Monday, July 21, 2008

Monday

I keep meaning to try Alan Furst's espionage novels, and am disappointed I missed seeing him in Boston earlier this month.

Despite a power failure yesterday (which prevented me from vacuuming my apartment for tonight's guests and forced me to my parents' to power my laptop and try to finish a memo due today - naturally when I emailed about 1 am to say I was nearly done I was told that it was no longer urgent and I should work on something else for tomorrow - do you hear the gnashing of teeth?), I managed to make quiche and blueberry torte (from Elegant but Easy). I even have a Beverly Gray wrapped up for my friend Marlene's birthday, which was yesterday. She will be very surprised as is not the type to be sentimental about children's books (more's the pity) - this is the one thing from her childhood she has ever mentioned reading.
Recently Marlene, her husband, and our college classmate Art went to dinner in Concord, and I insisted on our seeking out the house from The Diamond in the Window. Many years ago Jane Langton had drawn me a map of where the house is that inspired the story. Somehow I had managed to hold onto this fragment of paper all this time but must say that when we examined it all we could figure out was that the house was on Walden Street. We drove slowly and carefully, scanning both sides of the street, without success, and I was annoyed not to have written to Jane Langton before our visit, although I had checked her website. So can you believe this - the next day I found the actual address on Wikipedia! Concord is not far away but it is rare that I go there unless bringing tourists so a return visit will have to wait.

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