Sunday, July 10, 2005

early evening

My Girlie Rocks, Man

You know in my previous entry, where I said I was going to have Leigh-Ann fix my template so all of my books/music/etc propagated to each page of my template?  I was kinda sorta kidding.  I didn’t expect her to do it for me.  But, perhaps she was tired of seeing the same books there for seven months too and realized that it would take a tremendous burst of energy from me (not likely, ha!) for me to change anything.  Anyway, she fixed it for me and to thank her, I updated my book list.  I’m still listening to the same music.  I love love love Charlotte Martin.  I never even would’ve heard of her except that I accidentally found my friend Keely’s blog once.  Google did a bad bad thing and indexed her blog, which was supposed to be private.  I swear I tried not to read any of the naughty bits, but I did make sure to read the music reviews.  She has fascinatingly eclectic musical tastes.  So, she mentioned Charlotte Martin.  I ordered the first EP.  I was then hooked.  Then Leigh-Ann and I went to see her at the House of Blues in Las Vegas (a great cozy place to see a concert - no bad seats) when she was on the Chicks With Attitude Tour with Liz Phair, Katy Rose and The Cardigans.  They were all pretty good, except for The Cardigans.  The lead singer looked like she was singing while in a coma.  Ironically, a few months afterwards, I was listening to MusicMatch and a song came on that I instantly loved.  Go figure, it was The Cardigans.  I guess as long as you’re not watching the comatose lead singer, she actually sounds pretty good.

Whoops, lost my train of thought.  I just wanted to thank Leigh-Ann for being the best girlie ever, even if she would let our child CIO.  Funny thing, we each talked to our moms about it.  My mom said, “Well yeah, if I knew the baby wasn’t hungry and had a clean diaper, I’d let you cry for a bit.” Leigh-Ann’s mom said that Leigh-Ann never cried.  Her sister, however, couldn’t fall asleep until she worked her blanket over her head.  So, after a while, her mom would just put the blanket over her head.  Since her sister is now thirty-five, I’m guessing the statute of limitations has run out, so don’t go sending any Canadian Mounties after her.  Not to mention, she now has two really cute kids of her own.  They live in Canada, so I have no idea how they get to sleep, but they’re really really cute and happy.  By the way, I don’t get co-sleeping.  I’d be worried I’d squish the baby.  Heck, I’m worried I’ll squish a cat/dog and they’re so not likely to let that happen.  Then, last night we saw an HBO special with Dr. Michael Baden about a woman whose three infants (one baby, then twins) died 2.5 years apart.  His conclusion was that the co-sleeping was at fault and that there’s 20x more risk of infant death with co-sleeping than with sleeping in a crib.  This was a couple of days after I’d seen this story. I don’t have any kids (as was pointedly said to me elsewhere), so do what you think is best.  Many parents are much smaller and tidier sleepers than I.

Uh, lost my train of thought again.  Anyway, I just wanted to thank Leigh-Ann for doing the tedious computer (and other) stuff that I really hate.  She set up my parents’ TiVo the other day.  She put bag balm on the Anatolian’s paw, even though he was a butthead about it.  She catches the really big spiders and takes them across the street and sets them free.  And she writes way better book reviews than I ever could.

Sometimes, I let her sleep.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

evening

Whomever Outed Valerie Plame - In Prison

Oh, wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if whomever was responsible for releasing Valerie Plame’s name to the press was held responsible?  Why would anyone think releasing an undercover CIA agent’s name was the right thing to do?  Not only does it endanger the agent, but every single person she has ever worked with, in countries where we need informants.  Why would anyone want to trust any agent after that, when their very life is at stake?  Also, why the heck is Robert Novak, who printed her name, getting a free pass on this?  Okay, it’s bad to give an undercover agent’s name to the press, but isn’t it even worse to publish that name?

Of course, after reading Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy by Lindsay Moran, the quality of the CIA’s work is a bit suspect anyway, but that’s no reason to name them all.  Or, any of them, actually.

Okay, enough about politics.  Let’s talk about us (me and Leigh-Ann) and how so very happy we are the 4th of July is over.  Sure, at 5:23am today, there were some firecrackers and then a few more at dusk, but we’ve safely made it through another year of the terrified German Shepherd...with a little help from 10mg (we upped it last night) of Xanax for her.  That and the Comfort Zone Diffusers seemed to help her a little this year.  She actually was able to enter the back yard for a few minutes at a time.  Any improvement over her trembling and peeing in the house is oh so very welcome.

Okay, on to tv.  Anyone else watch the craptastic Being Bobby Brown on Bravo?  It’s so bizarre that I can’t help but to watch.  Plus, with TiVo zipping through all of the commercials, it’s actually very short.  Leigh-Ann says we’re each allowed one craptastic tv show (hers is “MTV’s The ‘70s House” ), so BBB is mine.  Hey, I’m countering it by reading a book about math geniuses before I go to bed.  That must count (heh, I said count) for something.

Oh wait, one more thing - one of my referrers was from a Google search of “tissue Tito Jackson”, where I’m ranked second.  How great is that?  “Tito, get me a tissue.”

Sunday, June 26, 2005

evening

I’m A Meme Killer

Oooh, I’m “it”.  I volunteered to be meme’d by Canadian Expat, so I guess I should follow through, huh?  And by the way, Expat, do you have a first name?  It’s hard to talk about you behind your back in our house by calling you “Canadian Expat Chick”.

1. Number of books I own:

We own zillions of books.  Fiction, pet care, cookbooks, how-to books, chick lit, humor, computer, medicine, children’s, weird stuff we hide (heh)...you name the genre, we’ve probably got a book that fits.

2. Last book I bought:

My Friend Leonard by James Frey Okay, I actually bought it a couple of months ago, after I read A Million Little Pieces, but it didn’t get delivered until yesterday.  I started reading it last night.  There’s something about his writing, as unconventional as it is, that makes me want to keep reading.  I guess it’s like reading a really raw blog.

3. Last book I read:

You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers - I was completely and totally underwhelmed.  A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is much better.

4. Five books that mean a lot to me:

1.  Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin - I read this when I was a kid.  I think it was the first time I’d even thought about racism.  I grew up in the San Fernando Valley and at the time, it was pretty much all white.  In my elementary school, I remember two black kids - Jo-Nathan (not until I just wrote that out did I realize it was a weird spelling of Jonathan.  Maybe it was spelled Joe-Nathan.  That would make sense.) and Damon, my big elementary school crush.  He promised to “love [me] forever, if that was okay with [me].” Aw, he was such a sweet boy.  I hope he grew up to be a nice adult.  Anyway, Black Like Me was eye-opening to me.  As far as I knew, both Damon and Joe-Nathan were treated fine in school, but I’m guessing things might have been different from their point of view.

2.  Harriet the Spy by Lousie Fitzhugh - loved, loved, loved this book.  I read it so much that the edges of the pages got frayed. 

3.  Replay by Ken Grimwood - what a great fantasy book.  Read it!  I promise you’ll love it.  If you don’t, I’ll give you five bucks.  (This offer valid to only my few readers whose names or country of origin I know)

4.  The Childcraft books from World Book Encyclopedia - They were full of fascinating tidbits like how the hot dog bun was invented (some guy sold hot dogs from a stand and he had to give gloves to people so they could hold the hot, uh, dog, while they ate.  People often walked off with the gloves, so he talked to his brother the baker.  They thought of making bread “gloves”, so no one would steal his gloves anymore...or something like that.  It’s been close to thirty years since I’ve looked at one of those books) and how hamburgers were named.  Hey Dad, if you’re reading, do you know what happened to those books in the move?

5.  Hmmm, I can’t think of a fifth book at the moment.

5. Tag five more:

And this, this is where I become the meme killer.  I don’t know if I have anyone to tag.  Volunteers, feel free to step up.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

evening

Don’t Pee In The Amazon!

Last night, Leigh-Ann and I watched a show on Animal Planet called “Eaten Alive”.  It was pretty much terrifying.  It was a whole show about parasites invading people’s bodies, eating their brains, entering their penis (The candirú is attracted to urine, so will swim up the source, if you know what I mean...and it won’t come out), swim under their skin, swim through their colons, some of which are a couple of feet long.  People are pooping these long worms out.  Imagine the horror.  It made me not want to leave my couch.  Well, not that that’s usually a huge problem anyway, but still…

We’ve also been watching Morgan Spurlock’s 30 Days show on FX.  The first episode had Morgan and his fiancee trying to make it by working minimum wage jobs.  It sure makes me appreciate not having to live like that, and wanting to help others who do.  I can’t even imagine the hours, the worrying (okay, I can imagine the worrying - as an independent contractor, I worry about being cheated by companies who go out of business.  We’ve lost many thousands of dollars in the past few years that way), the toll it takes on a relationship.  The first episode was really eye-opening, so we watched tonight’s episode about a guy in his thirties who wanted to get his in-shape body back.  He was put on a program of human growth hormone, testosterone and dozens of herbal supplements.  In addition, he was to change his eating habits and work out with a (hot!) trainer.  I enjoyed the possibility of how this episode could’ve worked, but the shrewish behavior of the guy’s wife ruined it for me.  Even before he started having liver problems, she was getting on his case for spending too much time with the (hot!) trainer.  Too much time?  It was a maximum thirty day project, lady!  Hmmm, wonder if trainer Heather’s perfect body had anything to do with Shrew-y’s behavior.  So, this episode didn’t do much for me.  I would’ve preferred they vetted the subject and his family better.  Next week though, a Christian man is spending 30 days as a Muslim.  Should be interesting.  Of course, not as interesting to me as a future episode with a Christian ex-Marine living with a gay family in San Francisco.  I miss San Francisco, so I always look forward to seeing it on tv.  Plus, I heard the guy loosens up and starts to have a good time.

Okay, moving on to books - You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers.  I have to admit, I wasn’t overly impressed by this one.  I felt like it needed lots of editing to tighten up the story, which ambled aimlessly, often and with great feeling.  I don’t doubt that Dave Eggers is a terrific writer, but I don’t feel this was a terrific book.  Looking at the Amazon reviews, it looks like more people disagree than agree with me, but there are enough who saw the book exactly as how I saw it.  Pretentiously boring.  I thought it was a great story idea, but I was disappointed with the follow-through.

A book I finished last night.  Or to be more accurate, somewhere after three this morning, and then Eli woke us up with her thunderstorm fears.  There was a little lightning and some rumbling, but it wasn’t terrible.  Just terrible enough to require Leigh-Ann leave and sleep on the couch so Eli could be next to her.  We drugged Eli with our first vet-approved dosages of Xanax, but it still doesn’t work that well.  We’ve tried just about everything.  Next, doggie pheromones.  Anyway, I digress.  I read Dry by Augusten Burroughs.  I completely enjoyed the quick read of advertising career, horrible alcoholism, subsequent recovery, subsequent falling off the wagon, then back to recovery.  I appreciate that throughout, he remained an excellent storyteller, yet I was horrified by the hundreds of Dewar’s bottles in his apartment, booze smell oozing through his pores when he went to his advertising job.  Blech.  I guess everyone has to be pretty thankful that Augusten’s childhood didn’t turn him into a deranged serial killer or something.  That was one screwed up family.  So, yeah, I liked Dry a lot and I’m going to order the rest of Augusten Burrough’s books that I haven’t read yet - Sellevision & Magical Thinking.

You know, I think this entry was a bit ambitious for a day of practically no sleep.  Let me know the millions of mistakes I’ve made by morning.  I eagerly await your critiques.  Naw, probably not eagerly.  But I hate leaving out or misspelling words.

Thursday, May 26, 2005

evening

Book Reviews - The Beginning of the Journey (updated 5/28/05)

Okay, I’m starting with an oldie from elementary school.  It made such a huge impression on me that, to this day, I have Tikki Tikki Tembo’s whole name memorized.  It’s nothing amazing, but it brings back fond memories.  Of course, not as fond as Harriet the Spy, which was my favorite kid’s book of all time.  I read it so many times that I almost wore the book out.  The follow-up, The Long Secret wasn’t as impressive, so I’m not even bothering to link to it.  Harriet the Spy was my favorite childhood companion.  So, it’s no surprise that I loved the last book I read, Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy by Lindsay Moran.  Lindsay Moran is Harvard grad who had a Fulbright scholarship to study in Bulgaria.  After that, she decides to sign up for the CIA.  The whole process is fascinating, from the tests to get in, the training exercises of losing tails and doing spy stuff in different cities, to her graduation and starting the job.  It made me lose complete respect for the CIA, but it was a fun and interesting read and I hope Lindsay Moran writes more books.  She’s like an everyday person who’s smarter than most of us, but isn’t obnoxious about it and has a great sense of humor and a thirst for adventure.  Easily one of the most interesting books I’ve read in a while.

As you can see by the extended entry, I have a lot of reviews to get caught up on.  But the titles are all there to remind me to come back and tell you about them.

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