Acquisitions

I didn't realise monshu even knew Printer's Row was this weekend, so imagine my surprise (and confusion) when he asked me this morning if I'd like to go. "At least it would be an outing," he said. As it was, I already had an outing in mind: a trip to the beach for a couple hours. That would allow me to tackle the laundry I blew off yesterday and won't have a chance to do this coming week, since I'll spending half of it in St Louis.

Well, first I napped. Then he napped. Then the shirts had to dry so they could be hung. Then we missed the express bus by mere moments and I talked him into skipping the next one because an emptier bus was only minutes behind. (Totally empty, as it turned out; who knew that BusTracker tracks busses which aren't even in service?) In the end, we had hardly an hour to browse the fair--which turned out to be plenty of time. (This is the reason I stopped going.)

The one thing that made it worthwhile was that most booksellers were pricing their stock to move. (Powell's prominently excepted. I asked if they could give me a bargain and the cashier said, "Everything here's a bargain." So I smiled politely and left my potential purchases at the counter.) I got an offer I couldn't refuse on Soloway's Division Street Princess : a memoir and half price from U of C Press for Preib's The wagon and other stories from Chicago, a collection of thinly fictionalised incidents from a Far North Side beat cop.

Yes, it's true: I actually bought a book new for myself.

And today wasn't the first time recently either. Remember my little spree last weekend at Seminary Coop? The three titles I've been searching for elsewhere without a lick of success were:

1. SEBALD, W. G. Die Ringe von Saturn.
2. BARBERY, Muriel. L'élégance du hérisson.
3. OKORAFOR, Nnedi. Who fears death.

The last of these was my first choice for a gift scifi book for monshu last month, but no one had it stock and he ended up with Miéville's Embassytown instead, which he only sort of enjoyed. I've been curious about the Barbery for over a year, and it's all I can do right now not to start reading it. (I really don't want to get bogged down in another lengthy French novel so soon after Bovary.) And do I really need to explain the Sebald?

We wanted drinks before we headed out in search of dinner which is how we ended up at the Custom House on the corner of Congress and Federal, the only survivor of that block's days as an upscale restaurant row. I had a tasty house blend of spiced rum, limoncello, and bitters while we nibbled on grilled octopus and artisanal cheese. I'd floated the notion of Oysy, but evidently the GWO was feeling quite spendy because he offered to buy us dinner there.

His scallops with minced rhubarb relish outshone my duck breast (though who knows how close that competition might've been if it had been cooked just shy of medium rare according to my instructions rather than just over medium well) and though I'd ordered the rye cavatelli with walnut pesto to share, he soon abandoned it to me. We declined dessert, but perhaps to apologise for the duck our waitron brought us a pair of "chocolate mouse mignardises" all the same. (Apparently, mignardise is French for "brownie".)

It wasn't that I couldn't've been tempted, of course; it was that the GWO had strawberry shortcake waiting for us at home. The porch is still drying from being retreated, as it has been all week, so we dined on chairs set up on the patio. Very much worth it to have the space all to ourselves for a change.