Why yes, I am dead, thank you for asking.

Actually, I've been buried in a wave of mini-vacations, the end of school, and severe sleep-deprivation related to all of the above. So, where to start, where to start...

Well, a couple weeks ago I met some of my Nampa friends down in SoCal for a little sun and fun. Emphasis on the sun. After weeks of cold Oregon dampness, it was so nice to see some sunshine, even if it wasn't yet very hot. We visited the San Diego zoo and saw the okapi (which I was very tickled with, since The Poisonwood Bible is one of my favorites). We drank some decadent hot chocolate at the Ghirardelli factory and rode the trolley cars in San Francisco. We did a LOT of driving and slept very little. We went wine tasting in Sonoma. We saw Sex in the City. We ate Moroccan food and drank tea in a Japanese tea garden. It was a whirlwind but very fun.

And since then, I've just been enjoying my lovely, lovely summer vacation. I pretty much slept through last weekend, and I'm still trying to catch up. But I've also gone back and cleaned out my classroom. I've rearranged my bedroom and turned our spare room into a kind of office/reading room. This week, I plan to pick strawberries, work in my garden, hang out with my friends, clean out my cupboards, sleep in the sun, and read, read, read.

Speaking of which, anybody else read Stephenie Meyer's The Host? I picked it up in the airport in LA (yes, for full price...), and read pretty much solid for the next 30 hours until I finished it. I tell you what, that girl can tell an engaging story. I'm not convinced that she's a particularly sophisticated writer*, and her martyring female characters still make me cringe, and her ending wraps up a bit too tidily, but I can't deny her power to make me forget even my bone-deep, month-long exhaustion and stay up for yet another late night to finish that bloody book. Kandice and I are going to her talk and book signing in Chicago in August, and I feel a bit like a literary Judas for going (and for being a little excited even). It's sort of like my secret penchant for those pink frosted Walmart sugar cookies. They're so soooo bad for you and they aren't even really worth the calories--the way baklava or chocolate cheesecake would be--and they make you feel kind-of queasy and regretful afterwards, and yet.

Miss Kitty Fantastico was gone when I got back from CA. Becky informs me that she basically takes off every time I leave town for more than a day or two. I'm not sure where she goes because I walked around the property and called her for two days after I got back, but she didn't return until the evening of the second day. She must have another family somewhere that feeds her. (Which makes me sort of sad and jealous. Aw.) But at least she's back safe. And she's been sticking extra close since then and biting more, which I interpret as her acting out her insecurities about my abandoning her. Lucky for her, I won't be taking any month-long trips this summer. I'm going to stick close and enjoy my own home and garden and bookshelf.

Also, I've been continuing to watch Battlestar Galactica. I seriously can't believe that I'm going to have to wait like nine months for the second half of the season. I think I'm going to have to go back and start from the beginning again. We'll see if the show holds up to a second viewing. Lois and Clark, I'm sad to say, didn't. I started rewatching some episodes from Season 1 and I was, on the whole, bored, the hotness of Dean Cain notwithstanding. Buffy, on the other hand, I could watch on a continuous loop forever. It never gets old. (And this conversation, some of you are thinking, was boring before it even started. Ok, fine, I'll spare you my fan-girl gushing. Go back to your real-world lives.)



*Not because she writes science fiction and fantasy, I'd like to make clear. As I have said before, I don't think of speculative fiction as being necessarily fluff. Just her books are fluff.

Labels: books, MKF, summer

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