Excitement

There is or was a bird in the house - a sparrow of some kind, with a slightly upturned beak (I think).

I have been trying to chivvy it out of the house. This involves putting the dogs out and closing the door through which they could return, and then opening the front door wide (in high-30s F weather...).

The door is currently closed; the dogs are inside and calm. This may mean that the bird did indeed slip out while I was looking for it elsewhere. But it may not; we have reached this state of affairs three times now.

Stupid bird.

Hat Attack

How did I reach this age without having learned that "bowler" and "derby" are two names for the same kind of hat?

I've known what a derby looked like since childhood, thanks to Casper the Ghost's friend Spooky and his "doiby". I've also had a good image of a bowler, courtesy of John Steed of The Avengers. It finally occurred to me this morning to ask what the difference was. I googled both terms and got a set of images, which looked identical; reference to the actual Wikipedia articles revealed that this was not a coincidence.

I feel kind of dumb, just now. (Don't worry; it will pass.)

Memory?

I've been browsing through my own LiveJournal archives lately, and just hit an entry from June 2006, in which I listed the books I had finished reading up to that point that year. One of those listed is Iain M. Banks' Feersum Endjinn.

I read that book this year, in April, and was under the impression it was a first read. I have absolutely no memory of having read it before - not even the usual "Huh, this sounds familiar..." response.

I can't recall ever having completely forgotten a book like that before. Disturbing.

Jane Yolen

I see that Ms. Yolen has been named an SFWA Grand Master. Searching my memory, I don't seem to have read anything she's written. Any suggestions as to where to start?