wine and dine

While I will be stuck in the office this Saturday - this month being the time when people are attempting to clear some leave before hell (re: elections) sets in, so no choice - the Saturday after that I'll be sampling several different types of wine, savouring some (hopefully) good food, catching with friends, and who knows, making some new ones.

DSD (who won't be there cos of work) put up the details on her blog, if anyone's interested in going.

Currently...
Hankering after a burger. And not the ittybitty fastfood type. A large juicy one, preferably with bacon and cheese, and served with thick-cut fries. Then I'd add a good lashing of ketchup and mustard. And served with an ice-cold fountain Coke. Or a vanilla milkshake (ok a bit overkill there) or an ice-cold (non-American) beer. I have to get my hands on that soon before I falter and walk into a fastfood joint...

Can't stop reading...
Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, a coming-of-age story set in at the prestigious prep school, Ault, in Massachusetts. The lead character Lee Fiora is this insecure scholarship-holder from Indiana, intimidated and also fascinated by her fellow students. At times you want to shake her into seeing that she's not as clueless as she thinks she is. Other times you just admire the way she observes life in the prep school - and remember the way things were back in secondary school, and even JC, worrying if you fit in, worrying if you were cool enough, smart enough, sporty enough, fun enough.
I do not like the cover of the book - a green/pink belt on the cover, it's very girly, very prep, yes, but it makes me not want to carry around this book as it seems rather juvenile, which I guess is what the book is about - not juveniles that is, but on people's perceptions of you, and the constant search to be hip, to be cool.
So read this book. You can hide it under more intellectual-looking books if you like, but it's a good read.

Feeling that I'm not alone in my book collecting, and grateful that I haven't yet hit this woman's rather scary-sounding collection, where her own living space has been reduced to narrow paths winding past groaning shelves and grocery sacks filled with secondhand books. There's advice on weeding out the collection, such as giving them to friends or donating.
But like me, ""Avid readers consider such advice heresy, preferring instead to grapple with storage, from basic bricks-and-board shelving to exquisite, and exquisitely expensive, custom cabinetry."" (Of course in my case, it is more like short Ikea pine wood shelves.