one of those days

I've been shorting myself on sleep lately, and I was planning on catching up on some of it today. But it's a beautiful day! I don't have quite enough energy to *do* anything (take Rupert for a ride somewhere, go down to Rock Creek Park and hike), but I hate wasting the day. I miss the old house--what would be perfect right now would be a hammock to nap in in the sunshine (OK, so I'd need to wear a fleece and some wooly socks, but still...)

I got something quite remarkable the other day--a letter from the DC Department of Motor Vehicles saying that I had overpaid a parking ticket and they would be sending me a refund check for $25! Now, I'll believe it when I see it, and I think they're right (I paid a ticket in full during the recent amnesty, when they were supposed to discount tickets, but their online system didn't know about the discounts). But, still. DC Parking giving money back. Remarkable.

Also, after having helped john_arundel and gr_c17 empty a minikeg of Newcastle yesterday, plus a few other assorted bottles, I checked my BG this morning, and it was lower than it has been in weeks! Confusing. I've put on a pound or two, but I've not been eating as sensibly as I ought in the last week--that I can fix.

I am going to try and clean at least one room today. If I can do that, and then do one more each Monday and Tuesday, that will be half the flat tidied up, any way... And in other good news, I seem to have managed to save enough to erase my standing deficit (the result of doing most of last year's charitable giving right at the end of the year) and begin putting money into savings again. Thinking of doing away with the cable and landline phone so as to increase the weekly Micawber Figure.

Added some more photos to the library, stuff from my birthday and from one or two recent wargames. And I've been doing some reading; but that needs its own entry.

All this and no April Fool's joke yet!

April already, and only my first books post for the year

I have a feeling I may have missed out a book or two that I've read so far, but if they are not memorable enough for me to recall them now... :-)

So far, it has been mostly re-reads:

The King Must Die by Mary Renault (1): I started this sometime last year. I loved Mary Renault's writing when I was a teenager and, unlike other authors, she doesn't disappoint on revisiting. A retelling of the beginning of the story of Theseus, this is one of the first historical novels I recall reading. An excellent book, evocative and filled with mystery.

The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander (2): More books (I'll just count them all as one--they're fairly short) that I read as a kid and loved dearly. I still love them--the characters and the landscape, the relationships and the lessons or examples that are there for a reader...they are a great treasure. Though I read most of them in the paperbacks I still have, I also read the last book and the short stories that are collected with the novels into a single volume. The latter come with some charming black and white illustrations.

Stardust by Neil Gaiman (3): Though I love NG and have seen this movie several times, I realised when I started reading the book that I had never read it! It's wonderful--I can see why most of the changes from it were made when it was transferred to film, and I can see why NG was (so it has been reported) quite happy with the differences. The movie adds some excellent characters and scenes; the book has more that were not used in filming. The ending is different but still wonderful. I can now love both versions of the tale equally, for different reasons.

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (4): Again, I think I read this before, as I remember some elements of the story. But there were other bits that I didn't remember. Either way, it's a lovely book, with NG's excellent ability to draw very complex and fully realised characters fairly simply and naturally, and his talent for taking other, older tales and retelling them with some additions of his own, coming out with quite new and appealing stories that are funny, and sweet, and scary, and hugely entertaining.

I don't think I counted a recorded lecture I worked through in the autumn/winter about Byzantium. It was interesting, and so is one I've been listening to about Islam and the West, but I don't think I will do more of these any time soon. I prefer the more measured, finished nature of books for listening, rather then the sort of scattershot, impromptu nature of off-the-cuff lectures.

In progress: (and, yes, this is a ridiculously long list)
Stilwell and the American Experience in China by Barbara Tuchman
Doom Castle by Neil Munro
Hostile Skies: A Combat History of the American Air Service in World War I by James J. Hudson
Seasons on Harris: A Year in Scotland's Outer Hebrides by David Yeadon
Drinking Arak Off an Ayatollah's Beard: A Journey Through the Inside-Out Worlds of Iran and Afghanistan by Nicholas Jubber
My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
Through a Howling Wilderness: Benedict Arnold's March to Quebec, 1775 by Thomas Desjardins
Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde
Foch: Supreme Allied Commander in the Great War by Michael S. Neiberg
The Western Front: Ordinary Soldiers and the Defining Battles of World War I by Richard Holmes
Laxdaela Saga
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
Shards of Empire by Susan Schwartz
In the Skies of Nomonhan: Japan versus Russia, May - September 1939 by Dimitar Nedialkov
A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin
The Lily Hand And Other Stories by Edith Pargeter

Indefinitely suspended
Understanding China by John Bryan Starr
The Williamite Wars in Ireland, 1688-1691 by John Childs
Theoretical Criminology by George B. Vold et al.
Knights of the Cross; or, Krzyzacy by Henryk Sienkiewicz

too funny

I'm watching And Then She Found Me, which I quite like, and waiting to see where Salman Rushdie, who was in the credits, will show up.

He's playing the gynecologist.

Too funny. :-)