Don't Dress Your Six Year Old Like a Skank

Everyone has always been amazed at how much I read. Not just how MANY books (although I can and do jet through them) but how I have the TIME to read. In high school, in college, as a new mother, as a working woman and now as a middle-aged (sigh, yes, only about half a century more to go) woman, people still ask me how I can read so much. A friend loaned me a book she had checked out from the public library, knowing how much I had wanted to read it. She reassured me that there was still a couple of weeks before it was due. I returned it to her two days later. Read. Finished. She walked away, muttering to herself.

So, how do I make time to read? Let me ask you a question. How do you make time to BREATHE??? OK, point taken? I have to read. It's not even an issue up for discussion.

And what am I reading? It depends on the day. I am probably the most eclectic reader you will ever meet. I like any genre, as long as it is a good story. MUST be a good story. (Do movie makers today know what a good story even is? I think they forgot the concept a long time ago.) Good stories are not easy to find. But not impossible.

I recently read "The White Masai", by Corinne Hofmann. I didn't even realize this was a non-fiction book until I picked it up at the library, but it is the true story of a white Swiss woman who travels to Africa on vacation and falls in love with a Masai warrior. They exchange a glance on a ferry and that's it. She leaves everything in her old life behind to be with him and live his unbelievable, incredible life with him. I can't imagine doing some of the things she does from living in a mud hut to cooking over a fire to battling a variety of serious illnesses in the African bush, including malaria. When I went to the Internet to confirm the author, I found that they are making a movie from this book - and there is also a sequel. If you are interested in a fascinating glimpse into a completely different way of life, check this one out.

Now, if you saw a book on the new shelf in the library called "Don't Dress Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank", you would pick it up, wouldn't you? Me too. And so you should. It's hilarious. It's by Celia Rivenbark, who apparently writes a newspaper column and has a couple of other books. It's a slice-of-life kind of book with chapters titled "If It Ain't on Ebay, It Ain't Worth Having" and "Something Stinks and I'm Pretty Sure It's Tonya Harding". She is a Southern writer so there's lots of laugh-out-loud Southern humor.

So, what are YOU reading?

The Accident

I was running late for work. Not super late, just a few minutes off schedule. Enough that when I saw the traffic backed up on the highway, I was foot-tappingly annoyed. What in the world...what is wrong with you people?? I have to get to school! I have technology group kids who will be videotaping their bottoms if I don't get there to supervise the making of the morning news show!

The traffic slowed to a stop and I noticed the traffic on the other side of the four lane had also stopped but there was a big gap in the road, with no cars on it. As I slowed down with the others and glanced over there, I noticed a car off the road. It had plowed into the grassy hill and the doors were hanging open. Then I noticed the woman in the road. She was...in the road. Lying on her stomach. My hand flew to cover my mouth like a drama queen in some cheap horror movie. She had on black pants and a white shirt. Only the white shirt was more...pink. With reddish streaks. And her black pants were torn across the bottom. They had ripped open and she was exposed to all the people driving by. That seemed the worst thing. Worse than the fact that she was lying in the middle of the road covered in blood. She was moving slightly. She was stirring. She was breathing.

My stomach was rolling. I felt sweaty and nauseated and faint. My hand was still over my mouth. I couldn't look away. A guy was running up the road, talking on his cell phone. Good. Someone was calling for help. It must have just happened. My eyes were drawn back to her. I couldn't look away. Finally, the traffic moved. I drove to school. I met someone in the parking lot and broke down. I couldn't believe they didn't know what I was talking about. They hadn't seen the accident. Hadn't everyone in the world seen it? It was the center of my universe. Surely everyone in the world had seen it. I still felt sick and dizzy.

My friends found out later a baby had died in the wreck. In a carseat in the back seat. They didn't tell me that morning. They knew I couldn't handle it. I never checked to find out what happened to the woman. Couldn't. She was moving. She was stirring. She was breathing. I'm sure she was fine.

Let it Snow

All I want to know is, what the heck happened to snow? You remember snow. That white stuff that used to fall out of the sky, make deep piles and drifts on the ground and the roads and they had to call off school?

We haven't had a snow day off school in TWO YEARS. Two years. That is so depressing. And now we are working on three years. Because there is no snow in the forecast anytime soon. And, even if it does snow, it's not going to pile up because the ground is so warm since we have had unseasonably warm weather.

Is this global warming? The experts are arguing about this tooth and nail, some insisting there is NO SUCH THING and others yelling HOW COME WE HAVEN'T HAD A SNOW DAY IN TWO YEARS? OK, maybe they weren't yelling that, but they should have been.

Snow days are so great. My husband says I just became a teacher so I could have the summers off and because of snow days, but I honestly (honestly!) never even thought of that when I got my teaching degree. It wasn't until we had our first snow day that I began to fully appreciate the career of teaching. Yeah, there is the reward of enlightening the little minds of those tiny people, but there is NOTHING more rewarding than a snow day.

You drag yourself out of bed at 5:00 a.m. in the pitch dark and stagger to the front door and peek out the curtain. Hey, it snowed! And...it looks like a couple of inches! Hey...maybe...you run to the tv and turn it on. No school! Then, you do the happy dance. (Who else remembers Balki's happy dance? From "Perfect Strangers"???) Then, you go back to bed. What could possibly be more fabulous than that? Except, maybe two snow days in a row.

Well, those days are apparently gone. Now we live in the temperate zone of the United States. Colorado is getting all our snow, those greedy, airport-bound jerks. Soon, Florida and California will be underwater from the melting glaciers and the deserts will spread and the snow on Mount Everest will melt.

I don't really care about any of that. I just want a snow day.

The Ecstasy of a Nap

As mentioned in a previous post, I think napping deserves a blog post of it's very own. So here ya go.

I love naps. I started napping in college. I don't remember ever napping in high school. I don't think I had time for naps back then. I went to school, I went to work, the days passed. I don't remember having a lot of of leisure time, although I'm sure I did. But napping in college. Mmmm. I had fun in college. Lots of fun. This required a great deal of late evening hours. So, a late afternoon nap was not only a luxury, but a requirement.

A good nap has certain criteria. You don't get IN the bed, you lie on top of the freshly made bed. You have an afghan or a light quilt thrown over your legs. You have a fan humming quietly in the background. The room is dark. You have no set time you have to get up. Now. Nap.

As one can relish a fine wine, I have some fine naps I remember. Naps after a day at the pool or the beach are high points. But one of my best naps took place on our cruise to Alaska. It must have been a day at sea, because I remember we had no time constraints, no pressure to be anywhere. I had a little bit of a headache, so we went back to the room so I could take a nap. This was the ultimate cruise where we had the Donald Trump-worthy suite, so we had a whole comfortable sitting area with a couch. Tom parked himself there with his handheld game machine (don't ask ME which one - I read.) and I laid on the bed. Now, this bed was a key component in the ultimate napping experience. It was huge, soft, and covered with a puffy white comforter. It was freshly made (not by ME, this adds to the allure) and smelled clean and nice. When I laid down on it, I sank down like an angel taking a quick nap on a cloud. The room was cool and the fan was humming. Tom had his headphones on so I couldn't hear the bad guys exploding into gore in his game.

And I napped. One of the nicest parts was dozing, opening my eyes to see him playing quietly on the couch, reassuringly there, always there, always loving me, then dozing back to sleep.

It was one of the best naps ever.

Various Scientific Studies

I have a four day work week this week. I love four day work weeks. Four day work weeks are the best thing on earth, besides the smell of my grandson's head. I can get so much done when I have a three day weekend. I can get to all the boring things that NEED to be done like laundry, but I still have that extra, surprise bonus day when I can get to the important things like reading and dozing. And reading and dozing. Is there anything better than a nap in the afternoon when you have no other responsibilities? But that's a subject for another post.

There have been many various scientific studies which show that a four day work week makes employees happier, more productive and creates a much safer work environment. Ok, that's a lie. But it should be true.

Anyway, I did get some reading done. I finished "Motor Mouth", by Janet Evanovich. Do you all know Janet Evanovich and Stephanie, the intrepid bounty hunter with big hair? I knew you did. Well, "Metro Girl" was about new characters, and it's funny and fabulous and I adored Nascar Guy. It was so good, I even got my husband to read it. So I had high, high hopes for "Motor Mouth". But...sigh...my high hopes were dashed. It's not nearly as good. And, instead of having one of those SPOILER ALERT warnings, I just won't tell you why it's not as good. But I was disappointed. And a little sad. But then I read the second half and perked up. The second half is much better. And hilarious. The parts about the dog and what they need from him..well, enough said. It's just tasteless enough to be gut-wrenchingly funny.

On a brighter note...OK, not really because this book is a little sad too. But, anyway, on a DIFFERENT note. I also read "Anybody Out There", by Marian Keyes. Have you read Marian Keyes and her books about the five Walsh sisters? You haven't??? Well, get out there right now and get one. You can read them in any order, but it would be best if you start with the one about Rachel - "Rachel's Holiday", which is the first one. Each one is about a different sister in the crazy, dysfunctional but loving Walsh family and they are all great. They are what I consider chick lit with substance. "Anybody Out There" is the one I just finished and it's about Anna. She has been in a very, very bad car wreck which has left her hurt and scarred and she has returned to Ireland and her family to recover, but decides she must go back to New York and her fabulous job at a make-up company to recover and face her life. I can't tell much more without ruining the story for you. Suffice it to say, you may figure out what is going on before it is revealed, but it is still a kick in the stomach. And what more can you ask from a book?

Read it. I'd like to hear what you think.

The Baby Gate

We have a baby gate. We don't actually have our own baby but our delicious, giggly, softest hair in the world grandson is often at our house. So we have a baby gate. It wasn't easy to buy. The space at the top of our wooden, horrifyingly head-knocking stairs if a little boy tumbled down them, is extra wide. I brought home three gates, trying to find one to fit before Tom calmly suggested that I measure the space. Oh. Oh, yeah. I still couldn't find one to fit perfectly, but we found one that has an extension, so it fits perfectly and strongly.

This is important because, although I naively thought Wes would ignore the gate, he hangs on the gate and attempts to, apparently, make a getaway in the prison garbage truck often. And if he hears grandadddy coming up the stairs? He puts his head down and crawls to that gate like he has a jet propelled rocket up his tiny butt. So the strength ended up being important.

We baby-proof when Wes is coming over. Everything comes off the coffee table, chairs block the entrance to the dining room, and his toys are all pulled out. We thought we would take the gate up and down, but it's kind of a pain to put up. So we just leave it up. The drill is when the Wesinator is in the house, the gate door is closed and locked. It's just a habit. So the gate just stays up, with the door open when it's just us.

It's there all the time. We don't really see it anymore. But sometimes when I go through it to go up or down the stairs, I look down. And, in my mind, I see our sweet blonde boy trying to make a getaway.

And I smile.

Breaking the Sound Barrier

It's raining this morning. When I was coming to school, it was pouring and it was as dark as the inside of a sock puppet. What does this mean to me?

1. Drive cautiously.
2. Drive slower than usual.

What does this mean to some other drivers?

1. Drive as fast as you possibly can. Even faster than normal. If it is possible to break the sound barrier with your vehicle, go for it. Bad weather means nothing. Disregard it.

2. Drive as close as possible to the car in the front of you. Do not pass them on the left. Just drive as close as possible. Closer. Closer. I think it's possible to get a hair between the two bumpers. Get closer. And it is most effective if this is done in a truck so your headlights are looming huge, blinding and intimidating in the mirrors.

Moron.

All About Me. Isn't Everything?

Mrs. Who is Jan Ross, a Library Media Specialist in Lexington, Kentucky. She tried to remain anonymous at least until retirement in the spring of 2009, thinking that perhaps the parents at her school might not want to know that she is obsessive about wearing matching underwear, but when the local newspaper asked her to blog for them, that idea went out the window, along with any thought of ever using any profanity or talking about underwear on her blogs. Or at least, not as often. She has been writing since she was knee-high to a grasshopper, she also has an opinion about pretty much anything and doesn't mind expressing it, so blogging was just her forte. And she can use words like forte, so, you know. She wants to share her expertise with you. And she doesn't talk about herself in the third person. Much.

Everyone Has A Blog

OK, everyone now has a blog. Well, maybe not everyone. But lots of people. Important people. Like my daughter. I can't possibly let my daughter have a blog when I don't have one!! She always says I am copying her (conveniently forgetting that I was the one BORN FIRST) so, even though I heard about blogs and wikis at technology conferences ages ago, I guess I will have to copy her and start one. But with baby steps. I'm still learning and will make modifications and, hopefully, improvements, as I go along.

The reason for having a blog? Well...there are lots. OK, not lots. But at least one. I have a lot to say. I have a lot of opinions. And I think the least I can do is make this information available to everyone on the Internet so they can become emotionally richer people because of my expansive knowledge. Although I am the first to admit that I don't know EVERYTHING. Lots and lots and lots of stuff, but not everything. But (and here's the important part) I'm a librarian. So I KNOW WHERE YOU CAN FIND IT! Find what? Well...anything. So, if I don't know enough to have an opinion about it (these situations are rare and widely spaced), I know how to find the information about it.

I like to talk and I like to write so this should be the perfect place for me. I will be writing about...pretty much everything. I am an elementary school librarian, a wife, mother, grandmother, sister, daughter, friend, a voracious reader, an avid movie fan, an ardent tv viewer, and a world traveller (with many, many more trips planned). I'm also an overweight baby boomer on a diet and am looking forward to retirement in a couple of years. So, I have lots of things to talk about. I can't guarantee that I will write every day, since it seems my life gets more hectic and jam-packed every day, but I will write often. I admit I do have a bad memory which is rapidly deteriorating into little, charred bits of cinder even as I write, so I may repeat myself. I’ll try not to. But if I do, just shrug and enjoy the marvelous writing about something you have heard before.I hope to hear from some of you. Thanks for reading.

And, now, to give you something to comment on besides my lively introduction, I thought I would include my take on the last new "Bones" episode from a few weeks ago, before the new season begins.

I think David Boreanaz is as hot as a restaurant in Punta Cana in July with no air conditioning. And that’s pretty damn hot. I know. I loved, loved, loved him in “Angel” and often fantasized about what would have happened in his relationship with Buffy if the writers and directors had ONLY LISTENED to me and my wonderful script revisions which only occurred in my head, but hey, they were good!

Now, about the latest episode, “Judas on a Pole”. Wasn’t Ryan O’Neal perfect as Bones’ father? Although, one would think you would recognize your own father even though it HAD been fifteen years and there HAD been some plastic surgery. Still. Suspend your disbelief and just enjoy the moment. So, he’s a bad guy but really a good guy because he murdered the even badder guys who were after his kids. And in a pretty awful manner. Wouldn’t those intestines have burned up with the rest of the body? One would think so. But it did make a dramatic moment when Bones picked them up and they rolled around like a fat snake. So, I guess he and her brother are out of the picture for now. Do you think Booth suspected her brother knew? Is that why he had coffee with him at the diner? Hmmm. OK, on to the love/sex/magnetism between Booth and Bones. Don’t you think there was a lot of physical stuff in this episode? I’m not just talking about the hugs – although that was cool when she automatically turned to him and buried her face in his shoulder – I’m talking about the grabbing every time he wanted her to go with him and when she smacked his hands? Was that sexy or what? OK, I have to get my gratification in other ways since he obviously is not going to throw her down on the autopsy table anytime soon. But the slapping – I know I’m showing my age, but does anyone else remember the slapping on “Moonlighting” between David and Maddy? She slaps him, he slaps her back (she DOES deserve it), she starts to slap him, he grabs her hand, the music builds and they get horizontal. Extremely sexy. Although I could write a whole blog on how that show was ruined when Cybil Shepherd got her panties in a knot because Bruce Willis was becoming a bigger star than her. Anyway, the slapping. Did anyone else think that was sexy??
And, speaking of sexy, how do you think Cam feels about Booth? I’m thinking she likes him a whole lot more than he likes her. Did you see how she straightened his jacket in that one scene. Definitely the action of a woman who LIKES a guy, not just wants him in her bed. What do you think?

About this or anything else? Let me hear from ya!

Mrs. Who's White Elephant Blog Giveaway Information

Mrs. Who's White Elephant Blog Giveaway

White Elephant: Something of dubious or limited value (value being in the eye of the beholder)

This is a blog giveaway of all the fabulously cute things I find at second-hand stores that I love but simply can't fit into my home for one reason or another. Because, you know. One man's trash is another man's cute little candle holder shaped like a daschund. Or something like that.

Every Monday I will host the White Elephant Blog Giveaway and will have something interesting to give away. Something I think is interesting anyway. Maybe you won't think it is interesting at all. So I will just take my fabulous plate with the raised image of the Statue of Liberty and keep it all to myself.

My preeeecioussssss.

OK. You know I don't actually have that candle holder or plate, right? Because those were just EXAMPLES. The stuff I have is much more fabulous than that. So. I will post pictures and a description and, if you want to have the fabulousness of this item in your very own home, you will need to make a comment.

You can comment on the wonderfulness that is me or you can say something like "I want that." Either is fine. Just comment. Then I will take the three ten one hundred many, many comments and randomly choose the lucky winner. We may end up with just three comments from my family members and that's fine. Saves me shipping costs. I can just hand it to them.

I will give everyone until Friday night to comment. Then I will email you for information and ship your package. If you do not have a blog link in your comment, you will need to leave an email address so I can contact you. Are you ready? The excitement is palpable.

Remember to check back every Monday. You just never know what you might find that you, quite simply, can't live without.

List of Blog Giveaways

Dessert Dishes - Wednesday, February 13

Tiny Owls - Monday, February 18