The Last Dalgliesh

Normally a trip to the library is one of my favorite things, especially in the depths of winter (I know, it's not even mid-January, but it's starting to feel like the depths)! Today was one of those cold, raw, January days that not even a library trip could seem to brighten.

It may have been because I spent half an hour or more hunting for a missing library book that's overdue -- and I still haven't found it. This is a book D. checked out several weeks ago, which has been renewed all the times it can be. We've searched all the usual and unusual places for it and still can't find it, which is driving me that batty. (It wasn't even that good a book.)

It may have been the argument that S. and I got into on the way to the library. The sweet girl (still sweet, but very almost-adolescent) loves to argue and provoke arguments with me right now. Today she decided to get frustrated at me for having read too many books to her over the years. (Apparently, I have always read "the long ones" out loud rather than leaving her to read them on her own, and she's suddenly decided that bugs her. But basically all I have to do right now is breathe too loudly and it bugs her, so I'm trying not to take it too personally.) It also bugs her that that I tend to tear up over sad scenes or endings of stories. I got so frustrated today that I basically threw up my hands, apologized for having spent so many years reading good literature to her, and told her that if she wants to opt out of family reading time at night, she can feel free. I don't think she will, but the whole argument tasted so sour in my mouth that I didn't have much heart to go perusing the shelves at the library, the place where we've found so many wonderful books over the years for our family read-aloud times.

Then there was the fact that I felt like I wanted a mystery (I've been working a ton, and mysteries are some of my favorite bits of fluff-reading) and headed to the shelves to pick up a P.D. James, my stand-by in recent years. Only to recall that I have only one P.D. James mystery left to read. I have reached the last Dalgliesh. Somehow the melancholy feeling that accompanied picking up that final book just seemed to fit this whole day.