stuck a needle in my arm to take some blood. I also had somewhat low blood pressure when she checked that -- 91/60 -- and she said, "Boy, you must be really relaxed!" I think on some level I was hoping that the blood test would turn up something that might explain why I'm so cold all the time, but everything was normal -- it turns out that I'm just a calm, pale, cold person. :)

I had some concerns about the pill I've been using for several years, and she decided to change my prescription to something different. I'll be interested to see what sort of effects the new one has. She also gave me a pamphlet about Patello-Femoral Syndrome, which appears to be what's wrong with my knees. It contains some exercises intended to strengthen some muscles and eventually ease the pain. I also got some samples of Advil gel-pills that she recommended for quick relief when they are especially sore.

After work I had to stop at the gas station to clean my windshield. My wiper fluid leak is now so bad that just a few hours after refilling it it's out again. My windshield was so filthy I could hardly see. And it was so cold out! I decided to get gas at the same time, and by the time I was done filling the tank and doing the windshield, my fingers were numb, even inside my gloves. At home I made myself some bean burritos with just a sprinkle of Asiago cheese inside to give them a little kick, and we watched that stupid, stupid show, Average Joe. The episode was one and a half hours long, so it was midnight before we finished and went to bed.

Now I've got a splitting headache and I think I'm going to go to bed early. If it eases up a bit I might be able to read. The book I'm reading at home now, ...And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer, has been unbearably slow in the beginning. It's taken me nearly two months to get past the first hundred pages (out of 1000+)! However, reviews that I've read indicate that it does pick up speed at some point and turns out to be a fantastic read, so I'm going to try to hang in there.

Happy 64th birthday to my Dad! Yay!

Work was OK. I spent the first half of the day at Minnetonka, which wasn't that exciting but was something different. Makes the day go faster to be out and about.

As I was coming home from work I felt a sudden compulsion to clean out my car. It wasn't that bad, but it was starting to get filled with trash in the back seat and look kind of cruddy in general. So I drove into the garage and went and got the vacuum and spent the next hour or so cleaning the floors and floor mats, under and on top of the seats, and dusting off the dash. It was actually kind of fun! Jonas got home toward the end of it and poked his head into the garage wondering what the hell was going on in there. :) Now my car looks great! It still looks 10 years old, but a neat and tidy 10 years old.

Jonas made us some teriyaki noodle and chicken stir-fry, and it was pretty good. I cleaned up the kitchen afterward, so I was proud of myself. I hate cleaning up the kitchen after eating. Here I've just sat down to a nice meal and am feeling pleasantly satiated, then I have to get up and spend a half hour cleaning the kitchen? It is a total contentment killer. I did it anyway since Jonas had cooked, and now it looks good so I guess it was worth it, but DAMMIT if someone would only come clean up my kitchen after me every day!! :)

Soon I'll have the rest of the evening to myself as Jonas is off to maintenance after he's finished watching West Wing. I plan to curl up with my current book, Lord John and the Private Matter by Diana Gabaldon. It's a sidestory of her Outlander series, not at all about the same main characters, but an elaboration of a minor player. I'm enjoying it so far.

It's snowing, it's snowing, the old man is ... mowing?

Just woke up this morning to find a winter wonderland outside! Actually, it looks kind of like sloppy slush, but the first "real" snowfall of the year is a pretty sight. It will probably all melt within a few hours -- I don't think the ground is cold enough yet.

We ordered bowling balls! I arranged to meet Jonas at the shop last Friday after work and we both got fitted for a ball. They are supposed to be ready tomorrow. I suppose we'll have to try them out right away!! The guy offered to give us a 10% discount if we bought shoes and bags at the same time, which we were planning to do anyway so that's cool.

On Saturday afternoon we drove down to Nelson, WI (a very tiny Norwegian town) for a lutefisk dinner with Anita and Dean. I'm sorry to say I could not work myself up to actually trying the lutefisk (otherwise I might have titled this entry "My First Time: Lutefisk." It was jiggling just a little too much on that serving platter -- like fish-flavored Jell-O. I instead busied myself with the lefse, mashed rutabagas, potatoes, meatballs, cranberry relish and pumpkin pie instead. It was an annual dinner held by Anita's church, and the tickets are in huge demand (ours were bought a year in advance). When we pulled up, an entire charter busload of people was leaving, but I didn't catch where they were from.

After the dinner Jonas and I found a small bowling alley in nearby Wabasha and decided to try it out. A few days ago I got in my head the idea of trying out bowling alleys here and there when we travel, then putting up some kind of review page for local bowling alleys on my homepage. I don't know if I'll find time, but the idea sounds fun.

Just recently we have decided to educate ourselves further in the subject of American History. Given the controversy surrounding the publication of and teaching from history textbooks whose content is intended to instill pride rather than teach the truth, I have always felt that I received a poor education in American History. James Loewen's book, Lies My Teacher Told Me, was what really inspired me to find a textbook that got good reviews in the accuracy area. If you haven't read it already, read it! I had a hard time finding an organization that reviewed textbooks objectively, but the book I chose, The American Nation, received an "A" review from a history department at the University of Michigan. To my delight, Jonas has also expressed an interest in reading it with me. This should be fun. :)

Woohoo, the snowfall has picked up again! Just a little while ago it'd tapered off a bit, and I thought it was going to stop, but it's coming down again with larger flakes. YAY! Too bad it's too early for the county to declare a snow day. :)

I just wanted to say a few things about a book I've been reading, The Master of All Desires. It is a work of historical fiction, set in the mid-1500s in and around the royal court of France. A young girl, Sibille, unintentionally finds herself the unfortunate owner of a box containing The Master of All Desires: an ancient dried-up head that grants wishes to the foolish. Catherine de Medici, the Queen of France, engaged in a battle with his mistress for her husband the King's affections and respect, naturally desires the box for her own purposes. The catch is that the box is attached to its owner until death.

The book has been a very light read -- but fascinating! I've always been interested in knowing more about European history, but history books are often so dry. While many of the details in historical fiction must certainly be taken as the author's imagination, the setting information and lives of well-known figures are usually relatively accurate. I feel like I actually know something about the reign of Henry II and his wife Catherine de Medici, a base on which I could add by picking up a history book. Historical fiction is a great tool for getting oneself interested in a subject. I haven't finished yet, so I don't know how it ends, but it's kept me enthralled the entire way through. I originally discovered the book on a summer "Beach Reads" library pamphlet.

For some puzzling reason this morning I did not grab my rain jacket -- hey, it hadn't rained in weeks! Now of course it's been pouring for the last few hours. With luck, it will let up by the time I go home. Right now I am just enjoying watching all of the patrons run squealing from their cars to the library entrance, trying to avoid the raindrops.

I don't know what we're doing tonight, but I hope to relax a little. If it's pleasant tomorrow we might go walking at Minnehaha Falls and enjoy the fall colors. I hope it isn't going to be gloomy and rainy like today.

Ugh. I have to get up early tomorrow!

I'm working at St. Louis Park from 8-noon, then at Eden Prairie from 2-6pm. It's a weird shift, but I'm going to SL to help out and trying to maximize my time there during the hours they're closed. I have to work until 6 at EP anyhow, so it ends up being a 2-hour break in the middle of the day. Maybe Jonas and I can meet for lunch or something? Should make the day go by fast anyhow. And then I'm off Friday. Woohoo, weekend! (Half weekend, anyway.)

Fiddled with my "books I've read and what they were about" notebook this evening. I've finally got it caught up since last summer. I like to keep track of what I read, and I find it necessary to note a brief synopsis of the book for instances when the book made little or no impression on me and I promptly forgot what it was about. It's kind of fun to go back later on and remind myself about books I'd otherwise forgotten.

Having a discussion about tea with my sister via Trillian at the moment. We're making plans to visit a tea shop in Minneapolis next weekend and maybe grab lunch too. I would plug the shop here, but they are not online. It's owned by the sister of one of my former co-workers. Well, I'll plug it by name anyway: Vitala Tea, 312 East Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis. YUMMY TEA!

That's all.

Tonight I finished reading The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt.

Prior to reading the book I really had no conception of who this woman was -- I assumed she was known simply for being the wife of one of our presidents and, as had been the custom of the times, playing hostess and smiling and agreeing in all the right places, but not necessarily recognized for personal merit. It's not a book I'd been particularly excited to read, but I'd had it on a list of books I thought I ought to read someday. Afterwards, I'm amazed at the life this woman led.

First of all, she wrote the book herself. In this age of famous people's autobiographies being written, "with John Doe," because the individual himself has no talent for writing even about his own life, I have great admiration for anyone who has the skills to write his own autobiography. It read like a novel, and at no point did she cause me to lose interest (that is a talent in itself). Her obvious intelligence, vocabulary, and frank commentary about the people, places and events in history kept me interested the entire way through.

Despite losing both her parents at an early age, it could be said Eleanor grew up with a silver spoon in her mouth. Raised by her wealthy grandmother, she describes her education in Europe and her experiences in high society. However, she confides in the reader that she knew from an early age that she was going to be no great beauty and was not particularly interested in all of the parties and balls, but it was in this social atmosphere that she met and married Franklin Roosevelt (who was actually her 5th cousin).

During the first part of Franklin's politcal career she played her role as the strong mother and faithful wife, and despite perhaps saying a few words in public, keeping a relatively low profile as she concentrated on raising her children. As the years went on and especially when she became First Lady, she became more outspoken in her public statements and in her support of various civil organizations. As with anyone who campaigns strongly for or against something, she was despised by some and adored by others.

It was after Franklin's death that she really went to town!

She was invited to be a delegate to the United Nations, and served as chairwoman on the human rights commission. Her roles as stateswoman and diplomat brought her all over the world to meet with foreign leaders and to meet the world's citizens. In addition to all of this, regularly campaigning for the Democratic Party, and continuing to serve on myriad women's and human rights organizations, she somehow had time to write a daily newspaper column for 35 years!

I'm amazed. Just amazed.

I would venture to say that I learned more and enjoyed myself more in reading her book than I did when studying the same people and events in school. History from a first-person standpoint, while invariably biased in some way or another, can be much more interesting than history through the eyes of a neutral observer.

Currently reading at home: Bulfinch's Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch

Or, The Divine Comedy is neither divine nor comedic. Discuss.

Whew.

It's been a long, arduous journey, but today I finally finished The Divine Comedy. It was by far the most agonizing literary experience I've ever had, and unfortunately, because it was so difficult to get through, I'm not sure I can fairly judge how I liked it. I'm not taking a Lit class, so it wasn't required reading -- it's just one of those works I've heard things about and thought I'd try to see what the fuss was about. I'm fascinated by the idea of works that were read by people 700 years ago still being in libraries and bookstores today. Boccaccio's Decameron, by the way, was an truly fun experience!

I found Inferno really intriguing, and had no trouble at all staying interested in the story, but when I got to Purgatorio it somehow all went downhill. I can't say whether it was a difference in writing style or the general pace of events, but every canto was a Herculean task to finish. When I finally got to Paradiso I was forcing myself to get through large chunks at a time, simply so I could finally be finished. Why, you ask, did I not just throw it down halfway through? I don't know -- I just have this thing about finishing a book, even if it's making me miserable reading it. I'm a completist.

The most interesting parts were actually learning into which tiers of hell/purgatory/heaven Dante decided to place various contemporaries and historical figures. In that respect it was actually somewhat educational, although a lot of the names mentioned were people he knew personally in his lifetime and whom I'd never heard of.

There is one positive thing I would mention, and that is at several points throughout the work, Dante managed to make me forget I was reading something he made up. For example, in Paradiso he meets St. Peter who rants about how corrupt and filthy the present papacy is, and that the Pope will rot in hell. I almost stopped and asked myself, "Wow, do you think when the Pope read what St. Peter had to say about him, he cleaned up his act?"

I am of no religion, so some of the spiritual merits of the tale may have been lost on me.

I guess overall I'd have to say I wasn't particularly impressed, but to qualify that I think The Divine Comedy is probably best paired with at least some kind of discussion group.

Currently reading at home: Angels by Marian Keyes (starting this tonight)
Currently reading at work: Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein

Mmm. Chili. I'm having myself a bowl of Hormel with beans. Jonas and I were going to go shopping after work today, but one of his co-workers had an emergency at the last minute and he has to work the night shift as well. We were hoping to get to a dive shop that's in Eagan and have a look at snorkeling gear (I know, it is funny to think of a dive shop in Minnesota, but apparently people go diving in the lakes around here). Knowing absolutely nothing about snorkeling we're hoping to get at least one somewhat informed opinion on styles, brands, etc. before we buy. I know you can rent eq from various dive shops and tour companies in Florida, but since we're planning to snorkel at several different locations we thought we might invest in our own.

I had book group today and am proud to declare I finished John Adams last night about 9pm. For all the difficulty I had getting into it at the beginning, I ended up liking it a lot. It was a fascinating read with respect to the Revolution, most of the details of which have either faded or disappeared from my mind since history class. I was also startled out of my previously held ideas of various people and events in history, including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution. We are nowadays so many years removed from that time period we think of the "Founding Fathers" as a collective group of fine, upstanding, intelligent and admirable men, rarely pausing to examine them as individuals. I was surprised to hear that old Ben F., despite being a brilliant man of science and a diplomat, was also apparently a philandering lecher. Jefferson, on the other hand, was a revolutionary shop-a-holic, constantly in debt, and died an utter pauper. I was perhaps most taken aback with the details of the French Revolution. I had heretofore been given the idea that the revolt in France with the deposition and subsequent beheading of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, with its romantic ideals of "Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood" was a case of, "We'll get rid of the evil king and everything will be great." Shocking was the fact that the revolutonaries themselves, upon having taken control, proceeded to send over 14,000 people to the guillotine. Hey, King Louis wasn't looking so bad now, was he? Overall, despite taking about 200 pages to actually get into it, I'm glad I read it, even had it been nothing more than a vivid refresher in American history.

Now I'm trying to come up with some good "beach reading" books to take on vacation. I'll probably end up buying a few paperbacks at Barnes and Noble before we go.

Currently reading at home: Lonesome Dove (Larry McMurtry)

25 days! Yay! But it's taking FOREVER. *sigh*

Well, the good news is I am making good progress on John Adams. 2 days until book group and I have about 200 pages to go. I know, it seems like a lot, but I've been pushing hard and have done about 200 pages in the last 2 days alone. So even if I don't finish all the way, I'll be close enough to done to have formed a pretty good opinion of it for discussion purposes. And it's not actually due back until Saturday.

Up there I've made it sound like there's bad news to come, although there isn't. Not that I can think of, anyway. Tomorrow after work I'm meeting Sonja, one of my former roommates, for dinner at Punch (which, by the way, is an excellent new pizza joint opened not too long ago here in town). I haven't seen her for at least a year so it will be fun to catch up a little.

A few weeks ago while cleaning I came across some "travel logs" that my friends and I made back in high school on a couple of our baseball roadtrips. In 1992 we went to Milwaukee, 1993 was Chicago, and 1994 was Kansas City. The log from Milwaukee appears to have disappeared to the Great Outfield in the Sky, but I found the ones from Chicago and Kansas City. I typed them up and sent them on to Liz and Heidi and they appeared to have gotten a big kick out of seeing them again, judging from their replies this morning. Then Heidi suggested that we do a sort of reunion roadtrip sometime (after all, it's now 10 years since Milwaukee!!! -- hard to believe). It would be awesome if we could do that, maybe next summer -- another baseball roadtrip, just for us girls!