GIRLS

I've been visiting a home with two seven-year-old girls.

One has her own beauty routine in the morning. She uses a comb-like brush on her hair before she takes one with bristles, wets it and brushes till her hair's damped down and straight. Then she looks at herself smugly in the mirror, turning from side to side. "There," she says. "My hair is perfect."

The other runs a brush through one side of her hair and she's done.

So when we let the 'lid' down on the convertible and they're in the back seat singing along to Yakety Yak, guess which one starts squealing because her hair's getting blown.

Nope. Both of 'em.

Didn't realize they started so young.

GRAMMAR

So I'm away from home and catching up on some reading. I just finished a book written in first person and noticed, for not the first time, 'I' instead of 'me' used in the narrative.  Such as...between you and I... and also ...with you and I...

Is this deliberate because it's from the heroine's point of view and she doesn't know that 'me' is the object of prepositions while 'I' is for subjects? Or am I wrong about the correct use of 'I' and 'me'?

This bothers me -- like I'm so great at English grammar myself!

LAST OF THE SPIDER

Yes, the spider is gone.

The guy who lives with me was trotting up the stairs when an empty web stopped him cold. Thought for a moment he'd cry. "Something got it," he mumbled. "A lizard."

"How? It stayed in the middle of the web. If a lizard jumped that far, he'd break the web and the web's still there."

"A bird, then. Lizard, bird, something. My spider's gone."

And that was all that mattered, poor baby.

Hee hee hee!

MEN

So many times we women scoff at men about how helpless they are, how hopeless they are, how unthinking they are, etc.

Then they do something that makes us realize why we love 'em.

Just got back from helping out a relative who had surgery. We took the kids to school and afterschool activities, but her husband stayed at the hospital the whole time. He took her, waited through the surgery and when she got out of recovery, he stayed with her till the time she was discharged. He even spent the night on one of those make-do hospital chairs they have for family. You might say he got his nursing cap. (My own guy got his cap years ago!)

We kind of expect women to look after their men, but it's always a nice surprise when men look after their women.

Maybe there's hope for the male race after all!

WALMART

I hate going to Walmart. That's why we went early today when the crowds were in church.

Surprise. This morning was pleasant. We found a parking place that wasn't half a mile away. When I asked about the location of an item, an employee actually led me to it. So we whipped through the aisles and picked up our stuff. Then the rain came down.


So we walked a few minutes inside the store for exercise, then did the self-checkout business, left - the buggy guard smiled and joked with us as we left - and came home.

I'm uneasy. Are they trying to take over?

CUTTING FOR STONE

In the library the other day, this novel by Abraham Verghese came back with the returner raving about it. Best book she'd read in years. So I got it and have just started it.

I am thinking, here at the beginning, of THE KITE RUNNER because of the way it unfolds and all the details about a foreign land.

I am also thinking I'd do well to ask what kind of book the recommending person enjoys before snatching one up.

JADE WOMAN

Just finished this book by Jonathan Gash. His hero, antiques dealer/forger/con man Lovejoy, is forced to leave England and ends up in Hong Kong. Gash makes Hong Kong come alive to someone who's never been there, the good along with the bad. Fascinating.

Unfortunately, Lovejoy falls in with the wrong crowd, evidently a common occurrence. He ends up working for the Hong Kong mob with the jade woman of the title as one of its heads. To stay alive, he dreams up a fake impressionist Hong Kong painter, Song Ping, so that he can forge (imaginary) Ping paintings to pass off on the art community.

Oh, and I forgot to say he becomes a gigolo to support himself.

Lots of comedy with lots of insights on the antique business. I enjoyed it.