Friday, July 31, 2009

Fish Pie

Sort of a casserole of a post here. A bit of cheese, a bit of white sauce, a bit of left over salmon, and Hmmm, tomatoes aren't going to work here, are they?

My nephew's coming to visit. The son of my kuh-RAY-zee brother. Now that my nephew is 17, he's decided that 17 years of this foolishness is enough. He's had the chance to witness the craziness up close and personal through the years leading up to the divorce, the years of the divorce, and the aftermath of the divorce. He put this foot down recently to say, "Enough. No more. I have no need to talk to that person again, he's an embarrassment as a father, and I won't visit him anymore." Nephew is not doing well in school and is sort of rambling about in his life. Ayway, he's coming out for a quick visit. We may be asking him to hang out longer.

Hobbes seems to be getting slowly better. He's got a waist again and has meat on his bones. He's blind as a doorknob, but his attitude seems to be coming back.

Went to the Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco yesterday with Neo. Haven't been to a botanical exhibit in years. For $5 it was a nice way to spend the day.

Read Susan Wiggs' Lord of the Night the other day. I was NOT expecting to like it -- I read Both Charm School and Horsemaster's Daughter and didn't care for either of them much. OK, so it had a nice cover and (Oh, look at that!) it's a reissue. And hey -- it's a RITA winner? Huh. Wonder how it will go. WOW. What a great book set in a great time period (Renaissance Venice). The May-December relationship is fantastic. Great great book. Not only on my keeper list, but also on my re-read list.

Poking along through Sabrina Jeffries Don't Bargain with the Devil. Jeffries is usually one of my comfort-zone authors. Sometimes she's fantastic, sometimes she's ok, but she's always a good fit for me. I don't get angry at her books or her characters while reading, and I know there'll be something to enjoy along the way, even if it's not one of her better ones. This one I'm just sort of reading it until I finish it though. Nobody's sparking my interest at all. I don't find this magician fellow at all believable as a magician -- he feels very "Victorian fellow in dark tails and top hat", when that personna was *invented* by a particular magician well after this one would have happened. But, and here's a great big HOWEVER, I still enjoy the book a fair amount and can enjoy reading it, even though it doesn't quite make sense.

I read a posting on a forum the other day that I'm pretty sure was someone telling me to fuck off and go home to my palace under a rock. Except maybe it wasn't about me. But I think it was. Except.... No. Definitely someone else. But? No. Stop it. Here, Suisan, what if it is directed at you? So what? Right? (I finally wrote someone else on email and asked her if I was out of line or if she was annoyed. She talked me down out of the trees pretty quickly. Which was nice.) Reminded me so very much of that bit in Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird where she's telling her students that they *will* experience paranoia and come to believe that everyone else in the reading group is talking about them, only to have one of her students call her to say that she's sure that everyone else in the group is talking about her. Turns out everyone in the group has been terrified that everyone else is talking about them. Agh!

1 comment:

Lyvvie said...

...I'm taking notes. these books all sound great.

Good luck with the nephew. Ours has a crazy mother and at one point we were going to adopt him but my Mother-in-law has raised him and he's doing all right now. Until he realizes he's utterly trapped, at which point, there's an airfair waiting for him to come visit us.