I expected to write here quite a bit recently since it's winter break, but as it turns out, I have spent time doing other things instead, and now spring semester looms (my classes start January 23).

Yesterday little Rosie had four warts removed & her teeth cleaned. I was nervous, since she's old, and she had to fast just in case she needed to be knocked out, as one tooth may have needed to be pulled. But as it turned out, she didn't lose any teeth and everything was done with a local (for the warts) and a sedative. She was an angel! She was groggy and wobbly afterwards, but her teeth look like a young dog's! Today she is 100%.

This was last night.

I've been reading Empty Mansions. There are two authors and the writing style is a little choppy, but overall it's an interesting read. It's clear the writers developed deep admiration for the father of the main character, a self-made fabulously wealthy businessman who eventually became a senator. At one point they "diss" Mark Twain because he wrote a 1907 essay that blasted the senator. It was very clear they were almost personally offended by the criticism. I felt the same about what they wrote!

I didn't recall reading the 1907 essay, so I started looking for it. It appears in a DeVoto edited book, published in 1940. I don't own it (hard to believe), and it's not available in an ebook (I am never buying paper again). I was thinking it might be in the new autobiography, but I didn't remember it from the first volume. However, while searching I discovered the second volume was published in October 2013! How did I not know this? 

So I bought it...and put Empty Mansions aside. No surprise there!