john grisham's neck o' the woods

The early John Grisham novels seemed to always take place in steamy Mississippi and/or across the Tennessee border in Memphis. Grisham novels might have mostly been a '90s thing -- his newer books are kind of lazy and I might be done reading Grisham forever -- but it used to be that readers eagerly anticipated those once-a-year legal-intrigue books.

Anyway, we are on our way to Mississippi for three nights, not because of John Grisham but in spite of him (he never made it sound very appealing), and we wouldn't be going at all except that it's a free airfare, free hotel trip paid by a Mirage-related casino that has been deluded into thinking that we'll gamble enough to make it worth their while. Since we were just in Las Vegas last week, gambling is (mostly) out of our system for a while, so instead we're renting a car while we're down there to drive into the backwoods of Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and maybe Alabama, at the same time hoping not to get killed by rednecks. Wish us luck!
*****
My favorite John Grisham books: The Firm, The Chamber, and A Time To Kill.

beware the ides of march -- 2009

This morning, a Sunday at the Four Inns restaurant in downtown St. Paul, Joan, my barely-limping sister, was giving me a hard time for not updating my blog in two weeks -- "I'm so sick of opening your blog and seeing that Joan Rivers photo!" she said. Jerry and Tom looked on with blank looks, since they never look at my blog and of course had no idea what she was talking about.

So here I am, back at it, mostly to move Joan Rivers out of the spotlight but also to let all my faithful fans know that I'm alive and well. The first two weeks of March are always nuts for me at the office -- major deadlines on the 15th, the Ides of March (although this year since the 15th fell on a Sunday, the deadline extends to the 16th, so I can take a little breather today). I'm hanging in there just fine, except for being nap-deprived.

Non-work happenings of March 2009:

-- Both our houses are still for sale. Lots of lookers, lots of great comments, no buyers.
-- Jerry took a couple of overnight trips during the past two weeks (while i'm slaving away over a hot computer) -- the first to New York City, the second up to northern Minnesota (Lutsen, on the North Shore of Lake Superior) to go skiing. Either trip sounds great to me (as long as I wouldn't have to actually ski) (Of course, right now getting out of town sounds so wonderful that I wouldn't care if it were to Topeka, Kansas!).
-- I've been reading the newest John Grisham novel, The Associate, for at least a couple of weeks. This is a book that should have been done in a weekend, but, wow, is it a pathetic excuse of a Grisham novel! He used to be a better writer than this, or at least less lazy than this. Not recommended.
-- Everybody is talking about the economy and it may be just that it's a sunny day and I'm feeling blindly optimistic, but I'm wondering if maybe in some ways the worst is over. Let's all get over being depressed about it and make some adjustments.
-- Obama is doing ok, but, wow, who would ever want that job? And I'm feeling kinda sorry for Republicans, who are stuck with Rush Limbaugh (their chubby new "face"), Bobby Jindal, and Sarah Palin. Oh, more March 2009 news -- Bristol Palin and her trash boyfriend broke up. What a big surprise -- wonder when they'll show up on The Jerry Springer Show.

Back to normal soon, guys. My version of normal, that is.