I’ve had some rough days recently. I was sick most of last week with recurring fevers that held me down. I think the antibiotics are working me over, making me sleepy in the middle of the day or maybe only after I have coffee.

While sick I read most of Brian Jacque’s Redwall, which the kids all read years ago. Got to make sure I didn’t corrupt their minds back in the days of their impressionable youth. That question still crops up occasionally.

Today, we discerned that a burned fuse was preventing the Honda Accord from shifting out of park. Praise the Lord, it’s drivable again, but we need to replace it soon, and I’m rotten at buying cars. The descriptions are relatively similar and I want to believe them. I want to believe it’s a reliable car at a good price. Why shouldn’t it be?

Like a book blurb, they may say we have an “unparalleled epidemic of masterpieces,” and I want to believe them. But are any of them compelling enough to read?

“Some blurbs are so obscenely fulsome they give me a good laugh. Superlatives worthy only of the Deity pile up like cancer cells.”