This Side of Lost

I always saw rabbits as inferior pets. They seem to have less personality and require more attention than cats. I have now seen the error of my ways, for I will never get my cat to do this for me.

I'm not doing too hot on the "more updates" claim. *shrug* I will continue to try, but I guess I should quit making promises, huh? Life is pretty normal otherwise. We're getting excited about the first of several upcoming plane trips -- this one to Georgia for Thanksgiving. Strangely enough, we're looking forward to the weather there -- supposedly it will be cooler. It was 85°F here today. I knew it would be different living in California, but this is ridiculous. I haven't even gotten out my winter clothes yet.

It was nice to have a quiet three day weekend with Veteran's Day last Friday. Very quiet. Like, I taught Samantha how to play gin rummy. Samantha doesn't really like card games. She was a good sport though. Cribbage is next. I seem to have misplaced my cribbage board, however... hmm, what? Wishlist? Why, yes, I have one. Why do you ask?

Book review time: I finished PopCo by Scarlett Thomas last week. I saw a review in one of my librarian book review sources that mentioned it being about a young woman who works for a slightly sinister toy company and includes codes, ciphers and other mathematics. Sounded right up my alley. The book is about much more than that, however -- besides the above topics, it riffs on the life of a smart, unusual adolescent girl (a topic that I'm sure some of my readers can identify with), consumerist culture, vegetarianism, and some fairly serious "maths" (as the British call it). I enjoyed it, specifically because of some of these nerdier digressions, which Booklist actually notes as a drawback: "her digressions into esoteric topics (Godel, anyone?) are likely to leave readers more exhausted than amused" -- exactly the opposite with me. But ultimately I felt that the entire work suffered for cohesiveness due to its multifaceted approach. It was fun though -- original and doesn't do what you'd expect. I'd recommend it, especially if you're realizing that you're becoming obsessed with British culture, perhaps with the eventual goal of moving there someday. Like me.

In other news:
* I miss the Trojan Horse. Both of the Greek restaurants we've tried around here are all fancy and expensive. Can't a guy get some tabbouleh and spanikopita without spending twenty bucks?
* Hey, do you live in southern California? No? Shoot. Well, wanna come to our Christmas concert anyway? It's Saturday the 16th in Pasadena. Drop me a line for tickets.
* I finally got my car registered in California earlier this week. Now it blends in with the rest of the cars in the garage, without its Minnesota license plates to distinguish it. On a related note, why is going to the DMV so stressful? I realized as I was driving up to the place that my heart was racing. Zounds, it's just filling out some forms and writing a check.
* We had a tremendous brunch with Jackie, fellow Bloomington transplant on Saturday, at the Griddle Cafe. Here I had thought that I would never again find pancakes to rival the Deli's. Turns out I just needed to wait an hour for a table.
* Big congrats to Johan Santana for winning his second unanimous Cy Young award. Aaahh, I remember the days when he was a nameless firethrowing lefty out of the bullpen...

Hope you're enjoying the fall weather, wherever you are.