may to-do list

House:

Map electric system in basement

Mount ventilation hood

(Prematurely but delightedly) unpack a lot of kitchen stuff

Finish painting the pantries, damn it

Paint pantry doors

Vent hood through attic and out roof

Wire hood

Install under-cabinet lighting

Prime kitchen trim

Paint kitchen trim

Prime kitchen walls

Paint kitchen walls

Receive and install new range

Research and select new refrigerator

Research tiles for backsplash

Tile north wall

Tile west and other walls

Remain sane during all this

Paint porch swing

Garden

Get lots of vegetable pulp and coffee grounds

Transplant some vinca to north easement

Lay landscaping cloth behind and around new bed against weeds

Pressure-clean south fence

Stain south fence

Pressure-clean north fence

Stain north fence

Pressure-clean other fence

Stain other fence

Pressure-clean patio furniture

Oil patio furniture

Receive and move into garden bed two cubic yards of planter's mix (10 May)

Fill pots on porch and patio

Begin to fill in slope with any remaining dirt

Build better trough for bishop's weed

Plant tomatoes, cucumbers, sunflowers, flax, bachelor's button, marjoram, basil, pumpkins

Errands

Cardboard and new, different phone books to recycling

Plastic bags to recycling

Home Depot: trellis for raspberries, tomato cages, seeds for sunflower substitutes, granite sealer, stainless steel polish, clear rubber dots to place strategically against dings, round pavers for path

Optometrist: 12 May

Costco: Contacts

Stuff to look for

Curtain for watercloset (also W.C. sign) (since January 2004)

Rugs for kitchen floors

Dividers for utensil drawer

White unscented tapers for candelabra (for a long time)

New glass "art" for front door (since May 2000)

Kinwork and Lisaism

PK's housewarming 8 May

Haitch and McCarthy 14 May

RKC and her friend 19 May

City Park Festival 22 May

MW's retirement party 28 May

Reading:

Richard Ellman, Ulysses on the Liffey

Don Gifford, Annotated Ulysses

Stuart Gilbert, James Joyce's Ulysses

Another chunk of Ulysses

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (audio)

In the queue, after Ulysses:

Robertson Davies, The Lyre of Orpheus

Gregory Maguire, Mirror, Mirror

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

Exercise

At least a little bit of calisthenics at home? Please?

Bike to work 20 times or 150 miles

08:08

gilligan's wake

This was the coolest read in a long time. Full of intra- and interbook references. It nearly opens with Catcher in the Rye's first line; not much later it plays with The Great Gatsby's, that book's first of a zillion appearances. There's Tender Is the Night, Moby-Dick, Tale of Two Cities, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and Lord of the Flies; and Brigadoon and Bluebeard. JFK and the Rat Pack are only the most prominent of the dozens of 20th century personalities who feature or cameo.

I didn't get some few of the references--a dog wonders why the bone it found in the surf disappears in its mouth? and I haven't read Magic Mountain and while the book is probably perfectly comprehensible to someone who knows only the theme song, I think a reader's enjoyment would increase with her familiarity with the referenced books, Alger Hiss, Ed Wood....I haven't looked up a few of the names yet, and I will be amused to find out how many have no cultural referent but are just red herrings Tom Carson planted to make his readers think they'd missed something.

Did I mention The Ground Beneath Her Feet yet? One of the things I loved about it was in its world, some of our fictional authors, such as Nathan Zuckerman, are actual. Gilligan's Wake had the same feel, and I adored it.