denise

Booking Through Thursday

Booking Through Thursday

Pick one of your favorite authors.  Ummmm I don’t do favorites!  OK fine, since Alexander McCall Smith is coming to town, I’ll pick him.

  1. What are some of your favorite books by this author? #1 Ladies Detective Agency
  2. Why do you like this author?   I like the characters in this series
  3. Have you read everything by this author? Why or why not? Nope.  The Philosophy Club book I read was boring.  And then the one about sausage dogs, argh, that was worse than boring!

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Daily Dose of Work – Freebies

Work? For free? – aka volunteering?  Mark Glazer wants to know why you and I "work for free".  It’s a "nagging question" for him. 

Is this such a difficult concept to grasp? Couldn’t you make a list of 100 reasons people volunteer their time, effort and knowledge?  Or am I wrong?  Is it hard for you to figure out why AOL had more volunteers than it knew what to do with? Or why iVillage still has a million volunteer CLs even though iVillage is less than good to its volunteers?  Or why you can’t throw a stone in a suburban neighborhood without hitting a PTA mommy? Or why you can’t wander through a big city without bumping into a soup kitchen volunteer?  Or why women are happily contributing blog posts to Blogher? 

I wonder if people who don’t have a strong history of volunteerism are the ones who have the biggest problem understanding the work for free  concept.

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Thinking Out Loud – 10th Grade Reading List

**Originally posted in September 2005 and Edited on March 27, 2006**

We’ve made some deviations in the plan, as expected. Some good deviations, others not so good

Original plan:

  • Herland
  • Watership Down
  • Anthem
  • The Scarlett Letter (up next)
  • Jane Eyre
  • Clockwork Orange
  • The Good Earth
  • Gone With the Wind
  • Odd Girl Out

Added:

  • Persepolis – my mom insisted, she was bored, she read 1/4 and gave up
  • Breakfast at Tiffany’s – good addition
  • Stupid White men – she got annoyed by “stupid white men” and put it down halfway
  • Night – great addition
  • Lion, Witch & Wardrobe – ok addition – she didn’t like it and I never did either, which is why she never read it when she was young
  • White Oleander – great for her, not necessarily a great educational choice
  • City of Beasts – good addtion, Allende for young adults
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Daily Dose of Stuff – Monday

Monday
I haven’t had a child in diapers in more than 10 years.  TW hasn’t had a child in diapers in a few years.  So why are these sample packs in my house? 

No they aren’t leftovers from when E was little.  They arrive addressed to me.  I get them for the same reason various baby sites around the web send me mail telling me my baby is "9 months old" or I’m in my "2nd trimester" or my "toddler is getting to be as annoying as all…." I get them because my boss regularly sends me out to review these sites and so they have my name, my address and my email address. 

They are still in my house because, unlike other samples, I simply cannot throw away perfectly good diapers!  It’s wrong!  Diapers are expensive! Someone might need them! Forget that I don’t know anyone who needs diapers.  Forget that it is unlikely I’ll know anyone who needs diapers til Jenn manages the task.  Forget that it is incredibly likely that once I do know someone who needs to diapers I won’t be able to find these until the child moves to the next stage – even though for the last 3 years one of us has always known where the sample diaper boxes are.  It’s just the way things work around here.  You know exactly where useless stuff is until it becomes useful and then amnesia sets in or someone trying to be helpful moved it. 

LJ has a toy in her house and she doesn’t know why.  Lee, the creator of this meme, has   four cds by someone who shall remain nameless til you go look and doesn’t want to admit why.  Why do YOU have THAT in your house?  Come on, join the fun!

 

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Daily Dose of Queer – News

The HRC has an interesting videocast called Equally Speaking – Your Morning Dose of GLBT News.  Sounds ok, and it is, but it also seems a little silly to me.  I’ve watched four of the videocasts and there weren’t any stories I hadn’t already heard.  I must be missing something.  Aren’t these stories on all of the majore broadcast stations, in virtually the same presentation?  Maybe I’m just missing the anti-gay spin that major networks put on GLBT news?

I’m not suggesting the HRC shouldn’t have an audiocast or a videocast, I’m just saying it’s probably not something I’m going to listen to/watch.  I read a variety of news blogs, gay and straight – conservative and liberal – a 3 minute videocast every morning feeding me stories I’ve already read just isn’t very useful to me.

Go peek, will you be tuning into Equally Speaking?

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Hollow Chocolate Bunnies

When I blogged about Over Easy I got a really great book recommendation from Fausti – Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse. I immediately reserved it at the library and it’s been in the house for several months now (thanks to the magic of online renewal!).

I finally picked it up a couple of days ago. Read the first chapter and thought hmmmm, is this suppose to be good? TW said it was very good, she read it last month. So I picked it up again and read another 100 pages the next day and yes, it was good! (I think the lack of nicotine on day 2 of my quit caused the lackluster first chapter) I had trouble putting it down today, it was that good. And definitely better than the Nursery Crimes book of Ffordes’!

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Daily Dose of Women – Africa

Last week I sent Luna Pads to Zimbabwe and the next donation I’m sending is to the Fistula Foundation.  We hear an awful lot of about female genital mutilation but not so much about menstrual hygiene or fistulas.

Now someone find me an organization that is working on ending unsafe abortions in Africa, please.  I’ll happily add it to my charitable contributions list.

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Daily Dose of Hate – Money

Don’t ask me why I am reading I will teach you to be rich, I can’t answer that question anymore than I could have answered it when I was reading Hello Dollar.  Maybe I can answer it.  Now that I think about it.  I think I am reading it (and read Hello Dollar before it) because it’s almost normal to do so and I have hope that I won’t always hate thinking about money, talking about money, moving money around and spending money.  Being rich is not my thing, paying my bills is my thing and that’s pretty much where I draw the line.  If I’ve got more money around than that, then I give it away. 

Where was I?  Oh yea I was here and trying to come up with things I hate spending money on – like a normal person.  The answer everything is not normal, right?  So I read the post and the comments and then the follow up post and comments.  And I saved both as new and released them and went back and grabbed them and saved them as new and then released them again.  See, even reading blogs about money makes me more nuts than I already am!  What do I hate spending money on?  Here’s my list, and it’s making me nervous to even begin to type it.  Not as nervous as that 101 things list but close….

1) Healthcare.  After 41 years of not paying for healthcare, of never paying for a prescription and of buying over the counter medications only rarely, I still can’t get use to paying for healthcare.  Either the insurance payments or the copays.  Michelle and Chris’s copays I pretty much have gotten use to but my own and TW’s – those make no sense.  I am always surprised by something that either is or isn’t covered and in my head any RX copay should be $9, that’s the Tricare way and I’m finally use to that.  Avmed and Blue Cross should both follow along, it’s the only thing Tricare seems to do right.

2) "Well Car Check-ups".  These make absolutely no sense to me at all.  I hate them, hate spending money on them and have finally, after the last one, refused to ever participate in them again.  Ever.  For any reason.

3) Parking.  I hate paying for parking whether it is a parking meter or a parking garage or airport parking or a field across from a concert. 

4) Service charges when buying tickets or services online.  $3.95 service charge at Gatorfood.  $7.50 at Ticketmaster.  $2 at  Fandango.  Blah. 

And there you go.  My list.  Kind of boring.  I could have talked about how I hate spending money on food and stuff like that but that would scare you, some of you more than others but still probably not a good to scare you for no good reason, right?

What’s on your list?  Weird stuff like food or normal stuff like parking?

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