Today's acquisitions: one (1) new toilet, Eljer "Savoy" model, which name cracks me up--and the other model was "Patriot," which also cracked me up, one (1) toilet seat, one (1) wax seal, one (1) extra wax seal, and one (1) package of four (4) toilet shims; two (2) eight-foot lengths of pre-made molding for the watercloset; four (4) bulbs for the lamp in the den, 40 and 60 watts; several (x) painty appliances; and two (2) crown molding ledges that we hung, with frustration at the stupid mounting system but no snapping or swearing, in the dining room.
I asked Haitch once if the dining table was too big for the dining room. She hedged that it was the right size for a dining table. It seats six without its leaves, and there is no space in the room for a handy bar or sideboard. One corner has a six-foot corn plant, another presently has a fern (exiled from the sunroom for the interminable building of the breakfast nook), the third a door, and the fourth has the buddy cage on the buddy stand on the buddy rug.
So now we have two ledges. They don't hold anything really useful, like glasses and decanters, but they could as occasion demanded. Right now they hold pretties: a platter we were given for Yule, a plate RDC brought me from Ireland, the champagne glasses we had at our wedding, the bread plate I made at Color Me Mine, another plate friends brought us from Italy, and a copper plate with a Pacific Northwest-style orca hammered into it.
We weren't in the mood to deal with the toilet, which means we have to deal with it one of the next four evenings or have a houseguest with just the one.
I liked this one a lot more than Miss Wyoming, whose plot I can scarcely recall. Of course, this one's plot is a little too close to home to be either original or forgettable. But it's my favorite Douglas Coupland in a while.
Like The Lady and the Unicorn, this book is told in more than one first-person point-of-view; unlike that book, its four voices are distinct. Maybe because there are four voices and four sections (that makes it sound like Sound and the Fury--it's not) instead of the more frequent jumps Chevalier makes. There is no reason for me to link Coupland and Chevalier except that I read both of them in the past month.
And he finally set a book in Canada instead of his favorite target to the south. I appreciate that.