The Girl Who Played Go

2010, Books in Bed, Fiction /

My library cart is kind of boring right now. I was so caught up in trying to finish my challenges that I didn’t keep up with requesting books and I found myself with a cart full of paranormal romance and non-fiction that I didn’t check out. And, a grown woman can only read so much Nancy Drew before her head starts to spin so… I grabbed the only thing that looked interesting, The Girl Who Played Go.

Before I started reading, I had to figure out how to play Go. I could picture the game but I wasn’t sure I knew the rules. TW looked it up for me on her iPhone then I got my iPhone and installed a Go app and played a game. I’m really bad at it… which won’t surprise Michelle since she beats me handily at a similar game on the iPad…

Then, I started to read. At first I thought the young man in the story was the girl who played go’s brother. It took me a minute to realize the chapters alternate between the story of a Manchurian girl and the story of a Japanese soldier  – and then once they meet, their stories are more intertwined.

The book was good. It was a quick read. The ending was harsh. Very, very harsh. I didn’t expect that, though I should have since war is harsh and soldiers are often cruel.

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He’s Looking at HER

2 Comments / Family Funk, Friends & Family, Pets /

You know how I said TW’s mother likes her dog? Well she does but… on Monday, just as I was writing about how the rest of us dislike her dog, partly because he looks at us… this is what I heard coming from the living room:

TW’s mother: What? What do you want?

Silence

TW’s mother: I don’t know what you want!

Silence (except for my stifled giggles)

TW’s mother: I think the dog needs to go out!!!!!!

Me: He just came in, he doesn’t need to go out.

TW’s mother: I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT!

Silence

TW’s mother: (frantically) What do you want??????????

Me, to TW: Apparently she doesn’t like it when he looks at her either.

TW’s mother: WHAT DO YOU WANT?

Silence

TW’s mother shuffles into the office, on the way to her bedroom, a few minutes later…

TW’s mother: I don’t know what he wants. He just kept looking at me.

TW: Welcome to the club.

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He’s Looking at ME!

2 Comments / Animal Issues, Daily Dose, Kid Talk /

You know all of the times one of my kids said that about one of his/her siblings, it annoyed the hell out of me. I was really kind of looking forward to all of the kids getting beyond the age where they said that. The number of times I heard it in a week had greatly diminished, and not just because the three big kids don’t live with us. It diminished because… the kids are growing up. And that was nice.

But then TW’s mother moved in and she brought that dog.

I don’t particularly like the dog. In fact, I pretty much hate him. I’m not the only one. Nobody in the house likes him even a tiny bit – well nobody except TW’s mom, she likes him which is as it should be since he is her damn dog. But whatever. I don’t like him. We don’t like him. The only person in the family who hasn’t said something bad about him (besides TW’s mom, who doesn’t count because she’s biased) is Christopher. Christopher likes animals better than people but even Christopher is troubled by this dog. You can tell by the way Christopher sheepishly looks at one of us when we curse him under our breath (curse the dog, not Christopher. When we curse Christopher, we do it really loudly – or via text message.)

I try really hard to ignore the dog except when I have to take him out. Or feed him. Or clean up the mess he has strewn from one end of the house to another – he eats paper. Even then I try to ignore him because if I don’t, I’ll say something like “I really hate that dog” and after I say it a few times, TW gets annoyed. She thinks you should just say it once and that should be enough – at least until SHE decides she needs to hate on him a bit, then it’s fine to say it more than once. Whatever.

The real issue though, with the dog, is that he looks at us.

And we do not like it one tiny bit.

Sometimes TW leaves the bedroom door open, or maybe one of the kids does, while I’m reading in bed. I look up and there’s that dog looking at me. Sometimes we’re standing on the back porch and he’s not using the bathroom, he’s just standing there – staring at me. I don’t like it. And sometimes I actually say, “He’s looking at me!!!”

On Sunday, Elly woke up in a really bad mood. TW listed all of the annoyances being faced by poor Elly:

1)      TW made pancakes and didn’t put chocolate chips in them. (Oh noes!)

2)      TW refused to let Elly add chocolate chips to the top of them. (Gasp!)

3)      Prince J was chewing! In that loud way he does but even louder. On purpose! (Oh the injustice!… but really I  understand this because sometimes people chewing bugs me too, and I told TW this. She said I sound like my mother. Whatever.)

4)      KOTO LOOKED AT HER! (Well. There you have it. I can’t argue with that. )

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Chains

2 Comments / 2010, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites /

We listened to Chains on audio and it took a good bit longer to finish than I expected. For some reason I had it in my head that it was a short book, it wasn’t. It was pretty darn good, though. At first, I was skeptical. I like Laurie Halse Anderson’s contemporary YA fiction and I wasn’t sure she could pull off something about slaves just prior to and in the early days of the Revolutionary War but she did it. And she did it well.

I’ve got a little love/hate with the ending. I guess it did end as it should have (and goodness knows, she’d have needed another 400 pages to get us to another ending…) but I would really have liked to find out what happens next. Hah… good thing there’s a sequel… though reading the synopsis on Amazon leads me to wonder if I’m going to be happy with what happens next. I’m reserving it on audio now.

And with this book, I’ve finished the Middle Grade Fiction books from the Cybils Shortlist – they were all excellent choices, every darn one of them.

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Mistress in the Art of Death

2010, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, From the Stacks Challenge, Women /

Yipeee! I finished my From the Stacks (by color) Challenge today, with Mistress of the Art of Death. This was a good book to finish with – a long read, not because of the number of pages, but because of the complexity of the story. There was a lot to follow. I loved the ending. It would have been so easy to tie everything up in a neat and tidy (patriarchal package) – this way was better, much much better.

Long live King Henry II!

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Hibernating

1 Comment / Animal Issues, Family Funk /

The prairie dogs are fine – I know some of you were wondering. They’re spending a lot of time in their nest, cuddled up together with a pair of RJ’s old jeans and all of their bedding around them to keep them warm. I’m not even sure I’ve seen Pebbles for more than a week. She doesn’t like to climb, lazy fat thing that she is. Not that Wilma and Betty are that much better.

(And as I write this, who should climb out of her nest? Pebbles. I bet she’s hungry.)

So photos are going to be scarce for awhile – unless we can figure out a way to warm up the house, bring in more sunlight, and coax them out of their nice warm beds.

In the meantime, here’s a shot of them taken in October, before it got cold. They used to sleep in this food bin, all lined up like little loaves of bread.

Three Loaves

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Into the Wild Nerd Yonder

1 Comment / 2010, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Fiction, Young Adult /

I had a hard time getting started with Into the Wild Nerd Yonder. I read the first five words about fifty times before I got anywhere and then I was pretty amused with the whole thing. There’s an awful lot of teen sex talk in this little YA novel. Girls giving blow jobs. Girls contracting STDs from said boys. Lots of trying to fit in with this crowd or that crowd. In the end, it all works out for the best – which often doesn’t happen in high school. And, this story almost made me wish I played D&D… and sewed. Almost.

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Poorly Chosen Vacation Days

2 Comments / Daily Dose, Kid Talk, Work /

When Diane nicely emailed me last month to remind me that I have a zillion hours of PTO and that I really needed to begin to use some of those hours, I laughed because I’d just been thinking about that very thing. After clarifying with her that I really don’t have a zillion hours and I only have about a trillion, I decided I’d take a few days off early in November in order to catch up on some stuff that I haven’t had time to do.

I looked at the calendar, nothing jumped out at me as the perfect days to take some time off. I asked TW if she had any preferences, she did not provide any input. I looked at the calendar again.

I decided on Thursday and Friday because the little kids would be here and I could help TW with the driving to school and stuff. And I chose Monday because I knew we were going to have an especially busy weekend with our circus adventure on Sunday. There’s nothing worse than waking up Monday morning and feeling like you didn’t have any “weekend” time.

Smart choices, right?

All of this made even more sense once I found out that on top of the normal kid busy-ness and the circus, we would be driving RJ to hell and back all weekend long for her high school play. Thank goodness I took Monday off, right? Right!

Thursday was a most excellent day off and I was feeling pretty darn good about my PTO — until this morning.

5am and RJ is barreling down the stairs (which are right outside of our bedroom.)  I did manage to fall back asleep but the alarm went off at 6am. I groaned and thought about going back to sleep – TW could just take the kids to school and I could enjoy my vacation by sleeping in. Hah. That doesn’t work because both RJ and the Prince use the shower in my bathroom. I sighed. Got out of bed. Made my way blearily to the bathroom. Threw on some clothes. Stumbled to the door and there was RJ tapping her foot waiting to get in to my bathroom.

At that point I wondered what in the hell I was thinking when I scheduled vacation during a kid weekend – a kid weekend when the kids have to go to school. There’s nothing worse than being on vacation and having RJ wake you up at 5am, barrel past you into your bathroom for a shower, and obsessing about how late she’s going to be when you pull up in front of her school more than a half hour before the first damn bell.

That is not relaxing. That is not the stuff vacations are supposed to be made of.

Someone remind me of this when I prepare to take my PTO hours in February, ok?

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