Flora adored being taken out to dinner because she could show off and talk about herself a lot.

Not that I was taken out to dinner, but the principle is similar. Went to a birthday party Friday night at Tasca and ate far too much paella and met lots of new people, which was nice -- including someone who recognized me from the Claremont (in fact we'd spoken a week before when I was in there reading). Fun time!

Saturday: made conscious decision to do nothing, and did. It was fabulous. Woke up to leaves on the trees (miracle!), took myself and The Paths of the Dead to Second Cup and bought a gigantic cinnamon roll and a latte, and read out on their terrasse until the wind started to blow too much grit at my ankles. Then bought Rumours (I had a craving -- I hope none of my neighbours hate Fleetwood Mac because I've been playing it nonstop) and went home and lay on the sofa with all the windows open, finished the book and read The Lord of Castle Black and much of The Phoenix Guards. (I will almost certainly get Sethra Lavode in hardcover due to lack of patience, and I think I'm now prepared to tackle 500 Years After, which defeated me before, but I get it now.) At some point I ate dinner.

Esther and I wandered up and down St-Denis and had ice cream (did you know there was such a thing as lavender ice cream? I had some. It was good) and she told me all about her forthcoming trip to Italy (damn my fiscal prudence! damn it!). The guy she's going with sounds somewhat insane (claims to not get jet lag, put all projected expenses into a spreadsheet, has obtained grid references for all the sights they will see and ranked them according to type, likes to bound out of bed and sightsee at 6:30 a.m.) but it should be lovely.

Sunday: unpacked summer clothes, put away winter clothes, set aside things to be dry-cleaned, assessed gaps in wardrobe (I need about 15 T-shirts), did some tidying. Fully planned to vacuum, dust, sort out kitchen etc., but went to Kelly and Jean's for dinner and jigsaw puzzle instead (much more fun) -- don't worry, monkeycommando, I'll have the place livable by the time you and S show up. Developed severe jigsaw-puzzle-related strain injury due to the unnatural posture you have to be in to look for the piece you want. Ow. Better now.

And before I noticed it was midnight and I had to go home to sleep. And here I am. Craaaaazy week ahead, but we'll manage.

oh yeah

Didn't get all the way through the papers this weekend, but further to a post I made last week, Heather Mallick's column made me laugh quite a lot (she was interviewed on The O'Reilly Factor).

And then he asked me if I was a socialist, and I said, "Certainly," and it was as if I'd said I like donkey semen in my latte instead of milk. He then went into a mad rant about lefties like Mr. Doyle and how I was a typical Globe columnist. I said, no, truthfully, I think I'm regarded as "idiosyncratic" (the first six-syllable word ever spoken on the O'Reilly show), and he erupted again.

It was like talking to a manic child who had eaten 800 cherry Pop Tarts for breakfast. He kept interrupting, so that no point could be made that could win a reply, much less a reasoned response -- not so much a gabble of sound bites as a howling from Bedlam.

I gather Bill O'Reilly is going around saying he doesn't hate Canada. That's nice, then.

(no subject)

It's been way quiet here today. I'm suspicious. Something bad is probably going to happen.

Also, crankygrrl hasn't been emailing, which means either:

a) she's sick
b) she's overwhelmed with work
c) she hates me
d) her mail server hates me

On the whole, I hope it's d.

Just got a call from the copy editor who's preparing references to ask how soon tomorrow they needed to go to the printer. I told her not much after noon (I'd prefer earlier, given that there's 10 inches of paper to deal with, but clearly that would have been an unkind answer). It's not like you haven't known about this deadline for a month, people!

I better get my butt in gear, because I forgot my library books at home and they're due back today.