bustle bustle whistle whistle
An unusually busy Saturday, starting out with a meeting to sort out details of a charity thingamabob that Bemo and I are volunteering for. It takes place at the local children's zoo, so we got to hang out by the two-kinds-of-stork-flamingo-whistling duck-vulturine guinea fowl area. It was early in the morning, so everybody was stretching their legs, doing various beak-clatter things, and hopping around. We spent some time watching the storks scoop up their morning meal (in the case of the European storks, a mouse each and some nice little fish that the guinea fowl tried to steal) and laughing endlessly at the whistling ducks, which marched out of their pen in a straight line, making noises not unlike a platoon of squeaky toys being stepped on by an elephant. Bemo fell in love, and now wants to fill our apartment with whistling ducks, but I fear our bathtub won't be quite enough for them.
Then, a very good breakfast at The Egg and I, a new place in town (I think it's a franchise dealiee, so I'm sure there are a bunch of them out there) that opened up a few weeks ago.
Then off to the library book sale. Our acquisitions, to the tune of eight dollars, consist of a ton of Real Simple magazines (I rarely buy them new, but I like their recipes), some Architectural Digest mags (ditto, except in place of "recipes" put "pictures of houses," and a heap of old-to-very-old Gourmet magazines. I also got a hardbound copy of four Mary Stewart novels (Touch Not The Cat, The Gabriel Hounds, This Rough Magic, and My Brother MIchael) that I may give to my sister, since I already own them all, Jacqueline Winspear's An Incomplete Revenge (a retry of the Maisie Dobbs books, since I tried the first one and really disliked it), When IN Rome by Ngaio Marsh, The THirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, Herriot's All Creatures Great And Small (a replacement of a former copy), Frostbitten by Kelley Armstrong, God is an Englishman by R.F. Delderfield, Wrestling with Gravy, by Jonathan Reynolds, a small book discussing Sir Gawain and Pearl, Dennis Miller's I Rant Therefore I Am (bathroom reading for Bemo), Bennett Cerf's Bumper Crop (bathroom reading for both of us), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (wanted to read it for ages), Nicci French's The Memory Game, and Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, since it's been a long time since I read it.
Not bad for eight bucks and change, huh?
After that, we dropped a huge amount of money at Target, mostly for meds, picked up groceries from the Hy-Vee and Trader Joe's, and went home to offload. I ducked into the office for about an hour to clean up a bit and run through a list of photographs I'm working with, and then back home, where I am in the process of making giant batches of turkey meatballs to serve as meals for later on. Two batches have been cooked, and I'll probably freeze much of the rest of it.
Tomorrow will be all fussing about Rome, and printing out the tests for the kiddies. I am bringing in TJ's chocolate cat cookies to ease them through their test.
Then, a very good breakfast at The Egg and I, a new place in town (I think it's a franchise dealiee, so I'm sure there are a bunch of them out there) that opened up a few weeks ago.
Then off to the library book sale. Our acquisitions, to the tune of eight dollars, consist of a ton of Real Simple magazines (I rarely buy them new, but I like their recipes), some Architectural Digest mags (ditto, except in place of "recipes" put "pictures of houses," and a heap of old-to-very-old Gourmet magazines. I also got a hardbound copy of four Mary Stewart novels (Touch Not The Cat, The Gabriel Hounds, This Rough Magic, and My Brother MIchael) that I may give to my sister, since I already own them all, Jacqueline Winspear's An Incomplete Revenge (a retry of the Maisie Dobbs books, since I tried the first one and really disliked it), When IN Rome by Ngaio Marsh, The THirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, Herriot's All Creatures Great And Small (a replacement of a former copy), Frostbitten by Kelley Armstrong, God is an Englishman by R.F. Delderfield, Wrestling with Gravy, by Jonathan Reynolds, a small book discussing Sir Gawain and Pearl, Dennis Miller's I Rant Therefore I Am (bathroom reading for Bemo), Bennett Cerf's Bumper Crop (bathroom reading for both of us), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (wanted to read it for ages), Nicci French's The Memory Game, and Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, since it's been a long time since I read it.
Not bad for eight bucks and change, huh?
After that, we dropped a huge amount of money at Target, mostly for meds, picked up groceries from the Hy-Vee and Trader Joe's, and went home to offload. I ducked into the office for about an hour to clean up a bit and run through a list of photographs I'm working with, and then back home, where I am in the process of making giant batches of turkey meatballs to serve as meals for later on. Two batches have been cooked, and I'll probably freeze much of the rest of it.
Tomorrow will be all fussing about Rome, and printing out the tests for the kiddies. I am bringing in TJ's chocolate cat cookies to ease them through their test.