6 June 2004

There is a singles website ad popping up on my hotmail and driving me mad. It has spaces you're theoretically supposed to select things from a menu, and the way it reads now is "I'm looking for a [female] that [lives in West Virginia]." Female who. Females are not thats. Am I needlessly testy? Possibly, but I'm right.

Yesterday we had a very good morning. We arrived at the Evanses' just around 9:00 and were greeted by a happy little Roo. "Cookie Monsser!" he informed us. "Fish! Mommy 'dooooes! Me kitty! Hippo! Hippo! Horse! Gorgon! Hippo!" It was apparently the morning of the hippo in Rooland. Every time we see him he knows more words. It's very nifty to watch. He was a tiredy boy, but he got to pet tiny deer-like animals in a petting zoo sort of thing, and he got to eat kettle corn, and he sat on Auntie Mrissa's lap at lunch, and it was good Roo time. We got somewhat less Mike time -- he had to leave a little early to get to softball practice -- but plenty of good Stella time as well. We had salmon calzones together. Oh bliss.

And we got stuff. Oh, man, did we get stuff. It was a good art fair, and we needed stuff. We got four photographs for hanging on various walls, most likely in the music room, the living room, the master bath, and Mark's office. We got two vases I would describe as sub-bud sized -- we had a bud vase, but it was much too big for the flowers Mark was bringing in from the garden. These are perfect for them, maybe the height of my thumb. We also got...well, let me see. A spice jar to replace one of our ignominious tupperwares for garam masala. A piece of pottery to be with the Mexican pottery and the Shona sculpture on the living room mantelpiece. A brag board for Mark's office. A Minnesota photography book to counteract the effects of the ones we already have. Various and sundry library booksale books. A pair of pants for me. Salsa, toffee peanuts, wild rice bread, and a kolachy. I think that's it, but good heavens, it's enough. And yet, not really enough: we could do with more art in general. For the kitchen, for example, but nothing they had was suitable for our kitchen in the least. Timprov also did not spot any suitable bedroom art, and I would have liked a few more bathroom-workable photos or prints or what have you. But still: this was plenty for the time being. We can handle more later when we've gotten all this stuff framed and hung and settled. It will be a large trip to the frame store.

Oh yes, I did leave out something, but that was bought as a present, so I'll continue to leave it out.

Mark and I then went to the open house at the local vet hospital. Nice place. Got the name of a local breeder of our flavor puppies. Ran some errands, came home again, and were boring for the rest of the night. Not bored, but definitely boring.

I had decided to read Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Truth About Stone Hollow, because I needed a non-note-taking book for when I was eating, lying in bed, that sort of thing, and while Göran Schildt's Modern Finnish Sculpture is doing wonders for my mood and my books, it requires copious notes and doesn't stay open very well. So it's definitely a two-handed book. So I figured I should get a cheap library sale impulse purchase off my pile before I brought home another cheap library sale impulse purchase. Meh. I was disappointed. Nothing seemed resolved to me; it was, "And then they all went away, the end." I didn't much care for that.

Now my no-notes book is Ron Sarti's The Chronicles of Scar, lent to me by Stella lo these many moons ago. It's fun and diverting, but the writing is clunky in spots, and so far I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it to anyone who wasn't writing a many-hundred-years-post-apocalypse story. I'll finish it in time to give back to Stella next weekend, though, and next I'll probably need to read my local library books before they come due. Always with the lists.

I have an idea for MTV, but MTV probably won't listen. Even Timprov kind of smiled and didn't really listen. There are all these TV specials about D-Day, yah? Well, I think that for V-J Day, they should have some of the old vets be their VJs. Wouldn't that be neat? Wouldn't that honor America? Wouldn't that confuse the heck out of everyone involved except perhaps me? Let me tell you, I went to high school with a former MTV VJ, and if he's up to the task, so's your great-uncle Ted who was on Guam. Really.

Reason #472 why I'm glad this is not a political blog: I don't have to say anything in particular about the death of Ronald Reagan. Or about any other political event. Personal journals and blogs are the way to go for sure. When you find Roo's "Cookie Monsser" comments more interesting than adding another eulogy of someone you've never known to the chorus of eulogies from people who never knew him, you don't have to pretend any different.