Bringing home strays

One of the things about work that I missed while on maternity leave was the publisher's book bin. The newspaper gets all sorts of freebies from publishers ... books, CDs, DVDs, and various promotional items that I could probably live without. The book review editor has a sale every week or so. You can find hardback and paperback best sellers for just a few bucks if you're lucky. You can also find books on very obscure topics — which leads me to believe that ANYONE can write a book. Hell, maybe one day I'll get around to expanding my own book proposal into an actual book.

I've been back at work now for two weeks and I've already brought home four, no, wait, five books. Among my favorite finds over the years:

• The Backyarrd Lumberjack: The Ultimate Guide to Felling, Bucking, Splitting and Stacking
  An excerpt: This book is intended for anyone who has the regional resources, the physical wherewithal, and most important, the desire to take down trees. Bingo. That would be my husband. I'm sure I'll regret bringing this one home.


• The Garage Sale Decorator's Bible: How to Find Treasures, Fix Them & Furnish Your Home
  Oh dear, this one is for me. I have a habit of adopting furniture that has been abandoned by the side of the road or pawned off by relatives, friends or even complete strangers. Now I have a book to help me justify these adoptions.


• Hypochondria Can Kill You
  This book is a silly little compendium of the many obscure potential killers that lurk in modern society from telephone stroke (holding the receiver too tightly to one’s head) to the most common housework-related fatalities among men. This supports my contention that drug companies are creating ills for every pill.


• Schlepping through the Alps
  From a review of the book: Sam Apple has written a brilliantly comic and very dark pastorale about shepherds, Nazis, and Jews, modern-day Austria, love and fidelity ...
  This book has the most obscure mix of (true life) characters and issues that I've ever encountered in a book.

One of the many advantages of nursing is that I get to sit and read books while he eats.

And, of course, here's a recent photo of the kid: