As a child, I read a provacative book by Chris Van Allsburg, the author and artist behind the more well known The Polar Express, in which he presents a series of astonishingly beautiful illustrations paired with teasing titles and lines of text from unwritten books. A vine creeps out of a sleeping woman's novel. A man holds a chair over a small bump under the rug. A wallpaper bird curls away from the wall.

It was a wonderous book for an imaginative child - a pitch perfect concept that could never be replicated to the same effect, nor completed to any satisfaction.

I was reminded of this book today by, of all things, the subject like of a spam message in my inbox.

"At least one was a supernova"

I don't know why it made me want to complete the story, but it did.

There's a Safeway in town - not one of the ones I frequent, though I'll be checking mine next time I'm there - that has - surprise! - a shelf of Britfood. None of the really good biscuits, but there were some Hobnobs and some McVitties - but not the chocolate kind.

Roxy Market had way better stuff, of course, but I couldn't resist grabbing these things to decorate the table on Guy Fawkes's Night. Well, I'll serve the Maltesers, but the others will likely stay in the can to entertain my dirty-minded American friends. Treacle sounds bad enough on its own, but, next to Spotted Dick, it sounds extra disgusting. Treacle tarts are nice. Mr. John's mum had some at lunch once. I liked those.

At any rate, the prices weren't listed below these items, though I figured they'd be way overpriced. I'm now having a bit of buyers' remorse over groceries. Oh well.

Last weekend, after bringing home a lot of fruit from our Apple Hill trip, I went on a bit of a baking binge. Not only did I make the apple pie, but on Sunday, I used the fresh pears to make this Ginger Pear Cake. There's a whole pictorial series here.

Mr. John took this photo (duh, obviously it wasn't Rob or I unless we trucked a large mirror outdoors) and posted it to flickr today. In my typically impatient fashion, I have stolen it and stuck it on my flickr because I wanted to blog it and it's easier to get it on phar in the same, big format, if done through flickr.

I think this may be my favorite picture of us ever. Rob might disagree because of his classic-photo-face, but I think it's classic-him in a good way. And both of us laughing with our cameras in hand pretty much captures 90% of the beauty of our relationship. He'll know what I mean. He sees the point.

Some women do, you know. No, instead, I hoard, like stuff. Like these new mini cards. They're so cute, aren't they? But just 10 of them and just one of each? I'm the girl who takes two of all the free stuff, because then there's one to keep and one to give away or use.

So I want to keep all of these little guys and then make more to give away. Then again, give away to whom? I don't exactly paint the town on weekends these days. And I have other business cards already. Then again, these things are cute. Moo describes them as calling cards reborn. I like that idea. The odd size and cropping also add at least 10 cool points to each photo.

So is it worth it to blow $20 I don't have on a set of $100? Yeah, of course I will. The slow down won't be the $20, it will be the time required to choose which photos will get into the big box. It seems from the site that, unfortunately, these last 10 weren't saved, so I'd have to reselect and crop them. Also, you get equal numbers of the ones you do select, so no box that's 1/2 a mix and 1/2 singles. So 20 each of 5 photos or 5 each of 20 photos. I can get as many as 50 photos in there and still maintain my own complete set.

This is pogs for grown-ups, isn't it? High-brow, non-offensive Garbage Pail Kids? Sigh.