POETS

An acronym I discovered in the new Ian Rankin (Naming of the Dead). POETS = Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday. Seemed apropos to the moment, though I have no inclination to POE at the moment.

Received a big shipment from Amazon yesterday—I haven’t been buying many new books lately, what with all the free ones people have been sending me, but there were a batch of books I wanted to read. The shipment included the new Michael Connelly, Michael Crichton, Thomas Harris, Kate Atkinson and John Grisham. I have only 40 pages left to go with Naming of the Dead and am undecided about what to tear into next; Next or Hannibal Rising.

This’ll be a busy weekend. I’m still valiantly trying to reach The End, but the fact that I took two mornings off this week didn’t help that process. I have a Cemetery Dance column due in two weeks, so I guess I should get a start on that. I’ll put up the outdoor Christmas lights, which by all rights I should have done last weekend. Also assemble the tree—a process that is a far cry from the way my father and I used to slog back in the woods and chop down our tree, clean out any bird nests and other detritus, drag it back to the house, use a drill to bore holes to insert limbs to fill in gaps, and shake it down one last time before hauling it inside the house, after which much time was spent getting spruce balsam off our hands.

We’re also going ice skating on Sunday night. I’ve never been to the local skating rink, but the company that does our printing is hosting a closed event for customers, with free skates, hot chocolate and cookies. Sounds like fun!

Anyone else still watching Survivor? I think they made a minor misstep in getting rid of Jonathan last night. As long as there is a small faction of more than one (Adam and Parvati), there’s always the chance that they’ll flip someone. Jonathan will never gain any allies, so even though he’s annoying, he’s pretty harmless. I also think that if I was one of Yul’s allies, I’d be thinking about voting him off pretty soon to neutralize his immunity idol. When he starts strategizing in terms of what jurors are going to think of him in front of his allies, it should be a red flag that he’s got his eye on the prize and so long as he has that compass he’s dangerous. If he were lowered to equality with his old tribemates, the balance of power would shift slightly. Even the playing field.

Ozzie rocks, though. That guy is an athlete. If merit were the only criterion, he deserves to win.