My list of books in progress hasn’t significantly changed since last week, so I’m skipping the Page 123 meme this Friday. No news isn’t necessarily good news…it’s just no news.
But since I’m doing Book Binge during May (have you signed up yet? MaryP is posting the participant list today, so hurry on over!), I’ve got some incentive to make some more reading progress in the next few weeks, so I expect to visit a new Page 123 next Friday.
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Mayday! May 1, 2008
Quick! It’s an emergency! You just got an urgent call about a family emergency and had to rush to the airport with barely time to grab your wallet and your passport. But now, you’re stuck at the airport with nothing to read. What do you do??
And, no, you did NOT have time to grab your bookbag, or the book next to your bed. You were . . . grocery shopping when you got the call and have nothing with you but your wallet and your passport (which you fortuitously brought with you in case they asked for ID in the ethnic food aisle). This is hypothetical, remember….
Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don’t have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!
I bought a larger purse recently, and the primary motivation for it was so that I’d have more space to carry a book with me all the time. Since I got it, I actually have had a book with me at the grocery store a few times – and at the coffee shop, and at a fast-food restaurant with my husband and kids, and at a Little League game, and even at the movies (although I didn’t actually take out the book while I was there). Suffice it to say that I’m doing my best to make sure I don’t get caught in a situation with nothing to read.
But if I arrive at the airport without a book to read, I can appreciate that I’m in one of the few places where businesses operate almost around the clock. Unless it’s 3:30 in the morning or something – in which case the call would have been more likely to get me out of bed than out of the grocery store – the airport probably has at least one store open where I can pick up a magazine or two, or even a mass-market paperback of a type I don’t usually read.
However, in a situation like this, I’m inclined to agree with some of the other BTT posts I’ve read this week; I would probably be too preoccupied or worried about the emergency to be able to concentrate on reading very much. Even so, I’d still pick up some reading material, just to keep my eyes and hands busy. Magazines would be preferable to a book, even though I don’t really get them very often, because I could flip through them for short diversions but not have to think too much about it.
If I were in this situation, though, there would be something I’d want to have with me even more than a book, though (believe it or not) – someone to keep me company and help me try to stay calm, namely my husband. (He’d better not be the one having the emergency, then!)
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Friday Fill-In #70
1. Two of my favorite ingredients in a drink are lemonade and iced tea (here in SoCal, it’s sometimes called an “Arnold Palmer”)!
2. My husband often amazes me (usually in a good way!)
3. You can keep doing that forever, the dog is going to eat whatever you drop on the floor.
4. Follow the directions on the box, mix it all together and voila! You have chocolate cake (well, you will when you take it out of the oven!).
5. If I had a yard with a garden, I would love to grow roses.
6. Taking a shower is best au naturel.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to the end of the work week, tomorrow my plans include not having very many plans and Sunday, I want to do some reading, and some writing!
I would prefer my husband be with me too in an emergency like that. Of course, that would mean having to go home and make arrangements for the animals . . .
Lemonade and iced tea . . . An interesting combination. If the tea was decaffeinated, I might be willing to give it a try!
I see we both were thinking of your dogs in the case of #3. 🙂
I hope you have a good weekend, Florinda!
Literary Feline – Oh yes, the pets! How could I forget about Gypsy?
Especially considering that she’s eating all the crumbs off the floor :-).
Enjoy your weekend, Wendy! (I hope to mail that book out to you tomorrow, by the way…)
I remember when I was a waiter and someone ordered an Arnold Palmer. I had no clue what she was talking about. But, she was nice and explained it to me. I think they sell them pre-made in a can now.
For #3 I’d say the dog is never going to stay off the furniture. Quincy has learned how to get up, and our old dog would sleep on the couch until he heard the key in the door.
I had no idea about “arnold palmer”!! and i live in southern california! you learn something new every day!
Mike – I’ve seen them in cartons in the refrigerator section at the supermarket too. Lemonade iced tea seems to have gotten popular in the last few years. I make it for myself at self-serve drink stations in restaurants.
My dog doesn’t stay off furniture either. Gypsy thinks it’s her couch and she lets us use it. And Tall Paul swears that the next dog will not be allowed on the bed – ever.
Ratmammy – I’m not sure it’s specifically a SoCal thing, but I never heard a lemonade iced tea called an “Arnold Palmer” until I moved out here. I guess Mike’s heard it in Chicago, though…but maybe that customer was from California. 🙂
The bookstore where I work sells an Arizona Iced Tea product that is just that – lemonade and iced tea, and it has Arnold Palmer’s picture on it. That’s often my afternoon-pick-me-up drink of choice!
Pam – Then I guess it goes by that name in Baltimore too :-)!
I just think it’s a very refreshing combination – not as sweet as regular lemonade, plus that little touch of “pick-me-up” caffeine (although I’ve also made it with decaf green iced tea).
Ha ha, you have me picturing someone taking a shower with clothes on.
How do these Friday things work when it doesn’t apply to you? For example, I have a yard but no dog. Do people just skip those questions?
Dewey – That was kind of the idea re: #6 :-).
I have a dog but no yard. If a question really doesn’t apply to me, I just treat it as a creative-writing prompt and make something up! I think some other people do the same thing. One reason I hesitated for awhile before I started doing Friday Fill-ins was that I though I had to have a “real” answer for every question, but having decided that I probably don’t, it’s more fun.
Florinda, you’re absolutely correct! I made up an answer for #2 this week…we really don’t have vampires in the neighborhood, that I’m aware of, anyway 🙂 and if we did…would they really be cavorting?
Thanks for playing! The comments you received and your replies to them were entertaining as well. Sorry I’m so late visiting, I had a rough week last week.
Janet – Glad you finally got the chance to stop by. And having read other people’s Fill-ins for awhile before I started playing, I was pretty sure that people just made things up and had fun with some of their answers – but thanks for confirming that :-)!