Disconcerting Week

Management treated our development/test team to a lunch and an afternoon off. The food was, as somebody at our table noted, "industrial"—passable, as to be expected from any establishment that serves large parties at once. I had the broiled salmon.

I walked along the boardwalk with a co-worker as the weather was good and neither of us have been in Steveston in a while. I was, admittedly, a tad uncomfortable walking into the Prickly Pear garden shop with him: two guys looking for flowers for the patio. Kind of funny, actually. But hey, that's just me. Annuals. Perennials. Evergreen perennials. Statues. Fountains. It'll be good when I buy a house and have my plot for my walled garden (paradise).

A strange, disturbing workweek. I do not know what to think or who to trust.

I have lost 2.5 lbs. since last Sunday.

My next book, after Reunion, is probably Chocolate, The Sweet History, a non-fiction account of chocolate.

My kids have a birthday party to go to Saturday, and we're all going to a real reunion Saturday night. A whole bunch of ex-Bookstore employees are meeting in one of our homes. It's been over a decade since I've left the Bookstore, more like 15 years. My vanity will see to it that I'll be eyeing the folks to see who gets the prize for "Best Preserved" [Thanks, Reunion, that's a good one]. One has to win at something from time to time.

Budapest by Chico Buarque 3.5*/5*

An interesting first person train of thoughts book about a Brazilian ghost writer looking for his place in this world who travels to and stays in Hungary, written entirely without quotation marks even though there is dialogue contained in the many long sentences in paragraphs that typically span four pages, kind of like what I'm doing here but more so.

Through José Costa, I was able to hang out with seedy characters in a dumpy bar and then return to a hotel room to play Russian Roulette; to walk out on his wife and girl friend not once, but twice; to throw spazz attacks, and a plate of Spaghetti Bolognese against a kitchen wall; and to then share with him the consequences.

An honest work and a vicarious thrill. I wouldn't call it a love story—it didn't move me along those lines. Oh yeah, you learn a bit of Magyar. His references to and take on the Hungarian language are priceless.

[Why I read this book: author Nicole Krauss likes it]

From Reunion by Alan Lightman

Well, I've discovered another use for blogs: a way to record (from anywhere with an Internet connection) interesting sayings and phrases from books I'm reading. Sure beats scrap paper or the PDA.

This post will grow as I progress toward the end of the book.

p. 12
She hesitates. "Maybe I can reschedule the appointment." She looks at me symapthetically from across the room. But she has hesitated a few seconds too long, and I can tell that she doesn't want to go.
"No," I say, "don't reschedule your appointment. It's all right." Why can't people be honest with each other? I am not being honest either.

p. 26
Isn't it true we kiss with our minds but we lick with our bodies?

p. 39
Momentous choices constantly bombard us, but we are usually unaware of them at the time.

p. 42
Her eyes are the color of sky. She is studying medicine she says, and she plays the flute. He tells her about his family, his new shoe store, his dream to own twenty-seven stores. What makes a good shoe? she asks him. She has no interest in shoes, but she doesn't know what else to say...

p. 62
... a tall, thin young man with bloodshot eyes, dressed like an unmade bed.

p. 75
God, I was powerful. I was a giant. With an endless future ahead of me, a continent of fresh snow.

p. 147
Because every possible word is said and not said, every possible thought is thought and not thought, and what is not said is still there, like the shape of space around the edge of a leaf.

p. 168
He waits for her on the street below ..., sits on a rough concrete step and sweeps aside the cigarette butts and greasy food wrappers. Dirt and cold mean nothing. His insides are on fire. Every second something new is destroyed.

p 179
We're animals. All the proper rules of behavior, the ideals, the values, the respect, the self-respect—all of it dissolves into nothing with beautiful young women.

-Finis-

Mouse In House

This can't be good. Betty thought she saw something black zip across our "office/library" yesterday. So it was off to Canadian Tire. Bought three 2-packs of glue traps. If we catch something, I promise to take a picture and post it here.

Konstipated Kitty

By Shaula, March 2006

Two Words and a Punctuation Mark

I hate saying "What's your email address?" or "Here's my email address." Can we all agree on a new word?: eddress, as in "Hey good looking, score me your eddress, maybe we can get together this weekend and watch the submarine races from Stanley Park." We've just pared away two syllables.

A friend of mine (well, Bill was a friend at the time) uses the word disgustipating, which I take to mean irksomely disgusting. But then again, Bill is the very same person who, months later, asked for the money he lent me so that I could get a can of pop from the vending machine. An awkward moment. I fished around for change. I gave him the nickel I owed him. Nonetheless, a good word that he's coined [sorry, couldn't resist].

A new punctuation for the 21st century. The pipe character, ¦, should serve as the continuation character for URL-like locations. The hypen just doesn't cut it since it could very well be part of the locator: //blah/my-folder/my-sub_001/file-1. Breaking the locator onto two lines using a hyphen, gives us:

//blah/my-fold-
er/my-sub_001/file-1

but is the hyphen immediately after the letter 'd' just a continuation demarcation, or is it part of the locator?

Using the pipe character, we can unambigiously break the locator onto two lines:

//blah/my-fold¦
er/my-sub_001/file-1

The Books I Bought At Seattle Premium Outlets

It's always nice to have a diverse library of candidate books on hand. This affords you the luxury of picking your next book based on whatever strikes your fancy at that moment. Currently, the sadder the love story, the better.

Here's what I bought recently (in US$):

• Reunion by Alan Lightman, $4.99 hardcover [currently reading, like it so far!]
• Seabiscuit (The Screenplay) by Gary Ross, $7
• The Music of the Primes by Marcus du Sautoy, $4.99 [mathematics]
• The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin, $4.99 [yeah, the Hollywood actor/writer]
• The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard, $4.99 hardcover [there sure are a whole lotta copies of this raved-about book kicking around in the remainders bins, hmmmm...]
• The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst, $4.99 hardcover [looks promising]
• A dinosaur book for Matthew

I've just finished Chico Buarque's Budapest. My opinion to come...

A Day Trip

The wallet groaneth and matters concerning world peace will have to wait another day.

The family went down to the Seattle Premium Outlets yesterday, which is just north of the Seattle metropolitan area in Marysville WA, a 75 minute drive from the border. We were at the Pacific Truck Crossing by 8:00AM. We waited less than 5 minutes to clear. Maybe everbody was staying home to take advantage of the sunny weather and the last of the snow.

My primary aim was to pick up some decent running socks, some books, and a watch or two, and to pick up Betty's phone-ordered Coach signature purse that even I would have to admit looks cute. As for the watches, there wasn't anything in the Seiko store for me. The 50% off sale is misleading. There were additional discounts, so more like 70% off. I did end up picking up a "Swiss Made" Zodiac chronograph from the Fossil store. It's shown here atop a list titled 25 Novels That Stood the Test of Time and Stand Out Still from Betsy Burton's The King's English. Unfortunately, it seems to be running slow, troubling, given that its movement is quartz.

But fortunately for me, this set of outlets is nowhere as large as Woodbury Common. Betty and I were there about 10 years ago with my friend Mike who was living in Little Falls, NJ at the time.

At the Peace Arch Crossing (again, nominal wait), a sign reads: ThinkMetric.

Shaula commented that she was glad to be back home. The women are prettier here, she proclaimed, to which I smiled.

We capped the evening off with Japanese at Taisho, Metropolis. When they get things right (sporadic service), yum!

So, another anti-Adbuster weekend.

Sathwick

Sathwick, Sathwick, Kannada in Canada.

The following words spring to mind: honest, open-minded, easy-going, nice. But enough about me.

Okay, so he's all of the above, and, for me, at least one other word: catalyst.

A Mug Shot

Here is a recent snap of me trying to smile. My blog needed some graphics.

Gluttony (A Sin)

Betty and I are pigs.

My diet is currently suffering. Betty's unofficial diet is faring badly as well. We justifiably attribute this lapse to freebie meals.

To wit, Betty who was on jury duty Friday:
Thursday: supper - Petit Filet at Gotham Steak House (paid for by a work client)
Friday: lunch - West Coast Salmon/Rice Pilaf/Seasonal Roasted Vegetables (paid for by the people of B.C.)
Friday: supper - Lobster Ravioli/Caesar Salad (paid for by the people of B.C.)

To wit, Gavin who gets treated for his birthday by the regular workplace lunch gang:
Friday: lunch - All you can eat buffet at the River Rock Casino, concentrating on the deep-fried oyster munchies and pancake potatoes.

To wit, a prediction:
Saturday: water/air diet

Richard Simmons

Must lose ten pounds.

The bet with the sister-in-law is this: I have to lose 10 lbs. (4.5kg). She has to lose 7 lbs. By May 1st.

The winner gets (one, the other, or both) a ten dollar gift. The loser has to dress up like Richard Simmons, rent one of his videos, watch and work out to it, pose for a picture, and have the photo prominently displayed at work.

Is that motivation or what?

A Day Off

Took the day off today to run some errands.

Sent Shaula and Matthew off to school. She threatened to bite his head off. He, to scratch her nose off. Just yesterday, Matthew and Shaula were hugging each other after Shaula's return from her weekend sleepover at the cousins'. Good to see that things are back to normal.

The tires, the dealer told me, are worn and unsafe for wet weather. They also replaced the front wiper blades.

Doctor Lum told me to rest for several weeks to let my left calf and achilles tendon heal. There might be some tiny tears. Exactly as I expected. Betty ran solo today. So much for the Sun Run, maybe.

The sun was shining on this first day of Spring. 13C. A neat thing, our sun, vastly underrated by our daily consciousness. My watch finally made sense today. The smiling Sun peeked out from the crescent aperture of the AM/PM subdial to match the view outside the windshield. I heard the cawing of crows and two unidentified bird calls through the open car windows.

Finished Eudora Welty's The Optimist's Daughter. I can sympathize with the divisive opinions. The book doesn't get rolling until 60% of the way in. There is indeed no plot. Reminds me a little bit of Joyce's The Dead: after the inital tumult and hubbub, we are left to contemplate. I liked it, but would not recommend it without reservation. One Pulizter down, lots more to read.

Started Chico Buarque's Budapest this afternoon.

Coffee

Last Saturday, en route to Seattle, this bad poetry came to mind:

The table for two is lit by the eastern sun.
The place is almost empty, so early.
Just you and I.
My muffin, topped with sugar, goes well with our coffee.
Times like this that were and never were.

Testing

Not much to say, other than that Sathwick motivated me to give this blogging stuff a try. So, testing, testing.