Larocque and Roll

Getting tired of writing the word “lullaby” May 13, 2008

It’s not really cool to admit it, but right now I’m listening to Yo-Yo Ma’s Bach Cello Suites, one of my all time favourite CDs - a desert island one, no less [1]. Right now, it’s the perfect music to listen to while I compose blog posts, edit and email pictures from a conference last week, and try and figure out where I’m staying when I go to Halifax this summer [2].

Speaking of music, this weekend while I was shopping for an appropriate gift for my nephew’s pirate-themed birthtism [3],[4] I came across a display for the Rockabye Baby CDs. To save you the trouble of opening the link, it’s a series of CDs for children featuring lullabies versions of popular songs from bands you might not expect to have great bedtime-appropriate music. I bought The Beatles Rockabye Baby for the library, and the general consensus was that we were disappointed they chose songs that lent themselves well to lullabies in the first place. Where’s Lullaby Helter Skelter? Lullaby I Am The Walrus? Lullaby Lovely Rita? Sheesh!

I was going to write about how when I saw the Rockabye Baby versions of the music of The Cure, I almost choked on my coffee - seriously? Lullaby Cure songs? [5] Is that kind of… depressing? And then I was going to mention that if I were going to get one for The Neph, it was between this and Lullaby Led Zepplin.

However, then I looked at the complete list of bands they cover - Metallica? U2? The Pixies? Nine Inch Nails? Tool? The Ramones? Queens of the Stone Age? DUDE. I’m not sure whether to run out and buy them all for The Neph or despair that some of the most hardcore bands of our times have been turned into sleepy-time music for babies [6].

What do you think?

[1] Someday, I may enumerate the other four in my top 5 desert island CDs, and how I got almost everyone in my office at the time to write down their top 5 desert island CDs on post-it notes, which I stuck on my monitor. That I got into trouble for “wasting time” goes without saying, and is one of the top 10 reasons I left that place - having fun and doing team building was strictly verboten.
[2] Now, if I were doing taxes, chatting online with my sister and cousin, and sending a Facebook message to The Furious Redhead about my day and how I suck at everything, I’d be listening to Arcade Fire or The New Pornographers because THAT’S HOW I ROLL.
[3] I only found out at almost the last minute that there was a theme, and it was pirates. For a one-year old.
[4] This weekend was not only his first birthday but also his baptism. Hence, birthday + baptism = birthtism. Let it never be said that we’re not creative in this family.
[5] I am sort of tickled by the fact they’ve turned The Cure’s Lullaby into a lullaby. It’s so self-referential!
[6] It’s not listed, but Lullaby Henry Rollins can’t be far off.

Excuses are for the weak May 4, 2008

I sat down to write about my April reads, and then realized it’s going to take longer than I thought, given that it’s almost 11pm, and I need to hit the hay half an hour ago. See, this week is all about travelling hither and yon [1] and while the vast majority of the packing got done this morning (yay me for being on top of that for once!) I had a few things in the laundry which need to be ironed. And guess what I haven’t done yet? Yeah. Maybe I’ll just shove it the suitcase and use the iron in the hotel room. That works for me.

I will give you a teaser though: in the first two weeks, I read four books. In the second two weeks, I read nine books (…really!) [2]. In the last week, I read one more and finished my book club book, which was a total drag.

Also of interest - I broke down and bought the Flight of the Conchords CD today, and it was totally worth it. And I met with some friends for coffee this afternoon, and three of us had knitting with us. The elderly couple at the table next to us were gobsmacked that us youngin’s was knittin’. Erin and I were working on socks, and Rosemary was working on a sweater.

Okay, must go locate blouse. And iron. And board.

[1] And I don’t know what the weather is like in either place, which made packing a bitch.
[2] Part of the reason I can’t do this tonight is that I have much to say about them, and it’s going to have to wait.

March Madness (con’t) April 10, 2008

Today at lunch, I was walking to the coffee shop trying to come up with a way to start off the second round of book reviews from March. I thought about telling you humorous library user tales (like the one about having a stapler thrown at me earlier this week [1]) but it wasn’t really enough to sustain a good introduction.

I get to the coffee shop, and the first thing I notice is all the people dressed in really sharp suits. Like, pinstripe-tailored-expensive looking suits. I’ve never seen that many people dressed that well in North Bay, let alone in one place, so I guessed there must be some kind of meeting going on. Turning to go to the counter, there’s a guy sitting at the table who looks awfully familiar, and he’s talking to four or five other people who are also sharply dressed. I glance away, thinking, “Naaaaaaaw.” I glance back. Yup, it’s Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario [3]. Sitting in my coffee shop. He was in town to make a funding announcement at the university, and he must have been meeting with some other supporters. Cool.

~ Lisa Lutz. The Spellman Files (7.5) and Curse of the Spellmans (7)
Two books about a family of private investigators - ostensibly they’re about solving a central mystery, but it’s really secondary to seeing how awesomely dysfunctional the family really is. (The mysteries never turn out to be very big or important or dangerous - they exist to demonstrate how the family operates - they reminded me of the Royal Tenenbaums.) I enjoyed how the story was broken down into reports and side-notes, but I can be anal and organized and found it helpful to keeping the various threads of the story straight. Warning: it’s not a linear story, so avoid if this might bug you.

~ Dave Bidini. The Five Hole Stories (6)
If I told you this was a book of hockey erotica, would you believe me? Would you read it? Eh. One point for each story, and an extra one for the thinly-veiled #99 fantasy.

~ Karen McCullah Lutz. The Bachelorette Party (8)
Basically I picked this one up because it was on the shelf beside the Lisa Lutz books, and I wasn’t expecting much at all. Much to my shock, I ended up loving it because it was funnier and smarter than I’d hoped. It’s not your typical chick lit, in that the heroine hooks up with the hot guy at the end - she *does* hook up with him, fully cognisant of the fact he’s unsuitable for her, and they part on good terms [4].

~ Max Brooks. World War Z (8)
Loved this book - the premise (zombies) and the execution (written as a series of survivor interviews in the aftermath) were well done. I gave it to my boss, and he loved it too. Except. When I finished reading it, I had trouble falling asleep for a few days, and still do if I’m tired - it sort of creeped me out. The one thing that stuck with me (and still keeps me awake) was the “moan chain” - if a zombie saw an uninfected person, they would moan, and all the zombies within hearing range would moan and then come to the first zombie, and then all the zombies that heard the second group would also moan and then go see what was up. And so on. Like I said, great book, but keeping it in the house was not a good idea - I would get the willies every time I looked at it (hence my giving it to my boss, who’s a big fan of horror.)

~ Gil Adamson. The Outlander (6)
Last night I was reading a review of this book, and it mentioned that the mother of the protagonist died of lupus. Try as I might, I can’t remember if it was ever mentioned how she died or what she died of, or even what her symptoms were, so I don’t know where they got that from. But that’s just a minor detail in the overall scheme of things. Reading it was like being back in high school, where you have to read stuff because it’s timeless and it’s good for you, gosh darn it, kind of like cod liver oil and confessing your sins to the priest before high holy days [5]. Given its locations, time, events, and cast of “characters,” it’s the quintessential Canadian novel, and reads like mental cheese-flavoured rice cakes - they’re kind of bland but with a hint of something and filling if you eat a whole bag of them, but ultimately don’t do much to satisfy your cravings for a good story.

~ Rachel Cohn. Cupcake (7)
Much better than the second book in the series, Shrimp. Cyd is slightly less obnoxious, definitely more mature, and certainly unchanged in the narcissist department. In the end, she FINALLY figured out she needs to go with what’s best for her, not what her libido wants.

That’s it for my March books. April is shaping up to be similar, although I’m stalled out on my (Sudbury) book club book. Gah.

[1] Well, tossed with prejudice across the counter at me.[2]
[2] Don’t let anyone tell you that working in a library is boring!
[3] Back in my politically annoying student days, I was a member of the Young Liberals, the youth wing of the party. As a member, I actually attended the leadership convention where he was elected head of the party. One of the best pictures I took that weekend was shortly after the announcement that he’d won, around 2am Sunday morning - he’s sitting on stage by himself looking slightly stunned and absurdly pleased.
[4] Which doesn’t normally happen in these types of books, so it was a refreshing change of pace.
[5] That had nothing to do with the book and everything to do with my emotionally scarred psyche.

March Madness April 9, 2008

My parents are coming up for a visit tomorrow. I was on the phone with my mother tonight, telling her that I’d almost finished cleaning the house. The last thing I had left to do was the sweeping, which takes less than 15 minutes but that I always leave until the last minute. “Oh, don’t worry about it,” says my mom. “It doesn’t really matter.”

No, I think I’m actually going to worry about it. There are dust bunnies under my dresser that have gone feral and are threatening Bing. There is enough human and cat hair to create some kind of hybrid were-feline. So I think that sweeping is pretty important, and that I should do it.

(And have done. It took 10 minutes. Bah!)

March was truly a mad month. I don’t know who put what in my coffee, but I read something like 13 books last month. I’d plow through one and immediately pick up the next one. Some were good, some were sublime, some were hard slogs that felt more like work than pleasure. The books in that last category made all the others worth it.

~ David Gunderson. Snow Falling on Cedars (6)
The pacing of this book is positively glacial - the cedars grew faster than the characters in this one. It felt like a homework assignment to read it, and reminded me of the Oates book in that respect. However, it was a beautiful story, and the locations sounded wild and lovely, the back story was both mythical and sorrowful, and the resolution was satisfying. I think this is going to be my first library book club book.[1]

~ Ellen Cook. Unpredictable (5)
The heroine of this book works in a book shop which can also special-order books for you, as well as providing research services, both for reasonable fees. Wow, that sounds an awful lot like… a library, where they do those things FOR FREE. I couldn’t get past this fact, so I didn’t enjoy the book as much as I could have (except for the adorable Scottish geek, who became the love interest. Le sigh.)

~ Rachel Cohn and David Levitan. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (9)
Oh, how I love this book. It’s the second time I’ve read it in two years [2]. It’s about two teenagers who meet randomly in a bar when one (Nick) asks the other (Norah) to pretend to be his girlfriend, and it alternates back and forth between the two. I was hooked from the line on the first page: “I am punctuating and I am punctured and I am punching the air with my body as my fingers press hard into the chords.” I seem to remember having gone to a concert around the same time I read this, and it having impacted on how I read that line, how it wasn’t just about listening to the music but also about feeling the music and being moved by the music.

~ Cohn and Levitan. Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List (9)
There was a moment in this book - almost an aside - where they name-dropped the band or a club or something from the previous book, and it made me happy. I like continuity, and I like books that take place in the same fictional world as other books I’ve enjoyed. Like Nick and Norah, it’s written from different viewpoints, but because the characters and the story were more complicated, there were more viewpoints. It wasn’t as lyrical or seamless as N&N, but I really liked it, even though I sometimes wanted to smack Naomi (while somewhat sympathizing with her.) [3]

~ David Levitan. Boy Meets Boy (7)
It’s a very short book that feels like a Grateful Dead/Phish acid trip gone wholesome. Lots of weirdness, but weirdness you’d let your mother read (Hi Mom!). Its idealism is kind of cute - can you imagine going to a high school where the star quarterback is a drag queen? - but I’d still like to visit there.

~ Levitan. How They Met (8)
So… yeah. I went on a bit of a Levitan/Cohn binge this month (there was another Cohn towards the end of the month). This was a book of short stories about fly fishing in Argentina and cheese-making in Cape Verde, and there was absolutely nothing about chance encounters in airports, dance classes, hallways and coffee shops that lead to romance. Nothing at all.

Okay, this is running long, and it’s late and I want to be able to get up in the morning. I’ll continue this later.

[1] OH YES. I’m starting a monthly book club at the library in September. There’s going to be two sessions a month, both doing different books and then switching the following month. Because being the lead on several technology projects, on a conference planning committee, on an advisory panel, keeping various displays in the library up-to-date and participating in a virtual reference service in addition to the regular day-to-day stuff ISN’T ENOUGH TO KEEP ME FROM BEING BORED.

[2] According to my records.

[3] See, Naomi is in love with Ely, but despite the fact she knows he’s gay, keeps hoping that he’ll fall in love with her. In high school, about 2/3rds of the guys I developed crushes out turned out to have the same taste in men as I did, so I kind of know from where she’s coming. Although I never for one second ever believed that I could convert the objects of my misguided affections - my response was usually, “Oh… huh. I hadn’t noticed… anyways…” Yeah, I was kind of clueless.

Tuneage, Part the Second April 3, 2008

This playlist actually had a theme (as opposed to the first one). This one was all about going back to school, and education in general. It was a bitch to narrow it down to just 20 songs, and then group them in some sort of order. Roughly speaking, it goes:

• Introductions
• the Alphabet
• Numbers (and then Economics)
• Biology
• History/Politics
• Language Studies
• Geography
• Home Economics
• Autoshop
• Class Dismissed!

~ Weezer - My Name Is Jonas: Can’t hear this one without remembering epic Guitar Hero weekend. [To me, for some reason, it sounds like a sea chanty.]

~ Blackalicious - Alphabet Aerobics: Frickin’ awesome. By the end, I want to collapse.

~ Look People - Five: Weirdest. Band. Ever. Not their weirdest song, though (that would be “Guido”) [Actually, “Guido” isn’t their weirdest song, but that was all I had room to write. Their weirdest song is somewhere between “I’m a Lousy Lover, I’m a Lousy Lay” and “Sunday Driver on a Saturday Night.” Sadly, I have neither of those songs in my collection.]

~ FemBots - Count Down Our Days: Was surprised to find they weren’t a techno group.

~ Carol Channing - Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend: No one does it like Carol! [I love this version - tres campy!]

~ The Dandy Warhols - All the Money or the Simple Life Honey: Love them in small doses - like this. [I think I only like three or four of their songs, but I like them a lot.]

~ King Cobb Steelie - Luckily I keep my feathers numbered for just such an emergency: Big Bird called. [It’s in my top ten most played songs, so you know it’s good.]

~ Modest Mouse - Worms Vs. Birds: A struggle even more epic than cats vs. dogs.

~ Hot Hot Heat - Eyes Ears Mouth (Demo): 50,000 sounds played in tight formation at the right time. [The percussion on this song sounds complicated, but neat.]

~ Buck 65 - Kennedy Killed the Hat: More Buck 65? Why, yes - I think I will! [For whatever reason, I keep thinking there’s a Dr. Seuss reference in here, but there isn’t.]

~ Starkicker - Neil Armstrong: Hometown boys from early ’90’s. This was their 2nd biggest song. [I’m somehow distantly related to the drummer. Another useless fact: they were originally called blue.bottle.fly.]

~ Death from Above 1979 - Black History Month: The only song where crossing guards get to represent. [It’s amazing how much sound two guys can make. Also, really doesn’t have anything to do with Black History Month, in case you were wondering.]

~ Dimitri from Paris - sacre francais: Saw the video in a fever dream, and didn’t believe it at first. [It was kind of trippy and weird, so I thought I imagined it. Then I saw it again, and said, “oh.”]

~ Elliott Brood - Oh, Alberta: Alternate title: “All The Provinces, w/special guest, South Dakota”

~ Ocean Colour Scene - Hundred Mile City: This song makes me feel old and British. [Was this ever used in a Guy Ritchie movie? Because that’s what it makes me think of.]

~ Ron Sexsmith - Gold In Them Hills: ‘Nother hometown boy. Not the Mr. Paltrow version. [For the love of little green apples (heh), couldn’t remember Chris Martin’s name. There is a version of them dueting on this song.]

~ Zuul’s Evil Disco - Pancakes: ‘Nother obscure band. I blame Steve for this one, and so should you. [For visuals of the band, go here.]

~ Buck 65 - Country Cooking: Don’t listen if you’re hungry. Nothing is left out, even gnocchi.

~ Ministry - Jesus Built My Hot Rod: Ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long. Hee! [Admit it, it’s just fun to say!]

~ Van Halen - Hot for Teacher: What playlist about education would be complete without this song? [Sadly, I never had a hot teacher. Not even a hot student teacher.]

Tuneage, Part the First March 30, 2008

I finally got around to making “liner” notes for one of my playlists. To keep things concise, because I tend to get verbose from time to time, I did the notes in Twitter so I knew I’d have a limit to how much I could write.

Without further ado, here’s playlist #1.

~ Big Sugar - AAA Aardvark Hotel: Old skool rock/honky tonk. My fav Cnd. band during the 90’s

~ Buck 65 - Wicked And Weird: All road trips should be this carefree and aimless. [But with a better car!]

~ Sleater-Kinney - Entertain: What sarcasm and anger should always sound like. Done for love, not $$ [Not sure what I was getting at; perhaps that there’s a difference between making music for the love of it and making it for the money.]

~ Loud Lucy - Ticking: Still reminds me of high school. Should be listened to at max volume.

~ Sloan - She Says What She Means: Love love love Sloan. It’s hard to say the things you need to say. [It was also hard to pick one Sloan song.]

~ Average White Band - Pick Up the Pieces: Everyone needs to just get the funk out!

~ Joel Plaskett Emergency - Nowhere With You: Song about my Friday nights in the ‘Fax. [Not all of them - just the ones that ended at Pizza Corner at 2am.]

~ The Inbreds - You Will Know: Long lost jem of a band. My sis and I fought over this CD for years. [That’s the short story. The longer story is that I loved this CD, and I didn’t think she ever listened to it, so I “borrowed” it. Apparently, she noticed its absence and “borrowed” my Portishead CD until I gave The Inbreds back.]

~ Blur - There’s No Other Way: In battle of Blur vs. Oasis, I always side with Blur. Song from gr. 9 [As in, this was one of the songs that got me through the first year or two of high school and cemented my love of the Madchester scene when everyone else was listening to grunge.]

~ James - Sit Down: Another high school flashback. Quirky and an oasis from grunge music saturation.

~ Modest Mouse - Jesus Christ Was an Only Child: Simple but charming. Folksy and weird.

~ Mötley Crüe - Dr Feelgood: To be part of my posse, you must headbang to this song at max volume. [Hee. There’s a story about how this is the song that Karen and I bonded over on our way to my first staff retreat in Sault Ste. Marie when I worked in Sudbury. It’s long, and you’d need to see the flailing that accompanies the telling.]

~ Soul Coughing - Screenwriters Blues: Amanda Bishop, debating bud, where are you? You gave me this! [Amanda was a friend of mine from my high school years as a model UN debater; she went to a different high school, but we always hung out at competitions with a couple of other people. One day we were hanging out at her house, and she played this CD of a band she thought were teh bomb - and she was right, they were. This is the song that always reminds me of her.]

~ Zildo Ildo - Workin’ Class Blues: A secret band who were not-so-secretly awesome. [They were one of those bands you had to know someone who knew someone in the band to have every heard of them - it was through Julie’s ex that I knew them. Back in the Napster years, I would get really excited messages from people wanting to know how I’d heard of them.]

~ Wonderstuff - Closer To Fine: WAY better than the original. This is what it should sound like. [It’s a song about disillusionment, and should be sung by someone who can pull of the pissed-off sound, which Miles Hunt always could.]

~ Alanis Morissette - So Pure: I dare you not to dance or be happy listening to this song.

Shucks March 27, 2008

See what I did there? Disappeared for almost a month without updating? It’s not intentional because I did have several ideas during that time, but never got around to writing them down. And now I’m writing the second lamest blog cliche [1] - blogging about why I didn’t blog. I’m so hip it hurts.

In a nutshell, here’s what’s been going on:

~ I went to see the movie “Jumper” I can think of worse ways to spend 90 minutes than drooling over Hayden Christensen, but man - the ending made not a lick of sense. It was so abrupt and open-ended, I felt like I’d missed something. Even movies where you already know there’s going to be a sequel give you some kind of closure.

~ I got sick. Not really really sick, and not with something that I can say with any degree of certainty what it was. It wasn’t a cold, it wasn’t a flu, it wasn’t bronchitis or pneumonia. Rather, it was a combo of all of them, combined with what I like to call Super Drag Ass. Oh, and PMS cramps - there’s no illness so bad that it can’t be made worse with the addition of gut-clenching pain. Joy. Lacking a better description, I began calling it The Malaise - treatment includes copious amounts of ginger ale, several episodes of “Crossing Jordan” and a complete disregard for personal hygiene.

~ I made several playlists for a friend and liked them so much I’ve been listening to them constantly. (Really, if I’d been lacking something to post about, I should have thrown one of them up and let you bask in the awesomeness of my ability to put together a well-crafted playlist.)

~ On my real birthday, I went winery hopping with my sister and cousin. Vineland Estates had the best selection of regular and reserve wines [2], while Malivoire had a smaller selection of uniformly terrific wines [3]. Angel’s Gate was a bit disappointing [4], and Cellar Bench was notable for their selection of ice wines [5].

~ After months and months of threatening to do it, I finally purchased the complete series of “Queer as Folk (US)” and the first four seasons of “The L Word” for the library. It’s taken that long to work up the guts to do it, because I know it’s going to be controversial, and that there will be complaints from some people in the community (my boss and the other managers have been supportive, as have the rest of the crew in the knitting guild).

To wrap up: if anything interesting happens between now and next time, I will write about it this time instead of making vague promises to myself and then getting on with my life.

[1] First lamest blog cliche: blogging about your blog.
[2] I love love love their Dry and Semi-Dry Rieslings, and also got a bottle of their Elevation Cabernet Merlot and their Sauvignon Blanc.
[3] Their Gewurtztraminer is fab, and I came home with bottles of their Chardonnay Musque and the Moira Vineyard Chardonnay.
[4] Have you ever heard the Monty Python wine sketch? At one point, I described a particularly nasty red as having a “bouquet like an aborigine’s armpit” and meant it.
[5] From there, I got a bottle of maple syrup (from a local sugar bush) ice wine.

Not my birthday March 6, 2008

In the last few years, I’ve been lucky enough to have the day off on my birthday - in most cases, it’s just the way things worked out. I’d spend the day living a lifestyle I could become very accustomed to [1] and enjoying the peace and quiet. [2]

This year… not so much. My birthday falls smack dab in the middle of the Easter Weekend, and if I wasn’t going home to visit the whole fam-damily, I’d be working. Bummer. Plus, the day off closest to my birthday will be spent travelling home [3].

That left today to do all my traditional birthday things, so here I am, in my pjs with a stack of books beside me. I’m boiling water for coffee, and there’s a small container of artichoke and asiago cheese dip in the fridge. Later, there will be apple crisp with cranberries and quite possibly whipped cream. Maybe a pot of chai to round out the afternoon.

Everything at work is getting busier and busier, so I’m just going to take the day to unwind and relax.

[1] Reading all day and eating whatever the hell I wanted.
[2] A few months ago, I was trying to figure out how old I’d be on this birthday, and promptly had a mini-panic attack. I’m almost 32? When did this come to pass? Wasn’t I just 29 last week, or something like that?
[3] Yes, there are Sundays, but Sundays are for laundry and groceries and housework. And there is a Saturday between now and then, but I’m going out of town that day.

Bookish in January and February March 2, 2008

I was surprised to discover that I forgot to post my January reads. Well, maybe not surprised - February was an insane month, and if I missed stuff it was because other stuff jumped up in my face and made me forget the other stuff. Or something like that… the metaphor is kind of tortured.

Anyhoodle - on with the reads for the past two months!

~ Willig, Lauren. The Emerald Deception (6.5)
More serious, less frivolousness than the other books. However, there was a couple of Monty Python references that cracked me up.

~Cruise, Jennifer and Bob Mayer. Agnes and the Hitman (3)
Highly implausible, too many plots to keep straight. Didn’t really like any of the characters.

~ Moore, Alan. Lost Girls (7)
For all the controversy about this book, it was not as bad as I was expecting. The art was not excessively detailed, yet very colourful.

~ Gabaldon, Diana. Lord John and the Hands of Devils (7)
Basically, it was three novellas featuring Lord John. It was well-written although not as compelling at Brotherhood of the Blade (probably because it was three stories, not one. Wait, I already said that…)

~ Rice, Christopher. Blind Fall (8)
This one was an ARC left on the staffroom table [1], and which I snapped up. Pretty good overall - it explored a number of overlapping issues which got confusing at times, and there was a little too much dialogue, but otherwise a good read.

~ Vizzini, Ned. It’s Kind of A Funny Story (8)
An unusual story about a teenager who institutionalizes himself when he seriously begins to contemplate suicide. What was usual about is was that the parents and family were incredibly supportive of his decisions, and that he knew he needed help and wanted to get better. It’s one of the better Young Adult novels I’ve read in a while.

~ Juby, Susan. Another Kind of Cowboy (6.5)
My horse-obsessive days are long behind me, so it was kind of hard to work up any kind of enthusiasm for this horse-themed YA novel. However, while I found the plot somewhat predictable, it was still a far cry better than a lot of the horsey books I read in my youth because the characters were more realistic, the situations were appropriate to teenagers, and the ending was slightly bittersweet.

~ Dessen, Sarah. This Lullaby, Just Listen and The Truth About Forever (8)
All comfort rereads, which I should do more of when I’m stressed out.

~ Bourdain, Anthony. Gone Bamboo (7)
Surprisingly good fiction from someone who’s known for their non-fiction. Well-paced, lots of action, and of course, lots of food described.

~ Oats, Joyce Carol. Middle Age: A Romance (6)
This one took me at least three weeks to read, and if I hadn’t felt like I needed to finish this book I probably would have abandoned it after the first few days. I slogged through long, melodramatic passages about self-absorbed, upper-class white people moping about the death of a man they really didn’t know very well. Then about halfway through the book, I asked the person who gave it to me if I was supposed to read this as a genuinely sad story, or if it was a parody. Once we decided that she was probably making fun of these people and their self-absorption, it went a lot faster. My final assessment is that it would make a great book club book, but not for mine [2].

~ Krum, Sharon. The Thing About Jane Spring (4)
The whole time I read this, I wasn’t sure if it was a thinly veiled dig at feminism. At any rate, it was a nice palate-cleanser after the heaviness of the Oats book.

Right now, I’m stuck in the middle of Snow Falling on Cedars. I should’ve held off reading this until I’d read a few more fluffy books because it feels like a reading assignment as opposed to a recreational read. However, since I’m auditioning it for book club I should at least get through it before moving on.

[1] Just one of the many bonuses of working at the library - advanced reader’s copies of upcoming books!
[2] I’m starting a book club at my library, which will commence in the fall, or whenever stuff stops breaking down that needs to be fixed ASAP and I can get the materials together.

Is this too white trash for you? February 28, 2008

This, ladies and gentlemen, represents what I hate the most about being single and living alone: when something breaks, I have to fix it. I’m the only one who can deal with it, whether I fix it myself or seek out someone to fix it for me (even if it means calling my dad, who lives over 500km away, and whining, “Daaaaad, can’t you come up this weekend and fiiiiiix it for meeeeeee?”) [1] The backstory to this picture goes something like this:

A few weekends ago, Denise and Denephew came up (along with her friend Lisa and her daughter), and noticed the toilet was leaking. None of us could figure out exactly what was wrong, so we put a container under the most likely spot. Later in the weekend, my brother-in-law established that the water was leaking from around one of the bolts which holds the tank to the seat. The solution was simple: drain the tank, and seal the bolt with some kind of waterproof silicone caulking. In the meantime, with the use of containers (and a few rags), the leak was manageable.

Later that week, the leaking appeared to stop. There was no more water in the container, so I assumed whatever was wrong had fixed itself [2]. Friday morning, the day my cousin was to arrive, I was sitting at the table in the kitchen eating breakfast, when I heard a dripping noise. Looking up, I could see the bulge in the ceiling where the water was collecting, and the spot where it was actively leaking through. Got that cleaned up, called my dad (”Daaaaaaaaaad! Heeeeeelp!”) and he explained that the bolt would probably have to be replaced. A little while later he called back and said I shouldn’t do it myself and should seek out a professional since there were so many ways it could go wrong (a few of which I found out myself, but I’m getting to that…)

The visit with my cousin was fabulous in all senses of the word [3], but part of me spent the weekend fretting about the leak, which was being contained with rags around the base of the toilet. Sunday afternoon, after I dropped him at the bus station, I went to Canadian Tire to see if I could get replacement bolts.

(An aside: whenever I go to Canadian Tire/Home Depot/Home Hardware/etc. for a specific purpose, I feel helpless, defensive, and inadequate. Twice, I approached a salesperson to ask for help and had them walk past me to help someone else, usually a man, in coveralls and work clothes who looked like they already knew what they were doing.)

After wandering around for a while, I found the necessary hardware. I should have taken them home and left it at that, but I was bound and determined to get the damn thing fixed. I figured out how to drain the tank and shut off the water source (go me!) and had a go at getting the bolts out. No dice - the washer at the bottom of the bolt was so badly corroded I couldn’t really get it loose. However, I did manage to get it loose enough that it was no longer tight to the base, and there was considerable wiggle room. It was also at this point that I accidentally knocked over the lid of the tank, which was leaning against the wall, and watched it shatter into four pieces. [4]

The toilet wasn’t unusable at this point - if I wanted to flush, I just needed to put a couple of buckets of water into the tank. In fact, it reminded me a lot of when I was younger and living at home in the country, where we were on a cistern - when the power went out, we couldn’t flush the toilet because the water pump didn’t work, so we would use the same bucket solution.

Fortunately, when I was asking the Exec Assistant at work if she could recommend a good plumber, she told me not to worry and called her husband to come fix it; which he did, and now it works again. Except for the lid, which I need to figure out how to replace.

Back to what I was saying at the beginning - I would dearly love to have someone around the house to hand this whole situation over to fix. I can fix a lot of things on my own, but major repairs (like this) just bring up all these feelings of helplessness and inadequacy. I know I should be proud of the fact I don’t have to rely on someone else for shelter and security, but there are certainly times it would be nice to have someone to do the things that I can’t do.

[1] He’s retired now, so I labour under the delusion that he’ll drop everything and rush up to lend a hand. So fa, it hasn’t happened yet.
[2] I live in a world completely undisturbed by reality, and I’ll thank you to indulge my little fantasies!
[3] And we were even sober for some of the time!
[4] It was just the icing on what had been a spectacularly bad week - with a few bright spots - so my descent into despair and hopelessness was a short one.