Monday, April 24, 2006

What a busy Sunday

Andrew had the Sunday off and boy were we busy bees. We went out to breakfast with Mom and Dad and then stopped by the Penney's sale and picked up a dining room rug. We moved that into the kitchen. Dad helped Andrew get started tilling the garden and I mowed the lot...well the part of the lot that isn't mud and rocks. It was a beautiful day and fun to be out and about. Our strawberries in the raised bed that Andrew made are already blooming. In the afternoon I ran errands in town while Andrew finished the back bedroom for the cats. They now have a bed and more space to spat. I picked up some black mulch. We are going to mulch some grass bald patches at the end of the drive-way to put our rocks on...that won't happen for a while though. Let's see, did some laundry and sundry cleaning. We watched our last sunday night of free Sopranos and now into the week ahead.

For those of you not in the immediate vicinity, the spring here has been really beautiful. We didn't have a late or killer frost so the flowering trees are especially full, crabapples, cherries and magnolias are really showing their stuff.

reader's Advisory, I am still working on Fareed Zakaria's Future of Freedom, what a clever guy. I am also listening to A Perfect Union, and interesting biogrpahy of Dolley Madison. I am also listening to nickeld and dimed that is a few years old but still very relevant about the working poor.

I am also reading the second in the enjoyable Djinn series by scholastic starring John and Phillippa Gaunt. I am also super pleased that Brian K Vaughan has decided to extend his teenage runaways stories and plan to read volumes 5 and 6 tonight.

I have already gotten the much anticipated Charlaine Harris book, Defintely Dead on audio even though the print version doesn't come out for another week. It was wonderful with lots of twists and bombshells so now I have to wait another year for the next installment...sigh.

I'll try to post pictures of our landscaping endeavors soon...

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Meeting Chris Moore

Well I managed to leave work early yesterday and go down to the wonderful book store, Books and Company in Kettering to meet Chris Moore. I was so excited he was coming to Ohio after all this time because he rarely rarely appears this far East. I got there and hour early thinking I would have time to work on the laptop but there were so many people already waiting, I was lucky to get a seat in the very last row. By line number was 40 but by the time it was all said and done one of the latest to arrive got a line number of 98. Chris Moore was really funny and down to earth and with the kind of fans he has, there was a bit of improvisation and banter. It was a lot of fun, especially when he held up a Las Vegas newspaper article about him and his latest book and on the back of the page, was ads for escorts. Chris is now on the bestseller list for the first time and about time I say. He's one of my favorite authors and if you start reading him I suggest reading them in order of publication even though they are not a series.

I saw a buddy from Columbus, got my picture taken with Chris and AND won a cool little t-shirt. Got home at 11 exhausted and the cats fought for about an hour over the bed and neither ended up sleeping in the bed. I think Tweek just wants to cuddle with Kitten. He is perfectly happy sleeping at the foot of the bed until she jumps on the bed and then he is all over her. She hates it of course. Tweek is gaining weight now.

In other news, I will be meeting Laurie Halse (pronounced Haltz) Anderson this afternoon to get Prom signed and maybe get a picture. Later, Jules

Friday, April 07, 2006

Tweek Spends the Night

I was trying to work through the 3rd Season of Allo Allo last night before Andrew came home. I dropped off and Andrew woke me up and I had tweek in between my feet and Kitten cuddled in the crook of my arm. Tweek was so cute and Kitten didn't seem to mind so instead of putting him to bed in the study we let him stay with us and they handled it just fine. Had a thunderstorm this morning but the sun is out now. Won't be long now before we get that airconditioner cable hooked up...

Thursday, April 06, 2006

A quick post to show I am truly reformed

Sort of.

Well Tweek is no longer jumping on the counter because I put this tape called sticky paws up and he hates it. I have never seen a cat scrunch up its face before and I have to say it is pretty darn funny. Andrew caught them sharing the bed together yesterday, not curled up into each other put at least sharing the same space so that's a good sign.

Kitten continues to be on again off again sick. Vet says it is hairball season.

Mom bought me some Johnny Jump Ups AKA Violas this weekend. I haven't killed them yet and have actually brought them in on nights it got down to frost levels. THe spring is young though and I have plenty of time to kill them later.

Reader's Advisory:
I just got done reading the bully of Bentonville by Bianco interesting and depressing as was the documentary "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices."

I also watched Walking with Monsters last week, yet another in the addictive BBC series narrated by Kenneth Branagh where amazing computer graphics allow you to time travel. My favorite is still Walking with (Prehistoric) Beasts.

On audio I am listening to Freakonomics. It's kind of hard to explain here but I thought it was very, very cool. I am also listening to the redux of Chronicles of Narnia featuring Jeremy Northam, Lynn Redgrave, Branagh and Patrick Stewart so that's a lot of fun.

I am reading The Future of Democracy by Fareed Zakaria--he writes for Newsweek and is on the Daily Show a lot and has his own show on PBS now. Google him, he's a smart guy.

I have Chris Moore's latest "It's a Dirty Job" it isn't my favorite but there are some real laugh out loud moments. I'll be meeting him next week and posting pictures. (yeah right, I know)

I have the 4 and 5th season of Allo Allo that cute British Comedey set in WW II France--it works really. I had no idea they did 9 seasons and am looking forward to them all.

I also watched derailed this week. I really didn't like the movie but I love clive owen who acts like a major wuss for the first 3/4 of the movie and then KICKS ASS.

I have the new Jennifer Crusie book Don't Look Down in the too read pile.

Okay that's it. jules