Thoughts and Jots

Got stuck late at work today. Why do these things always happen before a planned mental health day off? Is it just to remind me why I'm taking the day off tomorrow? But that's done with now. I came home to a little box on my porch. I finally got the t-shirt and mug I ordered from CafePress. They look great. I am quite pleased. The shipping is slow though. From the time I got my "your order has shipped" email to the time it arrived was about 10 days. I was beginning to worry that it had gotten lost or something. My husband took all the rolled and most of the unrolled posters back to work today. He has enlisted staff to roll a few when they can. Between what he had already done before I joined in the fun and what we did together, we made it through about 500. Certainly not a world poster rolling record, but not too shabby either. And I only got one paper cut. As a consequence of the posters I didn't get to do any reading last night. I have been planning on an evening devoted to Don Quixote. It's been about two weeks since I even opened the book. So much for the five chapters a week. But reading in general this week has been minimal and I'm starting to feel jittery and deprived. I feel confident though that with my extra day off tomorrow I will manage to fill up on books. I did get to read a few TLS articles. I'm still quite behind in getting through them. There was a great commentary piece from the June 24th issue on Ismail Kadare (full article not available online, to see the partial article, scroll down, it's about third or fourth on the page) . He's been getting lots of press since he won the International Man Booker Prize, which I think is great. I haven't read anything of his but his book Palace of Dreams has been on my used bookstore shopping list for over a year. Either folks in the Twin Cities don't read him or if they do they don't get rid of his books because I have not seen one title of his in my browsing. After reading the TLS article though I am going to make a bigger effort to get a copy of one of his many books. Failing that, I will ransack my public library. The TLS article made an interesting observation about Kadare's books. They have all been translated into English from the French translation of the Albanian. That they have held up even through that is a testament to the quality of the writing. I hope there is enough of an of an audience in English now that a new translation might be undertaken. Now, as we all contemplate the weekend, and I my mental health day, I leave you with this.