So, I'm sitting in my cozy new office surrounded by shelves of books and crates waiting to be unpacked. The entire organization did a bang-up job of unpacking dozens and dozens of crates today and the place almost looks visitor-friendly. My only complaint is about the lack of a desk drawer in which to put my pens and post-it notes. I will have to buy a plastic pen-holder thingy to serve this purpose. Until then, I will continue to reach in front of me to open my non-existent drawer to find a pen.

Easter was ham-tastic. The whole gang gathered at my mom's for what she called an Irish/Italian feast; there was ham, lasagna, eggplant, and more. And there was an "egg-hunt". I put this in quotes because the only people participating in the hunt were my nephew Noah (3 in May) and my cousin Nick (13). Bryan and I pointed out as many eggs as possible to the younger searcher and in 10 minutes, the "hunt" was finished. The best thing about it was the fact that the weather was nice enough to be outside with just a light sweater for longer than 10 minutes without seeing actual tears in Bryan's eyes.

In basketball news, I am once again second to last in the standings (that's where I finished last year, too), but there are 3 more games to be played and my champ is still in it. Bryan's dad has clinched last so I am now just looking for a respectable finish somewhere in the 20's (out of 35).

I just read the book Codex by Lev Grossman and it was so disappointing that I had to warn anyone thinking of reading this book not to waste your time. It had a great premise: a medieval codex (that's a book) that may or may not exist, young man hired to find out more by a shadowy Duchess, intelligent female Medieval Studies student helps recover the text, a cast of interesting characters. But, besides a few great scenes about libraries and book preservation (and destruction) and an ending where the hero gets mostly thwarted, the book never really takes off. I kept expecting more suspense and a more thorough explanation of the aforementioned shadowy Duchess and all I really felt was frustrated by the hero's lack of motivation and almost total inability to make a freakin' decision.

In a book-to-movie highlight, I saw Vanity Fair with Reese Witherspoon and was very impressed by the acting, cinematography and costuming. I think that Thackeray's plots and characterizations and grand scenes were done justice and I only winced once at Witherspoon's British accent and it was during a particularly tense scene when it didn't really matter anyway. I definitely recommend this one.