N is for Novels

Above: The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilyn Jackson, Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson, The Conferacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson, and A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel...all outstanding and any I would be happy to loan to you to read.

I love to read. I grew up in a house that was blissfully full of books. My dad read espionage novels. (We used to joke that he would read any book with a swastika on it.) My mom read epic historical romance novels. (Not Harlequin romances.)

I remember my mother reading the Little House on the Prarie books to me and I seem to remember, in turn, reading them to my sister and also rereading them myself.

I remember having lots of classics in the house. Tom Sawyer. Black Beauty. The Last of the Mohicans. All of them really beautiful books with marbled endpapers that just made me want to curl up in my favorite chair and read.

I remember when I got my own room, there was one panelled wall that had bookshelves on it and the books that were there just stayed when I moved in. One whole shelf was full of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot novels. I devoured those.

I always read before bed and, in fact, can't get to sleep if I don't. Currently reading: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: A Novel. (My dad would be proud, huh?) Book I'm most looking forward to: A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty. (Joshilyn Jackson is amazing. I repeat: amazing.)

Anyway, when I was making my life list, I knew I had to pick one of the many, many book lists and work on reading as many books as I could from it. The one list I kept coming back to was one I had done a Facebook meme on: the BBC's The Big Read list. So, that is the list I've put a pin in on my life list.

I've been able to cross off quite a few books already. While I'm thinking about all those books I have read, let me say thank you to Ms. Dodd for that AP English assigned reading of Crime and Punishment...I don't know that I would roll up my sleeves for that one now. And, as much as we love Les Mis in our house, that book is a doozy, too. So, thanks for that one, too.

This list is great, in my opinion, because it has such a hodge podge of things on it:

1) It has a lot of books I would consider to be "should reads". Things like To Kill a Mockingbird and The Grapes of Wrath. (Where is Huckleberry Finn, though?)

2) It has some great recent young adult books like the Harry Potter books and the Alex Rider series as well as older classics like Treasure Island. I love young adult novels, so I respect a list that includes some from the genre.

3) It has some quirky picks like Bridget Jones's Diary and Flowers in the Attic. I like a list with stuff like that because it keeps it interesting.

4) Since the list is a BBC list, it has a plethora of books by certain British authors. Some of those are fine with me (Roald Dahl is wonderful); some are staring at me just daring me to try again (more Terry Pratchett...really???); and some I've never heard of so I'm hoping to find someone new I love (Jacqueline Wilson?).

I would love to hear from any of you about what books on this list are ones you love...particularly if they are ones I haven't crossed off yet! Or, let me know if there is one neither of us has read and you would like to tackle together...maybe something meaty like War and Peace (ack!). Heck, on the list or not, I love to hear about books other people love, so leave me a comment!

G is for Gorilla

Today I read that one of the gorillas at our local zoo died yesterday. It saddens me to read of the loss of any of our animals, but the gorilla perhaps most of all. When I go to the zoo, I love to sit and watch them. I could sit there for much longer than the kids ever let me, that is for sure. They just seem so human, so calm, and so deep in thought. It makes me want to take a moment and mirror that back to them.

The above picture was taken on one of my recent trips to the zoo and it is either Koundu or his son, Cenzoo. I wonder how Cenzoo is today. I imagine he feels very, very alone.

Rest in peace, Koundu.

C is for Cold Caffeine

I love the giant Diet Coke I get from Burger King in the morning. It's no slouch of a large drink like other places. They can't put so much ice in it that you don't get plenty to drink...the cup's just too big for that to happen. The cup is a smooth plastic, which is more pleasing to hold than the styrofoam cup from Chick-Fil-A. That cup is too full of ice and not enough drink, by the way. The cup is firmer, unlike coated paper cups at places like McDonald's and Arby's. More sturdy...won't give when you squeeze it a little harder than you do when you drink it as they hand it to you at the drive through to make sure you don't drop it. Any bigger and you'd feel like you need two hands to hold it. The material transmits temperature so you sense the icy coldness through touch as well as taste, expanding the enjoyment. The soda/syrup mix there is perfect, but I can't explain that as well nor is it as important as that cup. I think the cup is why I keep going back every morning even though they are extremely hit or miss with the cini minis. Those are often undercooked, sometimes overcooked and occasionally not ready at all. I keep going back no matter. It's like the van is on auto pilot. I just cross the highway without thinking each morning. I like...no, love...the routine of it, too. I could leave earlier in the mornings, but don't because they open at 6.
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I wrote that in January near the beginning of my Artist's Way journey. It was the main part of one morning's morning pages. Clearly, I was avoiding writing something else that was on my mind that I wasn't ready to get into. I've thought back to it several times since starting this blog and taking that picture above. Nothing has changed since January about that large Diet Coke. Well, other than the BK is open at 5:30 a.m. now so I don't have to stall leaving the house and I don't drive the van anymore.
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I'm currently on another journey like The Artist's Way. It's through my one of my favorite blogs, chookooloonks, and it's called Path Finder. This opportunity came up right after the Artist's Way retreat with that activity that made my head hurt. (Synchronicity, people.) Since I started on Monday. I've had to start doing morning pages again, I've started having more vivid dreams which I actually wake up remembering, and I've started to think again about what it is I want to do with the rest of the days the Lord allows me to have here.

Watch out.

B is for Boarding

My son, Maury, is a wonderful 11 year old who loves to play video games and, really, not much else. As soon as the car is headed back to the house after any time at all away from home, he is guaranteed to ask one of two things:

"Can I play on the computer when we get home?"

or

"Can I play on the Wii when we get home?"

When we went on vacation after Christmas last year to a resort in the Smokies with an indoor waterpark, Maury simply replaced his usual two questions with:

"Can we go to the arcade?"

We did take him to the arcade a few times, but we, naturally, spent at least some of every day at the waterpark. While there, Maury would spend a lot of time in one of the play areas spraying water at other kids and he would occasionally venture into the wave pool. He avoided the various water slides like the plague.

See, Maury has Asperger Syndrome, anxiety issues, and ADHD. This makes him socially immature, a little skittish, and very prone to running from one thing to another. So, the ways that Maury was playing at the waterpark made perfect sense...until he asked me if he could try out the body boarding.

This surprised me for several reasons. First of all, he had never tried it before and he's not one to sign up to try new things. Second, there was a long, slow moving line for it. Did he really want to wait and wait and wait like that? And, how odd for him to ask to try this on the last day of our trip. He hadn't shown any interest in it any of the other days we had been there.

But I'll be damned if he didn't stand in that line patiently, get on the board, and ride that simulated wave until the lifeguard blew the whistle that his time was up. He then rolled off the board, shot back to the top of the Surf Rider and was ready to hit the road for home.

I couldn't stop grinning I was so proud of him.

A is for Auburn

My husband and I met at Auburn University. I was in grad school and was hanging out at the yearbook office between classes (because that is what I had done all through undergrad, after all). That is where I met the man of my dreams in the summer of 1990.

Fast forward more than 20 years, a mortgage and two children to today and you'll find us not only happily married but also continually grateful that we share a love for each other and a love for the college where we met.

We live in the state of Alabama, where college football is a religion. In fact, it's a religion much more likely to get you shot than any of your beliefs about whether you should be dunked or sprinkled when you are baptized. And, if you think that isn't an argument that can get heated...well, I bet you don't live in the Bible Belt.

Stephen and I look around each fall and see mixed marriages (the marriage of an Auburn alum to an Alabama alum) and wonder why anyone would get themselves into that predicament. During these past two football seasons, the first ending in another Alabama National Championship and the last ending in an Auburn National Championship, we are especially bamboozled by how it would work if you were married to someone who not only didn’t go to your beloved alma mater but...good grief...attended that other school.

So, each day as I thank the good Lord for my wonderful husband, I also sigh a breath of relief that we are in agreement when we choose to scream "War Eagle!" instead of the other state cheer.