Exhibit A:

I then walked into my bedroom to find my sock drawer—which just happens to be where Da extra Birds live—wide open. Which is not the position I left it in this morning. (Yes, they are quite capable of opening heavy wood drawers).

Exhibit B:

It’s a good thing they’re so damn cute.

* * *

current book: The latest Atlantic.

current music: Listened to some Calexico and Bloc Party at work today.

current socks: Knee-high SmartWools in blue stripeys. Yummy.

I wish I could get a picture of all three cats, but Monte has sequestered himself upstairs until very recently. Now that the house is dark and quiet, he feels brave enough to jump on kitchen cabinets, throw up on the basement stairs, and snuggle up in my lap as I type this. Probably tomorrow morning he will go back to being a great big baby.

Merry Christmas!

* * *

current book: The Ice Storm by Rick Moody. I’m not quite halfway through, and I’m not sure how much I like it. It’s definitely an interesting study of the 70s, that’s for sure.

current music: An endless stream of Christmas carols being piped through every speaker in the house. Sometimes this is okay. Sometimes it is not, such as when the Sandy Patty CD falls into rotation, or the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas (they have all the versions), or the really dreadful “soulful” a cappella Christmas CD. Soul-sucking, more like.

current socks: Some really amazing ones that Tim got me at the Sock Shop in London a few years ago: knee-highs with bright red toes and heels, black and gray stripes, and fuzzy green Christmas trees on the sides. I think tomorrow I will wear my old favorites: green socks with a reindeer entangled in lights and holding a glass of eggnog. The caption reads, “Blitzen Christmas.” Makes me laugh every year.

* * *

current book: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

current music: Still stuck on The Shins, but looking for a mix a friend recently made me. I know I uploaded it to iTunes, but heaven only knows what it’s called.

current socks run: 8 miles yesterday. 12 miles next week, which marks the halfway point of training.

There’s some debate as to the origin of this last epithet. Some say it was popularized by the long-winded and boastful speeches that were given in support of Chicago hosting the 1893 World’s Fair; others claim it had been used at least a decade earlier in reference to the “refreshing lake breezes.”

Decide for yourself. In both of these pictures, the umbrella is opened as far as it will go:

Refreshing lake breezes, my ass.

Incidentally, I had to leave the umbrella out, since it is apparently just perfect for playing Ambush.

TB chasing his tail in the shower:

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=7238056773657316673&hl=en]

*     *     *

current book: just started J.M. Coetzee’s The Life and Times of Michael K on the Metra this morning

current music: Calexico’s “Black Heart”

current socks: a black-and-white soccer/football pattern with the words “footie” all over it

Protein-free tidbits:

- the exploding noises made by my toilet seem to have been related to the new sidewalk out front (which presumably involved shutting off the water at some point), and have since disappeared.

- in the past few days, Monte has not only vomited green feathers, but also retrieved, chewed, and puked up the rubber straps of my swim goggles. When I say “retrieved,” I mean that I stowed the goggles deep inside my gym bag and then on the top shelf of my closet, and he fucking found them and brought them to me. In bed. Twice. Also, Clarabelle chewed up a cat toy and consequently shat out pink ribbon. Cats, or small, furry goats? You decide.

- I’ve never been a multi-book kinda girl; I can only ever read one at a time. I never really understand the people who claim to have two (or more!) books going on at once. If I’m engrossed in a book, those pages are my alternate reality for as long as the author keeps my interest. They’re real places, these book-worlds, and I can’t easily move from one to another. But I picked up a copy of Blue Baillett’s The Wright 3 the other day and started thumbing through the first pages. (I read her excellent Chasing Vermeer a few years ago; she writes something like mysteries for the 9-12 set. They’re more puzzle or riddle than mystery, light-hearted and fun stories with a twist, and they take place in Hyde Park.) I’ve been reading Louise Erdrich’s The Antelope Wife during my 40 minutes of Metra each day; the book opens with legendary Ojibwa twins beading furiously, one trying to outdo the other, one light, one dark. The magical realism sparkles as brightly and sinks as deep and dark as the twins’ beadwork. That is to say, I’m hooked; I’m beaded into the story just like all the other characters.

So it’s unusual that instead of setting The Wright 3 aside for later, I’ve begun reading it at night. But there’s no experience quite like reading a book that takes place in a neighborhood you know well. The book-landscape is richer and deeper when you can close the book but stay–literally–right there. The Wright 3 is a kids’ book–a fun read, nothing like the all-embracing pull of The Antelope Wife. But, like the fictional schoolchildren Calder, Petra, and Tommy, I walk down 57th Street and look in the giveaway box outside Powell’s, breathe in the yeasty smell outside Medici Bakery, try to make sense of the layers of the Robie House. In a way, I’m more engrossed in the book than I might normally have been, because I’m looking over the characters’ shoulders. I even caught myself on my walk home from the Metra this afternoon peering in the gates of the Robie House and wondering where Tommy had been poking around. But that also makes it easier to have two books open simultaneously; I guess I can read them both at once because the landscape of The Wright 3 is my everyday landscape.

- enough babble. more sleep.

* * *

current book: see above

current music: Os Mutantes

current socks: …