My husband is such a good sport

This is something we did last year, but I just now got a disc of the pictures. Cam's sister, Kristin, is a photographer. And the first time she came to our house she fell in love with the fireplace we have downstairs. It's a pretty big fireplace and you can actually stand up in it. And for some reason, there is a shelf thing inside it about where the mantle is that comes out about a foot or so.

Every year Kristin makes her own Christmas cards. I love her Christmas cards. She usually has a niece or nephew in them and I'm always excited every year when I open my mailbox and Kristin's card is in there. That day she was at our house she mentioned our fireplace would make a great back drop for that year's Christmas card. Then it was eventually decided that we would have Cam wear their Grandpa's santa suit and she would take pictures of him in the fireplace as if santa had just come down the chimney. I thought the idea was brilliant, but it was July so we weren't going to do anything about it right away.

Cam and I have a woodburning stove that we were planning on hooking up in that fireplace. When it started to get cold we decided it was time to hook up the woodburner. Then I remembered Kristin's Christmas card idea. I called her and told her that we were going to be putting in the woodburner, and if she still wanted to do the card she better do it quick. Once that thing is in the fireplace, it ain't going nowhere. It weighs like 1,000 pounds and takes 4 guys to move it. She was kind of like "I don't know", and I told her she better do it. It was a great idea and it was now or never. She agreed and below are some of the pictures. Cam was so funny! He would hang off the shelf and well, you'll see. If they look kind of plain it's because we decided not to do a bunch of decorations and stuff around it, she could photoshop those in.



This is Cam having fun hanging from the shelf.

We decided to add a bag of toys in some of them. I can't remember what's in the bag. Probably shoeboxes or something.

Cam was a great sport and did all sorts of poses while hanging from the shelf.

This is one of my favorites. It looks like Santa would fall right on his butt when he lands.

I like this one a lot too. Too bad we didn't think of getting some white Santa gloves for Cam to wear. And that is a pillow in the suit, Cam isn't fat.

We added a big old log that was left at the house for more effect.

We decided that Tosh would make a good addition to some of the pictures. He is so cute!

Of course Pedro had to get in on the action. I really like this one, it looks like the animals are excited to see Santa too.

Kristin did some photoshop magic and added some garland and did some cool lighting things with this one. Don't be surprised if this is my Christmas card one of these years.

This is what ended up being Kristin's Christmas card last year.


Thanks for taking these pictures Kris! I'm going to take you up on your offer and have you photoshop some stuff into a few more so I can print and frame them and use them as Christmas decorations!

Did I sleepwalk, or is it just a strange coincidence?

Last night I had a dream that I didn't think of much until about an hour ago. I dreamt that Cam and I were in the South. I think it was Atlanta, and we were staying at a friend's house. I don't know who they are, because we don't have friends in Atlanta. Anyway, they made us stay in their basement. We spent a couple of nights with no problems, then we discovered there were snakes in their basement. At first there were just a couple of small garden type snakes that we picked up and put out the window. We told the couple about them and they just said something like "yeah, welcome to the South, there are snakes everywhere." I didn't mind so much, because snakes don't bother me at all. (spiders on the other hand would have sent me running as far away as I could go).

After a couple of nights dealing with the small, cute snakes, a Black Mamba suddenly came out from under the stairs. Black Mambas are a very deadly snake. Then there were 3 Black Mambas. Cam and I were standing on the bed throwing things at them, then I grabbed a golf club and starting beating them. Cam found some hedge clippers and cut their heads off. Then we left the house and got a hotel room. Then the dream was over. No big deal, just a weird dream about me and Cam killing snakes.

When we woke up, Cam complained he didn't sleep very well because he kept dreaming about work. Cam hates work dreams. I told him I dreamt about me and him killing snakes, and we laughed.

So enough about the dream. In October Cam and I were at our friends Tonie and Anthony's for a barbecue. They have an 18 year old son named Josh who owns a few snakes. He was just about to acquire a couple of pythons that he was planning on breeding. He asked me and Cam if we could "foster" one of his snakes. It is about a 5 foot albino Burmese Python named Big Al. He needed to make some room for his 2 new snakes. All we had to do is provide a space for the snake and make sure he had water. Josh would come over every couple of weeks to feed him. We said that was fine. Josh brought Big Al over a couple of days later.

You probably know where this is heading. So all morning Cam and I have noticed a faint unpleasant smell in our house. We went through the fridge, nothing in there. We emptied the kitchen garbage, that wasn't it. We couldn't figure out what it was. Cam opened the guest room door, the room we keep Al in, and said "I found the smell". Big Al had died. We don't know what happened. I was in there yesterday around noon to make sure he had water, and he was alive and seemed fine! Josh was just here on Wednesday to feed him. He was fine! He wasn't interested in the rat, because his eyes were a bit cloudy, which means he was in the process of shedding. Snakes don't eat when they are shedding. Josh just told me to call him when Al was done shedding and he would bring over another rat.

So Big Al suddenly died sometime between about noon yesterday and 2pm today. And I just happened to have a dream last night that I was killing snakes. Weird!

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

I finished this book over a month ago and am now finally posting about it. I don't know why it has taken me so long, laziness is my best guess. I've decided to finally post it because it's 5am on the day after Thanksgiving, I've come down with a wicked flu and have run out of nighttime flu medicine. So I can't sleep and I want Cam to sleep, and I decided this would be a good time to do this post. Can I just say it blows my mind to think that people are actually out shopping right now?

Sweet! There is a planet of the apes movie on! That makes me feel a little better about being awake at 5am on a day off. It's the one where the mutant ape tries to control the others telepathically. There are some awesomely terrible scenes in this one.


Anyway, I liked this one much more than the first 2 books. I liked the story itself quite a bit. The first two were a bit predictable, so this third one was a nice surprise. This posting will be kind of short because I gave the book back to Emily the day I finished it, so I don't have much of a reference. And Em, I can't find that website you suggested. I think you suggested it on some random comment on the family blog. So I'm strictly going by memory with a little help from wikipedia.

Likes:

Again I really like how awful the Dursley's are. I liked the introduction of Aunt Marge. She was just horrible and obnoxious, I thought she was great. I really liked when she shared her tea with her dog. And I didn't think anyone could be meaner to Harry than his aunt and uncle, but Marge was. I liked it when he inflated her.

I really liked professor Lupin. He was a really likeable character and I liked his character development through the end. I liked finding out that he was a friend of Harry's father and a werewolf.

The Marauder's Map. I thought it was a really cool concept. I liked the scene where Snape grabs it and the map insults him. Lupin says something kind of funny in that scene, but I don't remember what it was. I didn't take very good notes while reading this one. (yes, I take notes).

Hogsmeade. I really like these little secret places that exist, like Daigon Alley. I especially liked the scene when Harry sneaks there in his "invisibility cloak" and messes with Draco Malfroy at the haunted house. Draco deserved it, he's a little jerk.

The flobberworms. I thought it was really funny that after the Hippogriff fiasco, Hagrid made them learn about the boring, lettuce eating flobberworms the rest of the semester. Don't ask me why, it just cracked me up.

And my memory is pretty vague about this one, but there is a character in one of the paintings at Hogsworth that really cracked me up. I think it was a knight on horseback that helps Harry and Ron find a classroom I think. He runs through painting after painting trying to be gallant, and I thought he was pretty funny. Kind of a Monty Python type of character.

I liked Professor Lupin's class when they were learning about the Boggarts. I thought it was pretty funny when one of them, Neville? Imagines Snape in a dress.

And the thing I liked best...The Monster Book of Monsters! I loved it! The idea of a book about monsters being a monster was great. And the idea that all they had to do was scratch the books head or something like that to calm him down cracked me up.

Dislikes:

The Grim. I just thought it was dumb. I hated the name (I'll get to that later), and frankly, it just didn't make that much sense to me. Emily, correct me if I'm wrong. But I just didn't quite grasp the significance of the Grim. I know it was a bad omen when you saw it, that it pretty much meant you were going to die. I think what bothered me the most, was they made such a big deal out of it, but it never seemed that significant to me. Did I miss something?

Professor Trelawney. She bugged the hell out of me. I found her very annoying and overly dramatic. Which I realize she was supposed to be dramatic, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I liked how Professor McGonagall didn't like her much either.

Hermione is starting to get on my nerves. I liked at first how she was a bit smarter than the boys, but now she is over doing it. I find her to be just an overachieving know it all. She needs to just calm down and be a kid.

Hagrid is also starting to get on my nerves. I'm glad he finally became a professor, but he really needs to get his motions under control.

And the thing I'm disliking most....the names JK Rowling comes up with for things. Sorry Em, I know you have a love for her names, but I pretty much feel the opposite. They've kind of bugged me all along (refer to my posting of the first book and the "put outer"). But Hippogriff was the last straw. It really pissed me off. Tolkien is far superior to coming up with names.

So that's it for the dislikes. Not bad eh? I really did enjoy the book and so far it is my favorite story of the HP series. I guess I should have included this under likes, but I really enjoyed the whole scene in the Shrieking Shack (stupid name). The way the story of Sirius Black and Lupin came out and learning they were friends of Harry's dad. I loved that Ron's pet rat Scabbers (name!), was Pettigrew. It was good to find out why Snape hated Harry so much. I thought the book ended really well and the author did a good job making a lot of little pieces of the book come together.

I'm trying to start the 4th one! I've read the first 2 chapters a couple of times. I'll get on it. And if anyone is new to reading this blog and are wondering why I do these Harry Potter posts. You can totally blame my sister Emily.

The best concert I've ever been to

I'm not exaggerating! Last night's David Byrne concert was the best concert I've ever been to. David Byrne was the lead singer of the Talking Heads in case you didn't know. I've been to a lot of concerts, but last night was absolutely amazing. And we almost missed it! Here's what happened:

A couple of Friday's ago our friend Andy was listening to NPR (National Public Radio), and they were holding their fall drive (asking people to donate). For a $200 donation you could get 2 tickets to the "sold out" David Byrne concert. Andy called Cam immediately and asked if he knew Byrne was coming in concert. Cam had no idea. So Cam came home that day exhausted from the week of work, and a little upset about something. I asked him what was going on and he told me that David Byrne was coming in concert and it was already sold out, unless we donate $200 to NPR.

Cam has been a fan of the Talking Heads since the early 80's, and is still a huge fan. I've always liked them, but since being with Cam I have learned to love them almost as much as he does. We mostly listen to music at night while we are cooking and stuff, and 2 or 3 times a week we put in one of their CD's or watch the DVD Stop Making Sense. We even have a lot of David Byrne's solo stuff that we listen to. So, in my mind if David Byrne was going to be in Utah, my husband was going no matter what it took. Cam has been working so hard this past month or so, his last 2 paychecks each had over 20 hours of overtime, and his next one will too. He was going to that concert!

So I immediately went into action. If we have to donate $200 to NPR, fine! I donate $35 a year anyway to be a member, so what's a little more? Before I did that, I went onto Craig's list to the tickets section to see if anyone was selling them. No one was. Then I decided to find out where he was going to be and just see if, by some miracle, there were some tickets left. I googled it, saw it was at the Eccles theatre in Park City, and went onto their website. On their list of events it said "limited tickets available" next to David Byrnes name. I cliked on buy tickets, told them I wanted 2 and guess what? They came up for sale for $18 each! Eighteen dollars each!!!! I yelled to Cam, who was sulking in the kitchen, to bring me my purse. He came in the office and said "can we still donate the $200 to get the tickets?", I laughed and showed him the screen. He couldn't believe it. He told me Andy and Brenna are going to want to go. I told him I'm not letting go of these 2 tickets, I'll buy these and if they want to go, I'll see if I can get 2 more. So I bought them, Andy said to grab 2 more, so I did. I think we pretty much got the last 4 tickets. Out of curiosity I tried to buy 2 more and it wouldn't let me. It kept telling me there weren't 2 seats together. We decided NPR wasn't lying when they said it was sold out. We think they were giving away the sold out floor seats, our tickets were in the very last row of the balcony. Can I just say, the rest of the evening Cam was giddy as a school girl. He kept making me show him the printout of our ticket purchase. When it very first hit him that he was going to see David Byrne, his eyes actually got watery. I'm not kidding.

Last night was the concert. The Eccles theatre in Park City only holds 1,300 people. So even though we were in the back row of the balcony, it didn't matter! Any seat in that theatre is a good seat. And, get this! The Eccles theatre is attached to Park City High School, it is their auditorium. Park City High has an Eccles theatre as their auditorium! What the bip?

On the drive up we were talking about and anticipating how good the show was going to be. Is David Byrne still energetic and kind of eccentric? Or as he's gotten older has he toned it down a bit? Is he going to play any Talking Heads? We all agreed he probably wouldn't. There seems to be some bad blood with the ex-members of the band, and we weren't sure if he has just completely moved on and just does his solo stuff or what.

So the lights go down on the theatre, and the entire band walks on stage. David Byrne, 2 drummers, a keyboard player, a bass player, and 3 backup singers. All dressed from head to toe in white. I knew it was going to be good. I will just highlight a couple of points, or this will go on forever.

David Byrne has not changed at all. His voice is one of my favorite things about his music, and he sounds as good as ever. He can still belt out those lyrics when he wants to. And the way he moves! I've watched Stop Making Sense probably 100 times, and one thing I love is watching David Byrne move. There are ways he moves his hips and legs that pretty much define him. It was so cool to see him 25 years after SMS came out and see those familiar moves. After the first couple of songs, 3 dancers came out. 2 girls and a guy, all in white. They were great! Their dancing looked like it was not choreographed, but you knew it was! It wasn't that stupid Britney Spears robot dancing. All 3 of them would be doing something different, but then their arms would suddenly do the same thing, or they would all suddenly turn the other way. It's hard to explain.

And true to his style, David Byrne got the entire band in on the dancing, even himself! In one song, the dancers were doing their thing, suddenly Byrne lifts up one leg, and the male dancer dove between his legs and slid across the floor. And they did it so nonchalently. There was another song where the dancers were jumping over eachother once in a while. Kind of in a leap frog way. In the middle of the song, Byrne bent over a little, and one of the dancers leapt over him! And he just kept on singing. It was so cool! In another song, the dancers took the backup singers microphones and started walking slowly backwards. The singers followed them, still singing in the microphones. The dancers lined up the microphones, single file, behind Byrne and the singers sang behind him. Then, during a guitar solo, Byrne started winding his way between them. Then when he got back to singing, the dancers grabbed the microphones, and led each singer to a different part of the stage. Then the singers laid down and the dancers held there microphone stands in the air so they could sing into the microphone, so the rest of the song, the back up singers were on the floor singing! It was awesome! Sorry, this is the longest blog ever. I could go on and on, but I won't. Every song was a new adventure. They did 3 encores, and my husband had the best time of his life.

One more side note, sorry. I went to Wendover last weekend because some friends of mine had tickets to REO Speedwagon. I didn't go to the concert, but I went to Wendover with them for a girls weekend. Cam and I paid $18 for David Byrne tickets, how much were REO SPEEDWAGON tickets? $50 each! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Suckers!

Did he do some Talking Heads songs? Yes he did! Heaven, Slippery People, Once in a Lifetime, Take Me to the River and Burning Down the House! Here's a little playlist of what we experienced last night.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

I finally finished it! I don't know why it took me so long! It's not that I didn't like it, I just had a hard time finding time to read this last month or so I guess. I'm already about 100 pages into the 3rd one, so that is coming along.

Anyway, I liked the book about as much as I liked the first one. I noticed it is pretty much the same book, just different circumstances (chamber of secrets instead of philosopher's stone). So does this mean all 7 books follow the same formula? I guess most kids books do. Nancy Drew for instance is the exact same book written 75 or so times. I'm not complaining, just wondering. Emily did tell me the series takes a turn in the 3rd book, so I'll just have to see.

Here are the things I liked:

The Dursley's again. I really enjoy how over the top awful the author makes them. Giving Harry a used pair of Uncle Vernon's socks for his birthday, and his cousin Dudley gets like 150 birthday gifts.

The scene where Ron was throwing up slugs. I thought it was gross, but I liked it.

Tom Riddle's diary. I thought it was pretty cool how when Harry finally wrote in it, Tom wrote back. I didn't like so much Harry actually going into the diary and seeing things. I would have liked it better if the author just kept it to writing back.

I liked it when Fawkes, the Phoenix, just suddenly burst into flames in Dumbledore's office.

I'm liking the whole Weasley family more. Especially Mr. Weasley. I like his fascination with Muggle things. I like how they are a family of wizards and witches, but yet, they are so normal! The kids tease eachother, they have chores, they are poor, etc.

The "howler". That is the letter Mrs. Weasley sends Ron that when he opens it, it starts yelling at him. I wish those really existed.

And the thing I liked the most about the book--Gilderoy Lockhart! He is the Ted Baxter of wizards. I just loved him. I loved the colors of robes he wore and his silky hair. I love how much he loves himself and how he assumes everyone loves him and wants his picture and autograph (Ted Baxter). I love how he is really just an idiot who takes credit for things other people do (Ted Baxter). I love how his spells and wand tricks always go wrong and he always has some excuse. I liked how at the end, Harry and Ron find him packing and planning on sneaking away. I just really liked everything about Lockhart. His character alone makes me want to see the movie just so I can see him. I kept trying to come up with what actor I thought would do best in that part. I settled on Kelsey Grammer, but wasn' t exactly satisfied in the choice. I didn't want to know who it was while I was reading, I always like to picture things in my head. When I finished the book, I looked it up on IMDB, and saw it is Kenneth Branagh. I was kind of disappointed at first. He bugs the hell out of me. I really liked the Frankenstein movie he did, but hated, hated, hated the Hamlet he did. He added about an hour at the end that wasn't in the play! You don't mess with Shakespeare! (I better stop now before I really go off.) Anyway, after thinking about it, I do think he was a good choice. Even though I really don't like him, I do think he is a good actor, and I can see him doing good things with Lockhart's character. I was kind of sad at the end of the book when he loses his memory.

Now for the things I didn't really like:

Floo powder. This is the powder they use at the Weasley's to transport themselves to Daigon Alley. That just bugged me and I didn't like it.

Another minor dislike is Moaning Myrtle. I got tired of her sobbing all the time.

De-gnoming the garden. It really is a very minor scene in the book (1 page I think) with no relevance at all to the book as a whole, but nonetheless, I didn't like it.

The line in the book "celebrity is as celebrity does". I think Lockhart says it to Harry. When I read the line I almost threw the book across the room in disgust. The Forest Gump people should sue her.

All of them flying up the drain at the end holding onto the Phoenix's tail. I wish the author could have come up with a better way for them to get out of the chamber.

I didn't particularly like the idea of Ginny being taken over by Voldemort and doing all the attacking. I can see what she was trying to do. I mean it would be way to obvious if it was Draco Malfoy. But I thought using Ginny kind of disrupted the flow of the book. I think if the author wanted to use the last person you'd expect, than Percy would have been a better choice. I don't know, using Ginny just flopped with me. Like how it was Maggie that shot Mr. Burns in the Simpsons, just doesn't work.

And I know this has nothing to do with the book itself, but I hate the artwork on the front covers of these books! It is just terrible. I am not a fan of using a picture from the movie as a book cover, but in this case, I would much prefer a picture of Daniel Radcliff wearing a scarf of bravery rather than these Modigliani-esqe cartoons.

And the thing I disliked the most--The Mandrakes. These are the plants who's roots are little babies that scream and cry. They are used to reverse curses. I feel the whole thing was creepy and I didn't like it one bit. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the author really described exactly how they are used to reverse curses. Anyway, I hated the Mandrakes, and I hope they aren't in the rest of the books. And I think they will scare me more in the movie than the girl in the closet in The Ring scared Catherine and Emily.

There is one thing in the book I'm undecided on whether I liked it or not. And that is Dobby. There were things I liked and things I didn't like about Dobby. At first I liked his self-punishing ways, but after awhile it started to annoy me. I didn't quite understand how he is the one who prevented Harry and Ron from reaching platform 9 and 3/4's. I found the author's explanation somewhat awkward and vague. And I thought it was pretty stupid that the only way to free him was to give him some clothes. So at the end Harry gives him a sock and he's free? Come on! That's just stupid, and doesn't make sense. Shouldn't it be that only his master can free him by giving him clothes? Still, I didn't totally dislike Dobby. I have a feeling he is going to appear in more of the books, I'll have to see if he grows on me more. He is a character that could get a lot stronger now that he is free, I hope the author does that to him.

I am also gaining more of an appreciation for JK Rowling's writing style. I have some criticisms here and there, but there are some aspects to her style I like. As a whole, she is good at creating characters. Snape, Dumbledore, the Weasley twins, the Dursley's, Lockhart and more are good characters. And she has a good way of adding funny, almost intentionally unnoticeable little things to the book. For example, I can't remember the exact scene, but they are in one of their classes. Something happens like someone runs in the classroom or something, and she writes that it happens while "Harry was trying to turn 2 rabbits into slippers". I really like how she just kind of mentions things like that as if it is a perfectly normal thing for Harry to do. It just gives a sense of realness or normalcy to this world she has created. Does that make sense?

Well Em, this time there are more things I disliked than liked. But only by 1. I hope you notice that again most of the things I disliked are pretty insignificant. Especially the cover art. Maybe we shouldn't count that, it has nothing to do with the book. So we will call it even. I did like the book all in all.

I loves me some Halloween!

Pretty much everyone who knows me knows I love Halloween. It's been my favorite holiday since I was a kid. My parents always did a good job decorating the house, a couple of years we even did a spook alley for the trick-or-treaters. Over the years I've built up a pretty decent collection of Halloween decorations. ( I have 3 big Rubbermaid storage things with Halloween stuff and 1 of Christmas stuff).

And, everyone who knows me knows how close I am to my nephew Booker (Catherine and Travis' boy). One of the things Booker and I share a love for is Halloween. This past weekend he stayed with me and Cam and helped us decorate the house. A bit early I know, but my next 3 weekends are pretty busy, and then it would just be too close! We had a lot of fun decorating. Here are some pictures:

This is Booker, pulling a face of course.

The first thing we did was make eyeball wreaths. Yes, my inner crafty person comes out during Halloween.

The 9 foot spiderweb. Booker untangled it on the living room floor while I was making dinner. Boo came in the kitchen when he was finished and a couple of minutes later we could hear my cat Pedro meowing a bit frantically. I went in the livingroom and Pedro had completely tangled herself in the web.

Just kind of a fun corner scene. Could use a little more work, but I like it.






I guess this could be called the cemetery scene. The statue of the woman is my favorite Halloween decoration I purchased last year. I would keep her in my living room year round, but people might think I'm weird or something.

This is what I call the cutesy stuff. Not my favorite Halloween stuff, but I love, love, love the witch hats. You put tea lights in them and they look so cool! The haunted house was mine and Booker's crafty Halloween project a couple of years ago. He made one too.

Just a view of the whole livingroom, except the cemetery scene. That is to the right on top of the bookshelf.

New to the house this year, the bat cave! This is my front entrance way. How many bats did I cut out? I don't know, I lost count around 200. There are flying bats and hanging bats. I got smart after the first couple of sheets of bats I cut out, and put 4 sheets together. My hand still hurts from all the cutting. The good news is, I won't have to cut them out next year. The bat cave turned out better than I pictured it. Cam had the brilliant idea of putting green lightbulbs in the light fixture.

This is one of my favorite Halloween decorations. It is the perfect way to make use of that odd banister thing in my stairway. I remember the first time I went through the house with Rob, our real estate agent and brother-in-law, I pointed it out to him and told him I could do great things with that for Halloween. And yes, those are rats I hot glued to him.

If you look at the bat cave picture you can see some glass candle holders on the coat rack. Well, I decided candles would be boring. So I filled one of them with rats, one with eyeballs and one with little skulls. I have two empty ones, I'm thinking one will be spiders and one severred fingers, or a brain or something. I'll have to look around. I took the close up of the skulls because they are my favorite purchase of this year. I found a bag of them for like 2 bucks. I bought 2 of them, but only needed one bag. I let Booker have the other one. He was very happy about that.

So that is it so far. We still have the scarecrow that Cam made for the garden. I have to use that somehow! Since the scarecrow is in 2 parts, I'm thinking of maybe putting the torso in the guest room looking out the window. Then I could do something separate with the legs. Maybe hanging outside the window? Cam and I will think of something. Or if anyone has any ideas let me know!

Infinite Loss

I am sorry if this turns out to be the most boring blog post you have ever read, but I have to do this for myself.

I got to work at 7 am this morning. At about 7:15, I went online to look at a map of Texas (work related, I like maps, but would never just look at a map of Texas!). My homepage at work is a news website. I usually glance quickly at the headlines before going to a different website. This morning, my eye caught a headline that made my heart sink. "Infinite Jest author apparent suicide". I closed my eyes and tried to figure out how that headline could mean something else. Like maybe the author found someone who had committed suicide and they were just quoting him or something. But I knew that wasn't the case. I took a deep breath, and clicked on the article. David Foster Wallace had hung himself Friday night (Sept 12), and was found by his wife, Karen. I didn't read any more than that. Why should I? That first couple of sentences is all that mattered. I don't need to read what that journalist, who had probably never read one of his books, had to say about DFW and his writings. I immediately got out my cell phone and sent my sister Catherine this text message: "call me when you get this." She called me about 45 minutes later.

I'm guessing that all of you, besides Emily, who read my blog have no idea who David Foster Wallace is (all of you that I'm aware of that is). If you've ever caught Cat and I in a conversation where we are laughing really hard, and we tell you that we can't explain what is so funny because it is too hard to explain. I would bet that at least 85% of the time we were discussing something David Foster Wallace had written, or one of his characters etc. My boss was in the office this morning, and she heard my gasp when I saw the headline. She asked me what was wrong, and I told her my favorite contemporary author had died over the weekend. She had never heard of him and asked me what kind of books he writes. Never in my life have I had such a difficult time trying to describe not only a writer's style, but his subjects as well! I had to give up. DFW was truly one of a kind.

I was introduced to DFW Christmas of 1996. Someone, who never let me down when it came to book recommendations, gave me Infinite Jest for Christmas (it was my ex bro-in-law Steve). It was by an author I had never heard of, the book is over 1,000 pages, and it is written in a very small font, I'm guessing size 8, possibly 10. I knew that if it was that long of a book, written in that small of a font, given to me by Steve, then it must be mind-blowing. Well, it took me about a year and about 7 tries to get past the first 50 pages or so, but when I finally read the book cover to cover, my mind was indeed blown. I had never read anything like it. It's fiction with footnotes! Some of the footnotes go on for pages and pages. His style, subject, vocabulary and characters are amazing. I won't get into a review of his stuff, I'll leave that for the experts. But, I must say his love of acronyms, his vocabulary, the nicknames he gives his characters, the way he can link a character you read about on page 80 to a character you read on page 768, his humor, his way of noticing strange things about people, his characters, okay, I could go on and on. He is a genius.

When I finished Infinite Jest I wanted so much to talk about it with someone, so I recommended it to Catherine. I don't know what I said to recommend it. It was probably something like "don't try to figure it out while you're reading it, let the book be what it is, read the footnotes. Just trust me". I have to say, I've never been more satisfied at recommending a book, than I am at Cat's reaction. She has since read pretty much everything he has ever written. I've read almost all of his books, but she has read his personal essays, contributions to magazines, etc. I've read some of those other things he wrote, but I believe Cat has read much more than I. Catherine has actually read Infinite Jest 4 or 5 times, I read it just once, 12 years ago. In fact, Cat is in the middle of that book right now, but put it aside to read Breaking Dawn, then is planning on finishing Infinite Jest.

I emailed Cat today and told her I was going to blog about this. I asked her to email me back her testimonial on why she loves DFW so much. Here are some of the things she said:

I love his "voice". In Infinite Jest, he takes on so many characters, that book astounds me in it's genius. His sense of humor really speaks to me. In both his fiction and his essays/journalistic things. I can't tell you how many terms and DFW-isms I use in my language.

I then asked her what terms and isms she uses, and she said:

The howlers definitely, or the Howling Fantods. "out of somewhere that's blue" instead of "out of the blue". "heat and kitchens"- a shortened way to remind someone if they can't stand the heat.... "the straw that was the camel's spinal demise"-his way of saying the straw that broke the came's back. He has this way of subtly distorting cliches that I found hilarious.

Since she has read his stuff so much and so recently, she was also able to give me some DFW vocabulary and nicknames that are hilarious:

The Moms-what the boys in Infinite Jest call their mom
Bob Hope- marijuana
Ass-over-teakettle-his way to describe someone falling
Tear-assing-someone running really fast
Eating cheese-someone ratting someone out
Sir Osis of Thuliver-the most gallant of diseases
Sphincter-looseningly scary-something really scary

(Sue now talking) And there are hundreds more like them. David Foster Wallace is just one of those writers that sticks with you. I was just thinking of him last night! I didn't know he had died at the time, but I was piercing potatoes with a fork so they wouldn't explode in the oven. In the last 12 years, since I read Infinite Jest, I haven't pierced a potato without thinking of DFW. I also thought of him sometime last week. I was in my office reading the second Harry Potter book, and glanced at my bookshelf. I saw "The Girl with Curious Hair", and thought to myself, I should read a couple of stories out of that book as a pallet cleanser before I start the next Harry Potter (sorry Em!).

I will miss you dearly David Foster Wallace! I choked up a lot at work today, tears kept welling up in my eyes. I'm going to re-read Infinite Jest and everything else, when I'm done with Harry Potter. It saddens me to think of what we are going to miss from your brilliant mind. And I am so, so thankful that some writings of yours exist for us to read. I will always be grateful to whomever that first publisher was that read your stuff and decided the public needs to read it. I will leave you with the last email Cat sent me on her thoughts of his death, and I quote:

" Suck. Lame. Bunk. Sauce. Face."

David Foster Wallace 1962-2008

Book 1- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

I finished the first book this morning. Only 223 pages, so it went pretty quickly. The second one looks about the same size, the rest, holy crap! Anyway, all in all, I found it somewhat enjoyable. I find it kind of weird, that this is the only one of the Harry Potter movies I saw, and I don't remember any of it being in the movie. I guess the movie did not stick with me one tiny bit. (although I do remember Hans from the first Die Hard as being one of the bad guys in the movie. I'm guessing Snape. Am I right?) Not as big and complicated a world as Em is getting herself into that's for sure! Unlike Emily, I'm not scared at all to jump into a whole different world full of different creatures etc.

For this book, since it is so short and the first of seven, I'm just going to list my likes and don't likes. And they are not listed in any kind of order.

Likes:

--The real-life chess game. That is a pretty cool concept. (I'm sure it was in the movie, but for the life of me, I just don't remember).

--A ghost as a professor, and other ghosts as characters.

--Animated playing cards and portraits. Kind of reminds me of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland.

--How dreadful the Dursley's were. The author gets into some really great detail about them, and I loved it! Man how their attitude towards different people remind me of some people I grew up with in Mapleton!

--Hagrid.

--The fact that the girl, Hermione, is smarter than the boys. (and could someone please tell me how to properly say her name before I start calling her hemorrhoid or hormone?)

--The fact that these "wizard" people have secret places among the "muggles". Like the secret shopping district right in London. I like that concept.

--Dumbledore, he just kind of reminds me of Gandolf, and I loves me a Gandolf!

Dislikes:

--The "put-outer". This is the device Dumbledore uses to put out the street lamps on Privet Drive. A- I think she could have come up with a more clever name. B- I think a real wizard could have put them out with a wink, or a snap of the fingers, etc. It shouldn't have taken a device. (Gandolf could have done it by just thinking about it!)

--Harry's scar hurting him when Voldemort, oh wait.. "you know who" is near or whatever. (Sorry, it just smacks of the ring hurting Frodo or Sting lighting up when an orc is near.)

--The names of the different kinds of brooms. (the Numbus 2000? Give me a break!) I know she was trying to be cheeky, and I'm sure most people thought it was funny. But it bugged me for some reason.

--The owls as postal carriers. Sorry! But I couldn't help but think of the amount of bird crap that landed in the kids lunches when the owls flew in everyday to bring them their letters and packages. But I'm sure these are specially trained owls who don't crap or something. (and is it just me, or did she get that idea from Gandolf's butterflies?)

There were a couple of other things that kind of bugged me, but I'm not going to get into them because I'm hoping they are explained in the books to come. And it is fine with me if some things are just mentioned in one book, then fully explained in the next. (For instance, is it explained please why a stone holds the "elixir of life"? How can a stone possibly hold an elixir? It's a stone!) And the whole owl thing kind of bugs me more than I let on. It's not just the owl crap, but the line "send me an owl", just really bugs me for some reason. But, I hope you notice, Em, that I do list more things I liked than I didn't like. 8 to 4 in fact. And I hope you notice too, that the things I dislike are really quite irrelevant to the whole idea.

And if you think I'm comparing it too much to LOTR, well I'm sorry! I can't help it. That is the only world of wizards and things I'm familiar with. I'm trying really hard not to compare apples with oranges. (cliche!) And, I am actually kind of looking forward to starting the second book. The first one did interest me enough to sort of care about what is going to happen next.

Today is the day

Well, today is the day. I am meeting Emily to pick up the Harry Potter books. Em recorded her thoughts before starting The Hobbit, so I thought I would do the same.

The main reason I have avoided the whole Harry Potter thing, is because I almost always avoid anything that gets shoved down your throat by mass marketing schemes and makes people stand in line for hours or even days. I immediately get turned off by it. When you can't buy a bag of chips or a Slurpee without a picture of whatever is the new hot thing on it, it pisses me off. I know my money is adding to the profits of something I don't really care about. When I can't watch the news without 2 or 3 segments about whatever the new hot things is, it really, really pisses me off. I'm not amused or interested when they have a news reporter interviewing people who've been in line for 3 days for the opening of Ikea, or to buy an Iphone. When I know everything about this new hot thing, because I've been forced to listen in on endless conversations at work, or the grocery store....well I think you get the idea.

Classic example: American Idol. I don't think words can explain how much I truly, truly hate that show with every fibre of my being. I know I am in the minority here, but that is just fine with me. I won't go on about it, that would be a blog all it's own.

Some of you might be thinking I'm being a bit hypocritical here. And you're right. There are some things that come out that I do really like, and get a bit excited about. For instance, a new Spiderman, X Men or LOTR movie gets me pretty excited. I wouldn't stand in line for hours to see one, I usually wait for most of the hype to go down, and go when the theatres aren't so crowded. I don't need to be the first one to see it. There are a couple of exceptions. I have stood in line overnight for a couple of concerts, but I think that is different. You only get that one chance to see it, it's not something I could see anytime over a couple of months. And one time my friend, Annalyn, won tickets to a pre-screening of X Men III, I went with her. So I did get to see that movie a couple of days before anyone else, that was kind of cool.

Another smaller reason I avoided Harry Potter. Is because I try to avoid things that come in a series. I am the type that forces myself to finish out something, even if I don't care for it. Like I've never walked out or turned off a movie I don't like. I make myself watch the whole thing no matter how dreadful it is. So something that comes in a series, like Harry Potter, I just try to avoid altogether, because I don't want to get trapped into something. I avoid those TV shows too. The ones you can't just watch occasionally, but have to watch every single episode or you can't follow it. One exception, Lost. I do like Lost, but didn't start watching it until the first 2 seasons were already out on DVD. And I only started watching it because a couple we are friends with started watching it and highly recommended it. We tend to have the same taste in movies, books and TV, so I started watching it, and I love it. Thank you Andy and Brenna. I know some of the other shows are good, like 24 looks like it is probably a really good show. But I think it's now in it's 20th season, and there is just no way I'm going to start from the beginning.

So there it is. It's really not because Harry Potter is about wizards and things. Well, it kind of is, but that is only like 20% of the reason. And yes, I am aware there are wizards in LOTR. But kids going to a wizard school, just seems kind of dumb to me. If those books came out when I was like 12, I'm sure I would have really, really liked them. But I was in my 30's when they started coming out, I'm a different person now. Harry Potter just seemed to go on forever. It seemed like every couple of months another book was coming out and it just drove me crazy. I had to share a cubicle at work with women knitting Harry Potter scarves for them and their kids to wear to the release of the newest book or movie. That stuff drives me insane! I think 7 books in a series is a bit much. 4 should be the limit.

I promise Em, I will read it with an open mind, and try not to roll my eyes too much while I'm reading.

Would someone please just kill me now?

So, my sister Emily, sent me a challenge on her blog. If I read the Harry Potter books, she will read the Lord of the Rings books. If you would like to read her challenge, and the comments that ensued, you should visit her blog http://www.emily-lifeinaglasshouse.blogspot.com/. She titled it "The Gauntlet". The comments get pretty silly, and oh, so nerdy.

She and I have teased each other over the years. She is a Harry Potter fan, and I really want nothing to do with it. I am a Lord of the Rings fan (cause they rock!), and she wants nothing to do with that. I watched the first Harry Potter movie on HBO quite a few years back and thought it was really quite lame. I read the LOTR books for the first time in 7th grade, and have read them 3 or 4 times since. I am the only one in my family, besides my brother Dave, who likes the books, or the movies! In fact, a movie rating thing went around myspace a couple of months ago and everyone in my family did it. They all rated The Return of the King with like 1 star, but they all rated Pretty Woman with like 5 stars! So they like fairy tales about whores, but a fairy tale about a magic ring? No way! I still have a hard time wrapping my brain around that one.

She also put the challenge out there to anyone who hasn't read one of the series, or either of them, to pick one and join a team. My Harry Potter team is called The Harry Pot Pot's and her LOTR team is The Fro Baggs. So, if anyone wants to join my team, please do. I could use all the support I could get. I thought I could just breeze through life without knowing anything about Harry Potter. But, if she is willing to read the LOTR books, then I have to read the Harry Potter ones. No matter how much I don't want to, I have to. And I found out there are 7 of them? Are you kidding me? I thought there were 3 or 4. What have I gotten myself into?

How many have you read?

I borrowed this list from my sister Emily's blog. This is a list of 100 books that the National Endowment for the Arts put together. According to them the average American has read just 6 out of the 100. That is very sad indeed. If you are one of those that have read fewer than 6 of these books, then I suggest you pick some titles and get reading! I have read 59 of them, if anyone wants recommendations, just ask! If I were to put together my own list of books I think people should read, it would be a little different than the one below. There would be no Harry Potter (but hey, at least those books got people reading!), and there would be a few Kurt Vonnegut books on it. I probably will put together my own list of 20 or so books at a later time. I have highlighted in orange the books from the list that I have read.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma- Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility- Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (en francais)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I didn't count The Bible because I've only read parts of it. I am only counting books I've read from cover to cover.

Say hello to my little blog..............

Yep, I'm gonna do it. I'm starting a blog. Some of you are probably thinking "What??? But you don't have any kids! What could you possibly write about?" Well, my animals for one, and then there's my husband, Cam. And we do stuff, and I think things. Actually one of the main reasons for doing it is because I don't keep any kind of journal or diary or anything like that. And I am terrible at remembering dates of when things happened. (Note to self--Cam and I got married October 16, 2004) See! Now I can always use this as a reference if I forget.

So, stay tuned (or don't). I'm going to get some pictures and other stuff on it soon. Not tonight, it's a work night and I still have to make dinner and bottle some salsa and plum sauce Cam and I made last night.

By the way. The URL I chose is Vote Rydman. It's a joke Cam and I have, it just looks kind of weird all run together. You Simpsons fans should know what we are referring to "Vote Quimby!" And if you don't get the name of my blog, I suggest you go rent Scarface right now.