1) A text exchange this morning:
Me: “I’m going for a walk.”
Friend: “Ah, good time for a walk as the smoke comes back this afternoon.”
Me: “Smoke?! Have they elected a new Speaker of the House?!”
2) In my dogged flurry to clean house before yesterday’s houseguest arrived, I ended up congregating all the unread or partially read books in the house from their various stacks, corners, and cubbies on the dining room sideboard. To no one’s surprise, but to my mild shock at seeing them en masse, there are 51. Fifty-one. That’s including the eight (!) I bought weekend before last in Brattleboro and at the Montague Book Mill.
2a) I’m trying to think of this as pemmican for the winter, but oof — that’s a lot of books.
2b) I should really say 52, as my current read, This Crazy Thing Called Love, also came from the Montague Book Mill weekend before last. Just over half through, when I’m finished I don’t know if I’ll shelve it under Murder or High Society.
3) Spooky season started a day late at Maison Robaire this year. But no sooner did Weeping Baby Pumpkin Head make his annual appearance than the haters came surgin’ outta the cane break hollering “Eeyew!” Well, go ‘long with you! Haters gonna hate, and it only adds an extra-demonic glow to my smile until Hallowe’en.
3a) And let’s face it, at my age — nearly forty! — I need all the tricks of beauty I can manage.