For the win

Derby update: by two points in the last jam, the Fire Foxes took the title. The fire crews that showed up during the last 15 minutes were in ecstasies, shrieking, "Pull her hair! Take the bitch down! Yeah!" and generally yowling with glee as it came down to the wire. Some of their enthusiasm was due to the inherent fun of derby, but Jenna Von Fury's decision to wear a pair of plaid knickers rather than a skirt or shorts probably played the tiniest bit of a role. Oddly enough, some of the guys who had been so vocal during the bout got shy afterward, when it came time to pose en masse with the winners, and had to be gently shoved into the frame. Rushing into a burning building is apparently less frightening than getting close to sweaty rollerbabes (maybe they just need some practice, use making master and all that). Seesterperson did an even better job this time around, skating for most of the bout, often as the FF pivot. We took her out to a diner afterward and quizzed her on how pivots set the pace and other derbiana details, and she sent Teal home with her "I heart firefighters" shirt.

I love the town where Seesterperson lives (quoth Jeff, "Do you know what this town is? It's charming"), and I'm getting fond of the larger area, jokes about dead mobsters notwithstanding. We had a smashing meal in Secaucus, where the restaurant's owner divulged secrets about making the perfect Sicilian meatballs, and I remembered why it sucks that DC has no decent Italian restaurants. Fettucine bolognese trailing a haze of fennel from the sweet sausage crumbled up in the sauce? Mwah. Equally wonderful, though in a different way, was parking next to the infamous black Lincoln Continental with new plates, joking about posing next to its trunk, and shutting right the hell up when we saw it driven away by a guy who looked like he came from central casting (Mafia, subsp. Senior Made Guy).

Much as I love the roller derby and food porn and Sopranos jokes and undeniable architectural loveliness, though, one of my favorite things to do in that area is still to visit the local used bookstore. For one thing, and I cannot stress this enough, it is organized. Staff can actually find out whether they've got something in stock, and they'll even go and fetch it. For another, oh MAN is it stocked. There's a huge section of New Jersey history, a basement full of rare books (the complete Bobbsey Twins saga, some of which I read as a moppet), aisle after aisle of double-shelved trade books, all the theater and history books a reasonable person could ask, and generous lashings of books of the weird. The shelves of the main floor rise toward the pressed-tin ceiling like canyons, all sedimentary layers of spines, and the occasional soft "ook" is heard from the more distant stacks. Last time I scuttled out cackling over getting a first edition of "The Lady's Not for Burning," complete with dust jacket; this time, after a good 45 minutes, I staggered toward Teal, arms laden, and admitted that I needed to leave before I did real damage. Total haul: a book of horse stories, ideal for sampling; Death in Yellowstone (main gruesome lesson: hot springs? called that for a reason); A Fine and Private Place, which I read years ago and have forgotten; Goodbye to All That, to feed my perverse WWI fascination; 1421: The Year the Chinese Discovered America, because at $8 why not; a new copy of The Good Fairies of New York (thank you, Weebat, for the reminder); and, oh joy, a new copy of the abridged London Labour, London Poor, which I have been wanting badly. Really I want the full version, but for $300 I restrain the desire.

Tonight, back to spending time with El Doctor. He proved that it is possible, though unwise, to trot and eat simultaneously, and that a bareback pad makes a huge difference for a rider who does not want to slide precipitously backward on uphill slopes. We did a little ring work, but after a minor tiff over the wisdom of aiming for the jumps I called it a night. I will do a lot with Doc without a saddle, but landing on his razor-edged withers after a two-foot jump is not on the list of approved activities if I want to walk the next day. The women of the barn often wonder aloud how men ever managed before stirrups were invented.