Showing posts with label likely to melt your brain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label likely to melt your brain. Show all posts

Friday, October 15, 2010

Fiona Friday and Mindless Meanderings

I absolutely love this photo of Fiona because it shows her typical patient, relaxed expression. She is such a lovely cat in both looks and personality. Fiona has continued to grow, since Isabel arrived, and she is a big, sturdy cat, now.

Some of you already know that yesterday was a banner day for our kitties. We've been slowly letting Isabel spend the night outside her room (the utility room) but I was planning to put her to bed in the usual way until I spent some time reading in the bedroom. Fiona was sleeping at the end of the bed on her cardboard scratching pad and it was cold, so I moved her onto the bed. Then, in marched Isabel, once Fiona had finished her luxurious bathing ritual and dropped off to sleep.

Fi was nervous, at first, afraid the little hellion would pounce on her. So, I petted her head and told her, "It's all right." Isabel was obviously tired and ducking in submission. Fiona relaxed and groomed Izzy. Izzy kneaded on Fi's belly a little, feeling instinctively mothered, I suppose. And, then Isabel walked around behind Fi and put both her paws around Fi's neck and groomed her head. Then, she curled up within inches of Fiona. Awww. I can't believe my two kitties have only known each other for about 7 weeks! I ended up letting Isabel sleep outside the utility room and was rewarded with the warmth of two nearby kitties, most of the night.

On the book end of life, I finished reading The Puzzle King by Betsy Carter, Thursday evening. I loved the ending and had to reach for a tissue when I read the brief Epilogue, which touched me deeply.

I'm getting close to finishing Nightshade by Andrea Kremer, a book my son gobbled down in a single evening. It's taken me a bit longer, but I'm enjoying my jaunt into a world of werewolves.

I'm also reading Detectives Don't Wear Seatbelts by Cici McNair, a former Mississippian and world traveler who now owns a private detective agency. And, I started Why We Need Love, edited by Simon Van Booy but the first entry bogged me down. I'm going to get back to that, today. It's an excerpt from Silas Marner and I think I was just too tired for George Eliot's lengthy sentences when I first picked up the book. Oh, and one more -- I started reading Jane Austen Ruined My Life by Beth Patillo, two evenings ago. It's mildly fluffy and totally fun, thus far.

In other news . . . I'm a klutz. No, really. In the midst of the read-a-thon, my husband called to ask me to measure two prints so he could search for frames. I fetched one from the mantle and then climbed on a chair to retrieve the other from the top of a bookcase. I fell off the chair and hit the back of another dining chair, just below my ribs. Yeow. And, then I cut myself while opening a parcel. I was chatting with someone and told her I've become Superklutz and she said, "That's nothing. I sliced my lip open on a popsicle, this morning."

That definitely made me feel better.

Recent Arrivals (both from Paperback Swap):

So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore by Jacobsen and Coleman
The Republic of Nothing by Lesley Choyce

I tried to write a review, yesterday, and found myself staring at the computer, instead, so I've still got plenty of catch-up reviews to write. Hopefully, next week I'll feel more inspired. At least I'm enjoying the reading.

Update - forgot to mention:

If you subscribe to my feed, you will have probably noticed a number of posts containing nothing but lists of reads in years past, yesterday or the day before. That is because I just happened to find a stockpile of old calendars and decided to update my sidebar so that you can now peek into my past reading life as far as 1997. I began keeping track of books I'd finished primarily because I was reading a lot of titles by Dick Francis and the titles didn't necessarily have a clear association with his storylines, so I kept accidentally buying them twice. That was sometime in the 90's. During the early years, my reading wasn't always accurately recorded and often I had trouble reading my writing because my calendar was cluttered with children's activities, work schedules, travel notes, running mileage during the years I ran regularly . . . you name it. Sorry about that mess in your readers. Just page past it to get to the normal posts.

Happy Weekend, Everybody!

Lovable, furry old Grover Bookfool

©2010 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Tuesday Twaddle - Because some weeks you just don't have your reviewing groove on

Image borrowed from Jared Donovan

Seriously, I just feel like reading this week. Don't want to write reviews (although, yes, I'm sure I'll get back to review-writing very soon). So, I'm going to try to get you into all sorts of trouble by listing a few non-book blogs I love to visit . . . and then I'll probably babble about bookish things because that's what I do.

Where to start? How about showing you the place I wasted hours of my precious time, today? AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com. I got to page 65. That was a bad idea. I will never get those hours back.

One of my all-time favorite blogs, the blog of a location scout in New York: Scouting New York. Love it, love it.

This one is Nikki's fault. Ever since she posted one of Anja Mulder's illustrations, I've been considering becoming a crazed fangirl. This is a recent favorite:


Anecdotal Interlude --

I took Blind Kitty for one of her bi-weekly visits to the vet, today. When he asked how she was doing, I told him she's about the same but she can jump on the bed and yet somehow manages to run into walls. He said, "Yeah. Well, that's hard to explain --" and turned toward the wall, prepared to describe the reason for my cat's odd behavior. I said, "She can see shapes and light?" He swiveled around and said, "That's it, exactly!" See what a great vet I have? He explains things soooo well.

Back to links. In Vicksburg, I am sadly, hugely eclipsed by a number of fine photographers. What I really want to do is meet Marty Kittrell (<---that link leads to his photo blog) so I can ask him where on earth he parks to take some of his photos (not the current set -- I know where to go for those, if I could just get off my lazy butt and out the door). Southern Lagniappe is another mind-bogglingly wonderful Vicksburg photo blog.

This Christian blogger never fails to make me laugh. You can't help but fall for a guy who has a category in his sidebar entitled, "People I Think Will Still Talk to Me," now, can you?

Bookwise, I got two more books in the mail, today. I'm sure it's a fluke.

The Sum of His Syndromes by K. B. Dixon - Author's fault!!!! I was contacted by the author with a request to review his latest book and I told him I'm not accepting books ('cause I'm not) but then I read excerpts from all of them and ended up ordering The Sum of His Syndromes, which I immediately sat down to read, the moment it arrived . . . with the cat . . . who I swear really appreciated hearing me breathe beside her on the floor. Also, I am loving it. It's a nice, quirky little book.

Elephant a la Mode: An Epicurean Guide to Life by T. Roy Nakai - Accidentally requested because I'm not requesting books for review. I'm not. Honest. Okay, sometimes I forget momentarily but you didn't hear that from me. Elephant, etc. needs work before I can read it. Somehow, the gummy part of the envelope became attached to the top of the book, thus glueing (gluing???) all the pages together. Sometimes you have to work for your entertainment.

I think that's all I have to talk about. It's storming outside and normally I shut off the computer the moment I hear the first peal of thunder. Obviously, there's something wrong with me, today. I'm going to go read to see if that cures me. Peek-a-boo.


That's probably also not me. This is a day of hot denial. I'll leave it up to you to figure out how much of this post makes me vulnerable to the words "liar, liar, pants on fire".

"Not I," said the Little Read Hen (deliberate misspelling, there -- did you catch it?)