Word post

Last night, I finished The Dubious Hills, which was the only book left by Pamela Dean that I hadn't yet read. I am therefore qualified to observe that in every one of her published novels there is at least one instance in dialogue of the phrase, "I cry you mercy". I don't know if she considers this a running joke, but I've started to grin when I see it.

(I'm glad that Pamela Dean, as well as the other three women that I usually think of as my favourite authors these days, are still alive and writing, so that my having finished out one of their catalogues doesn't mean that I'll never again read a book by them that's new. Ms. Dean also has some short fiction that I haven't hunted down yet.)

I got a ride home from Cody after Elise's concert on Saturday ("Elise's concert", I say, as though there weren't fourteen other people on stage with her, including, surprisingly, Devon Bates, and a whole other band, afterward, which I liked a lot more than I expected to; but affection grants prominence). At one point, as we were driving down some major street that I'm not very familiar with, I saw a building with a sign that said: Ambrozia.

"'Ambrozia'," I repeated out loud. "Yeah, you just go on putting a 'z' in whatever words you feel like."

By which point we had passed it, and the first place on the next block was called Enthuze.