A Chorus Skating Line

"You'll 'andle it, mate. I know you will."


Jon-Tom eyed his friend in surprise. "Why, Mudge. It's not like you to show such confidence in me."


"Oh, it weren't that, mate," replied the otter cheerily. "I just know you can confound any sorceral opponent because o' your unpredictability, which comes from the fact that you usually don't 'ave the foggiest notion o' wot you're about. See, if you don't know wot your doin', aint no way wotever you're fightin' can anticipate your next move." It was not merely a backhanded compliment, it was positively inside out.


And with that excerpt from Alan Dean Foster's eighth and final Spellsinger novel Chorus Skating (ISBN 0446362379) fresh in my mind, I go on to be unpredictable. Well, as unpredictable as I usually get in this day and age. To wit, I got home after work last night and since my wife Martha didn't work at Burger King last night because they've been cutting hours -- she's normally there Monday and Tuesday nights -- she was home early with Sarah and Jeffrey and along with the bedframes we helped and got help assembling early Sunday night we also got roller beds that stash under them. Sarah's is now assembled and we're waiting to do Jeffrey's. I'm not sure I'll do it tonight as I have to pick up the kids a few hours later than she did yesterday, but it's exciting to see parts of our house actually ... LOOK like I've seen people live in. That will make sense. Give it time.


Happy Anniversary, Honey!


Yep, Martha and I have been married thirteen years as of today. When I brought Sarah and Jeffrey to Robert and Sharon's (their grandparents, Martha's parents for you just joining me) today he caught me by surprise wishing us a happy anniversary. I love my father-in-law, it's just not ... how to say this, in him -- or in a lot of us, really -- to remember and regard each others' wedding anniversaries. We don't do much more than go out to eat (which Martha and I did Friday while the kids were gone because she has to work at Burger King tonight) and exchange cards and ... that's all I have to say about that. We are married after all. Wink.


Snoopy vs. the Red Baron.

It was one of the ongoing storylines in Charles M. Schulz's half-century spanning Peanuts where Charlie Brown's pet beagle Snoopy in one of his (Snoopy's, not the round-headed kid's) daydreaming interludes dresses as and imagines himself to be a World War I Flying Ace and "flies" his doghouse in pursuit of the Red Baron, a real-life German pilot know for his record of kills. Fantagraphics Books' Snoopy vs. the Red Baron (ISBN 9781606999066) collects all the strips Schulz drew and while I recognized some, others were new to me. I thought the kids would have as much fun reading this as I did, but sometimes it just has to be moving on the tablet for them to appreciate.


When I was their age, I'm sure I let television distract me too much in my parents' opinion.


I'm not sure what impressed me most on the last book I finished, author Lawrence M. Schoen's biography -- his self-created university major in cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics and being regarded as one of the world's foremost authorities on the Klingon language -- or his novel Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard (ISBN 9780765377029). The main character Jorl's ability to speak with the dead via a drug developed only on his home planet (Barsk, where all the "raised mammal" -- think David Brin's Uplift process -- elephants choose to live out of sight and out of mind) soon becomes a target for those who want more ... but we'll go into that tomorrow.


We'll handle it. I know we will.


David