1. Today is Raymond Chandler’s birthday. Here’s one of my favorite quotes, talking about Phillip Marlowe setting up a chess problem for himself:
[It was] …a battle without armor, a war without blood, and as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you could find anywhere outside an advertising agency.
2. With the windows open at night, I’ve been hearing some rustling in the front sometimes. It’s not human-sized rustling, but I’ve wondered what creature is doing it (mice? snails? there are a lot of snails here). This morning at 4:00 it woke me (and Toby) up again and I looked out to see a mama raccoon and FOUR big babies. They seemed to be eating snails. Carry on, raccoons.