8/12: chocolate pie & shared excitement

When our neighbors came over earlier this week I made some chocolate pie. I sent some home with them at the end of the evening, but I kept a little bit for us. We had it for dessert after dinner today, and with the space of a few days since my last piece it was almost like I had forgotten how good it is. I got to be delighted by it all over again.

Another good thing for today is my happiness at something good that happened to someone else more than a week ago (but about which I only learned today). Another faculty member went with me to London, and she also worked in the British Library. During her whole time there she was wanting to see a particular manuscript of the Bible (a French translation commissioned by Charles V), but it kept being used by another reader--and that reader had dibs on it for as long as they needed it, so there was no way of knowing when or if she would get to see it before leaving. Of course, she had other research she could do, but as our time together in London came to an end, she still hadn't had a chance to work with the manuscript. (The other reader was even in the same reading room, so it was tantalizing to know the book was that close and yet unavailable.) I knew she stayed in London a day longer than I did, so when I ran into her at a meeting today I asked her if she got to see the Bible on her extra day--and she did. I was so excited, and so was she as she told me. We laughed and may even have squealed.