Finger Lickin' Fifteen: A Book Review

A synopsis:
The next Stephanie Plum novel, in which complications arise, loyalties are tested, cliffhangers are resolved, and donuts are eaten.
Yeah, that's it. That's the synopsis as shown on Barnes and Noble. They usually go into much more detail, but I believe that this time, they gave the book all it merited. That is to say, one lousy line.

This series is fast going downhill. It's become very formulaic: every book, Stephanie will lose a car (most probably thru fire and/or explosion); every book, Stephanie's apartment will suffer some sort of damage (again, most probably thru fire and/or explosion); every book, Stephanie will end up in Ranger's bed and, although usually no actual sex is involved except in the minds of the characters, she still supposedly has hot, lusty and apparently lifelong feelings for Morelli, the other man in her life. This "torn between two lovers" schtick is getting waaaay old. And every book, Stephanie will end up losing a skip she's "this close" to apprehending and she usually loses the skip in some hyped-up, mad-cap, I-love-Lucy kind of way. The only variation from pattern that this book offers is that Ranger is now seeking professional advice from Stephanie, a concept that is so stupid as to be ludicrous. Especially when considering how inept Stephanie is at just about everything while Ranger is supposed to be the ultimate professional, stone cold killer that knows everything about anything. I will probably give Evanovich one more shot and will wait to see was Sixteen brings. If she doesn't step up her game, however, I will be done with this series. It's a shame, too, because the series started out so spectacularly funny and well written. I say read books 1 thru 8 (starting with One for the Money) and enjoy your brains out! They're fabulous. Go ahead and read 9 thru 11, too. They're pretty entertaining as well. You might want to borrow copies of 12, 13 and 14 because you'll regret actually spending money on them yourself and avoid this one, book 15, because reading it will do nothing but (in the words of author herself) cause you to end up rolling your eyes "so far back in your head you'll be watching your own hair grow".
I give this book a 1/2 star out of 5 on the Kari Hayes Scale of Readability (and I'm only being that generous because I figure I should give it something so I won't feel like my eighteen bucks was completely wasted!)

The Poet: A Book Review

This is an older book by Michael Connelly (written in 1996). Somehow I've managed to go all this time without reading it. I was shocked when I realized this.

A synopsis:
Jack McEvoy is a Denver crime reporter with the stickiest assignment of his career. His twin brother, homicide detective Sean McEvoy, was found dead in his car from a self-inflicted bullet wound to the head--an Edgar Allen Poe quote smeared on the windshield. Jack is going to write the story. The problem is that Jack doesn't believe that his brother killed himself, and the more information he uncovers, the more it looks like Sean's death was the work of a serial killer. Jack's research turns up similar cases in cities across the country, and within days, he's sucked into an intense FBI investigation of an Internet pedophile who may also be a cop killer nicknamed the Poet. It's only a matter of time before the Poet kills again, and as Jack and the FBI team struggle to stay ahead of him, the killer moves in, dangerously close.

I've been a fan of Michael Connelly's books since around 2001 or maybe 2002. I can't believe I missed this one. And actually, after further investigation, it looks like there's another 6 books out there by Connelly that I have yet to read (one of which is sitting in my to-read pile right this minute). Geez! Some Michael Connelly fan I turned out to be, eh? At any rate, I'm very glad that I came across this book at Half-Price Books the other day. It's an excellent read. If I hadn't already read the follow up book to this (The Scarecrow), I would have been completely taken by surprise with the ending. However, even knowing "the future" of certain characters, I still found the book to be a nail-biter. I give The Poet 4 out of 5 stars on the Kari Hayes Scale of Readability.

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane: A Book Review

This book, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, was a "Recommended Read" from Barnes and Noble. I checked out the reviews before I bought it and boy! were they diverse. A lot of people totally hated it, some people thought it held promise but didn't really deliver and then there were those who were completely besotted with it. The subject matter was intriguing to me, though, so I took a chance.
A synopsis of the book:

Harvard graduate student Connie Goodwin needs to spend her summer doing research for her doctoral dissertation. But when her mother asks her to handle the sale of Connie's grandmother's abandoned home near Salem, she can't refuse. As she is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the family house, Connie discovers an ancient key secreted within a seventeenth-century Bible. The key contains a yellowing fragment of parchment with a name written upon it: Deliverance Dane. This discovery launches Connie on a quest to find out who this woman was, and to unearth a rare colonial artifact of singular power: a physick book, its pages a secret repository for lost knowledge of herbs and other, stranger things. As the pieces of Deliverance's harrowing story begin to fall into place, Connie is haunted by visions of the long-ago witch trials, and begins to fear that she is more tied to Salem's dark past then she could have ever imagined. Written with astonishing conviction and grace, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane travels seamlessly between the trials in the 1690s, and a modern woman's story of mystery, intrigue and revelation.

So okay...a lot of the negative reviewers had a point. The author went into deep detail in some areas and yet failed to expound on certain points that I think should have been made more clear. She also exhibited a bit of "higher education snobbery" in the way she continuously harped on and on about the main character's journey towards higher learning. She imbued that "journey" with a near reverence that was a tad bit off-putting. Having said that, I must also say I did enjoy the read over all. I think the villain could have been a little more fierce (I had a hard time actually being "afraid" of him) but the story itself was fairly decent. I liked how the author took us back in time to clarify parts of the plotline. She really brought those people from 1692 to life for me. This was a first book for Katherine Howe and, given the job she did on this one, I believe I will read her next one, if and when she writes it. I give The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane three stars out of five on the Kari Hayes Scale of Readability (a scale that didn't exist until this very moment! lol).

twilight, new moon and eclipse: my reviews...

As I mentioned in a previous post, I recently finished reading the Stephanie Meyer books, twilight, new moon and eclipse. I was compelled to read them because so many of you recommended them. And when I say "so many of you", I mean a lot of you guys recommended them. I was somewhat taken aback that so many of my blogging buds had read and loved these books. So what could I do? I had to have them. Now, after I tell you what I thought of them, we'll see how many of my blogging buds still like me. lol Warning: If you haven't read the books yet but intend to, you might want to stop reading. Spoilers ahead!!

To begin with, I loved twilight. It was interesting, it was fun and it was even a little bit, well... hot (much to my surprise!), but without any sex, explicit or otherwise. The love story between Edward and Bella was just plain good. I'm not usually big on romance books. In fact, I usually steer pretty clear of them. I like murder and mayhem, thankyouverymuch. But twilight was an exception to that rule. I could hardly put it down after I started it. Luckily, I had new moon waiting in the wings for when I'd finished twilight. Or maybe not so luckily, because new moon didn't really do the same thing for me that twilight did. It was okay...not great, but certainly okay. I guess it was worth reading, but after the delight of twilight, new moon was actually kind of disappointing. I mean Edward took forever and a day to stop with the whole martyrdom thing and Bella very conveniently having a passport (as well as the journey that followed) seemed a bit contrived and it took entirely too long to have them back together again. But, even though I thought most of the book was wasted on Bella and her questionable mental state, it was still a good enough read to have been worth my time. Then came eclipse. Geez. I gotta tell you people, and at the risk of ticking everybody and their sister off, that book almost drove me over the edge. If Bella had fainted one more lousy time or if she'd felt the need to "curl up" in a lap and "be held", either by Edward or Alice or Jacob or anybody else because of the stress of being hunted (while at the same time being oh-so courageous and noble, blah, blah, blah) I thought I'd bite my own neck and drain my own blood just so I wouldn't have to read about her poor, quivering yet brave self for one more minute. But the absolute worst part of it was her "torn between two lovers" dilemma. Hello, Stephanie!!! You were writing a series of books about one of the greatest loves in the whole entire history of love! How can it be considered a "greatest love" if one of the parties of the greatest love duo is also in love with someone else at the same time??? Stupid, stupid, stupid. I mean come on. I had at least bought into believing that Edward and Bella were soulmates, even if I did want to smack Bella around for being a goober so much of the time, and then Meyer up and announces that Bella is in love with Jacob, too. What the hey? You know, if I'm going to be drawn into a romance series, I'd just as soon be rewarded with a romance worth sighing over. Sure, I was doing some sighing here, but it wasn't the "aaahhhh" kind of sighing, it was more the "oh no she did not go there" kind of sighing. Big. Honkin'. Difference.

Of course, having enjoyed about 1/2 of this series thus far (and even taking into account that I suffered through the other half), I'll still be checking out the final book (breaking dawn) when it's released on August 2nd. Why? Because hope springs eternal that Ms. Meyer will redeem herself and bring Bella back from the brink of utter stupidity and into the arms of that cold, marble skinned, hunk of frozen vampire love, Edward. (Hey, who says I'm not a romantic at heart, eh?)

Not enough hours in the day....

Hey everyone! Thought I'd better make the time to do a post before you thought I'd forsaken blogging (again). lol Things around here have been crazy - I got a wild hair and decided to redo our bedroom and Randey got a wild hair and decided that we needed a new car. (My wild hair set us back considerably less than his did!) I've been painting our bedroom for what seems like forever, although I guess the actual painting only took 2 days. I've been adjusting bedding and swapping out blankets and lamps and everything else for about 3 days. And curtains! I can't even begin to discuss curtains right now. Just you wait until I do a post about them, though! Curtain manufacturers are NOT nice and/or smart people. Nor can they measure worth a flip. But we'll talk more on that at a later time. For now, I'll show you what I've been doing. Our room went from this color scheme: to this one:

I'm pretty sure I like it, but it'll take some time to get used to. It feels lighter and cooler than the old look did - and I'm all about feeling cooler. (Have I mentioned my aversion to hot weather???). You can see the new nightstands in this picture, too. See? Not one single ass in sight!

Now on to some serious bragging...I recently won 2, count 'em 2, giveaways. I'm feeling pretty lucky about that - I may just head to Vegas this month (HA!). First, I won Mary's giveaway for naming her "new cat" (I picked the name "Basil", which just struck me as funny for some reason). This is what I got:

I love, love, love the "sailing" bag - I know I'll get some good use out of that and the broaches are just lovely (made my Sarah, Mary's daughter). The white Battenburg lace style cloth in the bottom right corner has actually come in handy already. I managed to buy the world's brightest alarm clock for my side of the bed (hey - it was blue and it matched. Who knew you could land an aircraft with the stupid thing?!). Anyway, at night I drape that cloth over the front of my alarm clock to "mute" the brightness. And (and this is a big one!) it's pretty enough that I can leave it out on my nightstand during the day. Thank you, Mary, for doing this wonderful giveaway and thank you, Sarah, for making the broaches AND for mailing the package!!

Then just last week, I won Lynne's giveaway, which was a copy of this book:

I cannot wait to get busy reading it. I just finished the 3 Stephanie Meyer books (Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse) and I'm starting The Notebook (N. Sparks) that my daughter-in-law gave me for Christmas (I'm lagging behind, I know) and then I will be reading The Book of Bright Ideas. I think I've got lots of good reading ahead of me.
I wanted to share this little item with you guys, too. When we went to Montana last month, Randey's niece (and my friend!) Dawn gave me one of these:

It's a wickless candle burning system called Scentsy. It contains a little light bulb that melts bars of wax as it heats up - the wax, of course, is scented and as it melts, it releases the most wonderful aromas into the air. I've had things like this before, but the wax bars from this company are really quite aromatic and give off a great scent that lasts a good long while. If you're reading this Dawn, I just want to thank you again and tell you I have truly enjoyed my Scentsy!

I also want to thank Jayme for the beautiful 4th of July greeting card she made (shown on the left side of the picture below). I love Jayme's cards. They make me smile everytime I get one and I love keeping them out for company to look at. I also got a sweet card from Lynne when she sent The Book of Bright Ideas to me (pictured center). I love getting cards - nothing says "Hey - I thought about you today" like getting a nice card in the mail. I also got THE cutest card from Joan today (thanks, Joan!) which isn't pictured here because I took this picture last night before I got it (which just goes to show that trying to be efficient doesn't always pay off. I should have waited a day!) lol). I really wish I'd waited now because the card is so funny. I hope to use the picture on a future post soon, though. The third card pictured below is from an anonymous neighbor. This neighbor, whomever she may be, left us this sweet card in our mailbox because she wanted to tell us that she liked the "flag lights" Randey hung on the fence for the 4th of July. She said she thought they looked awesome and she appreciated the effort. How nice is that? It really made our week to read this. Randey was especially pumped up about it - he's the one who put the lights up so he was pleased to know that his efforts had been recognized (by someone outside the house, that is). Sweet neighbor, huh?
Now - I guess I should mention who won my giveaway, shouldn't I? I drew the name on Saturday, the 5th, I just didn't get a chance to post it! I'm so sorry about that. (Note to Self: Never start painting a bedroom until you have everything else caught up and finished.) Anywho - the winner is VEE! Yay, Vee! I'll get your package off in the mail right away! Thank you all for entering and, more importantly, thank you for sharing your lives with me. Blogging has opened up a whole new world - a world that I have enjoyed more than I can possibly say. Which brings me to a point I should have made when I posted about my "Blog-iversary" a week or so ago; thank you, Aunt Sandi for getting me started with blogging. I never, ever would have done it, but for you. I thought it was kind of silly for me to even start a blog, although I sure did enjoy reading yours. And then I did start one and one thing led to another and now look where I am...sticking my nose into dozens of other people's lives on a daily basis and enjoying the fool out of myself while doing it. lol Thanks for getting me started - it's been a blast!

P.S. Thanks to everyone for their kind words about my beautiful son, Nicholas, deploying again. I'm not too good at talking about it while he's gone, though. I do better if I pretend it's just not happening. (Picture me sitting in a corner somewhere with my fingers in my ears, singing "la,la,la,la,la,la" at the top of my lungs - that's what I will be "mentally" doing until he gets back.) But thank you, all the same, for writing of your appreciation of his service. It means the world to us.

Reading Does a Mind Good

I love to read. It relaxes me, it thrills me, it takes me to places I'd never get to visit otherwise and it also takes me to places I hope I never have the misfortune to visit. I used to think I wanted to be a writer. I've since come to realize that I'm a much better reader, though. 'Course, I don't read near as much "important" stuff, like Lynne does. Shoot no. I like murder and mayham mostly. (This probably explains why Lynne makes much more intelligent conversation than I do!) My BFF Susan and I had a great thing going when we lived near each other in Florida. I would "collect" certain authors and she would "collect" certain others. We got to read twice as many books for half the price! But then we (as in me and my family) moved. (sigh) John Sandford was one of her authors. Now he's one of mine, too. How about ya'll? Have you read any of his books? If not, DO IT! They are sooooo entertaining. I can't get enough of them. (I already know that Jeanne is a big fan of Sandford. She and I actually read a lot of the same authors.) J.K. Rowling is another big favorite of mine. I love the Harry Potter books. Each and every one of them. I'm amazed whenever I hear that someone hasn't read them. They are truly, truly, truly extraordinary works of fiction. I've heard that some people (and actually know of someone personally) who won't read them, nor will they let their children read them, because they feel the books are un-Christian-like due to the subject of "magic". I don't get that thinking (and I'm not knocking anyone's beliefs here. I really don't get it). These same people think Superman movies and X-Men movies and Spiderman movies are a-okay. News flash folks...flying men, fellas with 10 inch adamantium (whatever in the heck that is) claws protruding from their hands, mind-reading mutants and radioactive arachnid bitten teenage boys aren't actually "real" either. They're all "magic" in their own way. That's just my opinion. If anyone could explain what makes Harry Potter specifically an affront to God, I'd love to hear it. After all, it's basically an epic story of good vs. evil, with good triumphing. Kinda like the whole Star Wars thing to me. (Don't even get me started on Star Wars. Suffice it to say, I own every SW novel that's been published. Gooooood reading, yessir!)
Moving on....Dick Francis is another one of my absolute favorite authors. I tried many times to get Susan to read him, but no go. Every single one of his books that I've read has left me spellbound to the very last page (no pun regarding the previous comments on "magic" intended!). Except for Field of Thirteen, which is a collection of his short stories. Oddly enough, that book didn't really do it for me. I haven't even managed to finish it yet and I first cracked the spine on it at least 2 months ago. His novels, however, are excellent.

I also enjoy a little Julie Garwood (although I only read her murder mysteries). And I love Tess Gerritson's books. She almost always tells a good story without causing me a lot of eye-rolling. lol
Michael Connelly - another of my favorites! I remember one time, I bought his book Angel's Flight, got home and found I already owned it. So I offered it to Susan. Nope. She had it, too. I offered it to my mother. Uh-huh. She already owned it. So fine. I took it back to the store. A few months later, I bought the same dang book again! How dense can you be? After that, Susan and I both started keeping track of our books using Excel so we wouldn't buy anymore "repeats". (I guess the fact that I bought the book so many times is a bit of an indicator that it wasn't one of his best, eh? I say that because apparently the plot didn't exactly leave a lasting impression, hence my repeated purchases of it. But by and large, most of his books are very interesting and memorable!)
Ooooh, Harlan Coben. He is one of "my" authors and now he's one of Susan's, too. A former boss introduced me to him (Coben's books, that is, not Mr. Coben personally). Every one of his books has been a great read, too. I don't have his latest one, though. I'll need to rectify that soon. He's one of the few authors I'm willing to pay full price for. lol Great reads!
And so is Janet Evanovich. I'm telling you right here, right now. If you haven't read her "number" series, get after it. These are THE most entertaining books! I don't really care for her other ones (they read too much like a Harlequin Romance for my taste), but the ones featuring Stephanie Plum, Joe Morelli and Ranger are fantastic. As a matter of fact, her latest one, Fearless Fourteen, is due out June 17th. I can't wait!
I also enjoy Dan Brown. Talk about controversial, though. Makes those little old Harry Potter books look like child's play (hey - that was kind of funny! Get it? The HP children's books/child's play? Oh well. Nevermind). Dan Brown, of course, wrote The DaVinci Code. I thoroughly enjoyed that book. It was exciting and fast paced and just an altogether good read. Even better than that one, though, was Angels and Demons. It was actually set before DaVinci Code and I hear they're going to do a movie on this one, too. Hope they do better than that last one. What a disappointment. I'm even a fan of Tom Hanks, but I sure didn't love that movie.

Stuart Woods - he's another good author. I find myself reading more and more of him. I think Susan probably "collected" him first, though. In fact, I'm sure she did. Glad she introduced me to his books, though. They're pretty entertaining - haven't found one that I haven't liked.
And how could I not list Robert B. Parker. I sometimes think he must be the most prolific writer in the world. It's like he puts out a book a month. lol I usually love his stuff, too, but lately, I'd like to smack him around a little bit due to the way he goes on and on and on with some of his characters and the "great loves of their lives". Bobby, baby, we get that Spenser and Susan are the lovebirds to beat all lovebirds. Their spirits are intertwined forever, yadda, yadda, yadda and we understand that Sunny and Richie have this strange, yet deep and abiding love for one another that will never disappear no matter how many other people they sleep with and/or marry. And listen, Jesse and Jen - yeah...okay, Jen's a worthless tramp and Jesse loves her better than anything even when she's sleeping with some guy she met her second day at work. WE GET ALL THAT. MOVE ALONG. PLEASE. Whew! That felt good to get out. Maybe Bob reads blogs and will take a helpful hint from one of his adoring fans, eh?
Oh one more...Lee Child. Sophie, one of my fine blogging friends from the U.K., reads Lee Child, too. His Jack Reacher character kind of does it for me. Don't know why. I should probably talk to a therapist about that....
Here's a fact of life and you can take this to the bank...no matter how many books you may read in your lifetime, there's always going to be more out there just waiting on you to dive in to them. Here's some of my "to be read" pile. I try to never let it get lower than 4 or 5 books. I start to panic when my supply gets too low. How about you guys?
What authors do you love? What sort of books do you read? And is your house as dusty as mine? Check out underneath that table! lol Maybe I oughta put my books down and pick up that Swiffer, eh? Nah....that ain't gonna happen. Reading. It keeps me breathing!

Book Reports and Things that Make Me Go "Hmmmmmmmm"....

I've been a bad blogger this year. I've found myself full of bad attitude and unsociable tendencies. Well, that and a wicked kind of flu/cold and a nasty case of back spasms have kept me from blogging daily and answering e-mails. In short, I have been bitchy. Rea-ea-eallly bitchy. The downside to that, in addition to the bad blogging habits, is that I am not winning friends or influencing people in my normal, charming (ha,ha,ha,ha,ha) way. The upside? I've gotten to do a lot of reading because, basically, no one else wants anything to do with me so I've turned to books for entertainment and companionship. And I gotta tell 'ya...the beauty of books doesn't just lie within the adventure of the stories they contain. A large part of the beauty is that books, quite simply, don't talk back. Unlike husbands and children who are comfortable in the belief that they are faster than I and the knowledge that I have no memory retention to aide me in plotting their punishment for any mouthy transgressions. But let's not delve into my family dynamics at this point, okay?
Anywho...here's my oh so humble opinion about 3 of the books I read the past week:

Does anybody watch the T.V. show Bones? I do. I usually love it, although it seems like about every 6th show, the writers forget what they're doing and write something so incredibly stupid that my brain leaks multiple I.Q. points just for having been exposed to the sheer lameness of the story. But, as I said, I usually love it. I started watching it because I had read a number of Kathy Reichs' books and enjoyed most of them. That and I've long been a fan of the leading man, David Boreanaz. Yeah. I'm shallow like that. Sue me. Anyway, while the last couple of Kathy's books haven't exactly floated my boat, I decided to buy this book (Bones to Ashes) because the storyline seemed interesting to me. This book didn't get rave reviews from the readers at Mystery Guild, but I actually enjoyed it. I found it to be very engaging and a fine read. Maybe my literary needs are just too simple compared to others, but I would recommend this one to anyone who asked (and even to all of you who haven't).

I also read this book, Crescent City Kill, by Julie Smith. This is a slightly older book, having been first published in the '90's. I thought this one was also pretty good, except for the ending. I won't get into all the details of how and why, but I will say this (which will pretty much ruin the ending regardless so skip over if you just can't bear to know): Sooner or later, I think it's just good sense to have the bad guy get caught and punished. You can't keep letting him escape or, eventually, your reading audience will start to think evil always triumphs and, personally, I think that scenario sucks. So arrest or kill the guy already, okay Julie?
Now this book, Carved in Bone, was FANtastic! My BFF Susan had pointed it out to me when she was visiting last month. I bought it then and finally got around to reading it and I have to tell you, I can't wait to read another one. The author, Jefferson Bass, is actually a team of 2 individuals and man - what a fabulous team they are! Susan said she thought they got a little dry in places and spoke a little too much about technical issues, but I can't even find that criticism to be true for me. I am a new fan and convert to these guys. A new book, called The Devil's Bones, comes out February 5th and I'll be buying it for sure. They also have a book called Flesh and Bone that I'm on the lookout for. If I can't find it locally, I'll have to order it online. I highly recommend this book if you like a good plot, good characters and a good old fashioned mystery involving a dead body. And who doesn't like that, eh?
Okay, book reports are over for now. I have no idea why I even think anyone would be interested in my opinions of them, but heck...at least I'm blogging again. That's got to be worth something. Right? R-I-G-H-T??? Say "yes" so I can rest easy in the knowledge that you care. Or even in the belief of the knowledge that you care. Thank you. Moving on....
Not only have I spent much time reading, I've also taken the opportunity to ponder several issues in life. Things that make me go "hmmmmmmm". Such as...just how many cars do they have over in the Middle East and how cheap are these things to get? I mean really. These people are portrayed as financially poor and culturally "focused" shall we say, on their own belief system and way of life (or death, as the case may be). I know that Bin Laden and others like him have wealth. I also know that he's not exactly passing out debit cards to his followers for them to use down at Abdullah's Used Car Lot. And if 90% of the populations of these countries are poor and going hungry, who in the hell is buying all these cars that are being used by suicide bombers? You know, I've been poor. Of course, according to the media, my life of "poor" pales in comparison to that suffered by the "every day man" in the Middle East. Nevertheless, when I was poor, getting a car was difficult. Randey and I bought "beater" cars, mainly. You know the kind...4 bald tires, no air, no heat, and a radio that was hanging on by one thin wire. Sure, these beaters only cost around $500 but they provided much needed transportation and weren't disposed of lightly. But these guys over there...they're blowing up Beemers and Mercedes! What the heck? Sheesh! How poor are you when you treat freakin' cars like they're disposable? And where do they find the idiots to drive their disposable cars anyway? I mean how does that recruiting speech go? "Sign up here to blow your body and your family's only means of transportation to work and/or escape from the hell hole that has become your neighborhood to smithereens and, in return, we promise you virgins. Lots of virgins!". You know, not to sound crass or hedonistic or even flip...but these people sure 'nuff put one ginorous premium on virginity, don't they? Just to throw this out there... back in my long-lost virgin days, had I thought for one instant that my reward for purity would be a place in the harem of one of these dumbasses, I would have been hawkin' my body down on the local street corner just to guarantee exclusion from that particular club. Go ahead. Call me a slut. Better than the alternative. I would consider that a step up from their offer.
Another thing that baffles me and has for years...how do you throw away a trash can? I'm serious. You have a trash can you don't want anymore so you set it out to the curb. The garbage men come by, see it's empty and leave it. I mean, it's a trash can. How do you signify that it's actually the trash. You could write "trash" on the side of it, but what good would that do? It'd just make you look OCD and compelled to label even your trash receptacles. I guess you could put the trash can in a bag. But what if you don't have a big enough bag? What then? Do you cut your trash can up into little bitty pieces? Do you take it down to Goodwill as if it were a donation? Do you throw it over your neighbor's fence and pretend the wind blew it there and you have no knowledge of it's true ownership? So many questions. No clear solution. Makes me go "hmmmmmmm".....
Here's another question for the masses...if they can make a hair color to turn your hair red, orange, black, brown, blond, purple, green and /or blue, why the heck can't they make a hair color to turn your hair gray? I've recently decided to let my hair go gray. Glorious gray. How's that working out, you ask? Well I'll tell you. I look like I tumped a bag of all-purpose flour on top of my head. Nice and white/gray on top, Ms. Clairol red on bottom. Can you buy a bottle of gray hair color that will make it all blend? No. You. May. Not. Your options? Shave your head and start over or suffer until the colored hair grows out. Nice, huh? Come on all you Cosmetic Industry Gurus! If Michael Jackson can make his skin white, why can't you do that for my hair? Hmmmmmmm????
Finally, can anybody out there please explain to me exactly why our society venerates actors and athletes? Honestly! We base our hair cuts, our clothing choices, our political opinions, our estimation of a successful life on people who PRETEND or PLAY GAMES for a living! How smart is that? If you want to be considered "important" these days, you'd either better learn to lie and fake your way thru every emotion imaginable or you'd better learn how to play a game better than anybody else. This conundrum doesn't just make me go "hummmmmm", it makes me laugh, cry, shake my fist in frustration and just generally wonder if the fall of civilization as we know it is at hand because we've put the jesters in charge of the court, so to speak. Pretenders and players rule our world. So what does that say about us?
Yeah, okay, I'm done now. Ranting seems to be my only talent these days, doesn't it? Ah well. One should stick with what one is good at, right? lol

Book Reports

I thoroughly enjoy reading Dick Francis books. (Are any of you fans of his also?) I recently read Dead Heat, which was written by Dick and his son, Felix Francis. I wasn't too sure how good it would be. You know how it is sometimes when a really good author starts "sharing" writing duties and credits with someone new. But I thought I'd give it a chance since I've been such a fan. And am I glad I did! Dead Heat was a pretty good read, well worth the cost of the book and the time it took to read it. And here's a little bonus part (for me). Some of you may have read on my blog that Sophie at Sophie Honeysuckle's English Decor sent me a package a while back. She had included a little box of something called OXO (something I had never heard of before but which I've since come to know is actually beef bouillon cubes used for cooking). Anyway, somewhere around Chapter 7 of the book came this passage:

"We were in the restaurant of the OXO Tower, on the eighth floor overlooking the City of London Skyline."

I was thrilled! Here was this book by one of my favorite authors and it was mentioning something that my good friend Sophie had just introduced me to! Yeah, okay, so maybe it's kind of goofy that I was so thrilled to read that, but I was and, in fact, still am. So there. The passage continued on for a bit, explaining the architecture of the OXO Building, which was fascinating to read. All in all (and even without the reference that reminded me of Sophie! ha), this was a very good book and I would recommend it to anyone who likes a good murder and/or mystery. Er...I mean a good fictional murder and/or mystery, of course! For a synopsis and other reviews of this book, click here.

Next, I read Sweet Revenge by Diane Mott Davidson. This was, in my humble opinion, a terrible read. Absolutely terrible. I couldn't even finish it, it was so bad. I was going to outline exactly why I thought this book was so stupid, but really...I just don't think I can bear to relive it enough to do that for you. Suffice it to say, I thought the writing was juvenile, rife with redundancies and sometimes, just downright ludicrous. For a synopsis and other reviews of this book, click here. But if you make the mistake of attempting to read Sweet Revenge, don't say I didn't warn you!

P.S. Before anyone starts sending me hate mail because you disagree with my "reviews" of these books, please keep in mind that this is just my opinion. I'm entitled to have it. And you're entitled to disagree with it. Just keep it clean, will 'ya? It won't be necessary to question my parentage and/or my mating habits in order to point out our differences of opinion. Understood?