Thursday's List

READING: Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz. I've never read anything by Dean Koontz before, but a friend told me that he writes a good, slightly skeery suspense novel with no blood, guts and gore and no horror factor that makes you still wake up in the night wishing you hadn't read Salem's Lot, like, twenty-five years ago. I love this book. I love Odd Thomas, the main character. I love Stormy, his destiny. I love Dean Koontz's Catholic themes in the book. I hope all his novels are as good as this one.

LISTENING TO: Sean Hannity's talk radio show. Sean is so full of bombast that I'd like to tweak his nose every now and then, but I was interested in hearing what he and his callers had to say about the Republican debate last night on FoxNews.


FAVORITE NEW FIND: A Subway sandwich shop near Aisling's piano teacher's house that has nice decor, comfortable tables and chairs, "oldies" music (from the 70s and 80s, natch) playing on the sound system and an atmosphere redolent of baking bread. N-i-i-i-ice!

FAVORITE THING TODAY: Hearing "Close to You" while sitting at Subway, a song I used to sing to the girls when they were babies. Heaven knows I try not to get tears in my eyes when hearing Karen Carpenter's beautiful voice, but it's very difficult.

HOURS OF SLEEP LOGGED LAST NIGHT: Not nearly enough. I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. reading, apparently under the impression that I was still basking in the lazy days of summer and could remain snuggled up in my pillows until 9:00 or so. When the alarm went off at 6:30, I wanted to smite myself. And the clock.

THE CAUSE OF MY STRESS: Nothing. As I said a couple of weeks ago, this makes me nervouse. Surely I should be worried about something? But we have the assignment sheets for the entire first semester printed out and dated; I'm ahead of the game in the Hamlet Workshop and HISTO; I have no overdue library books. Oh, wait...I forgot to call my parents on their anniversary last Saturday and I feel like a selfish pig. Yup, that did it. Stress.

PRAYING FOR: A good year of homeschooling and other various needs and wants. Plus, Carol and Uncle Graham are flying out west tomorrow for a weeks' vacation - they plan to go to Sunday Mass at an old mission church near San Diego. I hope they'll have safe travels and a wonderful time. And Susie's younger French-named daughter took off on a plane across the sea a few days ago for the start of a semester abroad in France through Pepperdine's exchange program.