Reading: The Diamond Age, which I'm greatly enjoying. I liked Snow Crash, the only other Stephenson book I've read, but I think I like this one even more.

Watching: Bogdan, who is washing his car again. Oh, frabjous day! Background courtesy of
Ace of Space

Hot Day, Cold Beer

Tab put the boys to bed last night so I could get right to work on my file translation job. File translation is the process by which books are prepared for page composition. Authors submit their books to the Press as hard copy with an accompanying disk of files in Word, Word Perfect, or whatever word processor they use. The files are first run through a preliminary conversion program that changes the word processor formatting to generic coding. Then I get the files, run them through another conversion program to change the generic codes to the typesetting codes we use, and scroll through each one, fixing up whatever coding problems I can find. Scintillating work, huh? Well, it's not as challenging (nor as well-paying) as page composition, the work I prefer, but I enjoy file translation, anyway. Which is a Good Thing since I've been spending most of the weekend working on it.

I took the boys for a walk this morning. In our neighborhood, the blocks are bisected by alleys that run lengthwise through them. From the alleys on most blocks, you can see directly into the backyards of houses on either side. On the other side of our alley, however, there are mostly vacant lots and a few small factories that front on the next street over. A seven-foot high fence runs along that side of the alley, which is all overgrown with honeysuckle. Many of the fences on our side are overgrown with shrubbery, too, so that walking through the alley almost feels like walking through a lush, green tunnel.

It's another hot and steamy day here in New Jersey. The boys and I spent the rest of the morning and the early afternoon out back. They played with the hose and the wading pool, while I sat and read in the relative comfort of the shaded back porch. The water is not holding their interest the way it did when we first brought out the wading pool last month. I think the novelty has worn off. Perhaps that is just as well: if the drought keeps up much longer we may be facing a ban on outdoor water use soon.

While I was sitting on the porch, Jimmy, one of our Ukrainian next door neighbors, came out with a couple of bottles of Beck's in his hand. He speaks English better than most of the people in the house, and we chatted a little about the weather. He said they were thinking of going to the shore today. Then he offered me a beer. I'm not a beer drinker, so I thanked him anyway, showed him my thermos of water, and said I was all set.

"How about your husband? Would he like one?" he asked.

Before I could answer, Jimmy had popped the top off and was handing it to me over the fence. I thanked him again and brought it inside. In the kitchen I took a sip from the bottle, shuddered, and decided I still don't like beer. Tab doesn't care for it either, so I stuck it in the refrigerator. I have a bread recipe that calls for beer as an ingredient, so I'll use it up that way.

I'm just as happy I never developed a taste for beer. It is one of the few potentially fattening things I don't like.

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