"I love you, but sooner or later, you're gonna have to face the fact that you're a goddamned moron."

Here is the Man Booker Prize longlist, generally a good guide to some decent books. I have heard of most of them, have read none of them. Better get cracking before September 8, which is when the short list is announced, and October 10, which is when the winner is announced.

*******

I am liking Outlander, as I’ve said, but how many ingenious and impossible ways can Jamie possibly escape from the English/Black Watch/ whoever takes it into their head to capture him next? Right now he’s thrown himself, fully bound with leather thongs, off a horse in the middle of a river and escaped. It’s like Scottish Houdini.

*********************

A review of Salman Rushdie’s latest novel, Shalimar the Clown, due out here on September 6. I could not even finish his last novel, it was so formulaic – and as I have oh-so-cleverly stated before, it was self-derivative -- which isn’t a bad thing considering you’re Salman Rushdie. But it was mediocre at best.
However, my hopes for the excellency of the newest were dashed with the last paragraph of this review:
At its best, Rushdie's fiction holds up a warped mirror to real life, in all its absurdity and awfulness. Shalimar the Clown does that to some extent, but feels not fully inflated. Even more than usual, the characters seem allegorical, passion-play placeholders for the grand ideas and currents buffeting the world. The result is an honorable failure, a garbled book for garbled times.

*****************

Jude’s phrase of choice today, uttered approximately every thirty seconds:
"Ice dream dammich!"

Si wasn’t feeling well last night – probably something to do with the inordinate amount of Chinese steamed dumplings he ate at dinner. So he slept in his bed. Fine. Except that I had to sleep on the floor then (the boys’ room has the AC). I am too old to sleep on the floor anymore. I hurt this morning.

There are toys all over my bedroom, which is generally a toy-free zone. But last week they were playing tea party and set up in my room, and they were having such a good time I let it be. However, after stepping on Legos and TinkerToys in the middle of the night one too many times this past week, I demanded it be cleared up today. Si said Daddy said it didn’t have to be cleared up till Saturday (our house guests arrive Sunday). Since Dan is not the one who gets up in the middle of the night (and I have to give into my OCD impulses occasionally), I overruled this bit of nonsense and told them to start cleaning. Much yelling, screaming, dancing about, and crying ensued (despite what you may think, solely on their part). So I used my usual threat: “You can clear it up, or I’ll do it and the stuff will be taken away.” After thoughtful consideration Simon said, “OK, Mom. You do it. I’ll find something else to play with.” I really do NOT deserve these children – do I?

***************

A quote from today’s paper’s Morning File:
“A pessimist is a man who looks both ways when crossing a one-way street.”
Unless you live where I do, where pedestrians are merely prey for all those oh-so-skilled-at-driving neurosurgeons on their way to emergency surgery, coffee cups and cigarettes in hand, and cell phone to ear.

That said, I'd probably *still* look both ways.