Sunday, September 18, 2005

the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency and Snake Nightmares

Barbara and I have fallen in love with the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, caging books where we can find them. If a customer leaves one, it never goes on the shelf until we’ve both read it, although this is true with a lot of books. Since both of us read at a speed that makes people accuse us of eating books, her English bookstore adds to our quality of life. I do have to admit it slows my reading of French books.

Ruth and Robin brought three of the series with them. We needed to read them fast because they are leaving at the end of the week.

Barbara gave me The Full Cupboard of Life after serving me dinner (a dish of fall vegetables baked with apples and nuts). The temperature has dropped into the sixties. The Tramontane is back with winds gusting to 75 mph.

It was a night to bring out the terry cloth sheet, the duvet and my new blue flannel pajamas. Snuggling in bed with a book, toasty warm in a cool room is one life’s great pleasures.

Propped up on pillows I read how Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni chased a snake from the Orphan Farm.

Oh, oh!

Reading about or seeing on TV snakes immediately before sleeping is a nightmare guarantee. When my eyes grew heavy I thought about leaving the light on as nightmare prevention.

The big question was where to put the book. If I left it on the bed, the snake could escape and lord knows, I didn’t want to sleep with a snake. And of course on the floor it could get me during a pee stop.

The only solution was to put it in the frigo, the fridge. Snakes move slowly in the cold. Fortunately few people open my frigo and those who do know my idiosyncrasies, so they would say nothing about finding a book between my container of locally-made mayonnaise and the melon hand-picked for me by Babette.

I slept well safe from snake dreams.

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