Friday, May 1, 2009

Sue Grafton Novels

I just love Sue Grafton Novels. Today at work seems especially boring for some reason and I'm really grouchy inside my own head. I've gotta fix my attitude before I go and spend 2.5 hours with my wonderful hubby in the car tonight. He doesn't deserve that. The highlight of this dark, stormy, and extremely wet day as been starting an audio book by Sue Grafton that I've got saved on my computer. It's the only thing that's made me snicker.

"The Copse at Herstborn" is a fictional residential area that the main character is about to break in to in the novel E is for Evidence. Sue Grafton goes on this tiny diatribe about how silly the names of residential areas can be. Copse as in a small grove of trees. She waxes on eloquent and amusingly about how if we combine two of any of four types of words, we get a shnazzy sounding area. The four types of words would include a reference to trees, a reference to some kind of natural water, a random geographical feature, and something British. I've noticed this among apartment complexes too. Hickory Hill. Shady Knoll. Shady Acres. Burning Tree. A particularly good phrase about this fancy naming of things includes: "Apparently people aren't willing to pay $155k (in the early 1980s) for a home that doesn't sound like it's part of an Anglo-Saxon land grant." The funniest part of this observation is how residential areas are never named after Mexicans or Jews. "Try marketing Rancho Feinstein if you want to loose money in a hurry." Very non-PC but oh so very accurate, which is how non-PC things usually go.

This little bit of funny so far has made my day! And smiling begets smiling.

We're off to a lovely state park this weekend to celebrate our anniversary. Even if it rains all weekend long, we've got a cabin with a screened in porch and a fireplace. We're bound to find SOMETHING to do....teehee.

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