Beach and Patio Reading

a.k.a. Reading that Does Not Matter at All. But is fun to read lying on the beach or the patio, knowing that book will quite soon be resting on your chest going up and down in a gentle rhythm. Yes, we know you're not asleep, just resting your eyes..

Some of these you could write yourself, they're so predictable, but they're fun anyway.

Katie FForde is one of today's picks. First of all there's endless innocent merriment to be had wondering how in publisher's name she pronounces it. Fuffawd? Fump? one of those English names that sounds quite different. Probably pronounced Chumley...

Her heroines are usually interesting women doing jobs that sound fun in the pages of a book, or living on houseboats or something that I'd hang rather than do in real life, but am quite happy to have my heroine up at two in the morning bailing, whatever that is.

Naturally, it's wildly hetero, and even ends in marriages all around, but you can't have everything...no heroine says nope, I'd rather have my own company, or, even less likely, says nope, you don't get it, this lady IS my partner. But given those restrictions, fun stuff to go to sleep by. Set in England, so one heroine always puts on the late night BBC news which lulls her off right away. I love touches like that.

Then there's Merrill Markoe, a sitcom writer who is also very funny on the page. Her What the Dogs Taught Me, I think is the title is putdownably funny. You have to keep putting it down to laugh. Like how she's learning how to have dogs as pets. How they keep watching her fully expecting marvelous things to happen any minute, and how guilty she feels when all she's doing is reaching for a kleenex.

This one, Turning in Circles, is dog related but I'm not into it yet, haven't finished sleeping to FForde.

Speaking of dogs and their impact on a household, this morning I got a wild hair and actually approached the bottom plate of the refrigerator, which is 21 years old, I doubt if anyone ever cleaned under it before. And found that that little plate actually pops off.

I had put off finding this out for several years, since I have a lot of trouble with unscrewing stuff, hands not liking it, and specially Phillips head dealies. So imagine my surprise, gosh, when it just popped out, on spring clips. Hm. Could have found that out a while back.

Then I proceeded to sort of fish out a large amount of fluff and cat hair and pens (juggled there by cats) and little plastic milktops (juggled there by cats) and ant traps, and various vital notices and letters which had fallen off the door in days of yore, and a chewtoy. The last occupant of this household who had any interest in chewtoys went to the great Doghouse in the Sky about 15 years ago. That was the sainted Buff.

He was a kind of family member as much as a dog. Found in north Jersey as a stray poking around the garbage outside a restaurant, passed around various friends whose landlords threatened to throw them out if they kept him, he ended up at HP's then apartment (we were only marginally in each others' lives at that point). That day my dear Kerry, dog of my heart, had had to be euthanized, and HP said, well, look you're not ready for another dog, I know that, but just come meet him, he'll cheer you up.

Famous last words. I went over there, this shaggy little cairn terrier-like dog ran to me, put a toy down on my foot and sat back expectantly. So that was the end of me. He was on his way home with me in minutes.

And never again offered to play with me. That was strictly for the job interview. He used to look at me if I threw a ball or stick, as if to say, hey, I'm not your servant! get your own ball! sheesh...



Then my life and career changed dramatically after I'd had him a few years, and I was away far too many hours in the day, so Buff went to live with HP to cheer him up, since he was living alone, out of work longterm very much against his will, on disability, the start of a long decline in health, and he became the center of that household, but I had visitation rights. Buff was like a traveling therapist to this group. Lived to about 15, we estimated, not knowing his age on arrival in our lives. Worth his weight in chewtoys.