Suddenly September

Look at me, not posting! I’ve written a lot about the trip in my head, if that counts. It’s just: the days are busy. You know how it is. Do any of you know the picture book called Little Bean? We love that book. By John Wallace, I think it was. On full days, I always hear Little Bean in my head: Busy, busy, busy. Busy making smoothies. Busy catching up on Mad Men. Busy sorting through three weeks’ worth of mail. Busy thinking up little jobs for Rilla to do in her quest to earn coins to fatten her piggy bank. Busy learning how to be a soccer mom—Beanie is playing, this year, for the first time, and I am clueless about things like shinguards and cleats. Busy picking up erasers after Huck bit them off all the pencils and spit them out under the table. Busy taking Jane to meetings at church eight days early. Ahem. Not busy enough writing things correctly on my calendar, apparently.

Busy playing with my new Kindle. It truly is even sweller than the previous model. I went for the graphite case, even though I prefer the crisp white. I’d read that the darker frame helps improve the contrast, and I think it does. That, plus whatever else Amazon did to improve the e-ink display. It’s quite a loverly device, I must say. Slim and light and cool in the hand. Easy one-handed reading and page-turning. The annotations feature I like so much. The addictive “sample this” option that lets you read the first chunk of any Kindle book for free. (You can do that on the iPod and phone apps too.)

Last night I read the opening of James Owen’s Here, There Be Dragons, the first volume of the Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica. Hooked. It is now winging its way to our library branch along with Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta—another novel with an intriguing opening.

This makes it sound like I am busy reading, but as usual I am really much busier trying to decide what to read next.

Busy, busy, busy.