Dinna fash, I've got ye covered

This is what I read since my last entry. It was pretty good but those 850 pages took forever to get through. Truthfully, I had been reading little bits of it for about two months, because I couldn't take more of it at a time. It was sooo slow to start and it only took about 270 pages to pull me into the story. Anyway, woman goes time-traveling through this rock, leaves her husband in present-day (post WWII) era Scotland. Captured by a band of Scottish ruffians, woman ends up fated to be with the young Jamie Fraser. It was interesting, and I enjoyed some of the sexy scenes, some fight scenes, the emotional depth of the characters and story. However, I just didn't connect like some people do to this story or these people. I think it is just me, so if you're interested in a well-written, long book with it all, this is for you.

In other news today, my husband called me at 10 am this morning with the following question, "Was the kitchen really flooded when you left this morning?" [blank stare and blinking happening here] "Yes Sweetheart. I found the kitchen gushing water all over the place and decided to pack it up, go to work, and leave it for you to find an hour and a half later." He had to stay and work from home today because of all the people going in and out from the house to fix the catastrophe. Apparently, there was a major clog in the pipes, which we sort of knew about (after one unsuccessful snake drill and two now successful bottles of Draino later), but we thought the problem was solved. There was water dripping from somewhere a couple days ago but we thought it was a roof leak or water coming from melting snow outside. It was not, since there was water times ten this morning after I heard a mysterious water-cooler noise. The dog froze, sniffed the vent that was a problem before, and we went on our merry way. Oh well, problem hopefully and completely solved. Husband is convinced there will be black mold growing in a week and kill us in our sleep. Lovely.

My sister's film got chosen to represent at a school-wide film festival. I of course, am the film's star but I haven't seen it. Very excited to have me looking naked in front of her entire college. Technically, I was taped into a shower curtain when I fell, and was in a bathing suit, but still. I am proud though. Hopefully my sitting around for three hours, sopping wet and getting paint (yes paint) poured on me will in some way, be worth it to her. On the other hand, I am not the filmmaker, so maybe that is what makes art. Hmmm. This weekend, husband and I will be playing vampires in her new epic short. Yes, really.

Sort of reminds me of another book I'm re-reading, Fahrenheit 451. I just loved the line, "the word "intellectual" became the swear word it deserved to be." I think that sums up our society nicely. People always afraid to learn, to produce and permit knowledge, to step off of the grazing sheep's path. I think Bradbury is still rather prophetic in this novel at least. This book was wasted on my 14-year old mind, but I do love it so now.

After this week, I am ready to go crack a bottle of wine or something, read, jam out playing Rockband with husband (his new favorite activity), and fill my head with trash wedding movies, like Made of Honor and Mama Mia. I can't wait.

Authentic Jesus & the other JC (Julia Child)

On my way home from work, I noticed two odd things and felt I must diatribe.

First, saw not less than three teenagers wearing neon sneakers, like, bright pink, & green shoes. Why?

Second, a highway truck drove by with an artsy silouetted photo of a man in a sunset. It said in block lettering, "Authentic Jesus". Tell me, what kind of product is this truck delivering? I doubt that it has anything to do with the Moses action figure with part-the-Red-Sea arm motion. On merging lanes very tightly with another vehicle, I muttered, "Jesus" and then caught myself in a fit of the giggles when I added in a second, rather correcting voice, "No, Authentic Jesus". Anyway.


The woman at the library knows me by name and asks me if I have something on reserve just about everytime now. I know I visit every Thursday, but do you have to acknowledge the fact that we could practically sit down and eat a Sunday night dinner with the family? They do a good job and all, but I don't want to be closer to the librarian check out lady than to my Grandma.


Today was a non-fiction day, so plenty of new reviews coming this way. For the past week I've been "reading" Julie and Julia by Julie Powell. I quoted "Reading" because it's an audiobook and a lot of people don't count it because I don't have my face in a book. Well dammit, I might want to do something more productive while driving than listening to some crap put out by the am radio shows or whatever. I know it's not technically savoring my silent, concentration time with a novel, but I'm still experiencing the book and could write a report on the same book you're reading in some little corner while I'm hitting up some other stories on the side. That's right, I'm a book player. If I get bored with you, I cheat, and then will come crawling back when I've decided I do sort of appreciate some things about you and we'll you'll entertain me when there's no other book I'd like to spend my time with. Back to the audiobook. Read by the author, so it has tons of sarcasm and witty banter, much like I would like to narrate a story about my exploration of French cooking by-way-of Julia Child. I'm not doing that but she does in the book. I recommend it for a hip-non-thinking mood, perfect for an audiobook. It's supposed to be a movie sometime this year starring Amy Adams and Meryl Streep. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Speaking of food, I opened the door to my home and my crockpot had not caught fire during the day. Delicious roast awaits.

Medicine-Head, Logger.com, & Dog Hysterics

I was googling this site to log in and ended up at logger.com. Didn't realize there was such a thing, but to each their own. I've been sick the last few days and finally decided that I needed a day off of work. While yesterday was nice, and my hours and hours of coma-like daytime sleep were needed, I was not totally prepared for today to hit me full blast. Not only did I wake up every. single. hour. of the night last night from approximately 12:30 am on until 6:30 this morning, but I also flew into a whirlwind of leftover paperwork. While I appreciate being kept in the know, the bazillion "FYI" e-mails I received today left me slightly dizzy in addition to my already fuzzy outlook due to my acutely cold-medicined head.

I was on my home this evening and realized that I had become an Eskimo. Apparently heat is no longer necessary for the majority of a car ride home when you've pulled on a $3 dinky ski-cap and skinny Target gloves. I unlocked the door and was greeted by a distinct groan from an irritated puppy. I let her out and was ambushed by a frenzy of squeaking dog toys and lots of leaping around. I sat on the stairs and after the sixth time or so, began shooting video of her throwing her ball from the top of the stairs, racing/falling down the stairs, jumping about when it was retrieved, racing back up the stairs and repeating the process. As much as I love dogs, I don't know if I will ever get used to a foot and 1/2 tall creature zooming around my house, throwing themselves around in a completely deranged hysteria. She's of course sacked out after snagging a snippet of toilet paper from the roll in the bathroom.

Anyway, I've been reading bits of things here and there. I tried Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons, which was supposed to be a selection from women's literature, but I just couldn't get over the constant dialouge. Is that what it sounds like when women are together? Landvik's writing was well done but I don't think I am in the right frame of mind at this stage in my life to read that book- great choice for someone who has children or are older.
Also attempted The Stars, My Destination - it's a sci-fi book, totally NMS (not-my-style) and some of it was interesting but I couldn't get past the unlikeable main character. American Wife was another attempt but again, I found it reading too much like Chick-lit.

I opted for a book called The House of Dark Shadows, a young adult book. It read really easily, and was a fun, semi-scary thriller for people like me, who don't love to have nightmares. Basically a teen boy and his brother move to town where nothing happens, they move into a creepy house where weird stuff happens, and they have adventures.

My rave of the week is The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexander Dumas. The writing is kickin' some a** and I love all of the characters, aside from the ones of course that you're supposed to dislike. I saw the movie a few years ago, but aside from the main character Dantes, I've forgotten who's who and that makes it all exciting for me. So, this is my favorite for the time being, reading it on my handy-dandy itouch is helping me get through it in short bursts too. While I do not expect to finish this in one sitting, I am so freaking glad I am not hauling around a massive 1400 page novel. And now back to the show...

Monday Funday

I think that gummi bears are highly underestimated in their resemblance to fruit. They have a delicious variety of flavors, are slightly chewy, and sometimes a little juicy when mixed with your saliva (I know, gross, but come on, it's true). I have been starving this morning since 10 am, only three hours since I shoveled down a medium-sized bowl of Frosted Flakes. I forgot my water bottle (reusable of course) and that helped my stomach remain empty until I discovered my plastic baggie of gummi bears leftover from my home-packed movie snack. Yep. I brought food into the theatre, but you know what? I was not the one making obnoxious crinkling and ripping sounds as I avoided opening a giant box of whoppers or almost spilling an already piddly plastic bag of sour patch kids all over the floor because the package was so hard to open.

Also worth noting from the movie, were the two must-have-been-close-to-30-single-ladies-who-are-probably-staying-single-a-while-longer who sat almost directly behind us in a slightly empty theatre. Granted, my mother, sister and I chose to see Bride Wars of all things, so we might have been asking for it. However, any time there was something said that might have been planned as a laugh-out-loud joke by the writers, but not such a hit onscreen, one of them would repeat it over like it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard. "Oh my gosh! He said "that's right honey!"" HAHAHAHA! "No way! She she just did such and such! I can't believe it!" HAHAHAHA! And they were completely into the whole thing. I bet it ranked up there in their top ten movies of all time. The laughs too were a chortle-snort combo. It was hellacious. My sister and I spared no time in glancing each other's way every time it happened, which was about every five minutes. Seriously. In summary of the movie, my mother and I agreed that it was just full of lots of yelling, and the favorite line had something to do with a comment about eating sticks of butter.

In literary news, I have forsaken The Pelican Brief by John Grisham and have opted to just watch the critically acclaimed (I have no idea if this is true) film starring Julia Roberts & Denzel Washington. I know it came out in like, 1994, but I haven't seen it and would still like to know what happens post chapter 6. Instead, I am embarking on some other randoms that I have not been able to invest myself in reading yet.

For now, I leave you to go back to the little fruity zoo in my hand.

A Day in the Life (and other random things)

I've not been around much, but in the last week I have been on the brink of thinking myself into despair about the rocky economic situation and my job, to being bored out of my mind with my husband at not one but two superbowl/sporting event "parties", and zoomed back into happiness and sunshine and puppies within the span of a week. As a bright spot, I made rockin' potato skin appetizers for a party and they were devoured, unlike our sad little salsa that sat unwanted all night last year. We love our salsa- I do not know what other peoples' problem is - I'm so sorry that it wasn't like processed, splashed into a Chi Chi's salsa jar and hermetically sealed. Whatev.

So I am sitting here today just about to enjoy my hour of reading and lunch at my desk, when the phone rings. It's a quiet ring, because I am irritated by loud rings that make the office occupants expect the telephone to rocket into space at the end of the ring tone. Anyway, I hear the phone ring. While it is not from "unknown caller" aka Fax machine (another story), I recognize the number as a business, and have no clue why they called. I shrug it off and let the voicemail get it, figuring it's just a question about some property maintenance thing. Three seconds after it stops ringing, the same number calls back. I glare at my phone, with a weird, puzzled look on my face as my boss walks by and spots the blank stare on my face, just watching the phone ring. After lunch I talked to the lady and they didn't need me in the first place. What?

As punishment one of those tiny eyelashes jumped from the safety of being connected to my eyelid to just slightly below, so the bottom tip felt like it was scratching my eyeball with a miniature sliver of sandpaper. I was in panic mode - fix lunch or go to the bathroom, carry my lunch bag on my way to the bathroom and leave it outside as I performed minor surgery? I opted to fish a compact mirror out of my purse and jabbed my finger in my eye to get it fixed instead. Disaster averted.

My husband and I watching some food show on tv a while ago decided that if we were to go on a newlywed -type game show (which I think would be awesome), I would be required to say that his favorite thing about cooking is smashing garlic cloves with the flat side of a knife. Odd, but true. I think I like making Italian appetizers and eating ice cream best. In thought, those are not really the same thing.

Two of my latest books read were Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugedines (sp), and Uglies by Scott Westerfield. The first, was interesting, but pretty much left me creeped out and haunted by the girl/guy's life. Yeah yeah, Orpah selection, it was well done, but I don't want to read about some hermaphrodite's grandparent's penchant for incest.
The other book, Uglies, is classified Young Adult and for almost the whole book, I wanted to punch the awful writing in the face. I did like the story concepts, and sadly, may also read the second book called Pretties [gags*]. It's a very fleecy introduction for our vapid youth to recognize that there can be problems with making outer beauty their main motivation in life. It is a sappy friendship, teen heart-throb novel disguised as a science fiction novel.

I've also begun The Pelican Brief but have become bored in the first six chapters despite its content- supreme court, government scandal- great. I just think I will watch the movie instead and move onto something else.