First off, avaunt ye minions of darkness and chaos! In spite of all you could do, I have won my way through to the goblin castle! (Extra points for anyone who can name the movie that quote came from.) And, while I'm at it, nyah-nyah-nyah to the forces of law and light! You had your chance to whack me with a big, fat ticket for driving on expired tags and you missed it. I am now smugly, complacently, thoroughly legal!

I need gas, though. I'm driving on fumes. That, along with dropping a package off at the post office, are today's lunchtime chores. This appears to be one of those times in my life when things around me are decaying and expiring faster than I can keep up with them.

Second off, hooray! That's for the storm that's supposed to roll in here tomorrow and linger until Saturday. They've downgraded our forecast and are now saying we shouldn't get more than four inches in the city. (We went to the grocery store last night and stocked up anyhow. Just in case.)

Third, the diet. I am wiping the slate clean of the first nine days of this month and beginning again. Sigh. I have, as always, been doing exceptionally well during the days and eating like a pig every evening.

For example, last night I had half a pan of lasagna and yes, admittedly the box said there were only two servings in the pan, but the point remains that someone on a diet shouldn't be eating lasagna at all, much less in "normal" quantities. (I brought some for lunch today, too. Hee! But a much smaller portion.)

Fourth, I'm ready to give up on Gemmell. Some of you know that I've been trying to work my way through his Drenai books. I finished another one last night (Waylander) and contemplated the series for a while, trying to figure out how what happened in this book fit in with the rest of the series and why it mattered.

While I freely admit that in the last chapter or so, they made mention that two characters were going to reproduce and produce a figure of major importance to the overall storyline, I also have to point out that they and their "love storyline" were far from central in the book, leading one to expect that something else of major significance was taking place.

In the end, I decided that one could expect that, but one would be disappointed. I'm not buying any more of his stuff. I've read half a dozen books by him and I'm always let down.

Next up on the reading list is Saylor's Rubicon. I have no fear I won't enjoy that.

After that, I have Ray Bradbury's Farewell Summer waiting, but I'm hesitant to start reading it. Dandelion Wine was such a seminal book for me that I'm afraid of tarnishing the magic with a possibly less-than stellar sequel. Admittedly, Bradbury has almost never, ever, disappointed me, but I'm still somewhat afraid.

I have LeCarré's Absolute Friends waiting, too. It's been waiting for seven or eight months now. I'm not sure why I haven't read it yet. I've read and been fascinated by 20 books from this author. I took an entire class on him while I was in college. Why have I never followed through on reading this one? It's a mystery.

Also, thanks to the holiday generosity and extreme good taste of my friend, Mallory, I have Bitter Chocolate: Investigating the Dark Side of the World's Most Seductive Sweet waiting to be read.

It's all very exciting and I'm almost sorry that we won't be getting snowed in again any time soon. I have a lot of reading I could be doing.

I'm meeting a friend for dinner tonight. Meghan's involved in some kind of monthly (weekly?) group that gets together and does knitting. And stuff. I think. It's called "stitch and bitch." I don't really know what they bitch about, but I brought my latest project (another scarf), so I can "stitch." It's not knitting, it's crochet, but I doubt if they kick me out for that reason.

And that's pretty much it for excitement since yesterday.

You know what I think this blog needs? It needs a theme. It needs to be about something.