Book 91: Buster Midnight's Cafe

This is another novel by Sandra Dallas, who wrote The Persian Pickle Club. This one takes place in Butte, Montana, in the 30s and 40s.

Our narrator tells the true story of her famous friend who went from being a poor little girl to a prostitute to a Hollywood starlet. Along the way, she tells about another friend who became a famous boxer. She also tells about her own life and that of her best friend.

It's good, unpretentious storytelling, fun, and also a tear-jerker. It's fun to read about life in that era.

--

Oh My God! NaBloPoMo is over! I did it. I posted every day this month. Thanks for reading along.

Now to finish my reading challenge -- only 13 books to finish in one month.

Today I did one of my most-dreaded things: calling up customer service numbers to take care of stuff. And I did it THREE times. I had to get my online banking unlocked, set up a day to get our junk pile picked up by the thrift store, and call Nautilus about a faulty handle on my Bowflex Selectech dumbell. All three calls went very smoothly and I got great service. I was on the phone for over an hour, but it all seems to be taken care of. Phew!

Home Again!

After a trip, it's always so nice to settle back into home, and start the laundry and put away all the bags and chargers and road snacks. And have a full wardrobe to choose from, as opposed to just what I thought to pack (do you ever get tired of wearing the same shoes for several days in a row?). And have a much-needed pedicure while watching "Dexter".

At our house, we have hard water, and it has a distinctive smell. The smell was really strong when we first moved in, but it had subsided... until we left for several days! Now it smells like minerals in here again. I guess that's now the smell of home. Weird.

I'm excited to:
sleep in my own bed
sleep for a long time tonight
look for a fun new job
do more sewing
play with the cat
lift some weights

And, tomorrow is the last day of NaBloPoMo, and I am on track for successfully posting every day in November! I can do it!

Fleece Dolly

 

She liked it okay.


 

She didn't say anything about it being wiggledy-piggledy.

Recent Events

We got to watch the Avalanche play hockey while we sat in a fancy box.

 

There were free eats and drinks.

 

We visited a little girl with a balloon on her foot.

 


And saw some dancing.

 

Little Owl

Mom made an owl using my pattern. Pretty cute!

 

Book 90: The Year of the Flood

This is Margaret Atwood's sequel to Oryx and Crake. It takes place concurrently with Oryx and Crake, and is told from the points of view of two women. Both women were one-time reluctant members of a religious cult that believed in vegetarianism and protecting animals from extinction (how extreme!). They also dress very modestly and don't believe in using cell phones and other technology (how horrible!).

Both women survive a major man-made plague and then deal with the aftermath. All lone survivors believe they could be the last people on earth. Is there a reason to live, then? If so, what is it?

Again, we wonder about whether or not humanity deserves to survive, and if we can and should be forgiven for our destructive behavior and greed. Again, we consider love and friendship and loyalty.

One of my favorite moments is when a cultist prays for strength from the spirits of the Wolf, the Leopard, and the bio-engineered Liobam, a Lion-Lamb cross meant to somehow appease contrary religious groups. The cultists don't approve of creating weird combo-animals. Still, the Liobam looks harmless, but is quite an effective hunter, so her choice is logical, as she plans to hunt.

I really enjoyed returning to this world, but there were maybe a few too many coincidences. Still, I was impressed at how she wove this story together with Oryx and Crake. She just could have let a few more characters die in the plague.

views

Power Plant steam

 

Mountain with window reflections
 

Cloud shaped like a briefcase
 

This one looked like a zipper when we were driving around, but in the photo it doesn't.
 

Book 89: Oryx and Crake

This is a science fiction novel/cautionary tale by Margaret Atwood, published in 2003. Atwood just released the sequel, The Year of the Flood, which I'm reading now. I really enjoy Atwood almost all of the time. She often has a sci-fi component to her writing, but it's tempered with a heavy literary bent.

Oryx and Crake is about the last man on earth, and how he got to that point (or is it?)

It's about science-for-profit gone awry, and some of the horrors that can be created, such as chicken knob-thingies: giant chicken breasts growing without heads or brains; just throats down which nutrients may be poured. And gene-splicing to create giant hogs that grow human body parts for transplanting.

Or it's about the convenience and modernity offered by super technology: "a gym suit that cleaned itself overnight due to sweat-eating bacteria, a shirt that displayed email on its sleeve while giving him a little nudge every time he had a message, shoes that changed colour to match his outfits, a talking toaster."

And it's about there being such a huge separation between the classes that our protagonist, Jimmy, who lives in a guarded, gated Compound looks forward to escaping to the dirty "pleeblands" just for a bit of freedom. Atwood describes him riding on a train through the world of the middle class who have nothing to do with the big science corporations: "He glimpsed a couple of trailer parks, and wondered what it was like to live in one of them: just thinking about it made him slightly dizzy, as he imagined a desert might, or the sea. Everything in the pleeblands seemed so boundless, so porous, so penetrable, so wide-open. So subject to change."

And it's about love and obsession and friendship and loyalty.

The setting seems to be the U.S., but slightly in the future. It's an entertaining, imaginative read, and the world Atwood creates is not too much of a stretch from our current reality.

Day 22

It's Day 22 of NaBloPoMo, and I haven't missed one yet! Eight more to go.

I'm 5 books behind on my reading challenge, and I only have 6 weeks left, so I'd better hurry and get caught up. 16 books to go.

I'm thinking of reading and/or finishing these:

*Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
*and its sequel, The Year of the Flood

*Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

*Buster Midnight's Cafe (by the author of The Persian Pickle Club)

*Notorious Victoria (about the first woman to run for U.S. President, plus an outrageous feminist otherwise)

And maybe some old favorites by Vonnegut, Paul Auster, and Jim Thompson.

In 2010, I am excited to read 2666 by Roberto Bolano, a LONG book that I couldn't spare time for this year. I also want to re-start Don Quixote and finish it this time.

I'm feeling more and more interested in reading history books, but I want them to be entertaining, not dry. I'd like to read a great history of the building of the Great Wall of China. If you know of one, tell me.

Dr. Seuss house?

 

This camping cabin in Carlsbad, with its weird, surreal tree (actually some kind of succulent), made me think of nothing but cartoons.

2nd Dolly

I truly thought this dolly would be perfect. I cut and sewed SO carefully! But, she turned out a little weeble-wobbly like the first attempt.

 

I still think she's cute, and she and her dress are made of fleece, so she's super cuddly.

She's for a little girl and I think the girl is little enough that she won't care about the non-perfection of the dolly.

Are you familiar with the Japanese term "wabi-sabi"? It is an aesthetic based on the beauty that is found in imperfection. Do you think children can have a wabi-sabi view of dolls? I hope so!

Book 88: The Serpent's Tale

The Serpent's Tale by Ariana Franklin is a work of historical fiction. Judging by the very defensive post-script by the author, apparently some of her historical assertions are debatable. I just read it as fiction, so I didn't care.

Here's what it is. It's the second book about The Mistress of the Art of Death, Vesuvia Adelia Rachel Ortese Aguilar. She just goes by "Adelia." It's the 1150s, and Adelia was born into circumstances which allowed her to be raised without much religious influence and with all available education. She is known for solving murders by performing autopsies, but she has to pretend that her male friend is the doctor and she is his translator.

King Henry insists that she help solve the mystery of his girlfriend, Rosamund. Others want her to prove that King Henry's wife didn't kill his girlfriend so that the country won't have to endure another civil war. The political stuff is actually pretty much just background when you're reading; it's more about Adelia.

Adelia is a fun character. She's very self-interested, and must be forced to help others. She is extremely frustrated that the state of society forces her to hide her intelligence. Also, Adelia is often involved with hyper-religious folks who object to autopsies (and sometimes object to all scientific inquiry), hindering her murder-solving.

It's a pretty good novel, with interesting characters and settings. If you're an English history buff, you might dislike some arguable inaccuracies, but if you just read it as a story, it's very enjoyable.

Werewolf!

This morning I opened a set of blinds in my office and got my first peek into the neighbor's bedroom. This is what startled me:



It's that Taylor guy from the Twilight movies! The neighbor is a Twilight fan.

Here's the weird part: I've only ever seen a grown woman and a little boy come and go from that house. Which one loves the werewolf?

Book 87: The Persian Pickle Club

The Persian Pickle Club by Sandra Dallas. I've had this on my shelf since I first read it in 1998, but I didn't remember anything about it. It's somehow kind of lighthearted, even though it takes place in the dust bowl of the Great Depression, and there is a murder, and another death.

A bunch of women in a small town in Kansas belong to a quilting club ("persian pickle" means "paisley" -- they have a story about some paisley fabric). A new woman moves to town, joins the club, and begins working on solving a town mystery.

It's very readable, with an entertaining narrator.

Book 86: JFK and the Unspeakable

JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died & Why It Matters by James W. Douglass

I was watching Bill Maher’s show last spring or summer, and Oliver Stone was on, and he brought this book with him, confusing Bill and all the rest of us. Bill asked if Oliver had written the book, but no. He just recommends it. You remember, Oliver Stone made a movie about JFK’s assassination – a movie in which the CIA orchestrated the killing, framing Lee Harvey Oswald. This book is about the same conspiracy theory.

Douglass cites tons of sources: The Warren Report, interviews with witnesses, letters between Kennedy and Kruschev, and interviews with liaisons between Kennedy and Castro. It’s pretty easy to believe that this version of the story, or something like it, is the truth about how Kennedy died. Of course, I have no idea what actually happened. I wasn’t born yet, and I hadn’t read much of anything about it or thought much about it before picking up this book. Other theories may be equally convincing.

It’s very easy to believe that the CIA, NSA, and the military didn’t want a Kennedy as president. JFK wouldn’t go along with starting WWIII, or using nuclear weapons against the U.S.S.R., or against Cuba. Douglass says (and presents evidence) that JFK was about to pull us out of Vietnam permanently, that he was working up to having peaceful discussions with Castro, and that he had a secret peace-seeking letter-writing friendship with Kruschev.

Right before he died, JFK gave a commencement speech at American University in which he announced that the U.S. “will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war…” He also pledged that we would stop atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, and if the rest of the world also stopped, we would not be the first to resume.

I watched a TV show on the assassination that was touted to be an exploration of the different conspiracy theories, but really it was an attempt to de-bunk them. I did not find it nearly as convincing as this book. One problem was that some of the men insisting that it was just Lee Harvey Oswald were only my age! They only know what they’ve been told, just like I do. I don’t find them persuasive.

I think it’s generally pretty easy to believe in the corruption of government. Particularly in that era of such intense fear and hatred of Communism, big sections of our government would have been willing to do anything to try to stop the U.S.S.R. from getting a foothold in Cuba, so close to the U.S. ANYTHING.

Plus, we know how corrupt the CIA and FBI were in the 1960s in trying to stop the progression of the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement. They’ve shown us over and over again that they operate outside our laws, and outside of what we consider “American” behavior – treating everyone fairly, not punishing people for crimes unless they’ve been tried and convicted in a court of law. It’s easy to believe they’ve killed many people who threatened the status quo or the CIA agenda.

The “Unspeakable” that Douglass refers to is a systemic evil. Institutionalized evil. That kind of beaurocratic evil that lets everyone off the hook – no one in particular is responsible. No one has to feel responsible, and no one can be held responsible. The person with the ideas doesn’t actually carry them out; it’s not his fault. Those who carry them out are just following the orders of the middleman, so it’s not their fault. The middleman had no ideas, made no decisions, and performed no actions – he just passed along the message, so it’s not his fault.

I would add that it’s also unspeakable that we are all complicit when we allow evil acts to go on. We are willing to be convinced that it didn’t happen. We are willing to look the other way and not force these agencies to be held responsible for their actions, even though those actions are the exact definition of “Unamerican.” It’s much easier to go on with our days, watch our shows, and think about our own little lives than to admit that there is a problem and that we actually have to do something about it, risking our own personal security and comfort.

In the case of JFK’s death, many of those who tried to tell any truth that was inconvenient to the CIA ended up dead or locked up in mental institutions for the rest of their lives. Bad America!

By way of contrast to murderous political corruption, on “Meet the Press” this week, guess which two political figures were talking about their JOINT work on improving our public education system? Al Sharpton and freaking Newt Gingrich! Not bad, America.

A Couple New Little Houses

This weekend I had a vision of an all black and white Christmas theme, and I made an ornament to go with it.

I also made a cottage with weird, fantasy trees.



It was a perfect weekend for sitting inside and sewing: I had the TV all to myself and got to choose which movies to watch, and it was cold and snowy and icy outside, and I had no obligations to anyone. I need those weekends every so often!

Saturday

 
Today I made a juice of apples, ginger, and "Sugar Pears," which turned out to be less sweet than regular pears, so I now think of them as sarcastic fruit.

Those darn sarcastic pears refused to juice and just made mush in my juicer. I saved some mush to eat as pearsauce, which will probably be good, but not what I expected. Still, the apple and ginger juice with a hint of sarcasm was terrific.

--

Today was another snowy day, and after THUNDERSNOW last night (one of my favorite things! the crash of thunder and flash of lightning and then the gently falling flakes), today was super cloudy and dark and dim. A day requiring lights on all the time.

I just went out for a brief walk in the snow, and at 10:00PM, it is exactly as bright outside as it was all day. I can clearly see for blocks, and the sky is light grey. It is WAY too light for nighttime, yet way too dark for daytime.

Today should have been Friday the 13th, with the crazy lighting scheme. But since it is the 14th, it was just a super cool nighttime walk rather than a creepy, ominous set-up for unlucky events.

Utilitization and You

Doing one of my editing jobs, I heard a man say the made-up word, "utilitization." COME ON! You guys, I hate the made-up word "utilize" enough already. For fuck's sake, just say "use," as though you're not a moron.

Generally, people make up fancier-sounding words to attempt to cover up their own stupidity. I am instantly wary (not weary, although eventually that, too) of people who feel they have to show off their made-up Corporatese or other jargon (perhaps it would help if I put on my Creativity Hat and grabbed a different colored umbrella and Thought Outside the Box).

It usually gets worse once they know that I'm an editor, or that I have an English degree, or that I have a law degree, or that I read books.

Honestly, I'm just as mistrusting of "utilize"-sayers as I am of people who don't have any books in their homes. (No books in the house gives me the creeps and shivers and willies. And CHILLS.)

Why go to trouble to make things more complicated? Why must there be such needless over-utilitization of over-complicatorization?

First little quilt-blanket is done

Here is the finished Little Quilt-Blanket


I'm happy with how it turned out. The front has the shiny, satin blanket binding as an accent between the quilt fabric and the fleece backing. I sewed it to the quilt front on the sewing machine.



I used embroidery floss to attach the fleece backing.

I'm considering this a successful fleece project. I have another blanket to finish and I want to make another something with additional, accessory somethings, but I only have a week and half. If everything works on the first try, I might just make it.

Deal of the Day

Holy cow, you guys!

 

Pig heads are only 97 cents a pound!

Seriously, is that pig chomping on a cigar??

I am freaked out by the thought of eating heads. I know that it is no different from eating legs and backs and chests, which give me only the slightest creeps. I do detest dealing with raw meat, and I would always rather get it as sliced/shredded/chopped as possible so that it doesn't look like the animal it once was. But since I like to eat meat, I do prepare it myself and deal with the small amount of creeps I get.

Anyway, I think it's really psychologically interesting that I'm SO conditioned to only eat the parts of animals that I mentioned before, and that I think that's normal. But I think it's totally DISGUSTING to eat heads, ears, brains, intestines, feet, ankles, beaks, fetal birds, eyeballs, etc...

Knowing that it's hypocritical does not make me change my taste in meat products in the slightest. So I will offer no competition for you in your race to buy up all the sale-priced pig heads you can eat! Cigar included free of charge!

Junk Pile!

When we moved in here, we were so sick of all of our stuff! There was just so MUCH and so many useless, under-used, and never-used items. So we decided to make a big pile of stuff in the garage and have a local thrift store come pick it up.

 

Here's the pile so far. I will arrange for the pick-up next week, when I know I won't have to miss out on work to meet the truck. I'm still debating adding a few things: a bread machine and my second coffee maker, maybe some more clothes if I have time to sort through them again. So the pile may grow even larger! I just have to stay out of it in the meantime, so I don't take anything back out.

Healthful Eating Mode

 

During this window of time between Halloween candy and Thanksgiving pies, I'm in the mood for salads, fruit smoothies, turkey wraps, and homemade burritos.

Ever since we started packing to move, I've been eating more processed foods, fast foods, junk foods, beer, and soda than normal. We moved, and then we were unpacking, and then we got sick and I didn't feel like making good food, and since then I've had a hard time getting back to my usual eating habits. Generally, I eat half health-nut food and half just-okay or kinda-crappy food. I usually do not drink any soda (really I just drink water and coffee with milk 99% of the time). But I've been eating lots of junk and only a little health-nutty for about 2 months now.

So, with Jason on the road for a week, I have a great opportunity to re-set my habits and eat better. I hate to waste food, so buying lots of produce is a great way to force myself to eat it. Today has gone well, and I hope to keep it up all week.

FLEECE!

 


Since it's getting chillier outside, I am very drawn to working with fleece. I have a few craft ideas, and I'll share them with you as I try them out.

You already know about my plan to use fleece as a backing for some little Mullett Quilt Blankets (pretty on the front; comfy on the back). Hopefully I'll make some progress on that front this afternoon.

I have a couple other ideas up my sleeve. I'll share if they're the least bit successful, or if they're humorously unsuccessful!

Saturday!

I'm so glad it's the weekend and I don't have to work for a couple days. I got a few little things done:

* sorted out the last of our stuff to donate, and got it out of my way and into the garage. Now the only things in my office are things that belong there. Finally!

* painted over lots of spots on the walls: scuff marks, scrapes, stains, nail holes, and maybe a couple spider webs (we have a TON of spiders!) And put the paint in the garage and out of my way.

* went for a bike ride around the neighborhood and played on some pretty impressive playground toys at the school. Some of them seemed shockingly dangerous in this litigious era. While riding around, Jason had a 3-foot long spider web strand streaming out behind him, shining in the sun. It did not want to be removed under any circumstances.

* watched a niece's softball game and this:


* wandered around the craft store, looking for a frame for Jason's friend's painting. Guess what I saw inside a shadow box frame -- yet another spider, darting around. How did it get in there?

* wandered around a warehouse store and bought lots of stuff, including brand new sheets. Now I'm sorry I just changed the sheets last night, because otherwise I would have thrown them in the washer and slept on them tonight.

* noticed that my Jack o'lantern is rotting in the creepiest way: teeth first. Too much candy?

Book 85: Dracula

Since May, I've been reading Dracula by Bram Stoker, in installments. This blogger posts epistolary novels (written in the form of diaries or letters) so that the entry in the novel dated November 5th is revealed (or sent to your blog reader) on November 5th.

It was a fun way to read Dracula, having to wait to see what would happen, and suffering along with the characters for months instead of just days or weeks.

The novel itself tells of an old, old vampire who decides to move to England, where the locals weren't yet terrified of him. But he makes the mistake of biting the wrong women! Those gals have some tough guys in love with them, and those guys know an unconventional doctor from Amsterdam who knows a few things about vampires.

Sometimes it's boring, like many old horror novels. But there are great phrasings, like, "I bethought myself" to make up for it.

--
I will try to finish the JFK conspiracy theory book this weekend. I also recorded some show about different JFK assassination theories, so I can watch that and I'll be all consipiracy-obsessed. Might as well make a weekend of it and re-watch last week's "Mad Men," in which the characters react to JFK's death. "WHAT IS GOING ON?" screams Betty at the TV when Oswald gets shot by Jack Ruby, as well she should!

Something Good To Eat

Steel cut oatmeal with pomegranate seeds and milk. And coffee and milk served in a German beer stein.

Book 84: A Dirty Job

A Dirty Job, by Christopher Moore, is funny, surprising, imaginative, smart, and weird. It's a fun read.

The main character, Charlie, suddenly becomes a Death Merchant. He has to help with the redistribution of souls. All kinds of things happen in and around second-hand stores and sewers. There's a baby, and taxidermy, and little fancy costumes, and giant dogs, and Celtic Gods.



If I don't finish another book by the end of this week, I'll be 5 books behind on my challenge. I need to finish the ones that I've already started, but I am drawn to other books instead. I guess I need to decide if it is really important to me to reach 104 this year, or if I just wanted to see if I could read a lot of books.

Searching my heart...

I'm going to be pretty pissed if I don't reach 104! So I guess the important thing is meeting the exact goal of 104 books read in 2009.

Next year, I'm not doing this. I think I will make a different reading challenge for myself, focused more on quality than quantity. Like, reading more nonfiction and biographies and Fine Literature. And I want to read a book in Spanish. And I'll probably still read a bunch of mysteries now that they've wormed their way into my good graces.

(Are there BAD graces, and if so, what are they??)

Try to guess the meaning of this

 

Okay, I'll tell you. I'm refurbishing some old picture frames. Okay, I'm just painting them with some metallic paint.

And yes, that is my Christmas tree skirt under there. And YES, I already have my tree up, but it's not for fun! I had to take some photos of Christmas ornaments, and they just look a lot better if they're on a tree rather than sitting around casually.

I used to hang them on an evergreen outside of our place, behind the parking lot. But now we moved and the nearest evergreen is right next to the highway and people are nosy and they'd be like, "what's she taking a picture of?" and then, because we all steer in the direction we're gawking, they'd drive over and crash right into me. Obviously, the safer plan is to just live with having a Christmas tree set up for an extra month this year.

Little Quilt-Blankets

I've been sneaking in some crafting, even though work is keeping me very busy right now. I've sewn the tops of two little quilt-blankets for a couple of little girls. They're just simple quilt tops (which obviously haven't been ironed yet), and I'll make the backs out of fleece so they'll be comfy-cozy for cuddling up on the couch.

Comfy on the back, pretty on the front. Yep, they're KIND OF like mullets, but in blanket form.

Some songs that get keep getting stuck in my head

1. When I work on an assignment that includes an analyst from Barclay’s, I get Urge Overkill’s “(Now That’s) The Barclords.”

2. When an assignment includes an analyst from Oppenheimer, I get The Old 97s’ “Oppenheimer.”

3. Since I started reading Christopher Moore’s A Dirty Job, I get Faith No More’s “We Care a Lot” (with the lyrics, “Oh, it’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta doo-wet”) I'm enjoying that song and the book quite a bit.

It's nice when good songs get stuck, rather than the whistled theme song from Andy Griffith or other annoying sticky songs.

Book 83: The Vanished Man

This Jeffery Deaver novel finds Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs tracking a serial killer who is also a magician. He does all kinds of magic: quick-change, sleight of hand, ventriloquism, light and sound effects, etc...

This one actually has TOO MANY twists and turns for me. I got annoyed about halfway through. It wasn't annoying enough to make me stop reading it, though.

I enjoy the humor, intelligence, and creativity of the writing, and the story line of Rhyme and Sachs's relationship. This was the last Lincoln Rhyme novel on my shelf, so I hope my parents have some more to pass on to me when I see them later this month. Will Rhyme ever have the experimental surgery that might lessen his paralysis? Will Sachs still like him if he can move, or is the attraction that he is immobilized? I must know.




I'm now 4 books behind in my two-a-week challenge. I think I'll be able to catch up in December when work will be slow, but there is a chance that I won't succeed! After all these months of diligently reading, I will be pretty disappointed if I don't reach 104 by the end of the year.