It was the 80s, and they all seemed extremely familiar with Dallas.... But point taken.

I remember when traveling to Ireland as a student, politely addressing a woman at a hostel as "ma'am" and having my head ripped off for my trouble. At the time I was humiliated but in retrospect surprised that someone would choose to take such offense at a young foreigner striving to be polite by using a term pretty well-known, even over the ocean, as a courtesy in the mouth of Southern and Western Americans.

I'm halfway through Walden, which has been on my Shame List for years. I'm too gregarious to enter fully into Thoreau's sentiments here; but that last sentence reminds me of a quotation that is a cornerstone of our homeschooling adventure: "The life of the mind is essentially solitary." Also determined to finish The Encyclical Letters of Leo XIII. Almost up to the famous Rerum Novarum.

Gas is back in Central Austin, too. And the heat has broken.

Agreed. And yet, for whatever reason, there's now a gas shortage; and filling my tank four days ago like the rest of the panicky lemmings ended up being necessary, while admittedly contributing to the problem. The Tragedy of the Commons.

Three days later, still no gas at our neighborhood station. Some stations in Austin are getting deliveries and immediately selling out. Someone on the radio said we were at "condition red," which I think means "no gasoline."

Erin, may you enjoy peace of mind and health of body.

Penguin, thanks for the extra detail. The CIA stuff is very intriguing. So many writers seem to have been involved in intelligence work. I was just learning shocking things about Arthur "Swallows and Amazons" Ransome.

If you donate them to St Vincent de Paul - there is certainly one in your area - they will offer them for sale. SVDP will have a good idea what they're worth, and they have many Catholic customers so the items would move along nicely. The proceeds would go to help many people in need.

Penguin, I'd be interested in hearing more about the Hemingway talk. I just recently re-read A Farewell To Arms and am in a bit of a Hemingway place right now. (Though I strained myself rolling my eyes at the introduction, which explained how you have to know his manly biography to understand his "masculine prose style." I hope there wasn't much of that in the discussion.)

I posted on last week's thread about finishing Stevie Smith's Novel On Yellow Paper and Larry McMurtry's Horseman, Pass By, and I just finished (in time for family movie night tonight) Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man. Not sure what to read next. I have some nonfiction waiting for me to return to it.

I caved when I saw we only had a quarter tank, and the run on gas was just worsening. Our little neighborhood gas station that no one knows about had long lines this morning as other stations ran out. I filled the tank before the lunch crowd showed up. Tonight they and the other nearby stations are out. But I felt virtuous mowing the lawn with the electric mower, at least.

Yes, I assumed anywhere charging quadruple prices will be investigated: though it may be Texas price-gouging laws only kick in where a state of emergency has been declared. But anyway our mild price increase here wouldn't run afoul of those, Yes, we are getting a similar effect from our bicycles.

All's well in Central Texas, though we have an artificial panic-induced gas shortage now. And there are swarms of mosquitoes. But those are small nuisances compared to what East Texas got.

Angela - I hope today went better. It would almost have to, right? Amy - prayers for dd; chest pains are alarming. I hope they turn out to be completely innocuous. Thanks for asking about Wee Girl. We had the sense to make her 10th birthday present a pair of guinea pigs, which are comforting to hold in your lap when you're missing your big sister. We won't really be able to visit, but she'll be home for Christmas. I finished two books this week: Stevie Smith's Novel on Yellow Paper (actually printed on yellow paper), and Larry McMurtry's Horseman, Pass By (made into the great Texas movie Hud). We all remember Stevie Smith and "Not Waving But Drowning" from high school, right? This is her one novel, which she wrote when she first tried to get her poems published in 1935, and the publisher told her to "go away and write a novel." So she did. It's hard to say what it's about; mostly about the narrator's failed love affair, with lots of fabulous musings on love, art, sex, literature, theater, and politics. On the media-driven desperation of young women to get married: This novel made me happy. But I much like Smith's poetry, and this is more like a novel-length Smith poem than a proper novel.

Local news this evening said there were places in Dallas charging $6-$8 per gallon. Prices have only gone up 6% in Austin but the lines at stations are forming. Fortunately nearly everything is in biking distance for us, including dh's job, and what isn't is in city bus range. So we're happy to wait it out with what we have left in our tank.

Completely agree. (Once at HP I forgot my card, and the guy asked if there was anything at all I could show and he'd give me the discount anyway. I pointed out I was accompanied by a school-age child on a school day, was buying a book in Latin, and was wearing an ankle-length denim skirt. The skirt convinced him.)

Half Price Books gives 10% off everything. Here they stopped requiring proof of homeschooling because we don't have any, and give you the card on assertion that you homeschool.

This morning, lots of large military helicopters - one assumes National Guard - flying over Austin, headed east.

They're likely to have more; the hurricane is going southeast again, and may move back into the Gulf, pick up, and go north onto Houston again. It was very prescient of me to read Conrad's Typhoon last week.

Math. <shudder> Not as much as the Houstonians are hoping that.

Howdy all. Life has been super-busy and I haven't read threads for the last couple of weeks. Great Girl has moved out and her sisters, mourning and weeping, have divvied up her remaining stuff and re-done their newly separate rooms. Actually Wee Girl is taking it pretty hard. Books finished in the meantime: Marguerite Yourcenar, Hadrian's Memoirs Joseph Conrad, The Nigger of the "Narcissus" Joseph Conrad, Typhoon and Other Stories Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms Currently reading Stevie Smith, Novel On Yellow Paper. And assorted nonfiction books which are slower going. Sure is raining an awful lot, lately.

Jane, I will try to lay hands on the first one. Middle Girl's best friend is being raised in a Buddhist/Confucian home, so I think she'll be very interested in that aspect. ETA: Yes, she says she is.

This week I'm reading Hadrian's Memoirs, a 1951 novel by Marguerite Yourcenar, the first woman admitted to the French Academy. It gets me my letter Y author, plus it has an awesome Edward Gorey-illustrated cover. The back cover describes it as "one of the major works of our time, an unclassifiable and unique masterpiece." Which is to say, it seems to have no plot as such: it's the life of the Emperor Hadrian, as told by him in a letter to young Marcus Aurelius, with lots of philosophical and psychological meditation. Not to say I'm not enjoying it, but one shouldn't leap into this book expecting the wrong thing. Find myself marvelling at how very French the ancient Romans seem to be. (Though I'm sure a European watching HBO's "Rome" would remark how very American they seem.) She's read through Fr Brown and Sherlock Holmes, and didn't care for Agatha Christie. I haven't heard of Judge Dee.

The library discard store was good to me today, too. I picked up Stevie Smith's novel - everyone remembers Smith, right? "Not waving but drowning"? - Novel on Yellow Paper, which is indeed printed on bright yellow paper. I've heard of it but never seen it before, and it was brand new. Also poet Randall Jarrell's translation of Goethe's Faust, Part One. Unlike Robin I am a selfish wretch and keeping both of these.