Awesome Weekend

Sitrep: Gaining weight and not happy about it! But do you think I can make myself exercise? Nope.

Do you ever have one of those weekends where everything just seems to fall together? I just did. And it was wonderful.

Saturday I had a "free" day. Slept in, then headed down to the bookstore. Then I hit the used bookstore, then the independent bookstore downtown, and the library. After that I went home and read the whole afternoon. It was a beautiful day, sunshiny and breezy, temps in the 80's.

Have You Ever...

tried to take a pee sample from a skittish miniature poodle? I don't recommend it. Unless you like pee all over your hand and nothing in the jar. Except dirt. Did manage to get dirt. [sigh]

Leia has a bladder infection; doc gave her an antibiotic shot last week Monday, but she started licking herself again this weekend, and not in the usual dog-licking-themself kind of way. The vet had given me a sterile sample jar in case she got worse, not better. He wants to do a urinalysis. (Thank goodness I got that pet health insurance!)

She won't pee if I'm bending or squatting next to her, and it's hard to walk her in that position anyway. [g] And even as short as I am, by the time I bend down to stick the jar's cap under her (vet tech suggestion), she jumps away. I think I'll bring her in and let them get the sample. They offered to do that if I had problems. For some reason I don't like starting my day by getting peed on.

Nothing Doing

Didn't do much over the weekend. Was rather lazy. Didn't help that the lilacs are blooming. Ugh. It's pretty miserable the few weeks they are in bloom. Darn allergies. This year it's affecting my eyes/head. Minor tension type headache and sore/blurry eyes. Keep wanting to rub them which a) makes it worse and b) messes up my contacts.

Took Leia Saturday morning to the local "Strutt Your Mutt" fundraiser for the Humane Society. Didn't sign up for the walk because I'd forgotten about it until the week before, and with all the rain, wasn't sure I'd want to go. And let's face it. It keeps getting pricier each year. No wonder the turn out is smaller and smaller. Minimum $35 pledge to enter, and they want you to get additional pledges. And that's per person/dog. Not per family. Ughh. Knocks me and Shannon out of the running. I know it's a fundraiser, but I think it knocks a lot of people out of the running.

Anyway. The pet fair was free and I figured it would be good for Leia. Then we went to the farmer's market. She did beautifully with all the people and other dogs. Especially the farmer's market. It was packed. Turned out to be a beautiful morning. Even if the lady with the fantabulous banana nut bread wasn't there.

Sunday afternoon we had quite the storm. Dime sized hail. It even spawned a tornado in the eastern side of the state. Right in downtown Billings. Yikes. No one hurt, thankfully, but definitely some damage!

Last night my two oldest nieces called. Only got to talk for a few minutes, but I really liked that. :)

When Life Becomes Fiction, or Vice Versa

So I'm listening to one of my favs in the car, "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee and read by Sissy Spacek. Really a fabulous rendering of the book on CD.

Anyway. Apparently it has seeped into my consciousness because last night I dreamt I was in the middle of a race riot. Ackkk. No wonder I'm tired this morning.

But the most startling thing is the revelation I had the other day while listening to the book. OMG, I think I'm "Miss Maudie". Except for the flowers! (Give me another decade, though.) LOL. Not that that's anything terrible. It's just really funny.

If you haven't read the book, you should. It's timeless.

I wanted to name Leia "Scout" after the little girl, but it sounds like "out" and that would be too confusing to the dog. Jean Louise was too formal, and "jean" or "louise" wouldn't work because I know a) a person or b) another pet with those names. Ah well. Leia works. Although I end up calling her Lei Lei a lot. ;)

I'm still chuckling over the Miss Maudie thing, though.

New Look

So they've got some new template and customization options available. Which is why I haven't blogged. Keep spending my free time "designing".

I'm not sure I really like this one. The light green background makes me squint. Maybe. It's very gray/cloudy out right now so I'm depending on just the flourescent lights overhead, and have been staring at different color options and layouts for way too long. My eyes may just be worn out.

Did a major project with Shanni over the weekend. Added a 4' deep x 8' wide patio in front of the house, to the right of the door as you enter. It's basically where the flower bed used to be. Bought these stones from Hom.e Dep.ot (they're more a whitish gray in person)

It was quite a challenge. Took us about 4 hours, and 3 trips to the store. That includes the original trip, a second trip for the remainder of the stones (couldn't take them all in one trip - too heavy) and a third trip because we needed another bag of sand.

Shanni and I did squabble, both of us being so hard-headed, sure of ourselves and stubborn. ;) But surprisingly it wasn't as bad as some projects we've done.

She thought I was being too "anal" about leveling the stones. Especially when it meant the last three stones of the last two rows had to be re done. It was slanted backwards toward the house. Which would have caused water to pool in the middle. Just not something I wanted to deal with. Better to fix it now than later!

Another Book, Another Day

Read an interesting book yesterday. Interesting enough that I stayed up an hour past bedtime to finish it.

The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos by Margaret Mascarenhas

It was a good book. Although there were some things that bothered me. The setting is in Venezuela, and the characters are constantly dropping Spanish words throughout the book. In the middle of sentences. Not a huge deal for me, I speak/read Spanish. But jarring enough. I mean, if the book was set in the US, it wouldn't bother me so much. But these people are in Venezuela and, I assume, speaking Spanish. So dropping Spanish words into conversation...doesn't fit for me. I dunno. Maybe I'm too particular. But at times it felt forced, as if the author wanted to remind you this is set outside the US. But I totally got that just from the style of writing and setting. Duh.

Definite flavor of South America. For me, anyway. Felt familiar, a little like being home, in Paraguay. The Spanish/South American culture is different. There's a different flow, way of being, speaking seeing. The premise of the story, the way it was written, all interesting.

Laugh Out Loud Moments

So last night I flip onto one of the news shows just as they are showing St.ev.e Jo.bs and his presentation of the latest iP.h.one. If you haven't heard already, they had some technical difficulties getting online. The suggestions from the audience were fun, and mostly in jest. The best, though, was when Jo.bs asked someone (his IT people, I presume) for a suggestion on how to fix the WiFi issue, and someone hollered out "V.er.izon!".

Total laugh out loud moment for me. Followed by a cringe. Laugh out loud because I've been griping for forever about these exclusive deals w/AT.T that A.pple sparked (no A.TT out here). Even the eReaders are doing this and it's extremely frustrating!

Cringe, because WiFi does not equal Cell Phone Provider/3G Wireless. Sigh. It's your local area network using a wireless router and a wired ethernet connection. Limited in distance. Internet access through your cell phone uses their cell towers. Which is why it's slower, but accesible wherever you have coverage.

But still a LOL moment for me. ;)

Book-a-holic Haze

I managed to read 2 books last weekend, even with a trip to B. tossed in. Good thing it was a long weekend!

Went to B w/Little Sis because car needed 80k mile service. I like to have the big service jobs done at the dealership, just in case. Costs a pretty penny, but oh well. They dropped Shanni and I off at the mall, which just so happens to have a Barn.es & N.o.ble attached. Oh, what hardship. We did some clothes shopping, and I didn't get cranky!!! Imagine that. A little tired, but no noticeable impatience. Shanni did well with her money, checking all the sales before settling on what she wanted. She got a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that look too good on her. Sigh. When did she grow up?

We "had" to spend several hours at the bookstore until the car was ready. Oh, the horror. Shanni was laughing at the stack of books I sat down with to give a "test read". But only 2 into the pile I was fascinated by the book I ended up buying:

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

The premise is what had me looking at it in the first place. It's about a woman named Libby Day, who survived a brutal attack on her family that left her mother and two sisters dead. She was 7 at the time, and became the star witness that sent her then 15 year old brother to jail for the murders.

Twenty-five years later, unable to really function in society and needing money, she's agreed to help a group that believes her brother is innocent. But they have to pay her for everything she does. A bit of a twisted concept. Most survivor stories are about truth and justice. This one is about survival.

The book is told from Libby's point of view in the present day, but has flashbacks of the twenty-four hours leading up to the murders. Those flashbacks are told from various family members' points of view. Mostly Libby, her mother, and her brother.

It's a pretty grim and unremitting look at a life of poverty. Both when she was young and now. Depression, anger, community biases, prejudices, all those things. "Dark Places" doesn't just refer to where she goes mentally when remembering what happened. Or the dark place her brother was in to have supposedly committed the murders.

The style of writing was captivating. It made me want to know.  It was very hard for me not to flip to the end and see who the murderer was. Maddening. That's not something I usually have problems with! But at some points I had to mentally "sit" on my hands to avoid flipping to the last few pages. The pacing of the book was great, I just wanted to know. [g]

The book is bleak, disturbing at times, but mostly just plain enthralling. Extremely well written. Lots of imagery (At one point Libby describes herself: "Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs.")
 
One little development toward the end was too much too much, if that makes any sense. But I don't want to give anything away. The end, while fitting with the overall story, left me wanting a little more. Probably because I'm used to happy-ever-after endings, and with this kind of story there really isn't one. Can't be one.

The final truth was as startling as it was horrifying. But a strong ending to a riveting book. I'd definitely recommend it. I have the author's first book on reserve at the library. I'd buy it, but have already blown through my book budget and don't want to wait to read it.