Happy Effin' V.D.

Well, happy effin' Valentine's Day.

Did I ever tell you that I have a cousin named Valentine? I haven't seen him in decades, since I was a kid, so I don't even know if he's still around. I assume yes. Anyway, his name is Valentine. In Spanish it's pronounced more like Valen-theen, so he always went by Tine ("Theen"). His wife (then, by now, who knows) was named Loretta.  When they first met (I think it was in a bar, but I may be misremembering the story) he didn't want to tell her his real name so he told her his name was Albert. Even after he told her the truth, she stuck with calling him Albert. I always thought that was hilarious. I mean who would pick Albert as a fake name, even on the fly?

Even better, Valentine's mother was my godmother, so I think she had a hand in naming me. Not that I'd've quibbled about my name, even given the chance, but would you trust that woman with the job of naming anyone else after seeing her previous work?

Anyway: How's the week going?

I've been sick this week with some kind of cold or flu maybe? Sick enough to violently sneeze my way into some sore ribs, sore enough that it was both a pleasure and a pain to find six (incomplete) seasons of Absolutely Fabulous available to stream on Amazon Prime. I watched a dozen episodes while laying in bed, dosed up on ibuprofen to keep the fever down and my inner ears (!) from hurting, trying not to laugh, a kind of torture. I was sick enough that even the cats wouldn't come near me.

Though ill, I made it through A Daughter's Tale, the memoirs of Winston Churchill's youngest daughter Mary Soames. It was tedious going, but I was determined to finish it as it's all I've read this week. (Blazed through seven books last week though, so I'm still ahead of the game.) I probably would've enjoyed it more if I cared at all for history or were any kind of Anglophile. Alas, I am neither so it was slow going. The last six percent of the book (which I know because I have one of those old school kindles that marks your progress via percents not pages) is pictures though, a welcome surprise. (Winston Churchill had some beautiful children, let me tell you.)

(All the photos by the way, are of work that is for the most part gone out of my life, sold or given away.  The last bowl I kept as it was intended to be part of a larger set for myself and Dave that I never got around to finishing for some reason. Maybe time to get on that?)