What I’m reading: The new issue of Monocle, and Plutarch’s life of Theseus.
What I’m listening to: Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
What I’m watching: Arrested Development, season 1. Like, two hours at a time. We bought all 3 seasons on Amazon a few months ago, for $20.
What I’m drinking: Plymouth gin, Q Tonic and lime.
What Rufus is up to: Having a nice Thanksgiving slumber-party with an Australian shepherd, going to a greyhound meet & greet the next day. No Wawayanda hike on Sunday for us, due to icy roads. But he did get his head scratched plenty.
Where I’m going: Martini Madness party next Saturday, at a friend’s place in town.
What I’m happy about: Finding another first edition of the hardcover of Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish down in Princeton (thanks, eagle-eyed wife!). I really oughtta re-read that, since I last read it in 2003.
What I’m sad about: That I didn’t get too many of my “To Do” items done during my week off. But I did put up that new curtain rod and the coat rack, so hey.
What I’m pondering: How far I’ve come since I bungee-jumped off The Ledge in Queenstown, NZ, which was five years ago today.
Photo by my pal Tina Bramley, without whom I’d have had a much more solipsistic and boring trip to the other side of the world.
GOULD’S BOOK OF FISH was incredible! Flanagan’s got another novel coming out, called WANTING, an historical novel that is the best I’ve read since GOULD’S…
And out come those bad photos of me again…..Sigh…..
I don’t really lend books, but I made an exception and handed over Gould’s to a friend on Sunday. It’s too special to keep to myself.
Every time I look at it I think about how much fun that trip was, and how I got hit with a $60 excess baggage fee because of the books you gave me.
Happy 5th mateship anniversary!
Hey, what’s an Australian Shepherd? Never heard of the breed here……
Aside from the amazing photo, it was an amazing jump. I get dizzy just looking at this digital reproduction.
If you haven’t seen the German film, “The Lives of Others” I strongly recommend it as something to watch.
vc
Alex: I have to admit, I put down Flanagan’s followup to Gould’s Book of Fish, The Unknown Terrorist, after a page or two. The strange Kundera-pastiche that comprises the opening made me VERY uninterested in what followed.
Tina: The Australian shepherd really is a breed! Honest! Mark’s dog was also part-husky, so it had freaky eyes. Amy took some pix of him. I was happy to discover an Australian first edition of Gould when we were in Wellington. Of course, I was also happy to discover the alcohol-treshold beyond which I’ll table-dance to AC/DC.
VC: Dude, is there bungee-jumping in The Lives of Others? Because that would be A-W-E-S-O-M-E!
Cute!
Makes sense that I’ve never heard of them, since they actually originated in the US. I have seen them around, but I didn’t realise they were a breed in their own right. I figured they were some kind of Collie/Blue Heeler cross.
Energy-wise they seem like the anti-Greyhound. How did Rufus go with him? When Ned finds an endurance dog he will run himself into the ground trying to keep up. Once we had to carry him to the car because he wore himself out playing with a Staffy/Lab cross at the off-leash park.
Alas, no off-leash for the time being….Floodwaters recently took out the fence and I doubt it it’s on the council’s list of priorities to fix :(