Whoo hoo! I think I have some time to read — during this wee sanctioned mini-vacay (if my agent can take one, so can I) I have loaded up at the library and who cares if I still have shopping and baking and wrapping to do before the onslaught of family frivolity? I am working on finding my true inner nerd-dom, skillfully multitasking in the face of futility… and I am reading in line. Okay, if I’m driving I try and cut down then. But I do read at a.] the Post Office, which, in my lovely town, is on Valium even on a normal day, b.] waiting in line at Raley’s behind the woman with the sixteen cases of beer (what IS Chriskwanzukkah like at her house!?) c.) waiting for my granola parfait at my fave cafe (and being asked questions by the wait staff that I don’t hear — they’ve taken to writing notes.).
I would love this time of year a lot more if we all took, say, just a week before Christmas and said, “Okay: stores closed. Expectations: none. Let’s all just read.”
National Book Week! That’s what it should REALLY be!
Best holiday gift I’m giving this year? Books on tape to the Littles. My tiny beef with many school systems is that they don’t spend enough time on history. (WARNING: former teacher rant upcoming.) Even I find out stuff I never learned in school — like the fact that the U.S. held Alaskans in interment camps during WWII — and I think, Man, most kids are clueless even about history that’s being made NOW! I got the great little book Baseball Saved Us, which was about a Japanese American boy who learned to love baseball in the middle of a desert. Good stuff.
Well, there’s another line calling my name.
Happy Winter, however you’re celebrating it.
