Done and a regret

I raced through the last pages of Eragon yesterday at lunch... taking a few moments to linger over some of the better passages, but mostly just tearing through the words, packing my head full of all the memories of what the words meant, so that after lunch the message could echo through the remainder of the afternoon.

I really REALLY liked this book.

There are points at which you can tell it's written by a young author. The bad guys are pretty easy to pick out, for example. Still, being something of an optimist as regards the genuine good in people, I am pleased that a 15 year old boy wasn't more adept at hiding his bad-guys. In my opinion, 15 year old boys are meant to be genuine, and not so good at conniving and deceit. It made me smile.

My only regrets about this whole experience are that:
a) I didn't have an uninterrupted, snow-stormy, roaring-fireplace-weekend for reading it
and
b) I finished it 3 weeks before the next book will be sent to our house... and my mom gets to read it first.

Buy, borrow, or otherwise acquire this book... in all it took me about 5 hours to read. Granted I'm a fast reader, but it's light and lovely and definitely worth the investment.

Numbers

74 - pages left until I finish this book. I will have to speed read through lunch, because I WILL NOT be able to wait until I get home

50 - days until I get to OFFICIALLY start my new job

37 - days until the next paid holiday

33 - days until I receive my referral bonus (i.e. credit card payment fodder)

5 - friends and family members with whom I NEED to "catch up"

4 - work tasks I have pending (awaiting input from others)

3 - wedding related social events that I must attend before the end of the year

126 - minutes between RIGHT NOW and lunch (when I can get back to reading the book)

Passage

My grandmother is dying.

She's yearned, for years, to find herself at death's door. Her commentary on her desire to leave this world began at about the same time as the onset of the Alzheimer's... and to me it made a lot of sense considering most of her happiness and solace was found in words and her own thoughts. She was a devout Catholic as well... I can only imagine her heartache when she couldn't remember the words to her prayers, and later when she couldn't remember, even, that she was praying at all.

I'm fairly certain she won't live much longer than this week and for her sake, I'm glad.

My spirituality tells me that she is poised to move into a new phase of being... and my hope for her is that it is one where she is awash in words and brilliant sparkling thoughts and full, rich conversations and lush, vivid memories.

11:30 agony

At about 11:30 I got a call to spend a few minutes with the woman who will be my new boss.
That was nice.

On my way to the elevator, however, I found myself walking through a lingering swamp of left-behind men's cologne. It was almost nauseating.

What's worse? It was still there on my way back - 15 minutes later.

Mildly Obsessed

grr.

i do not read fantasy

and yet, last night i stayed up about an hour past my normal sleep time...

...reading fantasy

Status
i'm at page 289
have learned a new word:

TENEBROUS
Main Entry: ten·e·brous
Pronunciation:
'te-n&-br&s
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French tenebreus, from Latin tenebrosus, from tenebrae
1 : shut off from the light : dark; murky
2 : hard to understand : obscure
3 : causing gloom

and am desperately awaiting lunch / reading time

60 more under the belt...

I'm up to page 210
I really like this book - - - It has a werecat.

If there is ever such a thing as a past - or next - life:
a) I think they must run concurrently
b) I would like to be a werecat

I'm not going to tell you any more about them. If you want, you can read the book.

That's all for now - I have to prepare for a meeting... that will likely take me through the end of the day.

Book Baton

Allow me first to apologize for the fact that I do not currently have a recipient for my baton. I'm working on one, however, and will update as necessary.

# of Books on Shelves
Approximately 50 - the remaining hundreds are housed in back-breaking moving boxes scattered between attics and basements

Last book purchased
Probably it was Eldest - the sequel to Eragon

Currently Reading
Eragon

Last 5 Read
How to Say It At Work
Woe is I
Cloud Atlas
A Round Heeled Woman
Ahab's Wife

Meaningful Books
Emily Post and Miss Manners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - M. Kundera

Breakfast, Work, and Reading

Breakfast today has been (so far) an enormous bag (ok - a sandwich bag, half full) of some ridged, no flavor, potato chips (half stale from the humidity) and a still-too-hot-to-eat styrofoam cup of maple and brown sugar oatmeal. Oh - and the remnants of last night's can of diet coke with lime... and a cup of tea that's currently cooling to a non-molten temp. You'd think I was a bachelor.

Work - 53 days and counting.

I'm deep into Eragon. After attempting to read the book for several evenings in a row (and accomplishing only about a page and a half) I dedicated my daughter's nap times over the weekend to sitting down and reading and have cleared about 150 pages. In total it's about 500 pages. So I figure if I go through it at one hour increments (lunch breaks and nap times) I should be able to finish it sometime this week.

About the book - considering the following, I'd say it's a pretty recommendable read:
a) I do not read fantasy - yet this is a book about elves, magicians, dragons and their riders - and I have not put it down and walked away from it
b) the author (who was 15 when he wrote this book - and - graduated from high school) has a very rewarding vocabulary
c) I think I may have something of a trans-speciel semi-crush on Saphira - one of the main characters - at the very least, suffice to say I think very highly of her....

In other news - the weekend was peaceful and apart from a nasty sinus thingey (which I think may be a recent case of barrometer head) very, very enjoyable.

Next Up - Book Baton

Wediquette

Wq recently received an invitation to a cousin's wedding.

The bride (?) very gracefully explained in the invitation "adult reception to follow..." and (and this part I liked) "tie required". In 6 words she managed to tell EVERYONE that it is a formal event and that children - while they love them - are not invited.

We will be declining. It's nothing personal... I mean, actually it's entirely personal - but it's my personal... it's not a grudge against their persons, personal. At this time in my life - and more specifically at this time in my daughter's life - I'm not prepared to spend an evening away from her to participate in the reception of a loved (but not close) cousin. As a matter of fact, at this time in her life there are very few things that will entice me away from her for an entire evening. Just ask her father... he knows...

So, the coolest bit of this invitation is that I don't really imagine either the groom or the bride being horribly offended. I knew - let me rephrase KNEW - that when I made *my* wedding a no-kids event many of the people invited would not come, because they either:
a) wanted to be with their kids or
b) wanted to be at the wedding but coudn't find a sitter.
I was not offended. I just realised that priorities are priorities and there's no way I'm going to discredit ANYONE for wanting to be with their children. As a matter of fact, I seriously applauded those who didn't come because they wanted to be with their children - but that's mostly because I really wanted a small wedding to begin with, and blah blah blah blah blah... story for a different time.

Anywho... what I'm saying is that I'm not of the mind that weddings are events for children. I've taken my daughter to three of them (in the short 15 months of her life) and she has enjoyed zero. I'm also fairly certain that the brides and grooms felt no specific special blessing for having my daughter (who doesn't understand the concept of matrimony, or blessings, or pretty much more than a vague idea of love - and that's only recent) at their events. Moreover at one of the three events, I'm almost decided that the bride and groom might rather have NOT had me and my husband there, than to have had my daughter with us.

So what I'm saying is that I'm grateful to the bride for letting me know right up front that she has specific ideas of what she wants, that she did it beautifully, and that I can feel very comfortable letting her know that I won't be able to be there.

Oh the GLORY of etiquette working like a well-oiled machine!

Potter Mom - Babble Fest

No... she doesn't throw clay on wheels (though she's always wanted to)... she reads the Harry Potter books. The Half-Blood Prince is sitting on her nightstand waiting... because she's as fair as she is fanatical, and won't set a book she's already reading aside (no matter how much she may dislike it, mind you) to read something she knows she'll like.

It's one of the reasons I've always known that even if I had siblings I'd never feel less special.

Anywho... Half-Blood showed up on our doorstep on Saturday - we pre-ordered it to get a good price (which we later discovered we could have got at the local Kroger when we did our grocery shopping on Saturday). And the amazing part - to me - was that I (who have yet to read even one page of the first book) was more keen on having her open it than she was herself. Possibly this is because of the book (the one she doesn't like) that she's alrady reading. I've never liked knowing what's for dessert while I'm trying to force myself through dinner.

Ooh - funny - that's where I find myself in my business life right now - but that's a story for another time.

Anywho... I've been thinking that I've been reading "tea leaves" for far too long, and it IS summer, and there are a lot of books that mom's gone through and probably it's time for me to add a new book to my list.

There's a book on the shelf called Eragon that I've been meaning to read... the second in the series Eldest is already slated to be delivered once it's released (Aug 23). It might be nice to read two books at a time... well, in order... you know what I mean.

Anywho... the short version is that I feel outpaced lately... and it's time for me to read.

I'll keep y'all posted.

Evil Heat

It's a gazillion hot and humid degrees outside.

No one should be forced to work in this heat. I honestly believe that everyone who has an outside job should be given the day off today.

For me... it's the first time in months that I haven't felt compelled to wear a sweater in the chill of our office's air conditioning.

More on Vacation - and me...

Ah the ocean. The warm, wavy, southern Atlantic... all full of sand and salt and people enjoying themselves... and WAVES.

We did other things while we were away. We swam in very creative (Disney-Imagineered) pools. We shopped. We even visited the Magic Kingdom. But nothing was more magic to me than the time on the beach.

We only went to the shore 3 times, but during each visit, I was treated with my daughter's delight, my mother's peace, my husband's adventuresome spirit, my father's smile, and a VERY healthy dose of sunshine, wave-hopping, and sand-play for myself.

There is something about the sea that revives my spirit, lifts my soul, and awakens me. I quite literally felt 15 again, giddy and bright and full of an enthusiastic love of everything (including the people) around me.

I'm not a person who carries gradiose plans. I live a relatively modest life (these days, at least) of pretty normal dimensions. I take immense pleasure in the company of my dearest friends. I'm consoled by a cup of tea and time with my journal. I have never wanted a life of wealth or fame or infamy. But in my deepest heart, right now (and possibly for some years to come) my dream, my hope, and my secretest of goals is to figure out how to find, purchase, and live in a house on the warm shores of the southern Atlantic.

Pink Dot's Special K - or - "I second that emotion"

Being a friend of Kassi, I have the crazy wonderful benefit of sometimes being able to figure out her crypticism. It utterly tickles me and works wonders for satisfying my latent detective-y urges.

Anywho -

I have had the privilege of knowing her K for many years... having met (AND developing an immediate crush on) and worked with K during a very bright period of my reckless youth. I have known and loved this person for more years, I think than either of us would care to acknowledge, because, quite frankly, it would mean that we would either have to admit to breaking several child labor laws, or worse, our true ages.

A genuine wit, a person of unquestionable judgment, beautiful morals, unbelievable creativity, breathtaking intelligence, and the embodiment of all things graceful; I have only ever felt absolute delight in the distinct honor of being able to call K one of my best friends.

And now for a true confession:
There is a chance that I will burn in hell (or at least inhabit - most likely in chains - one of hell's brass towers) for the undeniable envy I experience EVERY TIME I think about Kassi being able to spend time with K on a daily basis at work. Fortunately, that will be after I'm dead, and it being too hot to live won't matter much.

Homecoming

It's not really.
I have actually FOUND my home... it's located on the sunny shores of a warm ocean, with the purr and roar of waves crashing and the salted smell of the sea wafting up.

I was not built for Michigan.

I'm only hours back in my home state (born and bred here) and aching for the far away sea-side bliss I so recently left behind.

More on vacation when I stop missing it so.