Moving

1. I have moved. Moving was terrible, moving was awful and I love all of my friends for helping me. But the worst thing about the move? All of my fish died. Every last one of them. I had a massive tank crash overnight and I woke up to a stinking tank and dead fish. About a third of my corals have survived and are living in B's tank. It is really depressing. I'm trying to look on the bright side - I was going to order a new tank anyway, so I went ahead with that and I am going to start fresh and clean. No more pests (which is what caused the crash in the first place). The apartment is eerily silent - no whir of pumps, no gentle trickle of water. Just ... silence. It has actually made it a little hard to sleep, so much so that B offered to put a powerhead in a bucket of water for me if it would help.

2. We thought we were going to have a whole week to move me, but instead we only had one day. We also scheduled a Halloween party at our new place. Surprisingly, we managed to pull it off with a minimal amount of boxes, and derived great satisfaction from the jealousy of our friends for our real estate success.

3. I saw Margaret Atwood last week and she was great! She signed TWO of my books and I am really looking forward to reading Year of the Flood. It will be the tenth Atwood book that I have read (preceded by (in order): Handmaid's Tale, Cat's Eye, Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, The Penelopiad, Bodily Harm, Lady Oracle and Oryx and Crake.) Thus far, I've felt that she has only made two missteps - Bodily Harm and The Penelopiad. It's funny because I recently finished Lavinia by Ursula K. LeGuin and I was as disappointed in it as I was in The Penelopiad. Maybe feminist authors are stifled by the constraints of a previous story? Either way, Lavinia was dull dull dull. Next up is actually the Butcher Boy for my book club, so I don't have to try and finish this month's book in three days like I did last month.

Okay, I think that's all I have for now.