It was a good weekend in most respects. I got through all the questions on my teaching assistant app, now I just need to revise my answers. I went to the Cobb County library sale and got three bags of books. Not small bags, mind you, but big bags. Highlights include a Bobby Kennedy biography, I Capture the Castle, The Long, Dark Teatime of the Soul, a Chinese cookbook, and the latest Mallory (I didn't know it existed). It was a good time to pick up books I counted on my parents for. In particular, I was pleased to find a tawdry romance novel that was always a personal favorite of my mom's collection.

Lindsay's Musings on The Rich Are Different by Susan Howatch

Ok, so basically Howatch scores points early by transitioning the classic romantic tale of Caesar/Cleopatra and Antony/Cleopatra to 1920's New York and London. Our Cleopatra, Dinah Slade, builds a cosmetics empire, beds two bankers, and burns her manor house down. Believe me when I say it is awesome! So trashy intellectual. The title eludes to an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, "The Rich Boy." "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me." Throughout the book she references classic poetry, tons of Catullus in the original latin. There're also doses of Tennyson for measure.

Howatch loves continuity as few authors do, and it's the details of history she seeks to parallel that are most interesting. At one point in the novel we learn about Paul's (Caesar) rise to power at his bank, during which he takes out a Sulla type figure and of course a Pompey too. When Dinah visits the bank, their portraits aren't on the walls! Just like Caesar had their statues and monuments removed during his regime! Isn't that great?

Anyway, I sat in bed with The Rich Are Different after I got off babysitting on Saturday night with Penny curled at my side, a cup of hot cocoa on my nightstand, and my glasses on the tip of my nose.It was perfect and chilly. If my bedroom had a fireplace, and I had had a fire going, Saturday night would have fulfilled all my adolescent dreams of adulthood.

Things that were less great about this weekend include missing LCA's birthday party because of prolonged babysitting on Saturday. Sucktacular. Additionally, any weekend in which I wind up babysitting both nights is hard because, well, it gets me into fights with David. *rolls eyes* And because I would like to have a free night on the weekend. It would be nice.

But, you know how it goes. It's Monday. In another four days, it will be Friday again. I'm only slated for one night of babysitting this time around, so I ought to be able to be Good Girlfriend again in a jiffy.

Bleck.