This and that

Things that make me happy (some with accompanying stories from recent days)

--- Waking up with that first cup of latte (limit 3 per day)
--- The first smoke with the first coffee (yeah, yeah... whatev)
--- The rising sun, if there are no clouds
--- The setting moon, ditto, esp if it's a sharp, bright crescent like it was a few morning ago
--- Drowning out neighbour noise with Mozart in the headphones. Few things transport me as instantly and fully as does Wolfie! Right now it's the somewhat sad Ave Vernum Corpus, which I want played at my funeral not anytime soon, I hope, but you know, whenever it happens. Along with the Laudate Dominum. (Mind you, even with the headphones on I can hear Emphysema Man coughing through the wall, as he watches his daily soap opera.)
--- Talking to Alex on the phone
--- Talking to my friend Tom on the phone because we always end up in stitches
---Buying Christmas stuff at slashed prices. I went to purchase some coffee today and there was a bin at the front entrance with all kinds of goodies I didn't need. Pretty gift tags, topiary thingees, decorative fake cranberries... some items I'll use, some I'll give away. I've already got a pretty good stash started for this coming December
--- Catching an episode of Supernatural that I haven't seen before
--- Chocolate anything
--- Curling up early at night with a book

I just finished a really badly written novel which I will name only so that you can avoid it. Although it was published in French by a French author, so I doubt it exists or will ever be translated in English. It's called "Le Collectionneur" and it's a lame serial-killer non-thriller penned in either great haste or just carelessly and published for who knows what reason except maybe the writer was dating an editor? I only wanted to finish it to see the killer get his comeuppance, and even that part was lame. Amateurish drek.

Then, in an unusual streak of bad luck, I had some other poor choices right at hand. I just finished (painfully and unwillingly) the first of two novels I got from the library: "Evermore" and "I Already Forget the Second Title Because it's That Bad" and they are about immortals. Vampire Diaries meets The O.C. meets Twilight meets Hannah Montana. Written about and for teenage girls. I didn't know this when I checked them out at the library. I suffered through the first one and am limping through the second, just because.

Redeeming my current reading list is "Too Much Happiness" by Alice Munro. A collection of 10 beautiful and often unsettling short stories by a reputed Canadian writer. I have the feeling once I'm done with her I will just head back to the library and return the second immortals book 1/3 read, because it really isn't worth the time.

That's all that's fit to print today... other than musing, still, about moving out of here in May or ASAP and what I can afford/where. I'd like to leave this town but I do have a commitment, that being The House and the counselling course. We shall see. Today is today and it's been a good one.