Productivity report.

Today, I had breakfast with my friend Ann at the Blue Plate (Greek omelet, sourdough toast). I woke up with allergic eye, a phenomenon that is, if the evidence is to be trusted, going to be an annual occurrence. It starts with an itchy eye, which I then rub, and then I sleep, and voila, I wake up and scare myself in the mirror. When this happens, I like to worry about it incessantly. Today, I put a warm washrag on it and massaged my tear ducts and used eyedrops and checked it out a million times. Also, took healing naps. It's better, but I hated having to alarm my breakfast companion. However, we talked about everything under the sun while I wore my hair Veronica Lake-style, except curly. I'm pretty sure this helped.

Today, I read the book for my book group, Women as Lovers, written by Austrian, Nobel-Prize-in-Literature-winning Elfriede Jelinek. I bought this book months ago. I kept track of its location, since books in my house have a tendency to wander. When I received the book from Amazon, I read a page or two and thought, sweet holy Lord, this book is damn depressing, then laid it aside for a week or three months. And I thought about picking it up. And then this morning, I did. I picked it up and I read half of it. Here is my verdict: damn depressing. Scores 11 on the Depress-o-meter (out of 10).

Today, I bought a birthday present for my granddaughter. Don't tell her, but it is a family of horses playing on a playground. Actually little plush horses, with an actual plastic playground. It is the cutest thing ever and I wish I had had some tiny horses on a playground when I was little. Too bad all they had was rocks and Bubble-head Barbie back then. Lucky granddaughter!

Today, I had my book group at Martine and ate several expensive yet delicious little plates of food. The excellent salad had a Bleu d'Auvergne dressing that was subtle and suave. The shrimp was on a spring pea risotto cake and was bathed in some sort of divine jus. The desserts included grilled gingerbread as well as a peach-cherry jalousie. Yes. Jalousie. Are you jaloux? Because you should be. Jalousie is good.

And now I am going to bed. My eye is ready for it. Also, now that I have put away Women as Lovers, I can finish my L.A. detective novel. It is heating up and it is good.