What I Read and The Ants Are Dead

My reading break was a success! I finished two books (click on each image to enlarge for detail -- this works on all but The Lottery by Shirley Jackson):













And, I read bits of three more:













Reviews of Moonstruck and Jeremy Visick are forthcoming.

Only two days post grits feeding, the fire ants appeared to be totally dead and thus far they have not returned. A third hill-kicking produced absolutely no movement or life signs. So, listen to your elderly grandmother when she tells you to feed your fire ants grits. She knows what she's talking about.

Wishes to those in the United States for a safe and enjoyable Memorial Day weekend. This weekend is the opening of the City Pool, so kiddo will be busy lifeguarding. The rest of us are going to do whatever house and yard work we can squeeze in, between storms. And, of course, I'll be reading like a mad woman on housekeeping breaks.

Happy Reading!

If this isn't a beautiful sight, I don't know what is and stories that keep coming back

This is the sight of a husband making homemade pasta. What could possibly be more fun to watch?


There was some fun on Saturday, as well, although I was the only witness. Yesterday's excitement involved two beautiful pileated woodpeckers knocking holes in our oak tree and tussling with each other.


We're still having regular storms, so the eldest did not come home this weekend and when we're not listening to thunder and rain, we've been cleaning (me), cooking (husband), reading (kiddo and me), running errands (the guys) and doing laundry and writing when the computer's plugged in (me). It's been quite pleasant.

I love this quote from "Where They Hide is a Mystery" by Simon Van Booy:

"And I suppose that the wind is just air? And not laughter's laughter?"

It's just occurred to me that the stories in Simon's book, The Secret Lives of People in Love, have stuck with me more completely than anything else I've read, this year. Bits and pieces of different stories come back to me at odd moments. I think that's the best kind of read, don't you? Is there a 2007 read that has continued to come back to you, throughout the year?

A Bookish Moment

Flipping through a book catalog is a bad thing to do on a regular basis, when your house looks as if it will disappear beneath the mounds of books at any moment. But, in spite of that, I still do occasionally lose my head and peek through one of those wonderful catalogs that arrive in the mail.

I was flipping through the Daedalus Books catalog while hubby boiled some eggs (yes, he cooks) when I saw a familiar author's name: Gerald Durrell.

"Hey," I said to the spouse, "there are some books by Gerald Durrell listed in this catalog."
Blank look. "Who is that?"
"An author you've read."
"No, I haven't."
"Yes, you have. Remember, he wrote a book called The Overloaded Ark? You read it a long, long time ago."
"Never heard of it."
"We still have it, I think." At this point, I hopped up and walked to the nicest of our shelves, looked upward and plucked the book off the shelf.
I held it up. "See, this is the book. I think you really liked it."
Hubby squinted at the book and proclaimed it unfamiliar, so I told him the cover designated it as a travel book and I thought it was a memoir. He shook his head, again, and then stopped and stared.
At this point, the little bell finally rang over the husband's head and he said, "Oh, is that the one that -- where does it take place?"
The back cover said Africa and I read the blurb. Ding, ding, ding. Now, he remembered and started to babble happily about the book and how great it was; and, of course, I was laughing at my husband's funny tendency to shove aside certain bits of information that are just naturally filed in my own brain. We're so different.
Still, it was a nice moment.