As usual, the year-end "have you read what I've read" poll!Poll Have we shared any reading in 2014?

I've just been very remiss.  And very busy ( Read more... )

I have just come from the vet's, where I had to have Lilith put to sleep.  I have seen her slow down tremendously over the last few weeks, and at first put it down to old age (she was about 16) and her arthritis.  But then she stopped eating and drinking, and she was too weak to walk far without stopping to rest.  Yesterday, I took her in, and the ( Read more... )

a new car! (That's not the actual car, just an image I snitched from a dealer's site ( Read more... )

I am so f'ing lazy. Here's my post about my trip to France, two months after I got back. I am so bad. And I still have a lot of photos left to upload to Flickr.

Completely aside from the fact that André Breton lived here, it's easy to see why St. Cirq Lapopie attracts artists. I mean, look at the view from my balcony the first morning:

( Read more... )

Both sibs arrived late afternoon on Thursday. When I drove to pick up Cathy at the airport, my car's air conditioning crapped out, so I took the car in for service on Friday, another insanely hot day. Fortunately, Stacey drove in, so we were able to use her car (though she doesn't have air conditioning!). We hung out at home mostly, but went out to ( Read more... )

Really. It's not just that it's in the 90s. It's humid and stuffy to boot. I dashed to the library earlier today to return a book and renew my card, and, after realizing how bad it really was outside, I nixed my plans to go to an outdoor concert tonight. I'd have been sitting out with no shade, no breeze, and I know I couldn't have tolerated it for ( Read more... )

I accidentally typed "Sumer", which is vaguely appropriate since the folks a few blocks over at the Oriental Institute are spending their summer making beer from an old Sumerian recipeI, however, have entered the 21st-century. I've bought an iPhone, nudged to it by the fact that my previous provider, U.S. Cellular, sold its local market to Sprint, ( Read more... )

Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune wrote a column recently about The Deliberate Art of Savoring Summer. You know how it's gone before you know it, and you wonder why you didn't do all those things you told yourself you'd do? Every year, she works out a challenge for herself to avoid that. This year, it's setting aside an hour every day to do ( Read more... )

This is just a brief post to let you all know that I got home safely late yesterday afternoon. The strike caused a delay of about three hours on the Amsterdam-Toulouse leg of the flight over, but that was all. That was nicely off-set by an unexpected upgrade to business class on the Chicago-Amsterdam leg. (I did not have the same luck going home ( Read more... )