Book completed

Jove Deadly's Lunar Detective Agency, by Garrett Marco and Mary E. Lowd. This book is a pair of novellas set in Lowd's "Otters in Space" world, featuring a supposedly hard-boiled detective, a bloodhound named Jove Deadly, and his assistant, an otter named Roen. I especially liked the titles - the overall book is presumably a play on Dirk Gently; the first novella is "Poodle in a Blue Dress," which I assume is from Walter Moseley's Devil in a Blue Dress (which I've actually read); and the second novella is "This Dog for Hire," presumably from Graham Greene's This Gun for Hire. And then the name "Jove Deadly" is a play on Otters in Space II: Jupiter, Deadly. The stories were amusing, but as my mother's daughter I kept being annoyed that the detective's brother Mars Deadly's nickname was "Aries," not "Ares."

Day 1004: More post office adventures

I had to return to the post office today, since I hadn't finished the package for B. and his girlfriend by Friday, and unlike Friday, today it was very crowded. There were about 9 people ahead of me in the self-service line, and I would guess at least 40 in the line for the clerks. The really fine thing was that everyone in line seemed to have a sense of community - as new people arrived, we'd help them figure out which line was which (it was not obvious) or to direct them to an occasional third line of people who were just there to get a package.

My line went very slowly, but I finished up at about the same time as the man in the other line who'd been nearest the door when I arrived (about halfway to the clerks). The self-service machine was not easy to use, and they'd added even more requirements than the last time I used it - this time we had to enter in the names of the recipient and sender, etc., as well. On the other hand, it was now able to measure the dimensions of my box. Anyway, it was causing a lot of problems for some of the others trying to use it - a young woman with dark pink hair had to enter in all the details for her two packages twice, because it kept malfunctioning when she tried to pay with her card. Eventually another woman in line spoke up and asked if she had Venmo, which she did, and that woman then used her own card to complete the transaction for her, to get the line moving again, and then the younger woman reimbursed her. Self-interest, yet also a kindness.

I ended up spending 55 minutes at the post office, but I remained reasonably cheerful, and then I drove downtown and had dinner at the Taphouse with J and DG, who told us the story of the World Cup finals, which he made pretty interesting. Then later I got five packages wrapped and under the tree - I am making pretty good progress on Christmas!