Waitress Kimberley
Motel maid Red Deer
Mucker on the belts underground Kimberley
Electrician’s assistant underground Kimberley
Turn down girl Victoria
Museum staffer Kimberley
Convenience store clerk Kimberley
House cleaner Anchorage
Answering service operator Victoria
Receptionist Victoria
File clerk Victoria
Secretary Victoria
Writer Everywhere
Her picture is here. I didn't take it. I don't think my pictures will be super-duper.
Sunday, May 23, 2009 -- my first mummy!
How cool is it see a mummy? To see a stone tool eons old? To hold a 4,000 year old cuniform clay tablet?
So very, very cool.
Four hours went by and I barely noticed.
Fabulous.
Thanks to S. and the British Museum.
And it was gloriously sunny, too.
Well, I saw a tiger today. That doesn’t happen every Saturday afternoon.
I slept in longer than I’d wanted to—five in the morning, when the dog needed to go outside was too early to get up, but having successfully gotten back to sleep, I slept through some of Saturday morning. I hate that—Saturday’s the best day of my week, and I don’t like missing it. Especially since it’s suddenly summertime, and it is so pleasant to sit out back with a cup of tea and the morning birdsong and the smell of warm earth.
There was tea and sitting anyway, and in the afternoon, a tiger.
First
there was a market, where I bought a toy monkey. $15, but very soft, and
although it would make a fabulous doggie toy, it’s for the baby that should be
born today or yesterday.
Then off to see Suzie the Highlands Tiger.
I don’t know. Suzie, as I find her name is spelled, looked a little lethargic and she didn’t seem to have much in her enclosure to play with. I am just not sure
that tigers should live on Vancouver Island. We have cougars.
On the other hand, now I’ve seen a tiger that doesn’t live all that far from me, and Suzie is probably better off alive than dead.
After Suzie, I drank this very large, very sweet and very fattening thing from Starbucks and felt sickish afterward.
Thanks, S. -- I would probably have not seen Suzie or the mummy without having you as a friend. You help me overcome my pitiful hermit-itude.
There
seem to be an abundance of cheeky birds in the backyard this late spring, along with (at last)
some blooms, including a hummingbird that nearly scared the poop out of me by
hovering right by my shoulder on more than one occasion.
I figured he or she was wondering where the feeder was, but I didn't like the feeder I had (wood parts, clunky design, can't be taken completely apart to wash). "Okay," says I. "I'll go get you a new feeder."
Obediently, I have and so that’s now been set up, and awaits. I love hearing the thrumming
hum of the birds, and looking up to spot them. They make such funny little
clicks and chirps. Those and dragonflies are quite welcome flying jewels.
Of
course, now that the feeder’s set up, have I seen one of our teensy feathered
friends? No. (I am sure they’re still around, I just have to sit out longer… No
problem! I can do that. And was doing so.
Except then the hummingbird really started harassing me. It would do its hummingbird-hover, right close to me (close enough to reach out and touch, if I wanted). "There's the feeder," says I. "Right there! Look!"
It wouldn't go near it.
I went back inside. Was out again, and again, just standing there innocently, and the hummingbird is back. Now in front of my face. "There!" says I, and points, once more. "Feeder there. Filled up and everything! Sip away!" Nope, no go.
Stupid hummingbird, I thought. The feeder's right there, and it's bright red and filled. What more do you want?
So I picked up the feeder, set atop an overturned clay pot on a plant stand and moved it into the flower bed, and--
There's the hummingbird. Happily sipping.
Stupid human, it thought. I kept telling her to move it a bit farther away. Don't want to eat so close to her. I prefer it here amongst the flowers.
Wow, it feels like summer
today. Like salads and popsicles and a clear blue sky and being outside, and
the trees are leafy and full and, oh, it’s just lovely.
Summer reading, in progress:
The
English: A Social History, 1066-1945 – Christopher
Hibbert
She's
Come Undone - Wally
Lamb
That Singing You Hear At The
Edges - Sue MacLeod
Something Wicked This Way
Comes - Ray Bradbury.
World Without End - Ken Follett
Quartet -
Jean Rhys
Summer, 2009, read:
The
Last Juror
- John Grisham
The Girl, The Gold
Watch, and Everything - John D. McDonald.
Good Faith
- Jane Smiley
The Hour I First
Believed - Wally Lamb
The Stand - Stephen King
The Private
Patient - P. D. James.
When I post here, I am directed to a page that shows the last five posts or so.
Most of them are spam these days.
That really stinks, and I'm sorry, Vox, that the noise ratio has grown.
(Not that my words are jewels for the ages, but I am a real person typing real words and thinking real thoughts.)
...but honestly, it feels like it. Maybe the post-office "beverage" and sunshine is influencing this notion.
Read:
The Private Patient, by P. D. James
What can I say? Another stellar excursion. Once I picked up the book and began, I was always eager to return to its world. A classic English murder mystery: close set of suspects, familiar detectives, and, of course, a perfect English setting, complete with Great House and Old Family Name. And secrets, of course, always secrets.
Ms. James has changed her usual dialogue tags. Instead of:
Dagliesh said:
"It's a pity she didn't pull the knife completely out of the body. It would have been far less a disconcerting sight should the corpse had been discovered sans murder weapon."
Okay, he probably wouldn't have said that, but something similar. Anyway, this is the first time I've noticed her dialogue tags have moved to something like:
Kate said, "It's a pity she didn't pull the cord. The nurse would have likely come sooner, if the bell had rung."
At any rate, dialogue tags or not, it was a jolly good read, and I'm glad I've read it. It's passed quite a lovely hour in the garden.
And if my own words seem quite formal, it's because Ms. James' characters still, in 2009, speak quite formally. Perhaps a little too formally to be believable, but then, that formality is in and of itself, appealing. It's part of reading an English mystery novel. Even though this novel ended with a gay couples' affirmation of love offsetting all the evil and destruction in the world! Who would have thought, reading James' earlier work, that we'd end up with a gay couple, celebrated and valued, in this novel.
The end bit of biography told me that...
...P. D. James is 89 friggin' years old.
89 years old and still writing fabulous books. My admiration is stained dark red by jealousy. And I think that reading her autobiography would be very interesting. Yet another book to read.
But, reading: hurray for summer (okay, late spring) and the joy of reading, reading, and reading. Reading until it's too dark to see the words on the page. Reading is magic, and magic once more. Oh, summer.
Summer, 2009, read:
The Last Juror - John Grisham
The Girl, The Gold Watch, and Everything
- John D. McDonald.
Good Faith
- Jane Smiley
The Hour I First Believed - Wally Lamb
The Stand - Stephen King
The Private Patient - P. D. James.
In progress:
She's Come Undone - Wally Lamb This is another re-read, and I will have you know that I first read it long before Oprah discovered Mr. Lamb. I'm working my way to starting the social history of England tome. And I really must do some writing of my own.
That Singing You Hear At The Edges - Sue MacLeod (poetry). I'd like to read every poem in this book, from start to finish.
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury. For some reason, I have started this one about four times, but have never read it through.
The Second Book About the Cathedral (World Without End?)- Ken Follett
Quartet -
Jean Rhys
