How do I love thee, recorded books? Let me count the ways...

     I want to say a few words about my love of… recorded books.  “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?  Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May…” alright, alright.

     But seriously, before you go thinking, “only old, blind, or people who have a 2 hour commute listen to recorded books,” think again, my friend!  I’m a recent convert to the recorded book arena, but I was an instant addict. There were looooong stretches of my weekdays (my weekdays... yes) in which I was listening to the radio.  I very quickly got sick of the top 40 rotation.  I tried other stations, but to no avail.  I even tried NPR (INTERESTING, mixed with long stretches of BOOOOORRRIIING!!!)  I started listening to my CD collection, but even that became old very quickly.  One day in the library, I had a “eureka” moment.  I saw a shelf marked "Playaways."  These little digital recordings take AA batteries (as I quickly discovered, because EVERY time I borrow one from the library, the batteries are dead), and your own pair of headphones or ear buds.  I liked the idea – they were cute, easy to operate, and best of all, inconspicuous!  

     I started with The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.  I was immediately hooked on Playaways (and by the way, the book was great, engaging and beautifully written, if I little gut-wrenching).  I can’t think of anything bad to say about Playaways, except, there just aren’t enough of them. I can’t afford to buy these things so I borrow them from the library, and there’s just one scant shelf of Playaways in my rather large local library.  But hey, there are books on CD, and those are great too.  Their only real drawbacks are sometimes scratched CDs and the more obvious fact that when you listen to them, everyone can hear what you’re hearing.  "Duh!" you're thinking.  Well, give some consideration to the fact that since everyone in the room can hear what you're "reading." You might not want to have your narrator reading an R rated paragraph while a G rated audience is in the room with you, so if you don't want to limit yourself to G-rated books, keep the volume faily low and position yourself within easy reach of the volume and pause buttons.  

     There are still times when an actual printed book can be indispensible, such as when I was learning the French names of the characters in The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.  I had to replay the first chapter of the book about 4 times before I got the important details of the main characters.  Once I had it straight, though, it was easy listening.  I've given up (for now) on the recorded versions of The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask because of those French names.  I may start each of them at home with the actual books as well as the recordings, just until I get the characters straight. 

     I had no such issues with these books, though: Angels and Demons, and Deception Point, by Dan Brown, Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, World Without End by Ken Follett, Helen of Troy by Margaret George, Atonement by Ian McEwan.   Pride and Prejudice, Lady Susan, and Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austin may have been a bit difficult if I hadn’t read two of the three of them in the more traditional way years before (and seen the movies, too).  Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt was hysterical at points, even though his poverty was harrowing.  And I just LOVED that Frank McCourt was the narrator.  I loved his oft repeated line, “they didn’t give the steam of their piss,” especially when I heard it in Mr. McCourt’s wonderful Irish accent.  The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns was also narrated by its author, Khaled Hosseini, and his accent lends a certain authenticity to the descriptions of places that held no appeal for me whatsoever until I listened to these two books.   Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side by Beth Fantaskey was fun, easily digestible fluff, as was Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith, and Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austin Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler.

     I just borrowed two more recorded books (on CD) and I’m already well into the first one.  They make boring chores like folding laundry and cooking dinner much more tolerable, and sitting in traffic is almost a pleasure.  Almost. 

Halloween Idiot

I am what you might call, a Halloween Idiot.  I invented the term approximately a week and a half ago, as I was frantically arranging my schedule to accommodate trips to the fabric store and to block out time on the sewing machine.  This year we were invited to a Halloween party, and as I was madly sewing one night, I thought, “I’m going through all this crazy effort to sew the PERFECT costume, and everyone else at the party is just going to buy theirs. What’s wrong with me?  I’m a Halloween idiot.”

I blame the start of this costume obsession on my mother because when I was a kid and all of my peers were wearing ugly plastic jumper costumes with plastic face masks and emblems on the chest of what you were supposed to be, my mother sewed us homemade costumes.  We’d walk up to each door and wow the neighbors. 

My costume obsession was cemented as soon as I learned to sew.  First, I was a mermaid (revisited with gusto and success a few years later), Cleopatra, Catwoman (a little risqué I must admit, even though I was completely covered), a Wild Thing (from the children’s book - complete with paper mache head), a medieval lady, Miss Spider (another children’s book and another paper mache head) which won me a gift certificate to dinner, by the way, and most recently before this year, 5 members of the cast of Jimmy Neutron, each with his or her own very large paper mache head.  What can I say?  I like to sculpt, and my medium is paper mache.

So this year, when we were invited to this Halloween party, I was kind of excited to flex my costume-making muscle.  But I don’t have a lot of time (this writing is subtracting from my snooze time, for example).  My dear spouse suggested we be Sonny and Cher, and I said,

“No way, I’m not going to be Sonny.”

Why do I think like that? 

I decided to be a pirate.  It could be a nice mixture of creativity and found items.  But of course, I tend to get obsessed with costumes.  I found a jacket in the thrift store and sewed lots of pirate-like trim on it.  I cut down some velour sweatpants so they would show my boots (I really liked that sweatsuit, but you know, sacrifices had to be made).  I made two necklaces, and then I made the lace-up vest from scratch, which came out great (thank you dad, for helping me with those grommets!) but was a pain in the ass with boning and lining and 3 broken sewing machine needles.  And here’s a secret that hints at my obsessiveness… I truly considered making the sword out of wood, then sanding and painting the blade silver and gluing large rhinestones on the hilt… wouldn’t that have been AWESOME?  But ultimately, I’m just not THAT nuts.

So in the end, the costume really did come out great.  Lots of people said so.  I hate those times when you have to explain what you are…  I always want it to be PAINFULLY OBVIOUS what I am.  The irony is, in my pride and glory I drank ONE nice, large Cosmo and had to be taken home by my husband after only about two hours.  Some pirate, eh?  I am truly a Halloween Idiot.

I love my new phone.  I now text.  Texting took so long on my old phone that I tried never to do it.  My old phone looked like this:

My new phone is a “slider” with a full, QWERTY keyboard.  I can take pictures and send them with ease.  I can upload pictures to Facebook (they’re usually upside down or sideways, but still).  Get this: I actually cut my thumbnails shorter the other day so they didn’t interfere with my texting!  I have begun to really appreciate my phone’s calendar (I’ve entered new appointments while standing still standing in the vicinity of the counter where I booked them – AWESOME) and I’ve used the Memo tool for my Costco and Wal-Mart shopping lists.  Plus (and this is very important) my phone is a nice color pink and it has decorative squiggles on the back

– the only way I might like it better is if it was a nice periwinkle blue with sparkley squiggles and it talked to me throughout the day when appropriate like a positive personal assistant.  “Don’t forget you have physical therapy for your shoulder this afternoon and by the way, that new ring of yours is GORGEOUS!” 

Still.

I have a limited number of people who call me on the cell phone and I still do NOT want to be accessible all the time.  I know that some people do this.  Kids especially.  How do they do it?  Better yet, WHY do they do it?  It must take forever to do everything…  “morning. What r u wearing?” “IDK yet. im taking a poo right now.” Well, maybe it’s not that bad, but it’s got to be close.  I remember in high school, spending HOURS on the phone with my friends, and we were in the same classes as well.  My dad always knew where I was because all he had to do was follow the long phone cord (We had 2 twenty foot cords connected together. YES, those were the days before cordless phones.)  He sometimes had to yell at me to get off the phone at 9:00 p.m. because I had been talking since dinner ended, but at least when that happened, there were no midnight consultations, no comparing and contrasting of gossip when I should have been sleeping, no "he said" "she said" at the bleary eyed hour of 2 a.m.  I remember reading an article a few years ago that said that most teenagers are sleep deprived because they send text messages into the wee hours of the morning.  It can’t be THAT bad, I thought.  I asked a class of 9^th graders, just for curiosity’s sake, how many of them regularly stayed up past 2:00 a.m. sending and receiving text messages, and HALF THE CLASS raised their hands!  Yikes.  Did their parents know?  I wondered.

I love my new phone, but not that much. 

My New Best Friend

Meet my new friend…

Coffee.

I’ve been acquainted with coffee since childhood.   I used to sip my dad’s demitasse cup of black coffee after dinner when we ate over my grandparents’ house.   I liked it, but only a sip at a time.  The tiny cup… the tiny spoon…  the mountains of sugar my dad added to it.  In my eyes, it was coffee made for a kid.  Plus, it really pleased my relatives to see me drinking espresso; they thought I had really Italian sensibilities.  But I could never get into brown coffee.  It was just so bitter.  It always came in such a large cup, too – who could drink that much?  So instead, for a long time, I copied mom.  She liked tea.  But then she started doing weird things with her tea as she got older, like dipping the teabag for only about 10 seconds before taking it out.  The lighter the tea, the better.  It was like drinking hot, colored water.

Yuck. 

But that’s another story altogether.  Coffee is not colored water. 

When I was student teaching, I also had to take a statistics class on Saturday mornings. Class started at 9:00 a.m.  I went to the first class (three consecutive hours of math – just shoot me) and I struggled to stay awake.  I remember when I was driving there the next Saturday, I had an epiphany…  I got a Starbucks Café Mocha, hoping it would keep me awake, and eureka, in those moments I had discovered the wonder of caffeine.  I stayed awake for the whole class.  Awake, alert, and ready to learn, baby!

Still, I converted to daily coffee drinking in small steps.  At home, we signed up for Gevalia, mostly for the free coffee pot.  What a pleasant surprise!  If you haven’t tried Gevalia, you should.  I think it’s the best coffee around, overall.  Then again, I’m not a professional coffee drinker, so what do I know, really?  I just know that Gevalia is great, and my aunt’s coffee, for example, tastes like Draino, even if you try to disguise it with lots of sugar and a quarter cup of milk.  Anyway, eventually, we moved on from Gevalia (which is pretty expensive, and it’s hard to make a pot of coffee when you really want just one cup) to a Keurig coffee maker with my new favorite coffee:  Green Mountain Columbian Fair Trade Select.  I love it.  A just opened box of k-cups from Costco is a beautiful sight. 

I’ve noticed that coffee is more than just the taste, it’s the whole experience… it’s the sound of the pot in the morning (whatever sound your pot makes), the smell, the warmth of the cup in your hand.  Holding the cup as you walk around at work (if you’ve gifted yourself with a travel mug, like I have) is like wearing your comfy bedroom slippers at work.  I ask you, who cannot use another few minutes of comfy slippers in the morning?

Wishin' it was still summer...

We are in the middle of one clammy, nasty week, weather wise.  It's dark, dreary, and misty (somehow Stephanie Meyer made this weather fashionable in her Twilight series, but Edward/Jacob or not, I still hate it)  The humidity is so high, my hair looks like a giant puff-ball, and it's that in-between temperature that makes you alternate between feeling hot and feeling cold. 

I've been wanting to post pictures, but last time I attempted such an endeavor, my picture was horribly fitted to the page, and I couldn't figure out how to fix it.  For this (I think, fairly successful attempt!)  I've chosen a picture I took at a local beach a little over a month ago.  The weather was great and the beach wasn't too crowded.  I was relaxing while the kids caught fiddler crabs in a bucket when  my daughter suddenly said, "Mommy, LOOK at those seagulls!"  I took loads of shots but somehow every time I managed to miss the seagull on the right sticking his head right into the beach bag and fishing out potato chips.   What a riot!  I probably should have shooed them away, but it was way too funny, and I was too busy trying to take their picture...  Ah, I miss summer, don't you?

Groin Strike - YIKES!

First, I want to say that I really like karate.  Maybe you’re wondering what kind of karate I’m talking about so I’m going to state for the record that I started out doing Kempo, and now it’s Shoren Ru or some other such name like that, but for all I care, it’s just Regular Karate.

Regular Karate is the kind where you learn how to punch and kick people, and you feel like you’re TOUGH.  You can kick some ASS.  You can take someone out (Not that you would, but technically, you could.  Although, I’m not sure I could, but that’s the theory.) It’s especially cool if you get to wear the black gi pants, but if you have to wear the white ones (let’s face it, what girl really prefers to wear white pants, especially baggy ones, unless you’re getting paid lots of money to do a Tampax commercial?) you will still feel cool when you do things like roundhouse kicks and elbow strikes.  I’m noticing, though, that the further I get into this, the more I run into things that strike fear into my heart.  Things like:  BREAK FALL.  TWO MILE RUN.  And most recently…

GROIN STRIKE

Oh my GOD!  Am I actually going to have to hit someone in the groin? Worse, is someone going to groin strike me??  You know, not that we actually hit each other hard when we’re practicing, but when you’re doing a chin strike for example, you make contact with the chin.  GROIN STRIKE.  YIKES!!

When the sensei was demonstrating, I paid careful attention.  How was he handling it? Although, could I even use him as an example?  He’s the SENSEI, for crying out loud, of course he can handle a groin strike with aplomb! Ah, I saw that he pretended to strike, but stopped just short, which was convenient for the other person (in this case, the victim, or was that the attacker?) who then had to grab the wrist to prevent the groin strike. 

Oh, did I tell you that I have personal space issues? 

I have personal space issues.

And my partner for the day was a young man.  Oh my.  I could do this.  I was not a wimp. The drill began with a two handed bear hug (personal space!) by the attacker to pin down the victim’s arms.   I stood in front of my partner, ready to pin down his arms.  Suddenly, a pair of black belts (conveniently, a young man and a young woman) came to our rescue.  Whewww…  I don’t have to pretend to grab the groin of a young man, but you know, pretending to grab the groin of a young woman is just as bad (worse?  Just as bad in a different way?).  Now, boobs were an issue.  I don’t want to hug someone with boobs unless it’s one of my sisters or a really good friend and one of us is really happy or having an emotional meltdown (Did I tell you…?  Nevermind.)

I got past the awkwardness by concentrating on remembering the next step and feeling awkward about that instead. Those black belts – in addition to having mastered all sorts of ways to kick ass, they have also mastered the issue of personal space.    

I’ve done this drill a few more times since that first time, but it’s still not my favorite.  I’d rather pretend to chop someone in the bicep, hyperextend their arm, or even bend them over and get them in a headlock while they turn and pretend to bite my leg.  The next time the bear-hug-then-groin-strike drill comes up, I’m going to try and concentrate only on the fact that I’m learning to kick ass.

DISAPPOINTMENT - 11 year old style...

     My son is extremely disappointed that his game, Halo Reach, didn’t arrive in the mail today, as scheduled.  We special ordered the game from Costco.com for his birthday, which was last week on the first day of school (the poor kid).  In spite of playing video games way too often (is this the case with most 11 year old boys?) he wanted this game like kids in the early 80's wanted Rubic's cubes... Smurfs... Cabbage Patch dolls, oh you know, he HAD TO GET IT.  According to my son, this stupendous, miraculous game had its world wide release TODAY, September 14, 2010. (Is he SURE it’s today?  I think it must be tomorrow.)  But when he got home from dischool, he checked the mailbox.  Nothing.  Checked the front porch, where the UPS man usually leaves packages.  Nothing.  There were no Post-It-like notes stuck to the front screen door, ala, Fed Ex. Man.  This being the case, I ask you, what is a newly-turned-11-year-old boy to do?  He’s been pacing the floor since he got home from school.  He did his homework in a microsecond, anticipating the delivery of the videogame package, knowing I wouldn’t let him open it until the homework was done.  All for nothing.  (Who cares about education?  Not my son!)  His life was a total disappointment, he informed me.  (Yeah, who cares about the bike he got this summer, and all the great things we did in the past two months?)  I joked with him, "Yeah, it's the end of the world.”  “It IS,” he tells me.  He starts a negative rant about Costco, telling me he’ll never buy another thing there again (… which is no big loss for Costco, since it’s really ME that does the shopping there, and I have no intention of boycotting.)  As a matter of fact, he’ll never even set FOOT in Costco again.  I imagine him standing just outside the wide open doorway of our local Costco, arms folded in front of his chest, and chin up in the air, as a few employees try to coax him inside to no avail.   I chuckle. “My life is over.” He informs me.   We are sitting in the parking lot at his karate dojo when he tells me this.  He’s flopping around the car, venting his disappointment and frustration.  "Ok, It’s time for karate," I tell him.  He gives me a joking glare and states dramatically, “I’m not going in there until my video game is delivered!” but when I glare back at him he knows I’m serious and he heads inside. 

     In my boring, adult mind, I keep thinking, I can't believe he's making such a big deal out of this, but you know, tomorrow, when the game does arrive, he's going to be the happiest little man in the world, and I'll be marveling (and appreciating) the pure simplicity of boys.