Yellow wallpaper

First off: more passport drama.

We finally got our passports, only to discover that the Netherlands is one of those quirky countries that don't accept passports if they have less than six months' validity left to them, which will be true for mine on departure date... by 6 lousy days. Can you believe? So I had to turn around and send it back in for a renewal on a super-secret-triple-expedited basis, which of course means tons of dough but what the hell. Too late to turn back now, and all that. Can't wait to see what happens next. Stay tuned!

2. We were supposedly treated to a nifty vision of the aurora borealis this week, but I failed to sneak a peek at it. However, it apparently inspired some jackass to set about ten house fires on the north side of town within minutes of each other. Trying to give those northern lights some competition, I guess. No one was hurt, but one lawyer's office lost all the legal files and records. That has got to be rough. Having had my share of legal battles in the past, I feel for those clients and lawyers. Really, I do.

3. I've been re-reading the Ursula K. LeGuin Earthsea trilogy, and it's still terrific. I've also been watching a lot of old episodes of MASH this week, which I was a complete geek about when I was a kid, and it is also great fun. It's causing me to make a lot of jokes in a fakey-Groucho Marx style, which if you dig MASH, makes total sense.

4. Librarians love me. Not only have I spent the last three years justifying their jobs by being the most active local user of inter-library loan, I buy all their raffle tickets and fund-raiser book bags too. And I'm under fifty. Also, one of my best friends is a librarian, but she's more of a hot, sexy blond law librarian in California who whips off her glasses and shakes out her hair and rolls around on the circulation desk type of librarian. Any day now she'll make it into a Van Halen music video.

5. Yesterday I saw three foxes and a coyote in our neighborhood. I heart nature, but I am keeping my cats inside.

6. I'm going out of my skull with boredom because I haven't had a book to edit in two weeks and we're sharing a car so I'm stuck at home and I've read all the books in the house and MASH is only on twice a day and that's only one hour out of 24 and add to that a half hour walk and that still leaves lots of spare time to clip my nails and check the mail and glare at the phone and aaaaarrrrrrrrggggggggggg.

Who wants a cocktail?