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Too many books, not enough weekend
I didn't spend all my time this weekend struggling with Hecate or grousing about the JFK Jr. newsfest. Honest.
On Friday I was supposed to meet Eric and Rose and Nonelvis at this new Cajun/Mexican restaurant for dinner. I got there early, and you may have noticed that it's a bit warm out lately, so I went down the street to Toscanini's to get a cool refreshing beverage.
On the way I saw a bumper sticker that made me do an actual double-take: I had to stop, walk back, and read it again. It said:
My daughter was Lesbian of the Month at St. Mary's Academy
Wow.
When I got into Tosci's, the big table in the center of the room had a row of five white oversized coffee cups. Behind them was a sign in a stand. I don't remember the wording exactly, but I assure you I am omitting nothing pertinent:
This is a surprising but easy-to-understand offer. Bring one of these cups to the counter and we will give you a free Cafe au Lait.
Today is Friday.
Gus (the proprietor) had come out of the back room while I was studying this sign. Gus is always in a very good mood or a very bad one. Today was apparently an up day. He boomed out, "So, did you figure it out yet?" I said it seemed simple enough but I was more in the mood for their other sign - "Fresh-Squeezed Lemonade."
Fresh squeezed indeed: The sign was in front of a basket of lemons. When I ordered it, the gent took a lemon, cut it in half, squeezed it right into my cup with a press, put in a little simple syrup, ice chips from the ice-cream lockers, and cold water from a jug with a tap. Now that's fresh lemonade. It was delicious.
I was dubious about the restaurant - and the gumbo is lots better at the Dixie Kitchen - but the rest of the food was pretty tasty, and I believe I'll try it again, even if I wasn't overwhelmed. That seems to have been the consensus. We did have to ask for a table in the back. In the front, they were playing the music so loud we couldn't hear ourselves think.
On my way to meet everyone, I had bought more earring findings - and two pairs someone else made, at the art cooperative. I like the findings because it's possible to make great earrings in my price range, which is $5 a pair and under. The pairs I bought at the art gallery were things I couldn't have made myself in a million years, but goodness, they were painfully expensive. Not doing that again any time soon. Rose inspected my earring collection and said I now have more pairs than she does. Well, shucks, it's a fun thing that doesn't break the bank - and doesn't require me to spend half an hour indulging it, which is the reason I've all but stopped painting my nails.
I made the earrings while Eric and Rose and Nonelvis and I were sitting around talking. Later, spurred by something in the conversation, I pulled out the bag of useless Christmas presents we'd received from my family and never unpacked. I had forgotten that there were some good presents in there, including a book called Forgotten English, which is about fun archaic words. I went and put it away. The punch line: A short while later, Eric referred to an unusual word and I wanted to look it up. Even Mrs. Byrne's didn't have it - but the book I'd just unpacked did.
Oh, you want to know the word? It's "feague." You will never in a million years guess the meaning. Of course, you could just buy the book ....
[wicked chuckle]
Speaking of buying books ... ieee, it's been a bad weekend for that. On Saturday, when I took a break from struggling with Hecate, one of the two things I urgently needed to do was get food. The other was to buy a hagiography (a dictionary of saints). So I went to Wordsworth, and came out with (sigh):
Swedish Folktales and Legends, because I won't be satisfied until I own every folklore book in the world, and because Scandinavia's been underrepresented ever since I gave my cousin my battered old copy of East O'the Sun, West O'the Moon.
The New Book of Forms, a dictionary of poetry types, because I thought it was long since out of print and I've been working from twenty pages photocopied from a library copy for nearly ten years now. Want to write a villanelle but don't know the pattern? This is the book for you.
The Handbook of Egyptian Hieroglyphs, because a book that teaches you to write hieroglyphics on a lesson-by-lesson basis is the ideal addition to the five books I already have on this subject - right?
A Hog on Ice and Other Curious Expressions, because I love etymology books and this one has the pedigree of being written by Charles Funk (that's as in Funk & Wagnalls).
And, oh, yes, the Penguin Dictionary of Saints.
Today I bought three other books. But we won't talk about those. They have even less justification than the purchases above.
I have lots more. I could tell you about how Aussie says that Sister Sledge actually has quite a reputation in Italy, thus making the sign I saw somewhat less improbable; I could talk about how I cannot possibly believe that Jette and Molly haven't heard of Dover books; I could tell you why I'm temporarily angry at the Library of Congress; I could tell you about "Iron Chef" ... but it occurs to me that I've posted more words here in the last hour and a half than my total successful fiction output for three days, and that strikes me as a sign that I should stop now and save some words for tomorrow.
© Columbine
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