I knew about the book,and I know you e-mailed or posted something about the law practice but I can't remember what that was.

Marion

I'm a bit busier than I've been in quite some time. I've become of counsel to Litchfield Cavo, which is the successor to the litigation/insurance coverage wing of Chicago law firm I left in 1993 to go in-house with Mutual of Omaha. I always meant to go back to that firm; I just thought I'd be returning to Chicago! I never meant to wind up in California telecommuting to the Pasadena office of the same firm! It's kinda cool.

The other part-time job is a good deal more part-time, and involves writing four chapters of a legal handbook. The due date is not very far off. It's fortunate that the week after it's done we're leaving for a four-day vacation at Glendeven in Mendocino.

I'm totally crashing that vacation. It looks very, very nice.

We've been going for ten years or so now, Chad, through a change in ownership and everything. This is our traditional spring "chill-out" vacation. It's a long drive from here, but we usually bring a book that's good for reading aloud, and Fred reads to me while we drive.

We stop in Santa Rosa for lunch. There's a bookstore there we enjoy -- The Treehouse -- so we browse the used books before having lunch at the same deli every year.

The theme for us at Glendeven is Eat-Read-Sleep, and we do plenty of all three, combined with walking along the cliffs and breathing the ocean air, enjoying the fireplace in the room, and shopping just a bit downtown (which for us mostly means looking, though we've picked up a nice piece of inexpensive jewelry for me now and then). It's a really nice way for Fred to catch his breath between quarters, and this time it'll serve that purpose for me as well.

If you mean Treehorn, it's an awesome bookstore. If you mean "Treehouse" you have to tell me where it is so I can check it out!

Marion

That's what I get for not looking at the bookmark that graces my study door. (I have a good 50 bookmarks from bookstores on that door; many of the bookstores no longer exist, including Stacey's in San Francisco, Victor Hugo in Boston, Cody's in Berkeley (for which I still mourn) and Wessex in Menlo Park (ditto). It is, in fact, an awesome bookstore.

There's a used bookstore in Mendocino, too. I can't remember its name, but we go in there every year. I don't like the place at all, finding it claustrophobic and not very interesting in the categories I enjoy shopping, but Fred always seems to find the one bit of gold amid the dross.

The used bookstore I know of in Mendocino is called "Moore's" I think--it's in a house. It has never been open when I've been there. I gave always conjured up dark fantasy plots when I've walked by it (none of the terribly original).

Marion

Maybe we should collaborate on a horror novel about a haunted bookstore on the California coast.

Now *there's* an idea!

Marion