“A male gynecologist is like an auto mechanic who has never owned a car.” - Carrie P. Snow

NO, I DID NOT FIND MY EARRING.

C’mon, people, this is ME. Not some lucky, lottery-winning babe who is always in the right place at the right time, and wearing the right clothes to boot.

My family’s favorite joke (ha ha fucking HA) is that we have a black cloud hovering overhead, and H and I often hope that the Babe good luck will offset the Maiden-Name-of-Babe family terrible, horrible, awful, no good, very bad luck.

We shall see. But in the meantime, I did NOT find my earring.

Here is its lonely mate:
WANTED: single earring for long-term relationship. Cute, classy, confident. Must like puppies, long walks on the beach, and cuddling by the fire. If you are silver and amber, and dangling from a French wire, I would love to hear from you.

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I have, however, hit the jackpot in book-reading lately.

I gobbled up Sheridan Hay’s The Secret of Lost Things, which I loved, and never wanted to end, and which also prompted some very disturbing research into the disorder of albinism. And you all know how I love that sort of stuff.

I have embarked upon Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which, for those of you who don’t follow this sort of thing, is her account of living off the land for a year. Well, if not off the land like some latter-day Grizzly Adams, at least eating locally, being aware of the provenance of the food she is putting in her mouth and her family’s mouths, and the challenges and joys of said enterprise. The book is interspersed with horrifying but fascinating little info-sketches (written by Kingsolver’s husband, a biologist) about the industrialization of food by the giants of agribusiness, among other things. You may never put a mass-produced, feedlot-raised hunk o’ cow in your mouth again (which I have had a hard time doing ever since I read Fast Food Nation ANYWAY).
So, the three pounds of asparagus in my fridge is singing out to me to be cooked for dinner tonight.
And the farmers’ market is warbling away, starting up for the season on Monday. (And my CSA starts soon, as well.)

I can never give up bananas or avocadoes (for Gina, it’s bananas and pineapple) but I can be more responsible about what I and my precious guys (oh, and H) are eating. (I suppose this means I should no longer feed them chicken nuggets from a box? OK, let’s not get CRAZY.)

Anyway, it’s a beautifully written book, and if a wee teeny tiny bit hyperbolic, also speaks to me and my food-loving heart. Kingsolver accurately points out: "Food is the rare moral arena in which the ethical choice is generally the one more likely to make you groan with pleasure."

(The downside of the book is that I feel *really guilty* that my three tomato plants, basil and rosemary sprigs, and three blueberry bushes are languishing on my front porch, and are not in their lovely raised bed yet.)

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Lurking in the wings is Mr Y, almost finished, and Dead Clever - it may just be that I am not at the moment in the mood for Scarlett Thomas.
I am however in the mood for Bright Lights, Big Ass which, while mildly annoying at times, and sometimes causing me to want to snap, “Oh for God’s sake GROW UP!” also happens to be falling-down, laugh-out-loud funny a LOT. I can forgive a person – and their book – an awful lot if they make me laugh. And it may well be that Jen Lancaster is the only writer I know of who can make me howl just talking about a routine (for most of us) visit to the gynecologist.
Now THAT'S funny.