kate_nepveu

Sleepy tired cranky week. Chad had a lot of late nights, so the doggie was pining away, which she does in a remarkably demanding way. Things got better Friday and Saturday, though Sunday I was back to a brain full of molasses.

In house news, our lawn service came and fertilized and killed dandelions and stuff. And Chad put up some speakers in the backyard, so when the weather gets nice again we can have convenient music.

I really need to exercise more restraint when gift-shopping. Last week I bought gifts for "Administrative Professionals Day." At the Lindt store, I bought for my paralegal, a box of truffles; for the department secretary at Chad's work, a spring-themed truffle thing—and for myself, a bag of raspberry truffles (limited time, apparently, and oh my goodness are they good). At a little fair-trade gift shop, I bought for my secretary, a pretty picture frame—and for myself, a terracotta cat, now sitting on my desk looking silly; and an apple carved out of what I think is alabaster, which looks like puffy white clouds drifting across a pale-yellow luminscent sky, now sitting on my desk looking beautiful and symbolic. Okay, the cat was two bucks, but still.

Though I didn't buy myself anything extra when I sent off two boxes of books for soldiers last week. One package went to a unit that requested fantasy; they got:

• Tim Powers, Last Call, Expiration Date, and Earthquake Weather.
• Terry Pratchett, Hogfather, Reaper Man, and Interesting Times.
• John Barnes, One for the Morning Glory.
• William Goldman, The Princess Bride.
• Sean Stewart, Resurrection Man.
• Greg Bear, Songs of Earth and Power.
• Charles de Lint, Jack of Kinrowan.
• Donald Westlake, Nobody's Perfect (which, okay, isn't fantasy, but filled that last little bit of book space).

The other package went to a unit that asked for anything, saying they had no books at all:

• Dan Simmons, Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion.
• Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep.
• Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Honor, Barrayar, The Warrior's Apprentice, and Borders of Infinity.
• Dorothy Sayers, Murder Must Advertise and The Nine Tailors.
• Josephine Tey, The Daughter of Time.
• Donald Westlake, Bank Shot, Drowned Hopes, Kahawa, and Cops and Robbers.
• P.G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters.

These were all from our duplicate bookcase. I wavered about the Bujold, but we have all the Vorkosigan books in paperback up through Komarr, I think, and I couldn't not try it. The duplicate bookcase is looking pretty thin on paperbacks now; besides stuff I didn't think appropriate, like Swordspoint or Wizard of the Pigeons, there's mostly Bujold and some first books of series left. I doubt I'll send our spare hardbacks over—poor use of space—but I think I'll start cruising the $0.25 rack at one of our local used bookstores with care packages in mind.

I hope they like the books.

(By the way, military addresses are apparently treated like domestic addresses for postage purposes; I didn't know this so I pass it on in case the thought of overseas shipping was daunting someone.)

Right. Link-dump and then back to work.

• In case you didn't see this when it made the rounds previously: The Silmarillion in One Thousand Words, in script form and in a shorter narrative version. Shiny!
• If you can't find or afford The Lord Peter Wimsey Companion, some of the stories have been annotated online.
• Want to browse the LiveJournals of space vehicles? inspace has them friended.
• A.S. Byatt participated in a Washington Post online discussion last week.