Reading List

Books Read in 2007

Carnival, Elizabeth Bear
Thunderbird Falls, C.E. Murphy
Miss Melville Regrets, Evelyn E. Smith
Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al Madinah and Meccah, Sir Richard Burton
Changeling, Delia Sherman
Girl Genius, Omnibus Volume I, Phil and Kaja Foglio
An Assembly Such As This, Pamela Aidan
Definitely Dead, Charlaine Harris
To Ride a Rathorn, P.C. Hodgell
Deliverer, C J Cherryh
Agatha Heterodyne and the Circus of Dreams, Phil and Kaja Foglio
Agatha Heterodyne and the Clockwork Princess, Phil and Kaja Foglio
Tam Lin, Pamela Dean
Duty and Desire, Pamela Aiden
Unshapely Things, Mark Del Franco
Narbonic, Volume 4, Shaenon K. Garrity
Grey, Jon Armstrong
Time's Child, Rebecca Ore

In which we return to the Center of Maine, not without a pang

In between naps and reading, we walked a lot this weekend -- up the beach, down the beach, around the amusement park, across town... The Moving Wall was in town and we went down one evening to pay our respects.

The Wall drew a lot of people, for Old Orchard Beach values of "a lot". Family groups with little kids and grandparents; couples of all ages, holding hands; solitary guys who slipped silently through the line, put a beer or a cigar under a certain section of Wall and melt away; a lot of people in motorcycle leathers -- from Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania; Iron Horsemen patches, and Nomads, among others.

kinzel  and I took a tour of the model condo at the Grand Victorian; three bedroom (or, in our case, one bedroom and two offices), big kitchen, nice-sized living room, three decks, one looking out over the ocean. Nice, deep windows that the cats would love. All I have to do is find that winning lottery ticket...

At Palace Playland Saturday evening, I bough a ticket and got myself in line at the carousel. Not much of a carousel -- fiberglass animals and gearing in need of greasing, for starters -- still, it was worth a buck and a couple minutes of my time.

The ride operator was a woman in her sixties, maybe -- which is to say, a couple years older than I am. She was talking to the little kids in line, asking them which animal they were going to ride, and why, and having a heckuva good time. When it came my turn for going through the gate, she stared at the ticket in my hand like she'd never seen such a thing before, and looked like she'd bit down on something sour.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I'd like to ride on the merry-go-round," I answered.

She sniffed. "That's allowed," she said, in a tone that implied that it wouldn't have been if she was in charge of the park.

I rode the cat, in case anybody cares. The little girl one up in line beat me to the hippocampus.

We left the ocean early this morning in order to make a previously scheduled doctor's appointment; stopped in Waterville so I could renew my membership to the gym; swung by the post office, and so to home, where the cats ignored us for an hour or two before deciding that we'd Learned Our Lessons...