Gawdelpus!

I have a Kindle which I adore. I am absolutely not a ga-ga gadget person (cue theme music from Inspector Gadget). I like having a cell phone, because I like to be able to stay in contact and order take-out from the road. But I don't need a cell phone that can do anything other than dial and receive calls (of course, mine has a few more bells and whistles because the husband picked it out).

But the Kindle 2? I just love it (as does the gadget boy I'm married to). If I need something to read for a few minutes between when I arrive at the kids' school to pick them up (must get there early as parking is a mess) and when they get out, it remembers just where I am. There are all these little slots of time in my day that now can be filled with a good story. If I feel like reading something other than the book I have with me, I can quickly call up a different book.

I like to buy short stories, because I read them at the gym. One or two stories (depending on the author) is just about perfect and usually I keep up my workout to finish that story. Luckily, Amazon.com has some reasonable classic fiction--I've gotten books by Isaac Asimov and Kate Chopin for a mere $1.00. There are some really great classic works that somehow I've never gotten around to reading...so I'm enjoying sampling these books.

Today at the Y, I was reading a short story by Peter Tremayne, author of the Sister Fidelma series (which I really like). This particular set of stories feature other characters though. Sister Fidelma is Tremayne's bread-and-butter, and he knows it, but he mentions his great understanding of how Conan Doyle felt. Sometimes you just want to write about something else.

Anyway, in one of the stories, the lead detective is Charles Dickens. And he uses the phrase gawdelpus, which is a mishmash of god help us. I just love it and I think I'm going to be dropping it into my speech from here on out.


Aside: My son's team won the Texas tournament, so it means we're getting ready to go to Iowa at the end of school for the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals. It's a great achievement, and one they've been working towards for four years. The logistical prep has required a lot of time, and what with taxes due and other stuff, I've been swamped. Meaning, I'm not always in my regular haunts...so if you need me, gmail me. Gawdelpus.