During my second visit to Wawa (just like 7-Eleven, only cleaner and they sell Playboy) yesterday, I was sitting outside waiting in the car and noticed the big freezer that contains extra bags of ice. (It's padlocked, so all those ice thieves have to go elsewhere.) There is a notice painted on the freezer stating, "Packaged ice is a food!". Why do the ice people feel compelled to tell me this? Is it to legitimize their business? Or let me know that I have to count the calories and carbs in ice? Or to notify me that I will not have to pay sales tax on the ice I purchase, because foodstuffs are non-taxable in PA?

Books:
Foul Matter, by Martha Grimes. Witty send-up of the publishing industry. I especially enjoyed the names of the various people and firms in the story. She is one of a number of authors whose earlier works have disappointed me after reading one of their more recent books.

(something, can’t remember the title) by James Hynes. I read the more recent novel (the one whose title I cannot recall), not realizing there was a prior novella that set up the story line of a ghost cat and odd beings in ceiling. Once again, the previous work did not hold my interest. The current one was strange and dark – sort of an Office Space on really, really bad drugs.

Here Kitty Kitty, Jardine Libaire. The dark side of Sex and the City. Although I usually back away from stories that involve the level of self-loathing this one entailed, there was a magnetic force that made me finish the book. Even the happy ending was tinged with uncertainty, but even that resonated with me (and I’m usually most unforgiving of endings – they so frequently disappoint).

Practical Demonkeeping, by Christopher Moore. An exception to my “don’t read the older stuff” mantra. I’ve read his books completely out of chronological order, although there are no recurring characters so it really doesn’t matter. The themes of weirdness and amusing depravity are constant, however, from Fluke through The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. The demon in this one has a nasty habit of crunching humans to bits – we all have our list of those acquaintances we’d nominate for his next meal.