Risa Baby (Any Minute Now)

OK, at around 9:30am LA time, Marisa had the cervadil from last night removed and she was starting on Pitocin to induce labor. As I understand it she already has the epidural in place (smart girl). Mom said she was 50% effaced if that means anything to you all. So hopefully in a few hours we will have brand new baby.

Risa Baby (almost)

OK, mom just happens to be at my house so I am getting first hand news. Risa called and said that she is going into the hospital at 6pm to be induced. Adrienne is not convinced that this will produce a baby, but our fingers are crossed. I will update on this site when we here more.

New Blog

Posts to this site hit nearly everyone (at least the known adult population). I started a new blog for me (as opposed to that adorable little boy sleeping upstairs); we will see if I have enough of a life to keep this up. Don't expect the same level of upkeep as the JKZ site, but I will try to keep to the once a week that others promised.

I will link this from mom's site, but let the kids in your lives know that it is here. I am not linking to this from the JKZ site because I don't know if I want it opened up to the other world.

http://jkzynda.blogspot.com/

Heavy Reading

I have just finished "The Hills at Home" by Nancy Clark. I have been flying through books of light reading all summer and this one was heavy. Big long sentences that still managed to keep you interested. It is about the Hill family. Lily Hill, the matriarch person lives in the family homestead and various family members come home to roost. At first its a little hard to keep track of the characters (there are two Becky's and a Betsy. It took me a couple of weeks, and I slipped in a light book in between, but all in all I give it a thumbs up.

History is vital

Last night we had a history trivia contest at Toastmasters about the Revolution in honor of Independence Day--I knew all the answers except which signer of the Declaration of independence had two descendants become president--I had an inkling that Samuel Adams was a trick, but I couldn't remember two Harrison presidents. What surprised me is how few other people knew any of the answers--and we had multiple choice.

Today at Kiwanis we had a guy portraying General Lee giving us background and history from his perspective. It was pretty cool. I had no idea that Lee had seven children and that all three of his sons were officers in the Confederacy and none of them died in the war. I had no idea that Lee's sole injury in the war was that he broke both his wrists when he was thrown from his horse--not even in battle. I had no idea that Stonewall Jackson was killed by friendly fire because the gray and blue looked so similar all faded out and there wasn't a lot of grey left as the war dragged on--Lee had to wear beige for the pictures after the surrender. Stonewall Jackson's death probably played a part in his decision to surrender. I had no idea that Lee wore a red sash which denoted that he was an engineer (which he was) rather than a gold sash for commanding officers so as not to be too obvious a target. I had no idea that one of the last battles was the confederacy trying to capture a shoe factory, because they needed shoes and that the union army had anticipated the battle and was ready for them. [Your trivia update for the day, so that if you ever play trivia and it's about the Civil War, you can make fun of all the people who can't get these answers--even when it's multiple choice.]

No luck!!

I have had no luck with the books on CD recently. After the Robert Parker that I finished a few weeks ago, each one I have picked up has been a dud. I had been hearing about Don DeLillo and I picked something up by him and it was terrible. Maybe it just didn't work on tape. I never had any idea of who was talking or where they were. I wish I could get a list of books that my library has on CD so that I could look up reviews, etc. before I go. I usually just stand in front of the selection, pick something up at random, and if it sounds OK on the jacket I get it. This is not a good method of book choosing.

Shopoholic

I have read 2 of the 4 books in the Shopoholic series by Sophie Kinsella. They are great for escapism and beach reading. The first is a little hard to get into, but you quickly fall into her web of stupidity and irresponsibilty.

testing yahoo

Trying to see how to get it to update yahoo

Bad Choices

While looking for the right size paperback book to carry on my travels I picked up 5 at the 5 for $1.00 store. I read the first two and am trying to read the last three. Till Morning Comes by Han Suyin (author of A Many Splendored Thing) is very tedious and takes place in late 1930s China. After 62 pages I decided to try the next one The Vertical Smile by Richard Condon (author of the Manchurian Candidate). Oh, my God. I challenge any of you to read more that the 43 pages I was able to do. If I could decipher who the people are and what they're doing I still don't think I could muster the energy to give a crap. That's 40 cents shot that I could have invested in better band aids.

Persuasion

Last weekend, there was nothing on tv, so I went to my bookshelf and tried to find something to read. I was thinking about Jane Austin, but I've read all her stuff and I was looking for something new. But nothing was jumping out at me so I picked up a collection of Jane Austin and found Persuasion. I couldn't remember what it was about, so I started reading. I didn't remember reading it at all. I know that I've read them all, because I particularly remember being so disappointed that there weren't anymore. I'm wondering if I've gotten to the age where my memory is a whole lot shadier, so that I can read all my old standbys over again as new. BTW Persuasion was a great book, though I did go back and forth being thrilled with the language and intricate paragraphs and being bothered by how tedious one sentence could be to get through when I wanted to know what happened next, right now. It's hard to read, but so worth it in the end. Not quite as good as Pride and Prejudice, but close.

Closing Out the Year

Well I read 137 books in 2004. Just shows what you can do without a pesky job to get in the way. Based on the number of books by each author Robert Parker (Spenser novels) is way ahead with 35 books. But since I had never read anything by him before I had a lot to catch up on and they are easy reads. Another author I found this year and read 7 of his books (the only 7 my library has) is Richard North Patterson. He writes legal stuff but not in the same sense that Grisham writes legal thrillers, Patterson's books deal more with the politics of laws. My favorite and one I would highly recommend is Protect and Defend. I managed to get in four Danielle Steele, and three Jennifer Crusie.

I have read three so far this year and am currently reading Jon Stewart's America as my living room book. I don't usually have two books going but America is in the style of a text book and is way too cumbersome to read in bed. Not to mention that it is extremely funny and I quite often laugh out loud and would disturb Gordon's sleep if I were to read it in bed.

Ah well, so many books, so much time!