ONE-LINE SUMMARY: When Mac’s sister is mysteriously murdered in Ireland, MacKayla (Mac) discovers that she has the power to see the Fairy Court and becomes engaged in a battle against evil.
In order to read this book, you have to first get past the half-naked bodies on the cover and the author’s apparent history of writing romance books. Once you accept that the author still hasn’t quite found the line that would bring her more solidly into the fantasy realm, the book is actually entertaining enough to pick up further sequels.
But you do have to be open-minded. There are numerous descriptions of Mac’s clothing as “pretty,” which doesn’t seem so irritating until you realize that there is no reason for all these mentions. Do I need to know that the silver sandals Mac props on a coffee table are pretty? No. In fact, I don’t even need to know they’re silver.
One of the most unintentionally hilarious bits in this book is when Mac gets caught in a rainstorm and goes into a bookstore. She explains, “I love books…way more than movies. Movies tell you what to think. A good book lets you choose a few thoughts for yourself. Movies show you the pink house. A good book tells you there’s a pink house and lets you paint some of the finishing touches, maybe choose the roof style, park your own car out front.”
Less than twenty pages later, this description appears: “This morning I’d awakened to find a wide band of bruises across my torso, just beneath my breasts. I couldn’t wear a bra because the underwire hurt too much, so I’d layered a lacy camisole trimmed with dainty roses beneath a pink sweater that complemented my Razzle-Dazzle-Hot-Pink-Twist manicure and pedicure. Black capris, a wide silver belt, silver sandals, and a small metallic Juicy Couture purse I’d saved all last summer to buy completed my outfit. I’d swept my long blonde hair up in a high ponytail, secured by a pretty enameled clip.”
No, no, no. We do not need this kind of detail in this kind of book. Are you a movie, or a book? (That being said, this has probably already been optioned for a movie. Gorgeous young male immortals, ugly special-effects type monsters, hot young fighting woman on a personal revenge mission, AND fairies that can MAKE YOU HAVE SEX WITH THEM. This is a winner by Hollywood standards.)
However, despite the occasional foray into cheesy paperback romance description, I still enjoyed the book. The plot is enough to keep me interested, and the second book in the series, Bloodfever, is much improved in the romance description department. I’ll be following this series — cautious, but hopeful.
ONE-LINE SUMMARY: Merle, a dog who wanders into the author’s life, enjoys life in rural Wyoming.
Okay, I realize the one-line summary is lame, but it’s hard to describe a book which is essentially the autobiography of a dog. I don’t usually read books about dogs’ lives anymore because I cry too much if the dog dies. Marley and Me, for example, sat on my bookshelf for over a year before I finally re-sold it on Ebay, unread, because I was afraid to read it.
As usual with dog books, I flipped to the end of this book at the library to see if the dog dies at the end. Yes, the dog dies at the end. Yes, I used up half a box of Kleenex during the last 30 pages; what’s it to you?
Despite the waterworks, I still enjoyed this book. Merle had a very unusual dog life–an owner who cared for him, but was also willing to let Merle lead his own life. Merle was able to walk around town, unleashed, unbothered, mainly because of the town where the author lives.
Merle is quite a character, but there is more than just a dog’s story here. Kerasote also offers interesting scientific studies on animals’ brains. For example, he describes a study in which it was found that it wasn’t exercise that mattered so much for increasing the size of a rat’s brain, but more that the rat had complex, engaging exercise. What does this mean? It means I have to build that agility course for Stanley.
This book is recommended, but only if you buy your tissues from warehouse clubs and are in no danger of running out.
Last week my cousins came for a visit. Now that I have become old, I rely upon them to tell me the latest news — what’s hot, what’s not, and are my jeans from 1995 really back in style now? (Answer: Yes. Whoopee!)
Cousin Terry arrived with her new Sonicare toothbrush, and she told me that Costco was selling two Sonicare brushes in one pack.
“They even have a coupon this week,” she added.
“My dentist said we should try these,” I said. “Are they any good?”
“So far it seems pretty good,” Terry said. “It comes with three brushes, two handles, and a charger. I gave the extra toothbrush to my mother and she bought her own charger so she could use it. But you and Chris could share the charger that comes with the Costco pack.”
“Yeah, actually Chris wanted us to share the toothbrush handle and just swap the brushes off each time,” I said. “But I don’t know that I want to do that every morning and night.”
After the cousins had departed, I told Chris about the Costco package.
“We don’t need two handles,” he said immediately. “We can just put our own brush on the handle and take turns.”
“Is your company going to pay for me to go on your business trips with you so that I can brush my teeth while you’re gone?” I asked.
“Oh,” he said, and we went to Costco and bought the Sonicare package.
The handles needed to be charged for 24 hours, so I put one handle into the charger and waited. The next day, I switched the handles. Experimentally, I pushed the power button on the charged toothbrush. A loud grinding noise came from the brush, and I hurriedly shut it off. It wasn’t supposed to be that loud, was it?
I turned on the power to the other handle, and an even worse noise rattled out. Okay, maybe both handles needed to be charged some more.
While I waited, I IM’d cousin Terry.
“Are these toothbrushes supposed to be so loud?” I typed.
“They’re not loud,” she typed back. “I can hear it when it’s in my mouth, but someone standing next to you can’t hear it.”
Earlier tonight I tested out the toothbrush again. I carefully placed a blob of toothpaste onto the brush, and turned it on.
The loud grinding noise started up again, and the toothbrush began to vibrate vigorously in my hand, so vigorously that the toothpaste leapt off the brush and fell into the sink. This didn’t seem right.
I contemplated the naked toothbrush for a few seconds and then shut it off so that I could reapply the toothpaste. This time I made sure to press the paste into the bristles of the brush.
I turned the brush on again, and gingerly brought it toward my mouth. The directions for the toothbrush had said the initial vibrations would start out gentle and gradually increase to the maximum, recommended pressure, but I already felt like my teeth were being jackhammered out of my mouth.
Grimly, I hung on to the brush and kept going, switching sides of my mouth every time the toothbrush beeped to let me know that 30 seconds had passed. Every time I changed angles, toothpaste would ricochet off my teeth and spray the air around me.
I had known for a while now that two minutes is the recommended amount of time to brush, but I had never really grasped how long two minutes actually is until tonight. Because I was too afraid to pause my toothbrush, I just kept brushing until the toothbrush suddenly stopped vibrating and automatically shut off after the two minutes had ended.
My teeth actually felt cleaner than they usually do after a brushing. But the rest of me? I had long trails of toothpaste swimming down my mouth because I hadn’t taken time out to spit, and there was toothpaste on the sink, the mirror, my forehead, and even a long streak down the side of my hair. Teeth: clean. Rest of me: not so much.
Posted by: ssjane | November 27, 2007 | 8:55 pm
Posted in: This Life | Comments Off
…you clean up the house to get ready to sell it, and it is so clean that not only can’t you find any of your stuff, but the dog trots around the house with the chickie in her mouth and has to stop every few feet to look up at you like, “Where the fuck have all my beds gone?”
Posted by: ssjane | November 27, 2007 | 10:58 am
Posted in: Bits | Dogs | Comments Off
“Well, I never heard back from you about any of my emails, so nowhere. It’s too late now!”
“Should we go to Minado or Chinatown?’
“I don’t know.”
“Chinatown is good but so far away. Maybe Minado. Or Chinatown?”
“I don’t care…neither one has turkey, and I wanted to eat turkey on Thanksgiving Day.”
“Minado will have turkey, maybe.”
“TURKEY SUSHI?!? Well, I guess if we don’t know what time Auntie will arrive, Minado’s better so we can just show up to the restaurant when they arrive. They’re going to hit traffic.”
“We still have to make reservations, even at Minado. Can you call and make reservations? Twelve people. Six o’ clock! Then we bring the kids to dinner and they go home to your house after dinner.”
“Why can’t you call and make the reservations? And why six? That’s so late! What will all the kids do at your house the whole afternoon?”
“I don’t know, just something.”
“Why not 5:30?”
“Well, we don’t know what time Auntie will arrive, so can you call? Twelve people, six o’ clock?”
“Why don’t you want to call?”
“You speak English better!”
“But they don’t! You can talk to them! They’re Asian!”
“No, they’re not Asian. They’re Korean.”
“KOREAN IS ASIAN, MOM!!”
“Well, anyway you speak better.”
“Fine!”
(A few minutes later)
“Hello?”
“Hi Dad. Just tell Mom the reservations at Minado are all set. Twelve people, six o’ clock.”
“Six! Why so late? What we gonna do all day?”
“That’s what I asked Mom!”
“You better talk her.”
“Hello?”
“Hi Mom, the reservations are all set. Twelve people, six o’ clock, under the name Jane. And by the way, they don’t speak English that well, either.”
“Six? I thought you were going to book 5:30?”
“You never agreed to 5:30!!”
“Yes, I did, didn’t I?”
“NO. DO YOU WANT ME TO CALL THEM BACK?”
“Well, I guess forget it, just do six. Wait, Daddy want to talk to you again.”
“Jane.”
“Yes, Dad.”
“My send button gone, only can forward! I push forward but nothing happen.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Earthlink so stupid, no send button!”
“Are you trying to write an email?”
“Yes, I ty to send Alice my schedule to confirm trip.”
“Maybe you should send it to me, too, so I know when I’m supposed to drive you to the airport.”
“Okay, fine, but not working. I keep pushing forward and nothing show up, I try to forward Mom but she doesn’t get it.”
“Did you try sending it to another address?”
“I push forward, nothing happen.”
“I mean, try emailing it to me.”
“But I’m still writing message, not final yet.”
“JUST SEND ME ANYTHING, just write test on it.”
“Okay…to Jane…now no send button.”
“Are you using Microsoft Outlook or webmail?”
“What you mean?”
“Outlook — are you using Outlook? Or what URL, web site, are you looking at?”
“HTML.”
“You mean http? But what’s the web site?”
“Just html!”
“Okay, how are you writing the email?”
“Microsoft.”
“THAT’S WHAT I ALREADY ASKED YOU. Microsoft Outlook. So what’s wrong?”
“I see file, edit, view, insert, format, tools, action…usually action show send, but now only forward!”
“You don’t see a bunch of buttons like Send, Accounts…”
“No, I have file, edit, view, insert…”
“Okay, listen. I think you must have hit something and removed the toolbar. Right click to the side of where it says Help…”
“I didn’t change anything! I didn’t touch anything! I have no bar.”
“Well, something happened! Try right-clicking in the blue bar, where it says file, edit, view…”
“One second, Mom using computer. I let you talk her.”
“Mom?”
“Font, bold, italics…”
“What are you doing, Mom?”
“Oh, I thought maybe try right-clicking, but it just gives me font, bold, italics…”
“Where are you right-clicking, Mom?”
“In the box.”
“Okay. Do you see something that says “tools”?
“Yes, then Actions, and usually Action have Send but now it’s not there.”
“Go to tools, and hit customize. Then click on the tab that says toolbars.”
“Tools, customize. Font, bold, italics…”
“What did you do? You want the tab that says toolbars. Did you go to Tools, and then pick Customize?”
“Of course! Tools, customize…oh, you want toolbars?”
“YES. Do you see something that says standard?”
“OH, that need to be checked off?”
“YES.”
“Oh, now it’s all back!”
“Dad must have hit something. He said he didn’t, but this doesn’t change on its own.”
(In background, “I change nothing!”)
“Mom, you know why we want you and Dad to live with us? It’s for our own benefit, so we don’t get ULCERS trying to talk to you on the phone.”
Posted by: ssjane | November 20, 2007 | 9:21 pm
Posted in: This Life | Comments Off
Here’s how Britney’s dance for the VMAs was supposed to look.
The dance moves don’t seem that complicated and yet…and yet…Britney couldn’t do most of them. I wish they had just given the stand-in a blonde wig because she danced and lip-synced better than Britney.
That kind of sucks when someone does you better than you do you.
Posted by: ssjane | November 12, 2007 | 11:21 am
Posted in: Entertainment/News | Comments Off
Chris and I recently applied for life insurance through SBLI, after receiving preliminary estimates on how much it would cost to be insured for 25 years.
Chris’s final quote arrived a week or two ago, but we didn’t hear anything about mine. We had been concerned because I have a mental health history, but the woman who had given Chris the preliminary quotes had said that I would probably be fine since the major health issues I’d had occurred 11 years ago.
But now I was beginning to worry that they wouldn’t cover me at all.
“Don’t worry,” Chris said. “They’ll cover you, but we’ll probably just have to pay a higher premium.”
It turned out he was wrong.
Today I received a letter from SBLI that said, “We regret to inform you that after careful consideration, we cannot extend an offer for life insurance to you at this time.”
The reason was listed as “mental health history.”
They went on to add that “The results of our underwriting review are not meant to cause you undue anxiety. Our decision is not necessarily based on your current state of health but rather is influenced by predictive factors that may have an impact on longevity. We are guided by our experience with large groups of people in the same risk classification.”
Okay, if you don’t want to cause me undue anxiety, how about not sending a letter that basically says, “You might feel fine now, but pretty soon you’ll be dead.”
Posted by: ssjane | November 6, 2007 | 6:32 pm
Posted in: This Life | Comments Off
ONE-LINE SUMMARY: Gry and Orrec are Uplanders and must decide how to use the gifts of their lineage.
This is a terrific book, and I’m only sorry that it’s taken me so long to read it. I saw book three in this series on the New Young Adult Fiction shelf at the library, and it looked interesting. So being the type of person I am, I put the new book back on the shelf and went to look for the first book. Because reading books out of order will destroy the world as we know it.
Gry and Orrec in Gifts reminds me of the protagonists in Sharon Shinn’s Dream-Maker’s Magic. Gifts pass from mother to daughter and father to son, so Orrec is expected to continue in his father’s footsteps by wielding his gift of “unmaking” to secure their lands. Gry has inherited her mother’s gift of being able to call animals to her, and while she likes using her gift to train horses, she is not happy about being asked to call animals to hunters to be slain.
Terrific book — I finished it in one sitting and wish I’d taken out the other books in the series at the same time.
I was washing some pots and cleaning up in the kitchen when I saw Mina trotting up the stairs to me. She was clutching the Tigger in her mouth, and she disappeared around the corner into the living room.
“Hello, Tigger!” I said, because when you don’t have kids, you eventually begin to talk not only to your dogs, but also to the dog’s toys. (This is generally considered the third step in the four steps to becoming the “Crazy Animal Person With Hair All Over Clothes Muttering to Self.”)
A few seconds later, Mina reappeared, still with the Tigger, and marched back downstairs with it.
Then she came back up with the Tigger and went around the corner again.
“Mina, what are you doing?” I called.
Sadly, Mina has not yet learned to speak English, so she merely ran past me and went back downstairs with the Tigger.
When she came up again for the third time, I peeked around the corner to see what she was doing. As I watched, Mina carried Tigger up her ramp, onto the couch, over the armrest to the loveseat, and then stood on the loveseat with the Tigger in her mouth.
I went back to washing pans, and then saw Mina walk around the corner and go downstairs with the Tigger.
She came up again with Tigger, but by now I was done cleaning up the kitchen, so I didn’t see what she did next. I went all the way upstairs to get my clothes for my shower and when I headed back down toward the kitchen, I saw Mina and Tigger coming up the stairs to me. She turned into her room and brought Tigger up the little stairs to the chair in the room, which is where we usually find her sleeping in the mornings.
I thought she had finally found a good place for Tigger, so I went downstairs and put my clothes in the bathroom. Then I remembered I still had a load of blankets in the dryer to take out. When I brought the blankets to the family room, Mina had returned with Tigger.
I spread the blankets on the recliners in the family room and watched Mina. She brought Tigger to the green bed on the floor in front of the TV and stood there indecisively for a minute, and then marched resolutely across the room to her puff ball bed beside the elliptical machine. Then she checked out the red bed by Chris’s computer, and then went back to the green bed by the TV. She and Tigger made two more laps from the green bed to the red bed and back, with a minor detour up her little stairs to look at the recliners, which evidently did not pass muster.
I finally began to worry that she had some sort of obsessive compulsive disease, since Mina appeared intent on indefinitely continuing her search for the perfect spot for her baby. She already had trouble keeping her tongue in her mouth, what with all the rotten teeth she’d had to have removed, and if she developed lockjaw from carrying Tigger everywhere, Chris would never forgive me. So I plucked Tigger from her mouth and carried Mina and the toy to the recliner.
I set her firmly on a blanket, and put Tigger where she could see it.
“Just sit here,” I told her.
Mina seemed relieved that her arduous journey was over, and scratched at the blanket so that I could tuck her in. Completely ignoring her Tigger, she curled into a ball to take a nap. This motherhood stuff was exhausting.
Posted by: ssjane | November 3, 2007 | 8:46 pm
Posted in: Dogs | Comments Off