The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
Mariners
I went to the Mariners game last night with Joy and some other colleagues. Safeco Field is a perfectly nice stadium and it was a lovely night. The retractable roof was open and it was the second home game of the season. The place was probably more than half full, but not by much.
Seattle City Tour
The tour was ok. For fifty bucks, I was hoping for a bit more history and a bit more..getting out of the bus. There was a lot of driving around the residential areas, which didn’t particularly impress me. Especially since I didn’t get to get out and take a picture of the bridge troll.
There was a nice park in Pioneer Square where I saw a bar next to a book store next to a fireworks store. None were open that Sunday morning, but my brother would have gotten a kick out of it.
Seattle, Take 3
Another conference in Seattle. We are at the Marriott Waterfront, which is a decent hotel. Walkable to Pike’s Market and the Waterfront Grill of the Baked Alaska. Interesting hotel room view:
Die a Little, by Megan Abbott
Book 14Lora King’s BFF (and roommate) is her brother, Bill. Bill marries Alice, the charming young lady with the dark past of the L.A. nightlife variety. The story is about how it catches up with her and how Lora deals.
What makes this book absolutely rock is that no one is drawn in black or white. The good guys aren’t always good and the bad guys seem relatively reasonable. No one turned me off with outright stupidity.
Mike Standish, the guy Lora dates (or whatever) is a great example. You know he is sort of …sleazy isn’t quite the right word. Slippery? Slick? He is into some bad stuff, any way you look at it. But at the same time, I rather believed that he genuinely liked Lora. As opposed to overtly using her, or keeping an eye on her or keeping her out of the way. Or even taking advantage of her. His motives are never exactly clear to the reader, and I suspect they weren’t entirely clear to him.
And you might say that about every character in the thing.
I like that the relationship between the sisters-in-law is slightly complicated. They both want to like each other and both seem to make an effort. Abbott avoids the obvious “I never trusted her” attitude in favor of something more subtle. “I knew she had a past.” But Lora never questions Alice’s feelings Bill.
The pacing is also really good. It is slow to set the stage. It builds the relationships. Then it hits the moment of “here we go” and I didn’t put it down again until I was done.
I like those books.
Downtown Owl, by Chuck Klosterman
Book 13The climax of the book is a blizzard hitting town on what had been a warm February day. Wait – I thought – the novel is set in 1984. Wasn’t there a big, bad blizzard… (goes to check the Internet)? Yes. There really was a big, bad blizzard in 1984. Either way, I knew that what remained of this book wasn’t whether Julia bags Vance Druid or whether Cubby Candy can beat up Grendel. It is who lives and who dies.
I read The Children’s Blizzard a couple of years ago – a non fiction about the Midwest blizzard of 1888. So named because it came on so suddenly that the children walking home from school were caught and many died. The end of Downtown Owl felt like reading that again. Who lived and who died?
Klosterman did a fine job of making me care. Bastard.
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Like most people my age, I do not understand why A Nighmare on Elm Street required a remake. I saw the commercial during the Michigan State game, which made me go online and find the full length trailer. The first half-minute made me think. A prequel would have been downright terrifying:
A Quiet Night at the Library
And I guess I feel the need to start babbling. First, the conspiracy against my ever trying to eat better and get some damn exercise:
I have long noted that there are a minimal number of places one can walk to for lunch from my office – so I spend way too much time at Taco Bell. As the weather got better, I decided I was just going to go to the Starbucks down the street and get some oatmeal. And a giant iced latte. Starbucks is being renovated.
Fine. I turned around to go to Jamba Juice to get some oatmeal. Know what’s going in between Starbucks and Jamba Juice? Meatheads. Of the fresh cut cajun fries and cheese sauce.
And do you know what my mother said?
“Poor Joy.”
Apparently, I will be dragging Joy with me every time I have the urge for fresh cut cajun fries with cheese sauce. I guess you don’t have a problem unless you eat cheese fries alone.
I did manage to walk a lap around Lake Glenview after work today. I looked ridiculous in work clothes and gym shoes, but didn’t much care. Except for the fear that the wind might catch my skirt the wrong way. What are you supposed to do for that? Sew rocks into the hemline or something. As if.
The exterior of the new library is looking great. Almost like the drawings. And according to the website, the inside is starting to come together, too. You can see inside the current building that shelves are starting to empty – the purge has begun. I had a fit about a week ago, after hearing that some library employees were turning down donations to our Used Book Store “until the new building opens”. We went from having absolutely nothing in storage to having half a dozen boxes and I don’t even know how many bags to sort. I don’t want to think of what we might have missed.
In other news, two weeks from now, Alex and Ainslie’s sister will be here. One at a time, I can handle. Two is hard – toddlers have so much stuff. Three? Um. Let’s just watch a movie. Which leads me to:
Alex wanted to watch Sleeping Beauty. I hardly remembered Sleeping Beauty, so I agreed. We get all the way to the part where the princess meets the prince in the forest – which I seem to have blocked out. Then I remembered the rest of the story..what with the princess-victim that has to be rescued by her one true love prince.
Dude. I don’t want my nieces watching that! So I asked Alex why he likes this movie. He didn’t know. Is it the singing? No. The bad guy? “It’s a bad girl.” And no, he doesn’t like her. She isn’t funny. Well, what?
Then the fairies started their little wand war and he laughed his head off. And that was just about when I went home.
Kids.
The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet, by Colleen McCullough
Book 12- Its focus was on Mary Bennet, the puritanical middle sister, rather than on the mythical children of the Darcys. And;
- It was written by Colleen McCullough. If anyone could make this particular mini-genre not suck, it was McCullough.
I was correct in my thinking. Mary was a good subject because from the original novel. We only knew her as her sisters saw her and she was young enough to have evolved into something interesting by the beginning of this tale – 20 years later.
As the novel opens, the horrid Mrs. Bennet is finally dead. Mary, who has spent her entire life caring for her, is finally free to have her own adventures. Darcy and Bingley have settled some money on her. You know, for keeping the old lady out of their hair for all those years.
Darcy and Elizabeth have been in a rut for most of their marriage. Charles and Jane are ok, but he cheats on her mercilessly and takes off for months at a time. Kitty married a rather wealthy man that was sporting enough to die while she was still young. And Lydia is Lydia. The action commences.
It did not suck. I enjoyed most of it, although it did feel like the climax of the book came a bit early and tying it together at the end took too long. I really could have skipped the Darcys’ frank discussion of the failings of their sex life. But if you find it necessary to revisit Pemberley, this is a good read.
Up in the Air
When Up in the Air came out last year, no one could believe that I wasn’t rushing out to see it. Because:
1. “You dig Clooney, don’t you?”
2. “You travel all the time..you’ll get all the Frequent Flyer jokes!”
3. “You work in HR..and Clooney fires people!”
Yeah. Let’s talk about that. I work in HR. So I want to watch a movie about firing people? I barely dragged myself out to see Star Trek.
Besides that..it offends me down to my core that someone from outside the organization would be hired to end someone else’s employment. I don’t care how big a company is or how…never mind.
Just add that someone thought it would be a good idea to do it via web conference. Why would I want to see a movie about that?
Then the Oscar nominations came out. Fine. I will look at it.
The travel stuff was funny. Clooney explaining the Frequent Flyer tricks for the airport was awesome. That security line part? I can’t say that I would “get in line behind the Asian guys”, but one certainly knows about the families with small children and those totally new to the security rules. Not six months ago I was stuck behind a lady that could not believe her makeup was being confiscated, and all I could feel was ticked off that she was holding up the rest of us.
Clooney made this movie. Nothing about the plot was particularly surprising, but there were some good pieces. The part that resonated – as it was designed to – was the scene with the lady, extremely calm as she heard the news that she downsized. Then she said that she was going to jump off a bridge. There was also the illustration of the disconnect between the Real World and the On the Road world. That someone would choose to live On the Road all the time was totally alien to me.
However. I did learn something – faux/homey = foamy. Is that a real thing?
Random Sunday Night Blathering
Joker the Bunny has gone home and I am gearing up for a couple of business trips. The horrid part about that is Alex and Ainslie are expecting their baby sister while I am gone.
I took them to lunch yesterday at Noodles. I had neglected to pack a toddler spoon, and Ainslie had trouble with the fork. Every time I tried to help her, she put her fists up in front of her face, shook her head back and forth and made a noise that sounded just exactly like “warning..warning..warning..(I am going to scream!)” So I had to hurryhurry put three noodles on the fork, put it down and say, “OK, then!” And she would pick up the fork.
Sixteen months old, that one.
Here’s what’s funny. There is a Cold Stone Creamery around the corner and I asked Alex if he wanted to go get some ice cream. He said, “Nah. We just went to the grocery store.”
When I told this to his mother, she was all impressed and explained that Edy’s was Buy 1 Get 2 Free at the Jewel. So. Public Service Announcement there. Oh. And another:
For a series of uninteresting reasons, I happen to walk into an Old Navy store. No wait – one of the reasons is important:
It was 10am on a Sunday and many stores do not open until 11. I will walk into a store where I do not normally shop to kill time until the place I need to go is open. This happens nearly every Sunday. Someone should really count up all of the unnecessary purchases I have made at Bed, Bath and Beyond just because they open early.
Oh, and my friend Jodi has had really good luck at Old Navy lately. Lame commercials aside.
Anyway. The Ladies of My Acquaintance (read as: my female co-workers) have lamented all winter long about the lack of straight skirts in the stores. Everything has been flared or ruffled or something otherwise unacceptable. Old Navy had a straight skirt, machine washable, cut just above the knee and appropriate for the business casual workplace. For $20.00.
I am mostly satisfied with the Final Four. I’d have been happier if Duke was out (Butler put up a good fight), but I promised to shut up and be happy if Notre Dame was bumped early. And so I shall. My mother made a similar vow, (except for the shutting up part) that she has already violated in her raucous support for the Big Ten.
So. Another week.
The Next Dark Age 