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Work adventures of yesterday: a girl and her mother bought a great pile of books, on top of which was an Eva Ibbotson (The Morning Gift)! I was delighted and told them so; the girl confessed that she also adores Ms Ibbotson. Dear me, I feel like starting all over again -- I have five Ibbotsons in matching editions lined up in the book closet now -- although I've read the books to figurative bits in the last six months. I can't tell you how incredibly cosy and happy-making her novels are; the clichés are mostly of the comfortable, well-worn-quilt sort, and her prose is so delicious that I can feel it in my mouth. Also it is something of a relief that I finally have comfort reading that actually resembles comfort reading to the outside world -- Sunshine and I Capture the Castle and Baby were beginning to be a little worrying. (Of course there's also L.M. Montgomery -- whom, actually, Eva Ibbotson considerably resembles, except she writes in great loving tender detail about England and Vienna rather than Canada: but they have similar approaches to characters major and minor, and similar hard-won optimism, and delightful prose, and the ability to make me read romance-plot books and adore them.)

I am working again tonight -- hurrah paycheck! also hurrah for working Saturdays, when it is exactly my favourite kind of busy: viz. a lot of working with customers and selling books, rather than endless shelving and organising and packing returns into boxes and not having anything to do so bouncing sparkly light-up rubber balls behind the counter instead. (This is okay because it occasionally causes small children to beg their mothers for such a ball, and then we sell some. Yes, the problem with corporate chains is that we sell all sorts of entirely non-book-related nonsense.) And, I must say, I am quite pleased with my outfit today: sophisticated black skinny jeans; my white Lip Service blouse with black lace round the collar and puffed sleeves with little black bows on the ends; a brown plaid vest that criss-crosses in the back; a Mona Lisa brooch pendant; darling checked flats; and the most charming and job-appropriate earrings ever, made for me by the marvellous [livejournal.com profile] lexiedoh. Yes, they are indeed wee books. ♥

And this morning my wake-up call consisted of being pounced upon by a small fluffy beast who seems to believe that it is my Sacred Duty to pet and cuddle her. And by this morning, I mean not so very long ago: there is little of the day to report, as it is nine thirty in the morning, and I am sitting up in bed (dressed and awake and the bed is made, really! -- I had to make it around the laptop, though, which was a bit ridiculous) listening to NPR.

(note: I am almost certain that Mr Arnalds wrote the song I am playing after watching Pan's Labyrinth: note the title, not to mention that it sounds like a riff off the main theme. Gorgeous.)
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First on my to-do list: stop procrastinating. (It is also the second item. And the last.) Next: wash clothes, begin packing for Alaska. Look up Greyhound routes to Pittsburgh airport (have tried, not really getting anything at all; also the Greyhound website is virtually useless), call bloke who might be able to give me a ride on Friday. Decide about snacks. (I think I shall subsist mainly on bread and cheese for meals. Why? Because it is magnificent. Bread and cheese and, er, chocolates.) Decide which books to bring. Oh dear. Make baked goods? Also must hole up at some point and listen to Patrick Wolf's new album, possibly in the book closet with candles. (This is important. Shut up.) And: play with tiny tiny kitten.

Yes yes yes! I have a wee fluffy kitten! Sarah and Hannah's cat just gave birth again last month, and I was promised a kitten, and she was dropped by yesterday. Good heavens, kittens never stop moving -- until suddenly they fall over and sleep for ten minutes without warning. Half the night she was hurling herself around my room, batting at bits of paper and candy wrappers and my shoelaces and the air, jumping here, leaping down again, pouncing hither and thither...


 

 
(both pictures taken by [livejournal.com profile] spockodile, as my camera was then in my father's car. the first one is actually in my old backyard, now the Meholicks' again, a day or two before she came to live with me.) 

So yes. KITTEN. VERY IMPORTANT. Her name is Willow (or Pussy Willow, or Tib -- after the heroic cat in Dodie Smith's The Hundred and One Dalmatians -- or Great Ball o' Fluff -- Mum called her Fluffernutter, which is appropriate as she was a complete nutter last night -- or, hey, Miss Kitty Fantastico; let's hope there's no crossbow lying around), and she has broken our record of only ever having greyscale cats. No, really! First cat, Miss Mistoffelees (Misty for short): white and grey. Second cat, Roscoe: black and white. Third cat, Bartholomew: black. Calico is a very welcome change in the pattern. She is very dainty, but reasonably fierce when she wants to be -- she was accidentally introduced to Bartholomew when she leapt out of my arms and onto his back; they stared at each other for a moment, the air vibrating between them, and then Bartholomew let out some kind of indescribable horrible cat noise and attacked. Willow let out a series of tiny ferocious burblings in turn and fought back in the three seconds before I reached into the fray and attempted to extract her. She kept shrieking and clawing furiously after I had removed her, hissing like a pro (well, she does have big brothers), and clawing my hand to pieces before I finally calmed her down. So, hopefully the cats will come to an agreement soon. It took some time with Roscoe and wee Bartholomew, too. And it's really all on Bartholomew's side -- Willow is a sweet cat (if fierce, like certain of her namesakes), and as soon as Barty Cat, Jr. gets over his Alpha Cat complex, they should be fine. Oh, cats.

escapadery!

Aug. 6th, 2008 11:18 pm
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I should be writing about the general hobnobbing and adventures that have been going on lately, but I tried and they're so muddled together in my head (quite comfortably, sort of like my bookshelves) that I can't quite figure out which pieces go where and it's too late at night to bother, so I shall just set down some pertinent facts.

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