Saturday in Simi Valley, California. B is riding in a randonneuring event -- 300K in a day. I plan to go to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library which is about 2 miles from here. Air Force One is at the Library. It is a pretty day with the mist just lifting.

I brought two books with me. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and Brava, Valentine. Having read TGLAPPS once already, it is going through the "second read" which will really prove its worth. But I'm not worried. It is a great book and the second read is already better than the first. Some of my favorite lines so far: "reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad ones" "we clung to our books and our friends; they reminded us that we had another part to us. Elizabeth used to say a poem. I don't remember all of it, but it began 'is it so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun, to have lived light in the spring, to have loved, to have thought, to have done, to have advanced true friends' " The poem is by Matthew Arnold from Empodecies of Etna written in 1852. I haven't started BV yet, but am always glad to read Adriana Trigiani; she is one of my favorite authors. She and Barbara Kingsolver are two contemporary authors who are really good with words.

In my reading so far, the book I would want to be (see Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury) is The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford. When we got our bull terrier, Missy, it was imperative that I read the book. As I read, our Missy displayed so many of the same traits as Bodger. She was my first dog and I miss her sweet spirit and large head!

The picture isn't our Missy, but it looks a lot like her. I don't have one available on the computer at this time; when I get one, I will make the change.

So I would be this book for two reasons -- in memory of our sweet Mistletoe and because the book is simply wonderful. The part that sealed the deal for me was when Bodger allows Tao to eat first from the bowl of stew, and the Ojibways know the animals are the special. "That night they became immortal, had they known or cared, for the ancient woman had recognized the old dog at once by his color and companion; he was the White Dog of the Ojibways, the virtuous White of of Omen, whose appearance heralds either disaster or good fortune. The Spirits had sent him, hungry and wounded, to test tribal hospitality; and for benevolent proof to the skeptical, they had chosen a cat as his companion--for what mortal dog would suffer a cat to rob him of his meal? He had been made welcome, fed and succored; the omen would prove fortunate."

Those lines still bring tears to my eyes.