Fall pics from my backyard today

R.I.P. IV

Hmmm.... a Reading Challenge from Stainless Steel Droppings.

Now, apparently there are reading challenges all over the web. I've never participated in one... but you know what? I really should. That kind of thing is right up my alley. Due to circumstances and inner turmoil, I've read very, very little over the past year, but it's time to start reclaiming that part of myself. This challenge appealed not only because of its subject matter - scary stories from any genre! - but also thanks to that gorgeous image. Seriously, I would hang that on my wall.

Anyway, here's my reading pool, culled from my own shelves of books waiting to be read.

The House With a Clock In Its Walls by John Bellairs. Okay, I've read this multiple times over the past 30 years, but I'm ready to read it again! In my mind, this is the PERFECT scary story. I'll have some more glowing things to say after re-devouring it, because this one is a definite.

For horror, The Damnation Game by Clive Barker. His first novel, I believe, and it sounds terribly interesting.

The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain. This is the first in a Library of America volume of Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930s & 40s. Maybe I'll rent the movie after reading it.

Dragonwyck by Anya Seton. This is a Gothic-sounding romance from the 1940s. I have a small stack of Anya Seton novels picked up at thrift stores and flea markets over the years, because they looked and sounded so appealing. Time to start reading them.

The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks. It appears to be a sci-fi thriller, and just looks like something that belongs on this list.

Last, for the short story challenge, I very much want to read my Junior Deluxe Edition of Rip Van Winkle and Other Stories by Washington Irving, which I've had for most of my life but forgotten about until recently. The snarkapoo and I recently enjoyed a lovely illustrated version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Will Moses, so I'm in the mood to go back to the original.

That's it for now! We'll see how it goes. Of course, this is in addition to the group of lovely fat sequels to fantasy novels written by my friends that I'm currently working on. More about those soon.

A walk at Silver Creek

These are from late yesterday afternoon. Josh and I took a walk on a trail I hadn't visited in years. This kind of stuff feeds my soul. I know, a few trees, a field full of weeds... isn't it great? I love the landscape in Ohio, I really do.

Pics of books and that's it

and why is that it? Because I forgot to take pictures while we were actually at the Great Trail Festival today. Oh well. It was a beautiful day - sunny, not too hot, hasn't rained this week so no mud puddles in the woods. Anyway, here are the books I found for $4 each:



Yay! Holling Clancy Holling books are classics, and wonderfully appealing. I'd been wanting to read some of them with the snarkapoo. Here are some pages from Tree in the Trail:



In other news, here's a question for debate: is the kettle corn that you buy fresh at a festival actually better tasting than the stuff you can get at the grocery store these days? My mother says yes. I'm not completely convinced. I do wholeheartedly endorse fresh-squeezed lemonade, though.

Well hi... 'cause, that's how this starts out

Well hi. Thought I'd make one last post for August, for whatever it's worth. Today felt like fall, and that's just not right. Not yet. There are TWO blankets on my bed tonight, and the air conditioner's still in the window. What kind of sense does that make?

On the homeschooling front, we sat down at the kitchen table today and DID things. Woo-hoo! The snarkapoo started a spelling notebook... she likes to spell, and is good at it. We found some things to work on, though. I gave her a list of herbs and spices, some of which she wasn't familiar with, and she did a great job of sounding them out phonetically. Echinacea became ecenashea. I thought that was a pretty good guess.

We also started reading Book 1 of A History of US: 11-Volume Set by Joy Hakim. It looks like all the good things I've heard about this series might be true. It's full of information, but written in a very chatty, down-to-earth style, and has plenty of open-ended questions to get kids really thinking and forming their own opinions. I like that. She read all the quotes in the first chapter about the meaning of history, and we talked about them... after clarifying who Cicero and Marcus Garvey were. Here's a favorite: "It is one thing to write like a poet, and another thing to write like a historian. The poet can tell or sing of things not as they were but as they ought to have been, whereas the historian must describe them, not as they ought to have been, but as they were, without exaggerating or hiding the truth in any way." - Miguel de Cervantes, from Don Quixote. There's a lot to think about there.

There was more, but it's late, and time for a last cup of tea before bed.

**listening to: Music for Harp, Flute and Cello by Angels of Venice. I'm very much in the mood for soft and pretty at the moment, but of course, being me, with mysterious, Renaissance-y overtones. This music is awfully close to perfect. It soothes me, and makes me yearn, opens up windows in my heart, and provides a rich backdrop for imagination.

Rain, rain, go away

We TRIED to go swimming today. Threw our stuff in the car and drove to the pond where we normally swim... and by the time we got there: wind. rain. thunder. (sigh) Bonnie was waiting for us there, and invited us back to her house. By the time we got THERE, the sun was shining. So the kids went outside to set up the Slip 'n Slide. They played for about 10 minutes, and then it started raining and thundering again.

I don't really like to complain about the weather. So I'll stop there. The afternoon wasn't a total loss... there were brownies, and children swooping around in superhero capes, and good conversation. Another day closer to the end of summer.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing. It's good, really. School starting isn't an issue for us. And the past few months have crawled like molasses.

Modern fantasy, the retro version

So, I've been perusing this book from the library for awhile - Modern Fantasy: the Hundred Best Novels, by David Pringle. The title page further specifies: An English-Language Selection, 1946-1987. It's a good book. Each entry has a mini-essay with info on the author, a plot synopsis, and some commentary. Fun to read for a fantasy freak.

I was a little surprised, though, to see that I've only read 9 books (or series) from the list:
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
The Once and Future King - T.H. White
A Fine and Private Place - Peter S. Beagle
The Last Unicorn - Peter S. Beagle
Watership Down - Richard Adams
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld - Patricia McKillip
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever - Stephen R. Donaldson

Wait a minute, that's only 8 books. (looks over the list again) alright, only 8 books then. geez. Interestingly enough, all of those 8 are on my (ever-growing) list of favorites. In fact, just looking at the names is enough to make me want to reread them all.

But, there's so much on the list that I always MEANT to read, and seriously need to! The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake. The Dying Earth books by Jack Vance. Anything by Fritz Leiber. I've never read A Wizard of Earthsea, for crying out loud! or anything at all by Guy Gavriel Kay! This just doesn't seem right.

Not to mention the books that I've never heard of, but that sound intriguing enough to check out. Day of the Minotaur by Thomas Burnett Swann, for instance. The Owl Service by Alan Garner. And all of this was published over 20 years ago, since which the boom in fantasy has only gotten bigger!

(sigh) You know that feeling you get as a reader, that sinking in the gut when you realize that you're not going to live long enough to read everything that you want to? I'm trying to ignore that feeling and concentrate on the fact that as long as I live, I'll never run out of wonderful, fascinating stories to dive into. Because after all, what's life without reading?

The water's cold

To get started blogging again, I was trying to post a video that I took at a truck stop in Virginia last month. It consisted of two stuffed dinosaurs and a King Kong doll, all battery operated and battling for supremacy of a shelf in the gift shop. It was pretty entertaining at the time, given the fact that the van had broken down and we were killing time waiting for a hose to get replaced, or something. However, I left the silly thing trying to load for an hour, and nothing happened. It was only 20 seconds long. My skills as a web diagnostician are limited at best, so I just left it. Here's a much classier image from that trip.
I like historic sites in general, but Monticello is probably my favorite one to visit. I've been there three times, I think, over the years. One draw is the sheer beauty of the site. A green mountaintop, lush gardens, views over Charlottesville... as a landscape aficionado, it's irresistible. Thomas Jefferson's design for the house is fascinating, as well. I guess that's a large part of what I find so appealing about the whole place... everything there, from the furniture and paintings, to the vineyards, to the shape of the windows, is an expression of one man's mind and personality.

The snarkapoo had a good time, too, being a history nut. (She became obsessed with the Revolutionary War when she was about 6, and things progressed from there. I dunno. She's 9 now.) This was amusing: she became highly upset that the date of birth on Jefferson's tombstone was April 2, 1743. All of her books say that he was born on April 13. HOW to reconcile this? How could all of her books be wrong? It was an intellectual trauma, to be sure, until we asked our guide about it during the house tour. Turns out that the British Empire didn't adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752, by which time there were 11 days missing. Whew. What a relief. I'd been really worried about the drive home, if we hadn't gotten an explanation for that.

Maybe my next post will be a current ramble, instead of a month-old one.

Ecology for Easter

The plastic Easter grass is getting thrown out. That's it, I'm through, I don't even know why it's still in the house after all these years. Want to know what finally pushed me over the edge?

Here's Merlin, in his role as Monopoly Banker, complete with intern. The Monopoly bit has nothing to do with this, I'm just introducing you to him. He's currently walking around with a long piece of Easter grass hanging out of his butt. Not OFF of his butt, mind you... literally out of it.

Poor, abused, indoor cat. We need to get him a Chia Pet. Wonder if he'd like this one? www.guzer.com/pictures/chiamrt.php
Obama's in good company, no? According to Wikipedia, these are the only two "real people" to have been so honored... (yes, it's after 5 AM and I'm looking up Chia Pets on Wikipedia.)

So that's all taken care of. What was I talking about again?

Out of obscurity

So I started this blog for a reason, right? Other than just to make 3 posts and let it die? Let's see, what was that reason... an online journal? Well, obvious Fail there. A therapeutic outlet? I'm going to do the general public a big favor and keep that private. A place to be witty and entertaining when I feel like it? Great, except that I can go weeks without that happening. Or... here's a radical concept... how about a venue in which to write whatever I want to, with no external pressure. Wow. Master of the obvious, here. Can you tell I have a nasty habit of over-analyzing the simplest of things?

I've been catching up on some of my friends' blogs tonight (and posting comments all over the web, it seems like) and been inspired. Sam follows the online journal approach, every day, without fail, and keeps us up-to-date on the interesting tidbits that make up her daily life. Amy does this as well, though not quite every day, and intersperses various writing exercises/brain dumps that keep us in stitches. Jen posts when she feels like it, which is a talent in itself, and informs us of her new endeavors and enthusiasms. Tanner gives us updates on his writing projects and glimpses of his widely varying hobbies and interests. I like reading these blogs, and like the way that each of them reflects the unique voice of its author.

Maybe I'm just wondering what my voice is going to turn out like. It's never too late to find out, I suppose. (opens a bottle of Hobgoblin and settles in to watch)

Now that's a little creepy. Navel-gazing at its finest.

37

Sitting on the front porch in my great-grandma's rocking chair, trying to soak the newly-spring sunshine into my bones and store it there as a source of contentment... that's a good day.

Drinking my coffee as my daughter tumbles out of bed and runs downstairs because she can't wait to give me a hug and present me with the birthday card she made... that's a good day too.

Looking back to a year ago and realizing how much I've learned since then... knowing that every passing birthday brings me a little closer to being the person I was meant to be... you really can't ask for more than that.

Well, you can. But today I'm content. Today I won't.

I am deathly afraid of...

It was recommended to me at one point that I type this into the Google search bar for entertainment purposes. I have to say, it worked. So much that I did it again a week later. Amazing how laughing at other people's ridiculous fears can make you feel better. :P

Here's a list of some of the less common fears that folks have felt compelled to write about on the internet (and keep in mind that I did not visit these websites to read more... that's something that I'M afraid of!).

swimming pool drains
February
jump ropes
lepracuans (spelling intact - yikes)
haircuts
lizards (watch some Geico commercials, okay?)
that the Patriots will trade Brady for MULTIPLE 1st round picks this offseason (how about if they just fire him? would that be alright?)
palmetto bugs (I don't know what these are. Maybe this is warranted.)
bears (stay out of the woods)
the concept of cheating (not the deed itself, apparently)
napkins
pickles
getting an apparition (how's this work?)
Mike Cammalleri (is he after you personally??)
authors that blurb their own books (oh, the horror)
holes in reality (I think I'm in one now.)
people making fun of me in the forums (heh. some of us actually crave that.)
cows
butterflies
cotton
pressure cookers
feathers
Peter Pan
bees (yet, I am attracted to them... that's a direct quote)
facial hair (guy or girl talking? big difference in the psychological issues involved)
whales

whew. Have to stop. My own fears, of course, are perfectly normal and understandable. Spiders. Popsicle sticks. Condiments (only the big 3 - oh, and that one that weirdos sometimes put on their fish).

Stop looking at me like that.

I could be useful

So, this may seem like an inauspicious way to start a blog, but my hair is full of birdseed.

There was a coffee can full of yummy treats for the avians in the outdoor covered walkway, and I opened the side door to find it spilled everywhere. It appeared that something had used its teeth as a can-opener to pry off the plastic lid. Well, okay... raccoons get hungry too. They're a little rude and messy about it, but oh well. So I start scooping up handfuls to put back in the can, and decide to refill the bird-feeder while I'm at it. The bird-feeder is on a tall metal pole, so it can be seen from the kitchen window. By standing on a concrete block and stretching my arm over my head, I can just reach it. See where this is going?

Instead of hunting around for the plastic cup that we use for this purpose, I take a handful of birdseed and attempt to dump it into the feeder over my head. Half of it cascades down into my long, stupidly thick hair, where it somehow works its way down to the scalp and lodges immovably.

Now, either I spend half an hour brushing it out, or possibly having my daughter groom me like a monkey, or I could go out in the middle of the fields, sit very still, and see if the birds would just eat their breakfast out of my hair. I could be a human bird-feeder. Think it would work?

**reading: Shadow of the Ghost by Tanner Artesz. I'd been looking forward to this since I gave myself a teaser of the opening pages several weeks ago. It hooked me fast.

**reading aloud: The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. We're into the second section and the jury's still out.

**listening to: the birds. Apparently I got enough seed into the feeder that a party is warranted.