Pop question: Getting Lost

I was watching Still Alice the other night, with Julianne Moore as a woman who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's.

And of course, I got to thinking about my mom, who passed away from the regular type of Alzheimer's in 2013, so the movie was ... not easy for me to watch.

In the movie, one of the first outward signs of Julianne Moore's character's disease is when she can't find the bathroom in her house, and ends up wetting her pants.  And I remembered how, a few years before my mom was actually diagnosed, I knew that there was something wrong.  She was forgetting things, and losing things, and then, one day, she was relating an anecdote to a few of us about how she had gotten lost in Walmart, how she had been doing her regular shopping, and then got turned around somehow, and realized that she didn't know where the front of the store was or how to find the exit.

And everybody laughed, talking about how big the big-box stores were, and how disorienting, and how everybody gets lost in one from time to time.

And I was, well, nonplussed.  Because I can't even imagine getting lost inside a store.  How could you possibly get so confused that you couldn't find your way to the exits?  And I still remember how worried I felt about my mom when she told that story, and how baffled I was that other people were relating to it, because WHO GETS LOST INSIDE A STORE?!

So:  Here's my question:  Have you ever gotten lost inside a store?  Enquiring minds want to know.

The weekend in pictures

Well, come ON, I got a new camera - I HAD to take some pics, didn't I?

Let's see.  Saturday I cleaned the bathroom (thrilling!) and then went to the movies.  If anybody else has seen The Imitation Game, please let me know, because I haz a question.

Saturday after the movies, I took down some of the holiday decorations out front.  Soda and Pony came out to supervise.  Pony decided he needed an aerial view:

Soda was also watching closely:

You can see how the light reflects differently in his damaged (left) eye. And those white whiskers on his chin crack me up.

Pretty soon they were done supervising and ready to play:

Sunday morning I saw this blue jay fluffed up against the cold:

That pic was taken from inside my house (come on, it's cold out there!) and quite a distance away.  I am very pleased with the zoom capabilities on the new camera.

Another shot:

And then it was time for an adoption event, my first with the group for whom I am now volunteering.

Looks like a dead day, but the store was actually quite busy - we all took this break in the action to get some pictures.

Sardines:

That orange boy on the right was insanely friendly - I had him out and about on a harness and leash for a good part of the day.  There was a lot of interest in him, and a little black cat named Olive found her new home, so it was a good event.

Then I had to transport some of the cats back to their foster homes and head home myself.

Oh, and what did Tinks do this weekend?  He was the only smart one in the family - he declared it Sofa City Time and called it good.

Oh great. Now I'm never going to sleep again.

I briefly considered going to see The Babadook this past weekend, but decided that given my aversion to all things scary, it would probably be a bad idea.  And then I ended up spending all weekend tie-dying the ceilings anyway.

Which is good, because I ended up scaring myself badly doing laundry* on Saturday, so if I had also gone to see The Babadook, it probably would have pushed me right over the edge.

But then, I was paging through the Sunday paper coupon section, and I came across an ad for ... this:

What. the. actual. F*CK.

It's a monkey doll.  A MONKEY DOLL.

*stifles a scream*

I couldn't help myself.  I had to google this company.  Surely this was a joke, right?  Surely people aren't actually buying ... infant monkey dolls?

*runs into the bedroom and hides under the bed*

I ... really?  Is this really a ... THING?

The company website had FIVE PAGES of monkey dolls.  FIFTY-ONE ENTRIES.

I am hoping that by putting these monstrosities up here, it will act as a kind of aversion therapy, inuring me to the horror that is monkey dolls.  That is my fondest hope at this point - that once having seen monkey dolls, I am now immune to the horror.

Hold me.












*I washed a sports bra in the with rest of the laundry, and somewhere between the bed (where I sort laundry) and the drawer where I keep my bras, it ... disappeared.  Just ... gone.  A GHOST STOLE MY BRA.

Recently Read

As usual, skip this if you wanna.  I feel like a lot of my posts are getting skipped, lately, so I figured I might's well throw this one in here.  Ha.

1.  Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess.  Memoir.  If you read her blog (and who doesn't?), you're familiar with her writing style, and this book is a series of blog-post-like vignettes.  Entertaining.

2.  A Hundred Summers by Beatriz Williams.  Novel set in the thirties about a woman, her best friend, and their romantic entanglements with the same man.  Eh, they all acted like a bunch of dipsh*ts, but it was a fairly entertaining read.

3.  One Step at a Time by Elena J. Hanuse - Oh, I am a sucker for walk-across-America books.  But this lady had her hubs follow her in an RV, so she could sleep in a bed every night.  Totally understandable, but not quite in the spirit of the genre.

4.  Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King - It's unusual to read a King book with no scary woo-woo stuff in it.  This is basically a police procedural novel.  I usually like the characters' back-stories as much as, or more than, the main plot in his books, and sadly, this book was lacking in that regard.  At "only" 400 pages, short for him, I got the feeling that maybe an editor took a good chunk out of this one.  Still a good read, if not one of his best.  Looking forward to reading his next one, Revival.

5.  Good-Bye, Boise ... Hello, Alaska by Cora Holmes.  Nonfiction account of a family living on a remote Alaskan island.  Very interesting.

6.  Movie Time!  Dallas Buyers Club is about a dude with AIDS in Texas in the early eighties who goes up against the FDA to provide drugs to fellow AIDS patients.  I really, really do not care for Matthew McConaughey, and that car commercial was just bizarre, but man, he is a good actor.  And Jared Leto was just astonishing as Rayon.

7.  Home to Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani - This author is quite popular, so I thought I'd give it a try.  This book is evidently one in a series, and not the first one.  I couldn't get into it and didn't finish it.

8.  Movie time again!  I saw Into the Woods on Christmas day, the first showing of the morning, and that theater was sold out.  Usually when I go to the movies on  Christmas it's a ghost town, but not this time.  See review here.

9.  Another movie review:  Johnny Got His Gun, from 1971.  An anti-war film which I first became aware of thanks to Metallica's song One  many years ago, this movie is about a severely injured WW1 vet.

10.  Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas.  Memoir about coming of age in Harlem in the 30s and 40s.  Good.



So that's what I've been reading/watching lately.  And you?

Movie Review: Into the Woods

Saw it yesterday morning.  It was the first showing of the day, and it was sold out. I got one of the last tickets. Woot! It's a Christmas miracle!  There were a few seats in the row ahead of me that had actually been oversold, several times, which led to some interesting usher interactions to watch while the previews were playing.    I've never seen the Broadway show, so it was new to me.  Meryl Streep as the witch is fantastic, of course.  For those of you who might be going to see it because of Johnny Depp, be advised that his part is only about five minutes long.

The story moves right along, and although the complexity of Sondheim's lyrics don't really lead to any big showstoppers, I was singing "Into the woods, la la la la" and "AAAAAAGONY" all afternoon, and the melodies sure do stick with you.

Very entertaining, and a fine way to spend a couple of hours.

Recently Read

1.  Movie time! "The Waiting Room" is a documentary about a hospital emergency waiting room.  Very good.

2.  Okay, now we'll do some books.  I'm Down  by Misha Wolff is a memoir about a poor white girl growing up in a poor black  neighborhood.  Very funny and very good.  A keeper.

3.  Coop by Michael Perry - Memoir about a guy who moves to a hobby farm.  Okay.

4.  Chalktown by Melinda Haynes is a novel about a small Southern town, some of its inhabitants, and a murder.  It could have been interesting, but instead was boring as sh*t.  I finished it, but I'm not sure why I bothered.  yawn.

5.  Crazy Enough  by Storm Large - Memoir by a rock and roll chick who struggled to understand her mentally ill mother.  Good.

6.  Another movie! "We Need to Talk About Kevin".  Da fuq?  I think this was supposed to be a movie about a "bad seed", but I got fifteen minutes in, couldn't make heads or tails out of it, and bailed.  It was like watching some indie producer's fever-dream.  Sorry, can't review, didn't make it to the half-hour mark.

 7.  The Homecoming of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield - Novel about a preacher's family in 1950s Arkansas.  Good.

8.  The Butterfly Garden by Chip St. Clair.  Memoir about childhood abuse.

9.  The Wives of Los Alamos by Tarashea Nesbit.   This novel was written in a narrative voice of which I was previously unaware - the royal we.  "We took the car to the shop to get the oil changed."  "Some of our husbands left first."  "Our brothers said we looked like movie stars."  Da fuq?  Sorry, too distracting.  I got two pages in, leafed through the rest, and quit.

10.  My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin.  Novel written in 1895 about a young woman in the Australian Outback struggling with class and gender biases.  The protagonist is annoying, but the book is good.


So!  That's what I've been reading.  How about you?

Random

So, I know I talked the other day about being happy despite the cold, but you know what?  I've discovered that it's a whole lot easier to be happy when it's not below zero outside.  When I got up this morning, it was 18 degrees outside, positive eighteen degrees, and I was practically grinning.

Pony had to go to the vet last night for a recheck on his pinkeye, and at this point it's amusing me to call him Bob Costas, although I don't think that he's amused, and I doubt that Bob would be amused if he knew.  The vet says things are looking better, although I have to continue with the pinkeye drops until they run out, which, judging by the amount left in the bottle after the first two weeks of treatment, ought to happen around May or so.  But!  Pony is a trouper, even though he does tend to run and hide when he sees me coming lately, which is not exactly an ego booster, although the two ferals have been running away from me for months, so I really should have a thicker skin by now. 

Olympics!  Is anyone watching them?  I try to get interested, I really do, but it's just ... like ... take ski jumping, for example.  A dude comes down the hill, flies off the ramp, goes really far in the air, and lands.  Then another guy comes down the hill, flies off the ramp, goes really far in the air, and lands.  Then another guy ... you get my point.  Oh, sure, there's the occasional wipeout thrown in, but isn't that like watching NASCAR for the crashes?  I mean, a lot of people do that, too, but it's just not my thing, is all.

I finally got around to watching Les Miserables, the 2012 version, and all I can say is, couldn't they have given poor Jean ValJean a girlfriend?  I mean, the dude never caught a damn break his entire life - did Mr. Hugo really have to make him celibate, too?  It just seems a little much.  And yeah, Anne Hathaway or whatever her name is acted her little heart out, and I actually cried through more of the movie than I would care to admit, which ... I thought musicals were supposed to make you happy.  But!  I enjoyed it, and I'll probably watch it again to catch the stuff I missed, because two-and-a-half hours of anything is hard for me to pay attention through, so I'll hang onto the Netflix for a while.

I got in a rather heated argument with a co-worker the other day, which, all I can say is, the entitled little sh*t had it coming, but still, the f-bomb was probably not my wisest choice of words, although my boss did everything short of shake my hand afterward, so I think my job is secure.

And!  My boss, who is a conservative white old man, has been taken great pleasure in telling the employees that thanks to Obamacare (spoken with a sneer), we would have to start reporting our employer-paid insurance premiums as taxable income, so it I was glad to be able to find the time to do a little actual, you know, research the other day and prove him wrong.  Stop listening to your conservative white old man friends, Mr. Bossman.  They don't know jack.

So!  That's what I've been doing.  How about you?

Recently Read

As usual, skip it if you wanna.

1.  A Friend  of the Flock by John McCormack - Memoirs  of a country vet.  I read his book "Fields and Pastures New" and enjoyed it, and  this one was good as well.

2.  The Maid's Version by Daniel Woodrell - Novel based on a true incident of a southern dance hall burning down  in the twenties.  This book got great reviews, but I couldn't really get into it, and I didn't finish it.

3.  Movie review!  The Sapphires is a movie "based on a true story" (meaning, "Well, it COULD have happened") about a girl-singing-group in 60s Australia.  It was enjoyable enough, but I tried to get all the way through and never quite made it.  I think that when you're going through tough times personally, it's just hard to get into any kind of pass-the-time recreation.  I'll have to give The Maid's Version, and this movie, another shot down the line.

4.  Back to books.  The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult is a novel about a high school girl who says she was raped, and the boy who says it was consensual.  Jodi Picoult sells a ton of books, so I thought I'd give one a try, but I was not impressed by The Tenth Circle.  None of the characters were particularly likeable, the plot was one we've all seen before, and the writing was not particularly memorable or smooth.  I didn't finish it.

5.  The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls - Novel about a pair of young sisters who go to live with their uncle when their mom flakes out.  I LOVED this author's memoir,  The Glass Castle, but this book just rang false to me.  Told from the viewpoint of the younger sister, it almost seemed like it was written by a twelve-year-old, and not in a good way.  Meh.

6.   The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon - I know, I know, I'm late to the party on this one. This is a sprawler of a novel about comic-book writers in the thirties, also including subplots about WWII, the Golem of Prague, and tons of other interesting stuff.  Very good.  It's a "guy book", in that I'm thinking that men would really enjoy it, but I liked it, too.

7.  The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald - This 1945 memoir, about a sophisticated woman who finds herself on a chicken farm in the Pacific Northwest, was made into a movie starring Claudette Colbert back in the day.  While the book was funny, I found the author's attitude toward some of her "lesser" neighbors mean-spirited, although I shouldn't be one to talk when it comes to dissing one's neighbors.  *cough*

8.  Movie review!  I had to Netflix "Phantasm", a low-budget indie horror film from the seventies, to confirm my suspicion that one of the employee's at my mom's nursing home looked just like the funeral home dude from the movie.  Survey says?  Dingdingding we have a winner!  Anyway, the movie is really pretty good, horror film-wise,  with some good special effects for its time/budget, most noticeably the flying spheres.  I liked it, and I don't generally go for the genre.  And holy sh*t, that guy who played the funeral home dude is now working in a local nursing home, I'm convinced of it.

So!  That's what I've been reading, and watching, lately.  How about you?

Recently Read

Okay, first off, I went into the library the other day and a book I'd been wanting to read (The Maid's Version by Daniel Woodrell) was there on the new books display, and I was so! excited!  Because usually any new book worth reading is checked out for, like, the first YEAR or so that it's at my library, so to have first dibs on a good book is a big! deal!  And please tell me that I'm not the only one who gets excited at the sight of a wanted book.

So I haven't read that one yet, but here's what I HAVE read:

 1.  The Grail Bird - Hot on the Trail of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker by Tim Gallagher.  Everybody's got to have a hobby, I guess.  I was actually really excited to read this, until I discovered that Ivory-Bills (possibly extinct) are almost identical to Pileateds (common).  Did they find the bird?  Read it and find out. 

2.  Movie Review!  "Little Birds" is about two teen girls living in a trailer park by the Salton Sea who decide to head for L.A.  Classic indie, including the obligatory opening scene featuring a nubile young actress's tits.  Includes lots of artsy lighting shots, etc.   I dunno.  My first exposure to filmed teen angst came via "Over the Edge" with Matt Damon. Another example is "Where The Day Takes You", with Lara Flynn Boyle.  This kind of movie can really clobber you, or leave you saying "eh", depending, I guess, on where you are emotionally on any given day with memories of your own adolescence.

3.  Music Review!  The eponymous debut CD by The Band Perry is a bright, country-pop mix of songs.  Think Dixie Chicks, but skewed toward a younger demographic.  I am sure that millions of tween girls all over the country sobbed into their pillows listening to "If I Die Young", which admittedly is a touching song. "Miss You Being Gone" and "Double Heart" are fun breakup songs, and what young girl couldn't relate to "Walk Me Down the Middle",  about a girl wanting to show off her new boyfriend?
        Yes, the CD skews young, but it's very enjoyable, and since the Dixie Chicks are evidently not coming back any time soon, these guys fill the bill just fine.  I know that they've put out another CD since this one, and I'll probably give that one a listen, too.

4.  Haunted Southern Tier by Elizabeth Tucker - Local ghost stories.  Okay.

5.  Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth - Memoir about a midwife in post-WWII London, now a miniseries on PBS.  Interesting, if a little more graphic in its childbirth descriptions than I expected.  Still,  an entertaining read.

6.  How about another movie review?  "Mama" is a spooky movie about a young couple who are tasked with raising the man's feral nieces.  I usually stay away from horror movies, but this one got (fairly)  good reviews, and Guillermo del Toro (sp?), who I like, produced, so I Netflixed it.  The premise is good, and despite gaping plot holes, it truly is scary.  I actually had to stop watching at one point, go do something else for a while as a little palate cleanser, and then come back to it.  Hopefully I'll be able to sleep again someday.

7.  Back to books.  "The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope" by Rhonda Riley.  It's kind of tough to review this without giving too much away,  but suffice it to say that it's about a young woman who finds a mysterious stranger on her farm, and their life together.  Mystical in a good way, and an entertaining read.

8.  The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman - I understand that Mr. Gaiman has something approaching a cult following,  and my brother recommended this book  to me.  It's a novel about a little boy and his young neighbor facing a supernatural challenge.  It's really short - Folks who think the articles in People magazine are too long would probably like this one, as well as people who aren't really "readers".  It's certainly good - Think if Stephen King's editor told him that he had to cut a book by ninety percent.  I liked  it!

9.  Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles - Think, The Road (Cormac McCarthy) meets Gone with the Wind.  Considerably grimmer than her book Stormy Weather, but still a good read.

10. A Midwife's Story by Penny Armstrong and Sheryl Feldman - Memoir by a midwife to the Amish - interesting.

Okay, so that's what I've been reading lately. How about you?

Dropping the old bombshell

So, I was reading a book the other day, and I came to the end of a chapter, and here's the last line:

"My father was your father, Lucy.  I'm your half brother."

ahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

I'm sorry, but every time I come across a bombshell announcement, all  I can think of is that scene in Tootsie, where Dustin Hoffman's soap character finally owns up to his own little surprise:

"For I am NOT Emily Kimberly, the daughter of Dwayne and Alma Kimberly! No, I'm not! I'm Edward Kimberly, the recluse brother of my sister Anthea! Edward Kimberly, who has finally vindicated his sister's good name! I am Edward Kimberly! Edward Kimberly!

Oh my God, now I wanna go watch Tootsie again.

Recently Read

Blah blah blah, skip it if you wanna.

1.  Nine Years Under by Sheri Booker - Memoir about a teenager who worked in a funeral home - Interesting.

2.  Clay's Quilt by Silas House - Novel about a contemporary coal miner in the Appalachians and his courting of a fiddle player. So-so.

3.   Next to Love by Ellen Feldman - Novel about WWII war brides.  I dunno; I felt like I've read this exact same book, by different authors, before.  Meh.

4.  Mama's  Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes - Short novel about an immigrant family in San Francisco in the early 1900s.  Charming.

5.  Dwarf by Tiffanie DiDonato - Memoir about a Little Person.  Interesting.  

6.  This is Graceanne's Book by P.L. Whitney - I loved, loved, LOVED this book about a girl coming of age in 1960, as told by her ten-year-old brother.  I actually dragged out finishing it because I didn't want it to end.  The only thing I really have to compare this to is To Kill a Mockingbird - it's almost that  good.  Highly recommended. 

7.  The House on  Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros - Vignettes about growing up Latino in Chicago - good.

8.  The Supremes at Earl's All You Can Eat by Edward Kelsey Moore - Novel about three women who are life-long friends - Funny and good.  Reminded me of Fannie Flagg's books.

9.  Moon over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool - Novel about an orphan during the  Depression - Technically a kid's book, but still interesting.

10.  Movie review time!  "Foo Fighters - Back and Forth" is a doc about, duh, the Foo Fighters.  Interesting and enjoyable, especially if you like Dave Grohl.

11.  West of Here by Jonathan Evison - Novel based in Port Bonita, Washington, with sections set alternately in the 1890s and the present day.  I had the same problem with this book that I did with a lot of stuff I've read lately - I didn't care about any of the main characters.  Meh.

12.  Palisades Park by Alan Brennert - Historical fiction focusing on a family working at Palisades Park.  Interesting and an enjoyable read.

12.  Faraway Places by Tom Spanbauer - Novella about a teenage boy in 1950s Idaho who witnesses a murder.  Lyrical and absorbing and short.

14.  Ten Cents a Dance by Christine Fletcher - Novel  about a teenage taxi dancer in WWII Chicago - Technically a YA, but with adult themes (premarital sex, gambling, etc.).  The novelist did her research, and it was an interesting and entertaining book.

15.  Big Girl Small by Rachel DeWoskin - Novel about a Little Person navigating her way through high school.  Sharply funny and a good book.  I'm not going to give away any plot points here, but suffice it to say that the author navigated several difficult subjects with humor and tact.  Recommended.

16.  Bright Lights, Big Ass by Jen Lancaster - Short, autobiographical stories about living in Chicago - Self-deprecating and funny.

17.  The Sweet By and By by Todd Johnson - Novel about two women in a nursing home and the people who care for them - Very good.


How about you?  Reading anything good?

Movies I haven't seen

A while back, somebody was blogging about popular movies they had somehow missed.  If I could remember who it was, I'd link to it, but I can't remember, so if it was you, feel free to chime in.

Anyway, me + movies = not so much.  I mean, I LIKE a good movie as much as the next person, but I just don't have the time or the patience to sit through two or three hours of movie.  It can take me two or three DAYS to get through one of my Netflix movies, one fifteen-minute chunk at a time.  And I think a movie kind of loses something when you're watching it piece-by-piece instead of all the way through.

So I got thinking about popular movies that I've never seen.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off - I have never liked Matthew Broderick.  EVER. I feel fairly confident in saying that I will never watch this movie.  I have nothing against the genre - I loved Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and even Dazed and Confused has grown on me over time, but Ferris?  Nah.

Avatar.  Every time I watch an animated movie, I feel somehow embarrassed, like I'm watching something that is supposed to be reserved for kids.  I did watch Wall-E, and The Iron Giant, and I think I even watched Finding Nemo once, and every time, I felt disgusted with myself.  I am not four.  I do not watch cartoons.  Sheesh.  (Although I did read the comics in the newspaper until well into middle age.  I don't know why.  It was just ... habit.  But once The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes went away, I stopped reading them.  "Zits" and "Cathy" and "Crankshaft"?  no thanks.  Although I will admit to checking in with The Comics Curmudgeon on line.)

The Godfather.  Goodfellas.  Scarface.  Any mob movie ever.  Violent a**holes being violent?  Nope. 
Although I was faaaaascinated by Pulp Fiction, so go figure.

How bout you?  Any popular movies that you've missed?  Any popular movies that you've seen and then wished you HADN'T watched?

Recently Read

As usual,  skip it if you wanna.

1.  The Girl She Used to Be by David Cristofano.  Okay, first off, I never would have picked this up if I had known it was a "romance".  Second of all, this book, about a woman in the witness protection program, had a preposterous plot, an obnoxious heroine, and was poorly written.  Third of all, according to the back cover of the paperback, The New York Times Book Review called it "Something Special".  The only way in HELL that happened is if the reviewer was the author's dad.  'Nuff  said.

2. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos.  Man, those Latin authors.  I get it that their characters are supposed to be larger than life!  and fascinating!  and exuberant! and they experience things more deeeeeeeply than non-Latinos!  All I can think when I'm reading is "These people are all batsh*t crazy."  Guess it's just me.

3.  Movie Review!  "Girl Model" is a documentary about a fashion model recruiter (a former model herself) who is recruiting young Russian girls to model in Japan.  Pretty damn depressing.

4.  Mermaids on the Moon by Elizabeth Stuckey French - I think I'm going to come up with some shorthand for badly-written books.  Instead of TL;DR (too long; didn't read), as in blog posts, I'm going to label them TS;DF, for "too stupid; didn't finish".  Mermaids on the Moon?  TS;DF.

5.  Movie Review!  "Les Miserables", the 1998 one with Liam Neeson, Uma Thurman, and Clare Danes, NOT  the one that came out last year, because Netflix has a twisted sense of humor.  Thanks, Netflix!  ANYway, THIS version of Les Mis is non-musical and pretty good.  I never thought much of Clare Danes, but I will say she had a couple of scenes where it was obvious that she's got some acting chops.  On the other hand, I found  Uma Thurman's death scene unintentionally pretty funny.  Sorry, Uma.  Liam was Liam, and the whole thing was pretty good.

6.  True Sisters by Sandra Dallas.  Novel about Mormons in the 1850s heading for Utah.  Spoiler alert:  The vast majority of characters either dies or loses important body parts.  Man, I usually like Sanda Dallas' novels, but this one was pretty grim.

7.  Carolina Moon by Nora Roberts - I had never read this author before, and now I know why.  A reviewer on Amazon said it best:

"Her books are all copies of each other, with different character names and settings. They all follow a predictable pattern: a hurt, emotionally abused heroine goes back to her hometown or some other place to solve a mystery or murder from her past. She meets a gorgeous, oh-so-wonderful man who falls in love with her within two days (even though she treats him terribly). She acts like she wants nothing to do with him until two pages before the book ends. She then declares she is madly in love with him and cannot survive without him *snort* and they live happily ever after. Oh yeah, while they're "falling in love" (and by the way, Robert's love scenes are terrible; I usually end up laughing at the absurdity of most of them), they come with inane clues and try to solve the mystery/murder but the suspect always end up being someone who makes no sense at all. "

Yep. 

8.  The Quilter's Homecoming by Jennifer Chiaverini - Novel about a woman and her husband who move to California in the 1920s - A light, quick read.  I'll probably read more of her stuff.

9.  Woodswoman by Anne LaBastille - Memoir of a woman who lived alone in the Adironacks.  Interesting, if a little preachy toward the end.


How about you?  Read (or watched) anything good lately?

The weekend

So!  I have been diligent with my Jillian workouts (if diligent = working out more than once a week) (and I hesitate to call it "working out" - it's more like "flailing around spastically"), with one minor problem.

My bra straps keep sliding off my shoulders while I exercise.  Like, over and over and OVER again.  It's disTRACting.

So I went and bought a sports bra.  Awwwww!  Rocky's first sports bra.  It has racerback straps, which hopefully will end the bra strap slide.  I'll let you know, when I actually get around to doing Jillian again.

And then!  I found a package of Christmas cookies in the freezer that I had totally forgotten about.  Jillian, we're going to have to work a lot harder.

Saturday night, I watched "Jiro Dreams of Sushi", a doc about, well, a guy named Jiro who makes sushi.  All the reviews made it out to be, like, the best documentary EVER, but I just found it to be ... meh.  I can't get that excited about raw fish.

And oh!  On Friday, I watched my neighbor L move their cars into the park next to my house.  Why?  I have no idea.  The only thing I could think of was that they wanted to get the cars out of their driveway in advance of the storm so that when their plow guy came he could clear their whole driveway, but ... well, the town plow would've plowed the park in, so they would have had to dig their cars out of the park, and the whole thing made no sense.  I figured that B, L's husband, had to be behind it, because, well, B's an idiot. And then! A couple of hours later, L moved the cars back into their driveway.  And then back into the park.  And then back in the driveway.  This poor woman is pushing eighty and she's out there in a snowstorm playing musical chairs with the cars.

"These people are insane," I thought, only to find out Saturday morning, when chatting with their son, that indeed, B has been diagnosed as Bipolar.  THAT explains a LOT. 

And, let's see, yesterday I was at the adoption center, where there was another! escape!  Luckily, I was able to grab the cat, as he already has three applications on him. Everybody wants him. And oh, the cat is named "Rorschach".  Because he's black and white, like an ink blot, get it?  I DO NOT NAME THESE CATS.  But listening to people stopping by the center trying to pronounce "Rorschach" was pretty amusing.  "Like Horshack from Welcome Back, Kotter!," I tried a couple of times, only to be met with blank stares.  Yeah, I guess I'm old.

Horshack?  Anybody?  Anybody remember Horshack?

Snowfall totals!  Let's hear 'em!  I got ... a measly five inches.  How about you?

Recently Read

As always, skip this if you wanna.

1.  Light a Penny Candle by Maeve Binchy - Gosh, I always love her books.  I was sad to learn that she'd passed away.  Light a Penny Candle was about what Maeve Binchy books are always about - People in England, usually in one small town, living their lives.  I did not like the ending on this one - I thought it was lame and out of character - but the rest was good.  But oh!  Why does there always have to be at least one good-woman-stays-with-bad-man storyline in each of her books?  THAT gets kind of annoying.

2.  The Dry Grass of August by Anna Jean Mayhew - Novel about a girl growing up in the 50s segregated South.  Good.

3.  Movie review time!  The Man Who Would Be King - This came out in 1975 and was based on a Rudyard Kipling story.  Michael Caine and Sean Connery play British Army washouts who decide to take over a remote Asian country in the early 1900s.  Starts out slow, but builds to a rip-roaring finish.  I remember seeing this as a kid and being fascinated by it, so it was fun to see it again.

4.  Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman - Started out good, but developed a sour attitude about two-thirds of the way in.  I didn't finish it. 

5.  11/22/63 by Stephen King - Meh.  I felt like he phoned this one in. 

6.  Another movie review!  The Hunger Games.  This was okay.  It reminded me of the novella "The Long Walk" by Richard Bachman/Stephen King.

7.  Rachel and Her Children by Jonathan Kozol - Nonfiction - Study of poverty and welfare programs in NYC.  It was interesting, if somewhat dated (published in 1988).  I wonder if the programs are any better-run now than they were at the time this book was written.

8.  Are you ready for another movie review?  First Position is a documentary about a youth ballet competition.  This thing would usually be right up my alley, but I think I've seen so many documentaries about competitions that I'm pretty much over them.  But!  I did hear that they are making a musical out of Hands on a Hard Body, which makes me hopeful that THAT doc, which I have never actually seen but have heard plenty about, mainly from a radio episode of This American Life, will someday come out on DVD.
(And by the way, I cannot see any way that a musical version of Hands on a Hard Body would be anything but a hilarious failure, but that's just my opinion.) (And no, Hands on a Hard Body is NOT about porn.  Sheesh.)

So!  That's what I've been reading, and watching, lately.  How about you?

Recently Read

Skip it if you wanna.

1.  Flower Children by Maxine Swann - Novel about ex-hippies raising kids.  Started out interesting and then got meh - I didn't finish it.

2.  The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb - If you can't say anything nice ... Okay, I'll say something anyway.  It was seven hundred and forty pages of BO-RING.  Jesus.  That's several months of work lunchtimes that I'll never get back.  None of the main characters were particularly sympathetic, which made it a long, tough, slog.  I liked his book "She's Come Undone", but this one?  No way.  Waste of my time.

3.  The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin - Novel about a girl growing up in 1960s Mississippi - good.

4.  Movie Review!  "Hey, Boo - Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird" - Doc about, well, you guessed it.  And I will tell you what, the people who made this doc managed to talk a great book into the damn ground.  What a snooze-fest, especially since Harper Lee was (of course) absent.  (When the subject of your doc refuses interviews, you might have a problem.)  Although I did learn that the neighbor boy in the book was based on a young Truman Capote.  The more you know!  And I have since learned that there are rumors that Tru actually ghost-wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, which I don't believe.  He's not that good a writer.

5.  The Drifters by James Michener - Great big honking novel about young people in Spain in the 60s.  I read this as a teenager and was fascinated with it.  I just picked it up again, and, like a lot of books I first read as a teen, it just doesn't have the same resonance with me today.  Still, a good read. 

6.  The Gift of Pets by Bruce Coston - Memoir of a veterinarian - Goes into WAY too much technical detail - Eww.

7.  Angie, I Says by Avra Wing - Think "Working Girl", the movie, and then throw in a pregnancy that derails the career plans. Interesting.  Oh! And evidently they made a movie out of this book, too, with Geena Davis.

8.  The Lost Saints of Tennessee by Amy Franklin-Willis - Novel about a man who can't get over the death of his brother.  Eh.

9.  An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor - Self-explanatory title.  Fiction.  Good.

So!  That's what I got.  How about you?

Movie Review: "The Fighter"

"The Fighter" stars Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale. Mark plays a boxer on his (sort-of) way up, and Christian plays his brother, who used to be a contenda but is now a drugged-up mess. It's kind of hard to like Mark Wahlberg after his dick-shittish comments about 9/11. I mean, he's always been kind of a toad, but that just pushed it over the edge. A day after watching The Fighter, I didn't remember how it ended, so meh. Unexpectedly funny in spots. Christian Bale was amazing.

My Nexflix queue is nearing bottom - up next, I've got a doc about Irish jig competitors. Anybody seen anything good lately?

Recently Read

As usual, skip it if you wanna.

1. All Souls: A Family Story from Southie by Michael Patrick MacDonald – Memoir of a family living in poverty in South Boston in the seventies and eighties. Interesting and very good.

2. Bus Fare to Kentucky: The Autobiography of Skeeter Davis. Life of a country music star – interesting. Oh, and here’s a question: What’s the difference between an autobiography and a memoir? Just curious.

Let’s do a movie review! “The Help”. Meh.

3. We the Animals by Justin Torres – Novella about young brothers growing up. Very good until the end, which I didn’t like.

4. Creeker by Linda Scott DeRosier – Memoir (or maybe autobiography? I DON’T KNOW) about growing up in Appalachia in the sixties – interesting.

5. Songs in Ordinary Time by Mary McGarry Morris – this was a huge book about a small town in Vermont in the early sixties. I basically hated all the main characters but couldn’t wait to find out what happened to them – I was hoping that the townspeople all banded together and beat Omar to death but – SPOILER ALERT – that didn’t happen. BOO. The book just kind of … stopped … which pissed me off.

6. A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard – Autobiography (memoir?) about the woman in California who was abducted as an eleven-year-old and help captive for eighteen years. WHOA. An uplifting, scary, and heartbreaking story.

And right now I am reading "The Road", which has got to be the most depressing book ever in the history of time. If there's a book more depressing than this one, I'd be surprised. I mean, I've read some of Mr. McCarthy's other stuff, so I knew it wasn't going to be a romantic comedy, but STILL ... honestly not sure I'm going to be able to finish it as this point.





How about you guys? Whatcha reading?

Recently Read

First, thanks to all of you and your kind comments. The loss is great, but your nice thoughts are making it easier to get through.

Now, let's do some Recently Read. Yeah, that's all I got. Skip it if you wanna.

1. Moll Flanders by Daniel DeFoe. This was supposedly one of the first "novels", and this dude really could have used an editor, because the sentences run on and on and ON. And it's boring - he couldn't even make a brother/sister incestuous relationship interesting. Hell, even V.C. Andrews knocked it out of the park with THAT subject matter. I didn't finish it.

2. The Bucolic Plague by Josh Kilmer-Purcell - Memoir about two hipster guys who buy a farm. It starts out funny, then turns into an ad for their business about a third of the way through. Then it gets better at the end. An okay read.

3. Fanny and Sue by Karen Stoltz. Novel about twins growing up during the Depression. Charming, full of period details, and G-rated. Give it to your grandma for Christmas - she'll love it. Very good.

4. Good Grief by Lolly Winston. Novel about a woman whose husband dies unexpectedly - meh. I gave up about halfway through.

Let's do a movie review! Burlesque with Cher and Christina whats-her-face. Frankly, I wasn't paying that much attention, but what I saw seemed awfully derivative of "Chicago", which was a much, much better movie. Watch that instead.

Another movie review! Ballou is a documentary about a high school marching band going for the championship - ahh, memories. Really good if you're into that sort of thing - which I am.

5. All About Lulu by Jonathan Evison - Novel about a teenage boy with a crush on his stepsister. It got good reviews but I didn't find it that interesting.

6. The Night Train by Clyde Edgerton. Novel about growing up in the sixties in the segregated South. A quick read.

7. In Zanesville - Novel about an adolescent girl growing up in the seventies. I could relate. Good book. The description of the slumber party - Well, I could have been there. Heck, maybe I was there.

Okay, anybody reading anything good?

Recently Read

While I wait to hear from the shelter (whistling aimlessly) (FIVE DAYS?), let's do a Recently Read.

As always, skip it if you want to.



1. Listening is an Act of Love - Edited by Dave Isay. True stories from the StoryCorps project. Interesting, but not as compelling as a similar book, "I Thought My Father Was God" from the NPR Story Project.

2. Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady by Florence King - Memoir. This woman obviously thought she was the smartest person around, which irritated the hell out of me. I didn't finish it.

3. No Biking in the House by Melissa Greene - Memoir about a family who adopted several children from foreign countries - Interesting and funny.

4. You Can't Drink All Day if You Don't Start in the Morning by Celia Rivenbark - Funny essays about the South - cute. I also read Belle Weather by the same author, which was just meh.

5. Bronx Primitive by Kate Simon - Memoir of a young girl growing up in the Bronx in the twenties - Interesting for the period detail.

Let's do some movie reviews! "Salesman" was a doc made in the sixties about door-to-door Bible salesmen - I thought it'd be interesting, but it was boring. Similarly, "Bingo: The Documentary" was about as exciting as it sounds. At least it was only an hour long.

One more book:

6. Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith - Novel about an Appalachian woman - told entirely in letters-to-friends format, of which I am not fond. Still, it was an entertaining book.

I have just started "Full Dark, No Stars", by Stephen King, for which I have high hopes. And I STILL have not read "The Help", which ... I guess it's a little late, seeing as how the movie version is now coming out, but then again, I probably won't see the movie either, so maybe it's not too late for the book ... has anybody read it? Is it any good? Any other good books out there?