At The Breakfast Table

I am in a position that I generally like -- I have more to read than I really have time for. In no special order, I have: my daughter's biology notes, materials relative to a product that a local hospital is installing, an issue of Technology Review with an article on EMRs (a little too oh this is going to be so freakin' marvelous, but still, good reading), the William-Sonoma catalog, a PD James novel (The Private Patient), my mento's science and algebra texts, a library book by a fellow who spent a year traveling around the world with his wife and two young children, and four books that are on the top shelf of the book case, waiting to be read, plus one that's too big to fit there, so it's down below. I like having a lot to read.

Granted, when I sit down to do something, and reading is an ancillary activity, I actually read things I've already read many times before, like the Aubrey -Maturin novels, or one of the Amanda Garrett navel combat novels (their motto: Technology Will Save Us -- I think the author is secretly Donald Rumsfeld), but when I sit down to actually read something, it's nice to have all that stuff. Right now, at the table, I have three of them. Oh, and I just found an old Dick Francis novel under the WS catalog.

Today we are in theory going to get the Christmas tree -- we went to do it last night and discovered that the place we go was closed, at 8:14 PM. Two weeks before Christmas? Amazing. But it turned out okay, because the daughteroid asked to drive around and look at the lighting displays presented on some of the expensive houses near here -- they have to be professionally done -- and while we were driving around, she talked freely about her life, school, and things she was thinking about or had opinions on. All of which, we cherished. So the plan is that if she finishes her homework this morning, we will do that, and bring her immediately over to the school for an eight hour practice session-- color guard takes too much time? Why would you think that? While she is there, my wife and I are going to go to a local used bookstore and poke around, then to a store that's set itself up as a 'Dickens Teahouse', at least till Christmas. And maybe do one or two other things.

And who knows, maybe I'll get some reading done.