I read one book today.  Ten to go.  I hope I can keep up the pace.  This first one I read was written entirely in the first person.  Very unusual and unexpected.  The author switched heads frequently from the hero and the heroine but it was clear when she made the change because of new headings on the page.  I haven’t read anything in the first person for quite some time with the exception of the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris.

I did enjoy this book.  The dialogue was witty and believable.  I especially enjoyed the book cover – which is absurd – but it looked just like this site: a lovely brown and light blue. 

On to the next one.  352 pages.  Ready…..Set….Go.

I don’t know what I was thinking.  Or maybe I did, but I didn’t realize the magnitude of my actions.  I volunteered to read some entries for a contest looking for Excellence in Romance Fiction.  I did this many months ago and I’m sure the draw was that I would get all these free books to read.  As it turns out, I received my readers package at my writer’s group meeting on Saturday.  I have 11 books to read by March 24th.  11!  Eleven.  Onzi.  Undici.  Once.  That’s 11 in French, Italian and Spanish respectively just so you get the magnitude of how many we’re talking about.  I did the math and that has me reading 1 book every 5.8 days which isn’t so bad since I’m sure I do that anyway.  I’ll often read 3 books a week.  Nevertheless, the pile looks very intimidating.  I’ll keep you posted on my progress.  So far, I’m only on page 68 of the first one.  I don’t see a lot of writing getting done while I do this marathon reading assignment.

In honor of Ava’s desire to try Noble Silence (HA! That means texting, too, dear sister) I’m going to let loose a few of my random little rants.  This is because I know that I couldn’t never succeed at the practice of Noble Silence.  The concept simply doesn’t gel with any part of my personality.  Remember the episode of Friends when Chandler wasn’t allowed to say anything sarcastic?  I seriously would implode.

So here we go –

We went and got dinner tonight and I foolishly told the hostess we needed a table for four.  In reality, we could just as comfortably have been seated at a table with only three chairs.  My daughter, Sassy, is a clinger.  She physically hangs on me  all the time.  I keep trying to introduce her to the laws of physics and the concept that two units of mass can not occupy the same space, but she’s uninterested in higher learning.  Don’t give me any of that B.S. that she’s only six years old and can’t understand.  If she could insert herself back into the womb, I bet she’d do it.

I have a major pet peeve.  It’s Christmas lights.  Why, in God’s name (the God that created electricity and LED bulbs) can’t people take down their damn lights.  It’s the last week in January, people.  As we drive down the street at night, seeing these lights makes me yell out the car window.  By April, I will be seeking an injunction, and around August I’ll get out my sniper rifle.  I simply can’t abide the laziness that having your Christmas lights up and functioning two weeks after the holiday implies.  My Honey would like to warn those of you that are committing this infraction that I have two back up sisters and wire cutters and I’m not afraid to use them.

This last item isn’t a rant, but it might take the sting out of the harsh words from the last paragraph.  I was cleaning off my desk and found this quote:

“One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures.                  -President George W. Bush

Remember, his wife was a librarian.

My Honey and I are big supporters of the arts.  We always try to give when we can.  And it always makes us really happy when we get an extraordinary piece from an artist on the rise.

Tonight we picked up a new installation piece.

It’s called Plastic Forks Taped To The Wall.

by The Bandit

It’s a mixed media piece of plastic, Scotch tape and Home Depot paint.

 Don’t ask me why. 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson said it best: Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why.

I’m very disappointed with myself.  Here it is the 21st day of 2010 and I still haven’t submitted anything.  That was deal.  I was to start sending Gabriel’s story out to the e-pubs and get someone to publish the sucker.  This whole working-for-a-living thing really sucks and it’s totally inconvenient.  I have so much rolling around in my head and there’s just not enough time in the day.  Things are changing in the very near future.  A change I’m very excited about.  If things go as I hope they will, there will be some daylight hours that I can get some work done.  I’m up all night anyway, but the thing is, I can only shove so much writing in the limited hours I have.  There doesn’t ever seem to be any available time for the administrative aspects of being  a writer.

I need an assistant. 

Wanted: an assistant for an up and coming author.  Must have excellent penmanship, punctuation and editing skills.  Should be independently wealthy as the salary is mostly in the form of kind words and Oreos.  It is imperative that this person have an outstanding sense of humor with a superior working knowledge of irony and sarcasm.  Must enjoy action movies, Jane Austen, and cupcakes.  Only voracious readers need apply.

I wonder who’d apply.  It definitely piques my interest.

Dinner at my house is one of my least favorite times of the day.  I’m telling you, these children of mine had better not ever be invited to the White House to dine or I will be mortified.  Their father and I have done everything we can to try to instill manners in these people to no avail.  In fact, I threaten every day to serve Sassy dinner with no utensils – no fork, no spoon, no knife.  She doesn’t use them until I yell at her to do so, so I don’t see why I should have to wash a fork she’s not interested in using anyway.  And we’re not talking about finger foods here.  The other night it was mashed potatoes.  FREAKING MASHED POTATOES!  Deep, aggravated sigh.

And another thing.  I’m going to remove the chairs from their places, too.  Neither one of my kids sits in them.  Instead, they lounge and roll around in them like they’re baboons or something.  At least half the time The Bandit is sitting backwards in his and, more than once, I’ve looked over there to find his rear end up in the air and his head on the seat.  There have been four times this month alone when one or the other of them has fallen out of the chair.  Then they have the audacity to be mad at their father and I when we laugh at them.  Well, you laugh at monkeys in the zoo, don’t you?

Tonight was the end.  The absolute end.  When I see My Honey’s sister I’m going to slug her because the whole thing is her fault – she taught him how to do it. 

For dinner, I made Mexican food: Taquitos, refried beans, quesadillas and guacamole.  I don’t want to hear from anyone about the shocking lack of vegetable on the menu.  If you didn’t read my post about my serious lack of domestic skills, and you feel pity for the children that may be getting rickets as we speak, then you may fell free to drop off a casserole that I will burn. 

Dinner was proceeding in it’s usual noisy fashion.  My eyes hurt from all the daggers they were shooting, which by the way, those hateful children aren’t the least bit afraid of.  My Honey and I were studiously ignoring the kids, trying to have a wee bit of adult conversation, when all of a sudden he struck.  Out of no where, The Bandit have me a Wet Willie with a guacamole soaked finger.  I still smell avocados.  Now everyone at the table is hysterically laughing including my traitor of a husband who dubbed it a “Wet Willito”.

What are you having for dinner tomorrow?  I’ll bring the wine.

Yesterday evening and even this morning’s radio was completely obsessed with this “huge” winter storm that was coming.  They used all the buzz words: El Nino, precipitation, “weather system”.  They toted out all the satellite photos and replayed them again and again hoping to impress upon the viewership as a whole the magnitude of rain we were to expect.  They assured us it would be raining when we went to work and then, by the time we were to drive home, the rain would be epic.  They way they acted, the zoo animals were probably lining up two by two.

So armed with the knowledge, I dressed appropriately and took an umbrella.  I took Sassy to school but it was only drizzling.  I walk out of the building I work in to get a bagel with a coworker of mine and still, it was only a very mild rain.  By noon the sky was blue and there was nothing left of the morning rain but a few high puffy clouds. 

As 4pm rolled around I went out to see how the biblical rain was coming.    There weren’t even the clouds from earlier.  Birds were singing and, if I lived in a wooded area, I swear Bambi and Thumper would have frolicked across the lawn of my office building.  Where in the hell was this rain everyone was so hysterical about?

I went on to Salary.com to find out how much weather forecasters make because with absolutely no education what so ever, I feel confident that I can do at least this well.  It would be quite easy really – especially where I live.  For 8 months out of the year I could peer into the camera and say, “It’s gonna be hot.  Wear shoes.”  For two months a year I could say, “It will rain sometime after 4pm.  Don’t drive your convertible.”   And in winter I could simply say, “it’s chilly this morning.  Wear your coat.” 

One of my co-workers was so concerned about the hellacious storm that every forecaster was swearing on a stack of bibles would be here at drive time, that she bought an umbrella on the way to work.  I told her to send that stupid receipt to the weather people, every single one of them, and demand a refund.

They promise that tomorrow is 100% chance of rain.  Who wants to lay odds with me?  It’s probably even safe to plan a picnic.

This came from my calendar the other day:

In the nineteenth century, chemical research resulted in the development of some twenty new pigments, many of which were much brighter and more stable than those previously available.  Vincent van Gogh took advantage of all these innovations.  Unfortunately, many of these pigments might have contributed to his ill health.  The brilliant Emerald Green, with its concentrated copper/arsenic base, is highly toxic and was sold also as an insecticide to kill rats.  It’s been theorized that van Gogh’s neurological symptoms were caused by arsenic poisoning, although the lead in flake white and the mercury in vermilion could also have played a role – particularly when you consider that, in the extremes of his madness, van Gogh ate paint directly from the tube.

I found this trivia especially interesting because van Gogh was a favorite of my grandfather.  I have his copy of Sunflowers hanging in my house.  So I guess this information begs the following chicken/egg question: Which came first van Gogh’s madness or eating paint out of the tube?  Even if he wasn’t unbalanced before, I would have to suggest that eating paint is not normal.  We all know what we thought of the kid that ate paste in kindergarten.

1. 100% of your donation will be go to these charities: not even the PayPal fees will be deducted from your donation, since Richard will personally donate a sum to cover the cost of these (capped at $10,000). This means that more of your money will reach the people in need.

2. When donating via Non-Believers Giving Aid, you are helping to counter the scandalous myth that only the religious care about their fellow-humans.

It goes without saying that your donations will only be passed on to aid organizations that do not have religious affiliations. In the case of Haiti, the two organizations we have chosen are:

• Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans Frontières)
• International Red Cross

You may stipulate using the dropdown menu which of these two organizations you want your donation to go to; otherwise, it will be divided equally between them.

Non-Believers Giving Aid

One of the Bandit’s little friends turned 5 today so I took him and Sassy to her party.  I couldn’t remember which one of his friends we were talking about.  In fact, I wasn’t even sure of which sex this child was.  She has one of those new fangled unisex names, Morgan.  See, that could go either way, right?  Once I determined it was a her, I was curious to know if it was one of his several girlfriends, so I asked The Bandit to describe her. 

“She has long, brown hair and she wears a different shirt to school everyday.”

Those are the words of true love, indeed.  Afterwards, in the car on the way home, he exclaimed excitedly that Morgon must love him because there was a heart-shaped piece of candy in his goody bag.  Surely you’ll agree that is empirical evidence.

While the children were running amok, all hopped up on cake and frivolity, the moms and I chatted.  One of them casually mentioned that the minute their child hit the back seat of the car, they would be instantly asleep.  All the rest of the parents nodded agreement and I learned that each of their children all still took naps.  I listened with marked jealously.  The Bandit stopped taking naps some time last year. 

He can stay up forever.  In fact, if I ever convince you to baby sit and you think the easy way out will be to turn on a movie, cuddle him up all snuggly on the couch, and assume that he’ll be asleep in mere minutes, then you have another think coming.  This child can stay up longer than many adults.  The drive-in movie theater in our town finally closed, but before then, we took the kids there a lot.  The Bandit would stay up for both movies in the double feature.

Later, we all trooped through the parking lot, and I watched with envy as the other moms waved goodbye and tucked their soon to be snoozing kiddos in their car seats.  I imagined a world where one heard the sounds of gentle snoring from the back seat and sighed wistfully.  I knew that I would not be so lucky.  My prophesy was right.  My drive home involved dodging paddle balls and promising to destroy whistles if they were blown “one more time.” 

My Honey and I often think of the car that Homer Simpson designed that had an entirely separate area for children so he and Marge wouldn’t have to listen to the kids squabble. 

Does it come in black?