Slouching towards Lake Bluff…
Any day now. The mailman is bringing something besides bills. Any day.

In my college years I worked in tech services of the school library. That was my first introduction to Momence, Illinois. The little acquisition forms that we sent to Baker and Taylor in Momence, Illinois. Since the requisite fourth grade “your home state” indoctrination I had received was in Wisconsin, I had no idea of where Momence was. Probably somewhere near Cairo or Paris.

About thirty years later, Momence flew out of the recesses of my long-term memory when I jumped at the chance to read Ron Hansen’s (no relation to Uncle Scary “Leprosy called and asked for its old name back” J. Hansen)
Exiles along with some friends of Godsbody. Amazon package tracking said my book was leaving Momence, IL on the morning of 5/21. What? Is Baker and Taylor a division of amazon.com now? Or does southern Illinois have, besides coal, big strip mines of books? I called the family librarian, who, in unlibrarianlike fashion, was unable to answer my question. But who cares. The book was starting out in Illinois. So how long could it take, right?

By yesterday I was ready for some investigatory geography. Momence is only 50 miles south of Chicago! (A reasonable person would ask me why I didn’t pay shipping instead of adding on educational material to qualify for Free Super Saver shipping. I’m cheap…and these are times that try cheap thrifty women’s souls.) Our mini-van with 269,185 miles on it could have made it to Momence in over a week. Or at least to the bookstore.

This morning the package is in Forest Park. Ten miles west of Chicago. And I’ll continue with my exhortations to keep people from parking so as to enrage the mailman.

While I’m on a literary tear, let’s talk about the Catholic Summer Reading Program.

Here are the selections I voted for.
Fr. Rutler’s Coincidentally, Brideshead, and Diary of a Country Priest. I know I’m not stretching here, but I like those books. I own those books. Thereby keeping the budget under control and limiting the mail to junk interspersed with ominous missives from ComEd, North Shore Gas (now d/b/a/ North Shore Gas Delivery, just to remind us that they aren’t making any money on the gas, they’re just the folks who bring it to us) and the North Shore Sanitary District – home of the effluent of the affluent.

No Hobbit, thank you very much. I just have that willful suspension of disbelief problem. And if I were all that interested in creatures with hairy toes, I’d put on my glasses and give myself a pedicure.