A lovely day outside, albeit a bit on the chilly side. Bad Cat slipped out when I went out to get the paper. She's a funny one--she walks beside me like a dog, tail straight up in the air. She even sort of pretends to stop when I tell her to. (I don't like her crossing the street with me.) As she went out the door she wenet straight for a couple squirrels who were in the middle of the lawn eating the critter food I put out. Naturally, the squirrels won. I don't think I've ever seen a cat who could catch a healthy squirrel.

Most of today was spent finishing the book about the Chinese discovery of America (1421, and I finally finished it over a late lunch. It was extremely interesting and the author had a lot of evidence to back up his thesis. Some of it I had a bit of a hard time following because I am not a cartographer, but overall it was a very satisfying, thought-provoking read.

Next on the list is a semi-geek book by John McPhee titled Assembling California. It's about the geological history of California. He did a series of geological histories of the U.S at about 40 degrees north latitude. The first one was Basin and Range and that talked about New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and the Delaware Water Gap (the general area where I grew up). I took a geology course back in the mid-70s and McPhee's book made a lot of the stuff come to life.

Little by little I am getting my errant suitcase unpacked. Some of the stuff I can probably leave in there for my planned trip to Romania this summer--things like the tripod folding chair, "digging" slacks, sun hat, and a few other things. It's easier to store it there than find a place in the closet or somewhere that I won't remember when I go to pack again. I did retrieve my underwear and can now go somewhat longer between washer loads. I got the antibiotics out the other day because I needed one of them before seeing the dentist.

Other than that, not much of a day today.