I'm a Woman and I Read Crime Fiction (plus, a mini-book review)

I've had this entry rumbling around in my head for a few days, then I read Sarah Weinman's post about gender and crime fiction and decided to expand, so please bear with me.

A few books ago, I finished Murder on Ice by Alina Adams, after finding out about her when she guest blogged on Sarah's site. Reading this mystery made me remember why I prefer thrillers (legal, medical, psychological, etc.), police procedurals and even P.I. novels to mysteries that feature "amateur sleuths." The whole premise of an amateur sleuth who is forced into an improbable mystery-solving scenario during the course of their day job is annoying to me. In the case of Murder on Ice, TV researcher Bex is asked by her producer boss to find out who killed a figure skating judge involved in a scoring scandal. And of course, she does. But this just isn't realistic enough for me. There were so many problems with this scenario, I don't even know where to begin (the police were convinced the murder was really an accident, etc.). On top of that, the plot of the book just wasn't very well written. On atleast three separate occasions, the main character Bex paused to reflect on the "clues" by doing the following:

• Chapter 5, p. 89 - "So. It was time to review."
• Chapter 5 (still), p. 94 - "Again, it was time for Bex to summarize what she knew." Did that much really happen in five pages?
• Chapter 11 - "It was time to review."

If the plot is so convoluted (and it wasn't, just lame) that the character needs to actually state that she needs to review everything, than maybe it's time to go back to the drawing board.

Also, this probably would have been a much better book if it had been written in the first person instead of the third. There were lots of conversations taking place inside the main character's head that would have come across better in her own words. But, I'll just chalk this up to a reminder that I don't like cozy or amateur sleuth mysteries and will try not to get sucked into another one again.

All that being said, let's get back to Sarah's thoughts on gender and crime fiction. Most women probably do read cozy and amateur sleuth mysteries more so than other types of crime fiction and may be more drawn to female writers than male writers. Regarding Murder on Ice, there are probably very few men who would be interested in a murder mystery about women's figure skating. I, myself, am often more drawn to female authors such as Nevada Barr, Barbara Parker, Dana Stabenow, Patricia Cornwell, Linda Fairstein, Margaret Maron, Minette Walters, Lisa Scottoline, Kathy Reichs, Val McDermid and others. But I also love James Lee Burke, Harlan Coben, C.J. Box, Richard North Patterson, James Patterson and John Grisham. Take Dana Stabenow for instance. She writes two series, one with a female main character and one with a male. I like them both. I love the dark side of James Lee Burke's books and the fact that Dave Robicheaux is a flawed hero.

But I think the key thing about why I choose to read these types of books is that most of them are much more believable and therefore, more real, to me. It's much more plausible that a police or other type of law enforcement officer (obviously), private detective, lawyer or medical examiner would be involved in solving a crime/murder than a chef who comes across dead bodies every time she leaves her house. Since these seem more real to me, the drama and the character development offer something more as well. I think that's why I also prefer series, which most of the above are, because the characters grow and develop over time and the reader gets to know them. But I'll save my thoughts on all the different series I read for another day!

Holiday Weekend

A fairly quiet holiday weekend (the calm before the storm of being away this coming weekend, followed by H's birthday party on the 19th). M. raced on both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday, H. and I just hung out together, cleaning and going shopping. While H. napped Saturday afternoon, I relaxed in the hammock, reading my book in the comfortable, breezy weather (insted of cleaning the bathroom). And I did something I swore I would never do - I got H's hair cut at Walmart. Atleast I didn't get my hair cut there! And I was desperate, since my hair salon was closed on Saturday and I wanted to get her two-year picture taken this weekend.

On Sunday, we went to my sister's marina for swimming and a cookout. The pool water was freezing, of course, since the evenings have been so cool lately, but still fun. It's amazing to see how much H's swimming has improved since the beginning of the summer. She really moves her arms and legs and hardly tips over anymore. She'll have an opportunity to practice some more this weekend when we go to Ocean City with the girls.

The only bad part of the day on Sunday was an accident that occurred out on the water. An older man who was sailing with two other people was hit in the head by his sailboat boom, knocked unconscious, then fell in the water and drowned. There was a little bit of news coverage about it Sunday evening, just one of several Labor Day weekend boating accidents in Maryland.

And on Monday, we did go to Sears and have her two-year portrait taken. It takes 48 hours for the proofs to be posted on the Sears website, so check back late Wednesday or Thursday for the link to see her in all her adorableness.

Miscellany

Here are some links I've been hording, if you're interested.

A few about the Grand Canyon, one of my most favorite places, which is why this first story was completely annoying. Here's a link to an article by a guy who was thoroughly unimpressed by the Grand Canyon. He must have a heart and mind made of stone. Luckily, there were others besides me who disagreed with him. (Need a password for the LA Times? Try idahogolfer and mustang or go to BugMeNot, a wonderful resource!) Also from the LA Times, a sad story about being unprepared and not knowing your limits. Definitely worth reading! And finally, sad in another way, an article about how all of the new plans for the Grand Canyon, after the opening of the new visitor's center, have been backburnered, mostly due to lack of funding.

In the late 1990s, after years of debate, the feds agreed on a long-term plan: have people park farther from the rim and build a light-rail system to bring them in, at a cost of something like $170 million. Meanwhile, the Park Service and the foundation would together raise money and build a $31-million "greenway" — more than 70 miles of trails on the South and North rims for walkers, bicyclists, wheelchair users and a few bits for equestrians.

But then, in 2000, came the big detour. Look, said Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Appropriations Interior Subcommittee, this is too bold and costly for a park whose visitor figures have gone nearly flat. So, just a few days after Alston arrived as superintendent, Regula's subcommittee gathered at the park and pulled the plug on the light-rail plan.

The bit about visitors is true; from 1994 to 1999, visitor numbers climbed less than 1% per year, and the numbers have since slumped further. But let me tell you, outdoorists, it's a uniquely educational moment to stand amid these fumes and idling engines and consider that, by the reckoning of Congress, this place and its parking lots just aren't crowded enough.

Oh, the irony, when every news story about the national parks for the last five years has been about overcrowding. The Grand Canyon was the 10th most visited National Park Service Unit and the 2nd most visited National Park overall in 2003.

Finally, one more National Park article. I didn't read this article until Monday morning, but the first thing that immediately came to mind was Dick Cheney's speech and political rally at Ellis Island on Sunday. Last time I checked, Ellis Island is still a unit of the Park Service and therefore a federal facility. Once again, the Bush administration is living by its own set of rules.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Work has actually been very busy lately, which is cutting into my time to update! And there's hardly any time at home to update. So here's a quick review of our weekend:

• My mom spent the night on Thursday, then she and H. and I went to Philadelphia on Friday to visit family, with cousins who are the same age as H. We hadn't seen them all in over a year, so it was great to see how much everyone had grown and changed. All the kids played really well together and we had a good visit.
• On Saturday, we were supposed to go to a wedding for M's niece. We drove over an hour for a wedding that was supposed to start at 2pm. (Are you catching on to use of the word supposed?) We arrived at the church at about 1:45 and the parking lot was completely empty. I didn't think too much of it because M's family is usually late for everything, so we waited a few more minutes. Still, no one else had showed up, so we got out of the car and went into the church. It was completely empty, too. We tried calling M's brother's house, but there was no answer, so then we tried his mom. She answered the phone, much to my surprise, and I asked her, "Aren't you on your way to the wedding yet?" Her answer was, "No, it doesn't start until 4pm." Well, the invitation I'm holding in my hand says 2pm. Apparently, M's niece had called her about a week ago and said they were changing the time from 2pm to 4pm. Well, no one ever called us! M. talks to his brother just about every day and had talked to him that morning. Not that it was his responsibility to tell us the time had changed. That would be the bride's. So we left and stopped by my parents' house, since we were nearby. M. was so pissed. He didn't want to go to the wedding in the first place and now we had wasted our entire afternoon. We could have waited at my parents for an hour and a half, then gone back to the church, but M. was so mad that no one had bothered to call us that he refused to go back. I was in complete agreement. So we drove back home and that was that. He talked to both his mom and his brother the next day and the wedding was fine, but we have yet to receive a phone call from the bride with an apology, which I think we're owed. We'll probably never get it, but I just might hold on to my gift until we do.
• More driving on Sunday to a baby shower in Reading. M. watched H. so it didn't feel like she was in the car the whole weekend, taking her swimming at his mom's instead.

Then it was back to work on Monday. I feel like I didn't even have a weekend. I'm looking forward to the long holiday weekend already. H. and I start our "Mom and Me" tumbling class tonight, which will be for the next eight Wednesdays. No, I won't be doing any tumbling, but in this class, the parents are out on the floor with the kids to try and keep them focused, then, when she eventually moves to the 2 1/2 year old class, she'll be out there on her own.

Close Call

H., M. and I went down to M's mom's to go swimming yesterday afternoon. It was warm in the sun, even if the water was a bit chilly, and H. had been talking about "the pool" all weekend, so we didn't want to disappoint her. About five minutes before we left, H. injured herself on the dining room table. It was scary for a little while because Mark's mom has a rectangular, glass-topped dining room table that is right at H's eye level. And of course, she hit the table right in the corner of her left eye. She has a teeny, tiny cut in the very corner of her eye, but we're extremely lucky she didn't injure her eye. (It makes me cringe just thinking about it.) She fell asleep on the way home and stayed asleep for awhile once we got there, but when she woke up, she said, "Uh-oh, boo-boo," and pointed to her eye. It was a little bruised and puffy, but her eye was white and clear, which was a big relief. I was ready to take her to the emergency room just to be on the safe side, but she didn't seem to have any trouble with her vision and she wasn't upset or cranky or anything, so M. talked me out of it. She seemed fine this morning and was happy to show her boo-boo to the babysitter when I dropped her off. Whew, a close call!

GOLD?!?

I turned the TV off last night after Paul Hamm fell on his vault attempt and was in 12th place. How surprised was I this morning to learn that he had won the gold? Very! It's a shame NBC feels it's necessary to show the completion of a premier event like this after 11:00pm. This was a true Olympic moment and I wonder how many Americans actually saw it live (or NBC's definition of "live"). I almost gave up before 11pm, when they switched over to swimming and the promo in the corner said 'More Men's Gymnastics in 16 minutes.' I didn't know if I would make it the 16 minutes, but the women's relay was exciting enough to keep me awake. But I can't keep staying up until 11:30pm every night. It's starting to catch up with me.

Sleepy

I stayed up until 11:30pm last night to watch the Men's Gymnastics team finals, which was a little bit of a nailbiter. I think the US team should be proud to take home the silver medal. I fell asleep right away, but then H. woke up at 2:30am and would not go back to sleep. After several attempts to get her to settle down, I finally brought her into bed with us and turned on the TV for a little while. Lo and behold, NBC was re-airing the Men's Gymnastics final. I didn't need to stay up at all earlier! I could have gone to bed at 9pm and watched the finals with H. in the middle of the night. If only there was some way to predict when she is going to have these bad nights!

I never did figure out why she was up and she didn't go back to sleep until 4am. She wasn't warm and wasn't particularly fussy, just wide awake. She might (still) be teething or maybe she just has Olympic fever. I should have nice dark circles under my eyes by the time the Olympics are over.

PS - If you like Sarah Weinman's style, check out her Olympics blog.

Country Music Chat

I just discovered that the Nashville correspondent for USA Today, Brian Mansfield, is conducting online chats on country music. I don't know if this was the first one or not (I find USA Today's chat archives hard to navigate), but I'll definitely be checking in for more.

On Lonestar's CD I'm Already There:
"The album and the single did extremely well. The industry might have perceived it to be a little too similar in nature to 'Amazed' (which won a ton of awards) to give the awards to the band again. I've liked some of those ballads, too, but they pretty much turned into country's REO Speedwagon after they got rid of John Rich (now of Big & Rich)."

Other topics touched on during the chat that are always swirling around in my head: lack of variety on today's country music stations, female country artists earning airplay and raves for one of my faves, Joe Nichols.

(Okay, I just found an archived chat from June 15 that I'll have to go back and read. Maybe it's only once a month for country.)

Andrea's Etiquette

Rule #1

Children's birthday parties should not last longer than three hours. If guests wish to stay longer than three hours, wonderful, but the main events of food, cake and presents should be accomplished within the three-hour timeframe.

We attended a family birthday party on Saturday for a five-year-old. The invitation said the party started at 4pm, so we arrived at 4pm. Chips and pretzels (no dip), pita bread with hummus and a (one) hot hor d'oerve were served. Coke, Diet Coke, water, wine and beer were available (no caffeine-free sodas except for diet). And that was all that was served until dinner was finally served at 7:30pm. 7:30pm!! We were all ready to chew off an arm at this point. And sadly, it became a case of eat and run. As soon as we finished eating, I changed H. into her pajamas and we left. We had driven almost two hours to get to this party (and most of the other guests had driven about an hour), so we had a long drive home. We didn't stay for cake and we didn't get to see the birthday boy open his presents.

There are many things wrong with this scenario. (1) I had to entertain H. for three and a half hours at someone else's house. And H. was not the only toddler or child at the party. There were six or seven others there as well, with no organized games or activities. (2) The party was for a five-year-old, not an adult. What time does he go to bed? It wasn't going to be any time soon, after chowing down on chocolate cake at 9pm. (3) People who bring a gift to a party deserve to see it opened by the receiver. There's no rule that says presents have to be opened after cake. He could have opened his presents while we were waiting for four whole chickens to slow cook on the grill.

This party will now officially be known as The Worst Birthday Party Ever.

Good Luck, Continued...

One of my DVD wishes from my wish list has come true - American Dreams will be out on DVD on September 7. And although it wasn't on my original list (and it should have been) - the first season of 21 Jump St. will be released on October 26. Yeah!

Natalie's Good Luck Must Be Rubbing Off...

Because I actually won something in a contest. Yesterday when I got home from work, there was a package from Time-Life books. I haven't ordered anything in awhile, so I wasn't expecting a package. I opened it and there was a paperback copy of Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook, along with a letter from BookReporter.com. I had won one of their monthly drawings for a free book! Maybe I should go buy a lottery ticket tonight.

The Streak

"I hate The Streak.
There. I said it.
I know it's blasphemy. I know I'm going to hell just for thinking it.
But I hate The Streak."
-Eric Neel

I think the very fact that ESPN.com published an article (albeit a negative one) about Cal Ripken's streak almost 10 years after he broke Lou Gehrig's record and almost three years after he has retired speaks volumes about why fans think it was an important accomplishment. And here are a few other things Eric Neel failed to address in his column:

• Cal Ripken was taking the field and "doing his job" everyday in an era where professional athletes from all sports were being paid millions of dollars to simply warm the bench. Sports fans were disillusioned with cry-baby athletes who whined about every ache and pain, and increasingly distanced themselves (or much worse) from the fans, while the fans themselves were paying higher ticket prices to see mediocre talent. Cal Ripken was a true role model, especially for the younger fans. As I'm typing this, I'm having trouble thinking of a current, active professional athlete who I would want my daughter to admire.
• Fans also knew that once Ripken broke The Streak, it would be the end of an era. Never again will we see a consective-game streak from any of today's athletes. Never again will we see an athlete play for one team for his entire career, (especially not his hometown team).
• Ripken's desire to play did not, as Neel believes to be the truth, "cost him, the Orioles and the fans." We have Peter Angelos to thank for that, not Cal Ripken.
• Speaking from very personal experience, I honestly believe that Cal Ripken single-handedly saved baseball in 1995 by pursuing The Streak. How many fans would have tuned in at all following the strike-shortened 1994 season?
• Neel fails to address any of the same criticism or venom toward Lou Gehrig. Does he feel the same way about Gehrig, even though the same thoughts usually come to mind when his name is mentioned?

Baltimore sports columnist Peter Schmuck has his thoughts here (The Baltimore Sun now requires free registration - sorry).

One Moment in Time

This article made me feel really old. Twenty years ago? Mary Lou Retton, Mitch Gaylord, Tim Daggett, Bart Conner, Matt Biondi, Rowdy Gaines, Steve Lundquist, Greg Louganis, Flo Jo, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Mary Decker Slaney. Did all that really happen twenty years ago?

Like Adam over at Throwing Things, I'm also a big fan of the Olympics. I was in my glory with back-to-back Winter Olympics in '92 and '94, and the free time of a college student to watch maximum hours of coverage. This year, all eyes in our household will be on hometown hero Michael Phelps. It will be interesting to see how the media handles either side of the story - if he wins more than seven medals or if he doesn't. Baltimore Sun columnist Laura Vescey already has her take on it. Ten more days to go!

Niagara Falls Travelogue

As promised, here is the post on our trip to Niagara Falls. As I said, overall it was a wonderful trip, but we probably could have come home on Thursday - I think we were all ready - but, lesson learned. Here's the day-by-day play-by-play:

Sunday, July 18

We hit the road around 9am, but we couldn't seem to get in a good road trip rhythm. We hit the McDonald's drive-thru before breakfast ended at 10:30am, then a bathroom break for M. somewhere else along the way. We had just cruised through Williamsport around 1pm when H. started getting fussy. Thinking she was getting hungry for lunch, we started looking for a place to stop when - blah! - carsickness! Our poor little H. We had to pull over on the side of the road in the rain and change all of her clothes. The carseat was also affected, so I took the pillowcase off my pillow and used it as a cover for it. She was fine for the rest of the ride after that incident, but I think my new-car smell is gone. H. was actually fine for most of the time in the car, thanks to the portable TV/VCR we borrowed from my parents. It was six hours of Barney, with a little Teletubbies thrown in for good measure, and she was occupied.

Just before getting on I-90 outside of Buffalo, M. decides maybe we should ride by the dragway that's in the area, "just to see what it looks like." After some scrambling with the map, I got us there via a detour through the Buffalo suburbs. I think this was the long way, but the last-minuteness of it all threw me off. We did a drive-by and there wasn't much to see. It was kind of a run-down track and they don't race on Sundays. So we finally got on I-90, only to get stuck in a traffic jam to pay a 15-cent toll on the NY Thruway. We burned way more than 15 cents worth of gas waiting in line for a half hour! We crossed the border into Canada without any problems, then proceeded to get stuck in another traffic jam trying to drive the two miles to the hotel. As we found out later, the directions from the hotel website take you the long way. The other problem was that the hotel was in the heart of the tourist district and there were fireworks over the falls Sunday night, so the placed was packed. The only thing I can think to compare it to is the Ocean City (MD) boardwalk on a Saturday night. But we finally made it to the Quality Inn Clifton Hill and checked in. We unloaded the car, then went to get our first unobstructed view of Niagara Falls, just as they were being illuminated for the evening. Very impressive! Then we dined at the Hard Rock Cafe, which may not have been the best choice after our long day. H. was a little overstimulated by all the music and people and barely ate any dinner. That was the first and last night we bought her her own meal from the children's menu - another lesson learned. She ate off of my plate the rest of the trip.

Monday, July 19

Monday dawned a little gray, but not raining, so after a hearty buffet breakfast at the Golden Griddle (which was part of the hotel complex), we walked down to ride the Maid of the Mist. (Our hotel was in a great location - we could walk to most of the major attractions and restaurants.) I had been to Niagara Falls when I was ten years old and one of the few things I remember about the trip was riding the Maid of the Mist and having to wear these smelly rubber raincoats that I'm sure thousands of people had worn before me. Well, welcome to the modern age. Twenty-two years later, visitors are now provided with disposable plastic raincoats. There was even a child size for H. The boat ride was very fun. We laughed the whole time and got soaked. H. wasn't afraid at all, even when the boat was rocking back and forth right next to the falls. She just kept saying, "It's raining, it's raining."


After drying off, we caught the PeopleMover shuttle to go a few miles north to the Botanical Gardens and Butterfly Conservatory. We thought H. would enjoy this, since she loves insects of any kind. But we had to keep her in the stroller most of the time while in the Conservatory because she would try to catch the butterflies (and maim them in the process).

We ate lunch there, too, then headed back to the hotel. After a nap (for all of us), we went to the swimming pool, which I think was H's favorite part of the trip. The outdoor pool was nice, with a big pool and a kiddie pool, both with cool dragon slides. H. got right on the baby slide without even blinking and went down it about a hundred times while we were there.

Dinner Monday night was at the Rainforest Cafe, which I thought H. would like more than she did. She liked the snake in the gift shop, of all things, but not the elephants or gorillas. And thunder is another new word she's added to her vocabulary.

We pretty much followed this schedule for the rest of the week. We would leave the hotel around 9am for activities or sightseeing, then return after lunch for a nap, then a swim in the pool and dinner out. It worked well for trying to keep H. on some kind of schedule.

Tuesday, July 20

On Tuesday we went over the state park on the New York side of the falls, which I thought would be full of trash, graffitti and god knows what else, based on the "the Canadian side is much better than the US side" adage we heard from everyone and from things I had read, too. But the state park area was very nice. It was clean and safe and there was quite a bit to see there. We went to the visitor's center, then walked to both Prospect Point and Goat Island for up-close views of the falls.

We saw plenty of rangers and other park personnel throughout the park and I was rather impressed with it all. I think the US side has made a lot of changes over the years, but hasn't been able to shake the reputation yet. Plus, my overall observation was that there wasn't much to do on the US side in terms of entertainment. We saw plenty of hotels near the falls and the casino, but very few restaurants or shopping choices. Those were definitely all in Clifton Hill.

After the park, we went to the Power Vista Power Plant a little ways up the river for a tour. This was one of the things I picked to do because I thought M. would like it, but I really liked it, too. We practically had the whole place to ourselves and it was very informative. And there was plenty of room for H. to run around instead of being stuck in the stroller.



We were stuck in the indoor pool in the afternoon because of thunder, althought it never actually rained, then we went to dinner at Applebee's, which was uncrowded (yeah!). Afterwards, I went to exchange money at the casino (I had read that they gave a good exchange rate) and the guard at the door made my night. M. stayed outside with H. while I went in and before entering the casino floor, the guard asked, "Age, please?" I said 32 and he said, "Really?" I laughed and said, "Yes, but thank you for asking!"

Wednesday, July 21

On Wednesday we went back and forth across the border several times. We drove to the Buffalo suburbs to visit the Fisher-Price Toystore, based on Wendy's recommendation. I was in heaven! I bought H. a bunch of Christmas presents, plus a new toy for her to play with now. I could have stayed there for hours. There's a toy museum next door, with exhibits featuring the old version of the Little People (oh, how I wish I still had them!), along with other old wooden toys and classic Barbies. I bought two Raggedy Ann items in the gift shop (they were on sale).


In keeping with the children's theme of the day, we went to Explore and More, which H. absolutely loved, of course. She could have spent all day there! But we stayed for a couple of hours, enough time for her to try all of the stations. And I found out from my sister Ness that there's one in Gettysburg, so we'll definitely have to make a trip to that one (and it's inexpensive, too!).



We came back across the border for nap and pool time, then went across again in the evening to the towns of Tonawanda and North Tonawanda, which straddle the Erie Canal. They were having their annual CanalFest the week we were there and on Wednesday night there was a car show.

It was a beautiful area, with all these boats out on the canal, but let me tell you. I have been to a lot of festivals and carnivals in my day and I have never seen anything this crowded (the picture doesn't begin to show how crowded it was out on the closed streets). It was wall-to-wall people, which made it somewhat less enjoyable. But we got some dinner and looked at all the cars, then sat by the canal for awhile to watch the boats and listen to music.

Thursday, July 22

As I said earlier, I think we were all ready to go home on Thursday, so it was a quiet day. We drove up to Niagara-on-the-Lake, which is north of Niagara Falls, right where the Niagara River meets Lake Ontario.

It was beautiful! Lots of Victorian B&Bs and quaint shops, bike and walking paths along the river and spectacular scenery. I told M. I'd like to go back there some day for a long weekend, just the two of us. We didn't visit either of the historic forts in the area, just drove by them, but just the drive was pretty enough.


One last visit to the pool, then we just ordered pizza to eat in our room while packing up.

Friday, July 23

Home Sweet Home. We left around 8am and made it home by 3:30pm. An uneventful ride home, thank goodness. H. couldn't wait to visit her little friend, Jenna, up the street, and we gave her the Nemo fish hat we had bought for her. And we gave Jenna's mom a little thank you gift for watering our hanging baskets (although she said she only had to water them twice - it rained every other day while we were gone).

So it was a great first family vacation for the three of us. I'm already looking forward to planning the next one. Where can we go next year??

"Lite," Adult Contemporary, Easy Listening, Whatever You Want to Call It...

I've been listening to the local "lite" station on the radio while at work this week. It seems the radio on my desk will only tune in to few stations now (was someone messing with it while I was on vacation?) and this one was the most tolerable. However, by the third day, it's getting a little stale. The general rotation each hour appears to be:

• Celine Dion
• Elton John
• Whitney Houston
• Elton John
• Movie soundtrack theme song
• Elton John
• Billy Joel
• Elton John
• something from the '70s
• Elton John
• Journey (which I've actually enjoyed. I need to break out my Journey Greatest Hits CD.)
• Elton John
• Lionel Ritchie
• Elton John
• Country cross-over ballad
• Elton John
• Gloria Estefan

I think you get the picture. I'll be purchasing a new radio for my desk over the weekend.

Back from Beyond

No, I didn't drop off the face of the Earth. We were on our first family vacation last week and I'm still recovering. M. and I took H. to Niagara Falls from Sunday through Friday and overall it was a wonderful trip. I'm currently in the middle of writing a massive entry about it, which I hope to have posted by Friday, with pictures (which are the hold-up, of course). So things should return to normal around here soon!

Operation Gatorbait

Large quantities of bread and marshmallows were seized as evidence.

Via the NPS Morning Report

Happy Fourth (On the Sixth)

Yet another busy weekend! Is it time for vacation yet? We had a wedding to go to on Sunday night, believe it or not, so Sunday during the day was kind of a wasted day. M. and I were going to take H. swimming at her Mimi's house, but it was overcast and cloudy all day and we thought it was going to rain at any minute. Well, it never really rained, then it was time to get ready for the wedding, a "black tie optional" affair at 6:15 in the evening.

The wedding was beautiful, once of the best ones we've ever been to. It was a traditional Jewish wedding, but very personal to the bride and groom. The bride was Na's older sister and her groom was someone she knew from her days as a camp counselor who suddenly became more than a friend. The wedding party was small and included a groom's maid. I know this is more common nowadays, but this was the first wedding we had been to that had one. Na and Henry both looked wonderful in their formal attire and everyone was beaming.

At the beginning of the reception, they showed a slide show/video with baby pictures of both the bride and groom, then included video of Alicia getting ready that morning, as well as footage from the actual ceremony. Too cool! When the groom works for IBM, you have connections.

We didn't get home until after midnight, a late night for us. Mimi watched H. for us, but we brought her home with us instead of having her spend the night. I don't know why we didn't, because M. went back to his mom's the next day to take H. swimming. He was the babysitter for the afternoon while I went to the Orioles' game.

I had won the company tickets at work for the day. There were four tickets, but M. didn't want to go. (I believe his exact words were, "I'd rather go to the Wiggles concert than sit through a baseball game.") He likes all sports except for baseball. Na was still busy with wedding activities (an after-wedding brunch before the couple left on their honeymoon), so Wendy & Shane & I went. The seats were awesome - box seats just past first base, about ten rows back from the field. The only bad thing was the heat - game time temp was 94 degrees. But it was a good game - the O's actually won - and we enjoyed some Boog's pit beef sandwiches and stuck it out until the end of the game. It had been several years since I had gone to a game, probably the longest dry spell of my life, so it was nice to go back and enjoy a game. (The dry spell is a long story, but for those of you who don't know it, I used to be a huge Orioles' fan, went to tons of games every year, and worked at Oriole Park while I was in college. Then came the MLB strike of 1994 and I was one of the fans they lost and never really regained.) It felt good to get excited about baseball again and it felt good to hang out with my friends for awhile and it felt good to do the wave with 30,000 other people. All in all, a wonderful way to spend the afternoon.

Should He Stay or Should He Go?

Mike Krzyzewski has decided to stay. And in doing so, Coach K has proved himself to be a class act once again. Just read these comments about why he chose to stay at Duke instead of being lured away to the NBA. Most coaches would just have seen the dollar signs and not looked at anything else. He's one of the main reasons I've been a Duke fan for over 15 years.

Movie Meme

Passing along this meme from Natalie. Bold the titles you've seen, add an underline if you own it, then add three more titles that aren't listed at the end. Let it be said that I do not own a lot of movies and the ones I have bought recently have been kid videos or DVDs. And thanks to the vagaries of cable, there are quite a few movies on this list that I've seen good portions of, but have not actually seen the whole movie. So I was being honest when I didn't bold "The American President," "Die Hard" and others.

01. Trainspotting
02. Shrek
03. M
04. Dogma
05. Strictly Ballroom
06. The Princess Bride
07. Love Actually
08. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings
09. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
10. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
11. Reservoir Dogs
12. Desperado
13. Swordfish
14. Kill Bill Vol. 1
15. Donnie Darko
16. Spirited Away
17. Better Than Sex
18. Sleepy Hollow
19. Pirates of the Caribbean
20. The Eye
21. Requiem for a Dream
22. Dawn of the Dead The original.
23. The Pillow Book
24. The Italian Job
25. The Goonies
26. Basketball
27. The Spice Girls Movie (Spice World)
28. Army of Darkness
29. The Color Purple
30. The Safety of Objects
31. Can't Hardly Wait
32. Mystic Pizza
33. Finding Nemo (Yes, I own this, but have not actually seen it.)
34. Monsters Inc.
35. Circle of Friends
36. Mary Poppins
37. The Bourne Identity
38. Forrest Gump
39. A Clockwork Orange
40. Kindergarten Cop
41. On The Line
42. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
43. Final Destination
44. Sorority Boys
45. Urban Legend
46. Cheaper by the Dozen The original.
47. Fierce Creatures
48. Dude, Where's My Car
49. Ladyhawke
50. Ghostbusters
51. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
52. Back to the Future
53. An Affair To Remember
54. Somewhere In Time
55. North By Northwest
56. Moulin Rouge
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
58. The Wizard of Oz
59. Zoolander
60. A Walk to Remember
61. Chicago (It's on my wishlist)
62. Vanilla Sky
63. The Sweetest Thing
64. Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead
65. The Nightmare Before Christmas
66. Chasing Amy
67. Edward Scissorhands
68. Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert
69. Muriel's Wedding
70. Croupier
71. Blade Runner
72. Cruel Intentions
73. Ocean's Eleven (the remake, since it didn’t specify)
74. Magnolia
75. Fight Club
76. Beauty and The Beast
77. Much Ado About Nothing
78. Dirty Dancing
79. Gladiator
80. Ever After
81. Braveheart
82. What Lies Beneath
83. Regarding Henry (My least favorite Harrison Ford movie, in case you were wondering.)
84. The Dark Crystal
85. Star Wars
86. The Birds
87. Beaches
88. Cujo
89. Maid In Manhattan
90. Labyrinth
91. Thoroughly Modern Millie
92. His Girl Friday
93. Chocolat
94. Independence Day
95. Singing in the Rain
96. Big Fish
97. The Thomas Crown Affair (the remake)
98. The Matrix
99. Stargate
100. A Hard Day's Night
101. About A Boy
102. Jurassic Park
103. Life of Brian
104. Dune
105. Help!
106. Grease
107. Newsies
108. Gone With The Wind
109. School of Rock
110. TOMMY
111. Yellow Submarine
112. From Hell
113. Benny & Joon
114. Amelie
115. Bridget Jones' Diary
116. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
117. Heavenly Creatures
118. All About Eve
119. The Outsiders
120. Airplane!
121. The Sorcerer
122. The Crying Game
123. Hedwig and the Angry Inch
124. Slap Her, She's French
125. Amadeus
126. Tommy Boy
127. Aladdin
128. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
129. Snatch
130. American History X
131. Jack and Sarah
132. Monkey Bone
133. Rocky Horror Picture Show
134. Kate and Leopold
135. Interview with the Vampire
136. Underworld
137. Truly, Madly, Deeply
138. Tank Girl
139. Boondock Saints
140. Blow Dry
141. Titanic
142. Good Morning Vietnam
143. Save the Last Dance
144. Lost in Translation
145. Willow
146. Legend
147. Van Helsing
148. Troy
149. Nine Girls and a Ghost
150. A Knight's Tale
151. Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
152. Beetlejuice
153. E.T. (My very first DVD)
154. Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone
155. Spaceballs
156. Young Frankenstein
157. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
158. American President
159. Bad Boys (Which one? Will Smith or Sean Penn? I’ve seen both.)
160. Pecker
161. Pink Floyd: The Wall
161. X-Men
162. Sidewalks of New York
163. The Children of Dune
164. Beyond Borders
165. Life Is Beautiful
166. Good Will Hunting
167. Run Lola Run
168. Blazing Saddles
169. Caligula
170. The Transporter
171. Better Off Dead
172. The Abyss
173. Almost Famous
174. The Red Violin
175. Contact
176. Stand and Deliver
177. Clueless
178. William Shakespeare's Romeo+Juliet
179. Dangerous Liaisons
180. I Am Sam
181. The Usual Suspects
182. U-571
183. Capricorn One
184. The Little Shop of Horrors (the one with Jack Nicholson)
185. Die Hard
186. The Flamingo Kid
187. Night of the Comet
188. Point Break189. Chatterbox
190. Secretary
191. Breakfast at Tiffany's
192. American Beauty
193. Pulp Fiction
194. What About Bob
My additions:
195. Sixteen Candles
196. Under the Tuscan Sun
197. The Parent Trap (the original)

Toddler Tales

It was an eventful weekend in Toddlerville, both good and bad. On Saturday, we went to the 40th birthday party for M's brother-in-law. It was at his aunt's house, and she has this wonderful in-ground pool that's heated. It was heaven, especially since the air was kind of cool Saturday evening. Surprisingly, both H's bathing suit and baby inner tube from last summer still fit, so we were able to get a little more mileage out of them so far this year. H. loved the pool! We stayed in for about an hour, with H. kicking her legs and putting her face in the water and blowing bubbles. I needed a break, so we got out for a little while, then M. got back in with her and I was able to take some pictures.



When she wasn't in the pool, H. spent the rest of the party chasing after the dogs that were there, yelling, "Doggie, doggie," at the top of her lungs. We didn't leave the party until 9pm and H. was out like a light. I let her sleep in her clothes once we got home and she slept until 7:30am Sunday morning.

Also, before we went to the party, we went and ordered a big wooden swing set, the likes of which you have never seen before. M. talked me into getting the "deluxe" model, which is pretty cool. I'm glad we ordered it now, because it takes 4-5 weeks to come in, so we'll have it well before her birthday party.


(This could almost be our backyard, with the cornfield in the background, but it's really just the picture from the brochure.)

Saturday was the good day. Sunday, not so good. Around noon, I put H. down for her nap. After awhile, I could hear her in her room, not yelling or fussing, just making noise, so I went in to check on her. She was standing up in her crib, pointing at a piece of paper on the floor. When I picked it up, I realized it was a piece of wallpaper border from the wall next to her crib. She had ripped off two pieces of border and pulled down the corner of another! So Sunday became the first day that H. was punished. I scolded her (I had written "yelled" but it sounded really mean) for ripping the wallpaper and explained that it was very, very bad. She wanted to get out of her crib, but I told her she had to stay in her crib and take her nap, no matter what. I pulled the crib away from the wall and left her alone. She was crying, but I stuck to my guns and eventually she fell asleep. When she woke up an hour or so later, she remembered that she had done something wrong. She was looking at the wall and saying "Uh, oh!" How can you stay mad at someone so cute! I fixed the piece that was just pulled down, but I don't know what to do about the other piece that was torn.

Since she liked the pool so much, I set up the blow-up pool early Sunday morning so the water would have a chance to warm up by the afternoon. After her nap and lunch, I covered H. with sunscreen and put on a swim diaper and her bathing suit. Before we had a chance to go outside, she was sitting on the chair in the living room and peed. Well, apparently those swim diapers don't work very well outside the pool. My chair cushion was soaked! So I changed her and into the pool we went. Even sitting in the sun, the water didn't warm up very much. "Cold, cold," she kept saying. Hayley spent most of the time outside the pool, putting her plastic fish in to swim. Then she pooped and back inside we went to change the swim diaper yet again. This was hardly worth all the effort! After about an hour, I gave up and got her dressed, then we went up the street to visit her friend Jenna. By the time M. got home from racing, I was exhausted.



On the subject of racing, M. did really well on Sunday, going four rounds before losing with a red light. He did win back his money, which was pretty good. He didn't get home until about 9:30pm, which is late. Both his brother and friend Tim each called about three times to see if he was home yet, saying, "That must mean he's doing well." Of course, I'm always thinking the opposite, that there's been a big wreck or something, but everything was fine. However, my worst fears were confirmed that night when we were watching the professional NHRA dragracers on ESPN. One of the top-fuel dragster drivers, Darrell Russell, was killed in a crash during the event in St. Louis. He was only 35 years old and had just won an NHRA event in Columbus a few weeks ago. I realize that these guys race at a completely different level than M., but there's always that thought in the back of your head about the element of danger involved with this sport/hobby.

PS - Happy B-Day to BFF Na. I left her a funny message on her answering machine tonight to make sure her family didn't forget her birthday, a la Sixteen Candles. Her sister is getting married on Sunday and it's going to be quite the bash, with people coming from out of town and events running from Friday through Monday.

I love Sarah Weinman and "Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind!" I'm sorry I've only just discovered her this month. I killed a good two hours this morning reading all the links to this past weekend's coverage of mystery and crime books. I added four new books to my "To Read" list and found a new series to check out - Lynne Heitman's "Alex Shanahan" series.

One of these days, I'll write a long post about all the mystery/crime/thriller series I'm addicted to, but for now, I need to make up for lost time from this morning. It's the end of our fiscal year and actually quite busy. A longer post about the weekend (many delightful and not-so-delightful toddler stories to share) to come as well.

National Park Soapbox

I've been receiving this e-mail newsletter from the National Park Trust for the past few weeks and it is very informative. If you are interested in learning what is happening in our national parks, sign up!

The New York Times article on how both political parties are using the parks in this election year was eye-opening. It also discusses the current crisis in the parks related to lack of funding from the current administration and potential budget cuts that could cause parks to be closed one or two days a week this summer - during the height of visitation.

"It's sort of like going to the grocery store and having only one checkout line open," Mr. Laitner said in an interview.

If the current and future state of our national parks is an important issue to you, TAKE ACTION! Other ways to stay informed include the National Parks Conservation Association, which offers easy-to-use e-mail action alerts for notifying your elected officials of issues, and the NPS's own Morning Report.

Classic Books

Passing along this meme from Tiny Little Librarian. The titles in bold are the ones I have read. I'll let you come to your own conclusions about what this says regarding my public school education and very expensive, small, private liberal arts college degree. And this is coming from someone who loves to read and took extra literature classes in college as my electives. However, I do remember that some of the other English classes in high school having to read The Great Gatsby and The Grapes of Wrath, so these books were taught in the Baltimore County public school system, just not in the classes I was taking.

Beowulf
Achebe, Chinua - Things Fall Apart
Agee, James - A Death in the Family
Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice (No, but Emma. This is actually next on my Project Gutenberg reading list.)
Baldwin, James - Go Tell It on the Mountain
Beckett, Samuel - Waiting for Godot
Bellow, Saul - The Adventures of Augie March
Brontë, Charlotte - Jane Eyre (I wrote my high school senior English term paper on this)
Brontë, Emily - Wuthering Heights
Camus, Albert - The Stranger
Cather, Willa - Death Comes for the Archbishop
Chaucer, Geoffrey - The Canterbury Tales
Chekhov, Anton - The Cherry Orchard
Chopin, Kate - The Awakening
Conrad, Joseph - Heart of Darkness
Cooper, James Fenimore - The Last of the Mohicans
Crane, Stephen - The Red Badge of Courage
Dante - Inferno (I vaguely remember reading sections of this for a unit in H.S.)
de Cervantes, Miguel - Don Quixote
Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles - A Tale of Two Cities (H.S. required reading was Great Expectations instead.)
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - Crime and Punishment
Douglass, Frederick - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Dreiser, Theodore - An American Tragedy
Dumas, Alexandre - The Three Musketeers
Eliot, George - The Mill on the Floss
Ellison, Ralph - Invisible Man
Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Selected Essays (college)
Faulkner, William - As I Lay Dying
Faulkner, William - The Sound and the Fury
Fielding, Henry - Tom Jones
Fitzgerald, F. Scott - The Great Gatsby
Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary
Ford, Ford Madox - The Good Soldier
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von - Faust
Golding, William - Lord of the Flies (H.S. and college. We were reading this in H.S. when the version of the movie starring Balthazar Getty came out.)
Hardy, Thomas - Tess of the d’Urbervilles
Hawthorne, Nathaniel - The Scarlet Letter
Heller, Joseph - Catch 22
Hemingway, Ernest - A Farewell to Arms
Homer - The Iliad
Homer - The Odyssey (I seem to remember spending a lot of time on both of these in H.S.)
Hugo, Victor - The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hurston, Zora Neale - Their Eyes Were Watching God
Huxley, Aldous - Brave New World
Ibsen, Henrik - A Doll’s House
James, Henry - The Portrait of a Lady
James, Henry - The Turn of the Screw
Joyce, James - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Kafka, Franz - The Metamorphosis (college)
Kingston, Maxine Hong - The Woman Warrior
Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird (H.S.)
Lewis, Sinclair - Babbitt
London, Jack - The Call of the Wild (H.S.)
Mann, Thomas - The Magic Mountain
Marquez, Gabriel García - One Hundred Years of Solitude
Melville, Herman - Bartleby the Scrivener (Actually reading this is questionable, however, I do distinctly remember watching the movie of this, featuring a v. young Barry "Greg Brady" Williams as one of the office assistants. I would prefer not to.)
Melville, Herman - Moby Dick (No, but I had to read Billy Budd in both H.S. and college)
Miller, Arthur - The Crucible (H.S.)
Morrison, Toni - Beloved
O’Connor, Flannery - A Good Man is Hard to Find (Another H.S. term paper topic)
O’Neill, Eugene - Long Day’s Journey into Night
Orwell, George - Animal Farm (H.S. and college)
Pasternak, Boris - Doctor Zhivago
Plath, Sylvia - The Bell Jar (read on my own while in college)
Poe, Edgar Allan - Selected Tales (Poe was big in Maryland schools. We read different stories every year.)
Proust, Marcel - Swann’s Way
Pynchon, Thomas - The Crying of Lot 49
Remarque, Erich Maria - All Quiet on the Western Front (H.S.)
Rostand, Edmond - Cyrano de Bergerac
Roth, Henry - Call It Sleep
Salinger, J.D. - The Catcher in the Rye (also read on my own in college)
Shakespeare, William - Hamlet
Shakespeare, William - Macbeth
Shakespeare, William - A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Shakespeare, William - Romeo and Juliet (As well as Julius Caesar for us in H.S.)
Shaw, George Bernard - Pygmalion
Shelley, Mary – Frankenstein (college)
Silko, Leslie Marmon - Ceremony
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Sophocles - Antigone
Sophocles - Oedipus Rex (H.S.)
Steinbeck, John - The Grapes of Wrath (No, but The Red Pony and The Pearl. And I read East of Eden on my own pre-Oprah.)
Stevenson, Robert Louis - Treasure Island
Stowe, Harriet Beecher - Uncle Tom’s Cabin (just read this on my own last year)
Swift, Jonathan - Gulliver’s Travels (college)
Thackeray, William - Vanity Fair
Thoreau, Henry David – Walden (college)
Tolstoy, Leo - War and Peace
Turgenev, Ivan - Fathers and Sons
Twain, Mark - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (H.S. and college. And Tom Sawyer, too.)
Voltaire - Candide
Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. - Slaughterhouse-Five (No, but I read Cat’s Cradle in college.)
Walker, Alice - The Color Purple
Wharton, Edith - The House of Mirth
Welty, Eudora - Collected Stories (No, but I have read Delta Wedding.)
Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass (college)
Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorian Gray
Williams, Tennessee - The Glass Menagerie
Woolf, Virginia - To the Lighthouse
Wright, Richard - Native Son

Walmart Update

In the interest of fair reporting, I feel I must mention this news story from yesterday, since I ranted about it back in December. However, yesterday's announcement was much more low-key than the build-up to the Feb. 1 debit-card cut-off. I'll let you know if I run into any problems when I try to use my card there later this week.

Top Celebrities

My random comments on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list:

It's awesome that the three women from the cast of FRIENDS - Jennifer Aniston (17), Courteney Cox (65) and Lisa Kudrow (74) - all made the Top 100, with nary a mention of the three men. You go, girls!

How did Johnny Depp (10) sneak into the Top 10? He must have had a good royalty arrangement for PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN.

I'm sure Phil Mickelson (62) loves being ranked just below "one-year wonder" Jessica Simpson (61) and miles behind Tiger (2).

Is being a magician really such a lucrative profession? It must be, for David Copperfield (35), Siegfried & Roy (58) and David Blaine (89) to all make the list.

Authors in the Top 100: J.K. Rowling (6) - of course, Nora Roberts (43); Dan Brown (44) - hopefully another "one-year wonder"; James Patterson (47); and John Grisham (73).

Only one NASCAR driver in the Top 100? - Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (59).

Even though he didn't make the list, I thought the accompanying article on Tony Hawk was very interesting.

Noticably missing from this year's list after making it into the Top 10 of 2003's list - Eminem & Dr. Dre (2), Jennifer Lopez (5) and Ben Affleck (7).

Happy Father's Day

We had a great Father's Day this year. First, we celebrated with my side of the family on Saturday, since we were all getting together for K&K's ballet recital (which was absolutely adorable). We had hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill and enjoyed the wonderful weather. We also celebrated my mother's birthday, which is Tuesday, so there were lots of presents to open and cake, too! And I think my dad received the best Father's Day present of all - a whole day to himself to sit and watch the last round of the U.S. Open without anyone running in front of the TV or asking to watch a movie in the middle of golf. My sister and her family were leaving for Myrtle Beach early Sunday morning, so it's peace and quiet for the whole week.

With the early get-together on Saturday, M. and H. and I were free to have our own little family celebration on Sunday. H. and I went along to watch Mark race his car at the drag strip. I hadn't been to watch him for a couple of summers, since it's not exactly my favorite activity, but it was his day and the whole thing was actually my idea. We all had a great time! The weather was spectacular - warm and sunny, but no humidity, not a cloud in the sky. So we tailgated in the new van, which was perfect, and put M's Father's Day gift - a thermo-electric cooler - immediately to good use. H. really seemed to enjoy herself and watching her Daddy race his car, and there were even some other kids there her age that she could play with during the down time. I think we'll probably end up going a couple of more times this year as a family, as long as it isn't 95 degrees and 100% humidity!

Library "Bestsellers"

This is such a great idea, I can't believe someone didn't think of it sooner! I'm usually about six months to a year behind what's tops on the bestseller list (just take a look at the sidebar), since I rarely buy new hardbacks, instead placing holds at the library. I originally found out about the list from an article in today's USA Today.

Speaking of libraries, my local library is closed for two weeks as they prepare to move into a brand new building. The current library is in a very small, two-story building that used to be a bank and there are only about five street parking spaces available. I'm sorry if it sounds incredibly geekly, but I'm very excited about the opening of the new library on June 26th. In the meantime, I'm visiting another local branch in the area which is also in a fairly new building and it's saving me on books I normally would have ordered (for a $1 each with the new fee system) via ILL, so I don't mind the wait until the 26th.

Random

Somehow, I can't quite picture this.

I updated my cross-stitch gallery with a Work In Progress - a Christmas stocking for Big H. that I hope to have finished by December.

You'll notice a new banner ad on the site over on the right. Pay Sticker Planet a visit. They have lots of cool stuff for scrapbooking and I get a $10 gift certificate for placing the ad.

"Cow in the Road, Swerve to the Left..."

I hit a duck on my way home from work yesterday. It was awful. I saw it in the road up ahead and thought it was a bird and kept waiting for it to fly away. By the time I was close enough to see it was a small duck (not a duckling) instead of a bird, and that it wasn't flying away, it was too late to swerve. I've never felt so awful in my entire life. I saw it on the road in my rearview mirror and wanted to cry. I've learned my lesson the hard way now - I have to slow down when driving on the windy part of the road near the pond. I already drive slow on part of one road near our house where people let their pet rabbits hop free around the yard and into the street. These are not small, brown, fast wild rabbits, but giant, fat white and black Cadbury-bunny type pet rabbits that are set free at various times of the day, usually early in the morning.

And this coming a week after Mark grazed a deer with the car in the dark. The only damage was to the passenger-side parking light and he never saw the deer before or after it happened. We're going to have to up our care and feeding of the squirrels and birds in our backyard to reverse this bad animal karma.

Monday Morning Blogging

Via Throwing Things, I learned that June 4 marked the 20th anniversary of the release of Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. album. In the continuing effort to expose my geekdom here on this site, I will admit that at the tender age of 12, this was one of the very first cassettes I ever bought with my own money (I had bought "albums" previously, then moved onto cassettes and a boombox of my own). I distinctly remember a trip to Kmart with my parents (my older sister was a cashier there at the time, her very first job) and along with Born in the U.S.A., I also purchased Huey Lewis and the News' "Sports" and Lionel Richie's "Can't Slow Down." [Insert laugher and/or your own joke here.] In the interest of full disclosure, all of these cassettes are still in my possession.

I didn't realize it until this morning, but June 4 was also the first anniversary of this online journal/blog, so Happy Anniversary to me! It's been quite a fascinating experience so far and I think just in the past few months I've really started to get the hang of it - posting more often, on a variety of topics, with a little more depth. It's been hard to gauge how much to reveal and how much to keep private. Just the other day, I posted a short little link to my bank's website with a comment about the picture on the home page, then that night, while trying to fall asleep, I thought, "Now anyone reading this knows where I do my banking! What if I'm the victim of identity theft?" So I took the entry down the next day. For the start of year #2, I've taken advantage of the new comments feature Blogger now offers, so please feel free to share your thoughts with me. You can also e-mail me at anytime. And I hope you continue to enjoy this as much as I have!

Anyhoo, I was pleasantly surprised not to see mention of the term "chick lit" in this article {RegReq}, even though The Second Assistant clearly falls into this "category."

After faltering Memorial Day weekend, I moved forward with my movie watching this past week, checking THE RUNAWAY JURY, UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN and MONSTER off my list. I was pleasantly surprised by JURY, especially since a major premise of the book was changed (gun manufacturer liability vs. tobacco company liability), but it worked well. TUSCAN SUN was warm and funny (I watched this one by myself) and MONSTER was pretty much what I expected. Of course, I knew how it ended, but in the various specials I've seen about Aileen Wuornos on A&E, I don't remember much about her relationship with Selby. I think Christina Ricci deserved an Oscar nom as well for Best Supporting Actress.

Amazon World Redux

Since Amazon World is out of commission, I'll post this user review that I stumbled across today for the children's book Dorrie and the Blue Witch.

Books that Pagan parents can feel good about giving to their children are few and far between. The Dorrie books are definitely among these few, portaying a community of witches (largely female, but with some fine male witches too) in a refreshingly positive way. The bad Blue Witch in this particular book is an anomaly and is defeated by Dorrie's ingenuity and Dorrie's mother's magic. These were my favorite books when I was a goofy little witch, and my daughter loves them as much as I once did. Amazon only offers two of the books, but I'm sure if you harass them enough they can find the rest. Wiccan parents will find the effort well worth their time.

Contest

Bookreporter.com is running an intriguing Summer Reading contest. I could only answer four right off the bat. Five others I found very easily on Amazon, and for the last three, I had to do a little searching. I'm off to submit my answers. I would love to win the just-released Lisa Scottoline book.

Goodbye Twenties, Hello Minivan

Well, we finally did it. We broke down and bought a minivan this weekend. We had been thinking about it for a long time and decided on the Kia Sedona, and we thought we could get a good deal over the holiday weekend.



We ended up keeping the trusty Neon, since we were only going to get $1000 for it, so M. will just drive it for the gas mileage until it dies. I drove the new van down to my sister's yesterday and I love it - a smooth, quiet ride, plenty of room and finally, a CD player! I christened the CD player with Tracy Lawrence's new CD Strong.

Van shopping and buying took up most of the day on Saturday. M's mom was kind enough to watch H. while we were gone. We took her with us when we bought the new truck back in November and that was an ordeal, so this worked out well.

Yesterday, we went down to my sister's pool club, even though it was overcast and cool. There were actually some kids in the pool. I don't know how they do it - the water was like ice. I didn't even bring our swim clothes with us.

Today, it is rainy and cold. It's been in the '80s or '90s pretty much the entire month of May, but when we all have the day off of work, it's barely seventy degrees and raining. We did go outside for a little fresh air this afternoon. Since I had the digital camera out to take the picture of the van, here's a gratuitous photo of H. Enjoy what's left of the holiday weekend!

Random Weekend Thoughts

My strep throat lingered into the weekend (and into my right ear), but I felt much better by the time we went out Saturday night to the "Meet Me in Margaritaville" fundraiser event for the local library. It was the perfect night for an outdoor event. We were seated on the back deck with a view of the vineyards (I keep wanting to say orchards, which isn't right) and a lovely breeze blowing, which must have kept the bugs away, because it was a mosquito-free night. The only down side was that we were seated right next to a speaker, which made conversation a little difficult, but it was a great evening out with friends and family. And I cannot explain how wonderful it was to only have a five-minute drive home, when most of our outings involve a trip of about an hour.

We left H. with a new babysitter for the first time, a teenager who lives around the corner. Everything went smoothly and I only called home once, just to make sure she cooperated at bedtime, which she did. (The babysitter's mother called three times, since it was her first time sitting!) It will be great to have a sitter so close by and available - maybe M. and I can go out a little bit more by ourselves.

***

I purchased this facial system from Avon, which I haven't used in years, in the endless hope of finding a cure for my dreadfully uneven, large-pored skin. Should I take before and after photos? Also, have you seen Avon's ad campaign for "Meet Mark?" Since my husband's name is Mark, these commercials have even more double meaning for me than intended. "I met Mark at a party." "I met Mark in the bathroom." I met Mark while working with his sister at the baseball stadium!

***

I'm trying to recall if I watched any TV this weekend and I'm drawing a blank. I think I watched Dateline Friday night, but I watched it last night, too, and every episode runs together anyway. Is Keith Morrison the only reporter for the show nowadays? He reported both stories last night and I know he's done the last few I've paid any attention to lately. I also watched the first half of "Reversible Errors" last night, which was okay. I haven't read that book, but the dialog was very stilted and forced, especially in the opening scenes. Whether or not anything better comes up between now and Tuesday night will decide if I watch part two. And Monica Potter reminds me a bit of Julia Roberts, both her voice and her features, which I never noticed before last night.

***

In unrelated news, I updated my gallery at Cyber Stitchers with a project I started back in March, but just finished last week. I've been more focused on reading than cross-stitching lately, but I finished up that last project and started on H's Christmas stocking, which I hope to finish before December (a work-in-progress photo at the gallery to come soon).

Is It Thursday Already?

The last week has been an illness-induced blur. First, I didn't get to watch any movies this weekend (except for a rerun of Mr. Holland's Opus on Saturday afternoon) because H. was running a fever Friday afternoon. I raced to pick her up and get her home without stopping at the video store. She was cranky and not herself all day Saturday and we finally came to the realization that she's getting her two-year molars. She hasn't drooled this much since she was three-months old. She slept horribly Saturday night and we overslept for meeting my friend Debi and her daughter to go outlet shopping in Lancaster, where we purchased oodles of adorable summer clothes for the little ones.

Tuesday was my turn to feel ill. I came home with a headache and by 10pm, was running a fever. Tuesday night, I had severe chills - I had never been so cold in my life. I woke up at 5:30am yesterday with a 104.1 fever and a sore throat. I called in sick to work, somehow drove H. to daycare, then called the doctor's office. My fever had dropped some by 8am, so they told me to wait it out for 24 hours to see if it stayed down or not. I barely moved at all yesterday, sleeping and getting to watch Dr. Phil and Oprah. By 9pm, I started to feel much better and my fever was gone this morning, even though my throat is still very sore. I only came into work because I have a meeting this afternoon with an outside client, or else I would have stayed home one more day. So I can't believe it's Thursday already. I hope I feel better by Saturday for the "Meet Me in Margaritaville" library fundraiser a bunch of us are going to. More to come...

Movie Madness

I am woefully behind in my movie renting/watching. I just made a list of 40 movies that I want to see - 40! - and that's just movies that have been released on video since last fall. Somehow, M. and I got out of the habit of watching movies on Friday nights, maybe because we're usually asleep by 9:30 or 10:00pm. And because "Grounded for Life" is on Fridays at 9 and that's one of our favorite shows, falling right in the middle of movie time. The last two movies we have watched have been School of Rock and Pirates of the Caribbean, weeks apart. (Don't even ask what the last movie I saw in the movie theater was. Okay, with Mark is was Cast Away in December 2000, and with my girlfriends, it was Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood in the summer of 2002, just before H. was born. I'll be glad when H. is old enough to go to the movies; at least I'll get to see a few movies on the big screen.)

But this weekend, I'm going to rent two movies - one for us to watch together on Friday night (like Welcome to Mooseport or Runaway Jury), then one for me to watch on Saturday night while M. is racing, (maybe Mona Lisa Smile or Under the Tuscan Sun, something M. won't care if I watch without him). And with summer reruns set to kick in in the next few weeks, maybe I can sneak a few movies in during the week, too. That's my new mid-year resolution!

Yuck!

Is this not the ugliest thing you've ever seen? It looks like something you would find in prison, not a kid's room.

School Shooting

This story made the national news. Unfortunately, this incident happened at my alma mater.

Slacker Mom

I think I'm going to go out and buy this book now! I'm so in agreement with this. Professional babyproofer?

I Tumble for You

I was actually glad to come into work today, this weekend was so stressful and exhausting. Friday night, we drove up to mall so I could get my replacement camera. I pre-ordered online, so all I had to do was run in and pick it up and all went smoothly. Then I wanted to go to Boscov's to buy a shower gift I needed for next weekend (I'm trying to stay on the ball). This particular store doesn't keep any china in-stock - it all has to be ordered and it takes eight weeks. Eight weeks! So I immediately came home and ordered what I wanted from Barron's for delivery in 7-10 business days. I was a regular Barron's customer in my immediate post-college years when I was attending 4-6 weddings a year and they never let me down. There are dozens of other places where you could get china placesettings and accessories fairly quickly, so who would even bother waiting eight weeks?

Saturday was my niece K's First Holy Communion. We got to the church just as the children were proceeding into the church (late because M. had to cut his mother's grass that morning). It was hot and humid on Saturday and I didn't cool off until 7pm that night. The mass and ceremony were lovely. I cried both in the beginning when I first saw K. and at the end when the whole class sang together. It was all so sweet!

A party followed at my parents' house. Luckily, the predicted rain never came and the kids played outside the whole time. I gorged myself on my mom's homemade meatballs and potato salad. My cousin was there with her new baby, only a month old. She was so cute and so good, especially with all strangers around. There was a wonderful breeze blowing through the house, but again, I was sweating all day. We finally left a little after five. H. fell asleep in the car and when we got home, I put her in her crib to let her sleep a little longer and she ended up sleeping through the night! About 13 hours! She didn't even wake up early Sunday morning, just her regular time of about 6:15.

So I took a long shower and finally cooled off to enjoy a quiet evening at home. But my happiness was destroyed with the announcement that Brad Cotter was named the new Nashville Star. To paraphrase Amy, George Canyon was robbed! I was so disappointed - I really thought he had it all the way. I hope he still gets a recording contract out of all of this. I would certainly be more willing to buy an album of his than Brad's. I think it really hurt him that only people in the US could vote by phone.

Sunday turned out to be a not-so-great day. It was a good thing H. had all that sleep the night before. Late in the afternoon, I scrubbed down the patio furniture and we were all getting ready to go inside. I was holding H. when I fell - hard. It all happened so fast, I'm not really sure what happened. I think I tripped on the piece of wood that separates our patio from the grass, but all of the sudden, I was crashing to the ground. I landed on my knees on the concrete and H. pretty much landed on her head. I was stunned for a second, then H. started screaming. I thought for sure the whole front of her face was going to be bloody. I picked her up and she appeared to be fine, but then a scrape and swelling started to appear right in the center of her forehead. It took awhile to get her calmed down and cleaned up. I think I was more upset than she was, I felt so bad. She let me put a cold rag on her bump intermittently, but it was so red and purple. I was convinced she had a concussion. I looked up the symptoms in the baby book and kept an eye on her the rest of the night - she didn't vomit, her pupils were the same size and she was never disoriented.

In the end, she was fine. She ate both a snack and dinner as usual and even went back outside with M. for a little while. She went to bed a little bit earlier than usual, but who could blame her? I was up half the night checking on her, making sure she was still conscious and that she really was fine. She woke up regular time this morning, happy as can be, wanting her cuppy and Elmo.

I, on the other hand, was tempted to call in sick to work. I have major scrapes on both knees that are still oozing and my left ankle was swollen all night. When I woke up at 3am to check on H., I could barely walk. I took some Tylenol and by 6am, it felt much better. My whole left side is sore - the side I was holding H. on - even though I landed straight down on my knees when I fell. I feel like I'm back in elementary school, the tomboy who had scabby knees all summer long. I don't know how I'm going to swing wearing pants to work every day this week!

Dreaming

I had some really strange dreams last night, which I remembered when I woke up this morning. The first one was that I took Pierce Brosnan to my 10-year college reunion (which is this Saturday, but I'm not going because it's my niece's First Communion). Every time I walked by somebody, I would say, "That's right, that's James Bond." Maybe it's a good thing I'm not going.

Somewhere in the middle, but I don't think it was part of the reunion dream, Julianne Moore was my cousin and I was trying to guess her middle name. Obviously, I've seen too many commercials for Laws of Attraction.

Then I dreamt (dreamed?) that I got a speeding ticket for going 31 in a 25. At first, the cop wouldn't tell me how fast I was going, instead telling me that my RPM was this and that my tachometer was this (does that make any sense?). I couldn't believe I was ticketed for such a minor offense, in my dream, but I was extra careful driving through town this morning.

The last dream was about Eric the carpenter from Clean Sweep. We were working on a project that involved trying to gather as many of those blue plastic shopping bags as possible. Huh?

Strange to say the least. Part of this tells me I spend too much time watching TV.

Who Do I Call?

TV shows I would like to see available on DVD:
Any Day Now (Lifetime) - one of the best shows to ever air on TV. Realistic and not afraid to address touchy subjects - race, teenage pregnancy, etc.
State of Grace (ABC Family Channel) - heartwarming and fun, but given the boot by Disney anyway.
Homefront (originally on ABC, I believe) - great cast and wonderful continuing storylines for this period show.
American Dreams (get on the ball, NBC) - I usually cry every week during this show, sometimes just when I hear the theme song.
Relativity (also aired on ABC) - one of the most romantic shows ever. It took me a while to realize Michael on "Miss Match" was the hunky "Leo" from this show.
Higher Ground - post-Dr. Quinn Joe Lando guilty pleasure series (aired on Fox/ABC Family Channel or USA, can't remember)
Wings - one of my all-time favorite comedies that I can't seem to find in reruns very often after it was on USA Network all the time.

Coincidentally, all of these shows, except for American Dreams and Wings, were critically acclaimed and had a strong fan base, but were canceled way too soon. I would love to watch them over and over again on DVD.

Edited to add "Life Goes On" so I'll remember to check for it periodically.

Channeling Larry King

It's been a few weeks since I last updated, so I'll jump back in with thoughts that have been tumbling around in my head recently instead of a long entry about what I've been doing the month of April.

Sleeping with the windows open is overrated. As is drying clothes on the line..."Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" is the new "Queen for a Day"...I know I'm a latecomer, but Chappelle's Show is the funniest thing on TV right now...My latest crush is Eric the carpenter on "Clean Sweep"...I really should be reading George Pelecanos...When did "publically" become a word? I've seen it used in two places recently. Shouldn't it be publicly?...Judging from the tans at the CMT Flameworthy Video Awards, no one spends winters in Nashville. And thank you, CMT, for having Joe Nichols and John Corbett present an award together. What more could a girl ask for?...For George Canyon to win Nashville Star, of course. I actually called in and voted this week and last week, the first time I've ever done anything like that before...It amazes me how this show started after AI and is about to pick the final winner, yet AI is limping into sweeps with six contestants still standing.

Breakthrough

WARNING - Graphic Baby Talk Ahead!

We had a breakthrough last night at bathtime - H. used the potty for the first time!! We bought the potty seat awhile back, when she first started showing signs of being ready (which mostly consisted of her pulling her pants off, unsnapping her onesie and taking off her diaper at nap time). I've been slowly introducing her to the seat, just sitting her on it and making sure she knows it's there. My mom kept saying she was ready to start, and maybe she was, but I sure wasn't!

On Sunday, she told me every time her diaper was wet and she wanted to be changed, another good sign that she was ready. So last night, after I underdressed H. for her bath, I sat her on the potty chair with the bath water running. And she peed on the potty! I, of course, was jumping up and down and clapping and yelling, I was so proud of her. She didn't know what to think of it and started crying at all of the commotion.

I tried again this morning when she first woke up, but it was a no-go. I'm trying not to get too excited yet, because I know this is going to be a long process, and I certainly don't want to traumatize her. Perhaps TMI, but I'll notify you of H's progress as it comes.

Trilogy

I'm trying to find the words to express how much I loved both Big Stone Gap and Big Cherry Holler, the first two novels in the Big Stone Gap trilogy by Adriana Trigiani. I finished Big Stone Gap Monday night and practically ran to the library Tuesday afternoon to check out Big Cherry Holler, which I finished last night. Big Stone Gap was funny and endearing, with a happy ending. But Big Cherry Holler really touched me. It was more serious, with very real situations and dialogue. Some of the topics hit very close to home and on so many levels I identify with Ave Maria. I cried in the middle and I cried at the end. Unlike most books I read, I wasn't really sure how it was going to end.

I'm anxious to read Milk Glass Moon, the final book in the series, but I'm also hesitant, because I don't want to lose these characters. That is why I read so many series - fiction, mystery or otherwise. I crave the character development you can't always get from just one novel and I love to follow the characters' lives through the years.