Memorial Day

Our heartfelt thanks to those who have committed their lives to protecting our country and our freedom.

Our deepest gratitude for those who have sacrificed their lives in that pursuit.

Wishing you all a safe and happy

 holiday weekend.

T&T Bookclub

Necessity is the mother of invention, or so they say - whoever "they" are - so when my sister and I needed a way to stay close in spite of the 250 mile distance between our houses, we invented the T&T bookclub (named after ourselves, of course).  Over the past 12-15 years (can't remember the exact start date - can't ask Sis, she's even older than I am) it has changed forms several times, but the basic idea is that we take turns selecting a book to read and creating a related activity - anything from a simple verbal review of the book, to trying out a recipe, to taking a field trip. 

Sis's selection for June is "Death by Darjeeling", first in the Tea Shop Mystery series by Laura Childs.  From the beautiful picture on the cover to the cut line "Just the right blend of cozy fun and clever plotting", this book looks to be just my cup of tea.  In fact, I purchased the entire series for the library with the intention of reading them myself, but haven't gotten to them yet, so I'm excited to get started.

Our activity to accompany our reading is to take our mom, other sister and as many granddaughters as we can round up for lunch at The Huckleberry Tea House in Concordia, KS (near where Mom and sisters live - I'm the oddball that moved away, but you probably would have guessed that). 

Once again, I'm advocating reading together.  Sharing a book is a great way to maintain or expand a friendship, and a book club for two or three can take on any form that fits your schedule and preferences.  Find a friend and share a story!

The Librarian Life

I read several blogs written by fellow librarians who document the bizarre and comical antics of library patrons.  I'm not talking about the average citizen who comes in to check out a bestseller or the students using the computers for homework, although they can be pretty entertaining at times.  I'm talking about the transients, the unstable, the (dare I say it?) crazies who equate the words "public library" with "free answer to all life's problems".  Even in a little bitty town in the far corner of Kansas, an amazing parade of humanity comes through those doors. 

Laughing at others' encounters with patrons made me decide to share about one of my favorites:  The man who wanted to UN-file his income tax.  During March and April the public access computers are continually busy with folks filing taxes and we face a deluge of questions - most of which we can't answer for legal reasons as we're not trained tax preparers.  But, my favorite is the young man who had completed and submitted his tax return, waited approximately two days and then returned to the library to ask for assistance in UN-filing.  Seems his girlfriend had filed her return using a different on-line filing site and had received her refund within a couple days.  Since his had not arrived yet, he had determined that the best course of action was to UN-file on the site he used and RE-file on the site his girl had chosen, thus ensuring him a speedier refund.

No amount of explaining would convince him that a.) you can not UN-file or b.) all returns go to the same IRS and they will process your refund as they receive it.  He finally left in a snit, convinced that we were hiding the secret for instant tax refunds, and hasn't been back since. 

If you are a librarian or just want to get an inside glimpse of the job, you might want to look at these blogs, among others:

A Librarian's Guide to Ettiquette
Comma, You Idiot
Tales From Library Land

Blue-Eyed Devil by Robert B. Parker

Blue-Eyed Devil continues the saga of gun-slinging saddle pals Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch as they trade wisecracks and hot lead with back-shooting owlhoots and murderous Apaches in the town of Appaloosa. Cole and Hitch used to be the law in town, but now Appaloosa has a corrupt, ambitious, and deadly police chief named Amos Callico backed up by 12 rifle-toting cops of dubious background, and though Callico sees Cole and Hitch as impediments to his plans for extortion and high political office, his threats don't worry the boys much. Meanwhile, Cole kills the son of a prominent rancher in a fair fight, renegade Apaches plan an attack on the town, and a mysterious dandy arrives in town with a sinister agenda. Fortunately, Cole and Hitch are smart and resourceful, and there's trickery, gunplay, and throat-cutting until only a few folks are left standing. (Publishers Weekly)

Blue-Eyed Devil is the fourth installment of the Cole and Hitch western series.  If you haven't read the first three, this one can be a bit hard to follow as there are lots of references to previous events, so I recommend reading them in order. 

This was an easy-reading, fast-paced story that I enjoyed, but can't say I loved.  If you've read any of my previous reviews of Robert Parker books, you know I'm a huge fan of his style, but I'm afraid it just doesn't work for me this time.  The biggest problem was that the minimalist dialog and descriptions that I usually love left this story feeling superficial.  There wasn't any insight or emotion to make me feel a connection to any of the characters or get too concerned about what happened to them.  Unlike the Spenser series that started with more in-depth character development and progressed to the current bare-bones style, Cole and Hitch jump directly into the action without giving the reader any exposure to their motives.

For fans of pure action-oriented westerns, this series will be a success.  For me it was a pleasant diversion, but nothing to write home about.

Movie Review: Date Night and Back-Up Plan

Romantic comedies make for the perfect date night movie - especially one called "Date Night".  Tina Fey and Steve Carrell are a middle-aged couple - Phil and Claire Foster - stuck in the rut of family life, work and kids. They're weekly date night has become one more part of the routine, so Phil decides to jazz things up by taking his wife to an upscale Manhattan restaurant.  Unable to get a table and unwilling to give up, they identify themselves as the Triplehorns - a couple who have failed to show for their reservation.  The mistaken identity leads to a laundry list of dangers, close calls and slapstick humor.  There were plenty of car chases and shoot-em-ups for Dave, enough romance and clever dialog for me, and plenty of laugh-out-loud moments for us both.

Our second date night film was "Backup Plan", starring Jennifer Lopez and Alex O'Loughlin.  Zoe (Lopez) has given up on finding "the guy" and decides to have a child on her own.  On the same day she visits the doctor to set her plan in motion, she also meets Stan - who just might turn out to be Mr. Right.  Thus the comedy of errors begins:  from attempting to hide the morning sickness, fatigue and cravings of early pregnancy while dating, through witnessing a member of her single-moms support group give birth in a kiddie pool, to the mood swings and ungainliness of the third trimester...  This movie also satisfied both of our tastes in films (although maybe a little too "chick-flick" for Dave at times) but the best part was sharing the memories of our childrens' arrivals that this movie stirred up.

We recommend both of these flicks for date night viewing and we also strongly recommend having at least a bi-weekly date night.  Even if your children are teens like ours or completely on their own, having an occasional night to return to your dating days and focus only on each other is worth the effort and cost.   There's no need to act your age, act like kids again!

Intentionally Illiterate

I ran across the following deep thoughts penned by Ronnica of The Ignorant Historian and they got me to thinking:

I’m a reader.  In part because I was raised a reader (thanks, Mom!). In part because I love learning. And in part because I enjoy spending the time alone.  I feel very blessed with knowing how to read. Whole worlds are open to me, only because I can make sense of the symbols on a page. I’ve learned and been challenged in what I believe because I can read.  So you know what really bugs me?  When people choose not to read.

I don’t mean those that can’t read, whether from lack of opportunities to learn, lack of material to read, or learning disabilities. And I don’t mean those who are in a time of life where they can’t read what they want, like young mothers or students (though anyone can find a few minutes to read here and there…it took me 6 months to read Gone with the Wind in college, but I did it).

I mean those who were taught how to read, but haven’t taken advantage of it.

We hear so much about the illiteracy rates in America and around the world - illiteracy based on poverty, conflict or disabilities - but no one talks about those who choose to ignore the gift once it is given them. To us, intentional illiteracy is a crime that ranks up there with book burning, desecrating the flag, parking lots with no spaces for mothers of small children...

This has been an ongoing discussion in our household because we somehow raised a non-reader.  With two parents who read daily, I'm not sure how this happened, but it did.  We have an incredibly bright, creative and animated daughter (and we're not a bit biased), but she won't read a book under threat of law, teachers or disconnection of her cell phone.

 What is it that makes some people love reading and others not?  Is there a genetic connection?  Our household certainly wouldn't uphold that theory.  Is it nurture rather than nature?  We exposed both of our kids to books and reading from birth and they both loved to be read to in their toddler years.  We took them to libraries and bought books from every school flier and book sale.  What makes our Little Missy choose to be illiterate?

Ronnica closed her post with this thought:  If you’re numbered among the intentionally illiterate, what would get you to read?  Would Dear Daughter read if she were cut off from Facebook, texting, tv and instant messaging?  My mother has none of those things except tv and watches very little of it, yet she never picks up a book. 

 I consider the ability to read as one of the greatest gifts I have received and the loss of that gift to age or illness as one of my greatest fears.  Books are my friends, my escape, my consolation and my joy.  How can someone choose not to have that?  If you were expecting astute answers to all these questions, sorry to disappoint.  But I would love to hear your thoughts.

 Thanks to Ronnica for stirring up my thought process and for her permission to share her insights here.

Baseball and Books

Yesterday was the final game of our daughter's high school softball career, so even though the team is 0-and-however-many on the season (we could use some work on the fundamentals...and a pitcher) we drove the seventy-five miles one way to watch our little darling stand in right field for two innings and bat once. (There's a "mercy" rule that allows the game to be called after three innings if the score is too one-sided.  Mercifully, it came into play!)  Basically, we had three hours in the car to watch a one hour game, but it allowed us plenty of reading time and Stephen King's new novella, Blockade Billy, seemed like the appropriate book.

Even the most diehard baseball fans don't know the true story of William "Blockade Billy" Blakely. He may have been the greatest player the game has ever seen, but today no one remembers his name. He was the first -- and only -- player to have his existence completely removed from the record books. Even his team is long forgotten, barely a footnote in the game's history.  Every effort was made to erase any evidence that William Blakely played professional baseball, and with good reason. Blockade Billy had a secret darker than any pill or injection that might cause a scandal in sports today. His secret was much, much worse. (synopsis from book jacket)

On Barnes and Noble's website, Mr. King is quoted as saying, "I love old-school baseball,and I also love the way people who've spent a lifetime in the game talk about the game. I tried to combine those things in a story of suspense." And he did so very successfully.  This is the baseball of Field of Dreams:

"Man, I did love this game. I'd have played for food money. It was the game... The sounds, the smells. Did you ever hold a ball or a glove to your face?...It was the crowd, rising to their feet when the ball was hit deep. Shoot, I'd play for nothing!" (Shoeless Joe Jackson)

And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces...It reminds us of all that once was good and could be again. (Terrance Mann)

That's what I wish for. Chance to squint at a sky so blue that it hurts your eyes just to look at it. To feel the tingling in your arm as you connect with the ball. To run the bases - stretch a double into a triple, and flop face-first into third, wrap your arms around the bag. (Doc Graham)

The book is only about eighty pages long (excluding illustrations) and the first sixty or so are classic baseball.  The expected Stephen King twist doesn't appear until the end, but you don't care.  In those few pages, we were transported to the world of baseball in 1957.  The writing is so good that even a marginal baseball fan like me - I love the game, but don't know a lot of the details - was absorbed in the story.  The story is told from the perspective of third-base coach "Granny" Grantham - now living in a nursing home and recounting the tale of Blockade Billy to Stephen King - so it definitely captured the authentic lingo of the game and the time.  Some of the idioms were confusing to me, but Dave jumped in with definitions when needed. 

The twist, when it finally arrives, is not totally surprising - there were a couple clues along the way if you were paying close attention - but it's just "King-ish" enough to make for a satisfying curveball.  This is another example of Mr. King's extreme talent for writing.  We both gave this story an A+.