Wednesday, October 15th

Wednesday, Oct 15th

Zen Coffee

A Discovery of Witches pages 378-406

I put in some good reading time over the past few days, mostly snuggled up in my bed. The weather is getting chilly at night and I always have a hard time adjusting, so as my husband and his son binge NFL football, I get myself cozy and immersed in the world of forbidden love. 

In the hundred pages or so I got through, Diana the witch gets kidnapped by another witch named Snafu or Shamu or something like that who tortures her to…get information about the manuscript everyone wants to get their hands on? I think. Or just to punish her for tangling tongues with a vampire? Anyway, this results in her getting dragged across a floor, hung upside down, and ultimately thrown in a 30-foot deep dungeon-like thing called an oubliette. It’s too bad Lassie isn’t a character in this book because he could have sniffed out Matthew and made sure he knew little Timmy was down in the well. Instead, Diana has to count on the ghosts of her parents and some other random spirits to comfort her and show her that she needs to embrace her magic. 

By mid-week, I’m ready to get out and about to do some more Roaming Reading. I choose the coffee shop across the street from my office (I own a marketing agency, by the way), and head over there around 3. It’s not the best time to go to a humble little coffee shop as I’m already tarted up for my happy hour at 4 and don’t really fit in. But I go anyway!

I order an iced green tea and take a seat on the incredibly uncomfortable bench-like seating that groans alarmingly every time the woman sitting next to me–who is knitting what looks to be a sweater for either a very large bratwurst or very small eggplant–makes the slightest movement. Across from me is Kieran Culkin’s sleazy first cousin. That’s just my best guess. I don’t ask for ID. He’s with either his mom or grandmother who is wearing a Christmas sweater–in October–and he seems to be trying to teach her how to use her laptop. 

I settle in to read. Matthew, who has just discovered that Diana is missing, responds by running his fingers through his hair three times in two pages. His mom calls in his brother Baldwin because he’s a big tracker and an even bigger asshole and the two of them get into it as only sibling vampires who’ve hated each other for over a thousand years can. There’s lots of dark looks, plenty of muttered insults, and a little biting. Baldwin finally comes around to the fact that Matthew plans on destroying his whole family and possibly all of vampire-kind because he’s got the hots for a witch and helps him find Diana down the well. Maybe he’s Lassie in this scenario?? Anyway. Diana, with the help of her ghost mom, remembers she can fly and proceeds to shoot up and out of the well into Matthew’s arms so he can coo over her and carry her everywhere for the next ten pages like she’s an injured puppy. Even though she can like, you know, fly.

And now it’s on, baby. The witches have really done it this time and Matthew’s family ain’t gonna take it. What they plan to do is anyone’s guess, but now that Diana can fly and Baldwin/Lassie has joined the team, the sky’s the limit! I abandon my very bitter iced green tea, bid a silent adieu to Kieran’s cousin and his mom, and head to happy hour.