Thank god they’re okay. When it comes down to it, that’s what really matters.

When I was 16 I got a phone call one early Sunday morning telling me that two of my best friends were dead. I can feel an echo of that reaction pounding in my chest, that sense that in just a moment, something unforeseen can change… everything.

Here’s the problem: since there’s no way we could fit that stuff in our car, we ordered it over the internet and arranged to have it delivered. It arrived last night, and about half of it is going to have to go back.

Three bookcases were totally loose. As in, the shelves and hardware were stacked freely in the truck. The delivery folks even looked shocked when they saw that. One of the pieces of backing is cracked through; several shelves are splintered, crunched, or broken, even just at first glance; and we have no idea whether anything’s missing.

Several other boxes had been so thoroughly broken open that things got damaged or, once again, we have no way of knowing if anything’s missing—that’s a fourth bookcase and BOTH dressers. In fact, the only things we’re going to be able to hold onto are one full-sized bookcase, one narrow bookcase, and the dining room set. Truthfully a couple of those boxes were damaged, too, but the damage was little enough that we could see the items themselves weren’t damaged or missing anything.

Well, it’ll be an interesting test of IKEA’s customer service to see if we end up with what we ordered, and how difficult the process is.

In the interests of not simply griping on this rainy Friday morning, here are two review links and two cute cat pics. First, reviews of Crichton’s classic The Andromeda Strain and Pamela Clare’s new and fantastic Unlawful Contact. Finally, cuddly cat photos. Well okay, the first one isn’t so cuddly; if you tried, you’d probably get a few playful scratches:

Feeling somewhat inspired by the superfood cookbook, I tried adding several spoonfuls of pureed cooked pumpkin to my morning meusli, along with a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon and some agave nectar. Nothing like feeling almost as though you’ve had pumpkin pie for breakfast, knowing that you’ve just tricked yourself into adding a healthy vegetable to another meal. All healthy things should be so easy.

Speaking of healthy, this is so cool: Wellternatives is a frobby you can access to help you get nutrition info about dishes at restaurants, and healthier menu suggestions as alternatives. I played with it a bit and it seems genuinely useful.

And finally, not at all apropos of healthy things, here are some new reviews for you: while I wasn’t at all fond of Savannah Russe’s Under Darkness, I had a lot of fun with Jasmine Haynes’s Show and Tell!

I’m setting the date for the 48 Hour Book Challenge — that special contest that allows you to read guilt-free for as long as you can stand it! I’m avoiding ALA and Father’s Day weekends, plus I like having the Challenge on my birthday. So the chosen weekend is — ready for it? — June 6–8, 2008.

…

Read and blog for any 48-hour period within the Friday-to-Monday-morning window. …

The books should be about fifth-grade level and up. Adult books are fine …

It’s your call as to how much you want to put into it. …

The length of the reviews are not an issue. …

For promotion/solidarity purposes, let your readers know when you are starting the challenge with a specific entry on that day. Write your final summary on Monday, and for one day, we’ll all be on the same page, so to speak. …

Your final summary needs to clearly include the number of books read, the approximate hours you spent reading/reviewing, and any other comments you want to make on the experience. It needs to be posted no later than noon on Monday, June 9th.

You’ll need to sign up in the comments section of the above-linked post.

I’m definitely hoping to play along, although I’ve no idea how much of that weekend I’ll be available for. I also have at least one friend who’ll be doing it as well and who, since he doesn’t have his own blog, will be joining in with a user account on this one. I’ve created a ‘guest posts’ category and we’ll come up with some way to make it obvious who’s posting at the time.

Speaking of books, today’s reviews are: Patricia Cornwell’s Predator and Janice Maynard’s upcoming By Appointment Only. I highly recommend the former!

Oh yeah… Iron Man was great! Very fun, although the odds of an MIT grad forgetting his social security number so quickly after spending his entire time there using it nearly every day as his ID number for EVERYTHING is a little small. (Yes, you can roll your eyes now.)

Anyway, at least I did get some gardening done, and I’ll post a slideshow of the latest pics at the bottom. I’m also going to see Ironman tonight—usually I try to avoid opening weekend, but it’s one of those ‘meet up with a bunch of friends’ things. It’s also at 11 pm, which is rather late for me. And tomorrow there’s a friend’s retirement picnic…

But I’m babbling, so I’ll just post those pics and go. Have a great weekend!

First, the reviews. There’s yummy stuff in The Superfood Cookbook—how can you resist a combination of delicious, easy, quick, and nutritious??

I’ve also posted reviews of Mathias Freese’s enchanting Down to a Sunless Sea and Robert Cutler’s The Secret Scroll. In case you ever wondered whether all those high-scoring reviews indicated that I was too easy on review copies, worry no more—I don’t pan books very often, but that latter one made me want to tear my hair out.

Next, two more T-shirt designs. There’s a bit of relationship humor called going unsteady and a shirt for the Gnomish Air Force:

If I remember what I was going to say, I’ll just post again later!

By the way, if someone in your family has celiac disease, strongly consider getting tested. If there’s a family history, you’re at greater risk for having it yourself, and you really don’t want to let it go undetected. I expect to find out for myself whether I have it when my biopsy results come back in about a week.

I expect to post a goodly handful of reviews this week, possibly including a second one later today. I’m done cooking with (and almost done reading) the ’superfood cookbook,’ and I’m done with Ronald Cutler’s The Secret Scroll. I’m also in the middle of cooking with an agave nectar baking book. Speaking of which, here’s a photo of some of the interesting ingredients we’ve been cooking with of late:

There’s a bottle of dark agave nectar, and some of the best pasta I’ve ever had (let alone the best whole-grain or gluten-free pasta). You can sort of see a tin of smoked paprika toward the back left; one of the authors of the gluten-free eating book recommended it, so when I saw it I couldn’t help picking it up. The baggie toward the back right is filled with Amaranth seeds, which are quite yummy in baked goods (I like to add a tablespoon to pancakes). As for the big bottle supporting the empty pasta bag… well, that one is homemade vanilla extract! YUM!

Today’s review is of Jill O’Connor’s Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey. Yes, that’s a dessert cookbook, and a damn fine one too! I have two more semi-cookbooks I expect to review over the next couple of days, and I’m halfway through a novel (Ronald Cutler’s The Secret Scroll).

For today’s ubiquitous slideshow (yeah, still going crazy with the camera), it’s three pieces of new furniture we got:

Wednesday was the upper endoscopy. Apart from a killer headache that I couldn’t take anything for (no food, water, etc. for 6 hours before the procedure) it was quick and easy (not to mention I was blessedly unconscious for it). No ulcers; it looks like I just had acid reflux masquerading as gallbladder trouble, etc. A month on an acid-reducing proton-pump inhibitor med plus an improved diet has definitely helped, so, looks like I’ll be taking an acid-reducer for a while. Meanwhile they’re doing biopsies just to make sure there’s no h pylori infection or celiac disease (since the latter runs in the family and the former is often a cause of acid & ulcer problems).

Then I spent yesterday gardening, since my tomato seedlings arrived Tuesday. I planted nine seedlings (three each of three varieties), and six medusa pepper plants that I bought at the last minute (a decorative but edible sweet pepper with a bush growth habit). Some nifty new furniture that we got also arrived yesterday.

Here are a few gardening photos:

The red thing around the tomato seedling reflects red light at the plant, which is supposed to lead to a larger harvest. It acts as a mulch so you don’t have to weed around the tender roots. And if you pour water into the tray, it directs it down toward the roots of the plant, so they grow strong and deep instead of shallow.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ve gone crazy with the camera.

Edited to add: *groan* Apparently the former owner of the house buried landscaping fabric all around the roses I’m trying to dig up. It’s under a couple inches of soil, and it’s thick enough to be a real impediment to digging things up without being thick enough to stop some tough things from growing up through it. I spent a while loosening up soil around the plants, but I’m going to have to appeal to that husband of mine to do some digging.