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.

FORT FREDERICA

We went to Fort Frederica this weekend. It isn't a well-known fort like South Carolina's Fort Sumter where the Civil War started or Maryland's Fort McHenry that inspired the Star Spangled Banner or the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine FL where Spain held sway. In fact, it was a small fort built to keep the Spanish at bay, and I guess it did.

All that's left of a settlement where a thousand people once lived are the ruins of the barracks and the powder magazine. Eugenia Price wrote several books about St. Simons and the fort. While I've read a few, they aren't quite to my style. But a lot of people enjoy them. And anything that makes history come alive has to be good.

Here's the powder magazine. The tiny circle in front was the well. See the cannons pointed down the river to engage enemy ships? I don't think they were ever fired. The Battle of Bloody Marsh took place when the Spanish marched up from the south end of the island. The fort is a very peaceful place to walk unless the park rangers are entertaining with reenactments or classes about colonial living or such. Their dream is to one day build replicas of the houses.

SPIDER

Okay, the spider beneath my bedroom window has moved. I had high hopes that the rain drove him away or the lizard ate him. Alas, no such luck.

Now he has a magnificent new structure spanning from the building corner to a tree, over four feet in length and maybe just as wide.

And there he sits in the middle, waiting to be fed, giving me the evil eye whenever I go down the stairs.

Where are those pesky squirrels when you need them?

LOCAL PAPER

Time for another update from the local paper's police blotter.

A woman told police she went to pick up a friend. Another woman ran out of the mobile home and slapped her in the face, then ran back inside. The woman inside denied ever running out.

In another instance, a woman called police to report her boyfriend knocked her down and bit her on the stomach. He left -- with her cellphone -- before police arrived. Woman displayed bite marks on her stomach but said she didn't want to press charges; she only called police because her father made her.

No arrests in either incident.

Between figuring out who's lying and inspecting bite marks on stomachs, our police force is kept busy, isn't it?

THE TARTAN SELL

Read my first Lovejoy mystery this week: THE TARTAN SELL.  By Jonathan Gash, the title caught my eye and I picked it up, read a few pages, and immediately got hooked.

I really enjoyed it. Lovejoy is a dealer in antiques (legal and illegal) whose method of deciding the provenance of a piece goes beyond certification. He has a nose for the real antiques.

He seems to have a knack for getting out of one scrape and into another, and, for some reason that mystified me, he also seems to have a way with the ladies, married or not. His moral code may be a little twisty but he does have some ethics. A lovable scamp is what he came across as in this book.

I intend to read some more. I hope they're all as good as this one.