Quickness in Answering

“What symptoms are you experiencing?  Disorientation?”

“No.”

“Drowsiness?”

That was more difficult.  Everyone under Lady Schrapnell’s las was automatically sleep deprived, but I doubted that the nurse would take that into consideration and at any rate it didn’t manifest itself so much as drowsiness as a sort of “walking dead” numbness, like people bombarded night after night in the Blitz had suffered from.

“No,” I said finally.

“Slowness in Answering,” she said into the handheld.  “When’s the las time you slept?”

“1940,”  I said promptly, which is the problem with Quickness in Answering.

Connie Willis

Chapter 2 – To Say Nothing of the Dog

It's cold enough for a hat!

I’ve been on vacation since Friday but still haven’t done as much reading as I’d wanted (which was to finish every book ever written!).  But, today I had the most perfect morning and breakfast.  Cuddling (and reading Willis) with my little sleep-groggy girl because it was so cold, and then the most perfect breakfast: Emmeline and I squeezed oranges we had picked yesterday morning, then coffee, eggs and sausage, oatmeal and brown sugar, To Say Nothing of the Dog.

My daughter.  Food.  Vacation.  Willis.  This is the life.  Yawp.

Picking oranges.