From Hannahbanana.  Because the subject of books is always a favorite subject.

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"The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.”

1) Bold: I have read.
2) Italics: Those I intend to read. 
3) Underline: Books I love.
4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated.
5) Reprint this list in your own blog

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (ony the Hobbit...never got into LOTR)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling (haven't read them all...not a big hit in our house)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee  ( so many great lines)
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell   (forced to read...hated the whole experience)
9 His Dark Materials – Phillip Pullman  (never heard of it)
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy  LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS STORY  go buy one with a pretty cover
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller  (own, may read)
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (well, no not the complete)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (great story, good for a teen recommendation, a little spicier than Austen)
16 The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien oh here we are
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks (own, thanks to Von's bookstore and hannahbanana)
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife (good, scarry read, and have been to the CAGE...see my second post ever..I had nigmares that I was in downtown Chicago and took the train around town and would end up in another time and couldn't go out to the suburbs)
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot (own, have began...if I finished it I don't even remember..I would add Silas Marner here)
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck  (did I finish it?)

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (no thank you)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (loved them, wish my children had the same passion for these books)
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (couldn't finish it...won't finish it and that's ok, great writer, so good it's too much...
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (several times, first recommended by my mom, re-read, then book group)
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell  (if there is a an orwell book out there you think I'd like, please resond)
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez  (have begun)

44. A Prayer for Owen Meany- (great book, but probably won't ever finish it)
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins (not familiar with this)
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy  (Ah yes, my dad could be Farmer Oak and my mom Bathsheba)
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding (not a favorite, but don't hate enough to strike)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel (read it??? endured it)
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons (...but the movie is so great!!!)
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (yes! and a fave now with the serendipitous visit to Quatre Gats restaurant in Barcelona.  Couldn't have planned it if we tried)
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (...have begun)
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (no, precisely because everyone says I should)
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (read thanks to a book group, also have a copy in French for some reason)
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville (I own and have no desire to read)
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (I began reading this book aloud to Kazia and Anja while in England.  I bought a copy at a little bookstore next to the cafe where we had delicious grilled ham and pear sandwiches for lunch)
80 Possession - AS Byatt (library copy, didn't finish it)
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple, Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert  Love it, and see the French film, lovely paint and fabrics
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom  (yeah, what's the big deal?)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine de St. Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole (I have this in hardcover and have started it so many times....)
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute  (excellent, check out at your loco library today)
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare 
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

I have no guilt whatsoever over the books I have not read, though I trust they are very good and very deserving to be on this list.

  Hell, to me, would be having to read only what's on someone else's list. 

Just READ. 

We have a big sheet of paper that we are keeping track of our summer reading as a family.  I'll post it later.

Stolen from Steve Betz and Cori.

"The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.”

1) Bold: I have read.
2) Italics: Those I intend to read. 
3) Underline: Books I love.
4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated. 
5) Reprint this list in your own blog

OR...ignore all that and just bold the ones that I've read.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (Pretty much the whole thing, in bits and pieces)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (I tried, oh, I tried. Never again)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Phillip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens (If Dickens wrote it, I've read it)
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (Not the complete works, but many of them. I own the Complete Works though. Doesn't everybody?)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks (Everyone should be required to read this book before they dismiss the realities of war)
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (I own and plan to read)
19 The Time Traveler's Wife
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (How do I hate Steinbeck? Let me count the ways....)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres (Cried? I wept!)
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth (I own)
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Currently on my "to read" shelf)
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (I own)
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt (I own)
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville (I own and have no desire to read)
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (I own, but as for reading it? That will never happen)
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (I own, and plan to read this summer)
77 Swallows and Amazons
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (I own and plan to read)
80 Possession - AS Byatt (I own and plan to read)
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple, Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine de St. Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams (Saw the cartoon of this when I was a kid and was utterly traumatized)
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare 
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo (I own and will likely never read)

Books read: 60

Books owned that I want to read: 7

Me and My Writing Books

I recently realized that I have quite a lot of books on the subject of writing. If I practically applied everything in those books, I expect my writing would improve considerably. And school would become a whole lot more enjoyable; writing certain essays has been known to reduce me to tears of frustration. Of course, that's usually when I'm writing it the night before it's due.

As far as I can see from this photo the books are (from top to bottom):

Rules of Thumb

? I think it's Technical Writer's Handbook

Writing Down the Bones

Making Shapely Fiction

Fiction Writer's Workshop

Eats, Shoots and Leaves

A Glossary of Literary Terms

MLA Handbook

Bird by Bird

A Poetry Handbook

The Simon & Schuster Guide to Writing

The Blair Handbook

Elements of Style

On Writing Well

(In the pile but didn't make the picture) The Craft of Research

* For the "Me and My Monday" group

Remember when this happened? Of course you do. You feign indifference and yet hang on my every word.

Libby's guinea pig died and she was distraught, temporarily at least. She was left with one lonely guinea pig, over which we kept a kind of guilty death watch -- not wanting it to die, but also acknowledging that its life probably sucked quite a lot, seeing as how it just sat there all the time, alone, and in a cage.

All life comes to an end eventually, as I am so fond of telling my kids when they say things like, "What if Grandma died?!" and I say, "Well, she will."  It just so happened that for the surviving guinea pig, life's end occurred while we were away in Nashville. Of course we had left it with plenty of food and water but when we got home and I went over to the cage saying, "Libby, have you checked on your..." I stopped mid-sentence because I was looking at its little legs sticking out at angles and thinking well that's not right. "What? Is he DEAD?" wailed Libby, throwing herself at the cage and lying prostrate with grief for a full one minute before becoming philosophical. "WHY have I had so much LOSS and suffered so much GRIEF in my life?" asked Libby.*  "I've had THREE guinea pigs die, and TWO fish!" In a split second you could see the cogs of her brain mulling over the fact that with the guinea pig dead and soon-to-be buried, she had space in her heart and bedroom for another pet. Suddenly composing herself, and turning her tear-stained face towards Todd, she asked, "Dad? Can I get a crab?"

Anyway, Todd dug a grave and lit the Tiki torches while a Jack Johnson CD played and he and Libby buried the guinea pig in a Vans shoebox. (He really is a most excellent father). Libby made a beautiful grave marker with the guinea pig's name (I guess is was Candy. I could honestly never remember and we called it "guinea"). It was all very touching.

But you know where this is going, right? You've known from the beginning, and when I tell you that this morning I put the dogs in the back yard and then went back to bed, leaving them unattended with a freshly dug, oh-so-tempting mound of earth you're disbelieving but certain. Doesn't this kind of thing only happen in movies like Dickie Roberts?

I re-awoke and went outside to collect the dogs from their morning frolic where I was confronted by two muddy dogs, an empty Vans shoebox and NO body. Bad dogs! Todd found the little body under a bush and reburied it, assuring me that it was "mostly intact." While this was going on, Libby woke up (in my bed, naturally) and grinned from ear-to-ear "good morning!" (She is not just a morning person, she is an afternoon, evening, and night person as well. She has too much serotonin.) "Libby, I don't think you want to go outside right now" I said. "The dogs, er...disturbed the guinea pig." 

"Which one?" she asked

"The one that just died yesterday"

"Oh" she said "it must be because the carcass is nice and fresh and they could smell it really well!"

 Ever the scientist's daughter.

*Least you think I am inventing this outburst of hyperbole, I would like to remind you of the time when she discussed "suffering humiliation " at the hands of her teasing father.

(Still no internet at home. I'm hoping the problem will be fixed tomorrow.)

A while ago my debit card number was stolen but the bank caught it and no harm was done. A new card was reissued, which meant a new debit card number. I updated all the accounts that I could think of that directly debited that card but inevitably I forgot some and would update those as and when I received a notification from the company -- Blockbuster online, for example -- that the monthly payment was denied.

I got an e-mail from Verizon DSL (through whom I get my internet, cell phones and home phone, but all billed separately and essentially different accounts) that they had tried to process the monthly payment but it hadn't gone through. I had ten days, I was told, to fix it or service would be canceled. Well within the ten days I called and spoke to someone (who sounded like he had not one clue what he was doing) and gave my new card number.

Fast forward to arriving home from Nashville last night and find...no internet. Okay, that figures. I reason that the guy messed up and didn't update the billing information which, yes, is a little annoying that I have to call back and sit on hold again to fix it but not the end of the world.

This morning I try to call Verizon and discover that their customer service hours, apparently for all their departments, is 8am-8pm Monday-Friday. To have no availability on the weekend, at the very least a half day on Saturday, boggles the mind. So I can't talk to anyone on the phone until Monday, a day when I have a million things to do including driving to Chicago to pick up my parents from the airport.

I drive down to Panera to take advantage of their free Wi-Fi and try to fix the situation online. I mean, all I have to do is get onto my online Verizon account and update my billing info, right? No dice. If I had a modicum of patience left I might attempt to detail the hell of the Verizon website that I have been trawling through for the last hour and a half.

All is to say: No internet this weekend.

I was remiss in my blogging yesterday, but it wasn't through lack of desire, rather through lack of internet connection, a situation which I have now remedied (meaning: mustered the energy to go down to the front desk and get an internet access code.)

We are accompanying Todd on a business trip, first to Lexington, KY (where we didn't really see much) and now onto Nashville.

(Before I go any further I should state that I am 90% certain that I have salmonella and I'm not just saying that. I have been really...unwell for the last two days and when I looked up the symptoms for salmonella I became convinced that I really shouldn't have eaten those tomatoes. But I digress.)

I'm pretty much over the idea of traveling with Todd. He has dubbed me his "Unpaid Administrative Assistant" (UAA) whose duties include making hotel reservations, ironing clothes, brewing coffee and various other tasks which have been assigned but which will never be performed in his lifetime. Seriously though, we're having a good time and Jesse and Libby, who don't get to watch any TV at home, are making up for it in the hotel room.

This morning we met up with Jim and Stephanie who are just as awesome as last time we met them. After grabbing a bite, we went to the Nashville Public Library which is just across the street from our downtown hotel. It is a beautiful building.

When James had had enough and it was time for him to head home and nap, the kids and I hit the Old Spaghetti Factory for lunch. I love the Old Spaghetti Factory -- I got hooked on their spaghetti with browned butter and Mizithra cheese way back when we lived in Honolulu; the last time we ate there was a during a visit to Seattle about three years ago. I seriously fantasize about their food, so I was pleased as punch (do people still say that?) to discover a restaurant just half a mile from our hotel. Then I discovered, with equal parts chagrin and delight, that there's been an Old Spaghetti Factory in Indianapolis all this time, just an hour drive from where we live!

Carb Bender

 Sorry to obsess over the details of where we ate lunch but, really, if you ate this cheese you'd understand.

Before heading back to the room we walked up to the Capitol building. We didn't go inside; I thought it might be open to the public, but I wasn't sure how I felt about having my doggy bag from lunch searched. So hung out, took a few photos and listened to Libby complain about the heat.

Going Up

One last thing about Nashville: Forget Alaska. Men seem to outnumber women at least 20 to 1 here and what's more, I have never (at least in recent years) been ogled more frequently and openly than I have been today. And it's awesome.

tape dispenser

It is taking all my self control to let the kids wrap presents on their own and ignore the copious amounts of scotch tape being used to secure otherwise flimsy wrapping paper.

Thornton's gas station and Fuller's car wash

right next to each other

Pearson Street in Chicago

Spontaneous Idealist (SI)

(Just visiting? Take the free test and determine your personality type!)

Spontaneous Idealists are creative, lively and open-minded persons. [Thank you] They are humorous and dispose of a contagious zest for life. [True] Their enthusiasm and sparkling energy inspires others and sweeps them along. [Don't you feel inspired already?] They enjoy being together with other people and often have an uncanny intuition for their motivations and potential [but usually not their own motivations and potential]. Spontaneous Idealists are masters of communication and very amusing and gifted entertainers.[Just ask my professors] Fun and variety are guaranteed when they are around. [Or your money back] However, they are sometimes somewhat too impulsive in dealing with others and can hurt people without really meaning to do so, due to their direct and sometimes critical nature. [Umm, yeah, this is getting scarily accurate]

This personality type is a keen and alert observer; they miss nothing which is going on around them. [Nothing escapes my eagle eyes! Again, that is utterly accurate] In extreme cases, they tend to be oversensitive and exaggeratedly alert and are inwardly always ready to jump. [Ouch, that hurts] Life for them is an exciting drama full of emotionality. [You say that like it's a bad thing] However, they quickly become bored [you're still talking?] when things repeat themselves and too much detailed work and care is required.[Doesn't everyone?] Their creativity, their imaginativeness and their originality become most noticeable when developing new projects and ideas - they then leave the meticulous implementation of the whole to others. [In my case, Spontaneous Idealists effing HATE group work so please STOP ASSIGNING IT!] On the whole, Spontaneous Idealists attach great value to their inner and outward independence and do not like accepting a subordinate role. [Yep, I am usually the group leader, aka bossy bitch, aka the Only Person Who Gets Shit Done] They therefore have problems with hierarchies and authorities.[*whistles innocently* And that, incidentally, is why my husband says he wouldn't work with me, EVER]

If you have a Spontaneous Idealist as your friend, you will never be bored; with them, you can enjoy life to the full and celebrate the best parties. [Come on over!] At the same time, they are warm, sensitive, attentive and always willing to help. [Unless it's with moving. Or babysitting your kids. I'm not too keen on that.] If Spontaneous Idealists have just fallen in love, the sky is full of violins and their new partners are showered with attention and affection. This type then bubbles over with charm, tenderness and imagination. But, unfortunately, it soon becomes boring for them once the novelty has worn off. Boring everyday life in a partnership is not for them so that many Spontaneous Idealists slip from one affair into another. [Just don't tell Todd!] However, should the partner manage to keep their curiosity alive and not let routine and familiarity gain the upper hand, Spontaneous Idealists can be inspiring and loving partners. [Bear that in mind sweetie. I hear that a $6,000 diamond ring has been shown to keep "curiosity alive." They have really nice rings at Costco. For mega reals.]