Also tragically (after the chocolates), Kitty's new name is Benedict Kitty. CLH and I were watching the Lana Turner "Postman Always Rings Twice" and I was rubbing her scalp when Kitty deigned to join us and lay down along my leg, not CLH's. In the morning, when I picked her up to say goodbye and made kissy noises, she gave me little kitty kisses back even long enough for photographic proof. Then CLH tried the same thing but Kitty would have none of it. It must be that cats are evil, as everyone knows, because otherwise, since CLH is the good daughter and I the bad, Kitty would like CLH better.
The Chicago leg was only normal, but when I emerged I saw a flight to Denver at the next gate in 15 minutes, rather than in the next concourse in 90 minutes, as I had scheduled. I scored an exit window on the earlier and called RDC to tell him and finally finished Goldbug Variations, damn. We arrived in Denver almost 30 minutes earlier than expected, so RDC hadn't left the house yet. I trained from B to A concourse, because you have to, and walked from A to the terminal, because I had time.
RDC and I arrived at the arrivals area at just about the same time, and I carefully held in my belly to give the full effect of the Perfect Skirt and the Okay, Okay, I Admit That I Have Breasts Shirt as he drove up. I expected to do the hug-kiss thing once I got in the front seat, but no, he got out and came around to the back. This was not because he was bowled over by the sight of me but so that I could get the full effect of him.
He grew a Van Dyke in the ten days of my absence.
My impression is that Richard Powers wouldn't've been able to write this without Gödel, Escher, Bach, except his book would have been Watson-Crick, Poe, Bach. I wish I understood anything about music theory. There wasn't much Poe, but the pun of the title worked well with genetic decryption. Biological imperative, a bit of art history, programming, and bibliaphilic trivia.