“K” Is for …. ?

Why, hello there, cutie pie! What are you hiding inside your soft little belly?

Cue shaft of light and angelic choir:

Gasp. For me?

Okay, I’ll admit that it wasn’t a total surprise. I may have mentioned it, casually, in conversation for months on end. You know, things like how useful it would be for traveling, how I wished I had one to pack with me to Notre Dame, how I’d love to sit on the beach with one in February. Perhaps I also enumerated its manifold features and wonders, casually, over dinner. Once or twice. It’s possible that it was on my Amazon wish list and that, when my hairdresser asked me two weeks ago what I wanted for Christmas, I didn’t miss a beat. Such goings-on often have a way of leading to an anti-climax.

And yet.

And yet.

The perfect THRILL of opening it at Christmas, of admiring it, of caressing it, of playing with it all the day long afterward could not have been sweeter. I am delighted through and through!

Almost every family member pitched in for this gift.

J masterminded the whole thing, I’m pretty sure. You can tell by that eager look in his eye. (Really, how cute is he???)

This lady and this fellow also had their fingers in the pie:

My brother-in-law contributed an Amazon gift card for Kindle books.

And my parents were extremely generous in their contributions to my Kindle library. Sadly, they avoid photographs, so I have very few of them. Here are two that J sneaked while they weren’t looking.

The downside, of course, is that they aren’t looking.

The Kindle is simply amazing. I remember when e-readers first came out, I swore I’d never give up my books. Well, I’m sure I won’t ever give up all of them, because nothing replaces the delicious sensory experience of a real book, but the Kindle is a far better replacement than I imagined. I love that I can hold it one-handed, that I can underline and dog-ear pages one-handed in the blink of an eye, that it doesn’t hurt my eyes a bit (unlike reading on the computer), that I have thousands and thousands of pages on a device slimmer and lighter than the most petite of books, that I downloaded Mark Twain’s complete works for $4 ($3 for Edith Wharton’s and $4 Chesterton’s and $1 L.M. Montgomery’s and free for Catullus and. . . for Pete’s sake, the device has already paid for itself!), and on and on. I’m infatuated.

Thank you, thank you, dear family. You have made this reader one very happy woman.

 

 

 

 

 

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