It's the little things....

Attention to detail. Gotta love it.

As part of having my bathroom repainted, I bought new cover plates for the light switches and electrical outlets. The painter put those on in the course of finishing up the job.

This evening I happened to take a closer look at them and realized that, of the four screws holding on one plate and two screws holding on the other, every single one had its screwdriver slot vertical. Only one was even slightly out of plumb.

Now, that's good workmanship.

Curses! Foiled again!

So I'm peeling and sectioning a blood orange -- my first time trying one, by the way; unfortunate name for a decently tasty fruit -- and Peanut, he of the ever-raging appetite, stands below me in the kitchen, looking hopeful, while Schooner, the cat who does not grasp the concept of boundaries, comes up along the sink to me to see what I'm fixing.

I offer both a whiff of half-peeled orange. They shrink back, wrinkling their whiskery noses in distaste.

I take the bowl to my recliner in the living room, sit down, and begin eating as I proofread. The ever-raging appetite and the boundaryless one observe this and lock radar on the bowl. "Food? You eat, we eat. Yes?"

I hold the bowl down toward them as they close on my chair. They sniff, pull back in dismay, and stare bewildered at me. I'm eating it; it must be good; they should get some; what has gone wrong? Surely if they stare hard enough at me I will relent and produce the good stuff that must be in that bowl?

I offer it again. It is, alas, still not good stuff. They wander away, disconsolate.

I am a hardhearted woman, and not at all a good mom. I chuckle.

Addendum: Every few minutes Peanut comes back to check: "Has the icky stuff turned into FUD? For ME?" Bowl proffered. Cat repelled. Again.

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Update on Peanut: Yesterday he was cruelly disappointed when the bowl I was eating from proved to contain icky orange slices rather than FUD! he'd like.

Today, however, his luck had turned. When I'd finished my snack of chips and dip I offered him the dip bowl to see if he'd like the scanty remnants, and he did.

He licked up every minuscule bit of mashed avocado coloring the bowl.

Book Report

I'm currently racing to the finish of Philippa Gregory's "The Red Queen", set in pre-Tudor England during the War of the Roses, and it's quite the tour de force: Told in the first person by what has to be the most remarkably nasty, bitter, vain, spiteful, envious, self-righteous, cold-hearted, holier-than-thou, hateful protagonist I have ever encountered -- and it's a gripping, engrossing page-turner.

It's chronologically the second book in her Cousins' War historical novel series about the pre-Tudor era, but fortunately I started with "The White Queen" (number 3), then went back to "The Lady of the Rivers" before "The Red Queen" -- these books all overlap a lot, timewise, you're seeing many of the same events from wildly different perspectives, and if I'd read the current novel before "The White Queen" (which in fact was written first) I'd have missed a lot of what makes this one so deliciously enjoyable despite the truly dreadful persona of the protagonist. Next up: "The Kingmaker's Daughter", then "The White Princess", then "The King's Curse".

This is the author of "The Other Boleyn Girl" and "The Queen's Fool", both part of her series of novels set in the Tudor era, which I'd read some years ago. I'm tempted, when I'm done with the Cousins' War series, to go back to them and wallow in all six books in her Tudor Court series.

Her website, for more info if you're interested: http://www.philippagregory.com/

Ben is a bad boy

Caught in the act! And no, Ben, it wasn't Winston who yanked off Dora's halter and then tossed it over the fence; and you aren't merely trying to put it back on her.

You are a very mischievous boy.

A delightful surprise

How wicked cool is this?

I ordered a bunch of stamps from the USPS online and when they arrived, I unsleeved them from their protective wrap and backing. When I got to the sheet of Janis Joplin commemoratives, I got a pleasant surprise!

Online you just see the image of the stamp itself. On the actual sheet, what you'll find is this: on the back, it's all a photo of Janis in full joyous belt against a backdrop of funky psychedelic lettering. On the stamp side, the block on stamps lies on what looks like an album paper jacket, complete with the worn-down outline of the platter within, and with the edge of the record just peeking out of the top.

Well done, USPS!