more reading

Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund by Blaize Clement - second in a series - good murder mysteries, not "cutesy" animals but a fairly serious series in which our heroine is a pet-sitter pretty much as a way of escaping from some serious trouble she's had in her life. We learn more about her past in this one. It's not giving away much of a secret to say that the obvious bad guys in this one are in fact bad guys.

Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck - humor, pretty mild humor, in that the problems of a woman who lives in NYC and makes over $250K per year can't really be serious enough to whine about, but once you grant that she's whining anyway, she's a pretty funny whiner.

Beyond the Gap by Harry Turtledove - I'm gonna review this one on Amazon; I'll provide a link shortly. Pretty good!

I still have a cold, and all the energy of a hibernating sloth.

ahem.

Please add the following word to your dictionary:

Decarpitate (v) - to sever part or all of a finger. (N) Decarpitation.
Examples:
The inexperienced carpenter suffered a triple decarpitation when he was using an unfamiliar table saw.
The Mob discussed decarpitating Joey "Papayas" as a deterrent to future errors.

Do not ask about the conversation in which this arose, although you may rest assured that it did include all the jokes about fish which you were just about to make in the comments. Simply accept that the English language needed this word, and now I have provided it; I adjure you to go out and spread the word.