Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Yes, I live in Wild Kingdom...

....why do you ask.

It is very common around here to have to stop in the middle of a busy, main thoroughfare for a duck parade. Usually a mamma with a line of 10 or so babies marching behind her. Very often it is mystifying where exactly they are going because there are seemingly no ponds or streams in the vicinity. The following situation is also not uncommon......

No duck left behind....

Prosecuting bad guys is not the DA's only job.......

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

You know .....

... you live in a small town when this is news!!

I guess I shouldn't complain.

Read the comments....priceless.

Friday, June 25, 2010

And just when you thought it was safe...

....it's Just Shut Up Friday!

This is just too easy...like shooting fish in a barrel.

To quote an acquaintance:

Turn off NPR, take your head out of your bag of chips for 10 seconds and look at a map!



Yes, Peggy, Arizona is a border state.

Dem county supervisor: Arizona’s law might have been justifiable if it was a border state

For the record--we are living in an age where ANYONE in the public eye does not get a pass on the stupid stuff they say. Please think carefully about making idiotic statements in public. Trust me when I tell you, that this is not the 15 minutes of fame Andy Warhol had in mind.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Hey "Just shut up Thursday" is making a comback!

..... nice when one actually confirms their own irrelevancy....

Gloria who?

Thanks for that! You can go away [again] now--and just shut up.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Some people ....

... have multiple knitting projects, and can't resist starting yet another. (I have multiple projects, but generally finish one before I embark on another, unless I put one in "time out".)

... feel the need to have one of every sweater design/color on the planet (and you know who you are!) Most frequently heard wail "But I don't have ANYTHING like this!!

... some people think that a collection of baseball caps is the most essential element of any wardrobe.

... some people think that T-shirts with slogans are appropriate office attire. (I just threw this in because we've been discussing "fashioned challenged" colleagues recently.)

... then there is me. I am "involved" with no less that THREE novels. Concurrently. Really.

  • First there is the audio book I'm knitting by....The Help by Stockett. I highly recommend this book and the audio is fabulous. There are several actors voicing the characters, and they truly come to life. There is most definitely a movie in this book's future.

  • Next there is a Kindle book that I have loaded to my iPod. I have the iPod Kindle app, and it works beautifully. I found that I can read the iPod when I don't have anything else with me, or it is dark. Like in a hotel room when "my roommate" is still sleeping. This is a Kellerman book Self-Defense. I find Kellerman's books are inconsistent. Some are terrific, some eh. They have the feel of true crime about them, in a novel. I'm liking this one a lot.

  • Then last, but not least, there is a real live print book. I love me the feel of books with pages, I don't care anything about the other technologies......this is a Carol Goodman book, The Night Villa. I sorta got hooked on Goodman after reading The Seduction of Water. I like her use of "language". I can't explain it, but a much more "literary" colleague said the same thing--independently no less. Her books always have a "water feature", and she is deeply invested in Greek, and other, mythology. Don't let that put you off though. In addition to Seduction, I've read The Lake of Dead Languages, and The Drowning Pool (see the water thing?) and not a dog in the bunch. The one I'm reading now, may be my favorite so far--and yes there is water involved here too. I was at the library yesterday, and picked up her The Sonnet Lover, it doesn't come in paper, and I wanted to read it, and am not thrilled with hauling hard covers around. So that will be up next.


The question I began to ponder is how the hell am I doing this, and seemingly keeping everything in order (I mean in my brain of course.) Maybe because these three are so very different, I'm not having bizarre crossover dreams.....but it is still odd, no?

So those are my book reviews for the moment. If you want some complex reading I can highly recommend "The Girl with..." trilogy, even though I'm still resisting the last of the series until I can savor it on vacation.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Remember when I wrote....

.... this

Well...now there's this.....

Point, set, match......

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Catchup ....

  1. I thought I'd be finished with one of my two WIP. I took some time off at the end of May (it was a use it or lose it situation, I rarely find myself there), and helped my mom with some stuff. I wish I could say it was a lovely altruistic exercise, but it was not. I regret to say that my mom is "maturing" into a difficult person.

    I also took some time off to plant annuals for my MIL as her Mother's Day gift. She's pushing 92, with a new hip, and is perking right along. I don't know how she does it. She is not "maturing" into a difficult person, though her daughter could possibly disagree with that statement.


  2. Anyway, the time off did not help with my WsIP. I find myself going days without knitting. Last evening I was waiting in the car, on a divine summer day, and literally fell asleep knitting a row on a pair of socks. The universe is clearly trying to tell me something.


  3. What are the odds that I will be able to refrain from starting The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, until vaca in August? I just finished The Girl Who Played With Fire, and was left with an extraordinary cliff hanger. (Could this be why my WsIP have suffered? Hummmm?)


  4. Speaking of cliff hangers, I also just finished (audio), an Echo In The Bone. Yikes. What a story! And the next installment won't be around for at least two, or better, years. Frankly, this might be my favorite of all the books, though I really liked Outlander. I have a "thing" for revolutionary war history, so all the historical detail (though most were fictionalized) really rowed my boat.


  5. This week my snit revolves around Comcast Cable. They are forcing us to convert to digital. (I'm still using my VCR regularly, and this pretty much eliminates the usefulness of that technology. Ticks me off royally.) Anyway, it turns out that we receive cable through our condo association, and much like a hotel, HBO is shown on a NOT digital channel. The free converters they give you will not allow us to receive HBO, even though we PAY for it. So in order to continue HBO we have to PAY for the service (which we already do) and PAY for the upgraded digital box. Huh? Does this make sense? I'm already paying a premium, I've gotten this service as is for 20 years (literally), and now I have to pay more for the same thing? Srsly!!

    So, I cajoled , got nasty, found that most of the customer service people I spoke to weren't even born when we began getting HBO, and finally am getting upgraded service for less that we are paying now. Except, our boxes refuse to recognize the signals the company is sending, and insist that they are not "legally" connected. I must add that our oldest TV, which is adjacent to our exercise machine, has a digital box (needed to get Versus last year), and I installed it with no problem.....though we didn't get HBO on it. So I am not a happy Comcast customer. Today a tech is coming to sort this out, and my convenience has to be between 1:00 and 5:00, how the hell is that my convenience? Sheesh!


  6. Congrats to the Blackhawks!! I regret to say that I missed the winning goal. Of course, so did most of the Blackhawks, and all the Flyers, except for the goalie.