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Thursday, May 31, 2007

books for May

1. The Pact -- Jodi Picoult -- 3.5
   • Now that I have experience with Jodi Picoult she no longer catches me off-guard with her tacky, cheap-shot bait-and-switch endings, and I can enjoy her lovely prose and knowable characters without having the whole thing ruined for me by a low-blow cop-out twist in the last three pages (me bitter? I am looking at you, My Sister's Keeper). This was a good book, one of her earlier ones I think, and now that I knew to be on the lookout for a twist ending, it wasn't twisty at all; I knew what it was going to be about halfway through, except that I thought she wouldn't lay on the foreshadowing so thickly and maybe she was trying to be extra tricky and make us think we knew what would happen when we really didn't. But we (or I) did. I'm not sure if I recommend this or not. I think I do. Just get it in paperback (I don't think there's any other way to get it; it's about ten years old) so that when you feel like throwing it against the wall, you don't break anything. P.S. Maybe I'd been watching "Jericho" too much (O "Jericho", we hardly knew ye) but I totally pictured Pamela Reed and Gerald McRaney as one of the couples in this book.

2. The Patron Saint of Liars -- Ann Patchett -- 4.5
   
   • I HEART ANN PATCHETT'S BOOKS (well, except for Truth and Beauty: A Friendship or whatever it was called). I was shocked -- shocked I tell you -- when I found out this was her first novel, because it didn't have even the slightest tinge of that first-novel inexpert feel that so many first novels, even if they're really brilliant, can't seem to shake. (Now I am looking at you, The Time Traveler's Wife.) No, Ann Patchett was either gifted and completely savvy from Day One, or she had an editor who knew just how to handle her, because wow. The story is truly original, there's not a single character who does what you think s/he'll do every time s/he turns around, there's none of the gratuitous "hey, here's a topic I know a lot about, let's toss in a bunch of pages about that even though it really doesn't fit in the story" stuff that annoys me so, and while it's not perfect -- I felt like we were just getting to know some of the characters when they would shy away and we'd never really get close, but then maybe that was intentional -- it's a darn good read. Get Bel Canto too. yay.

I know I finished something else -- maybe two something elses -- but I can't remember what it/they was/were. I'm knee-deep in a bunch of books right now -- To Kill a Mockingbird, A Beautiful Mind, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, just off the top of my head, and I think there are a couple more -- and I just finished a knitting project (pictures later) and I have a new one started, and there's this DPChallenge team contest going on (yes, DPChallenge has again sucked me in), and I'm trying to make time for Librivoxing again now that I don't sound like I have a clothespin on my nose, and I'm generally kind of, um, scattered and dabble-y right now. So. If I remember the other book(s) later I'll edit this post. Off to see where I left my brain now. Bye.

Friday, May 18, 2007

at this rate, this thing costs me about $4 a post.

I've had a lot of things going on; I just haven't felt like writing. And I'm so tired that I just used a comma splice in that sentence and had to go back and fix it. (Apparently in my own personal grammar-nazi code of ethics, a comma splice is a cardinal sin, but starting a sentence with "and" is just fine, and the use of parentheses is completely unrestricted. Hey, it's my grammar-nazi code and I can be completely inconsistent if I want to.)

So, without further ado, a brief sampling of the Things Going On mentioned above:

We took LT to the orthopedist today for that thing about his legs that I think I mentioned before. It turns out that his left lower leg is about one centimeter shorter than his right; I knew there was a difference but I didn't think it was that much. As long as the difference doesn't increase too much, all the doctor prescribed was a lift in his left shoe and a follow-up every year. If, in the course of the massive puberty growth spurts that are to come, he should wind up with, say, a difference of an inch or more, they'll operate on him. But that's not likely.

I left my wallet at the grocery store today. Believe it or not, that doesn't happen often. I think the only time in adulthood that I've left my purse or wallet anywhere (that I haven't blocked from my memory, anyway) was the time about seven years ago when I left my purse in a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Hollister, about two and a half hours away, so that we had to drive all the way back there in the pouring rain the next day. One cross-state drive with the family is a lark. Two in 24 hours, not so much. At least today it was more like two and a half minutes away.

I'll bet you think you know why I'm up so late, but you're wrong*. I haven't Librivoxed in a month, because of this stupid nasty cold and cough thing that has been plaguing me. It will be aaaaaaalmost gone, and then just as I'm looking forward to a nice late-night recording session, wham start the sniffling and coughing again. (At least it's not as bad as poor T, who is now getting over walking pneumonia and hasn't gone to work since Tuesday. He gets all the fun stuff, I swear. It's much more interesting to tell people you have walking pneumonia or bronchitis or a broken ankle or back surgery [him] than viral pinkeye or an ear infection [me.])

*actually, it's a transcribing job this time.

Oh! oh! and I've learned to knit cables! All my life I've thought they were this super-mysterious complicated thing, when actually they're not. At all. You should try some. They make you feel really smart.

Um, let's see. College. Last week I went down to the valley by myself and had my head examined took an hour and a half's worth of assessments in English and math. I had so much fun that if I could do the same thing every week for credit, I would. (I took the SAT an extra time too. I told everyone it was because I wanted to see if I could get a better score, but really it was because I had $30 to spare and I wanted to spend a Saturday in word-comparison and algebra heaven. There. I said it.) Today I went down and talked to one of the counselors for the nursing department about the results and Where To Go From Here. I did well enough on the tests that I can be pretty confident about challenging the reading corequisite for the English class I'll be taking (and really need. If the assessments had included anything about how to write a proper research paper, they'd have sent me packing to the seventh grade). So next semester I'll be taking music appreciation and (most likely) English. I'm so tempted to take some lovely (absolutely research-paper-free) algebra and trigonometry classes, with their lovely methodical equations that feel like listening to Scarlatti piano sonatas, but those will have to wait until I'm able to spend more time (and money) driving back and forth to the valley in the evenings. I'm taking my history final on Tuesday, and we have three more weeks of Awana and three more weeks of Bible study and then begins THE SUMMER O' BLISS, with nary an evening commitment (for me -- the Ts have Boy Scouts) until classes start up in mid-August.

Also re: college and then I will SHUT UP ALREADY RACHEL: I should have done the dratted orientation, instead of waiving it because I'm not actually taking classes on the campus down there. Maybe then I would have known a) where to find an ATM, b) where to make copies, and c) how to print the cover letter for the prerequisite-challenge application I typed up in the computer lab today, without looking like an absolute dolt asking random people for help. Debi: Do the orientation if you can swing it. I'll watch the boys. Or maybe we'll foist all our children on our unsuspecting husbands while we do the orientation together. Par-tay!

Sunday, May 06, 2007

the haul

T decided that we should celebrate Mothers' Day today, since both days next weekend are devoted to other things (like hanging around with our mothers). So. Here is the haul:

*a blender. yay! milkshakes before bed tonight! par-tay! (I think we might really get crazy and watch some Twilight Zone episodes from the library, too... we are all about the Twilight Zone episodes these days.)

*a very nice iPod case, with coordinated but separately purchased ribbon to make myself a lanyard for it, since apparently nobody thinks iPods should have lanyards except me. Or maybe -- this just occurred to me -- the busy little companies whose sole purpose is to make accessories for accessories are all afraid of the lawsuits that would ensue (ensue! lawsuits! hee! I kill me!) if they ventured to make a product with a lanyard and people bought it and then they turned out to be defective and they started, you know, dropping people's iPods. Hmm. Drat this litigious lanyard-killing society! Or maybe lanyards on iPod cases are just dorky. I'm always the last to know.

(blender + iPod = Don't Try This At Home. And also don't blame me when you miss an hour's worth of work sitting and watching episode after episode of that little show. And by the way, that blender costs $400. It is not the one I got for Mother's Day.)

*a big bag of Twix miniatures.

*a lint roller. It was on my list! And I already used it, tonight, to get the cat hair off my tights before we went for my Mother's Day...

*dinner out at my favorite restaurant. Where I ate way, way, way too much, and the food was oh so yummy, and I did not have to plan, shop, prepare, cook, or clean up after ANY of it.

So I am feeling very smily and grateful (thank you family!) and I think I'll go curl up with my iPod and this hat I'm knitting and maybe a few (zillion) Twix bars. See you after the sugar coma wears off.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

just a weeee little bit fixated

The really nice people at iTunes informed me the other day that I could get a discount if I purchased the remainder of an album from which I had already purchased individual songs. This means that I scored fourteen additional Regina Spektor songs for $8 (The "bonus track version" of Begin to Hope has I think five or six bonus tracks). So you know what I've had in my ears for the past two days (well, that and the Librivox version of The Treasure Seekers which is absolutely brilliant). Actually, my discovery of the existence of her music earlier this year has had an interesting effect on me. Listening to her piano wizardry, and the fun she apparently has with it, reminded me (corny alert! corny alert!) how I loved playing the piano and what an outlet it was for self-expression, many long moons ago before I had a sleeping infant who turned into a crawly baby and then a nosy toddler who was joined by a sister and then both of them grew up into needy little kidlets, until I was just completely out of the piano habit and the thing just sat there gathering dust and collecting mess. While apparently, judging from my self-assigned piano practice over the past week, my left ring finger completely atrophied. You would have thought that ten years of near-constant Internet-related-and-otherwise typing would have done something to keep it healthy, but apparently no. I need to write more blog posts with plenty of w, s, and x in them, I guess.

So. Regina Spektor. I've never heard any music so fresh and original and sparkly and interesting. Some of it is perhaps a wee bit weird ("Uh-merica", I am looking at you), but the thing is, the weird stuff grows on you. It even grows on your husband. Or on mine anyway. And since C is (joy!) in a Mommy Can Do No Wrong And I Adore All That She Likes stage, she is the most ardent seven-year-old Regina Spektor fan you will ever meet, which just leaves LT yet to be converted. He still says she sounds like she needs to sneeze.

Ahem. In other non-obsession-related news:

I only have three history classes left. The dreaded paper is turned in, for better or worse, and I only have one more reaction paper to do, and then before I know it it will be summer, with no evening commitments at all woo hoo!. We are taking the summer off at Bible study because last summer we ended up cancelling probably half the meetings anyway because so many people were gone so often. We take a break from formal sit-down homeschooling from the beginning of June to the beginning of September. AWANA takes the summer off, too, of course, and that leaves just Boy Scouts for the Ts, which doesn't involve me. Even though I'll miss night classes a little (I was thinking about taking a partially-online class during the summer -- can't afford the gas for a regular night class, since they're three or four days a week and they don't offer any up here -- but the required orientation is scheduled during our beach vacation), really, I haven't looked forward to summer so much since I was a teenager. Maybe I should invite a bunch of people over for pizza, movies, and a 2 AM walk as soon as school lets out, to celebrate.