Rather prepared, but a little unplanned

So I have dental trauma you can slice a mile thick and just about the last thing I needed right now was for a notionally minor appointment this morning to add to it in a day-derailing way, but my godchild had their first day of middle school and the last of my mother's eleven monarch butterflies hatched and I have photographic evidence of both.

( Then we'll get there whenever we can. )

I am haphazardly re-reading the handful of Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody mysteries currently unpacked. My introduction to the series in high school was actually The Last Camel Died at Noon (1991), which set me up to be extremely confused when none of the rest of the books were parody-pastiches of H. Rider Haggard. I have distinct memories of reading library hardcovers of The Curse of the Pharaohs (1981) and The Deeds of the Disturber (1988) in my grandparents' house, specifically while sitting on my grandparents' bed and on the couch downstairs—I think I had just taken out as much of the series as existed at the time, which would mean up to The Hippopotamus Pool (1996). I'm still not sure I caught up on all the later ones. In twenty-five years, my taste in favorite characters really hasn't changed.

I'm about to be attentive company

Postscript: I have just inherited a reprehensible hat. It's my grandmother's rain hat. My mother has no idea how old it is, except definitely older than me. For close to a quarter of a century, she hasn't been able to bring herself to throw it out and earlier this evening it was pouring torrentially. We both remember my grandmother looking good in it, but my mother thinks that's because my grandmother basically looked good. If I hadn't folded the brim up, I'd look like a mushroom.