Smoky Summer Night

Kam, our friend Barbara, and I had dinner on the balcony this evening.  The city has been very smoky for the past two days from forest fires burning, and the air is deemed "unhealthy."  This smoky atmosphere happened last year too, and a headline on the local paper suggested this might be the "norm" for Seattle summers now.  It makes for a pretty red sunset anyhow.

For dinner tonight we had hummus, tzatziki, feta cheese, olives, tomatoes, grilled sweet peppers, avocado, artichoke hearts, pita bread, and sparkling wine.

What we're reading:

I am reading a monograph on Joseph Urban, the art deco theater designer.
--Kam

 I am reading The Canon:  A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science by Natalie Angier.  The content is very interesting and it's a good review of information I vaguely remember from science classes - probability, statistics, the size of the universe, how electricity works  -- and I'm only a hundred pages of so into it, so much more to follow.  The weird thing is that Natalie Angier constantly makes corny jokes and puns, which I find a bit annoying and distracting.

I also read the last in the Rachel Cusk trilogy, Kudos.

Reading and Eating

Today for lunch we had tomato soup, grilled cheese sandwiches (with sharp cheddar and horseradish), curried tempeh salad, and Pink Lady apple slices.  And red wine.  The day started out cool and gray, but by lunchtime the sun had come out and we were able to sit on the balcony.

Here is Kam sitting in the sun outside the bookstore door.

What we're reading.

My new books [aquired from Pistil, of course] include Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, In the Shadow of Vesuvius, about the artistic repercussions of the excavation of Pompeii’s ruins in the 18th century, and a collection of the complete song lyrics of John Dryden. All appealed because of their arcane qualities.  The Dryden is so arcane that although it was published in 1932, the pages had not yet been cut.
---Kam

Today I started another Rachel Cusk novel, Transit.   When I find a writer I like, I usually go on a binge, reading all their books one after the other.  This one I ordered online from a megalister and it turned out to be an ex-library book, but I don't care since I just want to read it.   I started it at the bus stop today, but could only read a few pages before the bus arrived because reading in transit gives me a headache.
--Amy