xsmoonshine gave me a virtual glass heart for Valentine's Day, the better to be broken, I suppose. (snerf) Last night I dreamed I spent Chinese New Year with
paleaswater's very traditional (in my dream) Chinese family; her ditzy sisters-in-law expressed their shock to me that she didn't pound nails into her head because her husband was away as any good wife would do. Shock was expressed in Japanese-- "HidoooOOOIII!!!"-- which didn't help. paleaswater just laughed at them. Meanwhile her scholarly, courteous, bespectacled father brought out various ancient and valuable wooden carvings and large paper fans to display for New Year's; the carvings were abstract and curving shapes. It was actually rather nice.Was reading Anansi Boys last year some time, bogged down twenty pages in, someone said 'Yeah, that's about as far as I got with it too.' Put it out on the lawn. Then read what happens in Anansi Boys, was intrigued, bought it again and am now reading it with reasonable happiness, aside from being ear-wormed by Graceland. OTOH my used-book guy saved a couple of Sherlock Holmes pastiches for me, I passed on the one I owned but happily bought The Revenge of the Hound, saving it for when I finally got to The Hound of the Baskervilles in my reread. Only before that I was rereading lj entries looking for something that's still missing and discovered that The Revenge was something I started last fall, threw against the wall, and... put out on the lawn.
(Should go back and see where Fat Charlie grew up, because if it was Florida and not somewhere in the Islands, I don't think I can buy the Britishness of his literary references.)
