Goals vs. Reality

Alexander Hamilton--60 pages (to p. 500)
Don Quixote--130 pages (to end of First Part)
short stories--read two
March--200 pages

vs.

Alexander Hamilton--60 pages (to p. 500)
Don Quixote--not one word
short stories--Elizabeth Bowen: "Joining Charles" and "The Tommy Crans"
March--80 pages

Not a good weekend for reading.

'Did you say pig, or fig?' said the Cat.

'I said pig,' replied Alice; 'and I wish you wouldn't keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.'

'All right,' said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.

--Lewis Carroll

The moon tonight was a Cheshire Cat's grin.

At first S. was too young. Then Nathan Fillion took out Xander's eye in the last season of Buffy and S. deemed it best to avoid all eye injury movies for awhile. Then we waited and waited and waited for the director's cut to come to a theater near us so he could experience it for the first time as it was meant to be seen-which, naturally, happened on a weekend when he had other plans that took precedence.

Last night we finally initiated S. into the family Donnie Darko cult. There was always the possibility that he wouldn't like it, and considering all the elliptical comments he's had to endure since L. and R. and I became obsessive fans, all the playings of "Mad World" he's had to listen to, all the admonishments not to worry if he didn't understand it the first time through-"no one does"-that we didn't mean condescendingly, but sure sounded that way, it's a wonder that he could sit through it, let alone like it.

But he did. All our hype didn't ruin it. He's in the cult! Between the director's cut and Roberta Sparrow's "The Philosophy of Time Travel" at the back of The Donnie Darko Book, he had very few questions-and they were all so very good-- that could not be answered.

Bonus perk: he wants to reread Watership Down. And Graham Greene's "The Destructors."

Unrealistic reading goals for the weekend

Alexander Hamilton--60 pages (to p. 500)
Don Quixote--130 pages (to end of First Part)
short stories--read two
March--200 pages

Claudius Rex

Remember to check out The Ark on Fridays and the Carnival of the Cats on Sundays for a round up of the best and latest pet blogging photos.

I read In Cold Blood the summer I was pregnant with R. and it scared me plenty. One morning not long after I'd finished it my mother showed up unexpectedly at our house and, without knocking or calling out, let herself in. Suffice it to say that when I told her afterwards that she was lucky I hadn't killed her before realizing who the intruder was, I meant it. Of course, that was also the summer the cats let themselves in and out through a hole in the back screen door; I locked myself in the bathroom once convinced Someone Evil was in the house and almost climbed out the window before calming down enough to attribute the thud I'd heard to a cat.

Forty years after its publication journalism students from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College have studied In Cold Blood and its impact on journalism and literature. Granted exclusive interviews with many who'd refused previously to talk about either the crime or the book, In Cold Blood: A Legacy is the result of their efforts.

Weird Don Quixote news

Physicists in Spain are celebrating the 400th anniversary of publication of Don Quixote in a very small way: they wrote the first paragraph on a silicon chip in letters so tiny the whole 1,000-page book would fit on the tips of six human hairs. (AP)