Today my umbrella imploded. It did not blow inside out. I was facing into the wind; it blew in on me. I felt like I'd gotten on the wrong side of a vampire squid. Afterward all the thin metal parts were so bent I couldn't even open it; its ribs were tangled into one another with the canopy stuck in between. I should have taken a picture. I've never seen anything like it. It happened right as I was getting off the T and I was sorry not just because I had to walk up a hill and back in the rain but because it had been a nice umbrella—it had a blue-on-blue pattern of sea turtles I really liked—but it was absolutely unsalvageable. It was given full military honors in the trash bin on the mezzanine of the Somerville Theatre. One of ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch's managers was kind enough to donate me a replacement umbrella from the unclaimed items of the theater's lost and found; it is weirdly belled and sort of sprigged coral-red, but it kept the rain off me without trying to eat me alive, so I am probably keeping it.
I was out in the rain because I had another doctor's appointment, without which I would not have left the house on a total of two hours' sleep; it was another mostly work and medical day. I miss my vacation. I did manage to pursue my interest in the Chocolat sequels: I couldn't find a copy of The Lollipop Shoes (2007) in any of the local used book stores, but the basement of the Harvard Book Store furnished an incredibly beat-up paperback of Peaches for Monsieur le Curé (2012) and I took it home as if it were a rescue cat. It was a good choice to curl up on the couch and read with Autolycus when I'd finished my evening's work. It's not as intricate or as archetypal as Chocolat—I think it's a nicer book, which makes some of its final dispositions appropriately satisfying and a few a little facile—but it's recognizably in continuity with its predecessor despite its consciously contemporary concerns and I was right that Harris couldn't leave Père Reynaud to his scaldingly ignominious exit in Chocolat; fortunately I did not mind. I am a sucker for stories of people getting better at being human, even or especially people who don't quite know what to do with themselves when they have. Unless I order it from the UK, I have no access to The Strawberry Thief (2019) until the U.S. edition comes out in July, but it definitely exists.
And then I got an exciting cramp in my shin and Rob had to run for a bag of frozen spinach and two bottles of coconut water and now I appear to be shaking with some kind of adrenaline reaction, so I am going to shower and lie down. But until then, Mrs. Lincoln, it was a quiet evening.
spatch's managers was kind enough to donate me a replacement umbrella from the unclaimed items of the theater's lost and found; it is weirdly belled and sort of sprigged coral-red, but it kept the rain off me without trying to eat me alive, so I am probably keeping it.I was out in the rain because I had another doctor's appointment, without which I would not have left the house on a total of two hours' sleep; it was another mostly work and medical day. I miss my vacation. I did manage to pursue my interest in the Chocolat sequels: I couldn't find a copy of The Lollipop Shoes (2007) in any of the local used book stores, but the basement of the Harvard Book Store furnished an incredibly beat-up paperback of Peaches for Monsieur le Curé (2012) and I took it home as if it were a rescue cat. It was a good choice to curl up on the couch and read with Autolycus when I'd finished my evening's work. It's not as intricate or as archetypal as Chocolat—I think it's a nicer book, which makes some of its final dispositions appropriately satisfying and a few a little facile—but it's recognizably in continuity with its predecessor despite its consciously contemporary concerns and I was right that Harris couldn't leave Père Reynaud to his scaldingly ignominious exit in Chocolat; fortunately I did not mind. I am a sucker for stories of people getting better at being human, even or especially people who don't quite know what to do with themselves when they have. Unless I order it from the UK, I have no access to The Strawberry Thief (2019) until the U.S. edition comes out in July, but it definitely exists.
And then I got an exciting cramp in my shin and Rob had to run for a bag of frozen spinach and two bottles of coconut water and now I appear to be shaking with some kind of adrenaline reaction, so I am going to shower and lie down. But until then, Mrs. Lincoln, it was a quiet evening.
