Recently Read

Hi everybody!  Long time no see!  I thought I'd pop by with a Recently Read.   As usual, read 'em if you wanna.

1.  Nomads of a Desert City by Barbara Seyda - Nonfiction; vignettes of homeless people in Tuscon.  Told in their own words, these stories are striking.  A quick read that will stay in your mind afterward.

2.  Winds of Skilak by Bonnie Rose Ward - Memoir of homesteading in Alaska in the 1980s.  Lots of details and very interesting.

3. Southern Discomfort by Tena Clark - Memoir of a young woman growing up in the South in the 60s.  Really good. I grew up in the 60s, too, and this book really brought home just how entrenched racism was in the South back then.   But the book's not "just" about racism - it's about dealing with family nutcases, and trying to find your footing when you're different from those around you.

4. The Once and Future King by T.H. White - Described as a "fantasy classic" in the vein of The Hobbit, etc., I was plugging along on this one until a scene describing the brutal death of a cat and then I noped noped noped right out. Did not finish.

5.  City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert - I didn't realize who the author was until I took it home from the library.  Unfortunately, I find the author of  "Eat, Pray, Love" to be absolutely insufferable, so I only got far enough in this one to see that she was basically working from a genre checklist, and put it aside. Did not finish.

6. The Boy Kings of Texas by Domingo Martinez - Memoir of growing up poor in a Texas border town in the 70s and 80s.  Good.

7.  Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts - Novel about the writing of the Wizard and Oz and, years later, the making of the movie.  Very good - I really enjoyed it.

8.  The Paper Wasp by Lauren Acampora - Novel about two high school friends, one famous and one unbalanced, and what happens when they meet again in adulthood.  This got good reviews so I gave it a shot.  An okay read.

9.  City of Flickering Light by Juliette Fay.  This was a historical novel about Hollywood in the 1920s by the author of The Tumbling Turner Sisters.  I enjoyed it a lot; a fast-paced, light read.

10.  The Able McLaughlins - Pulitzer-prize winning novel from the 20s about early settlers in the midwest.  Right up my alley, but it just seemed awfully dated.  Did not finish.

11.  Freeman by Leonard Pitts, Jr.  - Novel by the noted columnist about the aftereffects of the Civil War on former slaves and an abolitionist.  Involving and good.

12.  All the Forgivenesses by Elizabeth Hardinger - Novel about growing up extremely poor in Kentucky.  Very good.

13.  Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline - Historical novel about the childhood of a little girl placed on an orphan train in the late 1800s.  Good.

14.  Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell - Novel about a teen traveling on a river after events break up her family.  Started out strong, but became more improbable and less interesting as it went along.  Did not finish.

15.  Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens.  The first half of this novel was fabulous, detailing a young woman growing up wild in North Carolina marshland.  But then it turned into a poorly-dialogued murder mystery, and I lost interest.  Did not finish.

16.  One Day by Gene Weingarten - Nonfiction consisting of short vignettes about defining moments in people's lives.  I LOVED I Thought My Father Was God by Paul Auster, which had a similar premise, but unfortunately One Day had a very strong Paul-Harvey-The-Rest-of-the-Story vibe to it, unlike Paul Auster's book, which just let people tell their stories, so while One Day was an okay read, it was just that - okay.  And one of the vignettes, about spousal abuse, was frankly so horrifying that I put the book down and walked away.  Did not finish.

17.  The Speed Queen by Stewart O'Nan - A previous book of his, Last Night at the Lobster, showed that O'Nan has a real talent for writing about marginalized people, and I really enjoyed The Speed Queen, a novel about a young woman sitting on death row for crimes she was party to.  Very good - I really liked this one.

So there you go!  A long-delayed Recently Read.  What have you been reading lately?

Recently Read

Yep, that's right - I've been away for weeks, and all you're getting is a lousy "Recently Read" post.  My apologies!  I'm doing okay, if exTREMEly busy,  and counting the days until my 6-month work eval, at which point I can transfer out of my current position and into another office while still keeping my accrued PTO, etc.  Am I going to be out of there like a shot? OH YES I AM.  haha.


1.  Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe by Stuart McLean - Keilloresque short stories.  Charming, if a little too cutesy.

2.  News of the World by Paulette Jiles - Novel about a traveling "news reader" in the 1870s.  I liked some of her previous novels, but I didn't like the narrative style of this one and didn't get very far.  I might try it again at some point, though.

3.  Tender Graces by Kathryn Magendie - Novel about a woman coming to terms with her turbulent childhood.  Okay.

4.  Growing up in Cooper Country - edited by Louis C. Jones - Boyhood memoirs from two men who grew up in upstate New York in the late 1700s/early 1800s.  Very interesting.

5.  Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch - Novel about a boy on a whaling expedition in the 1800s.  Very interesting and well-written, but bad things happen, and I just wasn't in a place emotionally to deal with it at the time I read it, so I quit about 80 pages from the end.  Still a good read, even if I couldn't make it to the end.

6.  Chickens in the Road by Suzanne McMinn - Account of a novice who bought a farm.  Good.

7.  Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King.  Short stories.  Good, of course.

8.  Burn Down the Ground by Kambri Crews - Memoir of growing up with deaf parents in rural Texas.  Engaging.

9.  Walking to Listen by Andrew Forsthoefel - Account of a young man who, after graduating from college, walked across America.  Interesting.

10.  A Schoolteacher in Old Alaska - The Story of Hannah Breece edited by Jane Jacobs.  Hmmm ... a memoir about (a) frontier Alaska and (b) schoolteaching?  OH YEAH.

11.  All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot - An old favorite, memoirs of a veterinarian in England in the thirties.

12.  Poor Cow by Nell Dunn - I guess this novel, about an unwed teen mother with a thief for a boyfriend, caused quite a stir when it was published it in the 60s.  I found it interesting but rather tame by today's standards.  How times change!

13.  The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard - I don't know why I pick up murder mysteries - I just don't enjoy the genre.  Still, I made it all the way through this one, so that says something.

14.  Little Green by Loretta Stinson - Novel about a rootless young woman who gets involved with a bad man.  Really, really good.

15.  The Growing Seasons by Samuel Hynes - Memoir about growing up in the thirties.  I'm a sucker for books about growing up in the Depression, and this was a good one.

16.  A Ticket to Ride by Paula McLain - Novel about a young woman growing up in the seventies.  I grew up in the seventies, too!  haha.  I liked this one.

17.  If The Creek Don't Rise by Leah Weiss - Novel about a small Appalachian community in the seventies.  Okay.

18.  Trauma Junkie:  Memoirs of an Emergency Flight Nurse by Janice Hudson.  Good!

19.  Leaving Wayne by Danny Clune - Memoir about a man who grew up in this area in the 50s and 60s.  He mentions lots of places (and people!) I know, so it was an interesting read.  Good.

... climbing various ladders in a dress and fishnet stockings

So!  It suddenly hit me last night that while I had bought my sister Texas's Christmas presents, I still needed to wrap them, and box them, and get them on their way to her.  Because I've discovered over the years that no matter which shipping service you use, packages hit the Texas border and enter some kind of weird Bermuda Triangle of shipping where they either sit in some huge package warehouse for several days before moving on to their destinations, or in one memorable case, they actually turn around and head back across the country before finally ending up in some giant warehouse in Atlanta and then disappearing entirely, DESPITE the fact that you had tracking on the package.

No, I'm not bitter. *ahem*

In other words, I needed to get that package on its way PRONTO.

Well, I couldn't wrap last night, because I had other stuff going on, and I knew that tonight I was going to be busy, because my new camera was finally arriving to replace the old Fuji that bit the dust a couple of weeks ago, and that is a whole 'NOTHER story.  Because as soon as the Fuji died ("lens control error", my a**), I went on line and ordered a new camera from Amazon, but it was going to take several days to get here because I'm too cheap to buy Prime, so I went to Walmart and bought a thirty-dollar point-and-shoot Vivitar to get me through the interim.  But!  That Vivitar is a piece of crap.  I actually went on line and wrote a scathing review of it on Amazon, which I almost never bother to do with anything I purchase, because the camera is the worst thing ever.  I mean, I only paid thirty bucks, so I didn't exactly have high hopes, but I *was* hoping that it would at least take good enough pics that I could use it as a "car camera" once the Nikon I ordered got here,  and shoot a couple of rescue events in the meantime, but I swear to God, my five-dollar FLIP PHONE takes better pictures than that camera.  See the previous post, and the pictures from the rescue?  Those are the crappy kind of photos I get out of that camera.  It did better at the Harley store, I think because the Harley place was lit up like O'Hare, but STILL.  Geeeeez.

*rant over*

So, back to the story.  The new Nikon will be here tonight and I need to figure it out, so I knew I wouldn't have time to start wrapping tonight, but I ALSO knew that no wrapping would get done on ANY date until I got the box of wrapping crap out of the attic.  I had a couple of extra minutes before I had to leave for work this morning, and I figured, I'll grab the wrapping stuff out of the attic NOW, because honestly?  At this point, ALL of my Christmas prep is getting accomplished a few minutes at a time, crammed in between everything else I have going on right now.

*sigh*

COMPLICATING things is the fact that my attic is accessed by a ladder.  A drop-down, TALL ladder, because the attic access door is in the garage ceiling, and the garage is, like, fourteen feet high.  And BECAUSE the ceiling is so high, making the cord you have to yank on to get the ladder assembly to descend ALSO far above my reach, first I have to get out a six-foot stepladder, set it up in the garage (oh yeah, needless to say I also have to pull the car out of there first), CLIMB UP THE STEPLADDER, and then grab the access door cord and yank it, making the attic ladder start to descend, at which point I can ease it down WHILE STILL ON THE SIX-FOOT STEPLADDER, until the attic ladder has fully descended, which is when I climb down OFF of the stepladder and ONTO the attic ladder and climb up INTO the attic to grab whatever I need. 

AND, this morning, while getting ready for work, I put on a dress.  A long, Amish-style dress, because whatever, it was there in the closet, but then I thought, well, THIS dress is kind of dull, and so I put on some fishnet stockings.  Just for fun.

WHICH IS HOW I found myself, at seven-thirty this morning, climbing various ladders in a damn-near-full-length dress and fishnet stockings, and swearing mightily as I tried to maneuver the giant box of Christmas wrapping crap back DOWN the ladders.  Sheesh.

And this, folks, is my life.  NO WONDER I'm always exhausted.

Ha.

Hell, *I'm* not drinking it.

SO!  How about that election, eh?  *SIGH*  Just keep him away from the nukes, fellas.  Just keep him away from the nukes.



A couple of weeks ago, I did a favor for a friend.  Knowing I was a beer drinker, she brought me over a case of beer as payment.

Unfortunately, it was Genny Light.

Genesee beer, for those unfamiliar, is a regional beer with a pretty ... distinctive taste.  I could best describe it as "skunk beer", aka "beer gone bad".

But some people love it!  People do buy it!  It is stocked in every store in the area.  It is fairly popular, although probably because it is usually the lowest-price beer in the store.

I am FAR from a discriminating beer drinker.  My beer of choice is Milwaukee's Best Light, Busch Light, or hell, even Natty Light in a pinch.  But ... Genny?

NOPE.

Thinking, "well, it's been many years since I've had a Genny, maybe they don't taste as bad as I remember," I decided to give it a shot.  And on the theory that all beers taste the same anyway after the first couple, last Sunday afternoon, I drank a couple of Milwaukee's Bests, and then cracked open a Genny.

NOPE.  Nope, no how, no way, I'm sorry, but that stuff tastes like SH*T.  I got about halfway through before I had to pour the rest of the can down the sink.

I put the rest of the Gennys back in the case, taped it up, threw it in the back of the car, and started making inquiries.  I could not find one. single. person  who wanted that case of Genny, which I was willing to gift away for FREE.

Free beer!  And nobody wanted it.  THAT'S how bad Genny is.

So.  In an act of desperation, I brought the case of beer to work, and set it out off a corner of the parking lot that gets a lot of neighborhood foot traffic. 

It's been there for two days now.  I'll let you know if it ever moves on.

As! Seen! On! TV!

OH YEAH.

I think these things were originally price-pointed at $49.99 on TV.  Then chains started carrying them for $39.99, and I allllllllmost bought some last winter, but I thought $39.99 was a little pricey for Christmas lights, and who knew if they'd even work, or look as pretty as they did on TV?  But then it was Ollie's to the rescue.  And let me say, if you do not have an Ollie's Outlet near you, I feel for ya.  It's like a low-rent K-Mart (or like the long-gone, long-lamented Philly Sales, for any local readers), and it's FABULOUS.  Most of the stuff is cheap crap, but when they get a deal in, they get a HELLUVA deal.

So!  The lights?  At Ollies?  Were $19.99.  But would they work?

I snapped up a box and waited for dark.   Ha.  I was afraid that because they were a knock-off from the original product, which is called a "Star Shower" (WHY DO I KNOW ALL THIS STUFF?!), they might be lame, but I can tell you right now they look AMAZING.  So pretty.  Now I'm thinking of going back and picking up another box,  to light up the BACK of the house this Christmas, because why not?

So!  Sparkle laser lights.  A++ would recommend.  I'm thinking these are going up the day after Thanksgiving this year.  Just to piss off the neighbors.  :)

Recently Read

As always, skip it if you wanna.


1.  44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith - This author was recommended to me as having a style similar to Maeve Binchy, whom I LOVE.  However, 44 Scotland Street was a bust for me, mainly because so many of the characters were sooooo unlikable.  I got about halfway through, realized that I didn't care what happened to the painting OR the missing underwear, and quit.

2.  The Cat Who Came for Christmas by Cleveland Amory - Memoir from a guy who rescued a cat.  The first two chapters, involving the rescue, were engrossing - the following chapters were a bunch of meh.  Meh.

3.  Looking for the Klondike Stone by Elizabeth Arthur - Memoir about the years the author spent at summer camp as a young child.  I have nothing but admiration for people who can remember events and conversations from their childhood, because I don't remember any of that stuff from my own growing up, but still, this book was a little ... er ... boring?   As a series of long-form essays on line, it might have been interesting, but ingested all at once it was kind of meh.  Summer camp has a special place in my own heart, but that doesn't necessarily mean I wanted to read about someone else's experiences with it. Didn't finish.

4.  The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner - Account of the author's childhood in a polygamous family.  I LOVE this kind of thing, but the author could've used a ghostwriter.  Didn't finish.

At this point, I'd like to say, I really, REALLY am not trying to dis these authors.  I keep doing these Recently Read posts because, so often, I'll get partway through a book only to realize that I'd read it before, because I am OLD, so now I put all the books I've read down in these lists so that, before I buy a book or take it out of the library, I can search for the title on the blog here and find out if I've already read it.   Every single one of these authors is to be admired for actually writing a book, even if me, Little Miss Nobody, didn't find it interesting.

5.  Ambulance Girl - Memoir about a woman who became an EMT.  Way, WAY too much about her feelings about becoming an EMT, and almost nothing about what being an EMT is actually like.  Not good.

Movie review time!  Hands on a Hardbody (minds out of the gutter, please!) is an old documentary about people trying to win a truck by being the last one standing.  Fascinating and sad.

6.  The Girl's Guide to Homelessness by Brianna Karp - Memoir about a woman in her twenties who was supposedly homeless.  Oh oh OH there is a LOT that I could say about this book, none of it good, but suffice it to say that she wasn't actually homeless and leave it at that.  Blech.

7.  Ever By My Side by Nick Trout - Veterinarian's memoir.  I read a LOT of veterinarian's memoirs, because they're usually an enjoyable read, and this book was no exception.

8.  Off Keck Road by Mona Simpson. Novel. Didn't finish.

9.  The Journeyer by Gary Jennings.  Historical fiction about the travels of Marco Polo.  I read this book many, many years ago and LOVED it.  All this time later, I could still remember parts of the story.  So I finally bought a copy to see if it was as good as I remembered.  This book, at over a thousand pages, can give War and Peace a run for its money, length-wise, but that didn't bother me at all, because YES, it was as good as I remembered.  Parts were somewhat sensationalistic, and I had to kind of skim over some of the more-graphic parts, but oh boy, this is a good book.  Highly recommended.  Very good.


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

A little experiment

A while back, I was complaining on Facebook about how cling wrap doesn't actually CLING.  A friend of mine said I needed to try Glad Press n'Seal.  "It works!", she said.  "I promise it works!  I'll bring you some to prove it!"

Well, months went by, and I forgot all about it, until we met up the other day, and she had actually remembered, and handed me a container of Press n'Seal.

When I got home that day, I took my glass of orange soda, put some Press n'Seal over the top, and turned the glass over, copying the image on the side of the container:


And?

It wooooorrrrrkkks!  IT WOOOOOOORRRRRRKKKKS! 

Magic.

Oops! I did it again

... went to Payless, that is.

IN MY DEFENSE, and I do have one, I was sorting through my email yesterday morning and saw that Payless was having a sale.  I mean, *yawn*, they're ALWAYS having a sale, but this one?

Was that all clearance shoes were now five bucks.  FIVE BUCKS.

COME ON!  I'm only human.

I was determined to avoid the last Payless, which isn't difficult because there are two others in my town.

On my lunch break, I went to Payless #2.  No obnoxious sales clerk, no pressure, just a confirmation that all red-tag shoes were five bucks.  She even pulled all clearance shoes in my size(s) off the racks for me to look at!  (Well, except for the stilettos.  Oh my goodness Payless has some AWESOME stilettos, but I cannot wear stripper shoes without crippling myself, so sadly, those were out.)  She DID ask me for my phone number at check-out, and you know what?  I gave it to her.  Because she was NICE.  (And because I knew I'd get a $3.00 coupon if I gave it to her and then filled out a survey online.  I will gladly sell myself out for money, I admit it.)

After work, I went to Payless #3.  Again, no pressure, no guilting, and when that clerk asked for my phone number, she reassured me that it wasn't necessary to get the sale price.  Nice.

So!  I bought ... ummmm ... seven pairs of shoes.

HOW MANY?!



SEVEN.  I BOUGHT SEVEN PAIRS OF SHOES.

  
*ducks*

 Now the big question:  How much did it cost?

List price on the seven pairs of shoes was *gulp* $194.93.

But c'mon, we all know that everything at Payless is on sale all the time, right?  So let's say they were having a BOGO sale, which they do a LOT, except at Payless it's always fake BOGO, buy-one-get-one-half-off, instead of real BOGO, which is buy-one-get-one-free.

So let's say it was a fake BOGO sale.  The shoes would have been $146.20.

Or hell, let's say it was real BOGO, buy-one-get-one-free.  The shoes would have been $97.47. 

 So how much did I pay?

By the time I got done with the clearance discount, plus a ten-dollar coupon I had previously gotten in-store, PLUS a coupon I had for filling out the on-line survey for the PREVIOUS visit (heh), I paid 

drum roll please.

$22.88.

I PAID $22.88 FOR SEVEN PAIRS OF SHOES.

I win, Payless.  I WIN.  

 

Big Brother is here, and his name is Payless

I was out running errands the other day and decided to pop in to Payless.

"Good morning!", said the sales clerk.  "We're having 30% off everything today!  And lots of items are on sale!"  and blahblahblah as she went on to enumerate all the great! specials! they were having that day.

I did find a pair of cute summer shoes for seven bucks, and poked around a little longer, and then went to check out.

"Your phone number?"  asked the clerk, as she rang up my shoes.

"No, thanks," I said.

yeah yeah yeah, I understand why they ask for the phone number (because corporate says), but I also don't always feel like giving it out.  I'M NOT A SHEEPLE, DAMMIT!  Ha.

"Oh!" the clerk said.  "Well, if you don't give me your phone number, I don't get credit for the sale, and corporate needs to know that every single person who comes in makes a purchase, and even if it's a family of eight, if they only buy one pair of shoes then I get seven "no sales", and ...

blah blah blah she went On and ON and ONNNNNNNNN.  I didn't give her my phone number, out of flipping SPITE at that point if I may be honest, and she finally sold me the damn shoes.

okay, I left the store with two thoughts:

(a) That sounds like a terrible place to work.

and

(b) Regardless of (a), that was one annoying clerk, and I'm sorry if I took bread out of her kids' mouths by not giving her my phone number, but jeez louise, SORRY NOT SORRY just SHUT UP AND SELL ME SHOES.

Holy cow.  I'm turning into a right bitch in my old age, ain't I?  IT FEELS GREAT.

Recently Read

As usual, skip it if you wanna.

1.  Grandma Gatewood's Walk by Ben Montgomery - Biography of a woman who, in the 1950s, through-hiked the Apalachin Trail.  She was sixty-seven, and hiked in sneakers and without a tent.  This after surviving decades in an extremely abusive marriage.  Hardcore!  Excellent book.

2.  Hand to Mouth by Linda Tirado - First-person narrative about how difficult it is to survive on minimum wage.  Been there, done that.  Good book.

3.  Life For Me Ain't Been No Crystal Stair by Susan Sheehan - Non-fiction account of a young woman growing up in the foster care system in NYC in the eighties and nineties.  Sobering and interesting.

4.  The Hero of the Herd by Dr. John McCormack - One of a series of memoirs from a veterinarian who practiced in Alabama in the 1960s.  A quick, thoroughly enjoyable read. 

5.  While You're Here, Doc by Bradford Brown, DVM - Another memoir, from a veterinarian who practiced in Maine in the 1950s and 1960s.  Very good.

6.  The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane Gilman - Novel about a crippled immigrant girl in NYC in the early 1900s who founds an ice cream empire.  Interesting, and a good summer read, but the protagonist wasn't a very likable person, so that kind of made it an only so-so book.

7.  Gone South by Robert McCammon.  This author's book Boy's Life is one of my favorite books ever, so I thought I'd give another book of his a try.  He usually writes in the horror genre, which I'm not a huge fan of (except for Stephen King), but Gone South is about a murderer on the run, being chased by bounty hunters.  It's pretty good, and he packs a lot of characters into one book.  A page-turner. You'll either like the ending or boo-hiss it, one or the other. :)

8.  Trailer Trashed by Hollis Gillespie - Autobiographical essays from a humor columnist.  Good.


Currently I'm working through a couple of old Shirley Jackson books, so we'll see how that goes.  How about you?  Reading anything good?

Oh, screw you, Sterling Optical

I had an appointment for an eye exam, since it had been four years since my last one *cough* and I could tell that my eyes were getting worse, and since I wasn't really happy with the LAST place I had my eyes checked, I decided to give Sterling Optical a try.

(Sterling Optical is a chain/franchise eye place, if you don't have it in your area.)

So, I go to my eye exam, and everybody's all nice and friendly and attentive, which is a change from the last place I went, and I get my eyes examined, and pick out a new pair of frames, and it's time to pay up.  My insurance covers the exam itself, but not the glasses (or contacts).

And the woman helping me is all nice and friendly, and she's discussing the different options for lens coatings and blah blah blah, and I'm all,  how much do these different options cost?, and she's all, well, let me add it all up here, and she comes up with a price of eight hundred bucks and change.

And I LOL'd.  (I'll have you know that I have been waiting a long, long time to be able to type LOL and have it be accurate, and TODAY IS FINALLY THE DAY, because I LAUGHED OUT LOUD when she told me the price.)

"Yeah,  no," I said.  "I cannot pay eight hundred dollars for a pair of glasses.  I paid a little over three hundred for the pair I have on right now, and I understand inflation and all, but I am not paying eight. hundred. dollars. for a simple pair of bifocals.  The frames are one-thirty, so add some basic lenses, and let's do that.  Take off the extras, please."

"Oh, okay!," the woman replied.  "Well, let's see, the thinner lenses are nice, but we can make the glasses with regular lenses.  And we can take off the blah-de-blah and the what-de-what and ... seven hundred dollars!  That gets it down to seven hundred."

I will tell you right now, I am ALWAYS polite when dealing with retail workers.  ALWAYS.  And today was no different.  This woman was obviously working on commission, which I wish I had known before I walked in the door, but live and learn.  Here I was, chipping away at her bonus pay, and  I was about to keep right on chipping, BUT I WAS POLITE WHILE DOING IT.

"Okay," I said.  "We're getting there!  What else can you take off?  Let's get it down to the frames and the basic lenses and nothing else at all."

"Well ..." she says, tapping away at her keyboard.  "We CAN sell you the glasses with out the extra lens protection warranty and blah blah blah ..."

"Fine!" I said.  "What are we down to now?"

"Five hundred and sixty-four dollars!", she said.  "Isn't that great?"

"Well, it's a lot better than eight hundred," I said.  "You've got a deal."

So she keeps tapping away, doo doo doo, and she hands me the credit card receipt to sign, stapled to the itemized bill.  And I'm looking over the itemized bill, and I see a charge for Christal anti-glare something-something.  And it's a hundred and seventy bucks.

"Ummm ..." I said.  "What's this anti-glare thing?"

"Oh, that's what  I was telling you about!" she said.  (She had been telling me about all kinds of awesome super-duper lens options.) "You know, for when you're driving at night and stuff.  I've got it on my own glasses and I love it!"

"Take. it. off."  I was STILL POLITE, I will  have you know.  "Take it off, please.  The glasses I'm wearing RIGHT NOW don't have that special coating, and I've been getting around just fine, thanks anyway."

At this point, things became a little ... frosty.  I had just taken  away the last little bit of commission or bonus or whatever that she was getting from the sale.  She had just about HAD IT with me, and I understand that.  I also understood that I would take my prescription and walk out before I paid for one flippin' thing I hadn't asked for.

"Three hundred ninety-four!" she said.  "You're getting the deal of the day!  Oh, but wait ..."

HAHAHAHA KILL ME NOW.

"I forgot to add the fitting fee!" she said.  "I totally forgot! Oh my goodness!  So the total will be four thirty-nine."

Holy Mary Mother of F*CK, I paid the four thirty-nine and got outta there before the price could start going back up again.  And I'll pick up my new glasses in a couple of weeks, and hope to GOD that it's a long time before I need to get my eyes examined again.

Sheesh.



 
"

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.

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

As usual, skip it if you wanna.

1.  Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast.  Ms. Chazt is a noted cartoonist, so I'm not sure why I was surprised that her memoir, about her aged parents' decline and death, was in cartoon form, but I was.  Anyway, it's really good, and a really quick read, and her Dad had dementia, so I could relate to it in a billion different ways.  Plus, she's flat-out funny.  Favorite line:  "Where, in the Five Stages of Death, is EAT TUNA SANDWICH!?!?"  (Her mom, er, lived a little longer than the doctors expected.)

2.  Heartbreak Cafe by Penelope Stokes - Novel about a recently widowed woman who opens a restaurant. Think Fannie Flagg lite.

3.  Cruddy by Lynda Barry - Novel about a young girl with a hard childhood.  I was having a hard time getting into this one, but I knew I had read one of Ms. Barry's novels before and really liked it, so I did a blog post search and ...  it was this book!  I read it back in 2008 and, according to my review, really liked it!  This time around, I didn't like it, couldn't even get very far into it,  so it just goes to proves that your own life situation at any given time has a lot to do with whether or not you'll enjoy any particular book, I guess.

4.  Wild by Cheryl Strayed.  I wanted to read it before the movie came out.  It's a memoir from a woman who hiked portions of the Pacific Coast Trail.  Good.

5.  The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro.  Humorous essays.

6.  Untamed:  The Wildest Woman in America and the Fight for Cumberland Island by Will Harlan.  Biography of  naturalist Carol Ruckdeschel.  Really, really good.  Along with a fascinating portrait of a woman who truly loves wild things, this book also explains, in an entertaining way,  lots of subjects that might ordinarily be considered dry, like the Social Darwinism concept, and why Jimmy Carter is interested in monitoring elections,Very, very good and highly recommended.

7.  Whistling in the Dark by Leslie Kagan.  Novel about a child murderer on the loose in a small town in the fifties told from the viewpoint of a young girl.  Okay.

8.  Let Us Build Us a City by Donald Harington - Nonfiction about several small Arkansas towns and their inhabitants.  I loved, loved his novel When Angels Rest and I enjoy reading about small-town life, so I thought I would like this book as well.  Nope.  It just wanders all over the place, and not in a good way.  Didn't even get past the first town.

9.  O Pioneers by Willa Cather.  No, I'd never read it before.  Novel about Nebraska farmers in the late 1800s, written in the early 1900s.  Interesting, because unlike a lot of books of that era that come off as really dated, I felt like this one could have been written today.  Good.

10.  Found by Davy Rothbart.  Series of essays, mainly written by hipsters and people in bands nobody's ever heard of, about found things.  Meh. 

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

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?

Recently Read

As usual, skip it if you wanna.


1.  The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - Novel about a young girl in Germany in the 1940s, I found it stilted and disjointed.  I didn't finish it.

2.  Couldn't Keep it to Myself by Wally Lamb - Life stories written by women prison inmates.  Interesting, but they were all kind of the same:  "I got involved with a bad man, and now I'm in prison."  Eh.

3.  Bootstrapper by Mardi Jo Link - Memoir about a single mom raising three sons.  The subtitle of the book - "From Broke to Badass on a Northern Michigan Farm" made me think they were back-to-the-landers, but other than a few chickens, no.  Still, a fairly interesting read.

4.  A Street Cat Named Bob by James Bowen - I tend to stay away from cat biographies, because, well, we all know how they end, but this one, about a recovering addict street busker in London and his stray cat, was a charming, quick read.  Recommended as a gift for the cat nut in your life.

5.  Hunter's Horn by Harriette Arnow - Novel about a backwater Apalachian family in the runup to WWII.   Very, very good.  I loved her book "The Dollmaker", so I'm not surprised I loved this one as well.  Hated for it to end.

6. A Way of Life, Like Any Other by Darcy O'Brien - I  thought this was a memoir about growing up in old Hollywood, but instead it was a novel.  Meh.

7.  The Bartender's  Tale by Ivan Doig - Novel about a little boy and his father, who runs a western saloon, in 1960.  Good.

8.  Sisters - Coming of Age and Living Dangerously in the Wild Copper River Valley by Samme Gallaher and Aileen Gallaher - Memoir of two sisters in Alaska in the 1920s.  Very interesting.

9.  Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.  I don't know why I pick up murder mysteries; I don't like them.  This one got rave reviews, but I found it contrived and only got about fifty pages in before I gave up.

10.  Coming Clean by Kimberly Rae Miller - Memoir of a woman who grew up in a hoarding household.  Interesting.

11.   A Land  More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash - Novel, told through different viewpoints, of a boyhood tragedy.  Good.

12.  Mary Coin by Marisa Silver - Novel about a Depression-era mother, told from three different viewpoints.  I read the parts that were set in the Depression, and skipped the other eras (60s and modern-day), and it was good.


Okay, guys, I'm looking for some good books to read.  Whaddaya got?

Density of lead: Now with Updates!

So, I use Fresh Step cat litter.  It is the only litter I've found that comes anywhere close to containing the litterbox smell of many (many, many) cats.  It's more expensive than some other litters, and it's horrifically dusty, but again, the smell.  The litterbox smell must be conquered.

And Fresh Step has this rewards system, where if you buy so many boxes, you can "earn" things like cat toys and magazine subscriptions and, of course, more litter.

Except the rewards program is rather seriously flawed.

In order to earn points, which can be traded for rewards, you have to cut a panel out of the side of each box of litter.  There is a code printed on the inside of the panel, which you have to enter into a program on line.

Calling NASA!  Sh*t's getting complicated!

Okay, so first off, you have to find a pair of scissors, then you have to cut the box apart, and may I say, boxes that contain heavy, heavy cat litter are rather sturdily built.

Having passed the first hurdle, you now have to enter the code, which is on the inside of the panel, into the reward program's website.

Except the codes are written in Captchas.  Insanely hard-to-read Captchas.  Like, the most blurry, incomprehensible Captchas you've ever seen.

Hey!  Understandable, right?  I mean, they're guarding gold and platinum and the secrets of the universe!  They have to use difficult Captchas!

yeah, no.  It's cat toys and magazine subscriptions and cat litter they're giving away, here.  I'm not sure that fraud is a serious problem.

But.  You've cut the box apart and gone on line and signed in to the rewards program and entered your Captcha code nine billion different ways because you can't READ the damn thing and you finally luck out and enter the right code and you do this, oh, ten or fifteen f*cking times until you FINALLY have enough points built up to earn a reward and hey!  What do you choose for this reward?  This reward you've worked so hard for?

Why, more cat litter, of course!  Did I mention that I currently have *&kh%* amount of cats?

So you choose the litter, not being a stupe, expecting that they'll email you a coupon for a free box of litter, which you will take to the store and redeem.

Nope.

They mail you the box of litter.

ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha *gasp* hahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa

I'm not even kidding, here.

Fresh Step mails you the box of litter.

Do ... do you know what cat litter weigbs?  It has the density of lead.  Of bricks, squared.  Even the smallest box, the box that I earned with reward points, the box they are mailing to me, weighs fourteen pounds.

They are mailing it.

Dear Fresh Step:  There's an easier way.  Trust me on this.  There's an easier way to do this.


*sigh*


Update:  As evidence that the Fresh Step people have not completely lost their minds, they did send me a coupon for the litter, not the actual litter itself.  There is hope for humanity, after all.

And in other news, I have discovered that the quickest way to make the neighbor girl (who has been visiting with the kittens every night) disappear is to suggest that the next time she comes over,  she will not only be visiting with the kittens, but also helping clean up after them.  *poof!*   I haven't seen her since.

Recently Read

As usual, skip it if you wanna.


1.  Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson.  Eh. Meh.  I don't know - Sometimes I wonder if I'm just not smart enough to appreciate some of these "modern classics".  This novel, about sisters who are cared for by relatives after their mother dies, just rang blah to me.  None of the characters are particularly likeable, and I got the feeling that even the author didn't really care for them, she wrote about them so dispassionately.  Can't recommend.  So sue me.

2.  Tallulah Falls by Christine Fletcher - YA novel about a teen runaway.  Good.

3.  Eggs in the Coffee, Sheep in the Corn by Marjorie Myers Douglas - Memoir by a farmer's wife in the fifties and sixties.  Interesting.

4. The Liars' Club by Mary Karr - I've read this one before, but I really enjoyed it, so I read it again.  Memoir about the author's messed-up Texas childhood, told so that you'll laugh out loud.  I wasn't so fond of her later memoirs, but this one, the first, is a gem.

5.  Documentary time!  Paul Williams is Still Alive is an eponymous doc about the 70's songwriter.  I LOVE his songs, and yet this documentary was annoying as sh*t, so I gave up about a half-hour in. 

6.  The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg - I love anything Ms. Flagg writes, and this book, about a group of sisters in WWII, was very enjoyable.

7.  Time for another documentary:  Twenty Feet from Stardom is a doc about backup singers.  Very interesting.

8.  Joyland by Stephen King - I almost skipped this one, because it was marketed as a one-off, a noir novel, but it really wasn't noir.  Atypical  King, for sure, because it came in at under 300 pages, but it was almost a relief to pick up a King book that I didn't need to invest the next few months of my reading time in.  Good book about a murder at an amusement park and one summer in the life of a college student.

9. Movie time!  Geez Louise, I'm not taking recommendations  from other bloggers seriously anymore.  "What Maisie Knew" is a boring-ass, painful movie about divorce from a kid's point of view, featuring Julianne Moore and some random dude screaming at each other in front of their daughter.  The young actress who plays Maisie is great, but the movie itself is a dog.

10.  The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls by Anton DiSclafani - This book got great critical reviews, but I didn't like it.  I need to start reading the negative reader reviews on Amazon* - If I had done that with this book, I would have found that reviewer after reviewer called it boring with unlikeable main characters, and I would have skipped it.  As it is, I only got 40 pages in.


So!  Better World Books had another awesome sale, so I've got more books on the way.  Hopefully they'll be good ones.  What have you been reading?




*Which are sometimes hilarious.

Maybe it's just me, but ...

... any time I see an article about Neil Young's new music system, PonoMusic, I read it wrong, and think, "PornoMusic?  Why on earth did he name it PornoMusic?"

Bow chicka wow wow, baby.

Similarly, I kept hearing ads for something called "Salonpas" on the radio, and assumed it was some kind of mani/pedi treatment for pets - Salon PAWS.  Durrrrr.

And now that I think about it, I actually have a long history of these kinds of  f*ckups.  I remember when I was a little kid, and learned (God only knows where) the term pubic hair, except I read it as "public hair", and I was actually indignant, all, "Why on earth do they call it PUBLIC hair?  It's anything BUT public!"

Yeah, I am not making these up.  All those years I laughed at the Roseanne Roseannadanna skits on SNL, never realizing that I *was* Roseanne Roseannadanna.

*sigh*

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?