It's the mooooost wonderful tiiiiime of the year

And why is it so wonderful, you ask? Because:

• Christmas trees & the "halls" are all decked with holiday cheer
  
• My Christmas shopping has been done for more than a week
• All presents are wrapped and ready to go
• All my cards have been sent out (about 50 - including color copies of the annual update & photos), with the exception of the one card that I need an air-mail stamp for, since it's going to Belgium
• All my holiday baking is done

This year I went all-out with the baking. I made a fruitcake (another one; I'm not counting the underbaked one I did a few weeks ago), two lemon pound cakes, peppermint candy-cane sugar cookies, Mexican wedding cookies, almond-orange and almond-raspberry jam thumbprints, break-n-bake chocolate chip cookies (OK, so not EVERYTHING was from scratch, so sue me), and the annual marshmallow fluff fudge. I thought about making shortbread cookies too, but that just kinda seemed like overkill. Heh.

Now all I have to do is pack up the goodies in tins for Rugrat's teachers and the neighbors, and I can officially sit down with a big ol' glass of wine and call it good. Whew!

Oh, excellent!

I came across the coolest video today: Lotion by Greenskeepers. Seriously, you MUST watch it. (Warning: not for the faint of heart, or those who've not yet seen The Silence of the Lambs -- too many spoilers.)

Been a while

I know, it's been a while since my last post. So here's the update, in a nutshell:

Thanksgiving was wonderful, except for the fact that I had horrendous allergies all day and even after taking a dose of Benadryl they wouldn't leave me alone. I tried to nap (because that usually helps immensely) but I must have been too excited about seeing family & stuffing my face, because even with the Benadryl fog I couldn't sleep. The food was, of course, delish. And it was lovely to see my cousin Kelly and his girlfriend and baby. :)

A week later (last Thursday) was my company's annual Christmas party. We're a tiny little company so we all went to see Cirque du Soleil and then out to dinner afterwards in SF. Cirque du Soleil was REALLY cool - lots of amazing acrobatics and gorgeous costumes and just...theatrical spectacle, I guess. I was very impressed with the tightrope walker, who balanced way up high on a skinny little wire while hula-hooping about 20 hoops! Afterwards we went to a tiny Basque restaurant for dinner, and had an outstanding meal. Yay for French food!

Speaking of French food, I made a delicious French onion soup last night for dinner. I invited Babydaddy over for dinner, since I knew there would be plenty (and plus it's really, really good and I spent two hours making it, so I thought it would be nice to let someone else enjoy it, too). Yum. My newest addiction is Gruyere. I've been making toast for lunch, with melted Gruyere on top and some freshly ground pepper - for about the last week. Pretty soon I'll get sick of it (I hope! That stuff is expensive) but for now I'm content to scarf the yummy fattening melted cheese every day. Mmmm....cheese...

Also over the weekend, I made cookies and fruitcake. The fruitcake didn't turn out too well - apparently it wasn't cooked all the way on the bottom because half of it stuck in the pan (the NON-STICK pan) when I tried to pull it out. I guess my toothpicks just aren't long enough, because when I stuck it in after baking for 50 minutes, it came out clean. Next time I'll make fruitcake muffins instead. *sigh*

The anti-fang

When Rugrat was about five months old, he got a tooth. One little bitty tooth, on the bottom. And that was it...he didn't get any more teeth for five months. We called him "Fang."

So on Saturday, he finally lost his first tooth. That one little bitty fang he sprouted when he was a baby. Most of the kids in his class are already growing in half a dozen adult teeth, but my little Rugrat held on to those itty bitty pearly whites for the loooongest time. And then Saturday, it was so loose - he'd been wiggling it all morning. I gave him an apple with his lunch, and halfway through his lunch it was obvious it was coming out really soon (because it was practically horizontal, barely hanging in there) so we went into the bathroom to wiggle it and monitor the progress. The quesadillas got cold, but we stayed in the bathroom, moving it back and forth until it was only held in place by a couple little bits of gum-flesh on the sides. Ewww, that's a gross visual. Anyway, I went upstairs to get the camera and WHILE I WAS GONE Rugrat pulled it out. Dammit. But anyway, it was done, and he was thrilled ("It didn't even hurt at all!"), and we put the tooth in a little box to stick under his pillow for the tooth fairy (who brought him a nice gold dollar coin for it). I took pictures of his gappy little-boy smile but every one I took had him squinting his eyes shut, so I don't think I'll post them here.

I gotta say, though, I don't think he's going to lose another tooth for five months. The one next to it is a little bit loose, but not so much that it's coming out anytime soon. And all the others are very firmly rooted in. Probably in six months or so he'll have a smile that's more "little old man without dentures" than "little boy with buckteeth." They'll all fall out at once, just like they all came in at once, five months after that first fang.

Mosquito Lounge

I tried a new restaurant last night: Mosquito Lounge, in Brentwood. First impression was good - yes, it's located in a tacky stripmall (not even a good stripmall, like the one with Barnes & Noble), but the decor was AWESOME. I absolutely love the atmosphere in that place. Unfortunately, the food sucked. First of all, they don't have any hard liquor, so my cosmo was made with sake, which...okay, it wasn't disgusting, but it wasn't great. Second, the actual food: I ordered crab cakes to start with, and then dragon prawns. Big servings, but ewww. The crab cakes were just warm, not hot. And they were all mushy like they'd used 90% bread crumbs and 10% Krab and seasonings, and then fried those lumps. The sauce was yummy, and the salad served with it was fine. But the "crab" cakes themselves were horrendous. Then, the shrimp. Dear God, is everything in this place fried? Because they were thinly covered with some kind of fried tempura batter or something. And they were overcooked (but at least they were hot!). Again, the sauce was yummy, but the main focus of the dish? Not so much.

So...I won't be going back.

It's like there's some kind of mental block here - the restaurants in the area are all either 1) boring and kinda gross chain restaurants or 2) great atmosphere, lousy food or 3) great food, lousy atmosphere. I went to Strings with Babydaddy and Rugrat last week (again, strip mall location), and the food was fantastic, but it felt like I was dining in a cafeteria. Babydaddy said he'd gone another day and sat on the other side of the restaurant, which was much more atmospheric. Whatever. It's not something I'd take someone to for a fancy dinner, but it's a damn sight better than Chili's.

Disney photos

Here they are!

This first photo was taken during breakfast on Monday morning, at the Storyteller's Cafe in the Grand Californian hotel (where we stayed during this trip). Really nice hotel. Really bad food at this restaurant though.



This next photo was taken in New Orleans Square.


Look at all the gorgeous decorations up for the holidays!


Here's Rugrat with his favorite character (albeit just a statue) - Jack Skellington.


Look how beautiful Sleeping Beauty's castle is! They repainted it and added lots of gold accents, including the five lovely crowns, representing the five decades of Disneyland. (This photo was taken during our Early Entry morning - the park wasn't always this deserted! LOL)


And here's the Haunted Mansion, all decked out in its Nightmare Before Christmas finery. I tried taking some flash-free photos inside but they didn't turn out well at all. :-( You really can't get a feel for how amazing it is without seeing all the fantastic changes they made inside. It was just incredible. My favorite part was the singing jack-o-lanterns.

Jack Skellington

My little monster-child, prior to trick-or-treatiing downtown on the Saturday before Halloween. (Click for a bigger photo.)

Dizz Knee Land

We're getting really excited here about our Disneyland trip next week...yesterday I spent way too much money on eBay - but I got four tickets to Mickey's Halloween Treat! It's a special trick-or-treat party they're having at California Adventure. It's three hours, from 7:30-10:30 on Sunday night (after regular park hours; it closes at 6 PM that day). There are several "trick or treat" stations where you get candy, and a bunch of photo opportunities with the characters. Some of the rides will be open, and I heard that you can play the carnival games for free (they give out candy as prizes, rather than toys). Whee!

Grout!

OK, tile is finally grouted. Yay!

The end of babyhood...

I finally gave up the last little teeny tiny part of me that thought that MAYBE someday I might have another child. I sold my glider (rocking chair) on craigslist tonight.

I had no problems getting rid of Rugrat's crib, his changing table, his stroller (well, actually, that filthy thing is still in the garage because I couldn't even GIVE it away). Baby clothes? Gone, for the most part - I kept a few things for sentimental reasons, but handed down the rest of his barely-worn, gorgeous baby clothes. I was the first one to have a baby in my group - everyone else came after. And almost all of those babies were boys, so my hand-me-downs were always in demand among the sisters-in-law and friends. Baby toys were disposed of too, given to cousins or donated to charities.

But I held on to the glider. I had such lovely memories of holding my little infant Rugrat, nursing him, rocking him, singing to him. Sitting upright, rocking in the middle of the night, asleep - both of us. It's amazing that you can actually continue to rock the chair and be sound asleep at the same time, but I'm sure I'm not the only mother who's done it. When he got a wee bit older, we'd snuggle up in the chair to read bedtime stories.

Time marched on, and Rugrat got too big for us to share the chair anymore (without my legs falling asleep, that is). So the chair sat, unused, in his room until we moved two years ago. Then the chair migrated to MY room. I had some fleeting idea about it being a "reading chair" because it's so comfortable. But when I read in my bedroom, I read in bed. And the chair ended up just holding stacks of clean clothes.

Why did I keep the chair for so long? I kept thinking that someday I might meet someone and get married. And someday we might decide that it would be totally cool to have a baby together. And if that happened - if I somehow changed my mind and thought, "OK, it would be fine to have another baby. I could totally live through another twelve months of being a braindead zombie. I could totally put up with a few more years of diapers and tantrums and whining and picky eating and the nonstop physical and emotional drain," if I REALLY TRULY believed that...then I'd want to have a glider. So I held on to it for way longer than I should have.

And now it's gone. That last little bit of Rugrat's infancy. That last little link to breastfeeding, which was totally the best (and worst) part of the first six months of his life. So I'm a little sad. But still, it's good to move on.

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Rugrat, Babydaddy and I went to see this movie yesterday. I love W&G - I've seen all three of the earlier movies - and I wasn't disappointed with this one. It was really cute. My favorite thing was Lady Tottington's very veggie dresses. I didn't notice it until near the end of the movie, but some of her dresses were meant to emulate vegetables: at the competition she was dressed as a carrot, and in the final scene she was dressed as an ear of corn. Adorable!

Zippity doo dah

Dad & stepmom came over on Saturday for my birthday. I ran off to a seminar at the library on starting your own small business, and while I was gone, they started changing the switches and electrical outlets in the house. I don't mean that they started rewiring them so as to completely confound me, but that they switched the actual switches and outlets from nasty almond to a lovely, clean white. So...whee! I have all new outlets & switches, including GFCIs in the kitchen & bath (which were not there before, despite the violated building codes). Bitchin' birthday present, even if dad nearly gave himself a heart attack doing it all in one day. Seriously, I was hollerin' at him to TAKE A FRIGGIN BREAK ALREADY by the time he started on the upstairs rooms. He was turning purple and huffin' and puffin' every time he had to get back up off the floor.

I also got a fabulous birthday dinner of boeuf bourgignon and garlic mashed potatoes and sauteed spinach with pine nuts and sultanas (golden raisins). And dessert: creme brulee. Who can resist that? In addition, I marinated myself in pinot noir and a good snort of that fabulous $200 scotch. Amazingly enough, I was NOT hung over the next day (may have something to do with the fact that I basically passed out at 9 PM and slept TWELVE HOURS).

And now I am 32. I was thinking the other day about how I could be on that old television show Thirtysomething now.

Haircut tonight! Will celebrate with something a little different - very long bangs (or very short layers) and at least four inches off the ends. My hair has gotten unwieldy, y'all. The last time I actually styled my hair (blow dry, curling iron, etc.) it took forever. I have at least four inches of incredibly dry ends that resemble straw. AND I woke up in the middle of the night a few times with my hair wrapped around my neck and trying to strangle me. I don't want my hair to be so long that it's strangling me. Seriously. And when I'm not laying down, the hair occasionally will wrap under my armpit and my head gets yanked to the side. That's just too long.

My favorite day of the week

...is now officially Wednesdays. Between Lost and Veronica Mars, plus a healthy helping of my newest favorite train wreck, America's Next Top Model...I am just in heaven.

Saturday...meh. Wednesday is the new IT day!

Yum!

Mmmmm...made the greatest dinner tonight! Roasted tiny potatoes and butternut squash soup. Thank god for Williams Sonoma!

Oh, and La Bicyclette merlot. Cheap and tasty, at $10/bottle!

"Spring" cleaning

Today I spent three hours weeding in the backyard and planting spring bulbs. Almost 250 spring bulbs, actually. I planted:

• 90 crocuses
  
• 88 tulips
• 36 daffodils
• 22 hyacinths

I'm exhausted. And I didn't even do what I was REALLY supposed to do, which is to grout the tile in the entryway. Why didn't I do it? Because my friggin' drill doesn't fit the whirlygig mixer-thingy I got to mix up the grout. How is that possible? Aren't they a standard size? I dunno, but Babydaddy said I would need a corded (as opposed to cordless) drill anyway, because you have to mix the stuff for five minutes. Yeeeaaahhh.

So, no grout yet. But I will have an abundance of spring flowers this year. :-)

Lost...Arrrrggghhhh!

OK, seriously. What fresh hell is this???

#1 - Michael's whole flashback stuff. Why? What was the point? I thought it was spelled out really clearly last season that 1) he loves his kid, 2) his ex was a raging bitch and 3) eventually she manipulated him into giving up his parental rights so her new hubby could adopt him. So what was the whole frigging point of this flashback? That he gave Walt a stuffed polar bear? Jesus H Christ.

#2 - WASTE OF TIME, folks. All the little bits they re-showed from last week? Why couldn't they have just made the season premiere last week be 2 hours long? Oh, yeah. Because they wanted to have 23 (!!) episodes this season.

#3 - Waiting all damn hour to see Jin. I was getting pretty worried about him, actually. And the tailaways? Not exactly stunning, y'all. Not when it's been spoiled left, right & center.

#4 - Jack is still an unsufferable ass.

But on the plus side:

#1 - Numbers resetting the countdown thingamajig. How much you wanna bet that if Dezzy doesn't reset it in time, Lostzilla starts yanking trees underground?

#2 - Ooooh, what's with the patch? Eagle-eyed TWoP'ers saw the exact same logo ON THE SHARK!!!! WTF????? (I totally missed it, but will re-watch tomorrow.) Must be more of that loverly "island security system." Shark scenes were very tense overall; I liked that bit.

#3 - Kate & the Kandy. I was hollerin' at her to "go on, girl, get your chocolate on!" Hee!

My little artist

Rugrat is such an amazing artist. He just keeps on surprising me. Kid has got some mad skillz! This is one his most recent creations:



Seriously - check out the gnarly skeleton on the flaming skateboard! I love his expression - the hand position, the forked tongue sticking out...it just rocks. And the angry sun & moon in the upper corners - so cool! Not sure what to make of the flying/boarding dragon/cobra though, LOL.

Carpet is done!

Looks FANTASTIC. Feels silky soft and super-cushy too. Yay!

God, I'm so freakin' tired. I just want to sleeeeeeeep. I have been having serious insomnia the last week or two, and haven't been able to fall asleep until at least 1 or 2 AM. I'm just exhausted, y'all.

Stinky

My carpet is being installed. Dude, it smells AWFUL. What is that crap they use to glue down the pad? Toxic waste?

Sittin' outside on the patio trying to squint & see my laptop screen. Glare sucks.

Lost!! Squeee!!!!

OK, how big a dork am I? I am so excited about the Lost season premiere tonight that I am literally bouncing around the house. Yes, I need to finish moving stuff out of the bedrooms before the carpeting guys come tomorrow. Yes, I should be working for the next half hour. But all I can think about is...just a few more hours 'til Lost!!! God, I am SO that show's bitch.

OK, here's my wish list for this season:

• Kate gets ripped to pieces by Lostzilla so I don't have to look at her whiny bitchface anymore
• Sawyer has RHMS with someone (but not Kate, because she'll be teeny tiny bits of gore splattered around the jungle)
• Jin & Sun get jiggy
• We find out how Locke ended up in a wheelchair
• We find out what is down the hatch...REALLY SOON
• We find out what the deal is with the Others
• We find out what the deal is with the Numbers
• We find out what the deal is with Craphole Island in general
• We get answers...any answers...to any of the big questions. And we don't have to wait all damn season for those answers.

Please, God, let it be so.

Rest in peace

A good friend of mine died last night. I never met him in person, but for the last seven years he's been a part of my life, each and every day. He maintained a bulletin board that I visit almost daily. For seven years, this board has been a constant source of comfort, joy, support, love and hope. When Rugrat had his toothbrush accident, I got cards from people all over the country (and Canada), as well as gifts and prayers and good wishes. Whenever there is a tragedy, the board rallies around and takes care of the person in need. When something wonderful happens, we tell the board, and everyone rejoices with us. Daily frustrations, parenting questions, recipes, television show recaps, movie reviews, high-profile criminal trials, jokes, games, pictures, poems, songs...we share it all. When our "board babies" pass a milestone, everyone marvels at how fast time flies. When politics is the dominant topic of the day we all choose sides and argue - sometimes getting a bit out of hand - but we come back "home" after we've cooled down and taken a breather. In other words...we're friends. We're there for each other. We are a huge "virtual" support network and I am blessed to have found the board. MikeyD made it possible for us to have a place we could come to online, anytime, to find a friend.

RIP, Mike Helton. Your RT HO's will miss you every day. :'-(

New Orleans

What the HELL? Why is it taking so damn long to get help to the people down there? It's a disgrace. For four days now, they've been stranded with no food, no water, no electricity, inadequate medical assistance, and ineffective law enforcement. And to top it all off, the weather there is in the mid-90's with high humidity. Can you imagine being outside in 90+ degree heat all day, with 75% humidity, with no water and no possibility of going into a nice air conditioned building? Now imagine that, surrounded by garbage, dead bodies, and crap. Literally, crap. It's disgusting and horrifying.

Bush, get off your ass and get some fucking help down there NOW! We keep hearing that "help is coming" -- but it's been FOUR DAYS. And the help that gets through is woefully inadequate. Not enough troops to restore order. Not enough buses to evacuate people. Not enough food and water and medical help to keep them alive until they CAN be evacuated. People are dropping like flies down there. And the ones that aren't dying of starvation or dehydration or for lack of medical attention are getting raped and shot by roving gangs of thugs, desperate to impose some sense of control on their world. I've been crying for days, hearing about the mess down there.

And New Orleans is probably gone for good. Which is a damn shame, because that was one seriously FUN town. Even if they do rebuild the city, it will never be the same. And I don't think it's a certainty that they will rebuild, considering how much it will cost and the likelihood that a catastrophe like this might happen again. I mean, the whole town is below sea level. If it were me, and I woke up one morning to find my house underwater and I knew that it could easily happen again, and that I'd be stranded for days with no help? I'd move my ass to higher ground, y'all. All the jazz and beignets and bananas foster and lagniappe and beads and hurricanes (the libation, not the natural disaster) in the world wouldn't induce me to live there.

I'm in mourning.

One of the great things about being a Mommy...

...is that I've got someone who appreciates my horrific, off-key singing. He actually asks me to sing to him before he goes to sleep. It's so sweet. I think maybe his brain shuts off in self-defense though, because as soon as I start singing he starts yawning...it's like his brain wants to become comatose as soon as possible so it doesn't have to suffer through my singing. LOL

He's so adorable when he's sleeping though. So peaceful, so completely opposite his bouncing-off-the-walls waking self.

Am I getting old?

I went back to the doctor yesterday for my follow-up appointment after last week's physical. Blood pressure: still high. Cholesterol: still high. Tetanus? Not boosted for about, oh, 25 years. Hepatitis A & B? Yeah, apparently I've never been vaccinated against them either.

So...three shots in the left arm (Hep A, Hep B, Tetanus). Ouch.

I'm supposed to take my blood pressure every day for two weeks & keep a record of it. Then I go in and he'll put me back on medication, because the blood pressure is not going to go down in two weeks, I can guaran-fucking-tee it. Cholesterol? Doc told me to start taking niacin tablets (I hate that shit) again, and add flaxseed oil capsules along with the fish oil capsules I started taking last week. Oh, and he gave me this loooooverly handout with my new low-cholesterol diet on it. Get this: I'm supposed to eat/drink only skim milk dairy products. Like hell. I'll be damned if I'm going to eat SKIM MILK CHEESE. Sorry, but life is not worth living without good cheese.

Foods to avoid: everything I love. Such as:

• bacon, hamburgers, salami, SHRIMP
  
• avocados!!!!
• cashews, macadamia nuts
• croissants
  
• rich baked goods with eggs, shortening and/or sugar (and that would leave exactly WHAT baked goods?)
• butter, gravy, bacon drippings, cream sauces (waaaaah!)
• sugared soft drinks
• fried snack foods (like I'm going to give up potato chips!)

Oh yeah, this is going to be loads of fun. Not.

Exciting weekend!

Rugrat & I went to the HP Midnight Magic party at the local Barnes & Noble. I made Rugrat take a nap after school, and then we went down there around 9 PM, after dinner & stuff. It was *packed*! I couldn't believe how great Rugrat was though...instead of being tired & whiny, he was just excited & kind of bouncing off the walls. Not too bad, though. Anyhoo, got my copy of HP&HBP, and got home around 12:30 AM. Started reading it right after putting Rugrat to bed, and managed a chapter & a half before I passed out.

Saturday morning, our lovely Ginger came over! She's here now, and Rugrat just adores her. He loves it when she gives him "kisses". But she definitely needs some work - she doesn't seem to know any commands (or else she doesn't much care because I am giving them). She hates going in her crate - I literally have to pull/shove her in there (and no, throwing treats in doesn't work, I tried that). She peed on the carpet in my bedroom about 15 minutes after the rescue worker left, but thankfully she hasn't had any accidents since then.

Saturday I spent a good amount of time reading, and stayed up late that night. Sunday morning I finished the book, and it was EXCELLENT. My favorite so far. Much more mature than any of the others in the series (which makes sense, since Harry is growing up), and heartbreaking at the end. Of course, I see why it had to happen (you know what scene I'm talking about if you've read it), but I was still crying my eyes out. Two more years (or so) until the final book!! Let's hope JKR can give us the satisfying finish...because Stephen King sure didn't with the Dark Tower series; I'm still kinda burned about that one.

Our growing family

Our family is about to grow! We're adopting a wonderful Staffordshire Terrier this weekend. Her name is Ginger, and she's just the sweetest thing ever. She doesn't bark, she doesn't make any noise at all...and she would just kiss you to death, if you gave her the chance. She loves to lay on her back and have you rub her belly. :-)

The only thing that worries me is that she is SO strong. I'm going to take her to an obedience class, more for MY benefit than hers. She's a great dog, but since I've never had one before, I need to learn how to handle her when walking & so on - right now she pretty much just drags me along. LOL

Anyway, Rugrat met her tonight and it was hilarious. The rescue woman brought Ginger to the park, and Rugrat was giggling madly pretty much the whole time. He wanted Ginger to kiss him, so he'd get close to her, but as soon as she'd move towards him to kiss him, Rugrat would run away. He's a bit skittish around dogs (so was I, for MANY years) but towards the end of the visit he got more comfortable with Ginger and let her kiss him a few times.

Anyway, wish us luck! I'm really excited and so happy to have her join our family. :-)

CFUNITED

Christ almighty. I need a week to recover from that!

The conference was great - tons of excellent sessions during the day, and plenty of hard drinking at night. I think I averaged 4 hours of sleep each night.

I met a bunch of great people though, some really old-skool CF'ers. Everyone was so nice and approachable. Of course, the open bar on Wednesday and Thursday might have helped in that regard. ;-)

Another thing I noticed was that there were a LOT more women at this conference. The last CF conference I went to was five years ago, and there were maybe half a dozen women at that one. Probably 10-15% of this conference was women, which I was rather impressed with. I don't know if it means that there are more female CF programmers than there used to be, or if they are just coming out of the woodwork now. Heh.

Anyway, I'll yap more about this later. I need to digest all the information, and catch up on sleep!

Septimus Heap: Magyk Book One

About halfway into this fun kid's-lit book. It's similar to the HP series, but more focused on adventure and less on mystery, I think. Anyway, cute book if your kids have "wizard fever" - it's something to keep them entertained while (impatiently) waiting for July 16!

iRobot is the BOMB!

I love my Roomba. Really, truly, I do. It is fantastic and one of the best purchases I've ever made (right up there with TiVo). But of course I wished for something that would also mop my floors - maybe a Roomba with a swiffer attachment or something. Now iRobot (who makes Roomba) is making Scooba, a vacuum/mop system that sucks up dirt, squirts cleaning solution on the floor, scrubs it with a vacuum-type brush, and then sucks up the dirty cleaning fluid & squeegees the floor dry. It will be on sale in time for the 2005 holiday season, and I can't wait!!! With about 1000 sf of hard flooring in my home, this is going to be the coolest thing ever!

Name of the Rose

Meh. The story might be great, but so far it's pretty hard going. Umberto just goes off on these tangents where he babbles incessantly about stuff that seems to have nothing at all to do with the story. Seriously, do I need to read three pages of description of the entrance to the freakin' church? No. Just get to the mystery. He seems to do OK with dialogue, there's just not much of it. He'd be better off with less rambling descriptive crap and more dialogue that actually propels the story along.

In other words, the author seriously needs a decent editor.

Yay, Series of Unfortunate Events!!

Book 12 is coming out on October 18, 2005! Still no idea what the title will be, but Rugrat will be glad to know that the audio book should be available at the library before we make our trip to Disneyland at Halloween this year!

Finished two books today

First: The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey. Interesting fictional story but with quite a bit of historical fact thrown in. Story centers around a policeman, who's stuck in the hospital after a nasty fall. While trying to keep from dying of boredom, he stumbles upon the mystery of Richard III, who supposedly killed his two young nephews in order to gain/keep the crown.
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Our story's protagonist hooks up with a researcher at the British Museum, and together they uncover all kinds of interesting factoids about Richard which make it clear to them that he did not, in fact, kill his nephews, and while he's been reviled for about four hundred years as a notorious murderer and callous blackguard, he was actually a very enlightened ruler and loving family man.


Second: Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi. An unusual non-fiction book written entirely in comic strip format, about the author's childhood growing up in Iran, and all the political and social turmoil she was living through. Very touching in places. Also, a super-quick read.

Next up: The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco.