Had a nice dinner at Cowgirl Hall of Fame with our friend Phil and his new girlfriend. I like her. She's everything I'm looking for in a friend's girlfriend--sweet, charming, game. Pretty much the opposite of his former wife, who was rather prickly.

Afterwards, we played pool. We were all quite terrible.

I have had The Little Friend on my shelf for a while now, and I just can't get past page 5. I talked to Miss Cookie about it (Bruno had given it to her for Christmas), and she said:

Well, I was really trying to hold off from saying this but�IT STINKS. I read the first 100 pages as if it was The Secret History, I read the second 100 pages slightly dismayed but hopeful and then it took me weeks to read the rest. Just be glad you didn�t buy it. I kept hoping to get into it, but I just never could and then none of the millions of plot lines resolve. The one that comes the closest to resolving is the one that got the title of the book, but it still doesn�t make any sense. I think she became an alcoholic and it took her eight years to recover and then two to write the book.

So I'm taking that as permission to give up. Meanwhile, I've started this droll little mystery called The Escher Twist, which goes down easy and yet isn't stupid. I love Penguin mysteries, for the most part.