Senior Moments .... Already?

Twas raining cats and dogs yesterday. The kind of rain that sends vehicles hydroplaning into each other and off the road. The kind of rain that makes for extremely muddy puppies. And the kind of rain that keeps folks from shopping in full force. And so began my day ....
We were not terribly busy yesterday. I was working the closing shift and cut my staff down to the minimum required to function. We were able to close at the proper time (usually we end up closing much later) and I was happy thinking I would be home snug in my bed by 10:30pm. I am a creature of routine and quickly went through my procedures in a timely fashion. We were all walking out the door by 9:55pm.
I punched in my alarm code as I was walking out per usual but this time I received an error message.
Huh?
(I once interviewed a gent who said, "I don't mean to throw a monkey in your wrench.")
I was not familiar with the error message or what to do when I see an error message, so that really threw a monkey into my wrench, for sure! A series of checks and balances and trouble-shooting on the phone and 9:55pm turned into 10:38pm and I finally left the store secured for the night.
Right?
I was driving home through the rain. At that time of night with no traffic, the drive takes between 30 and 35 minutes. That is just about enough time for my brain to second guess itself six or seven dozen times.
While I vividly remembered checking and rechecking the locks, by the time I reached home at 11:15pm there was .01% of me that wasn't entirely positive the upstairs door was locked.
Drat!
I KNEW it was locked. But my stupid old brain questioned me.
Oh my God! Did I lock the door? I swear I locked the door! Oh no! I left the door unlocked!
So I grabbed my puppy, Puzzle, and drove back to work just to check. I won't even tell you what my brain put me through on the way back to work! It was quite nearly a full fledged panic attack, to say the least.
I pulled into the garage and took a very curious Puzzle with me to check the locks. THEY WERE ALL LOCKED, OF COURSE! The entire premises was extremely secure as it should be and always is ...
I loaded Puzzle back into the car and began driving back home again (it was now midnight). It was still raining and windshield wipers freak her out a bit so Puzzle was in my lap. I was in the far right lane when I stopped for a red light and two police vehicles stopped in the other two lanes next to me. I got Puzzle squared away in the back seat (off my lap) and waited for the green light. When the light changed, I proceeded with caution .... not too fast, not too slow. Don't want to get pulled over for any reason. I pulled forward at a normal speed and looked into my rear view mirror only to see both police cars still sitting at the stoplight!
Oh my God! Did it turn green? I swear the light turned green! Oh no! I just ran a red light in front of two police officers ....

.... it was green. I think they were just messing with me because I am an old lady!

Knowing Us (The B-52's Story)

My husband's birthday is at the end of October and mine is 2 weeks later at the beginning of November. We were married shortly after Christmas (January of 1993). Needless to say, after 21 years of back-to-back gift-giving, well, it becomes increasingly difficult to be creative!
I usually do well with the birthday, okay for Christmas, and by the time it is our anniversary .... I'm out of ideas!
This year I saw that The B-52's were playing at our favorite venue, 9:30 Club in DC! Yay! I was thrilled! I booked two tickets and had a hell of a time keeping my secret!
A week later (the day before our anniversary), my husband asked me if I had the weekend of January 22nd off. "No", I said. "Really?", he said.
Really.
I do not get many weekends off so I was surprised that he was so confused about my schedule.
Finally, I asked why he was asking!
He said, "Well, it was going to be your anniversary gift. Is there any way you can get it off?"
Sadly, I said no.
Curiosity got the best of me, so I said, "You might as well tell me what it was because you're going to have to think of something else anyway!"
He said, "I was going to take you to see The B-52's in Atlantic City!"
Awwwwwwwwwww! How cute is that?! We got each other the same gift, albeit different cities. He was planning to buy the same thing I had already purchased!

Wednesday, January 19th, was the show in DC. I love 9:30 Club. It's my favorite venue for any show. It's like going to a regular bar, except all the bands are really, really good!!
The B-52's did not disappoint!
We like to stand on the balcony. You can see the stage perfectly from that vantage point and it's great for people watching. Plus, it's close to the cleanest restrooms.
I felt a bit cliche' as I stood on the balcony with my aching back nearly bringing tears to my eyes, looking out over a crowd of people that were probably pretty cool at one time. We were once a generation defined by our hairstyles and I found it extremely amusing to see a crowd of bald heads and baseball caps. We were once a well-choreographed wave in a sea of androgeny and now we're just a bunch of decent folks who still like a good show. Our dance moves may be a tad rusty (not me, them, ha ha), but we've still got it! Wish I could be as creative with my hairdos as I once was ....
The B-52's look a little older, but they sound fantastic! They are still having fun. Although Fred's shirt kept creeping up over his man spanx, and the girls look a bit thick through the middle .... they are still pretty damn hip and put on a good show!
.... now ..... what am I going to get Handsome for Valentine's Day?!?!?!

Puzzled

My puppy, Puzzle, is about 7 or 8 months old. She was a rescue dog, so we don't know her exact age. Rescue dogs are fun! Sure, they may have a few issues. We don't know exactly what they have been through ... we don't know their lives before they enter ours, but they are a blessing none the less! Add to her unknown beginnings the fact that she is a border collie and you've got a recipe for some serious entertainment!!!
Puzzle came to live with us on August 11, 2010, and was approximately 2 or 3 months old at that time. She was shy and frightened and, honestly, had such a sad, sad look in her eyes all the time. We were worried about her.
She has two older "sisters" who, frankly, were not terribly thrilled to welcome her into our home. Wednesday came around and has become Puzzle's mentor and playmate, but Allie still scolds the pup simply for entering her air space.
Watching Puzzle grow and learn and come out of her shell day by day has been one of my greatest pleasures! She's a sweet and funny little thing and nearly as charming as Wednesday, which is quite charming indeed!
Recently, Puzzle has discovered her reflection. All puppies go through this and it is nothing short of hilarious when they do, but Puzzle had been particularly funny about it. She doesn't have an agressive bone in her body and her shyness has given way to curiosty over the last few months. So she plays peek-a-boo with her reflection in the fireplace doors. She peeks around the couch to see if the Fireplace Puppy is looking and then takes off quick as a cat into other areas of the house! Or shoots through the doggy door like she was fired from a cannon! It's hysterical!
Yesterday, she came up to my room to watch me get ready for work. All dogs enjoy this for some reason, at least all of my dogs have. There is a full-length mirror on the back of the door and Miss Puzzle caught sight of her new playmate. The best thing to do with a gal like Puzzle is to observe her silently. Fast moves still send her running, but if you sit quietly, you can catch some very entertaining antics!
Puzzle looked into the mirror. Backed up. Moved forward. Turned her head from left to right. Sat down. Stood up.
It was like she was trying to catch the Mirror Puppy making a mistake. Like she was testing it. Maybe she was even figuring out that Mirror Puppy was actually Puzzle!
Picture the scene from I Love Lucy with Harpo Marx. It was absolutely the funniest thing I have observed a puppy do in a long, long time!!!
I must say: rescue a puppy!! You will not regret it! Your life will be filled with entertainment and discovery and love and laughter. These are things every home could use a little more of, in my opinion!!

The Day Off Diaries

Dear Reb Un,
Today I woke up knowing I had to write a book review for a book I finished on Tuesday and did not, frankly, love. I liked the book. I liked the premise. I simply had reservations. I sat down to write believing completely that I would have to tell my editor that I had nothing to give him.
And then - and believe me I absolutely know how conceited this is going to sound - I wrote a fantastic review! I didn't even have to go back and edit much! I didn't have to count my words and add. I had no idea how I would come up with 450-500 words for a story with absolutely no climax whatsoever, but I did it! And it's good!
Whew!
What a super fantastic way to start a great day!
I feel good!
This afternoon, I am meeting one of my besties, Sophia, for Happy Hour. I am so excited! It will be nice to get out of the house for a reason other than work and to LAUGH! Sophia and I always laugh ourselves silly when we are together and I am really, really looking forward to it!
Today's gonna be a good-good day!
Puzzle is tossing her bouncy ball around the room and it's making me giggle. I must go and play with her! I am freakishly in-love with my puppy!!
See you soon,
Becca

New Year ~ Same Ol' Me

Dear Reb Un,
I am sitting here with my newly acquired addiction: coffee. And watching my 22nd episode of Lie to Me in a week. I don't feel like I have been writing enough lately, so I am starting The Day Off Diaries. I am forcing myself to write something on each day off I have. Even if it is lame and boring. I just need to write!
I used to write letters all the time. I would write letters on cocktail napkins, book margins, rolls of toilet paper. Just ramblings and musings and off-the-wall comments. I wish I had mailed them to myself. I am still friends or reacquainted friends with many of the recipients, but I hate to ask about the letters.
So, this is it. Letters to myself, Rebecca Unpublished. It may go nowhere and I'll stop, or I may continue and have a few laughs. Hopefully I won't unearth some long buried memories .... or more hopefully, I will!
So I am beginning this year the same way I begin every year, with self-loathing and sluggishness. I count calories, make lists and promises, try new products .... all in futile attempts to better myself. Perhaps this year I will try something additional (because I am still counting calories, making lists and promises and plan to go to Target today to pick up some magic eye cream): A Postive Attitude!
I am optimistic!
Well, if not before then, I will see you next Wednesday!
Love,
Becca
Pee.S. - If all goes well, there might even be a mixed tape in it for you! (They often accompanied my letters!)

Keith Richards ~ Life

I guess I wanted Captain Teague. I wanted to hear all the antics. I wanted to hear the stories behind the stories. I really wanted to read Keith Richards’ memoir, Life. While I have never been a Rolling Stones fan, per se, they have always been in regular musical rotation in my life. I mean, “Get Off of My Cloud” was the number one song on the day I was born, so clearly, the Rolling Stones have always been there for me. So I heard things, you know? Read things. Some of it seemed ridiculous and exaggerated, and those were the stories that ended up being true. Keith Richards writes about rumors I should have apparently known but didn’t, which is fine because they ended up being untrue after all.
Sadly, however, I simply didn’t feel much passion in Richards’ storytelling. He obviously has extreme passion for his music and for other musicians. He names a lot of names. And I honestly enjoyed the first few sections of his book.
He grew up near poverty level in Dartford, Kent, England and learned life’s lessons the hard way, with daily beatings from the other children and living in less than humane conditions after World War II. His family was as colorful as he is and I enjoyed hearing the tales of his tenacity and of meeting Mick Jagger and the early days of not only the Rolling Stones, but Keith Richards himself. I wanted more of that!
He lost me in the late sixties and early seventies in a heavy haze of drugs. I was not impressed with his drug usage and grew tired of his roller coaster ride with sobriety and insanity. I am not a big fan of junkies, sorry mate.
I am often torn between feeling sorry for celebrities and feeling disgusted by the attitude. Richards seems to be baffled by the reasons why the authorities would stalk him to such a degree. “I’m just a guitar player, why do you care what I do?” I get that, but, additionally, they care what you do because you are a public figure and what you’re doing is harmful and, frankly, illegal.
Richards takes great care in describing the music. All music. He’s amazingly passionate about that and I am impressed. Strangely, however, he takes none of that care in mentioning the loss of family and friends or his feelings at certain key times in his life. He seemed to brush over those matters. It seemed very strange to me.
By the end of the book I was really just counting down the pages. I was doing the math (547 pages with 238 left, at 30 words per hour I should be able to finish this book by a week from Thursday) and I am not a math person! I love music and stories and poetry and passion. Things I thought I would find in Keith Richards. I wanted to hear that he didn’t really snort his father’s ashes (he did). I wanted to hear his side of the stories where people wound up wounded or worse after partying with him. I wanted to hear about his children and his love affairs. He didn’t delve into these topics with much feeling. It almost felt like he was trying to relate stories that he had heard about himself, not what he actually remembered or felt about them.
Unfortunately, I was rather disappointed by this memoir.

Happy Birthday, Allie!!

Up until August, Allie was my baby. She's not crazy about having a little sister, but she has nothing to worry about! She is still my little precious. It's hard to believe she is already ten years old! Happy Birthday, Allie!!

Haunted?

I think my puppy, Puzzle, is actually a ghost! I only ever see her out of the corner of my eye. She’s quick and quiet. I always feel like someone is staring at me, but when I look around, there is no one there. I’ll open the refrigerator in the kitchen and catch a glimpse of her to my right in the great room. Then I’ll turn to put cream in my coffee and I see her to my left in the foyer. It’s bizarre how quickly and silently she moves. Things turn up in weird places , too.... like socks in the yard, underwear in the living room ..... her kennel moves itself to the center of the room while she’s in it! I’ll feel a cool breeze and something brush by me, but in the split second it takes to look down, there’s nothing there .... just that feeling that someone is constantly watching me.
Except at night. At night I feel a nice warm little body next to mine. Soft breath in my ear and an occasional whispery sigh. The night my grandmother passed away, I was sleeping on my side. I felt someone sitting in that little crook at the back of my knees, gently rubbing my leg. Soothing.
That spot is where I feel my little Puzzle at night. Very soft and sweet.
My little ghost dog.

So Cold the River by Michael Koryta

http://lorton.patch.com/articles/book-review-so-cold-the-river

You Had Me at Woof by Julie Klam

http://lorton.patch.com/articles/book-review-you-had-me-at-woof
I was in a snit the whole way home after buying You Had Me at Woof by Julie Klam. Until I opened my door to three wagging tails, six shining eyes, and twelve little paws tap dancing in pure delight at my return. The happiness of my three dogs at the mere sight of me made me completely forget the jerk I had just dealt with at the bookstore.

Now, I realize there are people out there who do not know the warmth of a cold nose nor the pleasure of hearing a happy tail thumping on fresh linens. They don't know that a muzzle under the chin is a much preferred way to start the day than a blaring alarm clock, not to mention the sheer comfort of drifting off to sleep with a warm companion at the end of a long day. This book is not for those people, although it would probably do them a world of good to read it.

I have always been and always will be a dog lover. This book did not change that in any way. I can't remember a time when I didn't have a Schnauzer, Springer Spaniel, Border Collie or Mutt in my life. However, You Had Me at Woof (How Dogs Taught Me the Secrets of Happiness) was a funny, smart, delightful little book, extremely well written by Julie Klam. I have three Border Collies, dogs that are said to be of the highest intelligence. Klam states, "I never understood how that was determined. Were they found by their owners hooking up Bunsen burners and pouring liquids into flasks?"

The author takes us on her incredible journey of life lessons via dog ownership from her single days in New York City through marriage and motherhood. She is clever and humorous and the kind of person I would want as a friend. She became that woman by opening her home and her heart and accepting the many gifts that come with owning a dog.

And she wrote a beautiful book.

From learning how to share her life to learning how to mourn the loss of friends (the unfortunate thing about loving dogs is that a dog's lifespan is a mere fraction of our own), from choosing the right dog to letting herself be chosen, the author exquisitely reveals her innermost thoughts, revelations, concerns and comedies of life with multiple tail-waggers. At one point, the author believed the strange behavior of an elderly foster dog in her care was in preparation for her own death when the rather homely, geriatric pooch actually gave birth to two puppies (originally believed to be mice). As Klam searches for the ultimate career (which would allow her to spend even more time with her dogs) and debates motherhood and additional children, Klam learns she has so much more to offer than she could have ever imagined.

I, too, have rescued dogs and could completely relate to her hilarious and horrendous takes on the special needs these little misfits bring to the table. All dog lovers will ask, for the same reason I tend to avoid "dog books": Will it make me cry? The answer is Yes (I have the swollen eyes and aching head to prove it). But, as surely as loving and letting yourself be loved by a canine counterpart, it will be worth it.

Veterans Day

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

The weather began to change while reading this book. I was working a lot of long hours and arriving to the parking lot in the cold and dark, feeling sorry for myself that my life had become stressful and then, to add insult to injury, chilly!
The worn pages of my book, however, reminded me of my evil ways and the fact that my complaining, if only to myself, was not warranted.
I will never complain again!
I am extremely late in reading The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. It was published nearly eight years ago and I avoided it on principle for many of those years. I haven’t seen the motion picture, either. And, as with most of the books I read, I had no idea what it was about going into it.
All of that being said, The Kite Runner truly is a beautiful book. It was difficult to read ... gruesome, horrifying and sad, but extremely well written and moving.
Trying to summarize this story without ruining it or diminishing the feeling of it is like summarizing a soap opera without it sounding stupid .... impossible. But the fact of the matter is: The book is amazing, albeit tragic. It’s a story that will make you think about what you have, how you feel and where you would like your life to go.
To be thankful for the little things.
The things that matter.
People will always ask me, while eyeing one of my books, “Is it good?” Good? Well, no, it’s not good. It’s horrible.
But it is important and passionate and absolutely brilliant.

Mary and O'Neil by Justin Cronin

As most people do from time to time ... or obsessively in my case ... I have been pondering the meaning of life lately. I am Andrew McCarthy's character in St.Elmo's Fire (how's that for an extremely poor cinematic analogy?) minus the pining and yearning.
And I did not find it while reading the anticlimactic Mary and O'Neil.
While I certainly appreciate the author's talent, insight, and writing ability, I just didn't feel any passion for this book.
I like the idea of weaving several short stories into one novel, however, when reading it cover to cover, it became rather redundant. And I honestly don't see how any one story could have stood alone. There was nothing to put me on the edge of my seat. Nothing to keep me from putting it down. The author told me what was going to happen several pages or even chapters before it happened.
While contemplating the significance of my own existence, this book just left me feeling sad and empty.

The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris

Such an odd story.
I dream a lot. Many nights, I have nightmares. Sometimes I just dream strange things. Sometimes I dream the same dream many, many times. And sometimes, I can talk myself out of a dream ... or I will say to myself in my dream, "Oh, we're dreaming this again, are we?"
My brain plays weird games with me.
I'm used to it.
The Unnamed had that same essence of strangeness to it. It was just ... different. I didn't love or hate it. I didn't have any desire to put it down, but I didn't count the minutes until I could pick it up again, either.
It's the story of a man with an unnamed "condition" - mental or physical, no one knows - that forces him to walk without warning. For miles and miles through all elements and obstacles, he would walk. Until he was finished walking. Then he would sleep. Wherever he ended the walk. In the street, the woods, a parking lot, a place of business.
And the story is about what The Unnamed does to his life, his family, his career.
It was an odd story.
At times I was intrigued and interested and other times my mind wandered like the lead character ...
but in the end ... ?
It was just the end.
Very odd and quite sad.

Lost and Found by Carolyn Parkhurst

I like reality shows. I'm not proud of it, but I'm not ashamed, either! I love a good social experiment and I always have. The hidden camera videos we watched in high school psychology classes were my favorite .... and don't forget Candid Camera! And now I love the Amazing Race and The Apprentice, especially the celebrity version!! I'll even waste a day watching those damn real housewives!
So it's really no surprise that I actually enjoyed this story about a fictional reality show. It's one of those books that you are embarrassed to tell people that you are reading it .... and that you actually like it!
No, it won't go down in my history as an all-time favorite or anything, but I did have fun with it for a few days and I'll admit it!

The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs

I heard this book was good.


Unlike the many fine folks in Blazing Saddles who heard the sheriff was hung,

I heard wrong.

Meet Puzzle!

Five Year Olds Are Funny!

My niece and her three kids are visiting from Illinois. My great niece, Isabelle, is five. She has a little brother, Isaac, and a little sister, Ivy. They are all adorable and so much fun! They definitely have more energy than I do, but I still wish we could spend more time together than we are able to now.
And this surprise visit has been amazing! Isabelle and I tease each other and giggle a lot and I thoroughly enjoy her clever sense of humor!
This afternoon, my sister, Grandma Robin, my niece, Leigh, and the kids spent the afternoon in Washington DC in spite of the nearly unbearable heat. We were walking through the Museum of Natural History with the two smaller kids in a double stroller and Isabelle holding hands with both her grandma and great aunt. As she tried to get us to hold hands with each other, she said, "Don't you guys hold hands?" I know she thought she was being funny, so I said, "Of course we do! We're sisters and sisters hold hands!"
Isabelle looked amazed! "You guys are sisters?!"
My sister, Isabelle's grandma, said, "Yes, we're sisters!"
I asked Isabelle if she really didn't know that we were sisters and she just looked at me quizzically.
Robin said, "Aunt Becca is my Ivy!"
Isabelle said, in a snide, under her breath kind of way, "Yeah, poison ivy!"

The World in Six Songs by Daniel J. Levitin

I used to work as a manager at a movie theatre when I first got out of the Air Force. We played our own music while people were filing in to find their seats. At the later shows, I would play some pretty wild stuff! I would go up to the projection booth and peer out into the audience. If anyone was getting into the music, I would know they were "cool" (I was new in town and desperate to meet people)! It worked, too, I met my friend, Lori, that way. She couldn't believe she was hearing Sisters of Mercy at a movie theatre in Iowa!
Music is a huge part of my life. More than likely, it is a huge part of everyone's life. I never really stopped to think why that is, I just accepted and enjoyed it as a fact of life!
The World in Six Songs - How the Musical Brain Created Nature explains a lot of the "why that is". I think I would seriously enjoy taking one of Mr. Levitin's classes, but I have to be honest, it took me over 3 weeks to read this damn book and I found my mind wandering a lot! While there is a great deal of fascinating information on these pages, and my copy is super fat with dog-eared pages, it is really just a paperback text book and I have never been good at studying on my own.
The book is extremely interesting and well-written, but I think I would rather just sit down and have a conversation with the author. Especially since he seems to have conversations with some pretty amazing people (Sting, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon)!!

Pregnant Snapping Turtles Do Not Like Beer!

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

Sometimes I think certain sections of my life would make an interesting play. I like the way a play seems to break it all down more than a motion picture.
More real - more raw.
More intimate.
While I certainly enjoyed "A Raisin in the Sun" and "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window" (both by Lorraine Hansberry) very much, I really felt connected to "The Glass Menagerie". The characters were vaguely familiar and subtly intense. Tennessee Williams was amazing like that.
Amanda (the mother) was strikingly simple and complicated .... and sad.
Laura was delicate and flawed.
Tom was restless.
Amazingly, Mr. Williams could take that .... just that .... and make a beautiful, magical, sorrowful moment that would last for all eternity.
Bravo!

The Alamo

Two Beautiful Plays by Lorraine Hansberry

Harlem
By Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?


I have never read a play simply for the pure pleasure of reading a great story. But recently, I read two. A Raisin in the Sun and The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, both by Lorraine Hansberry. I suppose I cheated a bit, because both plays came bound together in one lovely little paperback, but that didn’t make me love them any less. In fact, the commentaries between the plays were absolutely heartfelt and breathtaking! Lorraine Hansberry was a beautiful, funny, insightful woman who, in her abruptly short life, changed the world with her raw perception and clever, genuine dialog.
While Raisin takes us into the South Side of Chicago and a family clinging to, losing, and grasping to figure out and save their dreams .... The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window takes us to a very different dark place in American society with another ragtag cast of characters doing very much the same thing in their own way.
A Raisin in the Sun seems to end on a happy note, although we know the Lee family has a much more difficult journey ahead of them and Sign leaves us sad, angry and charged.
However each play is so much more than that. More than the stories come to life on the stage. More than what you see in front of you. The author is very funny and intuitive, very much in tune with the world and human condition. But both plays left me feeling differently about the world around me and that is a beautiful and amazing testament to Ms Hansberry!!

Remembering Spain!

Heroes for My Son by Brad Meltzer

I don't know exactly what the word "hero" means to me. I don't know if we run into heroes every day or if many people even strive to become one. I like to think so.
I do know Brad Meltzer's little book, Heroes for My Son, is a beautiful gift he gave to his children and they will most definitely call him a hero for that!
The book is filled with everyday heroes from all walks of life. Some obvious choices, some more obscure. I like the reasons they are heroes to this author, for now they are to me, as well. Filled with beautiful character sketches and touching testaments, this book is absolutely moving and real.
For all of my heroes, past and present - thank you!

They called Lou Gehrig "the Iron Horse".
But he wasn't made of iron.
He was made like us.
... He just didn't let that stop him.

The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Grunwald

I used to think that it was an Orphan Edge. There was a large, white, one-room house full of cots lined against the walls that sat out on the edge of town where children went if they didn’t have parents or their parents couldn’t stand them any longer. I grew up in South Dakota where we heard the horror stories of buffalo being run off cliffs to their brutal demise. That’s what the Orphan Edge was to me! Just an edge ... like a huge cliff and if you went too long out in the house without being adopted, you were simply sent, en mass, over the Edge.
My mother would threaten to send me out to the Orphan Edge if I didn’t straighten up, and that didn’t really seem like a viable option to me. Although there was a lot of singing and dancing going on out there (what else are you going to do while you are waiting to be thrown over the Edge like a herd of naughty buffalo?), I knew I was not nearly as talented as Annie and Oliver and I couldn’t even be chosen in the top ten for dodge ball, so clearly there was no way I was going to be chosen by a new family after being cast away from another one!
It’s funny, too, how much of what we believe when we are children still holds a special place in our minds long after we learn the truth. So it will forever be the Orphan Edge to me. And I know what goes on out there!
The Irresistible Henry House is a story inspired by an actual occurrence in these United States between 1919 and 1959: Practice babies! No kidding! They used to pull babies from the Orphan Edge and loan them to Home Economics schools. They lived in Practice Houses and were raised by several mothers at a time! After a year at the Practice House, they would be sent back to the Orphan Edge where they were considered “lucky” to have had such a head start and would probably be adopted before the less fortunate orphans.
The fictional Henry House was one such baby.
This coming of age story takes us through Henry’s life from his birth in 1946 up to his promising young adulthood in the late 60’s. Filled with interesting pop cultural references and colorful details, the story of Henry House is a roller coaster of emotions for the characters and readers alike.
I felt both happy and sad while reading it and it inspired thoughtfulness and creativity within myself. Not a classic by any means, I think The Irresistible Henry House would make an amazing, fun motion picture in the right hands and I, for one, will definitely go see it!!
I wonder if there will be singing and dancing?

Happy Memorial Day

Look Who's Ten!!

The Ask by Sam Lipsyte

The Ask by Sam Lipsyte reminded me a bit of The Catcher in the Rye with a new, not at all improved, Holden Caulfield in the form of plump, pushing forty Milo Burke. The language is brilliant, albeit dirty, and the wild, ridiculously normal situations are extremely ... well, real.
Take the story for the story and it's basically just pathetic, but the author's (and narrator's) way with words makes the whole thing unrestrainedly hilarious!!
Each character is more flawed than the next and while reading each and every far-out scenario you realize that you quite possibly know these people, or people like these people.
I always try to see the humor in the worst moments life has to offer, which is probably why I enjoyed The Ask so much!

Make a Joyful Noise