Robin McKinley's newest book, 'Chalice', drops tomorrow -- but thanks to Amazon preorder, it arrived today. At least, I think that's what arrived today; I didn't actually get the package, but more on that in a moment. As frequent readers who are good at retaining random facts will remember, I absolutely adore McKinley's writing, and read whatever she writes, even though much of it is technically marketed to the young adult crowd (although from what I've read of 'Chalice', it's not exactly young adult -- and her book 'Deerskin' was absolutely not young adult, nor was 'Sunshine'). The quality of her writing is outstanding, in that she creates very lush, very detailed worlds that have soothing similarities and jarring dissimilarities with our own. As I've said before, I sometimes reread her books in the way that some people walk the medieval cathedral labyrinth paths -- they help me to spiral in to a more meditative place and focus my thoughts, mostly because the writing is so pure and perfect that it does a great job of fully sucking you into the story.
So after work, I had to go to Palo Alto for dinner with some friends, and I intended to go to a cafe and work for an hour before dinner. But, I parked behind Borders, and as I was cutting through Borders to get to the other side of the block, I found myself upstairs, in young adult, where I read the first portion of 'Chalice' standing up for an hour. I meant to save the book for this weekend, take it down to Union Square, and read it at Samovar in Yerba Buena Gardens, but I couldn't help myself tonight.
I didn't buy the book at Borders because it was preordered through Amazon and delivered today. So when I got home tonight, I debated whether I should pick the package up from security -- I knew that if the book was in my apartment, I'd be tempted to read it even though I need to go to bed. But when I went to security to pick it up, I ended up telling Charles not to worry about it and that I'll get it tomorrow, because he couldn't leave his post due to the fact that there was a naked homeless man in one of the stairwells. This was shocking, but didn't make me feel unsafe, since the stairwells are fire-escape-only and can't be used to reenter the residential areas, but I thought that it was an omen that I need to not pick up the book and rush through it just because I'm impatient.
Dinner tonight was with Lizzie, Sarah, and Shawn. We ate at Vino Locale in Palo Alto -- it's a bona fide member of the Slow Foods movement, which is apparently a marketing scheme in which restauranteurs give themselves the option of having incredibly slow service and food prep because they can just sniff at you disdainfully for your wasteful, fast-paced suburban immorality if you seem annoyed at the slowness of things. Slow food is actually about locally-grown, organic foods, and while the service was weird, the food and wine were quite good. I had a chorizo panini (mmm) with a glass of v. local cabernet, and we also split a cheese plate appetizer and a few chocolate truffles for dessert. Lizzie was kind enough to treat us to dinner because Sarah and I both had birthdays recently, which was nice of her, and since we avoided most references to politics, everything went swimmingly.
Now, though, it's time for bed -- three nights of staying in the south bay for dinner is enough for one week, and I'm looking forward to getting up here tomorrow at a reasonable hour. Goodnight!
No comments:
Post a Comment