I've just returned from a couple of days in Ocean Shores at the Quinault Beach Resort & Casino (and I hesitate to even type that URL due to a long story which I don't want to go into right now) which turned out to be very fabulous but with some David Lynch movie moments. The sun shone the whole time I was there -- Kimberlee told me that the sun only shines there about 3 days a year (she grew up around there) but luckily, I was there those three days. I was there to do some training related to work which I don't really need to go into here but it was all perfectly tolerable and it turns out it was nice to get out of the office and out of the house for a few days and break my routine and learn new things and talk to new people.

J.D.SALINGER
You're not going to believe this but, I just read for the first time, Salinger's Nine Stories. I stole my Mom's copy about 100 years ago and have carried it around with me to Sherman Oaks, up to Sacramento, to West Linn, to Lake Oswego and two moves in Vancouver -- all these many years and I never read it. I think it was because I thought it would be so fabulous that I would gobble it up and then never have it to read for the first time again OR I was worried that it would be drudgery to get through. It turns out #1 -- I gobbled it up. I am completely infatuated with Salinger at the moment. As soon as I finish the blog I'm going to troll all over the Internet and see what I can find and I bet it's voluminous. I thought my favorite story was The Laughing Man until I got to De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period and that until I got to Teddy. And for some reason I remember the title: Teddy attracting my attention when it was still my Mom's book and I was very young. If I had to pick, I'd pick De Daumier. This is a truly fabulous book and if you've never read it I'd recommend: run, don't walk.

THE LATEST REVELATION
I spent most of the first 35 years of my life thinking everyone else was smarter than me. I've gotten a clue since then. I'm understanding that just because a person is standing in front of a room talking to me doesn't mean he has the slightest clue what he's talking about.

LATEST REVELATION #2
When a woman is in her 20's sometimes she notices, to her great horror, that she's acting like her mother, something she's always sworn would never happen to her. But now I'm getting fairly close to 40 and I'm realizing that I do things like my Mother and I'm pretty proud of that.

FOOD HORROR
Something I don't understand, even though I am determined to be understanding of all people to be who they are: butter on pasteries. ew!